Gospel Prism

After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

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. 30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:27-32)

Introduction

We welcome the Moz Team who saw women and children who are terribly destitute, dying of disease and hunger. Our team represented a slight respite, however brief, into lives of these children.

Most of you know that my wife Shua was on this team. I wanted her to go experience God’s grace for the orphan and the widow and I sent her with joy and every blessing. But as I shared last week, since we homeschool, I have had the privilege but challenge of educating my kids these past few weeks. And here is what I have learned from my experience: 1) I have missed my wife terribly, 2) She is an incredibly patient woman with both me and the children, and 3) I admire her tremendously more than ever before. I say this because it took such a short time for me to see the darkness of my own soul and the reality of my sinfulness, as I saw the lack of patience and compassion I had for my own children. And this parallel dawned on me as I prepared for this message.

The orphans that the Moz team met were physical representations of who I am and who we all are spiritually apart from Christ. Spiritually speaking, we are destitute, hungry, lonely, unsatisfied, and weak. I remember when I was in Moz and I saw two children playing in the dirt in barefeet with shards of glass on the floor. Their bellies were bloated with signs of malnutrition. There was barely any clean water to drink. The conditions were terrible. And yet, there they played without any consideration for their condition. Who knows how long they would survive. They didn’t know anything better. They had nothing to compare their lives with. And it is no different for the person who believes that they have no need for Christ. They live as though this life were everything, not realizing how little they are settling for. Every person needs a Savior, whether they realize it or not. And what Luke 5:27-31 teaches us is that salvation transforms a person in ways that far exceed any physical change could ever create. No plastic surgery, or winning the lottery, or etiquette classes, or change of clothes, or new car or house, can transform a person the way the Gospel can. But the problem that often arises among people, and among Christians, is what this change should entail and who this Gospel is ultimately for. From this text then, I see 5 effects that every Christian who is indeed a Christian should experience.

The Effects of Salvation

The first effect that every Christian should experience because of salvation is that they should be willing to leave everything. Let’s look at verses 27-28: “After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him.” To understand this picture, you need to know a bit about the job of being a tax collector in Jesus’ day. Tax collectors were despised by the Jewish people because they were fellow Jews who often took advantage of their position. These collectors would collect tolls on well-traveled roads, and tax random items, which often led to arbitrary taxing. The Roman government would expect a fixed amount to be collected and it would be left to the discretion of the collector, often times far more than the Romans expected. So it is no surprise that these men were despised as traitors to their own people. They were deemed as robbers and thus, they often associated with the “thugs” and “dregs” of society. And so when Jesus saw Levi sitting in his tax booth by the road, I am sure those following Jesus looked at Levi with much disdain. But there is something so telling about Jesus’ simple command, “Follow me.” Who amongst us, when considering a task of great importance, would consider asking someone that most people deemed a crook and a lowlife? How often we have miserably failed to consider what the Lord sees, and have assessed people not on the basis of their need for a Savior, but rather on the basis of our personal righteousness or hygiene or standing in life? Jesus called Levi not when he was good, but when he was in the throes of his sin. He didn’t call him when he was good enough, or when he was kind, or when he had paid everything back. Jesus saved him when he had no inclination to love the Lord and to serve Him.

We must always remember that salvation is an initiating work of Christ. He calls first. And no one’s personal righteousness makes one ready for God to come into one’s life. Jesus simply says to the person, ‘Follow me.’ Another thing to note is to remember that there is no sin too great that keeps us from Christ’s effective and prevailing love. You have not sinned too many times for the Lord to turn away from you and say, “You’re hopeless.” In fact, every one of us is hopeless on our own. We have all sinned far too many times, that in every way we look like the orphans that the Moz team just came back serving. We are spiritually destitute, settled for the glass shards of sin, playing in the dirt and scum of this world’s temporary pleasures. God doesn’t wait for us to clean ourselves up. And He doesn’t eliminate people on the basis of whether one has killed a man or stolen money or committed adultery. According to Jesus in Matthew 5-6, we are all guilty at the heart level of those things that can cause such things.

