He Came for the Sick – Matthew 9: 1-13

All right. Hey, everybody. My name is Caleb, and I'm grateful to bring God's word today. I'm going to read the passage, and then I'll pray. I just want to make sure that this sounds good.

Okay, so I'm going to read Matthew 9, verses 1 through 13. And I don't know the page number, but I'll give you a second to turn there. In The Bibles, Matthew 9, 1:13.

And getting into a boat, he crossed over and came to his own city. And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man is blaspheming. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, why do you think evil in your hearts?

For which is easier to say your sins are forgiven, or to say, rise and walk. But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He said to the paralytic, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and went home. When the crowd saw it, they were afraid and they glorified God who had given such authority to men.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the text booth. And he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?

But when he heard it, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners. So that's God's word for us today. Let me pray. God, thank you for this time to study your word, to really contemplate it.

I pray that the people here would have open hearts to listen, that they really consider what these words mean for their life. And Lord, help me to communicate well in my imperfection, just to communicate what is true about you and about the world. And I pray that we can all be encouraged and rejoice in your goodness, Jesus. I pray this in your name. Amen.

So just a quick background is that I love this church, and I haven't been here in a few months, so I'm really thankful to be back. I was able to intern with Wes and Aaron this last semester, and now I realize how much I miss everyone because I haven't seen you in a bit. So I'm really thankful. And now I want to talk about this passage. So.

Kathryn L. Butler was a trauma and critical care surgeon. Even early in her career, she was already having to deal with patients who were dying right in front of her. Hurt by accident, violence, some other tragedy. Even as a highly trained doctor, she often felt hopeless and helpless. One morning, after an especially traumatic overnight shift, she wandered around, driving around in her car, exhausted and despairing about how little the value of life felt.

She asked herself, how could God allow such evil? Even though she grew up calling herself a Christian, she fell at this point into agnosticism, having no confidence about God and struggling to pray. And she asked the question, what could change her life around? Today we're going to look at that. What turns broken lives around?

Do we need better science, better doctors, better philosophies, better perspectives on life? Or maybe do we need something else, something deeper? And through the words of Matthew here, we're going to learn one main idea. And this is going to be my big idea for this sermon. Jesus mercy heals the sick and glorifies God.

It's Jesus mercy that heals the sick and glorifies God. And we're going to see this through two stories. The first one I call an authoritative healing, and the second one, an unexpected party, sort of like the Hobbit. So before jumping in, I want to give a little context for the Book of Matthew. In case you don't know a lot about it.

It's named after Matthew, and he was a Jewish man who was a tax collector. And then he ended up following Jesus and wrote this book about Jesus life. And we're going to actually learn about his story. As you just heard, Matthew's goal from his book was to tell the reader that Jesus is the promised king and savior of all the world. To fully understand the book, you'd have to read it.

I can't go through all of it, but I want to summarize the first eight chapters really quick. Matthew begins with the genealogy, the ancestry of Jesus, and then he describes Jesus birth, his youth, the start of his ministry, and then one of his famous sermons, the Sermon on the Mount, where we get some things that we say in America, like the Golden Rule, and some people don't know it's from Jesus. It is. It's from this chapter, chapter five of Matthew. All of this happens in chapters one through seven.

It's the start of Jesus life and then in chapter 8, Jesus begins to show more of authority and power. So he heals a faithful leper, there's a faithful centurion, and his daughter is healed by Jesus. And then a crowd is healed by Jesus, including Peter's mother in law, who had strong faith. And then he calms a storm that his disciples and him are in. And then he says, you have little faith.

So you see these themes of faith being caught up. And then right before chapter nine, he heals two demon possessed men and then the people kick him out of the city because they were upset with some of what happened. So all of this, I think sets up two themes that are carried into chapter nine. So that's why I give context. The first thing is Jesus authority to heal.

And the second thing is the power of faith. These are things that start in chapter eight and will continue into our stories today. So with that said, let's start with the first story, the authoritative healing. So now you can look at chapter nine, what we just read, verses one through seven. Jesus leaves in a boat from Gadarenes, and he sails about five or six miles to Capernaum.

Matthew says his own city, which we understand is Capernaum, his home base in Galilee. And right away Matthew jumps in, he says, behold, there's a paralyzed man. And the paralyzed man is taken to Jesus. Now a bit of context. Biblically, this story is recorded in all four of the gospels.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And although the details are slightly different, it seems like it was an important event because they all recorded it in their own way. If you look at verse two with me, we see that Matthew is pretty vague. He just says, the man came on a bed to Jesus, taken by other people. But I think it's fun that the other gospels give us more details because Matthew is very straight to the point.

