Please turn in your Bibles this morning to the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Mark. We turn this morning to an event from the ministry of Jesus that's recorded in the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and we turn to the earliest record over in Mark chapter 2, beginning in verse 13. Now these events took place in the very beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry after being anointed by the Holy Spirit in his baptism. After overcoming Satan in the wilderness for 40 days, Jesus arrived back in Galilee with the announcement in chapter 1, verses 14 and 15, the time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news. His ministry began in and around the city of Capernaum, a city on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. And it was there that he performed his first miracles. It was there that He called His first disciples, Simon and Andrew, James and John, to follow Him, to be fishers of men. And then beginning in chapter 2, Mark tells five stories in a row, five episodes from Jesus' early ministry there, of mounting conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day. We consider only one of these stories today, and that is one in which Jesus rebukes the self-righteous. And he does so in three ways, in an escalating way. First, with his strategic summons. Second, by his challenging communion. And third, by his prescribed purpose, which he reveals in his word. And in light of the self-examination to which we've been called in preparation for the Lord's Supper, may each of us be appropriately warned against self-righteousness, even as we are encouraged by this reminder that Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners to save. Read along as I follow along as I read from Mark chapter 2 beginning in verse 13. Once again, Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him and he began to teach them. As he walked along, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And on hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Here ends the reading of God's word this morning. A brief word that takes us less than a minute to read that accounts for we don't know how many days. We'd be wrong to think that this all took place on the same day. We'd be wrong to think that the Pharisees were present to witness the meal. This is a series of events, the highlights of, who knows, a number of days that are all related. And so we must not be caught off guard that this moves so fast. Mark begins in verses 13 and 14 by telling us about Jesus' strategic summons of Levi, the tax collector. Jesus is once again by the lake, that's the Sea of Galilee, teaching a large crowd as they ever gathered around him. The circumstances within the story and surrounding the story suggest that he is again in Capernaum. Capernaum was an important city on the main international highway that ran from Damascus in the north to Egypt in the south. It was the main interstate. And the Herod Antipas, the tetrarch, the leader, the ruler over Galilee, had a tax collection station there where he collected the toll, the tariff, the customs, on everything that went along that highway. And it was there at the tax collector's booth that Jesus saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, on the job. He was a Jewish tax collector working for the Jewish ruler of the state, and by virtue of his occupation alone, just the fact that he was a tax collector, he was considered not only to be a thief, recharging what the market would bear rather than what the law required, he was also seen as ritually unclean because of his regular contact with the Gentiles that traveled the highway. Because tax collectors were considered such notorious sinners in the eyes of the people, especially of the Pharisees, we can know that Levi was likely disqualified from serving as a witness in court and that he was probably, if not absolutely, excommunicated from the synagogue. He was an outcast among his own people. And so we read that as he walked along, Jesus summoned this well-known outcast by saying, follow me, meaning become my disciple, to which Levi got up and followed him and became his disciple. Luke adds in his parallel account that in doing so, Levi left everything, not just temporarily, but permanently. Now, we can't know whether or to what degree Levi might have been prepared for that moment by the miracles of Jesus in Capernaum, the healing of the sick and the casting out of demons. But we can know that his immediate and complete response is nothing less than the grace of God. The irresistible grace of God. I've called Jesus' summons of Levi's strategic for two reasons. First, we can be sure that Jesus got the attention of the Pharisees when he paid attention to and showed mercy to and called this notorious sinner to follow him. In fact, setting the stage for the major confrontation yet to come in our story. But secondly, and I believe more significantly, Jesus appointed this man as an apostle. Levi the Apostle. One who would bear witness to his earthly ministry from his baptism through his ascension. And by the decree of God, Levi would minister to the very ones who despised him, to the Jews who had cast him out. He would be a major voice of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jews in the gospel that bears his name, Matthew. In the parallel account in Matthew chapter 9, Levi is referred to as Matthew. Now, it could be that he always had two names, which was not uncommon at the time, but it's also possible that he got a new name, just as Peter got a new name, so that when he was called, he was no longer Levi, but became known as Matthew. But in either case, there's little room to doubt but the church has long accepted that the man identified as Levi the tax collector is one and the same as Matthew the tax collector who was counted among the twelve apostles in the gospel of Matthew chapter 10 verse 3. A strategic call. Well it seems that Matthew or Levi's first