A New Beginning presents a book from Pastor Greg Laurie, with help for those suffering loss, called Hope for Hurting Hearts. God has used this book over the years to touch many people. If you've lost a loved one, or if you know someone that's recently lost a loved one, it would be an excellent thing to get this book into their hands, because I really wrote it for them.
So we're offering you a copy of this book, Hope for Hurting Hearts, for your gift of any size. Available at Harvest.org. Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners. I'm Greg Laurie, encouraging you.
If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries, and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to Harvest.org. Amen, let's all pray together. Lord, all glory goes to you forever. Father, we are so thankful for the great gift that you have given to us, which is the forgiveness of our sin, and the new nature we have, the freedom that we get to enjoy spiritually. Lord, you came to set the captives free, and we were more in slavery than many of us even realized, in bondage to sin. Jesus, you came and you freed us from that.
And not only did you free us from it, you took our guilt and our shame, and Father, you have given us a new nature, and Lord, we are just so thankful for that. We look forward to the day when we will be with you in heaven, and we will be together, and we'll be worshiping, and there will be that wonderful heavenly reunion, and we'll be in our new bodies, and it's going to be amazing. Lord, we look forward to that day when you will reign, when you will be the king sitting on the throne, reigning from Jerusalem.
That is an amazing time. And so until that day, Lord, we live in anticipation, and we want to make earth as much like heaven as we possible, leading people to you, bringing them to church, leading them into relationships with you. Lord, help us to do that. Father, we thank you for this victory that we have as Christians, and the rights that we are going to be able to hold onto, and the things that we're able to celebrate as believers with this new political cycle. But Lord, we also know that the most important thing is that we lead people to you, Jesus.
We want to do that. So help us, Lord, to build bridges to our neighbors, to people that are outside of our political spectrum, outside of our comfort zone. Jesus, we're going to see today just how far you went out of your sphere of influence and out of the people that you would have hung out with, and you went after tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes, immoral men and women. Jesus, help us to learn from your example. We need you, and we need your help to see people the way that you did.
You died for the sin of the world, and it's up to us, Lord. We are your messengers to help share this message. So use us, Lord.
We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Good to see you all.
You can have a seat. All right, well, I pretty much gave you what my message is about in that prayer right there. You can turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter, oh shoot, what chapter am I on?
I have to switch down. Luke chapter 5, Luke chapter 5, you can turn in your Bibles there. We're continuing in our series, which we are calling Jesus and You, Jesus and You. It's been a really fun couple of weeks together as we look at just how Jesus interfaced and interacted with different people in the New Testament, and how every person had a different story, and he always was so tactful.
He didn't have a one-size-fits-all approach. He met them where they were at, and the ultimate takeaway for all of us is Jesus meets us right where we are at, right where we need to be met. Not just when we're new believers, but also in our spiritual maturity. He meets us right where we are, and he gives us exactly what we need. Amen.
Amen. And so today we're talking about Matthew, the tax collector, an amazing conversion, an amazing story, but before we get into that, I want to make sure that I recognize that tomorrow is Veterans Day, and we are so thankful for our vets here at Harvest. Who have served in the military, who have put their lives on the line, who have voluntarily said that they will go and protect our nation.
Of course, we all know the freedoms that we enjoy here in America are not free. We're able to speak absolute truth and have freedom of speech and gather together without fear of tyranny or repercussion from our government or whatever, and preach exactly what the Bible teaches because of the sacrifices of so many men and women, their time, their efforts, and of course, their lives, their health. And so thank you military veterans and war veterans and the families of those as well for making that sacrifice. Let's thank them one more time.
And also today is the Marine Corps birthday, 249 years, and so hoorah to the Marines in the house. And so as we look to our text now, as we look to our message, outcasts, outcasts, did you ever feel like you were an outcast? That maybe you were in a room that you didn't belong in? I think we've all experienced that. We're like, we walk into a room and immediately we feel attention. You can cut it with a knife like, oh shoot, I just walked into something that I probably shouldn't have just now. They were probably talking bad about you and you just walked in and you felt that awkwardness. We've all felt that before.