In Mark and Luke, we learn that the paralytic couldn't get to Jesus right away. He had too much of a crowd. And so the people that were carrying the bed had to find another solution. And so just like any normal person, they looked up to the roof and they said, huh? And they saw the staircase and they said, huh.

So they took the bed, the man on the bed, and they went up the stairs and looked at the roof and they said, huh, we can do this. Now I imagine today we're like, how in the world would they go to the roof and get to Jesus that way? The houses back then were different. They were likely a flat roof with a staircase. It was actually a space to gather on the roof.

And the roof itself was made of just rows of timbers, but then there was gaps that were filled by leaves and dried mud to keep it waterproof. So I imagine they go up on the roof and they kind of tear away at that roof material, and then they're able to lower the man down to Jesus. I thought about how maybe someone like Rob could reenact this for us, but it would probably be too much work, but it would be right up his alley. So they chose to do this. They walk up the stairs, they lower Jesus down, and they finally have access to Jesus.

And now we pick back up in Matthew verse 2, because Matthew skipped that part. Matthew says, when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart, my son, your sins are forgiven. I'm imagining the paralyzed man. He's there, and he hears Jesus say this. And I'm sure there's this combination of emotion.

He's probably confused, like, why is he talking about my sins? He's probably amazed and a little embarrassed, like, man, I just got lowered right in front of Jesus with this crowd. And he's probably grateful because Jesus is very kind. But Jesus does two things here. He recognizes their faith, and then he says, his sins are forgiven.

Now, you might question, whose faith is Jesus talking about here? And I've wondered this as I read this, because it just says Jesus saw their faith. Well, after learning the context of how they had to get to Jesus, I imagine it's all of their faith. The paralyzed man, he had faith that getting taken to Jesus was worth it and that the four men that carried him had faith that they should spend the time to take him to Jesus. And not only that, they had persistent faith because they took him on the roof and lowered him down from through the beams.

In this, they're all faithful to persevere, to getting to Jesus. But I think what Jesus says after is even more shocking. He says, your sins are forgiven. And I think we hear that today, especially if we don't have much of a Christian background, and we think sins forgiven, like, what does that mean? What does this have to do with this man being lame?

Maybe in America, we have a basic understanding that sins are the wrong we've done. And forgiveness means to not hold against someone something they've done against us. However, in Jesus day, these would have been a lot easily, more easily understood than today. There was an immediate spiritual, cultural implication to Jesus words. And the Pharisees, they get it.

You can see right away. They say to themselves in verse three or four, this man is blaspheming. They say, a very serious accusation. Now, what is blasphemy? It's a strange word.

Now, in short, it's to claim the identity or perform actions reserved for God and do them yourself. So this goes back to the Old Testament, the first couple books of the Bible. Leviticus 24. God's law says, whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death. And that's pretty serious.

So God does not take this lightly. Trying to put yourself in the place of God. In Mark 14, Jesus makes a bold claim that he's the Christ, the Son of the blessed, that they will see him in a position of authority at the right hand of God. And in response, the high priests and the people want to put him to death for blasphemy. So blasphemy isn't just one thing, but it's a category of things where you're putting yourself in a position of God or someone that is like God.

And in this case, Jesus is doing that by claiming to forgive sins because our sin is against God, and so therefore only God can forgive it. And so the Pharisees, they're actually correctly understanding the law here. But what they're missing is who Jesus is. They're missing who he really is. He knows their hearts.

And in this case, he asks them, why are you thinking evil? He knows that they're not just curious. They're malicious, faithless, and they want to condemn him rather than trusting him. Remember the context. This is not Jesus first miracle.

He's done multiple different things, healing and doing different compassionate acts that show that he has authority, maybe to forgive sins. And so there was some evidence defending Jesus, but they didn't want to consider that. So Jesus decides to go further. He says, which is easier to save, forgive sins, or to actually heal a man? That's an easy one, right?

Anyone in this room, I think, could answer that. It's easier to say you forgive sins because no one can verify it. But if I tell someone, rise and walk, and they don't, then I look pretty stupid. I would be exposed pretty quickly. However, Jesus does something shocking.

He says, rise and go home. He does the harder thing. And just like that, the man does. Jesus is showing his authority to physically heal. Now, I asked myself, maybe you're wondering this too.