evangelistic effort served to be the opportunity for Jesus to further rebuke the self-righteous by his challenging communion. In verses 15 and 16, we see the summary of what happened when Levi invited his fellow tax collectors and other well-known sinners to a dinner. A dinner in Jesus' honor, where Jesus was the guest of honor. In verse 15, we find Jesus having dinner. More literally, reclining in the house. Meaning, suggesting what Luke makes very clear, that this was a great banquet. This was a major event. it probably lasted for hours, if not for days. And in the Greek, Mark tells us that many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And he goes on to explain why in verse 15, for there were many who followed him. Now some commentators suggest that Mark is here referring to the many disciples that Jesus already had that were with him, so that as a group they sat down for dinner with these tax collectors and sinners. And while that's possible, I think it misses the point that Mark is emphasizing for us, the reader, that there were many tax collectors and sinners who had already begun to follow Jesus between the time that he called Levi and the time this banquet was held. The question we need to ask is, who were these people? Who were these tax collectors and sinners? It's an expression unique to the Gospels. You'll only find it in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it's an expression that the Pharisees coined. It's an expression they used to demonize those who are not like them and to elevate themselves by comparison. Tax collectors were easily the most prominent and despised examples of this larger group that they called sinners. A group that included prostitutes, gluttons, drunkards, just to name a few. Now the word sinner certainly refers to those who break God's law as revealed in his word and that's its proper use and that's how we should use it. The Pharisees used it another way. They used it to refer to those who broke the law as they understood it, as they studied it, as they expounded on it and as they multiplied it in what is known as the Mishnah, the oral history, the oral law of the Jews. You see, to the Pharisee, someone who didn't follow the Pharisaical interpretation was a sinner. That was his category. He wasn't a Pharisee, he was a sinner. To a Pharisee, the man who did not wash his hands the required number of times or in the prescribed fashion before he ate was as much a sinner as a thief or a murderer. And because the common man was not able to and could not be educated in this law, it was a law for the scholars, a law for the scribes, a law for those that that's all they did was study. The Pharisees held the common man in contempt, something lower than themselves, insignificant, unimportant. They called the people of the land, what we might today call hicks or country bumpkins, unable to comprehend, let alone practice this law, so by default they're sinners. and so therefore when we see the word sinners in quotation marks in your Bible which you will see in your English translations it's there to let us know it's being used in the way the Pharisees used it as a label, as a caricature, as a stereotype of those who are not like them because you see by calling others sinners the Pharisees were calling themselves righteous by comparison And through their self-righteous obedience to their complex permutations on the law, they highlighted the sins in others as they became increasingly blind to their own. Well, by attending the banquet, Jesus challenged the Pharisees' division between the righteous and the sinners. According to their interpretation of the law, he that undertakes to be trustworthy, He who would be a Pharisee, he who would be righteous, may not be the guest of one of the people of the land. May not be the guest of a sinner. And among the six things inappropriate for a scholar, for a teacher of the law to do, was to recline at table in the company of ignorant persons. Jesus really stepped on their toes. And their response to his participation was not directed to him. but it was directed to some of his disciples. We read in verse 16, they ask the question, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? And their words are not so much a question as they are a challenge to Jesus' disciples intended to shake their confidence in him. They were not looking for an answer or an explanation so much as they were pressing Jesus' disciples how inappropriate it was for Jesus to commune with those sinners. in effect, they were pressing home the challenge, how can you follow as a teacher this man who eats with tax collectors and sinners, who defiles himself? How can you follow him as a teacher? Calvin comments on the mindset of the Pharisees. They're thinking in this regard, and it's helpful. He says, their thinking is, of what use was it that he should be their master? if it were not to withdraw him away from the majority of men to lead a holy life. On the contrary, he withdrew them from this respectable and passable condition into ungodly licentiousness and to pollute them with wicked companions. That's how they saw Jesus. He was a corrupter of people. For the Pharisees, if Jesus could not be counted among them the righteous, then he must be counted among the sinners. And after these five controversies from chapter 2, verse 1, through chapter 3, verse 5, that all focus on this conflict between the two, we find that the Pharisees acting on this conclusion. In chapter 3, verse 6, where we read that the Pharisees went out and began to plot how they might kill Jesus. Their mind was made up. He was not with them. He was against them. And Jesus himself announced how they viewed him in Matthew chapter 11, beginning in verse 16, when he said, John, referring to John the Baptist, John came neither eating or drinking, and they say he has a demon. The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. You see how they classified our Lord. Well, the game was on. Full court press. And