Following the Forgiver

Imagine you lived in a world where, when you schedule an appointment with a physician because you're experiencing some strange pains — you're not sure what it is — so you book an appointment with a doctor and you go visit, and upon examination, the doctor tells you, "Man, not only is nothing wrong with you, you are the textbook specimen of a human. Can we capture your DNA and share it? "

I mean, you leave there going, "Okay, right? " That doesn't quite match what you're feeling, even though it feels good to hear what the person is saying. Imagine that in this same world, you book a home inspection. You're trying to sell your house. You know it's an old house. There's some things that need to be fixed with it. But you just want to see what an inspector says, see where you're at, and then fix the things that you think most need to be fixed in order for it to sell. And the inspector comes to check it out top to bottom. And then he tells you that if every home was built like this home, there would never be any need for inspection.

"It is so awesome. How do you stand it living here in this awesomeness? " And you'd be like, "I don't know. It's kind of nice, I guess. " But it doesn't quite match your experience of the house, even though it's nice to hear that you live in such an awesome place.

Now, in this world, you take your car to get the oil changed. The guy's like, "Oil change? Wow, to be honest, I can't take your money. This car doesn't need maintenance. It's a superb car. It's a perfect car. " You'd be like, "Okay, what's going on? "

As crazy as that sounds, that's the world people live in — the fantasy world people live in — where either you're living in some kind of dream state and nothing is real, or everyone's lying to you. But you know there's something messed up with your car, you know there's something messed up with your house, and you know there's something messed up with your body, even if the experts are telling you you're good. You're either in a dream world or they're all lying.

And this is how many churches function. They create this dream world, like this fantasy doctor's office, where all they want to tell you is that you are great. All they want to communicate to you is that you're amazing. And the reason why people will return to those churches is because they like that fantasy world. They want to be in that fantasy world. They don't want to be told that something's wrong. They want to be told that they are amazing and that God is gonna do amazing things for them because of their amazingness.

After all, why wouldn't God do great things for you? You are amazing, aren't you? God is amazing and he created you. That means you're amazing, aren't you? God doesn't make junk. You bear God's image. Therefore, you're kind of almost like a little God, aren't you? A kind of a version of him walking around. Why wouldn't God give you all that you desire? God is for you because you're amazing.

The Image Is Real — but It's Broken

Now listen, there is a built-in value to every human being because of God's image stamped on every person. That is true. We affirm that. You are valuable to God in the imageness that you carry of God — everyone is.

That's why the Bible's prescription for justice when murder happens is to execute the murderer. That's the specific reason God gives for that instruction — because man is made in his image. You just killed an image bearer; that's why. That's why the Bible says it matters who you're intimate with and when, because the body is not your own to do what you want with it. That's why it's wrong to abuse your body, whether it be by gluttony, or drugs, or neglect, or whatever else. The imageness — that's why.

So we're not saying you're not made in God's image. You are made in God's image. That's not the lie. The lie in this fantasy world, or these fantasy churches, or fantasy families, is to make it sound like it's a pristine image. An image that doesn't need improvement. An image where there's nothing wrong with it. It's undamaged, unbroken, unmarred. That's the lie.

When Adam sinned, all of humanity fell into a condition of waywardness, lostness, of great need — and let's just say it — sinfulness. So we all transgress. Even the best of us stink of sin. Is that a popular message? No, because we want the fantasy world. But that's the reality. And deep down, we know it's right. We know it's true. And that's not to put anybody down. I'm there with you.

It's to deal with the reality so that we can have hope in a real situation. You can't be aided by a physician who tells you there's nothing wrong with you. You're there to get better. You're not gonna get better if you only go to the physician that goes, "Nah, man, you're awesome, you're awesome. " That doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. So why would I go see a doctor if there's nothing wrong with me? Why would I take my car to get fixed if there's never anything the matter with it?

