My desire is that this would
be very real in your own personal life. We read, as Jesus went
on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax collector's
booth and He said to him, follow Me. And he got up and followed Him. The one invitation that Jesus
extended more than anything else that He ever had to say is found
in this invitation in these two words, follow Me. In the previous chapter in verse
22, He said to a man, follow Me. and allow the dead to bury their
own dead. And earlier in chapter 4, Jesus
came to Andrew and James and John and Peter and He said, follow
Me and I will make you fishers of men. And the number one call
that Jesus issued as recorded in the four gospels is this summons
to follow Him. It is synonymous with repentance. It is synonymous with faith.
It is synonymous with coming to Christ. It is synonymous with
coming after Christ. All of these ways of inviting
us to come to Christ are really saying the same thing, yet in
a different way. But this is what Jesus came back
to again and again and again was to issue this call to follow
me." It represents really the Christian life as a journey,
as a lifelong journey that has a definite starting point. There
was a time in our life when we were not following Christ. And
then we heard this invitation and we came to a point of commitment. We came to a point of surrender. We came to a point by which we
committed our life to Christ and we began to follow Him. We took a step of faith and we
entrusted our lives entirely and completely to Christ. That means we had to leave where
we once were. We had to leave our old life
behind in order now to follow after Christ. And we now walk
with Him through life in close, intimate fellowship. We talk
to Him in prayer. He talks to us in His Word. We worship Him. And the whole
Christian life is all about this journey with Christ. And no matter where we go in
our entire life, we're never alone. Because we're always with
Christ. We're always following Christ. And sometimes as we follow Christ,
it's a time that takes us to the mountaintop and it's a glorious
experience and we're riding high spiritually, but there are other
times as we follow Christ that it takes us through the valleys.
It takes us through the storms of life. It takes us through
very difficult times of adversity. But whether it is times of triumph
or times of tribulation, every step of the Christian life, we're
following Christ. There's never a step that we
take that is separated from following Christ. It's a lifelong journey,
sometimes it's uphill, sometimes the wind is at our back, sometimes
the adverse conditions are howling and blowing against us, but we're
always following Christ. And it is leading us somewhere.
We're all in process. We're all in this journey and
where it is leading us is to actually be with Him at the right
hand of the Father where one day we will see Him as He is
and we will worship Him and adore Him in heaven face to face. The Christian life is Christ. It's following Christ. It's believing
Christ, obeying Christ, serving Christ. It's not a...it's not
a movement. It's not a cause where it's an
impersonal thing that we're a part of. It's deeply personal as each
and every day, every moment, every step we are following Christ. This is the greatest privilege
that any one of us will ever have. This far surpasses any
accolades, or any promotion, or any achievement that you would
ever experience in your life. This far surpasses anything that
you will ever do in your life. Nothing overshadows following
Christ. It's the greatest purpose that
we can ever have in life is to follow Christ. Every step of
the way we live to bring honor and glory to Christ. It's the
greatest service that we can ever give, to extend His Kingdom
and to be a part of seeing His church built up. The greatest
life that any one of us could ever live is to be a follower
of Jesus Christ. And this is how Jesus couched
it. The term Christian does not even
appear until years later in Acts chapter 11. And the term Christian
was really a term of derision. The word means a little Christ. It's a diminutive form of Christ,
really a put down of not only Christ but those who would be
identified with Christ. Oh, you're one of those little
Christs. a Christian. And the early believers
in Antioch, they so loved any association that they could have
with Christ that they took this term of mockery, this term of
slander, and they just embraced it. We love being called little
Christ. We love being called a Christian. And when you read the epistles,
how Paul will most normally, naturally couch what we are is
to refer to us as saints, those who have been set apart from
this world unto the Lord Jesus Christ. There are other terms
and other metaphors that describe what it is to be a true believer
in Christ. Sometimes Paul refers to us as
soldiers, we have to put on the full armor of God. Sometimes
we're sons who have been birthed into the kingdom of God and been
adopted by God. But as you read the four gospels,
It is this invitation that just keeps rising to the surface that
our Lord loved to have come rolling off His lips is, follow Me. So I want us to look at just
this one verse this morning and for us to be reminded. If what
it is we're doing, and what it is we are a part of, what my
life is all about, who I am and why I am here and the direction
of my life, that's all answered in this invitation to follow
Christ and we could simply say, we're a follower of Christ. We're
a true, authentic, genuine follower of Christ. So as we look at verse
9, there are four things that I want you to note. And this
will be very simple, very easy to follow. I want you to note
first the Savior, and then the sinner, and then third, the summons. And then finally, the submission. So let's just walk through verse
9 and see what is recorded here. I want you to note first, the
Savior, everything begins with the Savior. The Savior is always
first. The Savior is always preeminent
and we can never know anything about ourselves or about anyone
else until we first have the Savior squarely in place. And so in verse 9, it begins
with the Savior, everything begins with Him. the Savior and we read,
