You can turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 9. Matthew chapter 9. I'll begin reading in verse 1. So he got into a boat, crossed over, and came to his own city.
Then behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you. And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemes.
But Jesus, knowing their thought, said, why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or to say arise and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, then He said to the paralytic, Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house. And he arose and departed to his house.
Now when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God who had given such power to men. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, follow me. So he arose and followed him.
Now what happened is Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard that, he said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
Amen. Well, let us pray. Father, thank you for the written word and thank you for the revelation of the gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. God, may you bless and encourage the people of God.
May we be refreshed as we have a glimpse of what Christ does in terms of saving sinners. And for those unsaved, we pray that today would be the day of salvation, that they would come to know Christ as Lord and Savior for the glory of God Almighty, and for the good of their own souls. And we ask this through the name of our beloved Savior, and we pray that you would fill us all with your Holy Spirit, and we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Introduction
Well, just by way of reminder, it's been some time since we were in Matthew's gospel. In Matthew chapters 5 to 7, the Lord teaches what's called the Sermon on the Mount. And after concluding that sermon, people marveled. They saw that he taught as one having authority.
He wasn't like their scribes. He wasn't like those who had no sort of intimate knowledge of that word, but he rather taught them as one having authority. Well, then Matthew shifts directions to highlight that Christ acts with authority. He not only taught with authority, chapters 5 to 7, but he also acts with authority in chapters 8 and 9.
And we see that emphasis in that first section in Matthew 9, verses 1 to 8. You see the emphasis there on power. You see the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive sins. Verse 8, now when the multitude saw it, they marveled and glorified God who had given such power to men.
And as Christ goes about healing people, as Christ goes about saving people, as Christ goes about then raising people from the dead, it is a manifestation of the power of God Most High upon Him. And that's an encouraging thing. because it is not in our power to save ourselves. It is not in our power to make ourselves better. It is not in our power to commend ourselves to God.
But God Most High has power. He's able to make men willing in the day of that power. He is able to take dead sinners, to make them alive in Jesus Christ, and to confer upon them or give to them every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Christ and what he offers answers to the needs of every man, woman, boy, and girl.
He brings forgiveness. He brings that righteousness. He brings that holiness. He brings that glorification in the future.
Every good thing is to be had in our Lord Jesus Christ. So let's look at how Jesus deals with this man, Matthew. Matthew, of course, is the author of this particular gospel narrative. Matthew wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the book that bears his name.
And here specifically, he gives us this snapshot or this sort of picture of how Jesus dealt with Matthew. And
The Call to Discipleship
I want to look first at the call to discipleship in verse nine. Secondly, the supper at Matthew's house in verse 10. And then finally, the confrontation with the religious leaders in verses 11 to 13. You see that too.
Those religious leaders are always right there. complaining and whining and grumbling and mumbling. But in their whining and grumbling and complaining and mumbling, we oftentimes see glorious expression of the truth of God's gospel. And the case is that way in this passage. But notice first this call to discipleship.
The man's name is Matthew. He's also referred to as Levi in the parallel passages in Mark 2 and Luke 5. It's not uncommon. It was not uncommon for men to have two names.
You had Simon Peter, You had John Mark, and in this instance, this Matthew is also Levi. But as well, notice his particular job. Verse 9, as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. He was sitting at the tax office because he worked there.
He was sitting at the tax office because he was indeed a tax collector. And I just want to tell you how the connection is in this particular passage before us. In the previous instance, the Lord Jesus Christ healed that paralytic. And it was in the healing of the paralytic that it was demonstrated that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.
So that's settled in the previous account. Now, what Matthew indicates is that that power avails for great sinners. And Matthew himself was a great sinner. Tax collectors were despised.
Tax collectors were hated. Tax collectors were loathed. On the one hand, they were traitorous or seen as traitorous because they were Jews working for the Roman Empire, taking money from other Jews and giving it to the Roman Empire. They also trafficked in coins that bore symbols of the Caesars, that those Caesars were oftentimes looked at in a religious way as lords and saviors.
They were filthy men, according to the Jews, and they were despised men. And so when Jesus comes and calls this man Matthew to himself, it shows that his power is in fact there, but it's a power to veil with even the greatest of sinners at this particular time. It's a wonderful thing that Paul the Apostle says. It's a worthy statement a faithful saying worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world, sinners to save.
And then Paul says, of whom I am chief. Now, you might have met those people before, and you might be one of them that say, well, I'm so bad that God can't save me. That's pride and arrogance. That's more sin you need to be saved from.
If the Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, calls himself the chief of sinners, and Christ conquered him on the road to Damascus, there is salvation to be had for the likes of you. You can come to the Savior. You can come to the Lord Jesus. You can, by grace, look to Him and live.
But in terms of this occupation, tax collectors are linked with sinners in Matthew 9-10. Tax collectors are linked with heathen Gentiles in Matthew 18-17. Tax collectors are linked with harlots in Matthew 21-31. And tax collectors are linked with extortionists, unjust, and adulterous men in Luke 18.
So just so you can see that, these are not a class of good people in society. So Jesus isn't just simply helping somebody to be a better version of themselves. Rather, Jesus is saving Matthew by powerful grace. He is exercising forgiveness for a lot of wickedness on the part of this man.
R.T. Frantz says, This is pretty new in Jesus' ministry. He's called the fishermen unto himself. He's gone about teaching and preaching.
