Latest / Mercy Presbyterian Church / The Gospel Feast (Mark 2.13-17)

Transcript

The Gospel Feast (Mark 2.13-17) · Mercy Presbyterian Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good afternoon, everyone, and I want to welcome you again to Mercy.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Rob Heron, I'm the pastor here.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are here, it's possible that you are familiar with Mercy.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're here and you're familiar, I'm really glad.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's also possible that you're here and you're some kind of curious.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're curious about a new-ish sign popping up on Holbrook, or you're curious about what a church plant looks like.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You may be here because you are curious about the claims that Christians make.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are any sort of curious and you're here, I'm glad.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are here to proclaim what God has made known about himself, but also to openly investigate what God has said and made known about himself, to make the case every single week that what God says is good and true and beautiful.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say God has said or God has made himself known, I'm talking about the Bible.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Christians believe that the Bible is not merely a book with words in it, but that it is a book that is God breathed, that the words in the Bible have been breathed out, spoken by God, and they continue to speak to us because they're the words of the living God.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's essentially important.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important to the church because that means that God has not left us in darkness.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, he has made himself known in these breathed-out words so that we would receive him, trust him, enjoy him, and love him.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because above all, what's made known here in the Bible is God's great love for us in Jesus.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so we, as God's people, gather every single week to be about our first order of business, which is listening.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not primarily to me, but to God's word.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so my job every week is simply to restate, re-proclaim what God has made known about Himself, so that we all would listen and believe it.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So we all would be strengthened to proclaim it.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so we all would begin to learn how to embody the beauty of God's word together to one another and to our neighbors.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so with that in mind, we're continuing in our fall series on the gospel of Mark.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Mark invites us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, he's the Son of God, and that he came into the world to ransom us from our sins.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: And last time we were looking at Mark a few weeks ago, we looked at chapter 2, 1 through 12, focusing on how the gospel clarifies our need.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Today, as we look at 2, 13 through 17, we're going to look at how the gospel leads to a feast.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: How the gospel leads to the feast.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: So with that in view, let's give our attention now to God's Word.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mark 2, 13 through 17.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as he passed by he saw Levi, the son of Alpha, sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he rose and followed him.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The grass withers, the flower fades.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Merciful God, we humbly submit ourselves, asking you as children to our Father, that the seed of your word would be sown in us, and let it take such deep root that neither the burning heat of trials cause it to wither, nor the cares of this life choke it, but as seed sown in good ground, let it bring forth thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold according to your purpose and for the sake of your kingdom.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Give your spirit to open our ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to trust, and direct our hearts above all through your word to Jesus, so that we might believe and have eternal life in Him.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: This we ask, Father, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the name of your Son.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Weddings are very naturally connected to feasts or to big meals.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: I recently officiated a wedding that was in an open air chapel.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I was officiating this wedding, as the bride was going down the aisle to her groom, you could look out through the open windows of this chapel, and you could see the reception area in this courtyard to the side that was already set up with amazing long tables and all these fancy plates and cups out, and all of the meal, kind of the buffet set off to the side.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: The feast was set.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was the most natural thing when the wedding was over, and I pronounced that the husband and the bride were husband and bride, then I invited everyone to just move out from the open air chapel and go to the courtyard for the feast.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The feast was set, so it was natural for me to say, be led to the feast.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: What would have been really unexpected and really unnatural is if after I pronounced husband and wife, I said, the groom and the bride are so glad that you came, but now if you could go to your vehicles and leave.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can drop your presents off by the side, but you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: That would be really unnatural because weddings don't naturally connect to a shrug.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't naturally lead to a shrug.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, folks.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: It also would be really unnatural and really unexpected if after I pronounced husband and wife, if I said the groom and the bride, they are so glad that you came.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you would head down to the parking lot where we have a CrossFit gym set up for you down there for workout.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter that you're wearing your tux or your dress, time to burn some calories.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: If they're weddings, you can't say no.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: That would have been really unexpected, really unnatural, because weddings don't naturally lead to burdensome tasks.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: At least for me, that would feel like a burdensome task.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Weddings don't naturally lead to a shrug.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: They don't naturally lead to being burdened.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They naturally lead to a joyful feast.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the heart of the Christian faith is the gospel, and like a wedding, the gospel naturally and always leads or connects to a feast.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: And this makes a lot of sense because the gospel is pictured well by a wedding.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the news that Jesus has lived and he's died and he's risen from the dead so that we would be brought into permanent union with God.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so the gospel naturally and always leads to a feast because, like a wedding, the gospel calls for celebration.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And with or at weddings, the feast helps you see what the big point of marriage is.