A Soul-Searching Walk Alongside Jesus, Part 2

Matthew 9 records a sequence of encounters between Jesus and the people He met. Along His travels, Jesus stopped to pardon the guilty, heal a paralytic man, and even fraternize with tax collectors. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll recreates these scenes for us, challenging us to receive these moments as Jesus intended.

The miracles were performed to illustrate that Jesus was indeed the Son of the Living God, and He was calling on everyone He met to follow Him. Chuck titled today's message, A Soul Searching Walk Alongside Jesus. Father, we do thank You for answered prayer, and we realize that in answering, You have Your own timetable.

And You plan not only the depth and breadth of a test, You plan the length of it. You are our God. We heard it sung, You are our only God. One Lord. One faith.

Only one in whom we trust to believe in other gods is to follow the teaching of idolatry. We want to follow You, Lord, even though the following includes the unexpected, times of disappointment, often surprise, and frequently deep, lingering lessons to learn. I pray for those today who have deep needs in their lives, about which they are praying.

People they love, who have wondered, and many of whom have never even come near the things of God. I pray that You would encourage them as they wait on You to reach those who are astray. Thank You, Father, for never giving up on us, for always seeing us as what we are to become, not what we are. Thank You, Father, that You have not written us off, even though we have failed and will fail again.

Thank You for the ability of the mind to imagine. Help us to do that as we take this journey, brief though it is, on this one day with Jesus, our Master, Your Son. May we feel the boat beneath our feet when we sit in it, the crush of the crowd in the home as the paralyzed man is brought among us.

The prejudice in our own heart when we see You calling a man, all the culture around us hates a tax collector. Help us to sit at that table that was served in honor of Jesus when those fellow tax gatherers sat with him and when he answered the critics who could never get beyond their own self-righteous religion. And before we leave proud of ourselves, may we be broken, realizing that we too are prejudiced, we too have written people off, we too have failed to see the potential in a Matthew.

Enable the truth that is printed on a page come alive, not only before our eyes, but within our own hearts. And may we leave different than when we came. We're grateful, Father, that we have the privilege of helping our community. May we do so with great joy, with passion, with mercy, reaching out to those in need who live across the street, across the states, and across the seas. Give us the faith to believe that you will use our efforts to touch children whom we will never meet on this earth, but who will be fed and loved and encouraged. May we realize that the greatest message we have is a message of love from you, our Father, from whom we've learned it. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we pray and we give. And all God's people said, amen.

And now the message from Chuck, titled, A Soul-Searching Walk Alongside Jesus. There was never a more unlikely candidate for the office of disciple or apostle than Matthew. Matthew was a Jew, but he's working for Rome. And you already know what the Jews thought of the Romans, so he's a turncoat. He's got his hands in Jewish pockets, but he's answering to Roman authorities. And he is one hated man. Jesus reaches out and says to Matthew, follow me and be my disciple.

He's going to be one of us. This tax gatherer, Matthew, got up and followed him. Luke adds, he left everything and followed him. If that wasn't enough, now pay attention. Being a disciple, Matthew invited Jesus and us.

See it? Jesus and his disciples to his home. Luke tells us it was in honor of Jesus, who was the guest of honor, and he brought him along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. Don't you love the word others? It's kind of like saying we want you to come and bring along your wife and other gossips.

See what it does? It puts everybody in the category of a gossip. Bring along this man and also other crooks who worked alongside him. The point is the room is filled with people that you and I would have looked down on because of what they did for a living. And they're all sitting together at this table and having the time of their life. Matthew's there because he's so excited about their meeting his master, whom they do not know. But as you would imagine, the Pharisees were looking in the windows and they were squinting their eyes and so they asked his disciples, so maybe one of you heard them, what does your teacher eat with such scum? Can you tell me how he gets away with this and calls himself a spiritual leader? At that moment, it's great to be a disciple.

You look to Jesus for the answer, and he gives a classic answer. Look at this. Without any preparation, he responds, healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do. Isn't that great?

I love that answer. What does it tell you about yourself? I'm not here because people are healthy. I'm here because people are sick. That's why the Father sent me on this mission called redemption or salvation. And then he added, he says this to these self-righteous Pharisees, you go and learn the meaning of the scripture. He quotes Hosea 6, verse 6, check it for yourself. I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.

