Well, let's read the scriptures as we turn to Matthew chapter nine. Matthew chapter nine, reading verses nine to 17. We're continuing in our series in Matthew's gospel this evening. Matthew nine, verses nine to 17. This is the word of God. As Matthew passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came, and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? And Jesus said to them, Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved. So reads the Word of God. What a privilege it is to have it read in our hearing. Well, according to a recent survey, when it comes to choosing a restaurant, or buying a new computer, or even just ordering something small from the internet, a whopping 86% of us read the online reviews before making a commitment. We read the customer reviews and recommendations, whether it's TripAdvisor or Amazon or Airbnb. The majority of us, it seems, are interested in the experience of other people. We're influenced by their recommendations, whether good or bad. We might even ask each other informally, can you recommend me an electrician, for instance? Or where would you suggest that I go to get my car fixed? Because we place enormous significance on personal recommendations. In these verses before us this evening, in his account of the life of Jesus, Matthew begins to get personal. Having described numerous examples of how Jesus worked in the lives of other people, he now opens up about his own experience. And in effect, Matthew shares his own testimony. And it's a powerful personal account of the utterly radical transformation that Jesus can bring. And for many of us, this is something we can joyfully identify with and it should encourage us in our walk with Christ. But it could be there are some listening among us and you haven't yet begun a relationship with Jesus. So let me encourage you to listen to Matthew's story and to consider his testimony. I want to mention three things as we work our way through these verses. Firstly, we want to notice the power of Christ's call. The power of Christ's call. And this is in verse 9. Just moments before this, Jesus has been teaching in a house full of people. He has healed the paralytic. And that meeting has come to an end, evidently, and Jesus leaves. Both Mark and Luke describe in their accounts how he walks along the shore of Galilee, still surrounded by hordes of people, but he stops he stops and he singles out one person, a man called Matthew, the author of this gospel. Verse nine reads, as Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew. Both Mark and Luke give him the name Levi, but this is one and the same person. Matthew was also known as Levi. And we're told he's sitting at the tax booth The tax booth, the tax office, was essentially a table on the sand. And when the boats came in from Galilee, if there was cargo, well then there was a tax to pay. And the tax collector would have been a man employed by the Roman government. He could have charged whatever he felt he could get, as long as he gave a certain amount to the Roman authorities. So you can understand, tax collectors were regarded as selfish, money-grabbing, self-centred thieves. In fact, according to Jewish custom, if you were a tax collector, you were forbidden to be a witness in any court of law because your word couldn't be trusted. In fact, you were barred from the synagogue. You were considered a curse of disgrace upon your family. And even the touch of a tax collector was considered to render a house unclean. So it's fair to say tax collectors and Matthew here, they would not have been popular figures. A very shallow comparison might be those men and women who parade our footpaths wearing their bright red coats with their little notebooks, stopping every now and then to place a parking ticket onto somebody's car. Not very popular people. But Matthew is far worse, of course, because his life has been one of dishonest greed and manipulation. And in a way, as Matthew writes his gospel, he's doing something extremely powerful here. With the paralytic in verses one to eight, we've seen how Jesus has demonstrated his authority to forgive sin, but it's as if Matthew now is anticipating his readers beginning to think and beginning to ask themselves, well, yeah, sure, Jesus healed the paralytic, he forgave his sins, but just how far does this forgiveness go? What kind of people does Jesus forgive? And Matthew here is basically making the point, look, look, he forgave, he forgave me. He forgave me, and if Jesus can forgive me, Matthew, a tax collector of all people, well, he can forgive anyone. He can forgive anyone. You see, Matthew, we just have to get it, Matthew was one of the most hated people in Capernaum. And if you ask anyone around that date to name someone they thought was beyond forgiveness, they would probably have said, Matthew the tax collector. Here he is. He's sitting at the tax booth. Along Jesus comes. And instead of rebuking him, instead of cursing him, Jesus stops and he speaks to him. And he says, follow me. It's interesting, isn't it? Matthew doesn't go looking for Jesus. Jesus goes looking for Matthew. And when he calls, Matthew responds immediately, without any hesitation. Verse nine, and he rose and followed him. And it's wonderful, without drawing attention to himself in any way, Matthew records for us conversion in one simple verse. And he gives us a wonderful, beautiful description of the power of Christ's call upon an individual. How Jesus can take a despised, cheating tax collector and how in a moment, in a flash, he can turn him into a disciple, into an apostle. So friends, we ought never to despair of anyone's salvation when we read these words of scripture. Because he who called Matthew, he still calls men and women today. Let's never despair of loved ones we have who are still outside the kingdom. Some of us, we've got children who aren't following the Lord. Some of us, it's a brother, it's a sister, it's a parent. For others, it's a husband or a wife. We all have friends, don't we? Neighbours about whom we have deep, sincere, great concern. Let this verse encourage us. No one is too bad. No one is too far gone. No one is too disinterested for Christ to call. And through Christ, there is mercy to pardon the greatest sins. And there is grace to change the greatest sinner. So we must never underestimate the power of Christ's call. Here's Jesus and he fixes