Good morning, everyone. It's
good to be with you all this morning. It is. Thank you all
for your hospitality, and we know how much work it is to do
all this, and we appreciate it. If you would, open your Bibles
with me to Matthew chapter 9. Begin here in Matthew chapter
9. Begin reading here in verse 9. And as Jesus passed forth from
thence, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom.
And he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose and followed
him. 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. And when the Pharisees
saw it, they said unto his disciples, why eateth your master with publicans
and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he
said unto them, they that be whole need not a physician, but
they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now in these few verses that
we just read, we read of a man named Matthew. This man Matthew's
a publican, he's a tax collector. And our Lord comes to this man
and he has mercy on him. He comes to him and you know,
he comes with a command. He didn't come with an invitation,
he comes with a command. He comes to Matthew and he says,
follow me. And then when we see our Lord
commands this to Matthew, He rose up, and he followed him,
just like that. Just as our Lord spoke, it happened. And then after that, we read
that there was a great feast. And Jesus sat at meat, they were
all eating together. And our Lord was eating with
the worst people in the town. They were eating with a bunch
of publicans and sinners. And let's keep this in mind,
Matthew was one of them. Matthew was one of these. He
was one of the worst of the worst. And our Lord had mercy on him.
And then what happens? Well, we see the scribes and
the Pharisees, we see the religious people of the day. And they said,
they said, that man, that Jesus of Nazareth, he's eating with
a bunch of publicans and sinners. Why on earth would he be doing
that? Can you believe that? These religious people were upset
by this. They were angered. Why on earth
would he be eating with all those bad and sinful people? What does
our Lord say as a result of this? He tells them, he says, if someone's
whole, if they're well, if they're healthy, if they're in great
shape, they don't need to see a physician, they don't need
a doctor. He said, but those who are unwell, those who are
sick, those who are in a dire life or death condition, they
need a physician, they need a doctor. And I think about this, all last
week, I pretty much got up every day, had breakfast, went to work,
had lunch, came home, hung out with Clara, ate some dinner.
It was a pretty normal week. You know, not once did I think
about just ringing up my doctor and giving him a call. I mean,
I was doing good. But you know, if I woke up and
I couldn't breathe, or maybe I couldn't feel my legs, or if
I was in severe pain, I'd be thinking about calling my doctor
then. And so after our Lord says this, after he says this, he
goes on to say a very important statement. At the end of verse
13, our Lord says this. He said, I came not to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Our Lord did not come to save
good people living a perfect life. He came into the world
to save sinners who are in great need of a great Savior. And in
these few verses, I think we see two answers to two questions
this morning, okay? You know, you meet people, you
go out in the world and you meet people every day, it seems like.
And you know, when you run into people, everyone has questions.
There are always questions. But how often do people actually
ask a question that is worth asking? I mean, honestly. And
I teach sixth graders. I teach middle school back home.
And you kind of have to have a saying when it comes to teaching
middle school. You know, there's no such thing
as a foolish question. And that may be true for middle
school kids at a school. That's not true concerning God's
Word. If we're asking a question and it's not plainly answered
in the Word of God, we're asking the wrong questions. That's not
a question worth asking. But this morning, I believe we've
got two questions here that I think are very important, that are
worth asking, and our Lord very plainly answers them to us. And
the first question is this, how does the Lord save? How does
God Almighty save a man or a woman or a young person? And then the
second question is this, who does the Lord save? Who does
the Lord show mercy to? Who does He save? Well, I'm not
gonna make you wait for it, okay? I'm gonna go ahead and answer
those questions right now. How does the Lord save? He saves
sovereignly. What's that mean? He saves with
all power. He's the one doing the saving.
