I wonder if you might be a cyberchondriac. Did you know that was a thing? Now, we have all heard of hypochondria or a hypochondriac, someone who has that overt and sometimes disabling fear of catching a disease, and that they're constantly thinking of this, they're constantly aware of that. The word comes from Greek and Latin words that refer to the upper abdomen between the belly button and the ribcage. And that's where the ancients thought there was an aroma that arose that caused things like sadness or melancholy or depression. And so that's where the word arises from. But with the advent of Google and AI and all of our modern technology, you and I can sit at our keyboards and have a symptom and search something like WebMD or some other site like that and play doctor, can't we? We are not a doctor, we are not a physician, but we can match our symptoms with symptoms that are described online, and guess what happens? That skinned knee, It becomes some sort of Amazonian jungle bacteria that will eat your flesh. Why? Because the symptoms are the same. And you know that your neighbor's cousin last year visited you and they'd spent time in the Amazon two years before that. So just maybe that's what you have. We can also go on and play doctor to try to think we don't need physicians anymore. That we can just look at all of this and make diagnoses on our own. Now, I know that some of you are very good at using YouTube to figure out how to fix your car or your toilet. I say some of you, this is not me. Some of you, you're good at this, right? But who are you watching? You're watching experts who know how to fix your car and your toilet. You don't become the expert. And it's amazing how this cyberchondria here that overwhelms us exposes other things, doesn't it? It exposes an arrogance that we know better than the experts. And it shows, it exposes a shortcoming in us that we would care more about physical diseases than the one disease that could destroy us forever. Because of all the physical diseases in the world, it is the spiritual disease of sin that we need to be searching the internet if we don't know the answer. It's the spiritual disease of sin that we, when we preach the gospel, are bringing people to an understanding that forget about any physical sickness you have, have you dealt with your sin? No? Well, can I tell you something? You cannot deal with your sin. There's only one who has dealt with sin, and that is Jesus. And this is the Jesus that we're meeting in Luke, is it not? Remember a couple of Sundays ago, we looked at the text where Jesus made clean the leper with that Old Testament language that we said, it means that he is, yes, made clean, but that means that he is ready to interact with God. He's ready to be in the presence of God. It was the way of saying saved. And then we met the paralytic, whose faith, him and the people that dropped him down through the ceiling, Jesus healed him, but he said what? He was the one who had the authority and the power to forgive sins. And now as we come into our section this morning, we're coming into an example of how Jesus works. And we learn about his mission. Now, there have been a couple of mission-oriented statements, but whenever, in Luke so far, we've seen those, but whenever we see Jesus say, I have come to, we need to listen, do we not? I mean, if you hear somebody said, listen, the reason I'm here is you're listening because that's the purpose that they have in being with you or coming to you, and that's what we see today. So there's a very simple question before you this morning. Have you recognized your sin sickness? And have you come to Jesus to have it dealt with? It's that simple. Now there's more for us this morning. So if you say, yes, I have done that. The Lord has opened up my heart and mind to my own sinfulness. He's given me the ability to repent of sin and trust in him and leave everything behind and follow him. There's still more for us to listen. Don't shut your Bible and go out. Don't shut your Bible and go out and sign the chili and pie list on your way, right? Remember, that's a friendly reminder. Don't do that because there's more to us here because we are getting to better know our Jesus, why he's come and how that relates to what was going on in his day and how it relates to what's going on in our day. So turn to Luke chapter five. and stand, if you will, while I read our text, which is Luke 5, 27 through 39. And after that, he went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax office. And he said to him, follow me. And he left everything behind and rose up and began to follow him. And Levi gave a big reception for him in his house, and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered and said to them, it is not those who are well who need 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 often fast and offer prayers. The disciples of the Pharisees also do likewise, but yours, yours eat and drink. And Jesus said to them, can you make the attendance of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come. And when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days. And he was also telling him a parable. No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one, after drinking old wine, wishes for new. For he says, the old is good enough. The grass withers and the flower falls. You may be seated. In these verses, Jesus reveals five characteristics of his mission and relationship to sinners as he interacts with Levi and the Pharisees. Five characteristics of his mission and relationship to sinners as he interacts with Levi and the Pharisees. The first thing we see, this first characteristic, is Jesus calls sinners to follow him. Look at verse 27. And after that, which just refers to the text that came before it, and it actually works as a tie for us, here's the one who claims the authority and power to forgive sins, now watch what he's going to do and how he is going to demonstrate his mission in relationship