Anywhere for Anyone
Words & Works of Jesus • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 6 viewsJesus will go anywhere for anyone who needs him and offer them the opportunity to accept him.
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Know Where We Shouldn’t Go
Know Where We Shouldn’t Go
The winters in ND are brutal. Long, cold, windy, cloudy, tough.
There’s no going outside for any reason. It’s life-threatening. Wind chills well below zero. We hit 100 wind chills more than once in our time there.
Block heaters on the cars b/c if your car sat outside overnight in these conditions the oil would turn to sludge and your engine would not start. So, you had to plug your block heater in overnight to keep your oil in liquid form.
Grocery stores, the mall, businesses would provide outlets by some of their parking spots so people’s cars would start at the end of the day.
In fact, we’d go to the grocery store on a cold day and more than half the cars in the parking lot would still be running, unlocked, and no one in sight.
If you couldn’t plug your car in, then you had to keep it running or it would freeze up.
If you saw this in PHX or any other big city, you’d come out to find out some thief traded up for you car and left you theirs.
Kids, stay-at-home moms would go crazy. You learn to adapt. Couldn’t take the kids to the park to run off their pent up energy. McDonald’s play area was popular as were the other restaurants that had play areas
So was the mall. Moms would get together, meet at the mall w/ all the kids. Let the kids run up and down the mall. There was a play area. A stage where they’d do concerts, fashion shows, and Santa Claus.
Confined space, safe for the kids, the kids could run the energy off, and the moms could visit and maybe get a little shopping done.
Winter time, Jason was 1, learning to run, it’s late Jan or early Feb, he takes off on a dead sprint down the mall. Sara’s watching like a good, attentive mom. All the moms are helping each other out.
Jason on a dead sprint, stopped on dime, 90 degree turn, planted his face on the window of one of the stores in the mall.
Want to guess which one?
Frederick’s of Hollywood. Like Victoria’s Secret.
He was 1. It was almost Valentine’s Day, so there was lots of bright red lacy things on the mannequins in the window. I’m sure it wasn’t the mannequins. I am positive it was bright red colors.
I think.
The moms all got a good laugh. Sara told me when I got home from work that day. We roared. So stereotypical and hilarious.
But then it raises this question. Men, when your wife goes shopping in one of these places, and you are with her, no judgment here, it could be for normal boring underthings. But, what do you look at and stay out of trouble?
There’s always the husband’s chair. A little waiting area while she tries things on in the changing room. What do your eyes focus on that will keep you out of trouble?
Shoe tops? Other guys sitting there w/ you? Now, we have phones, internet.
Sometimes it’s best to not go in w/ your wife. And, these places are not even R-rated. Maybe a strong PG-13, Teen rating.
It is important for us to know where we shouldn’t go. These places are no big deal. But maybe the movies and TV shows are.
A 90-min movie might 85 minutes of action, comedy, good story. Then, 5 minutes of nudity. I can’t go there. It does my relationship w/ God no good. And it’s not good for my marriage.
If there is someone we need to rescue, intervene, and they are in a topless bar, I can’t go get them. One of you will have to. Someone else.
There are plenty of people who go into these places, go to these movies, watch these TV shows. No judgment here. Grace. You do what the HS okays you to do. I’ll do me, you do you.
Alcoholics. They need to know where they can’t go.
We all need to know. They may be different places for all of us. Okay. But, these places that do us no good, in fact harm, we need t/b aware of and willing to surrender the right to go in.
There is only 1 person in history who has faced and stood up to the strongest temptation w/out giving in. He is the only One who can go anywhere for anyone who needs Him.
Here’s the deal. He will go anywhere for anyone who needs Him. And will offer everyone the opportunity believe and follow Him to Heaven.
Here’s another part of the deal. Faith alone, in Jesus saves us. But what we learn in time, walking w/ Jesus, is our faith includes the willingness to give up every right we have, being willing to give up everything we have and everything we are; to get everything Jesus offers.
There is no asterisk, exception, loophole, nor escape clause. All in, is all in.
Jesus will go anywhere for anybody to offer them the opportunity to get everything He makes possible. All we have to do is believe it and be willing to walk away from anything that gets in our way of following Him closely.
This comes when Jesus called Matthew, also named Levi, to become one of His disciples. Levi was a tax collector. Hated by everyone, except Jesus.
