All right, y'all, Well, today's scripture reading is coming out
of Matthew Chapter 9. Matthew Chapter 9.
If you're using the Bible in the seat in front of you, it's on
page 763. We're starting Matthew Chapter
9, starting in verse 9. As Jesus passed on from there,
he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth.
And he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him.
And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax
collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and
his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this,
they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax
collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said,
those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. Go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners. This is God's word.
Good morning Port City family and friends.
How are we doing? Good.
Well, my name is Ron. I am one of the pastors here and
it is a delight for me to be able to walk with you and and to
teach guys Word this morning. I want to start off with the
question, have you ever had sort of an experience that turned out
completely different than what you thought?
One of those moments where something happens and you're
like, well, that's not at all what I thought would happen.
Well, I had one of those moments recently.
I had a, an appointment at the cardiologist.
So my primary doctor wanted me to go to the cardiologist
because when I'm sleeping, sometimes my heartbeat is goes
under 40 beats per per minute. All right.
And so they wanted me to just check it out, make sure
everything was good. And so I am in the cardiologist
appointment and I'm there and the nurse comes in and she says
we're going to do an EKG. And I had heard that, but I had
no idea, no concept of what that meant.
So I began to prepare for the absolute worst.
And so she begins to like clip all of the put all these
stickers and these clips on my chest and I'm like, I'm about to
be in like shock and like all kinds of pain.
I am nervous. And then she like clips, clips,
clips. And then as soon as she gets
done, she's like, all right, we're done.
I'm like, wait, what? Like you spent all this time
clipping me, putting all these stickers and the moment she got
done, I mean, it was over. And I'm like, wow, that was not
at all what I thought it was. B No shocks, no pain, no
nothing. All right, maybe you've had a
similar experience where you've gone to a restaurant that you
heard was really, really good and you got there and you're
like, Nah, this isn't it. This is not what I heard.
It was going to be like, or, or maybe you tried something new
for the first time and it was like it, it, it was better than
you thought. You're like, man, I, I could do
that again. Well, in our passage today,
there's certainly a similar experience where there is the,
the Pharisees, they, they certainly had an idea of what
the Messiah would be like and what his mission was.
And so there was this moment where really what they saw was
very different than what they saw Jesus do.
In other words, his, their expectations of who he was and
what he would do, it shattered what he actually, well, what he
did actually shattered those expectations.
And so as we are taking notes here, here's sort of the main
idea for our text. It says the main idea is that
the King of Mercy calls sinners, communes with sinners, and
cleanses sinners. Now I chose to use the word
sinners because the text does. I I understand that, you know,
for for many of us, maybe if we are don't have a church
background, to be called a Sinner is maybe abrasive and and
what we're going to talk about that.
But so to define sinners as the Bible does it just to be a
Sinner just means that your, your life misses the mark.
It misses the mark of God's standard of perfection.
And so rather than living in God's world his way according to
his will, according to his sort of standards and character and
demands, you sort of choose to live your own way.
And so Matthew Chapter 9, verses 9 through 13.
What it does not do is it does not create a category of good
people and a category of bad people, but rather what it does
is it shows us that God's mercy desires to reach all of those
people, especially those who recognize their need.
Because we're going to see that there's going to be some people
who did not think that they were in need.
And I bet there's some people in here today that they think their
life is pretty good. I know if I'm being honest,
sometimes I struggle to get a sense of my need for God.
And so my hope is that by looking at Matthew's call by
Jesus that we would see that God, he really is not building a
Kingdom based on status and performance, but rather on mercy
and grace. And so if you are in here and
maybe you're like, Nope, I actually, I sense my need.
Maybe you're feeling broken. Maybe there's some difficult
things that you are walking through this morning.
I hope that you would be encouraged because God desires
to extend his mercy, his grace, his love to you for whatever it
is that you are in and walking through.
And so before we continue, let's let's just pray together and
let's dive into the text. Father, what?
What we are not. Father, would you make us?
