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		$Matthew 28:1-20$

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Matthew 9:1-13

“And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city [Capernaum]. And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitude saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such powers unto men. And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew [Matthew Levi], sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifices: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

“‘We ask that you would Lord make your Word real to us, as we look Lord at these things. Father we never want to gather out of habit, or simply out of compulsion Lord. We want to be here because we expect you to be in our midst, and that our hearts are drawn here, that we not only come to the house of God, but to the God of the house. Lord, we’re your children, and our hearts are open and we know your Word is alive and it’s powerful. And we ask you to give us our portion, Lord. We look to you this evening, in Jesus name, amen.’

True Friends of faith, Jesus heals a paralytic

Matthew chapter 9, we have come across through the storm, and the demoniacs at Gadera, and now we have Jesus coming back to Capernaum. “And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city [Capernaum had a population of 10,000, which would have been considered a city in those days].” Mark tells us clearly it’s Capernaum. “And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy”, he’s crippled, paraludicus in the Greek, we don’t know if arms and legs, but he’s a man whose paralyzed, “lying on a bed. And Jesus (notice this, it says) seeing their faith,” I wonder how he sees that? “said unto the crippled man sick of the palsy, ‘Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee.’ And behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, ‘This man blasphemeth.’…” Mark says the rest of the sentence, “because only God can forgive sins.” So, they’re right and wrong. Only God can forgive sins, correct. That this man Jesus blasphemeth is not. Either he is a blasphemer, and a deceiver, or he is who he says he is, and can forgive sin. “And Jesus, knowing their thoughts said, ‘Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?’” Now that’s an interesting picture. He comes to Capernaum. Luke is the one who clearly tells us that there were gathered there (in Luke 5:17), “It came to pass on a certain day that he was teaching, that there were Pharisees, doctors of the Law sitting by which were come out of every town of Galilee and Judah and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal.” Mark says that he’s preaching, but the word simply being “to talk”, it’s even used of the prattle of children sometimes in the Greek. So Jesus is sitting there, this crowd is there, they’re looking in the windows, they’re trying to fit into the room, and he’s talking, he’s not preaching. Evidently he’s sitting there and he’s talking to them, and teaching. And the crowd has swelled without the house. Remember when he was there before in Capernaum, it said the entire city (and the population about 10,000 at that time) had gathered at the door of Peter’s house. So we’re assuming this is Peter’s house again. And there’s a man who is crippled. We don’t know if he is born that way. We don’t know if it’s through some accident. This is a time when there were no known neurologists, there was no antiseptic creams for bedsores, there was no physical therapy. It was a man who was crippled, paralyzed. And evidently had laid for a long time, and had watched life go by, and had none of what we take for granted every day.

