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[0:00] Is anybody looking for a doctor? Are you looking for a physician? Are you looking for a healer? I love my doctor.

[0:12] When I go for checkups, my doctor, he always makes sure he does a thorough physical examination. And so he weighs me, checks my blood pressure, takes blood, does the whole screening bit.

[0:25] But he just doesn't care for my outer man. And my doctor, you can bank on it. He saves five minutes at the end to ask me about my spiritual health.

[0:38] My doctor really wants me to be experiencing a vibrant walk with the Lord Jesus Christ. So he always asks me about it. I love my doctor.

[0:48] He's my friend. He's looking out for me both body and soul. Are you looking for a doctor? My doctor is a great doctor, but there's an even greater doctor.

[1:07] Are you looking for a doctor? Did you come into this building this morning with a sickness of soul? You are so aware of the wrongs you've done.

[1:21] It just is cancer in the inside. You need a healer. You need a physician. This morning we're going to see Jesus Christ is our friendly, merciful physician of body and soul, but especially the soul.

[1:43] Sin is a spiritual sickness. It's a spiritual sickness. It's a spiritual sickness that only Jesus, the great physician, can heal. In fact, that's why he came. We'll see this this morning when we look at Matthew 9, 9 through 34.

[1:56] I don't know the situations you're in right now, but I do know this. You came into this room this morning in need of mercy.

[2:09] You came in in needing of some kind of healing of soul. And the good news is we have a living, great physician who is full of mercy.

[2:25] And he's full of mercy to those who recognize their need for it. And so this morning we're going to look at two scenes from Matthew 9, 9 through 34.

[2:37] Verses 9 through 17, we're going to be in somebody's house. We're going to see Jesus interact with three groups of people. He says some amazing things, some unusual things.

[2:49] And then we're going to look at verses 18 through 34, in which Jesus interacts with a group of other people. We're going to spend most of our time in this house, in the first part of this section, and we'll wrap up by making some observations from verses 18 through 34.

[3:10] Are you looking for a doctor? Are you aware of healing in your soul? Do you need it? Do you need mercy?

[3:21] Do you need help? Jesus is your help. Let's look at verses 9 through 17. Let me read them for you.

[3:31] As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, follow me.

[3:43] And Matthew 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.

[3:54] 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 for a physician, but those who are sick.

[4:08] Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. In the house still, Jesus, then the disciples of John came to him saying, why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?

[4:25] 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.

[4:42] Neither is new wine put into new wineskins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed, but the new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.

[4:56] Some interesting interactions. Jesus says some very interesting things here. But if you look back at verses 9 and 10, we see Jesus interacting with the first group of people. Jesus has just healed the paralytic.

[5:09] Remember, he said the Pharisees were like, oh, who can forgive but God alone? And Jesus was like, that you may know, the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.

[5:20] He turns to the paralytic and says, get up, pick up your mat, and go home. And the paralytic gets up, picks up his mat, and goes home. It shows, this visible healing shows Jesus' authority over sin.

[5:32] And so Jesus is coming from that episode. He leaves the house, he's walking along, and he sees Matthew in a tax booth. Now you've got to understand something.

[5:44] Jewish tax collectors, they had a bad reputation. Think about it this way. They were considered by other Jews as traitors because they were collecting taxes for the occupying Roman force.

[5:59] They're collecting money for the people who have imposed themselves on us. collecting money for the enemy, so to speak. And if that's worse enough, not only are they seen as traitors, but exploiters, because tax collectors were expected to put a quote-unquote surcharge on the Roman tax, and they would line their pockets.

[6:25] It was a very lucrative job. And so Jesus walks by Matthew.

[6:39] This is the same Matthew that wrote this gospel. He's got a shady background. He walks by Matthew, and he says, follow me, and Matthew gets up and follows him.

[6:54] And then in verse 10, the next thing we see is that they're at a house, at a table with a bunch of other tax collectors and sinners. But what Matthew doesn't tell us, because he's being kind of humble, Luke does.

[7:09] And in Luke 5, what we learn is that when Jesus called Matthew, Matthew left everything and followed Jesus. He left his lucrative job in the tax booth to follow Jesus.

[7:25] And for a tax collector, what that meant is there's no going back. And what Luke also tells us is the house that we read about in Matthew, it's Matthew's house.

[7:40] He brings Jesus home. And it's a great feast, according to Luke, with a great many tax collectors and sinners. And so basically, what's going on in Matthew's house in verse 10 is, we have a first century Palestinian house party going on.

