Friend of Sinners

If you have your Bibles with you today, I want you to turn with me, if you would, to and sinners reclining with Jesus and his disciples? For there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eaten with sinners and tax collectors, said to the disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? When Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. Bow with me as we go to our Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, this passage before us today is a wake-up call. You called a man to be an apostle who had a horrible reputation, a corrupt way to make a living, and a horrendous past.

We look at this story and we are wowed by your grace. You changed this man's heart. You changed his behavior. You changed his eternal destiny.

Pharisees had no use for this man. He wasn't worth giving the time of day to. But Jesus, you transformed him. You gave him life. You gave him faith.

You gave him hope. And you used him as a powerful evangelist, a gifted teacher, and a writer of one of your gospels. Father, speak to us through this passage. Force us to look into our own hearts and ask ourself the question, would we have encouraged this man and accepted him?

Or would we have snubbed and rejected him like the Pharisees did? Fathers, help us to be compassionate, but not compromising. Help us to not only receive grace, but to give it. Heavenly Father, we want to pray a prayer of thanksgiving for those in our congregation who are sick and going through times of trouble, and you put your hand on them and ministered great healing to them.

We pray for Rinda Torrance as she is recovering and going through therapy, and pray, Father, that she might get totally well from this stroke. We thank you, Lord, for Eugene's recovery and for the way he's healed from this operation that he's had, and pray, Father, that he will recover completely. And we thank you, Father, that he is able to be with us tonight. Heavenly Father, we have too many for me to mention tonight that are suffering with a COVID disease. I pray, Heavenly Father, that you would have mercy on all of them. I pray, Father, that you would have mercy on our families, on our church, on our nation, and on our world, and that, Lord, you would just lift this filthy disease off of us that we might be saved from it. Lord, just be with us now in great power, for it is in the precious and holy name of Jesus that I pray, amen.

You may be seated. When I was a young pastor, my first church in Creedmoor, North Carolina, when I was in that church, I preached on this particular passage. And I remember preaching on the power of grace and the sin of self-righteousness. I remember preaching to them about the call that we as Christians have to minister to unbelievers and to get the gospel to them.

And I can remember being very tough on Christians who just seemed to avoid unbelievers. After the service was over, I had a man in our church to come up and speak to me, and he said, Doug, he said, I feel like I'm caught between a rock and a hard place. And I said, what do you mean by that? And he said, well, I'm a father of six kids. And he said, I feel a tremendous responsibility to protect my children from evil. And then he shared with me several verses.

I want to share a few of them with you. First Corinthians 15, verse 33. Do not be deceived, bad company corrupts morals. Proverbs 13, 20. Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed. Proverbs 15, 31. He who's ear listens to life-giving reproof will dwell among the wise. Proverbs 2, 20.

So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of righteousness. He said, Doug, I've always taught my children to avoid hanging out with people who don't fear God and who live their lives out as if there is no accountability to God. He said, I was in the church when I was a kid, but he said, all of my friends were heathens. And he said that when he was just 13 years old, he got addicted to pornography.

And the way that it happened was that he went over to his friend's house and his friend's dad had a whole stack of Playboy magazines if they got into every time he went over there. He said during he was 17 years old, he got addicted to alcohol. And he said it happened when he'd go over to his friend's house and his dad would offer them drinks every time that he would go over there and just got hooked. He said, most of my bad habits came from hanging around ungodly people.

First Corinthians 15 verse 33 does say, bad company corrupts morals. He said, Doug, I came to Christ at age 21, I got married and I felt then when we had children, a tremendous responsibility to protect them from evil people who would entice them to be evil and to disobey the Lord. He said, we don't let our children spend the night with other families that we don't know and or that we don't trust. He said, we have a kind of a policy that we try to teach our children when they date as they're young to date in a group setting. And he said, we absolutely try to forbid our kids to date unbelievers. He said, so far my kids are doing a whole lot better than I did.

And he said, they don't have to deal with the strongholds and the ingrained thought patterns that I have built up in my life as a young kid. And he said, how do I protect myself and my family from evil and still at the same time, care enough and love unbelievers enough to minister to them and get the gospel to them? I knew what this man was telling me.