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Marriage isn't just another relationship, it's not an acquaintance.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And marriage isn't meant to be a burden.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the feast emphasizes that the wedding is cause for celebration.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in a similar way, the picture of a feast emphasizes the meaning of the gospel.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: A feast emphasizes that the gospel is really good news.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's worth emphasizing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel shouldn't make us shrug, it shouldn't make our hearts feel cold.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel brings us into the joy of intimacy with God Himself.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, the gospel naturally leads to a feast.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel should not lead us to feel burdened.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It shouldn't lead us to feel like the second I believe, my focus should be on all the things that I should do and haven't done, or all the things that I shouldn't have done and I have done.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're honest, our response to the gospel may be a shrug.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Our hearts may feel cold when we hear it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to see more clearly how the gospel leads to the feast.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And our response to hearing the gospel may also be to feel burdened.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We may hear the gospel and process it as though somehow it's a call toward a spiritual workout.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that you hear the gospel and that leads you then to focus on all the list of the things that you should do better, all the religious or spiritual things you should do better.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you feel like if the gospel does lead to a feast, you're excluded from it.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: The invite doesn't come your way because you haven't earned the right to attend.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's how we feel, we need to see all the more clearly how the gospel leads to the most incredible feast.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that feast is freely and openly and totally set for you.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I want us to see today by looking at Mark 2.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel leads to the feast.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel leads to the feast.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to help us see what that means by looking at three aspects of the feast.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: We'll look at the invitation, the guests, and the host.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: The invitation, the guests, and the host.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: So first let's look at the invitation.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And let me start out by speaking directly to the kids.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a kid in this room, you raise your hand so I know who I'm talking to.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Great.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Every week I want to speak more directly to the kids at some point so you know more of what I'm saying, so you can better understand what the Bible is saying.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been invited to something that you were excited about?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like have you ever been invited to a birthday party?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: You ever been invited to a friend's house to play with that friend?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's so exciting about being invited to a birthday party or to a friend's house?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine if you get invited over to a friend's house and you show up and your friend says, Oh, I'm actually leaving.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go and head over to someone else's house, but you can stay here and play with all my toys while I'm gone.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think for at least for some of you, that might feel more sad than glad.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because you were excited about going and playing with new toys with your friend.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so you would wonder, why did you invite me over and then leave?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to come over and play with you.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You can imagine also if you get invited over to a friend's birthday party and they say, Oh, I'm so glad you're here.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But before you come in to the party where we've got the bounce house and the pinata and all the good cake and all the good cookies, I want you to go clean my room.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when you clean my room and you finish that, then you can come into the party.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: You would feel pretty hurt and disappointed.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because you would wonder, I thought you wanted me to come over and be at your party.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Did you really want me to come over to the party, or did you just want me to come over and clean your room for you?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how this helps us understand what the Bible is saying.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus invites us to come and be with him.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus invites us to come and be with him.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not like a friend who invites you over and then leaves because he wants to be with you.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: He wants you to be with him.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is not like a friend who invites you over and then makes you do a bunch of chores and clean his house before you can come into the party.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus invites you to come and be in his party because he wants to be with you.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he wants you to be with him.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because he loves us and he wants us close.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for tuning in, kids.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at these verses as we jump into the passage, that helps us, I think, understand a bit of the kind of invitation that Jesus gives to this man, Levi.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is continuing his preaching ministry in the town of Capernaum, where he's made his home base.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we look at the beginning of chapter two, Jesus proved that he has the authority to forgive sins when he heals the paralyzed man.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And here basically Jesus is taking out his authority to forgive out for a spin, showing what it looks like worked out in his interactions with people.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can see the way Mark records his interaction with the man, Levi, starting there in verse 14.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as he passed by, Jesus saw Levi the son of Alphea sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he rose and followed him.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll talk more about who Levi is and his job as a tax collector in a bit, but let's focus now on the invitation itself.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes to Levi and he says, Follow me.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And wherever this invitation is found in the gospel accounts, it is a call to discipleship.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And discipleship essentially is the life of following Jesus, trusting him, learning from him, receiving his direction for your life.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And because of who Jesus claims he is, Lord and King, to be his disciple means that Jesus must be your Lord, your King, your teacher, even your master.