This morning we're going to look at a passage of Scripture from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 9, and this is actually a text we're going to spend two weeks on. We looked at it last week, and we're going to look at it again today. I've started a series for the epiphany season, January and February, looking at Jesus' calling of His disciples. And particularly this idea of what it means to be a follower of Jesus and looking at four key words in the Gospel of Matthew that Jesus gives to His disciples to understand what it means to be His follower. See, pray, receive, and go. And I want to keep talking to you this morning about the word see. And we're looking at a passage where we see how Jesus sees people. Last week we tried to look at what it meant to understand that what it means when we say Jesus sees us and is a shepherd who can do something about our problems. And this morning I want us to look at this text again with a view to understanding how does this affect, if we're a disciple, and we know this about Him, then how does it affect the way we see others, the way we see each other and the way we see the world? Before we read it, let's pray together. Our Father in the midst of all the changing words of this generation help us now to hear your eternal word that doesn't change and to respond to you as we ought with faith, understanding, and obedience. We pray in Jesus name, Amen. And we read this and I think this is descriptive of the ministry of Jesus Christ, it's such a powerful summary of the motivation of Jesus and the activity of Jesus when he began his ministry and I'm going to read verses 35 and 36 of Matthew 9. Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. I imagine that a number of you yesterday between basketball games and other things that happen every Saturday for so many of us were able to watch some of the inaugural festivities. I tried to glue myself in the television and I think oddly enough, the most enduring image of the day for me was actually not George Bush braving it in the rain, not shivering or anything like that, but it was something that happened in the activity inauguration where former President Clinton went to the airport. And if you were watching one of the networks that showed this, they had arranged, I guess some of his people arranged for a full military review. And the President Clinton went and saluted and gave a full formal military review of an army squad during some sort, I don't know exactly what you call it. And as I was watching this, the news commentators were all just sort of saying, now this has never been done before. No one has ever done this before. Usually the departing President just hops into the plane and goes home. And then the thing that we're really saying was amazing was only the President does this, only an acting President would ever review the troops. How can you review troops over which you have absolutely no authority? And as he said that, I thought, what an amazing, what an amazing thing? To be where, you know, it was obviously a nice honorific thing that we're doing, but the fact was here was somebody we're used to seeing. We're accustomed to thinking of him in that role, you know, overseeing the commander in chief, but the fact was he had absolutely not a shred of authority over a single one of them. Now, we're accustomed, those of us who are Christians, we think of Jesus Christ, we talk about His glory, we talk about His power, but do we really see Him as an enthroned Lord, as an empowered shepherd of human hearts and human lives who will never lose His power? Do we see Him as He enters the scene in the Gospels as the one who has absolute authority to change human hearts and lives so that there's no life, there is no situation, there is no context that we would ever look at despairingly because He's never just there to review without power. He's always there as the shepherd. Now, what I want to talk to you about this morning is this, if you truly see Him as the good shepherd who's come to lay down His life for sheep, who has said, I will raise up every one of them, the Father has given me on the last day, I will give them eternal life, I will give them your life, it is going to change the way you see everything. And we're sort of beginning, the very beginning of what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is someone who really sees everything differently. I see this a little bit very simply. Christianity is a way of seeing. It's just a radically different way of seeing the world. Now, you may have encountered and experienced all sorts of Christians who don't really see or act or live any differently, but the fact is discipleship really doesn't tell seeing things differently. Now, let me unpack that in just a few ways. First of all, if you truly see Jesus as He is, as we just read, you're going to begin to see things more clearly. Seeing you will see clearly all things, the world, yourself, other people, if you understand who He is. Faith in Jesus Christ means that you begin to understand that He is a shepherd who sees you uniquely in all the needs and concerns and aspirations and abilities and limitations of you. Your world and all of its complexity, He sees it all, loves it because He created it and communicates to that world and communicates to you. And if we use the shepherd analogy, it means that He is a good shepherd, He has a voice, and in the scriptures He has spoken and a sheep. A disciple is someone who begins to hear that voice and knows it's the shepherd's voice and trusts it. It's a very simple picture. Now, that is not a very simple thing to happen. And that's what I want to talk to you first when I say that you begin to see clearly. It doesn't mean it's an easy thing to begin to allow the vision of God, the vision of the scriptures to become your vision