A New Birthday Party

And now we read the word of God, beginning in verse 27 of Luke, chapter 5. And after these things he went forth and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and he said unto him, Follow me. And he left all, rose up, and followed him.

And Levi made him a great feast in his own house. And there was a great company of tax collectors and of others that sat down with them. But the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are well need not a physician, but they that are sick.

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance. And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees, but thine eat and drink? And he said unto them, Can ye make the sons of the bride chamber fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. And he spoke also a parable unto them.

No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old. If so, then both the new maketh a tear, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old. And no man putteth new wine into old wineskins, else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins shall perish.

But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. No man also, having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new. For he saith, The old is better.

But we have discovered that the new is better, because Jesus Christ brings newness to life. Everybody in Capernaum knew Levi the tax collector. The businessmen knew him because they argued with him regularly over his assessments.

Levi's job was to stop the caravans that came down that road, find out what goods they were carrying, and tax them. Levi's job was to work with the fishermen there at the sea, find out what they had caught, and put duty on it. So the businessmen knew him because he was a businessman.

Of course, the Pharisees knew him because he was a trader. The Jewish nation never wanted to be in subjection to any other nation. They were the people of God.

The leaders said to Jesus one day, We're not in bondage to anyone. And yet they were paying taxes to Rome. It's bad enough to pay taxes to Rome, but when you have to pay them to a Jewish man who is working for Rome, that is about as low as you can get.

If you want to call your brother-in-law a nasty name, call him a publican. Call him a tax collector. For not only was Levi disloyal to his nation, he was disloyal to his God.

How could any godly Jew ever collect taxes for Rome? So the businessmen knew him, and the Pharisees knew him, but Jesus knew him. Our Lord had seen Levi many times sitting there in his tax office collecting money. And Levi had heard Jesus speak.

And he'd heard about the miracles he'd performed. And Levi was an educated man. He'd have to be an educated man to work in his office.

And the Spirit of God began to speak to Levi. Day after day as he was figuring the accounts and assessing the duties, something was working in his heart. And then it happened.

One day Jesus Christ came by and simply said, Follow me! And Levi left everything and followed him. Now, most of the folks didn't understand what happened. There are three kinds of people in the world, you know, those who make things happen, and those who watch things happen, and those who don't know that anything is happening.

And this is the way it was in Capernaum. There were multitudes of people who just didn't know what had happened. Levi was missing from his toll booth.

Oh, we hear he's following this Jesus of Nazareth. I suppose the impact of Levi's conversion was not too unlike that of Charles Coulson's conversion on Washington, D.C. It just shook the place. And Levi had called together a feast.

And Levi called his friends and, I suppose, some of his business associates with him because he wanted to explain what had happened. And that's what happens at this feast in Luke 5, beginning at verse 27 and concluding at verse 39. You see, the publicans and the sinners were overjoyed at what had happened.

The Pharisees and the scribes were scandalized at what had happened. And as a consequence, Jesus had to explain what was going on. It went something like this.

They were gathered together at the feast. The scribes and Pharisees were watching. And Jesus stood up and said, From this day forth, your name is no longer Levi.

Your name is Matthew, the gift of God, because I have given to you the spiritual gifts that you need. You see, Levi didn't throw this feast because he was mourning over losing something. Levi threw this feast because he was rejoicing at what he had gained.

He had become Matthew. He had experienced the gift of God. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ is still calling people.

He calls by his Holy Spirit through his word. He calls through the lips of his people. He calls through circumstances.

The Lord Jesus Christ is still going up and down the streets of Chicago and in and out of the apartment buildings. And he's saying, Trust me. Believe in me.

Follow me. Now, when you do this, what will you receive? We're talking about Matthew, the gift of God. What are the gifts that Jesus Christ will give to those who will trust him and follow him? Well, they're given to us here in Luke chapter 5, verses 27 through 39.

There are four of them. That day, Levi became Matthew, the gift of God, because he had received from the Lord Jesus Christ by faith some very wonderful spiritual gifts. And, my friend, these gifts are offered to you today.

