THE GREAT PHYSICIAN
#003 THE GREAT PHYSICIAN
Scripture Luke 5:27-32 Orig. 6/21/64
Rewr. 8/1/87
Passage: 27 After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Purpose: To share with my people various spiritual sicknesses and that only a sense of sin leads us to the One who can heal.
Keywords: Christ, Saviour Faith Doubt Sin
Introduction
The years have passed far too quickly. We have watched with fascination, and sometimes with dismay, the progress of American space missions. We remember particularly some of the earlier ones because we watched our TVs with our hearts in our throats. We read the responses of the returning astronauts.
I remember the cosmonaut who returned loudly proclaiming that if heaven is out there, he saw no evidence of God. It was only a few weeks later that an American astronaut responded, having viewed what’s out there with eyes of faith, and having seen great evidence of God everywhere he looked.
Later, someone, I forget who, added a footnote to this debate. It is a message not to be overlooked.
“Nothing has been found up there that has changed the ground rules down here. Nothing has been gleaned along the Milky Way which has made the good life easier or the wrong less attractive. There is nothing out there that can warm one heart chilled with loneliness here, or bandage one mind that’s bleeding to death from doubt, or forgive one sin that has turned one soul prematurely grey. . . .”
I. It Is the Self-Righteously Sick Who Need the Physician. 5:31 “. . . not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” He is the person who has answers even to questions which haven’t been asked. Scribes and Pharisees were smart men. They had read the writing and knew the mind of God. Why do you associate with such? (Levi).
At Simon’s for dinner (7:36), Jesus was approached by a sinful woman, who anointed Him. Simon concludes, “If he were a prophet he would know the kind of woman she is.”
People are often flippant about the mind of God. Psalm 25:14 “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.” Romans 11:34 “Who hath known the mind of the Lord?” I Corinthians 1:25 “The foolishness of God is wiser than men.”
Besides this flippancy about God, there are those who gloss over their own sin. They are not so forgiving of others’ sins. It should be our most accessible trait. The Bible shows the character of God. Evidence described a Christ who lived it. But day by day we are surely overcome by our failure even to come close to the expectations of God. John 15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now . . . they have no excuse for their sin.”
We must also consider the parent refusing to acknowledge spiritual responsibility. A great man once spoke of his majestic city, saying that if allowed to do so, he would go to the highest place in that city, call all the citizens together, and ask why they were turning every stone to scrape wealth together, yet taking so little care and concern for their children to whom they must one day relinquish all. The man was Socrates, speaking in Athens in 400 B.C.
II. It Is the Cynically Sick Who Need the Physician. “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have . . . come . . . to call the righteous . . . to repentance.” The cynic sees only the ugly in our society. We will do well to dispense with false ideals. Sin and hypocrisy among well-meaning people are too easily spotted.
There are legitimate claims of hypocrisy in the church. But people who use hypocrisy as an excuse can’t afford to be hypocritical. If you stay away from church, for example, you must also find businesses without hypocrisy. Be careful that those who teach your children are above hypocrisy. Plan ahead so that your funeral coach driver is without such sin.
The cynic sees Christ not as physician, but as meddler. But for Christ’s intervention, he could be openly amoral. John 15:24 “If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.” No, they would just be consigned to the region of the damned, of the earth, earthly. But for Christ, gold would be our eternally adorning God. I Peter 1:18 “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold.” But for Christ, our children would be the fruit of fate, not faith.
III. It Is the Pseudo-Religiously Satisfied Who Need the Physician. 5:31 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor . . . . I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Such is often the person without spiritual values—unmoved, unmotivated, satisfied not to be last. Regrettably, even using Philippians 4:11 as proof text: “ . . . for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content,” ignoring what Paul went on to say: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Morality for too many people today is staying out of jail and out of the doghouse. Many excuse themselves saying the New Testament standard is outdated. In a cartoon, two people stood before a painting by one of the great masters. One said, “I’m not impressed. Are you?” The other, “The painting is not on trial. We are!”
The values of our day become more confused. In Steinbeck’s novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, the son of his protagonist won an essay award through plagiarism. When confronted by his father after the award was taken away, the young man said, “Who cares? Everybody does it . . . . Don’t you read the papers? Right up to the top!” This is not a barb at youth. It is a stab at the pathetic example set for youth. When we come to doubt the reasons for the things we do, we are in trouble.
IV. It Is the Seeking Sick to Whom the Physician Comes. V32 “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” First of all, the truly righteous know their state before God. Psalm 112:7 “His heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord.” Isaiah 32:17“The effect of righteousness will be quietness and assurance forever.”
The true seeker, though yet unredeemed, knows the hope of salvation. He is standing under the burden of sin: Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” He knows that a day of reckoning must come: Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ.” What he may not know is the fullness of this salvation and its availability: Romans 15:13 “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound.”
There are times, as a true seeker, that I fear for my role as pastor of First Baptist Church. Oh, we are baptizing our children. But what else of significance? How much closer to the Lord are you? What would a roll call of deacons, Sunday School teachers tell us? How excitedly do you take your place on Sunday morning? Why do you not come back on Sunday evening? Wednesday? Why do you make no effort to further missions activities of your church?
My fear is in the full realization that God will not suffer through an ineffective leader to the spoil of His church, and this church is a precipitous one. It’s time then, for a lot of us, as true believers, to begin thinking repentance.
Conclusion
I found a paragraph at the conclusion of a sermon written 20-25 years ago telling of the critical nature of contemporary events. A journalist had published a book, Two Minutes till Midnight. A missionary had delivered a much-publicized message entitled “Wake Up or Blow Up.” A piece in the newspaper had told of individual B-52s on air alert, carrying explosive power equal to twelve times the explosives dropped during all of World War II. During that same time, a statesman had spoken of people living under a “balance of terror.”
Armageddon is a Biblical reality, and we may be closer than we think. Whatever else may be on the brink, it is time to seek peace.