The Teacher of Mercy
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.”
Sometimes people have the idea that Christianity is for perfect, very good, and decent people. This is a very wrong idea and viewpoint that may have terrible consequences in our spiritual life. The truth is, Christianity is for bad people who know just how bad they are. That’s why we come to God. We know we are not perfect but are depraved sinners, and that is why we are Christians and that is why we come to church every week.
In the passage from Matthew that we are looking at today, our Lord gives the purpose of his ministry and why he came into this world in verse 13: “‘I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners.'” This means that God has come for bad people, not good people. That is the message of Christianity, the essence of the gospel, and the reason for the incarnation.
Why did Jesus come into the world? He clearly says it: to call sinners. These are people who know they have an incurable, deadly disease; those who are desperate and without hope; those who are hurting; those who are weak, weary, and burdened; those who are broken, and whose lives are shattered; sinners who know they are sinners.
Perhaps Paul had this passage in mind when he wrote in I Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost.” Now this is precisely the point of our text. On one side, this is an encouraging passage that will encourage those of us who are deeply and painfully aware of our sinfulness—that Jesus loves even the worst of us and is able to call us to himself and put us into his service. It’s a story that ought to bring great comfort to sinners, even to truly horrible sinners. On the other side, it is a great warning to those blinded by self-righteousness who don’t realize their sinfulness. Jesus says, “I have not come to you. You will not get any saving graces from me.” Jesus was illustrating in this story that this is the way God is: he only saves those who realize their sin and never comes near the self-righteous.
Someone once said, “The church is the only fellowship in the world where the one requirement for membership is the unworthiness of the candidate.” The Holy Spirit has chosen to include this story in the Bible for us to learn to show mercy by seeing how merciful and loving our wonderful Savior is to those sinners whom the world despises the most and considers the most unworthy. This is a lesson of mercy. Our Lord teaches mercy in this lesson. He is a teacher of mercy. He teaches us by example how to show mercy to needy sinners, even the most despicable of sinners. And in doing this, Jesus is showing how he wants you and me—his followers, who have already received his forgiveness and who are now called to be like him—to behave toward those whom even the people of this world consider to be “sinful,” “defiled,” and “unworthy” and toward the needy sinners he places around us. He is doing that by example.
1. Going to Where Needy Sinners Are (v. 9)
We saw the call of Matthew last week. You will notice that Matthew didn’t come to Jesus; he was not praying or seeking. But Jesus, by going to the worst place and calling the worst man, shows his mercy for sinners. Today you name Matthew a decent name, and he wrote the first book in the New Testament. But he was a despised sinner that the decent and respectable people of his day would have had nothing whatsoever to do with. He was a tax collector, and we saw the background of how badly they were treated.
Matthew chose a life of sin. He had sold himself for money and greed; money was his god, and he was a betrayer of his people for profit. He didn’t care about anything in the world. He had come to believe that there was no hope for heaven in his future, like so many people today who are lost and hopeless in their sin. He had simply resigned himself to his spiritual doom—that he was going to die one day and go to eternal judgment and burn in hell. He was just going through the motions of life like a corpse, carrying on with his sin and seeking to make the most of it all while he could.
Verse 9 says that Jesus looked at such a sinner, pitied him, called him to himself, and that he pardoned, cleansed, and sanctified him. And he placed him into his service and made him one of his own twelve ambassadors to the world, to whom he gave the privilege of writing the longest and most “Jewish” of the four Gospels.
Matthew saw infinite love and pity in Christ’s eyes. Jesus’s look of love melted the hardness in Matthew’s heart, and he followed him. This is a lesson for us. By the way, think of that the next time you pass a bar. The people in that bar think that Jesus has nothing to do with them. They believe they are in a “No-Jesus Zone” and that there is no hope for them. See them with the eyes of Christ. Did you know that Jesus knows the name of everyone in the place? The next time you drive past a bar, full of rowdies and smoking, or some other notorious place of sin, just remember: Jesus knows the names of everyone inside. He sees them every day. He knows how they ended up in such places. They think that they are so far gone in their sin that he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them. But the truth is that he sees them and he cares very deeply about their souls. He yearns to save them from their sins. May we pray that they see the love of Jesus in our eyes when we look at them? Do we, with our look, communicate that Jesus knows about them and cares about them, that they are precious to him? Or do we simply turn our heads away in disgust and indifference and confirm them in their hopelessness?
But here, Jesus came to someone who didn’t dare seek him! Jesus took the initiative and went to where a very notorious sinner was—in fact, right in the midst of his sinful activity—and called him. He doesn’t sit around and wait for the needy to come to him. He said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Jesus, our great example, calls us to do the same toward the lost and needy sinners around us. We’re to seek them out! We’re to go to the places where they are, lost in the despair of their sin and feeling sure that there’s no hope for them. We’re to show them mercy by “seeing” them and inviting them to rise up and follow Jesus. May God help us to follow the example our Teacher has set for us! The first way he shows mercy is by going to where sinners are.
