Never Too Far to Follow | Matthew 9:9–13

Intro: Thank you Leighton for leading us tonight. Thank you all for being here. If you have a Bible this evening we are going to be in Matthew 9:9-13. Is there anybody in your schools that you think is too bad for church. Don’t answer that, but do you ever have that feeling. When I was in youth group there was a boy that had come some when we were in elementary school, but this kid as he got older had a terrible reputation. Everybody knew all the behavioral problems he had. Well, one Wednesday night we showed up to church and he was there. Everyone was shocked. We all didn’t know how to react. Not many people had much to do with him. There was one mom that was thinking about finding a new church. And, he was not a saint in the years that he came on Wednesday nights. But a lot of our attitudes towards him were not good. We saw him almost as somebody that shouldn’t be there. And I still to this day grieve the way I acted towards that kid over the several years he came. I wish so badly I handled it differently. I wish that because as we see in today’s text, that is not how Jesus would have us act. What we see today is that Jesus did not come to affirm the righteous, but to seek and save the lost. The three applications we see in this text is to never see anybody as being too far from God, introduce the people we love to Jesus and mirror the heart of Jesus. As we do every Sunday night, could you please stand in the honor of reading God’s Word.

Matthew 9:9:.

Exposition: We start with verse 9. Matthew 9:9 “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.” If you remember back to three weeks ago, when we last met, we talked about when Jesus healed the paralytic after coming back to Capernaum which was the region he based his ministry out of. So he leaves there and he walks up to a tax booth and there is a man named Matthew there, and Jesus tells Matthew to follow him. If this seems like a big deal to you, it’s probably just because you have been in church enough to know that tax collectors were not very well thought of in this society. But it is probably even worse than you think.

Explanation: tax collectors were the most hated people in the Jewish society. T They were thought of as being even lower than the prostitutes because they were traitors to their people and their religions. They were working to help fill the coffers of the occupying Roman government. Not only were they collecting taxes, there was an unspoken agreement with the Roman government that the tax collectors could charge more than what the people actually owed as a way to make their own money. If say I was a tax collector and ____________ owed me a tax of five dollars, I could charge ______ ten dollars and keep the excess. That’s how the tax collectors made their money. They were working for the Romans to help fund the occupation of Israel and they were betraying their own people in the process. If there were people that owed money, they would send somebody to rough people up until they paid up. Also, because of their interactions with the pagan Romans, they would have been unclean and unable to enter the synagoge on sabbath, or to go sacrifice at the temple. Not only were they cut of from their people on a nationalistic sense, they were cut off from their religions as well. Now Matthew, would have been a tax collector who manned the tax booth and was face to face with the Jewish people the most. Therefore, he would have been the most hated. And it is him that Jesus went to and said, follow me.

Application: Why, why did Jesus go to somebody that had done so much wrong and was so far from God. Because that’s what Jesus does. He goes to the lost. Jesus doesn’t see somebody as being too far gone. He doesn’t see somebody as not being able to be a disciple of Jesus. Even Matthew, who most likely had done all the things that were normal for tax collectors to do, he went to him and said, “Follow me.” Maybe you are somebody that you look at the sin in your past or your present, and you think you are the exception. You have heard that Jesus offers grace. You have hears that he cares for everyone, but you think, that maybe you are the exception. No, there is nobody that would have bee further from God, than Matthew, and yet Jesus went and told him to follow him. If Jesus can do that for Matthew, he can do that too.

Exposition: But verse 9 doesn’t just say that Jesus told Jesus to follow Him. No, the text tells us that Matthew was obedient. Matthew got up and followed Jesus. Why? Why would somebody who was so far from Christ, and was probably making a pretty good living doing this, leave it all behind to follow Jesus.

Illustration: As you all know, I’m a girl dad. That means I watch a lot of princess movies. A lot. My favorite of all the princess movies is probably Tangled. I just think it’s hilarious. My favorite scene from the movie is when Flynn takes Rapunzel into the “Cuddly Ducking” which is actually a place filled with all these terrifying looking men. They all start to attack Flynn because he has a reward out for him from the Kingdom. But Rapunzel stops them and says that she has a dream. When she says this, they all start singing about how you wouldn’t know it to look at them, but they all have these dreams. And the premise of the song is that there is a lot more to them than the things they have done or than how this looks. This describes what was probably going on in Matthew.

