We have all had that sinking feeling of falling short. This talk explores what happens when we do not meet the expectations others have of us, or worse, the ones we set for ourselves. We look at how to process disappointment without letting it define us and what it means to move forward with honesty.
01The Least Likely Candidate
If you were building a team to change the world, you probably would not start with a tax collector. Especially not a first-century one. Tax collectors in ancient Israel were not civil servants doing a necessary job. They were collaborators — Jewish citizens who had signed up to extract money from their own people on behalf of the Roman Empire.
The system was straightforward and rotten. Rome set a tax quota. The collector was responsible for meeting it. Anything above the quota, the collector kept. The incentive was baked in: the more you squeezed from your neighbours, the richer you got.
Levi, sitting at his tax booth, was that person. And Jesus walked up to him and said two words: "Follow me."
02The Man Nobody Would Have Chosen
Mark 2:13-17 tells the story with characteristic brevity. Jesus is walking beside the lake, teaching a crowd. He sees Levi, son of Alphaeus, at his tax booth. He calls him. Levi gets up and follows.
What the text does not spell out, but the original audience would have understood immediately, is how shocking this was.
"Tax collectors in that day were not popular people. He was working for the Roman government, taxing the Jewish people. People called him a traitor."
Levi was not just disliked. He was despised. The religious leaders grouped tax collectors with "sinners" — a catch-all term for people who had placed themselves outside the community of faith. To associate with a tax collector was to risk your own reputation. To invite one onto your team was unthinkable.
And yet Jesus did not hesitate. He did not ask Levi to clean up his act first. He did not set conditions. He just said, "Follow me." And Levi followed.
03What Levi Left Behind
It is easy to skip over what Levi's decision actually cost him. The fishermen Jesus had already called — Peter, Andrew, James, John — could always go back to fishing. Their boats would still be there.
But a tax collector who walked away from his booth was done. The Roman authorities would not hold his position. His income stream would evaporate instantly. There was no going back.
"For Levi, that would have been a life of uncertainty. He gives up everything — his well-paid job, his security, his entire livelihood — on the basis of two words from a man he may have only been watching from a distance."
That is either the most reckless decision in the gospels or the most courageous. Possibly both.
04Dinner with the Wrong Crowd
What happens next is almost as surprising as the calling itself. Levi hosts a dinner party. At his house. And the guest list would have made any respectable religious leader choke on his bread.
"While Jesus was having dinner at Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples."
Levi did not leave his old life behind and pretend those people no longer existed. He invited them to meet Jesus. He used his connections — the very connections that made him an outcast — as a bridge between his old world and his new one.
The Pharisees, watching from the margins, were appalled. "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" they asked the disciples. In their world, sharing a meal with someone implied acceptance and endorsement. By sitting at Levi's table, Jesus was making a statement that went far beyond social convention.
05The Doctor and the Sick
Jesus's response to the Pharisees' objection is one of the most quoted lines in the gospels: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
It sounds simple. But there are layers to it that are easy to miss.
First, Jesus was not saying the Pharisees were actually healthy. He was using their own self-assessment against them. They considered themselves righteous. Fine, he said — then you do not need me. But these people know they are broken, and they are exactly who I came for.
Second, the metaphor of a doctor is deliberate. A doctor does not refuse to enter a hospital because it is full of sick people. A doctor goes where the illness is. Jesus was reframing the entire conversation: his presence at Levi's table was not contamination. It was treatment.
"Jesus didn't come for the people who had it all together. He came for the ones who knew they didn't."
06The Expectations We Put on Ourselves
The talk broadened from Levi's story to a wider question about expectations — the ones others place on us and the ones we place on ourselves.
Most people carry an internal sense of who they should be by now. A certain career level. A certain quality of relationships. A certain spiritual maturity. And when reality does not match that internal benchmark, shame moves in.
"Ever feel like you didn't meet expectations? Like you're not quite the person everyone thought you'd be? Or not quite the person you thought you'd be?"
Levi would have understood that feeling, though from a different angle. He had chosen a path that his community considered a betrayal of everything they stood for. He was wealthy but isolated. Successful by one measure and a complete failure by another.
And Jesus looked past all of that — the reputation, the profession, the social status — and saw someone worth calling.
07What Jesus Sees
There is a pattern in Jesus's calling of his disciples that is worth noticing. He did not recruit the obvious candidates. He chose fishermen, not scholars. He chose a tax collector, not a philanthropist. He chose people whose CVs would have been rejected by any respectable religious institution.
"The disciples wouldn't have exactly been buzzing that this guy was joining their gang. Amongst the band of twelve that Jesus chose, there was a tax collector — this hugely despised character."
Jesus was not building a team based on credentials. He was building a team based on willingness. The only qualification was a readiness to follow.
That is deeply challenging for anyone who has felt disqualified. Who has looked at their past, their failures, their reputation, and concluded that God could not possibly want them. Levi's story says otherwise. It says that the person you have been does not determine the person you are invited to become.
08The Pharisee Problem
The Pharisees in this story are not villains. They are religious people who genuinely believed they were protecting the integrity of their faith. They had rules about who was clean and unclean, who was in and who was out, and those rules had been handed down for generations.
Their mistake was not caring about holiness. Their mistake was believing that holiness was preserved by keeping the wrong people at arm's length.