You may need them. Gift number one, Jesus Christ gave to Matthew the gift of spiritual health. Jesus said, I'm the physician, and I've come that you might have spiritual health.

Now, many people are concerned about physical health, and rightly so, if we don't take care of our bodies, we're going to die, and if we're dead, we're not going to be much use to a lot of people. God can call us home when he wants to. We're prepared.

But meanwhile, we take care of our bodies. Health is an important thing, but far more important than the health of the body is the health of the soul, the inner man. The apostle John wrote to one of his friends, I pray that you may prosper and be in health even as your soul is in health.

It's good to have spiritual health. You see, the Lord Jesus Christ looked around at this feast, and he saw tax collectors and sinners who were breaking the law of God. He saw people who were pickpockets and people who were drunkards, and some harlots had come in from off the street, and there were a group of Jewish people who weren't keeping the law anymore.

They hadn't gone to the temple. They hadn't brought the sacrifices. Of course, the Pharisees were looking at this crowd and saying, Sinners! Sinners! Jesus said, Wait a minute.

Would you go walking through a hospital and say to a poor man, Sinner! Sinner! I look upon these people as spiritually sick, and what they need is not condemnation. They know condemnation in their own hearts. What they need is salvation.

What they need is spiritual health. Have you ever thought of sin as sickness? Now, I'm not saying that we aren't responsible for it. There's a real trend these days to take someone who has been a murderer and say, Well, he's not to blame.

He's sick. Nobody is to blame, unless, of course, he does have some mental problem. Here's someone who has a terrible problem with perhaps narcotics or alcohol, and someone says, Well, he's not responsible.

Yes, he is responsible. He has a problem. He has a sin sickness.

And Jesus Christ is saying to us today that sin is like sickness. It starts very small. A little germ, a little infection gets into the system.

It spreads. It brings with it weakness and fever and restlessness, and then ultimately it leads to pain, and it can lead to death. And sin is this way.

Sin just starts very small, and it gets into the system, and it spreads. It brings with it fever and discomfort and pain and restlessness. And the sad thing is people run down to some religious supermarket and try to find some remedy for it.

Instead of really getting down to the root of the trouble, which is sin, and coming to the great physician, Jesus, and saying, Lord, you're the only one who can cure me, they try to get some pill or some medicine, and it doesn't work. Jeremiah wept one day, and he said something like this about the false prophets of his day. They have healed the hurt of the daughter of Jerusalem slightly.

Peace, peace, but there is no peace. Oh, do you see it, my friend? Sin is just like sickness. And you don't take care of sickness by doing something on the outside.

We've got to do something on the inside. And the only one who can do that is Jesus Christ, the great physician. We sing in one of our songs, the great physician now is near, the sympathizing Jesus.

Have you ever thought of Jesus Christ as a physician? But he's not like any other physician that you or I know. You see, he comes to us. He's a physician who makes house calls.

He doesn't say, now cough in an envelope and mail it to me, and I'll let you know about it. No, the Lord Jesus Christ comes to us. He came to Matthew, and he said, Matthew, follow me.

He comes to us, and he diagnoses the case completely. The Lord never makes a single mistake when he diagnoses the case. He looks right into the heart.

He knows exactly what's wrong. I may have told you about my sister's allergy tests. Some years ago, she went through a series of allergy tests, and the doctor told her she was allergic to Brussels sprouts, and she'd never eaten one in her life, and she didn't even know what one was.

Now, what he was saying was, you are allergic to things in that family, of course. Stay away from them, which was no problem. Our Lord Jesus never makes a mistake in his diagnosis, and he's not rough about it.

He's so tender. He's so loving and so patient. He tells us the truth in love, and he comes to us and says, look, I can give you a complete and final cure.

No experimenting, no ifs, ands, perhapses. I can give you a complete and final cure because I died for you. The amazing thing about the Lord Jesus as the physician is this.

Not only does he come to us and love us and diagnose us completely, not only is he able to give us a complete and final cure, but he pays the bill. You'd think more people would come to the Lord Jesus and say, oh, great physician, my heart is sick. My whole life is sick.

