Well, good morning. If you would
care to open your Bibles to Matthew chapter nine, that's where our
lesson will be taken from this morning. Matthew chapter nine. Before we begin, let's bow together
in prayer. Our Father, how we thank you
that out of your goodness and grace to your people that you've
given us another opportunity to meet together and to worship
you. Father, I pray this morning that
you'd give us an hour of true worship, that you'd meet with
us in the person of your spirit and, Father, enable us to hear
from thee, to learn more of our Lord Jesus Christ. I pray this
morning that you would reveal your mighty arm of power and
your mercy and your grace to your people, that you'd reach
down and touch the hearts of your people. Let us learn what
it means to have mercy from God our Savior. Father, I pray in
this hour that you would enable me to rightly divide the word
of truth, that your people would not hear the voice of a man,
but that they'd hear your spirit speak through your word. Father,
I pray for us, I pray for our children's classes and your people
everywhere where they meet together to worship. Bless your word as
it's preached, Father, I pray. Dare not forget to thank you
for all your blessings and mercies to your people, how good that
you've been to us. We thank you. We thank you for
every blessing. Father, as much as it is within
us to thank you for the trials and the difficulties, we thank
you for those too. Enable us to know and believe
that you're the one working all things together for good. Pray that you would bless those
who are in a time of trouble. We pray for our sister Judy at
this difficult time. We pray for brother Don Fortner
that you'd be with him, touch his body, be with him and his
family and that church family. Heal his body if it could be
thy will. Father, again, bless us in this hour. Give us a word
from thee, we pray. For it's in the precious name
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we pray and give thanks. Amen. All
right. Recall last week we looked at
the Lord's call to Matthew, how the Lord powerfully and irresistibly
called a publican to follow him. And when he called him, he said,
Matthew, follow me without delay. That's exactly what Matthew did.
Now you remember how the Jews considered a publican to be the
most vile person in their society, as vile as a common street artist.
So this call of our Lord's not only was a powerful call, it
was a gracious call, wasn't it? A call to an unworthy sinner.
And when our Lord called Matthew, Matthew learned something about
salvation by God's grace in Christ Jesus. God saved a wretch like
him. Matthew learned something about
God's saving grace. And according to Matthew, or
Luke, excuse me, Luke's account of this story, the very next
thing after the Lord called Matthew, the very next thing he did, was
Matthew hosted a feast for the Lord at his house. And Matthew
invited all of his friends to his house to this feast. Now,
who was it Matthew invited to this feast? His people he knew. It's all his old friends. Well,
who did Matthew know? Well, Matthew's other friends were publicans
like he was. They were traitors to their country,
just like he was. They were dishonest men, just
like he was. The only other people besides publicans Matthew knew
to invite to his house were sinners. People who were so low, they
were the people willing to talk to Matthew when he was acting
as a publican. That's the only people that would
talk to Matthew. That's the only people he knew to invite to his
house. Matthew had this feast for the Lord of Glory. And his
house was full of mobsters, pimps, and harlots. Can you imagine? You got the scene of this party
in your house? In your mind's eye here? Matthew
invited those people to his house. because he wanted them to meet
the Savior of sinners, just like he did. He was so excited for
them to meet the Savior. He told him, now come to my house.
I want you to meet this man. There's hope for you in this
man, Jesus of Nazareth. You come hear the grace that
pours out of his lips. And they said, I'm not going
to go to a religious service. I don't want to meet religious
people. He said, now, wait a minute. You come hear this man. He said,
I can understand you not wanting to hear the scribes and Pharisees.
He said, we can't earn righteousness by what they say. You know, they
look down at us and they treat us so poorly. And I understand
you not want to hear that. We can't earn salvation by what
they're teaching. But you come hear this man. Oh,
there's righteousness in him. There's salvation in him. There's
grace. This man reveals God's grace.
And a bunch of the dregs of society came to Matthew's house to meet
this man. You know why? because that's
who has interest in grace and mercy and forgiveness. It's the
dregs of society. Now, you got this party in your
mind's eye? Well, the Pharisees, that's what
they saw, the scribes and the Pharisees. It offended them.
Look at Matthew 9, verse 10. This collection of people offended
them. 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? Now, these self-righteous people,
self-appointed people of the behavior of society were offended
at the thought of any respectable person, much less a person who
has shown himself to be a religious leader, to sit down and break
bread with these publicans and sinners. I mean, they just offended
these. If the Pharisees had been in that situation, they'd have
said to those publican sinners, don't you come near me. Don't
you sit at my table. I'm holier than thou. If you
come near me, you're going to, you're going to violate my holiness.
