Word of Salvation – Vol.06 No.10 – March 1960
Matthew The Tax-Collector
Sermon by Rev. J. van der Staal on Matthew 9:9 & 10:3
Scripture Reading: Mark 2:13-17
Sing Hymn: 123:2,3
Sing Hymn: 417:1,3 (after the law)
Proclamation of Grace: Ephe.2:4,5,8,9
Sing Hymn: Hymn 378:1
Sing Hymn: 327:1,2 (After Confession of Faith)
Sing Hymn: 422:5 (Before prayer)
Sing Hymn: 375
Sing Hymn: 182:6 (After the sermon)
Sing Hymn: 427:1
Texts:
“And as he passed on from thence, Jesus saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.” (Matthew 9:9)
“…and Matthew the publican.” (Matthew 10:3)
Translated by John Westendorp.
Translator’s note: early editions of ‘Word of Salvation’ still had some sermons in Dutch for the migrant communities that then made up the Reformed Churches of Australia.
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Central to the gospel is the message of the Savior’s love for sinners. The Lord Jesus himself declared that he had come to seek and save the lost, and that he called sinners to himself, because those who are healthy do not need a physician, but those who are sick. That is why he invited himself in Jericho to be a guest of the tax collector Zacchaeus, and he called that other tax collector, Matthew, at Capernaum and took him into the circle of his disciples. He also associated with other tax collectors on a friendly basis.
The Pharisees were offended by this attitude of the Lord Jesus. They did not have fellowship with that kind of people, and they found it appalling that Jesus was a friend of publicans and sinners and did not even hesitate to eat and drink with them.
But for the same reason that the Jews were offended at Him and rejected Him, we love Him; for from this love of the Savior to sinners it is evident how wide and unlimited His grace is, and that no one is ever rejected who takes refuge in Him out of the need of their sin. Nowhere is it more evident how radically a person can be changed by His grace, how everything can become new through it. Those publicans became His disciples. They broke with the sin in which they had previously lived. Their lives took on a different direction. Up to now they had sought sel-interest. Now they learned to seek GOD. Their lives were henceforth directed toward HIM.
It is about this change and renewal of life by the Savior that we wish to speak today, in connection with what is said in our text concerning the calling of the publican Matthew.
Nowadays it is customary for all kinds of prominent figures to write their memoirs. In them they tell about important events that they experienced, and especially about the role that they themselves played in them.
We could say that in our text we find something like the “memoires of Matthew”, because he tells something of his own life story there, although he does so much more concisely than is done in today’s memoirs. He tells how Jesus found him, and how he was allowed to find Jesus.
Now it is remarkable that we find this same story in two other evangelists, Mark and Luke, but that Matthew is called there by his Hebrew name: Levi. We would not have known that the publican Levi and the evangelist Matthew were one and the same person, if Matthew himself had not told us so.
It is not entirely clear why both Mark and Luke mentioned the Jewish name of this apostle. Would they have wanted to remain silent about the sinful past of this apostle for the uninitiated? But then it is all the more striking that Matthew himself did not hesitate to speak about his past sins; that he did not keep silent about them, not even to those who did not know him closely. He speaks about this when he tells how Jesus called him, Matthew, from the tollhouse to follow Him. And he does this again when he names himself in the list of the apostles as: Matthew, the publican, an addition that is again only found in him, and not in Mark and Luke.
In this story of Matthew’s calling we are struck by the absolute honesty of the apostle; a similar honesty as we find in Paul, who also did not keep silent about the sins of his former life. More than once in his letters this apostle recalls that he had persecuted the church in the past. To the Corinthians he writes that he is therefore not worthy to be called an apostle. And to Timothy he confesses that he occupies a first place among sinners. Never have these people pretended to be better than they were. In what they told about themselves, they never played ‘the pretty’ part. They did not present themselves as good people, who had accomplished some good things, but they also did not conceal the wrong they had done.
