Matthew 9:9
Today we will begin our Bible study in
Matthew 9:9. It says, "And as Jesus passed forth from thence, 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."
Nothing that Jesus ever did was done by accident or by chance. He passed by
Matthew in order to call Matthew to follow him. Matthew did the one great
spiritual imperative of life: he followed Jesus when he was called. He
responded in a positive way to God when his heart was touched by God. There is
a verse in the Bible that says, "Many are called, but few are chosen." What happened to Matthew happens to every
human being. At some time in their life, God visits every one; to call them.
Those who surrender their life to God and follow Him, become just like Matthew.
The defining moment of their life becomes that moment when they started
following Jesus Christ. Those who resist God do not answer His call and they do
not follow Jesus. They will spend an eternity regretting it, even as Jesus said
in Matthew
The work of God today is the same as it was
2,000 years ago. The Savior came into the world to save sinners, and He still
passes by every soul and says to each, "Follow me."
And that is why verse 10 says, "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." Those who are looked down upon by the world,
because of their excesses and sins, may be the very ones who will end up being
the closest to Jesus because He came into the world to save sinners. If you are
close to Jesus Christ, then you know that you are one of the chief of sinners
and you know that it is only by His great mercy that you have a relationship
with Him.
This very lesson is what Jesus is going to
try and teach the Pharisees in the following conversation that He has with
them. Be careful that you do not pick up the attitude of the Pharisees, where
you think of yourself as better than others and look down on sinners. Anyone
that is a true Christian is just a sinner saved by grace. The author of the
song, Amazing Grace, certainly understood this. Remember how the song starts
out, "Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me."
There is a great misunderstanding of true
Christianity if someone talks about what makes them a Christian and emphasizes
the fact that they are a Christian because they go to church, or pay their
tithes, or read the Bible, or anything else in a list of good works. If someone
emphasizes themselves and their own good actions, then you may need to question
if they are true followers of Jesus Christ. But if they talk about how great a
sinner that they are, and how much they are dependent upon the grace and mercy
and forgiveness of God that is in Jesus Christ, then you can know that they
understand the first principles of the gospel.
Matthew 9:11-13 says, "And when the
Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why does your master eat with
publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them. They that
are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go and learn what
this means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance." If you think that you are
not a sinner, then you will never repent; and you will find yourself headed for
the destiny about which Jesus warned when He said elsewhere, "Except you repent,
you shall all likewise perish."
Matthew 9:14-15 says, "Then came to him
the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your
disciples do not fast? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the
bride-chamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will
come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast."
The disciples of John the Baptist fasted,
and the Pharisees fasted, but the disciples of Jesus did not. One important
spiritual truth that we can learn from this is the fact that the keeping of
strict religious requirements is not the essential means of drawing closer to
God. The disciples of John the Baptist and the Pharisees lived under the Old
Testament law. Anyone who lives under the law is in danger of going about to
establish their own righteousness. If you think that you can establish your own
righteousness and goodness by the keeping of the law, then you will never
discover the true righteousness of God which comes by faith in Jesus Christ. In
verse 13 Jesus had quoted Hosea 6:6 in which God said, "For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge
of God more than burnt offerings."
There has always been a tendency of
organized religion to make the same mistake that the Pharisees made. It’s a mistake to emphasize ceremony and the keeping of
legalistic requirements, which are performed only to be seen of men. The
participants in such ceremonies too easily become motivated by the desire to
establish their own righteousness, and thereby fail to come closer to God. The
way to come close to God is to say to Jesus, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
We have a tremendous amount of organized
religion in the world today, but how much of the knowledge of God do we have?
This difference between religious ceremony and the spiritual worship of God was
addressed by Jesus in the incident of the woman at the well. That incident is recorded in John chapter 4. The
Samaritan woman said to Jesus, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say that
in
Jesus made it clear that the true worship
of God is not to be associated with a geographical location or a man-made
architectural structure when He told the Samaritan woman, "But
the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father
in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him. God is a
spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
It is too bad that humans began the
tradition of putting the word "church" on the
outside of buildings where they have their meetings. The believers are the
church. The building is simply a convenience so that when the church assembles,
it will not be distracted by sun or wind or rain. In spite of all the
denominational boundaries that have been set up over the centuries by humans,
there is only one church and it is made up of everyone who is a true believer
in Jesus Christ. There are some who are not members of a human church
organization, but they are members of God’s church through faith in Jesus
Christ. And there are others who are members of a human church organization,
but they are not members of God’s church because they are like the Pharisees
who have never viewed themselves as sinners in need of God’s mercy.
In Matthew chapter 9:16-17 Jesus gives a
further explanation of why He and His disciples were different from the
Pharisees and why they were also different from the disciples of John the
Baptist. Jesus said, "No man puts a piece of new cloth onto an old garment, for
that which is put in to fill up takes from the garment, and the tear is made
worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break,
and the wine runs out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new
bottles, and both are preserved."
