Leave it All Behind

Luke 5:27-39

Jesus only saves people who are unworthy of salvation.

Salvation is not for those who imagine that they’re worthy of it, who pretend to be righteous; salvation is for wicked people. Of course, we are ALL wicked…but so many don’t know it or won’t admit it. Here’s the shocking, unforgettable story of Levi, or Matthew.

We are walking away with Jesus from a house in Capernaum where He had healed a man who was a paralytic after He had first forgiven his sins. Now Jesus is walking with His friends along the lakeshore, and He’s followed by a huge crowd that dogged His steps in fascination and wonder. We know that from Mark’s parallel passage. So it is on the way by the Lake of Galilee that the Lord has His next divine appointment: He meets a sinner. In fact, He meets a sinner who would be regarded as the worst of all sinners, the worst possible kind of sinner. His name is Levi. So let’s pick up the story.

v. 27        Matthew calls himself “Matthew.” Mark, who gives you a parallel account, like Luke, also uses “Levi.” That’s not unusual. Many, like today, had two names. The apostle Simon Peter, Bartholomew Nathanael, Thomas Didymus. Matthew means gift of Jehovah; so if he had a choice, Matthew would use that name, and he did. And by the way, Matthew humbly refers to himself only two times in his gospel: Once in telling this story and the other time in giving a list of the apostles. Matthew was extremely humble. He doesn’t say anything in the gospel narratives. He wrote the gospel of Matthew, but prior to that he didn’t say anything that’s recorded. He was a tax gatherer.

Rome occupied the land of Israel. The Romans exacted taxes from the people they conquered; and they basically ruled the world during the time of the New Testament. They sold tax franchises to certain Jews. The year would come to an end, the tax gatherer would pay the government, and whatever the tax gatherer had gotten over that was his take.

The people hated paying taxes to Rome, and so in order to get the taxes out of the people you had to have a bunch of thugs around you to make sure that if they didn’t pay their taxes you broke their legs or whatever. The Jews who took these Roman tax franchises were guilty of larceny and extortion and exploitation. They could basically stop people anytime, anywhere and put a tax on whatever they had in their hands, arbitrarily tax them. They were surrounded by enforcers and the rest of the riff-raff of society.

The Jews who did this were the most hated of all Jews. Matthew Levi was such a wretched traitor. He abused his own people. He served the pagan idol-worshiping Gentiles. And, of course, the Jews believed there is only one true God and all idols were blasphemous. And so here you have a Jew making money by serving idolaters and taking the money from the worshipers of the true God.

These publicans were barred from the synagogues. They were actually identified with unclean animals. They were not allowed to testify in court. They were classed with prostitutes and robbers; and that’s why you see sometimes tax gatherers and the collective word “sinners,” or crooks and prostitutes. All the riff-raff, all the outcasts hung around together with the tax collectors.

Jesus noticed him sitting in his tax booth extorting money. He said to him, “Follow Me.” That is an explicit command: “Follow Me.” Why would He call him to be one of His disciples? Levi is scum. This is the worst of the worst. Jesus knew Matthew’s heart. Nobody needed to tell Jesus what was in a man’s heart, He knew what was in the heart; it says it in John 2.

And what He saw was a broken heart, a penitent heart, and a heart of faith. Jesus knew that Matthew had been exposed to His ministry in that area, and that Matthew not only recognized who He was, but that Matthew recognized his own wretchedness.

v. 28        This is the end of his career, and he steps into following Jesus and can’t ever go back, because somebody else will snap up his tax franchise very fast. Talk about working without a net! He probably lost all the money he had collected year to date.

This is very different than the fishermen who were called; they could always go back to fishing. But Matthew could never go back. The obedience of Matthew to the call of Christ was a greater act of faith and devotion than those fishermen. They could go back, and they did go back – or at least they tried to go back, but the Lord rerouted the fish; so they couldn’t catch them. But for Matthew there was no return. This is true transformation. When Jesus called him, his response was immediate.

Matthew Levi: traitor, extortioner, robber, outcast, crime boss, became the apostle and the evangelist of Jesus Christ who wrote the first gospel. He must have been absolutely speechless. He lost a temporary career and he gained an eternal destiny. He lost material possessions, he gained a spiritual future. He lost earthly security, he gained heavenly inheritance. He lost sinful companions, and gained the Holy Son of God.

Levi’s response was joy in verse 29. With the joy of his salvation lighting a fire in his heart, Matthew’s desire was to immediately tell everybody he knew. It was a pretty bad crowd. His desire was to introduce everyone to the Savior; and he knew that if the Savior would save him, He could save them. All the riff-raff are personally dining with the Son of God.

In the Middle East, when you sat down and reclined at dinner with someone that was an evening of fellowship; and in doing that you affirmed your friendship. Jesus was affirming His friendship with them. That is why Jesus became hatefully labeled, Matthew 11:19, as the friend of tax gatherers and sinners. And it may have started right here with this evangelistic farewell dinner as Matthew was leaving his old life behind.

In Luke 18 we see another tax collector beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner,” who went home justified, not the Pharisee who was so stuck on himself. That takes you into chapter 19 and this incredible story of another tax collector, Zacchaeus. You’ve got to wonder if these guys had the first seed planted back at Levi’s house in our text. The story of Zacchaeus believing culminates in Jesus’ wonderful statement – ‘For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was’ – what? – ‘lost.’” I mean, you could boil down the Jews’ hostility toward Christ to His attitude toward the wretched people. That’s why they hated Him. That’s why they killed Him, because He called the righteous people whitewashed tombs, dead inside, and meanwhile He was right at home with sinners.

Do you understand this is what makes Christianity distinct? Every other religion in the world promises a relationship with God only to the good people. That is Satan’s most ubiquitous lie. Jesus promises salvation only to those who are sinners.

1 Timothy 1:12-15 [Paul said…]

¹² And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry; ¹³ Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. ¹⁴ And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Do you see how distinct this is from man’s religion?

v. 30        They had morality, but they didn’t have holiness. They were all about externals. They were concerned with what people could see. They were moral, but they didn’t know what holy was. Jesus was making bad people sons of the holy, the Pharisees were making bad people sons of hell.

vv. 31-32         This is a stinging rebuke from Jesus, recorded by Dr. Luke. All through His ministry this conflict raged. Their enemies, the Pharisees and scribes thought, had to be God’s enemies. So Jesus, since He was with the riff-raff, had to be an enemy of God as well. He had to be the devil’s agent.

v. 33        What’s wrong with You? You don’t get it. Religion is about fasting, and it’s about praying, it’s about all those duties. And all You do is eat and drink. You’re having a party. Don’t You know that religion is very severe, very serious, very demanding? Must be some self-sacrifice.

v. 34        You don’t fast at a wedding, do you? He illustrates His point again in verses 36-37. What is He talking about? They’re saying to the disciples of Jesus, “You can’t let go of these standards. You have to hold onto this.” They would say, “Well okay, maybe there’s an element of grace in salvation, but it has to be partnered up with law. You have to do these things.” And Jesus says, “First of all, this is a time for celebration, because though you don’t know it, the Bridegroom is here. The Son of God is here.” And then He gives a deathblow to any compatibility between salvation God’s way and salvation any other way. It’s just a powerful couplet of illustrations.

Simply: you can’t stitch the gospel of grace into old Judaism. You can’t make the gospel a patch in a works system. Jesus did not come to merge Judaism with Christianity. He did not come to patch the old system. The gospel of repentance and the gospel of grace to self-confessed sinners cannot be mixed with any religion of ritual or good works. The old garment here is the Judaism of that age. Here is gospel uniqueness. Grace cannot be merged with law; it’s new.

And then He gives that second illustration about putting new wine in old wineskins; and all that will do is burst the wineskins and the new wine will spill. He uses the word “new” in that little section seven times. You can’t merge the new into the old. No mixture of the gospel and any works religion is possible.

v. 39        He says, “It’s hard for you to take that, because You’ve been drinking the old wine so long you’re not wishing for new. You say the old is good enough.” They clung to their old tradition of Judaism.

The gospel of grace stands alone.

Galatians 5:4

⁴ Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

Did you get that? The Christian gospel stands alone uniquely. The way of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is incompatible with any other religious system.

But it’s hard for people to give up their religion – isn’t it? – because it’s very hard to give up your self-righteousness.

There’s no salvation in religion, there’s only salvation when you realize you’re not worth saving. And it’s all an act of mercy: when you come to the end of yourself and you beat on your own chest and say, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner, and save me,” when you cry out for grace, when you come with nothing in your hand.

Perhaps some words recorded by Matthew himself would be a good place to close. Teaching of Jesus in chapter 13: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure,” verse 44. “The kingdom of heaven” – salvation – “is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great price, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.”

These two parables are so simple, and yet so profound. If you want true salvation, if you want to be part of the kingdom of heaven, you have to sell all your old self-righteous religion. Jesus knows our heart. He glances our way. He says, Follow Me. Leave it all behind!