Topic: Called to Follow Jesus (Matthew 9:9-10)
Life is a journey to a destination. Discipleship is the journey of believing Jesus and following Him to the destination of living forever with Him (John 14:1-3).
Jesus calls 12 individuals to a special path of discipleship that intentionally follows Him to the cross and to experience first-hand the resurrection. Matthew’s gospel gives the calling of four fishermen to follow Jesus (Matthew 4:18) as well as his own calling in chapter 9. The unusual aspect of Matthew’s call was his occupation. He was a tax collector.
Tax collectors would have made any top ten list of the hardest people to teach about godliness. Levi’s boss would have paid the Romans all the taxes they had assessed for the district in advance, out of his pocket. They had their money and didn’t care much how he reimbursed himself. According to Jewish laws, tax collectors were not allowed to give testimony in court, because it was just assumed they were liars. Take a good, hard look at what Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow Me!” (verse 9).
I want us to hear today that Jesus, the master disciple maker, can take anyone who will follow Him and mold that person into something special. Nobody starts too low for Jesus. Nobody is too untalented for Him, too young or too old, too ignorant or too educated. It doesn’t mater what other people think of you or even what you think of yourself. You can start at any point on the journey of following Jesus today and he will move you forward right from where you are.
Matthew 11:28, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
When Matthew received this invitation to become a follower of Jesus, he left everything and followed. My guess is that he had heard Jesus’ teaching before. He understood what a gift it is to be invited to come under the hand of a master teacher. That is not all, Matthew organized a party to celebrate Jesus. We are not told for certain but just maybe Zacchaeus was at that party. Luke’s gospel tells us about Jesus calling Zaccheus to follow (Luke 19:1-10). Matthew’s following changed his life and he introduced others to Jesus as well. Matthew, through his gospel, is still being used to introduce others to Jesus.
Here is the thought: Jesus is calling you to follow, and He desires you to introduce others to Him.
Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
See you Sunday!
Dr. Scott Kallem