FEBRUARY 8th, 2026 PASTOR DON PIEPER
A GOSPEL OF GRACE Rom 8: 31–39/Luke 5:27–32
“A COME AS YOU ARE PARTY”
Last week we were introduced to the man on a mat and his faithful fellowship of the rug, where Jesus demonstrates God's reckless love for the guy by not only healing his body but by healing his soul by setting him free of the inner baggage he bore as his roof-crashing friends got him close to Jesus.
Now Luke, in his gospel of grace, turns our attention to Levi, a notorious tax-collector, who was known not only for his designer jeans..., but for being an infamous traiter and cheat. He's a taxman!
[cue song, “Taxman”...]
Such guys have a sordid reputation. You know the difference between a pirate, a pitbull and a taxman don't you? Yeah, me neither. Their motto? “We've got what it takes to take what you've got!” Theis Beatles song sings: “Let me tell you how it will be; there's one for you, nineteen for me, 'cause I'm the Taxman. Should 5% seem too small, be thankful I don't take it all, 'cause I'm the Taxman! I'll tax the street, I'll tax your seat. If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat. If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet! Why? 'Cause I'm the Taxman!” (George Harrison)
There's a cartoon picturing a father with his arm around his son, pointing out the large beautiful house in front of them: “One day, son, all of this will be yours!” 'What, the curtains?' his son whine.s
“No, not the curtains...! Well, actually, yes, because the rest belongs to the Taxman!”
These guys trigger intense emotions – if not anger, then anxiety. Consider this poor guy, who's wife tells him:“Albert, it was just a nightmare! Believe me, there's no taxman-monster under the bed!”
These guys were viewed as monsters especially in Jesus' day. They were being paid by the occupying armies of Rome, reknown for their oppression of the Jews. If that weren't bad enough it was well known that these Taxmen were padding their wallets by overtaxing their countrymen. Levi's little tax collector party would've triggered strong emotions, a reminder of how broken their culture was.
We all know that something’s wrong with this world. One look at the morning paper is a big give away. War, domestic violence, child abuse, sex scandals, people groups being ostracized – to say there’s something wrong is an understatement. Such things as these are not new to our time & culture.
So it is that Jesus shows up to articulate and demonstrate how God gave us the means to turn the tide...with grace – the kind of grace that seeks out lost & hurting people like Jesus does. Grace with skin on it is what this world chiefly needs, because people are inclined to run from God without it. After all, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)
Until we believe that God is truly for us, not against us, we will keep running and hiding, Christians included! For this reason grace forms the foundation for hope. A come-as-you-are culture brings this grace to life, so that people can truly become all God intended them to be.
If this is what Jesus was about, why do fewer and fewer people today seek it out in Christian community? Levi’s story provides a hint. Luke informs us: “Levi held a banquet in his house for his fellow tax-collectors with Jesus as the guest of honor” (Luke 5:29) While Jesus hangs out with Levi’s fellow ‘scoundrels’ the religious crowd point fingers and sow seeds of division and condemnation.
Notice how they try to go around Jesus’ back and approach his disciples with their cutting, critical question: “Why do you (guys) eat with such scum?” (Luke 5:30)
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Now why do you suppose they go to Jesus’ disciples instead of to Jesus himself? Apparently they knew they’d find a sympathetic ear there. Apparently these fishermen were not too thrilled about having a tax collector join their entourage, and were non-too-discreet about it! Sounds familiar.
Instead of acceptance that draws them into a loving relationship that says, “I’m for you”, many pick up an “us versus them” mentality from many Christians – a “we are right and you are wrong” kind of thing. Such an attitude is not only condescending but it reaks of ungrace. The result is, many who desperately need God run from God and from his church because they fear and detest judgment and condemnation. Instead of a 'come as you are' vibe what they hear is ‘come when you’re like us.
In this year's first issue of Christianity Today, the publication that Billy Graham helped form to serve the evangelical community, a journalist reviews Pastor Ryan Burge's new book, The Vanishing Church. There Burge is quoted as observing: “Forty years ago there was a place to feel welcomed and embraced no matter how much or how little one believed in Jesus Christ that particular Sunday – or how one cast their ballot on Election Day, but that's no longer the case. Instead, it has become an all or none proposition – conservative evangelical religion or none at all. This has left millions of theological and political moderates with no place to find community and spiritual edification, or to work collectively to address social problems, leaving many spiritually isolated and homeless.”
(as quoted in the January/February 2026 issue of Christianity Today)
Levi the tax collector could relate. Like us all, he had a deep inner need to belong, to be useful, and to be loved and accepted as is but his political leanings got him ostracized. Like so many of us in this increasingly polarized culture of ours, Levi was isolated from the community around him, a Jew in the service of Rome. Luke points to this in how he introduces us to Levi: “As Jesus left town he saw a tax-collector named Levi sitting alone at his tax-collector's booth .” (Luke 5:27)
Like him we all have a need to belong. The question is, to what will we belong? The world offers all kinds of options: sports, school, social media, politics, drinking parties, etc., etc, etc. Jesus offers an alternative to what the world provides. Jesus came to Levi’s taxman party to eat with him and his fellow scoundrels. To eat together was to be family. By doing so he was saying in effect, we're family – we belong to one another. Even now he invites us to his table that we may come to belong.
