A New Kingdom (Matthew 9:1-10:4)

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Well, good morning church. You want to go ahead grab your Bibles. You can open up to Matthew chapter nine. Matthew chapter nine. We’ll cover the whole chapter in a little bit more this morning. As you’re turning to Matthew nine. Of course, we just sang kind of a riff on the Apostles Creed and then recited the apostles creed as well. Now there are some statements in the apostles creed that are a little bit controversial, even though it’s been around forever. For example, that line about He descended into hell. What exactly that means? Did Jesus really do it or not? Some controversial terms, for example, the idea that we belong to the Holy Catholic Church, because people hear lower case c Catholic and think capital C, Roman Catholic, which we do not belong here. But you know, Catholic just means universal, of course. So is that the best term we should use? Should we use a different one? We normally say universal here, in fact. Okay, fine. All this sort of disagreement makes sense. Christians love to fight with each other, right? All that stuff. There’s one statement in there that I think we all agree on and are really excited about the fact that we all agree on it. Honestly, you probably don’t even need to be a Christian to go, yeah, I could get behind that. And that’s this statement right here. I believe in the forgiveness of sins. And we go, yeah, no, that sounds really good to me, like we as Christians know that it’s true. That’s what Jesus came to do, of course, but I think most of us understand that we also need that, and so it’s a slam dunk. Absolutely I believe in the forgiveness of sins, and that is the focus of our passage this morning, here in Matthew nine. Now, little bit of context, because we are starting in Matthew nine, not Matthew one. If you’re newer here, you don’t know this. Even if you’ve been around for a while, you might not remember we’ve actually done Matthew one to eight already in four different series, way back when we did an Advent series on Matthew one and two. We two kings. We did Matthew three and four series called Kingdom Come to get us ready for Matthew five to seven, the Sermon on the Mount, which we did not too long ago. And we covered Matthew eight in its own little series, encounters with Jesus. And so Matthew’s gospel, but especially this part of Matthew’s Gospel, is all about the Kingdom of God. That’s why that word kingdom kept showing up in these different sermon series titles, Jesus is proclaiming the kingdom of God. And then in these chapters especially, he is embodying the kingdom of God. He is showing us what life is like under his perfect reign, and what is required of us in order to enter into the kingdom, into eternal life. Now, a lot of what he’s saying seemed really radical to the people of his day, the religious leaders, especially, and so his message was really all about the newness of the kingdom. Now it’s not really new. It’s what God has been doing all along, but certainly new in contrast to the musty traditions that had kind of grown up around God’s salvation history. And so we see in this passage, he’s proclaiming a new message. He’s performing new miracles, and he’s giving us new motives for the work we do. And that’s the three scenes we’re going to look at this morning. Now, I will warn you, I’ve already gotten questions. How long is this sermon going to be? Because this is a long passage. There’s a lot in here, right? You could do an hour on one verse. And I was like, yep. So multiply it out. That’s how long we’re going to be here. Some of you are like the dogs game starts at three. I make you no promises. Okay, you’ll see the end. Okay, that’s all you need to know. No, but the first point in particular is going to be, yeah, that’s right. Pretty soon we’re going to have the smoke machines going too. All right, we’re becoming that kind of church that first, the first scene is going to be a lot longer than the other ones. So don’t panic at that point. Okay, this is like the Fibonacci sequence in reverse. They’re actually going to get shorter and shorter as we go. So that’s just so you don’t panic. All right, here we go. Scene one, a new message. Chapter Nine, verses one to 17, and the message is this, the new message God has come for sinners. Let me read it for us. Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralyzed man lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, take heart, Son, your sins are forgiven. At this some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, this fellow is blaspheming knowing their thoughts. Jesus said, Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier to say Your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk. But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the paralyzed man, get up, take your mat and go home. Then the crowd got up and went home. The man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe, and they praised God who had given such authority to man. As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors booth follow me. He told him, Matthew got up and followed him. While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I have not come to call the righteous but sinners. Then John’s disciples came and asked him, How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast? Jesus answered, how can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them, the time will come when and the bridegroom will be taken from them. Then they will fast. No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. Nor they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved. So it is often the case here, not always, but often the case that we preach longer passages here, and there are some benefits to that, of course. Now the danger is that if we’re covering long passages all at once, we miss some of the details. But of course, the flip side, if you’re just covering a verse or two at a time, you sometimes miss the forest for the trees. So you’ve seen the bark, you’ve seen the leaves and stuff, but you’ve missed everything that’s happening. And I think that’s especially true in a passage like this, because it is a series of short vignettes that we get. And what’s interesting is that these are not chronological stories. We know that based on comparison with the other gospels and stuff. So this is not exactly the order in which they happened. And so the question is, why does Matthew put these stories together like this? Better still, why does God, who is the ultimate author of Scripture, inspire Matthew to arrange these stories like this. If it’s not chronological, then it must be, for some other reason, theological, thematic reason. And so what theme or thread holds these stories together? What’s the point that he’s driving at? That’s what we want to see this morning. So where are we after a brief foray into Gentile territory. Jesus returns to his home base of Capernaum, and while he’s there, the crowds are there, of course, and some friends bring a paralytic to him. You’ll notice here that Matthew frequently condenses material he just wants to get right to the point he’s a math major. That’s why he’s a tax collector and so no, no extraneous details. All right, let’s get so you know the story. This is the one where they have to go up on the roof and, like, dig a hole in the roof and then drop the guy, Matthew’s, like, we don’t need any of that information. All right. Let’s just get to the story here Jesus seeing their faith just interesting, because that’s plural. It’s not just the paralytics faith, but also his friends faith. Jesus, seeing their faith, says that this man’s sins are forgiven. Faith is, of course, necessary for our salvation. We must believe to be saved. But then Jesus, seeing their faith, you know, he says Your sins are forgiven, and we’re all of us scratching our heads at this point, because that wasn’t really the request. Was it like we would like you to deal with paralysis, not whatever it is you’re talking about here. But Jesus is, of course, the great physician, and so he meets the man’s deepest needs, not just felt needs, and we’re not always good at understanding the difference. Are we like? How many of you, at some point in your life asked God for a little more financial security, because that’s what you need, and God’s going No What you need is dependence. You need to learn to trust in your provider, and so I will leave you in financial insecurity for a little bit longer. So Jesus, as the great physician, deals with what’s most significant and what’s most urgent. First, like, imagine you’re in a car accident, you’re taken to the hospital, and you’re there. You broke your pinky, and you also have a brain hemorrhage. What do you think the doctor is going to do? Going to deal with? Doesn’t matter if you come in going, Doc, Doc, my pinky, it’s killing me. Do something, please. The doctor can be like, hang on, all right, there’s something more urgent here. That’s what Jesus is doing, too. The danger of eternal damnation is far greater than the very real inconvenience of paralysis, especially in a culture without a safety net. Well, the religious leaders don’t like this, that’s for sure, because only God can forgive sins, which means Jesus is and make no mistake, Jesus Absolutely. Is here claiming to be God, despite quite clearly being flesh and blood. And so the Pharisees are upset. And Christians have a nasty habit of really judging the Pharisees harshly, right? And so that’s what we’re doing here, too. Like you idiots, how can you not see that Jesus is God? Look, they drew a really wise conclusion based on what they knew of God’s Word. God’s word tells us that God is Spirit. And Hear, O Israel, the LORD your God, the Lord is one. So there’s one God, and he’s spirit, and here’s a man going, I’m God. You can understand why they thought he’s blaspheming because he’s claiming to be God when he isn’t. Except that Jesus, of course, is