Matthew - Lesson 9B

• Back to Matthew 9 tonight, where we’ve reached the second anecdote Matthew uses to separate the groups of miracles in Chapters 8 & 9

  • You’ll remember that Matthew has arranged the miracles in these two chapters into three groups of three

    • We just finished the second group of three miracles last week, looking at Jesus declaring the paralytic forgiven of his sin

    • So that means we’re poised to move into Matthew’s third and final group of miracles  

  • But before we do, we need to examine a scene that takes place between Jesus and His disciples, and the disciples of John 

    • Back in Chapter 8, we studied the first scene Matthew recorded between the first and second group of miracles 

    • That scene centered on certain disciples, those who had believed in Jesus, yet refused to put a priority on following Him

    • By Jesus’ response, we learned that He has full authority over His followers, including having high expectations for our obedience

  • Today, we study a 2-part scene that explains the power Jesus wields over those in covenant with God 

    • This full scene runs from vs.9-17, and tonight, we look at the first part of that scene from vs.9-13

    • This first part involves Jesus and His disciples and the Pharisees

    • The scene begins with an eponymous reference

Matt. 9:9  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.

• To introduce the scene that follows, Matthew tells us how he came to be one of Jesus’ disciples

  • First, he says Jesus left Capernaum to resume His travels in the Galilee

    • Earlier in the city, Jesus had been confronted by a large crowd of Pharisees or scribes

    • Those men traveled to investigate whether Jesus might be the Messiah, and their investigation takes two phases

  • First, the leaders conducted a passive investigation

    • They just observed what Jesus said and did to see if it supported or disqualified His claims

    • That’s the period we’re in now

    • If the passive investigation seems to support Jesus’ claims to be Messiah, then the religious leaders will move to an active phase

    • They will begin to interrogate Jesus, asking Him questions to poke holes in His claims

• So Jesus left the house in Capernaum and began walking on the major road that passed by the city

  • As He went along, He was being followed by a large crowd of people, which now included those religious leaders

    • As He travels, He comes upon a tax collection booth

    • And in that booth, sat a Jewish man named Matthew

  • In Jesus’ day, the empire of Rome stretched from Great Britain to India

    • Across that tremendous expanse, Rome maintained a vast infrastructure 

    • They had military posts, roads and bridges, government buildings, ships and, of course, palaces

    • Constructing and maintaining all that infrastructure required vast amounts of money

    • So naturally, Rome levied heavy taxes on its subjects, especially on conquered territories, like Judea

  • Taxes came in various forms, including income taxes and custom taxes

    • For conquered territories like Judea, the customs tax was the chief means of raising revenue

    • Customs officials, called publicans, were positioned at borders and ports of entry to collect tax on goods passing by

    • The road going by Capernaum was a major caravan route, connecting Egypt with the East, and many goods traveled on it

  • Furthermore, the road crossed the border between the territories held by Philip and Herod Antipas, sons of Herod the Great

    • They inherited rule over different areas of Judea after their father died

    • So Rome placed a tax collection booth on that road near the border to tax the goods flowing between these territories 

• Publicans were generally not paid directly by Rome for their services

  • Instead, the Romans allowed these officials to keep anything they collected above and beyond their tax quota

    • So, the Roman authorities would assign each publican a certain quota of tax per day they must collect and turn in to Rome

    • If too little tax was collected, the publicans might be beaten or imprisoned

    • If the publican collected more than required, he could keep the difference

  • And Romans didn’t use their own citizens to perform this role

    • Instead, Romans enlisted locals to collect taxes on their behalf, probably because a local would know the people and the language better

    • In Judea, tax collectors were typically Jews like Levi (Matthew)

  • Of course, any Jews who agreed to serve Rome in this way were considered traitors by the rest of the Jewish people

    • They were seen as supporting the Roman government in its campaign to oppress and rob the Jewish people 

    • Pharisees so despised publicans that rabbinical writings of the day used the publican to represent the greatest law breaker possible in Israel

    • No Jew could be more sinful than a publican in the rabbis’ eyes

• As a result, the Pharisees established special rules to punish publicans

  • Publicans were ostracized from the Jewish community

    • No Jew other than publicans and prostitutes could lawfully associate with a publican

    • In fact, the word “sinner” in Israel became another way of referring to a tax collector or prostitute

    • Publicans could not testify in court or be a witness in any matter of law

    • And the Pharisees even taught that it was not possible for a tax collector to repent or receive forgiveness

  • So publicans were in a no-win situation, because they had no friends among Jews or Romans

    • The Romans had no regard for Jews whatsoever, while their own countrymen considered them pariahs and unredeemable

    • If they even tried to win favor with their Jewish brethren by collecting less tax, it would have been fruitless

    • The Jews weren’t going to be persuaded, so they only risked going hungry or being beaten by the Roman taskmasters

  • Therefore, the only sensible course for a publican, was to look out for #1 by collecting as much tax as possible 

    • Publicans were generally ruthless extortionists

    • They pressured their fellow Jews for every last penny of tax, while Romans soldiers stood by to enforce their demands

    • After all, if a Jew was going to be a pariah in his own country, at least he could be a rich pariah

• But on this day, Jesus calls out to one of these pariahs sitting in his tax booth, saying to Matthew, “follow me”

  • The other Synoptic Gospels give this man’s name as Levi, which indicates he was from the tribe of Levi 

    • But here, the author gives himself the name Matthew, which is Mattai in Hebrew, meaning “gift of Yahweh”

    • Matthew’s having two different names reflects a tradition within the Church in his day 

    • In that day, when a person became Christian, the person often took on a new name reflecting his or her new identity in Christ

    • So Levi changed his name to Matthew after his conversion and that’s the name he preferred to use for himself in his Gospel

  • This tradition still exists in some places today

    • For example, you may meet believers in Africa or Asia who have traditional surnames with Biblical first names (e.g., Moses Goswami or Barnabas Okonjo)

    • In those cultures, believers still change their given name to testify to their new birth in Christ 

  • Western Church culture doesn’t follow this tradition, but personally, I think it’s a great idea

    • I came to faith as an adult in my late twenties, so I can see clearly how much difference Christ has made in who I am

    • I marvel at how much Christ has remade me into His likeness

    • But when I look back on my life before Christ – on the way I conducted myself in my relationships and the way I lived my life – I’m not proud of who I was

    • I wasn’t a terrible person, but still the person I was and the way I thought and acted were a far cry from the life I know now in Christ

  • So when I run into someone from my past, I wish I had a quick way to demonstrate to them how much my faith has changed me for the better

    • I want them to know I’m not the same person they knew before, but how do I communicate that quickly in a chance meeting?

    • What if I told them my name has changed…that’s certain to spark a conversation

    • And it effectively testifies that I’m a new person, and it reminds me to live up to my new identity in Christ

  • Consequently, I’ve decided to adopt a new first name as a testimony of my new life in Christ

    • I’ve chosen to adopt the name of an important biblical character

    • The name I selected comes from Chapter 7 of Acts, chosen in honor of the first martyr recorded in the Bible

    • His name in Greek is Stephanos…or Stephen, to us

• So back to the text, as Matthew sits in his tax collector’s booth, Jesus calls to Matthew and says, “follow me”

  • Jesus was saying something very specific…he was inviting Matthew to become His disciple, to leave his current life and begin a new life

    • If you had been standing next to Matthew at that moment, you could have pushed him over with a feather

    • He would have been speechless 

    • It would have been unbelievable that a respectable Jew would even speak to him, much less welcome his company

    • It’s possible that Matthew hadn’t spoken with another Jew, apart from other tax collectors and prostitutes, for years

  • And more than that, Jesus wasn’t just your ordinary rabbi…Jesus was the talk of the Galilee, the man some were saying could be the Messiah

    • So as Jesus approached with His crowd in tow, Matthew would have watched in fascination – and maybe even a little jealousy

    • What Matthew wouldn’t give to have just a little of the attention and respect Jesus was receiving from the Jewish people?