[8:01] And I'm guessing they had the equivalent of the red solo cups going to. But what you need to say is, Jesus has placed himself with sinners.

[8:15] He's a friend of sinners. The all-authoritative Son of Man. The Messiah. The Son of David. The coming King.

[8:27] God with us. He's kicking it with sinners. He doesn't move away from sinners. He moves to sinners. He came for sinners.

[8:42] He didn't come to judge them. He came to heal them. He came to heal the sin sick. He came to heal you of your sin sickness.

[8:52] He came to heal me of my sin sickness. And He's full of mercy and ready to heal those who know they are sin sick and come to Him. Jesus is a friend of sinners.

[9:07] He's my friend. The second group of people that Jesus encounters happens in verses 11 through 13. the Pharisees come to the party.

[9:20] But they're staying outside the party. Jesus is reclining at table with a house full of sinners. That kind of reclining. They didn't have chairs.

[9:31] They would have been a low sitting table. You kind of sit on your side and dine together. And it was known to be extremely personal, very intimate. And it was scandalous in the sights of the Pharisees.

[9:44] And so in verse 11, the Pharisees approach Jesus' disciples. Notice, they don't approach Jesus. And they ask this question, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

[9:58] It's in the form of a question, but it's actually an accusation. It's kind of like, what is your teacher thinking?

[10:11] These people your teacher is eating with, they're the out-of-bounds folks. The people of disrepute. They make you unclean.

[10:24] And if you're hanging out with them, it kind of looks like you're condoning their sin. Does your teacher condone the tax collector guys? Does your teacher condone the prostitutes going on?

[10:38] This is scandalous. Remember, the Pharisees were the religious authorities of that time, and they interpreted the law of Moses a certain way that resulted in clear lines of separation between the sinful riffraff and the quote-unquote righteous.

[10:59] Their understanding of the law of Moses compelled them to withdraw from those who broke the law. And anyone who defied their pious posture towards the unclean rabble, they were put on notice.

[11:19] Jesus is being put on notice. Jesus was defying their self-righteous understanding of the law by reclining at table with sinners.

[11:36] Despite their knowledge of the Scriptures, the Pharisees are completely missing God's heart for the sin-sick.

[11:46] They can't see it. And they can't see it because they've been blinded by their self-righteousness. They thought that their obedience, their adherence to their interpretation of the law of Moses, their obedience put them in safe standing with God.

[12:08] It made them in right standing with God. That's what they were thinking. They were secure in their own obedience is what they were thinking. They did not think that they had anything in common with those sinners Jesus was enjoying a meal with.

[12:28] They didn't think that they had any need for God's mercy. They didn't think that they were spiritually sick. They thought they were spiritually healthy. You see, self-righteousness is a sin sickness all of its own.

[12:45] And what self-righteousness does is it blinds a sinner to the depth of their own sin sickness. They can't see how sinful they are.

[12:59] Self-righteousness keeps a sinner from admitting their need for mercy. And at the heart of self-righteousness is this thing called pride. In religion, it's religious self-reliance.

[13:12] And it blinds a sinner to their sin because they think that they're okay. They think that their obedience has positioned them in a safe place with a holy God.

[13:22] self-righteousness is this thing This kind of self-reliance denies the need for God's ongoing mercy and it completely misses the fact that there's none of us, there's no sinner that is able to save themselves by obeying their way into acceptance with God.

[13:45] It's impossible because of the depth of our sin. Back to the story, Jesus overhears the question or accusation of the Pharisees to his disciples.

[14:00] And in verse 12 he responds, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. Jesus isn't saying that the Pharisees are A-OK. He's not saying, oh, you guys are just fine.

[14:14] He's acknowledging that they don't think that they're sick is what he's doing. Of course, the sickness Jesus is talking about his sin. At the end of verse 13 he explains what he means by well and sick.

[14:30] I have not come for the righteous, those who think that they're well, but sinners, those who know they are unworthy of God and need God's mercy to stand before His holy presence.

[14:46] Jesus, recognizing the Pharisees spiritual blindness, he goes, I've got a homework assignment for you. Go find out what this means.

[14:58] And he quotes Hosea 6.6. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Now, if you're trying to rack your brains and remember who Hosea was, Hosea was a prophet to the northern kingdom before the northern kingdom's fall to Assyria in 722 B.C.

