How do you feel about Jesus?

A good few years ago now two friends where invited along to church here. At the time, neither would have called themselves a Christian. One sat in the service (one just like this) and found Jesus incredibly compelling. He began to see that Jesus was good news, because he began to see that he needed Jesus. After a few weeks he placed his trust in Jesus and begin to live for him, and he still does. The other friend heard the same message about Jesus, but instead stormed out during the final song. (Please don’t do that tonight, no matter what you think! We want everyone to be with us and feel welcome, however they find being here!) That friend wasn’t interested in hanging around because he found Jesus offensive. Who was Jesus to tell him there were issues with his life? Who was Jesus to claim the authority to rule his life? For him everything he’d heard make him think that Jesus was bad news.

Our passage tonight show us that Jesus divides. He’s good news for those who know that they need him. And he’s bad news for those who think that they don’t. And our writer Mark is asking us to look at our lives and think about which way we are reacting to him? So before we get stuck in let’s pray…

1. Jesus is good news for those who know they need him (Mark 2.13-14)

Mark 2.13-14:

He [Jesus] went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and 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.

So, Levi was a tax collector and at the time of the New Testament tax collectors were loathed because their job involved working with the occupying Roman authorities – which was seen as collaborating with the enemy. And they were notoriously immoral; they got their income by extracting more tax than was owed and then lining their pockets with the profits. So, they got rich by fleecing others, and to become a tax collector was to accept all of this. Any self-respecting Jew at the time would probably have crossed over to the other side of the road if they saw a tax collector coming.
They were banned from the synagogue (the church equivalent at the time) because they were seen as being spiritually beyond God’s love and acceptance. So Levi was a spiritual and social outcast, viewed as the scum of society. So he’s parked up his Ferrari, opened up the shop, and got ready for another day of ripping people off when Jesus walks by. He sees Levi in his tax booth, and he stops, he looks him in the eye and says “Follow me”. To the most spiritually unacceptable person imaginable, Jesus says “Come, be with me, enjoy my presence, listen to my word, have relationship with me...” Jesus is saying “Levi the tax collector, come and be my disciple!” Because for Jesus, no one is beyond God’s acceptance.

This past week, I’ve been reading some excerpts from the memoirs of the hymn writer and abolitionist John Newton. Newton started off as a sailor living, by anyone’s standards, a shockingly immoral life. He later becoming the captain of a slave trading ship. And, looking back, he wrote of himself:

I was capable of anything; I had not the least fear of God before my eyes, nor (so far as I remember) the least sensibility of conscience.

But what changed John Newton’s life was following Jesus, and his wonder and amazement at Jesus’ acceptance never left him. He expressed it most clearly in his most famous hymn:

Amazing grace! - how sweet the sound -That saved a wretch like me,I once was lost, but now am found,Was blind, but now I see.

John Newton would never get over the amazement that a spiritual no-hoper like him could be forgiven and accepted by God - despite the terrible things he’d done. It’s outrageous, astonishing, amazing grace. That’s what Jesus is showing us as we read how he called Levi. Tonight it’s what he’s saying is on offer for us. He’s saying “Nobody here has done things that are too bad, nobody has pushed me away for too long, and nobody is beyond my love, forgiveness and acceptance”. And maybe tonight you need to hear that Jesus is saying this to you. Maybe, you wouldn’t yet call yourself a Christian, and what’s stopping you is understanding how God could possibly forgive you. You think “Not me. Not after what I’ve done, not after I’ve messed up so badly, not after I’ve hurt people the way I have...” Maybe as you sit here tonight you feel totally unacceptable to God. But through his Spirit Jesus is still at work in our world. Jesus isn’t working from home. He’s out calling people. And the calling of Levi shows us that whoever we are, and whatever we’ve done, Jesus knows and see that. He can forgive and accept us, and he wants to. He wants to forgive us and bring us into an unbreakable, eternal, relationship with God. Because Jesus is good news for those who know they need him.

Do you know that you need him? Trust him. Follow him tonight. And for those of us who have, we need to remember that Jesus’ forgiveness and acceptance of us will never change because every Christian struggles with sin. Every minute of every day we sin and make mistakes. And sometimes we can really stuff it up, big time. But if we trust in Jesus nothing can ever put us beyond his forgiveness. Nothing. His love and acceptance of us is the same today as it was the first day that we put our trust in him. And his death on the cross has guaranteed that nothing can ever change that. So tonight, Jesus says “I will always be willing to forgive you and accept you just as you are”. Do you need to believe that about yourself again? Or is it time to believe that about other people – our friends and family we sometimes think are too far gone to trust in Jesus’ forgiveness. But nobody is and can ever be because Jesus is good news for those who know they need him.

Mark 2.14 of our passage really is astonishing. We’re told that Jesus simply said to Levi “follow me” and Levi just didn’t want to say no. Instead “he rose and followed him” and that was a start of a completely new life. Levi might have heard about Jesus already – Jesus was the talk of the town. News of him has spread rapidly. Levi might have heard Jesus preach, or met him before. We don’t know. What we do know is that he was prepared to leave his world, his security, his livelihood behind. For Levi choosing to follow Jesus was big. We know Levi by his other name, Matthew. And he would go on to be one of Jesus’ twelve disciples (his closest followers) and he’d write the first gospel account of Jesus’ life. Did he know all that before he followed Jesus? Did he know to what extent Jesus would turn his whole life upside down? No, he didn’t. He couldn’t have had any idea. But what he knew was that he wanted a new life and a new King.

Our situation is not the same as Levi’s. Most of us will not have to leave our work, our families, or our friends behind to follow Jesus. But choosing to follow Jesus is big, and it is costly, and only you know how costly it could be for you. If you’re not following Jesus what might be holding you back is not knowing the details: not knowing 100% what will it look like to follow Jesus, not knowing what changes to life will be involved in living for him now and in the future. But like Levi, you can’t know all of that now. You can’t understand everything. As Glen said two weeks ago, it’s a bit like marriage. Can you know everything about who you’re marrying before you marry them? No, you can’t. But you can know enough to trust them. So, to become a Christian there comes a point where you need to say “I know I don’t understand everything. I can’t understand everything. But I know I need Jesus. And I know the good news about him means he can forgive me and accept me, because he died for me. So on that basis I’m going to follow him as my saviour and Lord”. And that’s what Levi did because he came to trust that Jesus is good news for those who know they need him.

2. Jesus is bad news for those who think they don’t need him (Mark 2.15-17)

Mark 2.15-16:

And as he [Jesus] 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?”

A while ago, there was some research asking Britain who it’s perfect dinner party guest (dead or alive) would be. David Attenborough topped the list, followed by Freddie Mercury, Stephen Fry, the late Queen, Sir Winston Churchill, and then, one for the Geordies – Ant and Dec, which I guess is two for the price of one. But this dinner party is very different. If we’re honest, wouldn’t this be the dinner part of our nightmares? What company does Jesus keep? Mark 2.15 – tax collectors and sinners. Back then, that word sinners in this context had a narrower meaning. It meant the wicked – those who completely refused to follow God. It meant the absolute worst of society; the tax collectors, the outcasts, the misfits.Think prostitute, drug dealer, child abuser, wife beater, people trafficker, murderer. That’s who Jesus is hanging out with, and eating with – the big sign of acceptance and fellowship in that culture. Jesus was treating them as his followers. And Mark tells us that many such people were eating with Jesus because the acceptance and forgiveness Jesus offers is good news to those who know they need him, and they were drawn to that. But the Pharisees, the super-strict followers of the law, can’t stand it. Mark 2.16 – they turn to the disciples and ask “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

The Pharisees were the spiritual elite of the day. The real Bible people. And they would have completely separated themselves from such sinners, and they expected anyone who took following God seriously to do the same. It would have been bad enough to see a sinner coming along the road, and have to duck through the traffic to get to the other side. But to sit down and eat with someone like that? It would have been unthinkable. It would have contaminated them spiritually. The Pharisees had erected a virtual barrier in their society; a barrier that divided people into sinners (like Levi) who God who would judge and condemn and the righteous (like themselves) who God would accept and reward for following the law. So for Jesus to be associating with such people, it was appalling, shocking, it was scandalous. They were thinking “Is Jesus holy? Is he serious about sin? What’s he doing with these sinners? Is he a compromiser?” Because as far as they were concerned, if Jesus was the real deal he’d be judging the sinners and rewarding the righteous – i.e. rewarding them. But if Jesus was going to be associating with such people, and not lavishing praise on those who had lived such an upright life. Well, he must be really bad news. But the Pharisees had got the wrong view about God, and the wrong view of people. That’s what Jesus shows in the punchline of this passage, Mark 2.17:

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.”

I was visiting hospital a while back, and on the wall there was a notice that read “20 hours of appointment time lost this month”. A doctor’s time is precious because lots of people need a doctor. So it would be ludicrous to call for a doctor, to have her come out, and then when she asks “What’s wrong?” To say “Oh, nothing at all. All good here. I’m ok”. Healthy people are not part of the Doctor’s workload. Doctors are concerned with people who know they are sick and want help. So Jesus is saying “I haven’t come for those who think they’re spiritually healthy”. He’s saying “I haven’t come to give rosettes to those who think they’re righteous...I’m like a doctor who’s come to help heal people who know they’re spiritually sick”.

The Pharisees had built a huge barrier that divided the world in two. But Jesus is saying there’s actually only one category of human being and we all belong to that category. It’s the category of sinner – an illness that we all have because we’ve chosen to push God out of our lives, and one that will have fatal consequences unless we receive the healing that only Jesus can offer. And for the Pharisees this was bad news – Jesus was bad news, because they thought the way they lived made them right with God. And accepting it didn’t would have been very hard to swallow. And, tonight if you’re honest, it might be hard for you to swallow because you might feel like you’re a good person, who’s tried to live a good life. And in steams Jesus who says, “no you’re not – you’re spiritually sick and you need the healing only I can bring”. And if you don’t get that then its bad news. Like it was for that guy I mentioned at the beginning, because Jesus is saying there’s something fundamentally wrong with your life.

The key question is, if you’re honest with yourself do you really think you can argue with Jesus’ diagnosis? So, imagine with me that this phone had on it a recording of everything you’ve ever said, thought, and done, nothing escapes. It’s all there. And imagine I went to the tech desk at the back of church and linked it up, and we all watched that video of you and your life and we keep the livestream running too.There might not be the dire things of the tax collectors and sinners, or maybe there would be. The symptoms of the disease vary. But ask yourself honestly, how long could you stick watching the video? Can you really say it would make pleasant viewing? How long could you stay here? How many of your friends and family (those you love the most) could even look you in the eye? What’s the difference between me, and you, and Levi? Ultimately, none at all.

I can only speak for myself, but I know you’d be appalled if you watched the video of my life. We’re all sick. We’re all sinners who need Jesus, and the very definition of the disease is that we think we’re ok. We think we’re healthy and we all need to remember that it’s only God in his mercy who can make any of us see that that’s not true – we are actually spiritually sick. And that’s why Jesus came, for sick people. He’s the great doctor, the only one with the cure, the only one who could heal us spiritually by going to the cross. And, he’s stopped on the road. He’s seen us. He’s looked into our hearts. He’s watched the video of our lives. And with his eyes wide open, he took all the mess of our lives and all our rejection of God, on himself. He took it – the death it deserved, leaving us free to know God’s forgiveness and acceptance, and free to begin to experience his healing from sin and brokenness. In a very real way, we experience that now. But one day we’ll know and experience it completely and perfectly as sinners feast with Jesus forever. That’s amazing grace.

So, as you look at this picture of Jesus, can Jesus really be bad news? Can you really say you don’t need him? Or, could it be true that he is good news? Will you let him be the good news your soul needs tonight? Despite sin, despite heartache. Whether for the first time, or the millionth time? Good news or bad news. We have to decide. Which will he be for you?