The reason why we are a guest is because of his abounding grace. And that's what I wish to speak to you about this morning, out of Mark's gospel. So if you will take your Bibles turn to Mark chapter two, we will be in verses 13 through 17. This morning, Mark chapter two beginning in verse 13. Let me read the text to you. "And Jesus went out again by the seashore, and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them. As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax booth. And He said to him, 'Follow me!' And he got up and followed Him. And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house. And many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many of them. And they were following Him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, 'Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?' And hearing this, Jesus said to them, 'It is not those who are healthy, who need a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'"

I always marvel at the power of the gospel. Isn't it fascinating, some absolutely refused to hear it whatsoever? Others will hear it and they will scoff. Some will hear it and begin to consider it, but never really come to faith in Christ. And then there are those, who because of His great mercy, hears the gospel and believes and is radically saved, radically transformed. And those people will give up everything and follow Christ. It's an amazing thing. Christ will become their greatest joy. Nothing else in life will even compare to what it means to be in union with Christ and to fellowship with Him. The depths of your being. And this is what we see happening here with Levi. His Greek name is Matthew. And we know him as Matthew that wrote the gospel. He was a despised, corrupt, traitorous, immoral tax collector who left everything to follow Jesus. This morning, we want to examine this text under three very simple headings. We want to look at the power of grace. Secondly, the pursuit of saving grace and finally the scandal of saving grace. Now let me give you this setting. Very important that we somehow crossed the cultural bridge here to get a sense of what really happened. Notice verse 13. "And He," referring to Jesus, "went out again by the seashore and all the people were coming to Him, and He was teaching them." Now once again, we're at Capernaum, which is up on the northern coast of the Sea of Galilee, a great place where you can travel by boat, or you can travel along the seashore. I've been there on a number of occasions. And that was basically Jesus headquarters there at that end of the Sea of Galilee. And that was a main thoroughfare for the people in that region. In fact, the historian Josephus tells us that there were many villages clustered all around the shore. And so what you have is Jesus now traveling around doing open air preaching around the seashore, around these little villages. In fact, if you want to get a sense of the types of things he was preaching, look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew five through seven as probably a summary of the kinds of things he was preaching. We also know according to Mark one and verse 14, it says "Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, 'The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.'" That last phrase" repent and believe in the gospel," do you realize how seldom people really hear that in preaching these days, it's really a tragedy. People don't want to be called to repentance. They want their ego stroked, they want them to, they want to feel their self-esteem being inflated, or they want to be called to be some kind of a social justice warrior or told how to manipulate a stingy God so he will give up some of the things that he's withholding from us, so that we can become healthy and wealthy and successful. But Jesus preached the gospel, the good news of repentance, and saving grace through faith alone, not works. Now, he did this, I want you to be reminded of this. As you think about Jesus's ministry, he did this, despite the fact that what he preached was horribly offensive. Most of the people are just following Him because they want to see another miracle. It's not like, oh, man, I want to hear what Jesus has to say. It's rather Oh, wow, I want to see what Jesus can do. But Jesus kept preaching the gospel to them. And it was especially offensive when he emphasized as he did, the doctrine of the sovereign will of God and the selection of those that he is going to save. And even to this day, that is horribly offensive. You read about that, for example, in John 6:37 and following. It's commonly known today as Calvinism. He preached that the Father has predestined to those that he will save, that God has specifically chosen and drawn unto himself those that he will save, that they will be a gift of the Father's love to the Son, and that the Son will receive them and secure them forever and raise them to eternal life, and give that love gift of that bride back to the Father as a reciprocal expression of his love for his father. Well, people don't want to hear that type of thing. He preached in John 6:44, that "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him." This is the type of thing that they were hearing around the seashore. He preached therefore, that there's really no such thing as free will; man's nature prevents him from having a free will, oh, yeah, he can choose to do whatever he wants to do, but he has no desire to do the godly thing.