Would what we have not? Father, would you give us what
we know not? Father, would you please teach
us? And Father, would the words of
my mouth and the meditations of my heart, Father, would it be
pleasing and acceptable to you? God, you are our rock, You are
our Redeemer, and we need you. This morning it's in your
beautiful name we pray. Amen.
Hey, so if you are new with us, we've been walking through this
series for the last seven weeks called The Authority of the
King. And so up into this point we
have seen Jesus. He has displayed his authority
over disease, over demons, over even nature.
And so last week, Pastor Will, he walked us through the
beginning of Chapter 9 and we see that Jesus healed A
paralytic man and forgive, forgave him of his sin.
And so that is where we find ourselves today.
So first point that we are going to see is the mercy the King of
mercy calls sinners. So looking at verse 9, it says
as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew
sitting at the text booth and he said to him, follow me, and he
rose and followed him. And so as we look at these
verses, we see Jesus begin to do something that was completely
unexpected, just like my experience at the cardiologist.
It wasn't what I thought it would be.
Jesus's actions here is not what the people thought he would do.
See, because Jesus was a rabbi, he was that means teacher.
And so somebody in his position it, they would look after or go
and find people that were the most gifted, right?
So rabbis, they were looking for the most skilled, sort of the
brightest apprentices to follow them because they're following
would say something about them, right?
And so they were looking for the elite, all right.
And so to follow a rabbi really was based on being selected.
It was based on it was being earned based on sort of your
skill, All right. And Jesus does the complete
opposite here. In calling Matthew, Jesus wasn't
concerned about his reputation, but rather about what he was
going to do in his life to clean up their reputation.
So the first person we see Jesus call is a guy named Matthew.
Matthew. Matthew is a Jewish tax
collector. And so tax collectors are seen
as hated. They are greedy traders because
it is their jobs to collect taxes from their very own people
on behalf of the Roman Empire, the very people that were
oppressing them. And so many times these tax
collectors would be stationed along trade routes and people
would come and they would not only tax them, but they would
overtax them. And so in order to make money,
all right, And so these people were seen as greedy.
They would again betray their own people for the sake of
wealth, for the sake of, yeah, getting getting rich.
And so to society, these tax collectors were despised.
They were certainly unclean because of their dealings with
Gentiles. They were unfit for for worship.
And so again, this goes against all eyes, right?
God calling this type of person was certainly not what the
Pharisees or anybody at that time would have thought that
Jesus would have called. But God didn't see them in their
circumstances. God didn't see just their
reputation as they were. God saw beyond that.
He saw beyond and really not just he didn't just see a cheat,
but he saw somebody who would be changed by his grace, what he
would do in their lives. And so Matthew calls them that
word calls means to summon, to invite into sort of a
relationship. And so these were the very
people that were outcasts, but Jesus sees them again.
I love that. He said he saw that he saw them
and he invited them. He called them, He said follow
me. See, his call showed that sin
didn't exclude any exclude them from God's Kingdom.
It was the very reason that he came.
So Jesus is redefining what it means to be called by God
because the Pharisees in the religious elite, they thought,
you know, those who were true to, to God would be those who
were doing all the things they thought the the ones that would,
you know, that were worthy of being followers of God, of Jesus
would be those that were the elite.
And so I, I don't know about you, but I remember when I was
young and you know, I was playing kickball or, or
dodgeball. I know I hated to be picked
last. Like I just, you know, I, I, you
know, I'm like, man, I know my arm's not that strong, like I
can't throw it, but please don't I, I don't want to be the last
one picked in sort of that type of environment.
Often I was, but nevertheless, right, you know, in in this
situation, right, Matthew being picked last.
Imagine sort of, you know, you're the weak link and the the
person comes up to you says, hey, you know what, you're the
captain now you get to pick the team.
You know, that's kind of what we see here.
Like Matthew was the last person that anyone would have thought
that Jesus would have called to follow him.
