Luke 5:27-32

Luke 5:27-32 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. 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.”

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were not repentant and therefore could not receive the mercy and grace of the Lord. As long as we are not repentant of our old ways and lifestyle, we place ourselves in the category of the righteous or better said the self-righteous. Then sadly to say, we will meet God in all of our glory, which the Bible calls unredeemed, for all have gone their own way, all have sinned, none are righteous. The Pharisees despised the people at the banquet for supposedly living outside of God's righteousness, but they were the most miserable of all human beings because they were outside of God's grace and did not know it. How many humans today are possessed with the same thoughts of self-sufficiency and self-righteousness. They think they don't need God, for they are doing JUST FINE the way they are living. Unfortunately, they are totally misled. The Bible clearly says, ALL HAVE GONE ASTRAY; all need to make a decision about the sin in their lives. Christians and sinners alike must continually understand and recognize that people need Christ.

Sadly, we Christians often don't realize the whole world is in the valley of decision. God is asking human beings to be his not their own, to follow Him, to live a life of righteousness. The Bible indicates that eternal life comes through and is IN CHRIST by faith. What happens to those who never had a chance to know Jesus Christ while they were living? That is God's work, not ours, but I know He is a just God, so I do not worry about that, but I do have concerns about those around us who are in a position to know Jesus Christ. Have we Christians so isolated ourselves that they cannot know God? Are we at the sinners' banquets or have we removed ourselves, the light, to another room, one insulated from the world? Are we so willing to have our own little protected, Christian environment that we literally excommunicate ourselves from the rest of the world? Jesus Christ was AT THE PARTY. He was associating with sinners. Jesus did not isolate himself from them: He dined with them.

We Christians have our own schools, our own business establishments, our own entertainment, our own television stations, our own everything. We have been trying for generations to remove ourselves from the world physically. But Jesus came to the world because they needed a Savior. We often remove the Savior from their presence. We need to ask ourselves if we are making sense. I heard Ed Dobson, who now has ALS, tell how he is much more in the world now than he was before his disease. He even goes to taverns to associate with people. He says he goes where the fish are. If we are fishers of men, we need to be where the fish are. Now Dobson is not just any minister. He was one of the leaders of the Moral Majority, associate of Doctor Falwell, and the pastor of a very large church. Now he has put that all aside and is working where the fish are. Are we outside saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Are we part of the problem or the solution? We need to be where the fish are: in the schools, at work, in the community. ALL ELSE WILL PRETTY MUCH BE AN EMPTY, SELF-SERVING, SAFE LIFE.