So he preached this, that man was enslaved to sin, unable to believe a power apart from God's empowerment. He preached that sinners have to depend upon the cross work of Jesus Christ. And that that cross work was symbolized with that analogy of him, of people needing to eat his flesh and drink his blood. And of course, they hear that and they freak out, they don't understand what's going on. Spiritual realities for the Jews were virtually impossible for them to understand because they had hardened their heart. And so God judicially hardens it even further. And so, as a result of Jesus magnificent preaching, hundreds of 1000s joined his ministry, and he packed out stadiums right? Now, according to John 6:66, and following “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and we're not walking with Him anymore. SoJesus said to the 12, 'Do you not want to go away also, do you?' Simon Peter answered him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God." So these are the saving truths that Jesus preached. So again, verse 13, "He went out again by the seashore. All the people were coming to Him and He was teaching them." And then it says this in verse 14, "As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, 'Follow me!' And he got up and followed Him." Beloved, here, we see the first point of our little outline, and that is the power of saving grace.

Now, a little background here, I think will help you understand just how powerful saving grace is and certainly was in that context. You must understand that tax collecting in the first century was really a cross between what we might think of as the IRS and the mafia. And at some level, it's still that way, isn't it? Tax collectors functioned as a basically a criminal element, and they had a criminal element that protected them. They were, they were joined together with corrupt politicians, and businessmen and prostitutes, all of these people associated together, and they were the most hated people in the society, especially among the Jews. Now, Herod Antipas, was a Roman Tetrarch. And a Tetrarch is another word for governor, but it really means ruler of a quarter. And he ruled a quarter of that region there in Israel. He ruled over Galilee and Perea and he had to collect taxes for Rome. And there was a certain quota that he had to collect. But he also had the authority to levy other taxes that he saw fit. And he had the power to enforce those wishes. And he also sold tax franchises. How would you like to buy one of those? You could buy a tax franchise of your own, he would sell them to the highest bidder. And then he would split the profits with the franchise owner, very lucrative business if you're a crook. Now, there was the customary poll tax, they had their own income tax, which is about 1%. They had a property tax, which was 1/10 of all the grain and 1/5 of all of the fruit and wine. And that was a fishing region so they also had taxes on the fish processors, the distributors, anything that was sold, anything that was transported; they found a way to tax everything. Taxes on roads, crossing bridges, they had tariffs and import taxes and export taxes, taxes on merchants, who would buy and sell. And of course, all of those things were easy to inflate, you know, you could kind of change them as you wanted to. And the people knew this, but they were powerless to do anything about it. Again, sound familiar? But they were also able to make loans. Oh, isn't that wonderful? And of course, the loans were high interest loans. And sothey were basically loan sharks.

Now, there existed in that day, a network of tax collectors, but they were really divided into two categories. According to the Talmud. You have the Gabbai and you have the Mokhes gabbai is "Gabbai", and mokhes is "mokhes." Now, the Gabbai were kind of like our IRS agents. They were the general tax collectors that collected the basic taxes, the poll tax, the land tax, income tax, and so forth, primarily for Rome. But then there were the mokhes, and the mokhescollected the specialized taxes. And there were two kinds of mokhes, and one was the great mokhes, they were called, that owned taxed booths. All right, they were kind of the head guy. And then there were the little mokhes, that worked for them, that actually man the tax booths. That's what Levi did. All right, that's where Levi was. So everyone in the region would have known who Levi was. He had constant contact with everyone that came by in his booth because of the location here and in this context. His booth was near the seashore. So he was probably collecting tolls and tariffs related to the fishing industry that was so prominent there in Capernaum. Here's how one commentator, David Garland, describe the scene quote, "Levi is no tax baron, but one who is stationed at an intersection of trade routes to collect tolls, tariffs imposts," Imposts, by the way, is compulsory payment and customs probably for Herod Antipas. "Toll collectors were renowned for their dishonesty and extortion they habitually collected more than they were due, did not always post up the regulations and made false evaluations and accusations. See Luke 3:12 through 13." He went on to add, "Tax officials were hardly choice candidates for discipleship since most Jews in Jesus day would dismiss them as those who craved money more than respectability or righteousness."

