Our Doctor Makes House Calls

Read Luke 5:27-31

We have proceeded topically for a couple years now.  We started with love, peace, rest, and faith.  We continued with truth, thanksgiving, and mercy.  Along the way we tacked the Parables of Jesus, Paul’s letters, the book of James, and even considered the church reformed and constantly reforming. We even did a few years of the lectionary.

If you managed to make it to the First Light service, we ventured into gifts—including the Gifts of the Spirit, Leviticus, Hebrews, many of Paul’s letters, Psalms, Proverbs,  and some other shorter examinations.

We have touched on other areas.  Trust, obey, and love as we consider our response to grace and contemplation of heaven and hell.

We consider that without love, we are just noise makers.  Love is very important and we find love working in just about every area we have examined, but today, I ask you to consider repentance.  Without repentance, most of what I preach and you study is just academic. 

We know about truth and mercy and thanksgiving.  We have read the commandments.  We want to be known by our love, but without repentance it all just remains in the realm of theory.  We don’t let go of this world long enough to put the words of our Master into practice.

Last week we looked at fruit worthy of repentance, but as we further engage this topic of repentance, I ask you to establish firmly in your mind the necessity of repentance.

Without repentance, we are trying to live as citizens of two kingdoms.  We can’t proclaim Jesus is Lord and have dual citizenship in the kingdom of the world at the same time.

I have worked with drug addicts and alcoholics and hopefully helped in some way as they struggled to overcome addiction and destructive thinking.  Each substance has its own properties when it comes to quitting.  Some produce constant and increasing cravings.  Some just result in incredible withdrawal pains.

Of all of the substances that I know of, it is not drugs or alcohol but tobacco that holds on to its prey most vigorously.  Quitting tobacco is one of the toughest things that I have witnessed in my life. 

Just about everyone who smokes or dips or otherwise uses this substance knows that it kills them.  In the duty-free shop in Mexico, about one-quarter to one-third of the cigarette carton has a message that says THESE THINGS KILL YOU.

There’s no subtle reminder that tobacco may cause cancer.  The message is these things kill you.  I looked at the price of cigarettes in what was supposed to be bargain shopping and thought those things would kill my bank account.

I’m not on a rant against smoking.  I don’t need to be.  Everyone knows that those things kill you.  And because everyone knows that, everyone has quit, right?

Most people who have tried to quit smoking will tell you that it is easy to do.  They have done it a hundred times.

It is often an exercise in shooting yourself in the foot, then admiring your marksmanship. 

When you try to quit and fail yet again, you begin to rationalize.  I’m not long for this world anyway.  Sometimes my cigarettes are the only friends I have.  I need them to get me through the day.  You can’t understand.

It is often shooting yourself in the foot and then reloading for further target practice.

Being in the grips of addiction is sickening.  It is illness.  Bad decisions may have led people to this illness but it is illness nonetheless.  We try hard to keep our kids from picking up the habit, but so many succumb to it anyway.

They need help, but we are talking about more than smoking or using drugs.

The world has its hooks in us.  Greed, lust, coveting, vulgarity, irreverence, narcissism, self-pity, and hatred own us more than we realize.  The patterns of the world seem so natural to us.  It’s the world we live in.  It is the world that we grew up in.  It seems natural.

The world first and God somewhere down the line seems natural.  We know we should quit smoking.  We know we should not put the patterns of the world before the ways of God, yet here we are struggling to keep God and his kingdom and his righteousness first.

We know that it’s not God’s way but it is so hard to give up this relationship that we have with the world.  It is so hard to turn away from and leave behind the ways of the world that we know so well.

We need help.  We need a doctor, a physician.  We need Jesus.

We say that Jesus is Lord.  We say that we have turned away from the ways of the world and yet the more we look at ourselves, the more we see the hold the world has on us.

We would like to think that when we repented and professed Jesus is Lord, that all of that worldly attachment was severed once and for all.  It should have been, but seldom do we make a clean-cut break away from the ways of the world.

