Latest / INSIGHT FOR LIVING: Biblical Wisdom For Everyday Living / Look Who Jesus Hung Out With!, Part 1
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: Imagine the most despised person in your community. The one
- 0:10Speaker 1: everyone has written off. The one no respectable person would
- 0:14Speaker 1: be caught with. Now imagine Jesus walking straight up to
- 0:17Speaker 1: that person and saying, follow me. Today on Insight for Living,
- 0:22Speaker 1: Chuck Swindoll opens Mark chapter 2 to a scene that
- 0:25Speaker 1: scandalized the religious crowd. It's a shocking encounter that reveals
- 0:30Speaker 1: the heart of God for broken people. But there's an
- 0:33Speaker 1: enemy lurking in this story, one that still steals joy
- 0:36Speaker 1: and freedom from believers today. Chuck titled today's message, Look
- 0:41Speaker 1: Who Jesus Hung Out With.
- 0:49Speaker 2: It was A.W.
- 0:51Speaker 3: Tozer, I believe, who wrote, We think of ourselves as
- 0:54Speaker 3: inhabiting some parenthetic interval between the God who was and
- 0:58Speaker 3: the God who will be. But in this ever-present now,
- 1:01Speaker 3: We are lonely with that ancient and cosmic loneliness. The
- 1:08Speaker 3: one who is lonely in this ancient now or this
- 1:11Speaker 3: ancient plague of loneliness is the one who has missed
- 1:15Speaker 3: the transcendence of God. That's part of the reason we
- 1:19Speaker 3: love the scriptures as we do. They link us to
- 1:24Speaker 3: the great lives of those that have passed as well
- 1:27Speaker 3: as to those whose lives have We're not so great,
- 1:31Speaker 3: but the record stands. And whatever is written in earlier
- 1:35Speaker 3: times is written for our learning that we, through patience
- 1:39Speaker 3: and comfort from the scriptures, might have hope. And we
- 1:42Speaker 3: find that in the second chapter of the gospel by Mark,
- 1:47Speaker 3: to which I'd.
- 1:48Speaker 2: Have you turn now.
- 1:50Speaker 3: And locate, if you will, verse 13.
- 1:54Speaker 2: We come here to one of those little vignettes.
- 1:58Speaker 3: Where you're able to sort of see a street scene
- 2:02Speaker 3: where Jesus plays an unusual role as.
- 2:06Speaker 2: He faces the legalists of his day.
- 2:11Speaker 3: Mark 2, beginning at verse 13.
- 2:14Speaker 2: 2.13 of Mark.
- 2:17Speaker 3: And he went out again by the seashore, and all
- 2:20Speaker 3: the people were coming to him. And he was teaching them.
- 2:25Speaker 3: As they passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus,
- 2:30Speaker 3: sitting in the tax booth.
- 2:33Speaker 2: And he said to him, follow me. And he got
- 2:36Speaker 2: up and followed him.
- 2:39Speaker 3: And it happened that he was reclining at the table
- 2:43Speaker 3: in his house. And many tax collectors and sinners were
- 2:48Speaker 3: dining with Jesus and his disciples. for there were many
- 2:53Speaker 3: of them, and they were following him. When the scribes
- 2:59Speaker 3: of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the
- 3:03Speaker 3: sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, Why
- 3:10Speaker 3: is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?
- 3:15Speaker 3: And hearing this, Jesus said to them, It is not
- 3:20Speaker 3: those who are healthy who need a physician, but those
- 3:24Speaker 3: who were sick. I did not come to call the righteous,
- 3:30Speaker 3: but sinners.
- 3:41Speaker 4: You're listening to Insight for Living.
- 3:43Speaker 1: To dig deeper into the gospel according to Mark, be
- 3:46Speaker 1: sure to purchase a copy of our Searching the Scriptures
- 3:49Speaker 1: Bible Study Workbooks by going to insight.org slash offer. Chuck
- 3:54Speaker 1: titled today's message, Look Who Jesus Hung Out With.
