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Let’s begin by looking at the cast of characters:
Jesus: The True Witness, who, having come into the world, is the light of the world.
The Messiah. Called Rabbi, or Raboni, meaning ‘teacher’. The One who
began His earthly ministry with the public cry to ‘repent and believe in the
gospel’.
Pharisees: Meaning, ‘the separated ones’. The most powerful religious sect of the
Jews. Known primarily for their legalism, and their strict adherence to
Jewish tradition.
Scribes: The lawyers. The Pharisees were faithful followers of these, who were the
experts in interpreting the scriptures.
First century historian, Josephus, describes the Scribes and the Pharisees thus:
“A body of Jews who profess to be more religious than the rest, and to explain the laws more precisely”.
Next in our cast of characters:
Levi: Later known as Matthew, and who wrote the gospel of Matthew, the first book
of the New Testament. Prior to his calling, as we can see in our text, a tax-
gatherer; and therefore despised among other Jews, who saw the Jewish
tax-gatherers as thieves (which they often were) and traitors, because the
taxes they collected went to Rome’s coffers.
The rest of the cast in our account consists, says verse 29, of “a great crowd of tax-gatherers and other people,” ... and in verse 30 we see the Pharisees referring to them simply as ‘sinners’.
And finally, in a passive role in this instance, the Disciples of Jesus, which at this point would consist, not of the twelve as a group, but probably a small handful of people who had begun to follow Jesus early in His ministry.
The setting:
Jesus has passed by Levi’s tax table and commanded simply, “Follow Me”, and Levi’s response was to leave everything behind, and follow Jesus.
This might remind the Bible student of another tax collector, Zaccheus, who, as a result of a repentant heart and of placing his faith in this Jesus as the Promised Messiah, rejoices and throws a big party at his house, vowing to pay back 4-fold, that which he had acquired dishonestly.
C. H. MacKintosh wrote:
“God’s grace is magnified by man’s ruin. The more keenly the ruin is felt, the more highly the grace is valued.”
The most joyful converts to Christ you will ever see, are the ones who have come to realize how utterly lost and helpless they were without Him.
So Levi throws a party at his home, and I want you to notice that it is not called a “celebration for Levi”... it is not referred to as “a going away party” as Levi leaves his job to start a new life.
We’re told that he gave a ‘reception for Him”. A reception for Jesus. A banquet for Jesus. You see, true repentance is always followed by an open and joyful reception of Jesus into the life; and the focus is on Him. Not ourselves, that we are now clean and forgiven, not the church, as the appropriate recipient of our attentions and faithfulness to duty as a new member, but Jesus; the One who calls for repentance and imparts new life...His own life, and deserves all the praise and worship and glory.
So here we are now, in the home of Levi. A large crowd has gathered into this home and reclined around what was probably a long, low table. Levi is at the head with Jesus, his guest of honor, on his right. At this point in the early ministry of Jesus, some of His own disciples were probably standing back away from the table, wondering why the Master would condescend to sit and eat with these sullied people.
In fact, some of them were probably still seething inside over His having even invited Matthew, a despised tax-gatherer, to follow, side by side with them.
Standing just inside the door to the crowded house and observing the proceedings with disgust, and maybe sensing the same kind of emotions in the nearby disciples, the Pharisees hiss their grievance into the ears of the nearest followers of this itinerant Rabbi.
“Why do you eat and drink with the tax-gatherers and sinners?”
As usual, Jesus, who knows the hearts of all men, takes up the slack for his disciples and answers the question Himself; and here will be our focus for the remainder of our time today:
1. RELIGION WITHOUT REPENTANCE
2. REPENTANCE WITHOUT RELIGION
3. OF WHICH GROUP ARE YOU?
RELIGION WITHOUT REPENTANCE
By the time Jesus came on the scene, Judaism had been divided into various sects, the Pharisees being one of those, and the most influential, all over Palestine; not just in Jerusalem.
As is evidenced throughout the gospels, they practiced a religion without repentance.
In the seventh chapter of Luke Jesus offers a tribute to John the Baptist, revealing to His hearers just who John was, and what his purpose was in coming. Then the narrative of verses 29 and 30 shows us the distinct difference between someone whose heart is prepared to receive Christ, and one whose heart is not.
“And when all the people and the tax-gatherers heard this, they acknowledged God’s justice, having been baptized with the baptism of John. But the Pharisees and the lawyers (scribes) rejected God’s purpose for themselves, not having been baptized by John.”
Now, we only understand the full implication of those verses, when we understand what kind of baptism John’s baptism was:
“And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” Luke 3:3
So what the Holy Spirit is revealing to us, is not that the act of going down into the water prepared people’s hearts and minds for the coming of the Messiah, but that it was finding repentance in their heart that drew them to John’s baptism, and that it was repentance that prepared their hearts and minds for the teaching and ministry of Jesus.
The Pharisees, not having been baptized by John ~ in other words, not having found repentance and therefore rejecting John’s baptism ~ were therefore totally unprepared to receive the Messiah or His message when He came on the scene.
