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Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

0:17Let me encourage you to keep your Bibles open in Matthew as we're gonna be referring to the text this morning. We come to Jesus teaching on discipleship. If you've been with us in chapters eight and nine, there's three sets of three miracles and we're in between set two and set three. And here we get Jesus teaching on discipleship and in it he challenges religious tradition, he challenges religious tradition and he outlines the unique nature of his kingdom. And so we're gonna see that this morning. Would you join me as we now pray and ask the Lord for help? Father in heaven, we ask that you would incline our hearts to you and your word this morning.

1:07You are indeed so good because you've given us your word. And so work through it by the power of your spirit so that we would see wondrous things about Christ and then enliven our hearts so that we would experience the very joy of the Lord that is our salvation. And so come in power this morning. We pray this in Jesus matchless name. Amen. The finest things in life are reserved for the wealthy and the highly privileged. The best stuff is the birthright of the rich and powerful. How many of you have ever heard of the Met Gala? Met Gala, A number of you. So that's the fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Arts Costume Institute in Manhattan.

2:02It's considered fashion's biggest night. It's where all the stars come out and it's invite only. And if you are important enough, if you know someone, if you're famous enough, you have the privilege of paying $75,000 for one ticket in order to hobnob with the elite. The most exclusive ultra elite clubs require much more than money. I was doing some research. One of the oldest clubs is White's Club in London, founded in 1693. And its notable members include King Charles iii, prince William, and former Prime Minister David Cameron. Membership is of course by invitation only, and you need recommendations from two current members to vouch for you a formal application, a committee review, an election process, and a waiting list.

2:59And only then if you are accepted, you get the privilege of paying the exorbitant initiation fee of a hundred thousand dollars. And this is the way it's always been in the world. Ancient kings enjoyed grand palaces. Medieval lords ate opulent feasts, industrial tycoons, dwelt in stately manners and the ultra elite feast on the finest delicacies. And yet in contrast, we come to a passage where we get the Lord of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ, who reclines at a table surrounded by some of the seediest most questionable and degenerate people of society. Jesus challenges the traditions and the practices of the religious.

3:52He challenges the ways of the world and he highlights that he's come to bring a very different kingdom. In fact, he's come to bring an upside down kingdom, a counter-cultural kingdom. His kingdom doesn't look like any kingdom that has come before. Now I want you to see with me how Jesus is getting criticized by several groups. Look with me at Matthew nine verse three. It says, this is last week's passage. The scribes said to themselves, this man is blaspheming. And then in Matthew chapter nine, verse 11, the Pharisees saw this and then they criticized him. And then Matthew nine 14, who comes to Jesus?

4:38It's John's disciples. So we get three different groups of religious people, the scribes, the Pharisees and John's disciples. And they all take issue with Jesus. Jesus, this isn't the way that we do it. You can't say that Jesus, you can't eat with these people Jesus. Why aren't you fasting like the rest of us? Jesus? But Jesus uses this criticism to be an opportunity for him to teach about the nature of his kingdom. And what does he teach? He teaches that his kingdom is marked by mercy for sinners and messianic joy, his kingdom is marked by mercy for sinners and messianic joy. And we're gonna see this in our passage this morning.

5:30What Jesus is doing is he's saying that my kingdom stands in dramatic co contrast to everything that you have seen before. And this makes the scribes, the Pharisees and John's disciples rather uncomfortable. And I wonder if it makes even us this morning a bit uncomfortable. The aim of this text is to show us what he means when he says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. So we're gonna walk through this passage in two parts. First we see the calling of Matthew verses nine to 13. And then we see the question about fasting in 14 to 17. So this first section, I'm calling a kingdom marked by mercy, four sinners in verse nine kind of sets up the story.

6:19As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth and he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. So Jesus leaves Capernaum, he goes to Matthew's tax collection booth in, in Mark's gospel, Matthew is called Levi, the son of Alpheus. And yet in those days it was fairly common to have multiple names like Saul and Paul or Simon and Peter. And so I think it's speaking of the same person. And to understand Matthew's call, it just requires a little bit of background on how taxes worked in Jesus' time. So Jewish males over 20 had to pay the annual half shekel temple tax.

