After this he 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?” 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.”—Luke 5:27–32

Introduction

Two weeks ago, Pastor Mike Tong preached about telling the gospel freely. We learned that we tell the gospel freely by relying on God to be the one who saves and converts. We also learned that we tell the gospel freely by seeing non-Christians as neighbors we are to love rather than enemies we are to condemn, and we tell the gospel freely by being honest about our sin.

Last week, Pastor Kenny Stokes preached about telling the gospel intelligibly. We learned that we tell the gospel intelligibly when we tell it in a way that people can understand. We can—and should—memorize a summary of the gospel, such as the one Pastor Kenny uses: “Jesus died for our sins to bring us to God.”

We also learned that we tell the gospel intelligibly by applying it to what is happening in a person’s life. And, because the gospel is a message that opens our eyes to behold the unsearchable riches of Christ, we are able to tell it in countless ways that address to the unique circumstances of anyone we meet. There is no one, single script we need to follow.

Today, our topic is telling the gospel gladly. The first three verses of our text tell the story of Jesus calling Levi, and the remaining verses give two different interpretations of the story. So, because pastors are required by law to have exactly three points in every sermon, this structure forms our three points for today.

In the first point, we’ll look at Levi’s call (vv. 27–29). Jesus calls Levi to follow him, and we learn some of the first steps Levi took in obeying that call. In the second point, we’ll look at the Pharisees’ complaint (v. 30). This group of religious leaders give the wrong interpretation of what happened. Then, in the third point, we’ll look at Jesus’ commentary (vv. 31–32). Jesus gives the right interpretation of what happened, which is also the main point of the text: Jesus heals sick sinners by calling them to repentance.

Levi’s Call (vv. 27–29)

After this he 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.

Levi is more popularly known as Matthew, the author of the first book in the New Testament who was also one of Jesus’ original twelve disciples. Here—the first time he appears in the book of Luke—we learn two things about Levi.

First, we learn that he was a tax collector. Tax collectors are not exactly popular in our culture, but they were even less popular in the Jewish culture of Jesus’s day.

At the time, Israel was occupied by Rome. The Roman government implemented taxes that, for the most part, went to improve Rome rather than Israel. This was strike one against the tax collectors, who were basically employees of the Roman government whose duty it was to collect taxes that many Jews felt were unjust.

Strike two was the fact that many of the tax collectors in Israel were also ethnically and religiously Jewish. Many of their fellow Jews viewed them as traitors or puppets of the Roman government because they collected these unjust taxes from their own people.

Strike three was the fact that many of these tax collectors were corrupt and would demand a higher amount from people so that they could pocket the extra money. They had the authority of the Roman government behind them, so the people of Israel were largely helpless to fight the corruption. The Romans would punish the people if they did not cave to the corruption of the tax collectors.

To accuse Levi of being corrupt is to go beyond what the text says. He could have been an honest tax collector. But even if he wasn’t corrupt, he still had two strikes against him—enough to make most Jews still view him as an enemy.

The second thing we learn about Levi is that he was sitting at his tax booth when Jesus called him. This means he was actively collecting taxes when Jesus called him. Why did Jesus call him in the midst of his work instead of when he was off duty? I think it was because Jesus wanted everyone to know beyond doubt that he (a rabbi) was calling Levi (a tax collector) to be one of his disciples.

When most of us today read verse 27, what shocks us most is how Levi immediately quit tax collecting to follow Jesus. But what would have shocked the original first-century audience most was that Jesus would even call a tax collector in the first place. Based on Jesus’ interpretation of the story in verses 31–32, this was exactly the point. He was looking for sick people to heal—for unrighteous people to call—and he called Levi in the midst of tax collecting to make that point clear.

I titled this point “Levi’s Call” intending a double meaning. Levi both receives a call and extends a call. He receives a call from Jesus, as we just saw. But Levi also extends a call to others. Look again at verse 29:

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.

What was Levi’s first act in following Jesus? He threw a party in Jesus’ honor and made sure all of his tax collector friends were on the guest list.

Rather than waiting until the end to apply this point to our lives, I want to pause here and apply it right now because Levi is an excellent example of telling the gospel gladly.

I’m not sure how invitations to great feasts worked in the first century. Obviously there were no Evite or Punchbowl websites. But however Levi invited people, do you think he did it sadly or gladly?

Here’s the scene: Levi is inviting a large company of tax collectors to the great feast he is hosting in his own house for Jesus, who just called him out of tax collecting to be his disciple. Would he have been downcast, hesitant, and emotionally detached when he invited people? Would anyone have come if he had invited them like this? Would you have gone? It would sound more like an invitation to a funeral than a feast.

