Matthew is continuing what he started in Matthew chapter 8.
Jesus has come out of the wilderness where He was tempted by the devil. He passed the test. He launches His ministry as the Messiah, as the Savior King.
He starts preaching the good news about God’s kingdom.
He says, “The kingdom of God is at hand. The kingdom of God is near. The kingdom of God is in your midst.”
In other words, the rule and reign of God is breaking into our fallen and broken world through Jesus.
The process of God taking the world back for Himself from the fall has begun.
And at the end, when God has finished His work through Jesus Christ and His people, our fallen and broken world will no longer be fallen and broken.
There will be what Revelation calls a new heaven and a new earth.
That word “new,” really the best way to translate it would be “renewed heaven and renewed earth.”
The Lord is renewing our world.
He is restoring our world.
He is redeeming our world through Jesus Christ and His ministry in the world.
We are seeing the very beginning of that process in the Gospel of Matthew and Mark and Luke and John.
But the end of that process we see playing out in Revelation 21, as the whole world is made new, and the Lord says:
“Behold, I am making all things new.”
—Revelation 21:5 (WEB)
Jesus has begun that kingdom ministry in the Gospel of Matthew, and now He is continuing on in that ministry.
Jesus Has God’s Kingly Authority
In Matthew chapter 8, we see Jesus demonstrating that He is not just a teacher.
He is not just a Rabbi.
He is not just a prophet.
He is not just a great man of God.
He is a man who has God’s kingly authority over sickness and health.
He heals a leper.
He heals the servant of a centurion.
He heals Peter’s mom.
He heals so many others who are sick.
At the same time, He demonstrates that He has kingly authority over the weather patterns.
He tells the winds and the waves to be still, and they obey.
And He even has God’s kingly authority over the demons and the forces of darkness.
He tells the demons to leave these people they are possessing, and the demons submit to His kingly authority.
That same pattern is continuing here in Matthew chapter 9.
We see once again Jesus has God’s kingly authority over sickness and health.
He goes and He heals a woman who has been bleeding for 12 years.
She has been menstruating for 12 years.
There are a number of medical disorders that basically cause you to constantly be in a state of menstruation.
She has one of those disorders, and that has caused all kinds of havoc in her life.
And Jesus says to this disorder, “Be gone,” and it is gone.
He heals a man who’s been paralyzed for years, and He says to his paralysis, “Be gone,” and it is gone.
He heals someone who’s been blind for years.
He says to his blindness, “Be gone,” and it is gone.
Jesus has the kingly authority of God to cast out our paralysis, cast out our blindness, cast out our bleeding disorder.
He has God’s kingly authority over sickness and health.
Jesus Has God’s Kingly Authority Over Life and Death
But as we move into Matthew chapter 9, Matthew actually ratchets up the tension even more.
He raises the stakes because he shows that not only does Jesus have God’s kingly authority over sickness and health and paralysis and blindness and bleeding and leprosy and so forth, Jesus has God’s kingly authority over life and death.
A synagogue leader comes, and he says, “My daughter is on her deathbed.”
And while he is talking to Jesus, some of his servants come, and they say, “Stop bothering the teacher. Your daughter died.”
And so he thinks all hope is lost.
He’s seen Jesus heal the sick, but he’s never seen the dead raised up.
And so he’s ready to go back home and prepare a funeral.
But Jesus says, “Stop.”
He goes to his house.
He takes the girl’s hand and says, “Arise,” and this girl goes from being dead to being alive again.
He resuscitates this girl.
He raises up this girl in the same way that He’s going to do to Lazarus in the Gospel of John.
Jesus doesn’t just have the power over sickness and health.
Jesus has God’s kingly authority over life and death.
He has the power to raise up the dead.
Jesus Has God’s Divine Authority to Forgive Sin
But this is still the shallow end of the pool because, as Matthew continues, he’s going to say something even more shocking about Jesus.
Because finally, he says Jesus doesn’t just have God’s kingly authority over sickness and health.
He doesn’t just have God’s kingly authority over life and death.
