“In Love with Jesus” – Part 4 – Matthew 9:9-10

That song we just sang, “All My Hope” by David Crowder, talks about hope. What is hope? The definition of hope is, “an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large.” We have an election coming up this Tuesday. I seriously hope all of you have or will vote but I know some people think if their favorite candidate is not elected then they have no hope for America. I saw that Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee says if Trump gets re-elected, he is moving to Europe. So, if you’re on the fence about who to vote for, there’s one more reason to vote for Trump right there.

Evidently, Tommy Lee has no hope if Trump is re-elected. I’m glad my hope doesn’t lie in who is in the White House. Why do you have hope? Why do you have an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes? Jesus is our only hope. I completely understand Tommy Lee having no hope because I assume Tommy doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. Therefore, how could he have any hope? This world is going downhill fast and if you want hope, it has to be in something that is literally out of this world, not in this world. And His name is Jesus.

Now, for those of you that have already put your hope and trust in Jesus, let me ask you a question. What is expected of you? Your hope, your expectation of positive outcomes comes from Jesus. What does He expect of you? Let me ask it this way: what is expected of you as a spouse? You married that person. You said, “I do.” You made vows, exchanged rings and kissed in front of God and all your friends. Now…what is expected of you?

You are expected to love that person, aren’t you? But psychologists will tell you that beyond love, as a general rule, men need respect and women need security. Those things are expected of you if you get married. Of course, there are a million other things that are involved. Women want to be able to talk about their feelings and then talk more about their feelings and then talk about your feelings. And we all know what men expect, right? They expect to be able to go fishing every now and then!

So, what does God expect from you? All your hope is in Him. All your faith and trust is in Him. All your peace and joy comes from Him. What should He expect from you? Surely it’s not just a one-way street. Surely, as your Lord and Master, He has some expectations for your life in regard to Him. Surely He has some hope in you, wouldn’t you say? What does He expect from us?

Well, just like in a marriage, there are lots of things that are expected by God, but like love and respect and security are tops in marriage, God tells us what is tops for Him in Matthew 28. That’s not our text for today but it’s close so you can turn there if you like but in Matthew 28, we read the last thing Jesus tells His disciples before ascending back to Heaven. He has been betrayed, tried, crucified and then comes back to life and has done what the Father sent Him to earth to do and just before He goes back to the Father, He tells His disciples the main thing He expects from them. In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Go make disciples. Now, if you have been around here for a while you know what a disciple is. A disciple is simply one who learns from Jesus and then tells somebody else what they have learned. It doesn’t necessarily mean preacher or pastor or missionary or evangelist. It doesn’t mean that you have it all figured out or you can quote a bunch of scripture or have the Roman Road memorized. It just means that we are to tell others what we know and then they tell others what they know. That’s making disciples and it is the main thing that God expects of us if we are His disciples. It is the main thing He expects and it is the least done thing in the vast majority of churches including this one.

We have been going through a short sermon series looking at biblical characters that loved Jesus. We do this in hopes of rekindling our own love for Jesus in hopes that our church will be revived. We want revival. We all say it but how bad do we want it? It’s not that our church is dead. Far from it. But we need to get back to that fiery passion that sets our church apart from most others. We want to be known as people who have a passion for Jesus and a passion for other people so we have to be making disciples.

Now, I say all of that to get us to where we are today in Matthew 9. Go left a sixteenth of an inch in your Bibles from Matthew 28 to Matthew 9 and we will see our last illustration of people that loved Jesus. What’s interesting is that it never says this person loved Jesus. It didn’t have to. He proved it. He showed it by making disciples. He didn’t know a lot about Jesus but Matthew, the author of this book, became a disciple of Jesus and proved it by telling all his friends. Let’s look at it in Matthew 9 and let’s read just verses 9-10.

