…Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi (Matthew) sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me.” So, leaving everything behind, he got up and began to follow him.
Then Levi hosted a grand banquet for him at his house. Now there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others who were guests with them. But the Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
Jesus replied to them, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Luke 5:27-32
I love this passage. Jesus doesn’t just call Matthew and his friends to dinner, He calls them to repentance. The gospel is good news for those who know they need a savior. When we repent, it means we recognize we’re going the wrong way and we turn in the opposite direction. Jesus calls us to turn.
If you’re sick, you need a change. You don’t need somebody to pat you on the head and say, “Keep up the good work. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t give up.” No! You need a change. You need healing.
How tragic if you really were hopeless and couldn’t turn, couldn’t change. Because of the bad choices you had made, you had forever sealed your fate and had to live with your choices and continue down the wrong road.
There is good news: our past doesn’t have to dictate our future. Our bad behavior doesn’t have to seal our destiny. There is a Savior. There is One who came to heal the sick. There is One who calls you to repentance. He invites you to turn right now. He gives you the power to change.
This is the message we, the church, are supposed to deliver to those around us. It isn’t about being judgmental. The Pharisees were the ones who made people feel hopeless. They left people outside the fold: “Don’t eat with them. Don’t even associate with them. Stay over here with us and keep yourself clean.” Jesus rejected the behavior of the Pharisees, but the antidote to the poison of the Pharisees is not to tell tax collectors, “Hey Buddy, nice car. Let’s be friends. I really admire your taste.” That’s not the solution either.
Jesus said to Matthew, “Come, follow me.” It’s the same message that He gave to the fishermen, Peter, James and Andrew, as they were called away from their nets and from their families. Whether you are respected or disreputable, the message is the same: “You’ve got to leave it all and follow Jesus.”
I got saved as a preschooler. So, how would a preschooler need to change? Well, my favorite word at age 2 was, “Mine.” I was fixated on my things. Nobody had to teach me to be selfish. That was hardwired into me. That was my Adamic nature. I was selfish and demanding. You don’t have to be in your teens or your 20s for that to be obnoxious.
Even at the age of 2 1/2 I knew the gospel intellectually. But I hadn’t responded volitionally to what I knew. My parents had taught me from the time I was born that there is a God and He holds us responsible; our actions are either right or wrong; we’re either walking in obedience or disobedience. I knew that. My parents drilled it into me that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. I believed it. They also taught me that God loves me, and I believed them because they were always truthful and treated me lovingly. They said God keeps His promises, and they kept their word to me. So, as a toddler, it was easy for me to believe the basics of the gospel.
When my parents told me that God had sent His Son and that Jesus had lived a perfect life and then died on the cross to pay for my sins, I accepted that intellectually. At 2 1/2 years old, I was theologically orthodox but unregenerate, because intellectually I believed the gospel, but I had not responded to God’s call on my life.
Finally, one night when I was almost asleep, I was startled awake, not by any sound that I can recall, but I awakened to the realization that I had never responded to Jesus by asking Him to save me. Literally concerned for my own eternal destiny, I closed my eyes and prayed, “Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and forgive me for my sins and save me.” That’s as much as I knew.
When I was a little older, age 5, I asked my dad to pray with me for assurance of salvation. I realized when I was 5 that you understand things better. And, I wanted to be sure that I had done everything I needed to do to be saved. I was already starting into Pharisee-ism at age 5. When I was 2 1/2, I knew it was all about what Jesus had done, so I had asked, “Lord Jesus, save me.” Now at 5 I’m thinking, “Did I really understand enough? Was I cognitively ready for this? Or is there maybe something that needs to be added in order to be sure that I’m really saved?”
My father did an excellent job of responding to my questions. He said, “Why would you even be concerned about going to hell?”
I answered, “Because I have sinned.”
“What do you mean you’ve sinned?”
“Well, I’ve done things I shouldn’t have done.”
“Like what?”
“I’ve lied.”
“Really? What else?”
“I’ve been disobedient.”
“You have?” He knew. “So what else have you done?”
After I’d confessed several things, Dad said, “If you’ve done all that, how could you be saved?”
I said, “Because Jesus died on the cross to pay for my sins.”
He said, “So, if He’s paid for your sins, then doesn’t that take care of everything?”
“No, you have to receive Him.”
“How do you do that?”
“You ask.”
Dad said, “Does God say that if you ask, He’ll save you?”
“Yes!”
“Where does He say that?”
So I quoted a couple of verses for Dad, ones that he had taught me.
He said, “So God promises that if you call on Him for salvation, He’ll save you?”
I said, “Yes sir.”
Dad asked, “If God promises that He will save those who call on Him for salvation, and you have asked the Lord to save you, then are you saved?”
I could see I had walked right into it.
Dad said, “Jim, we have an adversary, the devil. He’s a liar. If you don’t know the Lord, he will try and assure you that everything is all right, and if you do know the Lord, he will work very hard to make you wonder if you’re really saved. The reason I asked you those questions was because I wanted to know where your trust is. If you’re trusting in Jesus to save you, you are saved, and you need to not be intimidated by the accusations of the devil.”
I was five when my dad and I had that conversation, but I still steer my course by it, because it lines up with God‘s word. Jesus said it’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Every single one of us, whether we’re young or old, whether we’re rich or poor, whether we’re educated or less educated, is in the same ultimate situation. We’re all sinners who deserve hell. We need a savior. God has sent Jesus, the only One who can save. Jesus, my Lord and Savior, is very good news!
