The Disciple that Brings God Glory

Introduction:

Salt and Light (Matt 5:13-16)

What is the “Salt and Light”? It is nothing other than Jesus Christ himself. He is the salt and the light. Centering on teh gospel.

The church that does not keep its salt.... the Church that loses the gospel is good for nothing.

But the Church that does holds it high - But the Church that does is evident. It is at the center of everything. This is why we preached the “scandalous church” series. I was trying to show you that the gospel is at the center of all of our practices. When that happens, when the center of the church’s life is the gospel, when it permeates everything, there are three important things that happen.

This church will glorify God. Ultimately, God has created the Church and given us the gospel and called us to discipleship and sent us to share the good news of the gospel for his glory. That is the purpose of disciopleship, the purpose of evangelism, is what, it’s worship. At teh end of all eternity, we want to say with all the saints and the angels, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty.” Or, as we pray in teh Lord’s prayer, “For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” There is no one else, no thing else, which is worthy of our glory.

This church will evangelize. It will share the good news of Christ. It will baptize. It will witness. It will reach out to those who are far from God and welcome the prodigals home. This is why it says that others will see the good news and give glory to the Father who is in heaven. It will, like Nathan the disciple who tells his friends, “Come and See.”

This church will produce good works. - In other words, it has fruit. As people are confronted by the grace of God, they will be changed and transformed. It will be like Matthew the Tax Collector, who when he meets Jesus has love for God spark in his heart and his whole life changes.

So the question that I want us to ask this morning is this, what kind of disciples does the gospel make? What kind of disciples are effective evangelists? What kind of disciples bring glory to God? How do all these things fit together?

Matthew the Tax Collector (Matt 9:9-13)

Exposition: Following the sermon on the Mount, Jesus goes about doing various healings and callings. These healingsl are actually not to indicate that Jesus heals every disease - sorry Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, Benny Hinn - rather, they are to point to the atoning work of CHrist. And Matthew makes that very clear by connecting his healing ministry to Isaiah 53. Jesus’ healings are a parable to teach us about the greater healing, the healing from our sin.

Inciting Incident: Jesus calls Matthew.

Matthew’s background: Matthew/Levi. Matthew was probably from teh tribe of Levi, and his name Matthew is an Aramaic name, probably is what he used because of his background as a trader. So what’s interesting is that Matthew is someone who at one point is training to be in the ministry. And you can tell by reading his gospel, that he has a really intricate knowledge of the Old Testament. He really knows his Bible quite well. But, somewhere along the way, maybe he lost his faith, maybe he needed a job, he became a tax collector. Specifically, Matthew became a customs officer, from what we can tell. Now, tax collectors were kind of a weird group in the Roman Empire. They were hated by the people that they collected taxes from-some things never change. These guys had authority to go to really severe extremes to collect taxes. There are some stories of tax collectors beating elderly people to get money from them. Customs officers had the right to seartch any vessel or cart and seize anything that wasn’t on the manifest. And anything that Rome didn’t want, they could pocket. But they were also mistrusted by the Romans. Because if the tax collectors were willing to cheat their own people, they weren’t exactly trustworthy. So tax collectors occupied this weird third rung between the oppressed and the oppressor. They kind of became associated with every imaginable kind of sin, prostitution, gambling, thievery, violence, you name it. Now, somehow, Matthew had fallen from grace, fallen from studying for the ministry to teach in synagogues or maybe even to perform the temple rites themselves, and instead found himself in the scummiest profession of the time, the tax collector. And Matthew was, apparently, very good at it. We know this because later on we learn about his house being able to accomodate a great crowd. We also know that when Matthew threw a party people showed up. You don’t do that for someone who has no influence. So all these other tax collectors that come over to Matthew’s house are not only his friends, but probably his suboordinates. Matthew was running quite the operation in cheating his own people and the Roman empire out of hteir wealth.

Jesus calls Matthew: And it is to this person that Jesus comes and says “Follow me.” Now, when we say this, we have to be clear. Jesus did not come to Matthew because he really wanted to get him on his side, it wasn’t because Jesus looked at Matthew and saw he was really righteous, there is absolutely no indication that Jesus came to Matthew because Matthew had some faith deep down. Rather, Jesus came and found Matthew, someone who was stealing and thieving and violent. Someone who had fallen from grace. Someone who had become one of the probably chief customs officers in the area. And he said, “Follow me.” It wasn’t that Jesus called him because he had faith. It was that He had faith because Jesus called him. Jesus’ call was effective, efficacious. It did something. His Word didn’t go out void.

Matthew arose - And we see this indicated by the word “arose.” Now, this is very interesting, and this is often the response people make in teh gospels when Jesus says, “follow me.” This same word often means, “resurrection.” ANd I think that there is a double meaning going on here. Not only does Matthew arise physically, but the gospel indicates that Matthew is resurrected. That he is regenerate, born again. Just like God created all things by the Word of his mouth, so when he calls his disciples, he recreates in them a clean heart, a new heart. He resurrects them. And when Jesus does that everything changes.

Matthew follows - Let me give you 5 very practical ways that Matthew’s life has fruit:

Jesus reclines in his house - What is interesting is that this is closely related to the word in the sermon on the mount, where Jesus says a city placed or dwelling on the top of the mountain. Just as the city displays the light to the watching world, so Matthew displays Jesus to all his friends and family.

We see that Matthew shows hospitality. Just like Abraham and Sarah so long ago, just like Rahab, just like Boaz, just like David, Matthew demonstrates his faith by showing hospitality and welcoming others in.