You see, when we begin to understand just how much of a sinner we truly are, and when we grapple with how much love Christ has shown to us as sinners, then we are ready and are even willing and even want to leave everything. Levi’s response is not the uber-Christian’s response. It is the “normal” Christian’s response. This is the effect of salvation. Every Christian should have such a heart. Anything less reveals that we trust in something else as our god. Remember the rich young man in Mark 10:17. When Jesus said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” And what did the man do? Verse 22 recounts: “Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.” The saved sinner does not walk away disheartened. He always is ready to leave everything. Is there anything you keep from the Lord? Is there anything that you have, your spouse, your children, your savings account, your pride, your personality, your sense of humor, your upstanding character, your fear of being known, your job, your future dreams of being a particular profession, your job satisfaction, your job advancement, etc., that you would walk away from the Lord disheartened because you love such a thing more than Him? A mark of salvation is the readiness to leave everything behind should the Lord call you to it. If you fear losing something where it burdens you to worry and fret, then I would really ask you to check your heart to see if that has become your idol of worship.

Levi is not “ready” to follow Christ by becoming good enough, by making himself moral enough, by committing to stop smoking, or cussing, or drinking. No instead, he simply follows, ready to say, “I will turn from anything and everything so long as I have what this Jesus offers.” As to how this all works it, there is faith that this will happen. And as we know, this is why the Spirit is given so that we might be sanctified by His work and respond to His work in our lives.

The second effect that every Christian should experience because of salvation is that they should exude joy. Look at what Levi does in verse 29: “And Levi made him a great feast in his house…” Should there be anything in this world more joyous than to see a sinner realize that he needs a Savior? I have had the privilege of presiding over 15 weddings. Each one has been a joyous occasion, usually ending in a time of celebration. There is so much planning that the bridal party undergoes to celebrate this occasion. Many guests are invited. People are awash with joy which is truly wonderful. But how many Christians have said that their marriage was the second most important event of their lives? Most of us believe that our salvation is the most important happening in our lives. It is the day that we were rescued from hell by God’s beloved Son. On that day, we were called sons and daughters of God for the first time. Should there be any greater cause for celebration than the fact that though once we were thought dead, but we are now alive, once lost now found? No wonder the father in the story of the Prodigal Son parable cries out, “Kill the fatted calf. Let’s feast. My son is alive.”

But how many of us feel this way about our salvation? Shouldn’t we be celebrating our salvation with the same rigor as our birthdays, or wedding days, or graduation, or family reunions? The reality is that if we do not allow the reality of what we are saved from sink in, if we do not feel as though we need salvation, then we simply will not experience the joy of salvation. Only the person who realizes that they have been rescued, saved, redeemed, freed, cleansed, and welcomed, will experience the exhilaration of salvation. Christians know joy in all circumstances because they know what they have been saved from. And so my friends, like Levi, we need to revel in what God has done for us. It’s every reason why we sing praise. If you sing songs each Sunday that declare the glory of what Christ has done for you, and you feel no joy from it, no desire to sing, to shout, to raise hands, to dance, then you must wonder whether you have a full appreciation for what Christ has done for you. I hate dancing as many of you know. I hate it because I must admit, I am still far too conscious of myself. But I also have no desire to dance to songs that simply idolize romantic love, or anger, or jilted love, etc. But I do know that if I should dance, it will be because of the deep realization of what God has done for me. Far too many of us scream at ball games, we will go on the dance floor and move to any song, but when it comes to our salvation, it causes not a stir. May we be like Levi and be so passionate for what God has done for us that we will be having feasts together of incredible joy because God has saved us. When David was marching into the city of Jerusalem with the Ark, 2 Samuel 6:14-15 records: “And David danced before the Lord with all his might. And David was wearing a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the Lord with shouting and with the sound of the horn.” And when Michal criticized him for his expressions of dancing and worship, David responds: “It was before the Lord, who chose me above your father and above all his house, to appoint me as prince over Israel, the people of the Lord—and I will make merry before the Lord. 22 I will make myself yet more contemptible than this.” In other words, his exuberance for God’s salvation and intervention in his life will lead him to worship with all of his might and to enjoy Him. Bob Kauflin has it right when He gives the reason why physical expression of worship is a right response to the joy of salvation:

