Well, good morning to everyone.
If you would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter two.
Mark chapter two. Before we begin, let's bow together
for our Lord and seek his blessing. Our Father, we've gathered here
together this morning as your children on this first day of
the week to worship you, to hear word from thee, Father, I pray
that you would take pity on us as your poor and weak and little
children who so desperately need our Father. Father, we need you
to speak to us through your word. We need for you to be our teacher.
We need you to give us faith to hear and to believe the things
of our Savior that we hear this morning. Father, we need you
to give us eyes to see your darling son, revealed in your word. We
need you to remove all the cares and distractions of this life
that are real, that are things that we have to deal with, but
Father, remove them from our thoughts in this hour. Enable us to hear and to learn
more of our Lord Jesus Christ and to worship him in spirit
and in truth. And what we pray for ourselves,
Father, especially for our children's classes this morning, that you
would bless our teachers, how thankful we are for them. You've
gifted them, made them faithful. Father, bless them in this hour.
Enable them to rightly divide the word of truth and to remain
faithful to point our children to Christ. And Father, we pray
you'd be with our young ones. We're so thankful for them, thankful
for the gift that you've given to us. And Father, we beg mercy
for their souls. Of all the things that we want
for them in this life, the chief, the most important ones, Father,
that you'd be pleased to give them faith. Use this time to
plant the seeds of faith in their heart, we pray. Father, we pray
for your people wherever they meet today, the same blessing
we ask for ourselves, Father. We ask that you give them to
cause your word to go forth and empower this morning for your
glory, for the good and edification, the salvation of your people.
Father, for those that you brought in the time of trouble and trial,
we pray that you take special care as a father, caring for
those, your little ones that you've called into the valley
of trouble and trial. Father, be with them, we pray.
Comfort their hearts with your presence. Teach them what you
would have them learn, and Father, deliver them quickly, we pray.
All these things we ask, and we give thanks in that name which
is above every name, the name of Christ our Savior, amen. I titled our lesson this morning,
A Dinner at Matthew's House. We pick up in verse 15 of Matthew
2, and it came to pass that as Jesus sat at meat in his house,
Many publicans and sinners sat also with Jesus and his disciples,
for there were many, and they followed him. Now you'll recall
last week we looked at the distinguishing call of God's grace. The Lord
passed by Matthew as he sat in the receipt of customs, and he
told Matthew, follow me. And that's just exactly what
Matthew did. He got up and left his books, left the money all
there, and he followed the Lord. Now remember, Matthew was a publican.
A publican was a Jew who collected taxes for the Roman government,
and he cheated people when he did it. He collected extra money
and skimmed off the top. And both the Jews and the Romans
considered publicans to be more vile than a street harlot. I mean, this is the most vile
person that they could think of. They both considered a publican
a traitor to their society. And the Lord called that guilty,
sinful man who's looked down upon by both sides of society. He called that man to follow
him. He gave that man faith in him. And Matthew was never the same
again. Now Matthew is a changed man. He knows the Lord. He knows
the Savior. He trusts him and he wants other
people to know the Lord too. So Matthew, had a big dinner
party at his house. And he invited all of his old
cronies, his old friends, that's who he invited. He invited other
publicans and sinners to come to his house for this dinner.
You see, Matthew quickly learned that Christ is everything that
he needed. And he wanted his other friends
to know that too. He wanted his other friends to
meet Christ and know him and trust him. Matthew knew that
Christ is just what his friends needed, just like he's everything
that he needed, so Matthew invited them all to his house to this
dinner to meet the guest of honor, the Lord Jesus. I just don't think that before
this time, Matthew was spending a lot of money to give food and
drink and throw a big party for everybody. I mean, he probably
was a pretty stingy kind of guy, don't you reckon? He's a changed
man now. The Lord changed him. Robert
Hawker wrote this about him. He says that Jesus opened Matthew's
heart to receive him. Matthew opened his house to welcome
Jesus. So he threw this big dinner party,
and there's a few observations. He said, in my mind's eye, I
watched this dinner party. A few observations that I think
is good for us to see. Number one is this. Mark tells
us many publicans and sinners came to meet the Lord. You know,
the people that Matthew would invite to his house are the people
that he knew, his friends, other people who are just like him.