6:59non-Roma citizens had to pay a tribute tax and if they owned property, they would have a land tax and then they would have the head tax of one denari per year. Everyone was required to pay custom duties and tolls if you were transporting goods across kind of regions. And tax collectors sat at these booths in the gates of the city or along a major trade route like at Capernaum in order to collect tolls and custom duties and dishonesty and extortion were rampant because that's how they got paid. So we might think of Matthew as being the Roman equivalent of the IRS, kind of respectable but reviled and that would be wrong.

7:44Tax collectors were viewed as traitors to their Jewish people. They're viewed as thieves, extortionists and thugs. So think more mobster than the IRS. And I know for some of you, you don't differentiate between the two. But mobster more than the IRS, they were unwelcome in the synagogue. They were alienated from respectable society. They're political, religious and social outcasts. They're at the very bottom of the kind of totem pole of society even though they're wealthy. This is a payday loan shark casino boss and mobster wrapped up in one. And shockingly Jesus goes out of his way to get this kind of man to become one of his disciples.

8:36Our text says, and he rose and followed him. So Matthew exhibits faith and commitment and follows Jesus in Luke's gospel, Luke 5 28. It actually says he left everything behind, leaving everything he rose and followed him. So Matthew left his job, he left his lucrative profession, even his position, he probably wouldn't get it back again. In many ways, Matthew leaves more than the fishermen who still can go back at time to time and go fishing. Jesus goes out of his way to call this kind of person to be his disciple. In in Mark's gospel, actually in Mark two 13 it says that all the crowd was coming to Jesus.

9:21And so, uh, this is the picture. Jesus has begun to make a reputation for himself. Everyone is swarming to him. Even the scribes in earlier section say, I wanna follow you Jesus. I'll go wherever you go. Who's not budging from his spot? That would be Matthew. He's very content making money at his tax booth while all the crowds follow Jesus. He's unmoved, he worships money. And yet Jesus goes out of his way to call Matthew to come. I think what we're supposed to see is that Christ's call to salvation is sovereign and affectual, when Jesus calls, you're called into his kingdom and it's effective.

10:14This is stunning. And the disciples are shocked. It's like if I recruited, uh, uh, a degenerate gambler to come be part of the pastoral staff, you guys might have a thing to say about that. Matthew then throws a great feast in his home. This is verse 10. And he invites Jesus as the guest of honor. Some of those details are left out, but Luke records them. And the reason they're probably left out is because Matthew's writing about himself, his own call here. And so he invites all of his tax collecting friends and other sinners who were essentially on the outskirts of respectable society. The the underbelly if you will of society, the black market, the underground economy, the pimps and prostitutes if you will, people of questionable character and profession.

11:03These are the types of people that none of us would be caught dead having a meal with the scribes and the Pharisees certainly would not have been caught having a meal with them because having a meal was not just a casual act, it was a picture of friendship and of acceptance and love. And so here the criticism is leveled, verse 11. And when the Pharisees saw this, you can just imagine that they're seething and surprised. They said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? They're not at the banquet, they're on the outside looking in and they look at this scandalous scene.

11:45Jesus knows the optics of what he's doing. Jesus is not surprised at the criticism. Later on in Matthew 1119, Jesus says, the son of man came eating and drinking. And they say, look at him. A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinner. So Jesus is well aware of the optics and yet he intentionally does it. Why? Well, he regularly shared meals with people who were unclean violators of the law and his association with such people looked questionable at best. But then Jesus now turns to teach his lesson, verse 12. But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

12:30So this is a common proverbial saying in the ancient world, doctors help the sick rather than the healthy. And what Jesus does is he applies this spiritually. And so in the case of the Pharisees, they're the so-called healthy ones and the tax collectors and the sinners are the sick. And so Jesus says, I've come for the sick. And what he's saying is not that the Pharisees are actually healthy, but rather Jesus has come not for those who think that they're healthy, but rather for those who know that they are sick, he's come to display the radical and remarkable grace of God. He's come to display mercy for sinners like we saw last week.

