MATTHEW’S GOSPEL
Prayer: Dear Lord God: We thank You today that You not only changed the life of Matthew, from being a tax collector and an outcast sinner to being Your disciple and apostle, but also You used him to write the first gospel. We thank You for the Gospel, by which we learn to know You, our Lord Jesus, and through which Your Word powerfully creates and preserves in us true saving faith. By Your Word, give us faith that saves us, joy in Your presence, and courage to confess You at all times. Amen!
Sermon Text, St. Matthew 9:9-13. As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your Words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.
Dear people loved by God in Christ, who comes to us in His Word: Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
There are four gospels, and Matthew is the first. Usually, this is what we mean when we say, “Matthew’s Gospel” – it’s the first of the four gospels, the others being Mark, Luke, and John. In this sense, the gospel is an eyewitness account of Jesus’ life.
Matthew was an eyewitness of Jesus’ earthly ministry as one of His 12 disciples, and an eyewitness of Jesus’ resurrection. Peter says in his second epistle, chapter 1: “We did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but [we] were eye-witnesses.” That’s the witness that Matthew and the apostles gave as they went out preaching and baptizing. Matthew’s gospel ends with this: Jesus’ command, “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Finally Matthew gave the ultimate witness as a martyr – martyr means “witness” – when he was killed in Ethiopia for the faith that he preached. As he was dying, he knew that lo, Jesus was still with him, even to the end.
But Matthew also gave his eyewitness testimony in published form; it’s why he’s called an evangelist – which in this case means, a writer of one of the four gospels. In his gospel, Matthew is writing what he saw with his eyes. He could remember living these details. But you’ll notice, Matthew himself only begins to follow Jesus here in chapter 9 of his gospel. So where did he get the material in the first 8 chapters? Certainly we would expect that the other disciples could give him their own eyewitness details. Maybe Matthew talked to the virgin Mary about what happened in Jesus’ birth. But to limit it to that is to treat this as a purely human work of writing.
Peter also tells us in 2 Peter 1 that “no prophecy” – that is, not even one word of Scripture – “was ever produced by the will of man.” So Matthew didn’t just decide he wanted to write this down, he didn’t just feel like writing this; that’s not how God’s Word is produced. Peter goes on to say, “But holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” God the Holy Spirit directed them what to write. Matthew was chosen by God to write the first gospel, he is one of the “holy men of God” to do so.
Now Matthew shows us, in chapter 9 of his gospel, how incredible it is that God would choose him to write a gospel, and that he should be called a holy man of God – but amazing even that Jesus would call him: “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him.”
He was a tax collector when Jesus called him. People don’t think well of the IRS today, but it’s not close to what God’s people thought of these tax collectors. As a tax collector, Matthew was a Roman official. He was excluded from the church because people didn’t think a tax collector could be a God-fearing Jew. Matthew would have stopped everyone passing by his tax booth that he could. He would tax the wheels on your wagon, the donkeys carrying your packages, and every package. He would let people go if they were a friend or gave him a bribe; otherwise he was ruthless. He could overcharge legitimate taxes. He had Roman soldiers to enforce it all. So tax collectors were thought of as the worst sinners. They didn’t argue with that. The tax collector in Jesus’ parable, he’s in church but doesn’t feel he belongs there. What he was, made him feel only shame.
That’s how it was for Matthew. But in spite of that, Jesus said: “Follow Me.” It’s an invitation. That’s the Gospel – not gospel, little g, as in one of the four gospels, but the Gospel, big G – “good news.” It’s an invitation from the Savior. He invites a sinner, who’s unworthy because of his/her sins, to be with Him. The only way that can happen is that He makes the sinner holy, makes an unclean person clean, gives the worthiness that you lack so that you follow Him with no shame, only joy. That’s Big-G Gospel.
That’s what Jesus’ invitation is. When He calls, He invites. But it isn’t as if Matthew was able to decide to follow Him. Matthew’s sins weren’t just bad decisions; they were sins on the outside that came from the sin inside him, that he had a sinful nature and was born spiritually dead. So he – as with all of us – is completely unable and powerless to decide to follow Jesus. Jesus’ invitation – His word – has all the power to give him faith and create this willingness to follow Jesus as his Lord.
As we learn in the catechism: “I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus, or come to him,” but what happens is that I am “called by the Gospel,” that is, the invitation of the Gospel has power to give me faith in Jesus, to give me faith that He wipes out all my sin, to give me willingness to resist those sins and live a new life with His help, by His Word.
This is what Jesus did for Matthew. Matthew gives us two clues about what this meant to him. First is his name. When Jesus called him, his name was Levi; that’s his Jewish name, it’s how Mark and Luke tell it: the calling of Levi. But Jesus gave him a new name, the Greek name Matthew, “gift of the Lord.” That’s the only name Matthew uses: the name that preaches grace, that his salvation is the gift of God.
The second clue about what Jesus’ calling meant to him is in chapter 10 of his gospel, when he lists the 12 disciples. He puts down his name as “Matthew the tax collector.” The writing of his gospel was many years later, yet he still calls himself “the tax collector.” Previously, it was a derisive term, but now, given the chance to erase that identity, he doesn’t. Why? He’s thankful. The Gospel is for sinners. This was his sin. Saying “Matthew the tax collector” is a reminder of how he was forgiven in Jesus.
This is Matthew’s Gospel. Not the book of the Bible with 28 chapters. But the Gospel, big G, for Matthew – and for you.
In continuing to call himself “the tax collector,” and insisting that his former name be forgotten and he only be called Matthew – to emphasize God’s grace to him – we can see that as he went forward in life, his former sins would come back to him. He could still have a troubled conscience, a heavy heart, burdened by sin. He needed the Gospel.
We find that we’re really a lot like Matthew and his tax collector friends. We have a past. We know what others would think of us, if they knew it all. As he came into the disciples, Matthew could have self-consciously said: “I’m not really like all of you.” He could fear what people might bring up.
We carry baggage too. New people coming into the church are self-conscious, thinking they’re not like the rest of us. Even lifelong Christians can develop this feeling, too, being self-conscious of what you are. We’re so aware of the baggage we bring. You worry about each misstep.
Learn from Matthew’s Gospel – the Gospel for Matthew and for you: that despite your past sins, God invites you and speaks the Gospel to you. We learn from this that the Gospel is for sinners. Jesus is the Savior of sinners. His name, Jesus, means “He will save.” It’s Matthew who records the angel saying it to Joseph this way: “for He will save His people from their sins.” The Gospel is the gospel of forgiveness. Forgiveness of what? Sins.
You need this Gospel again and again. You need it constantly. That’s why it’s written down in God’s written Word, the Bible. That’s why it’s spoken to you all the time in church. You don’t only need the Gospel, the invitation, once when you first believe. You need it every day. You’re in God’s family, His Church, yet the devil wants you to be unsure of God’s love and to have a troubled conscience that’s never at peace. You have a need to hear the invitation, to hear Jesus inviting you, every day.
This is what God’s Word is for. This is why it’s so comforting that all of Scripture, every word, is inspired by God. For then you know it’s true. God’s forgiveness and acceptance of you, which His Word declares, is true.
When you open your Bible or hear His Word in church, you’re in God’s presence and He’s calling you. His Word is like the supper at Matthew’s house, where – unlike the tax-collector world – you hear that your debt is paid, and there’s only joy eternally. You are invited, constantly. Amen!