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 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 collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and 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.”
So far in Matthew chapter 8, after the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has healed a leper, a centurion’s servant, Peter’s mother-in-law; He cast out a demon and calmed a storm. Now He is going to deal with a paralytic, and also a man who would be considered a “chief sinner”. He is actually going to talk to us, in both of these stories, about sin and the sinner. The first one will deal with sin, and the second about the sinner himself.
Jesus now is beginning to speak more clearly, in some ways, about what He has come to do; His primary goal of making us right before God. And it is, I guess, an exciting moment in the life of the church as He begins to unfold for them things like this.
The story of the paralytic is most likely the same story as the one in the Gospel of Mark, where the four men come and put the paralytic down through a hole in the roof. (In his retelling of it, Matthew doesn’t mention how they got this man in front of Jesus, he just tells the story of the healing.) In that story, Jesus talks about the paralyzed man’s friends; how He was touched by their faith and what they had done for their friend in bringing him to Him.
The rabbis, at that time, taught that sin and sickness were tied together tightly. They taught that the only way to be healed from most things would be complete forgiveness. And of course, nobody can forgive like that except God alone, so somehow that forgiveness-healing would have to be tied in to the things you would do in the temple and various ways in which you tried to work that out, etc. Think about the book of Job, where Job is made sick. As readers, we know how that came about: Job is righteous, and yet God gave permission for this sickness to come upon him, to prove to Satan that there are men out there who will not speak against God, even in the midst of trials. But in the story, Job’s three friends all basically ask the same thing: ‘Job, what did you do?’ And Job spends his time trying to say, ‘I’m clean before the Lord. I don’t understand what is going on.’ And they keep prying, and then he offends them and they insist more passionately, ‘You did something wrong; otherwise this wouldn’t be upon you.’
In our culture, we’ve gone probably too far the other way with sickness. We know now about germs, viruses, and bacteria; we have a scientific idea about how things come about. We know what a cold is, what a flu is, things like that. We understand why bones break and how to get them better. We have a good grasp of it; all scientifically. And we actually take the opposite end of it and rarely connect sin to sickness, which is kind of sad. Because scripturally, both of these things should come to our mind. And what Jesus brought to this story, specifically, was discernment. One of the things that I see more and more in the Scripture (the Old Testament and New Testament, written for our instruction) is that these stories are bringing something to us to help us. They may not help every person the same way, and that’s something we need to understand. But somehow these stories are going to help us. Some stories are told in a general way; like the story of the whole town showing up at Peter’s door to be healed by Jesus. But when the Bible mentions specific healing stories where a one-on-one healing is taking place, there is something that we are supposed to glean from it. Not everyone will glean the same thing, because not everyone is in the same spiritual condition at that moment in time. And honestly you guys? We really need to give people grace to find their way; to find out what God is speaking to them. We don’t want to interfere and say, ‘No that can’t be what it is.’ We also don’t want to assume that if something happens to us, that is now for everybody. If I have a spiritual awakening about something, my assumption easily becomes: ‘God gave it to me so that everyone I come in contact with can learn the right way to do it.’ And the bottom line is … that is just not the way God deals with us. So in these stories that the Bible has, Jesus brings discernment into a situation, specifically for a person (in this case the paralytic) and then that recounted story should also touch us; but there are different ways in which we are going to be moved by it. That’s why sometimes you read the Scripture and something resonates with you, but other times you’re just reading. Sometimes it arrests you and pulls you in and you’re touched by it because the Holy Spirit is working to bring discernment for you, so you can find an answer to a situation or problem you may be in.
In this thing about sin and sickness, let’s look at John real quickly. There are two verses in John that give the sense of what I’m trying to say. John 5:14 is the first one: Jesus heals a man and afterwards finds him in the temple and says, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” He specifically tells him not to sin anymore because, potentially, something worse than the first sickness will come upon him. And then in John 9:3, Jesus’ disciples (who are good Jews and had just heard Jesus say that) said to him, “…who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Obviously, someone must have sinned because Jesus had just told the other guy that his sins were connected to his health. But Jesus said to them, “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it wasso that the works of God might be displayed in him.” So, in this case Jesus is saying that sin is not a part of this man’s condition. And what we need to bring to the discussion table regarding sickness is discernment. We need to know what is going on so that we can deal correctly with it. Jesus brings to the table discernment, with this man.
