Do What Jesus Did

All right, so we're in this series disciple, right?

And we're kicking off the new year, looking at what it means to be a disciple because at Sacred Mission, we believe we are sent on mission to make disciples and plant churches.

And so if we're going to be making disciples, we have to start with understanding what a disciple is.

And we've been looking at the call that Jesus makes to follow him, be a disciple, right?

We look at the cost Jesus cautions us to weigh before we actually step out and follow after him.

And then we started to look at the identity of a disciple.

A disciple is someone who is with Jesus to be like Jesus, to do what Jesus did.

And so this morning we're looking at what it does mean to do what Jesus did.

And I want to start us off by looking at this letter from John the Beloved.

He says in 1 John 2, 5 through 6, but whoever keeps his word being Jesus, in him truly the love of God is perfected.

By this we may know, we have assurance and confidence that we are in him.

Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

I think the language that John uses is very interesting in this passage.

Because he comes from a tradition and understanding that a disciple was called to follow after the footsteps of his rabbi.

In fact, they would actually pray this blessing over disciples.

May you be covered in the dust of your rabbi.

May you follow so closely after him that when his sandals kick up the dirt on the journey before you, that you would be covered in it.

And here's what John's saying: may you be so close to Jesus that if you declare that you abide in him, that you would walk in the very same way in which he walked.

You see, John the Beloved is a spiritual father who's writing his letter to these dear children, so that they may know.

This is an emphasis he makes throughout the letter, so that they may know the hope and beauty of the gospel.

In his letter, he offers some wisdom and insight to those who would say, who would make the claim that their life is actually in Jesus.

And here in the second chapter, he's pointing back to the words of Jesus himself.

John heard these words with his own ears as he was in the upper room on the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest, he heard the Messiah himself call out to his disciples to abide in his love.

Verse 6 Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

What John is saying is that whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.

Or to understand it a different way, those who would be his disciples must not only be with him and be like him, but they must do as he did.

This is the aim of being a disciple, to carry on the work of the rabbi, what was transferred to them, they were to see continue in the world.

At the end of the day, that is what discipleship is ultimately for, to live in the same way in which he lived.

You see, this is actually what we would see as the natural and necessary outflow of a disciple who is with Jesus to be like Jesus.

As spiritual formation philosopher Dallas Willard says in his book, The Divine Conspiracy, the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.

So here's what we're gonna do this morning.

We're gonna just begin to try and understand what it means to do as Jesus did.

I'm not able to be exhaustive in this sermon to cover every aspect of this.

There are books upon books written about this subject, and we're focusing this entire year on discipleship.

And so we're hoping to unpack more of this throughout it.

But I want us to at least begin to lay the groundwork this morning.

To do this, we're gonna look at the call of Matthew, the tax collector, found in Matthew 9.

So if you have a Bible or if you have a device with an app on it, open up because we're gonna be going verse by verse.

We want to show you some things within the text.

Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

Now, here in this gospel account, Jesus has just done something miraculous.

He's healed a paralytic man who was lowered through a torn-off roof by his friends and set at the feet of Jesus.

The scriptures say that there were massive crowds that had gathered and they've pressed in to be near Jesus as he was teaching and proclaiming the gospel.

And as the paralytic man is lowered at Jesus' feet, Jesus looks at him and says this in Matthew 9, 2, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven.

Jesus proclaims the gospel to a crippled man sitting at his feet.

Now there were some scribes who were standing by, and they were listening to what Jesus was saying, and they accused him of blasphemy.

You see, their outcry that was that only God could forgive sin, and they questioned who Jesus was and by what power he actually be able to make such a proclamation of forgiveness and redemption.

And Jesus responds to them pointedly.

Matthew 9, 6a, we see Jesus' response.

But that you may know, that you may have confidence that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

He then said to the paralytic, Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.

You see, not only did Jesus proclaim the gospel, but Jesus demonstrated its power for a single purposed end.

That they would know its authenticity.

We can say that so flippantly, can't we?

It's lost so much gravity and weight.

But we have to try to remind ourselves and contemplate the depth and relentless nature of which Jesus loved people.

I would actually submit that the driving force behind Jesus' life and mission was to glorify the Father through perfect obedience by loving his people to the end.

It's one of my favorite verses out of the Gospel in John.

Jesus loved them to the end.

You see, we have to see Jesus as having a deep and driving love for people.

This is why he came.

Full of compassion, full of mercy and grace.

If we are like Jesus, this will be what starts to take shape within our heart.

We'll actually observe the sadness in our world.

We'll see the confusion in the minds and hearts of others.

We'll observe the suffering.