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. 10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. Let’s stop right there. You know the rest of the story. Jesus again got in trouble by the Pharisees for doing this. They couldn’t believe He would have the nerve to eat with such vile sinners, such unclean vermin as tax collectors. *Gasp*

Now, some of you know I spent several years collecting taxes for the state of Texas and I can tell you that even today, tax collectors are not Mr. Big Popular. I was threatened, cussed at, run off and hated by lots of people. I remember one time I was talking to a little old man and he got so mad he started gritting and grinding his teeth and was about to take a swing at me and would have if a co-worker hadn’t stopped him. But I never felt bad about being a tax collector. These were fair taxes I was collecting that people had agreed to pay but didn’t and they were keeping the money they were supposed to pay to the state. So, I slept just fine those days. My job as a tax collector didn’t bother me. Nor did it bother other people who were right with the law.

It was completely different for Matthew. Matthew was a Jew who was collecting taxes for Rome. Rome had occupied Israel at this time and enforced taxes on the Jewish people that supported Rome. So, anybody that collected those taxes was looked down on. But it was worse than that. Not only were they collecting taxes but they had the ability to collect far more taxes than Rome assessed and could keep whatever they collected on top of what was owed. So, tax collectors were barred from the synagogue and were forbidden to have any religious or even social contact with other Jews. They were literally thought of and treated like pigs, which was the worst of the worst for Jews and were held in the same regard as murderers.

It was a lucrative job but the only friends a tax collector had were other tax collectors. It had to be very lonely and a hopeless life. I’m sure Matthew spent every holiday alone. He had no real friends. I’m sure his family was ashamed of him and he had to be ashamed of himself. He had lots of stuff and a nice place to live but nobody to share it with. A big empty house can feel like a prison cell if everybody hates you. Matthew had never been accepted or liked or chosen for anything. So, can you imagine his reaction when Jesus walked by and simply said, “Follow me.”? There was a glimmer of hope in that command.

It is Matthew’s modesty that kept him from recording it but Luke tells us (Luke 5:28) that Matthew immediately rose, left everything behind and followed Jesus. And he did it knowing full well that there was no going back. In fact, it was probably illegal for Matthew to just leave everything he had collected that day and all the records and the booth he was working in. I can imagine Rome frowning on such a thing. But Matthew didn’t care about any of that.

Do you remember the song, “I have decided to follow Jesus”? It has pretty simple words. Each verse is just a sentence repeated three times and then “…no turning back, no turning back.” That song was written by S. Sundar Singh. Singh was originally a member of the Sikh religion but grew up going to a Christian school where he lived in India. When he was 14, his mother died and Singh had a crisis of faith. His whole family were Sikhs but in his prayers to the god of the Sikhs, he felt no comfort. He felt no real presence. It was just religion. It was a whole lot of rules but no real relationship. Despite his family's pleas, bribes, and threats, Sundar became a Christian and walked away from his whole family and became an outcast. It was after that Singh wrote the words to that hymn.

 I have decided to follow Jesus;  No turning back, no turning back.  

The world behind me, the cross before me;  No turning back, no turning back.  Though none go with me, still I will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.  My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.  Will you decide now to follow Jesus? No turning back, no turning back.

 

That sounds a lot like Matthew, doesn’t it? Matthew knew there was no turning back and instead of trying to be a little in the world and a little with Jesus like so many of us do today, Matthew jumped all in to follow Jesus and when he did, the next thing he did was tell all his friends. Did you see that in verse 10? “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him…” Can you imagine the scandal? Can you imagine what the neighbors thought? I mean, this is like ministering to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated or something. Who would do such a crazy thing? Why do you think Matthew told his friends about Jesus?

For the religious people of the day, the scribes and Pharisees and their kin, these people were considered the lowest, vilest people on earth. They were literally worthless. Can you imagine feeling that way? Can you imagine being told and being made to feel like you weren’t worth anything? Some of you can. Some of you know that feeling. Some of you have been made to feel that way, maybe by your own family or even some church you went to. I have a friend who went through a divorce through no fault of his own and when word got out at his church, the leadership came to him and politely told him he needed to find some place else to go to church. What Matthew went through and what Sundar Singh went through is still going on today. This world has enough religion. I’m tired of religion. Give me Jesus!