I'm sure that day Matthew's house was full of harlots and pimps
and mobsters and crooked businessmen, because that's who Matthew knew. And Matthew went to these people,
people that all of society looked down on, and he told them, come
here, this man. Come meet this man. He's got
such good news for us. You know this. We can't earn
a righteousness by what the scribes and the Pharisees teach us. We
know we can't do. We know we can't live up to that
standard. They're just always putting us down. We can't find
any rest, any comfort, any peace. We can't find any good news in
all their religious ceremony and all the things that they
require of us. There's nothing for us there because we're sinners.
but you come meet this man. We'll have righteousness and
peace and we'll have eternal life because this man reveals
God's grace to sinners. Now come meet him, come meet
him. And Mark tells us here, many publicans and sinners came
to dinner that day, many did. And the Lord had time for each
and every one of them. The Lord had forgiveness and
grace enough for every one of them. The Lord had mercy. He is so rich in mercy. He had
enough mercy for many publicans and sinners that came and sat
down with him at dinner. Now, the Lord hadn't changed.
Whatever was true in this day, at this dinner party 2,000 years
ago, is still true today because the Lord doesn't change. The
Lord always has enough mercy, enough grace, and enough forgiveness
for any sinner that comes to Him begging for mercy. He always
has enough. The Lord Jesus Christ, He's special,
isn't He? I mean, in every way, He's special.
He's the God-man. He's holy. He's harmless. He's
undefiled. He's separate from sinners. He
has compassion for sinners. This man received the sinners
and eateth with them. This is a special man. And there
is enough of Him to go around. That can't be said truly of any
of us. I mean, we reach our limit, don't
we? There's enough of Christ to go around. There's enough
of Christ's righteousness to make every guilty sinner righteous. There's enough of Christ's blood
to cleanse every guilty sinner that comes to Him. Cleanse them
from the filth of their sin. There's enough of Christ to forgive
every guilty sinner. And during this dinner, the Lord
identifies himself as the great physician, the physician who
can heal every disease. Hold your place there, look over
at Luke chapter nine. Here's a demonstration physically
of the Lord's power as the great physician, Luke chapter nine. In verse 11, and the people,
when they knew it, followed him. And he received them and spake
unto them of the kingdom of God. And he healed them that had need
of healing. Everyone who had a need to be
healed, he healed. All you required was a need.
Now, are you needy? Are you needy in the sense you
need Christ to do all of the saving for you? If you have a
need, he'll heal you. He healed all that had need of
healing. You come to him, I'm telling
you, he has the power, he has the love to heal you too. Anyone
who comes to Christ as a needy sinner, begging for mercy that
you do not deserve, you'll find he's got enough grace and enough
mercy for you too. There's enough of him to go around.
There's enough of him to save even you, even me. All right,
here's the second thing I see at this dinner. Publicans and
sinners, were comfortable in the presence of the Savior. The
Savior, you know, went through line, he got his food, he sat
down, and you know who came and sat at the table with him? Publicans
and sinners. They felt comfortable coming
to eat with him. I mean, you got this picture in your mind
of this party? This is the Lord. The Lord, sitting down and eating
with these worst of sinners. and he's fellowshipping with
them. You're not just eating at the same table and being silent.
He's fellowshiping with them. As I was preparing my notes,
I thought about our church dinners here. And I always love coming
through that door and seeing these tables all set up and people
eating and the sound of the talk. People talking, talking, talking,
talking. Just fellowshiping with one another. The same thing's
going on at Matthew's house. Publicans and sinners. were sitting
there fellowshipping with the Lord. I'm sure they were smart
enough pretty quick to learn he should be the one doing all
the talking and I should be listening, but they had fellowship with
the Lord of glory. And I love thinking about that.
I love thinking that. You know why? That gives hope
for this sinner. Now I'm not just saying this
to sound religious. This is true. This gives me hope
because I'm worse than them. I'm worse than any publican or
sinner or harlot that you know, because I've sinned against greater
light than they ever knew. But the Lord had fellowship with
these publicans and these sinners. Maybe he will me too. Maybe he
will. The thought of that just thrills
my soul. This is the Lord, the Holy Son of God, eating and fellowshipping
with publicans and sinners. Two complete opposites. I mean,
you can't be more opposite than the son of God and the son of
Adam. And they're fellowshipping together. Now, the only possible
explanation for that is the Lord is merciful to sinners. You see,
it's his mercy that makes sinners comfortable in his presence.
