WWUTT 1987 Jesus Hangs Out With Sinners (Matthew 9:9-17)

Did Jesus hang out with sinners? Well, of course, every person he came in contact with was a sinner.

But he did not leave sinners as they were. When he called someone to himself, he made them brand new.

When we understand the text. This is

When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible study in the word of Christ, that men and women of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt .com. Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 9. Picking up where we left off yesterday,

I didn't quite get through that story of Jesus calling Matthew to follow him. So let's pick up there, verse 9, and I'll read through verse 17 out of the

Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord. And as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man called

Matthew sitting in the tax office. And he said to him, follow me. And he stood up and followed him.

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

And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?

But when Jesus heard this, he said, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

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

Then the disciples of John came to him asking, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

And Jesus said to them, can the attendants of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. But no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse tear results.

Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins, otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out, and the wineskins are ruined.

But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.

It's good that I wasn't able to get through the whole lesson yesterday, because Jesus coming to Matthew and then dining at his house, and then the disciples of John coming to Jesus and saying, why do we and the

Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast? These two stories really go together. All indications are that when

John's disciples come to Jesus, either Jesus is still feasting, with his disciples at Matthew's house, or the disciples know of it, and that's part of the reason why they come and they ask

Jesus this question. They see that Jesus and his disciples are rejoicing, they're feasting in the previous story.

So why that? When we fast, why are your disciples actually enjoying the feast? So let's look at these things together, coming back to verse 9, where Jesus went on from there.

Remember, he's going on from Capernaum, which was referred to as his home city. Let me jump back to chapter 9, verse 1.

Jesus getting into a boat, crossed over the sea, and came to his own city. Now, we might think of that as being

Nazareth, but that's not on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. It was actually Capernaum. When you read in Mark 2, verse 1, it specifically says that his own city was

Capernaum. I don't know why. I'm not sure if maybe he was living there in his adult life. Maybe that's where Mary and his siblings were living.

It wasn't Nazareth anymore. Nazareth was still considered to be the town where he grew up and had business, and he learned to be a carpenter, and where the people of that town knew him.

So that was also called a hometown. So I'm not sure about that. I've never looked into that, why Capernaum was referred to as his own city there.

But that's the reference. So Jesus had gone from Capernaum.

This is what we have in verse 9. He saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax office. We're led to believe here that he's still in Galilee, just not in Capernaum.

Matthew has a tax booth, in some translations, is the way that that's recorded. But it would have been a kind of a small building, almost like you would see those small coffee shacks today, where you just drive up real quick, get your coffee, or a snow cone shack or something like that.

That's what this tax office would have been. And it would have been fortified, so a little bit better than a snow cone trailer or something like that, because there's money in it, and they don't want people to come in, break in and steal the money.

So Matthew has this tax booth, might have had bars on it, you know, a little teller window sort of a thing.

So people come up and pay their taxes, and Matthew keeps his records there of everybody who is paying their taxes.

But Jesus comes to that tax booth, and he says, follow me. And it says,

Matthew stood up and followed him. Just the same kind of response that we had previously from James and John, when they're mending their nets with their father

Zebedee, and Jesus comes and says, follow me. They drop their nets and leave

Zebedee in the boat, and they go and follow Jesus. As we've been considering the authority of Christ here in these chapters in 8 and 9, where Jesus has authority over sickness, he has authority over diseases and demon possessions, and even sin is what we saw in what we looked at yesterday in verses 1 through 8.

So we see Jesus' authority even here to call his disciples to himself, and they follow him.

Nowhere in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, does Jesus ever call a disciple and they say, you know,

I think I'm good where I'm at. When Jesus calls, they follow. Now you're probably aware of that book by Sarah Young entitled

Jesus Calling. That book is not Jesus Calling. She claims to be writing the words of Christ.

They're not. The words of Christ are in the Bible, and the whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, not just the words that you see in red in the

Gospels. Of course, when you're talking about those red -letter Christians, we read the words of Jesus.

They don't seem to include the words of Jesus in Revelation, which are also in red. But anyway, that aside,

Jesus has called, and his words are right here in the Bible. That book, Jesus Calling, is not

Jesus Calling. When Jesus calls, people listen. They respond, and they follow him. As Jesus says in John 10,

I know my sheep, and they know me, and they follow me. Previously in John 6,

Jesus said, all that the Father gives to me will come to me, and I will raise them up on the last day.

So here, this disciple chosen by Christ to follow him, and he says to Matthew, follow me, and Matthew does.

And then where do they go right after that? They have a feast at Matthew's house. This tax collector.

And this is really showing the kind of variety that Jesus will call to himself among his disciples. And the variety among the disciples even demonstrates the kind of people that Jesus calls to himself from all walks of life.

Followers of Jesus, Christians come from all over the place. And no matter your background, or your occupation, or even what your reputation might be, those who hear the call of the gospel, and hearing it from the heart is what

I mean by that. Those who hear Christ say to them, repent and follow me, and who indeed follow him because of that transformation, that irresistible grace that has happened in the heart of the person who follows.