He's gone about doing some miraculous things, but now he's calling somebody that is a notoriously wretched man unto himself. France goes on to say fishermen may not have been high in the social scale, but at least they were not automatically morally and religiously suspect. Matthew was. So the instance before this, he wanted them to know that the Son of Man had power on earth to forgive sins.
Now, if we were to ask the question, well, does that power avail for really bad people? Yes, Matthew says. It avails for really bad people. And Matthew says, I was a really bad people and this grace availed for me.
This grace conquered me. This grace came to me. This grace enslaved me to this blessed one who is altogether lovely and chief among 10,000. That's the connection.
Jesus says to him, follow me. And I want us to consider his response.
Immediate and Complete Response
First, note that it's an immediate response. He followed him. Think about this for just a moment. Jesus says, follow me.
And Matthew got up and followed him. Now I say that because I don't always witness an immediate response. We say follow him just about every Sunday, as far as I can remember. And it's not always this immediate response.
If you have some inkling of your sinfulness before a holy God, and the Savior says to you, follow me, then follow him. Don't, Terry, as we just sang in that heart hymn, venture on him, venture holy. Don't wait till you have some feeling or experience, but rather hear the reality that God is a holy God, you're a sinful being, and the only hope of salvation is through Christ. He follows him immediately.
He doesn't play games. The tax collector didn't wait. He, like the paralytic, respond to the voice of Christ immediately. He doesn't hesitate.
John Calvin says the custom house, the tax house, has usually been a place noted for plundering and for unjust exactions, and was at that time particularly infamous. In the choice of Matthew out of that place, not to be admitted in the family of Christ, but even to be called to the office of apostle, we have a striking instance of the grace of God. Now, if it's in your head, well, you know, that was Matthew or the Apostle Paul or those people that I sit with at the church. It is for sinners.
This call goes to follow him is what Jesus says. Don't wait. Don't tarry. Don't say, well, you know, when I have a convenient time or hour that doesn't work out today now is the acceptable time.
Today is the day of salvation, according to the word of God. When you hear the gospel of our salvation, follow him. But
Cost of Following Christ
notice as well, with reference to just a few implications to his following him, there'd be some financial ramifications for Matthew. Right? Notice that it says he got up and left. Now, perhaps he took the coinage and put it in the safe.
Perhaps he loaded his pocket so that he could give it to the rightful owners later on. He got up and he followed him. What would we call that if we were the employer? We'd call that dereliction of duty and probably fire him, wouldn't we?
I don't want to sugarcoat it. That's most likely what would happen. See, these fishermen who were called to follow Jesus could ultimately return to their nets. In fact, they do after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
But Matthew, this tax collector, who leaves right in the midst of his business, he's right there at the office. I kind of have this picture in my head of these stacks of coins right before him. The Savior comes, the Savior calls, and Matthew gets up and follows him. There is an immediate response, and there is a complete response.
Notice what the text says. It goes on to say, he arose and followed him. Now, Matthew doesn't tell us what Luke does. In Luke's gospel, in the parallel passage, Luke reports, so he left all, rose up, and followed him.
He left all. Why doesn't Matthew say that? Probably because Matthew doesn't want to draw attention to himself. Matthew would have struggled with the current situation in Christianity where we virtue signal.
You see virtue signaling here. That's what we call it in the political realm. And virtue signaling is essentially what's always plagued the church, self-righteousness. Right?
That's just the reality. You see it plaguing the church in this instance, when the Pharisees say, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and heathen? That's virtue signaling. That's pride.
Well, Matthew will have no part of it. When Matthew is penning his own autobiographical sketch, he doesn't say, and I left all. Because everybody would say, oh, aren't you a wonderful being? Aren't you a wonderful, wonderful person?
You go to these testimonies and you hear the testimony of people and it almost sounds like, wow, you know, I gave up so much to come to the Savior. No, you didn't. Coming to the Savior is gaining everything. There's no loss coming to Christ.
There is no short change coming to Christ. You do not come out the loser when you come to the one who's altogether lovely and chief among 10,000. So Luke tells us that Matthew left all. It's a total commitment.
It is the whole man, the whole soul, the whole body, the whole being coming after our Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't save a part of us, He saves all of us. He doesn't save some of us, He saves all of us. This was an immediate response, it was a whole response, and it was a blessed response to the Savior of sinners.
The Supper at Matthew's House
Now notice, secondly, the supper at Matthew's house. Verse 10 tells us it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. Now this was Matthew's house. Luke fills this in for us.
It was Matthew's house, and according to Luke 5.29, then Levi, Matthew gave him a great feast in his own house. Now we might ask the question, why would he do that? I would answer, why wouldn't he do that? See, there's this idea that religion breeds long faces and lemon-sucking mouths.
You ever get that? Those people in religion, it looks like they have a lemon in their pocket, and they suck it, and they just look so terrible and miserable. That's not what religion is presented as in Scripture. What's Jesus say in the next section in terms of those who are present with the bridegroom?
They feast, they celebrate, they rejoice. For any parent that has ever given their children away in marriage, the parents typically at the wedding reception will visit friends and family. If everybody sitting at those tables looked like they were sucking on lemons and were absolutely and utterly miserable, it would be shocking and alarming. We're here to rejoice.