It might be a conversation. Or maybe you're trying to get into a new hobby and you buy some of the gear and you show up at the tennis club, but you've never played tennis before. And you're like putting your shoes on and then you're like just flailing everywhere trying to hit the ball or you show up to the gym and you have no idea what you're doing. And you're working on the gym equipment. Everybody's got their phones out pointed at you and they're snickering and you're like, wow, I must be doing really good.
No, you're probably blowing it. But I think we've all felt at some point in some way like we didn't belong, like we were an outcast. Maybe it was in high school and you just felt like you didn't belong, like you couldn't sit with the cool kids. You sat at the wrong table or you went and sat down and everybody got up when you sat down. And that's a bad feeling, isn't it?
That's not a fun thing. I remember when I was a kid, probably six or seven years old, and I went, my brother would babysit me. And I don't think he was a very good babysitter because I distinctly remember going and sitting on the beach and watching him surf while he was supposed to be babysitting me at probably like six or seven years old. And I remember swinging on the swing set. There's a picture of us right there. That shows the age gap. I was, I don't know, probably five or six in that photo.
So around this time is when the story took place. Notice the awesome pink water shoes I'm wearing. Those are great. Thanks, Mom and Dad. Christopher is, of course, dressed, you know, how he should be, flip-flops, t-shirt. I'm wearing like a red spoon or t-shirt.
My hair is combed. Obviously, my parents were still dressing me at this point. But we showed up to the beach, and that's pretty much what Christopher would look like and I would look like everywhere we went. And so we were sitting at the beach just one day, and when we got done at the beach, instead of going home, we took a different route, and we pulled up into a golf course to the driving range. Now, this is somewhere we had never been before.
We had never gone to the driving range. And Christopher proceeded to pull out a set of golf clubs from the trunk of his car that looked like they were from the 1930s. They were literally, the shafts were made of wood.
I think that tells you how old they were. They looked like they were used in a crime scene. They were rusty. They had splintered handles. The leather was coming off on the grip.
But his friend gave him this pair of clubs, and he decided he was going to try and see how he does hitting this ball down the driving range. I vividly remember walking up to the bay, where you put the ball down, and looking around, and we clearly did not fit in. We were wet from the beach. We were wearing flip-flops.
We're sandy, hair still wet. And I look around, and, well, they didn't look like us. They were wearing polo shirts, pleated golf pants, little white leather shoes, one white leather glove.
I never understand that. And they just, well, they looked like golfers. And I just remember feeling like an outsider.
Even at that young age, I noticed that. But as soon as my brother put the ball down, he looked down at the ball and down the fairway, and he pulled out his driver or whatever the golf club was. And as soon as he hit that ball down the fairway, I just remember feeling, I just remember laughing, because it was just like my brother to try something for the very first time and just absolutely crush it. He hit that ball, and it went straight down the fairway, and I couldn't see it anymore.
That's all I remember. And all of a sudden, all the people that were kind of looking at us askance, now we're coming over and talking to Christopher, giving him pointers, asking him questions. Is this your first time? And needless to say, that was our first time to the driving range, and that was the last time we went to the driving range.
Christopher didn't care for that stuff. All of a sudden, we didn't feel like outsiders. And I think that this is a great picture of what happens when you put the right tools in the hands of the right person. Now, I think for a lot of us, if we took those golf clubs or any set of golf clubs and tried to hit the ball down the range, you know, it's going to go way off to the side, and it's going to be a terrible shot. But when you put the right tools in the hands of the right person, if you put those golf clubs in the hands of Tiger Woods, we would all say, those are some of the greatest golf clubs I've ever seen. Those are amazing.
No, they're in the hands of the right person. My brother Christopher, he was an athlete. He rode dirt bikes. He ran cross country. He was an excellent skateboarder and surfer.
The team sports were never really his thing, but he could have done very well because he just had this natural gifting and confidence at everything that he did. But later on in life, after my brother went to be with the Lord, I was reflecting on this memory. I was thinking about it. And I came to this conclusion. I realized something. It wasn't so much about the perfection of the tools, but the skill and the intent of the one who was wielding them.
Let me say that again. It wasn't so much about the perfection of the tools, but the skill and intent of the one who wields them. Just as my brother made that perfect shot with the imperfect clubs, so can God do extraordinary things through imperfect people. It reminds me of a quote that dates back to the 1400s, God can draw straight lines with crooked sticks. Even when we feel inadequate or out of place, if we make ourselves available to God, He can use us to achieve wonderful things beyond our imagination.
