Thank you, choir. That's a beautiful gospel, anthem. We are in a sermon series in the gospel of Mark this morning. We're looking at chapter two and we're going to pick up at verse 13. Hear the reading of God's holy word. He that is Jesus went out again beside the sea and all the crowd was coming to him and he was teaching them. And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Elphius, sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, "Follow me," and he rose and followed him. And as he reclined a table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 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?" 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. This is God's powerful, beautiful word that we hear this morning by the Spirit's work, the Spirit who inspired these words, the Spirit who illumines these words in our mind and our understanding. Let's ask for His help. Oh, Lord, we thank You, we Father, we thank You for entrusting us, blessing us with Your Son, whose veins have been drawn from His veins, the very blood that washes us, that cleanses us, that forgives us. The Lord You've given us the Spirit because you know without the Spirit's work we would never see, we would never receive Jesus as Messiah and Lord. So Spirit of God, take us to Jesus now. We pray in His name, amen. As we continue to pick up the story of Mark's Gospel, this morning we're going to look at the powerful, authoritative, compassionate call of Jesus to His people. We're going to look at the unexpected call, the authoritative call, and then lastly the purposeful call. The unexpected call, Matthew would have been the last one that the other disciple was expected Jesus to enlist in His band of disciples. Why? Well, He was a Jewish tax collector, which meant He was a traitor in the eyes of just about all the Jews. He was working for the enemy, He was working for the government that was exploiting them. He was despised by His own people. There He was, a job that He had to bid for, it was not easy, it was a very lucrative business. They made lots of money and they had to bid for the job and He did and He got it and He was wealthy but He was dirty. The Jews considered Him ceremonially unclean. He was not allowed in the synagogue. His testimony was not admissible in court. He was an outcast. He was a social outcast that the people looked down upon and despised. Matthew's tax booth was on the highway between Syria and Egypt. This man who gave his soul, this is how his fellow Jews saw him, he gave his soul to the devil for his own personal gain. So when you read about this term tax collector, publican in the New Testament, you have to understand that's the background, that's the rationale why these words really stand out. Traitor, renegade, working for the enemy. I can easily imagine the raised eyebrows or even the scowls from the other disciples that Jesus called, when Jesus called Matthew, really Jesus? Really Him? I don't know that they were so proud of their lives or backgrounds or pedigree but his. Come on Jesus, what are you doing? This moral untouchable, this man who was gaining taxes through custom taxes and other taxes, this is why the Pharisees asked the question that we read in the text. Why does your Messiah, why does your Rabbi eat with these kinds of people? As you know in the Mediterranean culture, Mid-Eastern culture, to sit down a table with someone, that was indicative of the fact of fellowship. We want to be together, we are going to fellowship with one another, we're going to share our lives with one another. Jesus, do you really know who this man is? Why is he here? Which leads us to the verse 17, Jesus said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." I came not to call the righteous, people who thought they're righteous. I haven't come to call the people who think they have it all together and don't really need me. No, I'm a doctor. I'm a spiritual physician, and I came to hang out with people who know that they are sick. Sick unto death with the disease that outweighs any other disease, the disease of sin that leads to spiritual death. Jesus is saying to the Pharisees at that dinner table, and Jesus is saying to us today, "Unless you admit that you have this disease that you cannot cure, unless you acknowledge that you have this disease that only I, the Son of Man, can heal, I can't help you. Once you accept the diagnosis, I can't help you." One of my prayers through this sermon series in the Gospel of Mark is that every single person in this room, the preacher included, will discover the real Jesus. Well, we all understand him to varying degrees, none of us understand him fully. There's not a one among us that says, "No, I understand all this. I got this." No, this is one of my prayers, that we will really wake up to the real Jesus. Do you know that there are so many people in our churches and this land and around the country and the world that are accepting Jesus, but he's not the real Jesus. He's the Jesus of convenience. He's the Jesus. Bring him into your life to just bless your life. Bring him in just that your life really have his touch for good. They don't understand the real Jesus. And unless you understand and know the real Jesus, he can't save you. We have to accept the diagnosis before we get to cure. We see that page after page in the Gospels. What do we see Jesus doing? What have we already seen in the short sermon series? Jesus moves toward the pain, doesn't he? He moves toward people who are in pain, whether it's a leper, whether it's a paralytic, whether it's someone who's been possessed by a demon, whether it's somebody who's just given up all hope