You are busy involved in the liturgy of your religion. You have it down pat. You've got the answers for whatever is asked of you and you always come out smelling like a rose. You are the star of the show. You are the most important person in the group. I suggest that you learn the meaning of the scripture first to show mercy. Chesed, Chesed is the Hebrew word. It's the idea of loving kindness. Show loving kindness and not spend your time bragging about the sacrifices that you offer. For I've not come to call those who think they are righteous but those who know they are sinners.

By the way, I love it that Jesus called Matthew to be one of the disciples. I love it that he would sit down at the table with him and with his cronies. To illustrate what a scandal that was, I'm going to take you back to 1978. To a ball game that you will not remember but you will remember an event if you're a football fan. It's the Gator Bowl. The Ohio State is playing Clemson. Ohio State is coached by a man named Woody Hayes.

Stay with me. Sports fans already know where I'm going. Woody has trouble restraining his anger and feels passionate about Ohio State. And they're fighting to win this game and the quarterback throws a pass right into the arms of Charlie Bauman who is a linebacker for Clemson. He catches the ball, intercepts it and runs it in the other direction and winds up pretty close to where Woody Hayes is standing. Remember what happened?

You football fans remember. Woody lost it. And he hit the kid in the throat. And it got on national television and it was repeated over and over and over and over. Appropriately, Woody Hayes was fired from Ohio State. And he became a recluse. He was a hated man. There were very few who still would even want to talk to Woody Hayes. He had blown it royally.

I understand from a private source that something happened that turned things around. There was a very special sports event, a gala held in honor of some who were being awarded for their athletic ability. And Coach Tom Landry at that time, coach of the Cowboys, was invited to attend, of course. And guess who he brought as his guest?

Yep, the one you wouldn't have talked to and I wouldn't have either, most likely. He invited Woody Hayes to be his honored guest and to come with him. Had him sit right by him and for the first time in who knows how long he was able to connect again with the public, the real world, that had written him off. Which reminds me of a brief conversation I had with a man this morning who said to me with a broken heart, I've been written off. In details I'll not go into, nor would he want me to, but he said I was once a part of ministry and I blew it and I'm nobody now. So I have to ask you, have you written anybody off? I know, I know, if you were to take your time, it would probably lead to the story of a scandal.

And you know a lot about it and you know the embarrassment it caused and the hurt to many people. But have you written that fallen person off? There's something here more than just another story about a man in a tax booth being called to be a disciple. There's something about the answer Jesus gives where he says physicians are not those who come to help those who are healthy.

They're not needed by them. And physicians are those who work with those who are sick. Those who are spiritual physicians work with the outcasts. It's our responsibility. My heart goes out, Jesus would say to the outcasts, those who live in the muck and mire of disgrace and shame.

My mission field is to reach them. I was sent to claim the hearts of those who were sinful. By the way, you might as well say it, a lot of us have been around churches a lot longer than we were around the outcasts. Our whole world is church. Our friends are church people. We know best the church songs. When we have a dinner party, it's church folks we invite. We don't have a lot to do with a neighbor who doesn't understand our world. Especially if that neighbor is living a life that's shameful in our standard of living. I think it was Howie Hendricks who said it doesn't take the average Christian more than three or four years to remove from his or her life those who were lost as we center more and more attention on only those who are saved.

It's a comfort zone. They understand our world, but that is not Christianity. I love the quote I was given this past week written by Robert Murray McCain. The Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God.

I like that. It's not a thorough definition. It's not a theological statement that is meant to be studied by theologians. It's a general statement. Listen to it.

Let it linger. The Christian is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God. Do you? You know what I think? I think Jesus did. That's why Luke tells us that a lot of his followers were people like this. Isn't that interesting?

They felt very welcome. I appreciate the honest writing of George McLeod. I'll simply argue that the cross be raised again at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I'm recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves, on a town garbage heap at a crossroad of politics so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew, and in Latin, and in Greek, and at the kind of place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble, because that is where he died, and that is what he died about, and that is where Christ's men and women ought to be, and what church people ought to be about. I appreciate your silence.

