Hate Your Job (10_of_12)
HATE YOUR JOB? (10 of 12)
Meet Jesus
Matthew 9:9-13
I was reading an article about job dissatisfaction in
Health and Fitness Magazine this week. The article
estimated that 20 million people in America are
staying jobs they find dissatisfying. They gave a
number of signs for job dissatisfaction. They gave
some mental signs—poor concentration, boredom, and
general negative attitude. Some emotional signs of
job dissatisfaction—distress, depression,
irritability, feelings of being helpless, lonely.
Some physical signs of job dissatisfaction—restless
sleep or insomnia, weight gain or loss, tightness in
the jaw, shoulders, and neck.
Then they gave some direction of how to overcome job
dissatisfaction. 1). Find meaning and value in your
work. 2). Concentrate on working to your full
potential. 3). Give yourself what you don't get from
others. Acknowledge your achievements. Praise. Reward
yourself for a job well done—maybe a good banana
split. 4). Don't take what others say and do
personally. 5). Think before you act and don't act out
of haste. 6). Listen to your body and emotions. 7).
Take needed breaks and vacations. 8). If necessary, be
willing to change jobs or careers.
We are going to study about a man today who may very
well have hated his job. I'm referring to a man named
Matthew. Matthew is indeed a man who could very well
have hated his job and when he meets the Lord Jesus
Christ, he finds the solution to his problem.
We are fairly familiar with this man Matthew. We know
that he is the author of the first book of the New
Testament—the book we are reading from this morning.
We also know that Matthew is one of the twelve
disciples. In fact, when you read in the 10th chapter
where we are given a list of the disciples, you will
notice that he refers to himself in verse 3 as
Matthew, the publican.
Sometimes when you think about those twelve disciples
that Jesus Christ called around Him, it is indeed
amazing. You will hardly find amore motley crew than
the twelve people Jesus chose to follow Him and Old
Testament be a part of His ministry. It just reminds
me how God takes a lot of broken people and a lot of
imperfect people and puts them together to do the work
of the Lord.
Here is a man named Matthew and he meets the Lord
Jesus Christ and his life is never again the same.
Most of the other gospel writers refer to him as Levi.
But in his own book, he refers to himself as Matthew
the publican. I want us to study about Matthew this
morning because I think there is some help to those of
you who may have problems with your job or you may
hate your job.
I want to call you attention, first of all, to—
I. Matthew's CORRUPTION.
When we begin to read the story of Matthew, we find
that here is a man who has corrupted himself. He is
giving us his personal testimony here. In these brief
verses I think Matthew has written down for us his
testimony about how he came to Jesus—how he came to
salvation.
Do you have a personal testimony? Are you able, in a
brief few sentences, to write down your testimony? I
can almost imagine, as so modestly Matthew has written
his testimony, that he lays his hand down for a moment
and sheds a few tears as he reflects upon what he had
been and what Jesus Christ made out of him.
When the story opens we are told that Matthew is
sitting at the receipt of custom. That is, he is
sitting at the tollbooth. He I a publican, which means
he is a collector of taxes. He is evidently a quite
wealthy individual. Tax collecting in those days, as
we shall see in a moment, was a very lucrative
occupation—a very lucrative career.
Here is a man who is in a career which has brought
some corruption. He is in a disgraceful business, if
the truth of the matter be known. His name, Levi,
which was his first name, is a reference to the fact
that he was in the tribe of Levi which means that he
was intended to become a priest. I can imagine how his
parents would have been very hopeful about him and I
can imagine how he was trained for the priesthood
toward which he was moving. As a child he would be
taught the Old Testament Scriptures. We have evidence
of this as you read this gospel—the gospel of Matthew.
You will find over and over again that he uses the
word, fulfill, talking about Old Testament Scriptures
being fulfilled. He makes about 129 quotations and
illusions to the Old Testament. He quotes from every
major section of the Old Testament. He quotes from 25
out of the 39 books of the Old Testament. He was
trained in the Scriptures. This man knew what the
Bible had to say. He was intended to become a
spiritual leader among the people of God. Priest, in
that day, were not to own any property because they
were taught that their treasures were laid up for them
in heaven. That was what his occupation—his career was
intended to be. But somewhere along the way, this man
Matthew took a different turn.