And something in us deep down will cry out Man, I want to do something about that.

I want to take action.

I want to make this better.

I'm actually sorry and grieve over the pain of which I see.

Secondly, Jesus preached the gospel.

Jesus preached the gospel.

We could easily say that Jesus healed because he really cared for people.

But what propelled Jesus from town to town was his desire to preach.

This is how he came into the world, right?

The public ministry of Jesus was first witnessed and experienced by his preaching and teaching the kingdom of God, calling people to faith and repentance.

This is the driving priority of Jesus' life.

To proclaim the gospel.

And if we are in Jesus, it is a priority for his people also.

So Jesus loved people, Jesus preached the gospel, Jesus affected the physical world.

Jesus affected the physical world.

Oftentimes we can see this thing called Christianity and faith as something so spiritual that it's unable to be grasped.

But the reality of the in-breaking of God through his kingdom is that he actually affects the physical world.

We get tastes and glimpses of it now, but one day all of creation will be restored and made new, and it will be this physical state of beauty and wholeness and peace of which we live in.

The gospel affects our physical world.

Jesus didn't simply teach about God as if he was so distant and far off that he could not be known by his people.

No, Jesus showed them the Father.

He gave them glimpses of glory and recreation, all through the inbreaking of his kingdom.

Now he did this through miracles, healings, casting out demons.

But he also did it simply through compassionately loving image-bearers who are in front of him.

This is our calling.

To show the world the love of the Father, to show the world the healing and reconciling power of the Spirit, to show the world the sacrificial servanthood of the Son in how we live.

You and I are supposed to show them what God is like.

And I would submit that the highest purpose for gospel demonstration is for the affirmation of gospel proclamation.

Remember the line that Jesus used before he healed the paralytic.

So that you may know, so that you may know that this gospel message is true and full of power.

See how it affects the physical world of this broken man.

These three aspects of the life and ministry of Jesus are present all here in the healing of the paralytic in Matthew.

You see, Jesus was near people because he deeply loved them and was moved by compassion for the paralyzed man.

He proclaimed the mercy of the Father and the forgiveness of sins to the man, and so that you may know he affected the physical world of the one suffering.

So if we get back to the story of the calling of Matthew, what we see is something very fascinating.

It's that from this miraculous, provocative, and thrilling moment, Jesus presses through the large crowds and continues on his journey.

And Matthew captures this moment for us in Matthew 9.9A.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth.

Here's what I want us to focus on.

In the midst of all this commotion, in the midst of all of this hurried state of being, Jesus had the awareness to see a man named Matthew.

You see, as he was working to get beyond the ignorant and indignant accusations of the scribes, as he pressed through the massive crowds of people who witnessed the miracle, as he would be swarmed with questions from his disciples and followers seeking to clarify what they just heard and saw, Jesus had the awareness and unhurried posture to see a sinful tax collector on the side of the path and stop and call him to follow after me.

When there seemed to be no space in that hurried moment, Jesus paused to make space for Matthew.

And so what I want us to see as this foundational work of doing what Jesus did.

Here's what he did so beautifully.

Jesus made space for gospel proclamation and demonstration.

Jesus made space for gospel proclamation and demonstration.

Something we see throughout the entire life and ministry of Jesus, it's not isolated to this moment with Matthew, is that as he was moving through life, he was aware of the people around him.

We even see in the story of the woman with the issue of blood, as the swarms of people are crowding him on the street and everyone's grabbing for his attention, he feels and senses and is aware of the grabbing hand of a woman who is so broken and needs his attention there in that moment.

You see, not only was Jesus just aware, but here's what Jesus did.

He regularly saw their presence as a more pressing matter than the event or destination that was before him.

Think about your life for a moment.

We live in a culture where we barely have space for ourselves.

Our calendars are filled to the max with work, kids' sports, all these things that demand our attention.

And when the first thought of discipling someone comes to mind, I would put forward that the first counterthought is I don't have space for that.

And can I just say we need to repent?

And I don't mean like walking out of here with a head nod of agreement of what I said.

I mean change your life.

Because if you don't have space for the gospel and the life of other people, we are failing to live as Jesus has called us to.

There was nothing that demanded Jesus' attention on Matthew.

Everything demanded Jesus' attention on everything else, right?

The crowds who had pressed in, the Pharisees and scribes who were accusing him of blasphemy, the miracle that just took place.

Jesus is pressing through all of this, and all of a sudden, on this path, there's this man doing what he does every single day of his life, and Jesus stops for him.

Jesus seizes an opportunity to make the very same call that he had made to others.

Follow me, Matthew.

See, this passage is actually recorded for us from Matthew's point of view.