I do not know whether you ever speak to others about your faults and shortcomings; whether you dare to admit that you also have your weak points. Do you dare to acknowledge your deviations and your sins to others? Do you ever talk about them, when there is a reason to do so? Or do you always anxiously push them away, because you are afraid of admitting your faults?
Such fear is not to be noticed in either Paul or Matthew. They did not conceal the sad facts of their former lives. And they did not do this in order to play an interesting role, but in order to make it all the more apparent how great the Savior’s love for sinners is, and how much grace they had received from God.
When Matthew in his gospel story comes to the history of his own calling, he does not hide behind his Jewish name, Levi, with an eye to readers who do not know him, but in clear letters he writes down: “And Jesus passing on from there saw a man sitting at the receipt of custom, CALLED MATTHEW”! And when he writes down a little further on the list of the twelve apostles, and comes to his own name, he mentions – although there was no direct necessity for it – very emphatically the profession that he had previously exercised: “….and Matthew, THE PUBLICAN.”
“How great God is ,” Matthew must have thought, that I, a tax collector, was taken into the circle of disciples, and that I may now speak to others of the salvation of the Lord.”
“Come, hear, and I will declare, all you who fear God, what He has done for my soul,”
“I was a publican, and now I am an apostle. I lived only for myself, and now I am allowed to tell others of the self-denying love of the Savior. I had but one desire, but one love, and that was money, and now I am allowed to proclaim that only life with the Savior makes one rich.”
Thus we must learn to speak about the grace of the Lord Jesus, about the salvation that is given to us by Him. It is not enough if we can say something about it in general, if we can give all kinds of considerations about it – in discussions at the Bible club, for example, or at the Youth Club – but we must learn to speak about it personally, so that we involve ourselves in it. “I was a sinner, but by God’s grace I am now redeemed.” May the love of the Lord Jesus so fill us that we are not ashamed to speak out in this way before people.
Secondly, I ask your attention to the story itself of Matthew’s calling.
He lived in Capernaum. That was, like Jericho, the home of Zacchaeus, a border town, where import and export duties were levied on all kinds of articles. A tax official could therefore be assured of a good living there.
Now it is not unlikely that Jesus knew Matthew from earlier times, for He Himself had also lived in Capernaum.
If we give our imagination free rein for a moment, we may imagine that Jesus, when He was still working as an ordainary carpenter in Capernaum, had more than once paid the tax money for Himself and Mary to Matthew, and that on these occasions extended conversations were sometimes held. Jesus then expressed His objections to the tax money, which was so high that it imposed an almost unbearable burden, especially on widows and poor people. At other times He pointed out to Matthew the dangers of the publican’s profession for the spiritual life, or spoke to him about the coming kingdom and the new righteousness that would reign there.
These conversations did not leave Matthew alone. And now the Lord, after an absence of several months, has returned to Capernaum. He has been baptized by John in the Jordan, and instead of working in the carpenter’s shop from early morning till late at night, as before, He now appears openly as the Messiah.
Everyone in Capernaum is talking about His preaching. Matthew also hears about it, and becomes more and more restless. He gradually begins to understand that something in his life needs to change. Until one day Jesus comes to his toll house and tells him to leave everything behind to follow Him,
That is the decisive moment for Matthew. For a moment he is still in conflict, but then he obeys Jesus’ demand. Resolutely he stands up, leaves everything behind, and follows the Lord Jesus, to whose service he will henceforth devote himself.
It is not entirely clear how this was possible; how Matthew could suddenly abandon everything: the work at the tollhouse, and everything that was connected with it. It has been assumed that Matthew was not himself the tenant of the toll house, but only a subordinate official.
Well, this is incidental. What matters is that here a person is placed before a choice by Jesus; that the Lord demands of him that he will break with his former life, and that this is then done by this person, absolutely and unconditionally.
If WE are to follow Jesus, if we are to be His disciples, this choice must also be made by us.