Imperfect tools in the hands of a perfect God. As we continue in our series, Jesus and You, we've looked at a bunch of really crazy characters that Jesus interacted with. There was the moral man, Nicodemus.
There was the immoral woman up at the well in Samaria. There was the lonely man that we learned about last week. There was the doubter, John the Baptist. Jesus did not have a one-size-fits-all approach to engaging people. He was tactful, He was engaging, and He was redemptive, because we know that Jesus meets us right where we are at.
He gives us exactly what we need. Before us today is the story of Jesus once again calling a crooked stick to be a part of His arsenal, an outcast, a tax collector, Matthew, to be a part of the 12 disciples. And I've titled this message Jesus and the Outcast. And again, we're looking at Luke chapter 5, if you want to turn in your Bibles there. It says this in Luke chapter 5, verse 27. It says this, as Jesus left the town, He saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth. And Jesus said to him, follow me and be my disciple. So Levi got up, he left everything, and he followed him. Now later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor.
Many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests also ate with him. But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus' disciples, why do you eat and drink with such scum? Well, that's putting it delicately. And Jesus answered them, healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.
Wow. What a great statement from Jesus, a great summary of His mission, why He came to this earth. Not for the healthy people who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and are in need of help. That brings us to point number one, Jesus sees Matthew. Jesus sees Matthew. A little bit of background on Matthew. If you were a little bit confused as we're reading here how it talks about Levi the tax collector, that's okay, quick clarification. Matthew's name given to him by his parents was Levi.
He was the son of Alphaeus. And at some point, not recorded in scripture, but commentators all agree that Levi became Matthew because the story parallels that in Matthew's gospel. And so at some point, Jesus changed his name to Matthew, from Levi to Matthew. We see this happen in other places in scripture, Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Saul to Paul, and so forth. And now we also know that Levi became Matthew. But look at what Jesus said in verse 27.
Look back there. Later, as Jesus left the town, he saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at his tax collector's booth. And he said to him, follow me and be my disciple. He saw. Those are two really important words that if we didn't know any better, we'd just skip right over and pass by. But what the original language tells us here is that Jesus did not merely pass by and throw a quick glance in Levi's direction and say, hey, follow me. And oh, yeah, you over there, follow me as well.
No. It says that Jesus looked at him, and the original language implies that he didn't just look at him, but he looked through him. The Greek word is theomomai, which means to have an intent to look at something, to take something in with one's eyes, with implication that one is especially impressed to see, to look at, and to behold. So when Jesus saw Matthew, he didn't just look at him and observe him.
Oh, there's a guy behind a tax booth there, and there's a Roman soldier next to him. He looks important. No, something about Matthew, Jesus understood. He saw him.
He understood him. He took him in, and Jesus saw right through everything that Matthew was. Maybe he had some facade covered in jewelry. He probably had a lot of money. He looked fancy. He was put together, and Jesus saw through that facade likely an empty man in need of redemption. And so he looked right through Matthew, sees right through him. You ever have someone look right through you?
Let me rephrase that. Do you have a mother? Right, you pull up into your driveway after doing some bad stuff with your friends, and right away your mom looks at you and says, where have you been?
Who are you with? And you already know that she knows somehow. She doesn't know, but she knows. And then you start confessing things from like two years ago. You just feel guilty.
She's looking right through you. Now you might think, what's so bad about tax collectors? Well, what's the big deal? Matthew doesn't sound like that bad of a guy.
What's the deal? Well, tax collectors, we don't have them today. We have the IRS today, and the IRS, like Jesus, knows everything wrong you've ever done. But tax collectors, in Jesus' day, they were considered the scum of society. Tax collectors were at the absolute bottom of the barrel, really just maybe one click above a leper who was literally a physically diseased person that you did not want to come into contact with because they had leprosy. Tax collectors were like socially on the same level, and so they only hung out with other tax collectors and other scum of society.
We see other tax collectors hanging out with prostitutes and sinners. They had a reputation for sure. They were hated. They were vilified.