"Why would I go to a church that sings about sin all the time? That has this meal and always reminds us that we should have been shattered, but Jesus took it for us. It's just so negative all the time. Why would I go to a church like that? " Well, you wouldn't — in fantasy world. But in reality, we need church. Because we need to hear God's word, and we need to hear God's word because we know there's something wrong with us. And however different our lives are from each other — some of us struggle with certain things that others of us don't struggle with — however different we are from each other, at the base of all of our problems is this matter of sin and sinfulness.

And the beauty of Jesus is not that he came to say, "See, I'm here to just tell you you're all good. You don't need me. I'm here to show you how much you don't need me. " No. Jesus arrives on the scene to say, "You need me. And if you know you need me — you get that you really need me — then I can make you into something. But if you already are all good and all amazing and worthy, what am I here for? And what am I making you into? I'm not making you into anything; you're already great. "

But we know that's not true. So recognizing our great need puts us in a position to receive the Jesus that came on the scene to do what he came to do, which is to take us from where we are and get us to somewhere else. But where we are is something we have to grapple with.

From Unworthy to Follower

So how does God take someone who is an unworthy sinner, like me, and make them into someone who can have a relationship with him — when God is perfectly holy, perfectly righteous? I'm unworthy, he's all worthy. We express worship because it's worth-ship, right? His worthiness is what we want to proclaim. But we're not even worthy to proclaim his worthiness out of these unclean lips. So how does God do it? How does he take an unworthy sinner and make them into someone who has a relationship with him?

First, the person has to recognize their unworthiness and let go of the fantasy world. That's step number one — letting go of the lie that we're all worthy, we're all good, we're all great, and embracing the truth that there is something wrong with us. We are messed up and we don't come to him whole. We come to him broken.

So Luke 5 is gonna give us the answer. How does God do that? Because it is possible. He takes us from our unworthiness and moves us to somewhere else. But how does that happen?

Luke chapter five puts four scenes in front of us — one, two, three, four in a row. And they're familiar scenes, and probably, as you've heard sermons on these in the past, you've heard sermons individually on one piece at a time, which is great because there's a ton to unpack. Some of you might be disappointed because I'm gonna skip some stuff. You're like, "Man, there's a lot of juice to extract here. " Do that in the growth groups or in other times — I'll do that — but I want you to see how the four go together.

So we're going to move through the four quickly to see how they're stacked into a sandwich. Remember this concept? We've seen this already. You have a piece of bread, a piece of bread, and two close things in the middle that are the same — one, two, three, four. And this stacking is Luke saying the whole thing is a package.

You can take one of them and do a sermon on it, take one of them and understand it, but understand how the four go together to get this point that I'm trying to communicate: How does God take an unworthy person and bring them into a relationship with himself?

That's the dilemma. When you snap awake out of fantasy world and you're in reality, you recognize your own unworthiness and then you realize the hopelessness of it. If I'm unworthy, I can't be with God — yet Jesus calls people to follow him. So how do unworthy people become followers?

We see this answered in four scenes. One, Jesus calls an unworthy person to himself. Two, Jesus heals a leper. Three, Jesus heals a paralytic. And then four, Jesus calls an unworthy person to himself. So you see the sandwich. Jesus calls an unworthy person to himself, then a healing, then a healing, then Jesus calls an unworthy person to himself.

Luke, what are you doing, man? If he handed that in as an essay, you'd be like, "Dude, you're writing two essays — you're here, you're there, you're back to here. " A discerning professor would understand that it's not here and there, but it all goes together. And when we see it, we'll have our answers to how God, through Jesus, calls unworthy people to himself — because there is hope for the unworthy. You have two healings sandwiched in the middle between these two bread pieces that are hitting the same idea of calling somebody unworthy to himself. Peter's not worthy, Levi's not worthy, but they both get called.

Those are the brackets. And in between, you've got these healing episodes that are just marvelous. We could spend so much time on each of those. But let's look at them four in a row.

