Mari Ikeda

❖ Video

❖ Audio

Peter Carl Geissler [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Friend of Sinners (Mark 2:13-17)

A. Jesus’ calling (13-15)

1. His one-way invitation (13-14)

13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him. 

2. He becomes a friend of us (15)

15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him.

B. Jesus’ request (16-17)

1. Not works but faith

16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

2. To love one another (John 15:12-17)

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit―fruit that will last―and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Summary

Jesus is our teacher who teaches us the right way to go, but more than that, He has a desire to become our friend. He wants us to spend time with Him as a friend of his and know and love each other better. We are unable to correct our deed by our own strength to love righteously, but we all are able to become His friend. Let’s keep listening to his calling.

For Discussion

1) What of Jesus made the Pharisees oppose to Him? How does that relate to us?
2) What does it mean to become a friend of Jesus? How can we become one?