as Jesus went on from there. The name Jesus means Jehovah
saves. Let us remember what the name
Jesus even means. It means Jehovah saves. That
Jesus is God come to save. He is God in human flesh. Come to be truly God, truly man. Fully God, fully man. And He
had to be God in human flesh in order to save us because He
came to be our Mediator and a Mediator is one who stands between two
parties who have had a falling out. A Mediator is a peacemaker
between two sides that are at enmity with one another. And
man certainly is at enmity with God in that we are in rebellion
against God because of our sin. And so our backs have been turned
to God. But God is also not only loving
towards sinners, but God is also angry with sinners. He is angry with the wicked every
day. And God is at war with sinners as well. And so in order for
there to be a reconciliation between holy God and sinful man,
there would have to be one who would stand in the middle and
to be able to arbitrate a reconciliation and be a peacemaker and bring
the two sides together, and that is why God the Father in love
has sent His Son, Jesus, He is God in human flesh, come to save
us. Jehovah saves. And He is fully
man and able to represent man to God. He is fully God and able
to represent God to man. And so this is Jesus who...we
read in verse 9, so as Jesus went on from there, His whole
life here was to seek and to save that which is lost. He has
come to be the Savior of sinners. And so we read, He saw a man
called Matthew. He saw Matthew because he was
looking for Matthew. Matthew was one of His that the
Father gave to Him before the world began. Matthew was one
of those entrusted into His hands in the eternal counsels of eternity
past. He was one of those chosen by
the Father. and given to the Son, and the
Son has now come into the world that He might seek and save those
who were entrusted to Him. It's just like Zacchaeus in Luke
chapter 19, as Jesus was walking along, He saw Zacchaeus up in
the tree. Of course He saw him. George
Whitefield said, He knew him from all eternity past, how could
He miss him within time? That is what Jesus is doing here.
He is always the initiator, He is always the pursuer, He is
always the seeker, and we are the ones who are being pursued
by the Lord. But there's more here than just
He was looking for Matthew and saw a man called Matthew He didn't
just see Matthew, He saw into Matthew and He saw through Matthew
and He saw Matthew for what Matthew truly was. If you look a few
verses earlier in the previous narrative, which is one of my
favorite narratives. In fact, the first time I think
I ever stood on my feet and preached a sermon when I was in college
was this very passage of the paralytic being lowered down
through the ceiling. But notice in verse 2, they brought
to Him a paralytic lying on a bed, seeing their faith. Hey, Jesus
saw right into their soul and right into their heart. These
four men, as well as the paralytic who were being brought, Jesus
always sees the condition of the heart. He knows what's on
the inside. And then in verse 4, we read,
Jesus knowing their thoughts. Why are you thinking evil in
your hearts? Oh Jesus saw Matthew but He saw
more than just the outward appearance. He saw more than just the physical
profile of Matthew. He saw into the very depths of
the soul of Matthew and saw Him and knew Him for what He truly
is. This is the Savior. He is a seeking
Savior. He is an initiating Savior. He
is a divine Savior. He is the one who has come to
seek and to save that which is lost. And if you're a Christian
today, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ today, it is only
because He pursued you and He came after you and He tracked
you down. And you were running away from
Him and you were being elusive and evasive with Him, but He
would not take no for an answer and He hunted you down like a
lost sheep until He found you." This is the seeking Savior. But second, I want you to note
the sinner because the Savior only seeks sinners. The Savior
does not seek good people. He only seeks those who have
fallen short of the glory of God. And we read, as Jesus went
on from there, He saw a man called Matthew sitting in the tax collector's
booth. He saw Him sitting there in His
worldliness, in His greed, in His mad dash to gain money. A tax collector, as we read that
He was, is also referred to as a publican. He is a Jew who has
sold his soul for money. He has now hired himself off
to the Roman Empire as a Jew to now buy a franchise where
he has a city and he will now collect the taxes on behalf of
Rome and he has unlimited power to just milk the people and bilk
the people of their money. There's a certain amount that
he'll have to turn into Rome. But anything that he gets over
and above that amount is his to stuff into his pockets. And
the abuse of the tax collectors was so extraordinary that they
were public enemy number one. They were those who took from
their own people and gave it to Rome but then kept for themselves this money. Matthew loved the world. The
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boastful pride
of life, Matthew was living for things. And there's nothing wrong
with having things. What's wrong is when things have
you. Matthew has idols in his heart
and in his life. this power and Jesus sees him
on the job, in the midst of it, sitting in the tax collector's
booth. No one was more hated than was
Matthew, yet no one was more pursued at this moment by the
Lord than Matthew. If you look a few verses down,
you'll see why it is. After Matthew's converted in
verse 10, he gathers the other tax collectors together and other
sinners, all of his friends, those that he networks with,
those that he hangs out with, and he gathers them all for an
evangelistic dinner so that they can all meet Jesus and the Pharisees,
verse 11, when they saw this, they were They were angry and
upset because Jesus is now spending time with tax collectors and
sinners. And in verse 12, Jesus sets the
record straight why He has come into this world and those whom
He is pursuing. And in verse 12, Jesus said,
it is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those
who are sick. Jesus has not come for the righteous.