because it's a very different vision than who most of us are. All of us are innately and intuitively because the Bible says we're sinners. Now, let me give you one quick caveat, and I say this from time to time, fairly regularly. And it is when I say that the Bible, the Word of God, can enable you to see clearly, I don't mean that in an arrogant way because sometimes people will use the Bible and they sort of become a religious equivalent of the shell answer me. And if you don't agree with them, they just kind of assault you. I'm not saying that the Bible gives us exhaustive truth to every single question that's ever been asked or that everything could ever be known as in there. It would be a bigger book. Okay, frankly, when Christians talk about absolute truth, what we're saying is not that the Bible says absolutely everything that there is to be said, but that behind that word is the only absolute person in the universe. So that whatever he says to whatever extent it is addressed is absolutely true because he is an absolute being. It's true truth. It's not exhaustive truth. Now, that is a very controversial concept for this culture. If you want to say to people, I believe the Bible is the Word of God. Somebody will say, you know, I do really believe that Gallup does all these surveys. Do you believe the Bible is the Word of God? It's like 88% of everybody says they believe this. Right. What do they mean by that? Well, at some level, if you say, you know, I looked at the Scriptures and I believe that I can receive comfort from them. God will really give you comfort through the Scriptures. Generally people will go, yes, absolutely. God will do that. Or you say, no, I looked at the Scriptures and I read these great narratives, these great stories, and I receive deep inspiration. But when you say, in the Scriptures, you have the epistemological lordship of Christ and maybe you wouldn't say that immediately. That is Lord of knowledge, the Lord of truth, the authority of God over what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false. Then things start to get hairy, don't they? Because you're talking about a person different than you who speaks and expects to be obeyed. Now, frankly, it's a fairly simple concept. If there is a creator and that creator has not only given a creation but has interpreted his creation, then that is what the Scriptures are. That is what Jesus Christ was as he came unto the earth, the Word of God. It is the creator interpreting his creation. Psalm 36 puts the concept very simply where it says, for you, with you, Lord, with you is the fountain of life. That is, you're the source of reality, you're the source of life, you're the creator. With you is the fountain of life, and in your light, we see light. You see the nature of that relationship. That is, somebody who becomes a Christian begins to look at the world, the idea of clarity, how you understand reality, very differently because you see a reality is fundamentally personal. There is a person behind everything who not only is sovereign overall things but who in Scripture fundamentally interprets what we need to know about that reality and about ourselves. It's a radically, as Lewis says, it is a way of saying it's a different worldview and it is the serious thing. When you're used to going with your gut, when you're used to thinking by your own better lights and feeling like having that very good feeling that actually you are just a little more intuitive and smart than everyone else, it's a very disorienting thing. To look through another interpretive lens and say this is reality, not what my gut tells me. I have a good friend who ministered with me in New York City. He was a campus minister there at New York University. Before coming there, he lived in Australia for 10 years and three beautiful little children and their middle child, Noah, one of the cutest little children I've ever seen. Noah was near sighted and I don't mean near sighted, I mean radically near sighted. He is the cutest little boy and his glasses are... I've never measured them but it looks like he's got glasses that look like they're about a half inch thick. I mean they're just the thickest glasses I've ever seen on a little boy. My friend Tom tells me about how it took him a while to realize that Noah couldn't see. Noah would play, he adapted, he adjusted, he played with his brother, played with his sister, he had games and fun and was a perfectly functioning child. But every now and then he would skin his knee or run into the wall and they began to realize that there was something wrong so they diagnosed it and gave him his glasses. But near the Australian epic and Tom tells me the story of the day that the glasses arrived at their house and they gave them to their four year old son. And he put them on and he said it was five full minutes before he could speak a word. He said he put them on and he said he just has a mouth fell out that he walked around the house. He looked at each one of us, mommy and daddy and his brothers and his sisters and they said and then he just kind of stumbled outside and he looked at the trees and he just started taking it all in. He couldn't speak because he was disoriented. Now seen if you could grant me the hypothetical if you could know that you could really know what's on the other side. You could really know the heart and the mind of the one who made you and loves you doesn't stand a reason that putting on those lenses and looking through them is going to disorient you. But isn't it worth it? Isn't it worth the nausea? Isn't it worth the frustration or even the shock to know what's really there? Well that's what the process of discipleship is. Looking to the good shepherd Jesus becoming convinced that he is who he said he was. It says he is that he can be trusted but as you do that something