Episode 332: Go and Learn What This Means | Tim Henderson

Thanks, Babs. I like sitting in the front row because when the kids get dismissed, I get to watch them. Did you notice how Lennon dismisses the kids? Did you see how many boys ran? Did you notice all these boys trying to walk? I have a distinct memory of being a little boy at church. I grew up in Southern California, and the day that I noticed that all the grown-ups walked everywhere, I'm thinking, that's so stupid. Like, don't they know they could get there so much faster if they would just pick it up a little bit? So I appreciate these boys here.

Last week we talked about Matthew 8, and we just had a conversation about the fact that I think God wants us to believe his promises, to rest in his promises, to come before him not just with humility and boldness, but also with expectancy. And after that, I got more notes from you guys than probably any other time that I've ever preached. It was really interesting to see the number of people saying, I think that maybe God wants me to be fasting or praying. A whole bunch of people joined us on Tuesday.

So we made it a little more official. I wasn't very detailed with you, but I will be praying Tuesdays at 4:00 in the church parking lot if anybody wants to join us. You're welcome to. I realize most of you have jobs, and that's great, good for you. But if you're free on a Tuesday at 4:00 and you want to come, you're welcome to. Many of the notes are from folks saying I can't physically show up, but either at that time in a different place or a different time and place, I will be fasting and praying and meeting with the Lord and trusting him for these things that I'm afraid maybe he's not willing to do, but I want to believe that he's willing to do.

We're excited about that. We would love to see if this just grows and spreads, and if it does, and God is pleased to draw more of us to seek his face, then what a joy that would be. I'd love to continue to hear as we see what happens and where God goes with it all.

The Call of Matthew

This morning, we're going to continue our look at Matthew. We're going to be in chapter 9, the passage that Barb just read for us. This is the moment where Jesus calls a very unconventional disciple to his side. His name is Matthew. He's also known as Levi, and if you happen to have been watching The Chosen, this is the character who is on the autism spectrum, who's really good with numbers, who takes very detailed notes of everything, and is going to write the Gospel of Matthew. While the imagination that he has autism, I don't think there's any real basis for that. What they get right, what they get exactly right, is how despised he is.

Because Matthew's job is tax collector. He's Jewish, but he works for the Romans exploiting the Jews and collecting revenue for the Roman Empire. So nobody likes him very much, except Jesus. And this is just one more example of Jesus moving towards the people that nobody has time for and showing them kindness and welcome. It is beautiful. But it's not beautiful to everyone.

Take a look at what happens in verses 10 and 11:

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" — Matthew 9:10-11

When they catch wind of what Jesus is doing, they try to corner the disciples. They're not asking this question of Jesus; they're asking it of the disciples. We don't get any insight into what they say. My guess would be they try to stammer out some kind of defense of Jesus' behavior, but we're not privy to it. What we are privy to is the fact that Jesus apparently overhears the conversation, and as he often does, he comes to their rescue. Only when he comes, he doesn't defend himself. He actually goes on the offense.

Take a look at what he says here, verse 12:

On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." — Matthew 9:12-13

Basically, what Jesus is saying is: doctors spend time with sick people. Duh. What do you not get here? Jesus knows that he has come to help hurting people, and hurting people necessarily make poor decisions. He's spending his time with people who make poor decisions, and he's like, what's not—why don't you get this? This should be obvious to you. He begins to rebuke them for the fact that they're just so thick-headed that they can't understand that of course he's spending time with the people that they find undesirable.

Why do you think I came? But then it seems like a light goes off for Jesus and he recognizes, oh, I know what their problem is, I know what they misunderstand, and he gives them an assignment. Take a look at what he says here. This is, I think, pretty interesting. It's again in verse 13, he says:

I desire mercy, not sacrifice. — Matthew 9:13

And he says, go and learn what this means. Now, when he says to them, go and learn what this means, what they're actually supposed to do is hear the phrase, I desire mercy not sacrifice, run it through their grid, like what is he quoting, where is that from? And if they don't know, they should go look it up. And then when they go find it and they look it up, they should read it in its context, pick it apart, figure out, okay, what does it mean there? What was happening? Why was that said? What does that mean? And then how does that meaning make sense in light of the conversation that we are having?