- 3:58Speaker 3: Make no mistake about it, legalism is an enemy. Legalism
- 4:04Speaker 3: isn't a well-meaning but misguided friend, but rather an aggressive
- 4:09Speaker 3: opponent to the life of joy and faith and liberty
- 4:13Speaker 3: in Christ. Legalism is a thief stealing from us our
- 4:19Speaker 3: liberty and robbing us of spontaneous joy. Legalism is a bully,
- 4:27Speaker 3: intimidating all of those who don't know how to defend
- 4:30Speaker 3: themselves from it. It is a grim-faced, guilt-giving, self-appointed judge
- 4:38Speaker 3: who indicts and pronounces shame and condemnation on all of
- 4:44Speaker 3: those who refuse to obey its ridiculous lists of unbiblical
- 4:49Speaker 3: rules and regulations. Other than that, I have no opinion
- 4:53Speaker 3: regarding legalism. Legalism cannot tolerate those who are enjoying life.
- 5:03Speaker 2: H.L.
- 5:03Speaker 3: Mencken, surely with a tongue in cheek, wrote this about
- 5:06Speaker 3: a Puritan. He says a Puritan is someone who lives
- 5:10Speaker 3: with constant fear that someone somewhere might be happy. And
- 5:16Speaker 3: I would build on that statement and borrow from it,
- 5:19Speaker 3: saying a legalist is someone who lives in a constant
- 5:23Speaker 3: search for anyone, anywhere, who longs to be free. And
- 5:30Speaker 3: there are some of you in this gathering today, and
- 5:35Speaker 3: you may or may not realize it, but you are
- 5:38Speaker 3: a part of the problem of helping people find freedom
- 5:43Speaker 3: in Christ. It's nothing new. You've been around a long time.
- 5:51Speaker 3: Back in 1963, Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, at that time
- 5:55Speaker 3: the chair of the New Testament Department at Dallas Seminary,
- 5:58Speaker 3: wrote an article that appeared in Bibliotheca Sacra, the seminary's
- 6:04Speaker 3: theological journal. And in that piece, which he entitled The
- 6:09Speaker 3: Paralysis of Legalism, Lewis Johnson wrote, One of the most
- 6:14Speaker 3: serious problems facing the Orthodox Christian Church today is the
- 6:19Speaker 3: problem of legalism. One of the most serious problems facing
- 6:24Speaker 3: the church in Paul's day was the problem of legalism.
- 6:29Speaker 2: In every day, it is the same.
- 6:31Speaker 3: Now listen closely. Legalism wrenches the joy of the Lord
- 6:36Speaker 3: from the Christian believer, and with the joy of the
- 6:40Speaker 3: Lord goes his power for vital worship and vibrant service.
- 6:47Speaker 3: Nothing is left but cramped churches. somber, dull, and listless profession.
- 6:55Speaker 3: The truth is betrayed, and the glorious name of the
- 6:59Speaker 3: Lord becomes a synonym for a gloomy killjoy. The Christian
- 7:07Speaker 3: under law is a miserable parody of the real thing.
- 7:15Speaker 4: Dr.
- 7:15Speaker 2: Johnson is right. He is right.
- 7:20Speaker 3: Now something this pervasive and something this long lasting that
- 7:24Speaker 3: goes all the way back beyond the first century A.D.,
- 7:30Speaker 3: still with us in the 21st century, something this ever
- 7:36Speaker 3: present needs to be defined. Because some of you hear
- 7:40Speaker 3: the word, but you'd be hard pressed to put a
- 7:42Speaker 3: definition on it.
- 7:45Speaker 2: So I'd like to do that for you.
- 7:46Speaker 3: And I'll give you sort of a practical overview with
- 7:50Speaker 3: these words.
- 7:51Speaker 2: What is a legalist? What is legalism? It is an
- 7:56Speaker 2: attitude of authoritarianism.
- 8:00Speaker 3: It is a desire to control other people by enforcing
- 8:07Speaker 3: an exhaustive list of do's and don'ts that leads to
- 8:12Speaker 3: the external behavior considered acceptable by the circle of legalists.
