Why Did Jesus Come into the World?

Why Jesus Came into the World at Christmas

Is, why did Jesus come into the world? That seems like an appropriate subject for a lesson, since it's only about six weeks until Christians celebrate the birth of Christ. Although evangelism knows no season, the days leading up to Christmas Day provide many opportunities for Christians to share their faith.

Whose birthday is being celebrated on December 25th is a good question to ask someone while waiting in a Walmart line. If the person doesn't know, you do and can tell them. And then you can ask, why did God leave heaven and come to earth?

Answers to that question are likely to be all over the map. It's understandable that many unchurched people today don't know who Jesus is or why he came to earth. It's harder to understand that there is confusion, ignorance, and distortion about the subject among churchgoers.

The Bible’s Direct Answers for Why Jesus Came

This should not be because there is perhaps no question that is answered more directly and clearly or more often in the Bible than the purpose of Jesus' coming. A few years ago, John Piper wrote a book entitled, Why Jesus Came to Die, and he cited one or more verses for each reason.

Even without looking at John Piper's book, the following three verses should come immediately to mind. First Timothy 1 .15, Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. John 10 .10, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.

Luke 19 .10, for the Son of Man has come to seek and save that which was lost. All of those verses answer the question, but this evening I'd like to look at another verse which also clearly tells us why Jesus came.

So turn to the fifth chapter of Luke's gospel and go to verse 32. Luke chapter 5, verse 32, Jesus speaking, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Let us pray. Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for creating us, for saving us, and for sustaining us each day.

In you we live and move and have our being. There is no other God before you. You alone are God and you alone are worthy of all praise, honor, and glory. Thank you for this time to come together and be instructed by your word.

I pray that the lesson tonight will be a good reminder to us that the Christmas season opens the door wide for evangelism. Everyone who has tasted God's grace and salvation can tell another person that they were once blind but now can see.

Help us in our feeble strength, Father, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is in his name and for his sake I pray. Amen. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. In that verse, Jesus tells us exactly why he came to earth.

It has nothing to do with trees, lights, presents, shopping malls, office parties, or even good will. It has everything to do with sin, calling, repentance, and God's grace. To understand what Jesus meant in verse 32 about the reason for his coming, we need to know the context in which he spoke those words.

Look at verse 27. After these things he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, follow me. Verse 32 has its context in the story of the calling of Levi, better known as Matthew.

After these things refers to the miracles Jesus had performed that day. Verse 26 says that those who had witnessed the miracles were all amazed. We have seen strange things today, they said, and indeed they had because they had seen Jesus do the impossible.

Not only had he healed a leper and a paralytic, but he had told the paralytic that his sins were forgiven. Why only God can forgive a person their sins. And so after these things, Jesus went out and saw Levi, the tax collector, sitting at the tax office.

Jesus had another miracle to perform that day. Tax collectors such as Levi were people who were hired by the Roman government to collect taxes. They would set up a tax office alongside of a road and would collect money from all who passed by, sort of like a toll booth on a toll road.

Tax collectors were greatly despised by the Jews. There were a couple of reasons why they were so intensely disliked. For one, whenever people saw one of them sitting by the road, it was a constant reminder to them that they were not a free people, but were living under the yoke of Roman rule.

Tax collectors were hated for another reason. They were notorious for being crooked. If the tax was two coins, the tax collector demanded three coins, two for Rome, one for himself. And if the tax collector was a Jew, like Levi, the intensity of the hatred went up a notch because those tax collectors were also looked upon as traitors.

Verse 27 tells us that Jesus approached Levi and said, follow me. We're not told if Jesus gave Levi any explanation for telling him that, or if Levi asked Jesus any questions. There was just the command, follow me.

In verse 28, we learn how Levi responded. So he left all, rose up, and followed him. One of the great doctrines of the Bible is the doctrine known as the efficacious call of the Spirit. Sometimes it's called the effectual call or irresistible grace.

The calling of Levi by Jesus was just such a call. When Jesus issues a call to repentance, a call to follow him, there is never a refusal or a hesitation, only a willingness. Levi had a lot to leave as he had a lucrative tax business.

But when Jesus called him, he left all and followed him. In verse 29, we read that Levi invited Jesus to his house for a great feast. Present at the feast were a lot of tax collectors and others. These tax collectors and others sat down with Jesus and Levi.

What a difference a day makes. One day a person is a hopelessly lost sinner on the broadway that leads to eternal destruction. The very next day, they are lifted out of a pit of miry clay, their feet are set on solid ground, and they are given a life with meaning and purpose.

When Levi went to his tax office that faithful morning, he had no idea that his life would be sustained by a man who said, follow me. He had no idea that he would walk away forever from his tax business and spend the next three years of his life as a disciple of a man who would prove to be the long-awaited Messiah.