Or if you had been married and you're walking around the reception, visiting your guests, and they all look absolutely depressed, despondent, and miserable, you'd probably wonder, why are they like that? Well, perhaps the Lord God most high, the blessed God, the happy God, sees his people walking around like moat faces all the time, walking around like there's no joy whatsoever in our lives, and it betrays the gospel of the kingdom. The gospel of the kingdom produces joy, happiness, feasting, delight. Do you know that Israel was cast out of the land of Canaan, the promised land, for a multitude of offenses, but one of them was that they weren't full of gratitude toward God who gave them the land.
And one of them was is that they didn't express joy to the God who gave them the land. They were supposed to receive this gift, enter into the land, vanquish the Canaanites, and be happy. They didn't do that. They go into the land, they don't vanquish the Canaanites, and they're miserable, lemon-sucking fools that don't give any honor and praise to God.
They show him no gratitude whatsoever, and they walk around with moat face instead of rejoicing. So when Matthew throws this feast, this is appropriate. This is the way we respond. The whole man redeemed by Christ comes out of darkness into marvelous light.
What does he do? He rejoices in that. He's like that pearl merchant back earlier in Matthew 13 who finds that pearl of great price. What does he do?
Is he sad? Is he distressed? Is he sorrowful? Now brethren, I'm not minimizing sadness, distress, and sorrow in our Christian lives.
I am not minimizing James's admonition that at times we need to lament, we need to mourn, and we need to weep. But if the constant trajectory of our lives is a lack of joy, Brethren, we need a fresh sight of Jesus. We need to come to Him again who's altogether lovely. Not like we're being saved again, but we need to see Him who is altogether lovely and chief among 10,000.
So Matthew, having been converted, now throws this feast.
Honoring Christ and Testifying to Sinners
I would suggest it was, in the first place, a time to honor the Savior. See, Matthew knows what life is, and when somebody does you a solid, you show expressions of gratitude, thankfulness, kindness, love. You say, thank you for calling me out of darkness in a marvelous light. Thank you for saving me from my idols of mammon.
Thank you for redeeming me. I want to honor you in the presence of others as a result of this. As well, it's a time of celebration of the marvelous grace of God. Again, look down in 914.
Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. You ever have it where somebody invites you to a wedding or a reception, and you might ask, well, what kind of food is going to be served at the reception?
That's not untoward. That's not ungodly. That's not unholy. What's Jesus' rationale or argument?
When you gather in the presence of the newly beloved, you eat good food, you rejoice, you praise, you express gratitude. I have never met anybody, and I hope I never do, who has a wedding reception and says, there'll be no fish, there'll be no chicken, there'll be no beef, we're gonna fast. I haven't met that person. That person shouldn't be.
No, I shouldn't say that. I'm sure there's somebody out there that might wanna call for that. But this just contrary to the occasion, right? The occasion is one of celebration and joy.
What should Matthew do now that he's saved from his sins? What should Matthew do now that he's heaven bound? Matthew should honor the Savior and Matthew should celebrate, but as well, guess what Matthew is doing? He's testifying to fellow sinners that they need Jesus Christ.
It's a beautiful thing. Look at who he invites. Look at the guest list. Now it happened, verse 10, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
Spurgeon made the observation, the new convert most naturally called in his old friends, that they might have the advantage of our Lord's teaching. They would come to a supper more readily than to a sermon. And so he gave them a feast and thus attracted them to the place where Jesus was. So yes, he's honoring the Savior.
Yes, he's expressing gratitude and celebration in the presence of the Savior. But he's also reaching out to these fellow tax collectors and these sinners. He is like that pearl merchant. He is like those who find that pearl of greatest price and want to tell people about it.
They want to say, come and see a man that told me all things that I ever did. That's the reflex of the blood-bought children of God. They want to tell others that Jesus saves. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to knock on every door and chillawack.
It doesn't mean they're going to stand on the museum steps and preach like a Whitfield in the midst of everybody. No, that doesn't mean that. But there is a sense where the blood-bought, the conquered ones of Christ Most High want to tell people, I was dead and now I'm alive. I was blind and now I see.
I was hell-bound and now I'm heaven-bound. That's what the child of God wants. He wants others to come and see. He wants others to hear.
He wants others to be exposed to the glorious grace of God Most High as it comes through the person of Jesus Christ. So that's why Matthew throws the feast.
Confrontation with the Religious Leaders
Now notice thirdly, the confrontation with the religious leaders. This sort of sets the stage. Verse 10 also sort of sets the stage for the confrontation that follows. Again, France says, the attentive reader of the gospel might recall the vision of the messianic banquet in 8, 11, and 12.
Here as there, the guest list is not at all what most Jews would have expected. Again, Jesus is going contrary to the social norms, in that he calls Matthew a tax collector, and now that he goes to Matthew's house, and then he sits with these fellow tax collectors and sinners. So, when we get to the response of the Pharisees, if we know anything of our Bibles, and we know anything of the heart of man, it's a no-brainer that they're going to complain. This is really offensive to these people.
And they're the sorts of guys that have to tell you when they're offended. You know what I mean? That's another thing common. We always have to tell everybody what we're offended about.
I'm not as old as some of the brethren in here, but even in my generation, there was a wisdom expressed in being silent. We've all betrayed that. We all show ourselves to be the fools we are because we never stop talking. We never stop sharing how offended we are.