God. The story is all a bit more complicated than they knew. Revelation unfolds progressively here, and so we know that the one God exists eternally in three persons, sharing the one divine nature, but the second person takes on another nature, human nature, and is clothed in flesh. So Jesus is God. So he rebukes them gently and shows them who he really is by asking the question, well, which is easier to say Your sins are forgiven, or take up your mat and walk. Which is easier to say, Well, it depends on your view, really. So let me give you two ways to read this. The first would be, let’s call it the modern skeptical view, skeptical of miracles in particular, right? And so the skeptical view would say, well, it’s easier to say Your sins are forgiven because there’s no proof one way or the other. You can’t really falsify it. Whereas, if I say, take up your mat and walk, and then you’re unable to take up your mat and walk, I’ve been proven false. So it’s easier to say Your sins are forgiven. So Jesus is going to say the harder thing, also, that would not be the view of the Pharisees. The Pharisees know God can heal. They’ve read their Bibles. So it is easier to heal, because men like Elijah and Elisha do this, but only God can forgive sins. So Jesus is actually making a lesser to a greater argument. Here, I’ll do the lesser thing to show you that I can do the greater thing. Because would God grant me the ability to perform a miracle if I’m a blasphemer? And the answer would be no, of course, not. So whichever way you take it, and again, likely you’re coming from the skeptical view. It proves his point. Jesus has authority to forgive sins, and He proves it by healing this paralytic. Now we can miss this when we’re reading miracle stories like what it’s all about is this story about Jesus’s ability to heal. No, is it about, as some you know, prosperity gospels would say, the faith required for healing. No, it is not. This miracle happens to show that Jesus has come to save sinners, and because He’s God, he has the authority to do so the king can pardon rebels against his throne. And so the healing proves to the Pharisees, but even to the paralytic, that his sins really are forgiven. When he gets up and walks, he goes, I am spiritually healed too, because the same guy told me that you think of how that would feel for him, and by the way, that’s this is proof for us too. We should have that same feeling within us if we have come to Christ in repentance and faith, our sins really are forgiven. And he has proven it here in this moment, proven it even more when he walked out of the grave. Then Jesus and again. I don’t think this is immediately afterwards, but Matthew gives it to us right afterwards. Jesus sees Matthew, the author of this gospel, by the way. So Jesus goes from proving that he has the authority to forgive sinners, to calling a sinner to himself, clear, thematically, but look at what happens wherever Jesus goes. The crowds crowd him. Even sinners crowd him wherever he goes, even like the worst sinners tax collectors, because when Jesus walks through another town, there’s wee little Zacchaeus climbing his sycamore tree so that he can see Jesus. They all want to see Jesus, not Matthew. Did you notice that he saw Matthew and all the hubba whole crowds coming and Matthew is there? Are sitting in his tax booth, still totally unconcerned with the spectacle around him. This is the money obsessed workaholic who can’t look up from his computer no matter the office commotion, because time equals money people And nevertheless, Jesus calls him, what a reminder to us, by the way, that God does not love us. Set his love on us because we’re lovely. Once you reach a certain that’s like, how marriage works, right? You meet somebody where you’re like, I think you’re good enough that I’m willing to do this for the rest of my life. That’s not how God works. It’s not like, okay, we’re lovely enough that he’s going to choose No. God loves us when we are unlovely, sets his love on us and, in the process, then makes us lovely and equally shocking, I think, at least from the human perspective, Matthew follows him. This guy who wouldn’t get up to see the commotion. All Jesus has to do is say, come here and he’s up and he’s running. That is a picture, by the way, of God’s sovereign, irresistible call. When Jesus calls you, you will get up and come. We saw that last week with Saul on his way to Damascus. Why? You know Jesus isn’t isn’t convincing people. He’s not saying, hey, you know if you want to come, you make your own decision if you want to come. I’m over here. That’s not how it works, because, well, Katelyn read it for us earlier. What happens in conversion is that God opens blind eyes to see the light of His glory in the face of Christ. And so if God unblinds You, you can’t help but see that’s the irresistible grace of our God that should give us such hope, shouldn’t it? Aren’t you so encouraged reading this story, no one not even uninterested. Sinful