13:15Our greatest need is our forgiveness of sins. And Jesus comes to those who can really recognize and see with spiritual eyes that our greatest need, my greatest need is forgiveness of sins, our spiritual sickness, our spiritual paralysis. And then he cites Hosea six, six, Hosea chapter six, verse six, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. The word for mercy here in Hosea is translated steadfast love or hesed in the Hebrew. So the broader context of Hosea is that the nation of Israel was keeping the letter of the law. They were enacting all of the sacrifices, but they had neglected the heart of the law.

14:05Mercy, justice, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. They neglected the very heart of the law. They didn't ultimately love God or their neighbor. They were saying, lemme, lemme check the box. Okay, did the sacrifice, Hosea chapter six, verse four, just two verses earlier, pictures, Israel's love like this. It says like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. In other words, their love is fickle and shallow like the dew that evaporates as soon as the sun comes out, their checking their religious boxes, doing sacrifices, fasting giving, but they have no love for God and they have no love for neighbor.

14:48And so what Jesus is doing, inciting Hosea six, six, is he's accusing these pharisees of being cut from the same cloth. You're just like your forefathers. You're just like them. You don't get it, do you? I've come for sinners. You're following the letter of the law while neglecting the greater work of love and mercy. And so what's the problem with the Pharisees? 'cause these people were indeed sinners. What's wrong with the Pharisees? Well, it's because their first instinct was to despise the tax collectors and sinners. The problem is that they concluded, the Pharisees concluded that these people were beyond the reach, the healing of Jesus.

15:38And yet Jesus has been teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, what is true righteousness. True righteousness is reflecting God's heart. Jesus' behavior transcends our expectations and sensibilities. He does this throughout the gospels. A Jesus don't get a tax collector as a disciple Jesus, don't let that questionable woman wash your feet with her hair. That doesn't look good. Jesus don't talk with the Samaritan woman alone. And yet Jesus says, I came not to call the righteous but sinners. And this is the glorious and good news of the gospel. Jesus came for sinners. Jesus came for you and me. And Jesus'. Love is this transforming love.

16:35He doesn't leave them where they're at, but rather in Jesus effectual call, he transforms them by his love and grace so that they would be conformed to his image. One of one of my favorite lines and an old hymn is from Samuel Crossman's. My song is Love Unknown. And it goes like this. My song is love unknown. My savior's love to me, love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be. And that's precisely what this passage is revealing. Jesus love is this transformative love for unlovely people in order to make them lovely and lovable. Jesus' point is that he came to save sinners. Now he's not uninterested in the salvation of the Pharisees, but their self righteousness keeps them from coming to Jesus as the great physician.

17:35I don't need a doctor. I'm not sick. I wonder how many of us, even if we might not say it, have that same attitude deep within our hearts this morning, the Pharisees don't see their need for Christ, whereas Sinic sinners don't hesitate. They come right up to Jesus and say, we need your help. And so two, two application questions at this point for us. First, have you come to Jesus recognizing your spiritual sickness and paralysis before a holy God this morning? Or do you stand back and say, well, I'm not that bad. I know a lot of worse people than me. Everyone can come to Jesus in repentance and faith.

18:31And it means also that no one is beyond the touch of Christ, that Matthew, the despised, the degenerate sitting off alone at his tax booth, Jesus goes out of his way to call him out of darkness into his marvelous light and to be part of his kingdom and to be one of his 12 disciples. How amazing is that? So if you're engrossed this morning in sexual immorality, You're employed in deception. Maybe you are a criminal or a slave to chemical addictions or you're a member of the underbelly of society, Jesus has come for you this morning.