Humans had failed so miserably under the
Old Testament law and its requirements, that God decided that the law could not
even be patched, but that it had to be entirely replaced by the message of the
New Testament. There is a difference between the emphasis of the Old Testament
and the emphasis that is made in the New Testament. You had better understand
the difference or you will spend more time being like the Pharisees instead of
being the way that God wants you to be. John
The law has the Ten Commandments as part of
its central theme. Any list of right and wrong, of do’s and don’ts that you can
get out of the Bible is the law. The problem with the law is not with the law
itself, but is with human beings who are incapable of keeping the law.
Righteousness would have come by the law if only humans were capable of keeping
the law and were not so miserably weak. "As sparks fly upward, man tends to sin." Remember that to fail in one point is to be
guilty of all. As soon as you fail in one point, the law can only condemn. An
honest and enlightened person who attempts to keep the law of God, realizes
very quickly that they need a Savior, and so Paul said that the law is our
school-master to bring us to Christ.
Even the people who lived under the law and
who were spiritually minded, realized that they were dependent upon the mercy
of God above and beyond their own ability to keep the law. For example, in a
prayer of King Solomon’s in First Kings chapter 8 he prayed, "If they sin against you, (for there is no man that
sins not..." and he prayed, "forgive your
people that sinned against you, and all their transgressions wherein they have
transgressed against you, and give them compassion..."
One of the purposes of the message and
ministry of Jesus Christ was to reveal the love of God as it had never been
revealed before. That is why John said in the first chapter of the Gospel of
John, "the law was given by Moses, but" (in contrast to that)
"grace
and truth came by Jesus Christ." And
that is exactly why Jesus used the parable of the garment and the parable of
the wineskins: to emphasize that the law could not be patched up in order to
make it a means of obtaining righteousness. The law had to be totally and
completely replaced. Don’t make the mistake of taking Old Testament passages
where the Israelites failed to keep the law and think that there is a direct
correlation to the Christian life. Remember that Jesus said you should not put
a new piece of cloth on an old garment and you should not put new wine into old
wineskins. There is a vast difference between law and grace. When you read the
Old Testament, are you able to recognize the difference? In your attitude
toward your children, your spouse, or other people, is your attitude based upon
the principles of the law or the principles of mercy and grace as exemplified
in Jesus Christ?
In the next incident in the life of Jesus
that is recorded in Matthew 9, we have two people who did not have the most
perfect kind of faith, but they did have the most important thing about faith:
the object of their faith was Jesus. This incident is found in Matthew 9:18-26.
"While he
spoke these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped
him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay your hand upon her,
and she shall live. And Jesus arose and followed him, and so did his disciples.
And, behold, a woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years,
came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within
herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned
around, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; your faith
has made you whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. And when Jesus
came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a
noise, He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but is
sleeping. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he
went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went
abroad into all that land."
We know that this ruler was named Jairus,
because we are given his name in chapter 5 of the Gospel according to Mark. The
reason that Jairus came to Jesus was that his daughter had died. Of all the
sufferings that there can be in life, there may be none greater than what a
parent can suffer through their child. But in all things there is a purpose.
Even in the untimely death of someone that you love dearly, there is a purpose.
If you and I were capable of knowing all things, we would see how even such a
death fits perfectly into the circle of what must be. For example, someone may
be touched by such a death to think about their own mortality and their own
need to seek God. Obviously one of the results of the death of the daughter of
Jairus was that he met Jesus.
Jairus asked Jesus to come home with him
and touch his daughter. This is not near as much faith as that of the Roman
centurion who told Jesus that it was not necessary for Jesus to come to his
home to heal his servant, but to speak the word only. This contrast between
Jairus and the Roman centurion teaches us once again that the most important
thing is not the amount of one’s faith, but the object of one’s faith. As Jesus
once said, all that one needs is faith as a grain of mustard seed, which is a
very tiny seed.
On the way to the house of Jairus, Jesus
crossed the path of the woman with the issue of blood. Notice first of all that
He called her, "Daughter." When the ruler came to Jesus, he came to
Jesus on behalf of his daughter. We are not surprised because anyone would have
that kind of concern for their daughter. Jesus called this woman daughter
because He had a unique ability even when he met a total stranger, to care
about them as if they were the closest of kin.
The reason that this woman was healed of
her disease is the same reason that anyone was healed by Jesus, and it is the
same reason that anyone has ever been forgiven of their sins by Jesus. He said
to her, "your
faith has made you whole."
Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace are you saved through faith: and that not of
yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast."
Notice the imperfect faith that this woman
had. She falsely believed that she needed to touch His garment in order to be
healed. Her faith in Jesus was mixed with superstition and false doctrine. The
important thing was that in spite of the superstition, she did have faith in
Jesus. The Lord meets us where we are. He does not require perfect doctrine in
all points in order to be saved, as long as we have the essential ingredient of
faith in Him. Faith may be as small as a grain of mustard seed, but if it is
true faith, it will grow as long as it is fed by the Word of God and given
proper exercise by applying the Word to one’s life.
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Copyright; 2007 by Charles F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved