And for our Old Testament reading, turn to the first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis, chapter 12. Genesis 12, and our reading will be verses 1 through 9. Genesis 12, 1 through 9. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation. And I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. And him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went, as the Lord had told him. And Lot went with him.
Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran. And they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. At that time, the Canaanites were in the land.
Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. From there, he moved to the hill country, on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord. And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev.” So we see there how God called Abraham, and Abraham rose and went.
And this morning for our New Testament reading, we see something similar. in the life of a young tax collector by the name of Levi, also known as Matthew. Our New Testament reading is in Luke chapter 5. And the reading and the text for our sermon will be verses 27 through 32. Luke chapter 5, verses 27 through 32. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? 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.
That’s the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray now that you’ll bless it. Father in heaven, as we come to the Holy Scriptures now, as we come to the preaching of the word, we pray that your spirit would be active among us. We pray that your word would go forth, not in word only, but also in power. We pray that you would do your glorious work through your word. Your word is like a hammer that breaks the rock. Your word is like a fire. Your gospel is your very power for salvation to everyone who believes. So, mighty God, we pray that you would wield that power today, here, in Jesus’ name, amen.
In the war in Iraq, the war on terror, more generally, in the beginning of this 21st century, US forces in Iraq and other places engaged in a campaign to quote, win hearts and minds. So we were there with military forces, and we were doing operations to try to weed out insurgents and to wage war against terrorists. But at the same time, through our presence among the population in the nation of Iraq, we were trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. And this involved, among other things, providing aid of lots of different kinds to the population, to the civilian population of that country, delivering various services to them, to try to befriend them. and to build trust. And maybe you’ve seen at various times pictures of American soldiers on patrol in cities in Iraq. And while they’re out on patrol, greeting children, shaking their hands, giving them candy, doing things to try to win the trust of the Iraqi people, try to show them that we were for them.
And sometimes that works. And building trust, winning hearts and minds, even that phrase, it wasn’t unique or new to the war in Iraq. It was used in other conflicts. In fact, the expression and the concept goes back a couple of centuries. But winning hearts and minds is fragile business. It doesn’t always work. And when it does, sometimes trust can be lost after it has been obtained. Competing interests are always involved, because while the US and coalition forces were trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, so were other elements, other factions, other groups.
So human effort can’t infallibly capture hearts. Human effort can’t infallibly convince minds, but Christ can. In fact, Christ does more than win hearts and minds. Christ, through his gospel, transforms people. He doesn’t win their hearts. He takes away their hearts of stone and he gives them hearts of flesh. He renews their minds. And that’s what this passage teaches us.
This passage from Luke that we just read. The events that are described here, the calling of Levi and then the banquet that Levi hosted in his own home for Jesus. This reception that he held in honor of Jesus. These events appear to have followed immediately on the episode that we looked at last time with the paralytic that Jesus healed. And so when it says in verse 27 that Jesus went out, he was going out from that house where the man had lowered the paralytic through the roof in front of him. And as he went out, it says he saw a tax collector. Now you only have to have read the Gospels a little bit to know that we encounter tax collectors frequently in the Gospels. They’re a frequently appearing group in the Gospels in the New Testament.
The tax collectors in those days, in first century Israel, were regarded generally as being corrupt. were ethically suspect, to say the least, because they were known to collect more than they were really required to do, and then pocket the excess. And they enriched themselves in that way. And so I say, at a minimum, speaking charitably, they were ethically suspect. It might be more accurate to say that they were despised, that they were hated, by their fellow Israelites, because they were Israelites, but they were employed by Rome. They were working for the Roman government, and therefore they were viewed as traitors to Israel. And that’s evident.
You can find extra biblical historical sources that teach this, but you needn’t go any further than your own Bibles. Think about the Sermon on the Mount as Matthew records it in chapter 5 of his gospel. And he’s teaching that they’d heard it said that you should love your neighbor and hate your enemy. And Jesus says, but I say to you, love your enemies. And then he goes on to make this statement.
He says, what good is it or what’s special about you if you love those who love you? And he says, do not even the tax collectors do the same? So even though Jesus did not have a sort of sinful disdain for tax collectors, he recognized the fact that they were a despised class in society. And he was saying, even these tax collectors that you despise so much, they love those who love them. So if that’s what you’re doing, what’s special about you?