He saves by His grace, by His might. He saves as God Almighty. That's who He is. He does it
all. He does it all. When He came
to Matthew, He came with a command. He said, follow me. Rose up and
followed him, just like that. He saves. Me and dad and my brother
Brady, we used to cut a lot of grass growing up. We'd cut grass
for some people and on a Saturday, we wouldn't have school and that
would be typically when we cut our grass. And dad would, we'd
eat breakfast and dad would say, boys, go load up the truck. Now
I want us to think about this. Was dad asking us to go load
up the truck? He wasn't asking, that was a
command. That was a command, so we went out and we loaded
up the truck. How much more our Lord, when he commands something
to be done, that it's done, he commands salvation to his people. When we see our Lord command
Matthew to follow him, he rose up and he followed him. How does
our Lord save? He saves sovereignly. And then
secondly, who does our Lord save? The Lord saves sinners. This
man, Matthew, he was a publican. He was a tax collector. And I
don't know of anyone that enjoys taxes in any way, all right? And this man was worse than just
an average tax collector. This is one that betrayed his
own people, skimming off the top. I mean, you'd see this guy
and, I mean, you just want to wear him out. I mean, you didn't
want to be around this guy. And our Lord came to save that
man. And if that's not plain enough to us who the Lord saves,
He tells us in verse 12 and 13 very clearly who He came to save.
Look at verse 12 again in Matthew 9. But when Jesus heard that,
He said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician,
but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy. I came to show mercy. I came
to seek and to save that which was lost. I will have mercy and
not sacrifice. Not to have sacrifices made unto
me. You know, there's that holiday Lent where people make sacrifices. I'll use that in air quotes.
They make sacrifices to God. They say, I'm going to quit eating
ice cream for this month, and that's going to make God happy
with me. I'm going to quit drinking alcohol for a month. I'm going
to quit chewing and smoking, and I'm going to read my Bible
15 minutes a day and all this. How foolish is that? Our Lord
said, I didn't come for that. I didn't come for that. Read
on. For I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance. How does the Lord save? He saves
sovereignly. Who does the Lord save? He saves
sinners. And now that we know the answers
to those questions, I want us to look at a couple scriptures
this morning. Let's see, does this hold true? Does this hold
true throughout this Word? And again, I'll go ahead and
tell you, these answers don't change. Our Lord is the same yesterday,
today, and forever. He said, I am the Lord, I change
not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Aren't we thankful He doesn't change? These answers
don't change. Well, first, let's look at the
beginning of Matthew 9 here in verse 1. Let's read this account
real quick. Let's see how the Lord saves
and who the Lord saves. Now, this is speaking of our
Lord here in verse 1, and it says, And behold, they brought to him
a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed. And Jesus, seeing their
faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer,
thy sins be forgiven thee. And behold, certain of the scribes
said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus, knowing
their thoughts, said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts?
For whether it is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or
to say, Arise and walk. but that ye may know that the
Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins. Then saith he
to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into
thine own house. And he arose and departed to
his house. In these verses, we see how the
Lord saves and we see who the Lord saves. There was a man sick
of the palsy. This man's sick, he is sick.
And I didn't know a whole lot about the palsy, so I kind of
looked it up, and from what I read, the palsy is like being paralyzed.
You know, you know somebody that has a stroke, and maybe they're
fully paralyzed. They can't walk, and they can't
move, or maybe they're partially paralyzed. Maybe they can't lift
their shoulder all the way, or maybe they can't squeeze their
hands real tight anymore. That's not the case for this
man. This man can't do anything. This man is lying down on a bed.
He can't walk. He can do nothing. And I think
it's important for us to remember, all throughout the Bible, when
we see someone who's sick, we see a leper, we see a lame man,
we see a blind man, all of these illnesses, they're a picture
of our sin. This man who is sick of the palsy
and can't do anything about it, we're full of sin and we can't
do anything about it. We can't do anything to help
ourselves. So again, this man is brought to our Lord, and our
Lord says to him, what does he say? He says, son. That's a sweet
term. I'm very thankful to be my dad's
son. That's sweet to me. I love that. Our Lord comes to this man, and
he says, son. Well, what's he say? He said,
son, be of good cheer. Son, be happy. Happy? Why should I be happy? I'm here
laying on a bed. I can't do anything. What do
I got to be happy about? Son, be of good cheer. Thy sins
be forgiven thee. Thy sins be forgiven thee. If
our sins are forgiven, we should go around with the biggest smile
on our face all the time. We really should. We really should.
