• Bible’s definition of love, not an emotion, but a choice and commitment.
• God is calling you to a brave new love because God is calling you to a brave new life.
• God wants to unchain you, free you from the restraints that prevent you from fully surrendering to Him and fully loving others.
• It requires complete surrender to Him, and surrender is a scary proposition..
• Completely surrendering to Him is the ONLY way to make sure the troubles of this life do not become troubles in our hearts.
• Today, we look at Mark 2, Jesus continues his ministry and sees his reputation grow.
Mar 2:13 Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them.
• Sea of Tiberias, short walk from Capernium.
• Here again is the multitude, and the teaching.
Mar 2:14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he arose and followed Him.
• Levi is Matthew. Sitting at a tax toll booth.
• He was a tax collector of the worse kind.
• He was not only working for the hated Romans….
• He was a Jew working for the Romans….a traitor.
• Doing the most hated job.
• There was a financial reason to hate Levi (he collected more than the government demanded.)
• There was a political reason to hate Levi (he worked for the Romans who controlled the promise land)
• There was a religious reason to hate him (he collected taxes to support a pagan people and government).
• There were social reasons to hate him (he took from the poor and gave to the rich, profiting from it at the people’s expense)
• Pharisee law was that if anyone worked for the Romans and collected their taxes, they were forbidden to enter the Synagogue and were treated as despised enemies.
• This man faced social rejection from his own people.
• We do not know what was happening in his personal life.
• We do know this, when Jesus said come, he got up immediately and followed Jesus.
• We see something beautiful happen in his life also…..
Mar 2:15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.
• I can imagine that Jesus met a need in Matthew’s life that he had been hungering for.
• But that was not enough for him.
• I love it that he immediately became a missionary in the only way he could imagine.
• He scheduled a party for his old buddies.
• He wanted them to meet this Jesus. An instant missionary.
• Affective? There were many and they followed Jesus.
• But when Jesus is reaching people, somebody religious gets upset…..
Mar 2:16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, "How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?"
• Why did the religious go to the disciples instead of directly to Jesus?
• Could it be they wanted to erode His support base?
• Nevertheless, the scribes and Pharisees didn’t like Jesus’ company.
• They complained that He preferred their company to the religious people.
• I think that spurred Jesus response to these religious people.
Mar 2:17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."
• It is not the well who need a physicians, but the sick.
• The Pharisees thought of themselves as well. They weren’t.
• Jesus didn’t confront that false impression.
• He just addressed the irrationality of their logic.
• If they were well, why would Jesus come to them?
• But the truth is, they were blind to their own desperation.
• If not for the trials in our lives, all of us would consider ourselves OK.
• The popular psychology system tries to teach us IM OK-YOU”RE OK.
• We find within ourselves a commitment to prove to ourselves, if to no one else, that we aren’t so bad.
• However, we never really come to believe it. Because we know…..
• And when we approach God on His throne in worship or prayer, we know….
• God offers a cleanness, wholeness, that come to us through the opposite direction than what everything else is screaming.
• God has placed in your heart not to be satisfied with anything less than a brave new life and a brave new love.
• The artificial will never do. Surrender is how we find the authentic, and find the satisfaction that has evaded us.
• Jesus demonstrated a Brave New Love in living His Brave life.
• He modeled what our Brave New Love and Brave New Life should look like.
God’s Love is Brave: He invites us to….
I. Bravely Invite the unapproachable.
• Jesus went to the individual.
• Not only the individual, but the outcast.
• This was near Capernaum.
• That means, Peter, Andew, James and John probably knew this guy.
• He probably collected from their fish catches on their way to the market.
• That is what these tax booths were far, to tax traveling merchandise.
• If you caught fish to take to market, as you passed a tax booth, you had to leave a portion of them.
• I would dare say the disciples didn’t like Matthew.
• Later, when Peter asked Jesus, “How many times should you forgive a brother, 7 times?”
• He may have been looking across the room at Matthew and remember all the times the tax collector cheated him by over-taxing his catch and keeping the surplus.
• But Jesus went looking for this one.
• Jesus illustrated this in a parable.
• The master invites his friends to his son’s wedding feast, but no one is interested in adjusting their lives for him.
• Luk 14:21 So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.'
• What a beautiful picture for the Church.
• We can bravely approach and invite those who would, for social reasons, be left outside.
• You see, if not for Jesus, none of us would be fit for God’s purpose.