A glad invitation is the only attitude that fits the scene. For Levi, following Jesus meant bringing marginalized, despised, and broken people to meet the One who had just called a marginalized, despised, and broken person to follow Him—and all in the joyful, celebratory context of a great feast. He thought Jesus was worthy of a great feast and that all of his tax collectors needed to come and feast with Him.

A simple way to imitate Levi is to invite people over for a meal and to treat it like a party where Jesus is the guest of honor and both you and your guests are sinners invited to the feast.

In this passage, Jesus didn’t call the great company to the feast, did he? No. Jesus called Levi, and then Levi called all them. And he did so gladly, knowing that if Jesus could call one tax collector to follow him, then He could call any tax collector. This means that, in part, following Jesus means gladly introducing people to him because of who he is, what he’s done for you, and what he can do for them.

The Pharisee’s Complaint (v. 30)

Moving on to point two, we start looking at the wrong interpretation of Levi’s calling. It comes from a religious group called the Pharisees, who notoriously persecuted Jesus and his followers throughout the first century. Let’s read their interpretation in verse 30:

And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?’

They weren’t really asking a question; they were making a statement disguised as question. They were saying, “You should not eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners.”

The Pharisees commit at least three serious errors in their grumbling. First, they indirectly charge Jesus with false teaching. The disciples were only doing what they saw Jesus do; they were following his lead. So by charging the disciples with error, they are accusing Jesus of double error. He was not only eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners; he was also teaching other people to do this.

Second, they think that sinful people are unworthy company. But God became flesh in order to attend feasts with sinners and to heal them. Jesus thought they were worthy company.

Third, they imply that they are not sinners. What is so ironic about this is that they prove themselves to be sinners by their complaint.

The Pharisee’s complaint betrays their allegiance to a false gospel that unfortunately is still alive and well in our day. The underlying principle of this false gospel is that bad people cannot come to God. Today, we might water that down a bit and say, “Before you come to God, you must first clean up your own life” or “Before God will accept you, you must become a good person.” At the core of this false gospel is the attempt to make moral self-improvement a prerequisite for God’s grace, acceptance, and salvation.

I hate this false gospel. It often masquerades as Christianity, but it isn’t. Moral self-improvement in order to gain God’s love and acceptance is the anti-gospel, not the Christian gospel.

Let me illustrate this false gospel for us. Imagine that you are very sick and go to the doctor. The doctor diagnoses your condition and tells that without medicine, you will die. If the doctor was like the Pharisees—or like anyone who holds to this false gospel—that doctor would then say, “I won’t give you the medicine until you get better on your own.” Or even worse, he might say, “I won’t give you the medicine because you are sick.”

Jesus’ Commentary (vv. 31–32)

I want to spend the rest of our time together destroying this false gospel and holding up the true gospel of Christ. So, let’s move on to point three and see Jesus’ response to 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.”

The Pharisees looked at the situation and said, “They are sinners, how can you eat with them?” Jesus looked at the situation and said, “I am the Physician, how can I not eat with them?” This is one of the unsearchable riches of Christ that we all need to hear. Jesus perfectly balances holiness and compassion. His holiness moves him to diagnose the truth that we are not well but sick, that we are not righteous but sinners. But his compassion moves him to heal us rather than let us die without hope.

Jesus uses sickness as a metaphor to describe our sin, but there is not a one-to-one correlation. Most of the time we don’t feel morally responsible for getting sick. But Jesus says we have a different type of sickness that includes moral responsibility. We aren’t merely victims who have accidentally caught a disease and therefore deserve healing and compassion. This is clear because Jesus calls us sinners who need to repent. We are sick with sin, with our own unrighteousness. We are to blame for it. We got sick because we rebelled against the doctor’s orders.

But Jesus also describes himself as the Physician of our souls. A person’s physical sickness doesn’t disqualify them from seeing a doctor; it is the very reason they see a doctor. In the same way, our sin does not disqualify us from going to Jesus; it is the very reason we go to him. Jesus has come to save not those who think they are righteous but those who know they are sinners.

So, sin is our life-threatening condition. If we come to Jesus confessing our sickness and helplessness, then he will heal us. This means that the church is not like a country club where people who have their lives together go to relax. It is like a hospital, like the emergency room and the recovery room—a place filled with sick sinners that Jesus is healing. This is the true gospel of Jesus Christ, the one that so gripped Levi that he followed immediately and invited other people just as sick as he was to join.

Application

Two Gospel Themes: Gravity and Gladness

Pastor Jason has served us well by continually revisiting the illustration of two ditches. That illustration helps us discern between two errors. Building on that theme, I want us to imagine that the road between the ditches has two lanes, both going the same direction. This will help us discern between two different aspects of truth. The road itself in this illustration is telling the gospel, and the two lanes are gravity and gladness.

Sometimes we tell the gospel emphasizing the gravity—the seriousness of a person’s condition apart from Christ, the impending righteous judgment of God against sin, and the urgency with which we must respond because eternal life and eternal death are on the line.

Other times, we tell the gospel emphasizing the gladness—the immeasurable riches of God’s grace, love, and glory that he will freely pour out on us forever in kindness toward us in Christ.

People must hear both the gravity and the gladness of the gospel. I am not asking us to choose only one. Neither am I exempting us from doing the one we are least comfortable with. It is never an either-or situation; it is always both-and. But sometimes we may need to emphasize one of the themes in a particular conversation.

This is simply following what Pastor Kenny called us to do last week: to know our audience so we know which gospel-telling lane we must take to reach their heart. If there is an obstacle in one lane, we might need to switch to the other lane to get around it. For people who know they are sick and can’t get past it, the gladness lane is open. For people who deny that they are sick and can’t get past it, the gravity lane is open.

But I have the suspicion that at Bethlehem, when it comes to telling the gospel to non-Christians, we are more comfortable taking the gravity lane. I want us to remember that the gladness lane is open as well by considering four things to be glad about.

First, we tell the gospel gladly because we know the Physician. Jesus, our Physician, has cured us by taking our disease upon himself. Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead for our healing. He took our sin upon himself, becoming terminally ill in our place, dying our death, and giving us his healthy, righteous life.

Second, we tell the gospel gladly because know that Jesus’ treatment is working. Even though we are still in the hospital recovery room struggling with sin every day, we are nevertheless in remission from the sin that was once our terminal disease.

Third, we tell the gospel gladly because we have received Jesus’ life-saving treatment, and it was free and undeserved. There is no cost because Jesus paid it all for us. Even though we could never deserve his treatment, he healed us anyway because he loves us.

Fourth, we tell the gospel gladly because we know the treatment is available to everyone who comes. Jesus will never deny treatment to people who know they are sick and are desperate for healing.

Conclusion

I want to conclude by making a final plea for all of us to respond rightly to this passage in God’s word. First, I want to draw attention to two false ways to respond. Going back to our illustration of the doctor and the patient, imagine you are very sick and go to the doctor. The doctor diagnoses your condition and tells you that without medicine, you will die. But this time, instead of responding like someone preaching a false gospel would, the doctor responds like Jesus. The doctor tells you, “You must take this medicine, or you will only get worse, so I’m writing you the prescription, free of charge. Start taking it immediately.”

One false response would be to deny that you are sick—to say that you are not a sinner and have no need for Jesus and the healing that he offers. But people who ignore an expert diagnosis are still terminally sick. There is no healing power in denial.

Another false response would be to deny that Jesus is the physician and that his gospel is the remedy—to turn to other physicians or remedies instead, or to acknowledge that there is something wrong but to seek out other physicians or remedies that you like better or think will work better. But turning to any other physician would be like asking a child to perform your heart surgery. Turning to any other remedy for sin would be like drinking herbal tea to treat a gunshot wound. There is no healing physician besides Jesus, and there are no healing remedies besides the gospel.

The true way to respond is to acknowledge your sickness and the Physician’s ability to heal and to receive his treatment desperately, gratefully, and gladly.

So, the plea to Christians here today is this: tell the gospel gladly, like Levi. Tell the story of the Physician who healed you. Tell it as one in remission from the terminal disease of sin, not as one who pretends never to have been sick. Tell it to those who still need Jesus’ healing care. And be sure you never require them to heal themselves before coming to Jesus.

As I was praying and preparing this sermon, I felt burdened to conclude this sermon by making a particular plea to anyone here who is not yet a Christian.

We come to Jesus not offering something, but lacking everything. We come needy and sick because that is the only way we can come. Cast aside every idea that your sin disqualifies you from salvation. Cast aside every idea that you have to be good enough before you come to him. Jesus beckons you to come to him with all of your sickness—broken and full of sin, guilt, and regret. Those who have made a shipwreck of their lives, those who feel stuck in a pit of despair and habitual sin, those who feel destroyed—those are the ones Jesus wants to come to him.

If you ignore his diagnosis, you will not survive this life. If you turn to any other remedy than the grace offered in Jesus’s death and resurrection, you will never come. So, if you know that you are sick, come to him. Do not wait. Acknowledge your unrighteousness before him, repent of it, ask him to heal you, and he will.

Benediction

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.—Hebrews 4:16