And apparently none of that happens. He tells them, go and learn what this means, and I think they just blow it off altogether, and they don't do anything, which is pretty dumb for them. And we could look at that and say, well, you guys, that's really what you should have done. But before we criticize them too much, do you know what we are supposed to do when we read this text? You're supposed to read Matthew 9, and when Jesus says, go and learn what this means, we say, what is he quoting? I don't recognize that phrase. Let me look it up. And we go back, and we find that phrase, figure out where it is, we unpack the context of it, we see what the message is, and if we properly understand what was happening there in the original time, then we take that, we plug it back in, and then Matthew 9 lights up for us.

But I don't think we tend to do that either. There's a very strong tendency that we read the scriptures and we come across something we don't quite understand, we just shrug and be like, well, I don't know what that's about. And off we go, we continue to read and we miss it all. I think it's a little bit like we read the Bible the way most of us—the way that I watch an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Do you know his stuff? He made, maybe his most famous movie is The Sixth Sense. He wrote, directed, produced—I don't know what he does, I think he does it all. The Sixth Sense, what else did that guy do? The Village. The Village, that's a good one. And the thing is, his movies—the shtick of his is his movies are full of clues, hints. And if you're following him, then you see where he's going with this, but nobody ever catches the hints. Right? And so when you get to the last fifteen minutes of the story, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? How did that come? What do you mean he's dead? You know, and the whole thing unpacks. Then you go back and you look at it, and you're like, yeah, there was a clue, there was a clue, there was a clue—I saw none of them. And so the big reveal shocks and surprises. It's fun in a movie to have that sense of surprise revelation, but I think what we want to do is read the scriptures so that when there's a clue, we slow down. Hang on, let me pull this thread. Let me see where this is going, what it is that you wanted me to understand here.

Now, if you do it wrong on Matthew 9 and you don't get it, you actually don't get to go very far before it's going to bite you in the butt.

The Pattern Continues in Matthew 12

So what happens in Matthew 12, three chapters later, something very conspicuous happens. In Matthew 12, verse 1:

At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look, your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath." — Matthew 12:1-2

It's a very familiar situation. Jesus is constantly doing something that annoys the religious leaders. Just like every day, he does something and they're on him. So he heals somebody and they're mad about it. He heals somebody on the Sabbath and they lose their minds. He's moved graciously towards women on the margins of society and they're just sitting back shaking their head at what a dirtbag he is for associating with these people. Everywhere—people are picking grain on a Saturday and they flip out. It's just all the time. Right? He's nice to dirty people and that just annoys them. Jesus lives in a constant sea of their criticism.

This time, I think his response is interesting. He has this double response. He does something that's not super common throughout the gospels, but he first gives biblical precedent for his behavior. He's going to do it twice. In chapter 12, verse 3, he says:

Haven't you read what David did? — Matthew 12:3

And then he explains the story. And then in verse five, he says, "Or haven't you read in the law that the priest did this, then, and the other thing?" We might in three weeks get to Matthew 12, and I'm not sure if we'll look at that passage or not, but maybe we will. We'll unpack what is going on there.

But what I really want you to see is his next part. First, the biblical precedent, but then watch what he does in verse seven. He says:

If you had known what these words mean, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," you would not have condemned the innocent. — Matthew 12:7

You hear the echo, right? It's the same passage he busted them with in chapter nine. He's gonna do it again in chapter 12. And what this tells us is that they did not go and learn what it means. He's like, "If you had, you wouldn't be committing the same error again. You missed it a second time, right? If you knew what this means—I desire mercy, not sacrifice—you would not have condemned the innocent."

And so I want to propose to you that since Jesus does this double tap on "I desire mercy, not sacrifice," then maybe it's high time that we actually go back and figure out what does it mean and then plug it back in. You guys want to come? You want to do this? Okay.