I knew that it had great merits. I was in agreement with what he was doing in his life and in his family. I believe that what he was doing was scriptural. I believe that what he was doing was God-honoring. So as we look at this passage tonight, I want to stay balanced. Giving grace, showing mercy, loving the unlovely, but not compromising. Realizing daily the need to seek holiness and to stay pure and leaving our family in that same way.

Bad company corrupts morals. Now in Mark chapter one, we saw that due to a healed leper's disobedience to Jesus, that Jesus kind of had to start doing things secretly. This man that was a leper had Hansen's disease. It was the worst form of leprosy. When people got Hansen's disease, they didn't live.

It always brought death. And so Jesus did hear just an unbelievably powerful miracle. Jesus healed this man and healed him completely. And when he did these holes in the man's face were completely cleared up. His skin became pure as a baby skin. All the stench from that decaying skin was gone totally and completely.

And he could run, he could jump, he could play, he could do pretty much anything he wanted to do. So he went to the priest and the priest declared him clean and said, you are free to go, you are clean. He rejoined his family.

He went back to work. Everything was so much better, but Jesus gave him a command. And that command was that he was not to tell what had happened to him. He was not to tell what Jesus had done.

He did not obey that command. He went out and he began to tell everybody that he knew he disobeyed the Lord. Because of that, the popularity of Jesus began to skyrocket.

So much so that Jesus could not go into cities, he could not go into these bigger towns because the crowds would just come around and it would be too great. And so what did he do? He had to go out to the desolate places. And he went out just to kind of get away from the crowds. He had to go out to the outside.

The scripture tells us that it's something to me that was just very interesting. That he left Capernaum for a while and then he came back to Capernaum. He came back after a few weeks.

I think he did it secretly. Scripture says that he came back home. His home in Capernaum was Simon Peter's home. Well, once he got in the house, it seemed that it was just a very short period of time, people knew he was there. Everybody started coming in the house. It got so crowded that there were four men who brought a paralytic to that house that they hoped Jesus would heal. And they ended up taking that paralytic, lifting him up on the top of the roof, and they dug through the roof, dug a hole in the roof, and then lowered that paralytic down to the feet of Jesus.

Jesus forgave him of his sins, and Jesus healed him of his paralysis just like that. Jesus knew at this point in time that preaching inside was just not feasible anymore. So the scripture tells us that he went down by the sea, he got out to the great outdoors, and then the crowds could gather. The crowds could be around him, and that's where he went. So that's the setting, and I got four points that I wanna share with you this evening concerning this passage.

Point one, the call of a social outcast. Verse 13 through 14. He went out again beside the sea, and all the crowds was coming to him, and he was teaching them. And as he passed by, saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, follow me, and he rose and followed him. As Jesus was going back through Capernaum, he passed by a tax booth, a toll booth, and it was a toll station where he saw Levi, the tax collector, and he walked right over to him, looked right in his eyes and said to him, follow me. Who was Levi? Levi was a Jew who we know better by the name of Matthew. Now, Matthew was the one who wrote the Gospel of Matthew. He was a man that we know a lot about. Matthew was a Greek name.

They probably gave it to him after his conversion because it means gift of God. What did he do? He was a tax collector. He was a tax collector that worked for the Roman government, and what he would do is he would tax the Jewish people, and he would overtax them, and then take the overtaxation and put it in his own pocket and keep him. So not only was he working for the Roman government, they hated him for that, but he was stealing from his own people.

One commentator described the situation this way. Tax collectors continually looking for ways to squeeze extra money out of people and were aided in their collection by thugs and low-life swords. Beyond the poll tax, income tax, about 1%, and land tax, one-tenth of all grain and one-fifth of all the wine and fruit, taxes were levied on the transport and goods and produce, the use of roads, the crossing of bridges, and other miscellaneous activities.