because their physical health is in such shambles that they don't know if they can go on living. Has Jesus moved toward your pain? Would you know what that looked like if you let him into your pain? He knows what to do with your pain. We see the proof of that throughout all the Gospels. He moved toward their pain and he still does to the people that hear his call. When Jesus encounters and meets sinners, he makes them clean. He makes them whole. He makes them righteous. That's what we've been singing about in this worship service to this point. So this first point is simply the unexpected call. Before I move on to the second point, let me just ask the question. Is there somebody that you know that you would say if you were honest? I don't think Jesus could ever make that person well. Is there somebody like that that comes to mind as we go through this series? If I want to be honest, I don't even pray for that person because I think they're beyond hope. I think they're beyond help. Is there somebody who's not on your prayer list because you really in your heart believe they're beyond reach? Say this sermon this morning, awaken your faith to put that person on your prayer list, the unexpected call. Secondly, the authoritative, an authoritative call. Jesus walked by and he saw Matthew at work and he spoke life-changing words. Two words. Follow me, remarkably he rose and followed him. This was not likely Matthew's first encounter with Jesus. Jesus had made Capernaum his home base operation for this season of his ministry. No doubt Matthew had heard of Jesus if he had not directly heard his teaching before. Very likely, but what we know is that he knew enough about who Jesus was and he responded to the call and he rose and followed him. Luke's gospel tells us this and leaving everything. Leaving everything. Let's stand back and look at the calling of the disciples. And he called Andrew and Peter and James and John, what did they leave behind? A fishing business. Okay, that's not insignificant. They left their occupation behind, at least for a while. Do you see how different it was when Matthew left behind everything? Matthew left behind his whole comfort, his whole security. He left behind an incredibly lucrative career. When he walked away from that booth and followed Jesus, Matthew was saying, "I am giving my all to Jesus. There's no going back. That job would not have been available to him." Are you kidding? Can you imagine the number of people who were waiting in line to grab that job? Yet there was no going back for Matthew. He could no longer find his comfort. He could no longer find his security in his career. How about us? Are we still gripping tightly white knuckling our career because it gives us an identity? It gives us a sense of that we are somebody. That's not what it means to come to Jesus. When Jesus calls you, you follow. That may sound simple, but it's not simplistic. When you hear the voice of Jesus call you, you follow and you don't look back because you know it's an authoritative call. Again, this is so different from what so many of our churches today are teaching, as if Jesus is just so weak and needy. "Oh, please, please, please, please, please come to me." There's so much focus today in the church that it's almost like Jesus is weak. He really doesn't have the power to call you. That's a lie. He is all powerful, the God who created the world by speaking. All he had to do was speak and the world was created. Do you know all he has to do is speak and you will follow him, but you've got to hear his voice, his is an authoritative voice. Our Westminster standards, the larger and shorter catechism and the confessions all speak to these doctrines. We have the doctrine of what we call effectual calling. What does that mean? It's the work of the Holy Spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and our misery, enlightening our minds and the knowledge of Christ, and renewing our wills, he persuades us to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel. That's a beautiful explanation, definition of what it means to follow Jesus Christ. When he calls, he gives you a new heart so that you want to follow him. When he calls you, he humbles you, he has to humble you. You don't have to leave your brains behind to follow Jesus. He'll renew your brain, your mind, your heart. He'll give you the knowledge of Jesus Christ as your Savior. He'll give you the want to and suddenly you're going to find, like Richard, "Wait a minute, I am a new creature in Christ. The old things are passed. This is a new life. This is a new calling." I say to my friends, "If you've not experienced that, that's a question. That Jesus wants you to continue to address and to be able to answer with confidence." That outward call, in theology, we distinguish between the outward call and the inward call. Right now, everybody in this room is hearing the outward call of the gospel through my preaching of God's Word. You are hearing God's call to you to come to Christ, come to Jesus, everyone of you. The inward call is not my call. The inward call is the Holy Spirit's call and the Holy Spirit works faith as we hear the Word of God and the Holy Spirit persuades us, convinces us this is truth. You must do something with this truth. You must respond one way or the other, but you can't ignore this, and we come to Christ because this call is an authoritative call. Tim Keller, I heard say one time a very helpful illustration of what we're talking about this morning. First of all, back in that day in culture, the rabbi didn't choose the pupil. The pupil chose the rabbi and they said, "I want to follow you," and literally