Luke 5:31-32

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Over the course of my life, I’ve been blessed with very good health, with the exception of the occasional cold or seasonal allergies, I really don’t have all that much to complain about. And so it’s really unusual, a few weeks ago when I was playing pickleball with some friends in Florida and played 2 or 3 games and was just huffing and puffing, felt extremely fatigued. So I went home, grabbed a thermometer and took my temperature and it read about 102. Kind of shocked me a little bit. So started to get my fever suppressant and get a big bottle of water and rest on the couch for a little while.

That was Monday. Tuesday did the exact same thing. Wednesday came along and it was rinse and repeat. It was still about 103. And so it’s kind of like this is a little interesting. I got an appointment over to Urgent Care and went to see a doctor. And as I was sitting in that doctor’s waiting room, it kind of struck me that it had been about 12 or 15 years since I’ve been in a waiting room because, well, I don’t go to the doctor unless I’m sick.

That reminds me of something that Jesus said in Luke chapter five, verses 31-32.

Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5:31-32)

Now the context here is that Jesus just met a tax collector named Levi. Later on, we will know him as Matthew. And Levi was at his tax collecting table. And then Jesus says, “Come, follow me.” And then Levi leaves everything to go follow Jesus. And then later on, Levi invites Jesus over to his home for a dinner. And it wasn’t just Levi and Jesus, but it was Levi, Jesus and a bunch of other tax collectors.

Now, there are some Pharisees who noticed this, and they were kind of looking a little weird because tax collectors were not like modern day IRS agents. They were kind of thieves, grifters and traders all rolled into one. They were supporting the oppressive Roman Empire, and they’re also allowed to up people’s taxes so that they could have a larger cut of the money. And so when the Pharisees noticed Jesus hanging out with all of these tax collectors, they started to grumble to the disciples asking, why is Jesus, who if nothing else is, you know, holy man, a rabbi, a righteous man, why would he be hanging out with sinners and with tax collectors?

And that’s a really good question because we wouldn’t expect the Holy Son of God incarnate, the Holy Son of God in flesh to be sitting with tax collectors or prostitutes or sinners or people like that. But of course, the answer is really simple. Jesus was dining with tax collectors because they are sinners, they are unholy, they are unrighteous, the same way that Levi was a sinner. Those tax collectors were sinners. And you and me are sinners. If Levi was perfect, if he was holy, if he was righteous, if you and I were holy and righteous ourselves, we would have no need for Jesus. We’d have no need for a Savior.

And so here, when we see Jesus dining with Levi, what we’re seeing here is actually kind of the gospel in a nutshell. It’s the same reason why ultimately Jesus went to the cross. Jesus is associating with tax collectors and other sinners because he came here to Earth. He took on flesh, became a man just like you and me, in order to redeem all of us from our sins. And so Jesus knew their unholiness. They knew their unrighteousness, and he knew their sinfulness. And so therefore, he took all those things with them when he went to the cross to pay the eternal penalty for our sins, for unholiness. When he died for Levi, for those tax collectors and you and me as well.

So Jesus came to heal all of us of the terminal illness of sin. And he approaches us in so many different ways, the same way that he came to approach those tax collectors and Levi. He approached us through his word, where he lets us know, Here is what I’ve done for you. I have taken that illness of sin upon myself and paid the price in order to remove it from you. He comes to us through water and word and holy baptism, where he cleanses us from all of our sin. He takes away that illness and makes us clean, makes us healthy. And Jesus comes again through his body and blood. In his bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper as he gives to us what one ancient pastor called the medicine of immortality. Where he gives us the blessings of heaven and everything he has for us in this wonderful meal, this wonderful sacrament, this meal that more or less he shared with Levi and those tax collectors.

So sometimes tempting for us to think that, well, I need to get my act together before I can dine with Jesus. I need to get holy before I can even talk or dine or fellowship with Jesus or something like that. But the really neat thing about the gospel is that that’s absolutely backwards. Jesus comes to us because our lives are a mess. Jesus comes to us because we are unholy. Jesus comes to us because we are spiritually sick sinners in need of healing. And He alone is a great physician who can heal us from the sickness of sin. Today lets thank him for the healing that he gives us in Christ’s most holy name. Amen.

Romans 8:26

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Have you ever been punched in the gut so much that you’ve just had the wind knocked out of you? I used to play a lot of basketball when I was a kid, and I was rather tall and big for my age. And so I was the big center underneath the hoop and on more than a couple occasions, I mean, it was a very physical game and elbows would be thrown and, so you’d be hit in the stomach. And when we knocked out of you for a little bit, you be struggling to breathe and you start to panic a little bit and just need some time to rest and recuperate.