- 8:22Speaker 3: In practical terms, more so than that, it's playing king
- 8:25Speaker 3: of the mountain in other people's lives. Legalists cling to
- 8:33Speaker 3: the law at the expense of grace. Legalism emphasizes the
- 8:38Speaker 3: letter to the exclusion of the spirit. Legalism uses manipulation
- 8:45Speaker 3: to create blind obedience. Legalism promotes external appearances that seem
- 8:55Speaker 3: to be spiritual in nature, but at the core, they
- 9:01Speaker 3: represent pride.
- 9:03Speaker 2: And self-service.
- 9:06Speaker 3: Then I ask you, why on earth would such a
- 9:10Speaker 3: thing flourish? How does legalism gain a foothold in so
- 9:16Speaker 3: many lives?
- 9:18Speaker 2: Why is it ever present? There are several reasons, and
- 9:22Speaker 2: I'll be brief here.
- 9:24Speaker 3: One would be the fear and intimidation of those who
- 9:27Speaker 3: are in authority. You fall in line because you are
- 9:32Speaker 3: afraid of the one who is giving you the rules
- 9:34Speaker 3: and regulations on how to live your life, what to
- 9:37Speaker 3: do and what not to do, what to wear and
- 9:40Speaker 3: what not to wear, what to drink and what not
- 9:42Speaker 3: to drink, what to eat and what not to eat,
- 9:45Speaker 3: where to go for a restaurant and evening together with
- 9:48Speaker 3: others and where not to go, how you should respond
- 9:52Speaker 3: in certain situations, how you should appear before the eyes
- 9:56Speaker 3: of the ever-watching public. Fear of those people who give
- 10:00Speaker 3: the rules gives legalism wings to fly. Another would be
- 10:06Speaker 3: the desire to be accepted, which is a greater determination
- 10:11Speaker 3: than the desire to honor Christ.
- 10:14Speaker 2: It stems from insecurity.
- 10:16Speaker 3: Legalists feed on insecure, untaught believers, which brings up another
- 10:23Speaker 3: reason it flourishes, ignorance of the scriptures. The better a
- 10:27Speaker 3: person gets to know the word of God, by that
- 10:29Speaker 3: I mean not only the word itself, but the spirit
- 10:33Speaker 3: of the word and understanding of the truths of the scriptures,
- 10:37Speaker 3: the less and less they are inclined to bow to
- 10:41Speaker 3: the legalists. But the less you know the more deeply
- 10:45Speaker 3: entrenched a legalist can become in your life. I would
- 10:49Speaker 3: add to the hesitation to confront the manipulators and to
- 10:54Speaker 3: fight for one's freedom, which causes me to love Christ.
- 10:58Speaker 4: All the more.
- 10:59Speaker 3: He refused to let the longstanding traditionalists and legalists have
- 11:06Speaker 3: their way in his life. Nothing is wrong with tradition.
- 11:10Speaker 3: Understand that. Paul tells Timothy to embrace the traditions of
- 11:14Speaker 3: the faith. There's something terribly wrong with traditionalism. Yaroslav Pelikan
- 11:21Speaker 3: of Yale University put it very well when he said,
- 11:26Speaker 3: Tradition is the living faith of those now dead. Traditionalism
- 11:30Speaker 3: is the dead faith of those now living. Isn't that good?
- 11:34Speaker 3: Tradition is the living faith of those now dead. Traditionalism
- 11:38Speaker 3: is the dead faith of those still living. And legalists
- 11:41Speaker 3: live in the realm of dead faith. They don't say so,
- 11:47Speaker 3: but it's true. That's why Jesus said to them, you
- 11:50Speaker 3: are hypocrites, you are whitewashed sepulchers.
- 11:56Speaker 2: What does that mean? You look like you're alive, but
- 12:00Speaker 2: you've got both feet in the grave, spiritually speaking.
- 12:04Speaker 3: And if you have ever been intimidated by a legalist,
- 12:07Speaker 3: you do not forget that encounter. And let me tell you,
- 12:11Speaker 3: if you want to confront a legalist, you're in for
- 12:13Speaker 3: a fight. They not only fight fiercely, they don't fight fairly.
- 12:20Speaker 3: Because they're going to have their way. Now, with Jesus,
- 12:25Speaker 3: of course.