our text this morning closes with Jesus putting the point on his rebuke of the self-righteous when he justified his actions by revealing his prescribed purpose. Why he came, why he went to the banquet, what he was up to. He defended himself and silenced his critics in verse 17 by making a single point with a two-part answer. Beginning with a well-known proverb that still rings true to us today. It is not the healthy who need a doctor. but the sick. Who can argue with that? This proverb has a corollary, however, a necessary consequence that Jesus was applying because it is not the healthy we need a doctor but the sick. It's the doctor's responsibility to not waste his time and his efforts on those who are well or who think themselves to be well but to attend to the sick. Now, that the healthy represent the righteous and the sick represent the sinners is clear. And it's made even more clear when Jesus applied these truths to himself. He says, I have not come to call the righteous, the healthy, the sinners. And by this he rebuked the Pharisees directly. He rebuked those who called themselves the righteous, the teachers of the law, the doctors of the law, who despised sinners instead of showing them compassion. Who heaped upon them the poison of works righteousness rather than calling them to repent and believe in the Messiah who was to come and who in fact was standing right there before them. And in contrast to them, Jesus was saying that just as a good doctor is not contaminated by the sickness of his patients, he was not corrupted by the sinfulness of sinners, nor did he approve of their actual sins. Rather, like a physician who comes near to the sick in order to cure them, Jesus came and communed with sinners in order to call them. Jesus, the only truly righteous one, came into the world to show compassion to sinners by calling them to repent and believe the good news that in Him, the kingdom of God has come near. He calls you, just as He calls me, to repent of your sins and to believe the gospel that the only begotten Son of God came into this world. He took to Himself flesh that He might be close to us, that He might stand in our place. And He lived in our place, the righteousness that God requires, the righteousness that the Pharisees thought they were doing for themselves. And He did it for us. And He shed His blood and He suffered hell and he died on the cross for his people. For us. He satisfied God's justice and he rose from the dead the third day for our justification. He ascended to the right hand of God in heaven for our sanctification and he's going to come again to bring us to himself in glory that will be glorified. Body and soul. That's what he came for. To call sinners. now the Pharisees as a group did not repent and believe in Jesus Christ we know that some did Joseph of Arimathea was a Pharisee and we have to believe that well I like to believe he had faith but as a group they rejected him they called for his death they refused to repent of their sin before God and they refused to believe that Jesus Christ was the satisfaction for their sin and there are some here today who likewise believe that they are right with God for any number of wrong reasons. And there are many here who do repent and who do profess faith in Christ, who desire to partake of Him at the Lord's Supper next week. So all of you, all of us, are to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith that we may come that we're counted among the sinners who have known Christ to come near. And toward that end, I commend to you Heidelberg Catechism question and answer 2 and question and answer 81. I strongly encourage you to read those this week as you consider preparation for the Lord's table. In question and answer 2, we ask, what must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort, this comfort being belonging to the Lord Jesus Christ, body and soul, in life and in death. What must you know to enjoy that comfort? Three things. First, how great my sin and misery are. The self-righteous are disqualified before they even begin. The self-righteous have no sense of how great their sin and misery are. And because of that, they can have, they have no way to proceed to know the comfort of the Savior. not only can they not know what follows in our consideration, they don't think they need to know. I'm fine, thank you very much. With the Pharisees of old, the self-righteous stand condemned even though they convinced themselves that the problem is with other people, not with me. So the first part of our self-examination this week is for each of us to look to our own sins instead of to the sins of our neighbor. There's no place for comparing ourselves to others. Patting ourselves on the back by comparing ourselves to the wicked sinner down the row there. Or that everybody's a sinner. We're to ask ourselves, am I displeased with myself because of my sin? Do I know how great my sin and misery are? Or am I trusting that good works, my regular church attendance, my faithful tithing, And my service in the church, my whatever, is somehow securing my place in the kingdom of heaven. That's what we need to ask ourselves. Do I know my sin and misery? For it's only when we know how great our sin and misery are that we can repent of them. And believe the second thing we need to know. And that is how I am set free from all my sin and misery. Through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. See, the self-righteous believe that they have no need for Jesus Christ. And those who do believe can be tempted to think that, well, maybe something I do plays a part. Maybe I have to obey to stay in grace. That's a temptation that we all face. But to answer that temptation, to give in to that temptation, is to declare that Jesus is but half a Savior. And if Jesus is but half a Savior, He's no Savior at all. The second part of our self-examination this week is for each of us, to whom sin still clings and which still trips us up, we're to ask