The redemption plan for the world has always been for God’s followers to bring others (one by one) to know Jesus and follow him. And the truth is, anyone can follow Jesus.

Do you have someone that you are hoping to introduce to the One and Only? Who is it?

No-one is going to reach everyone, but everyone can reach someone.

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.” —Luke 5:27-32 (NIV)

Why do you think the Pharisees reacted this way?
What would you say is the cultural equivalent to the disdain the Jews would have had for a tax collector?

Jesus made followers because he made friends.

The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” —Luke 7:34 (NIV)

How might the first half the statement be true, but the second half false?

1.See patients, not problems.

What is the difference here?

It is not the healthy people who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to invite good people but sinners to change their hearts and lives. —Luke 5:31-32 (NCV)

2.Stay near, not far.

One of the biggest mistakes religion often makes is to equate separation from sin with isolation from sinners.

How might we be “in the world, but not of the world”?

Usually, community precedes conversion. Why?

3.Say “start”, not “stop”.

So often the message we give to people is all the things they need to stop doing. But Jesus gave Levi, not a list of stops, but rather something to start.

Why should we not wait for people to “clean up their lives” before they begin to follow Jesus?

Jesus doesn’t ask anyone to change first before following him… he asks them to follow him, so they can change.

Who are you introducing to the grace of Jesus this year?