Those assorted duties and tariffs were especially prone to corruption since they could be easily inflated and collected under threat of harm. Tax collectors were notorious for exploiting people, charging more than was necessary or reasonable, and then, for those unable to pay, loaning money at exorbitant interest rates. Worse, tax collectors were seen as traitors to their own people. They extorted money from their fellow Jews in order to support the corrupt infrastructure of foreign oppression. The Jewish people categorized these tax collectors as the very dregs of society. They labeled them as being as sorry and as wicked as murderers, robbers, liars, and child molesters. Everyone looked on the tax collectors with disdain. Alfred Edersheim wrote a great book, New Testament Commentary, and in his commentary, he was explaining about the tax collectors, and there was one group of tax collectors that had responsibility for whole regions or areas of land, and there were many different little tax collectors there. Those big tax collectors were called the great mokies, and then there was the little tax collectors that went to the tax booth like Levi, and he was called a little mokie, and he was the one that was responsible for collecting the taxes, getting the money, getting it to Rome, and then pocketing so much of it himself. Here was Levi, or Matthew, called a little mokie, and what was he? He was a man who had very few friends, and everybody looked at him as if he were a scumball.

We got two dogs at our home, dachshunds, and the oldest one is Edie. She is sweet as she can be. Kate, on the other hand, is a scoundrel.

So all week long, I've been calling Kate, little mokie, and I don't think she understands it, but that is not a compliment. When Jesus walked up to the tax booth, he looked into Matthew's eyes, and he said, follow me. When he said that, everyone around there, including Peter and Andrew, James and John, were absolutely shocked, and they thought to themselves, what? Does Jesus not know who this is? This is a guy with no integrity. This is a guy who is a horrible sinner.

This is a guy that can't be trusted. This is a guy that will give us all a bad reputation, and I think that's what the disciples were even thinking. So if the disciples, the ones who loved Jesus, were thinking that, then what do you think the enemies of Jesus were thinking? The Pharisees, they were thinking that this is a great thing for us, because it puts Jesus in a horrible, horrible light.

Folks, this is utterly amazing. Now, of all the people in Capernaum, Matthew was the most unlikely to be one of Christ's disciples. Did you know that's one of the trademarks of the ministry of Jesus, wasn't it? Think about who became followers of Christ. I think of Mary Magdalene. She was, at one time, demon-possessed, and Jesus set her free. I think she was probably a woman of the streets. Jesus cleansed her and set her free, and she became one of the greatest followers of Jesus that ever lived. There was Simon the Zealot, who was just a political radical, and he became a disciple of Jesus. Folks, Jesus doesn't just judge us for where we are.

He judges us for where we're headed, and we need to remember that. Centuries ago, a number of workmen were dragging a great marble block into the city of Florence, Italy, and it had come from the very famous marble quarries called the Carvana, and they were gonna use this particular block of marble to sculpt out a statue that would be of an Old Testament hero. Well, the sculptors came around, they took a look at it, and every one of them said, no, no, it's got some imperfections in it. We reject that.

We don't want that. So it stayed out in that churchyard at just a useless block for over two years, and then a sculptor came by one day and took a good look at it. He noticed the great beauty in it, and he said, I'm gonna sculpt it, no matter what the other guys say, and so he took it as a project, and he began to do a sculpture. He worked on it for two years.

Finally, after two years, he finished it up, had it veiled up, and then there was the unveiling. He took the veil off, and when he did, there was just a great chorus of praise. That sculpture was called David, and the one who sculpted it, the sculptor, was none other than Michelangelo. Folks, that sculpture today is still considered to be one of the most beautiful works of art that there's ever been made.

Michelangelo took the marble that everyone else had rejected, and he saw the potential in it, and then used it to make a masterpiece. I want you to know that's what Jesus does with us. In Ephesians chapter two, in verse 10, the apostle Paul said, for we are his workmanship. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.

You know what that word workmanship means? It's a show window. Now, nothing special about the show window is it. You don't want to look at the show window.