There may be some of you battling with the same thing.
You may have a child and they have gone in a far
different way than you ever thought them to go. Some
of you have heavy hearts because you may have a son or
a daughter who though they may not be in a corrupt
career or occupation, it is far beyond and far outside
the realm of what you had intended them to be.
Somewhere along the way, Matthew made a decision that
he would go in a different direction in his life.
Money was going to be a factor in his life. Silver and
gold have sticky fingers. They have a way of getting
hold of a person.
I can almost imagine what Matthew must have thought to
himself. Listen to him as maybe he is thinking inside
his heart. "I know I was intended to be a priest, but
I've decided I'm going in a different direction. We
are in a new generation today. My mom and dad are in
the old generation. They are tied to the synagogue and
those kinds of things. I'm in a different generation.
We have different values. We have different goals. My
mom and dad are out of date. I believe in God, but I
don't think God ought to get in the way of my life.
I'm moving in a different direction."
He is in a distasteful career. He is also in a
disgraceful occupation. When the Bible says that
Matthew was a publican, it means that he was a tax
collector. But it is quite different from what we
would call a tax collector today. It is a totally
different picture in the New Testament. When it said a
person was a tax collector in those days it mean that
they were working for the Roman Empire. The Roman
Empire was in charge. They had control over the land
of Palestine at that particular time. So, they hired
people to collect the taxes and they farmed out
certain areas. Evidently they had different levels of
tax collection.
We are told in Luke that Zaccheus was chief publican—a
chief tax collector. Now, here is Matthew, a tax
collector and he has a tollbooth—a tax booth—in
Capernaum where he lives. So, the Roman Empire set
certain quotas that had to come from that particular
area and then the tax collector could charge anything
he wanted and anything he got over the quota was his
to keep. So there was a great deal of extortion. There
was a great deal of corruption. There was a great deal
of gouging that went on.
So here is a man who working for a foreign government.
It is similar to an American fighting with the Taliban
or al Quaida. This man, Matthew, is considered a
traitor and he was. He is in a disgraceful occupation.
Not only that, but he is in an occupation where he is
obviously stealing from people and he is lining his
pockets at the expense of widows and unbelievable
pressures upon those people who had to pay the taxes.
He was undoubtedly not only a traitor to his land, but
he was also a thief.
Here's a man who was a publican. It's interesting to
notice the things that the word, publican, are tied to
in the New Testament. We have references to publicans
and sinners. You notice that in verse 10. Then we have
statements like publicans and heathens. Publicans and
harlots. They were the worst of the worst. The Jews
looked down on them and they were a disgrace in the
eyes of the Jewish people. That was Matthew. That was
his corruption. That's the crowd that Matthew ran
with--the harlots and the heathen and the sinners. It
was the kind of people that no Jew wanted to be
anywhere around.
But did you know it's the very kind of people that
Jesus was interested in. You study the life of our
Lord and the ministry of our Lord and you will find
that Jesus Christ took a lot of interest in people
like that. You wonder today who Jesus would be
interested in. I can imagine the crowd that Matthew
ran with. There were the harlots, the drunks, the drug
addicts, and the corrupt businessmen. Think about
today. If you had seen Matthew's crowd today, that's
who you would see—the dishonest businessmen, the drug
pushers, the bartenders, the prostitutes. That's the
very people that Jesus Christ was interested in.
You can almost imagine Matthew, can't you? I think, on
the outside, he put on a pretty good front. I think on
the outside he splashed his money around and made fun
of religious people who showed up at the synagogue
every Sunday. "That bunch of hypocrites over there."
That's probably what he did on the outside, but don't
you think on the inside that the words of the Jews cut
him in his heart and pained him to the bone. Don't you
think that the pain he caused his mother and daddy
surely hurt him? His corruption.
II. Matthew's CONVERSION.
We know that he was a tax collector in Capernaum by
the context of the Scriptures here. It was a fishing
town up on the northwest coast of the Sea of Galilee.
