Please do turn with me tonight to Luke's Gospel and to chapter 5. I'd like to read again verse 31 and verse 32. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. He's answering an accusation that has cowardly been not made to him but made against his disciples. The Lord Jesus has sat down and ate in a house full of what you might call sinners, prostitutes, tax collectors. Sometimes we use that phrase, the great unwashed, but really until we come to Christ, we are all the great unwashed. But they make an accusation, they say, why? If he is such a great man, why is he sat down eating? fellowshipping, talking with sinners. The Lord Jesus answers them because he knows what they've said to the disciples and he says, they that are whole, complete, well, fit, need not a physician. But they that are sick, evidently these people called sinners, publicans, tax collectors, the great unwashed, they are sick, sin sick. And so are we all. And then he makes this very profound statement. It's what I want to think about almost exclusively tonight. Verse 32, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. My title tonight, somewhat ambiguously, is Unfair Grace. Unfair Grace. We know what the word unfair means, children. Let me speak to you for a few minutes. Have you ever said, it's not fair? Well, so have I. Unfair. Human nature, all of us, we just love to point out the unfairness of life. You think of governments of every color. They give tax cuts. to the rich. That's not fair. They give tax breaks to some and not to others. What about parents? They sometimes seem so unfair, don't they? They give something to one and not to another. They let one child go to bed at 8 o'clock and one at 9 o'clock. One can have this and one have that. And it seems so unfair, but if you're a gardener, you don't go and water every plant in the same way, do you? You don't give it the same kind of soil. You don't give it the same care and treatment. You know that this one needs this, and this one needs that. And so, not very well, we as parents, we try to distinguish. And we try to do what's right. But what about the children? Children, sometimes they get prizes. Prizes at school, the coloring prize that we had at Holiday Bible Club this week. And so many children got prizes and some didn't. I saw some of the coloring and it was outstanding, but they didn't get prizes. Because the person judging knew that those who had colored had a certain age and maybe they had certain disadvantages and the person decided to give out the prizes on a different basis. It wasn't just on merit or maybe one child had got the prize three years in a row and so they thought it would be kind to do it on a different way. It didn't seem fair. What about the athlete in the Olympic Games? It happens nearly every time. There's a relay race, and there's a baton, and three of the runners, they've run so fast, they've broken all the records for the splits, and somebody drops the baton. It's not fair. They should have won the gold, it wasn't their fault. Fair and unfair. Unfair grace. I explain what I mean. You see, we are all sinners. Do you know if nobody went to heaven? That would be fair. If there was not one sinner saved, That would be fair. And if there was just one sinner saved, that would be unfair. Because none of us deserve salvation. And I think very often the problem that we have, particularly those growing up in church and chapel and Christian families and being around the Word of God, is we think to some extent that it would be fair if we were saved. And fair if that person wasn't. And you see that's really what's going on here in this passage that we've read. The Lord Jesus is looking upon the thinking of men and women. And this man Levi, a tax collector. What was it that saved Levi? Two words, follow me. Sometimes we're prone to make the gospel so complicated. We have all this theology and doctrines and we have this and have that and they're good. But the Lord Jesus brings it down to just a few words, doesn't he? Repent, believe. Follow me. It's so simple, isn't it? But so hard. Because in order to follow the Lord Jesus, this man, he needed to leave behind his money, his cheating, probably his reputation. He needed to pay back what he owed, maybe many times over. His accumulation of sin over so many years, all needed to be dealt with. Follow me. What did he do? Verse 28, it's so simple. He left all. Doesn't the Bible use an economy of words? He rose up and he followed the Lord Jesus. He became one of his, one of his followers, one of his disciples. And of course he felt such a debt. What an enormous debt. He had run up his own debt to so many people. He'd stolen, he'd cheated, he'd been unfair, he'd lied, he'd broken every commandment in the book and more besides. And so what does he do? Well, he does all he can. He's got a big house. He's got lots of money. And he decides to open his house. A bit like this church. We like to open the doors wide. That's what will happen next Saturday morning. In a way, it's the church going out, opening the doors wide and saying, come in! Everybody, come in! Come and dine with the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what he did. He went out and he said all his colleagues at work, I've come to follow the Lord Jesus. I'm not cheating anymore. I'm not lying. I'm not stealing. I did. Oh, I did it awfully. But I'm a changed man. I'm following the Lord Jesus Christ and he's told me to leave all. And so that's what I'm doing. And I want you to know of the same Savior. I want you to hear Him. I want you to hear Him speak to