The faith of the paralytic’s four friends

Fortunately he had four friends, it seems, that’s what he still did have, and they came. Now they have to be familiar with Jesus to a degree, because they’re determined to get their friend to him, very determined. So you can imagine this guy laying in his house, because it says at the end of this account Jesus sent him back to his house, so he had a house. Does he have a wife taking care of him, does he have aged parents taking care of him from the time he was a child? We’re not sure. This morning four guys walk in, and they grab him on a stretcher, on a litter, and start to take him out. He says ‘Where we going?’ There’s nothing he can do about it, he’s the only guy who has no say in this whole picture. ‘Where we going?’ ‘Never mind.’ ‘We’re going to see the Master. He’s healing people, lepers are being cleansed, people who are crippled are being healed.’ And we can’t imagine what the guy’s thinking. Now, as they get to the crowd, they can’t get near the house, we’re told in both Luke and Mark. And you know these friends, how determined they are, because they’re gonna dig a hole in the roof, and let him down through the hole. Mark’s Gospel tells us that, Mark was discipled by Peter, I think it was Peter’s house, that’s why Peter takes a note ‘they dug a hole in my roof [laughter].’ And that’s what the word there means, ‘to dig’. They start trying to get through the crowd, into the house. Imagine four guys with a cripple on a litter, and the place is jammed, there’s doctors of the Law, there’s Pharisees, the scribes, people have come from Jerusalem, they want to assess this. They had followed John the Baptist, now there’s this new prophet, there’s this new teacher, this new rabbi, so they’re coming, they want to hear, they want to see what’s going on. And you can imagine, these guys bumping into everybody, they’re trying to get in with a guy on a stretcher, and as determined as they are, I’m sure they had at least one or two arguments. ‘Come on, man, move outa the way, our buddy’s crippled.’ ‘Get outa here, we were here first…’, you can just imagine, and we know they were like that, because they kind of pull back and brainstorm ‘What are we gonna do now? We gotta get him in there, he’s in there teaching, how we gonna get him in there?’ The guy’s probably saying, ‘Take me home, we can do this tomorrow, we can do this another day.’ So they decide they’re going to go up on the roof, and they’re going to dig a hole through the roof and let him down in the middle of the Bible study. Now in that day Josephus says there is what was called “the road of roofs”, because many of the houses were built next to each other. When you watch a detective movie the bad guys always get chased up onto the roof, then they start running, and they’re running across the roofs, and once in a while they get to a building where there’s a six foot gap, and they gotta look, they back up, they jump, and then the police, ‘I ain’t jumping’ [laughter]. So these guys, now they’re up there, coming across the rooftops with their buddy, and the crowd outside is probably seeing them. And in Israel, remember Jesus said in the Olivet Discourse, in the last days, when they see these horrendous things happening, let him who is on the roof not come down. Now they didn’t have pitched roofs like we do today, they have a flat roof, and it was a favorite place in the evening. And in that day the building is built out of stone, the wooden structure is put across, with then sticks across that, and then a mud-type of a plaster that was thick. And the floor was probably about this thick, sometimes it was tiled on top, and you could walk up there and it felt just like a concrete floor. So these guys get to the middle of this roof where Jesus is underneath. And they’re probably drawing an X, ‘Do you think he’s here? No he’s about over here.’ And the guy on the litter saying ‘What are you guys doing? Get me outa here, you guys are crazy.’ So they start, it tells us in Mark, digging through the roof. So you can imagine the people sitting down in the Bible study, all of a sudden there’s this banging, smashing, you know, people are looking up, plaster is starting to fall down. Then all of a sudden, somewhere a little hole finally opens up, and a little beam of light’s coming through now. And you see, probably, Jesus looking up, everybody in the crowd’s looking up, and fingers are coming through the hole. And they’re pulling out the dirt to make room, and their friend must be up there saying ‘Take me home, please don’t do this to me, take me home.’ And we’re not sure, do they make the hole long enough for the guy, ‘No, we need to make it another foot longer.’ I don’t think so, I think what they probably did is strapped him to the stretcher and let him down long-ways, you know, [laughter] because this is a big project, coming through somebody’s roof like this. So, you can imagine the scene. Jesus is moved, there’s dust in the air, their’s plaster falling, and here comes this guy down like a cocoon on a stretcher and hits the ground and he falls down sideways. And he’s laying there, he can’t do anything. And you know the doctors of the Law and everybody are dead silent now, because they’ve been hearing about Jesus and his power to heal, and they’re watching. And the poor guy on the floor must see this kind of silhouette look over him, because the light’s coming through the roof, and the dust from the plaster is swirling. And we’re not sure, exactly, what he saw in the face of Jesus. But we know this, Jesus says “Son, be of good cheer,” Technon Mark uses, a very endearing term, he looks at him and he says “Child, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” Now he’s telling us something. Because the Sadducees are going to think ‘Who can forgive sin but God?’ So what that is telling us is Jesus knows what these men are thinking, he knows what the Pharisees are thinking, he knows what the crowd’s thinking. There’s a couple guys up on the roof looking down like little kids, pointing at him, ‘That’s it, Lord, do it, here he is.’ “And Jesus seeing their faith”, well you could see their faith, because there’s a big hole in the roof, you’re right you can see their faith. But as Jesus looks into the eyes of the man, the man is evidently overwhelmed with his sin, not with his paralysis. And Jesus says ‘Child, be of good cheer’. It’s not just ‘Cheer up’, just say that to a cripple. It’s ‘Be encouraged’ in that sense, “take heart, your sins are forgiven.” And you know his friends are saying ‘No, no, not the sins, the legs! We didn’t bring him here to get his sins forgiven, we got it done to get the legs, that’s why we brought him here.’