We never let anybody go that ever did anything wrong to us. You've got to let some stuff go, brethren, or you're going to be like the liberals. You don't want to do that because that's not a happy way to live. Now notice what we find with reference to these Pharisees in verse 11.
When the Pharisees saw it, now remember back in chapter 9 at the beginning in verses 1 to 8, notice what happens there. Verse 2 of chapter 9, then behold, they brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.
And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, this man blasphemes. That's the kind of guys these guys are. I mean, you could hand them a $20 bill, and they'd complain. Well, why didn't you give me two tens?
It's just in their DNA. It's just part of the framework from which they operate. I don't think every Pharisee was as monstrous as everybody could possibly be. You see some decent guys in the gospel narratives.
But for the most, they complain about everything. They complain in Luke's gospel and in Matthew chapter 12, when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath. Well, you know, there's six days you do your labor and your work. You come during that time to be healed.
Are you kidding me? Jesus just healed a man. Well, that woman that was bent over, hunched over, who had that spirit of bondage to that oppression or that physical turmoil for 18 years, this daughter of Abraham, Jesus heals her and they complain. Brethren, if as a rule you complain about the good things that happen to other people, that's more a trait consistent with Pharisaism than it is with biblical Christianity.
The mandate from the Apostle in Romans 12 is to rejoice with those who rejoice, not say, well, I didn't get a raise, I didn't get good things. We need to check our hearts, lest we are Pharisaic. But that's the kind of manner of men these are, so verse 11 really doesn't surprise us when we come to see what they say. Verse 11 says, when the Pharisee sought, they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
Now, it's scribes and Pharisees. Pharisees are mentioned here specifically, but the scribes are there as well. And notice their complaint. When the Pharisee sought, they said to his disciples, And notice they don't say it to Jesus.
Another thing, right? We complain, but we don't ever talk to the person. I mean, come on. Why would we man up and do what we're supposed to do?
We'll talk behind their backs. We'll complain about them behind their backs. They're within a stone's throw. We'll mention it to everybody else around, just like in verse 3.
They don't say it to Jesus. Who do you think you are saying, I forgive you of your sins? No, it's this internal grumbling. It's this internal whining.
It's this internal spirit of discontent. And that's precisely what they do here. They say to the disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? That's an offense.
That's foul. That's polluted. That's wretched. If you remember the readings in John's gospel, when the Jews come to Pilate to present their case that they would indeed see Christ executed by Pilate, they didn't want to go into the palace, lest they become defiled.
You see, that's the problem with self-righteousness or virtue signaling or whatever it is that you want to call it. Typically, it majors on minor points and neglects the bigger things, right? This is what Jesus says to them in Matthew 23, 23. You tithe mint, anise, and cumin.
Kids, have you ever seen those seeds, the cumin seed? It's a little tiny seed. They put it in cheese sometimes. Don't know why they do that.
Cheese is a wonderful product all on its own. It doesn't need cumin seed. But nevertheless, it's a tiny, tiny seed. So you have these guys, and they're measuring out these tiny, tiny, tiny seeds so that they can present their 10% to God.
On the one hand, that's not bad. We should want to give what is God's. Gary Norris says people like their religion, but they like it cheap. But when they neglect the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith, measuring out cumin seeds doesn't seem to be a really good thing.
And in this particular instance, these men, these men who are foul and polluted, these men who would never themselves enter into the house of a tax collector, are arguing about and grumbling about the very Messiah promised in their scriptures. You see, it's absolutely contrary to all that is good and decent and holy. So they make this particular complaint, but as is often the case, as the psalmist says, the wrath of man shall praise God. In this expression of their disdain, they highlight the glory of the Christian gospel.
Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
This Man Receives Sinners
Turn to Luke 15 for just a moment. Luke 15. This is an interesting or a curious thing, that oftentimes the opponents of Jesus speak better than what they know. They speak better than what they know.
Notice in Luke 15, we see a similar, same sort of thing going on, a parallel passage to some degree in terms of concept. But notice in Luke 15, one, that all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to him to hear him. His fame, his popularity was going out. People wanted to hear this man who taught with authority, not like the scribes, not like the Pharisees, but one who actually taught with authority.
So they draw near to him. And again, notice the language, tax collectors and sinners. Now, sinners there doesn't probably mean just your garden variety sort of sinner. It probably means really bad sinners.
The woman that comes to cleanse the feet of Jesus, she's called a woman which was a sinner. Well, all women are sinners, all men are sinners, but she was a particularly notorious sinner, and I think that's where the accent falls here. Not necessarily that they're all prostitutes, but tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. Now, notice verse 2, similar to what we have in our text.
And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. Isn't that the glory of the gospel? Isn't that the beauty of Christ? Isn't the blessedness seen not in man accepting Jesus into his heart, but God accepting sinners in the Beloved?
That's a blessed statement that they say by way of complaint. This man receives sinners and he eats with them. That is a disdainful thing as far as they are concerned, but notice how Christ responds. Imagine if you were one of these tax collectors and sinners.
Imagine if you would have heard these Pharisees say, this man receives sinners and eats with them. Wouldn't your curiosity be piqued? Wouldn't you want to know how he's going to respond? I would.
If I flocked to Jesus and I was a notorious sinner and I heard this complaint about him that he received sinners and eats with them, I'd then look at Jesus and say, OK, how are you going to answer that? How are you going to respond to that? What are you going to say about that? Are you going to be like a politician that tries to navigate a middle position?