There is the infection of lust in my heart or temper or whatever it may be, but oh, I need your healing. That's what we have to do. The reason some of you have never experienced salvation is because you won't admit you're sick.

One of the hardest things a doctor told me one day is to convince some people how serious they are. There are people who run from doctor to doctor waiting to hear what they want to hear. Our Lord doesn't do that.

Our Lord says if you want me to heal you, you've got to admit the need. You've got to confess you can't do anything about it. You've got to accept my diagnosis and you have to accept my remedy.

Well, what is your remedy? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I'm glad that Jesus Christ is the great physician because he gives us the gift of spiritual health. It's a marvelous thing.

When you trust Jesus Christ as your Savior, the inner man, the inner man is cleansed and made strong and alive and healthy. And Jesus died to make this possible. My friend, no amount of religion is going to cure sin sickness.

We have to come to the physician and be sure you get the right physician. Be sure when you get to the physician, you look at his hands and make sure they're wounded. He is the great physician.

The gift of spiritual health. Secondly, there's the gift of spiritual joy. In verses 33 through 35, the gift of spiritual joy.

They said to the Lord Jesus, why is it that, look at your disciples, they're eating and they're drinking and they're laughing. But there's John's disciples and they're fasting. Look at the faces of the Pharisees.

Of course, the faces of the Pharisees were always solemn, stern. They mistook solemnity for seriousness. You know, it's possible to be serious and smile.

It's possible to be serious and laugh. There are some of the saints whose faces would turn any sinner away from the Lord. And the Pharisees were among them.

Look at the Pharisees. They aren't laughing. They aren't rejoicing.

Why is it your disciples are so happy? Oh, he says, that's the second gift. I give you the gift of spiritual health and I give you the gift of spiritual joy. I'm the bridegroom.

And when you go to a wedding, you rejoice. He says this feast that you see here is really a wedding feast. It's a birthday feast because Levi has been born again and he's celebrating his birthday.

But it's a wedding feast. I'm the bridegroom and we're rejoicing together because these people have trusted me and we're married. Did you ever think of salvation in terms of marriage? It's a biblical truth.

It's here in the word of God. Salvation as marriage. Over in Romans chapter 7, for example, the apostle Paul says we are married to Jesus Christ.

Did you know when you trusted Christ as your Savior, you were married to him? The church is his bride and he's the bridegroom. Maybe you've been to a wedding lately. But have you ever noticed what it takes to get married? You don't say, I think.

You don't say, I hope. You don't say, I feel. You know what you say? I will.

When that fellow and girl first meet, they get to know each other intellectually, but that doesn't get you married. And then what starts in the head gets down into the heart and love comes and they love each other, still aren't married. You can know a great deal about Jesus Christ and not belong to him.

You can feel a great deal toward Jesus Christ and not belong to him. It's not until that bridegroom and that bride say, I will. That's what does it.

Now Jesus Christ already has said, I will, to you. Did you know that? Him that cometh to me, I will, and no wise cast out. My Lord has already said to you, I will.

Whosoever will, let him come. But now it's up to you to say, I will. And when you say, I will to him.

We use clothing sometimes to tell things. For example, you see a fellow in a blue uniform with a blue hat on and a silver badge. You kind of straighten up a little bit.

Especially if when he stopped you, that blue light is going around. I think the most beautiful uniforms we've ever seen have been over in London. My oh my, they have all these crack uniforms.

Just beautiful. The uniforms, the clothing tells on a person. He's a policeman.

He's a soldier. He's a postman. He's not doing so well.

We even use the term a riding habit to speak of the clothing you wear when you go riding. Over in Colossians 3, Paul talks about clothing as a picture of the Christian life. Put off the old clothes and put on the new clothes.

And Jesus is talking here about a garment. He says now, if you're wearing an old garment and there's a tear in it, you don't go rip up a good new garment and ruin it and put the new cloth on the old cloth. I'll tell you what'll happen.