- 12:27Speaker 2: It led to a very interesting situation.
- 12:31Speaker 3: At first they didn't like him and so they questioned
- 12:33Speaker 3: him and that turned to disagreeing with him and criticizing
- 12:36Speaker 3: him and that ultimately led to full-on resentment, finally.
- 12:40Speaker 2: Murderous thought and ultimately a cross.
- 12:45Speaker 3: They weren't satisfied until they nailed this one to the
- 12:48Speaker 3: cross for standing against their traditionalism. How did Jesus encounter
- 12:56Speaker 3: these bullies? Well, he took them on straight ahead. He
- 13:00Speaker 3: didn't back away. He presented a grace-oriented message. He refused
- 13:06Speaker 3: to be manipulated by those who frowned and criticized. And
- 13:11Speaker 3: he stood his ground and trained a body of men
- 13:15Speaker 3: around him to do the same.
- 13:16Speaker 2: They ran scared of them, but not Jesus. Now, when
- 13:21Speaker 2: we get to.
- 13:21Speaker 3: Mark chapter 2, 13 to 17, we come to a
- 13:24Speaker 3: great place where Jesus shakes up the neighborhood. All the
- 13:28Speaker 3: people around the neighborhood of this area of Capernaum have
- 13:32Speaker 3: been listening to legalists and paying attention to those who
- 13:35Speaker 3: would stare at them and tell them how to live
- 13:37Speaker 3: their lives. They not only took the law of God,
- 13:41Speaker 3: which they really did not fulfill, and they added to
- 13:44Speaker 3: those Ten Commandments 650 and more of their own rules
- 13:49Speaker 3: and regulations. And they would make you laugh when you
- 13:52Speaker 3: see and when you read how extreme they are. So
- 13:57Speaker 3: he's engaged in getting his ministry underway in chapter 2,
- 14:01Speaker 3: verse 13. He went out again, verse 13, by the
- 14:04Speaker 3: seashore and all the people were coming to him and
- 14:07Speaker 3: he was teaching them.
- 14:08Speaker 2: Invariably, you find Jesus teaching people.
- 14:12Speaker 3: He's cultivating the ability of his followers to think. When
- 14:17Speaker 3: you follow legalists, you don't have to think. You have
- 14:19Speaker 3: to simply learn the rules and obey them. But when
- 14:22Speaker 3: you follow Jesus, you must make up your mind on occasion.
- 14:27Speaker 3: many occasions. You must determine on your own how you
- 14:30Speaker 3: handle this. He gives you precepts, he gives you principles,
- 14:34Speaker 3: and then you take them and you apply them as
- 14:36Speaker 3: a mature believer. And because you answer to the living God,
- 14:40Speaker 3: you must think through what your position is on these things.
- 14:45Speaker 2: And so he's teaching them to do that.
- 14:46Speaker 3: And verse 14 shocks us, at least it would in
- 14:49Speaker 3: the first century because of what we read. As he
- 14:53Speaker 3: passed by, he saw Levi and The son of Alphaeus
- 14:58Speaker 3: sitting in the tax booth. And he said to him,
- 15:03Speaker 3: follow me. And he got up and followed him. Now,
- 15:09Speaker 3: you read that 21st century Gentile that you are and
- 15:13Speaker 3: you yawn.
- 15:15Speaker 2: Big deal.
- 15:16Speaker 3: Another man follows him. Peter followed him. Andrew followed him.
- 15:19Speaker 3: James followed him. John followed him. Levi followed him. Wait, wait, wait.
- 15:24Speaker 2: Hold it.
- 15:26Speaker 3: You've already missed something in the verse. It says that
- 15:30Speaker 3: he was in a tax booth.
- 15:34Speaker 4: Okay?
- 15:37Speaker 3: Jesus is choosing a body of men to be his followers,
- 15:40Speaker 3: his learners, his disciples. That's what disciple means, learners. And
- 15:45Speaker 3: he's selecting those that he wanted to travel closely with him.
- 15:50Speaker 2: And he has.