Jesus flipped that assumption entirely. Holiness, in his framework, was not a fortress to be defended. It was a force that went out into the mess and changed things from the inside.
"The Pharisees thought proximity to sinners would make Jesus unclean. Jesus believed his proximity to sinners would make them whole."
That distinction still matters. There are communities of faith that operate like fortresses — keeping the boundaries tight, the membership pure, the standards clear. And there are communities that operate like hospitals — messy, imperfect, full of people in various stages of recovery, but open to anyone who walks through the door.
09Follow Me
Jesus did not say "believe in me" or "agree with my theology" or "sort yourself out and then come and find me." He said "follow me." It is an invitation to movement. To a journey. To learning as you go.
Levi did not understand everything about Jesus when he stood up from his tax booth. He did not have his theology sorted. He did not have a five-year spiritual development plan. He just got up and followed.
"Two words. Follow me. Not 'believe in me.' Not 'think well of me.' But 'follow me.' Give up everything and come."
That is still the invitation. Not to have everything figured out, but to start walking. Not to meet some standard of worthiness, but to respond to the voice that calls you as you are.
10Something to Consider
Levi's story is an invitation to stop disqualifying yourself. Whatever you have done, whatever reputation you carry, whatever expectations you have failed to meet — none of it changes the fact that Jesus looks at people the religious establishment has written off and says, "I want that one."
The question is not whether you are good enough. The question is whether you are willing to get up from wherever you are sitting and follow.
What would it look like to stop waiting until you feel worthy and simply start walking?
Topics in this talk
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hmm my foreign well good afternoon and welcome to chris church uh with me and james welcome uh welcome to crowd church good sunday afternoon and yes i'm supporting the england top and yes we have a new host next to me so everything's changing this sunday afternoon james how you doing bud it's all changing yeah very well thank you thanks for having me along hopefully i don't mess it up no don't do that thanks for having me everyone watching now is going no don't do that uh don't do that why would you want to do that uh so welcome along to crowd it is uh sunday afternoon we are crowd church a digital church for those that may not see the point of church if i'm honest with you uh or you know you may be exploring christianity or you may like me and james been you know around christianity for a little while absolutely yeah well you know and i think even our experience of church has probably changed a bit hasn't it over the years um from spending your whole day there on a sunday and then probably back back there a few times in a week to to the beauty of what we have now with which is sort of the flexibility of digital church but also local churches as well yeah that's brilliant absolutely and we are actually broadcasting from liverpool we are part of frontline church here in liverpool if you are curious and you are looking for a church in the report frontline's cool but like james said if you are uh looking for a church online digital church how about it have some fun with us this afternoon we are a little bit light-hearted but we do care deeply about the whole christian message and what jesus said we just want to know more that's why we're here just want to find out more uh so welcome to you and yes if you're watching spoiler alert i am going to tell you that england won the football much to my pleasure come on did you see the goal but yes yeah well actually i took complete honesty i was putting the washing out and i heard i heard the neighbors i heard the neighbors shouting i was like oh one not particularly rock and roll answer bro so the one moment you are you will put in the washington is when we get the gold brilliant you should put the washing out more often dude well i should yeah every england game now every england go so if you're watching the replay you'd heard it here first if you are a regular of crowd just to say if you are regular of crowd uh james is the husband of sal who hosts a lot of crowd with us she's not here this sunday so we've got james with us they are a couple they are an item they've been together a little while now hence the reason their surname is the same uh so yes hence the reason i'm making jokes about itself anyway let me put on this i'm going to give you the the point to the number test james see if you're doing any better than your wife can you point to the what's up number for me no man that is that is actually really oh there it is there it is yeah it is tricky it is tricky every time anyone try and do it it is there is reasons why its complex because it reverses in the screen on the camera that he's looking at uh but welcome to crowd the reason i put the number there is simply because uh if you would like anything to pray anything for us to pray about uh then do get in touch with us through the whatsapp number you can reach us through that number all through the website crowd.church and we would be more than happy to pray for you help you in whatever way we can do reach out and get in touch uh it's been really interesting actually this week james i've not got this pictures ready but a few people have reached out to us via whatsapp uh from continents foreign uh and have been sending me all kinds of photos of what they've been going on with that with yeah it's brilliant really great to connect with people so speaking of connecting with people who have we got in the comments here oh sally's on on saying telling us to behave yeah uh i'll probably i will get a talking to you afterwards no doubt yeah where i go perhaps a little bit off-piste she's given me a structure you've given me a stroke but once you know once you're going to get into it yeah yeah you're a manager authority but i get that i get that you know we're all there we're all there uh we've got matt crew matt hey how's it going nichola good afternoon and welcome to everybody that is watching us that hasn't yet said hi in the comments feel free to say hi in the comments let us know where you're watching from always great to hear from you so james do you know what's coming up this week should we tell folks what's happening i do know we've got a talk um shortly from james sloan who's a member of the frontline team but also runs imagine if and he's going to be talking on the story of levi from the bible and then we've got a few other things as well so levi is actually a bloke in the bible not a pair of jeans apparently he wasn't the first person to wear jeans in the bible yeah but it is that joke isn't it it is that joke who's the first person to wear jeans in the bible believe me uh so yeah we're gonna hear from james james sloane like you say he's uh he's been on crowd stream many times before top bloke james so we're gonna get into his talk this talk is actually the final talk of the mark's gospel series can you believe it we've been working our way through such a long time now uh and this talk from james is the final one so without further ado we are going