What Jesus is Quoting

So when Jesus says, "Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy, not sacrifice," what is he quoting? If you could tell me because you know or because your footnotes cheat, that's fine, either way.

Hosea, okay? This is a passage in the book of Hosea. Now, what do you know about Hosea, you guys?

He married a prostitute. God bless him. Can you imagine your kid comes to you and says, "Mom, Dad, God wants me to marry this prostitute"? Would anybody be like, "Yeah, son, let's go"? I don't think so. It's a strange book. A real life, actual prophet marries a real life, actual prostitute. Why? What's the point of that whole thing?

To show Israel sin and unfaithfulness. That's right. Essentially the message of Hosea is that being your God is like being married to a prostitute. That is what the book is about over and over again, which is so interesting.

I would say that throughout all the scriptures, the most strangely, bizarrely, emotionally vulnerable God has ever displayed is in the book of Hosea. He's not describing this like it's just a math problem. "Hey, this happened, that happened." Sometimes we can explain these things in very non-emotional terms. But God is saying, "Can you imagine how miserable and painful it would be to be married to a woman who is constantly running around on you? How heartbreaking that would be?" Yeah. That is what it's like being your God. He's describing in such an extraordinary way that we have the power to hurt him in our faithlessness. It's really extraordinary.

And in the midst of this whole letter, or this whole kind of exchange, something happens that's surprising and confusing in chapter six. So go to Hosea six. I'll have it on screen for you, and just look at verse one. It says:

Come, let us return to the Lord. He's torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days, he'll revive us. On the third day, he'll restore us that we may live in his presence. Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear. He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth. — Hosea 6:1-3

Be careful. What do you think of those words? Would you characterize them as positive, negative, faithful, unfaithful, good, bad? What is this?

Positive? This feels like a psalm or something. You guys agree? Okay. Here's what's crazy. It's totally not. It looks like it is. Those words are true things. It's true. His mercies are new every morning. But it's not true here. I will prove that to you in a minute. Let me try to illustrate it first.

If you're my age or older, you might remember a TV show called Silver Spoons. Does anybody remember Silver Spoons? There's a few old people in the room. It stars Ricky Schroeder and his little co-star buddy is Jason Bateman, if you know Jason Bateman. And even if you've never seen the show, I think you'll know the character type. It's almost like a meme. Ricky Schroeder was a rich kid. And he has this best friend who is just the worst. His best friend is a bad kid, he's a selfish kid. He's always doing something devious, but he's also a total suck-up.

So whenever he'll be doing some evil thing and just being a jerk, and then a grown-up would walk in the room, suddenly he just turns on a dime and becomes all obsequious. He's just always gonna be fawning in his approval and this outrageous politeness. But it's so transparently artificial, right?

And everybody can see right through him. That phenomena of like, I know how to say the right words when the right person's in the room, but it's total nonsense and I don't mean a bit of it—that is Hosea six. That's exactly what's going on. They're saying yeah, the words are great, but in their mouths, on their lips, it's completely false. And the way that we know that it's false is because of the way God responds to it.

And it could give you whiplash if you don't understand what's going on. You're like, why is God so touchy about this? It's because he's like that kid. So look at what he says in verse four. This is God's response to these otherwise good words:

What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. It's just a vapor. It just blows away. — Hosea 6:4

He says, verse five:

Therefore, I cut you in pieces with my prophets. I killed you with the words in my mouth. Then my judgments go forth like the sun. — Hosea 6:5

Here it is. Here's the thing we're hunting for. Verse six:

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings. — Hosea 6:6

And then he goes on to list a whole bunch of really ugly specific things that they're culpable of. God is seeing right through their remarks in six one to three because he knows they don't mean it. He knows that what they're saying is God is a pushover, and we can dupe him. We can go live these wicked lives of selfishness, and then all we have to do is at just the right moment, sprinkle a little religion on top and we can get away with everything.