It doesn't matter what they were previously doing in life. They demonstrate their repentance, that this calling has been effective, an effectual calling, in that they leave whatever it is that they were doing to follow

Jesus. And that should be for all of us, for our faith, that we're following Christ, leaving whatever it was, leaving it all behind, our sin especially, as it says in Hebrews 12, 1 and 2, let us put off every sin and every weight which so easily entangles, and run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.

So we put all of that behind, we put the past behind us, we follow Christ, we, like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress, the burden of sin taken off our back rolls down the hill into the tomb, and it is no more.

I think it was yesterday I quoted to you Psalm 103 .12, God takes our sins, throws them as far as the east is from the west, and he remembers them no more.

He's calling Matthew to leave his tax booth, and Matthew does it because of the effectual work of God in his heart.

Now you may be aware that tax collectors had a bad reputation, especially

Jewish tax collectors, because they worked for the Romans. The Romans are our oppressors, and you will go and work for them and collect money for them.

So the Jews had contempt for Roman tax collectors, but they especially had contempt for Jewish tax collectors, as Matthew was.

And you may also be aware that tax collectors sometimes cheated people out of money. They would take a little off the top, or they would make people pay more than they really had to pay, so they could line their own pockets, take a little bit for themselves.

Perhaps the most notorious tax collector in the Gospels was

Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus in Luke 19, the wee little man, a wee little man was he, you know, he probably sung that song in Sunday school, he climbed up in a sycamore tree for the

Lord he wanted to see. And the Lord, as he passes by, he sees Zacchaeus up in the tree, and he says,

Zacchaeus, come down because I'm eating at your house today. And he comes into the house of Zacchaeus, who says to Jesus that he's going to give half of what he has to the poor, and anyone that he has extorted or cheated out of money, he's going to give back to them four times more.

And Jesus says, behold, salvation has come into this house, for this too is a son of Abraham.

And remember, as we read in Galatians 3, that it is those who are of faith, those who are in Christ, who are the children of Abraham, including you and me.

Matthew is called by Jesus to follow him. He follows Jesus, and there's a big feast at his house.

Other tax collectors and sinners come. And this also demonstrates the kind of transformation that's happened in Matthew's life.

Not only does he leave his tax booth and follows Jesus, but he is so overjoyed by the forgiveness that he has received in Christ, the invitation to become part of the household of God, that he extends this invitation to others, come and have what

I've been given. And there are other tax collectors and sinners, people that would have been in Matthew's entourage that come to his house and likewise celebrate what it is that's taken place in Matthew's life, and they get to know the

Lord as well. We see a demonstration of this fellowship right here at the start of verse 10.

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

This is fulfilling exactly what Jesus said previously in Matthew 8 about the centurion's faith.

He says, I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness.

In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Again, that was Matthew 8, 11, and 12. So Jesus says that's going to take place, and it's almost like we're seeing a picture of that here in Matthew's house with the tax collectors and sinners, those that the

Pharisees would be saying would not enter the kingdom of heaven. And here they are at table with the king himself.

And so when the Pharisees saw this, verse 11, they said to his disciples, why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?

These were people that the Pharisees would never have been caught dead with because they were considered to be unclean, will have nothing to do with them.

They don't enter into the kingdom of God. And it also shows just the gracelessness on the part of the

Pharisees. They're not going to forgive Matthew for the fact that he used to be a tax collector. It doesn't matter what he's leaving behind or that he's even an honest tax collector, that he's not taking more from people than they're supposed to pay or something like that.

They just have this graceless attitude about them. Whoever these people are, whatever their reputation is, they're outcasts to us.

But when Jesus heard this, verse 12, he said, it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.

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

And where Jesus says, I did not come to call the righteous, he's saying to the Pharisees, it's as if he is saying this to the

Pharisees, that you think of yourself as righteous. And if you think you're righteous, you think that you don't need forgiveness for your sins, then you're not who

I'm calling. I'm calling sinners. I'm calling those who realize that they are sinners in need of a

Savior and that Christ is that Savior. That's who Jesus calls. He doesn't call those who think they're fine.

I'm good. I don't need anything. I don't need God. Look at me. I'm doing all right by myself.

I can be good without God, which was exactly the way that the Pharisees thought, because they thought that they didn't need

Christ. They didn't see that Jesus was the Messiah. They thought they were righteous by their works.

Plenty of people walking around just like that today. There are atheists who say they're good by their works.

There are even Christians who say, I'm good because look at all these wonderful things I do, so you know that I am saved.

But Jesus says, it's not those who are healthy who need a physician. If you think you're healthy, then of course you're not going to come to me.

But those who are sick, they know they're sick. They know they need healing. They're the ones that are going to come to Jesus, and that's who these tax collectors and sinners are.

They know they need a Savior. They know Christ is that Savior. And so Jesus says in verse 13, go and learn what this means.

And he quotes from Hosea 6 .6, I desire compassion and not sacrifice.

Anybody can do the sacrifices. In the sacrificial system, God instituted.

It's in his law. But what is even greater than this is compassion, is mercy.

Because remember, as Jesus will say, as the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 13, we see this elsewhere in the

New Testament, love is the fulfilling of the law. Whoever loves his neighbor is keeping the law.

So what's even greater than the sacrifices, which is a system Christ is going to fulfill, what's even greater than this is mercy.

I desire compassion and not sacrifice. You want to keep the law? Show mercy and compassion to your fellow

Jews, which the Pharisees were not even doing that. They might have been able to boast in keeping all the other parts of the law.

Look at all the sacrifices that we do. But anybody can do that, and their heart would still be far from God.

They look like they're keeping the law on the outside, but their hearts are far from God, as Isaiah said, and Jesus will say about this people, about those

Pharisees as well. So learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

I desire compassion. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners. You know, surely you hear it said that Jesus hung out with sinners.

He hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes. What do you mean by that when you say hung out with them?

He didn't hang out with prostitutes while they were in the brothel. That's not what Jesus did. But when tax collectors and prostitutes came to him, he forgave them.

They were still tax collectors and prostitutes in the eyes of those who were self -righteous, but he would say to them, go and sin no more.

He wasn't okay with them going back to cheating and extorting and sexual promiscuity and all of that.

Jesus was not okay with that. He said their sins are forgiven and to go and not sin anymore. And if they truly were forgiven and followers of Christ, then they would not return to their old ways.

As said in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. And Paul talks about this also in Colossians chapter two, that we would put off the old and put on the new.

I'm sorry. I think that's chapter three where he talks about that. And that's a common theme that comes up in Paul's epistles that we no longer walk in the old ways, but we put those things off and being clothed with Christ, we walk in newness of life.

And that's what we see here. Even in this next portion of Matthew nine, picking up in verse 14, then the disciples of John came to him asking, why do we in the

Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast because the fasting here would have been a demonstration of, of mourning.

And Jesus alludes to that in his response, verse 15, Jesus said to them, can the attendance of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?

But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them and then they will fast.

Now the attendance of the bridegroom are like his wedding party, the other men who are with him. And, and when the bridegroom is with them, they're great.

They're happy. And they're feasting with the bridegroom. And we're celebrating because you just got married, but the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away and then they will fast.

There's a couple of possible interpretations of that. Either this is in reference to his death or it's in reference to him going back to heaven and, and then fasting even among the disciples would resume, but here they're feasting at Matthew's house.

So Jesus gives them these two illustrations, but no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.

Now, let me, let me hang on there for a moment. These three illustrations go together. So Jesus mentions the bridegroom and then he talks about unshrunk cloth on an old garment.

And then he talks about new wine into old wine skins. These three illustrations are not just pointing to the same thing, but they're all like interconnected illustrations.

When you go to the wedding feast, you wear the garments that the bridegroom gives.

You know, that whole thing of bridesmaids wearing matching dresses and the, and the groomsmen wear matching tuxes.

That's not just a modern thing. That was even back in Jewish times, the, you would have certain garments that you were supposed to wear to the wedding feast.

So that's what Jesus is mentioning here. And then there would be wine and rejoicing. And so you have the reference to the new wine into, uh, into new wine skins.

All of this is, is a connected illustration, a connected metaphor. So Jesus again says in verse 16, no one puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and a worse tear results.

What Jesus is illustrating here is that the whole person has been changed. Talking about Matthew and the other sinners and tax collectors that have come to him.

This is, this is not just a small little dinner that we're having here. And then they're kind of going to go on their way.

We are celebrating that something new has happened. Something has changed in the lives of these people in Matthew and even the friends that he has invited to his house.

So this isn't a patch of cloth being sewn on an old garment. They are wearing new garments.

And then verse 17, nor do people put new wine into old wine skins.

Otherwise the wine skins burst and the wine pours out and the wine skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wine skins and both are preserved.

So you're seeing from the inside out new wine. The Holy Spirit has come in and has changed the person.

And then you can see it on the outside. This is a new wine skin that the new wine has been put in. So you see as a demonstration of their lives, the new man or woman that they have become in Christ Jesus.

And that's what we read about in the testimony of Matthew and the other tax collectors and sinners that came and followed

Jesus. And so how about you in your life? Can people see demonstrated that there is a transformation that has happened, that you are no longer the person that you were.

But in Christ, you've been washed and been made new as said in Romans 6, that we might walk in newness of life.

So let us walk in the new garments that we've been clothed in the righteousness of Christ, new wine in new wine skins.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us in Christ, that we have been made new.

We have been invited to the feast. We have become members of the household of God.

And not only this, but we've become fellow heirs of the kingdom of Christ. What good news to hear of this for those who have heard the call of the gospel and followed it.

And therefore we are now the children of God in your kingdom. Teach us to walk in a way that is pleasing to our father in heaven as imitators of Christ.

And let us go our way today pursuing holiness in your name.

In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website, www .wutt

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