So you see his use of that idea of the tax collector shows how Israelites in the first century felt about tax collectors. And they’re mentioned, when you see them mentioned in the gospels, most of the time they’re mentioned not in isolation, not just as tax collectors, but they’re mentioned in connection with other groups, sometimes prostitutes. or just generically sinners. So you don’t often just see the term tax collectors, you’ll see tax collectors and sinners, as we do in this passage, tax collectors and prostitutes. Even in church discipline, in Matthew 18, where Jesus describes the process, you know, if someone has something against you, you’re supposed to go to that person and tell them their sin.
And if they hear you and you can be reconciled, praise the Lord, you’ve won your brother. But if they don’t listen, take two or three others. And if they won’t listen to them, then you tell the matter to the church. And if they won’t listen even to the church, what does Jesus say to do?
Treat them as you would a tax collector. Again, Jesus wasn’t condoning any kind of sinful disregard or disdain for another human being, another image bearer. But what he’s saying is, you don’t associate with tax collectors. They’re outcasts of society. And that’s how you’re supposed to treat the person who’s been put out of the church. You don’t associate with them.
Now all that just to kind of, to warm you up for the fact that we’re about to encounter a tax collector in the text today. And Jesus’ encounter with this particular tax collector teaches us that Jesus has power to radically change people’s hearts, minds, and lives. That’s the message of this passage. Jesus doesn’t just win hearts and minds. Jesus has power to radically change people’s hearts, minds, and lives. My three points are printed for you in your bulletin. First point is this.
Levi provides an illustration of effectual calling. We’re told that Jesus took notice of Levi as he left the house, as he went out. And Levi is doing what? He’s sitting at the tax office. He’s sitting in the tax booth. He’s actively engaged in plying his trade when Jesus notices him. It is likely that Levi was not alone. In fact, it’s unthinkable that he was alone. There would have been with him at least some soldiers who would be standing guard.
And probably, because of the way these setups worked, you’d have a building that was the tax office, and in front of the building would be this booth. That’s where Levi was. He was at the tax booth. And inside the building, that’s where they collected funds. That’s where they collected the revenue. That’s where it was kept. That’s where the accounting was done. That was where the business office was. And that out in front, where Levi was sitting, was where you actually had to step up and pay your taxes. And so there were probably more than one tax collector on scene at this point. Levi was one among others. But Jesus specifically called Levi. This is the man that we know from elsewhere in this gospel and others, the man that we know as Matthew. He had two names, that wasn’t unusual. And what does Jesus say to Levi?
He says, follow me. Follow me. That is the basic call to discipleship. So when Jesus said in verse 32, I have come, I’ve not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. That’s what he’s talking about. I’m calling sinners to turn from their sin. I’m calling them to repent and follow me.
In Matthew 4, verse 17, when Jesus was calling Peter and Andrew and James and John to be his disciples, he said the same thing to them. Follow me. Follow me. And as he says in John’s gospel, speaking of himself as a shepherd, as the good shepherd, and he says, my sheep hear my voice. And what do they do? They follow me. And that was Jesus’ call to Levi. Now, if you put yourself in Levi’s sandals for a moment, Levi had no earthly reason to become a disciple. No earthly reason to follow Jesus. Because being a tax collector, first of all, was a lucrative occupation.
He was making a good living. Life in first century Palestine for the Jewish people was hard sometimes. They were a subjugated people. They lived under conditions of economic depression. Most of them were poor, but the tax collectors did well. He had a good job. He was making bank, as they say.
Secondly, Although tax collectors as a class were a despised group and it was a despised profession, it was also a competitive one. As the Romans sought people to serve their governmental systems as tax collectors, they would receive bids. And if you were among the indigenous people of any given country and you were interested in pursuing one of those positions as a tax collector, you had to bid for the job. Not everybody got it. It went to the highest bidder. And once you secured a position like that, you had a coveted position, at least in the opinion of some.
And because Levi, Matthew, was a tax collector and was making good money, J.C. Ryle makes the observation that his worldly sacrifice, Levi’s worldly sacrifice was probably greater than that that was made by any of the other apostles in order to leave everything and to follow Christ. Peter left what was probably a pretty lucrative fishing business. but not as lucrative as being a tax collector. So of all the apostles who left their homes and went to follow Jesus, probably Levi was the one who gave up the most in worldly terms. And another commentator, Leon Morris, makes this observation. He said, we should not miss the quiet heroism in this. If following Jesus had not worked out for the fishermen, they could have returned to their trade without difficulty.