his eyes on this man. He searches the innermost depths of his soul and he commands him to get up and follow him. And such was the power of Christ's call that when Matthew heard, follow me, he just got up. He just got up and followed. And maybe that sentence is precisely what you need to do right now. He got up and followed him. He got up and followed Jesus. You might have heard the gospel many, many times. So much in fact that you can explain it to others, perhaps. You've perhaps thought long and hard about what it means to follow Christ, but have you? Have you decisively got up, as it were, and followed him? have those resounding words, follow me, have they thundered in your mind and heart to the point where you have abandoned your own personal passions and interests and you've just got up and followed Christ. That's what's involved. in being a Christian. That's the kind of commitment he demands from his followers every single day, wholehearted following of Christ. So that's the first thing we want to notice, the power of Christ's call. We want to look secondly then, the reason Christ came. The reason Christ came. Verses 10 to 13. The scene changes. The camera pans. We find Jesus now having dinner with his disciples. Now Matthew doesn't tell us where this is, whose house this is, but both Mark and Luke do. They tell us that this is at Matthew's house. In other words, this is Matthew's feast. Matthew has organized, he's hosting a gathering so that all of his friends can come and meet Jesus. Verse 10 tells us. As Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. I don't think it's going too far to imagine that these are Matthew's friends, his former colleagues perhaps, and he's invited them to come for a sit-down meal with his new best friend, his saviour, Jesus of Nazareth. After all, that's what believers want to do, isn't it? We want our friends to meet Jesus as well. We want to invite them to come. We have a lovely little example here of how to combine hospitality and evangelism. And Matthew, he has gathered the most wretched, rotten, vile people in Capernaum, all his friends and former associates, and he's got Jesus as the honoured guest. And the Pharisees cannot handle this. This is scandalous in their eyes. They ask his disciples, why does your teacher eat with such people? And rather than this being a genuine question, there's nothing genuine in this at all. This is an accusation. It's filled with criticism and bitterness. They just cannot cope with the fact that Jesus was mixing with these kinds of people, tax collectors, sinners. And listen then to how Jesus responds. Verse 12. But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. If sick people need a doctor, surely sinful people need a savior. And if the savior is here, Jesus is saying, where else would you expect him to be but with sinners? You see the Pharisees never thought of themselves as sinners. They thought of themselves a lot actually. They prided themselves in how they separated from people exactly like this. Jesus zeros in on that. He zeros in on their self-righteous, judgmental attitude. And it's as if he says, look, where's your concern for these people? Where's your compassion? Where's your mercy? As he says in verse 13, quoting from Hosea, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. In other words, God isn't concerned with all of your ritual so much as he's concerned with you having a merciful heart. And here are these Pharisees. They had plenty of ritual, but they had no mercy. They had no compassion. They had no love for sinners. And surely, surely we can't avoid the challenge here, friends. How often, how often we find ourselves thinking and acting like these Pharisees and we look at those who are outside of Christ and so many of us we just stand and and criticize. We condemn and we judge and we keep them at arm's length and from a distance. We pass judgment on them and rarely, rarely do we reach out to help. But friends, do you see if we are to have the heart of Christ were to have the same heart he had for sinners. And Jesus, he couldn't be clearer here, could he? I came not to call the righteous, he says, but sinners. In other words, I didn't come for people who are so self-righteous in all of their goodness. I didn't come for people who are convinced they don't need help. Rather, I've come for people who are desperate. I've come for sinners. The truth is we're all sinners by nature and by choice. We're sick with sin. We all need the great doctor, don't we? And that was the mistake, the terrible mistake the Pharisees made. They did not think they were sick. They thought they were fine. I'm pretty sure we all know someone who will just not admit when they're ill or when they're sick. It's okay, I'm not sick, they say. And they're limping along, perhaps, with the leg hanging half off them. Oh, I don't need a doctor, they say. I'll be fine. Maybe you're a bit like that. I'm okay. Now, we shake our heads at that kind of stubbornness when it comes to our bodies. But is there not today an even greater stubbornness when it comes to people's souls? I'm really not that bad, he said. Oh, I know there's issues. I know I do a few things wrong, but compared to others, I'm okay. I'll be fine. Really, I'm okay. But that's the most dangerous position to be in. to think you're okay. That's the great problem with so many people today, that they think that they are spiritually okay, and they're never troubled by their sin, and they have no idea how sick they are. They have no idea how doomed they are. And Jesus won't have anything to do with people who think they're okay. In fact, you'll never be saved if you think you're okay. But here is someone, here is someone and they are weighed down, they are troubled by their sin. And it's like they've caught a fatal disease and they know it and they can't cure themselves and they know it and they can't live with it any longer and they know it and they're thinking about one thing only, how can I get rid of my sin? And it's for those people, it's for those people Jesus came, for sinners. And you might be thinking to yourself, well, all of that's fine for nice, respectable people, but Robert, you don't know me. You don't know my past. You don't know what I've done. I'm beyond forgiveness. I'm beyond the reach of this love. But listen to Jesus here. I came for sinners. I came for sinners. So whatever your situation, whatever your past, whatever your history, whatever roadblock you have, the Lord Jesus says to you, I came for sinners. I came for people who are broken. I came for people who just can't get it right. I came for people who are honest enough to admit their failures. To you, the Lord Jesus is saying, I came for you. I came for you. So do you see the reason Christ came? He came for sinners. The power of Christ's call, the reason Christ came. And then let's look thirdly, the meaning of Christ's correction. Verses 14 to 17, the meaning of Christ's correction. We have some of John the Baptist's disciples who now enter the scene. And maybe you remember that when John the Baptist came, lots of people followed him. And at a point in his life, he tried to transfer his followers over to Christ. Remember he said, John 3 verse 30, I must decrease and he must increase. In other words, you guys, you must leave me and go to the Messiah now, go to Jesus, he's here. But it's clear that not all of his followers did. In fact, back in chapter four of Matthew, we're told that John has been arrested. So we're talking here about some pretty devoted followers, these disciples of John. And along they come to Jesus with their own question. the Pharisees' question about the tax collectors and sinners that had an accusing, bitter tone. But this question from John the Baptist's disciples, it comes over a lot more genuine and sincere. Verse 14, then the disciples of John came to him saying, well, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast? So they don't get why and how Jesus is doing things so differently from the way they did things. You see, even though the Old Testament only issued a fast on one day a year, that was all that was required really, the Day of Atonement, the Pharisees had added in extra fasts. They believed that you should fast twice a week. And evidently the followers of John the Baptist, they believed something similar. And so they had built in all these rituals and all of these routines into their whole system, into their religion. And they're coming along and asking, well, how come it's so different with you, Jesus? How come you're not doing all the things we do? And Jesus, he responds in verse 15. Jesus said to them, can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. So then, of course, like today, weddings, they were festive, happy, joyful occasions. To go to a wedding and to be sad and gloomy and depressed, that was unheard of. And Jesus is effectively saying here, I'm the bridegroom, the bridegroom that was promised. And this is a celebration. This is a happy time. This is not a time for mourning and fasting. It's a time of joy, a time of triumph, a time of blessing. But he does give a hint of the cross looming on the horizon. when he speaks of the sad day when the bridegroom would be rudely taken away and he's talking of his crucifixion. There would come a day he says for mourning and fasting and true enough when Jesus died on the cross his disciples were utterly devastated. But the point in all of this is Jesus is making it very clear, I am not teaching some kind of reformed Phariseeism. I am not John the Baptist part two. I am not simply improving on a set of man-made religious duties and rituals and regulations. as he puts it in verses 16 and 17. That would be like putting a new patch onto an old piece of clothing, or like putting new wine into old wineskins. Now, they would have been simple enough illustrations for the people in his day who were maybe not as familiar with patches and wineskins, but we can still understand them. New cloth shrinks when it's washed. So if you put a new patch onto an old item of clothing and then wash the whole thing together, well, the new patch, that will shrink and that will just make a worse tear than before. And similarly with the wine. New wine was normally put into new wineskins because the wine would ferment and the wineskin would expand accordingly. But put the new wine into an old, stiff, hardened wineskin, it would ferment just the same as before, but it would cause the wineskin to burst and shatter and you would lose everything in that case. What's Jesus saying here? You might think he's speaking cryptically, but actually he's speaking with crystal clarity. And he's driving home the same point. And he's saying, I'm like the new patch, the new piece of cloth. I'm like the new wine. But you can't have me and still hold on to the old way of things. You can't have me and hold on to your old way of life. The two are incompatible. In other words, you can't just attach Jesus like an accessory to the way you've always lived. You can't just pour his life into your empty, hardened way of doing things. And that's what so many of the people around him were trying to do. They were trying to fit Jesus into their traditions, into their rituals. But Jesus speaks a word of correction here. I'm not an added extra. I'm not an accessory. I'm not a bolt on. I'm not a mere appendage to your old way of life. In other words, you can't just add Jesus onto how you always used to do things. He demands our exclusive love and loyalty and obedience. New life in Christ is utterly different from life without Christ. It's in a totally different league. Do you see, you might be listening to this and you might admit you're not yet a Christian. But can you understand Jesus is not calling you to a life of religious ritual. He's not calling you to adopt a new set of traditions. He isn't offering you a life that is just marginally better than before. Christianity is not about living a life that is just the same as before, but with Jesus added on. No, no, the message of Christianity is that there is this compelling, convicting, glorious person, Jesus Christ, who utterly fills and transforms you. And Matthew in these verses steps out of the pages of his gospel to us this evening. And he invites you to come and meet this Jesus. He invites you to come and meet the same Jesus who stepped into his life that day and transformed it forever. He's unlike anyone you could ever meet. And he offers radically new life. And if you think you don't qualify, if you think you don't make the cut, if you think you're not good enough, look again at these verses. He came to Matthew, a down and out, despised and rejected tax collector. And he called him to be a disciple. Praise God, friends. He came for sinners. He came for sinners.