He has come for sinners and how He loves to gather in sinners,
how He loves to go after and pursue sinners, how He loves
to receive sinners. He loves to spend time with sinners
in the hope of catching them with the gospel and drawing them
into Himself. And so, of course he sees Matthew
because he's not come for those who are righteous. And the fact
of the matter is, there is none who is righteous, no not one.
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. The
Pharisees never understood this. The Pharisees assumed that they
were good and the sinners and the tax collectors were bad,
but the Pharisees were just as rotten on the inside as anyone
else was, they just did not understand it. But Jesus is drawn to Matthew. Jesus is drawn to him while Matthew
is in the midst of his greedy, money-gobbling, world-loving,
fleshly satisfying lifestyle. That's where Jesus came to him
and Jesus comes to him on his turf. He doesn't even wait for
Matthew to come to church, or for Matthew to come to the synagogue,
or for Matthew to come to him. No, Jesus comes to him. And this is the way it was with
you and me. I don't know where Jesus found
you. I don't know where you were. When Jesus saw you, and you may
have even been in church, dressed in self-righteousness,
with pride and arrogance in your own heart and soul, but Jesus
came after you and He saw you and He pursued you because Jesus
is the friend of sinners and Jesus loves to spend time with
sinners. And Jesus loves to draw sinners
to Himself. And so this leads us now to number
three, the summons. We've seen the Savior. We've seen the sinner. Now note the summons. And He, Jesus, said to Him, and
now He'll only say two words. This is such an economy of words. He said to him, and this is the
gospel invitation in a nutshell. The book of Romans will be the
entire forest. Here it is in a nutshell. Hey,
here it is in concentrated form. Jesus simply issues this invitation,
this call, this summons. He said, follow Me. The word follow is very important
because it implies not a one-time event. It's far more than just
pray a prayer, sign a card, join a church, raise a hand where
you just take one step and that's it. No, when he says follow,
this clearly implies that the step of faith that he is calling
him to make will only be the beginning of a lifelong pursuit
of where this will take him for the entire rest of his life. And when he says, follow me,
he is saying to Matthew, Matthew, you're going to have to get up
out of this tax booth. And you're going to have to leave
that behind. You're going to have to leave
the extortion behind and the robbery behind and the stealing
of other people's money behind. You can't follow me and remain
in your sin, this lifestyle of sin, this self-indulgent You're going to have to turn
your back on it. You're going to have to get up.
