Can you imagine living in an environment where you are told that you are cursed by God, unloved, unacceptable, and a social outcast? As a result you would probably feel marginalized and rejected and have no clue about how to come to God in your current state. Many established religions today put people under a measure of guilt and shame and in many cases easily so, because no human being is perfect and I believe each of us instinctively knows that we couldn’t stand before a holy, perfect, righteous God based on our own goodness. Our culture does the same thing by implying you're not rich enough, smart enough, savvy enough, fast enough, strong enough, good looking enough, etc. But this type of mentality becomes quite oppressive.
How will I know if I’m good enough or have done enough to be accepted by God? How can I know God loves me? This was the spiritual climate at the time of Jesus. Can you imagine the hope that Jesus Christ brought to a whole class of people that believed they were always on the outside? Right in front of everyone and especially the religious leaders, he cast out demons from possessed people, touched a man full of leprosy and healed him. Then He heals a paralyzed man, forgiving him of his sin, restoring him physically and lifting him up. Afterwards Jesus leaves Capernaum and heads for the the edge of town, near the lake to meet and eats with what the religious people would call the lowest of the low, a tax collector named Levi. Please turn with me to Luke 5:27 - 39.
27 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, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 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?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” 33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” 34 Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” 36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’?”
As we read this passage we see Jesus’:
Call to follow
Cure
Call to the new
Jesus’ Call to Follow
When Jesus went to the shore he ‘saw’ Levi a tax collector sitting with his tax collector friends by the customs house. It means that Jesus did not just notice Levi, He was observing him intently as a spectator. And when He saw Levi He called him to follow. What was the thing about tax collectors that offended religious and upright citizens in society? They were disreputable, greedy, charging people way more than they should to put money in their own pockets. They were traitors because they worked for the Roman government who was considered the enemy of the Jewish nation. No one had anything to do with tax collectors except other people in that profession because people despised and looked down on them. They were stigmatized by society, just like people turn their noses down on any dishonorable or shady type of profession today.
These people were not allowed in the synagogues or the temple as they were considered worse outcasts than lepers, they were considered untouchables. The Pharisees and religious people made sure they were never associated with these people and didn’t even come near these types. Jesus knew this and these tax collectors knew what people thought about them as well. I think that is true for anyone who is ostracized or stigmatized by society for whatever reason.
The Pharisees only saw people’s failures but Jesus saw Levi’s need and went after him as an outsider (verse 27) and called him to follow Him. Immediately, without hesitation, the lowest of the low responded to Jesus. He left behind his business and everything it represented and became a disciple, a continued as a lifelong learner and follower of Jesus. Levi responded to Christ’s call to follow Him, salvation had come to his house. He was no longer defined by his past, nor his sin, nor by what people said about him. Jesus called him, restored his life, and he became a new creation. Jesus gave Levi life and purpose and in response, Levi threw a lavish banquet at his house and invited all his friends, who happened to be tax collectors and sinners, the lowest of the low to meet with and eat with Jesus. Verse 30
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?”
The word for sinner - hamartolos is one of Luke’s characteristic words. Luke does not use the term sinner in a insulting way but compassionately, “as a common term applied to those who were isolated from Jewish religious circles because of their open sin, their unacceptable occupation or lifestyle, or their paganism. Luke shows that these sinners are the objects of God’s grace through the ministry of Jesus.”
In other words Jesus was sharing a meal with a group of people who would have been social and religious outcasts in first-century Judea and who were, at least in practice, God-rejecters. This was significant because:
To share a meal with another person was, in effect, to extend an offer of friendship and acceptance... sharing a meal was “an offer of peace, trust, brotherhood, and forgiveness; in short, sharing a meal meant sharing life.”
Jesus ate with sinners. He was extending grace to them, acceptance, open arms — before they had repented or changed anything about their lives. Everything Jesus and His disciples were doing and saying rocked the old system. The Pharisees complained to Jesus’ disciples - what is wrong with your teacher? The old way of dealing with the spiritually sick would have been to shut them outside the camp, to avoid them. Jesus, however, came to the sick outside the camp and
2. Brought the cure. Jesus said in vv. 30-31:
“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 sick need a doctor, and Jesus healed them; likewise the sinful need mercy, forgiveness, restoration, hope and Jesus healed them. The Pharisees … did not understand the purpose of Jesus’ mission. Expecting a Messiah who would crush the sinful and support the righteous, His mission was characterized by grace, a pursuit of the lost, of sinners. But they had little place for one who accepted and transformed the sinner.
The cure was mercy, forgiveness, restoration, and hope. Jesus came to call those who recognized their own sinfulness, their own inability to deliver themselves from sin and need for God’s forgiveness.
Bridgeway Bible Dictionary says:
Repentance involves a complete change in the mind and will of the one who comes to believe. It is more than mere sorrow for sin; it is turning from our sin to God. Some people may be sorry for their sin because of its consequences or because they were caught but never change, never turn to God, that is only regret.