Scene One: The Calling of Peter

In chapter five, let's look at verses one through eleven. Scene number one: Jesus calls unworthy disciples — not just to himself, but to join his mission of calling other unworthy disciples. So he starts with an unworthy person, calls him to himself, but not just saying, "Hey, Peter, you can kinda tag along. " It's, "Peter, not only am I allowing you to be in relationship with me, I'm making you into something you could have never been before. And part of what that is, is to go get other unworthy people and bring them in to join the mission. "

So just real quick — they're done for the day. They're wrapping up. Have you ever worked retail, and you've got the gate halfway closed, you're counting the register, but there's sixty seconds left on open hours, and a huge family walks in? You're like, "Ugh. "

These guys are done. They've been fishing all night. The boats are in. The nets are being washed. Jesus hops in the boat and is like, "Pull out a little bit. " Then when he had finished speaking, he says to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. " All right, man — you interrupted so that you could finish your sermon, and now you're asking us to get back to fishing?

They didn't catch anything all night — that's when the fish bite. And now you're asking us to go again? We're tired, the nets have already been washed, we're gonna get the nets all dirty again for nothing because fish haven't bitten all night. Now in the pure daylight they're gonna start? It doesn't make any sense. So he's asking them to do a weird thing. He's interrupting them.

But Simon respects him, right? He's a teacher, he's a rabbi of sorts, he's clearly a man of the cloth, he teaches God's word — there's something about him. So he objects. Verse five: Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets. " Like, "This is a dumb idea, but you're the master, so I'm just gonna do it. But I don't get it. "

Verse six: when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both the boats, so that the boats began to sink with the weight of the fish.

Verse eight: when Simon Peter saw it — he doesn't go, "Man, can we do that again? Let me just go get another net. Are there more? Let's go get bigger boats, let's go get another crew. That was amazing, can we do that again? " Look at Peter's response. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees. This is what he utters out of his mouth: "Depart from me. Leave. For I am a sinful man, O Lord. "

In the fantasy world that people like to live in, Jesus would have said, "Peter, what are you doing? Get up, man. You're not unworthy. You caught those fish. All I did was encourage you to try again, to not give up on yourself, to embrace your real you. You need a mirror, Peter. You need a mirror at home to stare into and to give yourself the self-worth talk next time you go fishing. And you'll catch fish because you're the man. "

He doesn't rebuke Peter for falling on his knees. He doesn't tell him, "You're doing this wrong. " Peter was not a fool. Peter knew what this was. Peter didn't comprehend Jesus fully. He didn't fully get what was going on in this man that was before him. But he knew there was a deadly contrast between them. Peter knew that he was a sinner and this man Jesus is so holy that there should be a safe distance between the two. And Peter's reaction is telling. He knows that he is in the presence of someone so divine, so magnificent, that he can't be in his presence.

Two Kinds Who Never Follow

Now, some people will never have this reaction because they're too proud or they believe the false gospel of self-worth and the "you're good enough" message. They'll never be made into disciples or followers of Jesus because they'll just take the credit for the catch themselves, or ask Jesus to do it again tomorrow — thanks.

But there's another kind of person who understands Peter's instinct here, and they would also say, "Jesus, I'm a sinner, depart from me. " And they mean it. They also don't become followers because they really mean, "Get out. " They don't want Jesus here. They know they're not worthy, but the way they handle it is to just not deal with Jesus at all. They know they're unworthy, so they feel like they could never step foot into a church, they could never join a fellowship of genuine Christians, they could never have a meaningful relationship with God or his people — because look at them. And so, like Peter, they think, "Depart from me, Jesus. I'm wicked. I'm unworthy, I'm broken, lost. I'm a repeat offender. I'm gross. Leave me. " But unlike Peter, they're not ready to follow Jesus because they prefer to stay there. They don't want change. They like the misery of their sin. It's attractive to them. It has a kind of ownership over them.

This guy knows he's going to wreck his marriage, but he can't help fooling around, so he continues. He wants to fool around. It makes him sense his own vileness, but he actually prefers that to holiness. So — "Jesus, depart from me. " Take a woman who knows that she's mean, she cuts people down, she controls her friend group through gossip, she extorts people emotionally. But that's her thing. She embraces that part of her identity. She knows it's gross, but it works for her. So — "Jesus, depart from me. "

Peter's different. Peter's heart is in a different place. He wants to be with Jesus, but he knows he can't be with Jesus. He wants to follow — he would follow — but he knows he can't. He knows he shouldn't. That's the remarkable thing about Jesus' invitation to him. Jesus doesn't argue with him about being worthy or unworthy.