Let me give you an illustration from a recent event in my own life. I recently noticed a sort of shadow coming down over the top of my right eye. When I went to Dr. Cole, here in town, he examined me and sent me to a specialist in Grand Junction.
Now, I did not know what that specialist would have to do to correct the problem. I only knew that Dr. Cole said I had a detached retina, and that he could not fix it in his office, but that Dr. Waterhouse in Grand Junction might be able to. So I went to Grand Junction, prepared to receive treatment from Dr. Waterhouse, because having believed Dr. Cole’s diagnosis and putting my trust in him prepared my mind to receive also from the only one who could repair my eye.
If I had rejected Dr. Cole’s message and refused to go to the specialist in Grand Junction, I would now be blind in my right eye.
The Pharisees were very religious. They were very faithful to their interpretation of the Mosaic Law, and all their traditions.
Later on, Paul was able to assert confidently that as a Pharisee he was “...advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.” (Gal 1:14)
Where they failed; a failure that would preclude them from receiving their Messiah, was that they refused to repent. They found no place for repentance.
They had a form of religion; a religion of regulations and ordinances that called for their strict obedience...but no recognition of their basic need.
It makes sense, really. If I feel that I am doing the very best that I can do, to follow the rules and live above reproach, I may feel a sense of personal failure if I occasionally stumble, but I will never feel the need to repent.
Why say “I’m sorry”... why apologize? Apologize to whom? I’M DOING THE BEST THAT I CAN!
But they had forgotten the words of Joel (1:13) “Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.”
They had forgotten the exhortation of Hosea (14:1) “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!”
They had ignored the chastisement of Isaiah (30:15) “This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: ‘In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it’.”
People, I am afraid that this is the religion of many in the Christian church. They have a religion without repentance. At some time or another they have been persuaded to come to church. To join a Bible study, or to go to a concert or an evangelistic crusade.
Or maybe they were taken to church as a child, and drifted away in their teen or early adult years, and have come back to it as a matter of course when their lives became troubled, or they began to have a sense of their own mortality, and realized they needed to think more seriously of the hereafter...
...and for one reason or another, they’ve become completely entrenched in the church, never having said, “I’m sorry” to God!
Never having been brought to a point of understanding that THEY, not just the bad people in the world ‘out there’... not just the men and women in the jails, not just the practitioners of false religions... not just the backwards tribes of Africa or South America or some remote South Pacific Island... but THEY, need to recognize their own lost condition before God ~ realize they have wronged Him and rebelled against Him, and repent.
My friends, please believe me when I tell you; if you have a religion that did not begin with repentance ~ if you have a religion that allows you to go on,
doing your religious duties and exercises and feeling good about yourself entirely apart from an on-going and heartfelt attitude of repentance for sin in your life, then you have missed true Christianity.
When Jesus told the Pharisees that He came to call not the righteous but sinners, He did not by any means intend to imply that they, the Pharisees, were righteous.
His message to them, had they been prepared to receive it, was that it would be those who recognized that they were sinners and could not be righteous in their own strength, that would be helped by Him.
The Pharisees thought that their strict adherence to the Law and their ancestral traditions made them righteous, and they were therefore incapable of receiving the righteousness that comes from above.
They thought they were righteous, therefore they missed His call. Those in sin, who knew they were sinners, heard His call and gratefully responded in repentance, and were declared right before a Holy God.
REPENTANCE WITHOUT RELIGION
I’d like for you to hear the words of a couple of people of scripture, who came to a place of repentance before God.
Psalm 51 was written by King David, after he was confronted by the prophet, Nathan, about his adultery with Bathsheba.
Listen to verses 2-4 of that Psalm:
“Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight, so that Thou are justified when Thou dost speak, and blameless when Thou dost judge.”
In Luke 15 we find the well-known parable of the Prodigal son. By verse 17 the young man has taken his inheritance from his father, squandered it on fast living, found himself without money and without friends, and relegated to the slopping of hogs who are apparently eating better than he.
Then we’re told that he ‘came to his senses’, and this is what he said:
“How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger. I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men’.”
In the gospels we see Peter falling at the feet of Jesus and crying, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man”.
In Luke chapter 7 we see the unnamed woman of the streets, clinging to the feet of Jesus with her tears pouring out enough to wet His feet, which she then dries with her hair.
In the 18th chapter of that same gospel Jesus tells the story of the tax-gatherer in the Temple, unwilling even to lift his eyes toward heaven, but beating his breast and crying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner”. and being proclaimed Justified by Christ for his repentance.
The singular distinctive I want to point out from all these accounts, is that no form of religion was involved in any of them. No offering of sacrifices, no religious calisthenics, no penance, no candle-lighting, no repetition of prayers.
In every case we see simply a person who has come to the realization of their guilt in the presence of Holiness, a Godly sorrow for their sin, and a down-on-the-floor-stripped naked-no excuses plea for mercy from the One they have offended.