Forgiveness of sins is much more important than healing

But Jesus had come to do something much more important than physical healing, hadn’t he? Because you see, this guy’s gonna get up and walk home. I don’t know how old he is. But I guarantee you within ten years, he’s gonna have a cold, he might have pneumonia, he’s gonna get arthritis, he’s gonna have prostate problems, he’s gonna get old. And the healing is going to wear out. The forgiveness is never going to wear out. The day that he closes his eyes in this world, that forgiveness would be alive and fresh. Healing is wonderful, but it’s going to wear out. ‘Child, your sins are forgiven, be of good courage.’ The religious leaders, rightly so, said “Wait, this is blasphemy. Only God can forgive sins”, and they’re right. They knew that somebody had to go to Jerusalem and offer a sin offering or trespass offering. You just didn’t say to somebody “Your sins are forgiven.” Of course, one of the problems that there’s been in Israel today for the past 2,000 years is there’s no sacrifice, and now they believe it’s by faith that God sees that. But in this day (2,000 years ago), this was unthinkable. You didn’t just say “Your sins are forgiven”. Moses prescribed in the Law this guy’s gotta get to Jerusalem. Even though he’s a cripple, he’s a sinner. And many times the religious moiré of the day said that illness and sickness was the result of sin. So, you can’t just say ‘You’re forgiven’. Now you know that when you went to the priest with your sacrifice, the priest didn’t examine the worshipper, he examined the sacrifice. That fact that the worshipper was there with the sacrifice was a confession that the worshipper was sinful. The worshipper had spot and blemish. But the Law said you couldn’t bring a lamb that was crippled or had a blemish or a spot, because the lamb had to look forward to the Messiah, to Christ. God didn’t want you saying, ‘You know what, I’ve been miserable to my wife this week, I got in a fist fight, I’ve been sinning, I got to go offer a sin offering, get me that three-legged lamb out there, I’ve been meaning to get rid of him anyway.’ You know, God didn’t want that, and he doesn’t want it from us either, because sometimes we give him the three-legged lambs, don’t we, instead of our best. You see, the worshipper could be paralyzed, but the lamb had to be perfect. And that’s exactly what was happening here. The worshipper was paralyzed, but the Lamb was perfect. And he knows that the religious leaders are thinking ‘This is wrong, you can’t just say your sins are forgiven.’ But desiring to demonstrate something, in his love for those religious leaders, “Jesus, knowing their thoughts” you see that in verse 4---now if he’s the same yesterday, today and forever, it means he knows ours, doesn’t it, it means he knows yours. Don’t sit here and think ‘Come on, get the study over so I can go to Friendly’s’ because he knows what you’re thinking. [laughter] “…knowing their thoughts, said, ‘Why are you thinking this in your hearts?’” They don’t have a chance to ask it, he’s knows they’re thinking it, and that must shock them in the first place. He turns to them and says “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?” The people are looking, because they don’t know what they are thinking, so the people must all turn and look at the religious leaders. “Whether is easier to say, Your sins are forgiven, or to say Rise up and walk?” Which is easier to say? He saying here ‘You’re problem here is observation, you just can’t see sins going away.’ In fact in Mark’s Gospel when it says “Your sins are forgiven”, it is literally “they are sent away”, probably harkening to the “scapegoat”, your sins are sent away. But nobody could see that, except Jesus, of course. Two people are having a great time here, that’s the paralytic and Jesus. I’m sure the paralytic, he had tears in his eyes, because he knew when Christ said to him, ‘Child, be encouraged, your sins are forgiven’, he knew something happened, and Jesus knew something happened. But nobody else did. So for the rest of us Jesus says ‘Well, come on, what’s easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or rise up and walk?’ Now that’s of course an obvious question. You can say to somebody ‘Your sins are forgiven’, and how do you know whether you have the authority to say that or not? But if you say to somebody ‘Rise up and walk’ and they don’t move, you know you don’t have any authority. It’s much easier to say ‘Your sins are forgiven’. But verse 6, Jesus says, “that you may know” that’s what he wants, “‘that you may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins’, then sayeth he to the sick of the palsy, ‘Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house.’” “Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thy house”, next three words are amazing “and he arose.” And you have to understand what’s happening here. My son had surgery on his ACL in July, and it was two weeks before rehab started. Do you know in two weeks, you lose, there’s atrophy, you lose probably your quad muscle, in just two weeks. And there’s months of rehab, to get your muscles working again, after two weeks of not using them. This guy’s been laying there, probably arms paralyzed, spine paralyzed, leg paralyzed for a long time. When Jesus says “Get up, take your bed and go home”, he doesn’t say ‘but Lord, what about therapy? What about rehab?’, because Jesus speaks to him, and he speaks to his neurons and his nerves and to his muscles and to his structure, and it must have been like ‘Snap, Crackle and Pop’, bones are coming in place, muscles immediately are generated. That’s nothing for the one who said “Let there be light”, “Let the waters above the firmament be separated from the waters below the firmament”. “‘Rise up, take your bed and go home.’ And he arose and departed.” He went to his house. I wonder what that was like when he came home, did he have a wife there, did he have kids there that had been taking care of him as an older man? Or was he a young man in his twenties that had aged parents? What was it like when the door burst open and he came in with his bed under his arm? And when Jesus heals you and gives you new muscles, what do they look like? I’m sure he wasn’t shabby, he probably walked in and said ‘Look at this, kids, look at that quad, look glute’s, look at that.’ [laughter] When he came in, he was whole, he was whole. When the multitude saw it, it says “they marvelled”, that’s the word that means they “feared”, “and they glorified God which had given such power unto men.”