to the sinners that he comes to save. After that, he went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax office. So first of all, this little word noticed, it's a little more than just a passing glance. It's also translated in different places as beholding. When someone is looking at something, behold it. They've set their eyes upon it. They're assessing what they see. So Jesus isn't just glancing around. He's setting his eyes upon a tax collector. Now remember what we've learned about tax collectors. Remember when John the Baptist in his ministry, when we greeted that ministry earlier in Luke, the tax collectors were one of the groups of people that came to John, and they were the ones who said, okay, how will our life look if we actually repent like you tell us to? And John told them what that would look like. And just to remind you, these tax collectors were men who were doing the bidding of the Roman government, doing the bidding of the local authorities in collecting taxes. And all they had was a number, one number that they had to make sure they collected every single year. And there were different types of taxes that they would collect, but the reality was these tax collectors must collect enough taxes to give to the Roman government, but they also had to earn a living. So there was their own salary brought into this, and many of them were crooked in the way they did things, and they lived very well at the time. So especially for a Jewish person to be doing this, the Jews were extremely upset about their service to the Roman government in that. So their reputation as a group, doesn't mean every tax collector was evil, but their reputation as a group was suspect because they didn't have any rules or guidelines. They would sit in these little booths. They were chief tax collectors. We'll come into more tax collectors in Luke. They were chief tax collectors, and then there were tax collectors who had a local area that they took care of. And they would be on major thoroughfares, road travel. They'd be in the ports as ships came in, and they would assess the goods brought into that principality, and they would tax them accordingly. So here is a tax collector named Levi. Now we know that this is Matthew. Matthew is the one mentioned in the 12 disciples as they're appointed in chapter six. Matthew is who the gospel of Matthew tells us this person is. And it's not uncommon for people to have two names at this time, have a Greek name and have a Jewish name or their own nationality. So this Levi, we'll refer to him as Levi as Luke does throughout, this tax collector named Levi, sitting in the tax office. So he's doing his job. He's sitting in the place where he would come out and assess what goods were brought in and assess and then make them pay the taxes that he said they should pay. And Jesus came up to him. of all people to come up to a tax gatherer. Now we've seen this in Jesus already, right? Jesus is concerned about the outcasts, the others, the ones with leprosy. He's concerned about the young maiden in a small no-name town who God sends the angel and says, you are gonna bear the Christ child. So we have seen this multiple times where he's concerned about the everyday people and also the outcasts. This is no different. Because Jesus isn't coming to redeem people from certain classes. He's not coming as a gift to those who are intellectually strong enough or theologically knowledgeable enough to be able to receive what he's offering. He's coming to offer himself. And what does he say? He said to Levi, follow me. Now we know there could have been other words spoken, but Luke tells us this is what was spoken, follow me. It's the same kind of thing that he told to Peter when we saw Peter's call and his friends, his fishermen friends that we'll meet yet again later, follow me. Now this is a pregnant statement, isn't it? Follow me. Now listen, at the time, Jesus is setting himself aside from the way the rabbis worked. The rabbis in Jesus' day, according to all the things that I could read, the rabbis in Jesus' day, they would go through and they would have disciples, but their disciples would be the ones who came to them and say, can I be your disciple? And that rabbi would decide yes or no. Then they would set up their terms, how much they would pay, and there'd be a limited time that that person would be a disciple of that rabbi. And then at the end of that time, they were considered to be better trained, And the rabbi was always pointing them toward the Torah. The rabbi was always, that was the authority that the rabbi was constantly teaching upon. Constantly giving the teaching of other rabbis and telling them what it meant. Now think about what Jesus is doing. Jesus calls his own disciples. He calls whom he will. And when Jesus calls them, it's not just for a season, and it doesn't cost you anything, except your life. And you follow him forever. And he doesn't point you to an external authority, he points you to himself. Follow me. It is me that you need, he says. Jesus says, I am the one that comes to make these changes. So there's a distinct difference in what Jesus is doing here than the rabbis and the teachers of the day. And the command is simple, follow me. And the response is immediate. And he left everything behind. and rose up and began to follow him, left everything behind. I want you to consider the weight of that. We're gonna see this phrase several other times when it comes to what a description of what discipleship looks like. When we're told what discipleship looks like to follow Jesus, this phrase is gonna keep coming up. Now we know, we just read the passage. Does he just walk away from his home and his wealth? The next thing he does is goes back to his home and throws a party with his own wealth. So we're talking about more than just leaving, which we know that he's going to do. We're talking about more than that. This whole passage is reminding us what repentance truly is. What repentance