Bless: Eat (Matthew 9:9-13)

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The Calling of Matthew
9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,”he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
12On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.13But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

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• Big Idea
  • Eating with people outside our circles is a way for all of us to grow in the grace of Christ.
• Following                                                                                                                            
  • Jesus reached out to the least likely person we’d think to invite over.                                                                                                                                           
  • If a rabbi said “follow me” it meant he believed you could become like him.
• Two Tables                                                                                                                               
  • Matthew invited people like him over to meet and eat with Jesus.
  • The Pharisees excluded sinners from their gatherings. 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
• The Good Doctor                                                                                                                     
  • No one is righteous, except the ones Jesus makes righteous.
  • True righteousness comes from responding to the compassion we’ve found in Christ. Romans 2:24           
• Feast                                                                                                                                     
  • Our vertical devotion needs to also have a horizontal focus.                                                             
  •  Have dinner with a sinner.