Something to note about forgiveness of sins

Now, some important things to take note of here. One is, “so that you might note that the Son of man has power to forgive sins on earth.” Okay? “on earth”, because once you leave earth, it’s too late to have your sins forgiven. There isn’t anything about purgatory here, ok? He has authority to forgive sins, on earth. That means if you accept Christ while you’re alive, you accept God’s forgiveness while you’re alive in your earthly frame, you have hope, you have heaven. If you die, without accepting God’s forgiveness, there’s no authority past that, you’re not coming back as a, you know, it’s appointed for man once to die, then the judgment. [There is a wide variety of beliefs about what Hell is and eternal judgment. Many of the differing parts of the body of Christ believe and teach different things. See http://www.unityinchrist.com/plaintruth/battle.htm to see more on this subject. This makes the subject of what Hell is a secondary doctrine in God’s Word, since no one can agree.] You’re not coming back as something else, you’re not going somewhere and evolving in some astral plane. He has power on earth to forgive sins. That means any of you here tonight who don’t know him as your Savior, he has authority, he is the same yesterday, today and forever, right now, tonight, to forgive the sin of any of you who in your heart are aware of that fact.

How determined are you to get your friends to Jesus?

The other thing, as I look at this, I think, you know these guys are determined [the paralytic’s friends who cut open Peter’s roof]. How determined am I to get my friends to Christ? They had to do some things to get their friend to Christ. First they had to get their friend past people, didn’t they. Because they tried to get to the house and people were all in the way. You know, isn’t it sometimes people that keep, you want to tell your friend about Jesus, and your friend says ‘Yeah, what about all these phony guys on TV, what about all these guys who are begging for money all the time? What about this screwball and this…’ You have to get your friends past those people to get them to Jesus. ‘No, no, don’t look at that, don’t look at this, don’t look at that. Look at this, look at the claims of Christ. You examine them for yourself. Don’t look at people, you’ll never come.’ Sometimes we have to remove human structure, don’t we, tradition. [see http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophecies/1stcoming.htm] Sometimes somebody needs tear a hole in the roof of a denomination and let some light in, so that people can see the Truth, Jesus. And we have to get them past that. And how desperate am I to bring someone to Jesus? You know, I don’t need to tear a hole in the roof, but do I spend 15 minutes on my knees to bring one of my friends to Christ? I think Lord, I am so ashamed, sometimes. Grant me the determination in my heart that these men demonstrated to get a friend to Jesus. Am I willing to spend an hour and pray for somebody whose crippled, emotionally, physically, that needs his touch, to get them to Jesus? And to say ‘Lord’, and to tear a hole in the roof and let the light of heaven shine through? And say ‘Lord, touch my friend, bring my friend into the Kingdom, Lord look down on them and say ‘Child, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven, they’re sent away.’’ That’s what he did for me and what he did for you, isn’t it. These guys are good friends, I hope we all have friends like this. You say, ‘Where are you taking me?’ ‘Never mind, some hole-in-the-wall, some hole in the roof, just don’t worry.’ [laughter] And here’s the funny thing, you know, some of our friends it would probably be easier to get them to Jesus if they were crippled, because then they couldn’t do anything, we’d just load ‘em up and drive ‘em to church. You know, just take ‘em. The problem is, they can get away. Not on our knees though, they can’t get away from us then. The people marvelled, they marvelled, and I wonder about the religious leaders, because what they had to say is ‘Is God really this willing just to forgive sin? Is this really who he is?’ And remember, the tension is mounting now, between the Temple in Jerusalem and the ministry of Christ in Galilee. He had sent lepers [healed lepers] there, remember, to offer those sacrifices that had never been offered before, in Leviticus 14, in the history of the nation of Israel, that chapter written for Caiaphus and Annus. Now the religious leaders have come, and they’ve seen him say “Child, be of good cheer, your sins have been forgiven.” And they said, ‘No, that’s not right, you can’t do that, there’s the sacrificial Law of Moses.’ And Jesus turned to them and said “Why are you thinking that?” That must have freaked them out, just that alone. ‘What’s easier to say, Your sins are forgiven or Get up and walk?’ ‘But so that you’ll know that the Son of man’, from Daniel chapter 7, ‘that he has authority upon earth to forgive sins’, as he turns to this guy, withered, beaten, he says, ‘Go on, get up, take your bed and go home.’ And you know the crowd that wouldn’t let him in parted to let him out. As he came walking out, you know, like a sea, they all parted, they all looked at him. And you know his buddies up on the roof, they were scurrying to get back down to meet him, and what a scene that was. And Peter was saying ‘The roof, what about my roof? The roof, you know, the roof.’ So, remarkable scene.