"You think this catch of fish is great? Do you think it's difficult to catch fish, laboring all night to catch fish? You think that's hard? Imagine catching people — obstinate, stubborn, unworthy people — and catching them. Is that impossible? Yeah, that's pretty impossible. But I'm gonna do it, and I'm starting with you. And not only am I starting with you, but you're gonna do it for me. " That's amazing.

Jesus said to Simon, verse ten, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men. " There's this promise of the transformation and the mission that he's bringing them into. And how did they respond in verse eleven? When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.

Jesus doesn't say, "Don't be afraid because you actually are worthy. " He says, "Don't be afraid because of what I'm going to do with you. " "I'm not gonna kill you — I'm gonna change you. Not only am I going to accept you, I'm gonna make you into somebody else. I'm gonna put you on mission and equip you to follow me by working for me, by serving my mission, my cause of changing other people. That's your new job. "

Scene Two: Jesus Cleanses the Leper

So now the real question is this: How does Jesus do that? How does Jesus take someone who's unworthy to be in his presence and not only bring him into his circle of friendship, bring him into discipleship, but make him into an evangelist, a worker for the gospel, able to bring this good news to unworthy people so that they could follow Jesus also? How does he do that?

This is why Luke puts these two pieces of meat in the sandwich, so to speak. He starts with calling Peter, he's gonna end with calling Levi, but how does that happen? Fishermen now fishing for men. Unworthy Peter to chief apostle of Christ. How does this transfer happen?

Luke is gonna give it to you by way of analogy with the two healings. He's not like, "Oh, by the way, he went around healing people — and then, okay, back to calling disciples. " No, he's doing something here. It's intentional. We're not on commercial break. This is the next scene in the movie. And the director put it there for a reason. So in this next scene, we see that Jesus is able to bring even the most unworthy.

Because you might go, "Well, maybe Peter was pretty good. " Luke is like, "No. Think of the most unworthy, the most unclean — Jesus makes clean. " So he's not giving us the answer yet; he's giving us what the answer is not. The answer is not, "As long as you're mostly good, mostly clean, Jesus is satisfied with just kind of cleaning up the rest. " Luke is going, "No, no — it has nothing to do with your resume. You could be the worst, spiritually the worst, and follow Jesus. "

And he's gonna show that with this healing. Look at verse twelve.

A ton to unpack here, but let's stay kind of bird's eye view and see what Luke is doing. He's introducing this disease of leprosy. If you've spent any time in the Old Testament, this was a major, major problem in these times because there was no cure for it and it made you unclean — completely unfit to be in God's presence, even in the presence of other people, because if you touch them, now they're unfit to be in God's presence. So you're like a missionary for leprosy, right? You're the bad guy, because if anyone touches you, they get the disease, and now they have to leave the community. So you would literally be ostracized into a leper community.

And leprosy just stands for a number of skin diseases of all kinds. There's Hansen's disease, but there's other stuff — from eczema to rashes to anything where your skin looks wrong. If someone's ever looked at you like, "Oh, that looks not right" — yeah, over to that community over there until it gets better. And if it ever does get better, you can't just waltz back in. You've got to go to the priest. The priest has to check you head to toe and confirm there's nothing — no flaky skin, no red rash, nothing wrong. And then you can come back to the community after a sacrifice, after an innocent animal takes that disease upon you, and then you can come back. It represented being out. It represented not being able to be in God's presence or in the presence of other people that need to be in God's presence, because your leprosy will keep them from it too.

So it was a major, major problem. And aside from touching a corpse, I think this was probably the worst kind of unclean you could be in the Old Testament.

