What Is Jesus Costing You? Part 3
Scriptures: Matthew 9:9-13
Introduction:
To date we have discussed the first two phases of the establishment of a long-term relationship between a man and a woman which is similar to that of our relationship with Christ. In the first phase there is a time of getting acquainted. This is the time where you quickly decide how close you will allow this person to get to you. If they have the potential to become something more, often times you will start dating without there being a commitment. Dating is the second phase of the development of the relationship. During this phase you are investigating the person to determine if the relationship will end or if things go well, move to the next phase.
This morning we will discuss the third phase – becoming boy/girlfriends. Making the decision to become boy/girlfriends and only dating each other requires a commitment. This is the first real test of where the relationship could go because in order to be in this relationship you must say no to all others. This is where some people get in trouble. They say they are committed to the one relationship but they still find themselves not being able to say no to other relationships. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s look at what happens with a boy/girlfriend relationship.
I. Making The Commitment
Now that you have met the person and went on several dates, at some point both of you decide that you want to date only one another. Maybe this decision was made after you saw them with someone else, but whatever happened, now you want the person to be with you only. To get to this point in the relationship requires both parties to commit to the relationship. The word commit is defined as “to bind, as by a promise.” So by making a commitment, you are binding yourself to the other person and for this particular time period, only spending time with them. Your former boy/girlfriends do not have the same influence over you as they had while you were together now that you are in another relationship. The first commitment that must be upheld is that you will be with that person and that person only. When you commit to a one-to-one relationship with a person, the costs increase. Now you will be giving a lot more of your time, mental capacity, attention and finances to the relationship. While you were casually dating you may have thought about giving them a gift out of the blue, but once you become committed, now you purchase gifts for any of a dozen reasons. There is the celebration of the first month together; the first holiday (Christmas, etc); the first birthday; first year anniversary; and don’t forget the “please forgive me” presents after you have done something stupid like looking at another person while you were with them. The list of reasons to buy a gift during this phase of the relationship is vast.
Now that you have officially committed to each other, small things begin to change. Now you begin to have deeper discussions about life, expectations, marriage, kids, finances, etc. You begin to get an understanding of who this person is and how they came to be this way as you discuss their family and past experiences. Your investment of mental capacity triples as there are so many things to think about and process as you focus on this new love of your life. One of the defining moments of the relationship is when you begin to tell others, especially your family and close friends that you are in a committed relationship. You begin to bring the person around to meet your friends and family during holiday dinners or family/friend get-togethers. Unlike when you were casually dating, you now take on a more “possessive” attitude when referring to the person. You begin using terms like “my boyfriend or my girlfriend.” Some times we have special names for them like “my sweetie peachy dumpling” or my “cutie poochy-woochy”. These are terms of endearment that only you understand that result from the closeness of the relationship.
The real, true test of the commitment comes in two waves. The first wave is when someone you truly loved comes back in your life. Maybe it is the first boy or girlfriend that you ever truly loved and never fully got over. When they come back into your life, the old flames that you never let die begin to burn again. If left unattended, those flames will lead you to violate your commitment. The second wave comes when that person that was always just out of reach of you finally notices you. Have you ever noticed that no one wants you when you are alone and as soon as you have committed to someone everybody is all of a sudden noticing you? This is not by mistake but by design. When the person you’ve always dreamed about is now ready to explore a relationship with you, if you’re not careful, you can forget all about the commitment you’ve made to someone else. There have been many great relationships destroyed because an outsider wanted to test and see if they could break the couple up. Both of these situations happen all the time; even after someone has been happily married for years. The same thing happens spiritually when we commit to Christ. First we cut off the old relationships we had and commit to the new one. When old “flames” come back, we put them out by focusing on the new commitment.
The other point I want to make here is that sometimes people will question who you are making the commitment to. Not only do they think you can do better, but they also question what it is you are getting from the relationship. Consider this as it relates to our committing to a true relationship with Christ. Turn to Matthew the ninth chapter. Jesus chose someone to enter into a committed relationship with Him that made others who witnessed this question how could He be the Messiah. In the ninth chapter of Matthew, we find where Jesus chooses Matthew to become one of His disciples.