Well, well, I really don't, but I do. But no, he affirms their proposition. He says three times, you're absolutely positively correct that I receive sinners and eat with them. He's like the shepherd who loses a sheep.
He doesn't say, well, you know, that's just the price of doing business in Israel in the first century. I've got 99 others. No, he leaves the 99 others. He goes out and he finds that one.
He puts it on his shoulders and he goes back home rejoicing. That's how Jesus received sinners and eats with them. Or he's like a woman who loses a coin. Again, she doesn't say, well, I've got nine others.
No, she moves furniture. She gets out the broom. She sweeps. She looks.
She pursues. And when she finds it, what does she do? She rejoices. See that theme of rejoicing there, too?
Sinners get saved and people are happy. And then Jesus says, I received sinners like that man who had two sons. And the one son said, Oh, give me my share of the inheritance so that I can go out and do what I really want. In other words, Dad, you're better off to me dead than alive.
Just give me what is due me now so that I can go out and do whatever it is I want. Well, what does Jesus say with reference to the father of that prodigal son? The father sees him when he's a long way off and he runs to him and he falls on him and he kisses him and he puts a ring on his finger. He orders the slaying of the fatted calf and he calls for rejoicing. when they complain, this man receives sinners and eats with them, he says, I do.
Like the shepherd, like the woman, and like the father of the prodigal. Again, if I was those, you know, the rabble sitting there, I'd be like, wow, this is great. I can come to him. I can be with him.
I can eat with him. I can receive him, or rather, be received by him. Now go back to our passage in Matthew 9 to see how Jesus responds here. He gives a threefold response here as well.
It's not parabolic per se, but it is powerful.
Christ the Physician for Sinners
Notice in the first place when he responds to their complaint, he highlights his role as a physician. When Jesus heard that, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Now, Jesus uses an analogy. Jesus uses a parable there.
I guess it's parabolic to some degree. He uses a figure of speech that even his opponents can follow. That even these proud-hearted Pharisees, these arrogant scribes, could follow and understand. Notice what he says.
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. You don't go to the hospital when you're well, do you? If you do, they have a name for you. It's called weird.
None of us ever want to go to the hospital, even when we're sick. Who goes to the hospital when they're sick? We don't do that. I think I have a doctor, his name's in my phone, but I don't ever call him because I feel okay.
I mean, you get the simple logic. They're there for the sick. So as Jesus is sitting there with the sick, he is telling them, this is a no-brainer. This is where I must be.
Physicians minister to ill people. Tax collectors and sinners need a doctor. Tax collectors and sinners need a savior. Tax collectors and sinners need the Redeemer.
It's a no-brainer, isn't it? Notice what he does then. He appeals to the prophet. Again, it's a three-pronged response that he gives them.
And
Appeal to Hosea: Mercy, Not Sacrifice
in the second, Second instance, he appeals to the prophet Hosea. Verse 13, but go and learn what this means. Before we sort of look at what he says, for Jesus to say to the scribes and Pharisees, go and learn. It would be like me coming to your place of employment and telling you to learn something that was extremely basic.
Or saying to a scientist, okay, I have a science project and my kid needs to make a volcano with stuff to come out of it. Can you handle that? Well, he's a scientist and he traffics in real life science. Of course, he can make a volcano that whatever pops out of it.
Jesus is telling men whose job it is to study the law and the prophets to go and learn. He's not impressed with their religiosity. He is not impressed with their learning. Yes, they knew the text, but they didn't know the meaning of the text.
They knew Hosea 6, 6. They knew God, Yahweh, saying that he desires mercy and not sacrifice. But Jesus tells them, go and learn what this means. You can know a lot of scripture, but you can also not know it.
You can sort of repeat it ad nauseum or cite it, you know, according to the written letter and not know it. It's the reality that the devil facing Jesus in that wilderness setting, the devil himself quotes scripture to our Lord Jesus Christ, but he doesn't know what it means. He doesn't have the proper understanding. He's got a faulty hermeneutic, and that's the way these men are.
Jesus appeals to the prophet Hosea, and he says, I want you to go and learn what Hosea 6 and 6.6 is all about. Notice, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. And I actually think that Jesus is making a larger point here than just for them to readjust their mindset in terms of learning mercy. That's specifically there to be sure, but I think what Jesus is saying is that the religious leadership in the first century is similar to what Hosea the prophet faced.
Now, for those of you who do not know the prophet Hosea, Hosea was called upon to do something intriguing in the first three chapters. Hosea was commanded by God to marry a harlot. That's a tough one. And yet, Hosea does that.
Hosea marries a woman by the name of Gomer. Gomer is, in fact, a harlot. And Hosea marries her. Now, for those of you who are thinking back in the law, the prohibition against marrying harlots applied to the priests, not to the prophet.
So when God Most High tells Hosea to marry Gomer, he does it. Now, what's the point of Hosea's marriage to Gomer? It is a parallel or an analog to God and Israel. See, God is married to Israel, but Israel is like Gomer.
Israel is a harlot. Israel is a prostitute. Israel is a whore. Israel does not know God.
They know Yahweh or understand, at least cognitively, there is a God. They refer to Him as Yahweh, but they don't know the Lord. That's what it says in Hosea 4, 6. And as a result of that, their society is corrupt.