But yet Jesus does and again, it is to communicate, to convey, to
show us that Jesus Kingdom is not about recruiting the most
impressive. It is about redeeming those that
are outcast, redeeming those that are not fit for the the the
job. So if you again, if you are
thinking to yourself like I'm not, maybe I'm not the, the the
most eloquent or, or I can't, you know, there's things I can't
do or, or you know, I have insecurities of my own.
What whatever those things are, God, you know, when we consider
Matthew's story, God certainly would choose someone who the
world despises again, and he does this all throughout
Scripture. We see God delight in choosing
people that the world discards. Again, the world does it prizes
success and status and performance.
And again, we, if we're not careful, we can begin to desire
and to look at people in light of those same, you know,
definitions. But you know, he call somebody
who seemed least deserving, and that's what he does in his
mercy. And so again, I love the way
first Corinthians 127 it reminds us that God uses the the what
the world considers foolish or weak to shame the strong and the
wise, revealing that his Kingdom is not built on merit or
achievement, but on grace alone on grace alone, regardless of
what we we've done last year, last month, last night, like he
our past does not qualify us from God's grace.
And and we see that in Matthews story again we see Matthew
responding by just following him.
He he leaves his tax booth and he immediately follows Jesus.
And so, you know, again, I think you know, for us, right,
repentance means again, following God, beginning to
agree with with God about who we are with about God as it relates
to our sin. And I love again, Matthew's
response is immediate, right? There was no tryouts, no resume,
no conditions, qualifications, none of that.
He just enters life with God, not by his effort, but by God's
calling. And he is just obedient to that.
And that term to follow is a it's a present imperative, which
just means continue following, right?
And so again, this call to follow was not like a A1 time
decision, but it was a lifelong commitment, a lifelong
allegiance to follow, follow Jesus.
And that's important for us because the call for the
believer is the same call every single day.
It's to take up our cross and to follow Jesus.
Again, having a moment is is great, but to truly walk with
God, it requires a daily recognizing who God is in
submitting to his reality. And so you know, the question of
whether or not we are following is is not the question is not
whether or not we are following. It is what we are following who
or what we are following right. We we all are following someone
somewhere. The question really is, is based
on what we're following, where is it taking us?
I, I was thinking about a couple months ago when we were going to
shop for our kids for the start of the school year, we were
going to go to Once Upon a Child and we were going to go to this
new location. And because we hadn't been there
before, so we put it into the GPS and we followed the
directions and it takes us to the middle of nowhere.
And I'm like, there's no what's upon a child.
That's why we had never been there, because it didn't exist.
And so, you know, again, the reality is, is like we are
following something. And the thing that we're
following, we think is going to lead us to something.
That's how sin works. It promises arrival to a
destination, but yet it leads to emptiness over and over and over
again. And so again, the question is
again, who am I following? What am I following?
Only following Jesus leads to life, only following Jesus least
to life. Let's continue on in verse 10 it
says and as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold,
many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with
Jesus and his disciples. I love that Matthew meets Jesus,
gets this invitation to follow him and throws a party, invites
everybody all this tax collectors and friends and he he
throws this party. I thought this was was really
cool. We, we, I want to throw up a
picture. This idea of reclining at the
table was is different than just having somebody over for a meal.
I need you to see these brothers are laying down while they I
like to lay down and eat too. And you know, they're laying
down there. I mean, on one arm they're
reaching and and sharing food and there is a very intimate
sort of time like, you know, this, this is a intimate
experience. So to recline at the table in
the 1st century, it's, it's sort of a big deal, right?
It means you can go and take that, that picture down now, you
know, to, to recline at table really does.
It's a sign of friendship, of deep fellowship, of acceptings
of belonging. And so again, Jesus is, you
know, didn't just call him, but he communes with the tax
collectors and the sinners. And again, it just shows that
God's, you know, his, his Kingdom is open to the very
people that everyone else had written off.