You're going to stain my righteousness. Like holiness is an outward thing,
not a thing of the heart. They were so offended. Why would
your master eat with these publican sinners? They still got the side
of this party in your mind's eye? Get this sight of the Lord,
the Lord of glory, the Son of God, sitting down and eating,
having fellowship with the worst sinners in town. That gives me hope. Oh, the sight
of that, the thought of that thrills my soul. That gives a
sinner like me hope. Because I'm not making this up
when I tell you I'm worse than them. You are too. We're worse
than them. We've sinned against greater
life. So maybe there's hope for righteousness. There's hope for
forgiveness. There's hope for salvation for you and me in this
man, Jesus of Nazareth. The Pharisees were disgusted
at this guest list. They were disgusted that a religious
leader would rub elbows with such open sinners. And they had
a question. They wanted to know, why would
your master eat with these publicans and sinners? Why would he have
fellowship with them? And I think it's interesting to note, they
didn't have the courage to go ask the Lord himself, why are
you doing this? I think they learned by now,
we come out on the bad end of the deal, we start asking this
man questions. So they ask his disciples. But you know what? I got the same question they
did. Why would the son of God The Holy Son of God, why would
he sit down and eat, have fellowship with open vile sinners? And the Lord's not going to leave
us to wonder. He's going to answer their question. And either he
heard them asking his disciples, maybe he overheard them. I think
he already knew what was in their heart. He knew what they were
going to say before they said it. Because no matter what, the
Lord knows. The Lord knows and the Lord hears. because he's always sovereign.
He knew what was in their heart, and he's going to answer their
question. And his answer is very, very interesting. At this time
of year, we hear a whole lot about Christ coming to earth,
don't we? And as much as people talk about it, I'm afraid almost
no one knows. Why is it Jesus came in the flesh? Why is it the Lord came as a
man to this earth? It was not so we can ooh and
aah over a baby in a manger. Cute baby lying in a manger.
That is not why the Lord came. People are fascinated with that
baby in a manger. You know why? That baby is the
Lord of glory. That baby is the eternal father. That's what Isaiah said his name
is. Yet he's a dependent baby. That baby was dependent on his
mother to feed him from her breast. He was dependent on her to keep
him warm and fed and clothed and keep him alive. And that
dependence, that's what people like. They want the Lord to be
dependent upon them. That's why they love this baby
in a manger. But that's not why the Lord came.
The Lord did not come so he could grow up and give us an example
to follow. If that's why he came, he's a
failure. If he didn't, How well are you
doing following his example? Anybody think you did a pretty
good job of it? The Lord's going to answer the
question. In answering their question, why does he eat with
publicans and sinners? He's going to answer the question,
THE question. Why did he come? Why did he come? The Lord tells
us why he came, what he came to do, and who he came to do
it for. Now if anybody knows the answer
to that question, I believe it's the Lord, don't you? Why did
he come? What did he come to do? And who
did he come to do it for? Verse 12, he tells us. But when
Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that behold need not
a physician, but they that are sick. Now here's why the Lord
came. The Lord came to save sinners. And when I say sinners, I mean
real sinners. He came to save the chief of
sinners, the worst of sinners. That's why the Lord came. The
Lord did not come to save good religious people who say, well,
now, of course I've sinned. I mean, who doesn't sin? Of course
I'm not perfect, but I'm not that bad. I mean, I could be
worse. I could be a prostitute. I could
be a traitor to my country. I know I'm not perfect, but I'm
not the worst sinner in the county. You and me both know there are
plenty of people worse than me. That's not who the Lord came
to save. The Lord didn't come to save people who need some
help. You know, we say, well, I just need, I need some help.
I need a helping hand. That means I can do part of this. Lord,
I can do my part if you'll do the rest of it. You know, the
part that I can't do. That's not who the Lord came to save.
The Lord came to save sinners. And the scripture does use the
word help, but it means that he came to help by doing it all.
What is the part that I can't do? Everything. The Lord came
to save sinners. He came to save helpless, hopeless,
dead sinners. He came to show mercy to those
people. Now when our Lord teaches, he
commonly uses illustrations. He commonly uses illustrations
and parables when he was teaching so we could understand what he
was saying, what the point that he's teaching. And the illustration
he uses here is a common illustration. Everybody understand what he's
saying. the illustration of a doctor. Now, the only people who seek
out a doctor are sick people, aren't they? I couldn't tell
you. I don't have the foggiest idea
who the best heart doctor in the state of Kentucky is. I've
got absolutely no idea because I don't need to know that. As
far as I know, my heart's healthy. Judy knows. I talked to Don Fortner
the other day. He knows who the best heart doctor
in the state of Kentucky is. You know why? He needs one. He
needs one. Jonathan's an insurance salesman. It's hard to sell insurance to
young people, isn't it? I mean, it's hard, isn't it?