You're going to have to walk away. You're going to have to
start now a new life direction. There will be a new life journey
now for you to begin. This is a call to take a decisive
step of faith that will set his life on a course for the rest
of his life. When he says, follow me, it is
a call to commit his life to Christ, to surrender the entirety
of his life to Christ. He no longer has his own agenda. He will now be following Christ's
agenda for his life. He no longer has his own ambitions. He walks away from his own ambitions
and now for the rest of his life, his ambition will be to fulfill
the ambition of Christ. He will walk away from his own
plans for his life and now pursue the plans that Christ has for
him. This is a call for there to be
a radical dramatic break with his past in order for there now
to be a totally new beginning. And Matthew will not be able
to straddle the fence. Matthew will not be able to have
one foot in the tax booth and one foot on the narrow path that
leads to life. It's all or nothing. And in order
now to follow Christ, he's going to have to pull out of this lifestyle
of where he's been living for the things of this world in this
tax collector's booth, and he's going to have to come out of
that and now put both feet on the narrow path and now follow
after Christ. And what is amazing, Jesus says,
follow Me. What is so amazing to me is that
Jesus does not tell him where this will take him. You don't
need to know where, all you need to know is Me. You follow Me. And if we were there that day,
and if our parents were there that day, and if there were those
who were counseling us there that day, if they had a worldly
attitude, they would have wanted for Jesus to show them a five-year
plan. Show us a ten-year plan. I need
a life map and where all this will take me. This is an extraordinary
step of faith. You just follow Me. And Jesus
does not tell him what the future holds. He doesn't tell him where
all this will take him. He doesn't tell him all the challenges
that he will face. He doesn't tell him how this
will work out. This is a life of faith. As you would surrender your life
to Christ. And when he says, follow me,
he is saying, entrust your life entirely to me. Commit yourself
completely to me. And the word me is very important
here. It's not to a group. It's not
to a small group. It's not to a cause. It's not
to a religion. It's to the person of Jesus Christ. When he says, follow me, this
call was personal, meaning that this was directed to him individually. This is far more narrow than
whosoever will may come. This is whittled down to just
Matthew, it is personal, it is individual, it is also commanded. When he says, follow me, it's
in the imperative mood which means this is more than an offer. This is far more than the free
offer of the gospel. This is more than just a suggestion,
or even an invitation. This is a divine command to Matthew,
you this moment follow Me. It is demanding because he must
leave it all behind now and start this new life pursuit. It is
radical and it is certainly undeserved. Matthew has been living a life
of rampant worldliness and sin. There is nothing in Matthew that
would in and of itself draw Jesus to call him except this originates
within Jesus Himself. The divine love, the unconditional
love The eternal love of Jesus, it's so undeserved and it's lifelong. This isn't a weekend journey. This isn't a weekend trip. This
isn't a taking the summer off invitation. This is for the rest
of your life. Matthew, just burn your bridges
behind you. and come follow Me." And this
is the invitation that the Lord has extended to each and every
one of us, we who have heard the Word of God. And I would
assume for most of us here today, most of us have heard with ears
that the Lord has given us to hear this call, this summons. But if you've never heard this
call to follow Christ, this goes way beyond just intellectual
head knowledge about Christ. This is putting both feet onto
this path and now moment by moment, day by day, living in of Christ. It will mean to go
where Christ leads, and a part of that, this will mean to believe
what Christ teaches, to love what Christ loves, to reject
what Christ rejects, to be in lockstep with Christ, and not
to be dragging behind Christ, and not to be getting out ahead
of Christ. but to be step by step as close
as one can be in walking with Christ within one's own heart
and soul, moment by moment. That is the invitation. That
is the summons that is being extended. And it is the invitation
that Jesus Christ continues to extend today. And He calls out
to you. to follow Him, to turn a deaf
ear to the world, to turn your back to your unsaved friends
who would be pulling you in the wrong direction, to turn a deaf
ear to the humanistic philosophies that you would hear on a secular
campus. to just turn away from all of that and not be sucked
in and drawn in to the man-centered thinking and lifestyle, but to
turn away from that and now march to the beat of a different drummer,
to now cut against the grain, to now be like a fish swimming
up current. And going in the opposite direction
of everyone else because everyone else is going to hell and Christ
is leading towards heaven and you would have to turn around
and do an about-face and now follow after Christ. And the many are on the broad
road that are headed for destruction to follow Christ means you have
to break with the crowd and to break with the pack and now walk
with the few in following after Christ, but it leads to life. So that's the summons. That's what it means to believe
in Christ. It means you follow Christ. That's what it means
to repent and to turn away from your sin and turn to the Lord.
you begin to follow Christ. Well finally, please note the
submission. At the end of verse 9, we read, Matthew had to make a choice.
Matthew had to make a decision. Would he stay where he was? Or
would Matthew follow Christ. So at the end of verse 9, we
read these words, and he got up. He couldn't continue
to sit there. He couldn't continue to deal
the deck and to skim off the top and to take what was not
lawfully, rightfully his. He had to get up. He had to get
out. He got up and followed Him. It was just that simple. There
was nothing for Him to go off and work and do. There was nothing
that He could...that He had to go learn beyond this. It was
as simple as he was a great sinner and Christ was a great Savior
and the invitation has been given to his life and he got up. and followed Him. He did more
than just get up physically. He did more than get up with
His legs. He did more than get up and now
begin to walk on a dusty road. The far greater reality was what
was taking place inside of His heart, He was being spiritually
raised, spiritually resurrected to get up now and to pursue Christ. This is saving faith. This is
what saving faith is. It's personal faith. No one else
can do this but Matthew. His parents can't do this for
him. His wife can't do this for him. His friends can't do this
for him. Not even Jesus can do this for
him. This is a personal commitment
that Matthew himself must make and no one else can do it. Just
like in your life, no one else can make this decision for you
to be a follower of Jesus Christ. This is one-on-one. It was an
obedient faith because Jesus had commanded him to follow and
his step now of personal faith is a step of obedience. Please
note it was immediate faith. It would have been sin for him
to go home and pray about it. Jesus has called him right now,
follow Me. The call was not go home and
pray. The call was not go home and consult with someone else.
