Steadfast, Immovable, Abounding

This is the sixth installment in my series of posts on Jesus’ disciples.

“After that [Jesus] went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the booth, and He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.”

Luke 5:27-28

“Tax collector.” In biblical times, this position was synonymous with dishonesty, oppression, selfishness, and betrayal. Tax collectors weren’t anyone’s favorite people. Caring only for their own wallets, they made their living off the backs of their own people. Levi (aka Matthew) hadn’t lived a life to be proud of, but he had gotten everything his worldliness desired. Yet Luke’s gospel tells us he left everything behind. Not just the shame and rejection, but the prosperity and prestige as well.

As Matthew found, following Jesus doesn’t just mean liberty from the undesirable aspects of our life without Him. It also means sacrificing the things which gratify our worldly desires. Christians talk a lot about the burdens we lost at the foot of Christ’s cross, and rightly so. He took our pain, punishment, shame, emptiness, hopelessness, and fear all upon Himself. But we cannot keep silent about the things it may hurt to give up—things like the pride of self-sufficiency, the comfort of external affirmation, the power of chasing worldly success. Luke 9:61-62 tells us, “Another also said, ‘I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.’ But Jesus said to him, ‘No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

Too often, we want God to lead us to the promised land while still enjoying the pleasures of Egypt. We want the blessings of a relationship with Christ, yet still hang on tightly to the sins that bound us in our former life. As Solomon said in 1 Kings 8:61, “‘Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.’” Following the Lord is always an all-or-nothing commitment.

Jesus never told Matthew his dishonesty was okay. If Matthew wanted to follow Christ, he couldn’t keep walking in his old ways. So many activities the Bible explicitly denounces are now accepted as social norms, even to the point that those who disagree are immediately deemed ignorant or intolerant. As I look around at the response so many Christians have to these accusations, I see a lot that is disheartening. Some have caved to the pressure of approval, calling the things God despises “a matter of opinion.” Others have chosen to ignore the people who practice these sins, forgetting that “it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick” (Matthew 9:12). Still others only say, “God loves everybody.” While true, the world’s warped understanding of agape love makes this response sadly insufficient.

So what is the Biblical response to the “tax collectors” of our 21^st century society? I believe it all starts with guarding against hypocrisy and maintaining our own testimony. How can we expect nonbelievers to understand what it means to follow Christ when our words on Sunday are inconsistent with the rest of our lives? As C. S. Lewis writes in Beyond Personality, “When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world. The posters tell us that Careless Talk costs Lives. It is equally true that Careless Lives cost Talk. Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself.” We are ambassadors for Christ—thus we should be motivated to represent Him even better than we represent ourselves. Let the world misunderstand us as much as it wishes, so long as our lives proclaim Jesus.

Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:9-12, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may because of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

God has set us apart for His possession and His glory. It is a strange and skewed evangelism which acts exactly like the people it is trying to evangelize. If we are children of God, why do we act like children of the world? Why do we claim to be followers of Christ, yet sit silent in our tax collector’s booths? If our hearts truly break for the things which break His, then we should know He is worth our living sacrifice. Each day is another blessed opportunity to bring glory to our Savior and Lord.

“But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped…Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. With Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory.”

Psalm 73:2, 23-24