What you want to see is what's in the show window. When they put the things in the window that you want to look at, that they want you to buy, that's what they want you to look at, and folks, that's what we are. What people ought to be looking at is not us, but it's what Jesus has made of us. I look at it this way, like that big block of marble is us, and inside that marble is the image of Christ, and our sanctification is what? It's God chipping off the edges and chipping off all the pieces of marble that are not Christ, and then shaving it down until it gets to the point where you can see the image of Jesus. That's what sanctification is.

That's what the Lord does for us. So Jesus says to Matthew, follow me. Luke gives us a little more information than Mark does about what he did, for Luke tells us that he left everything, and he rose up and followed Jesus. Now, I doubt seriously if this was Matthew's first time meeting Jesus.

I think there'd probably been several other encounters. I think he had heard him preach before, and I think because of Jesus' preaching and what Jesus had been doing, and the influence that he had on Matthew, I think Matthew had come to realize that his heart was empty of joy, that his soul was filled with guilt, that all these people that he had cheated, he was responsible for. He should have been helping them, not cheating them, and all of a sudden, Jesus has opened his eyes. Jesus has opened his heart. He's not saying anything yet, but he knows he's headed for an eternal hell. In John 2.25, the scripture says that Jesus knew what was in man. He knew. So when Jesus went to Matthew, it was not just a random choice that he made. He didn't just go up and say, well, you know, I think I'm gonna choose a tax collector. That'll shock everybody.

That'll be fun. It's not what's going on here at all. You see, Matthew was chosen by God before the foundation of the earth. Matthew was chosen by God, and the Holy Spirit brought deep conviction into his heart and gave him eyes to see and ears to hear. And then when Jesus walked up to him, looked into his eyes and said, follow me, it was over. I mean, it was over.

It was a done deal. He jumped up immediately, and what did he do? He left everything. He left the money there. He left a prosperous job.

He left political and monetary clout. He left money on the table and walked away to follow Jesus. It was Matthew who later pinned down these words of Jesus in Matthew chapter 16. If any man be my disciple, let him come after me. Let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

For whosoever would save his life will lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and to lose his own soul? As Matthew's writing out those words when he wrote the Gospel of Matthew, I think that he thought back to that day when Jesus came to him, looked him right in the eye at his tax booth, and said, follow me, follow me. When he did that, he left everything. He left his security. He left his job. He left friends.

He left everything to follow Jesus. That's what it meant to him. He said, you know, that was my call back then.

He said, it's still my call now. Was that a big sacrifice for him? I don't think he saw it that way.

I think he saw it as the greatest privilege in his life. Jesus had changed his heart. Jesus had changed his longings. Jesus had changed his desires. That's what Paul was talking about in 2 Corinthians 5.17, when he said, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creation.

Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. All right, point two, is tax collector turned fisherman. Look at verse 15. And as he reclined at the table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. Matthew's conversion had the same effect on Matthew as Peter's conversion had on Peter.

And what was that? They both became fishers of men. Matthew lived in a very large house, and he had walked away from his job. He didn't have that job anymore, but he still got his house. And he wanted to bring Jesus over in order that he might bless him, in order that he might do something kind for him. He provided a feast for Jesus.

And he had a motivation in that. Not only did he want to bless Jesus, but he had some friends. And he wanted those friends to come in and to meet with Jesus. Folks, these friends were spiritually clueless. They were controlled by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and they had no idea that they were controlled by the world, the flesh, and the devil. They were headed for an eternal hell, and they were either totally ignorant of it, or they were totally apathetic.

They just didn't care. These people were Matthew's friends. Matthew's friends included known criminals, thieves, thugs, hit men, and prostitutes. Now, the Pharisees and the religious leaders looked on them as the very dregs of society, but Jesus and Matthew looked on them as a mission field. They came to party.

That's what they always did at Matthew's house. But this time, it's not that kind of party. Matthew's a new man. He's different. He's totally different.

He's a new creation. And so Matthew wants them to hear Jesus. He wants them to meet Jesus.

He wants them to hear him out. Matthew thought to himself, if Jesus can change me, then Jesus can change anybody. All right, point three, the contempt of the self-righteous. Look at verse 16. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to the disciples, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners? The scribes saw that Jesus had called this tax collector to be one of his disciples, and Matthew immediately jumped up, walked away from everything, just rejected his security, rejected his money, rejected everything, got up and followed Jesus. So these scribes knew that it was real.

