JESUS CALLS LEVI

Luke 5:27-32     Key Verse 5:27

“After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow Me,’ Jesus said to him....”

For the last several weeks we have been looking at Jesus calling and making disciples and also helping His disciples to become fishers of men.  Through Jn. 1 we learned how each person is so different from one another.  and how Jesus called each one differently.  Last week we saw how the Spirit of God led Philip to a foreigner who was a sincere and earnest truth seeker.  Today we want to see how Jesus was able to help another kind of sinner into a personal relationship with Himself and to be changed from a despicable lover of self and money, into a true son of God.  May God help us to learn God’s love for all kinds of people, even those who look the least promising and the most rebellious.

Part I – A man called Levi. (27a)

Look at verse 27.  “After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth, ‘Follow Me,’ Jesus said to him...”  Who was Levi?  Levi was a tax collector. While most people living under Roman rule were either crushed or they despaired, Levi had no plan of yielding to the adverse situation he found himself in.  He did his best to figure out how to overcome the hard world.  Levi figured out understood that money can solve just about any problem.  So he looked hard to see who makes the most money, and firmly decided to become a tax collector to make lots of money.

Tax collectors were local Jews employed by the Roman authorities. To become a tax collector you had to purchase the position from the Romans.  This is how it worked: the Romans decided how much money a certain region was worth, and whatever amount they set would be the cost for the position as tax collector for the region.  Every year there was a new bid.  Whoever had the highest bid was then given the authority to collect taxes in that region and had the Roman legions to back up his authority.  In this way the Romans got their tax money up front from the tax collector and now it was the job of the tax collector to recoup what he paid.  Of course many tax collectors would charge more than necessary, because they were afraid they would not make enough to recoup what they originally paid for the position and also to repurchase the position the next year.  Some overcharged simply because they were greedy and loved money.   

Perhaps Levi originally had no intent to overcharge his fellow Jews.  He thought that he would only charge enough to pay for his commission and have some left over to make an honest earning.  But after the first year he lost money because he did not collect enough.  So the next year he charged everyone more.  After his decision, he soon found out that he actually made lots of money and as soon as he made some money, he began to get the taste for it.  Whereas his fellow Jews struggled hard to eat even one meal a day, he could afford New York steak every night and every morning go to Starbucks and order a Grande double Java Chip Frappachino.  Whereas his fellow Jews lived in small dirty dwellings, he was able to purchase a mansion that overlooked the lake, and have someone come over to clean it.  He must have thought to himself, “Life is good and I was so smart in my decision to become a tax collector.” In this way, he became quite a different person, than what he originally had chosen.  

James 3:16 reads, “For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”  Basically, Levi was growing in selfishness and heartless toward the plight of his fellow Jews. Naturally, they were hated by their fellow Jews. The Jews hated them because they sold their Jewish identity for the sake of money.  They were branded as quislings. The Jews did not associate with the tax collectors and they were excluded from entering the temple.  They were considered so despicable and untrusted that they were officially banned from serving as witnesses in court.

But more than people’s hatred and being a social outcast, there was a deeper problem.  James 1:15 reads, “Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”   Levi’s greed and selfish desire gave birth to sin, and as it was growing fully that it was getting ready to give birth to death.  He was dying because of his sin.  Levi was a man of action, who managed to climb above the hard situation, while most succumbed.  But even Levi could not escape the death growing inside of him.  He could feel the weight of death growing and bearing down on him, but he could not escape it.  He was stuck, and that’s why he was sitting at the tax collector’s booth.

Part II – “Follow Me” (27b)

Read verse 27.  After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. ‘Follow Me,’ Jesus said to him....”  Levi was stuck in his tax collector’s booth, dying slowly, but surely.  Nobody understood him.  Inwardly, Levi’s soul was crying out, but no one could hear it, rather, because he was a tax collector people thought he had no soul.  He was rejected and abandoned by everyone, thus his soul was left to die.  But Jesus saw him and told him, “Follow Me.”  Jesus’ heavenly voice was a light that shined brightly and expelled death that had so completely blackened his soul.