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that immediately likely makes us think discipleship has to do with all these actions.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Stop doing what you're doing, come and start doing new things.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Come stop where you're going and come and go where I go.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus' invitation definitely involves that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the way Mark records Jesus' invitation to Levi tells us what's at the heart of the invitation.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, follow me, Levi follows.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the next thing we read in verse 15 is that Jesus is feasting with Levi at his house.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this event is also in Luke's gospel account, and Luke makes clear that where this is happening is Levi's house.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus' invitation, follow me, immediately leads to Jesus feasting with this new disciple.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Even feasting at his house.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus' invitation is follow me to the feast.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And follow me so that I might bring the feast to you, right where you are, just as you are.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing the feast to you.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus invites people to follow him so that he might be with them.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: So he might feast with them.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so they would be with him.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel invitation is an invitation to follow Jesus to his feast.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation, most of all, and first of all, not to action or changes in behavior or anything on our part that we might do.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's an invitation, first of all, to be with Jesus.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's the invitation.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, following Jesus leads to a changed life.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the heart of Jesus' invitation is come to the feast.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in the same way that Jesus brought the feast to Levi's house, Jesus invites you to trust him so he might bring the feast to you.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right where you are, just as you are, before anything else, before any action, before any change of behavior, his purpose is to bring his presence into your life.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's what the feast is.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus' presence.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: To bring his presence even into your heart and your soul and your mind and everything.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so if we hear the gospel invitation and we shrug, then we're not clearly hearing the invitation that flows out of the gospel.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because the Lord of the universe wants to bring his presence freely into your life in the form of a feast.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if we hear the gospel and we feel burdened, immediately thinking of all the things that we need to do better, all the ways we want to personally change and we feel like we just never can really accomplish, then we need to more clearly hear the invitation that flows out of the gospel.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't invite you to do chores or clean up before you can join the party.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: He invites you right where you are, just as you are, come to the feast.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trust me, I'll bring the feast to you.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I mean when I say the gospel leads to the feast.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel calls out with this invitation to follow Jesus to his feast, and he brings it to us.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Second, let's focus on the guests.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout Mark's gospel account, Jesus is totally at odds with the Pharisees or the scribes, the religious leaders and elite.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the points of greatest tension was Jesus' guest list, the people he ate with, the people he hung out with, the people he feasted with.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And a great example is Levi.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Levi was a tax collector.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: No one likes being taxed, I don't think.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can start to get a sense of the public feeling at the time toward a guy like Levi by thinking about maybe public feeling at the moment toward IRS agents.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: But the resentment, it goes way, way deeper than that.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ancient Galilee, which included Capernaum, was ruled over by the Roman Empire.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Rome, of course, it taxed its subjects, but it needed the help of moles.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Not like the animal moles, but traitorous insiders from the people being taxed to help farm these taxes and give them to Rome.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so tax collectors were these traitorous insiders that had in the eyes of the public betrayed their own people.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so they were shunned, outcasted, detested.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it shocked and outraged the scribes of the Pharisees, which is really the inner circle of the inner circle of the religious elite.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: That, see in verse 15, you can see there.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Tax collectors were looked at as moral others.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were in a different moral category than the Pharisees.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: They were unquestionably unacceptable.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so to associate with them was to put your own judgment into serious question.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: In the same vein, the term sinners referred not to people who had made a few mistakes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: These were people who were viewed and considered morally disgusting.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: The kind of people you would be nervous to be captured with in an Instagram post.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: And these tax collectors and these sinners made up Jesus' guest list.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that helps us get into the mind of the scribes, the Pharisees, who see Jesus' guest list, either meaning they they saw what was happening from a distance or they heard about it after the fact.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they do a spit take.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're so shocked.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can see in verse 16 where they asked Jesus' disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what scandalized these Pharisees, these religious elite, was not that Jesus would eat with people who had a bad history.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's that he would feast with these people while they were still sinners, before they cleaned up their act, before they got public opinion changed through good behavior, through a PR campaign.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it scandalized them because while these guests on the inside of the feast were these people who were acknowledged to be the moral worst, the worst of the worst, they're on the inside.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, the scribes of the Pharisees publicly acknowledged to be the best of the bunch, the most righteous bunch.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're on the outside looking in.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus here's the question, and he responds in verse 17.