to get into it mark's gospel just for those that don't know uh sharon's put hi sharon and then set his put here get out your dad jokes uh okay so okay uh so we'll get him outside no problem anyway uh mark's gospel is a story which chronic is a book in the bible which chronicles the life of jesus we have been working our way through it for a very very long time and today marks the end of that journey so without further ado let's bring on james sline and then the other james james birch and i will be back after this have you ever felt like you just missed the grade or you didn't quite get there didn't quite meet the expectations well that's the passage we're gonna be looking at uh today in mark chapter two where a chap called levi is really not quite the obvious choice to be a disciple of jesus and yet he is called and he follows the passage is in mark two uh verses 13 to 17. uh we're gonna have a quick look at the text just whiz through it and then just see what stands out to us and what we can apply into our lives today so let me quickly read it and then we can dive into it once again jesus went out beside the lake a large crowd came to him and he began to teach them as he walked along he saw levi son of alfie sitting at the tax collector's booth follow me jesus told him and levi got up and followed him 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 had followed him 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 as sinners on hearing this jesus said to them it's not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick i've not come to call the righteous but sinners now tax collectors in that day were not popular people they were working for the roman government um but they were touching the jewish people and levi is a is a jewish citizen uh and and people have called him a traitor you're working for the romans how can you do that uh i'm not only working for the romans he's he's greedy the way the system worked was that the roma government required a certain amount to be collected um and anything above and beyond that the tax collectors were able to keep for themselves so levi here would have known it was in his best interest to get as much tax from the people as possible um and then he could essentially keep the rest almost like a commission basis but because he was jewish he wasn't liked um by most of his people and therefore wouldn't have been an obvious choice uh for jesus jesus already called um a number of just of his disciples um and they wouldn't have exactly been buzzing uh that this guy is gonna be joining their gang um you know the the band of twelve that jesus chose and their amongst them was his tax collector this hugely despised character um at the time it was also thought that um levi would have been following jesus around um as he taught the crowds and and shared parables not because he wanted to to glean any wisdom from those stories per se but because of the crowd of people and as a tax collector that's a perfect place for him uh to do his business rather than waiting them to come to his tax booth so this is an opportunist greedy jewish tax collector working for the roman government and here we see jesus approach him and say levi follow me that's all he says two words follow me not believe in me um not think well of me but follow me give up everything drop your well-paid job in your tax booth and come and follow me now for levi that would have a life of uncertainty i imagine he was probably quite intellectual chap but yeah the call of duty is he follows him he drops everything leaves his well-paid job leads his world of wealthy contacts behind and follows jesus and this is in complete contrast and to the authorities who we see afterwards who believed in cleanliness um and not mixing with certain people in society and they can't believe that jesus a rabbi a pillar of society a leader of the day would not only call someone like levi to be a disciple but then he would go to the house afterwards and it says that he spends time with the tax collectors and the sinners um and yet that's exactly who jesus comes for he says right at the end of the passage it's not the healthy needed doctor i've not come to spend time with the pharisees the religious leaders i've come to spend time with those who who need me who want me those who are sick that's what he says that the doctor comes for those who are sick not for those who are well and and this really upsets the pharisees once again that's what jesus tends to do um and his attitude is completely in contrast to that religious attitude there's a quote by a guy called schweiter that says the attitude of jesus towards levi was in complete contrast to the other religious people of his day those whom they rejected he accepted those whom they despised he loved those whom they avoided jesus sought he goes after these people he he he seeks them out he calls him to be with him and that's true today he's calling all of us to come and be with him to be in relation with him whether we've fallen short whether we've made the grade whether we feel that we are lovable or not jesus calls each and every one of us into relationship with him he doesn't look at what we've done in the past he looks at who we can become in the future he calls levi and changes his name to matthew you are a new creation um come and walk with me and work with me and be transformed by me so so don't discount yourself but don't discount yourself based on whatever you've done or not done in the past if you're here watching this today and you you wouldn't call yourself a christian um don't let that be a barrier because you feel that you have done things wrong in the past that you you couldn't possibly be loved or coming to jesus or walk into a church don't discount yourself based on anything you've done the message of the gospel is good news to each and every one of us regardless of where we've come from but it's not about belief it's about following jesus about laying down our lives um when i chose to follow jesus it was it was putting him first in my life before everything else um letting that be the primary relationship um in my life and and that's meant sacrifice it's not cost um but it's also meant crazy adventures you know i love following jesus i love pursuing him wherever i go and it's it's it's part of what i do today it's i lead a charity called imagine if which is part of our church um and we see stories and stories of transformation of changed lives of people coming into contact with jesus and his love and seeing their lives completely and transformed and what's amazing in this passage is that um once levi has been called the first thing he does is throws a party um bill hybel calls it a matthew party in his book um just walk across the room a really really good book i really recommend it um but he talks about these matthew parties um and here matthew brings all of his uh tax selector friends and and invites jesus into that space and the pharisees say you can't spend time with with those guys but yet as we said jesus wants to be around those people to connect with and that's who he came for um but the first thing that levi does when he's transformed is to to look at those around him who else can i share this good news with you know if you'd received a massive special offer um or you're cured of a you know a medical illness you tell everyone around you and that's