JESUS WHAT A FRIEND FOR SINNERS
Matthew 9:9-13
Who would have thought it? Anybody but him. He's the last to come to mind.3
Who is the least likely person you can imagine who would become a Christian?
Or who would be one among the least likely to follow Jesus. Can you see him?
There he sits in front of his business. Right on Main Street on prime property. Because he has a monopoly, he can charge whatever the wants. And because he can, he does.
Behind his back they call him traitor, turncoat
He is among the least respected people.
His parents hoped he would choose a higher road.
Jesus and his disciples had just amazed the town by telling a paralyzed man to take up his bed and walk home. And the man did just that! But what was MORE amazing is that Jesus forgave His sins, which started grumblings of blasphemy. For who would claim authority to erase the record of a person’s sin. Only God could do that. But, then again, that was Jesus’ point: He WAS God.
But what he would do next would was almost as jaw dropping:
Sometimes you across a lost sheep for whom you were not necessarily looking.
(And the one telling this story, is Matthew himself)
As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. Matthew 9:9 NIV
There he was… the LEAST likely person you would ever think that would join with Jesus.
But the greater surprise of the invitation is NOT that Matthew would walk away from a profitable civil service job to follow an itinerant preacher.
No, the surprise of the invitation is that Jesus would ask one of the likes of Matthew to follow him in the first place.
A tax collector.
Combine the greed of a Wall Street Executive,
The audacity of an ambulance chasing lawyer, and
The warm fussiness of an Internal Revenue Service agent, and you have a tax collector.
A real “low life” to the community, socially hated.
He set his booth up anywhere in town and and set up shop.
Not only was he a Jewish man working for the hated Romans,
It is assumed that he extorted extra money for his own gain.
Caesar permitted a tax on almost anything – your boat, fish you caught, your house, your crops. And as long as Caesar got his due, the collectors of the tax could keep the rest!
Mark and Luke tells us his given name was Levi. It was a priestly name.
It makes you wonder, if his parents wanted him to be come a priest.
If so, he surely turned out to be a disappointment.
Yes, he had a big bank account, but not much else.
He either had everything or nothing.
Don’t be stunned that he was shunned!
Not invited to the neighborhood cookouts or the community events.
He was avoided like the plague, except by other tax collectors….and Jesus.
Jesus came up to him and said, follow me.
You know the easiest produce to pick is the fruit that is ripe on the vine. Well Matthew must have been ripe because he acted like Jesus meant for this offer be taken literally.
In THAT moment, God gave Matthew an opportunity, and he took it!
It is interesting that Matthew follows Jesus to Matthew’s own house for dinner.
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. Matthew 9:10 NIV
The Bible does not say exactly how this gathering came about. But it is no leap of the imagination to think that Matthew was so grateful and amazed that he had the honor granted to him, he wanted to express his appreciation to Jesus and to establish some goodwill with the rest of the disciples.
If that were not enough, Matthew invited his friends to all come out before hitting the road with Jesus. But remember, Matthew didn’t have any real respectable friends. So he did what he could do, He invited the friends he had. And these were the assortment of friends our mothers warned us about. They used salty language and had shady morals. Not one of them among the local church going crowd.
So it was an interesting combination. Disciples, a gang of tax collectors, with some local religious types watching it all from the fringes. And Jesus and Matthew smack dab in the middle loving it all. Sinners and saints in the same room. The Saturday night ramblers are with the Sunday morning worshipers. And none of them seem to care who is who.
But about the time the party was really getting fired up, in steps the Pharisees and it is like all the air goes out of the room. It is said that you can learn a lot about the kind of company a person keeps. And these Pharisees were ready to pass judgment onto Jesus for the company He was keeping. It was scandalous to hand out with these folks. So they asked the disciples a question full of scorn.
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” Matthew 9:12 NIV
Tax Collectors – turncoats and thieves.
Sinners – They were not orthodox (committed to keeping the law). They did not do what they told them to. They didn’t keep the food laws, the rules about washing, etc.
Thus, those who WERE obedient to the law had nothing to do with those who did not.
Here Jesus was dining with them, embracing them.
