Sermon Tone Analysis

/As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth.

“Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him./

/While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”/

/On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’

For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”/

Jesus was frequently accused of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners [*Luke 7:34*].

To this charge He was compelled to plead guilty … and He would yet be found guilty as charged.

Those excluded from polite company of religious people are to this day objects of special affection for the Son of God.

If that were not so, I would not have been saved, and neither would you have been called to new life in Him.

Jesus is the sinner’s friend.

The individual who thinks himself or herself an awful sinner has a friend, One who loves that one enough to give everything to set them free from the slavery to their own desires, bringing them into the glorious liberty of children of God.

I recall an incident which took place in the pastor’s office in one of the largest churches in North America.

I was present that day because I had the previous night delivered a public rebuke to this greatly loved pastor and I felt it important to explain my stand.

As we talked he asked about the ministry I had participated in while serving in San Francisco.

I described the congregation – prostitutes made clean, hucksters redeemed by the grace of God, criminals set at liberty, drug abusers freed from their destructive cravings.

I told how many of our fellow churches would have nothing to do with us because they considered the people to be the scum of the earth.

That pastor asked me what it was like working in such a congregation.

Honestly, I could only remember the deep love they had for one another.

Therefore, I spoke of their deep compassion for one another, the responsibility they accepted to fulfil the ministry the Master had assigned one another.

They were rejected by other churches in that city, and in this world they had only each other bound together by Christ’s love.

I spoke of George, retired from the United States Postal Service at an early age because of drug abuse.

He couldn’t speak two sentences without forgetting what he was saying, and he had a disgusting habit of drooling as he spoke.

I told how George filled a seventy-two-passenger bus with families each Sunday and brought them to church.

I spoke of Armando, a Panamanian unable to read either Spanish nor English, but he had memorised *John 3:16*; and standing on the streets of the city he would quote that verse and urge people to be saved with the result that many people came to faith in Jesus Christ.

I told of Tony, dapper and debonair, who was too cool to be a Christian … of Clemente burning with white-hot zeal for Christ who brought someone to Christ nearly every week that I knew him in that city … of Etta and Florence, the spinsters who in later years quietly served with gentleness and quietness.

I spoke of Sue Dollin and how in old age she prayed so mightily for revival, and of Sally Martin who joined her in that faith.

The distinguishing mark of that church was that every one of those saints, and hundreds of others, thought themselves awful sinners; and thinking themselves awful sinners, they needed a great God.

They found that great Saviour and great God in Jesus Christ.

If I think myself to be but a little sinner, I need but a little God.

If, on the other hand, I think myself to be a great sinner, I will confess that I need a great God.

Jesus is the friend of sinners, and He is a great God.

It was a mark of the greatness of that pastor that he stood from his desk and walked around to where I was seated on a couch.

He knelt in front of me and asked that I place my hands on him and pray.

“For forty years,” he said, “I have laboured for such a ministry in this city, and I have never seen it happen.

Please pray for me that God will give me what you say you found in San Francisco.”

If we will have a great church in this town, it will be a congregation filled with great sinners who have discovered a great Saviour.

So long as we consider ourselves to be “Okay,” we will never confess our need for a Great Saviour.

Thus content with ourselves and self-satisfied, we will never witness the growth we need.

I invite you to return with me to a day when a Great Saviour called a great sinner to Himself almost two thousand years ago.

Exploring that event, may God stir each of us deeply to worship that Great Saviour and determine that we will trumpet a great message of life in Him.

Only Sinners Receive God’s Call – I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

After rebuking the religious leaders because their callused hearts had charged Him with evil because He forgave the sins of a paralysed man, the Lord left the house and began to walk away.

Walking out of the city and toward the lake He came to a customs booth where the man with the concession was seated as he normally was.

As you enter Canada from the United States along any of the highways, there will be situated a customs booth where you will be required to declare any goods you are carrying into Canada.

Those goods requiring payment of duties or requiring the collection of the Goods and Services Tax will be noted and assessed, and you will then pay an amount to the Receiver General of Canada.

After you have enriched the Canadian government by cash, cheque or credit card, you will be on your way, your goods now somewhat more costly than when purchased but of no greater value.

The customs booth in ancient Palestine was similar, but with a couple of significant differences.

When our customs agents receive monies, they are taxing on behalf of the Canadian government.

It is our own nation taxing those bringing goods into the country which to some degree tempers our sense of disgust.

Those who operated the customs booths in that ancient day extracted moneys on behalf of a foreign power, which only rubbed salt in the open wounds of the people whom they were taxing.

Judea and Galilee were occupied territories.

The Jewish people were no longer free to conduct their own affairs, and the funds extracted for customs were forwarded to the occupying power, Rome, thus enriching foreign coffers.

Those operating the customs booths were, however, Jews.

They bid for the right to operate these booths.

That way, Rome would receive up front a sizeable sum of money based upon estimates of normal receipts from the area under the concession.

The successful bidder was then free to extract whatever he thought appropriate from those unfortunate enough to pass through his concession.

The customs fees imposed were not subject to appeal, and the tax collectors were notorious for gouging those taxed.

Tax collectors are not greatly loved within contemporary societies.

They have a job to do and their work is not always appreciated, especially when we receive the bills they deliver.

They were positively hated in Palestine.

They were traitors and turncoats in the eyes of their fellow countrymen.

They were thieves and robbers with a well-deserved reputation for greed.

They were excluded from polite society and scorned by everyone.

They existed only by the fear inspired through their appeal to occupation troops.

They were considered the lowest creatures in the land … lower than any other form of sinner.

Jesus’ words to Matthew, also known as Levi, were few and to the point: Follow Me.

They were, however, sufficient to accomplish His will.

When the Saviour speaks few words need be spoken to arrest to the heart of sinful man and to effect a dramatic change.

/Follow Me/.

The whole of life is summed up in that one command.

/Follow Me – and not another/.

The /Me/ is emphatic.

Matthew had been following His own desires for wealth, and now the call was received to give His allegiance to the Master of life.

Matthew gave immediate allegiance to the Master, left His booth and followed Jesus.

Luke notes that /he left everything/ to follow Jesus [*Luke 5:28*].

Matthew surrendered a lucrative concession.

It had already cost him a sizeable sum of money since he had been required to purchase the concession from the Romans.

He could anticipate making back the purchase price with considerable interest in the course of time, but he would have to operate the taxation concession for a period in order to make such wealth.

We do not know how long he had been a tax collector.

If he had operated for only a short while he no doubt suffered a great loss in following Jesus.

If he had held the franchise for a period of time, he had already accumulated a fair amount of moneys, no doubt, but surrendered all future profits.

Matthew’s response to the Saviour’s call is commendable in no small measure because there was apparently no debate on his part.

He seems to have seized upon the spirit of the words of Jesus spoken to another.

The account is recorded in Luke’s Gospel.

Jesus called a man to follow and the man responded /I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family/.

To this delay, a form of pleasant demurring, /Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God”/ [*Luke 9:61,62*].

The call of the Master is to be obeyed immediately.

Just so you, when Jesus calls, must not delay but answer quickly by obedience to Him.

Salvation cannot be hidden.

The whole of life is affected by the transformation.

The joy of the Lord breaks forth and the face of the redeemed shines with an inner light.

The step is lighter.

The soul rejoices.

The redeemed of the Lord are compelled to say so.

It is the most natural thing in the world for the new believer to want to tell others of the life discovered in Jesus.

Especially does the new-born child of God desire the salvation of friends and acquaintances.

So it was with Levi, henceforth to be known as Matthew, as he invited the outcastes of society who had to that point comprised his circle of friends.

He wanted them to come meet the Master.