They were despised more than any other group. And the reason for that was nobody was assigned the job of tax collector. Tax collectors actually paid the Roman government to receive this position, and effectively, it was like a franchise owner. And so the tax collectors would go into a community, whether it was Galilee or Jerusalem or Capernaum, wherever it was, and there they are. They set up their tax booth, and they were basically given the authority from the Roman government to go and extort people for money. Hey, the Roman government, you owe them X amount, let's say $100 per week. That's what you have to pay to Caesar. I'm going to come in now and say you owe me $190 on top of that $100 or whatever, $90 in addition.
And so that $90 is for Matthew. They could do whatever they wanted. They could add exorbitant amounts of money, and basically, they were completely allowed to extort people, and they had the complete backing of the Roman government. And of course, because they're flush with cash, they're able to hire people and go and lean on people and extort them for more money. And so tax collectors, they were bad guys.
They would collect that specified amount and then keep whatever they wanted beyond that as personal profit. And so for reasons like that, the publicani, or the tax collectors, were understandably considered traitors by their own people. You could think of Matthew in another sense, almost like he was a capo in the concentration camp.
Capo was the term that they gave to the Jewish prisoners in the concentration camps who were handpicked by the Nazis to go and oversee their fellow Jews and tattle on them if they're trying to escape, if they're hiding food. And so they were basically leaning on their own people to betray their people for personal gain. And so they really hated Matthew.
That's the point I'm trying to make. And so why did Matthew go down this path? We don't know for certain.
We can speculate. Maybe it seemed like a good idea at the time. He saw that it was lucrative.
He could make a lot of money. Maybe it was his way of rebelling against his parents. We know that Matthew was likely raised in a strong household of faith because in Matthew's gospel, he apparently, it seems, knows more of the Old Testament than any other of his counterparts because in Matthew's gospel, there is more references to the Old Testament than the other three gospels of Mark, Luke, and John combined.
Matthew has tons of references to the Old Testament. So likely he was raised in a strong household filled with faith. But ultimately, there can be no doubt that Matthew, he rebelled. He went against his parents.
He went against his people. And Jesus, looking at him, would have known this. He sees Matthew. He sees right through him. And while many saw Matthew as a tax collector, a conspirator, a despicable human being, Jesus looks beyond the external circumstances and the societal labels, and he sees Matthew for who he could be. He sees Matthew for who he could be. This is a man that is worth redeeming.
This is a man that's worth calling to myself. And in the same way, the Lord sees us. When Jesus sees us, he sees our hearts. He knows the difficulties that we've all faced. He knows our story. He knows our struggles. And he sees our potential. And that brings us to point number two.
Jesus sees you. Second Chronicles 16, 9 says, Look at the characters that God often chose to represent him. Far from perfect, right? Flawed people like crazy. Look at the 12 disciples that Jesus chose.
Super flawed guys. God chose cowards. He chose murderers, adulterers, idolaters.
The highly educated, the non-educated, prostitutes, kings, disobedient prophets. And here again, Jesus chooses Matthew. He chooses Matthew. And really, the acceptance and inclusion of Matthew is just a great picture of the redeeming power of a relationship with God. Jesus choosing Matthew is just a picture of the redeeming power of what happens when you have a relationship with him. Matthew was an imperfect guy. He was hated. He was vilified. But Jesus redeems him. And now we speak of him in high regard. We name our sons Matthew, right?
Because he is somebody to be admired after the gospel that he wrote and the work that he did in Jesus' ministry. You might feel like a Matthew today. You might feel like you are an outcast. Someone that God can never use. Oh, Jonathan, you don't know my story. God could never use someone like me. God could never speak through me. God could never use me to reach other people. I'm just thankful that I have my sin forgiven and I'm going to heaven.
But Jonathan, you don't know my story. Listen, I want to tell you today, you are exactly the person God wants to use because God picks people who recognize they don't have anything to offer. It's those who feel like they are unworthy that God often calls to do the amazing things and reach people. Saying, I am nothing without God is not an admission of defeat. It's a declaration of victory. Saying, I am nothing without God is not an admission of defeat. It's a declaration of victory. Because we know that God does not call the qualified.
He qualifies the called. You may feel like you are unqualified. You are uneducated. You are not beautiful enough. You don't have enough charisma.