looks like, not according to the old ways or the pharisaical ways of looking at things, but according to Jesus and what he says. So think of what repentance means. Repentance means to turn the opposite direction. Turn away from your sin and your own self-justification and your own righteousness and turn to Christ. This is what's being shown to us. Matthew turns, leaves everything that was important to him, everything that he is counting on, and he follows Christ. It's a picture of showing what a true disciple does, and it's in the most stark terms we can imagine. And yet Luke is going to remind us of this over and over and over several times. He rose up and began to follow him. Have you done that? And you think, oh, well, that's an easy application, isn't it, Pastor Rob? Well, what would you ask if you were teaching through this text? If Jesus presents himself, just himself, And he calls somebody and says, follow me. And that man gets up and leaves everything to follow him. Isn't your next question going to be, have you done this? This is what Jesus calls to us. Jesus presents himself and he says, follow me. Pick up your cross daily and follow me. If you want to follow me, this is what it's gonna look like. And we're gonna fill in that blank all the way through the gospel of Luke. But today, Jesus is standing before you saying, follow me. What is your response? If you have never turned away from your sin, your self-righteousness, your own understanding of things, left all of that behind, repented of that, and turned the other way, and put your faith and trust in Jesus, everything he's gonna tell you, you may not know everything yet, but it doesn't matter. The call is not understand everything that I'm telling you and then follow me. It's faith that Christ is the one. It's faith that Jesus is the answer. If you're the one who has not dealt with your sin issue yet, the first call to you before any of the rest of this is gonna make any spiritual sense to you is to turn away from everything that you're holding to for your salvation and put your faith and trust in Christ. And you should do that right now. Before my next words come out. Jesus calls sinners to follow him. The second characteristic of his mission is Jesus fellowships with sinners. Look at verse 29. And Levi gave a big reception. I don't know my Greek well enough to know why they chose reception. It is a translation of the word, but this isn't describing a reception like you and I think of a reception. Oftentimes we think we go to some event and there's a reception following and we get that little tiny hold your teacup of punch and you get a piece of bread or maybe a stuffed mushroom or a little sandwich with white bread or something like that and you take that and you stand around with your plate and you talk to people for a few minutes and then you go home and you eat something substantial. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a feast, a banquet. The way it's described tells us that, but also the word has that connotation. And I'm bringing this out to you specifically because throughout Luke, the idea of table fellowship is a primary theme. We learn many things about discipleship, about sin, about the work of Jesus, and our ministry around table fellowship descriptions in the Gospel of Luke. And this begins it. If you look at your text, and Levi, He's followed Jesus immediately, gave a big reception, a banquet for him, for Jesus in his house. And there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them. So the idea of reclining at table means that this was a banquet. That ancient way of coming and sitting down and then leaning on your left elbow as you're laying, reclining at the table and eating on short tables and sharing fellowship and conversation. This is going on and there's a bunch of people there. And they're the riffraff. They're not the politicians and the movie stars and the sports stars. They're the riffraff. They're the tax collectors. Now, if you're having a party, and you invite, and you're a tax collector, and you invite all your tax collector friends, and there are a bunch of other people that are there as well, who are those other people gonna be? The friends of the riffraff, right? So this is just the outcast here. The outcasts have joyfully come because Levi follows Christ and he's joyful and he celebrates at the same time. And this is the group of people that Jesus has gathered, that Levi has gathered, that Jesus is at this banquet. He gave this big reception for him in his house. Lots of people there. There were lots of people there, all reclining at table. Now, listen, this is the important thing. Reclining at table showed a kind of unity. It showed an agreement in life. It showed a fellowship, a koinonia, if you will, between the people that gathered at table. When people would throw parties, they would invite the people who were connected with him in whatever way, for whatever reason that it was. And so it's important for us to know that the people gathered there had a connection and their table fellowship was shouting that connection. That's gonna be important as we see how the Pharisees and scribes respond. Look at verse 30. We could put this with the next characteristic, Jesus calling sinners to repentance, but we're in the banquet and it flows right from this connection that everybody has in the banquet. Verse 30, and the Pharisees and their scribes. We're not gonna go through and describe again who the Pharisees were, but just remember that they were the people who were really concerned about Israel walking in holiness. They were concerned about that. So concerned that they put up a secondary law around the law to make sure they never actually violated God's law. And the scribes, they were those who were the lawyers of the day. They were the law interpreters. Many scribes were Pharisees. Not all Pharisees were scribes, but they're a group that's tied together. And you can see it here. The Pharisees and their scribes began celebrating with the joy at the banquet. It's not what it says, is it? It's a great word, grumbling. They're grumbling. And we know that in the Old Testament, that's what the people of God did when they got fed up with God and full of themselves, right? That God is caring for them in the wilderness, and what did they do? They grumbled. This goes throughout scripture showing us that grumbling is a mark of being in opposition to God. And it marks people who are claiming to be gods at times, claiming to be god's people, not claiming that they are gods, they're claiming, possessing, they're claiming to be god's people, and they grumble, and they complain, and they're talking about things they don't understand, and they think their understanding is everything, and if you just knew what they knew, then you'd believe what they said, and you'd come into their camp. That's what's going on here. This is what the Pharisees are doing. They're grumbling against what they see. And what have they seen? Jesus calls a sinner to follow him, and they throw a banquet, and Jesus is there. And his disciples are there. So that's the question, isn't it? Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners? Now, if we weren't sure who the rest of those people were, who all the other people were, the Pharisees tell us, right? In the Pharisees' eyes, they're all sinners. Everybody there is a sinner, not the Pharisees. They're the ones that are walking holy before God, not the scribes. They're the ones who know the law. But they ask, why do you eat and drink? You see the connection? Fellowshiping. Now, this is what they would have thought. If you're going to go into a room full of sinners and eat dinner with them, you're going to contaminate yourself. You're going to make yourself unclean. And the goal of an obedient Israelite was to be clean before God, ready to be made holy to go into worship. And this is what they would have thought, just the very presence there. Now, I don't know if they were there, but if they were there, they could have been standing outside the window and talking to them, or they could have been part of it. But either way, they wouldn't have thought they were being contaminated, but they think the disciples of Jesus are doing things wrong. And notice what it says, they began grumbling at his disciples, saying, not at Jesus, They talk to the disciples. Now, what does this tell us? By this time, Jesus has people that are following him, the disciples. Now, they're not the 12 yet. We don't see them appointed until next chapter. So when Matthew is called, follow me, he's called to be a follower of Christ. He's not part of the 12 yet because they're not set up yet in Luke until chapter six. So these disciples are all there and they don't grumble at Jesus. I wonder why that is. Could it have anything to do with the fact that he forgave a man's sins and healed the paralytic and cleansed the leper? And they're not gonna come close to that because they already know they're outmatched, but they don't like what they see. So what are you gonna do? Hit the next generation. They're not going to be as strong as Jesus. They're just his disciples. We're going to challenge them. So they grumble against them and they're asking, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And this eating and drinking is going to come up again several times because table fellowship is important in Luke. 10 different times, we're gonna see eating and drinking with different meanings behind it, depending on who are sharing that eat and that drink. And what they're asking is, why are you rubbing shoulders with them? They are unclean. And if you're following this man is who he says he is, you should be following the law. You should be following what the Pharisees have set up. You should be following the current understanding of the pathway to holiness. That's what you should be doing. And so they ask, and notice they aren't responding. Immediately, Jesus, presumably sitting there with them, Jesus answers. And this comes to our third characteristic of his mission and relationship to sinners. Remember, he calls sinners to follow him, and he fellowships with sinners. Jesus isn't standing outside. He's fellowshipping with those sinners. He is making a connection with him. And why is that safe for him? Because when he touches a leper, the leper becomes clean instead of him becoming unclean. Surely, he can break bread with sinners and tax collectors and they will be changed, not him. And that's what he's showing them. So Jesus is the one who responds. And that third characteristic is Jesus calls sinners, sinners to repentance. And here's the center of our text. Here's where we find the primary intent of Luke showing us this. When we have verse 31 and 32, Jesus answered, not the disciples, but Jesus answered and said to them, It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So here we have a parallelism, right? He's not just talking about, he's not talking about physical sickness. He's not coming to the people who are well physically, but only those who are sick, although that is true. But remember in Luke, this constant amalgamation of physical and spiritual are mixed together often for us. So when he says this, he's giving us his meaning in the second statement, when he says, it is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. Now we understand that, right? The people who are sick that need a physician. If you're sick, you don't go to a mechanic. If your car's broken, you don't go to a dentist, you go to the person who has something to say about your condition. And he uses this idea of physical sickness to say, the physician is needed for those who are sick, not people who are not sick. And then he burrows it into his meaning, which is spiritual in verse 32. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, is he saying there are a group of righteous people who don't need to repent? That's not what he's saying, is he? We know throughout the scriptures that that's not the case. Every man sins because every man and woman and child descends from Adam. And when Adam sinned, we all sin. So we know that, and Jesus knows that. What he's saying is those who think they are righteous, those who think they need no physician, the cyberchondriacs and their opposites, those who think they need no physician. In other words, people who do not think they are sinners don't need my work. I have come to save those who know they're sinners. That's what he's telling them. And he says in that verse, I have not come. So what has he not come to do? He has not come to call the righteous, the self-righteous, those who do not need him, the Pharisees, the scribes, and everybody else who will reject him and say that he's not who he says he is, but I have come to call sinners to repentance. This is his mission. This is why he comes. This is why he is born of the Virgin, earthly. This is why he lives a perfect life. This is why he dies the death according to the Old Testament scriptures without sin. This is why God raises him from the dead on the third day, because he is affirming the work that he did, and he seats him at his right hand to rule and reign forevermore. This is what Jesus comes to do. He comes to live and to die so that sinners can live and not die. That's his role, that's his mission. So it's the center of our text, and it's Jesus telling everybody around him, this is why I came. Now I want you to picture yourself being at that banquet. Whose side are you on? Man, those Pharisees, they got a point, don't they, Jack? Yeah, I don't know. They seem to have a point there that, you know, he is eating with us, by the way. That's not what we're saying. We're saying, hallelujah, here comes one that cares about us. The Pharisees and the scribes don't care about us. They tell us we're sinners, but they've never given us any offering except to do what they do. Here's a man who loves us, who comes, who calls somebody from us and sits with us at table. This is joyful. This is what happens when people repent. Now we're gonna get into the repentance idea, but I want these thoughts in your mind. In the Old Testament, when we see the expressions of repentance, they're along with mourning almost every time, aren't they? sackcloth and ashes. Just think of Nineveh, that they're putting on sackcloth and ashes and mourning all the way down to the cattle. And then we don't see the celebration as much, it's the mourning. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to show themselves humble before God, or in a heathen sense, before a god to take notice of them. But in the New Testament, there is a mourning over sin. We do have to do that. James tells us what that looks like using priestly language. But immediately when that repentance and mourning over our sin is met by the grace of God, immediately there's rejoicing and the rejoicing never quits. That's what this banquet is showing us. They're all coming together because one man was called by Jesus and his life was changed. And it's a picture of the marriage supper of the lamb, isn't it? It's a nod in that direction already here in Luke. So have that in your mind and be asking yourself, do I live as if I'm saved or do I live as a grumbler? Am I living in the joy of my salvation? Or am I covering that up with grumbling because I'm not satisfied with what God is doing in and through my circumstances? Because the salvation life is a joyful life. Now we have to ask a question. Are you telling me that if I get saved today, my life will be better and everything that is bad in it will change? No, but you will be changed, and the way you look at it will be different, and the God that you worship and the Christ that you love and exalt will sustain you through that in a way that you can be joyful in the midst of sorrow and suffering. And joy is different than happiness, isn't it? Joy is that settled understanding that God is in control, even of horrible situations. And so you worship God, you see the good in what He's doing, you praise Him for advancing His kingdom. And if you have to suffer along the way, so be it, because you know that He is good and this is for your good so you can be joyful. It's not just a happy smile that covers up all your hatred. It is a joy that permeates and sets aside all of the ways that you would look at evil in your life. Even in Psalm 23, which was in my mind this morning for another reason, in Psalm 23, that even if we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil. Why? Because God is present with us. And so we can have joy even in walking through that. This banquet is showing that picture and the contrast of the old to the new. The old are grumbling against the new that don't want the new to come. And Jesus enters in and says, I've come for those who recognize their sin and want to be freed from it. So Jesus calls sinners to follow him. Jesus calls, or fellowships with sinners. Jesus calls sinners to repentance. And just to remind us, I don't think I've done this in this sermon clearly, but repentance means turning away. So don't grab onto something and hold onto it and say, well, I am gonna turn to Jesus and reach back and grab that one thing that's the most important to you and stuff it in your pocket and think you can take that with you to follow Jesus. Jesus asked you to leave everything. Everything that makes you self-righteous, everything that you think is gonna save you apart from Jesus, you're to leave it all behind. And that's what he's hanging out to them. Those who are sinners, he comes to call them to repentance. And we've already been set up for this and planned for this in John the Baptist's ministry, haven't we? So the fourth characteristic is that Jesus' presence with sinners brings joy. Look at verse 33. And they, that is the Pharisees and the scribes, said to him, the disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees also do likewise, but yours eat and