Matthew is beyond the reach of grace, so don’t count yourself out if you’re sitting there thinking, Yeah, but Jesus would never forgive my sins. Sure he would. He’s forgiven people like you from the beginning, and maybe better still for us, because most of us in this room would go, yes, my sins have been forgiven. I believe in this. Don’t count your loved ones out either don’t count the uninterested person sitting at his desk, unwilling to look up at the office commotion, the colleague you can’t stand because the grace of God can reach even him or her. Because Matthew is a tax collector, and that is as bad as it gets, right? He is a greedy sellout and a traitor to his own people, by the way. Just let’s you know, play imagination here for a moment. Use our imaginations as we read this story. Can you imagine Jesus explaining to his other disciples what he’s about to do? He’s got at least four disciples at this point, Peter, Andrew, James and John. Imagine him going, guys, you know, hey, church is growing. I think we need to hire more staff, so I’m gonna bring on one more disciple here. Okay, they’re like, Great ID, you know, it’s Peter who’s talking, of course. Peter’s like, this is a great idea. Lord, great. You know, who you bringing on? He says, I’m gonna bring on Matthew, good, good Jewish name. Love it from Levi. All right, not my favorite tribe, but, you know, all right, still, Israel, yep. Let’s do it. And he’s a tax collector. I’m gonna hold you up right there, Lord. Because again, you know, Peter would say that if you choose this guy who is hated by our entire nation, you will alienate everyone. That’ll be the end of your little church. It will hamstring your cause for ever. And he would have a point, unless Jesus’ cause was saving sinners, in which case, he’s the poster child for it, along with Peter, by the way, who also needed some work, and you and me, but Peter had a point, because, sure enough, people are not impressed. The Pharisees come up right away. Why is he eating with sinners? That is not a question, that is an accusation, because this is defiling to Jesus. That’s how it would work, right? You don’t hang out with sinners, because you get their stink on you, and so Jesus is just like wallowing in the sinful muck here. Why would you do that? And Jesus tells them, and interestingly, he connects healing and forgiveness again. So another link between the stories. He says, it’s the sick. Who need a doctor, right? Not the healthy, which makes sense, but he’s showing them that they did not understand the purpose of the Messiah’s coming. Jesus is the Messiah, the Jewish savior. But why would he come? And you understand this by the because if you read the Old Testament, one of the things that happens when Messiah comes is that that God brings vengeance unattended. We studied the prophets here, right? We know this is how it happens. What we wouldn’t have known back then is that Jesus comes twice. Messiah comes twice, the first time he comes in mercy, the second time, yes, he will come in the end, in final judgment. But the purpose here Jesus has come not to crush the sinful and exalt the righteous, self righteous, we should say, but to save and transform and heal sinners so they missed the boat, which is why he tells them you need to go learn what this verse means, which is amusing, by the way, to tell them they need to go learn they’re the teachers of the law. This is like teaching a guy with a PhD in American Lit. You need to go back to your sixth grade language arts class because you lack basic reading comprehension skills. Like that’s what he has just said to them, I desire mercy, not sacrifice. It’s not the cult system that matters. What matters is the heart of God toward sinners. Jesus, if you look at that verse in context, in Hosea, he’s basically calling these leaders apostate. They have left the faith because they have preserved the outward ceremony without the inward heart, the covenant love that’s at the center of it all, which means, by the way, this is always misunderstood. Here, he is not calling the Pharisees righteous. He’s not saying, you all are fine. I gotta help these people. He’s helping everybody to understand, we’re all sick. We all need a doctor because there’s a new message, a new mission, almost, in the kingdom, and it is a message of grace. And so it is calling those who see that they are sick to come and be healed. There’s a legend that sprang up around the Apostles Creed. And I just want to stress, this is legend. This is a myth. This has no basis in history whatsoever, okay, but the legend was the apostles wrote the Apostles Creed, again, unlikely to be true, but still good summary of the Apostolic Faith. And so there are 12 articles in the Apostles Creed. And so each of the 12 Disciples contributed one of these articles of faith. You can almost see like, Alright, what do you know? Peter? You go first, obviously. What are you going to say? Oh, Imma talk about that. What are you going to do if that