Loving & Accepting What God Loves & Accepts
Matthew 9:9-13
1-18-04
Intro
Our text this morning is Matt 9:9-13
“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.
10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and `sinners’?" 12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." NIV
In our text we found Jesus developing some new friendships—friendships with people you would not normally expect a rabbi to associate with.
First, he met Matthew. It is not easy for us to feel the contempt most Jews felt for tax collectors. I’m not saying that IRS agents are particularly popular in America. But a tax collector like Matthew was far more despised than an IRS agent. He was considered a traitor and a crook. Good church-going Jews viewed tax collectors as extortionists and apostates and would have nothing to do with them.[1]
Rome had control of Judea at that time. They hired local Jews to do their dirty work of collecting the taxes. And these tax collectors often cheated and overcharged their fellow Jews and then pocketed the money.[2] They were known and hated for their unscrupulous behavior.
Jesus is walking down the road and he sees one of these despised tax collectors. Most religious people would have just walked a big circle around him and gone on about their business. But notice in the story who initiates the friendship. Matthew doesn’t fall on his face before Jesus and cry out for mercy. Jesus walks up to him. I think scripture only gives us a summary of the conversation. But the gist of the conversation was Jesus inviting Matthew to follow him.
Every time I read something like this in scripture I think of how easy it is to just walk past people who may be more ready for God than we could imagine. One of the greatest enemies of evangelism is the assumption that everybody who would serve God is serving Him. That’s an easy mindset to fall into. When you think about it, it is very prideful. For me to think I would choose to serve God but “they” wouldn’t has to be prideful. What makes me any better than them? What makes them any worse candidates for God’s mercy than me? When we stop and think it through we know that we’re no better than the Matthews and other tax collectors. By the grace of God I am what I am. And that same grace can change others as well.
This Matthew became one of Jesus twelve disciples. He is the person God inspired to write this book that carries his name.[3] Matthew is an outstanding example of what the grace of God can do in a life. I wonder what Matthews will intersect our lives during the next few weeks. Will I initiate the conversation the way Jesus did here? Will I take a personal interest in a Matthew?
I wonder how many people in Jesus’ day would have ever expected a man like Matthew to hear Jesus call and respond the way he did. He got up from his moneymaking booth and did exactly what Jesus told him to do. When Luke tells this story in chapter 5 of his gospel he adds one comment that Matthew has left out. Luke 5:21 “And Levi (which was another name referring to the same person-Matthew[4]), left everything, and followed him.” What an amazing act of repentance. I some times worry about people whose response to Jesus is to say a little prayer and then leave nothing! Their life is not changed at all by their religious experience. It’s a very different thing than what happened in Matthew’s life. Jesus said, “Follow me” and Matthew got up, left everything, and followed him.
Is there anything you haven’t left that needs to be left? Matthew’s spiritual journey began with a radical turn around that cost him something but gained him everything.[5] He didn’t just get religious. He became a follower of Jesus. He became a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he immediately told his friends about it. I find two things in this man, Matthew, which new converts would do well to follow. First his commitment to Christ was whole hearted from the word go. Second, he was not ashamed to tell his peers where he stood. He apparently did it in a gracious way because they all came to his party. Some of God’s best evangelists haven’t been saved very long and may still have a lot of rough edges. But they have the relationships that many of us don’t have. A sinner will usually hear the testimony of one of his old drinking buddies much quicker than he will go listen to a preacher in some church. If you are young in the Lord, don’t let that keep you from telling others what Jesus has done for you. You don’t have to know all the theological answers. You just have to know the Lord and tell what great things He has done for you.
Jesus saw Matthew’s party as a great opportunity to seek that which was lost. There he is interacting with some of the most notorious sinners in the land. The Pharisees are flabbergasted. This kind of behavior does not compute in their religious mindset. We know that they were always trying to find fault with Jesus. But I also think they wanted an answer to the question they asked Jesus’ disciples, “Why does your teach eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Notice they didn’t go to Jesus with their question. They weren’t quite that brave. But they asked the disciples, “Why is Jesus associating with people like this?”
Here stands in our text a great contrast between true holiness and false holiness, true spiritual maturity and counterfeit maturity. Here are some of the contrasts in the way these Pharisees approached being holy and the way Jesus did it.[6]
1. They tried to be holy by keeping an external list of do’s and don’ts. You can touch this. You cannot touch that. You can go to this place. You cannot go to that place. You can lift this on the Sabbath day. You cannot lift that on the Sabbath day.
In contrast to that, Jesus exemplified a holiness that flowed out of relationship with the Father—always doing what would please Him.”[7] He was motivated by a heartfelt desire to please God. Without that choice made in the heart, without that heartfelt sensitivity to pleasing Him, efforts toward holiness become Pharisaical and hypocritical. The outside of the cup is made clean but the inside remains corrupted. The rules are kept to a measure. But one is always looking for a loophole.