Okay, now you have another group involved in this whole scene. And that's the Pharisees. And they were especially resentful of the tax collectors for various reasons. One, by the way, asthey were cutting into their profits, because they had their own way of extorting money from people. And they considered tax collectors, as traders, who worked for Rome, that they were actually taking money from the Jewish people giving it to Rome so that Rome could impose all of these horrible things upon them, use the money against them. Not to mention, the Pharisees knew that these guys were lining their pockets with the money that they extorted from the public. Again, I think about the history of all governments and how this is just kind of part of what happens and we see it all the all the time in our country. I mean, you look at career politicians in the United States, they are notorious for making millions of dollars over the course of their career way beyond what they received as a salary. You know, how does that happen? And they tax us every way to Sunday, as they say, and basically in order to buy votes and to stay in power.

I looked up for the fun of it. Some of the taxes that we pay, and it came out to about 100 taxes when you look at all the things that we pay tax on, I'll give you just a few, federal income tax, state income tax or state sales tax, employee Social Security tax, employee Medicare, property taxes, driver's license, renewal fees, cable TV, cable satellite fees and taxes, gas and electric bill fees and taxes, water, sewer fees and taxes. federal gasoline tax, state gasoline tax, federal and state inheritance tax, state and local school tax, employer health insurance mandate, tax, Obamacare, that type of thing if you have it. Building construction permits, zoning permits, bank ATM transaction taxes, and it goes on and on and on, tax, tax, tax, everywhere you look. This is what was happening in the first century. By the way, isn't it interesting that with all of these taxes, we're still $30 trillion in debt. And it's going up every second. And the waste is staggering. I was reading that last year we spent and I say we, as taxpayers, we spent $22 billion, I'm sorry, $22 million to bring Serbian cheese up to international standards. So glad we did that. We spent 85,000 on a statue purchase from Bob Dylan for the embassy in Mozambique. We spent 153 million on the failing Washington metro, 34 million spent on textbooks for Afghan students. And I was reading a headline in Forbes it said the US provided an estimated $83 billion worth of training and equipment to Afghan security forces since 2001. That's gone. The Department of Defense says that equipment worth seven point 12 billion remained in Afghanistan after the US withdrawal was completed on August 30 of 2021.

Well, no wonder, you know, our government needs more money. Let me chase this rabbit just for a few more minutes, because I think it has merit it with comparison. Of course the answer in our country just print more money. Of course that produces inflation. What is it now 9.1% The most has been in like 40 years. And I was reading that, again, an article in Forbes it said it was written June 28 that President Biden has canceled $400 billion worth of student loans, according to a top Republican in Congress. And of course, a lot of these students are people that have gone to get degrees in gender studies and feminine studies and I don't know, art history and underwater basket weaving, I mean, you know, stuff that you'll never be able to make any money on. And we're going to pay that so politicians are corrupt. By the way. I feel sorry for those of you that were dumb enough to pay your own student debt, right? You should have just waited and then let everybody else pay for it. So the point is, you've got corrupt politicians today just like you had back then. And they were they were hated back then. I was also reading how we buy votes, even as they did back then. They actually didn't have to buy votes, they just forced it on people. But we have this, this border crisis. And I was reading where US immigration statistics says that illegal immigration costs the United States $200 billion a year. All right. So the point is, tax collectors in government are typically corrupt. And that's what was going on. And Matthew was a part of that, and people hated him and everybody that was a part of that whole scheme. James Edwards, another commentator says this, "The Mishnah and the Talmud, although written later, registers scathing judgments of tax collectors, lumping them together with thieves and murderers." And if you read the Misnah, or the Talmud, you can read about that. He goes on to say, "A Jew who collected taxes was disqualified as a judge or witness in court, expelled from the synagogue and a cause of disgrace to his family. The touch of a tax collector rendered a house unclean, Jews were forbidden to receive money and even alms from tax collectors, since revenue from taxes was deemed robbery. Jewish contempt of tax collectors is epitomized in the ruling that Jews could lie to tax collectors with impunity."