So it says they brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed; and seeing their faith Jesus said to him, ‘Take courage son, your sins are forgiven.’ Jesus talks to the paralytic. He notices the faith of the people who brought him but when he gets to the paralytic he says, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” The fact that he was a paralytic was one thing, but something much deeper was going on inside this man, most likely. By the way, when Jesus says, “Take courage, son,” that word that is translated son should actually be translated to read child. It is a very endearing term. You get the impression that Jesus knelt down, took him by the hand, and looked him in the eye. A very tender moment. “Take courage, child; your sins are forgiven.” And that man was immediately arrested by the words of Christ — caught; because that’s what he needed to hear the most. The second act—the healing—is coming; but first this man needed to know: “Your sins are forgiven.” We know Jesus did not deal with sickness in this way every time. But this is one of the examples of Him recognizing that something deeper was going on. Something far beyond a health condition. And of course, the Pharisees immediately say to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.” And it says, “And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, ‘Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?’” Jesus caught them—not with the words of their mouths, but with the words of their hearts—and corrected them. ‘Why are you thinking these things in your heart?” And Jesus continued, '“‘Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up, and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins"‘—then He said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, pick up your bed and go home.’ And he got up and went home.” So Jesus dealt with the man’s soul, first; and caused him to understand that a divine person was talking care of him in a unique way. Then when that was done, Jesus proved to them that He actually did have authority to forgive sins by telling the man to get up and walk. And the man did.
{As saints of the living God, when we come to situations, we need to know why God has put there. If you only have a singular answer, then you’ll never be able to grasp the depth of what God wants to do in human beings. When I was a young believer, I was intrigued because of the different camps within Christian healing. Some were like a pastor I talked to at one time who said, “Healing is only for the saved.” But others saw healing as being for everyone; as a catalyst to the gospel, for unbelievers.}
Jesus has these different ways in which He does things. None of them are wrong; but they become wrong for us when we are trying to do it one specific way all the time. I encourage you, by the grace of God, to be like Jesus; He came in and brought discernment to a situation. In this story He saw that this paralytic needed forgiveness. As a matter of fact, probably, as much as the paralytic wanted to walk (we don’t know what happened or how long he had been in that condition), forgiveness of his soul was more important to him than walking. But in case the man should go out of that place feeling right before God but wondering how that connected with his condition, Jesus also made him walk. There was an assurance that divine forgiveness had been given to him. As saints of the Living God, if we don’t know we’re forgiven by the Lord and we don’t know He loves us, then we can never be effective ministers of the gospel. There has never been a good evangelist who did not know that God loved him. And that’s the message that we have to bring to the table. In this case it was found out in the forgiveness of this man. In this story, the Lord is telling us that the way He is going to deal with sin is to forgive them; cast them as far as the east is from the west. In the cross of Jesus Christ and in the faith that was have in the work of Christ, that has been done. It’s been done. When Jesus comes again—the Bible tells us—He is not coming to deal with sin. He already dealt with sin. We, as saints, need to grab hold of that and live our lives accordingly. We’re thankful that we have an advocate in Jesus Christ; One who will constantly and consistently hear our pleas when we get to places where we honestly know that we screwed up. But when we screw up today and we ask for forgiveness, that forgiveness is not new today; it is 2,000-year-old forgiveness that was given to us at the Cross. We just appropriate that again, by faith. This man walked away whole because Jesus Christ had touched him in the way that he needed to be touched. And he responded correctly, and in kind. But the Pharisees walked away frustrated; because now, not only had the Divine Person healed somebody, but the Divine Person had also said, ‘I can forgive sins.’
The second story: The call of Matthew.
Edersheim says this about Matthew’s call:
“All religious systems, except Christianity, know of no welcome to the sinner until, by some means inward or outward, he has ceased to be a sinner and become a penitent. They would make him a penitent and then bid him welcome to God. Christ first welcomes us to God and so makes us a penitent. The one demands; the other imparts, life.”
What Jesus did with Matthew was to deal with the sinner — and Jesus welcomed the sinner. He came and said to Him, ‘I want you to be part of my group; part of the people who are going to share the gospel with the world.’