what the gospel is about once you receive it you pass it on we're blessed by god to be a blessing to others it doesn't stay with us it goes out and to those around us so it's almost like a as john hardy would say a reflex that what we receive we reflect to others the bible talks about being salt and light to that around us and if we are transformed by by god's goodness and keep that to ourselves um there's loads of people who we interact with who won't see that change that transformation so i love the fact that matthew first and foremost follows jesus leaves everything and then secondly brings all of his contacts in to connect with jesus um in the in the episodes of the chosen you see jesus being this fun life and the part i think he's often portrayed um as quite a drab character especially in paintings and um you know portrayals of jesus but i think he was a really fun guy a guy that you'd want to be at a party like this um so levi i invited him into that space and i imagine um many people that went to that party would have been uh transformed but the final thing about this passage is it's not just um a bible story it's not just about what happened to levi this is this is the transforming power of jesus um that we can still see today and about a year ago we met a lady called lara who was living in um a kind of supported house in kensington um with some people who were really quite abusive and we were delivering food to her and met her one day and and really saw what was happening in a uh living situation and we had a space in our women's house we said lara why don't you come in and move in with us we can help work through some of the issues that she was facing um she'd been a doctor she was divorced life had really just fallen apart um and certainly over time we saw her getting her life back on track we're able to work through some of her bills and her um finances and get her signed up with the doctor and all these practical things in life but we're also able to bring some church volunteers in to connect with her to to read scripture with her she had had a catholic faith but it had kind of gone nowhere um and just bit by bit she was transformed she was changed she became light of the stresses that happened to her fell off um and and now she's just a completely different woman she comes to church now on a regular basis um and she would say that you know our staff really helped work with her and change her but the reality is that she encountered god and god changed her from who she was to who she is now a life transformed and as a church we we use this kind of vision strap line of being transformed by grace and that's exactly the jesus that we follow that's the good news is that he is a gracious god regardless of what we've done he is there for us and i don't know whether you would say that you are close to god or far from god whether you always have a or not but the message of the gospel is there for us and regardless of who we are what we've done there's a call there to follow jesus to lay down our old life and to pursue a life of faith with him so don't discount yourself if you feel that you've fallen short and you don't quite meet the grade um that surprises all of us it summarizes so many people throughout scripture um who god calls into relationship with him he worked through them he transformed them in their weakness his power his strength is made perfect and that's true today so don't discount yourself based on anything you've done god is calling you into something new so trust in him believe in him and follow him amen great thanks james for that um such a great um sort of uh digging into that story just quite a short passage but um so much that we can get out of that and we're going to talk a little bit uh myself and matt shortly um about our reflections on that passage around uh levi who became matthew in a moment um we're gonna go into time of worship or reflection now um but one of those points that um james said there was about being transformed by grace and so we're gonna have a listen to the song grace alone and i think this is just a a wonderful song that you can listen to you can follow the words on screen you can sing along to or you can just kind of um just allow it to wash over you a little bit but it's really talking about god's love for us that is fully bound in grace and and really the fact that he loves us and uh he died for us and and has set our life for us um purely based on on that love and not based on anything that we've done or our background or our upbringing or anything like that so uh just to really have a listen to these uh these lyrics now and the music as it comes through this is put together by john and anna farrington um as we listen to grace alone cheers i wasn't often lost at the fall running away when i'd hear you call father you worked your will i had no righteousness of my own i had no right to journey your throne but father you loved me still and in love before you laid the world's foundation you predestined to adopt me as your own you have raised me up so high above my station i'm a child of god by grace and grace alone you left your home to seek out the lost you knew the great and terrible cause of jesus your face once said i worked my fingers down to the bone nothing i did could ever atone jesus you paid my dad by your third i have redemption and salvation lord you died i was in darkness all of my life i never knew the day from the night spirits you made me see i swore i knew the way on my own a head full of rocks a heart made of stone spirits you moved in me at your touch my sleeping spirit was weakened on my darkened heart the light of christ has shown called into a kingdom that cannot be shaken heaven citizen by grace and grace and love yes i'll stand in faith by grace and grace enough i will run this race by grace and great snow i will reach the end by grace and grace and love heaven since isn't my grace very very good love that song i love that especially after winning one nil it's a great song yeah just some uh i guess the the whole topic of grace is quite simple yet very complex isn't it it's one of those kind of um things that you kind of you know you just have to almost accept it in the end and not try and understand it but you know god's grace and all of those little examples in in in the lyrics there are just hopefully something that we can all hold on to aren't they yeah totally totally i love i do love these topics you know of god's grace and um the the questions are i'm just going to close my window because i think we can hear that lawnmower hang on a second it's a bit hot there we go let's close it out uh sorry this is what you call professionalism um but no you're right i think this whole thing this for me one of the things about being a christian and the journey of the christian faith is that the the the longer it goes the more you grow in it the more you understand grace jeremy and it's that kind of i liken it but uh to to this idea of you know the longer you and sal are married the more you understand cell the the the more you go grow in sal's grace the more you grow in love does it mean jeremy you're not any more married jeremy and 30 years later you're just as married as you were on the day you gave your vows it's just somehow you've grown in that i mean yeah and that to me is a lot like god's grace that tends to be what happens