Sermon for April 27, 2008 – Easter 6

Matthew 9:9-13

Cough Cough…sick again!  It’s the end of cold season, but still we experience colds, the flu, and I’m sure that you’ve even heard about the outbreaks of measles.  This is a part of our lives here on earth.  We get sick, and when the illness gets bad, we might have to go see the doctor.  But what if we don’t even know we’re sick.  Most doctors don’t make house calls any more, and none of them show up at your house unannounced to cure your ailments.  But today we’ll see how Jesus is a different kind of doctor.  He’s our Spiritual Physician, and he goes out of his way to seek out people who suffer from the deadly problem of sin.  Jesus doesn’t just seek out the sick, he also supplies the solution.  We see him doing this in our sermon text for today.   Matthew 9:9-13

⁹As Jesus went on 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. ¹⁰While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. ¹¹When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" ¹²On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. ¹³But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

It is early in Jesus’ public ministry.  He’s calling his disciples.  Earlier Matthew tells us that Jesus was in a city called Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee; the home base for Jesus public ministry.  He is well known here and is already drawing large crowds.  They are coming for healing and to hear his teachings.  Jesus is drawing in the people at the bottom of the social ladder, the people known simply as sinners. Jesus knows that world needs a Savior, and he seeks out the sick.  Jesus is also attracting the attention of the Pharisees, these Jewish leaders who didn’t believe they needed a Spiritual doctor.

So now, on his way out of Capernaum, Jesus stops to talk to Matthew, the tax collector. Jesus seeks out the sick.  Jesus stops and asks a tax collector to follow him.  Jewish tax collectors are considered traitors to their nation, collecting for the hated Roman government.  They were outcasts among the Jews, both socially and spiritually.  As if being a traitor wasn’t enough, tax collectors were also known for collecting much more than they were required to.  They stole from their Jewish countrymen to satisfy their greed. 

And here we see Jesus – the King of the Jews – seeking out Matthew, who’s sitting right there at his tax booth, and he says to him, “Follow me.”  Can you imagine how exciting this would be?  Jesus, the all powerful Messiah, calls you to follow him and learn from him as a full time disciple.  And Matthew shows no hesitation.  He just gets up and follows Jesus.  Matthew is so thankful that Jesus sought him out.  So he asks Jesus to come to his house for dinner with his friends and co-workers. 

In verse 10 we see that: While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples.  Jesus, our Great Physician, continues to care for sinners.  This was a pretty rough crowd.  Open and obvious sinners, prostitutes and law breakers.  When Jesus sat down to eat with the tax collectors and sinners at Matthew’s house, it implied to everyone that he accepted them.  The Pharisees reacted to this situation with disgust.  How could Jesus eat with these people?  Matthew isn’t forcing Jesus and his disciples to associate with sinners.  Jesus is there because he wants to be.  Jesus, the doctor for sin, makes a house call.  He doesn’t think about his reputation.  He doesn’t worry about what people will say behind his back.  Jesus came to save sinners.  Jesus seeks out the sick.

But what does this mean for us?  We aren’t prostitutes or thieves.  Remember that we too were sick sinners who needed a Spiritual Physician.  But the sickness of sin is much different than a cold, the flu, or even cancer.  We are born sinful – King David wrote in the Psalms (51:5): Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.  Ever since Adam and Eve fell into sin in the beginning, everyone from then on has been born with original sin.  And there is no man-made medicine on earth that can cure us. 

Thankfully, Jesus is the doctor who seeks out the sick.  Romans 5:8 tells us: But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  You might not even remember a time when you were not a Christian, and that is because for many of us Jesus sought us out when we were tiny babies.  When we were baptized the Holy Spirit came into our hearts with God’s powerful word and made them alive.  We can take refuge in God’s loving purpose.  He sent Jesus to save sinners.  Verse 13 says: For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.  Jesus is the all powerful God.  The God who frees us from death and calls us to life.  Sick people need to see a doctor, and Jesus is the only doctor who can save our souls.

After Jesus called Matthew, the next thing that Matthew did was to invite his friends to meet Jesus.  His friends needed a Savior.  Isn’t this the natural reaction to amazing news?  We have to tell somebody.  Jesus has called us to salvation!  And we have the opportunity to take our friends to meet Jesus too.  Invite them to church, or a youth group outing.  Read the Bible together with your family and meet Jesus face to face.  We can also follow Jesus’ example and bring the gospel to the people who seem less important or unworthy to us.  We might not want to talk about our faith with that guy at work, who curses and makes dirty jokes, but he needs God too.  We might be embarrassed to ask that poor family with naughty/wild kids down the street to come to our church, they might make us look bad, but they need Jesus too.  And God promises to give us the strength to be like Matthew and introduce people to their Spiritual Physician.

So Jesus is the doctor who seeks out the sick.  Sure, it’s nice to have a doctor that visits you often, or even makes an occasional house call, but we can all agree that the best doctor is the one who finds the cure.  Without medication a sick person will usually get worse and worse and may die.  Jesus knows not only how to diagnose our spiritual problem, but he also supplies the solution.

Some sicknesses we just wait out.  Eventually our bodies will fight off the virus, or the illness will run its course, but sin left untreated will never simply “run its course.”  We need a solution!  Untreated sin kills body and soul.  Every time.  There are absolutely no exceptions.  Not only is sin deadly, it is also universal.  Everyone is infected. 