were the case? You know which one Matthew? Did you know that Matthew was the one who said, I tell you what I believe in the forgiveness of sins? Guess I lived it well, as he’s enjoying all of this, and we are, too. Another group shows up, actually interesting. So we had three groups in these three vignettes, and all three ask a wine skin, sort of question. So Jesus, a new message. That’s the new wine, right? And you can’t put in an old wine skin, which is just animal skin, literally. And so it gets brittle over time. Put new wine in, continues to ferment. Gasses form, boom. The whole thing blows up. You lose the wine and the wine skin. You put new wine into a new wine skin. And so here are the three groups, the three questions. The scribes came first of all, way back with a paralytic. They didn’t ask a question, but it’s there, hanging in the background, of course, who can forgive but God and the old wine skin? Answer is, no one. No one can forgive. Although, if you bring an animal to the priests in the temple sacrificial system, they make the sacrifice, you’ll be covered. Jesus gives the new wineskin answer when he says, okay, okay, sure, but first of all, I’m the high priest, and I’m about to offer myself as the true sacrifice in the heavenly temple to win you forgiveness for sins. Oh, and by the way, I am God, so also I can forgive sins. Then the Pharisees show up. Why is he eating with sinners and the old wine skin answer is, there’s no reason you don’t do that. You separate from them so you don’t get defiled by them. And the new wine skin answer that Jesus gives is, grace is coming for sinners to heal them. And then this third group shows up, and it’s John, John the Baptist disciples. This is Jesus’s cousin his disciples. And there’s asking, why don’t you guys fast the way we do, which is interesting. This is the second group to interrupt Jesus’ dinner with Matthew’s sinful friends. The Pharisees interrupted to say, Why are you eating with them? And then John’s. Disciples show up and go, actually, why are you eating at all? Because John’s ministry was one of repentance. That’s what he came preaching, right? Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and fasting is a sign of repentance. So this shocks His disciples to see that Jesus, who, by the way, also came preaching repent, the kingdom of God is here. Why aren’t they? It’s like they’re not taking the message as seriously as John and his disciples. But Jesus is different, because Jesus is the bridegroom, which John himself said, By the way, you can read that John chapter three, Jesus is the bridegroom, and you don’t fast at the wedding. You feast at weddings. I mean, John Chapter Two, you might even have a glass of really good wine at weddings. This is a time to celebrate, by the way, Jesus, in saying that He’s the bridegroom, is once again, saying that he is God. This is there throughout the Old Testament. I’ll just give you one, Isaiah 54, verse five. Isaiah says, your maker, Creator God is your husband. Jesus says, I’m the husband, ergo, I’m creator god, I’m your Maker. So links back that first story again. So what about now? Okay, so John’s disciples, fast repentance. Jesus’s disciples feast because the bridegroom is here. What about us? Because the bridegroom has come, but he’s also gone away again. We do both. We fast and we feast, we repent and we rejoice. And that’s exactly what Jesus says, My followers, they will fast. That’s so carefully phrased, it does not say they ought to fast. They must fast. They will fast. We get to fast under grace, to express the urgency of our prayers, to focus our minds and hearts on things above, to express sorrow or contrition for sin, but we don’t have to fast to earn our salvation, or, more likely, the reason we would do it to impress other people. There’s a new message God, and by God I mean Jesus, right? Jesus, but we now we know he’s God. God has come for sinners, and so Jesus critiques and rejects any view that can’t hold the new wine of that message just important before we turn the page here too to go, okay, in the church, we’re the ones most likely to get an old wine skin mentality. It was religious groups that kept coming to Jesus here. So we just need to constantly evaluate what we’re doing, because, again, it is the religious groups that always end up rebelling against grace, and so we’re constantly falling into pride in our own works, and then disdain and judgment for those who aren’t measuring up to our standards. We begin to reject unworthy types like Matthew people who sin in certain ways, or vote different ways, or whatever it is we want people. You know, it’s so common, right? People come to the church and go, you are too messy for here. You need to get your life together before you show up on Sunday. The reason why we call it our Sunday best, and that is just not what we see in Matthew’s story. So we just need to constantly evaluate God has come for sinners like us, so Let’s preach that message, but also live that message. Second scene, new miracles. God has come to heal sinners. Verses 18 to 34 I will read it again. While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, My daughter has just died, but come and put your hand on her and she will live. Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples. Just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, if I only touch his cloak, I will be healed. Jesus turned and saw her take heart, daughter. He said, Your faith has healed you, and the woman was healed at that moment when Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, Go away. Girl is not dead, but asleep. They laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand and she got up. News of this spread throughout all that region. As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, have mercy on us. Son of David, when he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? Yes, Lord, they replied, and he touched their eyes and said, according to your faith, let it be done to you. And their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly see that no one knows about this. They went out and spread the news about him all over. For that region. While they were going out, a man who was demon possessed and could not talk, was brought to Jesus. When the demon was driven out, the man who had been mute spoke. Crowd was amazed and said, Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel, but the Pharisees said, it is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons. So Messiah, God himself is here, and he’s come for sinners specifically, but now we know to do what with them, to heal them. We kept linking it in the last section, but Jesus now lives it, because five people are healed in short order. And it starts with Jairus, who is a synagogue leader, which is really important, by the way, that means he’s head of the old wine skin, someone who is righteous and healthy in his mind. And he’s doing this in the middle of the conversation that Jesus is having about the wine skins while he was saying this, it begins verse 18. So right in the middle of that conversation, Jairus shows up, just imagine the response of the Pharisees who were there watching this. They would be like, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Has the whole world gone mad? Why are you coming to him and asking him this? And the answer is, Because Jairus is desperate. Wouldn’t you be? So he comes with imperfect confidence that Jesus can do this, imperfect because clearly he does not fully understand who Jesus is, but he understands enough. He understands enough because he knows that God is with him in a special way, the way he was with Elijah and Elisha. And guess what both of them did. They raised the dead so maybe he can raise my daughter. And so they go on their way. By the way, notice Matthew condensed this again, ordinarily, Jairus comes when the daughter is still sick. The woman interrupts and stalls him long enough that the daughter dies at that point. Again, Matthew’s like, nope, let’s just get right to it. So as they’re leaving, the woman sneaks up to touch the fringe of Jesus’s robe, because she is equally and maybe even more so desperate. You think, how could you be more desperate than losing a child? I don’t want to like compare suffering here. Okay, that sounds awful, but this woman has never had the opportunity to have children. She’s lost all possibility of children, and also a husband and also a job and also welcome in her religion, like ability to have community like she has nothing because she is perpetually unclean. She is the definition of an outcast. She is undoubtedly superstitious. And so this is again, imperfect trust. Why are you touching the robe? You think it’s magic? You know like, again, we don’t she doesn’t have perfect theology. But as the church father Jerome put it her touch on the hem of His garment was the cry of a believing heart. And personally, I find this encouraging again, because we don’t need perfect doctrine to come to Jesus. We come messy and we get it later. We learn. After we come, we grow, we mature. Afterwards we come like little children who can’t always articulate why they trust dad. They just know that they can. And then as they grow up, they go, Oh, now I see where I can, and notice that Jesus commends her superstitious, immature faith, because Jesus loves when we come, desperate as both do, so she’s healed. Then we get to Jairus house, and Jesus redefines death. She’s not dead. She’s asleep. Okay? Death is like a nap on the way to eternity, they laugh at him. They see that clearly he’s starting to believe his own PR. And by the way, he is believing his own PR because he knows who he is, and so he this is really important. He touches the corpse. You know what you don’t do as a pious Jew, touch the corpse because that defiles you. But we’ve already seen what Jesus does, right? The flow goes the other way when it comes to Jesus. Jesus undefiles The sinful and Jesus brings life to the