But when Levi walked out on his job, he was through. They would surely never take back a man who had simply abandoned his tax office. His following Jesus was a final commitment. So humanly speaking, Levi Had a lot to lose, and he had no reason, humanly speaking, to become a disciple. And yet he willingly rose. He willingly got up and left everything, it says. Why? Why on earth would he do that? Well, it’s because Christ’s outward call, follow me, in the case of Levi, was accompanied by an effectual call. That’s an expression that most of you know.
If you’ve read or studied the catechism, if you’ve been in a Presbyterian church for any length of time, you’ve probably heard the term effectual calling. And we are taught about it in the 31st question of our shorter catechism, where it says, what is effectual calling? And the answer is this. Follow along. I know this is very familiar for many of you, but listen.
Effectual calling is the work of God’s Spirit, whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus Christ freely offered to us in the gospel. So effectual calling is when the Holy Spirit persuades and enables us And the self-evident fact is, the call goes out to many. Many hear the word preached. Many people hear the gospel proclaimed.
But not all follow. Many hear the words, follow me. but not all follow. Many hear the words, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved, but not all believe. They didn’t even all believe when Jesus himself was preaching and teaching. The man who spoke like no man ever spoke, God incarnate, living on earth, the greatest teacher ever, performing signs and wonders, And there were still people under Jesus’ own ministry who didn’t believe. In John 12, 37, it says, just as an editorial comment, an observation that John makes, he says, though Jesus had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him. So not everyone who hears believes, do they?
You know that from experience. But it’s the grace of the Holy Spirit that persuades. That’s its influence on the will. The grace of the Holy Spirit persuades and the grace of the Holy Spirit enables. Because apart from the grace of the Holy Spirit, no one has either the will or the ability to answer the call or to follow Jesus.
That’s why Paul was so excited. That’s why he was so enthusiastic. when he’s writing to the Thessalonians and said, for we know brothers loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power. and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.
And that’s what we want to happen here. And in churches of Jesus Christ all over the world, every Lord’s Day, we want the word to go forth, not in word only, but also in power. We want it to go forth with that effectual calling that the Holy Spirit is able to make and do. Some of the, Some of the commentators from the Reformation era, when they were writing about this incident in the ministry of Jesus, more than one will remark, because it comes right on the heels of the healing of the paralytic. You’ve got this man who couldn’t walk. Jesus healed him. He got up and walked out. He’s fully healed instantly. And many of the reformers said, Levi rising from the tax office is a greater miracle than a paralytic being healed.
And that’s the thing that we need to pray for when we pray for our unsaved loved ones. We prayed together just a little bit ago as Elder Tierney led us. unsaved family and friends. And when we pray for them, what we need to be praying, and I know you know this up here, but be reminded, what we need to pray for them is that effectual call. It’s not just that they need to get their act together and start coming to church. It’s not just that they need to make a profession of faith. They do need to do those things.
But we’re praying for something Much more transformative than that. Something much more powerful. When you pray for your unsaved friends and loved ones, pray for that effectual call. Pray that they’ll be transformed. Pray that the Holy Spirit will make them new. Give them a new heart because they need no less than that. And Jesus has power. to change them, and Levi provides an illustration of it.
If you need another illustration, think of Lazarus. Think of Jesus standing before the tomb of Lazarus, and they roll the stone away, and Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth. If anyone else had spoken those words, nothing would have happened. If I had been there and shouted, Lazarus, come forth, nothing would have happened. But when Jesus says, Lazarus, come forth, through the power of the Holy Spirit, he gave an effectual call. And so the dead man heard and rose up and came out of his tomb. That’s effectual calling. Or when a prophet stands in a valley full of dry bones, and the Lord says to him, prophesy to these bones.
Well, there’s no flesh on them at all. They’re very, very dry. There aren’t any eardrums. There’s not a brain to receive the stimulus, to interpret and to respond to the signals. Dry bones, but the Lord says prophesy to them. And that’s what happens every time a preacher stands in the pulpit and preaches the gospel. He’s prophesying to dry bones. But the Lord’s the one who can put flesh on those bones. The Lord’s the one who can breathe life into them. He sends forth His Spirit. That’s what we need to pray for as we pray for the unsaved.