Thankfully Jesus has the solution for sin.  And just as the diagnosis is the same for everyone, so is the cure.  Jesus has a two part prescription for sin – the law and the gospel.  It may seem strange that God’s law is part of the cure for sin, but we see Jesus using it all the time in his ministry. 

The Pharisees think that they’re righteous.  They think that they have earned God’s favor by themselves and their rigorous good works.  They look down on Jesus for associating himself with the scum of society, and they question him.  Well, actually, they sneak behind his back and try to confuse the disciples by asking “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”  But Jesus knows what is going on, and steps in.  His answer is all law.  “I don’t want your outward sacrifices.  I did not come to this world to call you people who think that you’re righteous.  No I came for people who know that they are sinners.  I came to lead them to repentance.”  Jesus wants to show them their sinful pride, and by doing so he is also calling them to repentance. 

The law is a necessary part of the solution for people today just as it was for the Pharisees.  People still need to know they’re sinners.  But this isn’t a call for us to leave church today and point out every sin that we notice to our families and friends.  Look in your own heart first.  Even though we don’t say it out loud, there is always that part of us that believes we can be good enough to earn God’s favor.  Overall we are good people!  And we look even better when we compare ourselves with people who are worse than we are.  But when we place our focus on the petty good things we do, we take away the glory from Christ.  We look up at the cross and shake our heads at Jesus.  “I didn’t need you so bad after all.”

But the law remains, and on our own all of our spiritual hospital records show that we’re bound for the grave.  If Doctor Jesus kept a file our sins it would fill up not only the hospital library but a number of warehouses across the street too.  Even one of these sins means that we would have to suffer eternally in the fires of hell. A SINFUL PERSON CANNOT STAND IN THE HOLINESS OF GOD. 

God’s law is real and it is severe.  The law cuts us down when we act like Pharisees, when we rely on our own righteousness.  When we forget that we need, WE NEED JESUS.  The terror of the law drives us to fall down on our knees and cry out, “What can I do to be saved?”  And Jesus, the very one whom we nailed to the cross with our selfish pride, shouting I DON’T NEED YOU JESUS,  the Great Spiritual Physician, looks at us from behind our mounds and piles of sins, and says to us, “Your sins are innumerable.  Your situation is hopeless, you are not righteous.  But I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.  I came to save you.  I have the solution for your sin.  I am the solution.”

And then Jesus shows us the rest of his solution for sin.  The real heart of his message, the body and soul of his mission.  The gospel.  The law shows us our sin.  But the gospel shows us our Savior.  This gospel shows us a Savior who left the eternal perfection and glory of heaven, to come to earth to eat with sinners, with prostitutes, with thieves, with me, with you.  He came to earth to make the cure for sin complete.  Unlike earthly doctors who can only help to fight the symptoms of sin – pain, disease, depression, our Spiritual Physician, Jesus, treats the cause of sin.

Jesus came down from heaven, and he faced the same temptations that we do, but instead of caving in he obeyed the law perfectly.  He came to save the world.”  Jesus carried the sins of the world to the cross, where he was raised up among sinners, he was cursed and scoffed.  “If you’re the Son of God come down from there!”  And he could have, he could have come down from the cross in glory with 10,000 angels at his back, and avenged the poor fools who thought they could crucify the Lord of Glory.  But the fact is, he didn’t.  Jesus hung bleeding on the cross, until he breathed his last and gave up his spirit.  And it was finished.  It was finished because on Easter Sunday Jesus was no longer in the grave.  He had risen.  He has conquered death, and because he rose, he has proven that we too will rise from the dead.  He has opened up heaven for us.  Yes, we will still die on this earth, but heaven is our home, and our Father is waiting for us there.

Now that Christ has destroyed the record of our sins, he gives us his robes of righteousness.  Now when God looks at us, he doesn’t see our sin stained lives, but he sees Jesus perfect life.  Out of thanksgiving we can follow his prescription for our lives on earth.  Jesus said to the Pharisees: I desire mercy, not sacrifice.  God doesn’t want us to just go through the motions of our faith, and he definitely doesn’t want us to rely on ourselves for salvation.  But he wants us to show mercy.  And we can do this because God first showed mercy to us.  We love because he first loved us.  There are so many ways for us to show mercy in this world.  We can volunteer; we can give our offerings to support mission work in third world countries.  We will notice our brother or sister in need, and ask, “How can I help you out, can I at least listen to what you’re going through?”  The possibilities are out there, take advantage of them.  But more important than reaching out to physical needs, we will reach out with mercy to people’s spiritual needs.  We have the cure!  We have the only solution to eternal death, and it’s the free gift of Jesus.  If we had a free instantaneous cure for cancer with no strings attached, wouldn’t you tell your sick friend about it?  Well we have the cure for a much more serious problem.  We have the cure for eternal suffering in hell.  How can we hold that back from a dying world?  Don’t be ashamed of the gospel, it’s the power of God. 

Jesus Christ, our Spiritual Physician, has sought us out and has given us his full solution for sin, both with the law and the gospel.  Live your lives knowing that we have the cure for sin, telling our neighbors about it and showing mercy.  Feeling sick with the weight of sin?  Go see the doctor.  We can call on him anytime.  His door is always open.

Amen.