JESUS: His Answers                                                                    6-4-06

“Why Do You Eat With Sinners?”

Luke 5:27-32

For the past 4 weeks we have been looking at questions Jesus asked. When He asked people questions, it was usually to get them to think.  He was not usually seeking information as much as He was challenging people to think differently than they had before.

“Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” (Luke 10:36). “Whose image is on this coin?” (Luke 20:24). “Which is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves?” (Luke 22:27). “Why do you call Me ‘good’?” (Matt. 19:17). “Where is your faith?” (Luke 8:25).

When people asked Jesus questions, it was different.  Many of their questions were honest ones, but so often when those questions came from the religious leaders, they were trying to get Jesus to say something they could use against Him.

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”  (Matt. 19:2).  “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”  (Matt. 22:17). “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” (Matt. 12:10).“In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. (Matt. 8:5-6)     

The question before us today I believe is an honest one.  Jesus sometimes did things that perplexed people.  He wasn’t like other religious leaders – to the delight of the people, but to the consternation of the other religious leaders.  And the incident before us today is one of those “out of the box” times.  Let’s read about it.   Luke 5:27-32.

Levi’s more common name is Matthew.  We don’t know how he got two names, but it was not all that uncommon in Jesus’ day.  Perhaps it was when he began to follow Jesus that he took the new name to indicate a change in his life.  Matthew means “the gift of God.”

He was a tax collector, and was viewed as a traitor.  Tax collectors, or Publicans, were Jews who had become agents of the Roman govt.  They made their living by not only collecting taxes for the hated Roman government, but they were allowed by Rome to inflate the taxes and keep whatever they took in that was above what Rome required. They could practice their extortion as long as it didn’t cause a riot.

His original name, Levi, would connect him to the Jewish tribe of Levi, who were the Priests and Levites, the Temple workers.  He was supposed to be ministering in the Temple of God.  But he had left that heritage to be a despised tax collector.  Yet Jesus loved him.

There in northern Israel, probably in Capernaum, Levi had his tax booth set up.  He was no stranger to Jesus.  Many times Jesus had gone to the booth to pay taxes for Himself, His mother, and His siblings.  There were many different taxes a Jew has to pay to the Romans, and time after time, Jesus had contact with Levi.

So when He called Levi to follow Him, this was no stranger bidding him to leave his life of dishonest luxury and become a disciple.  Levi had become convinced through many conversations that this was a Man worth following.

The banquet was to celebrate his leaving his old life and beginning a new one.  He had a large home and large resources and threw a large banquet: Jesus and His other disciples, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others, “sinners” Matthew himself calls them in his gospel.  A large crowd!

This was more than a nice little dinner with Jesus and His close companions, where Jesus could lay out His plans for the future.  This was where Matthew was going to tell his friends what had happened to him and to introduce them to Jesus, the One Who had changed his life.  It would be his public profession of faith in Jesus.

How did the Pharisees get in?  Were they just hanging around in the streets and walked in when the dinner was going on?  Were they   among Matthew’s invited guests?  We don’t really know, only that they were there with their usual criticisms.

The Pharisees were one of two religious parties in Israel in Jesus’ day.  The other group was the Sadducees.  The Pharisees were the strict ones.  They had rules upon rules upon rules.  And if you didn’t obey their rules, they criticized you.  Of course they didn’t obey their own rules, but they hoped no one noticed that.

I personally doubt they had been invited.  I don’t think they would have entered Levi’s home.  They would not even let their robe touch a tax collector, since that would defile them.  Perhaps it was as Jesus was leaving, or perhaps the celebration spilled over to the outside of Matthew’s house.  But the question is asked.

“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

It’s the same criticism we find in Luke 15: Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

“If you really are who you say you are”, these Pharisees are saying to Jesus, “you would not be hanging around with people like this.  Hanging around with sinners is unacceptable if you are going to be a spiritual leader.  They are riff-raff.  They are not worth your time.  If anything, you need to hang around with us.  Don’t lower yourself to people like tax collectors and sinners.”

Yet that’s the people Jesus spent time with.  In the story of Zacchaeus, another tax collector, Jesus said that He came to seek and to save the lost.  In the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery, He showed her mercy and grace when everyone else wanted Him to pronounce a death sentence on her.  He was even called a “friend of sinners”.

“Why do you eat with sinners?”  “Because I’m their Friend!  Because I love them!  Because that’s why I came!”

Eating with sinners!  Today is Pentecost Sunday.  It’s the day in the church calendar when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus rose from the dead.

Prior to His death, Jesus had promised His Disciples that when He got back to heaven He would send the Holy Spirit to them.  He told them to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came, and on that Day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2, He did come.  So who is this Holy Spirit, and what does He do?

God is a unique Being.  He is unlike anyone you have ever met.  And He is beyond our comprehension.  To fully understand Him, we would have to either be equal to Him or greater than Him, and since we are neither, we will never fully understand Him. We just have to accept that.

But we can understand Him in part.  He has partially revealed Himself to us in nature, and more fully revealed Himself to us in the Bible.  In nature we see His existence and His power, but not much of His nature or character.  For that we have to go to the Bible.

In the Bible there are three who are called God, yet the Bible says there is only One God.  The Father is called God; Jesus is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God.  So the One God consists of these three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. – three persons, but One God.  How can that be?

Someone said it’s like chocolate cream pie.  You have crust, you have chocolate, and you have whipped cream.  But you only have one pie.  Or perhaps like an egg – egg shell, egg white, egg yoke, but only one egg.  Or perhaps like a 3-leaf clover – one clover but three leaves. Those things might help, but God is much more complex than that. 