[15:20] And in the book of Hosea, we see something amazing. God likens Himself to a husband who is married to a wife who prostitutes herself.

[15:32] And the unfaithful wife we learn in the book of Hosea is the people of the northern kingdom of Israel. They had been delivered from God, by God, from Egypt, only to go then and worship other gods like Baal.

[15:49] They've prostituted themselves. In fact, God has the prophet Hosea marry a woman named Gomer who herself becomes a prostitute.

[16:05] God speaks a word of judgment and call to repentance to His people through the actual marriage of this prophet to His wife. How would you like to be that prophet? In Hosea, God calls His people to return to Him.

[16:24] Come know Me. Three times in Hosea 6, come, come, know Me. Know Me. Know who I am. Know Me.

[16:37] He wants their hearts. He wants His people to know Him and to love Him. The Hebrew word for mercy, translated mercy in Hosea 6, 6, I desire mercy, it's the Hebrew word chesed.

[16:58] And it actually means steadfast love, a covenantal love. It is this unreserved, wholehearted, affectionate devotion. And typically, it's used of God towards His people.

[17:10] But here, what we're reading is God desires the chesed of His people. He wants our hearts. He wants our full devotion, not sacrifice, not jumping through the hoops, not trying to make you feel good about yourselves.

[17:32] The next part of Hosea 6 is He says, I desire mercy, not sacrifice, knowledge of God, not burnt offerings. Jesus is telling these Pharisees, go with this means.

[17:52] Your God wants these sinners' hearts. He doesn't want them jumping through hoops. Jesus is there because He's embodying Hosea 6.6.

[18:10] I have come for sinners. I have come to heal their sin-sick hearts so that they may know and love their God. That's why I'm here. Jesus is on mission.

[18:24] And He's at table with these sinners because He's there to save them and the Pharisees just don't see it. They're blinded by their own self-righteousness.

[18:42] Jesus is a merciful physician, full of mercy to those who know their sin-sickness. But to those who don't recognize it, they don't think they need it.

[18:58] there's another interaction in verses 14-17. And this time, it's not with sinners, it's not with Pharisees, it's with the disciples of John the Baptist.

[19:10] In verse 14, you see the disciples of John the Baptist, they arrive and they ask a really interesting question. They see Jesus' disciples feasting with sinners and they ask Jesus Himself, why do we in the Pharisees fast but your disciples do not fast?

[19:36] Just a little background. it was typical that a Jew would be fasting two times a week at this point in Jewish history in Palestine.

[19:49] And so, it may be more helpful to think about this very likely being a day of fast for the Jewish people.

[20:00] And if it is, here is Jesus feasting with His disciples with sinners. sinners. And so, we don't have to go down that road of, are the, you know, the disciples of John whining like, hey, why do we have to fast but you guys don't?

[20:15] We don't have to go down that way. I think they're asking an honest question. Hey, we're fasting like we're supposed to be fasting. Why aren't you guys fasting but you guys are feasting?

[20:26] What's going on? And in verse 15, Jesus answers that question in a most surprising way. He starts talking about being a bridegroom.

[20:39] Wedding stuff. Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The wedding guests in our parlance would be the wedding party. Hey, if the bridegroom's there, is the wedding party going to fast?

[20:55] No. They're going to party. They're going to celebrate. Weddings are festive occasions. Feasting is normal at weddings. That's what you do. I was at a wedding a couple months ago and the reception afterwards was a party!

[21:12] Feasting. Reveling. Celebrating. Nobody fasts at a wedding because weddings are occasions to celebrate. Not mourn. Jesus likens His presence on earth to a bridegroom being at a wedding.

[21:30] That's interesting. And He goes on to say that when He is taken away then His disciples will fast. They will mourn His absence.

[21:41] And He's most likely referring to when He is arrested and killed. But here's the question I've been asking. If Jesus is the bridegroom, who's the bride?

[21:55] If we got a wedding day, who's the lucky lady? Who's He going to marry? And in light of the reference to Hosea, just verses above, in which God is depicted as a husband to an unfaithful wife, I got a hunch Jesus has in mind a new bride.

[22:20] A new people. A new people He purchased with His blood. A new covenant. A people that He would gather to Himself from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

[22:38] This is the dawning of a new day. This is the coming of the bridegroom who has come for His bride. It's a day of celebration. Jesus' coming is a day of celebration.

[22:50] Jesus is essentially saying, My disciples are not fasting because I'm here for My bride.

