SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/12/2021 9:55 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intro to
Matt. 9:9-17
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matt. 9:9-17
Message of the verses: “9 As Jesus went on
from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth;
and He said to him, "Follow Me!" And he got up and followed Him. 10
Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold,
many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His
disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples,
"Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?" 12
But when Jesus heard this, He said, "It is not those who are
healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. 13 “But go and learn what
this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to
call the righteous, but sinners."
14 Then the disciples of John came to Him, asking, "Why do we and
the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" 15 And Jesus said to
them, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the
bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom
is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 "But no one puts a patch of unshrunk
cloth on an old garment; for the patch pulls away from the garment, and a worse
tear results. 17 “Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins;
otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are
ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.’”
John
MacArthur entitles this sixth chapter in his commentary “Receiving the
Sinner/Refusing the Righteous,” and one could say that this is the reason that
Jesus came, that is to save sinners, those who realize that they are sinners,
and also realize that on their own they can do nothing about that issue. However when they realize this truth then
they will also realize that Jesus Christ did it all and accept what He did for
them and become a true born-again believer.
In
Matthew’s gospel we can see from the very beginning that Matthew made it clear
that Jesus came to save the bad people, the sinners who knew that they were
sinners. All one has to do is look at
the genealogy, which is actually the genealogy of Joseph, as Mary’s is found in
Luke’s gospel. In Joseph’s genealogy we
find some very sinful people as we see some women there who were very unsavory people. Now before one calls me some bad name I have
to say that there were many unsavory men in there too, and when we get to the
verses that we are going over for this section we find a man named “Matthew”
whom the Jews stated that there was no room for repentance for an awful tax
collector. Now back to the ladies as we
see that both Rahab and Ruth were from pagan, idolatrous, Gentile nations and
Rahab was even a prostitute. As
mentioned some men who are in this list are very sinful including the man after
God’s own heart, King David as he committed adultery and also murder.
John
MacArthur writes “As the forerunner of the Lord, John the Baptist prepared the
people for the Messiah by preaching repentance from sin, and as they confessed
their sins, he baptized them as a symbol of God’s cleansing (3:2, 6, 11). Jesus began His own ministry with the
preaching of repentance (4:17), and in the Sermon on the Mount He proclaimed
God’s offer of forgiveness for those who sincerely and humbly hunger and thirst
for righteousness (5:3-6). In His model
prayer He taught His followers to continue to ask God for forgiveness
(6:12). From the day of Pentecost on,
the early church preached repentance from sin as an integral part of the gospel
message (Acts 2:38; 3:19; 5:31).
“The
object of men’s repentance is God’s forgiveness, and that is the dual theme of
the gospel—men must turn from sin in order for God to forgive, cleanse, and
save them. The only people who ever
receive salvation and enter God’s kingdom are those who acknowledge their
sinfulness and repent of it. It follows,
then, that those who consider themselves already to be righteous see no need
for repentance or forgiveness—and thereby shut themselves out from salvation in
the kingdom of God.”
Now
I have already pretty much stated that this is the theme of Matthew 9:9-17 as
one can discover one of the most definitive, dramatic, insightful, and also
comprehensive statements that our Lord ever made. We see this statement in 13b where Jesus
states “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The truth of that wonderful statement is the
essence of the gospel and the purpose for the incarnation. Jesus came into the world to call sinners to
Himself. He came to call, as mentioned
those who know they have a terminal spiritual illness and who have no trust or
hope in themselves to be cured, Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and
the life” in John 14:6. It looks like we
will need to finish this introduction in our next SD.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful to the Lord for the book of
Matthew as I am learning and relearning many things from this book. I am especially learning why it was that
Matthew put the things into this book that he put in there, and put them in the
order that he put them.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Remembering that there is nothing that I can
do on my own not only to be saved, but to walk in a way that will be pleasing
to the Lord as this must be in the power of the Holy Spirit to do these things
that are pleasing to the Lord.
5/12/2021 10:32 AM
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