We still need a doctor.  We still need help.

We talk about being a new creature—a new creation; yet, the old one still has a hold on us in many ways.  The illness of the world still persists.  We still need a doctor.

The Pharisees saw no need for a doctor; yet a tax collector named Levi knew he was sick.  He knew he needed help.  He knew the Physician when he met him.  He left everything and followed Jesus.

A tax collector didn’t have many friends.  He was often despised by those around him.  He surely had associates and colleagues that had likewise been disowned by the good people, but what he really had was his money—the commissions or percentages that he kept out of what he collected. 

So, when Levi left that, he could expect no sympathy from his fellow tax collectors.  In fact, most were probably glad to see him gone.  That would mean more revenue for them.

Levi left his comfort zone behind.  Levi left his income behind.  Levi left everything to follow Jesus.  He turned away from his life as he knew it and left it behind to follow Jesus.

Levi—you know him better as Matthew—put together a feast for Jesus.  Levi invited a bunch of his acquaintances—I won’t use the word friends—who also needed a doctor.

We need a doctor!  By the blood of Jesus we have been healed but we still need a doctor.  Repenting of our sin is not a one-time event. 

Professing Jesus as Lord changed us in an instant and we passed from death to life, but leaving sin and the ways of the world behind is as tough as quitting smoking, maybe even tougher.

What shall we say then, shall we go on sinning because it’s just too hard to quit and grace will abound even more.

No, we must be transformed by the renewing of our mind.  We are saved from the penalty for sin which is death, but while we live in these vessels of flesh, we still need a doctor.

So what are we to do?  How do we transition?  How can we be transformed?

We begin with the renewing of the mind but we must move beyond the academic into practice.  But how?

Here’s my answer.  It is by no means comprehensive, but it will put us on the right track.

·       Trust

·       Obey

·       Love

We must trust in the Lord with all of our heart even when our own understanding tells us otherwise.  We must know with certainty that we have victory in the blood of Jesus.  It’s a done deal.  He did it all.  It is not ours to undo.  We must understand that we belong wholly to God.  We are citizens of the Kingdom of God.

We must follow the Doctor’s orders.  We must put the words of our Master into practice.  We must be a good patient. The world wants us to relapse. Our sins are forgiven but our lives hang in the balance as we live by the words that proceed from the mouth of God or by the wisdom of the world.  Why live sickly lives when the Physician has cured us?  Why would we buy more cigarettes when we already quit?

And we must do it all with love.  We are not the only ones in need of a physician.  We must invite people to come and know the Lord.  This is true health care for all, bringing everyone we know to the Doctor.

It all starts for us with repentance.  Then we receive Jesus as our Lord.  Then the treatment begins.  We know we are healed yet we must live out this healing process.

So, do not be discouraged when we struggle.  We will struggle. 

Do not give up even when you have a setback.  The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.  Jesus knows what it is to live in a body of flesh.

And know that our Doctor makes house calls.  God stepped out of heaven and humbled himself to live as a man, a man that we know as Jesus, so that we could be healed.  He came not only for us so that we might be saved, but he came to us—right in the middle of a world of sinners—so that we might be healed.  Jesus said, Surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

When I think of Levi the tax collector, I think that Jesus might have been the only friend he ever had.  Jesus might have been the only person that he knew other than on a transactional basis.

Jesus might have been the only person who cared for him since he left home however many years before.

He might have been the only person who loved him as an adult.

He was likely the only person to invest in him, and what an investment it would be to learn as a disciple of the Master.

Jesus was the only one who ever sought to heal him.  As a tax collector, he was not someone that anyone wanted to see well.

We have repented.  We have been saved.  We seek the lordship of Christ Jesus.

Now let’s be healed.  Do not return to the ways of the world no matter how familiar and comfortable they may be.

Our salvation is completely from God and it is eternal.  Our repentance is for all eternity as well.  We remained fixed on Jesus and will not return to the place from which we came.

We repent and are saved by grace.

Now let’s repent and be healed.

Amen.