Godly repentance means the Spirit gives the sinner a personal understanding and conviction that the facts concerning his or her spiritual state are true. Those facts are about their personal sin, the eternal punishment because of sin, the substitutionary nature of Jesus’ suffering for sin, and the need for faith in Jesus to save them from their sin. Such repentance is something only God can give them the power to do (John 6:44; 2 Tim 2:25). Therefore, true biblical repentance will always result in a change of behavior. Maybe not instantly, but inevitably and progressively..
Jesus was talking about the spiritually sick, who desired healing. What he wasn’t talking about were people who know they are living in sin and continue in their destructive lifestyle that hurt themselves and others. Those who turn from their sin and to God like Levi did will find mercy, forgiveness, restoration, hope, and peace. As they follow him, God will give them the power to be changed. Do you know what happened to Levi after he left his old, immoral profession and lifestyle? He became one of the 12 apostles and wrote the Gospel of Matthew.
Contrast that with the Pharisees, who did not recognize their own sinfulness and need for salvation through Jesus the Messiah. They trusted in their own observance of the law, man made rules and traditions to make themselves righteous before a holy God and then they imposed these rules, regulations and traditions on those around them. Levi, later, Matthew, had great joy, the Pharisees only got angrier and angrier.
The Good News that Jesus brought was foreign to the Pharisees and teachers of religious law - incompatible with their system of belief and practice.
In verse 33 They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.”
In verse 33 - What appears to be a question is more like an accusation. Why is it that we fast and pray, and John’s disciples fast and pray but You and your disciples don’t?
In the OT, fasting was often associated with repentance and grief. But the Pharisees went beyond what fasting was intended for - to be in close fellowship with God, they made it part of their religious observations. For them, fasting was an outward act of proving their spirituality and one way to gain acceptance from God. Their concept of God was so far from the truth and they were actually upset that Jesus and his disciples were joyful and celebrating life. They were in effect saying, “You should be somber and serious about your religion.” But Jesus defends His actions in vv. 34-35, describing a relationship with God as a cause for celebration:
“Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast” (34-35).
Jewish weddings are not like our western weddings that just last a few hours. Their weddings and receptions lasted up to a week and were times of great joy, feasting, and celebrating. No one would think about fasting at a wedding. That would put a real damper on the day. The Messiah is here and salvation has come to Levi’s house. This is not a time for fasting but feasting, this man’s life and destiny has been forever changed, his past is gone, sins forgiven and you want us to be somber about it? There will be a time to fast, but not when the Messiah is present. Jesus was making a stark distinction between the dry formality of the old existing religion which appeared glorious on the outside but was lifeless on the inside as compared to this radically new life that He was talking about. These two ways are incompatible. Jesus illustrates his point with a parable in 36-39 with a:
3. Call to the new
“No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old (worn out and decrepit) one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. (SLIDE) And no one pours new (in quality) wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
One commentator said,
Patching an old garment with a new cloth and putting new wine into old wineskins are just as inappropriate as fasting at a wedding feast.
Luke emphasized the word new 7 times in these four verses. Those that place their faith in Christ will experience a radically new life in quality and in time.
2 Cor 5:17 says, Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creation [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].
Jesus was saying that this Gospel, the Good News is incompatible with any and all other religious beliefs. It is exclusive and stands alone. The idea that the Christian gospel can mix with or blend with any other religious system in any way is absolutely wrong. You cannot mix the Gospel with legalism, liberalism, Buhdism, Hinduism, Muslim, Mormonism or Jehovah's Witness, New age, Christian Science or any other religion. It is not inclusive of other religions, it is not the same as other religions - in other words, all paths do not lead to God. Ravi Zacharias said:
“All religions are not the same. All religions do not point to God. All religions do not say that all religions are the same. At the heart of every religion is an uncompromising commitment to a particular way of defining who God is or is not and accordingly, of defining life's purpose.”
Jesus didn't come to patch up Judaism. He didn't come to improve on other religions. Salvation only comes through Christ, by grace through faith. It is not salvation by grace plus works that saves you. Luke, the author of this Gospel makes it clear that salvation only comes through Christ when he later recorded in the book of Acts.
And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved [for God has provided the world no alternative for salvation] (Acts 4:12 AMP).
The apostle Paul made it clear that salvation is apart from works when he wrote,
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it (Eph 2:8-9 NLT).
He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit (Titus 3:5).
J Vernon McGee said:
This is the message that the Lord gives out today. He came to give us something new. He came to save us by faith in Him. This entire chapter points in one direction, and that is to present the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ in as many ways as possible so that mankind might hear and have an opportunity to choose whether they will accept Him or reject Him. All of us must make this decision for ourselves.
Jesus is the only one who paid for the sins of the world. He is the only one who was raised from the dead and promises that if we make the decision to respond to this glorious gospel, that we will also one day be resurrected from the dead, to live in His presence in heaven forever and ever.
In verse 39
And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, 'The old is better.'
Unfortunately, even after all that Christ has done to make salvation possible, to bring in the new and better way, we see that there are some, like the religious Pharisees, who will reject His call, His cure for sin because they want to follow their old ways of thinking and living. They are not even willing to taste the new wine because they are so set in their old ways.
Jesus calls us to follow Him, to leave the old behind and follow the new, He calls us to change our minds, calls us to a new life. He calls us to share this Good News with others and to connect others to the Savior.