It’s written about in 3 places; Matthew 9:9-17; Mark 2:13-22; and Luke 5 27-39.
We’re going to spend most of our time in the Luke passage.
If you want the 1st person account, later, read Matthew.
Anybody
Anybody
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.
Jesus saw Levi, intentionally went over to him, and offered him the opportunity to become one of Jesus’s disciples. He was a tax collector.
Nobody, except other tax collectors, invited a tax collector to do anything. No religious leader would ever invite a tax collector become a student.
Everyone hated the tax men. They were seen as unfit, unclean, outcasts. They were unwelcome in every are of society including the religious areas. No syn participation, at all. They were held in the lowest esteem of society.
They were considered traitors. People felt they betrayed Israel for material gain and for the good of the oppressive government of Rome.
Rabbinical law saw no hope for a tax collector. There was no way any religious leader would entertain any possibility of restoration and recovery of a tax man. They wouldn’t even try.
Levi sat in a tax booth and collected taxes from people. The ppl were taxed on their income, they paid property tax, toll taxes for the roads and bridges, and other taxes were levied against them. It was the responsibility of citizens to go to the tax booth to pay their taxes.
The taxes alone were oppressive. But tax collectors could add service fees to the taxes ant the ppl were forced to pay them by the Roman military. That’s extortion. Racketeering.
The tax men were required to pay a set amount to Rome. Anything else they were able to extort, they could keep for themselves. As a result, they were a wealthy lot of ppl.
They were viewed in the same way as prostitutes, gamblers, swindlers, and thieves. Nobody of any moral fiber would invite anyone from this group to do anything except take a long walk on a short pier.
That is, except Jesus. Jesus singled him out. Picked him to make this offer. It was more than just an open-ended offer. It carried some force, some authority w/ it. Levi could have said, “No.” But it would have been hard.
Jesus picked this outcast to make several points. Nobody is beyond hope. The church is built on and made of outcasts like this. And this serves as an example for the disciples, and us, after Jesus left them in charge, to follow and go to anyone anywhere and offer them the opportunity to follow, too.
Levi, responding to Jesus’s offer, left everything to follow Him. For whatever reason, Jesus wanted Levi to leave his job. For most, following Jesus means staying on the job. That is, unless the job is one of those places we know we shouldn’t go b/c it gets in the way of the walk. The walk w/ Jesus.
Levi walked away from a lucrative job. He was under great financial obligation to Rome. This was no small risk to walk out of his booth and walk away w/ Jesus.
Jesus had work for Levi to do. It wouldn’t make as much money, but it would make him rich, eventually.
Levi put Jesus first immediately.
One of the big themes early in these books of the NT is the authority of Jesus. He authority to command everything in creation to do something and the ability to make it happen.
He demonstrated authority over nature by making the fish jump into the net.
He demonstrated authority over the demonic by making the demon leave the man.
He demonstrated authority over disease by healing Peter’s MIL.
He demonstrated authority over paralysis by enabling the man to walk again.
He demonstrated authority over sin by cleansing the leper and healing the paralytic so that we will see all of them in heaven when we get there.
Now, Jesus demonstrated his authority over people. Levi recognized Jesus’s authority over Rome’s. This was a powerful demonstration of the authority Jesus had in his life for him to walk away from everything he was, everything he had, to follow Jesus.
That’s the authority Jesus has over us, too. If He calls you, commands you to get up and go, leave something, someone, everything, then we have the responsibility to obey.
We must be willing to do that as followers of Christ. He rarely asks us to leave behind the bigger, more important things in our life. But we must be willing.
We must be willing to walk away from a relationship that gets in the way of our walk.
We must be willing to walk away from a job, a bar, a movie, a store, a habit, a hobby, an addiction, whatever if it gets in the way of our walk.
Jesus willingly gave much more for you and me than we ever could for him. He would never ask us to do for Him what He has not already done for us.
We will get to this passage later in Luke:
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?
Interesting perspective here; Jesus hadn’t gone to the cross, yet, when he said this. PU your cross daily. They still understood what that meant, to a point.
The cross represented the worst of society. It was their electric chair, gallows, lethal injection, reserved for the worst of the worst criminals. I meant death and leaving everything else behind.
It represented the poverty of morality.