Jesus Christ is worthy of our deepest, purest, and strongest emotions. Who He is and what He has done, the fact that He became a man, lived a perfect a life, died as a substitute in our place, rose from the dead, ascended to His Father’s right hand, where now He intercedes for us before the throne, He is worthy of affection, emotion, expressiveness…Don’t be thinking about what people are thinking about you…[Physical expressiveness in worship] It’s not showy. It’s not based on temperament. [We can] communicate in our bodies that Jesus Christ is magnificent.” (Resurgence interview with Tim Smith)

Oh, how I hope this church will be filled with men and women like Levi and David who will enjoy God with such zeal and sing songs of salvation.

The third effect that every Christian should experience because of salvation is that they tell others. Look at verse 29 again: “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.” When a person realizes what they were saved from, they naturally want others not only to experience the joy of salvation, but they realize how important it is for others to know such mercy. J. C. Ryle puts it this way: “It may be safely asserted that there is no grace in the man who cares nothing about the salvation of his fellow man…The soul which has been truly called of God, will earnestly desire that others may experience the same calling. A converted man will not wish to go to heaven alone.” (J. C. Ryle, Luke, 150)

Evangelism should never be a project, but rather an effect of salvation. Andrew listens to Jesus and the first thing he does is run to tell his brother Peter: “We have found the Messiah” (which means Christ). 42 He brought him to Jesus.” (John 1:41-42) Listen to the Samaritan woman after finally understanding who Jesus was: “So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” (John 4:28-29) Remember that this woman was a sexually immoral woman who probably had a bad rep. But that did not stop her from telling others once she believed Jesus. The team just came back from Africa telling others about Jesus. I hope you didn’t go because you wanted to be a humanitarian, because you felt pity for the orphan or the widow. I hope you went because it is the effect of your salvation. I believe the greatest hindrance to evangelism is not fear of rejection, but rather a lack of understanding of just how great our salvation truly is. We don’t appreciate enough what God has saved us from, because if we did, we would tell everyone and anyone.

The fourth effect that every Christian should experience because of salvation is that they repent continuously and are in continual need for a Savior. Luke writes in verses 30-31: “And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” What about the Pharisees cause them to be so far from understanding Christ and His mission?

They did not deeply wrestle with their own sinfulness. Sure, they might have believed they were sinners, but they felt as though what they did kept them in God’s favor. By attending the synagogue faithfully each Sabbath, by keeping every iota of the Sabbath law, by fasting and praying regularly, they believed they were going to receive God’s favor. And so though they might have intellectually believed they were sinners, they did not experientially wrestle with the dark reality that they were the worst of sinners. Tim Keller says it well:

To “get the gospel” is to turn from self-justification and rely on Jesus’ record for a relationship with God. The irreligious don’t repent at all, and the religious only repent of sins. But Christians also repent of their righteousness. That is the distinction between the three groups–Christian, moralists (religious), and pragmatists (irreligious).

The Pharisees failed to see that their faithfulness to religion and righteousness was keeping them from seeing that they needed a Savior. And anyone with this perspective will begin to judge others as lesser than them. They will see others as we see in vv. 30-31 as “sinners,” but will fail to see that in their very accusations and condemnations, they are not only sinning the sin of judgmentalism, but also the sin of placing their trust in their own works to gain salvation and righteousness.