You're not good at talking with people. Whatever it might be, look at every single person that God uses throughout the scriptures and you will see you are in good company. Straight lines with crooked sticks, right? Imperfect tools in the hands of a perfect God. You know that God was intentionally choosing a guy like my dad. When I think of my dad's story today and I think of the things that he endured and the things that he saw and heard and was raised around, born to a single immoral woman.
Sorry, grandma. Raised around alcohol abuse and addiction, drawn to drugs and psychedelics, told by teachers from a very young age that he would never amount to anything. Imagine telling a kid that time and time and time again.
Eventually they're going to believe it, right? He was destined to be a statistic. But then God came into his life and he changed him. And I'll tell you today, his integrity, his character, his love for his family, he has made an impact on me, on my grandchildren, on all of us here in Southern California and really the world. Not because of how great he is, but again, he'd be the first person to tell us how good God is. Jesus knows your story and he knows your potential.
Now that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. Look back at verse 28. So Levi got up and he left everything and followed him. He got up, he left everything, and he followed Jesus. And then later, Levi held a banquet in his home with Jesus as the guest of honor. And many of Levi's fellow tax collectors and other guests ate with them as well. Now it's pretty clear here that Matthew, Levi, Levi, soon to be Matthew, had a comfortable lifestyle, right? Have you ever thrown a banquet for somebody in their honor?
Yeah, me neither. Now it takes a lot of money to be able to do something like that for someone. Throw a big banquet, invite all of your friends. And he did that for Jesus. Matthew was able to take as much money as he wanted.
He was able to write his own ticket. He was able to host a large gathering, supply all the food and all the drink. It is clear he had this comfortable lifestyle, but Matthew left everything and he never looked back after following Jesus. But before he does leave that lifestyle behind, before he leaves all those old friends and all those old relationships behind, he uses every bit of social credit and influence he has and he throws one last party. Not to forget all their problems as they had so many other times or to indulge themselves, but to introduce his friends to Jesus. I love that. He invites all his friends, all the scum of the earth.
Come on, guys. You need to hear about Jesus and what he did for me. He can do for you as well. See, Matthew, he really embodied what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 where he says, and as such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God. Matthew knew that he was scum. He knew that he was absolutely detestable and hated by society, and now he loved Jesus so much because he had been forgiven much.
There's that Bible verse, those who love much are forgiven much. Matthew had a new reputation. He had a new existence. He was a new creation ultimately, and he wanted to reach as many people as he could that had his same story and reach them for Jesus. He wasn't embarrassed or ashamed to mix these two groups of people together, the 12 disciples and Jesus and then his old friends of tax collectors and sinners and whoever else. Matthew's goal, again, was to expose this group of people to Jesus because he knew that is what they needed most. It's clear that Matthew had a lowly view of himself just after reading his gospel. He only mentions himself two times. There's his call when Jesus called him to be a disciple, and then there's the list of 12 when he lists all 12 disciples in a short paragraph, and he lists himself there, and that's the only two times he speaks of himself. Now compare that to John who wrote a wonderful gospel and we're very thankful for, but, you know, he's the one, the apostle whom Jesus loved, and I beat Peter to the tomb, like very self-grandizing, we'll say there, compared to Matthew.
Matthew had that very low view of himself, and Jesus loved him. Sometimes when people come to Christ, they want to isolate. They want to isolate. They want to get away from their old life, and they want to put so much distance between them and their old friends and their old personalities that they want to just, like, be a completely different person, not just a new creation in Christ, but, like, a whole different personality change, right? They want to become Puritan-like, right? They only want to eat Quaker oats, and they only want to speak in King James. They start speaking Christianese, and they start talking about living gospel community, and it's like, dude, you're going to the bowling alley for a costume party, and this is gospel community?
Okay, whatever. You're just hanging out with your Christian friends. Just be normal, right? Or when you go out to lunch with them, and they're about to eat their fish taco, they say, soli Deo gloria, O Father, and it's like, only for your glory. Dude, just eat the fish taco. Thank God for it, and pray you don't get a stomach ache, right?
