speak front of people. Thank you, Bob, this morning for that. Thank you, Claudia, for sharing that beautiful song. Absolutely. Kids, if you're ready for Children's Church at this time, we're gonna clear the way and allow you to go. Absolutely. As they're making their way back, I want to say this first before we get into the message this morning. Mother's Day is particularly difficult for me, not because of anything in my family life. I love my mom very much and my wife is a wonderful mother too, but a few years ago I became more aware of some things about Mother's Day that had never crossed my mind and I owe a lot of that to Claudia and Rodney Hubbard. in the struggle that they went through to try to have children. And I became more keenly aware that Mother's Day is a celebration of moms, obviously, and we rejoice in that. But Mother's Day is a very difficult day for a lot of people. And I don't want to overlook the fact that while we celebrate and rejoice with many mothers, there are many, maybe even in this room, that are hurting today as well. And so for me, I've taken a different look at Mother's Day. I don't often preach sermons directed at mothers on this day for that reason. But I want to share with this, and I've read this before, so if it's redundant, I apologize, but I think it's very, very worthwhile to read again this morning to you. This is an article written by A Christian woman concerning Mother's Day. She said, a few years ago, I sat across from a woman who told me she doesn't go to church on Mother's Day because it's too hurtful. I'm not a mother, but I had never seen the day as hurtful. She had been married, had numerous miscarriages, divorced, and was beyond childbearing years. It was like salt in mostly healed wounds to go to church on that day. This made me sad, but I understood. Fast forward several years to Mother's Day. A pastor asked all mothers to stand. On my immediate right, my mother stood, and on my immediate left, a dear friend stood. A woman in her late thirties sat. I don't know how others saw me, but I felt dehumanized, gutted as a woman. Real women stood. Empty shells sat. I do not normally feel this way. I do not like feeling this way. I want no woman to ever feel this way in church again, and I believe we can honor mothers without alienating others. I want women to feel welcome, appreciated, seen, and needed here in the body of Christ. So I would say this this morning to all of you women, mothers or not, to those who gave birth this year to their first child, we celebrate with you. To those who lost a child this year, we mourn with you. To those who are in the trenches with little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains, we appreciate you. To those who experience loss through miscarriage, failed adoptions, or running away, we mourn with you. To those who walk the hard path of infertility fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment, we walk with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don't mean to make this harder than it is. To those who are foster moms, mentor moms, and spiritual moms, we need you. To those who have warm and close relationships with your children, we celebrate with you. To those who have disappointment, heartache, and distance with your children, we sit with you. To those who have lost their mothers this year, we grieve with you. To those who have experienced abuse at the hands of your own mother, we acknowledge your experience. To those who have lived through driving tests, medical tests, and overall testing of motherhood, we are better for having you in our midst. To those who are single and long to be married and mothering your own children, we mourn that life has not turned out the way you have longed for it to be. For those who step-parent, we walk with you in these complex paths. To those who envision lavishing love on grandchildren, yet that dream is not to be, we grieve with you. To those who have emptied your nest in the upcoming year, we grieve and rejoice with you. To those who have placed children up for adoption, we commend you for your selflessness and remember how you hold that child in your heart. And to those who are pregnant with new life, both expecting and surprising, we anticipate with you. This Mother's Day, we walk with you. Mothering is not for the faint of heart, and we have real warriors in our midst, and so today we remember you. If you have your Bibles this morning, I'd like you to turn with me to the Gospel of Mark. Mark chapter 2. If you're a visitor here today, I would like to welcome you and just to catch you up. We have begun a few weeks ago a series through the Gospel of Mark. We're taking a verse-by-verse look, for the most part, at the Gospel of Mark. And the key theme that we've already seen and will continue to see is that Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. And so we see him as the servant king, and we see him as the savior of the world. And those themes continually will come up again and again. And today is a beautiful story of grace. It's a beautiful story of grace, but in the midst of that story of grace is a warning for everyone in this room. I can guarantee you today that this message will touch every heart and every life, because we all need grace, and we all are prone to self-righteousness. And it will touch both of those. So Mark 2, verses 13-17, I'd like to read with you, and we'll go to the Lord in prayer. The Bible says, He went out again beside the lake, and all the crowd was coming to Him as He was teaching them. And as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, Follow me. And he rose and followed him. 