Who Invited You? (Block Park - Week 3)

Jesus’ call to Levi shows that following him always costs something—and it’s worth it. Levi wasn’t just changing jobs; as a Jewish tax collector working for Rome, he was leaving behind wealth, security, identity, and relationships with no easy way back. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” Levi got up immediately, left everything, and began a day-by-day life of following Jesus.

Instead of keeping his new faith private, Levi threw a great banquet and invited his old circle—tax collectors and other social outsiders—so they could meet Jesus too. The message is that true discipleship doesn’t abandon people; it leaves behind the old way of life while still loving others enough to bring them toward Jesus. Followers of Jesus leave their old life behind to help others find new life in him.

Not everyone celebrates that kind of transformation. The Pharisees criticized Jesus for eating with “tax collectors and sinners,” because sharing a meal looked like endorsement. But Jesus made his mission clear: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick… I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” The real divide isn’t between “good people” and “bad people,” but between those who know they need grace and those who deny it. Repentance is admitting you need the Great Physician—and turning toward him.

The sermon challenges listeners to examine what Jesus is asking them to surrender—pride, comfort, reputation, control, schedule, or sin—and to remember that following Jesus is both a decisive moment and a lifelong pattern of daily choices. It also calls the church to be the kind of place that welcomes hurting people and celebrates Jesus’ healing work, rather than getting stuck on what feels uncomfortable. Finally, it invites everyone to actively help others meet Jesus through hospitality, invitation, and ministries that support real recovery and transformation.

Transcript

Recap Re:Gen announcement.

• Join us next Sunday for more info about how to be a part.

• Hope and Healing sermon series – We all have some kind of hurt, hang-up, or habit

and only Jesus can bring the hope and healing we need.

Excited for this ministry to get started. Many years ago, part of launching a Celebrate

Recovery ministry. Got to see the Lord do incredible things in people’s lives. One of them, a

guy named Josh.

• Was released from jail and attended CR that night. Knew something in his life

needed to change.

• Kept coming, working the steps. Gave his life to Jesus. Invited his friends to come,

too.

• About a year later, Josh became a leader in the ministry, helping others find hope

and healing in Jesus the way he had. He was leading people to Christ.

Thought about Josh while studying this week’s text. I see his story in it. Followers of Jesus

leave their old life behind to help others find new life in Him. That was Levi’s story. It was

Josh’s story. And it’s been the story of millions of Jesus followers over the years.

But like this account we’re looking at today, whenever people start showing up that don’t

look like you, act like you, value the same things you do…there will always be people

around who are evaluating it all with a suspicious eye.

We see that in the Pharisees in our text. I experienced it during those early days of CR when

people like Josh started showing up who didn’t quite “fit in.” Jesus was doing amazing

things in his life and dozens more like him. But instead of celebrating that, there were

people in our church who could only see the ash trays we put outside the doors where our

recovery ministry met so people had a place to put out their cigarettes before coming in.

Week 3 of Block Party – turn to Luke 5:27. Recap of last week:

• Friends bring friends to Jesus and trust Him with the rest.

• Jesus heals a man who was paralyzed, but He also forgave His sins.

• We move from one controversy to another:

o Last week: Does Jesus have the authority to do that?o This week: If Jesus does have the authority to forgive sins, then who exactly is

that forgiveness for?

o It’s for anyone who knows their need for it.

o Read Luke 5:27-28

If you’re new to Scripture, it’s important to know that Jewish tax collectors weren’t like an

ancient equivalent to IRS agents today. They were collecting taxes for Rome, which was

occupying Israel at the time, so they were seen as traitors. They also worked in a system

that was ripe with corruption. Tax collectors became wealthy by overcharging and then

skimming some off the top…all at the expense of their fellow countrymen.

And our text today opens with Jesus inviting one of them to follow Him. It would have been

amazing enough for a respected Rabbi like Jesus to invite someone like Levi to be one of his

disciples. What’s more amazing is that Levi actually took Him up on it. Our text says he got

up, left everything and followed Him.

This account is told in 3 of the 4 Gospels, but Luke is the only one to included that line, “left

everything.” So, let’s linger here for just a little bit. What did Levi leave behind to follow

Jesus? It wasn’t just a job, it was financial security and wealth. Being a tax collector

probably gave him a life of comfort that most people didn’t experience.

And since tax collectors were so despised, most of them had been disowned by their

families. Nobody liked them or wanted to be around them, so their only friends were

probably other tax collectors. So Levi was leaving behind his social identity.

And we’ve already seen other disciples leave everything behind to follow Jesus, but they

were fishermen. If this whole “following Jesus” thing didn’t work out, guys like Peter had a

fallback plan. They could always go back to the family business of fishing. But Rome didn’t

take tax collectors abandoning their positions quite as lightly. To immediately leave to

follow Jesus, Levi was burning the ships. There was no turning back.

First thing I want us to see from our text today: Following Jesus always costs something.

What have you left behind to follow Him? What is Jesus asking you to leave behind that

maybe you’ve been unwilling to surrender? Pride, reputation, comfort. Schedule, control,

bitterness?