Levi’s an illustration of effectual calling. But secondly, the Pharisees and the scribes are also an illustration for us in this passage today. They show up and they have something to say. And as they say it, they exemplify blind self-righteousness. You know, we reflected for a moment on the question of why on earth would Levi answer the call to follow Jesus?
We can also ask a question about these religious leaders, these Pharisees, who in stark contrast to a tax collector, the tax collectors were the lowest and the most despised element of society. The Pharisees were very respected. They were the holy people. They were the cream of society in the eyes of many.
Humanly speaking, then, the Pharisees and their scribes, they were the most likely candidates to be disciples of Jesus. We don’t often think of them in that sense, because we know what their disposition towards Jesus was, but just do the math, connect the dots. Jesus came teaching the scriptures, and the Pharisees and their scribes were students of the scriptures. They were influential and respected in Israel, and they wanted the kingdom of God to be ushered in. That was their goal. to the extent that they understood it. So when Jesus comes, proclaiming the kingdom and teaching God’s word, it seems that, humanly speaking, these Pharisees and the scribes ought to have been the first ones to want to sign up and follow him, be his disciples.
Why didn’t they follow Jesus? Well, it’s because their hearts were hard. Their minds were darkened. To borrow from the language of Ephesians 2, they were dead in sins and trespasses. They were living under the same exact conditions that would have kept Levi from leaving the tax booth. Maybe in fairness to the Pharisees, let’s consider their perspective for just a moment.
They wanted God’s kingdom to come. They desired to see the promises of the covenant fulfilled. And they understood, or at least, again, their understanding may have been distorted. But they understood that in order for the covenant promises to be fulfilled, in order for God’s kingdom to come, Israel had to be pure. Israel had to be consecrated unto him.
They had to be made ready. They had to be prepared. And Jesus came to do that very thing. He came to prepare the people for the kingdom to come, to usher in the kingdom. In fact, he said it was present. The kingdom of God has come in your midst, he said. And he came, to use the Old Testament prophetic language, he came to consecrate, to purify a people for himself. But what he was showing the Pharisees is that for Israel to be purified, for the people of Israel to be consecrated, sinners have to be reclaimed. Sinners have to be reclaimed. And the Pharisees didn’t get that.
So when they saw Jesus with tax collectors and sinners, the passage says they grumbled. Verse 30. The Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples saying, Why do you eat with and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And here that that term grumbles, echoes, Israel’s attitude throughout the period of the Exodus in those wilderness years, how often do we read about the Israelites grumbling against Moses, grumbling against Aaron, grumbling against the Lord? Can he provide a table in the wilderness? It was better off in Egypt for us, they said. And so now you have the Pharisees and the scribes grumbling against Jesus and his disciples.
And their grumbling is a symptom of their blind self-righteousness. And what Jesus says to them in verse 32 is that, I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Jesus, when he said that, was not saying that the Pharisees were righteous.
We’ve got to understand that. He’s saying, you righteous people, you’re good to go. I didn’t come for you. I came for sinners. No, that wasn’t his point. When he uses the word righteous there, he’s speaking of those who falsely think themselves to be righteous. In other words, those who think they already have God’s approval and they’re good to go, they’re in. And Jesus says he didn’t come to call such people. He’s a physician. No one would expect a doctor to avoid sick people. And that brings us to our third point, Christ is the great physician. He’s the great physician for sin sick souls.
After Jesus called Levi and Levi rose and left everything and followed him, Levi hosted a reception for Jesus in his home. He held a banquet, or as the ESV puts it, a great feast. He had Jesus into his own home. And he pulled out all the stops. He held nothing back. He had this great feast. And he said, Jesus, Come into my home, I don’t want to hide anything from you. I’m not going to withhold anything from you. He hosted this great banquet and who were his guests?
Well, when you’re a tax collector in first century Israel, your only friends are other tax collectors. and other people way, way down on the society’s totem pole on its ladder. Those were your friends. Those were the only people who you could get to associate with you. And so that’s who came. That’s who he invited.
And the text says, a company of tax collectors and others I don’t know if maybe Luke was trying to be a little bit more delicate there than some of the other gospel writers, but we see the same account in Matthew and in Mark. Tax collectors and sinners, it says. In verse 30. And in light of things that we’ve talked about and learned and some discussion among us and that mini Sunday School series that Elder Winslow gave us not long ago on evangelism, what is Levi doing here?