Jesus told Levi, “Follow Me.” Up until this time, people did not associate with Levi, much less invite him to their homes.  But Jesus embraced him and welcomed him. It was an invitation for Levi to live with Jesus.  When Levi did not know the purpose and direction of his life, sin grew in him and gave birth to death.  Levi was misguided and was misusing his ability and his unyielding spirit. When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” Jesus was giving Levi the direction Levi needed to gain eternal life.  Virtually, it was an invitation to the Heavenly Kingdom

When Jesus saw him, He saw him with the hope of God. When Jesus said to him, “Follow Me,” he put hope in Levi. In Jesus' eyes he was a precious child of God--lost in sin.  Jesus knew that all the townspeople hated him and said, “He is a rotten man!” But Jesus didn't think so. To Jesus, Levi was not a useless man.  Jesus saw that in him there lay hidden the greatness of God. Just as all the people of the world work hard to be better people, so Levi also must have wanted to have a noble character and human recognition, for he was also a human being.  No one understood Levi. Jesus knew that he had no shepherd to take care of him, so he could not use his undying determination properly. Jesus knew that Levi could become a great leader because of his blind “do or die” spirit, if only he followed Jesus.  Common sense tells us that Levi was a selfish, ruthless and heartless person. But Jesus believed that he would be raised as a man of God's broken shepherd heart. Jesus believed that he would be among His disciples. Through Jesus' labor of love, and calling on his life, he could be transformed from selfish, ruthless Levi, into Saint Matthew. When Jesus said, “Follow Me,” it was because he had hope on Levi.

Third, Levi prepared a big dinner (28-29). 

Let’s read verse 28. “...and Levi got up, left everything and followed him.” When Levi heard Jesus’ voice, “Follow Me,” heavenly sunlight arose within his heart and drove out the power of sin and death that gripped him.  No longer was death growing inside of him, instead great joy filled his inner person.  Finally, Levi found what was valuable and worth living for.  He found the direction for his life.  So when Jesus said, “Follow Me,” Levi could get up immediately and leave his high paying, secure job and follow Jesus without any regret or even a second thought.  To Levi, in the past, money was everything.  Levi thought that money equals happiness.  But he soon learned that this was not true.  This verse tells us that Levi made an immediate decision to follow Jesus, leaving everything, including money behind.  In other words, he wanted to start a new life in Jesus. 

Look at verse 29, “Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.”  In the past, when he lived for money, he experienced all the good things money could offer up to him.  But strangely what he thought should make him happy and full of joy, did not satisfy him at all.  As a Jew, he knew that man does not live on bread alone.  He knew this personally, because he had plenty of bread and yet he was not satisfied at all.  But knowing this did not help him, because he did not know what he should live on.  He could not find true happiness.  Basically, he had no joy of life.  But when he met Jesus, joy began to overflow in his heart.  

Later, Levi, who became Saint Matthew, wrote the Beatitudes in Matthew 5.  In the Beatitudes he wrote what it really meant to live a blessed life.  He wrote, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Humanly, Levi was rich, but he was not blessed; he was not happy.  He did not have the Kingdom of Heaven.  The problem was he was lost, but now he was found in Jesus; and when he was found by Jesus and knew the purpose and meaning of his life, he found the true happiness that he had been seeking.  He was overjoyed.  He was so joyful that he held a great banquet for Jesus at his house.  Of all the disciples that Jesus called, it was only Levi who ever gave Jesus a big eating celebration.  He bought lots of food and invited all his tax collector friends and some other people from the bottom of society and enjoyed an eating fellowship with them. 

This eating scene draws a sharp contrast between Levi's selfish past life and his life in Jesus. The mood of the banquet was carefree, exuberant, joyful and loud. Perhaps, they were even a bit rowdy.  The disciples, Peter, James and John, were there with their huge appetites, as were Levi's fellow tax collectors.  They were all sinners. But it was the Heavenly Kingdom, because Jesus was there with them.

Fourth, the religious leaders' spiritual blindness (30). 

Look at verse 30. “But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to His disciples, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and "sinners’?” The Pharisees were the religious leaders of the times. They knew something about ritualistic ceremonies. But they did not have the compassion of God. So the Pharisees condemned Jesus and His disciples as friends of tax collectors and sinners.  The Pharisees along with others could readily admit that everyone is, after all, a sinner and in need of God's mercy and forgiveness. But the sinners who associated with tax collectors were in a special class. These were people who deliberately and persistently transgressed the requirements of the law.  If they had repented the Pharisees were willing to welcome them back, but these people not only refused to repent, they actively continued in their sin.  The Pharisees could not understand why Jesus could associate with such people.  It reveals that they really did not know the heart of God.