They're not sick. I mean, when's the last time
you sold a life insurance policy to a young person? They're not
dying. They're not going to die anytime
soon. Just ask them, you know? It's so hard to get a young person
to buy health insurance. The federal government has decided
we've got to force them to buy it so they can, we can use their
money, you know, that they're paying for stuff they don't need
to help pay for, you know, us older folks. And even if they
have a health insurance policy, they've got no idea what it covers,
none whatsoever. When you're in that wreck, you
had no idea what you're, and Savannah, when she signed up
at Work for Insurance, she asked her daddy to look at it, you
know. I knew what her policy covered. She didn't. Young people
just don't need it. You know who knows every detail
of their insurance policy, the health insurance policy? A sick
person. Boy, they know. Now, there's
a lot of reasons. I hate, I hate to go to the doctor. I hate it. Your mother told me. Tucker's mother told me, she
said, best way to get sick is to go to a doctor. They're going
to make you sick. I mean, I hate going to a doctor. I miss my time. It's so precious
to me. I hate it. But here's another thing I hate
about going to the doctor's office. You go in there and that place
is full of sick people. I don't care what they got. But
buddy, that room's full and you're going to wait a long time. And
I just, I mean, when I go, normally it's like I get a prescription
refilled or something. I don't have time for this. I'm
just going to leave. I'm the only person there thinking that.
Everybody else in that room is staying, no matter how long it
takes. You know why? They need a doctor.
They need a doctor. This is what the Lord's teaching
us. He is the Savior of sinners. And since He is the Savior of
sinners, you know what happened? Sinners just flock to him. They
flock to him. Because they need him. They need
him. They need a great physician for
their souls. And the great physician is a
whole lot better than a regular doctor. He won't make you wait
forever. No, he comes and sits down with
you and has fellowship with you. And he heals all that have need. He doesn't just take a stab at
it. He's not practicing medicine. He heals all that have need of
healing. He saves all that have need of
saving. And we need to remember this
in our refined society, in our refined way of doing things. You know, we come here on Sundays
and Wednesdays and put on our Sunday best. I mean, it wouldn't
cross my mind ever did not show up here in a suit and tie. I
mean, it just, it wouldn't cross my mind ever. And we just, we
looked so good on the outside, you know, we learned how to,
how to act and things, you know, we're, we're very refined. We need to remember our flesh
is still alive and well. And just let's not look down
our noses at folks who come to hear the gospel. They don't know
what we know. They don't love what we love.
They haven't learned what we've learned. And look down our noses
at them because of the advantages that God's given us, think we're
better than them. God forbid. God forbid. We need to remember
this. Christ came to save sinners. Sinners. Unattractive, vile,
ugly, the worst of sinners. No matter what you think of somebody
else, we've got no room to look down our noses at them. Now we
can judge what they're doing is wrong, but we've got no room
to look down our noses at them. The question for you and me is
not, are we good enough? That's not the question. The
question is not, can I act right enough? The question is not,
can I learn to walk righteously enough? The question is not,
can I learn to walk so that people see Christ in me? They didn't see Christ in Christ.
They ain't gonna see Him in me. That's not the question for me.
The question for you and me is, are we a sinner? Oh, I wish I
could find a sinner. If we find a sinner, we got some
good news for you. Christ came to save sinners. The question is not, are we good
enough? The question is, are we bad enough? Because that's
who Christ came to save. And don't pass this over now. The
Lord talks about himself as the great physician. He's using the
illustration of a doctor. And when he says how he came
to heal the sick, he's telling us what sin really is. Sin is
not something that we did. That was kind of wrong. I mean,
I shouldn't have said that. I wish I hadn't thought that,
you know. Sin is not breaking the rules. Sin is a disease. It's an awful, dread disease. It's a terminal disease that
always kills. It's a gross disease. You know,
the disease commonly used to typify sin in scripture is what?
