Jesus, Friend of Sinners (or, “Infiltrate, don’t Isolate!”) - Mark 2:13-17

 

Jesus, Friend of Sinners (or, “Infiltrate, don’t Isolate!”)

Mark 2:13-17

Introduction: Jesus was called a “friend of sinners” by the religious leaders of His day. Are we? Can we be? What does it mean for us to be salt and light in the world? Do we isolate ourselves from sinners? Or, do we realize, “There, but for the grace of God, go I…”? One of the most fundamental concepts of our faith is that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. If I really believe that, instead of looking down on my pagan neighbors, I will realize at best, I am one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread. “Grace” runs against the thinking of most of us, at least before we believed. Manmade religions are an attempt to respond to the truth that we have eternity in our hearts, and that we long for something more, but with-out confessing our spiritual inability to do anything to merit God’s favor. Billy Graham illustrated the idea of grace with a story from his own life…

When Billy Graham was driving through a small southern town, he was stopped by a policeman and charged with speeding. Graham admitted his guilt, but was told by the officer that he would have to appear in court.

     The judge asked, “Guilty, or not guilty?” When Graham pleaded guilty, the judge replied, “That'll be $10 – a dollar for every mile you went over the limit.”

     Suddenly the judge recognized the famous minister. “You have violated the law,” he said. “The fine must be paid—but I am going to pay it for you.” He took a ten-dollar bill from his own wallet, attached it to the ticket, and then took Graham out and bought him a steak dinner! “That,” said Billy Graham, “is how God treats repentant sinners!”

We see in that story both mercy, not receiving what we deserve, and grace, getting what we don’t deserve! Of course, God hasn't saved us the price of a speeding ticket and given us a steak dinner. He has saved us from Hell and made us His children. The Bible says we are saved by grace: God’s unmerited favor. Like essentially every religious system originated by humans, the religious establishment of the Jews in the first century was fixated on “religion,” not “grace.” The Pharisees were outwardly very moral people. They kept the rules better than anyone. But they needed grace as much as any sinner. It was easy for “religious” leaders like them to point to the failings of others that they felt didn’t “measure up.” And in the first century, that certainly included tax collectors!

       If you filed for an extension on your income taxes, you prolonged the inevitable for a few months, but your new tax day will arrive. When we lived out of the country we had an automatic three month extension. But our tax bill still had to be paid. It seems like nobody likes the tax man! Understand this: in first century Palestine tax collectors were even less popular than the IRS is today… Not only were they looked down upon by the pious Jews, but they were not popular with the common people either! They were notorious in that many of them padded the tariffs they collected for their own pockets. They were commonly viewed as thieves and traitors by the populace. Thieves, because of the money they took from their countrymen, and traitors, in that they were viewed as puppets of Rome.  It was such a despised profession that one expression the pious Jews used to describe those who were viewed as “undesirables” was the phrase “tax collectors and sinners”!  

The BIG Idea: Salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach of His love.

I. Who does God call? God graciously calls sinners to follow Him (13-14).

¹³ He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.  ¹⁴ And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, "Follow me." And he rose and followed him. 

       Jesus was “teaching” the crowd of inquirers… We don’t have the details about the content of his teaching, but we can be pretty sure the heart of it was the same as we saw back in Mark 1:14,15…

Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God,  ¹⁵ and saying, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel."

He, as the promised One, taught the good news, the Gospel. The fulness of time had come, the Messianic Age was at hand!  So far, He has been preaching, and “declaring the Gospel,” and speaking the Word. Now He teaches. Four different ways of saying He is bringing the Word of life to all who will listen. He taught as One who had authority as He had in the synagogue in Capernaum. Some were probably there listening, but also waiting, hoping to be amazed by another act of power, another miracle. The Jews longed for “signs.” But Jesus’ mission was not primarily about the signs, it was about people. Signs were simply one line of testimony He used to validate His words and also to give glimpses of the future kingdom.

       Notice that it wasn’t as He stood or sat to teach, but as he walked along, “as he passed by” the tax booth of Levi, that he calls this man to follow him.  Multitudes were drawn to Jesus wherever He went, but he didn’t wait for His lost sheep to come to Him, He went to them. We saw it when the crowds came to Jesus in Capernaum in Mark 1. Remember when He went out early in the morning to pray, and then set out for other villages in Galilee? He didn’t minister only to those who came, He went to the people, seeking out His lost and wandering sheep. We can learn from the Master’s example. As we are out in the community, as we rub shoulders with people in our day-to-day life, we need to be sensitive to the spiritual needs around us. People need the Lord, and not only those that we see in church! Some will come to us, but we need to go… And we have been entrusted with the message of His grace.

       Jesus saw Levi, and called him to follow. The Lord knows the hearts of men. He knows His sheep. And he knew that Levi would hear His voice and follow Him. So, He called. As surely as the paralytic got up, Levi got up… and followed him! There was another tax collector that Jesus called in Lk 19:2-6,   

² And there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.  ³ And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small of stature.  ⁴ So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.  ⁵ And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today."  ⁶ So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully…

       Zacchaeus was not a mere collector of tariffs like Levi, he was a “chief tax collector.” He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but Jesus already knew all about Zacchaeus, and in fact he calls him by name, and announces His plan to stay at his house! He was someone despised by most of the populace, viewed as a traitor and a thief. Nevertheless, God was at work!