you know it's not that i have more of god's grace on my life it's just that i i understand it a little bit more than i used to and appreciate it probably a bit more don't you i think that's the thing um it definitely makes a bigger difference i think um but i think this you can always come back to the simplicity of it and you know we we all have good days bad days we stuff up and and i think it's a great thing to be able to kind of come back to isn't it yeah and know that there's so many stories of uh redemption aren't there in in the bible so yeah there are stuff so what did you think to to uh mr sloane's chat about a chap called levi then yeah very uh very well put together very easy to follow on it i think it's good job by james nice one um nice one yeah it's most apart from the gag about the jeans uh levi which is an important thing yeah but um levi who um i i did have to double check this so i didn't stuff it up but he he became the matthew that he became is matthew's gospel so he is that's right yeah you wrote that apparently a few years later um so yeah it's incredible story of someone that is i guess pretty much seen as a one of the bad guys amongst the community and and like james says kind of uh probably profiteering off the back of the tax collecting to then be being like i mean you know he's the first of the gospels isn't he he's like matthew if you ask anybody you probably about their than their bible knowledge and the books of the bible that would be right up there so i'm sure he wasn't aiming for that but you know it's quite an incredible transformation um and i guess coming back to the grace story you know it's uh a great example of god's grace on someone's life yeah it is i i love that i love that you're right he he opens up the new testament doesn't he matthew and actually when you read it you read the story of a man that has obviously met jesus and his life has transformed quite a bit as a result and you know there's some incredible insight that matthew then has over the coming years about jesus uh which is quite which i think is quite fascinating yeah they said in one of the bits i was reading it said uh i think he clearly had attention to detail because of his job of being a tax collector so i guess he had to be good with sort of facts and figures and so actually that that comes across in the gospels and the way that he records that that's it's a real good use of his skills even though he was using them probably in a in a way that was uh yeah not particularly seen as as great yeah totally why do you think then right if we if we're having a chat about this why do you think that god delight it it just seems that his story right the bible is full of people like levi or who becomes matthew where you have people who aren't necessarily let's just say the cream of the crop right and they they go through this amazing sort of transformation why do you think god focuses in on those guys as much as he does yeah i i guess there's oh there's loads of reasons but i think um i think there's an element of it being it's showing that god is here for all of us and that there is hope for all of us no matter our background our circumstances that he he he was very clear wasn't he jesus in his teaching of the people that he wanted to hang out with that he didn't want to hang out with the people that were naturally revered in society and and seemed to have it all together he was there for the people that are either ostracized or sick you know homeless you know orphaned or or um i guess in in this guy's case yeah sort of seen as one of the bad guys so um yeah it's a sign of hope of saying god can transform that then if you can do that then maybe you've maybe you can kind of work in my life as well i suppose so it makes sense it feels like it makes it accessible yeah and real yeah yeah i think you're right i think it does i think it does i think it's it's a wonderful thing you know as i was just sending an email to somebody uh and about an hour before we came live someone was asking me about some of the stuff to do with christianity in it and in that email i was reminded again that god has no favorites jeremy knight in that in that he treats us all equally there's no distinction between male and female there's no distinction between the races everyone is equal and has equal standing before god and we see that again don't we in the story of levi in the story of matthew here that actually you know where people had formed a certain idea of him and they had certain beliefs about him well god's thoughts and ideas were quite different and i i really like that it must have been hard for i i'd imagine to an extent for the other disciples uh because this was fairly early doors wasn't it um he was jesus gathering and so i'd imagine it would have taken a a disciple on a pretty good day to have not at least raised an eyebrow when jesus goes right we're getting this tax collector guy and he's he's not only going to just be you know a follower but he's going to be one of the 12. i imagine imagine the rest of the guys have been like oh okay um that might mix it up a little bit because um you know they they obviously have to sort of be part of that and um i guess have their own views of it but that's what jesus was just doing wasn't he left right and center it was just challenging all of their preconceptions of what what uh what god god is and what uh what religion is and all the rest of it and it's just another example of just blowing her out of the water it's great now you have um james for those that don't know james has uh a background in commercial stuff right you've you've been at the helm over at a few things you've interviewed a few people over your lifetime right you've you've offered a few jobs to a few folk every now and again um when you're interviewing people right uh and i guess i'm thinking you're kind of throwing yourself here in a position as i suppose if when people like levi come along when they're not qualified when they don't meet the grade and it's actually very hard to get the job when there is a history when there's a story there right oh yeah for sure i think um i think there's particularly when you're running a business and you're thinking about the skills that you need um then there's definitely um a clear list of kind of attributes and perhaps background and experience um but i think you know we would always you know and then everything i get involved in you'd always look for the the a little bit deeper you know the person themselves sort of the the character because i think so many things now you would see is uh that sort of line about you know you can you can teach skills you can teach kind of certain things but you can't really necessarily teach kind of character so i think that's that's fundamental but um yeah in in this case his uh and i guess what james was talking about which is our sense of feeling like we don't miss or we maybe missed the grade or we're kind of we're not good enough would have been a huge issue for for levi wouldn't it you know a lot a lot of barriers there for him feeling like he can kind of get to that stage but thank thank god that jesus is able to do that i guess the challenge for me and you in our in our lives or all of us is that we kind of try and see past the uh the history and see past the the experiences that people have had and try and actually um allow