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. 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? And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Father, we thank you this morning for grace. We thank you, God, for the wonderful opportunity that if we searched our lives 10,000 times over, we would never be worthy. And yet grace invades our lives when we're at our worst, when we're broken, and when we're hurting. And it says, my child, I forgive you. I've done everything for you on the cross of Calvary so that you could inherit eternal life and to find reconciliation with God the Father. And so, Lord, it's my prayer this morning that you will open our hearts and our eyes for those that are here God that are in desperate need of grace that do not know you as Lord and Savior that you would show them that yes Lord there may be many things in their life that make them feel guilty and shamed and unworthy but yet it is for them that you came and you died and God for those of us that may be gripped in self-righteousness, to look down upon people and to think that sometimes we're better than we are. Let us never forget that we are only who we are by grace, and none of us has anything to boast in, Father. So, convict where it's necessary, save where it's needed, and most of all, Father, just let us leave this place glorifying and honoring You for who You are and what You do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 28 years ago in the United States of America, the national budget was just over $1 trillion. Let me put that number in perspective a little bit. If beginning at the birth of Christ, we were to spend $104,000 every day, up until today, we would just about have reached that number. That's the amount that we're talking about. And that number has only escalated to meet the need taxes have risen with it. The tax rate, as we've seen, continues to go up and up and up. And none of us likes to pay taxes. I don't think anybody in here gets excited about paying taxes. Because we often feel that they're wasted, that the government in a lot of senses is corrupt in what it does, but it was no different in Jesus' time as well. And so, because of that, one of the most hated positions that you could hold in biblical times was a tax collector. I mean, they were just the lowest of the low and the worst of the worst. And I want to explain it to you a little bit as we look at the call of Levi, who would later be known as Matthew, who penned the Gospel of Matthew himself. I want you to see just where this man was when Jesus came to him, when he found him. The Romans in that time used a system called tax farming. It was almost like what we see today with a franchise. You would bid on a location and the highest bidder would be given that region to tax and to collect taxes. So we see that Levi at some point had bid on this area of Capernaum where Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee, and he was responsible to collect Roman taxes for that region. And Rome would give a fixed amount. They'd say, okay, Levi, you need to go out and collect this much for the Roman government. And what they did was, there were two types of taxes. There was a poll tax, which basically you paid for just being alive. You had no option around that. If you were living and breathing, you paid that tax. There was also a ground tax for living in the area. A tenth of your grain, a fifth of your wine, was given back to the Roman government. Off the top. You had no choice. And an income tax of 1% for your annual salary. So those things, right off the top, you had no choice, no say. The government said, they're mine. Much as they do today. The second tax was called a duty tax. And this is where the tax collectors became hated and despised. Because this was really something that was left up to their discretion. How they wanted to do it. where they wanted to collect it, and when they wanted to collect it. And so you would find these tax collectors coming along at any moment. You could be driving down the road. They could stop you, go through your goods, and tax you on whatever you were carrying. It got to the point even where if you were pulling something along in a wagon, they would tax you for using the road, for having a wagon, and sometimes even tax you individually for each wheel. on the wagon. That's how corrupt it had gotten. But don't fear because if they came to you and you didn't have until April 15th to pay, you paid then. So if you didn't have the money, don't worry, they would loan it to you at an exorbitant rate with interest. And so it was a corrupt system. And these were Hebrews that had basically sold out their brethren They had went to Rome to work and were using the oppression of the Roman government to make themselves rich in the face of their people. And so because of that, here are some consequences that came with that. A tax collector could never be a judge in the court system. Matter of fact, they couldn't even be a witness in the court system. They were so looked down upon and so dishonest that their testimony would never stand up in court. Number two, they were excluded or excommunicated from the synagogue. Now, as a Jew, the synagogue was central to your life. It was where everything revolved around. And these tax collectors were banished from going to this place. And finally, they, as I said, were despised by the people. No one wanted to hang out and be friends with a tax collector. And so basically these men gave up their lives to get rich. They sold everything that may have been important for the almighty dollar, so to speak. And that's where we find Levi. And what makes this story amazing is that