       Think about it for a moment. Is there someone in your sphere of influence, someone you rub shoulders with on a regular basis, that you feel might be the last person in the world that would ever come to Christ? Maybe someone you’ve witnessed to for years, but they’ve shown no sign of interest in spiritual things? Jesus came to save sinners. Remember, it is not the healthy that need a physician but the sick! Jesus specializes in hard cases… like you and me. Jesus means life for all who recognize their need and put their trust in Him. He came to save sinners! That is the Big Idea… salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach of His love.

II. How can we Reach our World for Christ? Infiltrate don’t isolate (15)!

¹⁵ And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 

      Jesus went to a “dinner party” at Levi’s house (oikos) [cf. Lk 5:27-32].        When Jesus went to Levi’s house for dinner, who would you expect to be gathered there? His oikos of course, his extended family and friends!  Levi called together his friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors and he invites them to come to his house for dinner to meet Jesus and his disciples.  And they came, a bunch of people who were pretty much like Levi—tax collectors and sinners, people who would have been looked down upon by the religious leaders and “respectable” Jews.  But God loved them! Jesus doesn’t only see what we are, He sees what we are going to be, what He made us to be, in Him.  Levi was also known as Matthew, and he would become the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. God had a plan! And so, Jesus and his disciples reclined at the table with them, and many came to follow Jesus.

         Eating with someone, sharing a meal, was considered a rather intimate expression of fellowship at that time. Those present, now dining with Jesus and his disciples, were tax collectors and sinners! Jesus is our example. As he was teaching about evangelism, Pastor Greg Laurie said: “We are not called to isolate, we are called to infiltrate…” the world around us, to be “in” the world, and to show people the love of Christ and the reality of grace. OF course we need to be wise and careful¸ and compassionate. We are part of a “New Creation” if we are in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). We are told to not be “conformed to the world” (Rom 12:2). So, we need to make sure that we are light, shining for Jesus. We want to be a “stepping stone” for others to believe, and not a “stumbling block” that gives them an excuse to turn away!

       Remember that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself, and that He committed to us, sinners saved by grace, the ministry of reconciliation. And so, we go about our lives, interacting with our friends, relatives and neighbors, seeking to influence them with the Gospel. Some may seem like unlikely converts, but then, so were some of us. And here we are! Yes, salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, but it is also true that no one is beyond the reach of His love!

III. Why did Jesus come? He came to provide for our salvation, and to call sinners like us to repentance and faith (16,17)!

¹⁶ And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  ¹⁷ And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

      Jesus’ mission was not about gathering the most righteous or religious… Why? Humanity had, and has, a sin problem. That means that humans, by their own effort, are unable to remedy the consequences of the Fall (Rom 5:12; 6:23). Remember the big questions Mark is answering in this gospel: 1) Who is Jesus? 2) Why did He come? And 3) What does it mean to follow him?  He is God, the Son, and He came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves. We all were lost and dead, without God, and without hope. No one deserves to go to heaven. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray…” (Isa 53:6).

       Mark L. Strauss wrote concerning his own reaction when personally exposed to a similar scene to the one here in Mark, but in the present day…

…I remember on one occasion my wife and I attended a New Year’s Eve party at the home of friends. I was surprised to notice that almost everyone present was an unbeliever, and I remember thinking, “I wonder if my friends are falling away from the faith?” When I came to my senses, I realized that perhaps it was I who was not living out the life of Christ. I was teaching in a Christian school, preaching at a Christian church, and socializing with Christian friends. By contrast my friends were engaged with the world around them, modeling the love of God before their non-Christian friends. God calls us to be salt and light... (Mark, 133-4).

That is the point: Jesus came to call “sinners” to repentance and faith and He has left us in the world to be His ambassadors, His spokesmen!  How will we do that if we don’t engage with the world?  It is true, that many of our “friends” will leave us after we come to faith in Christ, it always seems to happen. But we don’t want to give them reason to leave by being judgmental or “holier than thou”!  We want to love them and with gentleness and respect, we can urge them to be reconciled to God, always looking for opportunities to give a reason for the hope that is in us.

What is God saying to me in this passage? Salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach of His love.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? If we have been saved by grace, our hearts should be filled with humility and thankful-ness:  Humility, because we have no room for boasting, we were without God and without hope in the world; and thankfulness, since Jesus did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

       That should translate into compassion for the lost. Rather than looking down on the “sinners” around us, may we be more like Jesus. How would we react if we arrived at church, and there was a homeless man sitting by the front door? Would we view it as a problem, or an opportunity? What would Jesus do? When He looked at the multitudes, and was moved to compassion, because they were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a Shepherd. May we have a vision as a church to live out our faith where God has us, and to hold forth the Word of Life. Each of us has a part in accomplishing that.

       And each one of us can embrace the calling to be a witness for Jesus. Only a few in a group this size probably have the gift of evangelism. But all of us are called to be a witness. Think of the people God has put in your life… First of all, we all want to be praying for opportunities to be a witness, praying for God to graciously open the hearts of the people around us, and praying that He would embolden us to hold forth the Word of Life.

       It is a high calling and privilege to be used of God to share a testimony with someone, showing them that God is real and that He has made a difference in our life. That can open a door to sharing the Word. It is not about us, it is about Jesus, about the love that carried Him to Calvary. This is how God showed His love among us, He sent His one and only Son into the world, that we might live through Him. How can we show the love of Christ to the world?   After all, Salvation by grace means that no one deserves to be part of God’s family, and no one is beyond the reach of His love!    AMEN.