Do you dine with Sinners?

On today's episode of the Iron Saints Podcast, we continue our journey through the Gospel of Luke. Making our way out of the Parables and continuing our walk with Christ we see how he handles the labels of the world and how is heart is for those who need the Gospel.


Jesus Calls Levi
27 After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” 28 And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. 
29 And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. 30 And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 31 And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” 


The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 5:27–32.

As always I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the reading and as well should you have any prayer requests you would like me to lift up on the podcast don't hesitate to reach out to any of the social media or email below.

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Transcript

 As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Welcome back to the Iron Saints podcast with your host, Dan Willis. 2s Welcome back, Saints. Another day, another podcast. Looking forward to continuing our journey through Luke. If you guys have missed the other chapters that we have, please go back. Please listen, we just finished going through a lot of the parables that Jesus has spoken about in Luke five. We're going to continue walking with Christ on his journey today. So I'm excited to keep on going with him here. Really looking forward to it. Huge. Thank you to all of you that have taken the time to offer feedback, prayer requests, and have shared out the past episodes. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. But without further ado, let's get down to it. So today we are in Luke, chapter five, verse 27. I'll be reading from the ESV. Feel free to follow along wherever you would like. If you're in the car, though, I am going to read it out loud for you if you're listening on the commute. That way you guys can just hear it and not need to necessarily have a Bible on hand. So let's go after this. He went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me and leave Ever. And leaving everything, he rose and followed him. Levi made him a great feast in his house. And there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at a table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. This is a bit of a challenging one. I love seeing Jesus practically applying his teachings just as he walks, just as he goes. He knows the hearts of man. He knows the people that he associates with. He knows what he's doing. He knew before he reached out to Levi that the Pharisees were watching. He knew what was happening. He did it anyway. I think this is a challenge for us as men in the church. Take a look at your social groups. I know we're all busy. I know we've got things. We've got our family, we've got our work, we've got our church family. Take a look at the people that we surround ourselves with as men of faith. What does your circle look like? How many of those that are sinners, that are sick, that are near the Gospel, how many of them do you have in your life? How many can you think of offhand? Just as I say those things that you have a positive relationship with, that you would sit with, that you would dine with, that you would have conversation with for the purpose of sharing Christ. It's not easy. I see a lot of this, especially as I look on social media, as I look around my own community. We tend to bubble ourselves. The body tends to put itself into fellowship, but then forget that we also have a calling to go out. I would challenge you today, as I say, consider the sinners in your lives. Consider, and we're all sinners, but consider those that don't know Christ. Consider those that haven't come to Christ that don't know the gospel, where. Where are they in your life? Do you have those people in your life? Do you actively engage with those people? Are you actively around those people? Are you praying for those people? Are you near those people? If not, I would challenge you just to reach out to one of those names that comes to mind today. Just reach out to them. Lift them up in prayer first. Reach out to them. See if they want to get together. See if they want to have a coffee, see if they want to come over with their family for a barbecue. See if they however you would choose to engage. But I challenge you, yes, it's important that we have a good, healthy fellowship inside of the body. For sure. Nobody's arguing that. Christ himself isn't arguing that. But again, the gospel came for those that were sick. And as somebody who wasn't born Christian, for whatever that may mean, but somebody who became a Christian later in life, I know that I'm eternally thankful for those Christians that were willing to risk it on drug addled youth. Super appreciative words alone cannot express how thankful I am that somebody took the time to not engage necessarily in fellowship with a good, righteous, upright young man, but instead took a shot on a kid. That was trouble. So I challenge you today, man, look at your lives. Look at your circles. Hope your fellowship with the body is going well, but at the same time, are you in the world? Is there gospel? We're in the world. Not out of the world, but in the world. We need to be there. That light's got to shine somewhere, and under a bowl is no good. I'm going to pray for us here, guys. There are a couple of prayer requests. I do check the comments and the prayer requests on social media as well as on the episodes, guys. So if you do have things that you would like to be prayed for, please 1s just leave a comment or you can DM me directly on any of the social media. It's all in the description down below. I do check those, so feel free. But for today, let's get down to it. I'm going to pray and send us out of here. Lord, thank you so much for today. Thank you for the blessings that you've given us. And thank you that you are a light in this world, that we can face the world without fear, that we can face the world without criticism of those who would naysay or tear down our efforts to share you, to share the gospel with those who need it the most. Not those who are saved or claim to be saved inside the body, but with those who have never known you, those who perhaps have only heard what the world would have to say. And we can do a better job than that. We can represent you better. Lord, thank you for the blessings that you've shown the members and the saints of this podcast community. Lord, I pray that you continue to work in their lives, work in their hearts as we continue our journey with you through Luke. Lift up David Franklin to you, Lord. He has begun his journey into seminary. That can be a ton of work, a lot of challenges, and a lot of spiritual warfare. So I just pray for him, lord, be with him. Give him the strength he needs to continue moving on and through. Pray that any of the men that have unspoken prayers as we continue to walk forward in this would reach out for prayer. I just pray that we have a bless us day, Lord, and those who are able to listen to this would seek out somebody in their life, the Levi of their own, and bless them in your name. We pray. Have an amazing day, Saints, and we will see you tomorrow with another episode. Until then, thank you for listening to the Iron Saints podcast. If you are looking to share your prayer requests, check the description for social media or email to contact the show. Blessings on you all. Until next time.