Everyone else had. Again, it showed a love, a care,
a concern. Jesus is, you know, he is
fellowshipping with them it there there's a bit of an
agreement when they are together and the Pharisees they see this
and they have their like this is not what I thought moment all
right, this is not what I thought was going to happen.
And how did they respond? They were outraged.
They they in verse 11 it says when the Pharisees saw this,
they said to the disciples notice they didn't go directly
to Jesus right. Why does your teacher eat with
the tax collectors and sinners? Because this was an offense to
the Pharisees, Because this was sort of shattering the the
religious culture that they were trying to create.
These people were morally corrupt.
They were jacked up. They were the ones most unlikely
to be used. Why is Jesus communing with
them? See, the Pharisees, you know,
they expected that the Messiah would be ones who would
separate, who would maybe crush the sinful and support the
righteous. Their view of holiness means
meant to stay away from the unclean.
But Jesus revealed that true holiness meant moving toward the
broken. He didn't come to protect his
purity from the sinners, but he came to share his mercy with
them. And every person at the table
was undeserving, every single one of them.
And yet every single one of them was invited.
That's what the King of Mercy does.
He welcomes the unworthy, the Pharisees.
They wanted a party of the elite, the best of the best, the
cream of the crop. But Jesus wanted his table to to
look more like a family reunion. Awkward conversations, messy
people, someone always asking some dumb questions, right?
But that's where his grace shines the brightest.
It is in the middle of the mess. And see the Pharisees, they
measured righteousness by sort of a distance from sin, but
Jesus measured it by compassion towards sinners.
Again, the Pharisees, they measured righteousness by
distance from sin, but Jesus measured it by compassion
towards sinners. And they could not imagine a
Messiah like this that that would commune with the least of
these. And but that's what he came to
do. And so this again, tension sort
of sets up the the heart of the gospel.
See, Jesus, he is not defiled by imperfect people, but he
cleanses them by his presence. The Pharisees couldn't
understand him. So Jesus went on further to
explain his mission point #3 the King of mercy cleanses sinners.
Verses 12 and 13. But when he heard it, he said,
those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who
are sick. Go and learn what this means.
I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to
call the righteous, but sinners. See, Jesus continues to.
He's explaining his missions to the Pharisees with a clear
analogy of the physician and the sick.
A doctor doesn't, you know, get repulsed or avoid the sick.
He goes to them and that's in the physician is the person who
heals, the one who brings about wholeness and restoration.
And the sick is those who are bad off, who are ill, who are in
distress, who are in need. And Jesus says I am the
physician of souls. I came to those for those who
know that they are sick guys, remember the the you know the
story that about the cardiologist.
Well, when I was at that, when the doctor finally did come in
with my EKG results, he, he was real casual.
He asked me a bunch of questions like you got this and this and
this and he like ratted them off real quick.
I was like Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope, Nope.
And he was like not concerned at all.
And he's like, man, I don't even feel the need to like run any
tests. I'm sure he would have responded
differently had I said yes to all those questions.
But you see, you know, again, those who are sick, the, the
doctor moves toward them. But he's like, man, you're,
you're fine. You know, like I, I hear you've
been running a lot. It's common for runners to, you
know, their heart rate to be low.
But you know, so he was not concerned.
And so the Pharisees, you know, they were sitting in the waiting
room kinda like, I'm fine, like I'm good.
I don't really need, like, I'm not in need.
But they were everything but. And Jesus as the great
physician, he was ready to heal them, but they refused to admit
that they were in need. And again, this is back to kind
of the the fact that this can be offensive because most people
are fine admitting that they need a little help.
Most people are fine with admitting they need a little
coaching. But the idea that they are sick,
that they are maybe beyond that, like dead in their sin, it can
be hard to swallow. And it certainly was for the
Pharisees. See, they thought they were
healthy, they thought they were righteous.
They were fine because of their adherence to the law, but Jesus
tries to, you know, even extend grace and mercy to them by going
to Hosea 6HE quotes Hosea 6/6 and again, they knew they knew
the, the, the word. They knew the, the Old
Testament. And so he quotes Hosea 6 says he
says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.