very painful starts happening and that is you start putting on those glasses and you start realizing that all sorts of things you thought about yourself. That you thought about the world that he has very different things to say and some of those things frankly are going to rub you like sand paper on the world. They are absolutely going to rub you the wrong way and it's a very it's a profound and mystical process to have your mind changed. Have you ever had your mind really changed about anything? It amazes me our culture. We have a number of certainties that pilfer through our culture here in North America 21st century. If you look at the media you look at the academia and generally you see a certain amount of fundamental cultural assumptions that run throughout it. That sight guys that sense of the age is an incredibly powerful thing. People without you know whether you're bright or dumb it doesn't really matter. It's very easy to get caught up in that and have your identity because you want to be in. You want to think like all the smart people and like the majority. There's a sense in which you don't want to be on the outside of whatever it is. Now it's interesting we look at other time periods 19th century, 18th century, pick a decade. It's so easy when you do the history book almost every time you look and you go well the majority of people thought this. But of course now we look back and say how could anybody think this way? How could anybody think this way? How could they've been so blind about slavery in the 19th century? How could the majority become so deeply emotional about such an issue that's so obviously wrong? Have you ever had your mind fundamentally changed about something that's at the core of the culture? We began the service today saying that we're joining with a number of churches today in praying for just an awareness of the importance of life. And that's not just a pro-life statement in terms of unborn children but just across the board that the helpless and the weak regardless of who you are or what circumstance you're in, you matter to God and Christians not in any militant sense but in the sense of being servants and caring about people. We want to summon the church to say we need to care about life. Now on the one hand that makes sound like a very obvious statement and yeah that's an issue that is so remote in our culture. I mean people become so unbelievably, I mean on either side people just you know this is bumper time. You know we've got to be this is serious. You know speak with your bumpers here this is a very important issue. People become deeply emotional one way or the other. But I ask you, whatever side you're on on that frankly, would you be willing? Would you be willing to have your mind changed? Would you be willing to have your mind changed if you knew that you could know what God said about the matter? If it could be now. I personally believe the scriptures tell us that all life is from God. But come into that, come into that conviction. For some people it may be very natural for others it may be a very painful thing to have to work through and think it through. It may not be that issue. It may be a whole and maybe an issue about sexuality. It may be an issue about who we are as men or women. Whatever it is but for all of us know this. You put those lenses on. And the promise is you will see more clearly. Look through the word of God and you will begin to see things as they really are. But expect the shepherd to take you places that you'd rather not go to. I once heard this great Christian woman Elizabeth Elliott speak. And she told a story about having a vacation in the United Kingdom and watching people take care of sheep. And she said one of the things she saw that she had never seen before. She said there was some terrible disease going around that was affecting the sheep. And the medication required that they take all the little limbs and they had to immerse them in water that had medicine in it. And they had to keep them under the water for about 30 seconds to treat them. And she said it was just it was just she couldn't stand to watch it because you know the little lambs were bleeding and kicking. And you know thought they were going to drown as the shepherds are holding them under the holding and you know giving them what they need. And she was speaking to this of course to say you know that is exactly what being a follower of Christ is going to be like for you from time to time. It may be circumstances in your life or frankly it may be a systemological it may be that there are things you'd rather not think about or there are things you'd rather not here. But the shepherd needs you to think about it needs you to hear it because you need to hear the truth. If you begin listen if you follow him because he sees in his light you will begin to see light. All right so we'll lead to clarity now second point I'm really changed ears here. I think one of the major focus of this text you can tell I don't preach from a manuscript can't you. Is not only will it lead to clarity not only do you have disciples who are beginning to understand. You know the word of God more clearly as it applies all of life but they're also saying. That to follow him means that you begin to see people differently that age you begin to see with compassion not just clarity but compassion. This verse 36 says that when Jesus you know he's out of his ministry among all kinds of people and it says when he saw the crowds he was moved with compassion I told you last week it means literally moved in the gut. I mean at the deepest level of his person he was shaken with compassion for people who the text says were harassed and helpless. That is people whose lives were a mess and who couldn't really do anything about it even if they try. And I think that's a pretty good way