Let's keep reading. What happens next? The scribes
said, we see religious people of the day again. What do they
say? This man blasphemeth. What's that mean? They were calling
our Lord a liar. They said, we don't believe that
you can do that. You don't have any power to take
away sin. How are we supposed to believe
you? And so what does our Lord do? He shows His power. He shows His power to save. He
said, what would be easier, to say, your sins be forgiven you,
or to say, arise and walk? And He said, just so you know
that I have the power to put away sin, I'm gonna do this.
I'm gonna show my power. And so He looked at that man.
He looked at that man that couldn't walk, that man sick of the palsy,
and He commanded, just like He did with Matthew. He commanded,
He said, arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine own house. And
just like that, what happened? He arose and departed, just like
that, just as our Lord commanded. That man got up, he left, and
he carried on his way. Don't you know he had gone out
as excited as could be? I mean, as happy as could be.
This man had been sick of the palsy for who knows how long.
He's walking. The Lord called him, son, your
sins be forgiven you. That's amazing. So again, in
this account here, how does our Lord save? He saves sovereignly. He saves by His power, by His
grace, by His mercy, by His might. He does the saving. Did this
lame man, did he do anything to help himself here? No, no,
our Lord came to him and commanded. Again, He didn't ask, hey, will
you get up and walk? Hey, is it okay if I forgive
you your sins? He said, thy sins be forgiven
you. He said, arise. And he arose. And then who does
our Lord save? He saves sinners. He saves those
who cannot save themselves. This man was a sinner, or else
he would have had no reason for his sins to be forgiven him.
He was clearly a sinner. He was sick. He couldn't walk.
He could do nothing. He needed a great Savior, and
our Lord saves sinners. Well, now I'd like for you to
turn to another familiar passage. Let's turn over to Mark chapter
5. Mark chapter 5. Begin reading here in verse 1
of Mark 5. Verse 1 says, And they came over
unto the other side of the sea into the country of the Gadarenes.
And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him
out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling
among the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains.
Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains,
and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters
broken in pieces, neither could any man tame him. And always,
night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying
and cutting himself with stones. So right off the bat here, we
see a pretty scary sight. I mean, that is a scary sight.
We see a man who is possessed with a legion of demons. This
man was wild, he was untamed. I mean, you think about this,
you take a walk out in a cemetery and you see this fella running
around naked and crying and screaming, cutting himself. You think, this
guy's crazy. What a sight. Men had tried to
bind him with chains, tried to get him under control, tried
to bind him up, do something. He'd just break him off. Couldn't
do anything to get this guy under control. This man needed help. No one could help him and he
certainly could not help himself. Let's keep reading, verse six
here. But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him
and cried with a loud voice and said, what have I to do with
thee, Jesus, thou son of the most high God? I adjure thee
by God that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, come out
of the man, thou unclean spirit. We see that this man comes to
our Lord and worships Him, and that this legion of demons speaks
to Him, and they're afraid of our Lord. And then we see our
Lord gives a command. Not a request, He gives a command. Not an invitation, a command.
He says, come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. He's not
asking, He's commanding. Let's keep reading. Verse 9 says,
And our Lord speaking here, And he asked him, What is thy name?
And he answered, saying, My name is Legion, for we are many. And
he besought him much, that he would not send them away out
of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains
a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him,
saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave, and the unclean spirits
went out and entered into the swine. And the herd ran violently
down a steep place into the sea. There were about 2,000 and were
choked in the sea. Our Lord cast this legion of
demons out of this man. He cast them into a herd of pigs,
and they went running off a cliff and drowned into the ocean. Our
Lord commanded, come out of the man. And guess what happened?