drink. So now they're talking to Jesus because he has engaged them. So they're setting up this lack of holiness in Jesus' disciples. They're not recognizing where they fall short, and they're not repentant, and they're not doing the things that you would do to show that you are in mourning over sin, that you're turning away from something, fasting and offering prayers. Now let's, we've gone through this a lot in Isaiah, so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time here, but remember, in the Old Testament, the only prescribed fast is the Day of Atonement. Once a year, that's the fast that's prescribed. Now, there are a lot of other places where fasting is shown in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament, it is assumed that there would be people fasting, but it's never put forward as a command, it's never put forward as a requirement, it's never even put forward as a solid, regular expectation of us. Why is that? because we are living in the foretaste of the married supper of the lamb. We have Jesus present with us. He dwells with us. We have his righteousness credited to our account. We have the Holy Spirit leading us in understanding of what's happening, and we're fighting sin with the gospel. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't fast. If God calls you to fast over a certain situation, it is a biblical concept, but it's not a way to manipulate God. It's not a way to say, okay, I really want this prayer answered, so today I'm gonna fast. God, please answer this prayer. It is a way to set aside and prove to yourself that you're not dependent on earthly food. You don't live by that. You live by the word of God alone. So they're looking at the external, the Pharisees and the scribes, and thinking that it represents the internal, and they're completely missing the point. So this is the disciples of John. This is the Pharisees. They do likewise, but yours eat and drink. And Jesus gives the answer to this in verse 33, or verse 34. And Jesus said to them, can you make the attendance of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? Now the grammar expects us to answer no, but our common sense expects us to answer no as well. Imagine going to a wedding feast. And you get there and the master of ceremony says, okay, now we're all gonna fast. Is this the guy that's supposed to be at the funeral next door? What's going on here? A wedding is the time of feasting. A wedding is a time of celebration. And now we have this imagery that is brought to us of Jesus coming for his church. And he comes for a church that he is making righteous by his righteousness imputing his righteousness to them so that even though they're yet sinners they're still in fellowship with God because of his righteousness because of his work and he's setting up this picture where not just his messiahship but his credentials that he is God because this is the way the Old Testament talked Isaiah 54, do not be afraid, for you will not be put to shame, and do not feel dishonored, for you will not be humiliated, but you will forget the shame of your virginity, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more. For your husband is your Maker, capital M, whose name is Yahweh of hosts, and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel, who is called the God of all the earth. For Yahweh has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, even like a wife of one's youth when she is rejected, says your God. Isaiah chapter 61 verse 10. Remember, this is the chapter that Jesus said at the synagogue at Nazareth that is fulfilled in him that day. That was from Isaiah 61. I will rejoice greatly in Yahweh. My soul will rejoice in my God, for he has clothed me with garments of salvation. He has wrapped me with the robe of righteousness as a bridegroom decks himself with a headdress and as a bride adorns herself with jewels. Isaiah chapter 62, it will no longer be said to you, forsaken, nor to your land will it any longer be said, desolate. But you will be called, my delight is in her, and your land called married. For Yahweh takes pleasure in you, and to him your land will be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you. And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. Hosea chapter two, after a long list of blessings are given in earlier verses that Yahweh will give to his people, where we read these words in 19 and 20. And I will betroth you to me forever. Indeed, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in loving kindness and in compassion. And I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. Then you will know Yahweh. All of that marriage language we then see in the New Testament in places like Ephesians chapter 5, where men are called to love their wives as Christ loved the church. And we're given that picture of our earthly marriages being a picture of a representation of the relationship between Christ and the church. And in Revelation 19, we await the day that the married supper of the Lamb happens. It is all of God's people that are brought together and they sup with him. They celebrate with him. There's a feast with him because he has redeemed them as his bride. All of that visual concept is wrapped up in here. This is a theology of Jesus's divinity. He's not only the Messiah who comes to live and to die and to forgive the sins of all those who turn to him in repentance and faith. He is God himself that comes to do this. Can you make the attendance of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is with them? No, that would never happen. Verse 35, but the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days. Now here, I think he's talking about his death. He's not talking about just forever until he returns. The New Testament is full of too many passages that tell us about the joy it is to follow Christ, the joy that he brings, that he comes to give us joy inexpressible and full of glory, that he comes to give us a satisfaction that the world could