When Grace Calls

Luke 5:27 – 32

 

I never knew I liked getting dressed up until I got to junior college twenty years ago. I competed in dairy cattle judging in FFA in high school where I had to wear my FFA uniform to judging contests. When I got to MJC I learned that I no longer had a “uniform” to wear, but there was a dress code. Suits. I had to go and buy a suit to wear to judge dairy cows.

 

That’s when I discovered that I actually enjoyed wearing suits, especially three-piece suits with a vest. Fast forward to my final contest at MJC in the fall of 2006, nearly 20 years ago. Late the night before I was supposed to fly out, I made a very startling discovery, I had forgotten to pick up my suit from the dry cleaners, and they had already closed.

 

I mean, it’s a ridiculous notion that I wouldn’t be allowed to compete in cow judging competition without my suit, but that was the situation I found myself in. That’s when my awesome GF sprang into action.

 

She said she’d take care of it, so the next day while I was flying across the country, she was arranging to have my suit picked up from the cleaners and shipped next day air by FedEx to my hotel in Louisville so that I could compete.

 

I mean, I get it, a uniform is a uniform, a dress code is a dress code, but when you stop and think about it, there are many places in this world, many situations in this life, that require you to clean up a certain way, to get dressed up, to make yourself presentable and acceptable. Because if you don’t, then you’ll be mocked, laughed at, looked down upon, refused entry, and even kicked out for not meeting the set standard.

 

Sometimes we find ourselves feeling that way, or we know people who feel that way, about church and God, and the Christian faith. Sometimes people believe the lie that they must clean themselves up, get their lives completely in order, make themselves, their souls, presentable before they can draw near to Jesus Christ and His church.

 

The truth is, you can’t ever possibly get your life and your soul in order before coming to Christ, you need Christ to get your life in order.

As we pick back up in the Gospel of Luke, I want to remind you of the last sermon I preached from it. In that passage, we saw Jesus’ first conflict with the Pharisees and teachers of the law. The question was, can Jesus forgive sin?

 

 The answer was a resounding yes, He can! And when He did, the Pharisees who had come to see what He was all about thought in their hearts that Jesus was blaspheming God because only God alone can forgive sins.

 

That’s when Jesus called them out for their thoughts and asserted publicly His authority on earth to forgive sins, and He demonstrated that He has that authority by also healing the paralyzed man. And all who saw this were amazed and praised God.

 

So, in today’s passage we’re faced with the question, who does Jesus forgive? And that answer, brings with it more conflict with Israel’s religious elite, but it also brings with it life altering truth for humanity. Let’s read God’s Word together: Luke 5:27 – 32.

 

After Jesus forgave the sins of the paralyzed man and healed him, he went out of the house and into city of Capernaum. And as He moved around the city (remember, everything Jesus does is intentional), he sees Levi the tax collector sitting at his tax booth.

 

Tax collectors were despised in 1^st century Israel, not only because they were considered “traitors” because they collected taxes for their Roman oppressors, but because they engaged in dishonest and extortionist practices. They almost always charged more taxes than were actually required so that they could pocket the difference from their fellow Jews.

 

They were truly hated by their people. And because of that immoral behavior, they were almost always lumped together with “sinners” and considered religiously unclean. And what does Jesus do when He approaches this tax collector? He says to him, “Follow me.”

 

When Jesus says, “Follow me,” he doesn’t just mean “Walk behind me and watch what I do.” He doesn’t mean “Follow me here to this place.” When Jesus says, “Follow me,” it is a call to discipleship, it is a call by the Lord Jesus to become a follower of Him, to become His disciple, to become a Christian.

Now wait a minute, doesn’t Jesus know who this man is, what this man is and what he does? Why would a holy teacher call a sinful and despised man like Levi to follow Him? That’s quite a scandal.

 

No one, not the religious elite of their day nor even the common folk would have ever imagined this man would ever be welcomed in the presence of a good and devout Jew, a Rabbi, or even in the presence of God incarnate had they recognized Him.

 

And yet Jesus calls him. He doesn’t ask Levi to clean himself up first, to turn his life around first. Jesus doesn’t test him, qualify him, or even clean him up first. He simply looks at Levi and calls him to, “Follow me.”

 

That’s precisely what Jesus does. Back then, it was Jesus walking the earth in the flesh calling people to Himself. Today, it is God the Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit in Jesus, that regenerates hearts of stone and draws people to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

 

Jesus doesn’t wait for your life to be perfect before calling you. He calls you precisely where you are, in God’s sovereign timing and will, and Jesus is the one who makes you clean, who washes away your sin with his blood and makes your soul white as snow when you place your faith and trust in Him.