Well, there’s a lot of things that can knock the wind out of us when it comes to a spiritual and an emotional standpoint. Maybe it’s a diagnosis that you have received or that a loved one in your life has received and you’re just not ready to deal with it and the ramifications of it. And the wind just gets knocked out of you.

Maybe there’s an exam that you had to take that you really need to do well on to pass the class or to get into that grad program you really wanted to be admitted to, and yet the score wasn’t quite up to match.

Maybe you’ve been applying for job after job after job because you want to provide for your family, make sure that there’s ample food on the table, and yet you’re getting rejection notice after rejection notice and well, the wind’s been knocked out of you again.

And a lot of times when we get into those situations, it’s very easy to panic, is very easy to worry and feel anxious about the future. And when we get in this situation, we get so disoriented that, well, we don’t know what to do, we don’t know what to say and when we don’t know what to say one thing we also don’t know what to do is to how to pray. What words to offer up to our Heavenly Father?

Well, Christians have been granted a wonderful gift through our baptism. We have received the full and free forgiveness of our sins. The blood of Jesus Christ has been applied to us. So we have been made clean through the blood. And because we’ve been made clean, because we’ve been declared holy by God, the Holy Spirit dwells within us. And even later on in First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul tells us that we are temples of the Holy Spirit. And our text gives us a lot of comfort whenever we have the wind knocked out of us in Romans Chapter eight, in verse 26. The Apostle Paul writes,

In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we should pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that are not expressed in words. (Romans 8:26)

And so the Holy Spirit dwells within you. And whenever you become so disoriented that you have no idea what on earth you should pray for, what you should tell God. The Holy Spirit who lives in you, takes your concerns, takes your anxieties, and then he brings them before the throne of God. He translates them into a prayer that is more articulate, more comprehensive, and more to the point than anything that you and I could ever imagine to say. And we know that it’s a wonderful, perfect prayer because the Holy Spirit is God. And he knows our situation far better than we know it ourselves. So he knows what to pray for.

So whenever we feel disoriented, whenever we don’t know what to pray. Trust in the Holy Spirit. Trust in his presence in you because he is praying for you. He is interceding for you. And he loves you more than anything else. Amen.

Hebrews 4:15-16

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Have you ever felt as though nobody understands what you were going through? Maybe you’re a teenager and you’re thinking about your parents and well, its been so many years since they were kids since they were in my shoes. And they don’t understand the peer pressure, the anxieties and the challenges that I have to face going through school, going through work and all that.

Maybe you’re going through a situation that is so unique or seems so unique to yourself that not even your best friend could understand you. And it’s easy to think about our parents and our friends, teachers, pastors, bosses in that light. And it’s also very easy to think about God there, too, because well I mean, he’s so big, he’s so distant, he’s so far away, it seems. And he deals with billions of people. He has a very strong standard of what is right and what is wrong, that he can never understand everything that I am going through.

But one of the neat things about our text today in Hebrews Chapter four is that it dispels that notion. It says, there, talking about Jesus,

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

So what that tells you and me is that when Jesus came to Earth, when he took on flesh, when he became fully human. He came here to redeem us from our sins. But he also came here to experience the full gamut of the human experience. He knew what it was like to grieve the loss of a friend when Lazarus passed away. And he wept bitterly. He knew what it’s like to be disappointed by his disciples who seem to fail and never understand it every step of the way. He knew what it’s like to be exhausted and tired when people came to him for miracle after miracle, and he just wanted to get away for some alone time. And he knew what it’s like to be betrayed and abandoned by his friends when they all disappeared when he was arrested in the garden Gesthemane.

Jesus fully understands what you are going through. That’s one of the great gifts that he gave us when he became human. And so he stands between us and God as our high priest. And then he also gives us a promise to in verse and says, there,

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16)

And so we have a high priest who is fully able to sympathizes, who fully understands everything that we are going through. And so he’s not too big. He’s not too distant. Rather, he tells us, Come, come with your burdens, come with your anxieties, come with your your worries and your concerns, and lay them there at my feet because I fully understand them. And then on top of that, he promises that he will give you grace and mercy in response.

This is a wonderful comfort for us whenever we see that God is too far away from us. He is right there and he fully understands what you and I are going through. Amen.