He doesn’t just have God’s kingly authority over the weather patterns and the environment.
He doesn’t just have God’s kingly authority over the demons and the forces of darkness.
Jesus has God’s kingly authority to forgive sin.
When the paralytic man is brought to Him by his friends and Jesus heals his paralysis and says, “Get up and walk,” He says something else that’s even more astounding.
He says:
“Son, cheer up! Your sins are forgiven you.”
—Matthew 9:2 (WEB)
And that really pisses off the scribes and Pharisees and religious leaders.
Why does it make them so angry?
It’s because technically what He just said is blasphemy.
If anyone else in the world said what Jesus just said, it would be blasphemy.
If a rabbi went to someone and said, “Your sin is forgiven. I forgive you of your sin,” they would be blaspheming.
Why?
Because only God has the authority to forgive sin.
This is not just a kingly authority.
This is a divine authority.
This is an authority vested only in the God of the universe.
When you sin, the only one who has the authority to absolve your sin is the God you sinned against.
In Psalm 51, David is repenting of the way that he had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba and a whole bunch of other stuff that was even worse.
And he says to the Lord:
“Against you, and you only, I have sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight.”
—Psalm 51:4 (WEB)
God alone has the authority to forgive and absolve and wipe away your sin.
But Jesus goes to this paralyzed man, and He says, “Your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus has not only God’s kingly authority but also God’s divine authority.
So Jesus is not just our Savior.
He is also our King.
And Jesus is not just our King.
He is also our God.
Just like the angel told Joseph in Matthew chapter 1:
“They shall call his name Immanuel,” which is, being interpreted, “God with us.”
—Matthew 1:23 (WEB)
Do you remember?
God with us.
He tells Joseph, “The unborn baby in your virgin fiancée’s womb is not just a teacher or a prophet or a Rabbi or a great man of God. The unborn baby in your virgin fiancée’s womb is God come down from heaven to rub elbows with humanity and to save them from their sin.”
Jesus is God Himself.
He left the riches of heaven so that He could redeem us and restore the world.
Again, if you understand that the Bible is the story of God’s redemptive work in the world to redeem humanity and restore the world, then you can understand all the little pieces of the story as they come.
So Jesus is our Savior and our King and our God, and He is clearly communicating all of those things through these acts of authority that He performs.
He has authority over sickness and health.
He has authority over life and death.
He has authority over the weather and the environment.
He has authority over the demons and the forces of darkness.
And He has authority to forgive our sins.
So what does Jesus do with this absolute authority He has as our Savior and King and God?
He does two things in Matthew chapter 9.
1. Jesus Restores the Outcasts
As our Savior and our God and our King, Jesus restores the outcasts.
In Matthew chapter 8, He goes to these outcast lepers, and He restores them.
In the ancient world, because leprosy was so contagious and so destructive, they had absolutely no choice but to quarantine the lepers.
They had to section lepers off into leper colonies, into places where no one could live except lepers.
They were not allowed to leave the leper colonies, and no one was allowed to go inside the leper colonies.
If a leper left their colony, they could be put to death for endangering the community.
So they were, by necessity—it wasn’t cruelty, it was necessity—lepers were outcasts.
As our Savior and King and God, Jesus goes to the outcast lepers.
He touches those lepers, and He says, “Be made clean. Be restored to the community.”
He says, “You are not an outcast anymore. Come back home.”
Jesus restores the outcast leper.
And now in Matthew chapter 9, Jesus restores this outcast woman who’s been menstruating for 12 years.
In the ancient world, they saw menstrual blood as unclean.
It would take an hour to explain all the reasons why that was.
Remember, we live in a modern world with modern science and modern healthcare, and that means that we are able to sanitize things in a way that they were not able to back then.
We are able to make things safe and sanitary in a way that they were not able to back then.
So we don’t have to section people off from society because they have Hansen’s disease—that’s one form of leprosy.
We don’t have to section people off from society because they are menstruating.
We don’t have to section people off from society because of this and that and this and that.