Alright, so you get an idea here of how popular Levi was. But isn't that exactly the type of person that God will set his love upon? An amazing picture. The Lord calls Levi unto himself. Now imagine the scene. You've got hundreds and hundreds of people swarming after Jesus. And then we read in verse 14, "As he passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus, sitting in the tax booth. And He said to him, 'Follow me!'" That's an imperative. It's a command, "Follow me!" And then it says, "And he got up and followed Him." I mean, this would have left the people utterly astonished. Not only that Jesus would lower himself to speak to a person like this. But then to ask him to follow him. And then to see that he actually did that. Absolutely astounding. What a scene. Oh, dear friends the power of saving grace. Now, obviously, Matthew was under great conviction. He knew who Jesus was, everybody did. He had witnessed His miracles, undoubtedly, he knew the message of repentance. The Holy Spirit had obviously, already been at work in his heart, softening his heart. Matthew was profoundly aware of his own sin. Jesus was aware of all of it, you know? We see this much, Jesus sees the whole thing. Jesus would have known everything about Matthew because Jesus created him. And he set his love upon him before he was ever even born. Jesus knew that He was going to bear Levi's sins in his body on the cross. He knew that the Father had given him to him. So now in the miracle of regeneration, the Holy Spirit moves upon this tax collector and opens his eyes to the horror of his sin, and the forgiveness that is found only in Christ. And because that calling is always efficacious, he responds and follows Jesus. In fact, Luke's account tells us and Luke 5:28, that Matthew quote, "Left everything behind to follow Jesus." Left everything behind.

You know, this is a problem for many non-believers. They don't want to follow Jesus, they want Jesus to follow them. Big difference. And I'll keep living the way that I live, and I feel comfortable with this, but I'd like for you to kind of come along with me, in case I need a little help. You see, that's not genuine saving faith. Others follow Christ, as long as it's popular. Their fair-weather Christians, some of you may be that way. Christian in name only, Country Club Christians. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 13:20. He says, "'The one on whom seed was sown in the rocky place,'" or the seed of the gospel, "'This is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy, that he has no firm root in himself, but it's only temporary and when affliction or persecution arises, because of the word immediately he falls away.'" So a lot of people, they come to Christ in an emotional way. It's a superficial emotional commitment.

You see this a lot and kind of the altar call evangelism, then when there's a price to pay, they walk away. Others make a superficial commitment, but there's no genuine repentance. They're still in love with the world. They're still in love with the culture. They're obsessed with money and material things and so gradually, they move away from Christ. They were never truly born again. Jesus speaks of this in verse 22, of Matthew 13. "'And the one whom seed was sown among the thorns. This is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world, and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word and it becomes unfruitful.'" This was like the rich young ruler that Mark will talk about in Chapter 10, that chose to serve riches rather than God. But because of true regeneration, there are those who will hear the gospel and will be broken hearted over their sin and come running to Christ and will follow Christ. And that's what happened with Matthew. Again, Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 13:23, "'And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth some a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty.'"

You see, Matthew was like the apostle Paul, who also left everything to follow Christ. And you want to ask yourself, does Paul's testimony that I'm about to read as this describe you, Paul said in Philippians, three, beginning in verse seven, "But whatever things were gained to me those things I've counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish. So that I may gain Christ and may be found in him not having a righteousness of my own derive from the law. But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead." Again, folks, the only way that happens is through the power of saving grace.

And then we also see in the story, the pursuit of saving grace, notice verse 15. "And it happened to that He was reclining at the table in his house and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples, for there were many of them. And they were following Him."