19:27And maybe you're not any of those things, but you're just judgemental. You're just critical all the time. You're sinfully anxious, you're lazy and apathetic towards the things of God. And you're prone to be angry and self-righteous and to say, look at that guy. Jesus has come for you and for your sins as well. Here are the following lyrics that I think sum up this call. Come sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you full of pity, love and power. Come ye thirsty, come and welcome God's free bounty, glorify true belief and true repentance. Every grace that brings you nay come ye weary, heavy laden lost and ruined by the fall.

20:27If you tear till your better, you will never come at all. The second question is, are we more like Jesus in this story or are we more like the Pharisees when we see people who are different from us, when we see people who are dressed poorly, who are engaged in sinful lifestyles, who are not part of respectable society, who are marginalized and ostracized for what they have done or what they believe, do we pray for them? Do we show compassion for them? Do we reflect Christ's love and compassion for sinners? Do we just find the respectable unbeliever and say, well, I I'll share the gospel with you.

21:15But those degenerate unbelievers, well, they're just too far. CT stud missionary CT stud once wrote, some wanna live within the sound of church or Chapel Bell. I wanna run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. In Hosea's day, the people followed a list of rules and rituals, but they had forsaken their first love. And so this morning, are you motivated by keeping rules and following rituals? Or are you motivated by loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself? Are we marked by mercy towards others and loving fellow believers and doing good to all, especially those of the household of faith? Now, this can certainly be abused.

22:09I think many will sometimes take this passage and use it to excuse their own immorality. And I wanna just give a brief word to beware of that. Now, I once met a young man who said that he had a ministry to young women in adult gentleman's clubs where he would go and share the gospel. And I just thought, that is so stupid, like unwise, dangerous misapplication of Jesus teaching. Here Jesus' disciples are to be holy, like he is holy, and to exhibit lives of righteousness and obedience. And we must never forget that Jesus welcomes the messiest of sinners with all of their baggage so that they can find healing and hope in Christ.

22:55And we have to hold that tension together at all times. The church is indeed a hospital for sinners and it's a community of those who are being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ and continue to walk that out in love. And it, it just so happens, this wasn't planned, but Pastor Jason, our outreach pastor is sponsoring a outreach expo. I think it's today. And so you get to interact with people from New Life, family Services or arrive ministries or together for good. And so you or your small group can uh, minister to those facing unwanted pregnancies or to help settle legal refugees or to walk alongside families facing crisis.

23:38And so we, we wanna not only say this in Word, but we wanna do it in deed. Alright, second half a kingdom marked by Messianic joy. This is verses 14 to 17. Verse 14 sets the stage. Then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast. So at first, this seems like two completely disconnected stories. One was about the calling of Matthew. The other is a question about fasting. But I think if we look closer, we'll see how these hang together. The Pharisees question in the previous section is, why is Jesus eating with these people? And then John's disciples come and they say, why is Jesus eating at all?

24:23We know from the Sermon on the Mount that Jesus taught his disciples to fast but to do so in private. And Jesus himself fasted for 40 days in the wilderness. So Jesus is not anti fasting. Fasting was required for the day of atonement. And that's when all good Jews would then fast. But what the Pharisees and even John's disciples had done is they created extra rules. And they were probably fasting every Monday and every Thursday. And my guess this was a Thursday evening when Matthew had just been called. And so they're feasting. And then the Pharisees and John's disciples are fasting. Now, I want you to see how these two accounts connect in the earlier section.

25:05The Pharisees don't see themselves as sinners. And so they don't come to Jesus seeking forgiveness of sins. And the Pharisees, as we know back in the Sermon on the Mount chapter six verse one, they're those those hypocrites who fast in order to be seen by others to obtain the praise of man. And so they're the religious showoffs and hypocrites. But John's disciples hearing that exchange, hearing how Jesus takes issue with them, they come to Jesus and they're like, but what about us? Like we know we're sinners. Jesus. That's John the Baptist's whole message. That's all John said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

25:43And so they say, we know that we're sinners and we're fasting too. Jesus, we're fasting out of grief for our sin. Aren't we going about fasting the right way? And what does Jesus respond? He doesn't say, yeah, you guys, you guys got it right. He uses this opportunity to reveal a profound truth about his identity and his kingdom. He uses three illustrations. And the first illustration is he uses this metaphor that John the Baptist himself used. So in John chapter three, verse 29, John was with his disciples. He see Jesus walking by and he says, that's the groom, that's the bridegroom. I'm just the best man. He must increase. I must decrease.