- 15:52Speaker 3: He's surprised the... the Pharisees at every turn. He chooses
- 15:57Speaker 3: Galileans instead of Judeans. For the most part, untaught, non-professional individuals, virtually.
- 16:08Speaker 2: Unknown, hardworking men.
- 16:11Speaker 3: The only one that wasn't from Galilee and certainly would
- 16:16Speaker 3: have been more respected than the others was a man
- 16:18Speaker 3: named Judas. But that's another story if we were to
- 16:22Speaker 3: get into him. So he comes to a hated tax collector.
- 16:30Speaker 3: In case that doesn't ring a bell, let's make it
- 16:32Speaker 3: a little more relevant. He called someone who worked for
- 16:37Speaker 3: the IRS to be a.
- 16:39Speaker 2: Follower of his. Okay?
- 16:41Speaker 4: It's okay to laugh. It's okay.
- 16:44Speaker 3: Now I met an IRS guy just before the service started,
- 16:47Speaker 3: so it's okay for him to laugh.
- 16:50Speaker 2: Not all of them are Well, I'll let you finish
- 16:52Speaker 2: the sentence.
- 16:53Speaker 3: But Matthew was one of those. Not the kind of
- 16:58Speaker 3: guy you'd want to hang around with. In fact, I
- 17:00Speaker 3: need to inform you of tax collectors in the first century.
- 17:06Speaker 3: James Edwards, in a fine book on the gospel according
- 17:09Speaker 3: to Mark, writes this. Tax collectors were despised and hated.
- 17:16Speaker 3: Anyone who is familiar with moles and informants in Nazi
- 17:20Speaker 3: and communist regimes knew will have an appreciation for the
- 17:23Speaker 3: loathing that first century Jews felt for the tax collectors.
- 17:28Speaker 3: The Mishnah and the Talmud register scathing judgments of tax collectors,
- 17:33Speaker 3: lumping them together with thieves and murderers.
- 17:38Speaker 2: A Jew who.
- 17:39Speaker 3: Collected taxes was disqualified as a judge or a witness
- 17:43Speaker 3: in a court, expelled from the synagogue, and a cause
- 17:49Speaker 3: of disgrace to his family I'm not through. The touch
- 17:54Speaker 3: of a tax collector rendered a house unclean.
- 18:00Speaker 2: Jews were forbidden to.
- 18:01Speaker 3: Receive money and even alms from the tax collectors since
- 18:06Speaker 3: revenue from taxes was deemed robbery. Jewish contempt of tax
- 18:13Speaker 3: collectors is epitomized in the ruling that Jews could lie
- 18:17Speaker 3: to tax collectors with impunity. Tax collectors were tangible reminders
- 18:23Speaker 3: of Roman domination, detested alike for its injustice and Gentile uncleanness.
- 18:31Speaker 3: Taxation and the system of taxation was considered by the
- 18:35Speaker 3: Jew an act of treason.
- 18:37Speaker 2: I'm not through.
- 18:42Speaker 3: Kent Hughes, in his fine work on Mark, writes this.
- 18:45Speaker 3: The system consisted of two.
- 18:47Speaker 2: Categories of taxes. First, There were stated taxes. There was
- 18:54Speaker 2: a poll tax which all.
- 18:56Speaker 3: Men ages 14 to 65 and women 12 to 65
- 18:57Speaker 3: had to pay simply for the reason of being alive.
- 19:05Speaker 3: There was a ground tax, which required one-tenth of all
- 19:08Speaker 3: grain you grew, one-fifth of all wine you owned, and
- 19:12Speaker 3: one-fifth of all oil you produced. In some places, the
- 19:16Speaker 3: Romans also exacted a tax on.
- 19:19Speaker 2: Fish that you caught.
- 19:22Speaker 3: Very possibly, this was done in Capernaum, where the fishing
- 19:24Speaker 3: industry was so vital. Finally, there was an income tax,
- 19:28Speaker 3: which was 1% of everyone's annual income.
- 19:32Speaker 2: We're not through. In the stated taxes, there.
- 19:35Speaker 3: Was not much room for extortion, but in the second
- 19:39Speaker 3: area of taxes, duties, there was ample opportunity for abuse.