[23:02] The sinners I have come to save. A new day has dawned. And then things get really interesting. He says some really interesting things next. Look at what He says.

[23:15] 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.

[23:27] But new wine is put into fresh wineskins and so both are preserved. Well, what's going on? Why are we talking about garments and making wine? Jesus, what are He doing?

[23:38] Well, what's interesting is, what's interesting is, what's interesting is, what's interesting is, when He talks about garments in verse 16, He talks about the unshrunk patch. That's a new patch going on an old garment.

[23:51] And then in verse 17, I believe, when He starts talking about the new wine and the old wineskins, do you see what He's doing? He's talking about something new and He's talking about something old. And He's talking about something new not fitting on something that's old.

[24:05] So what is Jesus getting at? The unshrunk patch is this new patch that if it were to shrink and it's adhered to the garment, it's going to tear the garment all the more.

[24:20] It's going to make a worse tear. And so what Jesus is essentially saying here is, hey, I have not come to patch up Judaism. I'm not a Judaism patch. I'm not here to make Judaism 2.0.

[24:34] That's not why I'm here. Don't think about me as a little fix. He's come to bring a whole new kingdom.

[24:47] To save a whole new people. To create a whole new way of relating with God. And then He starts talking about new wine and old wineskins.

[24:58] You don't put new wine in old wineskins. New wine in that day was wine that was still fermenting. So it was still going through its chemical processes. And if you put new wine into old wineskins, which lost its elasticity, if you did that in the old wine expanse, pop, pop, the whole thing bursts.

[25:15] You lose everything. And so Jesus says, no, you put new wine that's still fermenting into new wineskins because they're still flexible. Jesus is saying, the new wine I'm bringing with this new covenant cannot be contained in the old wineskins of the old covenant.

[25:37] You can't contain me. You can't contain what I'm bringing. The old system under Judaism is not going to contain what I'm bringing. My new covenant people need new covenant structures.

[25:53] And so the sacrificial system of the Old Testament, that's old wineskin. Why? Because Jesus is the one great sacrifice of all.

[26:05] He made it obsolete. Can't handle him. It pointed to him, but it can't contain him. The dietary laws of the old covenant.

[26:17] Jesus said in Mark 7, he declared all foods clean because it's not what you eat that makes you unclean. It's what comes out of your heart that makes you unclean. And Jesus came to clean our unclean hearts.

[26:31] We don't need to eat food anymore to set us apart. Our trusting in Jesus sets us apart. And so he makes it obsolete. It's an old wineskin. And this all came out of a question about fasting.

[26:46] And so these disciples of John, we just asked a question about fasting. And Jesus says, no, you think about fasting that way. But did you see what he did about fasting?

[26:57] He made fasting about him. When I'm gone, then you mourn. He takes center stage.

[27:08] Jesus is making a claim. It's about him. He started with this question about fasting. And Jesus brings this whole new vision for a whole new way of being and relating with God.

[27:28] Oh yeah, he is our friendly, merciful physician. And by the way, he's the king of a new kingdom that cannot be contained by the old structures of Judaism.

[27:41] He's the bridegroom that came for his bride. A new people, a new covenant, a new way of relating with God. A new era. He's the friend of sinners. He is the merciful physician.

[27:52] And he is the king of a new people group. Christians. So when we look at verses 9-17, you're like, whoa, there's a lot going on there.

[28:02] There's nobody like Jesus. He's a friend of sinners. He's a physician full of mercy to the sin sick. He is the king of a new, new kingdom that cannot be contained by the old.

[28:19] And then Jesus moves on. And what we see Jesus doing in verses 18-34 is he's just showing that he gets it.

[28:30] He gets Hosea 6-6. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. He embodies it. He incarnates it. Look at what he does. So I'm just going to breeze through this, okay?

[28:42] Look at what he does. Four situations. There's this desperate dad named Jairus. We learn his name from the Gospel of Mark. But in verses 18-19, and then in 23-26, there's this situation that this synagogue ruler named Jairus, he's desperate.

[29:04] Jesus comes out of Matthew's house, and Jairus interrupts him. He drops at Jesus' feet, bowing to him, and he's like, my daughter's dying.

[29:15] She's dead. But if you come and lay your hand on her, she will live. Jairus, this desperate dad is demonstrating faith. You see what Jesus does?

[29:31] Jairus, let's have a little conversation about your obedience to the law before I come. I might come and raise your daughter, provided that you are obeying at least 75% of the law of Moses.