And God says, no, no, can't. Because I see right through the artifice to the reality of your life. And what I'm looking for here is actual mercy, not religion. Sacrifice, you can see for mercy see love, for religion or for sacrifice see religion. He says, want real love, not fake religion. I want an internal reality, not some external performance. I want authenticity, not ceremonialism. I want real gospel lives, not ritualistic conformity that is draped over a dark heart.

That's when Jesus says, "Go and learn what this means: I desire mercy not sacrifice." He says, what I want is for you to actually, genuinely care about people. Not that you just keep giving yourself credit for being better than everyone. And when Jesus says to these guys in Matthew nine, then again in Matthew 12, go and learn what this means, that's what it means. They were supposed to go back to Hosea six, see that it was about them, that they reflect it and repent. But they didn't do any of those things.

Now, there is a biblical principle, a biblical interpretation principle that when you go back and when the New Testament borrows words from the Old, it never borrows the words alone. It always takes the meaning with it. So it's not just that phrase that he's stealing, it's the concept, it's the idea. They're supposed to go back and say, okay, get it. I get it. Right? What you mean is that I am sprinkling religion on top of my otherwise wicked life and giving myself credit, and I need to stop doing that. That's a good point.

So you look at it in Matthew nine. You can see it happening. In Matthew nine, Jesus welcomes this dirty tax collector that they're altogether too ready to criticize. He gives him a place at the table. Last week, it was the lepers and the gentiles and the women. I got a text last week from Blandy, who basically said something like, Matthew eight shows the ridiculous extents of Jesus' love. He loves women. Gasp. Right? And she's right. When you look at this, you say, how absurd that this is extraordinary, but it was extraordinary.

And it's not just that he loves women, but he loves Gentiles. Like, half of you are women, probably nearly every one of you is a Gentile. You'd be like, is it really that strange that he would love me? Well, it is actually. And it's certainly from the vantage point of the religious crowd that he's in—they think we're scum. And yet Jesus welcomes all of us to the table.

And then now here in chapter nine, they're doing it again. They're looking down at this tax collector, mocking him. I mean, just like who are you to spend time with all these people? Then in chapter 12, they're gonna be critical of people who pick grain on Saturday. And Jesus' response to them is, guys, just stop it. Like, enough already. Enough of constantly walking around thinking that because you're good to some external game that you're better than other people. I don't like the game that you're playing.

What I really want you to do is to genuinely love people. Jesus is saying like, I mean, I heal people on a Saturday and all you can see is that it's Saturday and that breaks your rules.

I welcome ostracized people into my community and all you can do is think about how much better you are than the people that I've welcomed. You see, guys, just knock it off, right? I change somebody's life with warmth and welcome and you just get upset. It doesn't make any sense.

And here's the thing: you can read this story and we can get on team Jesus here and look at all these losers that are mean to people and scoff at them. You can do that. Or you can take a riskier step and just say, where am I like the ones that are being criticized?

Because I really think if we're being honest, every one of us lives with these concentric circles. The center of the circle is the good guy, and then that second circle is the not quite so good, and then outside the circle is the pretty bad. But the peculiar thing is, darn it all, if we aren't always right smack in the middle of the good circle. We all have this vantage point from which we observe the rest of the world, and we see all the unworthies that are someplace else.

So rather than looking at the story as these people that are wrongly judging everyone, what if that story is being told to us? Wherever you're at, probably. We draw different circles, but we all draw the circles. The conservatives among us tend to think that they are better than all of these immoral people. And the liberals just think they're better than all the people that think they're better than other people. And they miss the irony of it.

And Jesus is telling that story to all of us, that he's like, no, no, no, living your life in a way that you're just critical of everybody. We have different taxonomies, but it's all the same basic system at its root.

For instance, many of you have heard me say that we must uphold the Christian sexual ethic. And indeed, we must. It is better, it is kinder, it is more beneficial. It is more likely to lead to flourishing than any of the alternatives. You've probably heard me say that we must not say false things. And indeed, we mustn't. We live in an era of compulsory false speech. Socially and vocationally, there are things you're not allowed to say, there's things you must say, and we must not cooperate with that. We are the people that only say true things.