It came out just like that. Just like when our Lord said
to that man, thy sins be forgiven you. Just like when he said,
arise. Just like when he said, follow
me. When our Lord speaks, he speaks in power. When he saves,
he saves sovereignly. Well, let's finish reading this
account here. In verse 14, They were afraid. That man that
couldn't be tamed or helped by anyone, anyone, our Lord saved
and rescued this man. And he did it by himself. No
help. No one helped him in this. This
man didn't do anything. He did it by himself. Verse 16. And they that saw it told them
how it befell to him that was possessed with the devil and
also concerning the swine. And then this is the people's
response. This is what they had to say about the matter. Verse
17, and they began to pray him to depart out of their coasts.
These people had no care for this man. This child of God who
the Lord chose to be merciful to, they said, leave us alone.
We don't want anything to do with you. Think about how long
we cried that within our own hearts. Lord, leave me alone.
And aren't we thankful that he didn't, that he didn't leave
us to ourselves, that he came to us and reached down his hand
for us? And oh, how I pray that we don't pray that ever again.
That we don't, that he stays here. His gospel is here in this
town. Oh, that he wouldn't leave us.
That he wouldn't leave us in the places that he's put his
word. Verse 18, Our Lord, and when he was come into the ship,
he that had been possessed with the devil prayed him that he
might be with him. Howbeit Jesus suffered him not, but saith unto
him, Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things
the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.
And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great
things Jesus had done for him, and all men did marvel. Again
here, we see another man whom our Lord chose to save, and you
can just imagine how happy he had to be. He wanted to be with
the Lord. Those people wanted him to go
away, and so he left. And that man that he had saved,
he came to him and said, I want to be with you, I want to be
with you where you are. He said, no, you go home. You go to your
family, you go to your friends, you go tell them all what great
things I've done for you. And you know, when something
exciting happens to us, we want to talk about it. We do. I mean,
that's just, that's our nature. We can't help it. You know, when
I was in school, I'd win a basketball game, or I'd score a point, and
that didn't happen very often. And I'd go home, and I'd, Mom,
Dad, you aren't going to believe what happened, you know? So excited.
Or maybe we have a loved one who's sick, who's been sick for
a long, long time. And they come back from the doctor,
and that doctor says, you're cured. You're better. We're going
to go home. We're going to tell everybody
we know. You wouldn't believe what happened to so-and-so. We're
excited. We want to tell people. How much
more this man right here going and telling everyone, I was dead. I was out of my mind, and the
Lord Jesus Christ had mercy on me. And that's what preaching
is. That's what it is. It's telling
others what great things the Lord has done. How do you think
this man went away? I bet you he went away rejoicing,
as excited as all get out, telling everyone what the Lord had done
for him. Just like Matthew, just like that man sick of the palsy.
Now again, in this account, what we just read, how does our Lord
save? He saves sovereignly. This man, he didn't do anything
to save himself. Our Lord, in His sovereign power and His sovereign
might, He cast out those devils. He put them in His right mind.
He clothed this man. We read He was clothed and sitting
in His right mind. Our Lord clothed him in that
robe of righteousness, just as He clothes His people. And again,
who does our Lord save? He saves sinners. This man was
under the power of a bunch of demons. It's no different than
us. We're under the power of sin.
We're under the prince of the power of the air. That's us.
By nature's the children of wrath. Can we do anything to save ourselves?
