Day 22

Chase: Hello and welcome to the Point Church Podcast. We're really glad you're here. Before we jump in, if you'd like to stay connected, you can download the Point Church app. It's a simple way to find messages, resource, and what's happening. And if this podcast is helpful, take a moment to like, subscribe, and share. You can find us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music. Let's get into today's episode. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Point Church Podcast. I'm here with Pastor Sam. As ⁓ we are in episode twenty-two. So we're getting into it now, and ⁓ we are going through the gospel of Matthew verse by verse, and today we're picking up in verse nine. We had just finished verse eight. So in verse nine, it reads, So when he got into his boat, crossed over, and came to his own town town. Just then some men brought to him a paralytic lying on a stretcher, seeing their faith. Jesus told the paralytic Have courage, son. Your sins are forgiven. So I want to stop there because it doesn't say the man came to say, Jesus, forgive me of my sins or anything. And but Jesus goes out and says, Your sins are forgiven. Yeah. Yeah. He ⁓ he's actually like communicating, Yes, you're laying on a stretcher and everyone assumes that's your biggest problem. Yeah. But actually your biggest problem is your sin. And so again, Jesus is creating a gap. that we don't always appreciate of saying sin is very, very important. It must be dealt with. It's more important than not being able to walk. It's more important than not being able, you know, anything. So he's saying, I'm gonna give you an even better gift, which is a forgiven forgiveness of sins. Mm-hmm. So good. And picking up in verse three it says, At this at this, some of the scribes to themselves ⁓ said to themselves, he's blasphemy, perceiving their thoughts, Jesus said Why are you thinking evil things in your heart? For which is easier, to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, Get up and walk, but so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then he told the paralytic, Get up, take your stretcher, and go home. So he got up, went home, and when the crowd saw this, they were awestruck, and gave glory to God who had given such authority to men. So Jesus here is showing them like I can forgive sins. Yes, he is. He's showing like I am not blaspheming. I am under the I have the authority that God has. But there's a few things also happening here is yeah. We're getting a little more of a take on Jesus' interaction. I don't think you would go so far as to say supernatural, but like his touch with the spirit that it says at first, seeing their faith. Well, how do you see faith? It's like, you know, he's seeing their faith. But then again Perceiving their thoughts. Again, how do you perceive someone's thoughts? Like that doesn't fall under the five senses, but under the spirit's influence, because he's fully got he's fully God but fully man, so he is limited to only what humans can do. So somehow he's able to, you know, do this under the spirit's influence. He knows what they're thinking. Correct. And then the other thing is earlier when he's talking with the demons, they call him son of God. But then as he's dealing with humans, they call him son of. Man. So it's two different titles, but again, communicating the the dual nature of Jesus, Son of God and Son of Man, that he is the the pinnacle of both. Yeah. In one ⁓ in one being. So the other thing is that Jesus is saying, like, is it easier to say your sins are forgiven, or is it easier to say pick up your mat and walk or get up and walk? And I think when I would always read this, I was like, I think Your sins are forgiven is way easier to say. Like you know what I mean? Than like actually but again, Jesus is saying like actually it's the opposite. 'Cause there's other people who have healed before. There are other people who have been healers in the Bible, but no one up to this point has been able to forgive sins. That is reserved strictly for God. So Jesus is saying, Hey, I'm like those other healers that you've read about, heard about in scripture, but even greater and I have authority to forgive sins. 'Cause he is. I am correct. Yep. ⁓ and this next one I'm just gonna read the whole thing, just let you go on this one. Sure. this is picking up verse nine as Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed him. While he was reclining at the table in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why do Does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Now that when he heard this, he said, It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. Go and learn what is what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice, for I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners. Yeah. ⁓ so I had just preached on this yesterday, so it's very fresh, which is great. But ⁓ Again, when we read the story, we actually tend to think this is not very dramatic. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he just cast out demons, he just told a paralytic to get up and walk. But I think this is the most controversial thing Jesus has done up to this moment. Most controversial. Yeah. Because to call a tax collector was to call someone who everyone hated to follow him. Yeah. And so just a little bit of context around that is At this time in Israel's story, they are under Roman occupation, which means they're part of the Roman Empire, whether they wanted to be or not, so they have to pay Roman taxes. To pay Roman taxes meant you had to pay one tenth of all your grain, one fifth of all your fruits and vegetables, a poll tax, which was a set amount for every adult who lived in the empire. Didn't matter what your job was or how much you could work, you still had to pay a poll tax and then an income tax as well. So everyone loves income tax. So you know, ⁓ so again, that's that's always fun. But what Rome would do is they would hire locals to go and collect these taxes and they had to be someone who was educated and qualified. So we know that Matthew, this tax collector, is literate because to be a tax man in this region of the Roman Empire you had to be able to speak yeah or read, write and speak Hebrew. Greek and Aramaic. So he can do all three. The other thing about it is Rome just wants their cut. Yeah. But they're willing to look the other way if the taxman collects more than he has to. Rome doesn't care. No. As long as they get their cut. So the tax man can say, Hey, you know, r Rome just changed its policy instead of one fifth Of fruits and vegetables is now one fourth. So ⁓ sorry. And if you're an uneducated individual, which most were, like most were not literate like