[29:42] Can we have a conversation about that? None of that. He comes in desperation. He comes asking for mercy. And Jesus goes.

[29:54] He gets up and goes. Another situation. The next one down in verses 20-22, Jesus is on his way to Jairus' house. And lo and behold, this woman comes up behind Jesus, and she's had this hemorrhage for 12 years.

[30:08] It would have made her unclean. She would have been ostracized by the community. She comes up behind Jesus, and she's just thinking, only if I teach the edge of his garment, I will be made well.

[30:20] There's faith. We learn from Mark that she has spent all of her money, and she's gone to as many doctors as possible to figure this thing out. There are people in this room who've spent all their money and gone to all the doctors and realizing there's nothing you can do.

[30:35] You know her situation. She comes up behind Jesus and says, only if I touch the fringe of his garment, I will be made well. And what does Jesus do?

[30:48] She touches him, and he turns around and says, woman, what are you thinking? How many people did you make unclean coming to touch me right now? He doesn't do that. He doesn't go Pharisee.

[31:00] He goes mercy. Take heart, daughter. Take heart. Your faith has made you well. Literally, your faith has saved you. Then we see the two desperate blind men.

[31:14] Have mercy on us, son of David. Have mercy on us. Verses 27 through 31. Have mercy on us. Help us. Help us. They don't even say what they want help for, but it's obvious.

[31:25] They follow him into a house, and Jesus says, do you think I'm able to do this for you? And they say, yes, Lord. And what does Jesus do? Let me just kind of roll out the Ten Commandments here, guys.

[31:37] I'll speak them to you, and you tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how faithful were you this week to this commandment? He doesn't do that. He shows the mercy on the spot.

[31:51] That's our Savior. In verses 32 through 34, this demonized man who is dumb, which means he can't speak, his friends bring him to Jesus.

[32:04] They're the ones who's demonstrating faith. They bring him to Jesus, and Jesus doesn't say, hey, you know what? Let's talk. I want to know how well you're doing at obeying all these commands before I cast out this.

[32:17] He doesn't do that. He casts out the demon. The man speaks for the first time. Wouldn't you like to know what he said for the first time? I think he would have said something like, Jesus, you're awesome.

[32:29] Jesus, thank you. Four desperate situations. Desperate people coming to Jesus asking for mercy in faith.

[32:44] And what does Jesus do? He shows them mercy. He heals them. Death, disease, blindness, demonization.

[32:56] They're all been ushered in by sin, and Jesus heals them all. He's a friend of sinners. He's the merciful physician. He's able to do it.

[33:10] But I'll tell you what. It would have been awesome to see, it would have been awesome to see him raise Jairus' daughter from the dead. I mean, if you were there, you'd be like, this is awesome.

[33:22] It would have been awesome to see him heal this woman with a hemorrhage. Don't you think? It would have been awesome to see these blind men given sight.

[33:33] This dumb man given speech. That would have been awesome. But these pale in comparison to what Jesus does months down the line.

[33:44] He's going to find Himself. We're going to see Him in Jerusalem. And He's going to be arrested. And He's going to be tried. He's going to be mocked. He's going to be beaten. He's going to be scourged.

[33:54] And then He's going to be crucified. The physician of our souls is on the cross, beaten and brutalized, and eventually gives up His spirit and dies.

[34:07] And you know what it was? It was the greatest act of healing He ever did. Isaiah 53.5 By His wounds, you are healed.

[34:21] He is a merciful physician. And He gave Himself for us to heal our sin-sick hearts that we would know and live for the one true God.

[34:37] That's who He is. That's why He came. Anybody? Anybody looking for a doctor? Anybody in need of mercy?

[34:50] Jesus is full of mercy. You just got to cry out to Him. It's that simple. All right. Let's wrap this thing up. I want you guys to walk away with these four things.

[35:04] Remember who Jesus is. Remember who He is. He is a friend of sinners. And He gives mercy to those who know that they're sin-sick.

[35:14] He is most concerned about the sin-sickness of your heart. And if you've come into this building and you know you're not a Christian, cry out to Him to heal your sin-sick heart.

[35:26] And He will. That's why He died on the cross. That is His prescription for your sin. He embodies Hosea 6.

[35:37] 6. He came to change your heart so that your heart would love God. The second thing we need to do is be warned we are prone to self-righteousness.

[35:56] It's the way of all human beings. We fall into this kind of em modus operandi of thinking I must earn my acceptance.