We also know that it is the place where Jesus and His
mother moved when He inaugurated His public ministry.
We can almost imagine that on this day that we are
told about in verse 9, when Jesus passed by, that
Matthew is sitting there at that tollbooth. I'm
personally confident that he had met Jesus before. I
have the idea that Jesus and Matthew had encountered
one another before—maybe when Jesus moved to town.
Maybe when Jesus would go in and out conducting His
ministry. He had to pass through this tollgate of
Matthew's.
On a day, we are told in verse 9, that Jesus passed by
that way and He saw this man named Matthew and he was
sitting at the tollbooth, at the receipt of customs. I
can almost imagine how Jesus dealt with Matthew. Jesus
was so real. Jesus Christ was so kind. Jesus Christ
was so gentle in Hi dealings with people. One of the
things you will notice is—sinners never felt uneasy in
the presence of Jesus. By the way, you and I can tell
how much like Christ we are by the way sinners respond
to us.
Here Jesus is and He issues a call. Look at verse 9.
"Jesus saith unto him, Follow me." There it is. Two
words. He didn't say, let me take you through the
Roman Road. He didn't say, let me share with you God's
plan for a happy life. He didn't use any of the
methods we use today. Just two words—follow me.
It is the same thing Jesus said to Peter, James, John,
and Andrew when they were fishing. The Lord Jesus
Christ came by them and said, "Follow me." Just two
words. That's all Jesus used.
Those are the same words Jesus Christ extends to you
and to me when He calls us unto Himself in salvation.
Turn to Matthew 16. I want you to see what the Lord
says about His call to you and to me. This is the call
of Christ today. Same call. It hasn't changed since
the day He called Matthew. In verse 24, Jesus says,
"Then Jesus said unto his disciples, if any man will
come after me, let him deny himself, take up his
cross, and follow me." There is a negative and a
positive there. Jesus says if you want to follow me,
first of all, there is a negative. When Jesus called
Peter and Andrew, who were fishing by the sea, he
said, "Follow me." The Bible says they forsook their
nets. There is always a negative. You always have to
turn FROM something to turn to Jesus Christ.
Repentance means an about face. When you repent it
means you turn from your sinful lifestyle and you turn
TO the Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus said something else about that. Turn over to the
19th chapter. Simon Peter asked a question in that 19th
chapter. In the 27th verse here's his question. Simon
Peter asked the Lord—Lord, we've forsaken all and
followed thee. What shall we have, therefore? What
does the future bring? He understands the negative of
it.
You will notice as Jesus begins to unfold the answer
down in verse 29, "Everyone that hath forsaken houses
or brothers or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall
receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting
life."
Christ is saying when you follow me, yes, you must
turn from your sins. But when you turn toward me,
ultimately it ends in everlasting life.
Jesus says this morning—you want to go to heaven?
Follow me. You want to go to glory? Follow me. You
want to have a happy meaningful life? Follow me.
So Jesus stands there and looks at Matthew and He says
to him, Follow me. I think what his reaction could
have been. There he sits at that table, all that money
around him. He could have said—I need to think this
over. This is too quick. I can't make this decision
too soon. Or he might have said—I don't really feel
the way I ought to feel today. I don't have goose
bumps running up and down my back. I'm going to wait
until I get a feeling.
Some of you are sitting here today and you know you
are lost. You know you are going to hell if you die.
You know you need Jesus. You know you need to be
saved. You want to go to heaven. But you don't have
the feeling, yet. Ladies and Gentlemen, could I share
with you, after all of these years of Bible study,
there's not one verse in the Bible that says you have
to feel a certain way in order to follow the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Matthew could have said—what about my finances? What
about this tax business? What about this lucrative
career? He didn't mention any of those things. Jesus
said—follow me—and notice what the Bible says back in
Matthew 9:9, "He arose and followed him."
That's what salvation is. That's what conversion is
all about. When you turn from your sins and by faith
follow the Lord Jesus Christ, according to the
Scriptures, you are converted. You become a brand new
child of God.
