Grace and Forgiveness (Part 2 of 2)

Bob Lepine: Have you ever stood outside the gates of your favorite team's arena or stadium? You're close enough to sense the excitement, but you are completely cut off from the action. Well, in the same way, there's a critical distinction between being near God's kingdom and being in His kingdom. So what's the difference? Today on Truth For Life, Alistair Begg answers that question as he continues our study in the Gospel of Mark. We're in chapter 2.
Alistair Begg: Notice both the brevity and the authority of this word from Jesus. There's no great speech, no great elaborate diatribe, no great explanation. Just a striking command: "Follow me." Who else can walk up to somebody in the middle of their day, especially in a context like that, and simply walk up and say, "Excuse me, I'd like you to just come and follow me"? The person says, "I'm not going to follow you. I've got to be here at least until five or six o'clock. What do you mean, follow you?" But no, the brevity and the authority is marked both by the immediacy and the totality of Levi's response. "Follow me," Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. There's no gap; it is instantaneous. That's what makes it so amazing, what makes it so striking. And the reason I use "totality" is because in Luke's version of this event, as he records it, he gives to us one phrase that Mark does not use. And in Luke chapter 5 and in verse 27 and verse 28, you will see the missing phrase: "And left everything, and left everything and followed him." He turned his back on his illicit business. He realized that if he was going to follow Jesus, he couldn't follow Jesus and stay the way he was. He couldn't follow Jesus and continue to dupe all his fellow countrymen. He couldn't follow Jesus and continue to be a cheat. He couldn't follow Jesus. He realized that this was a crossroads for him, that this was not somehow or another Levi the cheating tax collector adding Jesus to the sum of his life so that he had, if you like, a religious component to his life that filled in the gap for what was missing in his inability to attend the local synagogues. Here was a chance for him to get involved in "spirituality." Here was an opportunity for him to add this dimension to his life. No, it's not that at all. The command is clear, the response is immediate, and it is total. And leaving everything, he went out to follow Him. One of the reasons, I think, for so many people's disinterestedness in the claims of Christ is because they never hear the claims of Christ. Now, you may be wondering about Christianity and you're here today, and one of the things that put you off is frankly it just seems like such a soft option. Well, forgive us if we've suggested that in any way, or if your friends have done so, trying to make it more attractive to you, trying to, as it were, lower the barrier so that you can come in at your own level and on your own basis. That would be like qualifying for the Olympics in high jump by making your own rules about what the Olympic qualifying height was. So if you want to make it 12 inches, hey, you just qualified for the Olympics. But if you want to actually deal with the standard qualification for the Olympics, guess what? You're not coming. If the church, in endeavoring to win people, takes the message of Jesus, dilutes it, minimizes it, compromises it so that people may see it as a soft option, it is no surprise when the people look at it and say, "Who cares?" Levi, follow me. When? Right now. But follow me. And Levi got up and he followed Him. Now, the impact of this, I think, is fairly obvious. There first of all must have been an impact on the fellows who were his colleagues in the tax collector's booth. We don't have it written down; we know only that they are coming along later in the day when he had his big party. But you can imagine his friends saying to one another, "What in the world got into Levi? Levi left! Yes. Is he coming back? Apparently not." And the next morning, they probably said to themselves, "Oh, he'll get over that. He's done a lot of funny things in his life, but I'm sure by Tuesday he'll be back." Tuesday comes and his place is still empty. And suddenly it dawns on them: he's become a real follower of Jesus. If he'd been back on a Tuesday, he wouldn't have been a follower of Jesus. If he had responded to Jesus the way some of us have responded to Jesus, when somebody either manipulated us emotionally or stirred us up in some form of aggravation and they told us, "What you need to do is put up your hand right now and you will become a follower of Jesus," and we put up our hands and we said, "I guess I'm a follower of Jesus," but by Wednesday of two weeks later, we weren't anywhere close to following Jesus. We never followed Him at all. We didn't go to church, we didn't read our Bible, we didn't tell anyone about Him, we didn't thank Him for forgiving our sins. All we had done was just put up our hands and said, "I think I would like to be a follower of Jesus." But that only lasted about five minutes. The reason you know you're a follower of Jesus is you're still following Jesus. You see? You may be a wretched sinner, you may feel yourself to have had a horrible week, but you're still following Jesus. That's one of the signs of being a follower of Jesus. You follow. This is almost too straightforward, we could miss it, couldn't we? I just saw a little boy. I said to him, "How old are you?" He said, "I'm five." I said, "I used to be five." And he looked up at me and I said, "I was five fifty-two years ago. I was five. But I was five when my father led me to Christ, when I knelt down by a chair in our living room and I said, 'I am a sinner, forgive me. I hate my sister, and that's why I do bad things to her. Forgive me, if I've no other sins, that's enough to get me into hell for sure, so forgive my sins and come and live in my life and make me the kind of boy you want me to be.'" Fifty-two years ago. Now, through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come, but I'm still following. And the reason that they knew that Levi had been changed by Jesus is because he was following. Don't miss the obvious. Come and follow me. Are you following Jesus? And don't say, "Am I following Him perfectly?" because you're clearly not, and neither am I. I'm following