Matthew Levi, the tax collector

”As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ So he arose and followed him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ When Jesus heard that, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ [Hosea 6:6] For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance’ (Matthew 9:9-13).

What was a tax collector back then?

“And as Jesus passed forth”, passed by, verse 9, “from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom. And he said unto him, ‘Follow me.’ And he arose and followed him.” Matthew in his Gospel giving us record of his own call. It’s interesting, because Mark says, hearing no doubt from Peter over the years, and God putting his Spirit on him as he writes his Gospel, “that Jesus saw Levi, the son of Alpheaus, a tax collector.” (Mark 2:14) Luke says “Jesus saw Levi, the publican” (Luke 5:27-31). Now you have to understand, there were three receipts of custom in that day, one was in Caesarea by the Sea, one was in Jericho, and one was in Capernaum. And there was the head tax collector in each one of those places, and he basically collected taxes on grain, which was a 5 percent tax, he collected tax on wine, which was a 20 percent tax, he collected a poll tax on each one of your sons if they were 13 or older, your daughters if they were 12 years or older, and on the adult folks in the home, 1 percent each, and a property tax. That was the head tax collectors job, and he didn’t do all of the other stuff. Zacchaeus, in Jericho, whom we’re going to meet, was a head tax collector. Matthew, the publican, is a different type of tax collector, he stood with a Roman guard behind him with a spear, and there was a road tax, he no doubt had a receipt of custom, he had a booth set up somewhere. There was a road tax, there was a certain tax on burros and beasts of burden, there were certain taxes on carts, by the number of axles. [Now this sounds like the New Hampshire toll booths, almost identical! They use their collected revenues exclusively for road maintenance, and that is why their roads are so well paved and hold up so well, compared to Massachusetts and Maine roads. They don’t allow any politicians to dip into this road tax.] And we’re finding archaeological records that there were taxes sometimes by the number of wheels. There were taxes on the boats, if you could get your boat at dock at the Sea of Galilee you paid certain taxes, and there were taxes on the number of fish that you caught, and there were particular taxes called luxury taxes. Some say that Matthew was the man who taught Peter to curse. [We have followed Roman government quite well with all of these nasty taxes, haven’t we, especially in Taxachussetts] So Matthew is that kind of tax collector. He’s despised by the Jews, because he’s a traitor, he’s turned away from his own people, he’s working for the hated Romans, and he’s collecting taxes. Not only is he collecting taxes, that job was bid for, and it went to the highest bidder, and you had to collect what was expected of Roman legal taxes, and anything above that which you could squeeze out of the people, that was your salary. So tax gatherers were despised for being traitors and they were despised because their taxation sometimes was exorbitant, it was above what the Romans wanted, and the Romans wanted a Jewish tax collector because he knew the customs, he knew the people, he knew where he could get the money.