But it was a different world back then.
So once again, in the ancient world, they saw menstrual blood as unclean.
Whenever a woman was menstruating, she had to be separated from the rest of the camp temporarily during her menstrual period.
And so if you are this woman and you’ve been menstruating for 12 years, what does that mean?
It means you’ve been separated from society for 12 years.
This woman has been outcast from society.
By necessity—it wasn’t cruelty—but she’s been, by necessity, outcast from society for 12 years of her life.
What does Jesus do?
He goes to this woman, and He says, “Be made clean.”
He says, “You are not an outcast anymore.”
As our Savior and King and God, Jesus restores the outcasts.
Our Churches Should Be a Refuge for Outcasts
And in exactly the same way today, our churches should be a refuge for outcasts.
Our churches should be a refuge for people on the margins of society.
Our churches should be a refuge for people who don’t fit in anywhere.
People who struggle to make friends, who struggle to form bonds, who struggle to form connections in every other part of life, should be able to find friends and bonds and connections and a family in the church.
They should be able to go to a church, and it should be the easiest place in the world to become part of a community.
Church should not be the hardest place in the world to fit in.
It should be the easiest place in the world to fit in because we serve and worship a God—we are disciples of a Rabbi—whose mission was to gather the outcasts and bring them into His community.
That’s the first thing Jesus does as our Savior and King and God here in Matthew 9.
2. Jesus Restores the Sinners and the Failures
Jesus goes, and He finds this man named Matthew, who, as it happens, most likely is the author of the Gospel of Matthew.
So He goes and finds the author of this book.
Well, who was the author of this book?
He was a tax collector.
Tax collectors were the most despised people in society in Israel in the first century because tax collectors worked for the Roman government.
The government was using Jewish tax collectors to collect exorbitant taxes from the Jewish peasants, from the Israeli population.
So if you were a tax collector, you would be cut off by your family.
You would be kicked out of the synagogue.
You would be avoided by everyone.
All your friends would leave you.
No self-respecting Israelite would ever associate with a tax collector.
I’m trying to think of an example of somebody today in society that would be this widely reviled.
They looked at tax collectors the way that you and I look at, like, pedophiles or something like that.
They looked at them as the absolute scum of the earth.
And you were literally in danger of being attacked or even killed if you found yourself as a tax collector alone in a back alley with no Roman soldiers around to protect you.
You literally needed bodyguards because of how much the population despised you.
That is who Matthew was.
So Jesus goes to Matthew, this man who is seen as the scum of the earth, and He says:
“Follow me.”
—Matthew 9:9 (WEB)
“You come be My disciple.”
He says, “You come be part of My kingdom. Come be part of God’s family. Come join Me in My kingdom work and kingdom mission.”
Jesus picks the absolute least likely person ever to become part of His kingdom and family and community.
He’s restoring the chief of sinners.
And then He goes a step further because Matthew has Jesus over at his house, and he has all of his tax collector buddies.
It says his house was filled with tax collectors and sinners.
We don’t know exactly what that means, but generally speaking, in the first century, when they said “tax collectors and sinners,” that was kind of a catchall term to describe all the worst people you can imagine.
It would be like today if we said “thugs,” right?
Like, “I went somewhere, and it was filled with thugs,” right?
“I went out there, and I got attacked by a bunch of thugs.”
Like, you’re saying a bunch of criminals.
You’re saying a bunch of lowlifes, a bunch of whatever, right?
He says tax collectors and sinners were gathered together at Matthew’s house, and Jesus is there having dinner with them.
He’s there talking to them.
He’s there counseling them.
He’s there teaching them.
He is there talking to them about the kingdom of God.
He is preaching and teaching the same message He teaches to absolutely everybody else.
He’s saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”
He says, “My kingdom has come and is coming. My rule and reign is breaking into this fallen and broken world. Don’t be part of the brokenness of the world. Come join Me as I am redeeming and restoring the world.”
He says, “Leave behind your old ways.”