Explanation: While Matthew had made himself a pariah to his people. He was still clearly very knowledgable of the Jewish scriptures. In his gospel, he quotes the old testament more than any other gospel writer. He probably was well aware of his sin and what he was doing wrong. Maybe he deep down hated what he had become. Where Capernaum was was on a great crossroads people were travelling on from all across the region. undoubtedly Matthew had heard about Jesus. Maybe he had heard about the miracles and the teachings and begun to think that sounded like the messiah. Or maybe he had not made that connection, but he could tell God’s favor was on Jesus. Maybe he had heard about Jesus healing the man that was paralyzed, and how Jesus said he did that to show he could forgive sins, and he was thinking about how he needed to have his sins forgiven. Whatever it was, in that moment when Jesus approached him, he was ready to be obedient.

Application: Maybe there are people in your life that you tend to think are too far gone. Maybe you look at their lives and you think there is no way they could know Jesus. What you don’t know, is what God may have already stirred up inside of them. What you don’t know is that person may be going through things that you have never known about them that has him or her ready to change course. What would happen if you went to that person and just befriended him or her. What would happen if you just asked them what they believed about Jesus and asked if you could share what you believe. I’m not naive enough to think that this is going to go well every time, but allow the Spirit to direct you to those who are ready to hear. Maybe they don’t receive Christ in that moment, but maybe you are part of that journey.

Transition: So Matthew gets up and follows Jesus. And we can see that Matthew was excited over what he had found because of what happens next.

Matthew 9:10.

Exposition:So after we read about Jesus calling Matthew and Matthew being obedient to that call, we read in verse 10, Matthew 9:10 “And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.” When you hear the word, “recline,” you think of somebody laid back in a chair with their feet propped up. But that’s not quite the image here. When people ate in this time period they didn’t sit at a table in a chair like we do today. They would lay on their sides, if I wanted to make y’all feel awkward I would imitate this. Instead I will show you a picture of how it kind of would have looked. The people would lay down, often on their side propped up on their arm, and the food would be in the middle of them. But that’s not the most important part. The important part of the verse is the last part. The part that is the most important is where we read, “behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.” Not only did Jesus call Matthew to follow him. All the sudden there are tax collectors and all sorts of other people from the community that the people would have thought as sinners that are there dining with Jesus. It actually wasn’t a coincidence that all these people were there. In fact, in Luke’s account of this event, he tells us that, Luke 5:29 “And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them.” So we see that Matthew didn’t just get home with Jesus and there were just a bunch of random people at his house. No, Matthew threw a party and invited other tax collectors and sinners to the party.

Explanation: Why? Why did Matthew invite these people to the party. Well think about it, he had ostracized himself from large chunks of society. He had ostracized himself from his society religiously by partnering with the Pagan Roman Empire. Not to mention, most the society would have seen him as as dishonest thief. “He’s a pretty good guy, he just tends to steal things, do things he shouldn’t and you probably shouldn’t trust him. But other than that, he’s great.” No, nobody does that. The only people that were left to be friends with somebody like Matthew were the people who society viewed the same way.

Application: But that brings up another question. Why did Matthew throw a party and invite these people when he knew Jesus was going to be there. It was because he wanted his friends to know Jesus. (pause for a few seconds) He wanted his friends to meet Jesus. This brings up our second application point tonight. We should follow Matthew’s example and introduce the people we love to Jesus. If those who do not know Jesus are lost, if they are living each day without a relationship with Jesus, if we know that they have no hope of eternity unless something changes in our lives while we by contrast know that our eternity is secure in Christ and we know that we live each day with a purpose. We live each day with the hope of heaven that one day we will leave this broken world and spend eternity with God in heaven, then it should bother us that our friends do not have that same purpose and hope. If Jesus is really who we say he is, that should lead us to want to see those we love meet and be in relationship with Jesus. And maybe you are thinking, I don’t know enough, I get too nervous to tell people about Jesus. You don’t have to be an expert. All you have to do is explain your story of how you came to know Christ and how Jesus makes a difference in your life now. All you have to do is explain to them four things, creation, fall, rescue, restoration. Creation that God created the world perfect but sin has corrupted the world and separated us from God. But God did not want us to be separated so he sent Jesus to the earth to live a perfect life but endure the punishment of our sin by dying on the cross. But by rising again he defeated that punishment and gave the hope to all who repent of their sins and believe in what Christ has done the hope of eternal life. Maybe you think you get too nervous, but scripture tells us that God has given believers his Spirit so that they can speak boldly and proclaim the gospel. Maybe you don’t know what to say, but maybe just ask a friend if they go to church and/or what they believe about God and then ask if you can explain your story and tell them what you believe. You can do all of these things, and we must. If Christ is necessary in our lives, we must realize he is necessary in the lives of others as well. We must introduce those we love to Jesus.