- 19:44Speaker 3: The people paid separate taxes for using roads and docking.
- 19:50Speaker 2: In harbors.
- 19:51Speaker 3: There was a sales tax on certain items as well
- 19:54Speaker 3: as import and export duties.
- 19:56Speaker 2: A tax was even paid on a cart.
- 19:58Speaker 3: In fact, each wheel was taxed. The system fostered exploitation
- 20:05Speaker 3: by the arbitrary power of the tax gatherers. They could
- 20:09Speaker 3: stop anyone on the road, make him or her unpack
- 20:12Speaker 3: their bundles, and charge just about anything they wanted if
- 20:16Speaker 3: the person could not pay. The tax collectors sometimes would
- 20:20Speaker 3: offer to loan them money at an exorbitant rate, thus
- 20:25Speaker 3: pulling the people further into their greedy hands. They were
- 20:28Speaker 3: trained extortionists. Quite naturally, they attracted a criminal element of
- 20:35Speaker 3: thugs and criminals and enforcers, the scum of society. So
- 20:40Speaker 3: rare was honesty in the profession that a Roman writer
- 20:44Speaker 3: said he once saw a monument to an honest tax collector.
- 20:50Speaker 3: These are despised, despicable, scum of the earth people. And
- 20:55Speaker 3: Jesus walks into the tax booth and says to Matthew,
- 21:01Speaker 3: follow me. And to make matters even more amazing.
- 21:08Speaker 2: He closed up his shop. He closed up his books.
- 21:14Speaker 3: He wrote off all of the stuff he'd been doing.
- 21:17Speaker 3: And he followed Jesus.
- 21:22Speaker 2: We read it right here. He got up and Levi
- 21:29Speaker 2: followed him.
- 21:30Speaker 3: By the way, another name for Levi is Matthew. In
- 21:33Speaker 3: case you wonder if he had his life changed, the
- 21:36Speaker 3: first of the four gospels bears his name. In following Jesus,
- 21:44Speaker 3: his life is transformed.
- 21:48Speaker 2: Now, it isn't over.
- 21:50Speaker 3: We see that Society has written off a man like this.
- 21:55Speaker 3: We certainly can be sure the Pharisees and scribes, who
- 21:59Speaker 3: were the most conservative among the Jews, despised those people
- 22:05Speaker 3: and certainly by now are puzzled that Jesus would have
- 22:11Speaker 3: one of these men as a part of his band
- 22:14Speaker 3: of brothers following him. There wasn't a legalist on the
- 22:21Speaker 3: planet who would have ever given Matthew the time of day.
- 22:24Speaker 3: And on this day, Jesus stoops over, steps into the
- 22:28Speaker 3: tax booth and invites Matthew to follow him. Well, believe me,
- 22:35Speaker 3: the word traveled not only to the enemies, but to
- 22:39Speaker 3: his friends.
- 22:39Speaker 2: Turn to Luke chapter five. Would you do that? Come
- 22:43Speaker 2: along with me. Luke chapter 5.
- 22:44Speaker 3: I want you to see a scene that Luke paints
- 22:48Speaker 3: a little more vividly than.
- 22:51Speaker 2: Mark does. I've come to Luke 5, 27. Here we go.
- 22:54Speaker 2: Watch closely.
- 23:13Speaker 3: And Levi gave a big reception for him in his house. Now,
- 23:19Speaker 3: don't go any further. Levi thinks, wow, he's invited me
- 23:25Speaker 3: to follow him, and certainly he's worth following. Goodness knows
- 23:29Speaker 3: what I've been doing is going nowhere, and I can't
- 23:32Speaker 3: live with myself any longer. I'm going to be a
- 23:35Speaker 3: follower of his. I'm going to invite my friends to
- 23:39Speaker 3: my home, and I'm going to have all of them
- 23:43Speaker 3: Meet him just as I have.
- 23:44Speaker 2: We'll keep reading. Okay, here we are.
- 23:46Speaker 3: Gave a big reception for him in his house and
- 23:48Speaker 3: there was a great crowd of tax collectors. So now
- 23:52Speaker 3: they've multiplied. They've metastasized.