 

And Levi, in this moment He didn’t know what was being asked of him. But this, this is the reality of irresistible grace. Jesus calls Levi, God incarnate calls Levi, and Levi has the only right response possible. Verse 28 says, “And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.”

 

He left everything that day and followed Jesus. You see, Levi here has another name revealed elsewhere in the Gospel’s. Levi’s other name is Matthew, the apostle, who wrote a Gospel himself. When Jesus called to him day and said, “Follow me,” Levi up and left his booth, all the money, all the responsibility, possibly any family he may have had, and followed Jesus.

 

This wasn’t some temporary following. Levi didn’t just follow Jesus across town. The way it’s written in Greek should instead be read as, “and he began to follow him.” The call to follow Jesus is not a call to some halfhearted loyalty, but rather a call to a continual following of Christ.

A bit later in Luke 9:23, Jesus says, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This is the same concept. Following Jesus is an ongoing, daily commitment. Every day, we must deny ourselves.

 

Leaving everything behind doesn’t necessarily mean leaving our families, though, there have been many instances throughout history where God has called people to some extraordinarily difficult tasks that not everyone in the family was up for (Peter & William Carey).

 

But what it most certainly means is to leave everything in your life that draws you away from Jesus behind. That may mean certain friends, that could mean a job, your source of income, that could mean your home, your comfort, but that definitely means your sin, your selfish desires, your pride, your worldly identity and self.

 

Levi left everything. I believe that many of us just read over that line and not truly grasp what that is. That is total renunciation of his old self, that’s immediate obedience, and true conversion on the part of Levi. This is not some deeper level of discipleship; this is true conversion itself.

 

When Christ calls you, the only response is to leave everything and follow Him. This is God’s effectual calling. Jesus doesn’t just merely offer grace; His grace is sovereignly effective. Jesus’ call creates the response within you. Jesus calls Levi, and Levi doesn’t negotiate, he just gets up and begins to follow Jesus.

 

Now what is the first thing we see Levi do as a follower of Jesus Christ? He throws him a party. We read that Levi threw Jesus a great feast in his house. And what else does he do? He calls up all of his tax collector buddies and many others later called “sinners,” and invites them to come.

 

Here’s another line I think many of us just read over and not take a moment to grasp it. When Levi is called by Jesus, when he becomes a follower and disciple of Jesus Christ, the first thing he does is throw a party for Jesus. And it seems that he thinks to himself, “Hey, my friends need Jesus just as badly as I do!” And he invites them, and they come!

 

This guy just became a follower of Jesus and on that first day he’s throwing a party and making it so all of his sin stained friends can meet Jesus too. Levi’s first act of discipleship is to bring his old world to Jesus.

Sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel, introducing others to the only One who saves should be a natural response to you being saved. When you meet Jesus, you naturally want others to meet Him too, and you should be motivated to make that happen, to go and tell. If you’re not you ought to check yourself.

 

I already said that leaving everything behind may mean leaving certain circles of friends, but that doesn’t necessarily mean leaving them physically. Following Jesus does not always equal withdrawal, but it does always equal reoriented relationships.

 

Before I was called by God to become your pastor, I felt God calling me to leave my job in the dairy industry. I needed withdrawal from that life, from my old identity in order to realize my true identity in Christ.

 

I wasn’t nearly as obedient as Levi here in bringing Jesus to my circle of influence at work, and so God deemed it better to remove me from that world, so I could reorient my relationships to be centered on Him. And He provided a way for me to do that, because God is faithful.

 

When you are drawn into a real relationship with Jesus Christ, your life’s focus becomes Him, your identity is found and rooted in Christ. That ought to directly influence and govern every area of your life, including how you interact with your circle of friends, your coworkers, and your family.

 

Levi’s response here, his drive to bring his old world into contact with Jesus ought to be our drive to make Christ known, and who better to begin with than those we already know and love. Understand that yes God is sovereign in who He calls, in who He saves, but we are His instruments, His tools, we are the means by which God works to call those He saves.

 

This is why evangelism matters, because God works through His people. When Jesus calls your name, go and tell others about Him.

 

But not everybody there was happy about the turn of events. Jesus isn’t just calling sinners now, instead He’s fellowshipping and eating with them. This behavior is no longer questionable or objectionable, but it has now become offensive to the religious elite, to the Pharisees and their scribes. And they step in not to understand, but to challenge Jesus.

 

The Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at Jesus’ disciples. In their eyes, these were the wrong kind of people at the table, they do not belong in the kingdom of God.

 

You see, society and the religious institution had already written these people off as lost and the Pharisees are essentially saying “If Jesus were truly from God, He wouldn’t be with these people.” They certainly weren’t eating and drinking at Levi’s banquet.