He’s reaching out to those who are in his landscape, wasn’t he? And he’s bringing them to meet this Savior who had been gracious to him because he knows that his friends, the other tax collectors, need Jesus too. He brought them to Jesus. He knew well what they needed because he was just like them. He was a tax collector. And these sinners, these tax collectors and the others reclined at table with Jesus.
And we don’t have to say that this is the situation in first century Palestine or first century Israel, because this is the case pretty much everywhere. It’s the case with us, that when you sit down and eat with someone, when you invite someone into your home and eat with them, it signifies a degree of social acceptance, doesn’t it? It means you associate with whoever it is that you’re entertaining in your home or whoever it is to whose home you go. You associate with them. There’s an acceptance there that’s implied, at least a measure of it.
Which is why, remember when Peter went into the home of Cornelius, the centurion, and he preached the gospel to this Gentile man and his whole household and his friends, and the Holy Spirit fell on them and they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and were saved, when Peter got back to Jerusalem, people who’d heard of it bring an accusation against him.
And what was the accusation? You went into Gentiles and ate with them. You went to uncircumcised man and you shared a meal with them. That was their accusation. And so here you have the savior of the world and he’s reclining at table. with sinners. And by eating with sinners, Jesus is showing that God’s love and grace are offered to those whom the Pharisees and the scribes had rejected. But it’s important for us to take note of this. drawing on one of the commentators I read at this point. He said, neither does Jesus associate with sinners just to leave them content with their sin.
He calls them to repentance, to turn from their sin, and to accept the grace of God. That’s important for us to remember. It’s important for us to remember when we seek to observe the example of Jesus and decide, well, how does that apply? How does that work out in my life in terms of who I should associate and when and how? Because Jesus didn’t come to just let them stay in their sin or to tell them that they’re okay in their sin. Jesus never said that he came so that sinners can remain as they are.
He declared that he is the physician and that sinners are his patients. You know, I’ve got to think that Luke loved that analogy. Luke was a doctor, right? And when Jesus describes himself and declares himself to be the physician and these sinners that are reclining with me, they’re my patients. Luke must have really liked that analogy.
This passage shows Christ’s attitude towards sinners. And his attitude towards sinners can be summed up like this. They need help. They need healing. They need repentance. And he came to provide help and healing. He effectually calls sinners to repentance. He has the power to do that. He has the power to radically change people’s hearts and minds and lives. And because Jesus has that power, you and I can pray confidently, and we can witness confidently, and we can share the gospel with unbelievers in confidence because Jesus is able to change them.
You may look at them, and you may think of somebody like Levi. Why would this person ever turn to Jesus? They’d have to give up this, this, and this. Well, that’s true. And humanly speaking, they would never want to do that, but Jesus is able to change them.
Because of what we see in this passage, we can pray in hope for unsaved loved ones. Hope it doesn’t sound like I’m beating a dead horse. I talk about that a good bit, but I know you all have unsaved loved ones. I do too. And I know you lose heart sometimes in praying for them, and I don’t want you to.
I want you to think about Levi, and if God could change Levi, He can change your son or your daughter, your father, your mother, whoever it is that you love and who has turned away from Christ. Christ can change them. He still has the power to do that. Listen to the words of J.C. Ryle. Take these as encouragement for your souls. Take these as encouragement in your prayers.
He wrote, we must never despair of anyone’s salvation so long as he lives. After we read a case like this. We must never say of anyone that he is too wicked or too hardened or too worldly to become a Christian. No sins are too many or too bad to be forgiven. No heart is too hard or too worldly to be changed.
He who called Levi still lives and is the same that he was 2,000 years ago. With Christ, nothing is impossible. is impossible. There is no obstacle that can avail against Christ and His Spirit’s effectual call. He has the power to radically change people’s hearts, minds, and lives. And you know that because He did that for you, didn’t He?
Let’s pray. Lord, how amazed we would be if we were to witness a paralyzed person being raised from their sick bed, instantly made able to walk. Thank you, Lord, for this passage that reminds us that the miracle of salvation is even more wondrous than that. Thank you that you call men and women and children who were dead in sins and trespasses and you quicken them, you give them life. We praise you that you’re able to do that.
And we pray, Father, that you will continue the good work you’ve begun in us, and that you’ll give us the perseverance that we need as we continue to cry out to you in prayer for those whom we know who still need Christ, who still are apart from him. Hear our prayers for them, we pray, and do mighty things. We’re asking you to transform them. Would you please? Because we’re praying in Jesus’ name, amen.