Why did he start with forgiving the sins and then heal? Wouldn't it be more effective to heal the man and then say your sins are forgiven? As sort of like, I know I can do this now you can believe me for This, I think maybe what Jesus is implying here is that the forgiving of the sins was a priority. That yes, it's good for him to physically heal someone. That was a loving and compassionate act.

But what's the most important for all of us is that our sins are forgiven. Just because it's an unseen spiritual reality of forgiveness doesn't mean that it's less important than whether someone's physically healed. However, after this amazing proof, we don't even get to see the Pharisees reaction. I mean, part of me is like, man, I wonder what they thought. Were they like, oh, I guess we'll believe you now.

Now we don't know. But I'm implying based on the way the rest of the book goes, it seems like they were not impressed. They continue again and again throughout Matthew and the other gospels to disbelieve Jesus, to actually want to put him to death. However, Matthew doesn't end on a negative note. He ends with the response of the crowd.

You can see that in verse seven they are afraid and they glorify God. The response of fear may be surprising at first. Why are they afraid? This is like super awesome. He just healed someone.

Well, I think they're surprised at the shocking power of Jesus here. If he can do that, what else can he do? And they're starting to consider like, who is this man? This guy is legit. He's not just a good moral teacher.

But they also glorify God through it. They say what a powerful God is working through this man if he can do this. Now again, the response is not quite accurate. Yet they still see Jesus as a man who God has given authority, which is half correct. He is a man who is God's given authority.

But Matthew continues in the Gospel to show how he's also God himself in the flesh, who has authority because he has been given it by the Father. This is the mystery of the Trinity in Christianity, in the gospel. Now to take a step back from the story. I do find it challenging sometimes to come to terms with the miracles that Jesus does. I ask myself, how do I relate to this today?

Like, I mean, I haven't seen these types of miracles where someone gets up and walks. And of course there's sick people. I know that I want to be healed and there's sick people. We all want to be healed. So how do we get to experience Jesus in this way if he doesn't just heal everyone today?

I think it's a complicated question. It's a fair question. And I think we have to Acknowledge that our experience of God is different than the people who lived with Jesus. And the vast majority of Christians throughout history have not lived at the same time as Jesus on earth, so they haven't seen these same miracles either. So there must be more to what faith in Jesus looks like.

Now. Some people have experienced miracles of healing. Some people have seen it or heard many stories about it, but some people haven't experienced any of those sorts of physical miracles. And they might be wondering, like, how do I trust Jesus? Well, to me, the largest miracles that happen consistently in the world today happen inside of us.

It's the work of God changing a life around and granting us faith in Him. Actually the miracle of faith itself, of allowing us to believe in him and, and have our lives transformed by his power. The work of the Holy Spirit, God's convicting agent, to change our hearts, to want to love him instead of hating him, and helping us to grow towards him instead of away from Him. So I want to ask you to reflect today. Do you view the lack of these sorts of physical miracles as a barrier to you trusting Jesus?

And is there ways that you can maybe see the other works of Jesus inside people and also just in the way that he's worked throughout history as proof that helps you to believe in Him?

Now, whether we are physically healed or not, Matthew is not emphasizing the fact that he healed the man. He's emphasizing that Jesus said, your sins are forgiven. And that's because this statement is the one that extends to us all. The amazing truth of Jesus is that he died so that he can forgive us all of our sins. You might not be physically paralyzed, but do you feel sick spiritually?

Are you weighed down by the thoughts of maybe the brokenness of your life, or maybe by feeling like you have to live a good life in order to please God, that you have to be a better person day after day? I think Matthew is telling us here through the words of Jesus, don't carry the weight of your sins alone any longer. Jesus asks us to come before him like the paralyzed man, to lay down your burdens and do whatever it takes to get to him, to have faith in him doing the hardest work. He will forgive and heal and transform you, and you don't have to do it alone. This may feel overwhelming to say, oh man, I gotta come to Jesus and He'll change my life.

Like, how do I even begin? Well, the amazing thing, he doesn't want us to do it on our own. He wants us to do it with friends. I mean, I see a Bunch of my college ministry friends here. We do this together.

The church does this together as a body. This is the whole point of membership of a church. It's because we're not meant to do it alone. I mean, I would not be able to do it if I was doing it alone either. This is the power of God working in community through his power, of course, but also through the blessings of relationships and love interpersonally.

So I encourage you, if you're not seeking that sort of community, then do so. And if you are, continue to appreciate how meaningful that is. Jesus then passes through to Matthew's house. Not yet, but he passes to see Matthew, a tax collector at his tax booth. And this is the second story we're going to look at.