- 23:56Speaker 2: We got more of them on the scene.
- 23:58Speaker 3: So here they are sitting down with one another and
- 24:01Speaker 3: they're reclining at the table.
- 24:03Speaker 2: With each other. And Mark tells us there were sinners
- 24:07Speaker 2: among them.
- 24:08Speaker 3: There were other people that were off the street. Folks
- 24:13Speaker 3: you wouldn't find in the synagogue. There were street walkers.
- 24:17Speaker 3: There were extortionists. There were pickpockets. Now back to Mark 2.
- 24:23Speaker 3: This gets so good. I love scenes like this.
- 24:28Speaker 2: Verse 15.
- 24:29Speaker 3: It happened that he was reclining at the table in
- 24:31Speaker 3: his house. Many tax collectors and sinners were dining with
- 24:35Speaker 3: Jesus and his disciples.
- 24:36Speaker 2: For there were many of them. Don't stop reading. And
- 24:40Speaker 2: they were following him. They were following him.
- 24:45Speaker 3: They, tax collectors and sinners, were following Jesus.
- 25:00Speaker 4: They were following him.
- 25:01Speaker 1: Tax collectors, sinners, the very people polite society had thrown away.
- 25:06Speaker 4: Isn't that the wonder of it? Jesus didn't wait for
- 25:09Speaker 4: them to clean themselves up. He welcomed them just as
- 25:12Speaker 4: they were because he saw what they could become. Maybe
- 25:16Speaker 4: you felt written off, too far gone, too messed up
- 25:19Speaker 4: to belong. Well, Chuck Swindoll wants you to hear this
- 25:22Speaker 4: bold and simple truth. There's a place at his table
- 25:25Speaker 4: for you right now, just as you are. This is
- 25:29Speaker 4: Insight for Living. Chuck titled his message, Look Who Jesus
- 25:32Speaker 4: Hung Out With. As you're out and about these days,
- 25:35Speaker 4: I'm sure you've noticed the holiday decorations appearing in public spaces.
- 25:39Speaker 4: not only for Thanksgiving, but Christmas too. Well, to help
- 25:43Speaker 4: you keep your family spiritually grounded during the Advent season,
- 25:46Speaker 4: we'd like to send you a devotional book that's published
- 25:49Speaker 4: exclusively by Insight for Living. Everlasting Light is a 25-day
- 25:54Speaker 4: Advent devotional that invites you to step out of your
- 25:56Speaker 4: busy schedule and into a prayerful rhythm of waiting, reflection,
- 26:00Speaker 4: and preparation. This includes scripture to anchor your heart, a
- 26:05Speaker 4: quote from Chuck Swindoll to shape your thinking, and pastoral
- 26:08Speaker 4: reflections from our own Carlos Sesueta to carry into your day.
- 26:12Speaker 4: This hardcover devotional is ready today, so you'll receive it
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- 26:29Speaker 1: We want you to receive and bask in God's gift
- 26:32Speaker 1: of everlasting light. And it's also a gift to give away.
- 26:36Speaker 1: In that spirit, we invite you to partner with Insight
- 26:38Speaker 1: for Living to shine God's everlasting light in your community,
- 26:42Speaker 1: across this nation, and even across the world. You can
- 26:45Speaker 1: give a contribution right now by going to insight.org slash
- 26:50Speaker 1: donate or call us at 800-772-8888. When you give, remember
- 26:52Speaker 1: to request the 25-day Advent devotional called Everlasting Light.
- 27:09Speaker 2: I'm Bill Meyer.
- 27:10Speaker 1: Chuck Swindoll offers four liberating guidelines for standing up to
- 27:14Speaker 1: the legalists in our lives.
- 27:16Speaker 4: Thursday on Insight for Living.
- 27:21Speaker 1: The preceding message, Look Who Jesus Hung Out With, was
- 27:24Speaker 1: copyrighted in 2010 and 2026, and the sound recording was
- 27:28Speaker 1: copyrighted in 2026.
- 27:30Speaker 4: By Charles R.
- 27:31Speaker 1: Swindoll, Incorporated. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted
- 27:37Speaker 1: material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.