Luke's account says in verse 29, of chapter five, "And Levi gave a big reception for Jesus in his house. And there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them." I mean, this is an incredible scene. Obviously, Matthew was a very wealthy man in order to have a large home to accommodate all of these people, lots of his low life friends, but they're also following Jesus. Now, we don't know how many of them came to saving faith, but obviously, there would have been a number of them. And again, Mark says many tax collectors and sinners. So there's somewhat of a revival going on here in Matthew's house. What an incredible scene, and what do what the converts want to do when they first come to saving faith in Christ? Tell other people, I want to tell other people. So this is what's going on. He wants to share the gospel. And I'm sure word got around real quick with all of his cronies, can you believe this? Matthew has left at all to follow Jesus. Oh, my.

So Matthew gets them all together. He's going to announce his retirement. He's going to announce his career change, his love for Christ. He's going to share the gospel with, shall we say? The mafia. All right. That's what a lot of these people were. I mean, if you study it, you will see that these tax collectors had again the corrupt politicians out of Harrods court, hit men, thugs, shakedown artists, prostitutes followed them around. I mean, this was the lowest of the low life of the culture. This was the criminal underworld. And of course, they're all thrilled that they get to come to Matthew's house, not for the food, but because they get to be with Jesus. They're following him, you see? I mean, everybody would want to do that. So I can just imagine the conversations. Dude, did you hear the news? You know, we're invited to Matthew's house, we're going to have supper, and guess who's going to be there? Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth. We're all invited. Now, by this time Jesus encounter with Levi is, shall we say, all over the internet? Right? I mean, the word has just spread like wildfire. And of course, the Pharisees were all over the story. And this is exactly what Jesus wants. Now they learn about the Capernaum Mafia, meeting at Levi's house with Jesus, you know, and I'm sure they're saying, We got him now. Paparazzi is everywhere, right? The story is gone out on social media, the fake news networks were covering it, and I mean, everybody knows what's going on. It's exactly what Jesus wants. Now, let's go inside the house, verse 15. "And it happened, that He was reclining at the table in Matthew's house."

Now, this was a way in that culture, and frankly, in our culture, of extending fellowship and friendship. It indicates that they're having an extended conversation. And of course, this is appalling to the Pharisees. But what they did not know is what they were witnessing was a manifestation of pursuing saving grace, the pursuit of saving grace. Now imagine the scene here. By the way, can you imagine sitting at the feet of Jesus, having supper with Jesus? It's gonna happen someday, right? I mean, every one of them would have had to have known that they were in the presence of the Messiah. No doubt many of them came to faith. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost right? He still does. And in his great love, now, he is pursuing the lowest of the low the social outcast, the, the criminal, the prostitute, these unclean reprobates, considered worse than dogs amongst the religious elite. And he offers themselves to them. By the way, some of the Pharisees we know later on came to faith in Christ to. So we've seen the power of saving grace in the pursuit of saving grace.

Finally, the scandal of saving grace. We read here how the Pharisees are just amazed at this. I mean, this is just a scandalous display of impropriety. No self-respecting rabbi would ever defile himself in this way. I mean, this is high handed defilement. So we read in verse 16, "When the scribes and the Pharisees saw that He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to His disciples, 'Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?'" Now, mind you, self-righteous legalists have their own code of conduct, right? They've got all of their own rules, but it's all external. Remember, legalism gives a person the illusion of spirituality. But it's not from the heart. It's high, it's hypocritical. And the hypocrite still feels the guilt and shame, that gnawing conscience within and it becomes increasingly hard to conceal that sin and that hypocrisy. It gets harder and harder to hide. It gets harder and harder to silence the conscience, to extinguish the flames of guilt in the heart. So what do people do? One of two things, either repent and come to faith in Christ, or come up with more rules. And that's what they did. The Pharisees were world class rule makers. I mean, folks, they're, in baseball terms, there's t-ball, there's little league, there's minor league, and there's the Major League. The Pharisees were in the major league camp, when it comes to making up rules. I won't go into them, but my goodness, they were many.