stop for a minute and think about it. We looked a few weeks ago at Jesus called the first disciples. He stops and calls some fishermen. And we may have questioned that decision. They may have not been the most educated, the most religious people, but maybe we can overlook that calling. But I would venture to say that if we were choosing a team, if we were picking members individually or handpicking members to join Freedom Baptist Church, I don't believe that Levi or people like Levi may be the ones that we would go after. What I'm trying to say this morning is I don't know that we would go down on East Avenue or Front Street to find prospects if we were handpicking a church. I don't know if that would be the people that we would go after. And I would like to say this morning that we all have a bias about who we interact with, and who we mingle with, and who we even feel is worthy. And I wonder sometimes if someone came into this church that was a little bit or a lot different than us, maybe someone still hungover from last night, maybe someone dirty and smelly that had slept out in the heat last night or the cold and they sat down, I wonder how many of us would move to the seat next to them and welcome them, or if we would move to the corner and talk. Because we all struggle with self-righteousness. We all look at certain people and say, I'm glad I'm not that person. I'm glad I don't go through what they go through. I'm glad I'm not like them. J.C. Ryle, who was a great Anglican bishop about 150 years ago, said this about self-righteousness. He said, Nothing so blinds the eyes of our souls to the beauty of the gospel as the vain, delusive idea that we are not so ignorant and wicked as some. and that we have got a character which will bear or stand up to inspection. Happy is that man who has learned to feel that he is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked in the eyes of God. To see that we are bad is the first step towards being really good. To feel that we are ignorant is the first beginning to all saving knowledge. And so I want to ask you a question as we begin this morning. How do you view yourself today? How do you view yourself today? This will determine how you look at God and His grace and how you look at your neighbor as well. What do you think of yourself this morning? Our culture today, more than ever, is obsessed with self. Matter of fact, it got so bad a few years ago that a new term was adopted into the dictionary, the selfie. The selfie. If you're on social media, you're very probably well aware of the selfie. It's a photograph of yourself. And you'll see those sometimes, depending on who it might be, several times a day. You'll see selfies. One writer said about this, he said, we are living in a culture of people who are very much involved in themselves and are becoming a culture of self-indulgence. Another point that I would make in that is the rise in bullying, a 25% increase in the last 10 years. Because when we're self-righteous, not only do we elevate ourselves to a place that we shouldn't be, but we belittle others so that we can feel good about ourselves. When you want to elevate yourself, you get so far, but then you can push people down around you a little bit, too, to even exasperate that difference. And so you see a rise in bullying largely because people will pick out certain individuals and put them down and pick on them and treat them terribly to make themselves feel good. But I would say to you this morning that self-righteousness has existed long before the selfie and before bullying became an issue. Let me just throw a few of these out to you this morning. We often justify our wrongs so that we can soothe our conscience. Rather than humbly confessing our sins, rather than, as the Sunday school lesson talked about this morning, going to someone and asking for forgiveness, we justify what we know is wrong to soothe our conscience. We downplay our own evil nature by contrasting our lives with someone else. If you want to look around and compare garbage and baggage, you'll always find someone externally that you would assume is worse than you. But the problem is that man looks on the outward appearance and God looks at the heart. And so when we look around and compare problems and issues, you might find someone worse. But according to the scales of judgment with God, we've all sinned and come short of the glory. And so the problem is not so much external as it is internal. And that's where we need to look. We think that there are certain sins and we deem certain sins more terrible than our own. We categorize and we put things into different places and we say, this is much worse than me. And while consequences for sins may be worse than others, the guilt and condemnation that sin brings is universally equal, no matter who it is or what it is. And I want you to see today in this text, the message is titled, Scandalous Grace. Because the way that Jesus invades Levi's life is nothing short of miraculous. In verse 14, The Bible tells us that as Jesus passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth, and he said, follow me, and he rose and followed him. Like I said, Levi was an outcast. Nobody wanted anything to do with him or any tax collector. And yet Jesus walks by and he sees a potential in this man. Now don't take that wrong. What I'm not saying is that there was something inherently good in Levi or something special about him that Jesus said, wow, I would like to have him join me and be a disciple of me. But what it did see was what grace could make Levi. It saw what was able to be done in the life of someone that the world had given up on. And