God called a tax collector over to follow Him. Tax collectors were self-absorbed, self-righteous, self-reliant, and very wealthy due to their success. What makes this so profound is that Jesus challenged him to follow Him and leave everything else behind. The tax collector held a party where He invited Jesus and other tax collectors so that they could hear what Jesus was saying. This tax collector was named Levi, but ended up changing his name to Matthew. This poses an interesting question for us today; do we follow Jesus and leave other things behind? Moreover, can we get past our own difficulty with self-righteousness? God loves the broken, wants to forgive you, and wants to restore your life. The first step to being born-again is realizing that you are broken. The problem with the Pharisees, who are ever the antagonists here, was that they could not bring themselves to admit that they were wretched, sinful, self-righteous, and lacked humility.