Jesus could have used any of the disciples as examples after saying this, but Levi, Matthew, may have been the best example of making the decision to save his life.
He decided to sacrifice everything he had for Jesus not knowing Jesus would one day sacrifice everything He had for him so that He could live forever.
Jesus said this in the Sermon on the Mount in Mt. 5.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
The poor in spirit, not materially poor, but poverty of a spiritual life. Nothing to offer. No value in their spiritual life whatsoever.
Those who mourn their spiritual condition apart from Christ.
The meek who are pliable to God’s calling, commands and direction.
Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are like those on a deserted island, desperate for a drink of fresh water. Their very lives depend on it. Our very lives depend on what God does for us. We cannot do it for ourselves.
Whether Levi realized it or not, he was a walking, living, breathing example of a blessed man when he walked away from everything and followed Jesus.
As a result, Levi’s life changed. Still an outcast, but for a different reason. His lifestyle changed, his purpose in life changed. He was a new man.
He also got the message immediately that Jesus did this as an example for his followers to help reach others who had been told all their adult lives they were hopeless.
So, Levi threw a party. A dinner party inviting all his rowdy friends, other tax men and sinners, and included Jesus in the invitation list.
When Jesus offers to save anybody, He means anybody
Anybody Means Anybody
Anybody Means Anybody
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Levi, being a man of some means, due to extortion, was able to throw a lavish dinner party to introduce all his outcast friends to Jesus. Levi accepted Jesus’s invitation. Then, he extended his own invitations to his friends.
Beyond other tax men, it only says sinners. Prostitutes, gamblers, swindlers, and thieves fit that title. It would have been a rough crowd.
If prostitutes were there, they dressed like prostitutes. If the others were there, they talked, use the colorful language of the day.
Jesus has faced down Satan. A few cuss words were not going to offend him.
It was a large crowd at this dinner party.
So much good happens around a meal. We sit around tables. They reclined on the floor, on pillows, in a large group in a large area.
We sit for an extended time while we eat. We get to know each other better, on deeper levels. We ask good question and give good answers.
The way we practice it, and the way Levi and Jesus did it, it was an effective community and relationship building event.
Not just 2 ships passing in the night. But sit for a spell and let’s get to know each other.
Jesus joined them in their world to communicate to them their value to Him. He did not expect them to join Him in His. He didn’t just preach at them. He sat and ate w/ them.
The religious leadership was offended by this. They were personally put off, angered, offended that Jesus would spend such a quantity of quality time w/ such a group of ppl.
Just b/c they were offended did not mean Jesus was wrong in doing it.
We seem to be a little too easily offended these days. Maybe we should give more ppl the benefit of the doubt and let them be more concerned about offending God than us.
The leaders complained, grumbled. The same term used in the OT when Israel grumbled against God b/c he made them wander thru the wilderness for 40 years. It was their own fault. But they were offended and blamed God believing they deserved better.
Some time later, they complained to the disciples about what Jesus was doing.
Rule #1 in conflict resolution, if someone is not part of the problem, then they can’t be part of the solution. Do not complain to a 3rd party. Keep it to the principals.
It’s easier to complain to 3rd party. Let’s talk about Him. But not talk to Him. We never win arguments w/ Him so let’s win this one w/out Him.
Among other things, they had the goal of convincing the disciples to stop following Jesus and follow them. They would never ask their students to hang w/ ppl like this.
What they were saying was, this group of ppl didn’t deserve Jesus’s time like this. If He was who He said He was he would know this and not hang out w/ these ppl. He should know to avoid the outcasts and only sit at the “cool kids table.”
You remember what that was like in school. Which table did you sit at?
Were you w/ the jocks? The cheerleaders? The cool kids, in crowd? Or the nerds and geeks? We all do it.
Jesus should not have reclined w/ these ppl. He should have declined these ppl.
The Greek word here implies these are the worst of the worst sinners. The only time ppl exaggerate like this is when they know on some level their position will not hold up under scrutiny.
Jesus knew who these ppl were. He knew they were sinners. Their problem was their sin. Their solution was salvation. The goal was recovery. The means was participation, not isolation.
These religious leaders were unwilling to sacrifice their self-righteous attitude of exclusion and took pot-shots from a distance at Jesus for his inclusion.
