So what do you all think Jesus is like? What do you think? Do you think he'd be a good dinner guest? Do you think he's a somber and still do you think of him as as strong and maybe a strong silent type or the small giggly type? Do you think he was funny? Do you think he had a lot of friends? I don't know I'm always kind of imagining those kind of things in my mind like I remember the wedding feast of Cana up Until this time he's not done anything for reveal to anybody that he is the Messiah and he's just kind of hanging out at a wedding Feast and he brought his friends and I can just see him leaning up against the wall and someone's like well So what do you do for living? And he says well, I'm a carpenter, but I'm contemplating a change You know change of career I'm gonna save the world You know, he's interesting and it's hard for us to kind of get our finger on what he was like But what we can do is we can listen to him Let's listen to him describe himself He said come to me all you who are weary for I am gentle and lowly of heart He described his favorite Description of himself or title that he took for himself was the son of man and he told us the son of man Has come to seek and to save the lost He told us you know what it's like in the world and people love those titles They love that authority. They love to wheel the authority over each other That's not what it's gonna be with you you're gonna serve because The son of man did not come to be served but to serve and To give up his life as a ransom for many and
Finally, the third time he describes himself as a son of man and tells us what he's like he says the son of man Came eating and drinking The son of man came eating and drinking. He said, you know, y'all rejected the sons of the disciples that John the Baptist because he lived out in the wilderness And and he wore camel hair and he thought he must have a demon or something and and now the son of man has come eating and drinking and He eats so much. They call him a glutton He drinks it or he's around drinking so much that they assume he's a wine bipper and They reject him for that He comes eating and drinking he comes bringing joy to the feast He comes bringing joy to the feast his first Miracle that he does to reveal his glory John tells us is at that wedding feast in Cana when when the bridegroom runs out of wine and there's gonna be this huge embarrassment it's gonna be a shame It's gonna just Reck this couple's beginning and the couple and he's quietly goes to the servants and he says fill up these jars These enormous jars that hold between 20 and 30 gallons of water. He says fill them up to the brim and He turns them into wine. He brings 180 gallons of wine to the wedding. Well, y'all know the joke, right to come to a wedding with Bottle of wine you're being a nice guy If you come to a wedding with them 12 pack you're saying hey, let's have a party if You come to a wedding with a hundred and eighty gallons of wine You're saying I am the party The party has arrived. That's who the there will be joy in my presence. I have come to bring joy I have come to bring life. I Have come to to spread out a feast and Invite you to the feast and that's what Jesus reveals himself as doing he is Providing a feast a few months ago. I was sitting with some friends at smoke and whenever I can get the people To agree to it. I smoked the restaurant down Cherry Street and I think it's the most fun meal in town If you just get the butcher's block. It's a big old block And there's a huge steak and a huge pork chop and a huge piece of fish and a sausage and they put a potato in the middle for some reason and And you just feast and You talk and you laugh and you it's just something about eating off of the same plate It just it forces you to just kind of bubble up and share yourself and and your soul gets happy and and One of the guys who was eating with us. He looked he said you know what my favorite thing in the world is my favorite thing is this right here Being around a table with good food and good friends and just enjoying each other You know that that was also Jesus's favorite thing That was his favorite thing he does it all the time the entire book of Luke He's basically either going to a meal or coming back from a meal He eats a meal to start his ministry with a tax collector of all things the last thing he does on In his public ministry as he's going to Jerusalem with a triumphal entry and you know the palm branches and the donkeys and all that Right before he goes he starts looks up in a tree and he sees a tax collector and he says you I want to eat with you today What is the last thing you do with his disciples? He eats a meal What's the first thing he does with his disciples after he's resurrected from the dead? He says hey Let's bring you some fish. Let's eat And the very very last thing he does when he's restoring Peter He's he prepares a meal for them. Maybe a charcoal fire and it broil fish He says let's eat The man just love to eat And he love to eat with people And when I want you to see is the beauty of that you see a meal. It's not a metaphor a Meal is not a symbol a Meal is It's a meal and it involves all the senses. You see it. You smell it. You taste it. You feel it If it's cooking you you hear it You it it just engulfs you in this in this moment together and The kingdom of God is a meal What are we called to on that great and final day when when Jesus raises us up from the dead? He calls us to a feast the wedding feast of the lamb That's what we're looking forward to the the role of Jesus pouring that applying that feast forest. I don't want you to underestimate it It's really interesting when you think about it. What was the first sin? It was a meal It was at Eve Sneaking of a fruit eating it by herself hiding Then giving it to Adam and him hiding and it resulted in alienation it resulted in loneliness it resulted in hiding from God and hiding from each other It resulted in accusations finger pointing and and pain and agony and and all of the the awful things that sin has brought into the world including death And yet Jesus redeems us around the meal healing was been broken And he invites us the good news I have for you today is that Jesus is throwing a feast and all centers are welcome Jesus is throwing a feast and Only centers are welcome. Please stand as we read From Luke Chapter five. He's called Levi Levi's left his Tax