And then adding to that was their ostentatious displays of religiosity. If you want to see kind of what that would have looked like, look at the religious garb of the Roman Catholic Pope and the bishops and cardinals and all of that. They've got so much of that from the Pharisees, and you still see that to this day. And they expected Jesus and the disciples and everyone else to obey their rules to obey their traditions. You see with legalism, accountability to God is replaced by accountability to men, you're trying to impress other people. And legalism always has a judgmental spirit, you will see personal preferences, basically elevated to the status of divine fiat. And if anybody decides to disobey those things, oh they're in trouble. And of course, all these rules were a burden to the Jewish people. Jesus spoke of this in Matthew 23, beginning of verse three. "Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples saying, 'The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds. For as they say things and do not do them. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger. But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the cheap seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the marketplaces and being called Rabbi by men.'" He goes on to say in verse 27, "'Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.'" Now, we know that this even spread into the early church right with the Judaizers. Who said, it's not just grace alone, you also have to add circumcision. And you also have to add dietary restrictions. And you also had to add Sabbath restrictions and on and on it goes. So they went way beyond God's law.

By the way, we have to be careful, we can do the same thing. We can start coming up with stuff to to basically impress other people, and in our mind, impress God, because after all, the scale of our religious deeds outweigh our bad deeds, right? So you can fall, we can all fall, into that same trap. But once we are reminded of the infinite chasm between our sinfulness and God's holiness, then we realize that only God's grace can possibly bridge such a chasm. Yes, we want to honor God out of our love for Him. I mean, we don't want to forfeit blessings. So we want to be obedient. But there's nothing dear friends that we can do to earn God's love. There is nothing we can do to get him to be so impressed that he says, "You know what, I'm going to save you. And if you keep doing those good things, I'm gonna let you stay saved." Now, that's not the God of grace. So these Pharisees were fastidious law keepers, and they made up all kinds of other laws and, and as legal as typically do, they look down on other people who did not agree with them.

Now, I want to give you an important reminder here concerning God's law, if you'll bear with me just for a moment, because this this is so, so important. Remember, according to what Paul said, For example, in Romans seven 7:12, "The law is holy and the commandment is holy, and righteous and good." So let's don't throw the baby out with a bath bathwater here. All right? We see God's holiness in his law, which provides for us a stark contrast to the nature of our sin, the wickedness of our sin. You see, the law of God, sometimes referred to as the Mosaic Code, was the codification of God's holiness. It basically was his standard of righteousness to help us get some glimpse of his transcendent otherness and any breach of that law, any violation, no matter how small was tantamount to breaking the whole law. Read about that in Deuteronomy 27, verse 26, and Galatians 3:10. The law which can also be understood as the Old Testament Scriptures had three divisions, let me give them to you. First of all, there was the moral law that regulated how Israel was to love the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul and strength and love their neighbor as themselves. And all of that was based on the theDecalogue, the 10 commandments. And then there was the judicial law that regulated how Israel was to function as a nation in a theocracy. And then finally, there was the ceremonial law that regulated how Israel was to worship, and ultimately, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfill all three divisions of the law, his sinful, His sinless life, fulfilled the moral law, and his condemnation and temporary judgment upon Israel, whereby they were temporarily set aside as a nation fulfilled the judicial law. And then finally, His atoning work on the cross fulfilled the ceremonial law, all of which pointed ultimately to Christ. But we should never forget, that while the judicial and the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ, and are therefore now obsolete, the moral law is still being fulfilled through the church, we are still to obey that because we are united to Christ through faith.