And I love this because I think it allows us to see something about the way Jesus actually loved and engaged relationally with Matthew himself.

Because here's what I want us to see.

This call of Matthew, it's actually in all of the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

They all record this calling.

But there's something fascinating in the language of which they tell the story versus how Matthew tells the story.

You see, Luke records it this way.

In Luke 5.27, it says, After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth.

And he said to him, Follow me.

Mark says it like this, Mark 2.14.

And as he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alpheus, sitting at the tax booth.

And he said to him, Follow me.

And he rose and followed him.

Notice something here.

Luke recalls the scene by identifying Matthew with his sin.

There was a tax collector.

Mark recalls the scene by identifying Matthew with his family's story.

Oh, the son of Alphaus.

But when we get to see it through the eyes of Matthew himself, recalling this moment, we're brought into this beautiful display of gospel power.

Matthew says, he saw man.

He saw a man.

You see, when Jesus purposes to engage relationally with Matthew, he looks right through his sinful past.

He looks right through his family story.

And he sees Matthew in his humanity.

An image-bearer.

That's important for us.

We live in a culture where we don't identify people by their image-bearing state.

We identify them by labels that we want to cast upon them to disassociate ourselves with them.

It doesn't matter what label you want to throw on them.

You know them through that.

You know them by where they grew up.

You know them by the family they were raised under.

You know them by their identity that they claim in politics or sexual orientation or addiction or whatever you want to do.

You throw it on them, the color of their skin, it doesn't matter.

You say, look at that person.

And you throw this label on them, and it's meant to disassociate yourself with them.

It's not what Jesus does.

He doesn't say, hey, tax collector.

He doesn't say, oh, you son of Alphaeus.

No, he says, Matthew.

There's a man there.

There's a man there.

And Jesus stops to call him to himself.

If we want another place of which we can repent, it's to see human beings by the reality that they bear the image of God first and foremost and press near to them through that alone.

You see, this is how Matthew remembers it.

This is so beautiful to see it through his eyes because it's how he remembers being loved by Jesus.

He saw a man from this call.

To follow me, Matthew gets up from his office chair and he follows after Jesus.

It then says that Jesus actually goes to Matthew's house for a dinner party, that he was throwing for his friends to all meet Jesus, his new rabbi, Matthew 9:10.

Matthew 9:10

And as Jesus reclined at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples.

Here's what I want us to see.

One of the primary things Jesus ever did was make space for the gospel.

His life was marked by this.

He made space for the gospel.

He did not allow the hurry and demands of life to dictate his every waking moment.

Instead, he was aware of the people around him, sensitive to their presence, and would not only pause the hurried nature of life, but he would altogether change his plans to make space for the gospel.

Because for Jesus, people were priority.

People were priority.

If you show me your calendar, and I'll show you mine too, right?

There's transparency, vulnerability here.

What time do we have to fit in a person?

To fit in someone, to love them and to welcome them and to share the hope of the gospel with them, to demonstrate the gospel by the way that you radically lay your life down for their good.

For Jesus, people were priority because Jesus loved people.

The UK pastor Tim Chester wrote a great little book.

I highly recommend you pick it up if you are able.

It's called A Meal with Jesus.

And in this book, he points out this iconic language that the gospel writer Luke uses in his account.

He uses this phrase, the Son of Man came.

First, Luke writes this the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

This was his mission.

He came to seek and save the lost.

But then Luke, later on in the gospel, says this the Son of Man came eating and drinking.

This was how he did it.

This was his method.

You see, Jesus lived in a culture where a lot of people were very hostile toward him.

And how did he invite them into the beauty of his kingdom?

He did it one meal at a time.

And when Jesus made space for the gospel, look who showed up.

Many tax collectors and sinners.

And then he says to his servant, in this indignation, he says, Go out to the highways and hedges and call everyone to come in.

Call them all to come in.

Because this is what Jesus came to do.

He came to set the table for anyone who would sit with him to feast.

To make space for the gospel like Jesus did.

It demands that it is filled with a society of sinners.

And this frustrated the religious elite.

Right?

The Pharisees who were there present, that they actually asked his disciples this very pointed question.

Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

Pay attention to what's happening here.

In the very way they phrase the question, the Pharisees are working to disassociate themselves with Jesus.

Why does your teacher, your rabbi, why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?

And they're doing this fundamentally because of who Jesus is working to associate himself with.

You see, they want to be disassociated from Jesus because of who Jesus is being associated with.

This society of sinners who are feasting at his table.

Even the way that they phrase the question, it communicates this sense of habit.

This wasn't one time, one off incident where they're shocked and surprised by this.