Following Jesus always costs something. The question is, when given the invitation, are we

willing to leave it behind? And it doesn’t always happen all at once. Jesus is constantly

inviting us into a deeper sense of trust and dependency and surrender to Him. Even in our

text, the original grammar indicates this. The phrase “left everything” is an immediateaction, but the phrase, “followed Him” is probably better translated, “and began to follow

Him.”

As we follow Jesus, He will always put things before us that we need to leave behind.

Following Him is not just one big act of surrender and then we’re done. It’s a million little

acts of surrender wrestled with over a lifetime. (Camp – Dorm dad to 16 boys going into 5th

and 6th grade. Felt like a million invitations to surrendering my need for control and practice

patience!)

So, Levi left everything and started to follow Jesus. And the first thing he does is not attend

a class or a Bible study. The first thing Levi does is throw a party. Luke 5:29.

I love this. Levi abandons his post as a Roman Tax Collector, but he doesn’t abandon his

friends. A farewell banquet like this would have been customary for a person of means like

Levi. So he invited all of his former co-workers over as well as Jesus and the other disciples.

If you’ve been to a farewell party like this before, you know what people are asking. “So,

Levi, what are you going to do now?” “Why the change?” It all gives him a perfect

opportunity to point to Jesus as the one he’s leaving behind everything to follow.

(Go back to Josh. Josh’s life changed when he started following Jesus. He didn’t do the

things he used to, but he didn’t abandon his friends, either. He wanted them to know Jesus,

too. So he kept inviting them.)

Levi is using this party, filled with social and spiritual outcasts, to point people to Jesus and

the transformation he’s made in his life, but not everyone is as excited about that as he is.

Some people can only see the ashtrays in front of the church doors. Luke 5:30.

Don’t miss this. Levi said to his friends, “Come, meet Jesus!” And all the Pharisees can

think is, “Why would Jesus want to meet them?”

In the ancient world, sharing a meal with someone was like giving that person your

endorsement. It was aligning yourself with them. That’s why the Pharisees were so

offended by this. They saw Jesus sharing a meal with people like this as him accepting their

behavior and approving of their dishonest practices.

They couldn’t see that maybe it was the other way around. That instead of Jesus aligning

himself with them, sharing a meal together like this might be their first step in aligning

themselves with Him. The Pharisees had built an entire religious system around protecting

themselves from the “wrong people.” And then Jesus comes along and ruins all of it by

welcoming people like this.

And to remove any doubts about what he’s doing, or questions about his motives…like,

maybe he didn’t actually know what he was doing…Luke 5:31-32.In just two verses, Jesus explains his entire mission and ministry. The Pharisees looked at

the crowd of people and saw sinners in need of condemnation. Jesus looked at the crowd

and saw spiritually sick patients in need of a physician. The Pharisees wanted to keep

people like that at arm’s length. Jesus wanted to bring them healing.

Healthy people don’t need a doctor, sick people do. And Jesus isn’t separating the groups

in our text today by who’s healthy and who’s sick, but by who knows they need a Physician

and who doesn’t. Jesus’ point isn’t that some people are sick and others aren’t. Scripture

teaches us that there is no one righteous, not even one. We’ve all sinned and fallen short of

the glory of God.

I think this is the point Jesus is trying to make: Everyone is sick with sin (Levi knows it, Luke

knows it, Jesus knows it). The only difference is who admits it. Some admit it. Some don’t.

The tax collectors knew they needed grace. The Pharisees thought they didn’t. Repentance

is admitting you need the Physician.

So, when Jesus says that he’s come to call sinners to repentance, he’s not excluding the

Pharisees, He’s exposing them. He’s inviting both the tax collectors and the Pharisees to

turn from the life they are living to follow Him. To leave the old behind and start living in the

new. Because that’s what followers of Jesus do. Followers of Jesus leave their old lives

behind to help others find new life in Him.

And as the Gospels begin to unfold, we see Levi embracing this new way of life, while the

Pharisees continue to reject it. Levi, and people like him, recognized their need for

repentance and forgiveness. Most of the Pharisees just couldn’t get there and it kept them

from finding healing for their souls that Jesus, the Great Physician, desired for them.

Our text today isn’t really about a dinner, it’s about discipleship. Followers of Jesus leave

everything to follow Him. And that’s not just a one-time event. It’s a daily decision to die to

ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.

Followers of Jesus know they need forgiveness and practice repentance. They develop a

lifestyle of confessing their sin and turning to follow Him.

And followers of Jesus join His mission to help others find and follow Him.

So, as we close…

• What do you need to leave behind today in order to follow Jesus more closely?

Following Jesus always costs us something. What’s it costing you?

• Is there something Jesus is inviting you to confess and turn from today? Some sin

that is keeping you from Jesus? Outward, like Levi’s, that everyone can see? Inward,like the Pharisees? The sin of self-righteousness that’s poisoning your heart and

keeping you from following Him?

• Who are you helping find new life in Jesus? Praying for? Investing in and inviting?

Block Party Challenge – 100 Block Parties, 11 so far! (show image)

Want to throw one? Let me know so we can pray! sgreen@socc.org

Followers of Jesus leave their old lives behind to help others find new life in Him. Let’s go

out and do it.