The Pharisees were the priests called to intercede on men’s behalf before God, but instead they blocked and kept men from entering God’s Kingdom.  They did not seek to help Levi restore his relationship with God, instead they isolated him and condemned him, giving him no possibility to ever enter the Kingdom of God.  They were shepherds who did not shepherd.  And they did so because they did not like rebellious sinners.  So they ended up making their tassels long and their phylacteries large and having people greet them with wonderful titles like, “Rabbi”. 

Fifth, I have come to call sinners (31-32). 

Jesus heard their complaining and knew that they did not have God's mercy in their hearts. So He said to them in verses 31-32: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Jesus' reply reveals the purpose of His coming. The purpose of His coming was to heal the sick with the love of God (Rom. 3:23).  

The purpose of Jesus' coming was to call sinners to repentance. Jesus came to preach the Good News of the kingdom of God so that people might repent their lives of sin and come to God. These days many people hate the word “repentance,” saying, “I’m not a bad person. I have nothing to repent of.  No one is going to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do!”  But the real meaning of repentance is turning to God; it is coming to Jesus as we are. It is important to notice that when Jesus called Levi, Levi was not actively looking for Jesus.  Unlike John and Andrew who followed Jesus from a distance or the Ethiopian eunuch who came a long distance to worship God, Levi was found sitting in his tax collectors booth.  When Jesus called Levi, Jesus never told him, “Repent, and follow Me.”  Jesus only said, “Follow Me.”  Jesus sought out someone like Levi, who was in need of God’s mercy and helped him to make a decision to follow Jesus; that is to turn to God.  When Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.  I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,” Jesus was revealing that Levi was a sick man.  Outwardly, Levi looked fine, actually he looked better than fine.  It appeared that there was nothing wrong with him.  But in reality Levi, was eating the bitter fruit of his life of sin.  

Psalm 107:10-17 reads, “Some sat in darkness and the deepest gloom, prisoners suffering in iron chains, for they had rebelled against the words of God and despised the counsel of the Most High. So he subjected them to bitter labor; they stumbled, and there was no one to help. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the deepest gloom and broke away their chains. Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he breaks down gates of bronze and cuts through bars of iron. Some became fools through their rebellious ways and suffered affliction because of their iniquities.”  Levi was suffering affliction because of his iniquities.  He sat in darkness and deepest gloom, because he had rebelled against the Words of God and death was awaiting him.

   But when we read verses 31 and 32, which say, “Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance,’” we are moved by the love of God. Suppose Jesus did not shepherd Levi, what would have happened to him?  Suppose Jesus did not shepherd over each of us?  What would have happened to us?  How many of us were really looking for Jesus or looking to follow Him?  But in his great mercy, our Lord Jesus called Levi the tax collector and shepherded over him.  Finally, Levi was convinced that Jesus is the Son of God who gives eternal life. And he became St. Matthew, who was happy to imitate Jesus.

In this nation there are many Matthew candidates.  Most people we meet are not looking for Jesus at all.  They are busy trying to do their best in this world to survive and better themselves.  They not only sin, but do so willfully and refuse to change.  It is easy to become discouraged or to avoid such people; to disassociate with such people.  Jesus promised to make us fishers of men.  So how do we serve such people?  Unlike some who only need to have the Word of God explained to them, Levi like people, need to be welcomed just as they are and brought into fellowship with Jesus even through eating and drinking with them.  Often times they look fine, but inwardly, death is growing within them and they are stuck, helpless and hopeless.  They need a shepherd.  They need to meet Jesus personally.  They need to find what is truly valuable and worthy to live for.  Basically, they need Jesus’ calling and direction for their lives, to be transformed from despicable and powerful sinners into beautiful St. Matthew’s in this generation.

In this passage, we learn that Jesus chose Levi, a tax collector, as His disciple. Jesus called the most selfish man and raised him until he became St. Matthew. May God help us to seek out and raise many St. Matthews in this nation.

One Word: Jesus called Levi.

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