{In our modern culture we have Atheism, which is a denial of any spiritual entity. But in return, then, your god is simply yourself. And the only thing that comes out of a self-god is chaos. But in their world (and for the most part in our world) all men knew that they needed to be right with the Creator. The question mankind always asks themselves is: How can I be right with God? And from that question, then, chaos can ensue, because all religions except Christianity put you as the one who can answer the question. And then somehow, some way, you are going to find your way back to whatever god you want to worship.
Christianity comes into the picture and God says, ‘I’m welcoming you into my kingdom. Now let’s work that out.’ I love that. Somebody said on time: It’s like God is bold enough to give us the keys to a new car when we don’t know how to drive. That’s what the new life is like. God is bold enough to give us the keys to a beautiful new car and we have no clue how to drive a vehicle. It’s one of the things I love about God. He’s not afraid of us failing. He’s not afraid of us screwing up and missing it, because He knows (in the working out of the Holy Spirit and in being born again) all things will, ultimately, fall into place. It’s all He asks of us — to work out our sanctification in fear and trembling.}
Back to Matthew, the sinner. In the world of publicans, there were two types. One was called a gabbar, who collected regular tax dues like ground, income, poll, etc. Each one had it’s own specific amount. Like a ground tax was one-half of this grain, or one-quarter of this grain; one-fifth of wine, etc. All these rules and regulations were held by this man, this gabbar. He went out, house to house, and took care of these things. The second one, of which Matthew was a part, was a mokhes — a custom house official. He collected tax on imports and exports: bridge money, road money, town dues, etc. And this provided the opportunity for all kinds of abuses, which definitely took place. Matthew was the higher class of poll-tax collectors; but he was, in the eyes of the Jews, a worse sinner. As a matter of fact, the Jews believed that a publican (like Matthew) was nearly impossible to bring to repentance. Because repentance would require a pay-back of some sort, and they did so many ugly things, it would be almost impossible to bring them to that place. So they were looked down upon and hated with a passion. And rightly so, in many cases.
But think about this: the place where Matthew is found was his collection house. It had been there for a long time. In fact, he most likely has heard Jesus preach numerous times at this point. Capernaum was Jesus’ home; He stayed with Peter in his house.
{And by the way, Peter most likely had a large house. We think of the apostles as people who were in abject poverty. But Peter was not. Most likely had a large enough home that people could gather in his courtyard; like a hacienda-type of situation with that style of roof (which is likely where the paralytic was let down – not in the house but on the porch roof).}
So, Jesus stayed there when he went, and the disciples stayed there as well. Peter, James, John and Andrew were all fishermen, and Matthew worked that section, where they would have brought their boats in. Most likely they had encountered him numerous times. As a matter of fact, every time they would have brought a catch in, he would be there to count the fish (import/export tax) and say, ‘This is what you have to pay me.’ This isn’t mentioned in the Scripture at all, but when Matthew is called by Christ and comes into that fold, the disciples might have thought, ‘What are you doing?’ One of the questions we had in Sunday school today was something to the effect of, ‘What characteristics do you consider to belong to somebody who is beyond grace?’ Matthew would be considered to be somebody who was beyond grace in the eyes of the Jews. And in the eyes of the disciples. And yet, Christ drew him in. Edersheim goes so far as to say that there was a good chance Matthew had, long before that event, become a disciple of Christ. He knew he could never follow Christ publicly because of who he was. A tax collector wouldn’t be allowed; it wouldn’t be right. And so, he just quietly listened to Jesus and loved His words. But maybe that’s why the Scripture says that when he is called he immediately responds. He knew long before: If the call ever came, he would take it. His coming into that fold and the way Jesus dealt with the sinner showed the disciples something more about who He was. It showed them that of people like Matthew—a hated man—Jesus says, ‘We accept him. We bring him in.’ An incredible story. Of course, once again, the Pharisees are there. They follow Jesus around by this time, listening to everything He says and trying to find fault. The last time He caught them thinking evil, and this time they actually come to His disciples and ask, “Why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners?” This means that Matthew’s friends were tax collectors and sinners—the only people that would hang out with him. And Jesus welcomed them and they ate together; enjoying one another’s company.