maybe you're here this morning and you feel like I just don't know where to go, and I don't know what to do, and I just feel like I'm at that point of no return, or maybe I'm past that point of no return. You'll never cross that line with grace. You've never gone too far that the grace of God can't reach you, and that's the good news that we see. in this story. And the thing that we've done in many churches is we've twisted the story around so much to say that it's man that is special, and man is wonderful, and God is just so excited to have you, and we're just wonderful, and the focus is so shifted on man that we think highly of ourselves, and we need to get back to a place of humility and repentance that says none of us When we feel worthy, we begin to boast in who we are and we begin to compare our record with other people. But when we all come in here as beggars, needy and searching for that bread of life, you'll recognize that you can only find that in Jesus Christ and only in His grace. When we worship man, when churches lift up man to a position that only God should have, that's not worship, that's idolatry. That is idolatry. That's putting self and man on the throne that only God should occupy. And it's unbiblical to do that. We're fortunate this morning that God would have anything to do with us. And the only reason He does is grace. And we read this story again and we look at it, and I think, maybe we're so far removed from that period that it's hard to really relate, but I can guarantee you that the disciples and everybody that saw this, and if we lived in that time, we would be surprised, we would be shocked, maybe even a little bit disgusted, that Jesus would go to this tax collector and call him. And you know why we feel that way? Because we think we're different than Levi. The reason we're surprised when God calls certain people is because we think that we are somehow better than them. That's why it shocks us. If we really understood what grace was, we would rejoice when a sinner is saved, regardless of who they are, who they've been, where they've been, what they've done. We would rejoice in that. But we forget who we were and who God's made us. First Corinthians 1510. Listen to what the Apostle Paul, one of the greatest men that has ever lived, that could boast in just about anything that the flesh could offer. And yet he said, I count it all as dung. I count it all as garbage, as rubbish, that I might find Christ. But he says in First Corinthians 1510, by the grace of God, I am what I am. and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me. Three times in that verse Paul recognizes that everything he is, everything that he's done, every ounce of energy that he's expelled has been through the grace of God at work in his life. Romans 12, 3. You talk about a convicting verse. Romans 12, 3. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. The only thing, this is liberating, I hope this is liberating to some of you and I hope it's eye-opening to others, but the only thing that you can bring to Christ this morning is your sin. That's the only thing that you can bring and that's the only thing He expects you to bring. He expects you to repent and to come to Him with all of your sin and by faith receive the sacrifice that He offered of Himself on the cross so that you could be set free. He doesn't expect you to be a better person. He doesn't expect you to work off the debt that you can't work off. He simply expects you to come by faith and receive the gift of eternal life that Jesus Christ has bought and paid for. That's all He expects from us. Nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling, as the old hymn says. Because we're all Levites. I hope that you can get that through your mind this morning. Every one of us in this room is Levi. We're all unworthy and despised and separated from God without Christ. And it's amazing that God would do anything with any of us, that He would show love to any of us. And if that upsets you this morning, it's because there's self-righteousness in your heart. It's because you have pride in your life. And if you don't agree with what I'm telling you, it's because you don't see the seriousness of sin, the weight of sin that is weighing upon you, the enslaving power of sin in your life, the deceitfulness of sin that blinds you to your need of Christ. But you will have no excuse when the clock runs out on your life and you stand before God if you've rejected Jesus. There'll be no excuse, no second chance, no hope. And so today is the day of salvation. Today, if you hear his voice, harden not your heart, the Bible says. Today, he calls out to the Levi's of this world, the worst of the worst. And maybe you think, well, I'm really not that bad, you know, and in your life, maybe you haven't done a whole lot of bad things. You still need Christ. You still need Christ. You're not good enough without him. I want to ask you this morning to think about this passage of scripture and think about the times that we have had this same spirit about us. Luke 18, 11, the story that Jesus gives of the publican and the Pharisee. The Pharisee came to pray, and this is what he says in verse 11. He says, the Pharisee standing by himself prayed this, God, I thank you that I am not like other men. I thank you that I am not like other men. There was actually a prayer that the Jewish people would pray and they would say, Lord, I thank you today that I'm not a woman, a slave, or a Gentile. That was their prayer. Those three people were despised and the lowest of the low in that time. A woman, a Gentile, and a slave. And these men said, I'm glad I'm not like