Matthew was, you're just being taken advantage of. You know it, but you can't do anything because there's a Roman soldier next to the tax booth who's like, You cause any problems, yeah, you're going to jail or worse. So that's for the Roman taxes. Then you have local taxes, and in the Christmas story, you have a man named King Herod, and King Herod is known as also Herod. the Great. Mm-hmm. He's called Herod the Great partially because he did a lot of building projects, the largest one being the temple in Jerusalem. Well, how do you pay for building projects? Taxes. Well wouldn't it be convenient if there was already tax men who had the backing of Rome? So at the same time they're collecting Roman taxes, they're collecting local taxes as well. One of the local taxes that was implemented was everything that was traveling by f ⁓ by land and by sea. You rewind, you have Peter, Andrew, James, and John, well, Simon, but you know what I mean? Yeah. Fishermen. Yeah. Traveling by sea would have had to pay local taxes to Matthew. Yeah. And so they know this guy. They know that this guy is ripping them off. They know that this guy is. ⁓ turning against his own people, he's getting rich while they're getting poorer. And when Jesus sees Matthew, everyone wants to be around Jesus. I mean, he just got off the boat and crowds are coming to him. He sees Matthew and says, You. And I think in that moment all the disciples, like the fishermen, were like Yes, like we couldn't complain to Herod 'cause he doesn't care. And we can't complain to Caesar about it not being fair, the tax we play we pay, but this man is God, and God is about to start flipping some tables and he's gonna start with Matthew's tax booth and now he's gonna have it. And Jesus looks at Matthew and says, You follow me. Mm-hmm. And then you keep going in the story and they go to Matthew's house, and Matthew's house is probably the biggest in the area or one of the largest in the area. And again, if you're one of those disciples, those followers, you're like, This guy has a stocked pantry, stocked closet of stuff, and like how many meals have they had to miss because Matthew was driving them into poverty? So they're like, This is not a fun dinner party. But then Matthew's tax friends show up. Mm-hmm. And you're like, this is the worst. Like all these people we hate. Now we have to eat with. And to eat with someone was to dignify them with your presence and honor them. And you're like, now we have to eat with someone. So again, you can see why everyone is like, Jesus, what are you doing? And his line is, They're sick. Yeah. There's he says it in front of them. Yeah. These are sick people. Like, so if you're Matthew, you're like, ⁓ I kinda thought it was special. Maybe I'm sick. But again, it's it's that that Jesus has come to heal those who don't even maybe realize they need healing. You have demon-possessed people, they realize they need healing. You have someone in a stretcher realizes they need healing, but a tax collector realizing they need healing too. And Jesus drops this line, he says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. ⁓ about three chapters later in Matthew 12, when we get there, he's going to say the same thing to the Pharisees, communicating over and over and over again. My heart is for mercy. That's what changes people, not sacrifice, not making it a burden. So I mean there's so much you can get into with Matthew, but you immediately see the kindness of Jesus coming through, and that's what's changing his heart in the heart of the other tax collectors as well. Amen. In verse fourteen it reads, Then John's disciples came to him saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not? So I won't stop there 'cause it says right there, John's disciples. Yeah. You know, so I if you're reading it for the first time you can get confused 'cause you're like there's a Yeah. Or is it the guy following Jesus, John? It's John the Baptist. And it was again common in those days that for a a a rabbi, for a religious leader like what John was, to have disciples, to have students who were following, doing life with their rabbi with their teacher and learning their ways. So this is one of This is some of John's disciples coming to ask Jesus about it. Then Jesus said to them in verse fifteen, Can the wedding guests be sad while the groom is with them? The time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one patches an old garment with unshrunk cloth, because the patch will pulls away from the garment and makes the tear war worse. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst and the wine spills out and the skins are ruined. No, they put new wine into fresh wineskins and both are preserved. Mm-hmm. Jesus is putting into their context, their understanding, what God is doing here and now in their presence. That this is a time of celebration, like a wedding. Mm-hmm. Like if you were to go to a wedding or a feast and say, No, thank you, I'm fasting. Yeah, but what a what? Like what? That's weird. Like that's weird. So but ⁓ A wedding is a time for celebrating life, that there is hope and there's new life that's come into the world and there and it's a time for, you know, love and jubilation. And Jesus like, that's what it means when I'm here. Like, this is not a bad thing. This is the best thing. Yeah. And so he's like, Well, you know, there's gonna come a time, and this is the first time I believe up to this moment that he's predicting he's gonna be taken away. I think so. And so he's like, There's gonna come a time, there's gonna be a lot of time. We're still living in that time, waiting for Jesus to come back. Right now is not the time to be sad and, you know, to mourn. And then he continues saying, you know, again, putting it into their context about like, you know, to have to repair clothes or new wineskins, that he's like for something new, you can't work off of, you know, what has been. So again, he's like when God's doing something new, are you ready to receive it? Are you ready to be made new? Like New clothing, new wineskin so that you can experience all that God is doing. So again, Jesus is speaking to their context, saying, like 'cause nowhere does he say fasting's wrong. No. He talks about in the Sermon of the Mount when you fast. Yeah. Not if, but when. Yeah. But he's like, but now's not the time. Like don't you don't need to feel like ⁓ I g ⁓ woe is me and it's like, no, celebrate Jesus, the groom is in is here. He's in the room, if you will, and this is the time to celebrate. Amen to that. And so today we're gonna close it out with that and we'll be back tomorrow for episode twenty three. and continue on in verse eighteen. So thanks for tuning in everyone.