By the way, Matthew was his new name. Levi was his old
name. Matthew means gift of God. Jesus gives you a
brand new name when you get saved. Simon came to the
Lord and Simon means shifting sand. Yet, Jesus said
your name is Simon. I'm going to give you a new name,
Simon Peter, which means a rock. Jesus gives you a
brand new name because He is going to make you what He
can make you by His power and by His grace.
Isn't it wonderful to think that when we get saved,
there's a new name written down in heaven, and it's
mine, and it's mine and it's mine. You're saved.
That's his call part of his conversion. Now notice his
celebration. When people get saved there ought to be a
celebration. The happiest time of the service to me is
when people are saved. The happiest time of the
service is when I see people coming forward to receive
Christ as Savior. Salvation always brings a
celebration.
The prodigal son arose from the hog pen in the far
country. He came back to the father's house and when
he did, the father said—kill the fatted calf. They had
a celebration. Salvation always is a celebration.
Notice what happened in verse 10. "It came to pass, as
Jesus sat at meat in the house." Luke 5:29 makes it
very clear that Jesus is sitting at this meal in the
house of Matthew. The first thing that Matthew does,
after his salvation, after he receives the call and
accepts the call to follow the Lord Jesus Christ as
his Savior—he throws a party. "Let's have a party!
I've been saved!" He invites Jesus and His disciples
and he invites all of his friends. "Behold many
publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and
His disciples."
Here comes that crowd. This is the crowd that Matthew
has been running with. In they walk. All of the major
sinners of Capernaum come walking into the banquet and
there sits Jesus. I can almost imagine. Everybody
looks around and says—my, what a crowd this is. This
is all he knew.
Today we have what they call "nonthreatening" events.
A "nonthreatening" event in church growth terminology
means it is something you have to invite sinners to
who you probably couldn't get to come to church. Do
you follow me? There are some folks that you are not
going to ever get them in here. Do you know why?
Because they think when they come in here, you'll are
going to beat them over the head with a family Bible.
They are uncomfortable with that. I don't know why it
took us so many years, right here it is in the Bible.
What we have here is a "nonthreatening" event.
We had a Wild Game Feast here a few Saturdays ago for
our men. It was a blast. It was really good. I don't
know much about wild game hunting and I sure don't
know much about eating wild game. There were some old
boys there who probably hadn't been to church in
awhile.
I ran into a guy out in Oklahoma City named Rob
Pierce. Rob is 30 years old. Here's the deal. Rob
Pierce, at 30 years old, is the world champion calf
roper. He's a rodeo guy. He can rope a calf. He can
get off his horse and rope a calf in 7.2 seconds. When
I thought about I said, "Lord, I can't even get on a
horse in 7.2 seconds." There was a cowboy rodeo
evangelist in Oklahoma who got to witnessing to him.
This is a fabulous story. They were going to a rodeo
together and he thought the evangelist was going to
say something about the Lord and the evangelist never
would say anything. Finally he said I decided I would
just bring it up and he asked, "What's all this
religion business, all this Jesus salvation business?"
The evangelist just gave him a survey of the whole
Bible. The part that he really liked was about the
three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace and the
fourth man in the fire. He got to calling the Lord the
fourth man.
He was riding down the road in his big old truck one
day. He was listening to Kenny Rogers sing "The
Gambler" and got under conviction. This is a crazy
story, but it's true. You explain that biblically. I
don't know how that happened. He said the fourth man
moved into that cab with me. He ran off the road and
on the side of the road, Rob Pierce repented of his
sins and decided to follow Jesus Christ as his Savior.
One of the first things he did—he and his father had a
supper and a barbeque at their house and they invited
four hundred cowboy friends of theirs to come and they
all showed up. He said I wasn't going to take up a
collection—it cost $600. Before it was over they had
put money in my pocket and we came within $40 of
paying for it. He told all of his cowboy friends about
his new friend, the fourth man.
Don't you like that story? Isn't that good? That's
what Matthew is doing. He has a new friend. He has a
Savior. He wants his old buddies, his old sinner
friends to meet this new friend, the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's what he wants. He knows that he is
going to have a brand new life now. He knows that this
may be his only chance to tell them about the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Have you pitched a party yet? Have you told your
friends about Jesus yet? When you get saved, if you
are not very careful, you get yourself so isolated
with saved people that you neglect those you used to
know who need Jesus Christ. Have you made some effort
to get them together and tell them about your new
friend?
He has a party and he invited all his old sinner
friends to hear Jesus.
There were folks sitting around who didn't like it.
It's always that way, isn't it? In verse 11 it says,
"And when the Pharisees saw, they said why eateth your
master with publicans and sinners?" Those old pious,
hypocritical, religious crowd! They were so self-
righteous. They were so hypocritical. There were so
good, they thought, that they couldn't get saved.
Jesus said one time, "The harlots and the publicans go
into heaven before you do." There are some folks too
good to get saved and they are criticizing Jesus.
This is the very crowd that Jesus Christ came into the
world to die for. Look at what Jesus said in verse 13.
"I'm not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance." It's not good folks Jesus came to save.
If Jesus came to save good folks, none of us would
ever get saved because we are all sinners who need a
Savior. We are all sinners who are on the way to hell
and we need Jesus Christ as our personal Savior.
It was said about Jesus one time that He was the
Friend of publicans and sinners. In Luke 15, when
Jesus started telling this parable, the Bible says
that all the sinners drew near to hear Him. They
criticized and said this man receiveth sinners and
eateth with them.
I heard about a little girl who came home from church
one day and said, "Oh, Mama, did you know my name is
in the Bible?" Her mother said, "Edith, your name
couldn't be in the Bible." She said, "Oh, yes, it is,
mama. My teacher told me today that Jesus receives
sinners and eateth with them." Aren't you glad that He
does receive sinners and Bill with them, John with
them, Sam with them?
His corruption. His conversion.
III. Matthew's CONTRIBUTION.
This man now becomes a disciple of the Lord Jesus
Christ—a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. That means
that he now goes with Jesus on all of his trips. That
means that He follows Jesus as he conducts His public
ministry.
I don't know this in the Bible, but it is reasonable
to me to think that maybe one day, as they were going
down to Jericho, maybe he said to Jesus, "Jesus, my
boss man, the chief publican, Zaccheus, lives down in
Jericho. He really does need you. I hope he'll get
saved."
You remember that Zaccheus was up in the tree and
Jesus called him down and said, "Let's go eat supper
together." Before the meal was over, Zaccheus got
saved. Jesus said, "This day is salvation come to this
house." Mathew became a witness. He heard the Great
Commission of the Lord. Tradition says he became a
missionary in Ethiopia and in Persia and Syria. He
became a witness for the Lord. That's the contribution
you can make. You can just tell people what Jesus has
done for you. You can be a witness.
There's something else when he followed Jesus. There's
something he brought with him from the old life.
Matthew brought with him from his old life his pen and
his paper. Matthew was trained in writing,
bookkeeping, keeping precise records. As Jesus worked
His miracles, I can see Matthew as he is writing them
down. As Jesus sits to preach the Sermon on the Mount,
I can see Matthew as he is precisely writing it all
down. With the result that what you and I have in our
Bibles is an accurate account from a skilled writer of
the ministry and life of our Lord. Do you think the
day that Matthew got up from that table that he ever
dreamed that he would write a bestseller that would be
read by millions from his day until this day. That he
would write a book that would be loved—a book that
would be taught—a book that would be preached—a book
that would be read—a book that would be followed—all
through the ages of the history of the church.
He contributed not only as witness, but he contributed
his writing. What do you have to contribute? Coming to
Jesus Christ does not narrow the opportunity of your
skills; it enlarges the opportunity of your skills.
What do you have that you can bring to Jesus? A needle
like Dorcas? A physician's bag like Luke? A mind like
Paul?
Maybe Jesus is not going to get you out of a job you
hate. Maybe Jesus is going to leave you in that job,
but He's going to lift that job to a higher level. It
may be that Jesus is going to let you stay there
selling cars to pay your bills and provide for your
family, but he's going to lift that to a higher level
as a place where you can tell others about Christ.
You just bring whatever you have to Jesus. He will
lift it to a higher level. He may not change your job,
but He may transform your job to a new purpose.
Let's bow our heads in prayer.
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