Another way that our Teacher of mercy sets an example is by…
2. Welcoming Needy Sinners into Fellowship with Himself (vv. 10-11)
Matthew left his wicked profession behind and rose up and followed Jesus. And next, he tells us, “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” (Matthew 9:10).
Whose house? Luke and Mark say it is Matthew’s house. Then why did Matthew not say so? You see a very selfless, no-pride disciple here, because he did not like to say anything in his own praise. Luke 5:29 says, “a great feast in his own house,” but Matthew himself simply puts it, “As Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came.”
Matthew did not forcibly or dutifully follow Jesus, but his life was filled with overwhelming joy, and his soul was thrilled that Jesus had accepted a publican like him. How could he honor Jesus enough? He was so overjoyed and filled with the joy of salvation. As an expression of that joy, he arranged a big banquet in his house to glorify Jesus and made that an opportunity to bring all his worst friends to Christ.
I want you to notice this further, “Behold.” “Behold, they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy.” Now again, “Behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.” “Behold” indicates a surprising scene. It is worth your noticing and thinking upon, for it may be that you feel yourself to be guilty and unworthy to come to Christ, unfit to be in communion with him. If so, listen: “Behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.”
Matthew must have had a very large house, considering that “many tax collectors and sinners” came and joined Jesus and his disciples in it. It is called a great banquet. The number of guests was big, maybe hundreds, and also to the abundance and magnificence of the provisions. Today, when our brother Francis from Canada sponsors a feast for us, it is indeed a great feast with all kinds of items, not just chicken, mutton biryani, and so on, but also butter chicken, sweets, and ice cream. It was one thing for a group of sinners to gather in celebration; it was quite another when Jesus was the guest of honor. These folks were celebrating his presence with them. This was, I believe, a little taste of heaven, when all the saints will be seated at the table with the Savior.
Picture the scene, how it would have been. What comes to my mind is a scene that looks something like the great masterpiece, “The Last Supper”—only, of course, it was a completely different meal. There Jesus would be at the table, in the position of honor, and all around him would be the disciples eating and drinking. Matthew may have been next to Jesus, as the host. He was filled with joy and had gotten all his friends, and wanted to bring them to Christ. All the worst people in the town. It was a banquet attended by the most rotten people in the history of banquets because the only people Matthew knew were crummy, wretched, and vile people, because no one else would come near him, the local “mokhes” of Capernaum. They were all in the oriental style, not at a dining table, but at a small table, in a semi-prone position, relaxed and eating, with Jesus sitting in the center.
What a crowd! All the worst people. A big banquet. All the worst people: publicans, harlots, murderers, and rowdies of Capernaum, with their faces and language. In between, there are the disciples. Over to one side would be a group of fellows who look an awful lot like first-century rowdies, chatting away with Peter and Andrew. Off to another side would be Philip and Thomas, serving a large plate of food to a small group of harlots. James would be pouring wine for a thief, and John would be receiving a slice of bread from a murderer. There would be a few kidnappers mixing and mingling with the other disciples, along with a few extortioners, drunkards, and idolaters. And of course, there would be tax collectors all over the place! Laughing and dancing and enjoying. What a scene.
We see such a crowd today. What is our immediate reaction? “Oh, we shouldn’t go with such people because I am a Christian. I cannot join with them.” In some ways, it is correct. We have to be careful not to be tempted by them. But we need to understand that to bring them to the Gospel and win them, there is a right way to have fellowship with them. Not in their sinful practices, but in common things like eating, functions, games, and political discussions. We should have fellowship and find opportunities to share the Gospel. Did you know that Jesus was often criticized because of the kind of people he was found eating with? His opponents said that he was “a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners” (Matthew 11:19).
But it’s fascinating to see how the most sinful of people seemed to be the ones who were most comfortable in his presence and the most eager to be with him. Why was it that sinful people seemed to flock to Jesus and so loved to be with him? I believe that there are several reasons. Most importantly, they saw him as a very merciful Savior. For one thing, they knew that he loved them and he truly cared for them when the whole of society had rejected them. They certainly knew that they were sinful and that he didn’t condone the things they did, but they also knew that he loved them. They knew that he called them to begin following him right then and there—right where they were—and that they didn’t have to go away first and become perfect in order to “earn” the right to become his followers. They knew that if they asked, he would forgive their sins and show them mercy. I believe they felt that he looked past what they were at that moment and saw them for what he had come to save them to be in glory. I believe that notorious sinners flocked around him because they felt the truth of his promise: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37).