Verses 8 through 13. An unexpected party. Jesus, I imagine, had seen Matthew before. Matthew seems to know a little bit about Jesus. Based on how the story goes.

He probably heard Jesus and the thing that he was preaching to the people around him. Maybe he even saw some of the miracles of Jesus. Up to this point. He likely knew the implications of following Jesus. And in Luke's Gospel we find out that here Jesus says, follow me.

You'll see in your Bible, Jesus says, follow me. And Matthew gets up and follows him. In Luke it says he leaves everything and follows him. So it's not just that Matthew said, all right, I'll take a break from work today and follow Jesus and I'll come back tomorrow. No, this was implying that Matthew was saying, I'm going to leave this job and, and do something different with my life.

That's the point that he's getting across here. It's an entire 180 on the direction of his life. Well, why would Matthew do this? Why would he leave a lucrative job to follow Jesus? Just a random guy.

Well, I think it's the same reason that the paralyzed man and his friends tore through the roof to get to Jesus. Faith. They had faith that Jesus was worth following. Is Jesus worth following for you? Is he worth leaving certain lifestyles to follow?

Are you willing to give up other things to allow you to come to Jesus? Can he satisfy you more than what you are leaving behind? These are questions that we have to ask, just as Matthew did. In verse 10, we find that Jesus is now eating, eating a meal with his disciples and a bunch of tax collectors and sinners. Luke again gives more context than Matthew does.

Luke says, this is Matthew's house. And by the way, Matthew has prepared a great feast for Jesus and his disciples. You won't see that in Matthew. Because I think maybe Matthew's just trying to be a humble guy. You know, he's like, oh, it was just a random house, and we're here, we're eating.

He doesn't even mention himself. He just says, tax collectors. I think Luke gives us the secret that actually Matthew's being really hospitable here. But either way, I imagine a bunch of tax collectors and sinners. It doesn't sound like great company.

It sounds like it would be kind of an awkward meal. Like, what do you guys do, just rob people? I don't know what that was like. But the main point Matthew is making here is that Jesus was willing to be with them, to associate with them, and immediately guess who shows up again? It's the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the day.

They're following Jesus around still, and they ask his disciples. They don't even want to ask him. They asked his disciples, why is your teacher eating with tax collectors and sinners? He shouldn't be doing that. Now, I want to quickly note I mentioned it briefly about how they're robbers, but why are tax collectors such a bad crowd?

I mean, isn't it like the irs? I know we don't like the irs, but they're still probably okay people sometimes, right? My sister's an accountant, so I don't mind people working with money. But actually, the role of a tax collector had a very different connotation than that. It's more like the taxi drivers that my family and I interacted with in Italy and Greece just a few months ago.

So we would fly into the airport, and we'd need to get a ride to our Airbnb. And so there'd be, like, a flock of taxis waiting to pick us up. And then we'd kind of hop in. And we were, like, in a rush. We were like, we really want to get to our place to be done traveling.

And so we tell them our address and they drive there, some of them driving very, very fast. I don't know why. And they would get there and they'd say, hey, €50. And my dad would pay them. And at that point, you can't really negotiate.

You know, you're kind of like, set with the price that they tell you. So I wondered throughout the trip, I'm like, huh? I wonder if that's the right price. So I think we asked some of the locals, and they said, oh, you should decide the price ahead of time. And I'm like, okay.

The reason they say that is because they know people are charging extra they wouldn't say that unless people tried to, you know, hey, 40, 50, let's say 50, $50. That was probably what they learned. And so they had this reputation. This is kind of like the tax collectors. But I would say even worse for the tax collectors because they were Jewish men and they were working for the Roman government that ruled over Israel at the time.

And they were stealing from their own people against the like for the government that was oppressing the Jewish people. They were well known for taking extra cuts of the taxes and the people couldn't do anything because they were owned by the Romans, pretty much. So Matthew and his group of tax collecting friends were known as traitors and robbers. Jesus also seems to be eating with a group of other sinners. We don't know what this group is.

It's left vague. I imagine it's people of similar occupations that are cast out from society and that don't have any other people they can associate with except other outcasts like the tax collectors. All that to say the Pharisees did have a point. Like, these were rough people. Like, why would Jesus associate with them?

It seems like it would hurt his reputation. They would never think of doing that, that's for sure. They would never associate with such bad people. However, Jesus answer, I think is one of the most important statements of the entire book, really, and of the entire mission of Jesus. And he says three things.