When you clean that garment and wash that garment, that new cloth will shrink and it'll rip and be ruined anyway. They didn't have sanforizing back in those days. You know what he's saying here? He's saying I didn't come to patch up your life.

That's what some of you are doing. There are people who say, oh yes, I like the teachings of the Lord. I will accept his teachings.

Uh-uh, you've got to accept him. The whole thing. His garment was a seamless robe.

Remember that? No patches in his garment. He was wearing that seamless robe. And when he saves you, he gives to you a seamless robe of righteousness.

And some of you want Jesus to patch up your life. Lord, please take away my drinking. No, he wants to give you a whole new life.

Not just a patch. I'll tell you why. If he just patches up one part of your life, it won't last.

It just won't last. Lord, I've got to get rid of my gambling. I've got to get rid of my life.

Why not just get rid of the entire garment? I have a good friend who every once in a while gets inspired to write a song. Now, his songs are never going to go down in history, but they're singable and they bless people. He was driving down the highway one day and all of a sudden began to sing to himself in the car.

I suppose the people who were driving by thought he was somewhat strange. But his song went like this. Oh, the best thing in my life I ever did do.

Yes, the best thing in my life I ever did do. The best thing in my life I ever did do was to take off the old robe and put on the new. Now, that's a good song, especially if you're driving by yourself down the highway.

And it's true. It's true. The best thing in your life you ever could do would be to take off that old robe that you've made a mess out of.

My, there's sin stains on that robe that go way back. You ever meet somebody whose last four meals were on his tie? When the Lord Jesus Christ looks at you and looks at me, he sees the sin stains and he says, look, I'm not going to patch you up. I want to make you whole.

I want to give you spiritual wholeness. Your life is being torn apart. I'm not going to patch you up.

I'm going to take that dirty old robe and get rid of it and give you the clean new robe, the spotless robe of righteousness. Paul puts it very theologically over in 2 Corinthians when he says, for God hath made him, Jesus, to be sin for us. He who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Isn't that great? To give him the old robe and put on the new. No wonder Matthew was happy because the Lord Jesus gave to him spiritual wholeness, a new life within that was whole, a new purpose that held his life together, a new love, a new motive, a new power. Oh, if your life is falling apart, if as you're spinning around in this world you find your life just being torn apart, don't patch it up.

That won't last. Just come and say, Lord, I stand before you. Here's my robe.

I don't want it anymore. Bury it. Give me the new robe and he'll do it.

The gift of spiritual wholeness. Verses 37 through 39, you have the fourth of these marvelous gifts that the Lord gives you when you trust him and follow him. We've had the gift of spiritual health, the disease of sin conquered, the guilt of sin taken away, the power of sin broken, the gift of spiritual joy.

We aren't attending a funeral. We're attending a feast. Life is a perpetual feast with the Lord.

The gift of spiritual wholeness, life being put together, not patched up. And the gift of spiritual fullness. Now he's talking about wine in the wineskins.

They didn't have bottles such as we have, a returnable or non-returnable. They would kill a goat. And they had a unique way, a cute way, of extricating the goat and leaving the skin whole.

Beautiful thing. Then they would take care of drying, preserving it and so forth. And they would leave one of the openings for the neck of the bottle and they'd pour their wine in there.

Now as you know, wine has a way of fermenting. It's sort of alive. And if you put new wine in old wineskins, when all of this begins to go to work, it cracks, ruins the skin and spills the wine.

So you've got to put the new wine in new wineskins that can give. You know, I fear that sometimes people have the idea that Jesus came just to put new ideas into old forms. He didn't.

Our Jewish friends were so enamored of their temple, but their temple was an old wineskin. And finally God had to destroy it. They were so wrapped up in their sacrifices and their priesthood.

And all these things had been good in their time. But when Jesus came with the brand new wine, he couldn't pour it in the old wineskins. It would have spilled the wine and broken the skins.

He says, Matthew, I'm going to make a whole new wineskin out of you and fill you up with the wine of salvation. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the Word of God and other places in the Word of God, not just in the Gospels, wine is used for joy. Over in Acts chapter 2 at Pentecost, when the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit, the crowd said, they're drunk.

