Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome Everyone

Business Meeting next week

Church Potluck in 2 weeks with a guest speaker John Franklin our new AMS director for Christian County.

i am excited to hear him and encourage you to come that day.

Scripture Reading:

Pastoral Prayer

Pray for transformation within our hearts

Pray for God to draw people to this place

Pray for us to look at people like God looks at people

Main Idea: The ministry of the church is not so much to those who believe they are right with God but to those who know they are sinners.

INTRODUCTION

I want to take a poll this morning:

How many in here would say that believers ought to have no association with the lost on account of this principle by the apostle Paul “Bad company corrupts good morals”?

How many would say that since Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners, we too should be friends with sinners and those who do not follow God?

This is what I want to talk to you about today, this tension of being in the world, but not being of the world.

Called to associate with the world, so that we can minister to the world.

People normally go too far one way or the other when it comes to this subject.

They either completely neglect the biblical principle of “bad company corrupts good behavior” and they have a bunch of lost friends and pretty soon they find themselves doing the things their friends are doing.

OR they go too far the other way and become like the Pharisees who completely separate themselves from any and all people who do not follow Christ, and become ineffective at winning anyone to Christ.

The church must find a balance between these two principles and learn to live within that balance to become effective at winning people to Christ.

If we completely separate ourselves from society and never have any contact with lost people then we are never going to win souls.

BUT there must be a line drawn so that we do not forfeit our allegiance to Christ and find ourselves participating in the deeds of the world.

How do you reconcile these things?

Friendship with the world is impossible for a born again believer.

James 4:4 “do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

What you will find out is that when you spend time with unbelievers, you will have very little in common.

Why?

Because a believer and and unbeliever live two completely different lives.

But your purpose is not to become like them!

Your goal is not to be led by them!

It is to lead them into a relationship with Jess Christ and when that person tries to get you to participate in things that you should not participate in, YOU MUST SAY NO!

Because your allegiance is to God above everything else!

Everybody in this room is called to be an evangelist.

Jesus said, “come follow Me andI will make you fishers of men”.

And Jesus was the greatest evangelist who ever lived and lived out this tension perfectly for us.

I want us to study just a small section of Scripture today and see if we can learn anything about winning tax collectors and sinners to the Lord.

Matthew 9:9-13 “As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He said to him, “Follow Me!”

And he got up and followed Him.

Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”

But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

“But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

The focus on these verses is not so much about the tension we talked about, but about the unwillingness of those who follow the Law to even associate with tax collectors and sinners.

And that is important to us because this is often the state of the church today.

We often become so offended by the sin of others that we forget about the grace of God

Explanation

Tax collectors

They were the despised by the people.

They severed Herod who served Rome.

And instead of charging people to correct amount of taxes that were due, they would charge them more and line their pockets.

In fact, many tax collectors were rich because extorted the people of God on a regular basis.

They were considered what many would call today the scum of society.

Jesus

And here we have Jesus walking along and sees “a man” sitting in a tax collector booth.

Notice that it never says He saw a tax collector, he saw a man sitting who was called Matthew.

I think it is so significant that the Scripture separates this human being made in the image of God from the deeds that he was practicing.

Jesus was not offended so much by the man’s sin, that he labeled him by what he did.

What Jesus saw was a human being made in the image of God who was precious and valuable in God’s sight.

What Jesus saw was a man who desperately needed new life that only Jesus could give him.

What He saw was a man who was wasting away his life on earth by ripping people off to line his pockets with things that would perish along with his soul.

Bridge

No matter what the sin is in someone’s life, every person has single person has great value because every person is made in the image of God.

If we as the people of God see others by their sin and not their God given value then we must also confess that we are hypocrites.

Because the Bible says, “whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles over one point is guilty of all” (James 2:10).

In other words just because their sin is different from our sin does not mean they are worse than us!

We are all sinners who desperately need grace and my greed is no better than their adultery.

My judgmental attitude is no better than their drug addiction.

And I am in no way saying all sins are the same, because they are not, “whoever blasphemes the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven!”

Jesus said to Pilate, “The one who delivered me over to you has the greater sin”.

But what I am saying is we all desperately need the grace of God or non of us would be here!

And there is no sin that the grace of Jesus cannot overcome.

Application

What do you see when you look at the drunkard, or a poor man, or the man living in some sort kind of immorality?

What do you see when the lady comes into the church dressed in provocative clothing?

What do you see when you see the man pretending to be homeless begging for money at the entrance of Walmart?

What we ought to see a human begin made in the image of God who desperately needs the grace of God! What we ought to see is an opportunity to witness and tell them that jesus died for their sins and through Him they could have new life.

Do not be so blinded by the sin of others, that you forget about the grace of God.

The church desperately needs to learn this principle and take it to heart.

I want you to see an amazing truth that happens when the church begins to minister to the outcast and the lost.

Look at the next verse.

When you win one sinner to the Lord, you win an entire circle of prospects who need Christ

Explanation

Notice what Jesus does, he goes to the house of Matthew whom he had just called to follow Him and the next thing you know he is surrounded by all of Matthew’s friends.

But it was not only Jesus, His disciples were with Him!

And can you imagine things were getting a little uncomfortable for the disciples?

These were Jewish men who probably had similar thoughts about tax collectors and sinners as the Pharisees did.

And here they are reclining at the table with them.

(talk about what it means to recline at the table)

Can you imagine what was going through their minds?

They must have felt like they were sitting in the waiting room of the ER surround by COVID patients!

But what a grand opportunity to share the gospel!

Can you imagine the questions they had for Matthew who just walked away from a legal occupation that made him rich to follow this Jesus!

Listen to what Mark records about this event:

Mark 2:15 (NASB95)

And it happened that He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners were dining with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many of them, and they were following Him.

Who was following who?

The friends of Matthew who were lost had come to faith in Jesus because of the testimony of Matthew and the presence of Jesus.

Bridge

This is the same thing you will find happening today when one sinner comes to repentance.

Lost people are friends with lost people.