This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. (upbeat music) Welcome to day two of our look through Matthew chapter nine. We're going to look at verses nine to 13 today. It's a story of the call of Matthew, but for you and I, it's also a truth about how you and I can break out of the trap of our own selfishness. How do people break out of the traps that are built by our own selfishness? Listen to what happened with Matthew, verse nine down to verse 13. As Jesus went from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, he told him. And Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said, this is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick, but go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. So here we have the call of Matthew. Matthew, who before he knew Jesus, was a man who was pretty well versed in handling his own needs. He had maneuvered himself into riches, but he was still filled with needs. He had become trapped in his selfish, successful solution to meeting his own needs. There's a lot of people like that in the world today. They're trapped in their solution to meeting their own needs, their selfish solution. They don't feel good about what they're doing, maybe to other people to make money. They don't feel good about how they're treating people in their own family, but it's the only way they found to meet their own needs. They've got this protective life that now they're trapped inside of. How do you break out of that trap? Well, first, let's look at the trap that Matthew was in. Matthew was a selfish opportunist, no doubt about it. This is Matthew, the tax collector. This group of tax collectors were, by and large, a very opportunistic group in the very worst sense of the word. They were self-made, self-motivated, and self-indulgent. They were self-made. Tax collectors in Israel, they may not have come from a rich background. Their parents may not have been landowners, yet they saw one of the few chances in their day to rise above their circumstances and become rich, go to work for the conquering Romans. Now, others called them traders because they were working for the occupying enemy, but these tax collectors thought of themselves as shrewd. They found the one way to make money. This is what opportunists are like. Opportunists don't want anything handed to them on a silver platter. They'd rather hammer out an iron platter themselves and look at it and say, look at what I did and look at what Matthew did. He got himself to a good place. He was making a good living. He was becoming rich. Many times they became rich, these tax collectors, at the expense of their own countrymen. They had a certain amount of tax they had to gather, and then there were other taxes that were a little bit looser. You could raise it up or down depending on the need, so oftentimes they would raise the taxes to make a little bit more for themselves. They would raise the taxes at the expense of this family and that family and this friend, and so pretty soon the only friends they had were other tax collectors. They were self-made. They also were self-motivated. Eventually they became disowned by family and countrymen, and they pretty much, these tax collectors, stuck to themselves. They were classed, and we've heard it a couple times here, in this lowest category, tax collectors and sinners, and yet they continued on. They were motivated by their own greed. They were driven people, these opportunistic tax collectors, and history tells us that most of them were self-indulgent. These men were known for their parties. They flaunted their riches by indulging themselves. They're opportunists. They felt like I owe myself this pleasure. I earned it, and so they gave it to themselves. Self-made, self-motivated, self-indulgent. It all adds up to self-ish, and any life that's built on a single self, it's shallow, it's unfulfilled. The opportunist, if God's wired you that way, you know someone that God's wired that way, they're able to attain a lot of visible results, but in the end, you're left with a lot of unmet needs, because you cannot meet your needs as successful as you are, selfishly. Then there comes this day when Jesus walks by. I don't know if it's the first time that Matthew met him. Likely he'd known about Jesus before. He may have even met him before, but this is the day that Jesus calls him. Follow me, he says. In that moment, Matthew changes from the selfish opportunist to, I would call him the servant opportunist. He becomes Matthew the disciple. From Matthew the tax collector to now Matthew the disciple. It's interesting to see how the very personality that drove Matthew into becoming a tax collector now drives him into following Jesus. He hears these words, follow me. If you look at the personality of Matthew, he is an opportunist, but now he becomes a spiritual opportunist. Now he looks for the right opportunity. By and large, follow me, opportunists act when the opportunity comes. Those of us who are not opportunistic, we just wait, we consider, but opportunists, they rush in as quickly as they can, 'cause they know that opportunity's going to be lost, and Matthew immediately gets up to follow Jesus. The same part of his character that caused him to take advantage of the opportunity to be a tax collector causes him to see this greater opportunity to follow Jesus. So what about you? If you're a seize the day, take the hill, take advantage of the opportunity kind of person, God doesn't want to change your personality. He does want to change, he does want to change the kind of opportunities that you chase after. Instead of selfish opportunities, you start chasing after servant opportunities, opportunities to make a difference in this world. Follow me, he heard, and then he got up. And we learned there that opportunists not only act when the opportunity comes, opportunists also take great risks. This was a great risk for him to get up and leave that tax collector's booth. Peter leaves fishing to become a disciple, but if it hadn't worked out, he could've gone back to fishing, was the family business, he would've been welcomed back. But Matthew in this moment, he is risking it all. He is leaving his post. The Romans would replace him, and they never let