But in this interaction, in Jesus' repeated quotations of Hosea, he desires mercy, not sacrifice. This should give us pause.

He desires mercy, not sacrifice — Hosea 6:6

Matthew had issues with money, and Jesus accepted him into his community before he cleaned up his act. The Samaritan woman, she had issues with men—lots of men—and Jesus loved her and welcomed her. He puts his finger on her sin, but he doesn't beat her with it. He's incredibly gentle, right?

Paul, the dude was self-righteous, and God calls him into his service before he cleans up his act. He gives him a calling, and then he gets to work to slowly work out the humility that was just absent in his life. And then there's you. You guys, what were your issues when Jesus called you, when he accepted you, before you got cleaned up?

The Way of Jesus

The way of Jesus, and forgive me if this offends you, is that he gathers all these unworthies, all these people that have no basis to stand in his presence. And he welcomes us before we fix ourselves because we can't fix ourselves. He does it because he loves mercy. It delights him. It thrills him. And showing mercy to undeserved people is the thing that brings him the most joy, you would see.

So in this church, by God's grace, we will always say true things. Count on it. We are not gonna capitulate. We're gonna continue to say the things that are right and good and true and beautiful. And we will love mercy as we say them.

We're gonna create space here. We have created space here. We mean to do better and better at creating space for messy people to work out their faulty understanding of things, because that just takes time. And we're gonna create space for people to reorder their faulty loves of unworthy things, because that takes time too. And space for people to correct their faulty behaviors that are just at odds with citizenship in the kingdom. All those things need time to work out, right?

We create a space in which people can repent slowly, by degrees and with relapses, because that is just the only thing that works. And if we don't have space for that, then we'd never grow and no one else will either.

The only hope, you guys, for a world that is so desperately sick is this: there's lots of place, lots of space, lots of time for people to get better. Jesus did not come for the healthy. He came for the sick. And woe to us if we don't make sick people feel welcome here.

Jesus desires mercy because his father loves mercy. We desire mercy because we've experienced it from him. So please, oh, please, oh, please only say true things, right? We must be a people that are full of truth. Truth is good. It's beautiful. We cherish it all day, every day.

But let's be certain that we say those things from a posture of humility, right, not superiority, as lovers of mercy, not as people who fancy ourselves to be superior and religious. Jesus says:

Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. — Matthew 9:13

Wouldn't it be embarrassing if he had to tell us twice? If he had to say, you really should have gone and learned what this means. Let's learn it here in Matthew 9, so we don't have to get it again in Matthew 12. That we are just endlessly thoughtful.

Jesus came from the Father full of grace and full of truth. We don't get to pick one or the other. We must be both. People will grow. We will grow into the fullness and the maturity and the holiness that Christ purchased for us on the cross. But we all start at some place that needs copious amounts of welcome and grace.

Let's pray that God gives us the wisdom to do that, to be patient as our Savior who allows people the time to grow into what he means us all to be. Amen? Amen. Amen.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, you are the one who desires mercy, not sacrifice. And yet you are the one who was mercifully sacrificed for us. Lord, you work in our hearts a love of mercy, a joy to see broken people, and particularly the people that are broken in the ways that we find difficult.

It's easy to be sympathetic with the people like us. Let us be sympathetic with people not like us, to be endlessly truthful and patient and kind, to be thoughtful and gentle and welcoming and good like you. Lord, forgive us for any place that we are sprinkling religion on our otherwise selfish lives, that we would love what you love in the way that you do.

Lord, I pray that this morning, if there's any here that just need to have a space of welcome, that they would find it. They would come here and be among us. They would come. Alone or with others, they would come and meet you. We love you. If you'd like to, we invite you to come.

This curved rail is for you to come and just spend time alone, maybe to repent of the ways that you've been looking down your nose at people. Maybe to come and to say, Jesus, if you really are that welcoming, then I would come to be with you. And we'll have friends with the straight rails on the sides if you want somebody to pray with you.

So we'll take a few minutes for you just to pause and reflect, and then Dave will lead us in a little bit of prayer after that.