Their society is bankrupt. They are full of idolatry and lawlessness and wickedness and vileness. And so God, through the prophets, calls them to repent. You know how they repent?
They engage in cultic obedience. That means externalism. They do the externals. They go and sacrifice.
They go to the temple. They pay lip service to Sabbath. But their hearts are far from God. That's the context in which God, through the prophets, says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
God's not saying suspend sacrifice. God's not saying don't have temple worship. God's not saying no more Sabbath. It's an idiomatic way to show what God wants.
If you come and you're engaged in externalism, but your hearts are still at home or they're in the office tomorrow already, you're falling prey to the various things that happened to Israel at the time of Hosea. And for these Pharisees and scribes to complain in the manner in which they do, they are showing their solidarity with apostate Israel in Hosea's day and age. So Christ says he is a physician for sin-sick souls. Christ says the prophet has spoken in terms of what God demands.
Christ's Purpose: Calling Sinners to Repentance
But then notice, thirdly, Christ's statement of his purpose. His purpose. Look at what he says there. But go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It's what he does. It's what he's about. It's what characterizes the Savior.
What is this Jesus about? If anybody ever asked you, you know, they're new to Canada, they're new to this sort of Western world, they come from foreign shores, they've not been exposed to Christianity. What do you say if somebody says, who is this Jesus? What does this Jesus do?
Now there's a lot of answers and a lot of things that you can say because the Bible is a big book. 31,000 propositions telling us about our Lord Jesus Christ. But what's the sort of main emphasis that we want to underscore or highlight? He's a savior for sinners, right? Isn't this the point?
Isn't this what it's all about? We're here today, brothers and sisters, because Jesus saved us from our sins. That's it. We're blood-bought.
We're redeemed. We've been purchased. We've been saved. We were dead, now we're alive.
We were blind, but now we see. We were once astray like sheep, but God has found us. So Christ underscores this. Now I want you to understand something when he says, I did not come to call the righteous.
He's not admitting that there's a class of people out there identified as the righteous that have no need for the Savior. That's not what he's saying. He, in Matthew 11, praises the Father for hiding gospel truth from the wise and the prudent, those who are righteous in their own eyes, those who are righteous like the Pharisees, those Pharisees who were the religious men of their time, who couldn't care one bit about Matthew the tax collector, who couldn't care one bit about harlots, who couldn't care one bit about sinners. You see it throughout the gospel narratives.
When Jesus goes to the home of the Pharisee, and that woman which was a sinner comes, and she weeps all over his feet, and she wipes his feet with her hair. What does Simon the Pharisee say? Or think, again, he's not brave enough to mention this to the Savior. He says, if this man were a prophet, he would know what manner of woman this was.
He would kick her away. He would shoo her out. He wouldn't have talk with her. He would send her packing.
See, they are complainers, incessant complainers. You see the prevailing attitude at the call of Zacchaeus as well. It's not just the religious leaders in that instance, though probably they're there. But when Jesus looks up into that tree, that sycamore tree, and tells Zacchaeus to come down, Zacchaeus comes down.
What's the response of the audience? Is it praise God that he's saving and conquering Zacchaeus? No, they complain, they grumble, they whine. It's part of our Adamic nature to be upset when good things happen to other people.
I don't get it. You know, it's a struggle even as believers. Why aren't we more rejoicing over the good things that happen in people's lives? Why would we ever be affronted or offended or upset?
Why do we have that mindset? Well, if I don't get good things, then nobody should get good things. Why is there that pervasive spirit of envy that fills the hearts of people? Well, that's precisely what they're doing.
I didn't come to call the righteous. These are righteous men in their own eyes. These are the deceived and deluded, the proud and the arrogant, the self-sufficient and the independent, the ones engaged in ritual purity and in ceremonial cleanliness who will have no concern whatsoever for image bearers that are suffering under sin. That's who Jesus says.
I didn't come to call that. Praise, I thank Thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, Matthew 11, 25, but Thou didst reveal them unto babes. That's the next clause. Notice what he says.
I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So they come, they say, why is he sitting with these sinners at this feast? He says, well, they're sick and I'm the doctor. Also, the prophet said that this is the way we're supposed to function and operate.
You guys need to go and learn what this means. He goes, well, this is the mission. This is why I came. I came not first and foremost to start a new religion.
I didn't come first and foremost to set forth morality, though he does those things. I'm not diminishing that. But why does Jesus come to this world? To save sinners.
And notice what he says here. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners, no, to repentance. In Matthew 1.21, the very announcement of the coming King, it says, You shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from what? From their sin.
He doesn't save them to continue in sin. He doesn't save them so that they'll continue in sin that grace may abound. He comes to save them from their sin. And the same thing is true here.
He says, I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners. To what? To repentance. They can no longer go on thinking their own thoughts.
They can never go on raising their fists of rebellion against God. They can't go on pursuing their own lusts and their own carnality. But rather He has called them unto repentance. So it's faith in Jesus Christ and repentance unto life.
That's the emphasis in the gospel narratives. Matthew 4 and the preaching of John the Baptist, Jesus and John the Baptist, how do they announce the coming of the kingdom of God? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And that's Christ's emphasis here.
He didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. He came to save them from their sins, not so that they'll continue in their sins. Now, there is remaining corruption. We still have that battle.