allow them people to have a chance and allow god's grace to kind of work in that situation yeah yeah well james has actually written here in the comments mr slain you can see it the christian author mike breen says jesus looks for character over competency yeah yeah absolutely it's it's so vital isn't it i think uh everything that we we do um in all of our interactions we expose our our character and we can talk a lot we can talk about values actually it's the character and it's our actions that i think kind of bring that to light um and you know that's that's where we kind of either get found out or um or hopefully you know it kind of brings there's some there's some integrity there yeah yeah yeah absolutely uh nicholas said here as someone who has uh always felt i missed the mark or never quite been good enough but knowing that uh whatever i have gone through the grace of god has always been there whatever i think about myself i think it's such a true i think that's great nichola actually that i think a lot of times people feel like they've missed the mark i think it's a great expression um and people don't feel good enough i mean especially in the today's world where where there's that whole comparison thing during the mean it's like yeah and we and we all do it i i think we all do it don't we to an extent uh you know um in in some shape or form it is so it's so um dangerous i think that it can kind of rob you of of your who you are supposed to be um by comparing comparing yourself with other people and then feeling like you're not worthy are you not able to make a difference but you know i think it then it needs that constant daily reminder from god that you know today is a brand new day and god's grace is is right there for us and and for whatever happened yesterday last week 20 years ago doesn't have to define kind of where we go now um yeah but that's easier than done yeah it is always easier said than done and i liked a and i i don't know much about jesus's logic necessary for changing names but i wondered whether in levi's situation whether jesus changing his name to matthew it was a sort of a symbolic nature of right this is a new start yeah fresh of uh fresh life from here um maybe it helped i don't know maybe it helped that he wasn't known as levi that tax collector maybe there was a fact i think it's really interesting when you think about how names affect your identity and actually uh how having a new name starts a new identity there's a friend of my sons who's actually i'm changing his name by depot he's changing his first name he was adopted as a kid and he's changing his first name and he talks about how this is his new chapter jeremy in the next start of him and how actually the change of name is really really important for him and when you as far as i'm aware i mean it is my name as well matthew so i think i think i've got this right when i say that in effect jesus changed his name to matthew which means gift of god yeah i look that up that is correct very good and i think that's that's quite i think that's really quite cool that that's what he changes his name too matt you are a gift from god he would never have thought that germaine and he would he would never have thought that about himself and so measuring himself like you say it's hard isn't it when you wake up to think of yourself as maybe how god sees you to think of you how god thinks of you but by changing your name i think that's quite cool do you can you remember right a bit of bible trivia here another instance where somebody's name changes in the bible i'm specifically thinking about the old testament old testament uh yeah elijah elijah do you have a different name i think they all have different names to be honest the one that i'm thinking of is abram who changed his name to abraham which is quite he's the father earlier so i could have been made sure i was really clear on it and not look like an absolute division so cheers cheers no no to be fair it was a wrong question i just said the old testament i mean that's that's a big old book right now a lot of people have name changes yeah i i i'm with you yeah yeah so abram changes his name to abraham and god does this with him as well and it's like um the name change was significant because this was a guy who in the bible he couldn't have kids and this was a big deal for him and so god says don't worry about it i'll give you loads of kids and abram's like how am i going to know and the first thing god says to him is we'll change your name to abraham which means father of many nations right it's a bit like coming down to a guy and saying you know god i need some money and the first thing god says to you is all right we'll change your name to moneybags or something like that it's like it's kind of ludicrous when you when you put it in that sense but he needed to think of himself in a very different way he needed to think of himself how god saw him and we see that with levi and matthew and i think we see that with abraham and abraham yeah i like that i think it's um there's a sort of an action there isn't there there's a step of faith there's an action and there's probably um there's probably do it doing something that sort of puts it out there to say right i'm i'm gonna believe this thing even though in that case yeah perhaps medically or or from uh from the age that abraham was you know it doesn't seem possible you know god can still deliver on that yeah totally so matt's written here people place value on works and if your works are unseen you don't feel worth from others as they don't see your efforts that's an interesting point isn't it that actually a lot of um a lot of our self-esteem in some respects comes from how people interpret what we've done and it's and i get that it's hard when you've done stuff and people don't recognize it and people don't say thank you right yeah i think so i think um particular particularly with kind of social media and the the immediacy of everything you know um but even within a work context i think sometimes sense of knowing that you've done something and it and it's the right thing to do that there is integrity and god knows about it but maybe no one else knows that's that's that being kind of good enough and not trying to then go so far to the other extreme and sort of make sure that everybody knows just make sure like everyone knows that i did this thing yeah yeah um without then it becoming something that is then just weird or false you know posting it on facebook to say that you've everything you've done on any any particular day so i think that is hard because sometimes you just have to just have to trust don't don't you the the um you're doing or you're behaving in the right way and and god will look at that even though it might not be an immediate thing or in the way that we think um yeah that is very good it is very good and i think actually the onus is on earth um if i flip it around the onus then becomes on us to go out of our way to recognize what other people have done and just to say thank you because we understand ourselves the power of that when people come and say thank you to us right oh yeah yeah yeah totally i find that challenging deeply here's my here's my last question for you bud well actually it's my second last question uh my no no no no it's not old testament why do you think right and and i'm it's a shame