Who was Matthew Levi? What did he contribute to the Gospels?

This man’s name is Levi [Matthew Levi]. No doubt, he’s not from the tribe of Judah, he’s not from the tribe of Benjamin, he is either from Aaron’s line or he is a Levite. [Aaron’s line was within the tribe of Levi, it was the priestly line from which the high priest came from.] Not just by his name. In Matthew’s Gospel we have 99 quotations from the Old Testament, more than Mark, Luke and John combined. More than that, 38 times we have Matthew saying to us, “Jesus fulfilled…”. Now that’s not just an Old Testament quotation, this is a man who knows the Old Testament, who is steeped in it. And he knows it enough to say 38 times to his readers “Jesus fulfilled that which was spoken through the prophet, by God, saying…” He is steeped in his knowledge of the Old Testament. He is a man, evidently, who saw the gouging of people in the Temple of Jerusalem, the Essenes were very critical of the religious climate in that day. Remember Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers, he cleansed the Temple in the beginning and the end of his ministry. And Matthew evidently had grown up in that, he had seen the hypocrisy of it, like kids grow up in the Church, and they see the hypocrisy, and they see people on TV gouging people for money, and that’s all they care about, and then the people [our kids] then turn away from the Church, because they want to put all of us into one “basket”, they want to paint all of us with one color. No doubt there were sincere Jews, but the religious leadership was corrupt. And the Sadducees were in cahoots with the Romans, they didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, they didn’t believe in angels, they didn’t believe in spirits. The Pharisees were trying to hold onto orthodoxy, but they were steeped in tradition by this time. And evidently at some point this young man turned away and said ‘I’m gonna get everything I can get for myself’, and he becomes a tax gatherer. Mark says, “Jesus passing by saw Levi the son of Alpheaus, a tax gatherer” (Mark 2:14). Luke says “…he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi…” (Luke 5:27), a hated work, there’s always publicans and sinners, put together. Matthew’s the only one who says “Jesus was passing by, and he saw a man…”, he saw a man, and that’s what Jesus always sees. You might see a prostitute, Jesus sees a woman. You might see a drug-pusher, Jesus sees a man. You might see a pornographer, you might see someone whom you despise, but Jesus sees a human being, somebody at some point in time was a toddler, someone who had been tucked into bed by a parent, someone who had been abused along the way, someone who had lost all trust in human beings at some point, someone who had been hardened and jaded and turned away. And God is able to look, as he looked into the heart of this man, and said ‘Child, be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven’, he’s able to see a man. And he was passing by and he, and he’s passing by tonight. “…and he saw a man, called Matthew”, Matthew means “the gift of God.” “And he said to him, ‘Follow me.’” The Greek tense is “be following me.” That’s all he had to say, he didn’t have to say ‘These are the four spiritual laws’, he didn’t have to say ‘Let me prove to you from the Old Testament who I am’, because he knew Matthew knew, Matthew was acquainted with the Old Testament, Matthew had been putting together the pictures in his mind, and he [Jesus] knew Matthew was sitting there saying this ‘You know what, I sold out on my own people because that was frustration, the religious system here, I was dissatisfied, disillusioned, so I thought I’ll become a tax gathered, get all the money I can, then I’ll be satisfied.’ [Comment: Matthew Levi new the Old Testament, so he knew all those prophecies about the Messiah were being proved right in front of his eyes. Most people in society today are Biblically illiterate, they don’t even know the Bible, let alone the Old Testament, so they may need a little bit of proof. The Bible says “Prove all things, hold fast to that which is good.” See http://www.unityinchrist.com/prophecies/1stcoming.htm to see most of the prophecies Matthew knew proved Jesus’ Messiahship.] And right after this he’s going to invite Jesus to his house, and it says the tax gatherers, prostitutes and sinners are there. Those are the only friends he was left with. And here’s this man now, he’s wealthy, he’s isolated, he’s empty, he’s got nothing. He’s hated by his own people. No doubt he’s regretted it a thousand times, and he’s looking at Jesus thinking ‘This is the Messiah, this is what Isaiah said, I’m seeing it.’ And Jesus walks up to him, and looks into his face, and all he has to say is ‘Come on, follow me, every day, for the rest of your life, be following me.’ And it says Matthew got up, and walked away. Luke says he left all. Lost nothing, left everything, lost nothing. You know, Peter, James, John, those guys dropped their nets and followed Jesus, but they went back and fished again (right after the crucifixion). At the end of John’s Gospel they go back and fish again. Matthew, once he walked away, he could never go back to that position with the Romans, ever. He walked away, and he began to follow Jesus. Remarkable. He gives us certain things, this “gift of God”, that none of the other writers do, he gives us two miracles not recorded anywhere else, he gives us eleven discourses not recorded anywhere else. He gives us nine particular incidences not recorded anywhere else. If it wasn’t for Matthew, he’s the one who tells us that the wise men came from the east, that Herod destroyed the children in Bethlehem. He’s the one that says to us “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls…take my yoke upon you, learn of me, my yoke is easy, my burden is light…I’m meek and lowly”, we get it from Matthew. Matthew is the one who tells us about the fish that Peter caught with the coin in his mouth, as a tax gatherer he was immensely interested in that. ‘Pay your taxes, not only are you catching fish, you catch a fish with money in its mouth, this is a good deal.’ Matthew is the one who tells us at the end of the Gospel, “Eli, Eli, llama Sabachthani”, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” We’d have that nowhere else. And I am thankful every day to know that Jesus cried that, so I never have to cry it. And it is from Matthew, “the gift of God”. Matthew is the one who tells us about the Roman guard at the tomb of Jesus. None of the other ones do, they were fishermen, they would not have known. But because Matthew was a tax gatherer, he was familiar with the Romans, he heard the inside scoop of what happened at the tomb, how the guard [a Roman guard detail was usually 40 armed soldiers] fell down like dead men, and then they got up and fled. Then they were paid not to say anything. So he is indeed “the gift of God” for giving us this remarkable Gospel. And Jesus saw in him a man. So I don’t care what you’ve done, what kind of sin, I don’t care how many people despise you. I don’t care how many family members hate your guts. I don’t care how empty you are, and discouraged and disillusioned, Jesus when he looks at you, he sees a man, a human, he sees a woman. And I think if you listen close you’ll still hear him saying ‘Be following me, let that be your life, get up, follow me.’

