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Oct 31, 2021

Who’s Calling?

Who’s Calling?

Passage: Mark 2:13-17

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Follow: Learning from Mark about Jesus’ Most Misunderstood Command

Keywords: righteous, follow, sick, sinners, physician

The series we’re in is about what it means to follow. But lest we reduce His call to mere technique, crucial to persisting in his call to follow is knowing who precisely is this One who calls us.

Readings & Scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 103:8-14
LEADER: The LORD is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
He will not always chide,
nor will he keep his anger forever.

ALL: He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;

LEADER: as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

ALL: As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.

CENTRAL TEXT: Mark 2:13-17
13 He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them. 14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. 15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

BENEDICTION: Numbers 6:24-26
LEADER: May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

ALL: Amen.

Related Scriptures

  • Psalm 25:14
  • Luke 7:36-50
  • John 6:44
  • James 4:4

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Who have you followed who most endeared themselves to you? Why? Who have you followed who most disappointed you? 
  2. What in this short passage might’ve endeared Jesus to you (and perhaps also perplexed you) if you’d never encountered him before? Why?
  3. When I say the word “outcasts,” who in the present day first comes to mind? Anyone? Why them? What have you heard before about the character and reputation of then tax-collectors (here more like customs/duties officers)? So why is Jesus’s invitation to Levi off-script?
  4. We can only conjecture, but why is Levi’s decision to follow Jesus a costly one? Imagine several ways it would’ve required of him more than just a change of scenery? What if anything can we infer from what it cost Levi in how following Jesus might cost us?
  5. How would you describe Jesus’s posture toward those he’s “reclining” with? Guarded? Scrutinizing? Something else? Can we infer anything from that gathering about his posture toward anyone who follows him? Does that notion square with your general sense of Jesus’s thoughts of you? Why or why not?
  6. Why might Jesus have invoked the metaphor of a physician to describe himself? What all has he come to heal? Can you cite anything you sense the life of Jesus has “diagnosed” in you from which you require healing? How has Jesus offered that healing?

QUOTES:

  • I have sometimes wondered why Jesus so frequently touched the people he healed, many of whom must have been unattractive, obviously diseased, unsanitary, smelly. With his power, he easily could have waved a magic wand. In fact, a wand would have reached more people than a touch. He could have divided the crowd into affinity groups and organized his miracles--paralyzed people over there, feverish people here, people with leprosy there--raising his hands to heal each group efficiently, en masse. But he chose not to. Jesus' mission was not chiefly a crusade against disease (if so, why did he leave so many unhealed in the world and tell followers to hush up details of healings?), but rather a ministry to individual people, some of whom happened to have a disease. He wanted those people, one by one, to feel his love and warmth and his full identification with them. Jesus knew he could not readily demonstrate love to a crowd, for love usually involves touching. - Paul Brand, Fearfully and Wonderfully Made
  • Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself. - C.S. Lewis
  • When perfectionism is driving us, shame is always riding shotgun and fear is the backseat driver. - Brené Brown
  • The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God. - Thesis 62, of Luther’s 95 Theses

BOOKS / DOCS

SERMONS / TALKS: 

“Supper with the Savior,” Alistair Begg