[36:10] Even born-again Christians slip into the false belief that our obeying God results in God accepting us. It's a works righteousness. It's the thinking my obedience earns God's approval and acceptance which simply is not true.

[36:26] The Christian gospel is not hey, you obey so that God will accept you. That's not the gospel. Here's the gospel. Jesus is God's grace to you and in Christ God accepts you fully and completely through the blood of Jesus.

[36:46] You are accepted and then we obey. God accepts us and then we obey Him. It's not the other way around.

[36:58] We're not saved by our own works nor are we kept saved by our own works. Our salvation from beginning to end rests solely on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross in our place.

[37:13] He covered it all. And so our obedience springs from what He's already done. We don't do it to earn His favor. Jesus earned His favor for us.

[37:29] Beware of self-righteousness, of slipping into self-righteousness. Which leads to the third point. We are in constant need of God's mercy. Constant.

[37:39] Constant. Even if you have put your faith in Jesus and you've been forgiven all your sin and you're accepted fully in God's eyes based on the righteousness of Christ imputed to you, if that's who you are, you're still in need of mercy.

[37:53] Do you know why? Because indwelling sin still exists in you. And as long as indwelling sin exists in you, you're going to be tempted to sin and you're going to need mercy. Need mercy when you're tempted and need mercy when you actually commit sin.

[38:08] And God's got it. He's quick to forgive. He's quick to show mercy. So it's normal and right for a Christian to cry out daily for mercy.

[38:20] So like this, Oh, Son of David, have mercy on me. Help me to use my mouth not to curse but to bless. Have mercy on me, Lord. Daily.

[38:32] Have mercy on me, Jesus, so that I would not look at pornography today but I would walk in purity today. Have mercy on me, Lord. Help me. It's normal.

[38:43] That's what Christians do. We depend on Jesus. We cry out for His help and His mercy. Have mercy on me, Lord Jesus, that I wouldn't cheat on quizzes and tests or that I wouldn't lie on my tax return but rather I would be honest in all things for the glory of Your name.

[38:58] Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me that I would not give up on my marriage no matter how hard it gets because, Jesus, You are the perfect husband. Have mercy on me.

[39:10] Have mercy on me that I wouldn't yell at my kids today but rather that I would be Your ambassadors to them today. Have mercy on me, Lord, that I would not use my time, my treasure, my talent for things that are just passing away and frivolous but that I would use my time, talent, and treasure for the things that matter most Your name exalted in this city.

[39:32] Have mercy on me. Have mercy on our church. Help us, Lord. We never outgrow God's need for mercy. Never. We need it for the balance of this day.

[39:44] The final thing I want to draw your attention to is this. When you're daily receiving mercy, you want other people to experience God's mercy too.

[39:58] You want it for others. And so, in light of how Jesus welcomes sinners, we're not going to ask or insist that people clean up their lives before they become a Christian.

[40:09] It doesn't work that way. They need Jesus to clean up their lives. We're not going to ask someone to, before joining us in the worship of God on a Sunday morning, that they clean up their life a little bit.

[40:21] We're not going to do that. Jesus welcomes sinners as they are. And so will we. That's how He accepted me. That's how He accepted you. Jesus met sinners where they were at and graciously called them to follow Him like Matthew.

[40:36] So we treat people like our Savior treated people. We want them to experience mercy and grace. So we go to where they are.

[40:50] Think about your neighborhood. Go Matthew with your house. Invite sinners over. Welcome them.

[41:02] See what God does. And you invite them to come to your house with the hope that you can talk to Him about the mercy shown you in Christ Jesus and that He offers them as well in Jesus Christ.

[41:17] And here on Sunday mornings, we welcome sinners so that we can tell them about a Savior who is the friend of sinners, who is full of mercy, who has the authority to forgive all their sins.

[41:32] who is the king of a new kingdom that can't be contained. Jesus is our friendly, merciful physician who is able to heal your greatest ailment, your sin.

[41:52] You looking for a doctor? Do you need healing? You don't need to do a Google search. You don't need to go any further than Jesus.

[42:08] He's eager to heal. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank You that You are full of mercy and we come to You recognizing our daily need for it.

[42:24] God, stay us clear from falling into the pharisaical trap of thinking that we don't need Your mercy anymore. Thank You, Father, for sending Jesus and healing our hearts through the cross of Christ.

[42:42]  We are debtors to Your mercy. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen.