Luke 5:27-32
Pimp My Ride
Woodlawn Baptist Church
May 28, 2006
Introduction
Read Luke 5:27-32.
I don’t know how many of you take time to watch MTV, but if you watch TV at all you’ve likely heard of the show that got its launch there in 2004 called Pimp My Ride. The concept for the show was pretty simple. Each episode begins with a young adult and his or her old, unfashionable, falling apart car or truck – called a ride on the show. The host of the show promises the owner of the auto that he will pimp their ride, meaning that it will be restored and customized in some wild and amazing ways. Of course we might wonder how we have come to allow the word pimp to mean cool – but that’s a whole other problem. When they are done pimping those rides on the show, the owners get back a car or truck that is by no means ordinary. They always stick out in a crowd.
Did you ever stop to think that Jesus is all about that? Salvation was the first edition of Pimp My Ride. We are the original. Jesus takes great delight in finding old beat up lives that are falling apart and are in disrepair and making them new. But He goes beyond that. He doesn’t just want to restore us to ordinary. When He pimps a ride, He makes it extraordinary so that His finished work sticks out in crowd for the glory of God.
In today’s text, I want to show you how Jesus pimped one ride: how He walked into Levi’s life and radically changed it and left us an example of what He could do in the life of every man or woman present. You know as well I do that we don’t have it all together, that our lives are held together with bailing wire and duct tape so to speak. Because of sin we are in disrepair, but praise be to God we don’t have to stay that way!
The scribes and Pharisees responded to Jesus’ work in Levi’s life with astonishment and outrage, and more than we can admit it too often we respond in the same way when God works in some lives, maybe even in ours. In these six short verses, I want to show you three things Jesus wants in your life. He wants to “pimp your ride” and radically change your life. As you hear these three things, I want you to call on Him to meet your need, and then when we have the invitation I want you to come tell us how Jesus wants to customize your life. I want you even now to be thinking about sharing with us a commitment you’re going to make today or some thing in your life that you need to publically repent of.
Jesus Wants To Save You
Jesus said in verse 32, “I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” When He said that He hadn’t come to call the righteous, Jesus wasn’t implying that there actually were righteous people; only those who thought themselves to be righteous. The world has always been full of these people. In Matthew 23, Jesus lashed out at the Pharisees and scribes for their hypocrisy.
“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees! For ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and plate, that the outside may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Phariseees, hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Hey, it doesn’t matter how good you look on the outside and how convinced everyone is that you’ve got it all together. Jesus knows what’s under the hood. In Luke 18, there were two men who came before God in prayer.
“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.”
You can live just as holy and righteous as you want. You can attend church, pray prayers, teach lessons, preach sermons, give offerings and live right, but if you’ve never beat upon your chest in one way or another and confessed to God that you are a sinner and plead with Him for mercy then you’re just as dead as the next lost man.
I told you before that I used to have a Mustang. It was a 1970 Mustang fastback that was given to me by a guy who had two of them. The deal was that if I would do the bodywork and paint his he would give me the other. I used to look at my Mustang on its blocks in the yard and dream about how it would look: slick wheels and tires, black glass, black body with the lights and trim and all blacked out. What a car! But you know, I could have done all the work to it I wanted and made it the best looking Mustang in town, but it still lacked the one thing that would matter the most – an engine!
How many people are just like that Mustang? We dream about what we want our lives to look like. We work on our interiors, wishing we could be more loving or understanding or patient or less hateful or not so angry or jealous or a thousand other things. We work on our exteriors, trying to polish up our behavior in some way or another. We silently and secretly dream about this bank balance or that retirement plan or being the head of something, but is there anything under the hood that’ll make that life move?
The Pharisees and scribes looked at Levi and saw a run down, unacceptable, falling apart life and condemned him, but Jesus said those were the very qualities that made Levi worth saving. “I didn’t come to call you to repentance, you who think there’s nothing wrong with you. I came to call those who could admit that because there’s something wrong with them they needed restored.
The other day dad and I went fishing with the girls. Below the dam of this lake was a creek where the land owner had been dumping trash for years. In that trash pile was an old car that looked to be from the ‘40s or ‘50s. The color was rust. It was held together with rust. It had no engine, no windows, no good parts – just an old junk pile. Kids are funny. Kassidy saw that old heap and commented what a shame it was to see that car down there. With a little bit of fixing up it could be a sharp car!
A little bit of fixing up? The only thing good on it was the rust! I looked at that old heap and said to dad that there would never be any hope for that piece of junk. And do you know what? The reality is that that’s how we as Christians view too many of the people in our lives. We have resigned them to the spiritual junk pile. There’s no hope for them. It’s too late. Cost too much to fix up now. Gone too far. God on the other hand sees people the way Kassidy saw that old car, but with full assurance that a wrecked life made new is not only a joy to make happen, it ultimately brings great glory to Him who can restore it.
You may be that heap. You may feel like your life is wrecked and done for: totaled – ready for the scrap yard. But Jesus sees something different. He wants to get under your hood today and breath life into your soul. He wants to make you run like God designed you to run. He wants to fire you up with a new joy and a new passion and a new purpose for living, but it begins with your soul, bringing it to life by the Spirit of God, and it is just as simple as recognizing your sinfulness and pleading to God for mercy.
Jesus Wants To Hang Out With You
I know that sounds unchurchy, but the truth is that Jesus really does want to hang out with you. Notice what Levi does. He is saved: a sinner who has responded in repentance and is answering the call of Jesus on his life and he throws Jesus a party. Its not a fellowship, it’s a feast – a party! And Luke says that Levi brought all his publican friends. This is not a republican party (get it?), but a party of publicans, and the scribes and Pharisees hated it. In fact, they tried to incite the disciples against Jesus. “Why do you guys hang out with lowlifes like the publicans? You know they are the scum of the earth. Why do you eat and drink with them?”
Would you have dinner with a pimp? How would you feel if a bunch of pimps just showed up at our Father’s Day picnic? What comes to mind when you think about a pimp? What kind of man is that? (Allow for answers)
A publican was a tax collector. They were Jews who worked for the Romans taking money from the Jews, and they usually used immoral methods to get more than they were supposed to. It is said that they were viewed by their fellow Jews like we view pimps and perhaps informants. They were social lowlifes, and you know as well as I do that we’d have nothing to do with them. Yet here’s a whole party of social pimps and Jesus is in the middle of them laughing and having a good time. I can picture Him with those men listening to their stories, engaging them in conversation, wanting to know their stories and answering their questions as Levi told them about how Jesus had changed his life and called him to ministry.
There’re three issues we need to address as it concerns Jesus wanting to hang out with us. First, we hang out with Jesus on His terms. Fellowship begins with salvation. Secondly, fellowship is really up to you. Jesus didn’t throw this party. Levi did. Levi initiated the feast and invited Christ, not the other way around. Do you want the presence of Christ to be real in your life? Do you want Him to make Himself known to you? Do you want to know what it means to be in fellowship with Christ? Then initiate it!
Thirdly, fellowship is not all about quiet time and boring religion. This was a feast! They were having a good time. They were enjoying things. There’s something wrong when we say that our relationships with Christ are boring and stale. The reason is because somewhere back there you replaced that relationship with religion.
Listen to me, if anyone is keeping us from fellowship with Christ, it isn’t Christ. Jesus had no qualms about being with people that society had cast aside. He had no problems hanging out with sinners – with pimps and prostitutes – and He’s got no problem hanging with you. The problem is us.
Jesus Wants You To Commit To Following Him
By now you have noticed that I have approached the text backwards. The text begins with Levi’s call, then the feast, then Christ’s defense of His actions. However, Christ’s call to Levi to follow Him was the result of a personal saving relationship with Christ and Christ’s willingness to meet us right where we are. Jesus saw Levi at work and said to him, “Follow me.” I think its safe to assume that we don’t know the whole story; that there’s more to it than this.
However, what you need to see is Levi’s call: what it was and what it was not. Jesus did not hire Levi for a job, nor did He try to recruit him to some ministry. Jesus simply called Levi to follow Him, and the answer was yes. That’s just what Jesus is looking for in your life. “God, what do you want me to do?” “Where do you want me to go?” “What do you want me to be?” “Where do I turn now?” Those are really all the wrong questions. Jesus called Levi to follow Him, and there was no question; there was only “yes.”
We ask all these questions when what we really want is a road map. Jesus doesn’t offer a road map. He invites you to play Follow The Leader, and He has picked you to play. Some of you remember what it was like to always get picked last for a game. You hung on the fence just waiting, hoping that you’d get picked. Levi walked in those shoes long before you did. He knew the shame and reproach that came with his life, but in gentle terms Jesus reached out and said, “I choose you. Now you follow me.”
Hey, I wasn’t a pimp when Jesus called me to follow Him, but I felt like I wasn’t worthy – that somehow I didn’t measure up. And because I felt that way I thought that God ought to look for someone else to do His work. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day knew that Levi was unworthy to serve. He was a crook; a social nobody, and here is Jesus building His first church from these kinds of people.
Today God has walked into your life, at your receipt of custom and is inviting you to follow Him. You too may feel like your past keeps you from doing so. You have issues to work through first. You have too much baggage. There’s that divorce, that drug problem you used to have, those emotional scars that still hurt after all these years. You’ve not been the Christian you should have been, don’t know the Bible like you ought to, and a thousand other things – but listen to me: all they are are excuses. Don’t let them stand in the way of following Christ and enjoying the full life He has for you.
Conclusion
Jesus wants to pimp your ride today, to take your disrepair and bring healing and hope. He will take your broken and battered and make it whole. He’ll take your sin and shame, or your prideful heart and transform you into a customized showpiece that, running up and down the road of life will bring great glory to God! In short, Jesus wants to take the old and make it new. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new.”
Jesus wants to save you today. Would you let Him? Would you acknowledge your need of salvation before Him, repent and call on Him for mercy? You can fix up the outside of your ride all you want; you can customize the interior issues of your life – but until you’ve been brought to life by the Spirit of God your work is in vain. Would you be saved today?
Jesus wants to fellowship with you – to feast with you – but He’s waiting for you. Forget what others might say. Forget that there will be critics. There will always be critics. Make a choice today to live in the presence of Christ and bring all your friends: the pimps and prostitutes and other sinners you know and let them experience the fullness of life Christ offers. Come today and invite Jesus to celebrate His life with yours.
Jesus wants you to follow Him. Will you? Would you follow Him today? Don’t ask why or how or when or where. Just say yes. Commit yourselves to Christ. Follow the leader with your life with the simple prayer to Him: wherever you lead I’ll go.