This “cold water committee” saw it all wrong. They had it all backwards. What was happening was not so much that Jesus was hanging out with sinners. Sinners were hanging out with Jesus! Part of the amazing attraction of Jesus’ ministry is that the outcast WANTED to be around Him.
• Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like YOU!
Matthew could see it. Why couldn’t they? Jesus says it well:
It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Matthew 9:12 NIV verse
Then he put it in their own language, quoting scripture claimed to follow so intensely
But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Matthew 9:13 NIV
Hosea (6:6) wrote to people who were just giving Jesus lip service. They were not truly humble or repentant. They had kept the rituals without the heart that should be behind them.
Where is your love and compassion?
Because Jesus was a man of love and compassion…
Because Jesus was such a friend for sinners…
Matthew went from being a dirty double- crossing dealer to a disciple.
Now the question is: where do you see yourself in this story. If you were at this party, at whose table would you be sitting? Would you be among the smug and the arrogant or in the midst of the flawed and fatigued?
The truth is, we sit at Matthew’s table among Matthew’s friends. It is a blow to our ego to admit it. But it is to those kind of folks at that table that Jesus said, Follow Me.
Jesus is calling the broken and weak
Not the self-righteous and content.
Jesus Sees Us For Who We Can Be.
Matthew was a tax collector and that is what everyone saw when they saw him.
But Jesus saw more. He not only saw Matthew for what he was, Jesus saw him for what he could be. And what he ended up being was one of the four Gospel writers.
When Jesus approaches someone, when he approaches you, He does not just see you for who you are. He sees you for who you can be. He believes the best in you rather than assumes the worse.
Can we pray today to see people the same way Jesus sees them?
Let us make the effort to see folks the same way Jesus sees us.
You Find Jesus Everywhere.
• Laurie Capps of Annandale, Virginia, tells the story of her 8-year-old daughter Grace, an only child. Laurie often hears Grace after she has gone to bed, whispering in her room. Sometimes Laurie hears Grace’s footsteps at night, scurrying around the house, retrieving a doll or stuffed animal. One day Grace was whispering and Laurie asked her what she was doing. “I’m playing hide-and-seek with God, Mom.”
Laurie laughed and told her, “Gracie, honey, don’t you think that God can find you anywhere you hide?” She rolled her eyes, “Mom, I’m looking for God.”
I love the passage that says Jesus custom was to go to the synagogue every Sabbath.
But I also love that he didn’t mind hanging out in other places too.
This story is the equivalent of Jesus going into the inner city and hanging out in the crack house or perhaps the local bar.
You Find Jesus With Everybody.
Read the gospels. The Bible preserved stores of Jesus talking with religious leaders like Nicodemus and respectable citizens like Mary, Martha and Lazarus. But we also find him with government leaders, shunned lepers, Roman soldiers, adulterers, the demon possessed, and folks of ill reputation.
We all distance ourselves from certain people or certain crowds. I’m not proud to admit that, but its true and lets admit it. But Jesus is with them and delights in the opportunity to start a relationship with them.
These undesirables are the very kind of people Jesus calls to follow him.
Not the arrogant and self-righteousness who are self deceived to think they have it all together. But those who are part of the Kingdom of God are the humbled.
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 NIV
He likes them, and he is reaching out to them with the gospel.
And he is not too good to hang out with him.
Folks are sick and need his help.
Jesus is identifying with these people here without becoming like them.
The critics of Jesus are sick too and in need of a physician, but they don’t admit it.
The one who admits his/her condition is far further on the way to healing than the one who refuses to admit that he has no problem.
Change tables and join with Matthew’s friends, quick to admit that you are morally bankrupt. Sin is your greatest problem and mercy is your greatest need.
Those who humbly admit their need for mercy will always be the ones who find Jesus at their dinner table. They will find this Jesus who is a friend for sinners.
When You Are Found, You Have An Opportunity.
A small window of opportunity opened for Matthew. He didn't miss it.
Do you want to be found?
If so, and you hear Jesus voice today say, follow me. Follow Him.
What if Matthew had not followed?
What would he have missed?
What would we have missed?
Non-Christians: identify with a Jesus who loves you unconditionally.
There are opportunities we dare not miss.
One of them is RIGHT NOW.
If the iron is hot, the spirit is moving, the heart is tender, GO!
Christians: embrace Sinners like Jesus did.