    • But that was a crazy dream, Matthew thought 

    • After all, he was an outcast and without a true friend in the world

  • And then, a miracle happens…as Jesus passes by, He stops, turns, catches Matthew’s widening eyes, and says, “follow me”

    • Matthew pinches himself to be sure he’s not dreaming, but then almost immediately, he runs out of his booth to join Jesus

    • Luke adds that Matthew left everything behind

    • He left behind his booth, his money, his responsibilities to Rome, his protection by the Roman soldiers, his way of life

  • And most of all, Mathew left behind his shame and guilt

    • While the Jewish people probably weren’t so quick to forgive and forget what Matthew did

    • Gaining friends among the Jews would still have been tough for Matthew, but that didn’t matter much to him now

    • When you’re a friend of the King, you don’t need other friends

• Immediately, Matthew invited Jesus to join in a celebration at Matthew’s house

  • It’s reminiscent of the story of the prodigal son, when the son returns home, the Father throws a party

    • That’s where Matthew’s account goes next in v.10

Matt. 9:10  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.
Matt. 9:11  When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”
Matt. 9:12  But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.
Matt. 9:13  “But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

• Jesus is reclining in Matthew’s home 

  • In that day, people ate from tables on the floor, so they reclined on cushions positioned on the floor around the table

  • So a meal in that day was typically an intimate and joyful affair

• So now, imagine Jesus in that environment surrounded by other tax collectors and “sinners,” Matthew says, which refers to prostitutes

  • Now that’s some party! Food, drink surrounded by rich bad guys and loose women of ill repute

  • We understand why Matthew keeps this kind of company…these were the only type of people who would accept him

  • But does it make you feel a little uncomfortable to think of Jesus sharing that company too?

  • Rubbing elbows (literally) with extortionists and prostitutes?

• That was certainly the Pharisees’ reaction

  • They see Jesus enter Matthew’s home, and they are beside themselves with disgust

    • A tax collector’s home was off-limits to any self-respecting Jew

    • In fact, none of the Pharisees themselves dared to enter the house and join the meal, of course

    • They stayed nearby, grousing and grumbling among themselves

  • In v.11, the Pharisees speak with Jesus’ disciples, asking why is your Teacher (rabbi) eating with these sinners?

    • These leaders were indicting Jesus’ character to Jesus’ disciples to suggest that they were following the wrong guy

    • The true Messiah wouldn’t sin this way by associating with such ungodly people

    • Jesus wasn’t actually sinning by associating with such people, because the Law of God never called it sin

    • Nevertheless, He was violating the Pharisees’ rules, which they considered equal to Scripture

• Then Jesus responds in v.12-13 with His well-known and often-quoted observation

  • He says healthy people don’t need a visit from the doctor; the sick need doctors

    • Luke also records Jesus’ saying:

Luke 5:32  “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

• Jesus says these people were the spiritually sick

• Now that’s something that both Jesus and the Pharisees could have agreed upon

• But the question they disagreed over was, “What is our spiritual obligation toward such people?”  

  • The Pharisees had concluded that God had no mercy for such people

  • They believed God showed mercy to those who were righteous, those who kept the Law of Moses and the oral law of the rabbis

  • Naturally, the Pharisees saw themselves as perfect candidates for God’s mercy, while tax collectors and prostitutes were beyond reach

• But Jesus reminds them that’s not how doctors work

  • Jesus was acting like a doctor, bringing the medicine of God’s mercy to those who needed forgiveness the most

  • That’s why Jesus favored these sinners over the Pharisees

  • Jesus says He came to call the sinner to repentance, not the righteous

  • After all, why should God bring forgiveness to those who believed they had done nothing wrong?