We still do the things that we ought not to do. There is forgiveness with God that He may be feared. But again, the overarching trajectory of the life of God's people ought to be one wherein we pursue a life that is pleasing in the sight of God. Our lives must adorn the doctrine of God our Savior, according to Titus 1.
That's the emphasis of our beloved Savior in this section.
Application: Marks of Discipleship
Now, I want to close with a few thoughts. A bit broader than just our passage. When I preach this, I dealt with discipleship as a whole. I kind of want to smuggle some of that in right now.
First of all, with reference to discipleship, that means following Jesus. That's the language that Jesus issues. He says to Matthew, follow me, follow me. That means follow him, doesn't it?
It's pretty obvious in the text. Now in this situation, it meant that he left all, he arose, and he followed him. There was a physical proximity that Matthew could actually obtain near Jesus. So we don't have that physical proximity.
It's not that Jesus comes to the door and says to this mass, follow me, and then we walk down Wellington, we sort of make our way, you know, onto Yale and we go down to, no, no, no, that's not the way it is. But following Jesus in the first place means we believe the gospel. We hear the voice of the Savior and we respond. And if we're going to be Matthew-like, we respond immediately.
We don't wait till tomorrow. We don't wait till this afternoon. We don't wait until we're 50 or 60 or 70 or 80. We respond by God's grace immediately to the Savior we believe.
Secondly, discipleship means repentance. Again, that's the emphasis that Jesus highlights. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. So when we follow Jesus, that means we're leaving something behind.
When we follow Jesus, that means we repented of other stuff. When we follow Jesus, that means we're not going the opposite direction if we're supposed to go down to Wellington, get on Yale, and then go down to Vedder. The way to follow Jesus doesn't mean going this way on Wellington, going then, I think, to Asheville and back around to Chilliwack Mountain. That's not what it means.
Repentance means to follow Jesus. That's conspicuous in the passage, isn't it? He left all. He arose and he followed him.
He didn't grab all of his idols. He didn't grab all of his stuff. He didn't load down his pockets and say, well, I'm going to have this for myself in secret when the master's not looking. I'm going to bow to my mammon, and I'm going to give it religious worship.
He doesn't do that. So many of us do that. Part of following the gospel of our Lord Jesus, or part of following Jesus, is the faith, looking unto Jesus in faith, and repentance, leaving sin, leaving it behind. Thirdly, he rejoices in the Savior.
You ever notice that in Christianity, God commands us to be happy? I don't get that. I don't know a lot about other religions, admittedly, but I don't know. You see some of these others, they don't look happy.
There's a particular ritual that is done, and I want to say it's Buddhism. I think it's Buddhism. It's outlawed in many places, but in one particular country, it's just a vicious vile sort of rite that they practice where they put needles through their, like big needles, like what you would do a shish kebab on, through their cheeks, and they hang things on this, and then they walk however many miles in the heat of the day. That doesn't look fun to me.
It just doesn't. At all. Whatsoever. The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, tells us to rejoice always.
Again, I will say to you, rejoice! God takes our joy seriously. This is what happens when Matthew is converted. I doubt that, you know, when he got to the church the following Sunday and the pastor called out nine bravo, that's military, it's fanatics, it's so that we don't think of B as a C or a D, right?
You just kind of mumble it out just to kind of get the bare basics in. Open the book, stand up, open the diaphragm and sing because God has saved us. It's joy, isn't it? Happiness.
You're allowed to be happy in here. I, you know, have heard in the past that I'm a killer of joy. It's not a pleasant thing, but I give you authorization to be joyful and happy in the Savior. Don't just go through motions.
God says, I desire mercy rather than sacrifice. I desire the heart. I want the external, but I want the internal. So there's a joy.
Notice as well, he pursues the kingdom first. These all come right out of Matthew's gospel. What's Matthew tell us in Matthew 6.33? But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
So when Matthew is writing these things, as Matthew is recording the words of the Savior, I would imagine there's this sort of, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Matthew evidences that in his own life. He seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and trusts that these things will be added to him later.
He lost his job as a tax collector. I mean, even if, you know, who would want to hire him at that point? He comes to your business and say, I'm out of work. Will you hire me?
No, you used to steal my money. Why would I hire you? It cost him everything. As well, he sees Christ as altogether lovely and chief among 10,000.
He's like the father in this. What's the father say concerning Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. It's an unfortunate reality.
In the last several years, persons have gone to that Old Testament book called the Song of Solomon, and they have turned it into a marriage manual. They have turned it into a sexual relationship manual. It is a picture of God and His bride. It's a picture of Jesus and His church.
When the bride says, He is altogether lovely and chief among 10,000, that's Jesus Christ. That's what it is for the blood bot. As well, he follows Christ perseveringly until the end. This actually comes out of our Wednesday night studies, to be honest with you.
Abraham was an incredible man. Abraham was an absolutely incredible man. Why? Because he served an incredible God.
How does somebody go through the sorts of things that Abraham and Sarah went through? Unless God is there. How does Paul the Apostle go through what he goes through according to 2 Corinthians chapter 11? Unless God is with him.
There is this perseverance. There is this determination. We're not led astray by every wind of doctrine. We're not led astray by the absence of religious frames.
We're not led astray by anything. We focus upon the Lord Christ by the grace of God and we're tenacious. We're like a dog with a bone. We're not going to let go.
