Let's go back to Matthew chapter nine. And after Jesus has healed the one that's been paralyzed and forgiven him of his sins and had an interaction with the religious leaders, our Lord now, beginning in verse nine, and I'll read through verse 13, he will now begin to call sinners to repentance. Matthew 9, beginning of verse 9, as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office and he said to him, follow me. So he arose and followed him. Now what happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors sinners when Jesus heard that he said to them those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick but go and learn what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance we are in the midst of our Lord's ministry And crowds are following him. His reputation is being well known. His teaching is so contrary to the scribes and the Pharisees because he was teaching with great authority and they were not. They were not really good shepherds at all. Now this event that we've just read with Matthew. as being called as well as that his friends coming and eating with our lord and our lord's interaction with the religious leaders is also recorded in mark chapter 2 luke chapter 5 should sound familiar exactly what i quoted from uh earlier in the first message And in this particular passage, he is referred to as Levi in Mark's gospel, Luke's gospel, probably his name given to him at birth. And in this particular passage, he's the one that's writing this gospel. His name is Matthew here, probably given to him by our Lord. So the first thing I want us to notice is the call of Matthew and his friends or the sinners that were being called, verses nine through 10. Our Lord, after the miracle, of healing one that was paralyzed and forgiving him of his sins, now goes to Matthew and calls him to follow him. Matthew leaves his work. He leaves his profession and obeys our Lord to follow him. Now, no doubt, Matthew heard of Jesus' miracles and his teaching. Jesus was no stranger to Matthew. As he received his person, he received his teaching, He was a born again man. Matthew gave a feast, according to Luke, and he invited his fellow tax collectors and other notorious sinners. Now keep in mind, tax collectors had a really bad reputation because they would take more than what they should have. They were looked down upon, especially by the religious leaders. It was one thing to be a tax collector, And a Gentile is quite another thing to be a tax collector and a Jew. That was even worse. And even our Lord uses this position of a tax collector in Matthew chapter 18, when our Lord is talking and teaching on church discipline. If someone doesn't hear the church, let him beat you as a heathen and a tax collector. So tax collectors, even in our Lord's teaching, did not have much of a reputation. I want you to also notice who was also there, his disciples. And they were not offended by these sinners, nor did they care about their reputation. So notice the humility of Matthew. He's not quoted. He's not being named as one that's given the feasts, even though Luke and Mark bring that out. And his center of his gospel is not him. He never quotes himself. The center of his gospel is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ gains all the glory in his gospel. So he has been changed. I don't know when he wrote Matthew, probably near the end of his life. Matthew wrote Matthew, and he did not glorify himself, but he glorified the Lord and gave him all the glory, calling him the friend of sinners. And I want you to notice that our Lord called Matthew while he was a tax collector, while he was at his job, while he was at his calling. He was not idle. Him being a tax collector did not ban him from being a follower of Jesus Christ. Matthew had no merit, he had no grace, he wasn't involved in some religious activity when the Lord called him. The Lord simply by his great power and unmerited favor towards Matthew called him, called him at that particular time. Grace was shown to this sinner. Here we see the power of Jesus Christ arresting Matthew. Get this, maybe we just read through it, but just understand, Matthew is at his job. Imagine you being at your job and someone comes and calls you, you just get up and leave. Who does that? Who does that? You see the Lord's great power here of pulling this man out of his job and he's gonna be one of his 12 apostles. Amazing. And Matthew gives a feast for his fellow sinners to come and enjoy. Now, everything appears to be nice. They're having a good time. They're eating. Our Lord is probably teaching them. They're having fellowship with one another, enjoying each other's company. And then you have these religious leaders, the Pharisees. Well, they're not happy with this. They're not happy with this scene at all, as it went against their public teaching to avoid sinners. In fact, they were very strict in avoiding sinners, but not in avoiding their own sin. The Pharisees put the worst possible construction on our Lord's ministry. In verse 11, the Pharisees saw it. They said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? They put, I mean, Look at what our Lord is doing, and they put the worst possible construction on what our Lord is doing. They condemn his words. They condemn his actions. They assume the worst. And notice the cowardness. These guys are cowards. They don't even have the courage to speak to our Lord about it, but they go to his disciples. And they basically are saying, look at your so-called teacher. He is interacting with these criminals. Shame on you for having accepted such a man as your teacher, that's basically what they were saying. The Pharisees were watchful of our Lord's conduct because he was gaining more glory than them. His teaching, they couldn't teach like him, and they couldn't heal like him. And all our Lord had to do was go by Matthew, follow me, he does, and he calls his sinner friends to him, and these Pharisees are not happy with that. Again, they were watchful of our Lord's conduct. They pretend to be very strict and very religious, having no fellowship with these wicked Gentiles or these wicked tax collectors. They justify their avoidance of sinners. Now, this message is really about extremes to avoid or ditches. You have a ditch on one side, you have a ditch on another. Imagine you're walking on the road and you have A chasm about 