It was visible, it was obvious, it had the ick factor. It was long term — most times I think even permanent. It removes you from community life. It made you unable to approach the tabernacle or the temple. It functioned as a kind of living death. It was the most socially isolating level of impurity. It was like a living decay. Rather than being dead and then your body decaying, you're alive walking around, but your body's decaying. And so it was a cousin to touching a corpse. You kind of have become a corpse.

It's a zombie-looking sort of thing. And so visibly, it was obvious that you needed to be put out of the camp. And you can see why this is so heavily symbolic of the human condition. God promised that if you eat of the tree — to Adam and Eve — you will surely die. They did.

We carry spiritual death in us and we need Jesus to be renewed, to be resurrected, to be born again, to be made whole, to have life instead of death, to carry life around in us — to be walking new creations instead of walking lepers. And then amazingly, lepers transfer their uncleanness to other people through touch. Jesus transfers cleanness to the leper through touch as he demonstrates his outright authority and power.

As soon as Jesus went to touch him, surely people are like, whoa — touch a leper? Whoa, what are you doing? They're already saying, well, because this guy's not in his community — he's jumping in on the crowd action. And maybe just as someone's getting, "Jesus, don't let him touch you — don't touch him, what are you doing? " He touches him and then he's clean.

So impossible to catch fish. Okay, maybe some kind of fish can be captured. But some people are just too unclean. Isn't that true? Isn't it true that some people are just too unclean to be made whole? And Luke is saying, no — you've got it wrong if you think it's about how unclean a person is.

Jesus' touch reverses it totally. You can have the worst kind of uncleanness and be the most outcast type of person and immediately you're in — immediately. It's not like he tells him to go to the priest to confirm that it's clear. But he doesn't have to go through a process to finish it up. It's gone. And then he goes to the priest for confirmation.

Jesus cleanses not because we're worthy. Jesus cleanses because Jesus is worthy. He treats your disease not because your disease is treatable, but because he's the cure. And that's a major difference.

So the leper shows himself to the priest to be approved because you need the approval of the official mediator between man and God for that official mediator to say, you're good. Things are good between you and God now. You can be back with him and you can be back with God's community. But obviously Jesus supersedes any human priest. So why in the world wouldn't Jesus' word be enough? Why does he have to go to this other priest that Jesus is going to replace?

I think it's because that replacement hasn't transpired yet. It hasn't fully been replaced yet. So he's just instructing the man to follow the law so he doesn't get kicked out of the synagogue. Why cause all this trouble? Yes, he's the superior priest, but just go do the thing and be in good.

But the main point is, shh, don't tell people about me. And what does he do? He does. He does tell people. And as soon as we're like, see, if I were healed by Jesus, I would obey what he said — wouldn't you?

Would you though? Would you, if you just came across a superpower — you're able to fly — and somebody was like, the only thing is though, you can't let anybody know. Like, how long would that last? How long would that last? You know what I'm saying? It's poor — I don't wanna — we should just feel bad for the guy. Like, it makes sense, you know? It makes sense, even though, yeah, Jesus told him, be quiet.

How are you back, man? How did you do it? Was it a cream? Was it your diet? What did you do? And eventually, at some point, he's gotta be like, look, leave me alone — it was Jesus, all right? He touched me and it was over. And I've seen him do paralysis, I've seen him make the lame walk, I've seen this guy was blind — now he can see, this guy was deaf — now he can hear, this girl was mute. And then if there's demons involved, he casts them out — he tells the demons what to do.

So I took my shot — I just approached him. I'm like, "Lord, if you will it, it can happen. Do you will it? " By God's grace, "Yeah, I do. Will it — be clean. " Touched me. And it was gone, okay? Leave me alone. Go see Jesus.

Maybe it was that, or maybe he just was excited to tell other people, like, if you go approach this man, you can have hope for your leprosy. Mine was worse than yours. You can get it.

So Luke, I think, isn't putting this here so we can go, man, what an ungrateful jerk — he didn't obey Jesus when he said not to say anything. I think Luke is continuing this theme of changed fishermen now fish for men. And that's so ingrained in what it means to be a disciple that even when Jesus said, I'm gonna heal you but don't tell anybody, he has to go tell people.