never give us. It's a taste of the future. It's a foretaste of the new heaven and new earth when we will have no sin, and we will not have to fight that. But this life is to be full of that kind of a joy. In 1 Peter chapter one, just listen to these words. In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while If necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. So when does this joy come to us? Now, in the midst of the trials of the world, we have this joy. So that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor in the revelation of Jesus Christ. And though, listen, And though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of, packed of, overloaded with glory. This is our life now. We're overwhelmed by this joy because we are ones who God has set his affections on us through Christ. So when he leaves the disciples for the days that he is in the tomb, there will be mourning there. But then he's resurrected, and the resurrection brings dancing. The resurrection brings feasting. The resurrection brings joy. So don't read this and think, well, Jesus left the earth, and I'm not gonna have this kind of a joy until he returns again. It will be fulfilled then, but we get to taste it now. But too many of us are consumed with grumbling and we never understand the joy, to use the words in this passage. We never live by or understand the joy because we're caught up in our own life and the way we think these should be and we grumble against God for the circumstances that he's put in front of us. That is the quickest way to kill your joy. And Jesus says that this is something that is ours now. So Jesus's presence with sinners brings joy. The fifth characteristic of his mission and relationship to sinners is Jesus's ministry to sinners is new and different. He moves into saying, telling a couple of parables here that are combined together, verse 36. And he was also telling them a parable. No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. Otherwise, he will both tear the new and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled out and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. So he gives two parables, and the purpose of these parables is to show us, it's everyday life that people would understand. If you have an old worn out garment, and you get a brand new garment, it would be ridiculous to fix up the old garment and the hole that's there, that you ruin the new garment by cutting a patch out of it and put it in the old. Say, good, that's fixed. Because what have you done to the new one? You've completely ruined it. Why would you do that? Wear the new one, put the old one aside. And even if you did that, it wouldn't match. It's different. It's a different quality. It's a different color. It's worn. It's not worn in the other's will. When we see this parable given in the other gospels, we see it almost in a little bit different light of you put that in there and it will rip away from that garment. But Luke wants us to see the difference. The new patching the old makes no sense whatsoever. It won't fit, it will be different, and you ruin the new. But he also uses the idea of the wine skins. So the innards, the stomach of goats would be tanned, and the carcasses of goats would be tanned as well, and they would sew them up around the edge, and they would then be able to put new wine in it because there was an elasticity there. And when the wine fermented, the gases that were let off, it would be able to expand and it would not break. But once it's expanded, it can't expand anymore. So if you then emptied that out and put new wine in there that needed to expand, and you filled it up and it expanded, it would burst, it would not expand anymore. So he's using these ideas to say the new must not be replaced in the old. The new is different than the old. Now what's he talking about here? Is he talking about just repentance? Because the Pharisee saw an external repentance and Jesus is calling men and women to an internal repentance. Is that what he's talking about? I don't think that can be just what he's talking about. That could be against the Pharisees. But that's not what the Old Testament said. The external in the Old Testament was to represent the internal devotion to God. And if you went and tried to give external devotion to God without internally being changed, God was... How many times in Isaiah do we find out that God is not only not pleased with that, it makes him sick. He uses that human language to tell us that. So this is the broader thing. The Pharisees are representing their version of the Old Covenant. And Jesus is saying, you can't take me and put it into that. He's also saying, and the Old Covenant has its fulfillment in me. Every bit of it was pointing forth to me. So I'm here now, why would you go back to that? It was not able to forgive sins. It was not able to do that. God forgave sins through it as he planned, but all of that was to point forward to me so that the offering did not have to be offered every single day. And for every sin, the offering is once and it is me. Jesus would say if he would fill us up with all the theology that he has. So he's saying, don't, you're challenging me, but what I'm bringing is something new and different. It's a fulfillment of the old, but don't try to mix them up here. This is what's gonna be the problem with the Judaizers in the New Testament, isn't it? Trying to mix them up. You wanna be a Christian, you still have to submit to circumcision and other things like that. So Jesus is using these parables to say, what I'm bringing is new. It's an expression that is different. It's all what the old covenant pointed toward, but do not try to mix them up. Accept me for who I am and what I come to do." And what does he come to do? Call sinners to repentance. And when sinners repent, heaven rejoices and Jesus saves. That's the purpose that he's saying here. And he's challenging them even further. Look at the last verse. And no one after