Matthew 9:9; 1 John 4:19-21; Galatians 5:13; Psalm 68:5-6.
This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, January 23, 2022.
Today, we continue on part 2 of God’s desire for us to come into relationship with Him. We are using the word “connect” to focus on two aspects of this relationship with God.
We first connect to God through whole-life worship. This can only be done through Jesus because He is God’s answer for the world. However, in connecting to Jesus, we must also connect to his other followers through authentic relationships.
Let’s look at our first passage.
Matthew 9:9 shows Jesus coming to the tax collection booth and calling Matthew to follow him. Matthew had most likely heard about Jesus. However, Matthew was an outcast within Israel because he was collaborating with the Romans to tax his people, and at oppressive rates.
In short order, Matthew leaves his post to follow Jesus. It is hard to know what he was thinking. However, we do know that Jesus had already called the four fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, and John back in chapter four.
Now, leaving our old way of thinking or living and following Jesus is an individual command from Christ, but it doesn’t take long to figure out that he has other people who are following him already. Who are these guys?
In fact, it was most probable that Matthew had been taking tax money from these guys. That must have been an awkward moment. I can hear Peter saying something like this. “What’s he doing here?” You see, you can’t follow Jesus without having to deal with his other followers.
There are various reasons why people may not want to connect with other Christians. Matthew doesn’t get to choose who his fellow disciples are, and the fishermen also get no vote. All of them had been chosen by Jesus.
I know; I know. What about Judas? I think that Judas is the Lord’s business. My business is to surrender to Jesus as the master. Yes, there are hypocrites and traitors in the Church, but are you a perfect hypocrite detector, and does your “alarm” go off when you are around yourself?
I don’t want to overly simplify this issue, but at its core is the truth that none of us are perfectly like Jesus. We have that in common, and we have chosen to follow Jesus, another thing in common. Peter and the others most likely didn’t want Matthew in the group, but it isn’t their choice. Their choice is how they will treat Matthew, and how he will treat them.
If Jesus was some kind of gang leader, then he might not care how we interact with each other. He could just chalk it up to “the strong survive.” However, Jesus does care how we treat one another. He commanded his disciples to love one another, and John passes this on to us in 1 John 4:19-21
Part of why Jesus does this is to call our bluff. To bluff is a term that comes from betting at poker, so it might seem inappropriate to refer to God calling our bluff. However, in this case, it is we who can be playing a game and God waking us up to the fact that He is not playing a game.
It is easier to say that we love God and want to follow Jesus, but loving other real-live people who fall short of being Jesus is much tougher. Or, is it? I don’t know if Judas ever seriously followed Jesus as the answer. He may have at first, but then realized that Jesus wasn’t going to do what he wanted.
Now, it is bad enough that Jesus expects us to accept others into the group, but then Jesus goes further and commands us to love one another. John says in this passage that you can’t love God whom you can’t see while you hate your brother whom you can see. God created your brother, and He hasn’t written him off yet. So, you either love that about God or you don’t. Which is it? Your brother is actually the litmus test that reveals just how much we actually love God.
Talking about love is easy. It’s the doing that is the hard part. If I love God, then I must learn to love my brother also.
In Galatians 5:13, Paul takes this a step forward because loving someone is not a command to have a feeling. To love others is to be committed to their well-being. If you are committed to their good, then you will help them in different ways as God leads you.
Paul emphasizes that Jesus has given us freedom, not a list of what you have to do to others. Making a list would be easy, but it would miss the point. We often make a list because it allows us to pretend like we have loved our brother when all along we are resisting that one thing that Jesus is prompting us to do. You have been set free by Christ. Now, use that freedom to serve one another in love, out of a motive for their good.
We will look at this purpose of serving later.
So, that’s the question I have to put to myself. Am I bluffing? Jesus calls us to follow him and serve his other followers out of love. This is the true test to loving Christ. Do I love him enough to love those whom he asks me to love?
God is not into pretense, fantasy, and mimicry. He wants a relationship with you that is built upon reality, truth, and the very core of your being. Can you give him that? Perhaps none of us can actually answer that question up front. Perhaps all we can do is say, “I love you, Lord; help my lack of love!” That is a disciple that the Lord can work with.
You wouldn’t be on t his planet without family. By definition, there is a couple who gave birth to you, your parents. This is how God has designed us. Its part of our nature.
Yet, another part of our nature is that we are born helpless to a couple who have been enabled by God to be helpful. Babies need both a father and a mother to come alongside of them and prepare them for an adult life in this world, and to teach them h ow to connect to their Heavenly Father.
In a sinful world, families can be pretty messy, but we have a duty to our biological family. The best-case scenario is that your parents were followers of Jesus and your family is more than biologically connected.
The reality is that we need spiritual family even more than we need biological family. Yes, it is incredibly important when the biological family is failed, but if you have an incredibly close-knit biological family, then your family still needs spiritual family around you too.
David wrote Psalm 68. He knew what it was to be pushed away by family. His brothers looked down on him, and then King Saul had attempted to kill him, which had pushed him out of Israel. David refused to lose his inheritance in Israel because God had given it to him. He stuck in there when the “family” of Israel wasn’t so lovely. In fact, David’s story is one of loving people for God’s sake when they aren’t so loveable.
David pictures God in these verses with language from the family. God is the Father of those who have no father, orphans. He is the defender of widows who have no defender. God sets the person who is by themselves within a family. Wow, what a picture.
If your biological family is great and they love Jesus, you still need to make room and time for a larger community of followers of Christ. God never intended for us to be isolated as individuals, or as singular families.
Our eternal destiny is founded upon God the Father’s heart for us. He wants you in His forever-family. He has paid the price to win your freedom so that you can be adopted into it.
The abundant life that flows from Jesus into our hearts teaches us how to love and serve one another, even when it requires repentance and forgiveness.
We are told that the rebellious will dwell in a dry land. Ours is a very dry land today. People are spiritually dying of thirst, and it is God’s word that they need, Jesus that they need. Yet, it is easy for them to look at a cup of spiritual water and push it away. Their condition can be so bad that they believe it is no good.
Let’s be a people who are trusting that Jesus can take care of his family. It is my job to simply be a loving family member by serving my brothers and sisters in love. God help us!