It's his forgiveness. It's not like, oh, well, I'm
gonna overlook your sin and overlook everything you've done. No, I'm
gonna forgive your sin. I'm gonna put your sin away so
that you can have fellowship with me. That's why sinners are
comfortable in his presence. And you and I should remember
this. The Lord had fellowship with
open sinners. I mean, sinners who did things
that were just so disgusting to the rest of society. The rest
of society just wouldn't have anything to do with them. but
the Lord had fellowship with them. Now we need to remember
this. We should never act holier than
thou around someone and just stay away from them, you know,
because of their sin. You know, there's things, there's
times that that's necessary in scripture, but I'm talking about
from someone for their sin, they should never be uncomfortable
around us. They should never be uncomfortable
around us. Because not only did the Lord eat and have fellowship
with these publicans and sinners, it says his disciples did too.
The disciples were there too. We need to remember that. So
at this dinner, there's the Lord. The Savior is here. That's who
Matthew wanted his friends to meet. Publicans and sinners,
they were there. They're comfortable with the
Savior. But in every crowd, there's this third thing. The self-righteous
were there too. Look at verse 16, Mark chapter
two. And when the scribes and Pharisees saw him eat with publicans
and sinners, they said unto his disciples, how is it that he
eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? Now, publicans and
sinners are comfortable being around the Lord, but the scribes
and Pharisees weren't, were they? Everything the Savior did made
them uncomfortable. The mere presence of the Lord
made them uncomfortable because he spoke of mercy. He didn't
talk about law keeping. He didn't talk about religious
ceremony. He talked about mercy and forgiveness and true righteousness. He spoke of grace. Grace and
truth came by Jesus Christ. He spoke of grace, not merit
gained by going through all the ceremonies of religion that the
Pharisees loved so much. He was the opposite. of everything
that they hoped in. And it made him uncomfortable.
You know, the Lord spoke of mercy. He spoke of grace. He spoke of
righteousness. He spoke of peace. He spoke of
eternal life. And he lived it too. The way
he lived demonstrated his mercy and his grace and his love and
his compassion for sinners. And that made the Pharisees very
uncomfortable. I mean, they hated him for it.
And here's why. The Pharisees could see the Lord
Jesus. They could hear him teach. And
this is the conclusion they had to draw. If what he's saying
is true, I'm lost. If you had somebody say that
to you, I can't, I can't abide this message you listen to. If
what you're saying is true, I'm lost. My mama's lost. My grandmother's
lost. If what you're saying is true,
I can't take that. That's what the Pharisees thought.
If what he's saying is true, I'm lost. And I've lost my grip
on Jewish society, if what he's saying is true. And that's gonna
make a person uncomfortable. To find out I'm lost, that's
gonna make a person uncomfortable. But rather than beg for mercy
for themselves, they got mad at the Savior. The self-righteous,
they didn't like seeing the Lord comfortable in the presence of
publicans and sinners. And they didn't like publicans
and sinners being comfortable with Him. And rather than be
glad, these poor, guilty sinners who could find no hope, no rest,
no peace anywhere else, that they found hope in the Savior,
they got mad that the Savior would forgive them, that he'd
give these open, vile sinners a good hope through grace. He
gave it to them freely. The Pharisee had been trying
to earn it their whole life long. I mean, every waking moment for
a Pharisee was involved in earning this or covering up his, you
know, so other people didn't figure him out. You know, he
really was. They got mad. They got mad because
they inherently knew this. Here's two messages that are
polar opposites of one another. Both of us can't be right. In this situation, these two
polar opposite messages, at least one of us is lost. I mean, both
messages could be false, and we're both lost, but more than
likely, one of them's true, one of them's false, and one of us
is lost. And that made them so uncomfortable, it made them just
get mad. And the scribes and Pharisees,
they were disgusted at Matthew's guest list. They were disgusted
to see this, this is a religious person, this is a man who is
a religious leader, seen as a religious leader in Israel, And he's rubbing
elbows with these open vile sinners that just didn't make any sense
to them. So they asked his disciples, why would your Lord have fellowship
with people like this? Doesn't he know who they are?