drinking old wine wishes for new, for he says, the old is good enough. So if you're one of those people stuck in your ways, Pharisees, scribes, anybody else that wants my miracles but doesn't want me, if you're stuck in your old ways thinking that's enough, you are the ones who think you're righteous. And I'm a come for you. I've come to offer salvation to those who repent. And this is the message for us. This is the message we must preach. And you say, well, Yes, I know the gospel goes to everyone. There's no foundation of knowledge or anything else that gets one person saved over another. But I wonder what your thoughts are when you see the outcast of our world. What are your thoughts when you see them? Do you shuffle on by them? Do you think about whether they need salvation or not? I'm not saying you should stop and give them money. That's probably not what you should do most of the time, but do you stop and engage them about what's real and what's eternal and what's true? If somebody walked in right now in our church, and you just picture the most uncomfortable person you can think, and they walked in right now in our church and sat down in the front row, would you hear anything else that I said today? Or would you constantly be thinking, what are they doing? What gives them the right? We started an hour and 12 minutes ago. What gives them the right to come in? What are your thoughts when you see the unlovable? Because when Jesus sees the unlovable, He goes right up to them, touches them, fellowships with them, and has His disciples do the same, so that they are rejoicing in what Jesus is doing. The new covenant being inaugurated in His blood as He lives His perfect life, and He heals the sick, and He heals their diseases, and He brings them unto salvation, and He recognizes their faith. and he does it in such a way to demonstrate his power to do that, that he is God. That's the Jesus that we preach about. And he reaches the most unlovely person sitting in this front row that you can conjure up that you would let somebody else talk to. I'll let those people who have the gift of gab, they'll talk to him. Those people that talk to all our visitors, we'll just let them talk. I'll let the people who have the gift of evangelism, Yeah, Luke and Mikey and Todd, they're the interns. Let's let them talk about it. All these excuses come into our mind because we are predisposed in our flesh to think somebody else will do that, and yet Jesus is doing it now. So it's a challenge to us, isn't it? It's a challenge to us. This is what bugs me so much when people say, well, if your church isn't interracial, if you don't have all these different nationalities and skin color in your church, that you're somehow sinning. Well, God builds his church, not us. God is the one who builds his church. We witness and we witness and God brings whom he will. Now, if every person of a certain color or nationality gets walked by by every person in our church, we've got a problem. We have a huge problem, but we shouldn't go out and try to get a certain color or nationality because that leaves out the people who aren't that color and nationality. What kind of gospel is this? The gospel is for tax gatherers and sinners, and the world is full of them, and it's our role to go out there and bring the gospel to them. And we may meet our Pharisees and our scribes who say, what are you doing this for? And we ignore them after we preach the gospel to them. Because we know that God is about saving whom he will, and he sent us out with marching orders to do it. So the two questions you have to ask this morning, are you on the same mission as Jesus, calling sinners to repentance and pointing them to Christ? Christ points his disciples to himself, we point disciples to Christ. Are you in the business of doing that? And have you come to Christ so that your spiritual sickness that will separate you from God forever into an eternal punishment Eternally, no end. Have you escaped that today by leaving everything and following Jesus? And if you have done that today during this service, I don't want you to stand up, I want you to turn to the person next to you after we sing our last song and tell them that that happened to you today. If you're a kid here, you're a child, you're a youngster and you've just done that today for the first time, you need to go right to your mom and dad and tell them that this happened today. so that they can rejoice with you. And then when we find out, what do we do? We rejoice because salvation brings rejoicing, not mourning. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful for your love for us. We are thankful that you have sent your son to live this life, to call sinners to repentance, but not just call them to repentance, but to be the one who has the authority and the power to forgive those sins. For this whole process of you building a kingdom for yourself, redeeming a people for yourself, and advancing your kingdom, all of it has one purpose, and that is to bring you glory. It's not about us. It's not about anything that we do. It's about you and your glory. You are glorified when your people love your son. You are glorified when your people are led by your spirit. You are glorified when people preach. You are glorified as you draw men and women unto yourself so that there are more worshipers in your world. You are glorified at every single turn. And even though we live in a world that feels like it's falling apart, you are glorifying yourself even today. And we pray that you would use wars and rumors of wars to draw men and women to yourself, that you would use elections and evil people and godly people to draw men and women under yourself so that you would get the glory. For the more people you redeem, the more the world reflects your glory. And that's what we desire. So thank you for this, Father, and make us faithful to our calling because Jesus was faithful to his. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.