He says, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice, for I came to call not the righteous, but sinners. Okay, so first off, he starts with something really simple. Only the sick need a doctor. Don't go to the doctor.

If you're healthy, they're gonna charge you 500 bucks, 1,000. You're not gonna. You don't wanna do that. But in his day, they knew that too. You don't go to the doctor if you're well.

He's saying that these people at dinner with him are sick. Not physically sick, but he's saying spiritually they're sick. They're living a broken life and they know it. In this case, he's using a physical analogy to make a spiritual point. It's actually pretty similar to the other story where he heals the physical paralytic and makes him rise to make a spiritual point that he has authority to forgive sins.

Because if God is a healer, God is also a forgiver of sins. So we've seen this before, but now we're seeing it. Through Jesus words to the Pharisees. Digging deeper, you might ask yourself, who is spiritually sick? I mean, according to Jesus, it sounds like he's saying these people are spiritually sick.

But the rest of you guys, you're healthy, you don't need me, so let me do my stuff with these people. And, and you guys are all good. But that's not the message of the Bible. That can't be what he's saying. He says elsewhere in Matthew 5:48, this is Jesus talking, therefore you must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.

And then maybe many of you know romans verse chapter 3, verse 23. The apostle Paul says, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And if even we look at ourselves, we know that we're sinners, that we've done wrong in our life. So if we take Jesus in this context of the rest of Scripture, we can understand that he's saying something more like those who think that they're spiritually healthy will never go to a doctor in the first place. They won't ask for help.

They think they're self sufficient. Only the people who know they are sick will go to the doctor and only they will accept the treatment that the doctor is offering. And so he's implying that people accept Jesus healing by faith, faith that they are sinners and in need of him. The Pharisees, they didn't have faith. They did not come to Jesus for spiritual healing because they didn't think they had the need.

But Matthew the paralytic and these other tax collectors, they came to him and he healed them. I think it's blaring in our face to ask ourselves, do we recognize that we are a sinner in need of Jesus? But then Jesus adds another layer to it. He tells the religious leaders, go learn what this means. God desires mercy over sacrifice.

He's actually quoting Hosea. It's a prophet from the Old Testament. About a couple hundred years before this was written, this was written. Hosea was a couple hundred years before this. And he quotes it from chapter six.

Now without explaining the whole book of Hosea. It's a good one. You can read it this week if you want. But it describes sort of a broken love story. And it represents Israel's faithlessness towards God.

And it talks of it through the analogy of a prostitute who leaves her husband to go after other lovers. And Hosea is connecting that to Israel, leaving God to go after other things like idols and religious rituals. They've lost the heart of God in their nation. And Jesus by quoting Hosea here. It's really harsh, actually.

He's saying the same thing's happening to you guys. Consider the words of Hosea and maybe put yourself in the position of a religious leader who's doing all these religious rituals but has lost the heart for God. This is what Hosea 6, 4, 7 says. Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets.

I killed you with the words of my mouth. Then my judgments go forth like the sun. For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, an acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. And as at Adam, they have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there.

Here we see the heart of God contrasted with the people failing to recognize it. God wants steadfast love. He wants them to seek the truth about him. But instead they're stuck on these religious rituals, sacrifices and offerings. How much of what you do as a Christian is to love God and pursue the truth?

Or how much of it is to check a box to keep up with the expectations of others? Do you feel like salvation is up to you most days? Or do you live moment by moment by the mercy of God and acknowledge his healing power is necessary to heal your sick soul?

One example I thought of just recently was with my fiance Alyssa. Every day, you know, especially if we're going to a wedding like yesterday, every day we need a lot of mercy from God and each other because we are sinners and we're broken. Like we offend each other, we wrong each other. And I think this is true for all of us. If we really think about our lives, we make bad decisions all the time.

We make good decisions too, but we make bad, bad decisions. If salvation is up to us, we're not going to make it. We need Jesus to help us, but it's not just knowing God's mercy, it's also that we can show God's mercy. I encourage you, if you believe in Jesus, to follow his example by loving those who are spiritually sick and lost, prioritizing love and mercy instead of just trying to do all these things to please God. Matthew Henry, an old biblical scholar, writes a really, I think, helpful quote in regards to this topic.

He says this quote, they who are effectually brought to Christ themselves cannot but be desirous that others may be brought to him and ambitious of contributing something towards it. True grace will not contentedly eat its morsels alone, but but will invite others. End quote. So Matthew Henry is talking about how Jesus says that a True Christian will want to show mercy and love towards others and invite them into this beautiful thing of relationship with God. We have no choice but to want these things.