Now, contrast this with the attitude of the Pharisees. They were the religious leaders of the day. They were having a fit about seeing Jesus and his disciples having dinner with such riffraff. Matthew tells us, “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, ‘Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?'” (It’s a pretty safe bet that the tax collectors and sinners weren’t flocking to the homes of the Pharisees!)
First, note that it is the Pharisees who object. In the case of Jesus forgiving the sins of the paralytic in verse 9:3, it was the scribes who objected (at least in their thoughts). The Pharisees and scribes were important people. We should study them sometime. The scribes were the theologians of that day, and thus we would expect them to express concern over the theological implications of Jesus’ words to the paralytic. The Pharisees were the purists, the separatists, of that day, and it is no wonder that they would be troubled by the fact that Jesus was associating with “sinners,” rather than with them (“the righteous”).
Taking a publican as a disciple itself was shocking and against the norms of those times, but going and sitting with them and eating in their house was something that would bring a sharp, hateful tingling throughout a Jew’s body. The Pharisees assumed that he was going there because he liked their atmosphere and company. “Like attracts like” was their thinking.
A couple of things fascinate me about this. First of all, I notice that the Pharisees chose to bring their complaint to the disciples. They didn’t bring it to Jesus. I think it is a great picture that paints a great picture of Jesus. He had such great mercy that sinners were eager to come to him when they heard about him. They were drawn to him. But those who are righteous in their own eyes not only prefer not to be around sinners, they also would prefer not to be around Jesus either! They are not bold enough even to come to him. “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” What they’re really saying is a stinging rebuke. It is the venting of their bitterness. “Shame on you. This kind of fellow is your master and teacher,” they would say in a hateful manner. “True religious people, pious people, righteous men like we are, we shun such vile sinners.” There is an accusatory question being raised, not as if they truly wanted to know the answer but just to accuse him. Their sense of being righteous makes them ask this. “How can you follow such a master? You, as Jews, are following this radical man, thinking he will lead you to holiness? See where he has brought you. He has taken you away from us, the holy Pharisees, and taken you to these wicked sinners.” They sought to undermine the disciples’ confidence in Christ, with the view of soliciting them to revolt. “Of what use was it that he should be their Master?” they implied.
Based on the passage, the Pharisees’ use of the title “Teacher” when addressing Jesus’s disciples was significant because it highlighted their belief that Jesus was setting a poor example. A “Teacher” was someone who not only provided instruction but also served as a role model for their students. The Pharisees were questioning why Jesus, their “Teacher,” would associate with despised tax collectors and sinners, believing He was leading His disciples into unrighteousness.
Jesus’s Three-Point Argument
When the Pharisees accused Him, Jesus responded with a powerful, three-part argument to justify His actions.
1. The Logic of a Physician 🧑⚕️
Jesus began with a simple, common-sense analogy: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” This statement masterfully dismantled the Pharisees’ accusation. The purpose of a doctor is not to spend time with healthy people but to heal the sick. In the same way, Jesus, the great physician of the soul, came to be with sinners—not because He enjoyed their sin, but because they were spiritually ill and in desperate need of a cure. His motive was not to participate in their sin but to heal them from it. This logic exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who, in their self-righteousness, saw no need for a doctor themselves and had no compassion for those who did.
2. The Revelation of Scripture 📖
Next, Jesus took them to their own sacred texts, rebuking them with a rabbinic formula: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire compassion, and not sacrifice.'” By quoting from the prophet Hosea, Jesus revealed that the Pharisees had missed a central truth of God’s heart. Their religion was based on external rituals and sacrifices, but they lacked the internal quality of mercy that God truly values. While God had instituted the sacrificial system, it was always meant to be an expression of a repentant heart seeking mercy, not a substitute for it. By despising the sinners, the Pharisees showed they did not understand the very scriptures they claimed to uphold.
3. The Declaration of His Mission 🙏
Finally, Jesus confirmed His divine purpose: “For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” With this statement, He declared that His entire mission was not for those who were self-satisfied and believed they had no need of Him, but for those who were spiritually bankrupt and aware of their desperate state. While the Bible states that no one is truly righteous, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees’ self-perception. He was essentially saying, “Since you see yourselves as righteous, you have no need for me. My purpose is to call those who are sick, who know they are sinners, to a life of repentance.” This was a bold assertion of His authority and a clear statement that He came to save the very people the Pharisees shunned.
Our Role as Followers
The passage serves as a powerful mirror for us today. It challenges us to examine our own attitudes towards others. Are we like the Pharisees, standing outside and judging, or are we like Jesus, entering the world of sinners to bring them the mercy of God? The mission of Christ is a gospel for the sick, the broken, and the lost. He calls us to share that message by living a life of mercy, just as He did.
This leads to a question for reflection: How can we, as a church, create a space where sinners feel not just tolerated but genuinely welcomed, so they can experience the very mercy of Christ we have received?
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 