 

Jesus actions compared to their theology of holiness is too much for them to stay silent in this passage. In the Bible, especially the OT, to be holy is to be set apart for service to God. For the Pharisees, holiness equaled separation.

 

Even as physically touching a leper would bring ritual uncleanness, so in the minds of the Pharisees social contact with tax collectors and sinners brought moral and ritual uncleanness. They wouldn’t be caught dead sharing a table with tax collectors and sinners because that would imply acceptance of such people as one’s brothers.

 

But Jesus, as He demonstrated by calling Levi in the first place, accepts those who come to Him when He calls, regardless of their “acceptability” by the social and religious elite. Jesus doesn’t compromise holiness; He makes His people holy. Jesus imparts His holiness on those He pursues and redeems.

 

Jesus doesn’t wait until someone is acceptable and set apart to call them and eat with them, by His blood Jesus makes sinners clean and holy, He makes the unacceptable acceptable.

 

Recognize your need as a sinner and respond to Jesus’ call of grace with repentance (because Christ came for people exactly like you).

 

In Jesus, God reveals that He pursues sinners with saving grace that calls them to repentance.

 

That’s the gospel message and it is a scandalous one. The scandal of the gospel is not that sinners are condemned to death by God, but rather that sinners are welcomed and saved by God through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ.

 

Look at how Jesus answers the Pharisees. “And Jesus answered them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

 

I’m a living, walking, breathing illustration of those verses. I was deathly sick with complications from COVID, but I refused to admit the seriousness of my condition. I stubbornly fought with my wife about going to the hospital when I so clearly and desperately needed to go.

 

The Bible says that no one is righteous, not one (Rom. 3:10 – 12). That all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). The righteous that Jesus did not come to call are those who lie to themselves about the truth of their condition. They refuse to humble themselves, and admit that they are sinners who must repent because they refuse to see just how desperately sick and sinful they are.

 

When I went to the hospital for the last time, I went because I finally admitted the seriousness of my condition. I finally recognized my need for healing, and my inability to heal myself. It was during that final hospital stay that I finally put my life, and the lives of my family, entirely and completely in God’s hands.

 

And in the same way, when the Holy Spirit makes you aware of your sinful condition, when He shines a light on your sin and you see yourself as you really are, a desperately sick sinner in need of Jesus’ healing touch, you repent. Because that’s what He came for, to call you to repentance.

 

You repent because that is what Jesus is calling you to. Repentance is not just feeling bad about your sin, it is a complete reorientation of your life toward Christ. Repentance is leaving everything behind, turning away from what separates you from God, your sin, and turning toward and following Jesus.

 

Following Jesus is a life-long journey that requires discipline (notice how similar it is to the word disciple.) To be a disciple of Jesus requires discipline, patience, and perseverance. But it also requires commitment. So I want you to commit to three things this week.

 

First, I want you to commit to identifying one area, one thing, you’ve been trying to “fix” in your life before fully surrendering to Christ.

Some of you are still sitting at the tax booth, thinking you need to get your life cleaned up before you can follow Jesus. You don’t clean yourself up for Jesus, rather you come to Jesus so He can clean you.

 

So make it concrete this week, and write it down. That habitual sin you’re managing, that private shame you won’t confess, that “I’ll get serious about it later” mindset and repent of whatever that is. Pray about it, talk to some about it.

 

God doesn’t just work through His people to spread the gospel; He works through His people to help and enable them to live out the gospel. So stop waiting to clean yourself up and commit to following Jesus now.

 

Second, I want you to commit to intentionally creating space this week to be around unbelievers for the purpose of bringing them to Jesus. Open your life and your world to sinners, don’t isolate from them. So, invite an unbeliever into your home. Sit with the coworker that everyone avoids. Have a meal with someone you know is far from Jesus.

 

What Jesus does in our passage today He does time and time again throughout the gospels. Jesus didn’t become like sinners, but He did go to them. And some of us are really good at staying clean, at staying within our Christian bubble, and completely ineffective at reaching anyone. When was the last time you had someone far from Christ at your table?

 

Lastly, I want you to, right now, think of one person in your life who needs Jesus, and then I want you to commit to taking one intentional step toward sharing Christ with them this week.

 

It doesn’t have to be complicated, keep it simple. Just have a conversation with them. Tell them about what you heard in church, better yet invite them to church! Share your testimony them, tell them about how God has moved in your life. Ask them, “Can I pray for you?”

 

If you’ve truly met Jesus, there should be someone in your life who knows it. Levi didn’t wait until he had all the answers, he just got people in the room with Jesus. You don’t need a seminary degree for that.

 

Just as following Jesus is an ongoing process in your life, so is the need for repentance from sin, so is your need for God’s grace. So church, when grace calls, how will you answer?