The unsaved crowd wouldn't accuse us of being drunk. Dead? Yep, not drunk. We don't act like joyful, vibrant, vivacious, drunken people.

Over in Ephesians chapter 5, Paul dares to say, don't be drunk with wine, be filled with the Spirit. There's a comparison there, and even a contrast. Paul is saying, God wants to give you fullness.

Acts 2 is saying, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is saying, I want to fill you, but don't come to me with your old stuff. I'm not going to fill up your old stuff.

No, you've got to get rid of that. I have to make you a new person, then I can fill you with the wine of my fullness and my joy and my power. The trouble is, in verse 39, the crowd was saying, we don't want the new, we want the old.

People are this way today. Now, Jesus didn't say in verse 39, the old is better. He's quoting the crowd.

The Pharisees are saying, well, this is all well and good, but we want the old. Ever heard that? My tradition, my family has believed this way for 200 years. Jesus said, don't bring me your tradition.

It's an old wineskin. I don't want that. My religion.

No, I don't want your religion. I want you. All people are saying, the old is better.

The old is not better. It took God 40 more years to teach the Jewish people the old was not better. And they still didn't learn it, so he destroyed their city and destroyed their temple.

Wiped out their religion. He wrote them a book called Hebrews, and 12 times in the book of Hebrews, it says better, better, better, better. What's better? Christ is better.

That's the whole theme of Hebrews. He's better than your sacrifices and better than this and better than... 12 times, better, better, better. And whatever it is you're holding on to, I want you to know Jesus Christ is better.

And the new wine of the gospel, that fresh, wonderful life in Christ, is better than anything you've got. Matthew found that out. Matthew said, I want Jesus Christ.

And he received that wonderful gift of spiritual fullness. In other words, he gives us spiritual health and spiritual joy and spiritual wholeness, a new garment and spiritual fullness, a new power and life down inside. And life is a perpetual walk with the Lord through heartache, through trial, but nobody minds going through heartache and trial and difficulty when you've got health and joy and wholeness and fullness.

You're prepared for life, man. Oh, somebody here today needs to come to the great physician and say, I'm sick. I am sin sick.

From the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, there's nothing but wounds and putrefying sores and I'm getting worse. Oh, great physician, heal me. Somebody needs to come and say, oh, heavenly bridegroom, I'm miserable.

I'm unhappy. I thought I could be happy with money or with fame or with experiences, but I'm miserable. Oh, give me joy.

Somebody's life that's been all dirtied and ragged needs to come and say, Lord, look at this garment. Look at it, patched and dirty and ragged. But oh, I'm going to give it to you.

Give me the seamless robe of your righteousness. Someone who's empty and weak needs to come and say, Lord, here's the wineskin, dry. Oh, what good are my traditions, my religions? What good are all these things? I'm so empty.

Oh, give to me your fullness. And you know what? When you do that, he'll give you what you're asking for. He wants to give you all four of these gifts today, spiritual health and spiritual joy and spiritual wholeness and spiritual fullness.

But he won't force it on you. He's inviting you to the feast. Will you come? He's going up and down the rows of the Moody church saying, follow me, trust me.

Will you do what Levi did? Instantly, without argument, without debate, completely and finally, he got up and he followed Jesus. He got a new name, Matthew, the gift of God. And the gift of God is yours today if you'll obey his call.

He says to you today, will you trust me? Will you come? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I know not how many there are here today in need of meeting the Lord Jesus, but no doubt there are some. I pray that you might remove every obstacle, answer every argument, speak to every heart, and may there be those today who will come to Jesus Christ.

Thank you that salvation is a gift. Thank you we don't have to charge anybody. Lord, we stop to think that Matthew spent his life charging people and the greatest thing he ever got was free.

Lord, we're thankful we don't have to lay down any conditions. We can just open the invitation and say come. Oh, may there be those who will come.

And experience these wonderful gifts that Jesus died to give us. For we pray in his name.