they would follow in the footsteps like they did with Aristotle, the Greeks and the Jews with Jesus. They would literally walk with their teacher, their rabbi. It was life-on-life education. It wasn't seminary as we know it today. It wasn't some master's program today, some on course line. They followed in the footsteps of the one that they dedicated themselves to follow. Tim talked about the fact that today in our world, it seems that many people who profess faith in Christ are concerned about being a fanatic. Nobody wants to be a fanatic, and fanaticism gets a good bad reputation. It's a bad reputation, but people are like, "Well, no, because of whether it might be extreme terrorist, oftentimes what do you hear? A fanatical." How does that mess up our understanding of Christian discipleship? Well, this is what Tim said. Many of us today think, "Well, why can't I just hang it out in the middle? I don't want to be a fanatic about my Christian faith. How about we just kind of get in the middle?" That's probably just about the right spot to be as a follower of Christ. It's hard to deny that there's enough of a lot of that going on today. Moderation in all things, right? Not too zealous, not too uncommitted. Being in the middle is just about right. Is that anywhere in the Bible? Please, if it's in the Bible when I've missed it, please show me. I'm ready to be taught if it's there. I haven't found it. What I find through the Scriptures and particularly in the New Testament and the Gospels are passages like Luke chapter 14. This has reputed so many places in so many ways. Verse 25, "Now great crowds accompany Jesus, and as he turned he said to them, 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.'" Every time I preach or teach it, it seems like I get some kind of reaction. Like is that really in the Bible? What does that even mean? Yes, if he does not hate even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Jesus doesn't say, "Most of you can be moderate in following me, but I do need a few good men and women who will go all the way." I do need a few. Can I guess you could get a few and the rest of you could just be very moderate in following me? The Bible never says that anywhere. No, there is no double standard. Why did Jesus say, "Why did he use the word hate?" Jesus is not calling us to hate actively. Rather he is calling us to hate comparatively. Does that make sense? To hate comparatively. By comparison, he says, "I want you to follow me so intensely that all other attachments in your life will look like hate by comparison." Hate by comparison. What are we leaving to follow Jesus? What did Jesus leave in order to gain his people, his followers? Jesus left heaven, and that was a big deal. What are we leaving? What are we saying by comparison to be called with the authority of Jesus Christ? There's nothing like it in this world. I will leave behind. I will leave behind. I will not put my father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my spouse. I will not put my children before my loyalty to Jesus. That's exactly what he's saying. We need to hear that because we forget that sometimes, don't we? Lesser loves become too big of loves, and we get very moderate in our following of Jesus, and maybe we're not really following Jesus. Maybe we're following the Jesus of our imagination, not the Jesus of the Bible. Oh, friends, do you hear this? I like the way commentator Dale Bruner put it. The disciples left their nets and their boats, and Matthew left his tax booth to follow. This word is invested with a nuclear power to tear away everything that is most precious to us. The gospel is a nuclear power. Have you ever experienced that nuclear power that for me to live as Christ, to die is gain? These are the disciples that Jesus is calling to himself. These are the disciples that are a good changes world. It happened in the early church, and it's still happening today. But he says, "Tom, I want all of you. I want all of you. I don't want just the professional side. I don't want just the Tom that shows up on Sundays. I want the Tom seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I want your heart. I want your will. I want everything about you. I can use that." Follow me. It means literally to walk the same road. It's a command, it's in the imperative. Jesus says, "I want you to be my students." Isn't that amazing? Of all the people on the face of the earth that he could have chosen, he says, "I want you to be my student, and I want to teach you, and I want you to follow me, and I'm going to use you, and you're going to be used for a lot of good." There is a cost to be Jesus' disciple, but make no mistake about it, there is a benefit to be Jesus' disciple, and you people that are into risk management, the benefit's far outweigh the cost. What are we leaving to follow Jesus? Thirdly and the last point, it's a purposeful call. Don't make the mistake of demanding to know or understand all of his purposes in your life, however, before you decide to follow him. Because it's an authoritative call, you get up and you follow, and you don't sit back with your calculator deciding, "Well, wait a minute, if he's going to ask this of me, I don't think, no, I can't do that," put down your calculator. If it's an authoritative call, if you've received an authoritative call, you're not going to play it safe, you're not going to sit back and weigh your options, you're not going to edit the Bible, you're going to just submit to the Bible, you're going to submit to your teacher. Watch on the Baptist when he was in prison at the end of his life. Had some doubts, had some questions. The same one