It means your thinking. Let the message land hard, especially if you're the type to write off individuals because of a lifestyle. This is a great time to come to terms with the fact that you may very well be a recovering Pharisee. When was the last time you spent an evening with a lost person, or found yourself comfortable in a group of them where they told jokes you wouldn't have told, or they drank beverages you wouldn't have drunk? It's their world.

It's not ours, admittedly. But isn't it interesting that Jesus said, I've come not to call those who think they're righteous but know they're sinners. Do you think you're righteous? Have you forgotten the fact that you also are IRS, an independent rotten sinner?

So am I. And the day we forget that is the day we start looking in through the window, wondering why other people are not doing what we think they ought to be doing. We're not in charge of other people.

We have a full-time job taking care of ourselves. I know I do. And I know that before God, I'm an undeserving, rotten sinner to the core. And if he had not reached me, you don't even want to know the lifestyle I'd be living. I'd have never gotten the woman I got to marry me.

I would have never, ever had any kind of impact in the lives of other people. In the grace of God, he reached down and looked at me inside my own tax collector's booth and invited me in to his band of men and women. And for that, I'm eternally grateful. That's why I call this a soul-searching walk alongside Jesus. I think the disciples were forever, forever amazed at their master. They were far tighter than he was, far more judgmental, far more prejudiced.

Would you have invited Woody Hayes to that event? See what I mean? It's just the way we're put together.

And we've learned bad habits because we have gotten religious without realizing that the Christian is the one who makes it easy for another person to believe that there is a God. I urge you to take this to heart. You don't need imagination to do that. In fact, you have to deal with reality.

And it isn't very comfortable. Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, Lamb of God, I come, just as I am. What a great song, what a great approach. As we stand before our God, who knows the whole truth? You know what happens when this occurs? We learn a vital lesson in humility. And we leave our pride here as we walk out those doors. Don't we?

We do. Let's bow together. It was the psalmist who prayed, search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and test my thoughts. See if there'll be any wicked way in me. And then lead me in another way, the everlasting way.

Your pride taken over, have you found yourself really becoming prejudiced, really narrow, self-serving, so easy to get like that. It's a great moment for the believer to search our hearts and for you who are without Jesus to know that he loves you, died that you might live, forgives you that you might walk in purity, not in shame or heartbreak. I invite you to come to him today, just as you are, just as you are. Soul searching, our Father, we admit that. And suddenly these 13 verses jump off the page and find a place in our own lives.

We can see ourselves lived right here in the print of these sentences. And that is Bible knowledge at its best. Teach us, Father, the value of walking in grace and truth. Guard us from self-serving statements and prejudicial looks and caustic comments.

Help us to be among your propagandists, those who make it easy for people to know you. Free us up, Father, from our self-made righteousness and bring us to the cross and leave us there. I pray this for myself first and then for all of us together. In Jesus' name, I ask it.

Everyone said, Amen. Rather than live in isolation, Jesus called us to step outside our comfort zones, to share his grace and mercy with others. You're listening to Insight for Living. And to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, A Soul Searching Walk Alongside Jesus. This call to action from Jesus will command our attention for the next several programs, as it should. After all, Jesus said healthy people don't need a doctor, sick people do. And in light of his calling, we're inspired to take Insight for Living beyond the borders of Texas and into all 195 countries of the world.

We call this Vision 195. It's an audacious goal, but it reflects the great commission of Jesus to go into all the world and make disciples. Greatfully, these efforts are bearing fruit. Together, as partners with our monthly companions and anyone who financially supports Insight for Living ministries, people are drawing near to Jesus. Let me encourage you by reading a comment that just arrived from the Middle East. One of your fellow listeners said, Chuck, I've been working in Qatar for almost 12 years now, and I don't have a Bible.

I just downloaded the Insight for Living and Bible apps. I read your daily devotions and listen to your sermons. Your words and encouragement reach me through technology. Well, this moment and countless others are made possible by those who financially support the Ministry of Insight for Living.

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That's 1-800-772-8888. Or give a donation by going directly to insight.org slash donate. Thank you for your generous support of Insight for Living. I'm Dave Spiker. Tuesday, Chuck Swindoll describes a nonstop day of miracles. Listen again tomorrow to Insight for Living. you