See, in a Hosea's day, they were keeping all of the rituals, but
yet their hearts were far from God.
They performed a lot of religious activity with no
compassion. And that's exactly what the
Pharisees were doing. They were keeping the law but
missing God's heart and God isn't he's not impressed by our
spiritual checklist, our church attendance, our spiritual
disciplines. Those things matter.
Don't don't mishear me, but without hearts of mercy.
Jesus is saying you've studied, you know all of these things,
but you have missed the point. I love Jesus response.
You know, just real petty like you, you know all of these
things. You you, you might have
memorized the tour by that time you were 12, but you missed the
whole point of the scriptures. He says go and learn y'all
again, it is it's possible for for us to miss again.
It's not again they thought based.
This is what the the Pharisees got right.
They got right that Jesus's standard was perfection.
So they were trying to live up to the law.
They thought and they thought that they could obtain it.
They but they got it wrong because they thought they could
obtain it based on how they lived and and didn't need His
grace and mercy. Friends, God is not impressed by
outward religion if it lacks inward compassion.
He wants a heart that reflects mercy.
The Pharisees, they weren't truly righteous, they just
thought they were and so Jesus reminds them in US why he came.
For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.
Again, He is not saying you are righteous.
No, He is actually saying This is why I came.
I came to save those who knew that they or who knows that they
are sinners. The Pharisees, again, they did
not think that they need it mercy.
They thought they could earn it. They didn't think that they
could that they need it. Grace they thought they could
earn based on their performance. And this is the heartbeat of the
Gospel. The king of mercy didn't come to
congratulate the righteous. He came to rescue the guilty,
and his rescue mission would lead him all the way to the
cross. See, when Jesus called Matthew,
he knew what it would cost. The king of mercy would have to
bear the penalty of sin so that he could be set free on the
cross. The sinless King took the place
of the guilty, and so he was the one who was cast out so we could
be brought in. He was the one who absorbed our
sickness so that we could be healed.
He was the one who endured rejection so that we could be
treated as the sons and daughters of God.
And so in this passage we meet a Savior who turns, who uses mercy
to turn the world upside down. He calls the unworthy, He
fellowships with the unclean, He heals the broken with his
presence. He extends mercy to all who need
it. So as we seek to begin to apply
this passage to our lives, here's here's a couple things
that we can. Here's how we can apply it.
Friends, remember where he found you.
We must not forget where he found us.
Like Matthew, like we were all sitting in our own text booth,
whatever that might be for you of sin and shame.
I know for me it was just a very prideful thinking that I could
be good enough on my own. Or maybe it was a lifestyle of
sin that just if you know, this is what the good life is.
But Jesus, he saw us, he called us and he made us his own.
And you know, I love, you know, Matthew's response, even what it
says, it says and he rose, right, That that that word rose
is the exact same verb that was used to describe Jesus's
resurrection. There was a resurrection that
happened. There was a new life that was
sprung forth when Jesus called Matthew and he responded in
obedience. And so that is again, we're
going to be celebrating A baptism even today.
And, and again, that is what baptism shows.
It shows that, you know, when we, when we agree with God about
our sin, when we confess it, when we place our faith in him,
the old man is gone, the new has come.
And so baptism, when you go under and come up, it symbolizes
this reality that has happened. A new there's a new creation, a
new creature is being formed by the Spirit.
And so other ways we can apply this.
Believers, let's share the table.
Share the table. The mercy we've received should
reflect, be reflected in how we treat others, especially the
ones that the world overlooks. Also, let us reflect his heart.
If our King desires mercy and not sacrifice, then his Church
should be marked by mercy and our words and our actions and
our attitudes. We should reflect His
compassion. We should be friends of sinners,
not arrogant, prideful people who judge others because of what
they're going through or walking in.
It should be our desire to connect imperfect people to our
great Savior, as He has been to us.