So who are we to experience God's grace and not tell other people? I think that's the point. It's what you do. You're saved by God — now you fish for men. You go and take that salvation and offer it to other people. And it's so ingrained in the experience of Christ that Christ himself telling you just hold on to the message for a while — he blows right past it. He has to tell people.

And we Christians have experienced a more radical cleansing than being delivered from leprosy. And we bear that message with us. And part of what it means to be changed by Jesus is to tell other people about this change and that they can have it too.

Scene Three: Healing the Paralytic

So how does God take someone from unworthy to being a follower of Jesus? Well, the first thing, we have to recognize we're unworthy. Second, we have to realize that we're not brought from unworthy to just kind of following Jesus, but we're brought unworthy to this mission.

And then third, nothing stops God from his ability to do that. Nothing in your track record, no sin, no level of uncleanness, can stop God from bringing you into his mission of delivering this cleansing gospel to other lepers. So it's not about our reputation. What is it then? How is it possible for God to cleanse the unclean? How is it possible for God to make something of the unworthy? How are we cleansed? And how do we know we're all the way cleansed?

I think that's the import of the second healing. This one's famous — you guys know this one. But it's communicating that Jesus' mission to bring the unworthy to himself is accomplished by his authority to forgive. That's the answer.

If someone ever asks you, man, I knew you in high school. And now you're like, oh, I'm Christian — I knew you in high school. What's your answer? I took all that stuff back, I went back and did it again, I invented a time machine — that was a different alternate universe. You're thinking of the alternate universe Lucas? Your answer is forgiveness. And how do you know you're forgiven? Because a pastor said so, a priest said so? No — Jesus has the authority to forgive no matter how clean you've been.

So Luke puts the next episode, the next scene, 17 to 26.

It says on one of those days as Jesus was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. That's important. Who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. So all the law experts, the scripture experts are all there — let's see what this guy's up to. And they're sitting around Jesus. And the power of the Lord was with him to heal.

And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus. But finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof. So they're carrying this guy on a bed.

I can hardly store things in the attic, all right, on the rickety ladder that comes down out of the ceiling, if you've got one of those. These guys are climbing a house with their paralyzed friend, hoping to not make him more paralyzed by dropping him, and getting him up on this roof. And then they've got to figure out how to open up the roof and drop this guy in. It's like a Mission Impossible scene, but without the gadgets.

He was paralyzed. They want to bring him in. They can't because of the crowd. And so they go up on the roof, verse 19, to let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. I love how Luke leaves out who the owner of the place was as his tiles are being ripped apart. They're hearing banging and pulling and scraping, and they're like, what in the world? And dust is falling all over them, I'm sure.

And in this crazy scene, a man on a bed is being lowered through the roof like somewhere near Jesus. Well, they are breaking in, intruding, destroying property. There's at least a few misdemeanors here. But what does Jesus notice? Verse 20. He sees faith. He sees faith.

Man, like this guy's messed up, man. He can't walk. We all play our pickleball and we run around, and this guy can never hang. And no one's gonna be able to do anything about it. And then we hear about this guy, and we're not gonna let some crowds keep us from bringing our friend to get this help. We let smaller things get in the way. They bust up a house and open up a roof to bring this man down before Jesus.

And what does Jesus go, how dare you destroy property, guys? That's not what I'm here to do. Fix this, guys. He sees faith. These guys know I'm the only hope. And they did what it took to get him before me.

So he sees their faith, verse 20. And then look what he says. He talks to the man — not the friends — the man on the cot that's paralyzed. He says, "Man, your sins are forgiven you. " Huh. Nobody said anything about sins. They weren't like, hey, don't worry about his paralysis. He's a real bad sinner, man. That's why we're bringing him to you. No, it's clearly because he can't walk. He can't walk.