dead. That is the gospel in miniature, right there, by the way, Jesus takes on and defeats our death while we’re lying there, doing nothing whatsoever to contribute to our own salvation. At the cross, he defeated our spiritual death, and at the empty tomb, he defeated our physical death, and in that is our hope. This is a big deal. News spreads, crowds follow, including two blind men. You can imagine, everybody is chirping at. Jesus here, right? Would you help me with this? Would you do this? Would you talk to this guy for me? The blind men little bit louder, okay, and they’re just yelling, son of David, have mercy on me. Son of David is a messianic title. It’s actually the very beginning of Matthew’s gospel. You know, this is genealogy of Jesus, the son of David. So these blind men are the only ones who see so far, because they recognize Jesus is the Messiah, at least, and they know what happens when Messiah comes. Isaiah, 35 verses five and six. When Messiah comes, then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears the deaf unstopped, then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue shout for joy. So they reason, well, if Messiah is here, he can open our eyes, he can open our eyes, he can heal us. Interestingly, they ask for mercy, not healing. So maybe they understood their deepest need here. Unlike the paralytic, Jesus goes inside, he doesn’t say, Come, you know, follow me. Let’s talk inside. He just goes inside. I imagine this is sort of testing their faith. Are they going to come after him? And sure enough, they do. They won’t let him go. They got the same desperation. Jesus also, this way, gets them away from the crowd so that they don’t misunderstand who he is and what he’s come to do. And he asked them a question to direct their faith not just to generic God, but to himself, right? He asked, Do you believe that I can do this? Not to believe that God can do this? And they say yes. So it’s almost like the question he asked his disciples later, who do you say that I am? And they answer, well, and so according to their faith, in other words, because they believe their request is granted, their eyes are opened, and then Jesus warns them sternly, don’t tell people, because, again, they’re not ready to know that I’m the Messiah, because they’ve got messed up ideas of what a Messiah will come and do they didn’t obey. And there’s part of you that wants to go, well, they’re so excited, of course, they almost couldn’t obey here. But I think there’s a subtle rebuke in this story. I think Matthew is telling us that it is better to be blind and obedient than sighted and not. And I think he’s showing us how easy it is to stop living by faith once we’re no longer desperate, you probably have lived that right, where there was a time when you know you knew you needed God, and as soon as the problem got taken care of, get to live on my own again, and that’s where you stop keeping commands, of course. Then we get one more quick healing, although it’s interesting, we get no conversation here, probably because he’s a deaf mute. So Jesus simply exercises the demon, and all of a sudden he can talk. By the way, did you notice that’s the end of Isaiah, 35 then. So we’ve covered all of them. Okay, have the eyes the blind been opened? Yes, ears, the deaf unstopped? Yes, lame, leaping like a deer. Yep, that was the paralytic and then the mute tongue shouting for joy. So he’s done all of that. We know he’s Messiah. But why does Matthew include this story? And why does Matthew not have any conversation with the man? And it’s because of the Pharisees response, because they don’t believe or even marvel at what just happened. They don’t reason from Isaiah 35 that this must be the Messiah. They see the miracle and blame satan. Which means this miracle is not about a deaf man, but about blind men, not the two blind men that we met earlier that Jesus opened their eyes. That would be t, w, O, I’m talking here two blind men, T, O, O, stealing the joke from Doug O’Donnell. But appreciation there. They’re so blind that they cannot see reality. So these new miracles show that Jesus is the Messiah. What Messiah’s mission is that God has come to heal sinners, body and soul. Now how do we respond? Of course, we open our eyes to behold His glory. We come desperate, begging God to heal us, to meet us in our need. But then we go and share the news, and that’s the last scene. New motivations. God has compassion on sinners. 