No, completely unable, just like this man. He's helpless, he's
lost, he's without hope, he's in great need. This man is a
sinner in need of a great savior. What great news it is that our
Lord came into this world to save sinners, just like this
man. Well quickly, turn with me to
one more count. I want us to go to Luke chapter
23, Luke 23. Luke 23, we'll begin reading
here in verse 39. This is our Lord hanging on the
cross in between those two thieves. Verse 39 says, And one of the
malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou
be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other, answering, rebuked
him, saying, Does not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same
condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we
receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man hath done
nothing amiss. Here we see our Lord hang on
the cross in between these two thieves. And we read in other
places where both of these thieves were railing on our Lord. But
then at some point, there's a change. There's a change. The Lord has
shown something to one of these thieves. And this thief says
to the other one, he says, what are you doing? Are you not afraid
of God? He said, we deserve to be crucified. We should be up here. This is
what we've done. We've earned this spot. He said,
he hadn't done anything to deserve this. He said, what are you thinking? We'll read on in verse 42. What
does he say? Verse 42, and he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember
me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Verse 43, and Jesus
said unto him, verily, I say unto thee, today. Today shalt
thou be with me in paradise. Don't we love reading that? Today
shalt thou be with me in paradise. Our Lord looks at this man, this
wretch, this thief, this man who deserved to be crucified,
and he says, today. Today shalt thou be with me in
paradise. How does our Lord save? He saved
sovereignly, with all power. Our Lord put it in this man to
cry out for mercy. He didn't just muster up this
idea, I'm gonna ask him for mercy. No, our Lord put it in this man
to cry. And then what does our Lord say to him? Does he say,
today you can be with me in paradise if you recite a prayer? You can
be with me in paradise if you show me your church membership?
Today you can be with me in paradise if you can just tell me one good
thing you did to be in paradise. You'll be there. No, that's not
what our Lord said. He gives a command, a command.
Our Lord says, today, shalt thou be with me in paradise. Is there
any doubt that this man's not gonna be with our Lord in paradise?
Shout, thou shout. No, there's no doubt about this,
because when our Lord speaks, he speaks in power. When he saves,
he saves sovereignly. By his might, by his power, by
his authority, by his grace, he does the saving. And then
who does our Lord save? Well, there's a lot of people
in the scriptures that's a good picture of us, of God's sheep,
of sinners fallen in Adam. There's a lot of good pictures.
I don't know if there's a better picture of God's people than
this thief on the cross. This thief, we don't even know
his name. We don't know much about him. We don't read about
him a whole lot. All we know is this, he's a malfactor. He's a thief. He's in need of
mercy. He's a sinner. He's a sinner.
We know that much about him, and we know our Lord chose to
be merciful to him. This man is a sinner in need of mercy.
Who does our Lord save? He saves great sinners in need
of great mercy. In closing, I'd ask you to turn
with me to 1 Timothy. 1 Timothy 1. I want to read this
real quick. 1 Timothy 1. It's page 292 in my Bible. I
have a hard time finding this one. 1 Timothy 1 verse 15. This is the Apostle Paul. This
is another man who had experienced our Lord coming to where he was
and saving him by his power, by his grace. And I hope we know
our questions of the day by now, okay? How does the Lord save? Who does the Lord save? Well,
let's see what Paul says right here. In verse 15, he says this.
This is a faithful saying. This is a true saying. This is
a trustworthy saying. This is a saying you can take
to the bank. This is a good saying. This is
a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. This saying
is worthy to be believed. It's worthy to be counted on.
What's this saying? That Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of who I am chief. How does our Lord
save? It says our Lord came to save. It doesn't say He came to try
and save. It doesn't say He came to be an example. He came to
save. Our Lord saves sovereignly. It's
by His power. He's the one doing the saving.
And then, who does our Lord save? Paul said he came to save sinners.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. And listen,
it's not just kind of sinners. It's not just, well, I stole
a candy bar when I was six years old or I went three miles over
the speed limit. No, he came to save sinners of
whom I am chief. The worst of the worst. Christ
Jesus came into this world to save sinners of whom I am chief.
And listen, that's how the Lord saves and that's who the Lord
saves. And listen to me, if the Lord Jesus Christ, if He has
shown you, if He's shown you, you're a sinner, I'm a sinner.
If He's shown you that, and that your only hope is that the Lord
Jesus Christ died for you, I've got good news for you. The Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world to save you. Because listen,
we don't know that by nature. God has to reveal that. If He's
revealed that to us, we have a good hope. We have a good hope.
All right.