20 feet down and another one 20 feet down. OK. We're to avoid those ditches if I could use that physical illustration. Now what our Lord is doing here is is teaching against two extremes. The one extreme is the ditches have nothing to do with sinners whatsoever. In fact, you come in from the marketplace, make sure you wash your hands in a ceremonial way, showing that you're getting that Gentile filth off of you. That's one extreme to avoid. The other extreme to avoid is to run in with sinners in their sin. Whatever it is that they're doing, and you want to be, quote, a testimony, if I could use that term, you run in with their sin. Those are two ditches that are to be avoided. What is to be taught here is that we are to be different. We are not to run with those sinners when they are telling their dirty jokes and they're blaspheming our Lord, when they're making fun of God or they're drunk or whatever public sin they're involved in, we are to avoid that extreme of running in with them or to have nothing to do with them and look down on them. Those are the two extremes that our Lord is dealing with here, public sins. But to eat with sinners, to eat with those who are not saved, that's no crime, no crime whatsoever. Our Lord is the prime example of doing good to sinners, but not trafficking with them in their sins. So that's a ditch to avoid. In verse 12, our Lord's response to the Pharisees is very interesting. The Pharisees seem to think they may have escaped our Lord's attention. Because they go to his disciples instead of going to him. And it's almost as if our Lord is interacting It seems to me he's interacting with Matthew, fellow sinners, his disciples are off to the side. Pharisees see this, they come in and whisper in their ears. And our Lord turns and now he deals with them. He deals with them. These two verses in verses 12 and 13 really summarize our Lord's ministry when you get down to it. He uses an everyday example to teach a spiritual truth, and that is doctors heal those who are sick. He makes his patients well. The doctor doesn't treat his patient outside of the exam room, if you will. The doctor doesn't worry about being contaminated with a sickness. He gets very close and examines his patients and heals them using the correct medication. But those who think that they are well and see no need of a doctor, well, they're not gonna be looking after a doctor. I mean, I'm well, chances are I'm gonna go home and I'm not gonna see a doctor tomorrow, why? I'm not sick. If one of you gets sick, you probably are gonna go see a doctor. It's a very simple illustration our Lord is using. There's a spiritual significance too, I think we will see it all, and that is, Those who are sick with sin are going to seek a physician. I want you to know something that our Lord mentions, though. This is he's engaging. Our Lord is engaged when he teaches. He just doesn't spout off. Look at what he says. He says, but verse 13, he says he gives them an assignment. He gives the Pharisees an assignment. He says, go. and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. It gives him a homework assignment, if you will. Where is this taken from? It's taken from Hosea chapter six. You can turn there if you can get there quick enough before me. I cheat, I put a little piece of paper here, so I'm there. But remember, in Hosea's time, there was a lot of outward practice of religion and worship, and yet, They were wicked men. These were the Jews. These were the leaders. He says in verse in chapter six of Hosea and verse six, I desire mercy and not sacrifice and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. Now he's going to elaborate and apply. Hosea now is going to apply this to the Jews of their time. And he says, but like men, they transgress the covenant. There they dealt treacherously with me. You're dealing treacherously with my people, and therefore you're dealing treacherously with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers and defiled with blood because they're shedding blood. As bands of robbers lie in wait for a man, so the company of priests murder on the way to Shechem. Surely they commit lewdness. I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There is harlotry of Ephraim. Israel is defiled. Our Lord takes this and applies it to these Pharisees. We go back now to Matthew. Chapter nine. And the Pharisees were practicing the very same thing. That's what our Lord is doing is he's applying it to these Pharisees. They were overly strict with their religious practice and yet they were busy committing murder and committing sexual immorality. And when you consider, I think it's in Proverbs 21 verse three, Solomon says this, to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. So we are to go into the house of God, but that doesn't mean that we go out and live like the world, and that is what our Lord is dealing with here. There's ditches to, here's two ditches to avoid, okay? The one, someone who doesn't go to church at all, and they speak about God, and speak about holiness and speak about things that are religious, okay? The other ditch is the one who doesn't say anything at all, okay? They go to church and they live like the devil. Those are two ditches to avoid. So I hope I made that clear. We have the one where, you know, you just don't go to church anymore. That's it. It's something that's happening more and more. We've had people come to our church. How'd you find out about our church? Well, went on the internet, found out about it. When's the last time you were in church? We haven't been in church in three, four years. And they profess to be Christians. And then the other side is the ones who do go to church, and yet they live wickedly to where their church service has no effect on their day-to-day life. Those are the extremes. that are to be avoided. And now in verse 13, our Lord says here that sinners are called to repentance, not merely temple worship in the Old Testament. In fact, the worship of God should move us. to repentance. We should be affected by what happens here every Sunday, and we go out and live in the world those six days out of the week. It should have an effect on us. If not, then it's time to take personal inventory on yourself and say, why am I not being affected by the public worship of God? I should be affected by it. I'm assuming you are. But it's happened to me where I've sat, where you have sat, and I've just grown cold. And I don't like that. And I do, I want to avoid that ditch of going to church and yet have nothing stick to my soul. That's an important thing for me. It is for you as well. So here, our Lord gives the command for these Pharisees to go and learn that I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Did they do that? Flip over to Matthew chapter 12. couple pages over. Our Lord and his disciples are going through the grain fields and they're plucking heads of grain and they're eating them and they're doing it, get this now, they're doing it, oh no, they're doing it on the Sabbath. What were they thinking? What were they thinking? Now this is going to gain the ire of the Pharisees and they begin to condemn They're the disciples as well as our Lord. Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath in verse two. Our Lord then teaches them that you are to desire mercy and not this harsh judgment because people are picking grains and eating them on the Sabbath day. And then our Lord gives the example of David, how David, when he was hungry, And the men that were with him, they ate the showbread, which is only supposed to be eaten by the priests, but they gave it to them because it was a work of mercy. And then in verse six, yet I say to you that in this place there is one greater in the temple, but if you had known what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless for the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. Just a side note here, the Sabbath is still around. The Lord called himself the Lord of the Sabbath. He would not be the Lord of something if it didn't exist. So there is a Sabbath. And remember this, the Sabbath was made for man, not Jews, but it's made for the benefit for the good of man. The Sabbath is a blessed time for us to worship the Lord publicly. Okay, enough said about that. But I do want you to notice that unfortunately these Pharisees, these religious leaders, did not go and learn what it meant to desire mercy and not sacrifice. And then our Lord says, brings out his Christian ministry here of calling sinners to repentance, calling sinners to repentance. And again, this is just a wonderful teaching our Lord does. In a very short amount of time, he takes the words of Hosea and he applies it to those Pharisees, but he's also quick to tell those sinners that are with him right now that that is exactly who he called, sinners to repentance. Notice it is repentance, a turning from sin, a turning to God, a believing upon the Lord. I mentioned ditches and I want to, I try to make my second message to be short, so I sense it's going to be shorter. I do want to go over a couple more ditches for us to avoid. We've looked at the one ditch, no church, all church, but ungodly life. There's the being with sinners. how we are to be with sinners, and we should not avoid them at all costs. We've already looked at those two ditches, but there's a couple of other ditches to avoid. There's the ditches, there's those that teach that if you're a Christian, you should not go to a doctor. No doctors whatsoever, okay? So there's the ditch of, okay, no doctors, all we're gonna do is pray. And there's the other ditch to avoid, go to the doctors, but there's no prayer. There should be prayer, And the Christian life is, I'm not going to say down the middle, but what it does is it takes these extremes and we avoid them. Remember, extremes are very easy. It doesn't take much thought. Okay, no doctors. Okay, all we do is pray. Those are two extremes. That's just easy to do. But the difficult thing is, okay, we should go and see a doctor. You've got cancer. You should pray that God would use the means of doctors. Think of the goodness of God, of how he's given such wonderful knowledge to the sons of men and how they're able to, as doctors, to help heal people and make life more bearable. That's God's goodness. We should at the very minimum praise the Lord for that. But the ditches to avoid, of course, I think you see that, is that we should be running to the Lord in prayer, and thanking that doctor when he has prescribed the proper medication. I had something happen. I was supposed to preach here two months ago, and I had a fall, and I went to the doctor and to the emergency, and they put six staples in the back of my head. Doctor said it's going to hurt. You know, I just prayed the Lord, you know, it wouldn't hurt as bad. It wasn't. When I got done, I said, thank you, Father. And the guy that was attending to me looked at me like, thank you, Father. I said, I was just praying, not to my earthly father, but to my heavenly father. What I'm saying is that we are to be in prayer, and we are to use the means. Just like when you study, you use the means of prayer, and kids, you study and do well. And the other extreme to avoid, and this is in regards to death. There are some that say that we should not look upon death as an enemy, and we should welcome death. That's an extreme to avoid. Remember, death is still a curse. For the Christian, it's a blessing because we pass from this life into the next life. We do. But we should take care of ourselves. We shouldn't be on a course of death. And we should look upon death not as a friend, But we shouldn't, on the other hand, be so fearful of death that we fear death just like the unbeliever does. Those are two ditches to avoid. Okay, death is our friend, no it's not. Death is something else to where we are just overly anxious about that. Now granted, brethren, Before the Lord Jesus comes back, if we have to die and close our eyes in death, it's not going to be pleasant. That's just the bottom line. I've seen too many of my friends and family die, and it's not pretty. It's not meant to be. It's a curse. However, for the Christian, though, for somehow some way God gives grace for those brethren to get through that shadow of death and able to endure and to the end. Sometimes it's long. Sometimes it's short. But those are ditches for us to avoid. So we see here that Christ Jesus came into the world. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. We've looked at some ditches. I'm sure as you go through your walk this week, you may see ditches to avoid, one extreme, another extreme. Remember, the biblical approach is always the safest and the best approach. Let's close in prayer.