collectors booth and he says this Levi made him a great feast in his house And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with him and the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples saying Why do you eat with and drink with tax collectors and centers and they said to him? Did and Jesus answered them those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick I? Have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance and They said to him The disciples of John fast often and all for prayers and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink And just like and Jesus said to them can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and Then they will fast in those days That's for the reading of God's word all men are like grass and all of our glories like the flowers of the field The grass withers and the flowers fall but not God's word God's word stands forever. You may be seated Jesus has come to to invite us to a feast the wedding feast of the lamb and sinners are invited He has come to invite us to a feast He's the bread and the wine And only sinners are invited first thing I want you to see about this text is the shock the Pharisees and the scribes now It's all you all know about now You've grown up in the church most of you and you know the Pharisees are the bad guys But you need to know that these are the people that folks like us Associate with right they are our kind of people these are the people with who never missed on his school had perfect attendance These are the the people who volunteered for vacation Bible school people who host community groups who do things right And are the people who care They care about people being done right and it offends them that Jesus isn't doing things right He is doing the wrong things. He is he is touching unqueen people. He is being around Unclean people. He says They they look at him and they see him when I want to lapper someone just stricken with leper scene in those days And those days they assume that if you had a disease was because either you had sinned or your parents had sin you'd clearly done something wrong We essentially do the same thing today, but we're not quite as old bird about it and And Jesus heals him but he heals him by touching him by touching That's wrong And they're bothered by that. It's not they were told that if they touched somebody in the Old Testament They were told that would make them unclean Now you need to know I know some of you a lot of you most of the women in the church are reading Through the Bible together. I know you're in Leviticus right now. I just want to say hang in there. It gets better But you need to know that there's a distinction between uncleanness and sin Sin is doing something wrong Uncleanness means you're not perfect. You're not pure. You're not fit to come before the Lord and and the whole point of the Old Testament is pretty much Every are Leviticus there is pretty much everything makes you unclean and Jesus is here to cleanse you The sacrifices cleanse you but the Pharisees kind of you know made that switch in their mind and so okay Well, anything that makes me unclean I must not do and in the further I stay away from the unclean the cleaner I am and so they took pride and and not coming anywhere near Leppers people with leprosy I see I say people with leprosy because I'm afraid you're gonna think lepers It's like it has nothing to do with big cats, right? It's it's lepers People with leprosy and and they would brag about how far they had stayed away from people with leprosy They would say won't want one rabbi in those days and I throw rocks at people with leprosy to keep them away from me Another rabbi bragged if a lepper has been on a street. I refuse to buy anything on that street. I Don't want to come anywhere near places where they've been Because I don't want to get and it makes sense right the further I can stay away from the unclean the cleaner I am was there thinking and Jesus thought completely differently they would never invite unclean people to their meals It would wash their hands in certain ways so that they would only touch their food with clean hands and Jesus is Eating a meal with unclean people with centers He's eating with two kinds of people here, right? The centers and the tax collectors and It's They're just missing And they're asking him and I love that phrase, right? They're grumbling at him Eating in those days was more than just the same it is now really when you eat with someone You're you're getting to know them you're beginning making fellowship with them and Obviously they had no restaurants back then and so you always ate in your house When you invite someone into your house. That's an active fellowship. It's an active friendship I was even asking some of the guys in the church. It's like you know If you ever do business dinners in your house You know are they always out in restaurants and and both of them said Well, if I do if I invite them home is because it's more than just a deal. It's a partnership and That's what's going on here. Jesus is striking up a partnership with Levi and Levi's bringing all of his friends And it's weird And Jesus says well I haven't come to call the righteous I've come to call sinners to repentance and In that phrase you can kind of see why they missed it, right? Why did they miss it? because They were their entire life was spent trying to avoid sin and so They avoided Jesus They missed it because they didn't see themselves as sinners and if you're unwilling to ever see yourself in that way Then you're never going to go to the physician and ask him to heal you Sometimes we just think too much of ourselves and that's what causes us to stay lost or In some cases to let things stay lost My aunt Janice she was my my mom's best friend. They were Too close to siblings And my mom never went a day of her life without talking to Janice and when I say talking to Janice I don't mean like you know sitting in text. What's up? I mean They lived half a mile from each other and spent at least an hour on the phone together Every day. I can't stress this enough every day and Back in the days of normal of car keys without apple tags on them my My aunt lost for car keys and she lost for car keys for a day and a half and for a day and a half she was stuck to the house She could not leave. They were so lost and My mom had to go over and bring her some milk