The apostle Paul spoke of this sobering truth in Romans eight, verses three through four. There he reminds us how that God sent "His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." In light of the incomprehensible holiness of God, and the revelation of that holiness that is delineated in his law, It is difficult to understand why so many people who named the name of Christ live as if those imperatives aren't even in the word. They live as if Christ doesn't even exist, as if God doesn't have a standard; beloved whether it's through sins of omission, or sins of commission, violating God's standard of righteousness will cause you to forfeit blessing in your life. And it will put you into the path of divine chastening. Worldliness, tolerance of sin, is wrong. We must understand that sin is to God what radiation is to man. If I can put it that way. It is morally toxic. It is utterly abhorrent. We get a sense of this in Psalm 11, beginning in verse four where David said, "The Lord is in His holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven, His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence, His soul hates, upon the wicked He will rain snares, fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup, For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness, the upright will behold His face." Beloved, remember, as we read in Second Chronicles 69, "The eyes of the Lord look to and fro throughout the world, that He might strongly support those whose heart is completely His." In Isaiah 66, two what gets God's attention, are those who are humble and contrite of spirit and who tremble at his word. I hope that describes you. But sin will grieve the Spirit of God within us, it will quench the Spirit of God within us. And unfortunately, I'm sure for some of you, right now, you're living under a cloud of divine chastening. Because you continue to walk in rebellion. You know, when we are obedient to Christ, we are walking by the Spirit. When you walk by the Spirit, you won't carry out the desires of the flesh, right? And there's a great blessing to all of that. You began to manifest the fruit of the Spirit Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. And when those things are missing, it's because of disobedience.

Let me give you the reverse of all of those things and you see if these things characterize your life. Instead of love, you'll be filled with hate instead of joy, you'll be filled with sorrow. Instead of peace, your life will be one of conflict. Instead of patience, you will be a person that is impatient and angry. Instead of kindness you will be a person that is cruel. Instead of goodness, you will be a person that is defined by wickedness. Instead of faithfulness, you will be defined as a person of infidelity and treachery. Instead of gentleness, you will be a person marked by harshness and cruelty. And rather than being a person of self-control, you'll just be a person out of control ruled by your loss rule by your flesh. And that will manifest itself in a myriad of ways in your life. So dear friends, obedience will produce blessing in our life, but self-righteousworks, that is legalism, motivated out of a heart that's trying to earn favorability from God, to try to impress God enough to save you and keep you saved, those types of things are incompatible with saving grace. So I just want to remind you of that. Romans 11 Six, Paul says, "But if it," referring to salvation, "is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise, grace is no longer grace." Dear friend, you're not going to earn salvation by being a good person. No one can ever be that good, because no one can be perfect. Romans 3:23 says "That all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God." You will recall how Paul excoriated the Galatians for lapsing back into a works-based salvation and Galatians one beginning in verse six. He says, "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But if we are an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! As we have said before, so I say now again, If any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!"

Now, back to our story. The Pharisees are all puffed up with pride, they are absolutely thrilled that they have caught Jesus committing this horrible atrocity. He was eating with the sinners and tax collectors. And so in their mind okay, this is payback time. And course, rule keepers are always characterized by harsh judge mentalism. And that's what's going on here. Verse 16, says that so they said to his disciples, let me pause there for a second. Why, Why not Jesus? Well, we don't know Jesus was probably still in the house, they're not going to go in there because they would be defiled. Can't do that. But also, they may not want to have personal contact with Jesus, because he would typically eat their lunch, as we would say. So they go to the disciples, "Why is He eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?" Now, mind you, eating and drinking were especially defiling, because if you ate the wrong foods in the wrong place, you would be defiled. Alright, so you got to bear in mind the culture. And in fact, you see a lot of this today even in in Judaism. When you folks go with me to Israel, we'll see a lot of this. I mean, they set out in the Torah that they have, they have kosher rules are very complex. For example, fish and seafood must have both fins and scales, so you can't eat any prawns. Land animals need to have cloven hooves and they have to chew the cud. So no pork. You're not going to find any pork tenderloins in Israel, okay. The mixing of dairy and meat is absolutely prohibited so you won't find a cheeseburger. Okay? In fact, if you look in their kitchens, they won't even have anything of dairy anywhere near in the same room. That's where they will have the meat and so it's on an on and on with these types of things.