II. The Tax Collector
Matthew 9:9-13 records the following: “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’ And he got up and followed Him. Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, ‘Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?’ But when Jesus heard this, He said, ‘It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:9-13
In order for you to understand the Pharisees’ point of view, you need to know a little about the tax collectors. For a reference point, think about how you feel about the IRS and if you have ever had a tax audit. The tax collectors during the New Testament times were viewed as traitors. They collected taxes from their fellow citizens for the Romans. The Romans collected a variety of indirect taxes and tolls versus direct poll taxes and land taxes. In this system, in order to become a tax collector, you had to bid on the job by guaranteeing that you will bring in more money in taxes than the next guy. This arrangement obviously provided a great opportunity at several levels for the tax collectors to increase their personal wealth. The tax collectors controlled the fluctuation of the tax rates as inflation of taxes was unrestricted. Whatever they collected in taxes, a part was kept for themselves. As you can imagine, the people hated them.
Tax collectors were especially despised by the Jewish population for several reasons. First they collected money for a foreign government that occupied their lands; second, they were growing wealthy at the expense of their own people; and third, since they were in constant contact with the Gentiles, they were often ritually unclean. The hatred of the tax collectors was so bad that it was often extended to the tax collector’s family. Can you imagine being a kid in school and everyone knowing your dad was a tax collector for the Roman government that was occupying your land and was getting rich by doing it? It could not have been easy for those kids. Because they often cheated their people, they were known as sinners and no better than any thief or robber in the land. Remember the story of Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector from Luke chapter nineteen? When he accepted Christ, he gave half of his wealth to the poor and he returned fourfold to every person that he had stolen from. Because the tax collectors were so despised, you would think that Jesus would not have one as a member of His team – yet He chose Matthew. Jesus’ compassion for the tax collectors is one of the startling facts of His ministry as it speaks to the committed relationship He was seeking from all, not just the righteous. When Jesus called Matthew, the Jews were both astonished and offended.
In this relationship, Matthew was the one with the most to gain. When thinking about the spiritual union in a natural setting, it would be like a beautiful, wealthy woman falling in love with her trash man. This is as close in the natural that can describe Jesus choosing Matthew. Imagine Matthew be chosen to walk with Jesus while all the time knowing what He had done to his fellow Jews. Imagine Matthew knowing that he would be going out and sharing the gospel of Christ with people that he had stolen from or even caused to be placed in jail. Matthew was the one with everything to gain from being in a committed relationship with Christ. When Jesus called him, Matthew did several things as he committed to Christ, things a person with a committed boy/girlfriend would do.
The first thing he did was leave his job; his previous life and began to follow Christ. He was never a tax collector again. When we become committed to one another in a relationship, we choose to walk away from all other past and future relationships as we focus on the one we are with. It is like having blinders on and all we can see is what is in front of us. The blinders that are used on horses while they are racing or out in public are used to keep them focused. The blinders stop the horses from seeing anything in their peripheral vision that would distract them or cause them to get scared. The blinders are mainly used in situations where the house is likely to become distracted like in public places. When we commit to another person in a relationship, we put blinders on so that we are not distracted by someone else. Those blinders keep us focused on the one we are with as we cease looking for new and better opportunities. The same applies to when we commit to Christ. We should have the same blinders on so that we are not easily distracted and more importantly, we are not easily scared by what is happening around us. The blinders will only work when there is a true commitment.