This is part of the beauty of accepting Jesus, having faith in him. Consider who in your life could be an instrument of God's mercy? Is it someone in your life who's needy, poor and widows and fatherless? The people that don't seem to know the truth about God, maybe they have a misunderstanding. We can tell the truth about who God is.

And the cool thing about this is that whether we're showing the mercy or whether God's showing the mercy to us, both cases, God is glorified. And that's his big plan for the world. Jesus has one more thing to say. He says he came to call not the righteous, but sinners. And what do I want to emphasize?

This last thing? He came to call. He came to call. Just like a good doctor. Jesus knows what's his responsibility, and he knows what our role is in the process.

He's calling us to what? He's calling us to repentance. He's calling us to admit we're sick and in need of spiritual healing. He's calling us to. Because we're sinners.

He's calling us to acknowledge who we are, and he's calling us to turn faith to Jesus. But maybe you're thinking, why? Like, why would I do this? Doesn't life feel really good without all this spiritual stuff? Like, isn't it more fun to just go through life and be free and not have the bondage of, I have to obey Jesus?

Now, a lot of people think this, this is an understandable question. However, I think Jesus has an answer himself, and he shows this by example. Jesus will go on from this dinner to go to many more places to heal more people. But ultimately he goes to Jerusalem. The religious leaders, they finally have had enough.

They don't just scoff at him, they arrest him. They say he needs to be crucified, and they hang him on a tree. No human can live if he's claiming to be God, they say. Incredibly, in this moment of excruciating death, he calls out, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

His compassion and mercy extended to the point of death. And then, as Jesus does with the paralytic, he does with himself. He rises up from the dead three days later. Yes, raising the paralytic showed some of his authority. But him rising from the dead himself proves his authority once and for all.

And then he appeared to his Disciples confirming the power of his message and sent them out. And due to them, we are now here today. But nothing was wasted. It wasn't like he had to die and then rise again so that he could rise again. The death itself was crucial.

I mentioned earlier. But only because of Jesus death paying the punishment for our sins, could he then turn around and say, your sins are forgiven. The death was the atonement for our sins. It was the payment. Because God is just.

It had to be paid. But his mercy ruled, and so he died in our place. This is how deeply he wants a relationship with you. After weary days worn down by the guilt of stealing from his own people and the ridicule received from other people, Matthew was ready. Matthew was ready to follow Jesus to live a new life, to change his ways.

Are you ready today? Do you want to follow Jesus today? Have you heard his call on your life? After living at the end of. After living at the end of her rope for many months, the doctor I mentioned earlier, Catherine, she experienced something different.

One of her patients had severe brain damage from a heart attack. An energetic man had become nearly lifeless, remaining in a vegetative state. This man named Ron, his wife prayed at her bedside every day and hoped and had faith that it could be better. The doctors, however, they thought that it was over. They thought that he would be like this forever.

Suddenly, one day, his toe began to move and his wife got excited. Maybe things are changing. The doctors continued. They didn't think it was going to change. But then, day after day, more movement returned to his life, and he eventually had such a quick recovery that the doctors were astounded.

They did not have any explanation. Now, this experience did not solve Kathryn's problem of why they're suffering in the world, because she saw plenty of people who weren't healed. But the instance of a miracle caused her to think, maybe there's more to God. And her husband, Scotty recently became a Christian and encouraged her to read the Bible. And after reading the Gospels, including Matthew and the Book of Romans, she felt familiar words that unveiled Christ's heart.

It wasn't a heart that ignored suffering. Rather, the agony that Jesus endured showed her that he knew suffering. He didn't dismiss it. And through this, through learning the heart of Jesus, Catherine grew faith in him, recognizing his mercy in her sickness of soul, she learned that Jesus mercy heals the sick and glorifies God. Come to the doctor of your souls.

To today, let's pray.

God, thank you that you are a merciful God, that you love us, that you want us to know you, that you want us to live a life of joy and health and love. And we also acknowledge that suffering is in this world. And we have to admit that we can't ignore the hard things and just think and live in a fairy tale. But we know God that you are working through to do your good plan. And Jesus is the proof of that.

Lord, help us Trust Jesus today that he can transform any life that he has power to heal. God, help us to have compassion and mercy on those around us because of the compassion and mercy you showed to us. We pray this in your name, Jesus. Amen.