Like, can you bring some clarity to this confusion?

No, no, no.

They've observed this being a rhythm in Jesus' life, and they're asking, why is this his way?

Why is this his way?

To share a meal with someone, it means to fundamentally be associated with them, to be unashamed of their presence at your table.

You see, the way of Jesus the rabbi was to joyfully associate with those who the religious elite would utterly refuse to, whom they would refuse to welcome to their table.

You see, this was the way of Jesus the rabbi.

And he was modeling for his disciples how to do what he had come to do.

Make space for the gospel and joyfully welcome and associate yourself with all who will come.

Jesus makes his purpose and mission absolutely clear for the self-righteous Pharisees who are condemning his way.

Verse 12.

You see, Jesus came to be a physician of the sins sick among us.

And here's what is so profound about this.

Jesus himself, he did not posture himself with others based on how their presence would benefit him, but because of how his healing presence would benefit their sin-sick state.

Jesus never entertained that thought or temptation.

Jesus knew what he had would benefit them.

And so it's never what they brought to the table because Jesus always prepared the table for them.

And then Jesus continues on.

He continues addressing the Pharisees with what I think is a very skillfully ironic charge.

He says this.

He says, Go and learn what this means.

We can't understand how offensive that statement would have been.

He's talking to the Pharisees.

These men have accomplished the highest level of Hebrew academia known to mankind.

They had gone to the house of learning.

They had memorized the Torah by the age of 17.

They were masters.

And here they have this man feasting with sinners and tax collectors, looking them in the eye and saying, Hey, you need to learn something.

And what does he proclaim?

He proclaims the word of God declared to his people through the prophet Hosea.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

You see, sacrifice symbolizes this strict obedience to the law of God.

So that we would be blessed and favored by God in our own righteous obedience.

Mercy?

Well, mercy was only needed for the people who screwed up in life, who didn't get it right, who weren't as righteous as we were.

You see, when the Pharisees saw someone who needed mercy, they didn't ever extend it because what they really saw is someone who deserved what they were getting.

Oh, you made these choices, right?

That's what we say to the addict.

You made these choices.

You're the one who did what you've done to get you in the situation you're in.

Hey, good luck, buddy.

That's the person we see in the confusion of sexual and gender dysphoria.

Hey, you're the one that's choosing all this.

You're the one that's gonna be cleaning up the mess.

Good luck.

We're the one who looks at others like the Pharisees did and say, You made your own bed, now lie in it.

You see, Jesus said, I desire mercy.

It's a lesson even we need to learn this morning.

Jesus did not say, I have come to bless those who have earned a blessing by their own self-righteousness.

No, he said, I've come to call the righteous.

I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

And when Jesus said, For I came not to call the righteous but sinners, he addressed the Pharisees directly.

Because they thought that they were the very standard of righteousness that every person should be striving for.

Jesus didn't come to call the righteous.

Because fundamentally, there are none who are righteous.

If he did not come for sinners, then he came for no one.

Because as Romans shows us that there is none who are righteous before God.

No, not one.

And so if we think that our relationship with God is going to be based upon our performance and merit, then we are in for a cruel, rude awakening.

Because fundamentally, you're saying Jesus didn't come for you.

Something we have to see in all of this is that Jesus treated Matthew with dignity.

He saw Matthew and was aware of his state.

And this awareness caused Jesus to stop and make space for the gospel in Matthew's life.

And not only Matthew's, but the many sinners who would come to share a meal with him.

Jesus loved Matthew.

Jesus loved the society of sinners who were feasting at his table.

And in loving each and every one of them, he made space for the gospel to heal them.

This is what Jesus came to do.

In church, this is what Jesus calls us to do like him.

Now, this isn't done just by making space for sin sick people around us.

This isn't done just by cooking amazing meals for others.

It's done by making space for the gospel to heal their sin-sick state through gospel proclamation and demonstration.

We have to preach the kingdom.

And we have to show them how Jesus heals them.

To make space for gospel proclamation and demonstration.

Now, how all of this ultimately unfolds in our life, like I said at the beginning, it's way too vast of a topic to cover in just one sermon.

But my aim this morning was to lay the foundational stepping stone on the path of discipleship right here before us.

We cannot live hurried, frantic, self-absorbed, anxious filled lives and walk in the same way in which he walked.

We can't.

To demonstrate its real and tangible power in the lives of those who we are preaching to.

But both of these realities only flourish in the intentional gospel spaces that we make.

So remember, Jesus loved people.

And he calls us to follow him so that we would love people in the same way.

And how do we do that?

We love them through the beauty and the power of the gospel.