26:30He's the man. This is the one. He's the lamb of God who's come to take away the sins of the world. And now Jesus takes the same metaphor to say, his disciples are the wedding guests who cannot fast because the groom has finally arrived. Weddings are an occasion for feasting and for joy and for celebration. And the groom has come. What Jesus is saying, I'm the Messiah. John was pointing to this reality. Can you imagine throwing a wedding? And when dinnertime rolls around, everyone has their play settings. Y you know, you get on the microphone and say, instead of serving you guys a meal, oh, we're gonna actually fast instead together, the dads are like, yeah, let's do it.

27:22It would save a lot of money. No, that would be deeply inappropriate. It would be deeply inappropriate. Wedding guests don't fast. They feast and they celebrate. And in those days, weddings were this week long celebration marked by food and wine and joy. And fasting was a symbol of mourning. Jesus is the groom who has come to receive his bride. We, we sang it earlier. I I know that's an uncomfortable song for men to sing. 'cause we never think of ourselves as brides. And it's just kind of a weird song to sing. And yet that is the reality. Jesus is throwing this messianic wedding banquet, and he has come to rescue his bride and that includes sinners of every stripe.

28:09And he's brought them near so that he might give them joy and that they might feast at his table. Jesus is telling John's disciples and the Pharisees and the tax collectors, I am the Messiah. All of the imagery throughout the Old Testament that talks about God as a husband who has come to receive and rescue his bride, Jesus takes that on and says, that's me. I'm the Messiah. I am the Christ. Don't you see it? And John's disciples don't see it. They're like, why aren't you fasting? You should be following our, our patterns and religious traditions and rituals. The second and third illustration, highlight the newness of the kingdom that Jesus is introducing.

29:06No one sows an shrunk cloth to an old garment because it'll create an even greater terror when you wash it and that new piece of cloth shrinks. And so what he's saying is that I've come to establish a new kingdom, a new covenant, and it can't just be retrofitted on the old covenant of Judaism and the Old Testament, Jesus didn't come to abolish the law, but he fulfilled it. But in fulfilling it, he also transcends it and he reveals its ultimate purpose. The third illustration is largely the same. The skins of goats and oxen and camels were used to store and transport wine. They still do this in parts of Mongolia today.

29:47And new wine ferments and expands, stretching the skins. But if you put new wine into old brittle skins, what you're going to do is burst those skins and you're gonna ruin both the wine wineskin and the wine. And again, what Jesus is saying, his kingdom, what he is bringing, the new covenant can't just be poured into the old wineskin of Judaism, the kingdom of Christ's challenges and even undermines religious traditions, upending expectations. And Jesus is establishing this new kingdom that's gonna be marked by mercy for sinners and messianic joy. I am the Messiah. And so my disciples can't fast right now.

30:35John's disciples, uh, I think misunderstood. They're thinking Well, Jesus is is the one that John was pointing to. And so maybe he's John 2.0. He, he's just a, a, a better prophet, a better rabbi. He, he's come to revise and update Judaism and kind of reform it to tweak it a little bit. And Jesus says, I've come to overhaul it. I am the Messiah, the Christ, the son of man, and I'm ushering in an entirely new kingdom unlike you've ever seen before. And this upside down kingdom, this counteral counter-cultural kingdom is marked by mercy for sinners. That is so remarkable because every kingdom comes and says, look at my power.