them. I'm glad I'm not that. I may not be perfect, but I'm not that. The Pharisee said, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector, this publican. I'm glad I'm not that. How often do we do that in our own lives? How often do we look at the homosexual as being so, so much more in need of God's grace than us? The drunk, the adulterer, the single mom, the thief, How often do we look at certain people and we say, man, God, you need to break into their life. And he does. He does. But I hope when we say that and use that language, it's because we recognize and have compassion towards them, not to say, boy, you're a mess. You're sure not. straight like me. You sure don't have it figured out like me. You sure haven't reached the plateau like me. But I think we do that. I think we often look at people in a different light and sometimes look down on them. There was a 16th century Englishman named John Bradford who looked at many people in his lifetime and they had fallen into all sorts of sin and his country was spiraling downward. And he said these words, he said, there but for the grace of God go I. There but for the grace of God go I. If God hadn't broken into some of our lives this morning, if he hadn't changed some of us, many of you wouldn't be here today at all. And by here, I mean on this earth. You would have drank yourself to death, partied yourself to death. I don't know what would have happened. But I can certainly say without the grace of God, you wouldn't be gathered together on a Sunday morning to worship. It's only grace that's changed your heart. It's grace that takes out that heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh. It's grace that says, if any man is in Christ, he's a new creature. Behold, old things have passed away. All things have become new. That's grace. Galatians 6.3 tells us, For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. The Bible says there's none righteous, no, not one. The writer of Psalms says, O Lord, if you would mark iniquities, who could stand? And on and on and on we see that there's nothing righteous in ourselves. And we've got to let go of that pride and humble ourselves to fall down at the feet of Jesus and allow Him to change us and mold us and shape us and save us. It starts with that step of faith and it starts with humbling yourself before God. Jesus says to Levi, follow me. And isn't it amazing that as you look at that, it says, all it says is he rose and followed him. He just got up and went. He just got up and went. Sometimes we feel like, man, if that person could just, if that person could just straighten up their life, Things would be better for them if they could do this and do that and do this and do that. And I would say if that's the call to straighten up your life, we're all in trouble. I mean, does anybody in this room have their life straightened out? I don't. Do you? That's not the gospel. The gospel is you can't straighten out your life. You can't work hard enough. You can't do enough. Listen to what Paul says to a young man named Titus in Titus 3.5, speaking of the saving power of Christ. He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness. Do you see that? That's a relief. That should be a relief to some of you this morning, who feel like you're just unworthy and you've got to get to a certain place before God will save you. He just told you. He saved us not because of works done in righteousness. You don't have to work off your debt. But listen, but according to His own mercy, it's mercy and grace that looks at the sinner and offers forgiveness. Apart from works, apart from your effort, the works begin after salvation, not for salvation. You're saved from your redemption, not toward it. Do you see the difference? Some of you are working yourselves ragged to try to please God and to make Him love you. And the Bible says, while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. He laid down His life because He loved you. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes should not perish but have eternal life. He died because He loves sinners. Not because He expects you to become a non-sinner so that He can love you. He said in this verse, when He called Levi at the end, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. That's who He came for. And so rather than trying to justify your sin, or ignore your sin, or say that I don't need Him, or that He could never save me, He came for you. He died for you. He rose for you. What is holding you back from simply trusting Him? I'll tell you what it is. It's pride and unbelief. It's pride and unbelief that says, I'll do it my way. I'll work my way. I'll prove it to you, God, that I can make it without you. You might not come out and say it that way, but that's what your attitude expresses. You would rather hold on to your sin than surrender your life to Christ. And if you hold on to your sin too long, it will take you to hell eternally. It will drag you completely into an eternity separated from God. And that's the seriousness that you face this morning. You face a coming judgment where God will look upon you and either judge you for your sins or forgive you for Christ's sake. That is what is at cost, the cost that is this morning. And I want you to see one more thing as we get ready to close. Verse 15. There's a change in Levi. And there will be a change in any true believer in Christ. If you claim the name of Jesus and there's no change, you're not one of His. Period. That doesn't mean that you always live on a high elevated plane of holiness. But that means that there will be a repentant heart about you. There will be a desire to please