Leprosy. It's a disease that rots us from
the inside out. It just breaks out in huge tumors
just all over our body. Those tumors burst and grow more
tumors on it. It's a disgusting, awful disease. It covers us with wounds and
bruises and putrefying sores that have not been closed up,
neither mollified with ointment. And if we could get just a glimpse
of how gross our disease of sin is, we'd gag at it. I mean, we'd
just gag at it to see how awful sin really is. But Christ says,
he's come as the great physician. He's come to reveal himself as
Jehovah Raphael, one of the seven great names of Jehovah, the Lord
that healed thee. He's come to heal the sin sickness
of his people. And he does it by pouring in
the sweet balm of Gilead, the oil and wine of his precious
blood that cleanses us and heals us from all of our sin sicknesses.
Our Lord is the great physician, the great physician, the great
physician. He only takes terminal cases. He'll only take a case when all
other hope is lost. If you think the doctor of religion
can cure you, well, go to him because the great physician I'm
going to take. If you think that you can clean your act up a little
bit and, you know, make things a little bit better and maybe,
you know, just ride this out and it'll go away. Every time
I'm sick, well, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to ride
her out. It'll go away. Chance ain't going to go to the
doctor. I'm saying, oh, it'll be okay. Go to the doctor. It'll
be okay. If you think you can ride it out, the great position
is not for you. But if all hope is lost and your
case is a terminal case, the great position is for you. He
only takes cases when all hope is lost. And when I say all hope
is lost, I don't mean that you're on your deathbed. I mean, you're
already dead. You've got to be already dead. That's how hopeless the case
has got to be. If you're already dead, the great physician, he's
going to heal you. And you know how he heals the
dead? He heals them by the great physician giving them his life. And Him dying in their place
is their substitute. He takes the place of His dead
patient and gives them His life. That's how He heals them. And
unlike earthly doctors, you're never going to get a bill from
Him. Gary, you send out a lot of bills, don't you? Boy, you
got to have those things collected. But this doctor never sends out
a bill. He saves and He heals His people
freely. Don't you be bringing your little
crumbs of righteousness to Him. How offensive is that? He's got
everything. He saves freely. Christ came
to save sinners. Now are you a sinner? Then go to Christ. Go to this
great physician. He's the only one that can or
will save you. And I tell you now, You understand
exactly what I'm saying. You go to Christ. You go to Christ. Don't you go to religion? Don't
you go to the ceremonies of religion? Don't you go to the law and start
trying to act better? Go to Christ. Because look what he says here,
verse 13 of Matthew 9. But go ye and learn what that
meaneth. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I'm not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance. Now, go learn what this means.
That was a common phrase that a teacher would use at that time
to their student. Go learn what this means. The
scribes and Pharisees, you know, they were teachers of the law,
and they loved to use that phrase. They'd tell their students, you
know, in their school day, go learn what that meaneth. And
when they said that, it made them feel so good. Oh, it made
them feel so good. Because what were they looking
for? What was the whole point of this exercise of their religion?
He could make himself feel better, wasn't he? If I can feel smarter
than somebody else, that makes me feel good, you know. You go
learn what that means. That made them feel so good like
they were, you know, smarter and better than everybody else.
Can you imagine Jesus at Nazareth saying to these high educated,
highly respected people, you go learn what this means. I mean, he couldn't have picked
anything else to say more infuriating to them than that. Go learn what
this means. And you think they're going to...
Oh, they were offended at that. Wait a minute. You mean to tell
me this man has never been to our schools is telling me? You
think this man has never been to one of our schools can tell
me something I don't already know? Oh, they were mad. And they wouldn't have thought
about humbling themselves enough to say, wait a minute, did he
teach me something? I'm not talking to the scribes
and Pharisees from 2000 years ago. I mean, I know what they
did is wrong, but that ain't who I'm talking to. I'm talking
to you. You and me. I stopped studying
this and oh, I prayed, Lord, humble me. Humble me. Teach me. Teach me. Teach me,
teach my heart and enable me to teach your people what this
means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. If we, if the Lord will show
us what this means, your heart's going to be thrilled. Now, if
we're going to learn what this means, I'll have mercy and not
sacrifice. We're going to have to humble
ourselves. We're going to have to admit that we don't know anything
and we need the Lord to be our teacher. Sandy, I bet you never
could teach a kid to do everything, could you? I mean, you couldn't
teach him nothing. You couldn't even teach him right English.
I mean, I'd have been a lost cause with you. You can't teach
a know-it-all anything. If we're going to learn something
here, we're going to have to humble ourselves. Humble ourselves
and ask the Lord to be our teacher. But look at Hosea, chapter 6.
Hosea, chapter 6. If you've got the authorized
version, that's page 1130, right after the book of Daniel. Most
of you can find Daniel. Hosea is the next book over.
