March 5, 2006-First Sunday of Lent
Title: Obeying Directions
Text: Luke 5:27-32
Focus: Repentance

Message Text:

A man was watching the news one night when it was reported that a car was going the wrong direction on the freeway. The man knew his wife was on that freeway and became very concerned so called her on her cell phone. She answered and he said, "Dear, there's one car going in the wrong direction on the freeway." She exclaimed, "One car! There's hundreds of them!"

Today as we lead into the season before Easter called Lent…which basically means to prepare for…my prayer is that we will each take the time to prepare our lives…our minds…our bodies…our hearts and our soul for the one greatest event in all of human history that has an eternal effect…the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Over the time since Christ raised from the tomb…the Christian faith has taken many different directions…and many times the direction lead away from Christ…God…and every time a change of direction is needed to get back into the grace of God…for us…because of the sinful nature of man…we start out heading the wrong direction…but because of Jesus…He has called and given us the direction we need to go…all we have to do is obey.

This sounds easy…and great…but it is hard to do…for we must follow in a way that goes against our current culture…of tell me first and if I like it…I may go…that is not how it works…let's look at the true story of a man…that was asked to follow Christ and we can learn what we must do…

[Read Luke 5:27-32]

Levi is the disciple that we know of as Matthew, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, and this is taken place during what is commonly known as Stage 3 of Christ's early Galleon ministry…up to this point Christ has demonstrated His authority to make a person ceremonially clean and to forgive sins on separate occasions…and now through the calling of Levi…Christ will bring those to authorities together

About Levi…a Tax Collector…the Romans would hire Jews to collect taxes not from the Romans but from their own people…the Jews…and this caused these Jewish tax collectors to become alienated from the people…especially the religious leaders…

To the religious leaders…a tax collector is one who has betrayed their nation…the Nation of Israel…their own people for material gain…is it much different today among Christians…

Do we not…as Christians betray our faith…our Savior for  material gain…for a temporary pleasure

A tax collector during the time of Christ…would collect money…sometimes more than is needed to pay the tax…give to the Romans what they wanted…so they did not need to work… and the tax  collector could keep the rest…besides what they would get as payment for job well done

At this time…for Jesus who was gathering and selecting His disciples…as well as supporters…a Tax Collector would not be a good choice…it did not speak well of Him politically among the religious politicians of the time…but Jesus was not out to be "politically correct"… in fact He wanted to give the "Politically Righteous" a new direction to consider…

With this being the situation…and then calling on Levi…who was probably one of the wealthiest…just added to these leaders contempt toward Christ…

Earlier I said Christ had demonstrated His authority in making a person ceremonially clean and to forgive a person sins

Now those 2 authorities were to come together with 2 words…

"Follow me" [v27]

The term "follow" in the Greek means "to be in the same way with"

Today…in our language when we invite or give a direction to "follow" it is always taken in the physical sense…when Christ gave the direction "follow me" and this is the same for us today…it was a complete command

Yes…it meant to follow Him physically…and for us that means by accepting Christ as your Lord and Savior…we will follow Him to heaven when the time comes…but for now here on earth it means…just as it did at Levi's time…to "follow" with all of our emotions…our mind and our spirit…

And this is evident by what Levi did… [Read v28]

You know…at this point is pretty clear the point Luke wanted to make…but Luke was inspired and God wanted us to know the rest of the story…that will bring us to a overall purpose of the ministry of Christ…back then and today…