The second thing Matthew did was introduced Jesus to his friends and relatives. Verse ten records that Jesus was having dinner with many tax collectors and sinners. These other tax collectors were probably Matthew’s friends and relatives and Matthew introduced them to Jesus once he started walking with Him. Whenever we enter into a committed relationship with someone we want to introduce them to our family and friends. We love having them on our arms standing next to us. We want our family and friends to get to know (and hopefully accept) the person we are in a relationship with. When we are just dating someone, we do not bring every new boy/girlfriend over to meet the family. They may meet some of our friends as we hang out together, but family is special and reserved for the one we commit to. The same is also true if we commit to someone others would be surprised we are with. We are hesitant about bringing that person around to meet the family. We do not know how the family will respond so we hold off on the meeting until we have to. There are also times when we have committed to someone and yet we knew something was not right with the relationship. When something is not right in the relationship or we are not 100% comfortable in the relationship, we do not introduce the person to our family because we do not know how long the relationship will last. As you may have guessed, the same applies to our relationship with Christ. When we are in a committed relationship with Christ, we do not mind telling people or introducing others to Him. That does not mean that we will wear a sign across our chests displaying the fact that we are Christians, but it does mean that we are not embarrassed to be called one. Some people have their boy/girlfriends names tattooed on their bodies as a testimony of their love for the person. Some do the same with Christ. They wear the tattoo but in reality that is all they have. Jesus desires that we have a committed relationship with Him and that we are proud of it. When that happens opportunities will be presented to us for us to share our faith with others. When we are embarrassed about being associated with Christ then we tend to hide the relationship. It is time to stop hiding.
The third thing that Matthew did was stay with Christ. Even though his faith wavered for a while when Christ was taken and crucified, he did not totally walk away from the relationship. Matthew stayed with Christ until he himself died. Now this goes more into the marriage phase of the message, but I wanted to point this out. Matthew did not leave Christ just because he disagreed with something Christ said. He did not leave Christ after Christ got on his case for not doing something or for having little faith. He stayed. When you commit to a relationship you commit to working through the good times and the bad. You commit to working through the disagreements and the times when there seem to be a gap in the communication. That is what commitment means. If you threaten to leave whenever something does not go your way, then you are not very committed. Spiritually the same applies to our relationship with Christ. We often want the relationship as long as it is flowing the way we want. We sometimes threaten to turn our backs on Christ when it gets too hard. If this is you, you must ask yourself are you committed. Being committed to Christ means you stay even though you must give up something else.
Before I close this message, I want to talk about one point from Christ’s perspective. I shared with you earlier that sometimes people will not agree with the person you choose to commit to. They may not see what you see and they may have a different expectation of the person based on the person’s past. They may not believe that a person can or has changed. When Jesus chose Matthew, verse 11 speaks of the religious people questioning his decision. They questioned how he could choose a sinner or even hang out with them. Jesus response was simple. He told them He knew who He was sent to save and to show compassion to, not the righteous, but the sinners. Jesus did not turn His back on Matthew just because others thought Matthew was not worthy of His time. How many relationships have we ended just because our friends did not like who we committed to? Sometimes our friends may have been right, but sometimes they were wrong and we ended a good relationship because others did not like the person. The opposite is also true. There have been times when we committed to relationships because others thought the person was a great catch even though in our spirit we knew better. When we commit to Christ, there are many people who will disagree with our choice, but that should not change our commitment. When people pepper us with questions about how we can believe in the myth of Christ, it should not change our commitment. We should be able to answer each question as to why we believe and move on. Christ did not turn His back on Matthew when others disagreed with His choice and we should not turn our backs on Him when others disagree with our choice.
Finally, as I mentioned last week, even though you are now in a committed relationship, you are not married. Therefore, there are some things that should not be a part of the relationship. For example, sharing the same living space without the ring should not happen. Sharing the same bed without the final pronouncement of marriage should not happen. Our goal should be to keep the relationship as pure as possible so that in the end when we say “I do” it is truly something extremely special. No boy/girlfriends with benefits. The benefits comes with the “I do”.
What is it costing you to be in a committed relationship with Christ? Has it cost you time, spending time with Him? Has it cost you friends – those whose lifestyle is not compatible with your new lifestyle? Has it cost you some freedoms – where you choose not to go places where before we went freely? What has it cost you to be in a committed relationship with Christ? If your costs are minimal, are you really fully committed? Do you have the blinders on where you are not able to look at others because of your relationship with Him? Are you so committed that you do not fear what is happening around you for you know He will take care of you? If you have moved from dating Christ to being committed to Him, then you are now focused on what this relationship means and where it will take you. You have closed your eyes to other relationships as you are totally focused on development a lasting relationship with Christ. If this is you and you know He is the one, you are ready for the next phase – engagement.
Until next week, may God truly bless and keep you.