Should we be to others. See, Matthew begins the story by
sitting alone in a tax booth, and he ends the story sitting at
the table. I love that.
That's what mercy does. It moves us from isolation to
invitation. See, my, my heart, when I went
to the cardiologist, it was fine.
Y'all, don't be worried. My heart's good.
It's pumping fine, all right. But even though it's physically
fine, it's spiritually sick. As is the diagnosis for all of
us. Because I know the evil in my
own heart. And we are.
Our hearts are deceitful, they are wicked, they are sick, Yet
the King of mercy, He moves toward the sick and not away
from them. He didn't come for people who
think that they are fine. He came so that they could
experience His grace and mercy. And His mercy is still the cure
today. Don't think that you got to
clean yourself up in order to come to Goddess.
It's it's almost like trying to, you know, perform your own
surgery after watching a YouTube video like I'm, he's like, put
the scalpel down. No, don't do it.
I got you. My mercy.
God calls, he calls imperfect people.
And even in our walk with Christ, I want to say this
because I, I feel this is important.
You know, even in our walk with Christ, we remain imperfect.
It's often times we, you know, the ones who've been walking
with God, try to maybe hide our imperfections.
Oh, we try to act as if we got it all together.
No, that's not at all. Listen, if you are Christian and
you're still struggling with XI need you to know that's why he
came. Yeah, he he didn't, he didn't
abstract you from. You're not going to walk
perfectly with him. You might still be struggling
with X sin for the rest of your life, but he can handle it.
He's more powerful than the sin that you are struggling with.
And so don't think to yourself, well, I again, I need to get rid
of this before I can actually be used by God.
Now, of course, this isn't a pass to say, Hey, continue in
your sin. There is a, a way to sort of,
you know, be a Christian and be a hypocrite that is
intentionally trying to live a double life.
But that is not to say that you can't struggle with sin.
We are, you know, there is no good people and bad people.
There is bad people in Jesus and we're going to struggle with sin
until he comes back. And so again, let us be freed.
You know, like if there is sin that we need to confess, do
confess it. There is power in forgiven or in
confession and He works and heals us through that.
But also don't get it twisted that don't think that because
you are struggling with eggs, you are disqualified.
Again, He's not called you because you were ever qualified.
You're not qualified, never will be qualified, but He desires to
use you. And so again, the King of mercy,
he is calling us, and his call is not to the righteous, but
it's the sinners. By his grace, Jesus calls
sinners not to clean themselves up, but to come as they are.
And one day the King of mercy will sit at an eternal table,
the merit supper of the Lamb. And so let's throw our mercy,
throw ourselves upon the mercy of God today.
Will you guys pray? Pray with me, King Jesus.
God, I thank you that you are the King of mercy.
You are the one who calls God. You are the one who heals.
You are the one who invites us to your table.
God forgive us for the times that we have acted like
Pharisees, that we didn't need you.
Instead of following your heart, we sought to try to earn
acceptance based on our performance.
God make us a people who desire mercy, desire to reflect mercy.
God give us compassion for a broken world.
God help us to to know to see our need is great, but to see
that our Savior is even greater. Father, I pray for those of us
who got it as we have listen, maybe there are sins that have
come to mind that have not been confessed.
Lord, I do pray that we would find a brother or sister and
that we would confess. But God I, I, I pray that that
that, that that would not lead us to shame or to guilt, but it
would to just allow us to be throw ourselves upon the mercy
of God, knowing that that is why you came.
And that God you, you meet us where we are, but you don't, we
don't stay there. God you, you change us.
God you, you make us more and more like Jesus by the power of
the spirit. And so, Father, I pray that we
would lean into that and God, I pray that as as a church port
city, God would we be ones who reflect the mercy of God and our
relationships with coworkers and friends and neighbors.
Father, would we not be one that look at people's sin and say how
could you or how could they? But God would.
We would look upon them with compassion and God that we would
seek to connect them to our Savior.
We love you, we praise you, sing your beautiful name.
Amen.