• We realize that. Therefore, we invite everyone. Even IRS agents.
• Who is the unapproachable in your life? Can you sense the longing to be so brave as to love the unapproachable?
• Jesus also asks us to…
II. Bravely Include the unlovable.
• Matthew not only followed Jesus, but he held a party.
• As one said it, he invited, not the mayor, judges, deacons, Sunday school teachers, etc…
• He invited his friends, outcasts, those who were rejected like he was rejected.
• You don’t know where to start? Where does God have you today?
• Matthew started with the only people that would listen to him.
• I am certain Matt didn’t feel qualified…
• I am sure he was dealing with the fear of facing rejection….
• But a brave new life and brave new love never lets that stop us.
• Jesus wants to empower you to include the unlovable in your life.
• He wants you to overcome the fear, even the bitterness, to love those who are unlovable.
• Jesus also will give you the power to….
III. Bravely Inspect the unsightly.
• Imagine the party, food, drinks, Bonny Raite CD, Let’s give them something to talk about
• And they did.
• In this, He modeled something we should all take to heart.
• Jesus found the ones who knew they were evil to be more approachable than those of us who pretend we are OK.
• The Pharisees loved to look at others and think they were well spiritually.
• From this real life experience, Jesus drew an application:
• Luk 18:10 "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
• Luk 18:11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
• Luk 18:12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'
• Luk 18:13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'
• Luk 18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."
• These two men have something in common, although they are contrasted because of their difference.
• It’s like the arrogant man talking about his relationship with his wife.
• “She loves me so much, and so do I.”
• Both of these praying men were looking at the same thing, the life of the tax collector.
• When the Pharisee looked at the sins of the tax collector without reflecting on his own sins, he was warped and twisted in his soul.
• When the Tax collector looked at the sinfulness of his own life, in self-reflection, God straightened him out, forgiving him and cleaning him up.
• Life can mess you up because life on this earth is messed up.
• God said that in this life you will have tribulation.
• The goal is not to let the messed up world mess you up inside, and you can only accomplish that through the power of Jesus Christ.
• But that power is released only in self-evaluation.
• People have hurt us, and we developed defenses.
• We will live our lives to protect ourselves from being hurt again, perhaps by avoidance.
• “I’ll never be that vulnerable again. I’ll do anything to keep that from happening to me.”
• In doing that, we place limits on our lives, make it impossible to live free and blessed.
• Or we seek someone to rescue us or protect us. We need someone to take care of us and we seek someone who can take care of us, other than the invisible God that requires faith.
• Or we push people away by become mean and abusive. If we can’t stop this life and our relationships from hurting us, we will at least make sure others hurt.
• Or we just decide to hurt ourselves before someone else or something else gets to it. At least if we hurt ourselves, we are in control.
• All of the warping of our lives that I listed above is call sin.
• Yes, we can justify it, rationalize it, sugar-coat it, blame others.
• But the truth is, life did not do this to us. Others did not do this to us.
• We chose to respond this way and our response has warped us.
• Those who cannot and will not see their sins and warped souls are the most dangerous people in the world.
• Christians who fall into this, and we all do, are chained, restricted from freely loving and freely living as God designed.
• God is calling us to stop pretending. He has made a way for us.
• He sent His Son to die for our warped souls, and He wants to fix us, to live and love bravely and freely like He does.
• If we don’t free ourselves, we become the tax-collectors of love, granting love to those who reward us and charging a hateful price to those who do not.
• We will use love as a barter to protect ourselves, reward others, and become self-serving.
• That is opposite from what God calls to His people.
• Luk 6:38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."
• The most dangerous religious people are those who will not reflect on their own spiritual condition.
• In once sense, there are two kinds of people here today: Those who bravely look at their own sick hearts and cry for a physician…
• And those who spend their times looking at others and think they themselves are well.
• If you are saved, you want to respond to life in a brave and righteous way.
• You want to respond to trouble the way Jesus did, with grace, strength and freedom.
• You want to have the freedom Jesus talked about when He said, “Mat 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven:”
• That is the only way to keep this messed up world from messing you up.
• But to get there, you are going to have to do some reflection, asking the Spirit of God to open your eyes to the twisted you that your choices have created.
• That’s not easy nor pleasant, but that is the path to freedom, which is well worth the journey.
• Your journey to freedom and love can begin today.