The call was now, this very moment, you must follow Me. You may never
have an opportunity like this again for the rest of your life. And so without delay and without
hesitation, this was Matthew's day with God. This was Matthew's
day with Christ. And he got up and followed. It
was submissive faith because Jesus will not follow Matthew.
Matthew must follow Christ. Jesus will not be an add-on to
Matthew's life. Jesus will not be just life insurance
for Matthew. No, Matthew must now humble himself
and now turn and submit himself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ
and now Jesus will run Matthew's life. Just the very same with
you and me. Jesus is not going to get in
our back seat and we stay behind the steering wheel and Jesus
now just pay for the gas and be along for the ride wherever
it is we want to go. Jesus is either behind the steering
wheel or He's not in the car. You and I are in the back seat,
He's in the front seat. And this was the submission that
was required of Matthew. as he followed. It was decisive
faith. Matthew could not straddle the
fence. He could not be half in and half out. It was active faith. He could not continue to just
sit there. He couldn't just think about
it. He couldn't be passive. He couldn't be a spectator. He
couldn't have a sit-in. He had to now put one foot in
front of the other and now live in a whole new life commitment. It was repentant faith. He had
to leave his past life behind. He had to abandon a life of living
for the things of this world as the priority and the passion
of his life, and he must now have Christ as the priority and
the passion of his life. And it was lifelong faith. This
first step is only the beginning of a lifelong pursuit for the
rest of his life. There's no turning back. The
world behind me, the cross before me, no turning back...no turning
back. And the last thing I want you
to see, it was contagious faith. Because we read in verses 10
and 11, as soon as Matthew began to follow Christ, he began to
talk it up with his friends, it was contagious. Matthew didn't
have any classes in evangelism, he hadn't sat through three years
of how to share your faith. Matthew was a follower of Christ,
he knew Christ, he was on fire for Christ, he was able to gather
his other tax collectors together and all of their...their sinner
friends and to come listen to the Lord Jesus Christ in this
house in these next verses, just like you and me. So I want to ask you this morning,
are you a follower of Christ? Have you left an old life behind? Have you turned away from your
love of the world and your love of things in order now to turn
to Christ and to take a decisive step of faith and to follow after
Jesus Christ? This is what it means to be an
authentic, genuine believer. disciple of Christ. There's movement in your life.
You're moving out with the Lord. And it's not the perfection of
your life, it's the direction of your life that matters. Well even in the reading of this
verse and in our exposition of this verse today, it is Christ
calling out to you. You are now invited. You are
now summoned. You are now commanded to follow
Christ. And for those of us who have
stepped out and who are following Christ, we can never go back. He is our life. Paul would say,
for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If you're not
living for Christ, then to die is loss. So let us live for Christ. Let us follow Christ. Let us
go with Christ. It's the greatest life any of
us could ever live. There's nothing better than living
for Christ and following Christ. And as we get up from here, And
as we go our own ways, you're going to be following Christ.
I'm going to be following Christ and He will bring us back together
again tonight and next week and whenever it is that we regather.
But we are individually following Christ. Let me just close in
a word of prayer. And I want to say again, if you've
never become a follower of Christ. He calls for an immediate response
to Him, not tomorrow. Tomorrow is the devil's day.
Today is God's day. Hell is full of procrastinators
who kept saying, yeah, one of those days. One of those days
never comes. So perhaps today in your heart
and in your soul, this is the time for you to become a of Christ. It's the greatest thing you could
ever do with your life. Father, thank You for how You
sent Your Son into this world to be the Savior of sinners and
to call individual sinners to Himself. And what we see with
Matthew is what we see has happened in our own lives as we were sitting
in the in the dung heap of this world. And Christ came and called us
to follow Him. What a privilege, what a joy,
what a humbling thing this is to be in partnership and union
and communion with Christ. Lord, I pray that we would all
the more resolutely within the depths of our souls be wholehearted
in our following Christ. May both feet be firmly planted
on this narrow path. May we not be pulled to the left
nor to the right. May we widen our stride and pick
up our pace and forget what lies behind and press on to the upward
call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us run the race that is set
before us and let us follow Christ. Father, we pray this in Jesus'
name. Amen.