• As obvious as that may sound to us now, it wasn’t how Pharisees understood the mission of the Messiah

  • Pharisees saw themselves as the best example of God’s standards and expectations for His people

    • And so when the Messiah finally arrived, they expected that man to affirm Pharisaic rabbinical culture 

    • They assumed the Messiah would be like a super-Pharisee

    • He would be like a teacher who puts gold stars on the papers of the exceptional student 

    • And they assumed they had a lot of those stars coming their way 

  • Therefore, they never imagined they were sinners in need of a Savior to forgive them of sin

    • That’s the chief conceit of self-righteousness 

    • Self-righteousness is thinking ourselves worthy of God’s approval on our own merits, conveniently forgetting how bad we truly are

    • It’s a self-deception that overestimates our virtues, while underestimating our faults

    • The Pharisees could look down their noses at tax collectors and prostitutes, because they saw themselves as righteous

    • They could judge others, because they saw no need to judge themselves

  • But we know the Pharisees were not righteous, because the Bible says there are none who are righteous, no not one

    • Even one sin is enough to make a person a Law breaker, a sinner

    • And nothing that person does from that point forward can erase that one mistake

    • Only God can erase it, which is why Jesus came to earth…to erase our sins

  • But since these men said they had no sin, they were left in their sins to their eternal condemnation

    • While the so-called sinners in the house with Jesus were the ones receiving God’s forgiveness by their faith

    • Pride is an ugly thing…it brought the first man to sin and it stood in the way of these men finding forgiveness

• To these self-righteous men, Jesus says in v.13, “go and learn what this means”

  • That is a rabbinical technique of teaching disciples…it’s like a homework assignment

    • `Then Jesus quotes from the prophet Hosea in the Old Testament

    • So Jesus reacts to his disciples’ misplaced concerns by assigning them some homework

    • So let’s do their homework and see what we learn

  • Jesus quotes from Hosea 6:6 where we read:

Hos. 6:6  For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, 
And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Hos. 6:7  But like Adam they have transgressed the covenant; 
There they have dealt treacherously against Me.

• Hosea says the Lord delights in loyalty, rather than sacrifice

• In Hebrew, the word for “loyalty” is better translated, “lovingkindness”

• “Lovingkindness” is a covenant term, describing the self-sacrificial devotion and service one party shows to another in a covenant  

  • In a covenant, you place the other party’s needs above your own

  • In a covenant, you are expected to remain loyal to the other person’s interests, regardless of what that person does

  • That’s what we have in our covenant with Jesus

  • Jesus showed us lovingkindness when He died in our place on the cross

  • And when we show Jesus’ love to the forgotten and rejected sinner of our world, we’re showing lovingkindness to Jesus

• God delights in these things, rather than in sacrifices

  • But we remember that sacrifices were also a part of God’s covenant relationship with Israel

  • Sacrifice was required under the Law, as a response to sin

  • So in what sense did the Lord not prefer sacrifice?

• The answer comes in the next line…He desires knowing Him over burnt offerings

  • In other words, the prophet is contrasting a covenant of faith in God with a covenant of Law

    • Both covenants had good purpose for God

    • But one was preferred over the other because one was internal, while the other was external

    • Knowing the Lord through faith in His son is a covenant based on lovingkindness, it’s an internal relationship with God

    • It’s a covenant of the heart, based on faith

  • While the covenant of Law was an external relationship with God

    • It took place at a distance, through outward actions of sacrifice 

    • It lacked the power to save, because it did not operate on the basis of faith

    • So if you were to choose one of these ways to please God, He says rely on the covenant of faith over the one of sacrifice

  • But that wasn’t the way the Pharisees saw their relationship with God

    • The Pharisees believed the Lord delighted in their sacrifices, 

    • Whether animal sacrifice in the temple, or the many personal sacrifices they made, these were the things they thought united them to God’s mercy

  • But sacrifice is an act of atonement and restitution required for those who have sinned

    • If you’re sacrificing, it means you’re still a sinner

    • It had a purpose in the Law, but that purpose was not saving a person

    • The endless repetition of the Law’s sacrifices reminded a person they needed something greater to obtain eternal forgiveness

  • The Pharisees were relying on self-righteousness under the Law, and self-righteousness doesn’t breed compassion…it results in judgment

    • That’s what allowed them to stand in judgment over those who didn’t measure up to their efforts

    • Notice the next line in Hosea 6… like Adam, they too had transgressed the covenant, they were sinners too

    • They had dealt treacherously with the Lord

    • They obeyed the outward requirements of the Law, while violating the Law continually in their hearts

• Now surely, those who know and follow Jesus know better than to think like this?

  • We remember we were once the sick, in need of Jesus’ healing too

    • So of course, that means we long to see the worst of society receiving Jesus too, don’t we?

    • And especially now, while Jesus is gone from the earth, we’re all ready to take His place by visiting the worst sinners of our day, right?

  • Well, I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we would admit that’s a tougher assignment than it should be

    • Ask yourself, would you have walked into that house with Jesus?

    • What if it was a crack house? What if it was a brothel or a homosexual bar?

    • I’m not saying we must go everywhere or foolishly throw ourselves in harm’s way

  • But self-righteousness is seductive and you can fall for it before you know it

    • In the beginning, we all come to Jesus repentant

    • We readily acknowledge we’re a sinner in need of a Savior, the spiritually sick patient in need of a doctor to grant healing

  • But then once we receive forgiveness, we can be tempted to turn into a Pharisee

    • We can start to think Jesus saved us because we were the spiritual all-star

    • And you’ll know when you’ve taken that turn, because you’ll forget the lesson of Hosea 6

    • We will lose sight of compassion and we’ll start trusting in our sacrifices

    • The way we sacrifice time for God at church, or our sacrifices of money or the way we police our behavior

  • From there it’s only a small step to looking down our noses at those dirty sinners everywhere

    • You know the types…the ones with tattoos

    • The ones with a checkered past, the ones who watch R-rated movies, the ones who vote Democrat

• Want proof how easy this can happen today? Then let me ask you some questions:

  • If the gay married couple living next door asked you to dinner, would you accept their invitation?

    • Would you invite them to your house for dinner?

    • If a prostitute walked in that door tonight (wearing scandalous attire) and sat a couple of seats away in your row, would you move closer to introduce yourself or move away?

    • If a Mormon invited you to a church meeting in their home, would you attend? 

  • The question is, do you see yourself as a doctor ready to meet the sick wherever they happen to be?

    • Or are you the Pharisee waiting for the sick to heal themselves before you’re willing to reward them with your approval?

    • Do you think people need to clean themselves up before they come to Jesus, forgetting that you came to Him a filthy sinner?

• Look, I know we have to be careful and discerning about these things, and there will be times and places that aren’t suitable for our company

  • But in my experience, those situations are few and far between

    • Meanwhile, there are many times you will pass by someone like Levi 

    • Men and women who sit by the side of the road, so to speak, living under a cloud of shame and rejection

    • They watch the privileged of the world passing by them every day

    • And they never dream that they too could be called a child of the King

  • If only someone would stop long enough to take note of them and call them to follow Jesus, they’re so ready to leave everything behind

    • The guilt, the shame, the hopelessness, the deprivation, the rejection and the pain

    • They’re ready to celebrate finding purpose and hope in Jesus, and they’ll be the first to invite their friends to follow

  • Remember, the Lord expects our lovingkindness to Him in this covenant we have by our faith

    • And lovingkindness requires we represent Christ’s interests to the world, just as Jesus did Himself

  • But if we’re going to be useful to God in reaching these sinners, then we have to be willing to rub elbows with them 

    • We have to remember we were once just like them

    • We may not have shared their lifestyle, but we were no more righteous than they were 

    • And we certainly shared their eternal fate were it not for the grace of God

    • Only by His grace were we made a child of God, by the same Gospel you can bring them

    • Go and learn this:  Compassion is what God is asking us to demonstrate – the compassion He showed us first