Why would he have fellowship with them? And you'll notice
they didn't have the courage to go ask the Lord that, did
they? They got his disciples off to the side and started trying
to pick at the edges and ask the disciples that. Why would
your master eat with publicans and sinners? Now I know that
question was asked in bad faith. It was asked with a bad motive.
I understand that. But you know what? I wanna know
the same thing. I need to know the same thing.
Why would the Lord of glory, the savior of sinners, why would
he have fellowship with publicans and sinners? I need to know that. See, the answer to that question
could give peace and assurance to my heart. Maybe the Lord would
have fellowship with this sinner. See, I wanna know why he would.
I wanna know why is it that the Lord of glory would have anything
to do with the likes of me. Now, I know their question was
asked with a bad motive and a bad attitude, but it's a good question.
And I wanna know the answer to it, don't you? Because that could
tell me, is there a way I could be saved, that I could be made
righteous, that the Lord would forgive me, is there? Well, if
you know anything about the Savior, the answer to that question really
shouldn't be self-evident, is it? Here's the fourth thing I
see at this party. Christ came to save real sinners.
Verse 17. Now when Jesus heard it, he saith
unto them, they that are whole have no need of the physician,
but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. The Lord came to save sinners. And when he says that, he means
real, genuine sinners, the chief of sinners, the worst of sinners. Christ came to save sinners. You know what a sinner is? It's
not a person who sins sometimes, that's not a sinner. A sinner
is a person who can't do anything but sin. Everything they do is
sinful. That's who Christ came to save.
Christ came to save a sinner that has no hope in anything
that they do, because everything they do is sin. Christ didn't
come to save people and say, well, now, of course I sin. I
mean, who doesn't sin? Of course I sin. Hold your horses, I'm not that
bad. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I'm not a prostitute. I'm
not perfect, but now I would never be a traitor to my country. I mean, I know I'm a sinner,
but now I'm not the worst sinner in this county. I know plenty
of people who are worse than me. That's not who Christ came
to save. Christ didn't come to save people
who need some help in this matter of salvation. You know, if I
need some help, that means I can take care of part of this deal,
but I need somebody to come help me do the rest. You know, I can
do part of it, but I need somebody to come help me, you know, fill
in the blank and take care of what I can't take care of. The
Lord came to save sinners. Sinners. The Lord came to show
mercy to sinners nobody else would show mercy to. He came
to show mercy to the helpless, to the hopeless, He came to show
mercy to dead sinners who can't do one thing for themselves.
You know, we go to a funeral home, one of our loved ones dies. We go to the funeral home, we
have the viewing, we have the visitation. You know, somebody's standing
up there by the casket, we all come by and speak, don't we? Nobody, at least that I've ever
been at, I've never seen somebody talk to that corpse and tell
him, now get up and start flying right. Get up and quit doing
this to your family and, you know, live again. I mean, nobody's
ever said that. Because that corpse is dead,
it can't. He can't get up. He's dead. That's the kind of
sinner Christ came to save. A dead, I mean a dead one. And he's not just freshly dead.
He's not laying there in the casket at the funeral home where
they pumped him full of chemicals and try to keep him from decaying
and stinking long enough that we can have an open casket funeral
for him. I'm talking about a dead, rotten,
stinking sinner, corrupt, corrupt and decaying sinner. That's who
Christ came to save and to make whole, to make whole. And Lord used the illustration
here of a physician. And he commonly uses illustrations,
our Lord does, so that we can understand better what he's saying. You're the Lord. I mean, this
is the Lord. This is the Lord who spoke creation
into existence. This is the Lord who knows everything,
who sees everything. You think how quickly he could
talk so far above our heads, we wouldn't understand not one
thing he's saying. He told the disciples, I have
many things to say to you, but you can't bear them now. You
wouldn't understand them if I tried. But when he did speak, people
understood what he was saying. And I love how he used these
illustrations, and he remembers our frame. He knows that we're
just dust. He uses these illustrations just
like he's teaching his poor, pitiful children. And here he
uses the illustration of a doctor. Now, the only people who go see
a doctor are sick people. That's who goes to see the doctor.
