But I’m Not Sick

But I’m Not Sick 2021 05 09

Mark 2:13 – 17

Imagine if doctors were afraid of getting sick!  What if all the doctors, for example, decided it was too risky to go in to work, because of the pandemic!?  What would you do if you were sick? Thankfully, doctors become doctors so that they can help the sick, and some even go looking for sick people!

 

Some people, however, do not realize they are sick, or worse, they deny it!  Have you ever had to work in close proximity to someone who continually sniffled, coughed and sneezed, but wouldn’t do anything about it, or suggested perhaps that it was just a mild allergy or something?  (You knew better, didn’t you?)

 

People are like that when it comes to sin.  As we saw in the previous passage, the terminal disease that everyone has is sin!  Everyone needs to recognize that fact and submit to the one who can cure it!

 

Mark 2:13 – 17

 

This historical passage is also recorded in the books of Matthew and Luke.

 

After teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath and healing a man who was paralyzed, Jesus went out to walk beside the Sea of Tiberius, also known as the Sea of Galilee, on whose shores Capernaum was situated.

 

This multitude that packed the house and stood outside to hear Him had witnessed the healing of the man lowered through the roof.  They then followed Him, and He taught them.

 

As Jesus taught, He walked along the seaside and came upon Levi, the son of Alphaeus, also called Mathew in Matthew 9:9.  Levi was a tax collector, a publican, someone hired by the Romans to collect taxes for Rome.  Most publicans were known to line their own pockets at the same time but had the backing of the Roman soldiers to do it.  The Jews detested the publicans, not just for their cheating, but because they worked for the hated Roman government.

 

Jesus did something that shocked the Jewish establishment; He told Levi to follow Him.  What would you have done if someone came to your workplace and told you to follow him?

 

  1. Levi’s Choice

 

  1. Levi did something that should have amazed the Jewish establishment; he simply dropped everything and followed Jesus! He gave up his high paying job in an instant to follow Jesus!  Luke 5:28 says it in even stronger language: “And he left all, rose up, and followed him.”
    1. He just got up from his table and followed Jesus. We should be as ready to drop everything and obey Jesus just like he did!

 

  1. Dinner With Friends

 

  1. Levi threw a big dinner in his house on Jesus’ behalf and had a large group of his friends over. Many of these friends were also tax collectors, as well as many other outcasts who had no problem associating with these ‘publicans and sinners.’
  2. It is interesting to note that this well-to-do but “vile publican” opened his house to everyone who was with Jesus!
    1. Again, in Luke 5:29 we read, “And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.”

 

III.   A Great Sinner

 

  1. We know that a publican was a tax collector, but just what was meant by a “sinner?”
    1. A sinner is one who by definition transgresses or breaks the law or who habitually does not obey or follow the law.
  2. Luke’s account was somewhat kinder in that he wrote, “others,” rather than sinners.
    1. Levi, however, (or Matthew, as he was also called and as he called himself in the Gospel he wrote) clearly wrote, “sinners.” A sinner who had come to know the grace of God is quite sure of the state he and his fellow sinners were in before they were saved!  Levi knew that he was a great sinner (just like all the rest of us)!

 

  1. Hypocrites

 

  1. Now when the religious people saw Jesus sitting and eating with these publicans and sinners, they questioned the fact. They asked, “How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?” 
    1. Their question showed that they wouldn’t be caught dead in the same company, and wondered what motivated Jesus, a Jew who was able to teach with authority, to be seen in the company of such common scum!

 

  1. A Terrible Pandemic

 

  1. Then Jesus answered them, “Those who aren’t sick don’t need a doctor. I didn’t come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners to repentance.”
    1. You don’t need a doctor if you’re not sick!
  2. Jesus came in the middle of a terrible pandemic, and taught in the synagogues, where the religious people were, but they didn’t accept him.
    1. You can almost hear them saying, “But I’m not sick!” How similar to what we hear all around us, right now!  But the pandemic is not a simple virus!  It is a disease that’s always fatal, called “sin.”
    2. Jesus came to tell everyone that we are sick with sin!
  3. Some, like the leper and the man with the palsy who was lowered through the roof know that they are sinners and recognize the symptoms that show up in the world and in the flesh.
    1. Many, like the religious Jews in Jesus’ day say, “But I’m not sick!” These religious leaders thought that the actions or neglect of the publicans and their friends made them sinners, and that their own many works made them righteous.

 

  1. Denial

 

  1. Jesus told the story of a religious leader who thought himself righteous by his works. “Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.   I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.  And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Luke 18:10 – 14
  2. Jesus made it very clear that the self-righteous are sick people who keep on saying in denial, “But I’m not sick!” Jesus told He did not come to call the righteous, meaning the self-righteous, because until a person recognizes that he’s sick, he won’t submit to the doctor.  Jesus did not come to force those who think they’re righteous to recognize they are sinners and repent, but He came to call those who know they are sinners to repent.
    1. Make no mistake. The Bible says, “All have sinned…”  Romans 3:23. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death…”  Romans 6:23. In other words, sin is a terminal illness that needs a doctor who has the cure!  Works are not the cure!  Religion is not the cure!  Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day who thought they were so good at impressing God with their good works, “WOE unto you…  if only you did the things that God actually wants you to do!” 
    2. John the Baptist offered the answer when he preached at the Jordan river, “…repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
  3. But the self-righteous say, “But I’m not sick!!”
    1. But Jesus says you are “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”  “The wages of sin is death… (does that make sin sound like a serious, terminal illness in need of a Great Physician?), but… the Bible goes on to say, “…the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”  (Romans 6:23)
    2. Jesus is not going to chase down those who say, “But I’m not sick,” the religious hypocrites. Instead, He warns them, “Woe unto you!”  The day is coming when those who deny Jesus, being so full of pride that they are content to rely on their own goodness for salvation, will die and stand before that awful Great White Throne of Judgment when God prepares to cast them into the Lake of Fire reserved for the devil and his angels.  Woe!  Woe!  You ARE sick!  Your works won’t save you!

 

Conclusion

 

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance.  If you think you’re OK and going to be acceptable to God the way you are without coming to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, then congratulations!  Jesus isn’t going to chase you and force His medicine on you.  You’re going to go to hell and burn in the lake of fire for eternity all by yourself!  That’s your choice.  But if you recognize that you’re a sinner who can’t help yourself and need a Saviour, then put your faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and He promises you that as soon as you do that, you are forgiven of all your sins and you have eternal life!  Jesus Christ paid the full price, the wages of sin, for you when He took your sin on Himself and died for you on the cross!  Make sure, today, that you really are trusting in Jesus and not in yourself!