Levi, like the fishermen before him, dropped everything when Jesus invited him: “Follow me!” (Luke 5:27) Be a part of me and my ministry. Levi discovers his sense of purpose by making himself useful by throwing this “come as you are party” for his fellow cheats and scoundrels. He knows their only hope for a turnaround, which is the meaning of the word, repent, is by connecting with Jesus He has a need to belong, to be a part of something larger than himself, and that’s what he finds in Jesus
Notice that Jesus didn’t put any conditions on that invitation. It was a come as you are kind of deal. Levi had never experienced anything like it before. It was no doubt his first taste of grace! Up to that moment, being loved unconditionally was just an abstract idea.
It reminds me of a child psychologist who made a nuisance of himself in his new neighborhood when he began to frequently come out and interrupt parents scolding their children by saying, ‘That’s not the way; love’s the way, love’s the way.’ Frankly, it was pretty annoying.
One day he was laying down a new sidewalk when a youngster inadvertently went plowing through the wet cement. Angrily, he scolded the boy. Suddenly the boy’s mother appeared: “That’s not the way; love’s the way!” ‘Yes, but I was talking about love in the abstract, not in the concrete!”
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Too often that’s what the church is known for – love in the abstract, not in the concrete. I know of a man who was in a recovery group and had made it to step 3. His sponsor explained that this step involved surrendering your will to God. Angrily the man spat back, ‘No way I’m going to turn my life over to God. He’d ruin me – and I’d deserve it!’ “You ought to fire that God. You’ve got the wrong God for this program! The God who operates here is forgiving, and gives you all the chances you need. He is honest, trustworthy and will always be there for you. I had a God like yours when I first came here, but I had to fire him and get me a new God.”
“What are you talking about?” the man retorted. “Where am I going to find a new God?” ‘Well,’ his sponsor gently replied, ‘you can use mine till you get on your feet.’
So many of us have misconceptions about God often masked with the face of abusive parents, power-hungry authority figures, or judgmental Christians. Many of us need to fire the god in our head that we’ve associated with the God of Jesus. It’s no wonder so many of us struggle to trust God. We still feel the need to ‘do’ or ‘succeed’ or ‘prove’ somehow we are acceptable.
We live stressed, worried, controlling, joyless lives because we do not yet trust that we are fully accepted ‘as is’ and that God is “for us not against us.” When we truly live in grace, and embrace that grace for all it is, we find freedom.
The majority of Jesus’ parables are centered in this truth. He says God is like a shepherd risking his 99 sheep and his own safety to go after the one lost stray; or like a father whose son rejects him, moves out, and squanders half the family fortune, yet when he returns, his father humbles himself by running to meet his son with open arms; or like a man who throws a party for his son, a come as you are party, and tells his servants to go into the streets to invite the good and bad, that all are welcome!
It's time that we stop trying to fix or correct people – that’s not our job – that’s God’s job and instead seek to accept and love people in the hopes that we might help them reconnect with the God who loves to give his children second chances.
Our daughter, Nicola, told us once how two of her friends from school had a falling out. One of the two told Nicola not to be a friend to the other because she had said something really mean. Nicola told her hurt friend that the other girl deserved a second chance, because that’s what Jesus does!
A few years ago one of our Alpha guests wrote me a letter that moved my heart. She wrote:
“Pastor Don, (when I first came) I wanted to sneak in, grab my spiritual meal, and sneak back out, unnoticed. I was in desperate need of information, guidance and inspiration, but I didn’t want anyone to know I couldn’t find these things on my own, that I needed help and healing.
I was seeking a drive-through salvation. I wanted it made-to-order and I most certainly wanted it to go. I was totally unprepared for what LCR and Alpha offered me, for what I learned this amazing family in Christ is really all about: I wasn’t meant to do it all on my own. I can’t express to you what a relief that is to someone who has always looked inward for her own salvation, but found none there.
To my surprise, I wasn’t told what to think or what to believe. I was given space and freedom to seek the truth at my own speed. It wouldn’t have worked any other way for me. Only in fellowship could I ever have found the inspiration, the excitement and the guidance that has been poured out to me this year, just when I needed it most. Only by sensing that I belonged would I ever have listened to the Word I’d decided long ago to turn my back on for reasons I can no longer fathom. My walk with Christ began in Alpha among brothers and sisters who were there to open the door for me.
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I realized that there is no drive-through salvation. And I’m thankful, because I was offered so much more than the Value Meal I would have ordered. I want everything on the menu. May God bless you, and all of those who need his love and (acceptance) as much as I .” (A fellow seeker)
Jesus came to give birth to a community of grace in which any and all could come as is, to a place where we truly belong, not because of who we are or can do, but because of whose we are. Jesus came to give us a sense of purpose, the joy of being useful by serving others and helping them come to belong as well. He came that we might know the liberating power of grace – that we are loved as is, that we can come as we are, and by the power of his grace, walk away changed by His love for us.
How utterly delicious it is when we see our need for, and then embrace his grace, and come to trust in the truth Jesus embodied – that we’re fully accepted ‘as is’, that God is for us not against us! How poignant that this brief story of a loathsome taxman ends with another mission statement from Jesus' lips: “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to change, to repent; for healthy people don't need a doctor – sick people do!”
(Romans 8:31/Luke 5:31-32)
Your parents may have neglected you, your teachers may have ignored you, your peers may belittle you, and still others may have hurt you, but Jesus stands by your side, rain or shine. His loyalty and love for you won’t increase if you are better, nor lessen if you are worse. He came to make you whole, that you might know and experience the heart of God, who loves you as is. Follow his lead!