to just describe us across the board were harassed and helpless life is a problem. Jesus looks at us and we're told he's moved with compassion and now I'm saying this is obviously what he's as he sends these disciples out to by two in chapter 10. He's obviously that's the foundation of why he's sending them out because of how he sees he's calling them to begin to see others the way he sees them. Now standard religious response to look at human brokenness whatever it is maybe it's a friend who's done you the wrong way and you just feel like they're not trustworthy. Maybe it is somebody who you've talked to about the faith and they've just been cynical and written you off or maybe it's a poverty issue somebody who has a life some sort of addiction you know you've tried and tried and tried and they just you know they keep falling you know falling off the wagon. Think of any of those circumstances and you'll see people you know good religious people who say yes we need to be compassionate but we only have compassion on the deserving poor. You know we only have compassion on people who deserve it and one of the verses they will often quote is don't wear your pearl before sewing you know we'll talk about compassion we don't have to throw it in there but how many of us are truly compassionate people. How many of us when we see somebody who's down and out really don't find ourself come on looking down our nose. We say you know what you are there because it choices you made and it is nobody fault but your own and frankly the reason I'm not there is because I've made different choices. There are some of that and almost all of us don't wear your pearls before sewing don't waste your time on this kind of people don't waste your energy on this kind of people now I want to take a few minutes and I want to talk to you about what it means to throw your pearls to sewing because I think it will help us understand compassion. When Jesus says don't throw your pearls to sewing you know people hear that and they think boy so Jesus is saying only give yourself to people who deserve it. Is that what he's saying you know only have compassion on the you know the legitimate poor not the illegitimate poor is that what he's saying well that teaching comes also from this gospel the gospel of Matthew and it comes from the training that he gives to the 12 in the sermon on the mount. And also the crowds that are there and what Jesus talks of them about is the pearl and the pearl is this gospel if he is in his kingdom in chapter 13 of the gospel he says you know if you get a hold of this pearl of my gospel that is what I've come to do what life with me means sell everything is the most precious thing you'll ever have then that's the pearl but then in the sermon on the mount he says now take that pearl that gospel and just throw it before the swine don't waste it. Now what on earth can that possibly mean now I want to hopefully alleviate your concern that Jesus is you know at some level just a mean person and is basically saying you know there are people out there they're just pigs don't waste your time with them that's not what he's saying. Okay you got to remember as I said last week this is an agrarian culture they think agrarian and a pig when it eats yeah yeah to think of it more in terms of purpose. In terms of purpose or focus or nature when a pig eats what is it's agenda when a pig eats it's agenda is quite simply to eat and get better and to get fuller that's what it does you know it eats husks and if a pig comes on a pearl it doesn't discern the value of the pearl because the pig is caught up in eating husk and getting bigger. Now if you kind of put that in a in a spiritual perspective all right and compare it to human beings the human being Jesus is already said he feels deep compassion for all right he feels deep compassion for them but it's just an analogy to say look if you come to know Jesus Christ you'll possess eternal life. That is you will become aware of spiritual realities if you want to think of it as planes of consciousness or planes of being literally to be fully spiritually human is to know Jesus Christ and then for the first time know the God who created you know about his holiness know about his beauty to really be fully who you were created to be that can only happen according to Jesus that life that is eternal life can only happen through him now. If that doesn't happen then what you usually say is people going into life like pigs now again don't be offended by his analogy but think about it you know a pig wants to get full and we did the same thing we it may be you know you want to have a great career you want to have a great love life you want to be a great parent you know all those things that we we want to see happen in our life you know we want to be good looking we want to be healthy we eat. You know we fill in those things there's a certain pain is about human nature that unless the Holy Spirit really doesn't work on you these things like the beauty of Christ and the Holiness of God in his left for you are just not going to be real unless he does something in your life. Now what Jesus is saying to his followers all right the disciples hear me when he says don't go pro before swine he saying don't force the gospel down people's throat who are not ready for it. Don't don't be a spiritually insensitive or arrogant person do you know where that text comes don't cast your pro before swine it comes a Matthew 7 where Jesus says judge not list you be judged. It's where he says to disciples don't go after the beam in somebody else's eye while you've still got to you know worry about the spec in your own eye what is he saying about the way Christians should relate with other people he's saying my disciples should be people who are radically humble you know they see their own faults more