That's just it. We're not going to let go. I think it was Luther. If Christ pointed a sword at me, I would still come to him.
It's like the disciples in John 6. After all the people that had eaten their belly's worth of food had heard the hard teachings of Jesus Christ, it says that many fell away. Many stopped following him at that point. And then Jesus looks at his disciples and says, do you also want to stop following me?
And what does Simon Peter say? Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. In other words, you can't get rid of us that easy.
Lord, we are with you.
Challenges Facing Disciples
Now, in terms of challenges facing disciples, I want to be honest. If you're not a believer here this morning, notice what I have not said. Come to Jesus and everything will be rosy in your life. Your bank account will grow.
You won't get sick. It's amazing because the colds and the flus that are going around now are like three months. You're still going to get that as blood bots. You're still going to get that.
There's challenges facing the disciples of Christ. There's hardships, there's afflictions. There's an instance in Matthew chapter 8 where the disciples are in the boat with Jesus and a storm comes, a storm that threatens their safety. These are experienced fishermen who had been on the Sea of Galilee on a number of occasions, and yet this particular storm was so nasty that they feared they would be thrown off and die.
We think, well, Jesus is in the boat, there's not going to be any storms. Jesus is in the boat and there's storms. It is a faulty mindset to associate temporal blessedness as believers. There is, God's good, we work hard, he blesses, there's a lot of niceties that he gives to us, but the fundamental purpose for which Jesus came was to save us from our sins.
We consider David a few weeks ago in 2 Samuel 12. He repents, God forgives him, but what happens? The sword never departs from his house. He still knows temporal consequences associated with his sin against the living and true God.
So in terms of discipleship, it's not the case that if you come to Jesus today, you're gonna only ever smile, you're only gonna be happy, you're only gonna get good reports from your doctor, you're only gonna get raises, you're only gonna get new cars, you're only gonna, that's just a life from the pit of hell. It's unfortunate that so many people like that message or want that message, but there are troubles. He not only experiences trials, even though he is with Jesus, but he still even struggles with sin. It's an interesting thing.
I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Yeah, He does. He saves us by His grace. He forgives us.
He cleanses us. He gives us a righteousness that avails with the Father. But there's still this struggle. There's still this remaining corruption.
There's still Romans 7. There's still Galatians chapter 5. There's still Simon Peter in Matthew chapter 26 denying his master to a slave girl. I don't say that to encourage you to go out and sin, but brethren, there is struggles in the Christian life.
But he will never be in this life, or he will never be in this life what he ought to be, but he should always be thankful that he's not what he once was. This is Newton. John Newton, that hymn, Amazing Grace, you've all heard it, you've all sang it, hopefully you all love it. John Newton was a pretty bad dude before he got converted.
I think we just have this idea, you know, in Luke 15, then all the tax collectors and sinners came near to him. Well, what are the sinners there? They're like us. You know, John Owen, Volume 6, probably the most excellent Puritan treatment on sin and temptation and all that sort of stuff.
Do you think Owen learned all that by watching all the subjects in his church? Do you think Paul came to the conviction of Romans 7 and Galatians 5 because of the rabble around him? We have remaining corruption. We aren't what we ought to be.
We're not the sorts of persons that do adorn consistently the doctrine that we believe. But Newton, that man who was a wretch, that man who was saved, at one point in his life says, I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, but I am not what I hope to be, or I am not what I hope to be in another world. But still I am, I'm sorry, I butchered this. Let me start again.
I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be in another world. But still, I am not what I once used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.
That's where we find ourselves, isn't it? That's where we find ourselves. And we praise God Almighty for that. If you're not a believer here this morning, I know that if you attend this church, you hear this hopefully every week, Please hear this this week.
Hear the words of the Savior himself. You're sick and you need a doctor and Christ is that doctor. God Almighty upbraiding his own people says, I desire mercy. Perhaps you've been exposed to that kind of teaching where God is just this hard tyrant that nobody can ever come near.
I desire mercy, God says to the people of Israel. So the prophet Ezekiel, he says, why will you die? Turn and live. And Christ is a Savior for sinners.
Again, any preaching that would diminish the power of Christ's words at this point is bad preaching. Because the Savior says, come. Do you notice that in the prophet Isaiah? Over and over and over and over again in Isaiah 55, is God through the prophet say, stay, don't come near me.
I'm holy, you're wicked, I don't want you near. He says, come. Come, come, those who have no money, come buy and eat. He prescribes everything good for the needy soul.
He says the water of the gospel is refreshing. The milk of the gospel is nourishing. The wine of the gospel is exhilarating. Everything a sinner needs is in that gospel.
Don't tarry, don't wait, don't stay, but rather, with Matthew, rise up, leave everything, and follow Jesus Christ.
Closing Prayer
Well, let us close in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the gospel of our salvation. We thank you for the Lord Jesus, that great physician for souls, that one who expresses and evidences and shows forth the mercy of God Almighty, and that one whose mission was to save his people from their sins.
I pray, God, that as this gospel goes out throughout the world today, it would be attended by the power of the Holy Spirit and that many would come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Do that as well in our place here. We pray for your blessing upon sinners and open their hearts and open their eyes to the truth that Christ is altogether lovely and chief among 10,000. And we pray this in his most blessed name.
Amen. We'll close by singing praise to our God on page