you. He will sit down with you. I'm going to make a great feast, a big banquet. We can imagine it went on for many hours. It was in His own house. He invited everybody. Not just the people with suits. Not just the people that look respectable. He would have anyone. There was a great company of publicans, tax collectors, and of others. It doesn't tell you. And I believe, I'm reading it in, the others included every category of sinner that you could imagine. Every kind of person. They're invited. And they sat down with them. What a gathering. Can you imagine being at that meeting? At that feast? I don't think any would be looking around saying, I'm not dressed properly. Nobody would come in and say, what's the ticket price? They knew this was the waifs, the strays, the people that had erred so badly, and they were coming with Christ. Verse 30, the scribes, the Pharisees, who knew the law back to front, inside out, they looked upon and they said like this, what are you doing? What's that man doing with the outcasts of Israel? He sits down. and to fellowship and eat and drink in those days in their culture meant to some extent you agreed and you recognized and you approved of the life. That wasn't the culture that the Lord Jesus operated under. No, he sat down with them because he had compassion for them and he wanted to speak to them. And he wanted to accept the invitation that Levi had given him. It was a sign that Levi was one of him. He was endorsing Levi as a follower. He was helping him in his evangelistic strategy to open his home to all. This was what we might call an evangelistic barbecue. Everybody was invited, everybody that Levi knew who would accept the invitation. And it looks as though the Pharisees and the public, the Pharisees and the scribes were looking through the keyhole, looking through the gap in the fence. Him? Her? How can he sit down with them? You see the contempt. You see the puffing up of pride, the self-righteousness in these wicked men. These wicked men that would want to kill Christ and would plot to take him through any means they could, eventually with bribery, corruption and deceit. And they were murmuring, murmuring against his disciples, the people who had recognized that they were sinners, recognized they couldn't save themselves, and they'd come to Christ and left all. Well, it doesn't seem fair, does it? Unfair. Unfair grace. You see the Lord Jesus is like a great big magnet. You know those scrap heaps where they recycle the metal. And there's a huge crane and it goes up high and it's got on the end of it a magnet. And the magnet isn't interested in the plastic, it's not interested in the paper. It discriminates. It's interested in the metal. And that great big enormous magnet is irresistible. And it goes into the refuse dump, the mess. What a scene. You know what it looks like. Chaos, broken cars. They've been in road traffic accidents. There's all sorts there. And the magnet comes. And no piece of metal can resist it. The wood can. The stubble can. The hay can. But not the metal. And that magnet of God's love in Christ Jesus comes. And it gets nearer and nearer. And it doesn't even need to get all the way. The magnetic force pulls it. And out it comes. And that's a picture of Christ. A feeble picture. We start to be awakened. There's a movement. The metal shifts. It starts to shake. We feel our need. And then we start to feel convicted of our sin, just like David in Psalm 32. We feel a sweat. Our bones inside us, as it says in Psalm 51. Our bones groan and we feel uncomfortable. I can't live within myself anymore. I feel guilty. I feel as a man undone. Awakening. Conviction. And then we start to see the magnet. Maybe we've been facing the other way. I'm spoiling the analogy. We've been looking the wrong way. But the magnet turns us round and we feel its strange attractive power. We're drawn to the magnetic power of the love of Christ. We start to see in him all that we need for time and for eternity. And sooner or later we can't stay a minute longer. We cleave to him. That's conversion. That's what's happened to Levi. His whole life has been changed. What was it? Two words. Follow me. What power. And he left all. And he rose up and followed him. Well, why is it unfair? Unfair grace. Let me tell you why I think it's unfair. You see, Christ died on the cross. He died for sins that he had not committed. He died and took the punishment of all the sins of all the people of all of time upon himself. That's not fair. It's so unfair. It shouldn't have happened. It's a scandal. It's unjust. It's unfair. Somebody should have stopped it. Somebody should have ensured that he didn't die. Well, in some ways, there's a long list of people that tried. Satan tried. He tried to tempt the Lord Jesus three times and become one of his followers. Herod tried to stop it. He tried to kill the infant Christ, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, or there's a long list, Simon Peter. He tried to stop the Lord Jesus dying. He said, if you're going to die, then I must die. The disciples, they didn't want Christ to die. You see, it was unfair, but it had to happen. He set his face towards Jerusalem and nothing but nothing and no one but no one could stop him. I must need to go through Samaria. I must go to Jerusalem. He went to Jerusalem and he took the Passover for the final time. You can read about it in John's Gospel, chapters 13 to 17. And he took the Passover and he instituted it as the Lord's table. Some of us tonight have been around that table. We've remembered him. who took indescribable agony and suffering and pain, and the words we read in 1 Peter chapter 2 verse 21, and onwards was that he bore the sins of his people upon the tree. Let me go to verse 32. There's a question that emanates, it's obvious. He says, the Lord Jesus I came, not to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. Here's the question, who saved? Who did Christ die for? Some people quite wrongly say there is such a thing as universal salvation. They say a loving God, He would die and His death would be for everyone. Well, in a sense it is. Because he turns none away. But very correctly it's not for everyone. Because it says here, I came not to call the righteous. There's two kinds of people. There's those who think they're righteous. They're depending upon their own good works in some way. They think they're better. We shall explain it. But Christ came to call sinners. You see, in this life, every single thing that I can think of. Some people are going to university in the next few weeks. One of our numbers, she's had a job, she was telling me today, I don't think she's here tonight. She's been responsible for sifting the applications for one of the nearby universities. This one goes in the bin. And this one is accepted. In, out. In, out. What about jobs? Do you apply for a job? Sometimes you don't even get a reply and the job has been awarded. It doesn't seem fair. You see universities and jobs, they're done on merit. This is the way we think. What about the clubs? We've had, for those of you who follow it, I don't really, but the transfer deadline for the Premier League, I think it's just the Premier League, was this week, if I'm not mistaken. And those footballers that were priced correctly, they've been bought. Some, they were overpriced. Some they weren't good enough. They didn't get in. They were overpriced. You see, money talks. And there's a price for everything. That's the way we think, isn't it? Merit, money. Ability. You think even of the G7. They have a summit, don't they? The seven richest, I think it is, the richest nations in the world. This isn't a club that everybody can join. If you're a little small country, a Pacific island, no, you can't come. It's just for the elite. Just for the wealthy. What about Parliament? Can I go to Parliament and run the country? No. I would need more votes than anybody else in Bedford. There's no prospect of that because I don't want to stand. But you only get into Parliament by votes. That's what democracy does. And there are some clubs. There's a golf club in America called Augusta. It's where the masters are held every year. And to be a member of that club until just a few years ago, you had to have a certain color skin. That's awful. Did Christ think like that? Did Christ say, you can come and dine with me if you were born into that family? If your skin is that color? Oh, no, no, no. That's totally alien to the gospel of Jesus Christ. You see, this is unfair grace. Because it's not on the basis of any human reasoning whatsoever. Not merit, not money, not votes, not ability, not price, not race, You see, it's God's prerogative, isn't it? If God made us, and he did, he absolutely did. We didn't make ourselves, the Bible said so. We didn't make ourselves, he made us. The maker has the absolute prerogative. That word means the right. The absolute sovereign right. If you write a book, you get the royalties. If you manufacture a car, it's your design. If you make humanity, well you can do exactly as you determine. And there's only one creator, isn't that right? We know it deep down. Remember now your creator in the days of your youth. And that creator has so determined that the way salvation would be distributed would be on the unfairest basis ever determined. Of course, I don't really mean it. In a sense, it's absolutely fair, because it's God's way. But according to human reasoning, It's completely unfair. Because you see, our thinking says, merit, merit, merit, money, money, money. And the God of heaven says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And my ways are not according to your ways. If it was according to merit, nobody enters heaven. According to money, no, nobody can pay. Ability, nobody. Vote, no. We would all vote us down as sinners. If it was by race, we're all part of one race. Remember that every idea of race, that's human thinking. There is only one race. Don't listen to this nonsense, critical race theory. There is one race. We all have the same blood, and that blood has been poisoned by Satan. The serpent, its venom has got into every single human being that has ever lived apart from one. And that's Jesus Christ. And so if it was by race, because we're part of the human race, nobody would be saved. But it's not by race. You need to add another letter. It's by grace. Grace. Sovereign grace. All sin abounding. That's what we've sung. It's by grace alone and faith alone and through Christ. Alone. Well, just a few points tonight before we close. Go back to our text. Let me pull out. This is a heading. I came. Christ has come. That's astonishing. Christ, the second person of the Trinity. Perfect. Divine. But human. Fully human. God incarnate, as we call it. God becoming a human being, fully God, fully man, indescribably, with no compromise. He's not half God and half man. He's fully God and fully man. I came. I came from heaven. I came from a place of holiness and purity. and I entered into this sinsick world. I came as the messenger, and I came as the message. I came as the builder, and I came as the bridge. The one who was the builder built the bridge to heaven, the one and only bridge upon which we can travel to heaven. The messenger comes with the message, And he says, I've come secondly with a gracious purpose. I came. That's the incarnation. We remember it at Christmas time. He came from heaven, full of grace and truth. And he came with a gracious purpose. What's the purpose? I came to call. But who did he come to call? Well, I didn't come to call the righteous. None of us are righteous. No, not one. I came to call sinners. What a gracious purpose. There was a lady, years and years ago, she built many chapels and churches. She was a very wealthy lady, but she came to know the Lord Jesus Christ. She was called the Countess of Huntingdon. And she said this, there's a verse in Corinthians, spoken by the Apostle Paul, it says, not many noble. And she stopped there and she said, I praise God for that one letter, not G, to turn it from race to grace. But the letter was M, to turn it from not any, into not many, you see, not many rich, not many wealthy, not many noble. Many of them are called, but few are chosen. Few will leave all to follow Him. Levi was one of them. He was a rich man, he was wealthy. And it only took two words. How many words do I speak a week to you? Thousands. How many words have I spoken in the 600 messages or more that I've spoken in this church? Tens and tens of thousands. But the power isn't of me. The power is of the Holy Spirit. And He operates through His Word that constraining power When Christ speaks, only one word is sufficient, follow. Follow me. Leave all. Follow me. Who did Christ come to save? He came. He came with a gracious purpose. But it says he came not to save and to call the righteous. But he did come. And he did come to call. He came to call sinners. Well, who are the sinners? The sinners, that's all of us. But some of us don't recognize it. Some of us don't like to be labeled. I'm not a sinner. I'm not as bad. You see, so many people, there's two categories really, isn't there? Just two. Those who acknowledge they're sinners, and they go to Christ, asking for salvation and forgiveness and pardon. And there's those who think they're righteous. We call it self-righteous. Are you a self-righteous person tonight? Self-righteous. The Pharisees. How much of the Gospel speaks about Pharisees? It's stunning. But the reason is that's the great condition of men and women. We don't think we're sinners. We think we're good enough. Oh yes, we might admit we've done a few things wrong, slipped up a bit, but the Lord came to save and to call sinners. There's another category. There's the self-righteous, and then there's what we call the comparatively righteous. We may not be completely proud, but what some of us do is we pick a target. We pick him, her. Somebody who's not advantaged like we are. with so many blessings. Somebody that's had a difficult life. Somebody that had a parent that abused them. A misspent youth. Somebody that we can pick upon. And we say, I'm just a bit better than them. And therefore I'm worthy. That's really what they were doing, isn't it? They looked at Levi, he dressed properly, I'm sure he did when he went to work. He was wealthy. But they looked at him and they said he's unrighteous. Because he stole, cheated. Sins that really were inside, like most sin is. How foolish to look upon somebody other. Look at Christ. and see that you come so desperately short. He's the only standard and His standard is perfection. And so tonight my message is this. Who did He come to save and to call? Sinners. That's you and that's me. If like King David you will acknowledge your sin and confess your sin, And there's two more words. Repentance and faith. They are Siamese joined twins. You can't really separate them. Because in order to repent, we need to be given faith. And in order to have faith, we need to repent. And the Bible teaches they're both gifts. They're not works. We're given repentance, the gift of repentance. We're given the gift of faith. All who ask will be given these Siamese twins, repentance and faith. What must I do to be saved? Believe, that's faith. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who calls sinners to repent. That's what you must do. I can make it even more simple. Follow Christ. Leave all, leave all your sin, leave all your possessions, all your habits, all the things that offend a holy God, and follow him. That's what Levi did. And there was a cost. There was mocking. There was scorning. Young people, if you profess faith, there will be a cost. And you may feel it this very week. Be prepared. There is a cost. But there's no turning back. Forsake all. Follow Him. Trust Him with your soul. Isn't He worthy of your trust? Isn't He one that can be depended upon? I can't trust myself. I can't trust anyone else. But I can go to the cross of Christ. And I can cling to Him. And I feel that magnet drawing me to Himself. Cling to Him. Cleave to Him. Put all your trust in Him for time and eternity. He won't send you away. He will change your life and you will be one of His forever if you turn, if you repent, because He only calls His own to Himself. He doesn't call the wood, hay and the stubble. He calls sinners that will hear Him. to himself, and that call is irresistible, irresistible, unfair grace. Let's pray together. Gracious Heavenly Father, by that overpowering power, call us out tonight to the Lord Jesus Christ. May we cling to him, cleave to him, and may we never turn from him. O Lord, tonight, do that wonder-working, saving power and work within our hearts tonight, we ask in Jesus' name.