He says, “Leave behind your sin. Leave behind your brokenness. Leave behind your addictions. Leave behind all of this, and come let Me heal you. Let Me restore you. Let Me change you. Let Me transform you. Let Me redeem you by My blood on the cross and then start working in your heart and your life to change you from the inside out.”
So Jesus has gathered together with these sinners and tax collectors, and He’s there to restore them.
Jesus restores the sinners and the failures.
Jesus Is a God for the Broken
Jesus is a God for the broken.
He’s a God for the hurting.
He’s a God for the struggling.
He’s a God for the lost.
He is a God for people who do not have it together.
He is a God for people who cannot seem to get it on track.
He is a God for people who cannot get it right.
He is a God for people who fail in one way after another.
He is a God for people who desperately want to be good but just keep missing the mark.
He is a God for broken and messed-up and jacked-up people like you and me.
And once again, because that is true, our churches should be a refuge for sinners.
A lot of times people are like, “What are we going to do if a drug addict comes to our church?”
It’s like, “You’re not going to do anything. You’re going to say, ‘Welcome.’ You’re going to become friends with them. You’re going to become part of their life. You’re going to bring them into your community. You’re going to become like family with them, and then you’re going to do everything you possibly can to help them get out of that cycle of addiction.”
“What do we do if a person who is struggling with some form of sexual sin comes to our church?”
You’re going to bring them in.
You’re going to say, “Welcome.”
You’re going to become their friend.
You’re going to become like family.
You’re going to become part of their life.
You’re going to bring them into your community, and you’re going to do everything you can to help them break out of that cycle.
That’s what happens in God’s family.
That’s what happens in God’s kingdom.
That’s what happens in the church.
Lost and broken and hurting and struggling and messed-up and jacked-up people who cannot get it together and cannot get their life on track and constantly fall short and fail are transformed from the inside out by the power of the Holy Spirit because of the blood of Jesus that has redeemed them and is now restoring them.
Jesus restores the outcasts, and He restores sinners and failures, and so should we.
Our chief mission, our purpose in life as God’s kingdom people, is to find the lost and the broken and the hurting and the struggling and introduce them to the God who wants to redeem them and restore them.
The Presence of Jesus Is Cause for Celebration
So Jesus uses His authority as Savior and King and God to redeem and restore the outcasts and the sinners, and that is cause for celebration.
The presence of Jesus is cause for celebration.
People’s lives are being turned around.
People are being transformed.
People are being lifted up out of the pit just by the pure power of Jesus’s presence and influence.
And because that is true, His ministry was constantly a party.
His entourage was constantly a party.
His disciples were not constantly sad-faced.
They were not constantly fasting because they were mourning for this or that.
They were not constantly down in the dumps.
Being around Jesus was like a constant party.
They were constantly eating and drinking.
They were having a good time.
They were hanging out.
They were playing games.
They were doing all sorts of good, fun stuff.
That is what it was like to be around Jesus.
Like, have you ever wondered why people were so drawn to Jesus?
It’s because Jesus was very different from all of the unbelievably boring and judgmental and stick-in-the-mud and kindly church people you grew up with, right?
If Jesus was like those people, nobody would have been drawn to Him.
He had a presence that exuded grace and that exuded celebration.
So long as Jesus was present, there was celebration to be had.
His ministry was like a constant party.
And as a result, the disciples of John the Baptist look on, and they say, “This doesn’t seem right.”
They say, “We’re constantly fasting, but they are constantly celebrating. We are constantly mourning, but they are constantly rejoicing. Why?”
And Jesus says, “It’s because I am the bridegroom, and I am with you, and right now is the time for celebration. The Savior has come, so you should be celebrating. Your King has come, so you should be celebrating. God has come in human flesh, so you should be celebrating.”
The Religious Leaders Refuse to Celebrate
But there is one group of people who was not celebrating, and that was the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
It was the scribes.
It was the temple priests.
The entrenched religious leaders in Israel did not celebrate the coming of Jesus.
They lamented the coming of Jesus.