Matthew also joins the disciples. It is very interesting, after this story, we never see Matthew appear on his own again. He is always part of the disciples. You see, there is no such thing as the solitary disciple or Christian. Discipels are always a group. Christians are always part of the church.

Matthew knows his Bible - Now, one thing which isn’t explicit at this point, but which is worth saying is that Matthew knows his Bible. Now, as we just said, Matthew in his previous life had probably been training to be a Levitical teacher, perhaps a priest. And he learned all these things about hte Old Testament. And let me tell you, he had to rethink, and reprocess, and review is understanding of Scripture. once he came to see Jesus as the Messiah, he had to read back over his Bible and he had to see how Jesus worked into it.

Matthew evangelizes - Now, one of the interesting things is that Jesus invites over all his old suboordinates and coworkers and friends to meet Jesus. He evangelizes. He shares the gospel. He tells them about Jesus.

The Pharisees snicker

Now, the Pharisees start accusing Jesus. This is actually very interesting, and we get hte picture this didn’t happen once. But rather, as long as Jesus stayed there they were accusing him and spreading rumors about him.

So the disciples tell Jesus about this and Jesus tells them four things. First, he tells them, “The well ahve no need of a physician but htose who are sick.” NOw, by this he does not mean that the Pharisees are well. But rather, it is those who know they are sick who need the physician. In fact, this is very profound. Because Jesus is drawing on what was already said in chapter 8:14-17, that the healings of Jesus were a parable to demonstrate spiritual healing. That Jesus would remove their sins from them. And the point of this is that Jesus, the Physician, has forgiven Matthew. He has taken his sins on hismelf. He will become sin for him so that Matthew can become well. He will suck the poison of sin out of his soul to make him clean.

But we also see Jesus say, “I did not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners.” Now, when Jesus says this again, he is not saying the PHarisees actually are righteous. Rather, he is saying the difference between Matthew and the Pharisees is that Matthew actually knows his own sin. He knows he is a sinner. While teh Pharisees think they are righteous, they are actually sinners. So what we see in this is a severe irony. Because matthew knows he is a sinner, Jesus makes him righteous. Because the Pharisees think they are righteous, they are actually sinners.

We also see that Jesus tells them to “go and learn.” Now that word “learn” is actually the verbal form of the word “disciple.” And Jesus is telling them, go and be disicples yourselves. Go and attend to, commit yourselves to, devote yourselves to the Word.

Finally, we see this Scripture quotation from the book of Hosea, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” Now, many people think that when Jesus says this, he is referring to himself doing the will of God by showing mercy to Matthew. But I want to submit a different meaning. You see, if you go back and you look at the verse in Hosea, which you should aalways do when you see that the New quotes the Old, you can see that God is saying, he desire them to love him, rather than burnt offerings. In other words, Hosea 6:6 is referring to love for God. And Matthew only uses the word we normally translate as “mercy” to describe this because that word normally translates the Hebrew word hesed. But this is not talking about mercy shown to others. Rather it is talking about love shown to God. Which makes a lot more sense in Matthew’s quotation. Because in verse 12 and verse 13, Jesus draws a contrast between Matthew and the Pharisees. Mathtew knows he is sick and a sinner, and the Pharisees think they are well and righteous. And what we should see is that Jesus is stilld rawing that same contrast. Matthew is different than the Pharisees. How? He fulfills Hosea 6:6. He loves God, and they only love to think of htemselves as keeping the law. But if that is true, that means the God who Matthew loves, is none other than Jesus himself. And that is exactly what the conversion of Matthew is getting at. If you want to see what makes Matthew a disciple, it is not just that he evangelizes, knows Scripture, and has a relationship with the others. ALl those things are true and good. But what makes Matthew a disciple more than anything else is that he loves Jesus as the incarnate God. And that is something that the Pharisees will never understand.

BUt it is something we should, and we must. After all, isn’t this how the rest of the Scriptures speak of Jesus?

Phil 1:21

Galatians 2:20

1 Peter 1:8-9

To be a disciple of Christ is to be someone who loves Jesus Christ, who cultivates, grows, and develops their love for him. And if we are going to be a church that prizes discipleship, that follows CHrist, that is growing spiritually, we must be too.

The Church that Loves Jesus: So what does it mean for our church to love Jesus? Let me give you a handful of things.

First, everything we do has to be out of a profound appreciation for the gospel. Notice this, that Matthew never would have loved Jesus if Jesus hadn’t called him, resurrected him, forgiven him. There is no such thing as a love for Jesus that is not profoundly shaped by a love from Jesus. Well, how do you grow in love for anybody? You spend time with them. You make sacrifices for them. You choose to be around them. So, the only way that we really grow in our love for Jesus is by putting ourselves in a situation where we are constantly reminded, renewed, and refreshed by teh love of Jesus.

We need to make church attendance a priority.

We really need to join a Bible study or small group, accountability circle or something.

We need to find a regular time every day to get in the Word.

We need to have a Mary, not a Martha attitude. We need to let Jesus serve us before we try to serve him.

We need to show and receive hospitality.

There are few joys greater than sharing the gospel and bringing other people to come to know Jesus.

Conclusion: Winning the War - Carthage lost the war when it forgot to protect its base of operation. We will lose the war out there if we don’t take care of in here first. We will never bring others to Christ, save souls, influence our culture, plant churches, revitalize churches, start a counseling center, drench our floors in baptismal waters, until we take in here seriously. Until we commit ourselves to growing in Christ, to learning how to love Christ more, we will never be the Church that God wants us to be.