Neither did he have any idea that one day he would have the high honor to write an account of the birth, the life, death, and resurrection of that man, the Savior of the world. All Levi knew as he left the tax office was that in some amazing and inexplicable way, he was a different person with a different outlook on life, and he wanted to put on a great feast to honor the one who made his new life possible.

When a person does something like that, they naturally invite the people they know to share in their joy. And so Levi invited the people he knew, tax collectors and others. We are told in verse 30 that the others were referred to as sinners by the Pharisees.

Besides fellow tax collectors and sinners, Levi had no friends. He was an outcast from Jewish society, as if he was a leper, and his friends were other outcasts. And so this then is the context or the setting for Jesus' statement in verse 32.

Jesus comes to the tax office, he calls Levi, Levi follows him, then they go to Levi's house, and Levi puts on a great feast to celebrate. Almost everyone is enjoying the occasion. Almost everyone except for some fault-finding Pharisees and their scribes.

In verse 30, we're told that they complained against his disciples saying, why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? The Pharisees were the religious leaders of that time. They were supposed to be the most moral and holy of the Jews.

When people would pass them by, the people would tip their hats, clasp their hands, and say, Rabbi, Father, how are you? The Pharisees liked being respected, and they loved to be called by special titles.

They wanted to be seen in the market with long robes and be heard praying long prayers on street corners. They did not like Jesus, however, and they followed him around listening to every word he said, watching every move he made.

They hoped to catch him breaking a law or saying something that would prove he was an enemy of Rome or a blasphemer. Why did they hate him? Simply put, if you preach works and someone else preaches grace, that's bad for business.

On this particular day, they had been watching Jesus as usual and had seen him enter the house of Levi the tax collector to be joined by other tax collectors and assorted sinners. But if that wasn't bad enough, they saw Jesus actually sitting with them.

Not only that, but eating and drinking with them. Could anything be more scandalous than that? In Mark's account of this incident, the Pharisees are quoted as saying to Jesus' disciples, how is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?

That question was asked in Jesus' presence, which was a rude thing to do. Verses 31 and 32, Luke tells us that Jesus ignored their rudeness and said, 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. Those are two of the most well-known verses in the Bible. The Pharisees understood what Jesus was saying in verse 31, but not what he was saying in verse 32.

The Pharisees, as just about everyone knows, just about as everyone does, knew that healthy people do not need doctors. They knew that no one calls a doctor to report that everyone in the house is well.

Hello doctor, just calling to let you know that no one is sick today, no colds, no flu, not even a stomach ache. No one does that. They call a doctor when there is sickness. And so what Jesus told the Pharisees in verse 31 was something that everyone knows.

Healthy people don't need doctors. This the Pharisees understood. But Jesus went on to say in verse 32, I didn't come to call the righteous, I came to call sinners to repentance. Jesus was saying that he is the great physician, the physician of men's souls.

He has not come for people who are well, or for people who think they are well, or for people who think they can make themselves well. Those people he has not come for, but for the sick who heal themselves and know they can't heal themselves.

He has come to bring salvation to sinners in the way of repentance. That is why Jesus was born and that's why he came to our sin-stained world. This is what the Pharisees did not know, and this is what countless others today do not know.

The Pharisees were offended and outraged because Jesus was interacting with tax collectors and other sinners. Didn't he know that no one should associate with such low-lifers? Why you should not get anywhere near people like that.

Let's apply some logic to the Pharisees' thinking. Suppose later that day when one of those outraged and disgusted Pharisees stops by a friend's house on the way home to tell his friend about the scandalous things he had seen going on in Levi's house.

His friend's wife meets him at the door and tells him to be very quiet because her husband is ill and the doctor has just come to examine him. He follows her to the sick room and sees the doctor bent over the bed.

One hand is on the sick man's forehead, the other is checking his pulse. The doctor is close to the sick man to determine what is wrong and to be able to give medication if needed. Now, if the Pharisee had witnessed such a scene, do you think he would be offended by the doctor's close contact and interaction with his sick friend?

Of course not. And this is what Jesus was communicating to them. In effect, this is what he was saying. You wouldn't be offended if you saw a physician close enough to a sick person to bring healing. A physician can't heal if he does not get close to the patient.

You're upset because I sit with people you think are spiritually unclean. Don't you realize that I am the great physician? I did not come to call the righteous, that is, to call those who don't think they're sinners, only those who know they are unclean before God.

Jesus' declaration that he did not come to call the righteous raises a question for some churchgoers. Was Jesus teaching that there are, in fact, some righteous people? For any Christian who attends a church like Sovereign Grace Family Church, where the whole counsel of God is still faithfully preached and taught, they know the answer is obviously no.

Jesus was not saying that there are some righteous and he didn't come to call them. That's not at all what he was saying because the testimony of Scripture is clear that all have sinned and that none are righteous, no, not one.

All are like sheep and have gone astray. Since none of the Pharisees were righteous, what then was Jesus saying to them? He was revealing their deception. They thought they were righteous. In Luke 18, Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee who went to the temple and prayed, God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector.