Verse 17 "And hearing this," Now I have to pause again. I don't know if Jesus kind of, Hey, what did it No, I don't think that's what was going. I think he'd read their minds because he's been doing that right. He knew, he knows what they're talking about. So somehow he comes up to them, he hears this. And he says to them, using a proverb here in the third person, "'It is not those who are healthy, who need a physician, but those who are sick.'" Sickness, typically being a metaphor for sin throughout the scriptures. Then he says, "'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'" In Luke's account, Luke 5"32, it says, "'I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.'" And so Jesus defends his involvement with these people because of their spiritual need. And this is something that Pharisees could not see in themselves. Matthew nine, verse 13, Matthew adds some more of what Jesus said, quote, "But go and learn what this means, I desire compassion, and not sacrifice." You see, it was compassion and mercy that drove Jesus to pursue sinners and call them to repentance. I hope it does the same with you. And like the Israelites that were in desperate need of, of spiritual restoration and reconciliation to God, we have people like that all around us, in the same need, people need the Lord. And many of the people that I know, could be characterized in the same way as a lot of these people that were there with Matthew. But we cannot isolate ourselves from them. We need to be like Christ.

I want to leave with you with a few challenges. First of all, may I challenge you to be intentional in your evangelism, to look for those people within the context of your sphere of influence, begin to pray for them, begin to make friends with them. I have had to, over the years, find different ways to be around unsaved people, because I'm typically around saved people, right? That's why I still do sporting clays shooting. That's why I've done a lot of cowboy stuff over the years, because I love horses too. But I mean, you see what I'm what I'm saying? You just need to use those opportunities, get to know them, by their lunch, have them over. And then secondly, pray for boldness. We typically lack that, don't we? Especially in this cancel culture? You know, we freak out because somebody might say something bad about us on Facebook, or we might lose our job. Lord, we can't have that because I'm not sure you have the resources to help me through that. So you know, I'll just keep my mouth shut. Paul says in Ephesians six, beginning of verse 19, "Pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness, the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak." Folks, we need to make that prayer our own. Take some Hot Topic issues. I think I put these out for you to look at, like put this on Facebook. And you can use this quote if you want to. "Those who struggle with gender identity need the Gospel where they can find their identity and the soul satisfying joy of being united with Christ, the lover of their soul. Irreversible physical, mutilation and chemical castration, to pretend to be what one can never be, the opposite gender, is child abuse, plain and simple." Put that on Facebook, that will get some attention. What a great way to present the gospel. Here's another one. "As a sinner saved by grace I'm so thankful for the gospel because where sin abounds, grace abounds much more. The apostle Paul put it this way, in First Corinthians six, nine through 11 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals nor thieves, nor the covetous nor drunkards, nor revelers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God." Put that on Facebook. I mean, folks, we need to get serious about evangelism and quit running scared of these people who are in desperate need of the truth.

Well, it's amazing to see what God did with Matthew, isn't it? It's amazing to see what he's done with me. We're all trophies of His grace. Matthew left everything to follow Christ. And what a magnificent journey it was. I mean, stop to think about it, he became one of the 12 apostles. And in his own list of the 12 apostles, that we read about in Matthew 10, three, he explicitly calls himself the tax collector. Isn't that interesting? He wants people to know, hey, I was a tax collector. What a marvelous manifestation of humility. What a profound awareness of what he had been saved from and what he has been saved to. God inspired Matthew to write the gospel that bears his name. And in that gospel, Matthew's priority, his main purpose is to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah, the king of Israel, the long-awaited Savior, the Messiah of the Jews, the savior of all who will trust in Him. That He is the victorious king that will one day "return on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." Matthew 24:30. I can't wait to talk with Matthew someday. I'd like to ask you what was it like when you were in that booth, Jesus came up to you? Folks, may I challenge each of you to do as Matthew did? Follow Jesus, follow Jesus. Let's pray together.

Father, thank You for these eternal truths that speak so directly to each of our hearts. Thank you for your saving grace. Thank You that You pursued us. And we thank you that even though the gospel is scandalous, Father by by, by Your power, we are able to present it. We are able to give our testimony. We're able to live it out so that others can see the truth and be saved. May this be the passion of our heart? Use us mightily. To these ends I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.