And I want you to know that the scribes were very excited about that. For they said, man, this is wonderful because here is a man who is a notorious, filthy, rotten sinner, and what is he doing? He is following Jesus, and now he's gonna ruin Jesus' name Oh, what a wonderful thing this is.

So they followed Jesus down to the house of Matthew. You know, I don't know if you thought about this or not, but this to me sounds a whole lot like some of our contemporary news reporters, and how they're always trying to dig up dirt, and how they get almost giddy if they realize that they can dig up dirt on some famous personality. And they say, goody, goody, goody, I can ruin his reputation.

You get excited about that. That's amazing to me. That's exactly what the Pharisees were doing. I think the Pharisees probably refused to go in Matthew's house because they thought that would defile them.

They wouldn't do that. They were too holy, they thought, for that. So they peered in the window. They looked in the window, and they saw Jesus eating with these people and laughing with them and just talking with them. And they saw that, and that absolutely enraged the Pharisees. And they went to the disciples, and they said, what is your master doing? Why is it that your master eats with tax collectors and sinners? We just don't get it.

I like John MacArthur's commentary here. So the scribes of the Pharisees were experts in both the Mosaic law and the countless man-made traditions their sect had developed through the centuries. They claimed to be holy, but in reality, they were only superficially moral. Their righteousness was not the result of the transformation of the heart by God, but was an external, hypocritical righteousness consisting of nothing more than rule keeping, judgmentalism, and outward show. The Pharisees expected Jesus and his disciples to observe their legalistic prescriptions and extra biblical regulations. When he did not, they reacted with anger and resentment. Their questions to the disciples was not curiosity, it was contempt. They were not inquisitive, they were accusatory, and they were very vindictive. Eating and drinking symbolized what?

It symbolized welcome, it symbolized caring, it symbolized compassion, and it symbolized friendship. Jesus' fellowship with these sinners absolutely enraged the Pharisees. Remember the man that I mentioned at the beginning of this service? Who was concerned about his children fellowshipping with people who might lead his kids into sin that would create satanic strongholds and addictions in their lives? What's the difference between him and the Pharisees? The difference between him and the Pharisees is this, he was a believer, he was a child of God. He didn't hate the sinful people that could wrongly influence his kids.

He was just using caution, but would not compromise. His children were not told to be hateful, but to be careful. He was not teaching his children to be judgmental, but to be cautious and not deceived by evil.

After getting to know this father a little better, I watched what he did. I watched how he taught his kids to be respectful to unbelievers, but to refuse to compromise with evil. And I remember him saying this to his kids, be the influencer, but don't be the influenced.

Be the influencer, but don't be the influenced. Great statement. Did Jesus compromise in any way, shape, or form with these people, with these sinners and tax collectors that he was eating with?

Absolutely not. Did the exact opposite. And what happened? He was so holy, so godly, so real, that they looked at him and they started hungering for what he had. They said, this man's got something that we certainly don't have.

This man makes us not only want what he has, but makes us want him. That's what he did to them. Folks, that's the key for us. We're never to be condemning and judgmental, but we're to be loving, merciful, and convicted to be obedient to the Lord. All right, point four is ministering to bruised reeds. Look at verse 17. And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. In Luke's gospel, he adds two words to that. He adds the words to repentance. Jesus said, I came to call the righteous and sinners to repentance. And then Matthew adds these words, but go and learn, I desire compassion and not sacrifice. The term go and learn is a rabbinic expression to rebuke foolish ignorance.

And that's what he's doing here. Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees because they have absolutely no concern for the souls of these sinful men that he's talking with. Over in 1 Samuel 16, verse seven, Lord's speaking to Samuel and he says this, God does not see as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

One commentator said it this way. Cold-hearted legalism may look holy on the outside, but it does not please God who weighs thoughts and motives. In their unwillingness to show mercy to others, the Pharisees betrayed the corrupt condition of their stony heart. They claim to rigorously keep the law.