This Pharisee was blind to the true condition of his heart. He thought he was righteous, but he was far from it. Few of the Pharisees were righteous, but almost all of them believed that they were. And so in verse 32, Jesus is not teaching that there are actually people who do not need his salvation, but there are those who think they don't.

He is teaching that unless a person has come to see himself as a hopelessly lost sinner, he cannot know the salvation that is in Christ. Jesus came to call sinners to repentance, sinners who know their true condition.

For a person to be found, he must first know he is lost. The Pharisees then serve as a reminder to us how deceitful sin is. So deceitful is sin that it can blind a person to the point that they say, I'm glad I'm not like other men.

We must never think like that. We are sinners and all our sin is vile and offensive to God. We must never make light of it and try to minimize its guilt. Just how great is the guilt of sin. The guilt of sin is so great that nothing less than the blood of the Son of God could provide satisfaction.

But God, God's capacity for forgiveness is beyond our understanding. The Lord abounds in mercy was the psalmist's exclamation. God does forgive and has forgiven the worst sinners, murderers, blasphemers, liars, thieves, and harlots.

But God has not and will not forgive those who think so much of themselves that they believe they will be able to stand before God on their own. They're deceived concerning the nature of their own hearts and blind to the holiness of God.

They have no understanding that they are hopelessly lost. Jeremiah wrote that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Years later, Jesus would say, for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

Every sin comes out of the human heart. And God judges the heart according to his law. God says the look of lust is adultery and that angry thoughts can be murder. A person may outwardly conform to the law of God, but all are guilty of those inward sins of the heart and mind, which are more numerous than we can even count.

The Pharisees did not openly commit sins for all to see, but their hearts were desperately wicked. Their hearts were also deceitful because the Pharisees believed they were righteous. May we never be like them, but like the tax collector who cried out, God be merciful to me, a sinner.

That is why Jesus came, to call sinners like that to repentance. To call sinners like us to repentance. In his great sermon on the mount, Jesus said, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Those that Jesus brings into his kingdom are those who have nothing of their own to bring to God and know it. Jesus strips away all their pride and self-righteousness and calls them to repentance. The sick need a physician.

Jesus is the great physician. That is why he came. He took on flesh and blood and came into our world. The son of man, in human flesh, to live in weakness and to suffer, born of a virgin, laying in a manger, he came to take upon himself the liabilities and obligations of God's law.

To bear the sins of his people upon the cross. To expose himself to the wrath that is deserved for the sins of his people. That is the story of Bethlehem that Christmas morning. That's why that little babe lay in the manger.

That's the story of Calvary and the story of the empty tomb. Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. Jesus had to come because men will only go to a physician as a last resort. They'll try everything first.

Everything but what they need. They need the Jesus of the scriptures, the Christ of the cross. That is why Jesus came to them to suffer and die so that they might be saved and to call them to repentance.

Repentance is the forsaking of sin. God grants us repentance. Our minds are changed and we have a radically different view of sin. Now we hate sin and love the God against whom we have sinned. God brought repentance to Levi the tax collector.

He looked Levi in the eye and that look pierced his soul. That look laid bare his thoughts so that he felt his guilt and condemnation. But Levi also saw compassion in those eyes. Levi, I have come, follow me.

Christ comes and by his grace he brings repentance to his people and they follow him. Without this repentance no one is saved. And that's why Jesus came and that's why we celebrate his birth each year.

He didn't come for the righteous. He came for sinners. He didn't come to make people better. He didn't come to make people sentimental once a year. He didn't come to make people feel good about themselves.

He didn't come to eliminate injustice or poverty or hunger. He didn't come to create goodwill. He came to call sinners whom he loved to repentance. We understand this. We understand why he came. Luke 5 .32 is clear as are many other verses.

But what we can't comprehend is why he would do that. Why would he come to deliver a people who were dead in their trespasses and sins and were content to remain in them? Why would he forgive our sins?

We have to look to the scriptures for the answer. Isaiah 43 .25, I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. And a verse from the New Testament, Ephesians 1 .7. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

Why did Jesus come to this sin marred world? He came to call sinners to repentance. Why did he bring salvation to ungrateful sinners? Was there something about them that was pleasing to God? Was there something in them that merited salvation?

No, he did it for his own sake. He did it according to the riches of his grace. When we understand this, when we understand that he came because it pleased him to do so, not because we somehow caught his eye, we can only bow before the grace of God.

Salvation by Grace and the Purpose of Repentance

Let us pray. Our kind and gracious Heavenly Father, we confess that the work of salvation is your work and your work alone. The work of repentance in our heart is not our work, it is you working in us.

You granted us repentance and you did it for your own namesake because it pleased you to be gracious. We are eternally thankful that your Son was willing to come to us in the likeness of a man to humble himself and become obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross, to make our salvation possible.

In the name of our Lord and Savior, Amen.