Matthew invites Jesus to his house for dinner, Jesus shocks the Pharisees, and challenges them---who Jesus tends to call, draw to himself, and why

“And it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house”, Mark tells us it’s Matthew’s house, “behold, many publicans”, lots of tax collectors, Matthew only had certain people he could invite, “publicans and sinners came and they sat down with him and his disciples.” Now here’s the amazing thing, Matthew is not hesitant at all, he doesn’t think ‘Boy, the crew I hang around with, you know, this is the Messiah and his disciples, I really can’t invite my friends.’ No, he knows exactly those are the kind of people that he wants to bring, because he had looked into the face of Jesus and heard the voice of Jesus, and heard Jesus say to him ‘Come on Matthew, you, follow me, I don’t hate you, I love you.’ And he invites them, and they come. “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples,---you know, they don’t talk to him directly---‘Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?’” Now you have to understand, culturally, if you broke bread with someone, you were becoming one with them. And they’re saying ‘Why is he doing this? We came here, you know, there’s lepers being sent to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices we’ve never offered before, we come here, we see him, people are being cleansed, healed, and this guy in the house of Peter who hasn’t walked…this is inconsistent, how could he be a prophet in Israel, and how can he then be eating with tax gatherers and sinners, I don’t understand, what is this? It doesn’t fit into the religious system.’ “But when Jesus heard that, he said to them…” Now Jesus answers, he turns around and looks at them, ‘They that be whole’, now that word is “healthy” “Those that are healthy don’t need a physician.” I keep telling my wife that, I don’t need one, I’m healthy, don’t try to make me go to one. [chuckles] I have good medical [coverage], they see my medical they’re going to use every machine they have on me, to try to find something to pay off their gear. “They that be healthy need not a physician, but they that are sick.” Now as an aside, ok, there are churches that teach that it’s a sin to go to the doctors, it’s a lack of faith. Jesus said “They that are sick have need of a physician.” [Luke was a physician.] OK? When Hezekiah was dying, and God sent and extended his life, he could have just healed him, but instead he said he had to put a poultice of figs on his wound. He used a medicinal way to heal him. Paul will say to Timothy, use a little wine for your stomach. Jesus says “those that are sick have need of physician.” It isn’t a lack of faith, in fact, you have to have faith to go to a doctor, it’s no lack of faith [laughter]. Because what they have is a medical practice [laughter], now look, I’m saying that, because I have a lot of good friends in the church that are doctors, I’m glad lawyers and doctors are not all here on one night, but [laughter], but healing is an art, as much as it is a science. There’s a sense to it, to really diagnose, to see what’s going on, to be sensitive and to care. And Jesus does not maintain the teaching that you are lacking faith if you go to a physician. He says those that are sick have need of a physician, and I say that because there are churches in the area that have watched children die instead of taking them for simple medical treatment. There is a book written by a man who was in prison in Barstowe who watched his son die, instead of taking him for a simple medical treatment that would have saved his life, and the man loved the Lord, he wasn’t a disbeliever, he was misbeliever. And when he got out of prison, of course his whole life he’s mourning the death of his son, as I would too, and he wrote a book “The Greatest of These Is Love”. And he wrote that, he said, because God showed him in prison ‘Faith, Hope and Love, these three abide, but the greatest of these is Love.’ He said God showed me, “The greatest of these is not faith. I had faith, but I didn’t have love. I watched my child die.” Those that are sick have need of a physician. I think all of you should go [laughter]. But what is Jesus saying to these guys? What he’s saying is this, look, ‘I’m not hob-knobbing with prostitutes and sinners and tax collectors, this is not a sin-party we’re having, I’m not here to have fellowship, I’m making a house-call, they’re sick, I’m the doctor, they’re infected with something that’s killing them, and I am come as a physician. I’m not coming to find fellowship with them in their sin, in their error, in their emptiness, I’m coming to heal, to care, to love.’ He looks at these Pharisees and says “Those that are healthy, they don’t need a physician, but those that are sick.” And then he says “Go ye and learn what this means”, now that’s an interesting phrase, because it was a rabbinic phrase, and when someone would ask a rabbi a foolish question, the rabbi would say “Go and learn what this means”, and then give him a verse from the Bible. So Jesus looks at the Pharisees and the doctors of the Law who know the Word and says to them “Go and learn what this means,” (I bet he blew steam out of their ears when he said that) “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” Now he’s quoting from Hosea, and you know the story of Hosea, Hosea marrying a prostitute, and then she turns away from him, a prophet, and she goes back into the world and prostitution, and Hosea’s heart is broken. And God says to Hosea, ‘Hosea, now you can go prophesy to my people Israel, because they are my adulterous wife, and that’s how I feel, and my heart is broken. They’ve turned away from me, and now you can share my heart with them as you prophesy.’ And Hosea said through the word of the Lord, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” Here he says ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice, not just ritualistic religion, but mercy.’ “For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (And if your Bible doesn’t say “to repentance” it’s a shame, because it’s one of the places where translators hacked up accurate manuscripts in the name of publishing.) He didn’t just come to call sinners, ‘Hey, you a sinner? How you doing?’. He came to call sinners to repentance. That’s how he came to call sinners. “Go learn ye what this means, I will have mercy, not sacrifice, for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Now Jesus is the great physician, isn’t he, for several reasons, obviously. Number one, is he makes house-calls. How many doctors do you know that still make house-calls? He makes house-calls. Number two, his diagnosis is always correct the first time. Any of you that have gone from ‘specialist’ to ‘specialist’ can appreciate that. His diagnosis is always correct, the first time. It’s ‘Do we want to hear it?’ He’s come to call sinners to repentance, he knows the diagnosis. His prescription is always correct. “Be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven.” He knows the root of the malady, he knows the root, he knows what the source is. His diagnosis and his prescription are always correct. And of course, the greatest reason why he’s the great physician is, that he pays the bill himself. That’s the doctor we’re looking for, he pays the bill himself. He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. I’m going to have the musicians come, and we’ll sing a last song this evening. I encourage you, read ahead, we’ll be working our way through chapter 9 of Matthew, into chapter 10. Just be reading onward as we journey through this…[transcript of an expository sermon on Matthew 9:1-13 given by Pastor Joe Focht of Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500 Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116.]