God. When you stray from Him, there will be conviction. At some point, you will turn back and call on Him. If those things aren't present in your life, if there's no fruit of the Spirit in your life, you're not His. Regardless of how many prayers you've prayed, regardless of how many books your name's on in church rolls, you're not His. If the blood has not been applied and has not changed you and is not changing you, it's a lifelong process. Look what Levi does. He brings Jesus home to introduce Him to what little bit of friends He had. Now, who was Levi's friends? It wasn't church people. It wasn't religious people. It was other tax collectors and other sinners because that's who he hung out with because that's all that he felt welcome with. Isn't it a shame that sinners don't often feel welcome or able to come into a church? I hope they feel convicted, but I hope it's the Holy Spirit that does the convicting, not our self-righteous glares and cruel and cutting words. But I hope that they know that the church is a place where they can come and receive help and hope and not condemnation and judgment. I hope there's a difference. I hope you recognize that. Jesus goes to the party. You see that? Levi brings him back to the house with all the sinners and Jesus goes. The problem, you know why we have such a hard time evangelizing often? It's not because we're afraid. That's part of it sometimes, but that's not the biggest reason. You know why? It's because all we hang around with is Christians. It's because we get saved and our entire life revolves around other Christians. And there's nothing wrong with having Christian friends, but if you disconnect yourself from the world to the point where you never interact with anybody that's lost, how will you ever share the gospel? How can you ever witness to somebody if you're never around lost people? Matter of fact, how can you be a Christian and not be concerned enough about lost people to go and interact with them? You see? You see the problem there? You see? We're not... of the world, but we're in the world. And while we're here, we're to be salt and light and make a difference. But if you hide yourself in the house and in the walls of the church, I don't think your light's gonna shine very brightly out there. And so we've got to interact, and Jesus does that. We see him constantly with sinners. And that raises a question with the scribes, with the religious people. They don't like that, and religious people still don't like it today. They don't like that today. Look what they say, verse 16. Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? Why in the world would he do that? Can you read that again? Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? Can you just feel the arrogance dripping off that question? There's only one way that you can ask that question. Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? The only way you can ask that question is if you feel you're not one of them. Think about that. The only way that you can ask why Jesus would eat with tax collectors and sinners is if you feel that you are not one of them. And that is pride and self-righteousness. And it reaps of arrogance. It did then and it does now. Romans 4 or 5 says, And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted. as righteousness. And again, I would say that this arrogant attitude of the scribes and the Pharisees that finds its way into too many churches and into too many religious people today says, boy, if they were more like me, God would be pleased with them. And it fails to recognize that it's only by grace that you've been saved. By grace through faith are you saved, not of yourself. It's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. We have nothing to brag about but Jesus Christ and His righteousness. Nothing to boast about. Nothing. And we forget that in all our religious activity. And we forget it most often when people that are so much different than us, or at least who we perceive to be so much different from us, come into our midst. That self-righteousness rears its head. These were the religious elite, so to speak, of the time. Shouldn't they have been rejoicing? Here was a tax collector, the worst of the worst in culture and society's eyes. And now he's a follower of Christ, he's a disciple. Man, shouldn't they have rejoiced? Shouldn't they have thrown their arms around him and loved him? But all they could do was sit back and talk and judge and condemn. Do we do that? Do we do that? Do we do that with people that we're familiar with? Do we do that with people that are new? Do we do that with the stranger that comes in off the street? Can you believe that person is here? Look, look who's here. Look at them. Have you seen her? Have you seen her? Have you heard about them? Do we whisper those things in the quiet? God hears your whispers. He sees your thoughts and He knows your heart. And so I would call you today to repent of that self-righteous attitude if you have it. And I would call you also to see the grace that's available for you if you don't know Christ. You need that grace and it's available for you. Jesus' message, he says, was for sinners. He said, I didn't come to call those that are well. He said, the righteous, those that are well, don't need a doctor, but those that are sick. We don't make a doctor's appointment when we're feeling good. It's only when we start to have these symptoms and we feel bad that we go to the doctor. And I hope that the Holy Spirit this morning is awakening you to the sin in your life so that you will go to the great physician and get the healing that you need. I hope that you'll run to him this morning. Even if you say this morning, well, Chris, I'm just still such a mess. There's so many things going on in my life and I'm just not ready to do that. That's self-righteousness. That, again, is self-righteousness that says, well, once I get this straightened out and, you know, I'm going through a hard time and I've kind of fallen back into this sin, and when I get that straightened out in my life, then I'll come to Christ. Then I'll get committed. Then I'll serve. That's self-righteousness. You come right now. We don't just sing just as I am because it's a nice song. There's meaning behind that. Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood will shed for me. O Lamb of God, I come. You come just as you are and you will never be the same when you leave. That's the good news. So I'm going to ask this morning, Jeff, if you would, that you would come and we'll give you an opportunity to respond to whatever it is that God's doing in your life, whatever he might be doing in this moment. Listen. We're not concerned about who you were or even who you are at this moment. What we're concerned about is who you can be. Jesus saw Levi and he saw what grace could make him. And Jesus looks at you this morning, and He knows what grace can do to you, and what it can do for you. But you've got to be the one that makes that step of faith. And if you ever want to be pleasing to God and be used in this body, you've got to put away self-righteousness and say, nothing in my hand I bring, only to the cross I cling. You've got to let Christ change you. So as we stand and as we sing this morning, if you need to come, will you follow the Holy Spirit's prompting and come? I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. I can hear my Savior calling. take thy cross and follow follow me where he leads me I will follow Will you follow this morning? Where he leads me, I will follow. Where he leads me, I will follow. I'll go with him, with him. Just bow your heads for one minute. I just want you to think about what you're singing there. Where He leads me, I will follow. That's a surrender of your life. Oftentimes, people want to follow Jesus until He calls them into difficult places, and He calls them into suffering, and He calls them into uncertainty. Because the Bible says without faith, it's impossible to please Him. And when you follow Christ, sometimes you're going to go through situations where it doesn't make sense. And you can't see the other side of the tunnel. And you've just got to hold on to His hand and trust. And so I want you to know that maybe you say, you know, I've tried to follow Christ. And every time I seem to take a turn, it goes wrong. Listen, if he's got a hold of you, you're safe and secure in his hand and he promised to never leave or forsake you. And so if you're in that place where you're just not sure what's going on and what God's doing, I would just call you. to use faith, to just have faith, that God is doing something in your life that you may not understand, but it's going to be something that's going to bring you to a place of rejoicing, a place of glorifying Him. So one more verse as we sing. Maybe you need to come and just say, Lord, I'm struggling, and I need you to help me with my unbelief. Let's do verse 3. Verse 3 this morning. He will give me grace and glory. He will give me grace and glory. He will give me grace and glory. and go with me, with me, all the way. You may be seated for just a moment. I'm going to have you come up here with me. John, we're going to get your speech ready. I don't know how many of you have had a chance to meet John Bowles. He's been coming quite a while, Dennis and Tracy, his parents, and Scott and Tara back there, the family. We thank God for you all. John and I have had several chances to talk, some good conversations, and John feels that it is time for him to surrender. to serve here at Freedom Baptist Church and he comes this morning upon his profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which he had made some time ago but it never again followed in that step of obedience to believers baptism and we talked a lot about the importance of that and why that's so necessary to take that first initial step that kind of sets the stage for everything else. So he comes this morning asking to be received as a member of Freedom Baptist Church and to be baptized in the very near future and we rejoice in that but As always, can I have an amen for unanimous consent this morning? Thank you. Any opposed? John, we love you. I'm thankful for you and your family. Um, we're gonna stand and be dismissed and I'll have you stand up here. Everybody can come around and get a chance to meet and greet you. So we look forward to serving with your brother. Thank you for being here. and also enjoy this Mother's Day. There will be no evening service tonight. So a lot of you, I know, have family in and you want to enjoy this time together. So no evening service tonight. Enjoy your family. Come back and see us Wednesdays at seven or next Sunday. Don't forget the picnic. Everybody's invited 1 to 6. I just asked that if you come and you're able to bring a dish if you can't just come and eat and fellowship. We'd love to have you. That's next Saturday, 1 to 5. So I'm gonna ask Brother Jeff Staton. Do you mind to dismiss us this morning? Thank you. Opportunity for us to gather together and worship you we thank you for your grace and your mercy Lord we are all We're a mess Except for your grace, and we thank you for that go with us today. Help us to be a light and help us to share your your Your grace and mercy and extend that to others we pray in Jesus name. Amen. I