than they see the faults of other people. They don't judge others that is they don't write off anybody because they know of God's mercy in their own life they fully expect his power and mercy to work in the lives of others because it's works in theirs you treat people with profound respect because you know you're just like them and anything that's happened in you is only because of the grace of God. Judge not let you be judged but don't throw your pro before swine what is he saying but don't try to force things down people's throats treat them with compassion treat them with spiritual sensitivity don't try to press things on the people that are not relevant to their concerns or that are not discerning to God's work in their lives. Now I think that's an important teaching for us as disciples because so often people I encounter who are alienated from the church or who are alienated from Christianity somewhere in that story there was there was an insensitive person who saw truth as a big sword demanding people over the head with. And in some sort of you know because they had the punts their little cards to share the four laws or something like that somebody treated them like a little item and they felt they felt either you know they either felt like they were just you know an agenda somebody had or they felt that they were somehow you know that there was an intolerant person who every time you know never really cared about me all they cared about was pushing their agenda down my throat. A lot of people are alienated from Christ because of Christians like that. Now you look at Jesus and the compassion he has and what you see is a beautiful balance and that beautiful balance is he never treats any two people the same he always treats people uniquely because he cares about them enough to really find out who they are. So not only does Jesus bring clarity of the truth but he also brings clarity and it had a lot of people and how to understand people he treats notes of people the same he always he is a shepherd who creates a context for individuals to be able to perceive his beauty to be able to perceive his glory. Let me give an example I'm talking about. There are a lot of false compassion that run life in churches what I mean by false compassion I once heard I was at a dinner once and Manning Gordon McDonnell was sharing at the dinner and he said you know I find that Christians didn't fall into the truth party or the love party. And I've always remembered that because you do you have you have Christians who you know let's talk about being compassionate they either fall into the love party that is theology being right about everything. You know having your eyes dotted in your teeth crossed is what drives you and that's fundamentally how you relate to people you you are. You know you you are part of the truth party and you know in the worst case scenario you're a legalist you know you fundamentally you know you don't really care what the response of the person is you just want to make sure that you you let them know what you think and what you you know what's the phrase people of you take a stand and then and then Gordon McDonald says there's the love party. And it's just as it's just as imbalanced because it says the love party tended to come relative. They tend to they tend to be very compassionate and they understand everybody and they they're not fixers they're feelers. And they just they treat everybody with tremendous sympathy and understanding and frankly they're never going to speak a hardware to anybody because God is so loving and wonderful he knows just how broken we all are and really he doesn't you know he just understands. You got the truth party and you got the love party and both of them miss the gospel where you see the gospel alone the gospel of the cross truly can make you into a person who is both old enough to speak the truth and yet humble enough to not come off as an arrogant person and I'm saying this in faith because I struggle coming across as an arrogant person and I think the only hope I have of not coming across that way is the gospel. Because you see in the cross of Jesus Christ you see it so clearly the one who had all true who was true who was glory who was love leaving that glory and going to the cross casting he was the pearl and he cast it for all this white he goes to the cross and when you begin to realize that that was done for you it humbles you. You have to treat everybody with respect because you realize that that is how serious my condition is the son of God had to die in my place and yet you can be bold. Because you know how serious that is that problem is for everybody else not just for you and you you're bold because you know how great his love is that if you can forgive you you can forgive other people. Now if that really I believe if that begins to take root in you it really will create compassion Jesus says whoever has been loved much loves much. You know if you have received you know if you realize that you've received love you're going to give love and that's how this compassion Jesus has begins to transfer into his disciples. Look at what happens with Mary and Martha you may know this story in John chapter 11 it's a great example of how Jesus shepherds people in a very different ways in John chapter 11 Jesus friend and Lazarus dies and his sisters Mary and Martha are devastated and frankly they're not just devastated they're irritated because you know let's face it if Jesus is one of your buddies I mean like the living walking physical historical Jesus like comes to your dinner parties and your life falls apart you know you're going to get a little upset you know he's feeding 5,000 you know but what has he done for me lately and that's sort of what you see in John chapter 11 Mary and Martha they're in sense. But there are two very