Hosea chapter six. When the Lord says this, he'll
have mercy and not sacrifice. He's not teaching something new.
He's not teaching a brand new theory here. It's just like when
the Lord taught the Beatitudes, remember we went through the
Beatitudes and when the Lord taught that, what he was teaching us
that the true meaning of every commandment of the law was him. Thou shalt not kill. The true
meaning of that commandment is look to Christ for forgiveness.
The true meaning of thou shalt not commit adultery is look to
Christ. He's the faithful husband. He's
the one that can forgive you. But what he's teaching us here
is he is, he personally is the true meaning of what Hosea prophesied
of. Hosea chapter six and verse six. For I desired mercy and not sacrifice
and the knowledge of God is more than burnt offerings. Now, when
the scripture says, talks about the Lord desiring something,
what it means is this is what pleases the Lord. What pleases
the Lord. What he says, mercy pleases him. All those sacrifices that were
offered, that were required by the law, he never had any pleasure
in doing. He said so in his word, I never
had any pleasure in those things. The Lord is not pleased with
the motions of religion. I mean, we don't offer animal
sacrifices today, but that scripture applies to you and me. It's talking
about religious ceremonies and motions. The Lord's not pleased
with those things. The Lord has pleasure in mercy,
in mercy. The Lord has pleasure in sinners
knowing God. That's what he talks about, the
knowledge of God. Knowing God, our Lord said that's
eternal life, isn't it? To know thee. The only true and
living God, that is eternal life, eternal life that we received
from God's mercy. And if you know God, you'll know
the things that please Him. And this is kind of a silly illustration,
but it's a good one, I think. If you know my wife, Janet, if
you know her now, you know this about her. If you want to please
her, don't try to please her by bringing a Coca-Cola. That's
not going to please her. Every time we're in a restaurant
and she orders a Pepsi and they say it's Cocoa K, she says, eh. I mean, I'll tell you, she wants
Pepsi. And Doug and Clark both know
it. And we come to their house almost always, it's very, very,
very rare, the two of them, the two men don't point out we got
Pepsi in the refrigerator. We got there one time, Doug came
home from work and he said, oh. I meant to pick up Pepsi on my
way home. I don't have, you want to go
get some, I'll go get it right now. And James said, no, no, that's
okay. You know why he said that? He knows what pleases her. He
wanted to be pleased. The coat's not going to cut it. If you know
God, I hate to even equate this. Understand
I'm just using the illustration. If you know God, your work's
not going to cut it. Your obedience, your faith, your
Christian living is not going to cut it. What's going to cut
it? What's going to please God? Mercy.
God delights in mercy. He delights, He said, in showing
mercy to sinners. Then would you delight, God? Come to Him crawling in the dust,
begging for mercy. That would delight God almighty. God delights to show mercy. they
come begging him for mercy. Now, 100% mercy, not 99.99999%
mercy, 100% mercy. They come begging him to do it
all. God delights in mercy. He delights
in showing mercy to others. And I believe it also means this.
He delights in his people being merciful. He delights in his
people not being legalistic and judging people by the law and
holding their feet to the fire. God delights to show mercy. And he is delighted when his
people show mercy. You parents can understand that.
You are delighted when your children do something that you've taught
them to do. You're so happy. That's what the Lord's saying
here. And he says, now you learn what this means. Ask God to teach
you what this means. I will have mercy and not sacrifice. Who did he say this to? The religious
leaders of that day. I mean, they were giants in the
eyes of most Jewish people. These were the giants. And he
says to them, I'll have mercy, not sight. You need to learn
this. You need to learn something you don't know. That tells me
all religious people are not saved. They might make a good
show of religion. They might be able to impress
you and me, but God's not pleased. God's not impressed. And that's
why Christ had to come. He said, Lo, I come to do thy
will, O God. Father, I come to do what pleases
you, to save your people by your mercy, by your mercy. The Lord
didn't come to save people who think they're good. The Lord
came to show mercy. Now if the Lord's going to show
mercy, who's he going to save? Sinners. Sinners. Then let's
be sure, let's learn what this means. And it's something we're
gonna have to constantly fight now, but let's learn. Let's don't
be a religious hypocrite, but let's constantly seek to come
to God in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's constantly seek to come
to God in mercy that's found in Christ. That's why Christ
came. And that's why he sits and has
fellowship with the likes of you and me, because he came to
show mercy. God showed you just a little
bit of what that means. Your heart's thrilled by that.
That's the greatest news a sinner's ever heard. All right. Hope the
Lord bless that to you.