I have a relationship with God through His Son Jesus and the cry of my heart is that you will know Him too. And do you know why? Because I have hope! I have hope that this world is not all there is to life. I have hope that no matter who is in the White House, my eternity is secure and my future is bright. I have hope that I am forgiven of all my many sins and those sins are thrown away as far as the east is from the west. (Psalm 103:12)

I have hope that I will see Jesus and my Mama and King David, the Apostle Paul, all the Mary’s and the woman at the well. I will see all those people in Heaven. Zaccheus and I will swap short guy tax-collector stories. I will sing with Abraham and Billy Graham. I will eat Mexican food with John the Baptist and my grandparents. I have hope that I will do all that and more and I base all of that hope on the promises of Jesus.

I believe that’s why Matthew just left everything and followed Jesus. Matthew had stuff. He had money. He had a 401k retirement plan but Matthew had no hope in that for the future. That was like a child’s kite that was blown around by the winds of circumstances. He wanted the anchor set on the rock of Sovereign God Almighty and he saw in Jesus the hope that he needed.

Now, when people in the world talk about hope, they say they hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow or they hope the Cowboys win or they hope they get promoted. But we aren’t guaranteed any of that in this world, especially this year for the Cowboys. But the kind of hope I am talking about is the Greek word “elpizo” which means “to anticipate with confident expectation.” It is the hope that is promised and based on all the other promises of God. And He has kept all His other promises so I know without a doubt He will keep the rest of them. So, I have hope. That’s why Matthew followed Jesus and also why he told all his friends about Jesus. He wanted them to have hope as well. He knew how hopeless this life is without a relationship with the Savior and he just wanted them to have what he had. He didn’t know much about Jesus but he knew enough to be a disciple and tell his friends what he did know.

Have you ever seen two pregnant women talking together? What do you think they are talking about? Is there any chance those two are talking football or fishing or politics? Very little. You know they are talking babies. Morning, noon or night, they are talking baby clothes, diapers, strollers, baby names, baby this, baby that. That’s all they think about and it’s all they want to think about. A pregnant woman is literally filled with hope. She is filled with “elpizo” or a confident expectation. How many of you mothers have prayed for your child’s spouse before either one was even born? You had yet to lay eyes on the kid but you had plans for his schooling and his career all because you had hope!

That’s the way we are as Christians. I have hope and I want all my friends – shoot, even my enemies to have that same hope. What better way to get rid of an enemy than to make him a brother in Christ full of hope? That’s what true disciples do. They make other disciples. They don’t just invite people to church. They invite them to Jesus. That’s what Matthew did.

But, I’ll tell you what. Inviting somebody to church is a great way to segue into inviting somebody to Jesus. My Dad just made it a habit of asking people, “So, where do you go to church?” If they gave a good response, great! Good to know. He oftentimes would ask them, “Now, who’s the pastor there?” I don’t know how many times I have heard somebody hem and haw around trying to act like the name is right on the tip of their tongue but you know they have no clue because they don’t go there. But whatever. It’s a great way to get the conversation going where you want it to go.

And like pregnant women like to talk about babies, you ought to want to talk about Jesus because He is your hope. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14:6) Paul said in Ephesians 2 that without God the people have no hope. In 2 Thessalonians Paul said he didn’t want them to grieve like people who had no hope. And he said in beautiful Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” I want that for you today. Do you have that hope? If you do, tell somebody like Matthew did. If you don’t, you can. You are not too far gone. Your circumstances are not too bleak. Your addiction is not too powerful. Your hurts and hang-ups are able to be overcome, all through the power of the Creator of the world, the Great I Am, the Sovereign King of all kings.

Jesus died on the cross so your sins would be forgiven. All you have to do is ask Him to forgive you, allow Him to come into your life and change you and give you hope. Do that right now as we pray.