Him. And his friends must have met him in the street and said, "Are you coming back?" He said, "No, I can't come back, I'm following Jesus." And they said to him, so many of them must have said, "You know, can you sometime or another just tell me what it means to follow Jesus?" And he said, "You know what? I've got a great idea. You know those big barbecues that I was doing with that really funky Jewish music? Well, we're doing a big, I'm going to do a big barbecue. You're all coming over. I'm going to give you the story all together. I'm going to have Jesus there, and He's going to do the thing. And me and Jesus, it's going to be great if you want to come." And they said, "We're in." It's a wonderful picture, isn't it? It's a reminder to us, isn't it, of the place of our homes, our apartments, in the cause of evangelism. Many a person came to Christ through their tummy. It's not very theological, but it's true. "Mrs. So-and-so, how do you make these pies like this? This is fantastic. It was so good, I think I could die and go to heaven." "Oh, wait a minute now. Do you think if you died you would go to heaven?" "Well, I think probably. I mean, I'm a pretty good person and I figure that a good God is looking for nice people who are trying their best." "What if He isn't? Give me another one of those pies." But you see, that's where we go. The impact on his friends, the impact on Jesus' immediate followers. It would be nice to think that James and John and Simon and Andrew immediately said, "Oh, what a great idea, Levi, the latest member of the disciple band. What a terrific deal! How wonderful to have Levi. Nice that you're branching out, Jesus, and not just going for a middle-Judaism, not just going for the small family business owner type. You're reaching beyond the territory and what a nice idea to bring Levi." What do you think? I don't know, we can check later, but for now, I don't think so. No, I think there's a pretty fair chance that they were going, "Wait a minute. We're four nice boys. We come from a relatively nice background. But if you start adding people like Levi into this, it's going to dilute the pot so quickly. I don't think, Jesus, that you want to have tax collectors and social outcasts in your group." See, Levi would not have been an obvious and a popular choice. That ought to ring a bell with you; it does with me. Do you think you were an obvious and popular choice? If God saved you, do you think He saved you because He found you so tremendously attractive? Do you think when you trusted in Christ that the angels in heaven, who were rejoicing over one sinner that repented, just rejoiced, rejoiced, rejoiced? Or do you think there is a possibility that one angel said to another, "Oh no, look at that, there's Begg in now. That's it, the whole thing will go south now. No, that can't be, that's ridiculous. Oh, there's one of his golfing buddies in there as well. Oh, he's a wild man! Between the two of them..." See, if you think, if I think that I'm an obvious choice, I don't understand the gospel. I don't understand grace. I don't understand forgiveness. I don't understand the authority of Jesus. Because what this little thing illustrates is the wonder of God's grace. The wonder of God's grace. Don't you think that Levi would have been just completely overwhelmed by the thought? "How could it be that Jesus would look him in the eyes and say what He said?" Well, that brings me really and we're done, aren't we? But the impact not only on Levi's colleagues, the impact on the disciples themselves, but also the impact on us today. The impact on us today. Because it doesn't take very much for some of us to assume the spirit of the elder brother in Luke 15 when the prodigal has come back and the party has begun. Remember that little encounter? And the elder brother, who represents the Pharisees whom we're going to see tonight in the party, the elder brother comes near the house and he hears the music and the dancing. And he calls one of the servants and he says, "What's the party?" And the servant says, "Oh, you're going to love this. Your brother is back. He was lost, he's found, he was dead, he's alive. Your father has just, man, it's going wonderfully. Come on in, join the dancing." Do you remember what it says? "But he refused to go in. Refused to go in." Why? Because he didn't understand grace. "I'm not going to a party that is given for someone like my brother who is a wretched sinner and who has made such a horrible mess of his entire existence. If there should be any parties, it should be parties for me, for people like me and my friends, good guys, keeping the rules, goody-two-shoes people, always there, ready sir, yes sir, no sir. That's who should be having the party. No, I refuse to come to the party." And today there may be some of us here this morning, and the reason that we are far from Jesus is not on account of our badness, but it is on account of our supposed goodness. The reason that we've never come and bowed down before Jesus and asked Him to be our Savior and begun to follow Him is because of our rule-keeping, because of our performance, because of our religious duties. In fact, we're really quite good and Jesus came to call people who aren't. So we're actually still not Christian. Or some of us are still not Christian because we feel the distance to be too great on account of our mess, on account of our immorality, on account of our deception, on account of our cheating. And when the story of Jesus suddenly dawns, when we realize that His call to follow is based on His commitment to the cross, which is about to take place, when we realize that the message of the gospel is as real for the Pharisee as it is for the failure, and indeed it is as necessary for both, then both self-righteous religious Pharisees will bow down and trust Christ, and those who feel that there is no opportunity for forgiveness or for a fresh start or for a clean page or for anything like it at all will bow down and worship Him together. And when they all finally get together at the party in the house, they'll be happy to sing the same songs: "When I was lost, you came and rescued me." One lost in their religious orthodoxy, one lost in their cheating rebellion. "Reached down into the pit and lifted me. Oh Lord, such grace to qualify me as your own." It is only when we