935, to 10, four be much shorter. Here, Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Jesus called His 12 disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. And he calls the 12 Apostles. You can read the names there. There’s a shift here, right in this section. The first two sections were really for those. You who aren’t sure about Jesus, it was about people coming to him the first time, but most of us here are at least well, what now? What do we do once we come to Jesus, receive this forgiveness, we do what Jesus does? We see, what Jesus sees. So I read a story just this week. Just saw it on social media was somebody was walking behind an older couple that an older couple that we all aspire to be. You know, still in their 70s, still walking together, they’re still holding hands. And this woman overheard the conversation. The wife said, did you notice the daffodils have bloomed? And the husband said, Of course, I noticed. I notice everything you love. He didn’t care about daffodils, but he knew his wife cared about daffodils, and so as a result, he did care about the daffodils. That is a picture of what we should be like as Jesus’s bride. What does Jesus love? Better still? Whom does Jesus love? And how can we love them too? So Jesus continues his kingdom ministry. He’s proclaiming it. He’s embodying it by healing. It says here every disease and sickness as he’s doing this, he looks out at the crowds again, likely coming for their felt needs. Pinky is broken, not the brain hemorrhage, and he has compassion on them, because our God is a God of love. And some of you are like, Yeah, we know that one. Okay, we’re running out of time here. Let’s not stop here. It’s easy to take that for granted, but we shouldn’t, okay. The only reason we take it for granted is because we’ve grown up in a culture steeped in Christianity, Ask a Muslim imam if God is love and receive the blank stare they will give you. And then ask, by the way, if we should love, as God loves us, if we should love even our enemies, the infidels, and the answer will be no. Or ask a Hindu Brahmin why it’s Mother Teresa who was caring for the pariahs in Calcutta? Whether or not those pariahs deserved divine love? No, and there’s a reason. It’s Mother Teresa that is clothed with this sort of Christian compassion. We should not take for granted that God looks on us with compassion, but God is love, and Jesus is God. So he so he feels in his depths His compassion for the lost. They’re like sheep without a shepherd, and he’s the Good Shepherd who will give his life for the sheep that they might have the abundant life he’s come to give them. And then Jesus prays that God would raise up workers, men and women zealous to see the good news reach the desperate. So if we’re following Jesus, we will see what Jesus sees and then feel what Jesus feels, and then do what Jesus does. That’s the point. That’s why this follows the last few stories we’ve gotten. Jesus gives us a new motivation for mission. God has compassion on sinners, so we will have compassion on them too, which is why Jesus then immediately sends the 12 out to do what he’s been doing. Gives them authority to what heal every disease and sickness exactly what he has been doing, and He forms the church. He calls the 12 Disciples, 12, because they replaced the 12 tribes of Israel. This is the new people of God. He forms to continue his kingdom work. So it is unmistakable that we are meant to be the answer to the prayers we offer about the harvest. We pray, God, would you raise up laborers to go into the fields as we lace up our boots to go into the fields? So let’s pull these strands together. Then so God came for sinners to heal them, because he has compassion on them. What’s the big idea? Then just pull all those together. Our compassionate Savior came to save sinners like you and me, desperate people. So get up and follow him. We’re gonna see what that looks like next week, but for now, we get this. We’re gonna feel what Jesus feels right. Then we’re gonna pray for our laborers and we’re gonna follow Jesus and proclaim that message. What do you do if you’re not a disciple, not a Christian, not sure about Jesus? I think the choice is here before you in this passage, are you going to come desperate or self reliant? Are you going to come as a sinner or self righteous, someone trusting in their own works, whether religious or not, for their salvation. The reality is, we all sin, we are all sick, we all will face desperate circumstances. At the very least, you will face death. So now is the time to come to him, Son of David, have mercy on us. Amen. And he has and he does when we come desperate and trusting he will. Let’s pray to him now, Lord Jesus, Son of David, we pray that you would have mercy on us now, we pray that you would meet our deepest needs, the forgiveness of our sins. The removal of our guilt and shame
and our reconciliation with the Father and Lord. We know that you have done that you have come for us already. You have lived the life we were supposed to live, and died the death we deserve to die so that we could be welcomed in your place. I pray now, Lord, that those of us who believe that, who have trusted in you, would follow you and take that message to those who need to hear it. I pray for those Lord who don’t know you yet, that even now, you would make them aware of their deepest need your love and compassion toward them, that you would open blind eyes, that they might see you for who you are and turn and trust and be forgiven. Amen.