31:25Look at how great this new king is. Let me do away with what's old. Let me build a taller statue. Let me build a, a bigger palace, a, a better a, a more expansive kingdom. Let's take over more land. And what Jesus does when he comes and he says, my calling card, the mark of this kingdom is that it's for the lowly, it's for the broken. It's for sinners. It's for degenerate people to come and find healing in Christ. So this section is not mainly about fasting. Fasting is merely the opportunity for Jesus to teach that his kingdom has come in power and mercy for sinners. Jesus doesn't require generational wealth to get into his kingdom.

32:15He doesn't require status or power. Instead, he pronounces blessing on the poor, the meek and the persecuted. He warns the wealthy and privilege, he associates with tax collectors and prostitutes and sinners. And he taught that the last will be first and the first shall be last. Self-righteousness on that day will be rejected. If you come and you say, Lord, Lord, did I not depart from me? Whereas humility and recognition of one's sins is all that is required. If you come to Jesus and say, I bring nothing completely empty hands, no righteousness of my own clothed in rags, Jesus says, welcome. You are in the right place.

33:01This is an upside down kingdom. The unworthy find forgiveness. Now, a practical question coming out of this text might be, am I supposed to be fasting or feasting? Some of you were thinking that. And I think the answer is yes. Jesus says His disciples will fast when he's taken away. And we're living in that time now. We long for Jesus' return. And so we fast in eager longing for his return and we feast in celebration that he came, he lived, he died, he rose again. He's ascended into heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the Father and he beckons all of his broken sins, sick children to come to him.

33:51And so we feast to anticipate the marriage supper of the lamb where we will sit with King Jesus and we will feast forevermore. And so we're not only to Marvel at Jesus' authority. You remember Matthew eight and nine, Matthew's been building this case. He his authority in all these different realms. See his authority. See his authority, see his authority. He is such great authority. And how does he exercise his authority to love the lowly and to welcome sinners? That is remarkable.

34:28Jesus kingdom is not purchased by any amount of money. No amount of good works or righteous deeds or philanthropic donations can grant your entrance. It's not about your fame or power or connections or status. You don't pay a large fee for your initiation or monthly dues. It doesn't matter if your royalty or if you have generational wealth to enter Christ's kingdom requires one thing seeing your sin and coming to Jesus. So come, come, come to Jesus this morning. Come to Jesus afresh and say, Lord, I need your grace and healing touch. Jesus comes to rescue a soiled and sinful bride that is so amazing.

35:31Jesus teaches, I've come as the Messiah and the Messiah comes and contrary to what everyone expect. Pick the best and the brightest and the smartest and the richest. Jesus goes out and picks the lowliest to be part of his kingdom. And this is pointing forward to a day when we will be gathered at the marriage feast of the lamb. We will celebrate the union of Christ and his bride. I can't imagine what this table is gonna look like. Is it a round table? Is it a long table? We will gather and feast with king Jesus. Isaiah 25 set describes this feast like this, the feast of rich food, a feast of well aged wine of rich food, full of marrow of aged wine, well refined.

36:19Isaiah 25, verse six. And then in verse eight he says, and God will swallow up death forever and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces in that day. There will be no more fasting. There will be no more sorrow, there will be no more tears. All those in Christ sinners degenerate the underbelly of society. All those who have empty hands and bring nothing to the table who have come to put their trust in, Jesus will be gathered at that glorious table. No one will say, I purchased my seat at this table. I did it enough. I got by by the skin of my teeth. No one will say I paid $75,000 for this seat at this table so that I could eat with these people.

37:08Everyone will say, all by grace. All by grace. And we will feast with King Jesus. And we will look across this table and just marvel at the people who are there. We will marvel that we are there. We will marvel. I too am seated at this feast where my tears will be wiped away and I will enjoy Christ's presence forever. So may we behold Jesus in all of his glory and all of his power in all of his authority that he exercises to show mercy to sinners and to usher in messianic joy, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your authority over leprosy, to heal from afar, to do as you wish, to demand complete devotion, your authority over nature and demons, and to even to forgive sins.

38:13And we thank you that you use that authority to rescue us, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So thank you for dying for the ungodly and oh fill our hearts with joy. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Matthew 9:9-17