realize that we are unqualified and that Christ is qualified on our behalf that we're able to get a hold of this good news. And somehow or another, compressed, atomized almost in a moment, Levi got it. We say, "Well, that's not the way it happened in my life." No, it's not the way it happened in my life, but it is the way it happened in Levi's life. And when I was thinking about this and thinking there's definitely going to be some people who say, "Oh, well, you know, that thing in verse 14, and Levi and Jesus said, 'Follow me,' and then he got up and followed Him, it's like, oh for sure, you know, I mean, who put that in there? That doesn't happen like that." Well, just when my mind was going all along those lines, I was having dinner with three couples, my wife and I and three couples. And in the course of waiting for it all to begin, I asked one of the fellows, Shannon, how he became a Christian. Well, goodness, he started way back and in Indiana, and he worked his way through basketball at high school and off and off and off, and eventually I was starving waiting for him to get to the point. But here's what he told me. Here's what he told me. After college, he got a job, a miserable job, as a door-to-door salesman. I can't remember what he was selling, but he had to ring the doorbell, make cold calls, ring the bell, and say, "Could I come in and, you know, demonstrate the vacuum cleaner?" or whatever it was. And he said his whole life was like, "No, bam! No, bam!" You know, "Get out of here! Don't ring my bell! Get down there! Go!" So he spent his life with rejection. Every so often somebody would say yes. And he told me that on this one occasion, after he'd been down "No, bam! No, bam! No, bam! No, bam!" he got to a door and the person said, "Yeah, you can come in and show me your stuff." So he went in to show them the stuff. And in the course of being in this house, he said to the people, "Your house has a real peacefulness. A real peacefulness." And the man said, "Really?" And he said, "Yeah." The man said, "Would you like to know how that is?" The salesman says, "Yeah, I showed you my product, go right at it." The man shared with him the story of his conversion and his wife's conversion, and then he reached to a dresser and he took a Bible and he read him this verse: "If you confess with your mouth 'Jesus is Lord' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." And he said to Shannon, "Do you want to be saved?" And Shannon, as surprised as anybody in the room, said yes. And the man led him to Christ. He got out of there, went home, led both his brother and his sister to Christ. Some of you are not far from the kingdom, but you're not in the kingdom. Because you've sung about hearing the call of the kingdom. Do you hear it? It is a call to repentance and to faith in Jesus. It is a call to be heeded, and it is a call that may be heeded now. So let me ask you: what would prevent you from acceding to Christ's call and becoming a Christian today? And if that describes you as a follower of Jesus, can we take the challenge together to be graciously, increasingly bold in risking all in terms of reputation by just saying to some of our friends, "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved," and then to ask them, "Would you like to be saved?" We might be very surprised by how many yeses we get. But the only way we will ever get a response is if we're prepared to risk it all to ask the question. But why would we be concerned when the stakes are so high?
Bob Lepine: You're listening to a message titled Grace and Forgiveness on Truth For Life with Alistair Begg. Alistair returns to close today's program in just a minute. God assures us in His word that when we ask Him to reveal Himself to us, He will. So our prayer is that He will use the teaching on this program to open closed minds so that unbelievers will become committed followers of Jesus, believers will grow in faith and wisdom, and local churches will be strengthened as a result. If you enjoy listening to Alistair's teaching, how would you like to study with him in person? He'll be the guest speaker on the Journeys of Paul Mediterranean cruise in 2027. And if you come along, you'll enjoy fellowship and encouragement from God's word as you experience the places where the Apostle Paul ministered and served and lived out his faith, places like Malta and Crete, Turkey and Ephesus. The cruise departs August 28, 2027, from Barcelona, Spain. It wraps up in Athens, Greece, on September 4. To find out more or reserve your cabin, visit deeperfaithcruise.com. In the meantime, we are currently recommending a book called Stand in Awe: How Reverence Transforms Our Worship and Our Lives. So what is reverence? What does it look like? Author Laura Story writes, "Reverence toward God is more than mere respect. It involves fundamental humility and self-forgetfulness, a sense that God is more important and greater than we are." In the book, you'll discover how a biblical view of God can shape your everyday life as well as your participation in your weekly church service. You'll come away with a richer understanding of worship and practical ways for you to honor God's greatness. The book Stand in Awe is yours when you give a donation today at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Now, here's Alistair to close with prayer.
Alistair Begg: O God our Father, we thank you for the Bible, and we thank you for this wonderful incident in the life of Levi. We thank you that it speaks of grace and of forgiveness and of your power and your authority in the lives of those whom you touch and change. Help us to know that no one who ever wanted to come to you was ever turned away. So, Lord, come and save us from our attempts at self-justification, and come and relieve us of the burden of our own mess so that we might stand up and, like Levi, follow you. May the grace of the Lord Jesus, and the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one who believes today and forevermore. Amen.
Bob Lepine: I'm Bob Lepine. We are glad you joined us today. Do you ever think you need to clean up your act or get your life together before you can come to Jesus? You might be surprised to hear Jesus' answer to that question. We'll hear more tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth For Life, where the learning is for living.