Transition: In a fictional story everyone would just accept Jesus calling Matthew and move on. But the Bible isn’t a fictional story. It’s a library of true historical events. And we see people responded in a way that we could expect.

Matthew 9:11-13.

Exposition: Verse 11 says Matthew 9:11 “And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”” The pharisees were on the total opposite side of society from the tax collectors. They believed in a super literal following of the Mosaic law we find in the first five books of the Old Testament. In fact, they created laws to make sure they didn’t break laws. That’s how serious they were about it. So when they found out Jesus was dining with tax collectors, they were shocked. They were not excited to see Jesus reaching out to people who had gone away from the teachings they grew up with. No, their first response was to find out why Jesus was eating with this large group of sinners.

Illustration: It’s not entirely clear how the Pharisees found out about this. Maybe they were following Jesus around and saw him go in to Matthew’s house and all these people start to come to Matthew’s house. Or maybe one person found out and in the close knit Jewish community, the gossip started flying like it was a 1950s beauty shop on a Saturday morning. Either way we see they looked on with a judgmental heart. We know that’s not the way Jesus would have us to live. You see it’s now we see our third application. We should mirror the heart of Christ.

Exposition: Once Jesus heard what the pharisees were saying, he showed how the pharisees had the wrong perspective. Jesus says in verses 12 and 13 Matthew 9:12–13 “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.”” There’s two things that Jesus points out that we need to take note of. The first is that we should see the spiritual of those that do not know him as being a tragic thing. He compares those that do not know Him to people that were sick and in need of a physician, with him obviously being the doctor in this metaphor. He is saying that we should not view the lost as some enemy. No. We should view them as people who are need of healing. This means that, one we should desire to see them improved as their situation. We should want to see them changed to be in relationship with Christ because we know that is what will make them well. But we should also not envy their condition or the symptoms of that condition.

Illustration: How many of you have ever visited somebody in the hospital that was sick. I have done it more times than I can count. I have a big family and my grandparents almost all have had health problems that required hospital stays. You know one thing I have never said to somebody that was in the hospital. You are so lucky. I wish I could do what you’re doing. You know why I’ve never said or thought that, because only a crazy person would look at the symptoms of somebody that is sick and say that they want to trade places. But so often when we watch the actions of those who do not know Christ, we sometimes want to partake. Maybe you hear friends talk about drinking or doing drugs on the weekend and you think it would be cool be a part of that group. Maybe you hear about the things going on at parties that shouldn’t be going on and you want to partake but you have this conflict because you are a Christian. Please listen to me right now, do not look at the sin of others and think it is something you are missing out on. Please remember that it is a symptom of the illness that is life without Christ. It is a life without purpose and it is an eternally terminal condition. We should not look on those who do not know Christ with envy, but with pity.

Exposition: But we should also not look on them as a lost cause or as somebody we should not interact with because they are sinners. We should not ignore those that do not know Christ because they act like people who do not know Christ.

Verses 12-13

Not the well who need a physician

I desire mercy not sacrifice

Explain sacrifice

Explain the reference

Came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Conclusion:Do you realize about how incredible this passage of scripture? That Jesus called a tax collector, the worst of the worst to follow him. Then that tax collector then obeyed, and threw a party for all his immoral friends to go and meet Jesus. And Jesus went and dined with them. Jesus is a God that goes to those that are far from him. In fact he left heaven and came to the earth full of people who were naturally far from him. Jesus came to us when were all sinners. He came and took the punishment we deserved and then rose again so that salvation could come to all who believed. What an awesome God. Who do you know that is far from God? Do you have friends or family tonight that you need to introduce to Jesus? If so, I encourage you to pray that God would give you a brokenness for those that are far from God, an opportunity to share, and the boldness to proclaim the gospel. But maybe you are like Matthew. Maybe you know you are a sinner in need of a savior, and you hear Jesus saying follow me. If so, I want you to mark that on the sheet you got when you came in. If you feel him calling to follow him, follow the example of Matthew and obey. Let’s pray.