They believed they were God’s standard for humanity. They set the bar. They needed no adjustments to their attitudes or behaviors. Everyone else needed to come to their standard. And those who didn’t, weren’t good enough for their time.
But this is Jesus’s personal character and mission.
Jesus responded to them, not thru his discs.
His response is dripping w/ sarcastic irony.
No one outside this group of religious leaders believed they were healthy and righteous. If that was what health and righteousness looked like, then nobody wanted it.
Jesus didn’t come to heal the healthy nor call the righteous.
He came for the sick and the sinners.
Luke, the physician, puts this in medical terms.
Just like us guys. “I’m not sick unless a doctor tells me I’m sick. Therefore, if I never go to a doctor, I’m never sick.”
Jesus was trying to tell these religious leaders that they were as sick as anybody. But they demanded a 2nd opinion from one of their own. And he said they weren’t sick.
So, they did not recognize their need to accept Jesus’s offer.
Jesus told this story later that Luke recorded:
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
Thank God I’m not like that guy!
What Jesus was trying to tell them, and us, is only those who are keenly aware of our condition apart from Him will recognize our need and accept his offer.
And that is everybody.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
If any statement would offend the religious leadership it would be this one made by a former Pharisee, still a religious leader, but now of this newer org, The Apostle Paul.
Jesus will go anywhere for anybody and make His offer to everybody. But only those who recognize their poverty w/out Him will accept the offer and be saved.
Repentance means a change of direction. It’s a changed mind. Changed priorities. Changed direction for one’s life.
It requires admitting your current direction is wrong.
And apologizing for making the decisions to stay in that direction.
Then adapting to a new direction, following Christ, wherever He leads.
It doesn’t mean we’re perfect, or never sin again. It means we’re forgiven and we use all the tools that God gives us at our disposal to try harder to do better.
Levi’s life changed that day. And it continued to change every day he followed Jesus. Our will, too.
Jesus has authority over us to call us, command us, and change us. We can fight it. But it won’t go well for us.
Delayed obedience is not obedience.
It takes a sick person who is aware of his sickness to accept the help and healing that’s offered. Let’s be like those sick sinners and accept what Jesus offers.
We are willing to give up everything we are and everything we have to get everything Jesus provides.
Applications
Applications
Open and Aware
Open and Aware
Be open to the HS and aware of whatever you may need to change in your life.
We’re still sinners. The bible refers to us as saints once we’re saved. But, even saints still sin.
One of the roles of the HS in our life is conviction. He will make you feel something when you do something you shouldn’t do.
We are kings of compartmentalization. We avoid w/ the best of them. And denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Stop denying your imperfections and be open to where you may still be sinning.
God is merciful to not reveal everything that needs to change the first day we come to faith. He would destroy us if he did that way.
But, that means, over time, He will reveal more things that we need to do differently. Be open to anything and aware that God may ask you to change everything.
Repent. Accept it. Admit it. Apologize for it. And adapt to a new way of doing things.
Priority
Priority
Related to openness and awareness. Maybe something that is not necessarily sin has made its way in the way of your walk.
Is there something, or someone, you need a little less of so you can have a little more of God in your life.
It’s sin if prevents you from growing in your relationship w/ Christ. It may not be sin in and of itself.
A hobby. I play golf. If golf squeezes out my time w/ Sara and my time w/ God then I need to make a change.
Is there something in your life that you have allowed a higher priority than it should have?
Levi left everything. Do you need to leave, or at least get farther away from something?
Grumbling
Grumbling
Do everything without grumbling or arguing,
Do you grumble, argue, complain a little too much?
Do you complain about people to other ppl? 3rd parties?
If they are not part of the problem, then they can’t be part of the solution.
And if it’s not worth bringing up to the person, then let it go.
W/ God’s help you can keep you tongue in check and your friendships intact.
It takes a sick person who is aware of his sickness to accept the help and healing that’s offered. Let’s be like those sick sinners and accept what Jesus offers.
We need to know where we can’t go. Those places may be different for all of us. Grace allows us follow Jesus on our own path. Our paths will be parallel, but cover different ground.
There is only 1 person in history who has faced and stood up to the strongest temptation w/out giving in.
Jesus will go anywhere for anybody to offer them the opportunity to get everything He makes possible. All we have to do is believe it and be willing to walk away from anything that gets in our way of following Him closely.