In David’s case, he has murdered Uriah so he could take the man’s wife away, after committing adultery with her, and yet in his repentance he understands that it is against God first that he has sinned, because ALL sin is first and foremost an affront to God and His holiness.
The Prodigal son determines that he will say to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and in your sight.”
The tax-gatherer has no doubt cheated many out of their money, yet he comes to the Temple declaring his guilt before God, whom he trusts to extend mercy and not judgment, and therefore goes down to his house justified.
True repentance is when by the convicting power of God’s Holy Spirit, the sinner finally has a sense of revulsion and Godly sorrow for the condition of sin in his or her heart, and comes, empty-handed and un-defensive, without pretension or ceremony, in the most personal and submissive posture he’s ever taken, and from a sincere heart says “I’m sorry”, to the only One who can truly claim offense at sin; Holiness Himself, the God of the ages...who alone can forgive and redeem and regenerate and reconcile.
The absolutely damnable thing about legalism, is that it does not allow for repentance, and when it cries for its kind of repentance, it makes repentance a religious exercise. A form. A ritual, which in time and with repetition, becomes empty and meaningless and turns no one away from sin, but only excuses it, and does not lead to any change whatsoever in the heart and life.
OF WHICH GROUP ARE YOU?
I want you to see clearly today, that in the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the first message always, always, is the need for repentance.
John came, “baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Mark 1:4
Jesus came back from His wilderness temptations and began His public ministry with the words, “The time is fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” Mark 1:15
Luke records some of the parting words of the risen Christ to his followers in chapter 24, verses 46 & 47, saying, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day; and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
On the day of Pentecost, after the coming of the Holy Spirit on those in the upper room, Peter preaches his first sermon to the masses in Jerusalem, and says, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Acts 2:38
Before the elders of the church in Ephesus, Paul said, “I have declared to both Jews and Greeks that they must turn to God in repentance and have faith in our Lord Jesus.” Acts 20:21
Peter in his second epistle, chapter 3 verse 9 says, “The Lord is not slow about His promise as some would count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.”
Something I can tell you with a certainty because I have witnessed it in my own lifetime, is that the church in our culture is guilty of, to a large degree, precluding the call for repentance in her evangelistic efforts and programs over the past 30 years.
I remember the billboards and bumper stickers and t-shirts and buttons all over Southern California proclaiming “I FOUND IT!” And when people attended the rallies or asked the wearer of the buttons what that meant, they were told that they had found peace and fulfillment and salvation in Jesus Christ. And they were invited to come along and ‘find it’ too.
So-called ‘revivals’ are widely advertised and held, with fine contemporary music and charismatic speakers. If the money is there, then celebrities are brought forward to dredge up all the muck and filth of their past lives before they ‘came to Jesus’ and were made whole....their empty lives filled with meaning and purpose, joy brought to their lackluster lives...and won’t you come along and find this joy and meaning and purpose too?
Building programs are started and ads go in the paper. Signs are put up at the building site. “LOOK WHAT WE’RE DOING! WE’RE A HAPPENIN’ PLACE! COME, CHECK US OUT!
And a congregation grows, just because the curious paid a visit, were made comfortable, were made to feel like family, and stayed...
...and where is the invitation to repent?
It’s not there, because far, far too often, there has been no attempt made to bring them to see that they are sinners!
People, there is NO COMPLETE GOSPEL MESSAGE THAT DOES NOT FIRST CONVINCE OF SIN AND CALL FOR REPENTANCE!
And I have to ask you today to stop and take a step back and look at your own situation. Don’t answer me. Be honest in your own heart and before God.
Do you have a religion without repentance? Or have you found repentance apart from religion, and gone before God humbly and in Godly sorrow and said “I’m sorry”?
Jesus told the Pharisees that it is not the well who need a physician, but the sick. He said that it was the sinner that He came to call to repentance.
It was an invitation, had they recognized it, even to the Pharisees. They were sick with self-righteousness. They were inflicted with a religion devoid of repentance.
His invitation was to come in humility and Godly sorrow and repent and be made well.
Have you, even you who may have been in the church for a long time... have you ever said “I’m sorry” to God?
Or did you come in by a side door and sit down and get comfortable, and turn into one of those who thinks that Christianity is the feeling of family and the participation and the forms and the duties and the singing and the bible study and the corporate prayer and the financial support of the entity?
Jesus sat down and ate with tax-gatherers and sinners, because they knew who they were and they were willing to turn around and be made new and become what He always intended for them to be.
No religion... relationship.
Free, glorious, uninhibited, joyful relationship with a Holy God, that started with responding to His call to repent.
Paul asked his Roman readers, “...do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?”
It’s between you and Him, hearer (reader). But know that His call for repentance is an expression of His kindness. It’s an expression of His tolerance and His patience, not willing that any should perish...but that all, all, all...should come to repentance.
If you have never said “I’m sorry” to God, won’t you pray and ask Him to grant you a heart of repentance today? It’s the first step to true Christianity, and it’s not religious. It’s relational.