They prided themselves on observing the letter of the law by dutifully performing sacrifices and ceremonies. They have utterly neglected the spirit of the law as demonstrated by their unwillingness to extend grace and mercy to those who needed it. I just wonder how many of those con men and prostitutes and others, tax collectors, how many of them walked out of that supper with Jesus with a changed heart? I wonder how many were broken by the Holy Spirit of God and walked out following Jesus, never to be the same again. These arrogant, self-righteous Pharisees, they didn't give a rip about the souls of these people. They said, they're on their way to hell anyway. They deserve hell, let them go!

Not realizing that they deserve hell just as much as they did. This passage reminds me of the prophecy in Isaiah chapter 42, verse three, and it's a messianic prophecy, and it's found also in Matthew's gospel, and it's the only gospel that it's found in, and I think that's very interesting that Matthew just so picked up on that messianic prophecy. And he used it to describe Jesus. And I think he used it to describe Jesus because he knew that that's what Jesus had done for him.

What does that prophecy say? It says this, a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not extinguish. In those days, people would make a little musical instrument and they would take different size of these reeds and they would tie them together and make an instrument kind of like a harmonica, and they would blow in it and make a beautiful sound. And after they had done that for a while, some of the reeds would get dry and they would crack. And when they get dry and they would crack, most of the people would just take that reed out and they would throw it in the road and just walk on, and then they would get a new one and put in its place.

Jesus wouldn't do that. Jesus would take that broken reed, he would put it in a little basin of olive oil, and then it would soften up. Then he would take it, he would hold it tight, he would take some thread and he would tie it around it, around and around it until it was perfectly whole again.

He would put it back in the little instrument and use it again and again and again. And then there was the smoking flax. The smoking flax was a wick in an oil lamp.

And sometimes when the wick in the oil lamp would get worn out and it would get frayed, then it would start smoking the house up. So the person in the house would take it, he would walk over to the window and throw it out, and then he'd run back outside and then he'd stomp it out real quick so it wouldn't start a fire. Jesus wouldn't do that. Jesus would take that frayed wick and he would cut off the frayed fibers. Then he would take some other flax and he would weave it into the old flax, and then he would take that wick and he would put it back in the oil lamp and use it over and over and over again. Folks, the real concern that Jesus had was not about reeds and wicks.

Reeds and wicks are just inanimate objects, they don't really matter. But Isaiah, Matthew were using this to explain how Jesus handles us. How does Jesus handle us? He picks us up out of our brokenness and he heals us and he makes new creatures out of us.

The tax collector Matthew was broken, broken and frayed. Jesus forgave him, completely forgave him, healed him spiritually and made him into a man of God. The Pharisees rejected Matthew, they absolutely condemned him, but Jesus didn't. Jesus was a friend of sinners and he forgave him, fixed him, changed his life, made out of him a new creation. That happened 2,000 years ago. 2,000 years ago. Now, let me ask you, is there anybody in here that knows one of the names of the Pharisees that condemned him?

Nobody knows, we don't have any idea. But how many knew about Matthew? We know Matthew's name. We know Matthew's name because Matthew was the writer of one of the gospels. We know Matthew's name because he was a disciple.

He was a man who made an impact on this world for the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what Jesus does when he fixes a bruised reed, when he takes care of a frayed wick. What these Pharisees had done was to fall into a very deadly trap. Jesus explained that trap in a parable that he taught in Luke chapter 18. And I wonder when Jesus told that parable if he didn't have Matthew, the tax collector, in mind.

This is the way it goes. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves if they were righteous and treated others with contempt. Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee standing by himself prayed, thus, God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. But self-righteousness leads us to self-delusion. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, sometimes we grapple with life.

Sometimes we feel pulled in different directions. Help us to be cautious and not callous, to be loving but not compromising. Drive self-righteousness and pride out of us and help us to walk in your paths. In the beatitude you said, blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew was poor in spirit.

He was so low that all he could do was look up. May that be true of all of us. May we realize that the only good thing in us is Jesus. For it's in Jesus' holy, precious name that we pray. Amen.