Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

(Tony Parker murdered his 7th grade son, 19 year old daughter, daughter’s fiance, and then killed himself on 01.18.18)

This past week, a horrible tragedy struck our community.

I do not know the family or the father who heinously slain his own children, but I can tell you that it can only be the work of Satan for something so unthinkable to happen.

Can you think of it?

A father, the very one who is to make you feel safe and valuable, being the very one who destroys his children as though they have no value.

Church family, we have been reminded this week of just how broken our world is.

This is yet another devastating groan of a creation that bears the curse of sin.

And, brothers and sisters, as we mourn this evil in our own community, we must be reminded of the urgency for the taking the Good News in light of such brokenness.

Our community needs hope.

Our neighbors need Good News.

Our schools and our neighborhoods desperately need rescue.

God has a plan to reach them, and it’s you.

The call on our lives as we look this horrific tragedy in the face is to befriend the hopeless and to befriend the downtrodden and to befriend the darkest among us so that we might show them the hope that they have in Jesus Christ.

So, turn with me to where we see Jesus doing just that in the course of his earthly ministry.

God’s Word

Read

Matthew’s Testimony

“he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth” This morning, as we continue our Value of Emphasis series on Dining with Sinners, we come to what I believe is perhaps the clearest example in the whole Bible.

In fact, the very reason that I believe this must be a core value, a foundational principle for our church is found right here in and the life of Jesus.

What we’re reading is the testimony of Matthew written by Matthew.

It doesn’t get more first person than this, and it doesn’t get more personal than this.

Matthew is telling you how his life was changed one day when he met the carpenter’s Son and left everything else behind.

So, I want you to hear it as being written with that type of passion and with that type of significance.

“he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth” This morning, as we continue our Value of Emphasis series on Dining with Sinners, we come to what I believe is perhaps the clearest example in the whole Bible.

In fact, the very reason that I believe this must be a core value, a foundational principle for our church is found right here in and the life of Jesus.

What we’re reading is the testimony of Matthew written by Matthew.

It doesn’t get more first person than this, and it doesn’t get more personal than this.

Matthew is telling you how his life was changed one day when he met the carpenter’s Son and left everything else behind.

So, I want you to hear it as being written with that type of passion and with that type of significance.

“at the tax booth” Now, Matthew doesn’t tell us much about his initial meeting with Jesus, but with what he does tell, he says a lot.

When Jesus met Matthew, He was sitting at his tax booth, for Matthew was a tax collector.

The way the Roman empire worked is that they would take over an area, and then that area had to begin paying taxes to Rome to fund the Roman military and government.

To collect these taxes, they would bring in someone from among the people they just conquered, and they would use them to collect from their fellow countrymen.

This person was allowed to set the tax rate higher than the Roman tax rate, and they could keep everything that wasn’t owed to Rome for themselves.

These people were seen as being worse than criminals.

They were worse than Rome itself.

They were robbing and oppressing their own people so that they might get rich.

They were so hated that the Jews declared them ceremonially unclean and unable to worship in the Temple.

“follow me” Now, you’d probably expect Jesus to rebuke such a person, right?

I mean, if this were in our day, we might see this as a democratic politician who has his hands in our pockets, or a republican who says that he stands for conservative values but then lives as though he answers to no one.

And, if this were our day, we imagine Jesus going to such a person as that and rebuking them and calling them wicked and flipping over the tables in the congress.

But, that’s not what Jesus does here.

In fact, the only time we see Jesus doing this in the NT is among the self-righteous and religious elites.

Instead, Jesus offers friendship to Matthew.

Jesus Initiates

Not only does Jesus invite Matthew into friendship, but Jesus is the initiator of this new friendship.

Matthew is not in the tax booth begging Jesus to be his friend.

Matthew is in the tax booth robbing people when Jesus comes to him and offers him friendship.

Think about that!

Jesus goes to Matthew while Matthew is in the very act of betraying and likely robbing his own people.

Matthew isn't at a Bible study.

He isn't at Field Fest or an FCA meeting.

Matthew is sitting at the tax booth doing the very thing that would have banned him from worship in his community.

As You Are

Jesus doesn't ask Matthew to clean up his act first.

He says, "As you are, follow me."

Jesus didn't give Matthew a set of standards to achieve so that he could eventually be his disciple.

He said, "Just leave it all and follow me, now."

It's an immediate offer of relationship and long-term friendship.

Jesus doesn't ask Matthew to clean up his act first.

He says, "As you are, follow me."

Jesus is the Friend of Sinners

APPLICATION: Church family, if we are to make disciples like Jesus, we must make friends like Jesus.

Church family, the greatest news in the world is that Jesus is the friend of sinners.

Jesus doesn’t come to us and tell us that if we’ll clean up or if we’ll stop drinking or stop cussing or start coming to church that He’ll consider us for friendship.

No!

He runs to us, He pursues us, He finds us in the midst of our sin, He finds us on our very worst day, He finds us hungover or just out the bed of our mistress, and He says, “Come to me! Follow me! Fellowship with me! Know my friendship from the day forth!

Don’t clean up and come!

Come, and I will clean you up!” Brothers and sisters, if we are to make disciples in the way of Jesus, we must make friends like Jesus.

The church is not a self-righteous country club filled with elitest Christians who feel bad for all of the others who aren’t able to have what they have.

No! The church is the friend of sinners, offering hope and offering love and offering kindness.

APPLICATION: And, this starts with you.

Can I tell you something?

Every, single one of us are living proof that no person is too bad for a relationship with Jesus.

No person’s sin, no person’s background, no person’s worldview, no person’s secrets can disqualify them from a friendship with Christ.

And, if Jesus is not too good to be the friend of a sinner, how can you be? Church, we must be the friend of sinners.

If we want to make disciples as Christ did, we must make friends as Christ did.

Jesus is a Good Friend

“And as Jesus reclined at table in the house” Now, I want you to notice what Matthew really emphasizes here.

He spends less time talking about meeting Jesus and more time talking about his friends meeting Jesus.

He gives us one verse about him meeting Jesus and then four verses about Jesus meeting his friends.

You see, Jesus wasn’t offering Matthew a mere seat in church; He was offering Matthew the opportunity to live life with him.

So often, we invite people to sit in our church, but we don’t offer them a seat in our life.

Not so with Jesus.

Jesus is a good friend!

He had time for Matthew and for the people that Matthew loved.

After all, Jesus didn’t just love a single sinner.

Jesus loves every sinner!

Condescended, but Not Condescending

“many tax collectors and sinners came” So, it’s a who’s who among disreputable people that Jesus hangs out with at a party at Matthew’s house.

There would have been prostitutes and harlots, crooked politicians and sleazy business men.

In our day, this would have been the homosexual and transgender, the democrat and the corrupt mayor, the drug addict or the never-can-find-work bum in our family.

Most of us, would have been okay with a house like that blowing up.

But, Jesus received them as friends.

In the midst of filth, there was perfect purity.

In a house, filled with darkness, there sat the brightest light.

Among people without friends and without hope, there was a friend who sticks closer than a brother and a Savior filled with hope.

Oh, how far the Lord Jesus had condescended from the throne of heaven.

How far away were the cries of heaven declaring him holy.