Matthew 9:10-13
“Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home for dinner, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. When the Pharisees saw this they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?” When Jesus heard this he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor-sick people do.” Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”(I copied this from the New Living Translation so the terms and wording would be familiar and relevant to us this morning.)
I am so grateful this morning that we get to look at words and teaching from Jesus. Matthew recorded what happened over 2000 years ago and we get to hear Jesus speaking to people in a real life situation. Going to a friend’s house for dinner, we are all familiar with this. Jesus responds to the people around him in these few verses and we get listen in too.
- Matthew wasn’t afraid of mixing his friend groups. I often think about who I invite to events based on how well they know each other and how much they have in common, but Matthew just asked his friends to dinner.
- Jesus went to dinner with disreputable sinners. The notes in my Bible say that Matthew’s reputation as a tax collector hadn’t caught up yet with his new life as a disciple so he became a bridge for Jesus’s message to reach Matthew’s “old crowd” friends.
- Jesus was accomplishing His work of spreading the gospel and didn’t let other people’s judgments of his methods interfere with his plan.
- Jesus was very direct in His message, using concepts that were obvious to His listeners.
- The Pharisees were so concerned about how they looked to others, they couldn’t see people in need of truth. They wanted respect from others more than they wanted to help people, and they wanted to make others look bad in public, (probably to elevate themselves) rather than encourage those who needed the Gospel.
- Jesus, because He loves us, desires to reach all people with his good news, including the poor, the immoral, the lonely, the outcast, and the sick. Jesus loves all of those He created and desires a relationship with every one of us.
- The message behind Jesus’ words, “show mercy, not offer sacrifices” is, don’t get so caught up in rituals that you miss loving and helping the people around you.
- The last sentence of verse 10 stings a little. It is a quick definer of hearts. It is easy to compare yourself with another person to feel better about yourself. We can all find someone who struggles with an area of life that we find easier to manage. Why are we so tempted to do this? We use the wrong measuring stick so often. We should only be comparing ourselves to God’s standard. He is perfect in every way, and we are not. This levels the playing field so quickly. It lands all of us in the exact same spot…missing the mark.
Jesus’ purpose on earth was to meet people where they were in life, love them and show them the way to everlasting relationship with Him and His Father. This should be our purpose too. Jesus’ motivation is pure love. Ours should be the same, with added gratefulness, humility and joy because of the gift of payment for our own sin from Jesus. We get so caught up in our lives, families, responsibilities, things to accomplish that we get sidetracked from our main purpose for being here. We get so wrapped up in what we see and experience on this earth, we start to believe that this life and these jobs and friends are all that there is in life. We forget God’s bigger picture and unseen plan for spreading His good news. We forget His purpose for our lives. It is hard to live in this world with God’s purpose as the driving force in our hearts. But we can do better. We can reset our minds at any given moment of the day or night. We can ask God to renew our minds and change our hearts to be more like Him with unwavering purpose. (This needs to be asked of Him daily or more, rather than a onetime request.) He knows the struggle we live in because he created us and He created this world. He understands our desire to be like Him and the inability we have to actually be like Him because of our humanness. The beauty and joy for Him is when we do reflect Him. The times we choose as He would to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. When we love like He does. When we remember our actual purpose and do what He would in a situation. We won’t ever get it perfect here on earth, but we can grow in the number of things we choose well. We can grow in love for others. We can remember our purpose more today than we did yesterday. As we string more moments of love and sacrificial choices together, we start to look more and more like Jesus did on earth. We start to live with our true purpose guiding us more than not.