So what combats all of this? The answer is continual repentance. Jesus proclaims this in verses 31-32: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Jesus did not come to be a miracle worker or a good teacher. He came to save the lost. And when people/Christians do not recognize just how sinful they are, they will not repent of sin, and they will not need a Savior. And every day is a test of this. As I shared earlier, teaching my own children reminded me just how sinfully impatient and ungracious I am. The answer is not, “Well, I guess I shouldn’t teach my children.” That’s simply sweeping my sins under the rug, only to see them crop up in other ways and other relationships. The answer is to assess myself in light of the cross, to see that because I continually turn from Him, I am desperate more and more for Him, and so thankful that He loves me despite my sin. And so I teach them with brokenness and humility, even willing to ask for my children’s forgiveness if I need to.

The strange irony of genuine and continual repentance is not that you feel more guilty, but you feel more free from sin and its grip on your heart. Sinfulness and self-righteousness try to convince us that we have no need for Christ. When we sin, we feel Jesus won’t accept us and we feel ashamed, blocking us to go to Him. When we feel self-righteous, we feel we are good enough on our own and feel no need for Christ. But Robert Murray McCheyne said it best when he said:

I feel, when I have sinned, an immediate reluctance to go to Christ. I am ashamed to go. I feel as if it would do no good to go, as if it were making Christ a minister of sin, to go straight from the swine-trough to the best robe, and a thousand other excuses; but I am persuaded they are all lies, direct from hell. John argues the opposite way: ‘If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father.’ I am sure there is neither peace nor safety from deeper sin, but in going directly to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God’s way of peace and holiness. It is folly to the world and the beclouded heart, but it is the way.

Conclusion

Levi understood this way. And may all of us as Christians follow Levi’s lead. It led him to celebrate with a passion. Salvation led him to want to leave everything behind. This was going to be a momentous break with his old life. He simply realized that what money, and power, and fame offered him was a pittance compared to the lavished acceptance and grace of God through Christ.

Also, Levi responded as all Christians should respond to salvation, with natural joy. This doesn’t mean that every day a person is smiling through pain. This doesn’t mean that Christians ‘buck it up’ so that we can pretend to look happy even though we’re not. No, but it does mean that as Paul told the Thessalonian church, even when we are grieving over the death of a loved one, we never do so as one who has no hope (1 Thess 4:13). A hopeless, joyless Christian is an oxymoron. Because of the great love that has been poured out for us, we can’t help but have joy even in the most difficult circumstances. We grieve, mourn, experience pain, hurt during trials, but we are still hopeful and have a joy that cannot be removed from us. And this is why Jonathan Edwards wrote resolution 59:

Resolved, when I am most conscious of provocations to ill nature and anger, that I will strive most to feel and act good-naturedly; yea, at such times, to manifest good nature, though I think that in other respects it would be disadvantageous, and so as would be imprudent at other times.

Christians fight for joy and fight to act good naturedly. Christians should be quick to smile because of what Christ has done for us, rather than quick to frown. The air of the Christian should be one that encourages, that brightens a room with cheerfulness, not because of some false joy, but because of his or her understanding of what he or she has been saved from. Christians are to be joy to spend time with because he has an exceeding joy.

As well, Levi told others about Jesus. Oh how I hope Wellspring is a church where people are coming to love Christ because those who love Christ are telling others about Him. Again, I hope we’re being so overwhelmed by God’s grace in the Gospel that we can’t help but tell others. And like Levi, you’d even consider hosting gatherings of friends and co-workers for the purpose of telling others about this Jesus. I’m sure Levi lost friends because of his feast. Some probably left thinking, “Levi’s turned into a party-pooper,” or “He’s become weird now.” But I’m also sure that there were a few who said, “Tell me more Jesus.” And Levi understood his need for a Savior. May everyone here, whether you have never trust in Christ or whether you have been a Christian for decades, may you always believe that you need a Savior. May your awareness of your sinfulness drive you to the cross, rather than driving you to feel sorry for yourself. May your sin lead you to repentance and a turning from sin and a turning to the power of God through His Son.