james isn't on the livestream he couldn't make it although he's in the comments and james if you are here right maybe write your answer in the comments why do you think levi just seems to instantly follow jesus jeremy jesus comes along and says follow me and he just kind of the way i read it kind of goes right then let's do it and he just walks away from this whole kind of life that he's got and jesus wasn't famous at this point i mean it wasn't like he could talk about how he'd raise lazarus from the dead or all that was to come jeremy and this was quite early on in jesus's ministry so why any thoughts on that any ideas well yeah i mean i i guess um i mean we don't i guess we don't know you know this is how it's written in mark's account we uh the the sort of the pragmatist in me would kind of go well there's probably a timeline here was it literally that second or was it later that day you know i don't know but you know i think um take it from how it's written that it's pretty kind of instant i suppose um he probably didn't know it but i'd imagine there's an element of the holy spirit doing some work in in his life that just meant that there was and plus the the actual genuine sort of power of god through jesus in that interaction must have just been something in him that just was like yeah and i guess we've all had some of those moments maybe uh maybe not quite as powerful that we all had moments where you just know and you know um that it's the right thing and actually the um one of the other translations talks about the party that he threw was his leaving party i don't know whether that's correct or not but i i can't go okay that could work that he then is he's effectively saying look i'm leaving guys i'm no longer being a tax collector anymore i'm literally going to be following jesus around um so that's why he gathered together some of his mates and used it as an opportunity for for jesus to then just be with those people that's quite a strong statement wasn't it to say i'm physically leaving my job giving up security and everyone i've hung out with here's this guy i'm sure no doubt some of those people would have been going right levi's lost it yeah he's gone um but you know yeah yeah whatever levi yeah we'll see you later but a great opportunity for jesus to step in and and no doubt have an impact on on those guys as well yeah that's great i think it kind of goes to show that actually if you when it comes to following jesus you can just start which i mean you could just and that's kind of how it worked for me you know when i was when i was a little bit younger it was just kind of like well let's just start this thing and see where it goes joe meaning you start following christ i don't know all the answers but i didn't need a big i didn't need a big deal to be made out of it it was just a decision yeah this feels right let's do this and see where it goes and um so the leaving party in my mind as you were talking about that well that's what baptism is right this is kind of like we're gonna have a party we're gonna have baptism and we're gonna say listen the way i was is not the way i'm gonna be you invite your friends and family and it's kind of like this is the start of a new chapter so now that was very very cool very cool matt cruz said here holy spirit led instincts i think he agreed with you james uh in terms of why levi did that yeah um sharon's put i like the stuff about abraham and how god changes his name when talking about abraham the book of romans which is in the new testament says god who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they are it reminds me of the power of words and also the power of god to do things which seem impossible very very cool very very cool um nicholas but i think he left at the chance to leave the shame slamming uh talking about ebay yeah yeah yeah but it was still a risk though you know his whole livelihood you know we don't know there isn't much about you you kind of assume all of the you know you assume he was a single guy but he might not have been you know you don't know much about his background and you know it's a it's a big deal but i think the power and the instinct of of the what he didn't even know it was a holy spirit probably did he at the time but um would have been just so strong no doubt that he was just like yeah yeah absolutely no i like that that's amazing yeah that's great i like that a lot and i think um in an instant you can change your life and that's the fundamental truth of the christian story in an instant yeah you can change that it just starts with the decision totally and coming back to james's bit right at the top top of his talk about you know have you ever felt like you've been missed out or or um overlooked or you've kind of not been good enough then yeah god would just say you know there is a there is a new day you being a new creation him and there's a chance i think to really explore life through him yeah that is not gonna base it on any of that history and of that kind of stuff that's happened you know even yesterday so um i think that's that's such a redeeming nature isn't it of what of what we get through following fantastic that is a good end point right there a good final thought now james we always end these sort of q and a times as you know with with with an unusual question i have got one from nicola but i think i'm going to give you one of my own just because i think it's a bit more apt okay sorry nicola i just there's no way i can get away with asking you a question sally may well have got away with asking your question i didn't even see her question so no no she sent it to me on text message which i'm not going to do so my question is this man of the match who was it um and whilst james is thinking about that let me just explain this phrase to anybody outside of the uk uh man of the match we just watched a game a football game here in the uk england to play croatia we were in one nil and a man of the match is just simply who was the best player in the in the game in your opinion that's what i'm asking james over to you um my my mind's gone completely blank but i think the uh the leeds midfielder um calvin phillips phillips yeah i i i've not partly because i've not i don't watch leeds because i'm a liverpool fan not watched him that much but yeah i was dead impressed with him um and so i think right yeah i think he did do well but yeah good result yeah yeah good results so calvin phillips man of the match for whatever it's worth from me and james as well absolutely yeah and i'm sure mr sloane is happy because he is in fact a leeds fan so oh well i don't know well it's a good day for james yeah yeah good day good day it's all connected somehow in some bizarre way sorry for any croatian fans watching yeah yeah sorry you had your time at the world cup [Laughter] absolutely right uh and nicholas obviously a leads fan as well according to the comments so yeah brilliant uh matt crews said it was sterling sterling was good eh so after a surprisingly bad season i thought he was i thought it was decent yeah and i think with the pressure that those guys have sterling and caney they have a lot of pressure to perform today so i think um yeah good effort good on right that is the end of the discussion time with myself and james we are now going to do a regular catch-up video here's josh hello and welcome to