You know the only people that know where you can find the best
oncologist in this town? People got cancer. A few weeks
ago, I had no idea. Now I know. Now I know. You know
who comes to Christ? People who are sick, who are
spiritually sick, who need him. Sinners flock to Christ, just
like sick people flock to the doctor. If you don't believe
that sick people are flocking to the doctor, call and try to
get in your doctor tomorrow morning. They're already full. There's
so many sick people flocking to him. Now remember this, Christ
came to save sinners. He's the great physician who
can make them whole. So the question for you and me
is not, are we good enough? Am I good enough for God to save?
That's not the question. The question is not, well, do
I act right enough that God will save me? Do I know enough? Am
I doctrinally straight enough? Do I know enough doctors? That's
not the question. The question for you and me is this simple.
Am I a sinner who can't save myself? That's the question. I hope and pray you can answer
that question, yes, in your heart. Because if your answer to that
question is honestly, yes, that's me, I'm a sinner who cannot save
myself, I've got good news for you. Christ came to save you. Because He came to save sinners.
The whole question is this, is the Lord ever going to teach
me I'm a sinner? That's the question. But there's something else here
that we need to get a hold of. When the Lord says he came to
heal the sick, he told us what sin really is. Sin is not something
we do, well, you know, that's kind of wrong. I could have done
that better. Sin is not breaking the rules.
Sin is a disease. I mean, it's an awful disease.
It's a terminal disease that always kills, both physically
and spiritually. always kills, 100% fatal. It's a gross disease that rots
us from the inside out, just burst out on our body, just like
big old tumors bursting out all over our body. Semen leaves us
covered with open wounds and bruises and putrefying sores
that have not been closed up, neither have they been modified
with ointment. We would cringe and gag if the Lord ever gives
us a sight of what we really look like spiritually. Years ago, our daughter Holly
was a little thing. She was old enough to be out
in the church service. And a man preaching used an illustration
from the Civil War, the Andersonville prison camp that the Confederates
had. And you know, they didn't. treat
those prisoners. You know, so many men died in
that prison. But there's a man, he'd been
wounded somehow, you know, in his head. And somebody finally
decided they would try to do something for him. And he had
like this big old wound on his head, and they cut it open. And
the story that's told in the book says maggots just start
crawling out all over the place. And Holly was going, she's gonna
throw up right there in church. That's us spiritually. I mean,
we would gag and throw up like that if the Lord ever gave us
a true sight of what we are by nature. But Christ says to these
helpless cases, I'm come as the great physician. And my name
is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. This physician,
he heals all sin sicknesses. And he does it by pouring in
the sweet balm of Gilead. He pours in the oil and the wine
of his precious blood that cleanses us from all sin, that heals from
every sin sickness, that washes us white as snow. And this physician,
the great physician, he only takes terminal cases. He's only
going to take a case when all is lost. If you think you got,
maybe you could recover some on your own, he won't take your
case. Actually, he doesn't really just take cases that are going
to be terminal. The only cases he takes is where death has already
happened. He only takes cases where we're
already dead. And then he gives life. The great
physician, you know how he gives life to his patients? By taking
their sickness in his own body and giving them his health. The
great physician. He heals, he gives life to his
patients by dying in their stead so they can live. And unlike earthly doctors, you
know what? You'll never get a bill. You'll never get a bill. He saves
and he heals his people free, free of charge. It's free to
you because he paid the price. Christ came to save sinners. He heals every case he ever takes. I'm asking the question one more
time. Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? If you are,
I'll tell you what to do. Go to Christ, because he's the
only one who can heal you. He's the only one who can save
you. And this is encouragement for guilty, vile sinners to go
to Christ. He said the whole reason that
he came was to save sinners. That's what he said. He came to heal sinners that
could be healed, that could be made whole no other way. That's reason enough for me to
go to him. How about you, huh? That's the best news that a sinner
has ever heard. This man will receive sinners,
he'll eat with them, and he'll heal them of every spiritual
disease they've ever had. Give them eternal life. He's
not just gonna fix them up so they'll die of something else
later on. He'll give them eternal life. Well, if you're sin sick, I don't
have to tell you to go to him, do you? You're already running
to him in your heart. All right, I hope the Lord blessed
that to you.