And Jesus is like, wow, okay — "Your sins are forgiven you. " Now you might think, well, maybe he's talking about the fact that, did you pay these guys to rip up this roof? That was naughty. And I'm gonna go ahead and forgive you of that one particular sin. Sins. It's like a wholesale forgiveness. What sins? All of them. Wait, the ones today or the ones yesterday? Yeah, all those. "Your sins are forgiven you. "

Okay, remember his audience? It's the scribes and the Pharisees. These guys are the Bible experts, all right? And they're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Now you're stepping in our territory, bro. Okay, we'll talk to you about who gets forgiven or not.

So verse 21, the scribes — these are the copiers of scripture. And the Pharisees was a sect that interpreted scripture and had their own sort of denomination, if you will. They began to question, saying — not directly to Jesus, of course, but to each other — "Who is this guy? Who is this guy that speaks? He speaks blasphemies. Who can forgive sins but God alone? No one can forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins. "

So Jesus perceived their thoughts, and he answered them, "Why do you question in your hearts? " So I guess they weren't quite saying it to each other. They're saying it to themselves, and he reads it. And Jesus says, "Why do you question in your hearts? " Verse 23 — unbelievable. It's kind of a trap. Jesus says, it's almost like a riddle.

He goes, "Which is easier to say? Which is easier for me to sit here and say to this guy? Is it easier for me to say 'Your sins are forgiven you' or to say 'Rise and walk'? " Which is easier? Well, it's kind of a trap, because on one hand, the answer is, well, it's easier to say your sins are forgiven you, because there's no visible proof of whether he's been forgiven or not.

You can say he's forgiven, but that doesn't mean he's actually forgiven. But it's like blasphemous to grant that if you're not actually the one who has the authority to grant it. So in another sense, it's impossible to say that. But in another sense, it's harder to say, rise and walk, because if he doesn't rise and walk, we're all gonna know you're full of baloney. But it's easier to say it, because it's not blasphemous to say it.

So, which do you choose? And Jesus is doing that on purpose. Which do you choose? For me to say, forgive your sins, or for me to say, pick up your bed and go home? Which is easier to say? And he doesn't give them time to figure it out. He's not like, come back to me with your answer. You have 10 minutes.

Immediately, Jesus says, "I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. " And immediately, he rose up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, "We have seen extraordinary things today. "

Here's the point that Luke is trying to get across by putting this in between the calling of disciples. He's using this occasion as the perfect way to put healing alongside forgiveness in one scene. Because healing is the symbol, but forgiveness is the reality that allows it.

So what Jesus is saying is, yeah, it's easier to say your sins are forgiven because you can't prove it. It's harder to say take your mat and walk because it has to be proven. But I'm gonna prove the first one with the second one.

You understand? If I have the authority to make someone paralyzed suddenly start walking, then I have the authority to do the first thing I said — the more important thing — which is to forgive him of his sins. That's the point. If I heal this guy right now, then you know I have the power to forgive.

And if you follow the scene, it's healing and then change, right? He doesn't say, try to get up. And as you're trying to get up, I'll give you the boost you need to finish getting up. He's paralyzed, then not paralyzed. And if that's the parallel, there is unforgiven, unworthy, unclean. Does Jesus go, try to be better. And if you're a little bit better, I'll pick up the slack and get you all the way? Well, that's not how forgiveness works.

Jesus is putting forgiveness next to paralyzed, suddenly not paralyzed — meaning the parallel is unworthy, forgiven. Not a process, not 10 steps, not prove yourself in church for a while, then maybe I'll do it. If you unparalyze yourself a little bit, then I'll do the rest. I'll give you the physical therapy that's needed for you to gain the strength back in your legs. But you've gotta put in the effort, bro.

It's paralyzed — walks out of there, man, carrying his mat. Meaning, if Jesus has the authority to forgive, he fully forgives without a prerequisite of you fixing yourself. It's unforgiven, forgiven. Unclean, clean. Unholy, holy. Unrighteous to righteousness.

And how is that possible? Through forgiveness — not a program of self-development. Now I do want to urge you to understand, I'm not saying that God forgives and you go do whatever you want. What I'm saying is you don't have the ability to get yourself in. He has to do it. But he doesn't leave you there, right?