this week's sunday catch up for those of you who don't know me allow me to introduce myself my name is josh edmondson i'm a member of the team here at crowd church and i'm a student at the university of saint andrews studying physics if you have never watched the stream before welcome it's really great to have you here let me just quickly explain what catch up actually is every week we get in pictures and videos from members of the community which we put up in this segment called catch up just so that we get to see what everyone else is getting up to some of you may be wondering josh why is elias not doing catch-up this week we had you last week we're fed up with you we want a lice back bring our lice back i would love to meet your demands but unfortunately elias is quite sick at the moment so i have decided to do catch-up this week so that he can have a bit of a break rest and recuperate in usual fashion i will kick off with something that i have up to this week after having finished my second year at university a few weeks ago i thought it was high time to start dipping my toes back into the waters of academia and so i've started reading a book that i really wish i had with me in liverpool last semester this book on the schrodinger equation a particular equation that is really important to quantum mechanics don't worry i'm not going to explain what any of that is zoe you can stop rolling your eyes that's enough for me let's get on to the catch-up clips thank you very much for sending those in i really love watching all the catch-up stuff we really love watching all the catch-up stuff if you would like to send in pictures and videos for catch-up and we would love it if you did you can send them in to either the whatsapp number on the bottom of the screen or you can use the hashtag crowdcatchup on instagram that's all from me this week thank you very much for watching and i will catch you next time there we go that was ketchup very very good i liked i like the sunrise nicola that was very very cool it was very cool and elias your trip down on the south coast i don't know if you followed along but elias and his family were basically i think either walked or cycled almost the entire south coast of england during half time good effort that is great and and your josh is just we were chatting where we that i think he's just obviously from a different evidence and straight straight because he's just far too clever um although we all know schrodinger's equations are the best by far of all the equations i think he has got some really really like some of them are just great but you know yeah i can see why josh mish that missed that book because i'm like man i would have i've missed schrodinger as well so i'm glad he's back all right i'm glad he's back you know what schrodinger um you know his early stuff was good but he is if you've just tuned into crowd church i have no idea what we're talking about either some chap called schrodinger apparently um so i think say again do you have a cat so someone's going to be googling that right now aren't they um i think that's a thing who knew who knew maybe the hat maybe the hat uh matt crew proud to have gareth bale on ketchup yeah yeah uh i i'm okay uh nicola i left my house this morning 3am to get to the beach for 450 to watch it yeah it's worth it man i mean that looked like we we did a a sunrise walk when we were in devon with our friends mark and faye and the kids um before 4 am we left i think and we we just got to the bit at about five o'clock yeah so it was um just in time were you goose like the whole day after that though oh yeah wasted yeah really really tired just like wow four o'clock yeah yeah uh matt cruz says apparently schrodinger's cat died i have no idea what to say to that now right so let me tell you what's coming up next week next week next sunday is father's day myself and phil watson will be here hosting uh the crowd church livestream uh which is gonna be you know well let's just put it this way it's gonna be entertaining if nothing else phil watson is an absolute legend um and we're gonna be talking about uh life as fathers and get into all of that sort of stuff so we're gonna be looking at father's day next week you are obviously more than welcome to join us 4 p.m uh on sunday as we get through uh josh has put here i'm glad i found others who truly understand and appreciate this the importance of schrodinger's work yeah we're so souls right there right there josh honestly we're right there with you uh so yeah we've got phil watson next week uh for father's day the week after that we are starting our brand new series and to kick us off we have the beautiful and wonderful anna kettle who is going to be uh kicking that off so she's going to be uh yeah here the week after that so how's your first week been bud have you enjoyed it yeah i mean you know i kind of get that moment when you're kind of you're talking and your brain's gonna going what on earth are you saying and then you're kind of catching up in that loop but you that's hopefully you know eighty percent of it made sense you know so uh we'll we'll see how how it goes hopefully if you have me back then that would be a sign that it's all right are you going to watch the replay you're going to watch the catch-up no probably not that's because i just hope so that will give me a favorable yeah you're awesome and then i'll i'll i'll take that yeah yeah okay i'm sure what sal says will be final that's fine uh so no it's been awesome thanks for being with us james we look forward to having you again hosting please check it out and uh james and i if you want to hear more from james now we are on the wednesday evening group which we run once a week you are more than welcome to come join us it's on zoom we kind of have just a i don't know how would you describe it it's a bit of a bible study prayer type thing isn't it yeah i think um if there's a if there's more people we split into kind of different breakout rooms on zoom so that so there's a chance for fewer people to have a bit of a chat but there's a bit of a talk about the bible uh passage and then see where people are at and then you know particularly uh which is great a chance to pray for each other um through the stuff that's going on so it's just very relaxed and um hopefully uh you know good chance to have another dynamic um to the the crowd church experience yeah absolutely so if you'd like to know more information about that do get in touch either via the whatsapp number or the website or in the comments below and we'll reach out to you with that information that is all from us this week we're going to close out the service with a song from greg and martha again feel free to sing along if you would like or just listen to the words entirely up to you but we're going to close out the service that's going to be it from james and myself after the song is finished the live stream will end and i'll be back like i said with phil next week but from me tara and from james to uh see you soon have a good week bye for now cheers my heart never satisfy only in you do i have it all only in you jesus only in new jesus god of goodness anything less i jesus it all how great you are how great and beyond measure how great you are how great you are how great great you are how great you are and beyond i
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