that baptized Jesus was in prison, he's about to ready to lose his life. And anybody that's been in the inquirers' class of this church, you've heard this teaching because that's what I want you to understand about this church. We want this to be a church where you can ask your questions, where you can be honest about your doubts. We want this to be a safe place, where you can say, "Well, wait a minute. I don't understand this." Can we talk about this more? What did John the Baptist say to his disciples? You go find Jesus and there was one question, I want you to ask Jesus when you find him. What was that one question? Are you the one? If he needed to be reminded of that, and sometimes we do, that was the only question that mattered to John. If he could believe and be confirmed in his faith that Jesus Christ was the one, he'll follow him to his death, which he did. But what we need to know is he the one. If he's not the one, then who is your one? If he's not the one, where are you going to find what you need? What do we say last week that is a secular humanist, Margarita, Lasky, I envy you Christians because you have somebody to forgive you. I have no one to forgive me, she lamented. John the Baptist was just saying, "I just need to know." And Jesus says to him, "Blessed is the one who feels my offense, yet does not take offense. Here's the one who feels my offense. Do you feel the offense of following Jesus Christ? You well should. If you've never felt that offense, I'm not sure you're following him. Blessed is the one who feels my offense, yet does not take offense. You look at the offense of being a follower of Christ and you say, "I will bear it in the name of Christ. I will bear it for the sake of Christ. I will bear it because of the spirits enabling of me." This is the real gospel. This is the real Jesus who calls. His calls are with purpose. So when we sometimes say, "I don't see where this is going, I don't see where my life is going, I don't see where Jesus is taking me, and I'm not sure I'm on board with this. I don't see where this is taking me, and I'm not sure I want to go." That's your choice. But I can promise you the benefits far exceed the cost. He says, "Come, follow me." Sometimes it can be confusing. Sometimes you're following Jesus can feel very confusing like it did to the disciples at times. And yet His call is certain, it's authoritative, it's personal, it's immediate. May the Holy Spirit confirm your calling this morning. May the Holy Spirit confirm your calling, "Follow of Christ," that we would all gladly put down, lay down even our own lives. We will put no family relationship above this, we will put no career achievement above this. We will put no life aspirations, we will not put anything above this. May the Holy Spirit do His work this morning in each of our hearts. And lastly as we close, if Jesus calls you, He calls you to follow Him to the end. His purpose for your call is good. It's good for you and it's good for others. What did Matthew do after he received Jesus' call? He threw a party. Luke tells us he threw a great party, a great feast. "Who did he invite?" He tells us. He invited all those ragtag social outcasts. He invited his friends. He met Jesus and He needed them to see Jesus and meet Jesus. It's no different for you. We talked about this last week. Who are you carrying to Jesus so that they can receive His healing touch? Who? Some people call this a Matthew party. You get saved and you invite your unsafe friends to come to see Jesus. That's a great thing to do. When was the last time you invited somebody to this church? Well, let's see, I think it was back in 2010. Come on. We can do better. I mean, something as simple as just, "Would you come with me?" Would you come with me because I want you to experience what I've experienced. I want you to experience forgiveness, God's mercy, God's love. Invite your neighbors to your houses just to be friends, not projects, but to love them, to love them with the love of Jesus. Move toward the pain as we spoke of earlier. A man told me many, many years ago when I was early in my ministry, "Tom, if you move toward the pain, you'll always have a congregation. If you move toward the pain, God will give you people." Jesus saves us, not just for our good, but He saves us for the good of other people. It's a purposeful call. Who are we inviting to know the real Jesus? Let's ask Him, let's pray. Lord Jesus, who are? Who would you put on our minds this morning to invite to church, to our house, to a covenant fellowship group, into a conversation, but Lord Jesus, we confess that there is no authority in our call. You alone have the authority that when you call people, when you call people, they come. When you call people, they repent. When you call people, they believe. Oh Lord Jesus, I thank you this morning. How powerful and beautiful is your call. I want to thank you for calling us. Your love is sweeter than anything we know in this world. Thank you for calling us. May by your grace we follow you to the end of our life, all the days of our lives. May we follow you, Jesus, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Tom Holliday, Senior PastorNovember 10, 2024Series: The Gospel According to MarkAlexandria Presbyterian Church (APC) is a welcoming community of believers, rejoicing in the gospel, transformed by its power, and responding with grateful hearts in service to our God and world. We long to taste the glory of God in such an astonishing way that the city of Alexandria will be drawn to the majesty and mercy of our great God. It is our desire that our worship will serve as an authentic model to our c...