He makes you into something, and part of that is to be an evangelist — to go get other paralytics, to go talk to other lepers, and talk to them about the cure, talk to them about the healer. And as we do that, we're talking to people about the forgiver — that's the point.

We say, my sins were forgiven — your sins can be forgiven. My sins aren't a little bit forgiven — they're all the way forgiven. Right, I'm totally unworthy and I've been made a new creation. However unworthy you are, however far from God you've strayed, Jesus covers it with forgiveness. How do we know? He has the authority to do it. That's how we know. There's a built-in assurance when Jesus is the one granting the forgiveness.

Scene Four: Calling Levi

Then he closes with this paragraph — we'll do really quick — calling Levi. He's back to calling of disciples, calling unworthy disciples and the people around him don't get it. Oh, you called Peter, you called James, John — yeah, they're fishermen, we don't respect them, but they're not that bad. But Levi — he's bad, man. You can't call him.

So Luke goes back to that theme of calling disciples to prove however unclean, however leprous, however paralyzed — those are the ones that God shows off on and calls them into discipleship. And we'll never understand Jesus' mission, we'll never understand our own relationship with God if we miss that fact. We can't follow Jesus unless we follow Jesus as a forgiver. As forgiver. 27 to 32.

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth and — maybe news to you, maybe just a reminder for a lot of you who've been around the Bible for a while — tax collectors are the worst of the worst, man.

Everybody hated these guys. You had the Romans who were oppressing the Jewish people, you had the Jewish people who were being oppressed by the Romans, and then you had the tax collectors working for the Romans, collecting taxes on their own people — and most of the time, skimming off the top, adding a little extra. Rome says, get 10% and they'd be like, give me 12% — and keep the two, right?

And so they were just seen as traitors. They were seen as the worst of the bunch — terrible, no scruples, no ethics, taking advantage of your own people and siding with the oppressors. So that's what Levi's doing. He's sitting at the tax booth doing his job that everyone hates — nobody likes him.

And Jesus said to him, "Follow me. " That's it. Maybe he said other things, but that's the gist of it. "Follow me. " And leaving everything, Levi rose and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his house. He's like, all right, Jesus, let's eat. So he pulls out the smoker and the grill and the meats, and he's going to town, right? He's making this great feast.

And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. So these are the guys that have to hang out together, because everyone else hates them. They don't have anyone else to hang out with. They weren't having feasts at anybody else's house, because they were the drudge of society. And they were together in this, so a bunch of them together — just ragtag motley crew of people you would never wanna hang out with — and they're making a feast for Jesus.

And verse 30, the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? " And Jesus answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician. " Back to fantasy world, right? "But those who are sick, they need a physician. I have not come to call the righteous — I've come to call sinners to repentance. "

How do you get the forgiveness? Repentance. Repentance. Not track record, not which group you run with, not how bad you've been or how good you've been. Repentance secures forgiveness. Forgiveness does the job.

Even if you're someone like Levi. We can't receive God's grace for our unworthiness unless we understand that we can't withhold it from others because of their unworthiness. We don't get to go, you caught me, but we can't catch that fish — that fish is nasty. No — if you were caught, you understand you were caught impossibly. You shouldn't be here, but you are here — and that means that person can be here too.

You extend it to someone else. That's the mission.

Conclusion: Following the Forgiver

So how does God take someone from unworthy of Jesus to be a follower of Jesus — not just a follower of Jesus, but on mission to make other people followers of Jesus? How does that happen? Because Jesus calls unworthy disciples to repent and to trust him for forgiveness by faith — like the guys carrying their friend on a mat — because only Jesus has the power to truly forgive. And when we follow him as forgiver, then we get to extend to others the same grace that was extended to us.

So as we read this passage, we get two benefits from it. One, assurance that I'm in, because it's not based on my track record. Two, assurance that I can extend a true gospel call to the worst people in my life, because regardless of what they've done or who they are, there's hope in Christ to be forgiven.