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, he's showing how ignorant they are of his purpose.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It would make as much sense for a doctor to keep his distance from the sick as it would for the Savior to keep his distance from sinners.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: His purpose was to make the sick well, spiritually sick, so he invites the sick.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: His purpose was to feed the spiritually starving, and so he invites the hungry.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: The only precondition to getting the doctor's attention is to be sick.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: The only precondition to being at Jesus' feast is to be hungry.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love TV medical dramas because partly because I don't know anything about medicine or science or much of the world.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's all fascinating to me.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm watching many things and uh they could convince me of anything.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: But it's also engaging.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love watching ER dramas because it's such a high-stakes context.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I'm ignorant, I know the word triage in these shows, and at least in my mind, it means this is how you make sure people who come into the ER who have the most urgent need of care get that care.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: In the ER, it's not about who arrives first, it's about who needs the doctor's attention most urgently.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so if someone comes in after a tragic car accident, wheeled in on a stretcher, the doctors are going to swarm to this patient and give their most careful attention to him.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever comes to Jesus is like the car accident patient.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Whoever comes to Jesus, all of us, wheeled in on the stretcher in desperate need.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so the reason the tax collectors and the sinners are getting so much of Jesus' attention is not that they're the sickest.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that they know they're sick and they need the doctor.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's only those who know they need the doctor's healing cure that will go to the doctor.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Guests at the feast are not there because they are particularly starving.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just because they know they are hungry.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's why they are there.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we're all spiritually starving.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: The prison warden and the murderer on death row alike.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: All spiritually sick, all spiritually starving.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what qualifies anyone to be at Jesus' table is simply this Are you hungry?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you need Jesus?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to be on Jesus' guest list?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: You just need to be hungry.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So if our posture toward Jesus is a shrug of our hearts feel cold, then we need to see the gospel more clearly.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross, Jesus gave his life to rescue you from death.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross, Jesus was starved of God's presence so that you would be given God's presence.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's how deep your need goes, how deep it is.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: If we shrug, we're missing out because what Jesus is freely offering is the satisfaction of your starving soul.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if we feel burdened by the sense that we aren't good enough to be Jesus' followers, to be Christians, then we're missing the point.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Altogether.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came not for the righteous, but sinners, not for the healthy, the sick, not the full, the hungry.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: The guests at Jesus' table have one thing in common.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're all of them not good enough.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they're all perfectly and freely loved.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: All of them not good enough.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: All of them loved.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love this quote by an author named Robert Capan, who was actually an expert on feasts, as it happens.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: He writes this Jesus came to raise the dead.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: The only qualification for the gift of the gospel is to be dead.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be smart, you don't have to be good.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be wise.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be wonderful.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be anything.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to be dead.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, if you want to be a guest at Jesus' table, you don't need to be anything except that you need to be hungry.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel leads to the feast.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel extends an invitation to follow Jesus to his feast.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to bring it to you.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And this gospel invitation is extended to very hungry guests.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's focus last or third on the host.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a feast, an obvious question is who's hosting it?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in this case, it actually might seem like Levi is the host of the Shindig because all this is happening at his house.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's important that we keep in mind the sequence of events.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus invites Levi, follow me.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Levi follows him.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus brings a feast to Levi's home.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: And even though it's Levi's home, look at verse 15 where it's talking about who's there.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: There were many who followed him, him as in Jesus.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: The many tax collectors and sinners who were at the feasts are there because they follow Jesus.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So clearly, Jesus is at the center, he is the host.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And with that in mind, it's striking that at a feast, Jesus describes himself as a physician for the sick.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: So he's the host of the feast and he's a doctor for people's souls.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: How do those things go together?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel brings them together.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is the truth that Jesus came to heal our souls by removing the sickness of sin.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross, he removes the penalty of sin by taking all of our guilt upon himself.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: At the cross of Jesus, or in his resurrection, Jesus removes the power of sin by conquering sin itself and its consequence death.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, like a doctor, gives the cure for our souls, for our sick and sinful souls.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't do that in a clinical or cold or sanitized way.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: He brings the cure like the best host preparing the best meal.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: What was this meal that was a cure for our soul sickness?