ourselves, do I nevertheless trust that my sins are pardoned and that my continuing weakness is covered by the suffering and death of Christ? Do I know that Christ alone has saved me to the full and by his precious blood set me free from all my sins and misery? All my sins and misery. And do I rejoice in the righteousness he offers to the ungodly, the life he offers to the dead and the salvation which he offers to the lost not just for me but to all those sinners around me. Do I know how great my sin and misery are that I might repent? Do I know how I'm saved from all my sin and misery that I might believe? We must know both for if we only know the first but we don't know the second, then we will find ourselves pressed down by the folly of unbelief, a weight that no man can bear. We'll take the depth of our misery as a reason to despair because Christ has not come close to us. So as you examine this week, if all you know is the first thing, all you know is your sin, All you can see is blackness and hopelessness, that you are beyond hope. Don't stay there, but move on to the second thing and consider Jesus Christ this week. Consider Him as the physician who has come near to you in His word and by His spirit, that He might call to you to not only repent of that sin, but to trust Him. to have saved you from it, to have borne the load for you, and to procure the righteousness that you wish you had. Believe that he came into this world to save sinners, even those who know themselves to be the worst. For there's no sinner so corrupt or so vile or so depraved as beyond his power to save, not even you. Don't give yourself that much credit. come to Jesus return to Jesus and know that through faith in him you enjoy already the forgiveness of all your sins you enjoy the righteousness of God as your own and you enjoy life everlasting even though you may not feel it it is true for it is only when you know and believe how you're set free from your misery and your sin that you will find the motivation to pursue the third thing we need to know. And that is how I am to thank God for such deliverance. The Pharisees, the self-righteous of every age, have pursued the right end. Obedience to God's law, at least as far as they understood it. That was their purpose. That's what they wanted to do. But they did it for the wrong reason. They did it so they might be counted among the righteous. They cannot know this third thing because it only comes when we know the first two. It comes as a consequence. It comes as the fruit. It's only when we know our sin and we know how we're saved from it that we are able to be thankful. That we desire to pursue holiness. Knowing that it's something that we must work on more and more, day by day. And we do so in order to give evidence to God and to ourselves and to our neighbors that we do love the Lord Jesus Christ. That we do thank God for his deliverance. That we have an assurance that is not our own but has been worked in us by the gospel, by the power of the Spirit. And so this week, the third part of your self-examination is to ask yourself, am I grateful to God for such deliverance? Do I desire more and more to see my faith strengthened and live a more godly life? Do I desire more and more to submit my will to God's will, as He's revealed it in His Word? Do I desire more and more to see that the fruit of the Holy Spirit working in me, putting away old sins, putting on new righteousness, that I can look back over the last week or month or year or decade and see that God is at work? Do you desire that? Do you know how to thank God for such deliverance? And when you ask yourself this question, it's not to ask whether you've done enough to be righteous. That's not the question. The question is whether you know that the way to thank God is not only with your lips, but with your life. And at the same time, recognizing that you are a work in progress. That it is the Holy Spirit who works in you to will and to do that which is pleasing to God and that there's work tomorrow awaiting you, even as you're thankful for the work done yesterday. And so we examine ourselves in this way, remembering to ask ourselves in all three of these categories, let us remember that when we do so, and when we can claim no righteousness in ourselves, none, We can testify that we seek our salvation apart from ourselves based on the righteousness of Christ. Then with grateful hearts and with full assurance of faith we can come with quiet conscience to not only commune with Christ and other disciples as the body of Christ, but to feed on Christ, his body and his blood through faith in the Lord's Supper next week. And as we make a beginning, let us approach our God in prayer. Let's pray. Almighty God and Heavenly Father, we thank you for this record, this account of how Jesus rebuked the self-righteous in Capernaum. We thank you for calling Levi, Matthew, as we know him. We thank you for using him to testify to the saving work of Jesus Christ as we find it in the Gospel. we thank you also Father for the work that's reported there for the truth of the gospel that Jesus Christ came into this world to save sinners that you knew and you know our need for a physician a physician of soul the one and only who can come near to us and not be defiled the one who can give himself for us and not be undone we thank you Father for letting us see and know our sin and our misery, that we might know our need, that we might know we're sick, that we might long for a Savior. And we thank you, Father, that you have sent Jesus Christ to accomplish it. We pray, Father, this week, as we consider ourselves in light of the Gospel, that we would examine ourselves aright, that we would know all three of these things, And that we would desire to come as a result to the table of the Lord. To be strengthened and nourished for the fight that remains. We ask for your blessing on these, our efforts. And the power of your spirit for the sake of Christ in whose name we pray. Amen.