They hated Jesus.
Why did they hate Jesus?
It was not because He claimed to be the Messiah.
They were looking for the Messiah.
They were waiting for the Messiah.
They were eager for the Messiah to come.
They were dreaming of the day the Messiah came.
But they hated Jesus because when He came, He was not the kind of Messiah they were looking for.
He was not the kind of Savior they were looking for.
They didn’t want to be saved from their sins.
They wanted God to punish everybody else’s sins.
Their idea of salvation was for God to come and destroy the Roman Empire, make Israel the most powerful nation in the world so that they could enslave everybody else.
That’s what the entrenched religious leaders in Israel wanted.
They wanted God to come and empower Israel to subject every other nation.
They wanted God to come and empower Israel to crush all of their oppressors and then become the oppressor.
Their vision of salvation was not to be redeemed from their sin and forgiven and made part of God’s family and kingdom.
Their vision of salvation was just a kind of hyper-Zionism.
They thought salvation meant that God made them powerful and everybody powerless.
But God’s vision of salvation is that we are redeemed of our sin and the world is restored.
God’s vision of salvation is that the outcasts are restored.
God’s vision of salvation is that the sinners and the failures are restored.
God’s vision of salvation is all-encompassing for all people.
He is a God for all of us.
They wanted a God and a Savior and a King who was for them alone.
Jesus did not fit their narrow definition of Messiah.
So they said, “We need to kill this guy.”
They opposed Him at every step of the way.
They constantly tried to trip Him up.
They did everything they could to put a spoke in the wheel of His ministry.
They were trying to crush Jesus by whatever means necessary.
They weren’t celebrating.
They were lamenting.
It is just like Matthew 2.
The religious leaders in Jerusalem hear that the Savior has been born in Bethlehem, and they don’t even care enough to go to Bethlehem.
Who went to Bethlehem?
The three pagan Gentile astrologers, the Magi.
You see the outsiders being drawn into the grace of God and transformed by His presence, and you see the insiders, the entrenched elite, seeing themselves out, rejecting Him, walking away from the Lord entirely, eventually crucifying Him.
The Harvest Is Plentiful
But here’s the thing.
Jesus didn’t worry about any of that.
Jesus paid zero mind to His attackers.
He paid zero mind to His detractors.
He paid zero mind to the entrenched religious leaders who were set on crushing Him and bringing Him down and killing Him.
Instead, what did Jesus focus on?
He focused on the harvest.
Jesus looked out, and He saw the crowds of people.
He saw the peasant Israelites.
He saw all these people out there like sheep without a shepherd.
They were desperately hungry for the presence of God, but they had no one to lead them.
They were desperately hungry for the Lord’s salvation, but there was no one to guide them.
They were desperately hungry to know the Lord and worship the Lord and serve the Lord, but there was no one to pour into them and teach them and train them and disciple them.
So Jesus said, “This is My harvest.”
He said, “My focus is on finding the lost and the hurting and the broken and the struggling and coming and introducing them to the God who wants to redeem them and restore them.”
He says:
“The harvest indeed is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest will send out laborers into his harvest.”
—Matthew 9:37–38 (WEB)
So He takes His disciples, and they start recruiting.
They find people who are desperate to get in on God’s kingdom work and kingdom mission, and they say, “Join us, and we will go out into the harvest, and we will introduce the lost and the broken and the hurting and the struggling to the God who wants to redeem them and restore them. Join us in God’s kingdom work. Become fishers of people.”
And that is the same call that God has placed on us today.
We are God’s kingdom workers.
We are Christ’s disciples.
We are the laborers for the harvest.
The harvest is still there, and the Lord has sent us out.
He has sent us out to the harvest to go and find the lost sheep without a shepherd.
So now we are called to go.
Go Fish for People
Who in your life do you know that needs to be introduced to the God who wants to redeem them and restore them?
Go out and talk to them.
Start up a conversation with them.
Let this be the beginning of your work to bring them to the feet of Jesus so that they can be saved.
Go fish for people.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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