Theme: THE WONDER OF MATTHEW’S THANKSGIVING
Text: Luke 5: 27-32
Intro.
A. We understand that thanksgiving is our proper response towards the goodness of God. Thanksgiving is a celebration to express our praises to God for all that He has done to us.
B. Because God is good all the time, we must also express our thanks to Him often. Or I shall say, we have to cultivate in us the attitude of gratitude. Thanksgiving must become an attitude of our heart.
C. Did you ever make a thanksgiving list? I’m sure if we would write a thanksgiving list of all for which we are thankful, it would surely include the major things –life, material blessings, health, family and friends. And yes, we are expected to give thanks to God being the recipients of these wonderful blessings.
D. Now, I want to turn our minds to the passage that we read. It tells us about the “big feast” that Levi or Matthew held for Jesus. I believe it was a thanksgiving celebration. And Matthew invited his tax collector friends to witness how grateful he was to the Lord.
T.S.
I. THE REASONS OF MATTHEW’S GRATITUDE.
-Matthew is very grateful of three things:
1.) The divine appointment of Jesus with him.
-Luke reported in v. 27 that Jesus “went out and saw Matthew…”
-This gives us an impression that the Lord had an intention to meet the tax collector, Matthew. This encounter had already been in the mind of Jesus; He had divinely appointed it.
-Matthew, being a tax collector, was considered enemy to his fellow Jews. The day he had accepted the job from the Roman government he lost his Jewish identity and the friendship of his countrymen. Everyone who would come to pay taxes had fiery eyes and grim faces, & hurled insults at him. They hated and condemned him and all other tax collectors.
-But one day, a very unexpected guest came. He was different from all others. His eyes were full of love and compassion, and from His presence flowed overwhelming kindness. It was the Lord. He came, not to pay tax, but to extend His touch to Matthew’s heart.
-The fact that Matthew is aware of his moral status before his fellow Jews, Jesus coming to him is very unlikely and so unexpected. He did not deserve even just to be in the presence of this great moral teacher. He was aware of that.
-But the Lord had appointed that day for Matthew to meet the Savior. He seemed to have no time to seek for God, but Christ sought him. He had no time to go to the Lord, but Jesus “went out to him.”
-This is the wonder of God’s love. There is a song that says:
“You did not wait for me to draw near to You
But You clothed Yourself with frail humanity
You did not wait for me to cry out to You
But You let me hear Your voice calling me
I’m forever grateful to You
I’m forever grateful to the cross
I’m forever grateful to You
That You came to seek and save the lost.”
-Matthew too was very grateful. Without that divine appointment with the Lord, he would have remained spiritually lost. “Jesus went out and saw him.”
-Praise God, we too must be grateful. Jesus came, sought and saved us. Thank God for that divine appointment He had with me & with you. Without that encounter with the Lord, we are lost in our sins.
2.) The divine invitation of Jesus to him.
-again Luke reported to us in v.27 that Jesus said to Matthew “Follow me”. It was just a simple two-word mandate but so rich in meaning. It was both a call to discipleship (we will treat this later) and an invitation to a personal relationship. So Jesus here was extending a divine invitation to Matthew for a personal relationship with Him.
-Except of his family, Matthew had no other personal relationships. Everybody in his hometown got angry with him. So we can imagine the impact of the invitation to him and how he reacted when he heard the Lord said: “Matthew, I want you to be my close friend.” I believe he’s pumped up, he’s chilling all over his body; great joy flooded his soul!
-I felt that too when I encountered the Lord in my life. I was so happy, and great joy flooded my soul when I realized that the God of the universe, the Great Creator wants a personal relationship with me. Not just to be a friend, but to be His child.
-This is the greatest reason of our joy and celebrations of thanksgiving. Thank God for that day when He invited you and me to a personal relationship with Him. Thank God for that day when He made me, and you, part of His divine family. The happiest moment of our life is the day when we heard and responded His invitation.
3.) The divine privilege of being with Jesus.
-the command “Follow me” is a call to discipleship. Discipleship in the Bible is learning by association. So Matthew here was called to associate, and be with Jesus, and learn of Him. Be with Jesus alone is already a great honor. So imagine how privileged was Matthew. He was one of the most divinely blessed persons in the world. There would be more potential and more deserving than this person morally & intellectually. But he’s chosen to have a close and personal association with Jesus, to be with the Savior, not only in His public ministry, but also for all eternity.