Or when they answer the phone, they say, oh, hey, how's it going? Sorry, I was just reading Institutes by John Calvin while drinking my microbrew and smoking my cigar. See, that joke was more for me than it was for you. The point is, when we put our faith in Christ, he is not calling us to forget who we were. I think of different people in our church, Michael Franzese, who's here in the front row. He talks about his story as being part of the mafia and part of that life of crime, and he uses it for God's glory, talking about how he was lost. He didn't know what God had for him, but now God has redeemed him, and he uses his story as a testimony to point others to Jesus. I think of another guy I know, Christian Hisoi, who's a professional skateboarder who went to prison for drug abuse and drug possession, and ultimately, he thought, I'm going to have to give up skateboarding. I'm going to have to give up that whole identity, and I'll do that for you, Lord.
I will lay it down for you. And he heard the Lord really just say to him, no, I want you to use my story. I want you to use your story to reach others for me. And now he continues to do that. These guys are making impacts. They didn't completely erase their old story. They are new creations, and they talk about it, just like the Apostle Paul. He talks about who he was, what Christ did, and who they are now. As such were some of you. What reached you isn't some person that speaks in the King James language.
It's someone that needs to relate. We want to build bridges and not build walls. Amen?
Amen. And so we don't look down on those who don't know the Lord. We don't look down on those who don't know any different. We call out to them, and we invite them, and we pray that the Lord helps us to see them the way that Jesus saw us. Jesus knows your story, and that doesn't mean he's going to hit the reset button, but it does mean he is going to redeem it, and you can use that testimony to relate to others.
I often will just tell people, man, you know what happened to me? I got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I called out to God, and he forgave me. I was going down a dark path, and he led me to the light. Matthew wanted to lead his friends to Jesus and anyone who would listen.
And that brings us to point number three. Jesus calls you to see others. Look back at verse 29.
And then Levi gave him a great feast in his own house, and there were a great number of tax collectors and others who sat down with them, and their scribes and Pharisees complained against his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners? And Jesus answered and said to them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Now, can we just, for a moment, thank God for those words. Thank God for the mission that Jesus came on. He came for you and me. He came for people who have a need. He didn't come for those that have it all together or at least have the appearance of having it all together. He came for jacked up people like Jonathan Laurie.
He came for jacked up people like you, and we are so thankful for that. Again, the theme of this series is to show that no matter where you are on the spiritual spectrum, Jesus meets you right where you are at. More than ever, we have the opportunity to reach out to the disenfranchised, to the skeptics, to the outcasts, and to the scum of society. And I would encourage you, for a moment, think of who those people might be in your world. Who are the outcasts? Who are the people that, man, you would cross the street to not walk next to that person, right? Who are the people that you think are beyond the reach of God?
This is your sign to start praying for them and ask Jesus to help you see people the way that he sees them. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association conducted a survey recently, and they found that 82% of those who do not go to church, who are non-believers, if they were invited by a friend or a family member, they would go to church. 82%. That's wild, 82%. And even if, oh, that's a five-year-old study, okay, let's say it's 70%. Let's say it's 60%. 60% of those who are invited to church would go with you.
Man, that is, that's staggering. We need to be willing to invite people, go out of our comfort zone, and invite them to church. Hey, I'm going to church this Sunday.
Can I save you a seat? It's great. We're talking about this series, Jesus and You, and how Jesus meets us where we are at, and he works with all kinds of people. People love that story. They love hearing about Jesus. They love hearing about Jesus.
I think a lot of times we are concerned because we feel like we're gonna get into some debate with someone if we invite them to church. We're gonna have to get into some theological argument and practice our apologetics. Well, look at Matthew's story. What did Jesus say? Follow me. Two words.
Quick invitation. Matthew left everything behind. He practically jumped over the tax booth to get to Jesus. I think that's what's happening with a lot of people. They're willing to come to church. They're willing to hear what the Bible really has to say. They just need an invitation. Let's be thinking about who those people in our lives are together.
I know it's easy to put walls up. I know it's easy to write people off based on their behavior and their social media accounts or what candidate they support, but man, forget all that stuff. You wanna impact the United States of America? Bring people to Jesus.