2. The Pharisees tried to be holy by distancing themselves from needy people. That way their bad habits, their sinfulness, would not rub off on them. There are scriptures that warn us to not be influenced by ungodly people. For example, Proverbs 22:24-25 “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered,25or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared.” NIV
In the New Testament we are told to watch out about the friendships we develop. 1 Corinthians 15:33 “Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." NIV
So how do we reconcile the call to go into the world and make disciples with the warning to not allow ourselves to be corrupted by ungodly peers? The answer is found in why Jesus was there. He did not meet with those people so he could participate in their ill-gotten gains. Jesus did not join them in their sin, thinking that was the way to reach them. Neither did he condone their sin. He didn’t say to Matthew, “Let me follow you.” He said, “Follow me.”
The first mistake these Pharisees made was in not guarding their own hearts to begin with[8]. They were vulnerable to sin because in their hearts they were still sinners—religious sinners, socially acceptable sinners, but sinners nonetheless.
Jesus’ heart was totally devoted to the Father. He lived for one purpose-to do the will of Him that sent Him. Even Matthew displays an all-out commitment to the Lord. When that’s in our hearts we can be with sinners and be the influence. When sin is in our hearts we need to make a whole hearted choice for God and then go to Matthew’s party.
At any rate, I suspect these Pharisee thought they were doing the right thing by avoiding people like Matthew.
3. The Pharisees had lost sight of their God-given purpose. They were so busy trying to stay uncontaminated that they forgot that their purpose was to be salt and light. In Biblical times salt was used primarily as a preservative. The salt was rubbed into the raw meat and the influence of the salt kept the meat from spoiling. It was also used for seasoning as we do. But if salt becomes insipid and loses its ability to influence either for seasoning or preservation it is worthless[9]. The value of salt is found in its ability to influence.
Our ability to influence the ungodly is not found in our precise rule keeping but in being full of the Holy Spirit. For He alone is ultimately the one influencer toward holiness.
To simply isolate salt from the meat (meat that it is supposed to influence) is not the solution. It takes the Holy Spirit to keep us salty. So the solution is to get full of God then go to where the need is, then get full of God and go to where the need is, then get full of God and go to where the need is. It’s not one or the other. It’s not just prayer and Bible study. It’s not just witnessing. It is both.
4. The Pharisees worked harder on appearances than realities. They had a reputation to maintain. Their influence depended upon that reputation. Jesus made of himself no reputation[10] but simply stepped into people’s lives and met their need.
5. Finally, the Pharisees tried to influence people toward God by pressing upon them their expectations and standards. They were in reality trying to convert people to their subculture through social pressures. Jesus sacrificially loved people into the kingdom. He never compromised his personal obedience to the Father. But he valued people more than the system.
I want you to watch a modern day example of what we’re talking about in a clip from the movie, Simon Birch (Chapter 8). Notice particularly the contrast between how some people relate to little Simon Birch verses others.
Show Video clip
If we were looking for an example of how to not win a child to the Lord I think this Pastor and Sunday School teacher would be a pretty good example of it. They have obviously lost sight of why the church exists. The church exists for the people—for people like Simon Birch.
As we begin our EPIC services[11] may there be a receptivity in our hearts toward people who don’t exactly fit our expectations of what they ought to be. You know we’re really all a couple of bricks short of a load. “All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Can I love the next sinner that God sends into my life? Can I be salt and light to that person? Can I be the kind of influence that makes them what to know my God?
When Jesus overheard the Pharisees question in our text, he answered their complaint with these words. Matt 9:12-13 "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." NIV
Jesus was at Matthew’s house because needy sinners were there. He had come to seek and to save that which is lost. And there were a bunch of lost people there who needed a Savior.
He’ll come wherever there are sinners who feel something of their wretchedness. These Pharisees refused to acknowledge their need. Though they were sinner too, they refused to admit that and therefore missed their opportunity to be saved. But to as many as received Jesus as Lord and Savior, regardless of the sin they had committed, to as many as received him to them gave He the authority to become the children of God.[12] It’s not found in keeping all the rules. It’s found in bowing to the One who can come into your life and change you from the inside out. If you hear nothing else this morning, hear this. False holiness is the external force of rules and regulations. True holiness accepts God given boundaries because a change is being made by the Holy Spirit from the inside out.
Jesus addressed the issue by referring to God’s value system, “Learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” God would much rather you and I be people of His love, filled with His compassion toward faltering humanity that to be the best religious rule keepers in town. A little kindness toward people can go a long way.
I wonder what sinners God will send our way in the coming months and years.
Church, are you ready for God to send you people like Simon Birch or Matthew--people who speak when you don’t think they should speak, mess up the carpet you worked so hard to replace, maybe even mess up your reputation some by associating with them. “Of such is the kingdom of God!”
Let us pray
Richard Tow
Grace Chapel Foursquare Church
Springfield, MO
www.gracechapelchurch.org
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[1] TAX-GATHERER
(From The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. Originally published by Moody Press of Chicago, Illinois. Copyright (c) 1988.)
[2] Merill Tenny, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 5 (Grand Rapids: Regency, 1976) p. 606
[3] MATTHEW (from International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Electronic Database Copyright (c)1996 by Biblesoft)
[4] Ibid
[5] Matthew 16:25
[6] Paul Fritz has a more extensive list (some of which was used here) in his sermon entitled “Contrasting Pharisaical Values and Christlike Love” available at www.sermoncentral.com
[7] John 8:9
[8] Proverbs 4:23
[9] Matthew 5:13
[10] Phillippians 2:7
[11] www.epic-servic.info
[12] John 1:12