-I remember the song “Why have You chosen me”. Yes, I don’t deserve heaven; I don’t deserve to be a temple of His presence; I don’t deserve to be with Him forever. I deserve only His wrath. There would be more deserving than me, than us. But praise God for His mercy and grace: He had chosen us to be with the Savior, both now and forevermore. What a blessed persons we are.
-Being with Jesus is the most satisfying and fulfilling experience. He is above all powers, above all wonders, above all wealth and treasures of the earth. And to be with Him for all eternity is the most glorious expectation of each of us. My highest goal is: To see my Lord face to face and be with Him forever.”
-Therefore it is only fitting that God’s people will joyfully express their thanks and burst their praise to God.
II. THE EXPRESSIONS OF MATTHEW’S GRATITUDE.
-Having realized the goodness and the divine privileges he received from the Lord, Matthew did what he thought to be the most appropriate expressions of his gratitude to the Lord. He left everything to follow Jesus and held a big feast for the Savior. Luke told us that Jesus went to the feast that Matthew did hold. This indicates that the Lord had affirmed that what Matthew did was right and appropriate.
-God is expecting us too to express our gratitude to Him. It would give Him so much honor and praise.
-Matthew did three things to express his gratefulness. Let’s follow the order of the narrative:
1.) He left everything.
a.) He left everything that corrupts his life. By leaving his office, Matthew left the life of corruption and dishonesty. Even today, BIR(Bureau of Internal Revenue) is one of the most corrupt agencies of the government. But anything can corrupt a person. For Matthew, it was “gaining something unlawful.” According to Paul, “the love of money”, worldly pleasures, sexual passion, and even worldly philosophies can corrupt a person. Anything that goes beyond the boundary of God’s revealed will can corrupt a person. Out of his deep gratitude to the Lord, Matthew went out from his life of sin, leaving away the life of corruption.
b.) He left everything that isolates him from the people. Any tax collector in Palestine was accused of two things: (1) Infidelity to the Jewish nation, and (2) Dishonest gain. This made a great relational gap between Matthew and the Jews. He lived a life of hatred and isolation. We know many reasons for isolation and prejudice. Pride, jealousy, discontentment, discrimination, etc. Matthew wants to leave them away to a life of fellowship and relationship.
c.) He left everything that keeps him from God.
2.) He followed the Savior.
-The writer of the Gospel tried to paint for us the new life that Matthew had. The decision of Matthew here is not only to associate himself with Jesus, but also to be with the Savior all the way. He committed and yielded himself to the authority of the Lord.
-That’s the meaning of “following the Lord”. It’s not just accepting the Savior, and then serves Him by our own terms. To follow the Lord means, “to obey Him and do His bidding.”
3.) He held a big celebration.
-for Matthew, his spiritual birth is a big reason for celebration. He expressed his great joy and deep gratitude to the Savior who found him by holding a big celebration. This is not to mean that each Christian must do the same –holding a big feast. But, what I’m driving here is that, everyone who has encountered the Lord will be overwhelmed with gratefulness and will burst with joyfulness and rejoicing.
III. THE OUTCOME OF MATTHEW’S GRATITUDE.
1.) His faith in Jesus was publicly proclaimed. Well, there are many ways to proclaim our faith. Matthew did it by a celebration. It was his first step of expressing his thanks to God. In fact that was just the beginning, because until now Matthew continues to make his public confession of faith by the Gospel he wrote. His life was not a dead end. He received, and then he shared.
-I don’t know if you have this kind of life Matthew had; that you share what you have received from the Lord. But if our hearts were filled with gratitude to God, we can’t help but express it through sharing what we freely received from God.
-the principal truth we see here is: every time we express our gratitude to God, we proclaim our faith.
2.) The gospel of Jesus was proclaimed. The celebration became a very wonderful occasion for the Lord to teach a very important lesson, and it’s found in v. 32, He said: “I have come to call…the sinners to repentance.”
-Yes any expression of thanksgiving may become an occasion that God would use to proclaim the Gospel. It may become an occasion that sinners will understand the goodness and mercy of the Lord. Who knows that by what you share as expression of thanks to the Lord, will bring someone to the knowledge of the Savior? Isn’t it very wonderful to think that someone is brought to the Lord through you –because you express your joy and gratitude to the Lord?
CONCLUSION:
The greatest reason that we should be thankful to God is the divine privilege to know the Savior and have a personal relationship with Him.
The most appropriate expression of our gratitude to God is to leave behind the life of sin, follow the Lord, and live a life of rejoicing.
The wonderful outcome of expressing our heartfelt thanks to God is our faith and the Gospel proclaimed.