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's obviously it's Jesus, because the people who are at this meal, they're there not because of the steak and potatoes being served or the little Caesar's pizza or wherever would be served in the first century Capernaum area at this time.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: No, they're there because of Jesus.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so what's being served, the heart of the feast and the cure is Jesus himself.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus the host invites in these hungry guests so that he can give them himself.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And to give himself to them in full, to give his perfect life of righteous obedience, to give his forgiveness, to give his power, to give his love, to give his presence.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so believing the gospel means that we come to Jesus so that he can give us himself.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that says something really striking or profound about what it means to be a Christian.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: To be a Christian means that Jesus heals and feeds your soul.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to be a Christian.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not good people, not the right kind of people, hungry people who get fed by Jesus.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's a Christian.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's a follower of Jesus.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: As he gives you himself, you are healed.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: As you as he gives you himself, you are fed, made spiritually alive and free from the burdens of guilt and shame.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are thinking, I don't know, can Jesus really do that for me?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: What if my heart is too cold, too indifferent?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: What if my heart is too weighed down by guilt?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel tells us that Jesus is the host without limit.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: There is no limit to who he invites to the feast, and there's no limit to how richly he can feed them who come.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: In 1967, on Thanksgiving Day, there's a man named Bruce Randolph, and he decided to take his portable grill into City Park in Denver, and he was going to feed as many people as came to him.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's now famous in Denver, and they call him Daddy Bruce Randolph, a name I'm really jealous of.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: And he was the owner of this barbecue restaurant, and as Thanksgiving Day, he brings his grill to City Park.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: The years go on, the next year he brings his grill, more people show up, and everyone's fed.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: By the mid-80s, I imagine with more than one grill and probably with help, Daddy Bruce Randolph, he brings his grill, grills to the park, and 30,000 people are being fed on Thanksgiving Day.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's famous and his memory is beloved in Denver because he's the best kind of host.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was the best kind of host, the kind of host that says, there is no limit.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: No limit.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: Come to the feast.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: But even for a man as great as Daddy Bruce Randolph, there was a limit, obviously, to who, the amount of people he could realistically feed.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not so with Jesus.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: He is the only host who can truly say, there is no limit.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come to the feast.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Full stop.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus can invite guests without limit because there's no limit to him.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's no limit to his mercy, no limit to his kindness, no limit to his power, no limit to the storehouse in himself of what he has to give to hungry, soul-hungry people.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So come and be fed by Jesus.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what does that mean?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to come and be fed by Jesus?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: It means you trust him to be the reason you can come.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: That you say, the only reason I have a seat at God's table, the only reason I have access to God is nothing in me.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing that I've done.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's simply because Jesus wants me here.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's called me here.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Being fed by Jesus also means that you entrust your heart, your soul, your life to him, to his power, to his presence.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you ask him to change your heart that is often cold to him.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: You ask him to feed you with his power and his love.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the really, really good news of the gospel.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus is the host without limit, his invitation comes to you and is for you while your heart is still cold.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't invite you to come to him once you really are sure that you really feel your need.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: He invites you to come just as you are with a heart that is prone to shrug.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: His invitation is for you if you feel unworthy.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Even when you would actually prefer to get things a little bit more in order and then come and entrust yourself to him.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's the host whose invitation is without limit.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's able to feed the half-hearted, he's able to feed the cold-hearted, the people who are weighed down with guilt, and the people who are ashamed because they don't feel as guilty as they think that they probably should.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: The people who are soul sick and the people who are desperately soul hungry.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's no limit.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Come to the feast.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: He came not to call the righteous but sinners.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: He came not to call the full, but the hungry.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so whether you feel your soul hunger painfully today, or you're struggling to feel anything at all, but you know you need a Savior.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: The invitation is for you, just as you are.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the good news worth celebrating.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the good news that makes you free.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel leads to the feast.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: That means believing the gospel first, being fed by Jesus, should produce in us heart change.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that more and more over time our hearts delight in God's love, and more and more we are freed from the burdens of guilt.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does mean that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: But even more importantly, here's what it means that the gospel leads to the feast.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: It means that Jesus' work of rescuing sinners and bringing them to the table fills God's heart with delight.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: There is rejoicing.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a feast in heaven over one sinner who is brought to the table.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so the call for us is actually to just join in on the heavenly feast.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Join in on the heavenly party.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Join in on God's own delight and his own mercy.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel leads to the feast.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: You are invited, and you are just the right kind of guest.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, the perfect host, has fully and freely set the table for you.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: So come.