This thought just crossed my mind. Regarding the question from Sunday school, my answer was that I have never considered anybody to be outside the grace of God. But, now put in this perspective, the question crossed my mind: Who would you not eat with? Because that’s what is taking place. And now my mind is starting to roll. That’s a whole different thing. Because I am judgmental about certain types of people. Who would I want to have come into my home and eat with me? Who would I accept and not accept? Am I similar to the Pharisees or the Jewish system in that: I want you to come into my home but first you need to give your life to the Lord and get cleaned up a bit? And that question causes me some consternation; because I’m realizing that the whole idea of the Pharisees is part of my thought pattern; sometimes without me even knowing it. Is anybody beyond the grace of God? Absolutely not. Would I allow just anybody to come into my home; and would I eat with them? Probably not. But I wish I could.
So, when Jesus heard what the Pharisees asked, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” He says, in essence: ‘I haven’t come to people who think they’re okay. I’ve come to people who know they’re not. I’ve come to the people who are hurt, and who recognize their condition. Who have been put outside of good culture because of who they are.’ And Jesus says to the Pharisees, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” In our culture, sadly, (especially in our location) most churches grow in numbers when other Christians come into them from other churches. So, they just kind of move around; try a church for a while and end up not liking it so they go someplace else. But, what should be happening is sinners should be coming into the body of Christ. And they should be hearing the Gospel and their lives should be changed. But maybe we have gotten so morally superior that we cause these people, unintentionally maybe, to balk at coming into a church building. I can count the number of times that people have said to me, “I am a Christian but I don’t like church.” Or that they would never become a Christian because of churches; church people are ugly and mean and unkind. And honestly? We are sometimes.
I’ve shared this experience before, but… my daughter, Hannah, struggles with churches. She loves Christ, but struggles with churches. And one of those things that probably helped her to go down that road happened during a shift at her waitressing job in high school. After a Christian Women’s meeting, a bunch of women all showed up at The Chief one night. Poor Hannah had to deal with these ugly women, who, ten minutes before were in a Christian Women’s meeting. They were selfish, rude, demanding; the opposite of everything you should be as a saint of the Living God. And I’m thankful that we heard the story afterwards, because though I felt bad for Hannah, I would have said, “You just learned a valuable life lesson.” Cherri on the other hand, would have dealt with those women in a different way; because it was disgusting. I’m not saying this about every woman there, but of the 50 or 60, a large group (more than there should be) of women were just … wicked. So sad.
So, Christ has come to call sinners. People who actually are aware of their sin, people who actually recognize that they need help. They are not self-righteous or pious; not fake or false. And He found them—or some of them—in this group of tax collectors and the people they hung around.
We have to balance, in some way, that the nature of the church world is not always good. Ugly things come out of us. But we also have to understand that we’re back to this new car thing. God, in all His wisdom, chose the church to be a dispenser of truth. Even with all of our faults and hypocrisy, the Church still is the one place on earth where you can go and hear the message of Jesus Christ. And as saints of the Living God, somehow we have to both hang on to that truth while at the same time make sure our own personal lives are such that we are not going to be a drag on the message of the Gospel. Make sure people don’t say of us, ‘Whatever. If that’s a Christian I don’t want to have anything to do with Christianity.’
Everyone in this room, at one time in your life, was born again. At one time in your life you knew you were sick. It’s why you called out to Jesus Christ. You needed help and you had tried other things; attempted to do it other ways. Nothing was working, but finally the message of the Gospel came through and you began to revel in the fact that you were loved by God. Even in your ugly condition He welcomed you. While you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you. In our ugly condition Jesus said, ‘I want you to come in and fellowship with me. I want to be with you; to give you my gifts. I want you to be part of the Kingdom of God.’ And it’s so opposed to everything that we think is right, that some people just can’t get it. It takes them years and years and years of trying to figure and work things out before they finally come to grips with:
This is a very simple message: God loves me.
He shouldn’t. But He does.
And now I can enter the Kingdom.
Matthew got that message. And the people around Jesus; the Pharisees—the ones who should have known that the visitation was there and Jesus was the Messiah—were the ones who were critical and judgmental. They thought that cleanliness had to do with who you hung out with rather than who you were. By the grace of God I pray that we will never be that way for any length of time. Though of us are going to go through times where we struggle with things; by the grace of God we are going to get past it. And I am thankful to the Lord God Most High that He has placed around me so many sinners. Sinners and saints at the same time; in the same breath. People who recognize their great need and want Jesus to be their all in all.