him have that job again, and because he's hated by his countrymen, no one else would hire a tax collector. In this moment, he is risking it all for the sake of Christ. So let me ask you, do you like to take risks? Some of us are just wired that way. We like to take risks. If you're that kind of person, the question is, for whose glory are you taking those risks? Do you take risks just for the adrenaline rush, or just so other people will be impressed with the risk that you took? If God's wired you that way, how can you begin to take risks for the glory of God? Take more risks for God's glory. Opportunists, they act when the opportunity comes, they take great risks. And then the third thing we see that happens around the life of Matthew here is, he immediately throws this party, invites all his friends to meet Jesus. He's having dinner at Matthew's. Opportunists get other people involved. Opportunists share it with other people. Hey, this is a great opportunity, you need to be in on it too. They're gatherers, they get people included, and Matthew immediately shared it with his friends. Now Mark's gospel tells us that he threw this dinner party for all the tax collector and sinner friends that he had. And here comes Jesus to meet all of them. He wants to share it with everyone. He didn't want to just keep it to himself. If God's wired you that way, don't use that wiring just for business. It may make you successful in business. Well, praise God for that. But how can you also use it to share the good news of Christ with someone? How can you also use it to share the healing power of Christ with someone? How can you also use it to share the compassion of Christ with someone? That's how God's wired you. So let it be used for God's glory. Now, the Pharisees see this happening and they immediately take the opportunity to say, what in the world is going on here? Why would Jesus eat with people like this? And Jesus, hearing this question, has an opportunity to tell them exactly why he would meet with tax collectors and sinners. Sinners, by the way, were the lower rung of society. The prostitutes of society, the thieves of society, those who had been arrested or been in prison are now out of prison. Those people that everyone else rejected, now they've come together and Jesus came to meet with them. And Jesus tells us why. And his answers, they just quickly help us to see what it takes for us to be changed like Matthew was changed. Look at what Jesus said to the Pharisees. First, he says, "It's not the healthy who need a doctor, it's the sick. " Jesus is not looking for healthy people to reward. He's looking for sick people to heal. And a lot of people have got this turned around. They think that when they get everything just right in their lives, when they get healthy, then they can go to Jesus and they'll have a partnership with Jesus the rest of their lives. That's exactly what the Pharisees thought. And it's exactly what Jesus is condemning here. Until you see your need, Jesus can't heal your need. Until you admit you're sick, you won't go to the doctor. Until you admit your need, you won't accept Jesus' opportunity of life. In order to change, you have to know that you need to be changed. And Jesus is teaching that here. And then he goes on and he shares a second phrase with the Pharisees. He says, "Go look up what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. " "Go and learn," Jesus says. It's like, "Pharisees, you have a gap in your spiritual education. So let's go and learn. " They would have had to go home and they would have had to turn to Hosea 6. 6, where it talks about God desiring mercy and not sacrifice. Sacrifice was the outward show. Mercy was the inward heart, the inner commitment, the heart towards God. It's one of the most important principles you will ever get a hold of when it comes to your needs being met. Change happens from the inside out, never from the outside in. You cannot make change happen in your life from the outside in. It has to start in the heart. What makes God happy? It's not a show. He tells us again and again in scripture that he's not impressed with all the posing to impress him. He desires mercy. He desires a new heart. Jesus says, "That's what I'm here to do. " And then he says the most shocking thing to them. May not shock us as much because we haven't studied the Old Testament as much, but then he says, "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. " And here he's telling us that change is something that God is working toward in everyone's life. Anyone who will accept the invitation to change. Jesus is turning everything upside down here. Throughout the Old Testament, it's the righteous that God calls and the sinners are the ones who are judged. But Jesus says it's all different now. Because of the cross, I've come to call sinners to follow me. Now notice that word call. Jesus doesn't just say I've come to preach to sinners. He says I've come to call sinners, call you to a new way of life, to choose you of one of mine. This word call in Greek kaleo, it's a word for inviting a guest to a house or to a meal. It's this personal, loving invitation. So as we close this today, if just in your mind's eye for a moment, you could feel like Matthew in that tax collector seat. You've heard about Jesus, but there's some place in your life where what he wants to do in your life is to feel so far from your life. But then Jesus walks into that place. And he looks you in the eye and he says, follow me. Right here, right there, right now. So you're in the seat, what do you do? How can you place faith in him? How can you follow him in that area of your life? Jesus says, we pray, we say, we want to follow you. We want to follow you. We struggle to follow you sometimes because of our temptations, because of our selfishness, because of our confusion, because of our focus on ourselves. But we want to follow you. So teach us how to follow you. Teach us how to follow you in that place of our lives. To get up from the seat of our selfishness and to step out into the adventure, the risk, the joy of following you. We pray this, Jesus, in your name, amen. Well, tomorrow join us. We're going to continue to talk about change and look at how we become new people.