different people and the compassion of Jesus as he moves into that situation I encourage you to go read the story it is an amazing story I read this week and I was blown over by this because what happens in that story is Jesus comes and Martha is the first and she says if you that comes sooner my brother has died and if you had come sooner he wouldn't have died. Now a few minutes later as he gets closer to the tomb Mary says the same thing and they had the same problem they're both angry with God because they don't like his providence in their life they don't like what's going on and they need shepherding all right they need correction but Mary if you I mean Martha if you look at her she's got all sorts of things she says well if you would come I'm angry with you but I know there's going to be a resurrection of the dead someday but she starts doing theology she's the thing. I think her she's the intellectual and Jesus basically says to her I mean he just you get the sense that he just interrupts her and says Martha I am that is right now I am the resurrection in the life in other words he he engages and he gets her the truth that she needs to hear because she's got that theology going on but he gives her some good theology but when Martha says the exact same thing Martha the serve. Mary never saw what happened with Martha she's she's farther down the road with Martha he gives a solid answer that absolutely that she needs to hear but when he comes to Mary he just cries what do you see here you see a compassion in Jesus Christ that is really that you see the humble yourself enough to really care about who people are. What they really need you're sheep without a shepherd and you'll love them enough to do anything you can to help them find them. Finally that's why you not only begin to see then with clarity and with his compassion do you see if you follow him and you understand the gospel it will really make you compassionate but the last thing is I hope that you'll see that I think the gospel of Matthew is just laced with ways in which it will begin to make you confident. It will give you clarity it will give you compassion but looking to him will enable you to see people with confidence that God can work in their lives. Let me just close this by telling you a little story you know this is the gospel of Matthew and in the ninth chapter of Matthew you read about the conversion of Matthew and Matthew comes from what I guess today we would call a dysfunctional family. All we know about his family is he has a brother named James you've got Matthew and James or actually his name is Levi Matthew's name is Levi. The other gospel is calling this Mark chapter two says that the one who we call Matthew Jesus called Matthew his name has given him was Levi and his brother James was a zealot in fact three of the disciples of the twelve were zealots. Now let me tell you what that means they lived in a real time of political turmoil incredible division you know powerful emotional issues dividing people. And in this family you had James the zealot that is a brother who had decided that the political order the zealots were people who were sort of like you know beat poets with guns. You know they were they were just totally anti establishment but they were violent they were going to overthrow the order. And yet Levi was a tax collector which meant that he had actually decided to sell his soul to the devil. Sherrod and his corrupt administration that was building the poor he was absolutely I mean he was core I mean you know like all the other tax collectors he was up to his teeth in corruption in in selling out. So in the same family see the division you've got you've got the moralist the self righteous moralist who stands in his own righteousness and his causes and then you have the liberty who's just out to get what he can get. And it's Jesus who calls them and creates a new family isn't that amazing can you imagine how do I think they had tense evenings they are out in the desert I think they did. But what I want you to see is the power of this of what the shepherd can do to draw those people together and you know Matthew's name here Levi the sell out the person who can't control his desires the person who just has to have more money who has to have more things. Who can't you know he's harassed and helpless he can't do anything about it when Jesus means him he calls in Matthew which is a nice name he gives him the name Matthew which means gift up and you know the other gospels call him Levi but in Matthew's gospel he never mentions that other name he simply says there was a man named Matthew we know from the other gospels that Jesus gave him that name. Jesus knew what he would make of him you would even do your life is my gift listen did you see yourself that way and friends did can you see the lives of those around you the same way it's the first way you see as a true disciple Lord I want to ask you to give us eyes to see as you see. And I'm praying for myself right along with everybody else because Lord our vision is informed is it's informed my culture it's informed by the world it's it's driven so often by our peers it is a it is a profound thing to ask you to help us to wear your eyes and see for them to know how you see us now you see others. I pray that Lord you would give us clarity in any areas where we are being faithless to you in any area where we we really need to see that we're opposed to you. I pray that you would give us deeper compassion for all people for people who disagree with us for people who we dislike for people who we have written off. Give us deeper compassion and Lord I just pray that we would be filled also with confidence that the new life you've given those of us who believe is a gift and that you want to do that in many many many other lives. I pray this in Jesus name.