The Holy Spirit is part of what we know as the One God.  Let me quickly give you some of the things the Bible says He does.

First of all, He was part of the Creation Team.  Genesis 1:1 says In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.  Yet John 1:3 says of Jesus: Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  And in Genesis 1:2 says: Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were all there involved in creation.

John 16:7-8 says the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.

Romans 8:16 says He gives us assurance of our salvation.

Acts 2:4 says He fills us.

Ephesians 3:16 says He strengthens us spiritually.

John 16:13-14 says He reveals spiritual truth to us.

John 14:15-18 says He comforts us.

Romans 8:26-27 says He helps us in our praying.

Galatians 5:22-23 says He produces spiritual fruit in us.

1 Corin. 12:4-11 says He gives spiritual gifts to us.

Acts 1:8 says He gives us power for witnessing.

And it’s that last one I want us to look at for a bit this morning.  Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.  He came to call sinners to repentance.  And since He has gone back to heaven, He fills us with His Holy Spirit that we might do those things in His stead.

Look at Acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  It was true of the first followers of Jesus, and it’s still true today.  The Holy Spirit gives us power for witnessing.

To be Pentecostal is far more than just speaking in tongues, of believing the gifts of the Spirit are still for us today.  The heart of being Pentecostal is to be filled with the Spirit so that you would receive power for witnessing.

Too often today’s church neglects keeping the main thing the main thing.  The main thing is not speaking in tongues.  The main thing is not singing songs that are pleasing to me.  The main thing is not having great facilities.  The main thing is not having the right preacher preach on Sunday morning.  The main thing is to be witnesses for Jesus so that lost people become followers of Jesus.

The main purpose of the Church is not so that would huddle together and try to feel good about ourselves.  The main purpose of the Church is to build God’s Kingdom, a Kingdom of people.  Yes, teaching is needed.  Yes, discipleship is needed.  Yes, fellowship is needed.  Yes, worship is needed.  But Jesus died so that the whole world might be saved, not just us.

We want to be comfortable; we want to be happy; we want to feel safe.  But Jesus wants us to be witnesses for Him.  And that often takes us out of our comfort zone into situations where we have to depend on Him rather than feeling safe.

Our Staff has been working on a Spiritual Health Self-Evaluation.  It currently has 29 questions.  We have given it to a couple of groups and want to eventually use it in a Sunday morning service.  But recently we gave it to a group of just over 100 of our adult leaders and their spouses.  And I was encouraged by what I saw. 

Here are some things we asked:

“I seek to bring glory to God in all that I do.”  87 usually, 14 sometimes, 2 rarely.

“I make my moral decisions based on the Bible.”  94 U, 9 S, 0 R

“I am committed to a local church”  100 U, 2 S, 1 R

“I am growing spiritually.”  83 U, 20 S, 0 R

“I have positive relationships with non-Christians.” 93 Y, 7 N

“I share my faith with unbelievers.”  82 Yes, 17 No.

“I am involved in my community/neighborhood.”  58 Y, 42 N

That question about sharing our faith, maybe we should let you respond “often, sometimes, rarely, never”.  If you were to respond to that question, how would you respond?  “I share my faith with unbelievers” – Often? Sometimes?  Rarely?  Never?

When Jesus ate with sinners, it was not so He could have a good time, and the sinners threw the best parties.  Jesus ate with sinners with a purpose in mind.  He wanted to bring them to trust in Him, turn from the way they were living and become one of His followers.  He was building relationships, building bridges over which people could walk to Him.

Jesus uses the word “repent”: I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.  Repentance means a change of mind, a decision that changes the total direction of one’s life, to turn around.  One definition I read was: “To be sorry enough about your sins to stop.”

I don’t know how ready your neighbors are to repent and to put their trust in Jesus, but I know from talking to my neighbors, none of them seem ready.  But I continue to build relationships with them, and to talk with them, not just so I can say “I know my neighbors”, but so that I might some day be able to lead them to Jesus.

Being witnesses!  I was one time called to be a witness in court concerning a car accident I had seen.  What they asked me was what I had personally seen and heard.  They didn’t want me to tell them how many miles per hour the car was traveling when it passed me as I stood there.  I had not knowledge of that.  What they asked was “Was the car traveling at a high rate of speed?”  And I answered “yes.  It was going much faster than the cars it passed.”  That’s what I had seen.

Before you can be a good witness for Jesus, you first have to see something, hear something, experience something.  The power in witnessing that Acts 1:8 talks about is not how loud or how powerfully you talk.  It has to do with what God is doing in you and wants to do through you.

When we asked our leaders: “Do you have daily communication with God – Bible reading, prayer, journaling, etc”, 95 of them said “yes”.  That’s the basis for our witness, our daily communication with God. That’s where it has to start.  But that’s not where it ends.

The next step is a determination to take the God of your relationship to others who need Him.  To keep your eyes open for opportunities God will give you to speak words for Him.  Your good life is not enough.  There must be spoken words.  No one gets saved just by looking at your life.  Living the life is important, but we must add to our life spoken words about Jesus.

The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:16 says I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.  The Gospel, the good news about Jesus: that is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.  Your good life is not the power of God for the salvation of those who believe.  The good news of Jesus is.  And that’s why we need to talk to others about Him. Jesus: what He has done for us and what He wants to do for others.

Eating with sinners – maybe that’s a question we should put on that Spiritual Health form.  “How often do I eat with sinners?”  I eat with Christians often, but with sinners rarely.  And I know I need to change that.  Maybe you do too.

Our church has many strengths, but it also has some weaknesses, and this is one of them.  Would you pray with me that God will change our hearts and give us more concerned about our lost neighbors, a concern that will motivate us to talk with them about Jesus?”