That's gonna be what changes this country more than absolutely anything. Is leading people to the Lord and living out our faith. Remember a couple weeks back we talked about how Jesus cleans his fish after he catches them, right? Don't expect people to clean their lives up and then somehow come to Jesus. No, they need to come to Jesus and he will clean their lives up. You didn't clean your life up and then come to God. You come to God as you are and then you follow him and your life will be cleaned up automatically.
Those desires, those temptations, those pursuits no longer hold that same power in your life. And who was it again that complained about Jesus' company? The people that Jesus was surrounding himself with, tax collectors and sinners?
It was the Pharisees, the legalists, right? Look at those two words that Jesus says to Matthew. Follow me.
Just two words, follow me. And Matthew again practically just leaps over the table, tripping over himself to get after Jesus, that invitation. The miracle isn't in our words. The miracle isn't in our wisdom or our charisma or in our knowledge of apologetics and proving the case for Christ.
Yeah, there's a place for that. The miracle is the divine appointments that God preordains and you don't even realize. Okay, pastor, I'm gonna invite my neighbor to church.
I'm gonna finally invite my mom to church after all this time, I'm gonna do it. And what you don't realize is that before the foundations of the world today, it could be that that family member, that friend would be questioning their eternity. That they're thinking about what's gonna happen after they die.
That they're thinking, man, this is, whatever, watching something on television, it's terrifying, this is scary, the wars that are happening and the threats of whatever's going on. And they begin to question these things and it just so happens you knock on their door or you send them a text message, hey, would you like to come to church with me that Sunday? That's where the miracle is. Your small step of obedience is just meeting God's ultimate preordination for this event to happen. It is such a blessing to be that tool in God's hand.
That is the miracle that God brought the increase. He called that person to himself and you got to be that imperfect tool in the hands of a perfect God. Would you commit yourself to that today? That that's the miracle that you would be willing to say, God, use me, I know I'm flawed, I know that I'm not a great orator, I'm not a great speaker, but God, I'll make myself available to you. You don't want to be a wet noodle in God's hands. You want to be a stick.
You want to be something that he can use. Make that decision today and make yourself available to the Lord. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love for us. We thank you for men like Matthew that are just a great testimony for, as such for some of you, the underbelly of society, the forgotten, the damned, the detestable. Lord, you called him to be a part of not just your spiritual family, but as a part of your team, your 12 disciples.
Lord, if we were choosing, we would have obviously picked people that were influential and wealthy and handsome and rich and whatever it might be. But Lord, you chose those to show yourself strong on behalf of them. We thank you that you use imperfect people like us. Lord, we pray that you would help us to see others the way that you see them.
Lord, help us to remember where we were when you called us. Not many of us were wise by human standards or influential. You have chosen imperfect people and flawed people to accomplish your will. And so today we place ourselves in your very capable hands.
Lord, you saw Matthew, an imperfect, socially rejected tax collector, and you saw his potential and you called him to be your disciple. Lord, you see us with all of our flaws and you invite us to do the same. We know it's not how good we are, but how good you are. So Lord, help us. We want to be obedient. Help us to see others who feel like they don't belong and to build a bridge and bring them to church and ultimately lead them to you, Jesus. That's our goal.
Help us to do that. And while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and we're praying here together, I want to tell you again that Jesus sees you. He sees you. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He knows the struggles that you've faced.
He knows the things that have happened to you that are difficult, the decisions that you've made, the regrets that you hold. And he says to you today, follow me and be my disciple. Today at church on November 10th, would you make that decision? Would you put your faith in Jesus Christ today? Would you ask him to be your Lord and Savior?
I'll tell you this right now. If you do, you'll walk out of here a changed person. From the inside out, he will change you. He sees you.
He knows everything about you. He knows your failures and your sins, and he still loves you so much. So if you'd like to put your faith in Jesus Christ today, would you just pray this prayer out loud after me that you would mean it in your heart?
Pray this now. Dear God, I know I'm a sinner, but I know Jesus is the Savior who died on the cross for my sin. And I turn from that sin from this moment forward, and I make you my Savior and my Lord. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and use me, God, as I make myself available.
Thank you for loving me. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. God bless you. Pray that prayer just now.
Awesome. Hey everybody, thanks for listening to this podcast. To learn more about Harvest Ministries, follow this show and consider supporting it. Just go to harvest.org. And to find out how to know God personally, go to harvest.org and click on Know God.