and eggs which on the old name she used to go to Janice's house and Janice would four houses down from the city park and so I was playing around at the park and I walked to Janice's house because that's where mom was and And and and Janice just I mean she was you know that feeling of just having lost something you can't find it You're just so mad and you're mad at yourself and you're mad at life and you're just Somebody's lost. I mean, it's got to be somebody else's fault and you're longing for someone to blame and you're just You know that feeling you've had that So that's her sitting in the sitting behind the kitchen table Just mad and I walked in and I said, oh, where'd you find your keys? I Haven't found them So they're hanging out of your trunk right now. Why didn't you look there? Did she have never be so dumb as to leave them hanging from the trunk? Nobody so dumb as the leader of keys hanging from the trunk for a day and a half and Be stuck in the house because you can't go anywhere because you don't have your keys because you left them hanging out of the trunk You would never be so dumb as to need to look there and And when Jesus says I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He's he's Poking on the Pharisees and he's poking on us and he says have you forgotten that you need to be saved from your sin? Are you a sinner or are you far too righteous to need to look here? He's come to call He's throwing a feast and he's inviting sinners, but he's only inviting sinners and Jesus gives us A real peak into how he sees us here. He says he describes sinners. They call people sinners one One translation the new living translation says the the Pharisees and scribes grumbled Although that fridge you know Why don't you kind of sound like bear Bryant? Why do you eat with such scum? That's the way the new new living translation puts it. Why do you eat with such scum? And he says those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick Jesus sees sinners as being sick It's having a disease that affects their soul, a disease that affects all their senses That's a beautiful description of sin that it affects the way we see the life It affects remember when when COVID first started and and everybody and some people still are You know, it's kind of freaked out about how it affected our senses You couldn't you lost your sense of smell. That's just weird Lost your sense of taste. I remember that feeling of having I knew there was a role in my mouth because I could feel the mushyness, but there was no taste And that that's kind of a great description of sin that just changes everything It changes our appetites. It changes our senses. It changes the way we think. It changes the way we feel We begin to think that good people are bad and bad people are good We begin to think that that things like green and putting ourselves first and looking out for number one That's good and helping others and giving others a leg up as bad and and we just can't We can't get through that. Things don't look right to us. It's affected us
And Jesus says these are the people who have come to help
Specifically have come to help people like tax collectors Tax collectors were outcasts They um, you know, they were the people who We're on the side of Rome The best way to the closest I can come to any kind of visualization is you know during War war two when when germany occupied france Can you imagine how you would feel about your fellow citizens your next door neighbor if they went over to the other side and started wearing the swastika And and helping germany You imagine just how you would despise that you wouldn't want to be or you would not forgive that easily if ever And that's the way the Jews felt about the tax collectors they had gone over to Rome They gone over to the eagle they gone over to these these this This nation of wicked people and there are outcasts And I don't think there's anything worse than the feeling of being outcast really don't I think this is bad as it gets Being the pariah being the one that nobody will talk to being the one that nobody wants to be around feeling That way feeling like no one no one wants you here I Just talking to my best friend recently whose 26-year-old daughter is gone into residential rehab for an eating disorder and
She traces her problems back to being an outcast She says in first grade The girls in my class came up to me He she just told him this story last week The girls in my class came up to me in first grade and they said we'll make you a deal We'll come to your birthday party if you'll stop playing with us at recess
From that point in her life she felt excluded you're not one of us you don't belong here Nobody wants you here In Jesus specifically went to the outcasts he specifically went to Levi. He came to Levi's booth and he said you I want you follow me He stopped under Zacchaeus's sycamore tree. He says you I want to state your house tonight You I have come for you Uh, this is not the only time that Jesus would receive this accusation Um in the in Luke 15 when he tells the parable of the prodigal son and the lost sheep We're told that the reason why he Uh told those parables is because the Pharisees were murmuring rarar He welcomes centers He welcomes centers Have you ever heard better news than that? He welcomes centers I mean if there was an epic hopefully a church will never die, but if it does I hope the epitaph over it is we welcome centers Welcome centers. I want you to to just Plants yourself in that good news no matter how badly you fail no matter how far short You have fallen even on those days when you've done the things that you said you would never do again And you might have some big apologies to make. I'm not saying you don't I guarantee you Jesus will welcome you because he welcomes centers the worst thing that Satan can do to you is accuse you of being a sinner And when he does accuse you of being a sinner, you can say yes That's my invitation. That was the name written on the invitation Center I don't see my name in the Bible. I've read every page It does not say anywhere in there God God Jesus died to save Ricky It's not in there. Damn But sinner He gave himself up for centers While we were still centers Christ died for us You see there that the precious approachableness of Jesus
He calls himself the physician Let's look at the physician He he he draws himself out and he says
He says this for you He he comes and he says I've come to call centers to repentance To call us to leave our sin What what is sin is as a direction in this case is a direction that we're traveling Trying to find fulfillment trying to find identity trying to find our life He's calling us to turn around and find all those things in him That's that's the call to repentance come to me Find those things in me and we see two amazing things in this text first of all We see that he is he's the vaccine When when the law is the context and if you when you get home today go back and start reading on verse 12 But it says this A leper fell down before him and begged him saying Lord if you will You can make me clean and Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him saying I will Be clean He touches him first and then he heals him And we see this incredible principle there that Jesus is the cleansing When he when if you were I were to touch something unclean we would become contaminated. We would become unclean But when he touches the unclean because he is sinless because he is perfect when he touches the unclean He cleanses he purifies I read this I don't know my kid, you know, I don't read I'll listen to Levar Burton read um A great story called vaccine season vaccination season and it is the science fiction futuristic short story about a day when Medicine with healing when vaccinations can be spread the way viruses are spread now So with one person went and got the shot everybody that he hugged Everyone that he embraced or kissed would catch the vaccine from them and be and be immune to the diseases And so they would just give the vaccines to the children and the children would go and hug the mom and their dad and the grandparents And end up in the healing would be spread and this one little boy got in the vaccine From the from one of the few diseases left that's killing people and his granddad has has moved off to an island and doesn't want him to be around And and when the the boy gets on a boat and he paddles to the island and the granddad says no don't come here and he has to he has to Uh bring the boat in by himself as granddad won't help and he says son. I like grandson. I love you But I'm not gonna touch you. I don't want this vaccine. I'm ready to go And they they fight about that for a while and finally the boy gives in and he says okay granddad understand I'm sorry. I try to force things on you. Can we just have a day where we do the normal stuff Can I have one last day with my granddad? It's it's sure and so they you know went through for a walk through the woods and they ate pancakes together And they did all the things he loved to do with his granddad and it was getting later in the day And he said can we just go fishing one last time and that went fishing together And while they were there the boy slipped into the water He slipped down the bank and he fell into the water and he hit his head and he was unconscious So he went under the water and his granddad had to dive in and when his granddad pulled him out the boy Wasn't breathing and his granddad had to give him CPR and when he was giving him CPR Of course, he saves his son's life a grandson's life and his grandson saved his life Gave him the vaccine And and that's a that's a beautiful picture of what Jesus does When he comes into this diseased sinful world He comes as the vaccine he comes as the medicine And he dies to bring that medicine to all of us But you can't get it from a safe distance What what I What I've learned in the last Five years probably more profoundly than ever before is that Jesus will heal everything that you allow him to touch But you have to let him touch it And in order to let him touch it you have to Open up about it. You have to admit that it exists And and that usually means and by usually I mean always Means telling another person about it It's just not enough to cover it up and try to deal with it yourself Everything that's unacknowledged remains unhealed We invite Jesus in to touch you. He'll touch your uncleanness Andy will cleanse it as he says. I will be clean and finally he said this great little If I don't know parable of metaphor. I don't worry. We don't call it. They say why why are your disciples not sad They really should be sad Why are they not fasting We all know that spiritual people are sad or somber and they fast and they pray but not yours. They eat and drink And he says you can't fast The bridal party doesn't fast when the bride groom's there that's the time for the reception That's the time for the party. That's when we do the chicken dance This is when we celebrate. This is when we have the wedding cake It's inappropriate. It will be inappropriate to be sad It's inappropriate to be somber and to long for something that's already here It's like bringing it's like Chris Trigger and in parts and right bringing a vegetable loaf to a party When he was told to bring a cake Now remember that if you remember that show Chris Trigger is a real healthy guy He's he's he's signed up to bring the cake to the party But he brought a vegetable loaf made of mushrooms and all these nasty things and and Ron Swanson says were you told to bring vegetable loaf or were you told to bring cake? He said oh, I was told to bring cake because so not only have you brought this vile thing into existence You've deprived the party of cake When you're at a party you bring cake When you when the bridegroom is here you celebrate you eat And there's so much in that you can unpack it for days. Jesus wants more than just of of somewhat close relationship with you. He doesn't want to be somebody you leave at church. He wants to be your bridegroom He wants you to take him home He wants to live with you. He wants intimacy with you And if you have that he wants to see you celebrate I pray one of my prayers for you all is that we would what what for what Peter says to the Dispersed followers of Christ and first Peter would be true of you. He says though you've not seen him You love him And he has filled you with the joy It is inexpressible and filled with glory. May that be true of us all Please pray with me Father, I pray that we would not keep Jesus at a safe social distance But we would embrace him like a bride does his bridegroom Bringing him into all the hurts all the betrayals and all the disappointments
So that we could be clean Pray in Jesus precious perfect name. Amen