There must then be a radical change in our lives. We can no longer live for ourselves, but we must live for the Lord Jesus.
We can no longer maintain ourselves and only be concerned with our own interests, but in denying ourselves we must seek the other.
We must then become followers of our Lord, no longer wanting to be the greatest; no longer wanting to rule, but to serve.
Do you dare to make that choice with Jesus?
Do you, young people, dare to make this choice with Jesus?
And once that choice is made by you, it must be repeated every day.
Jesus, who called the tax collector Matthew to discipleship, still wants to give His grace to sinners, but He demands that we henceforth fight earnestly against all sin.
He calls us to discipleship, and that is a calling to new life in joy, but it is also a calling to a life of gratitude, in which we repent from evil every day.
And then there is another peculiarity in this history to which I draw your attention.
Jesus called this apostle out of the midst of his daily work.
He did this with others too: with Peter and Andrew, whom He called while they were fishing; and with the sons of Zebedee, to whom the call came while they were mending their nets.
It is well to consider this latter point, for otherwise we might think that Matthew had to abandon his work at the toll-house because that work as such was not fit for a disciple of Jesus.
But when we think of those other disciples, of Peter and Andrew, and of John and James, we understand that that conclusion is at least premature. It was not for that reason that Matthew was called away from the tollhouse, for just as there are believing fishermen, there can also be believing tax collectors.
It is true that discipleship of Jesus is more difficult to experience in one field of work than in another, but there is hardly any profession in which this is not possible.
We must also put the requirement of gratitude into practice in our daily lives. In our professional work too, it must be evident that we are disciples of the Lord Jesus.
There must be believing factory workers and believing manufacturers; believing farmers and believing painters and believing carpenters; believing housewives; believing merchants; and also believing publicans; as well as believing actors and believing film artists. When you think of these latter occupations, you perhaps feel best what it meant in those days that Jesus called the publicans too – and the publicans above all! – to discipleship .
Meanwhile, Jesus did not require Matthew to serve Him in the profession he had practiced up to that point. He had another task for him. Matthew was to serve Him by becoming His apostle, carrying the gospel into the world , and especially by writing that gospel down as a testimony to future generations. When Matthew was called from the tollhouse and had to leave everything behind, he was only allowed to take his writing materials, his pen and inkstand. That same pen, with which he had previously filled out his tax returns, and with which he had more than once confirmed an incorrect statement by signing his name, that same pen he now had to use to write the gospel of the Lord Jesus, who wanted to eat and drink with publicans and sinners, and who came to seek and save that which was lost.
Matthew the tax collector became Matthew the apostle and Matthew the evangelist.
He will often have wondered why God wanted to use him for that work. For Matthew never forgot the background of his apostleship, that beginning of his life that had been so full of sin.
When WE speak about this apostle, we think mainly of what became of his life LATER. Then we say: “Oh yes, that is that Matthew who wrote that gospel.” But when he himself thought about his life, the FORMER came to the fore again. Just think again of how he filled in his name in the list of the apostles. Then he did not write: Matthew the evangelist, but: Matthew the publican.
We must not forget the background of our lives, if we may become something in God’s kingdom; if He gives us a place in His church; if we may serve Him there in office; if we are given a task to fulfill in some other way.
Never forget who you were before! Never forget what you did before! Never forget your backslidings, your sins!
Not because after you have found Jesus you will have to worry again about the evil you have done, as if you will have to ask yourself uncertainly whether it is really forgiven. But because you must always remember the immeasurableness of God’s love, the endlessness of his favor, by which ALL that evil is no longer imputed to you, and by which you have been given a place and a task in his church.
“…And Matthew the tax collector.”
….And I, a sinner!
That is the gospel: Publicans, whom God wants to use as apostles and evangelists. Sinners, whom He wants to use for the coming of His kingdom. Whom He redeems for that purpose. Whom He also keeps in faith for that purpose.
We can never boast in ourselves.
But all the more can we boast in God and His grace.
You bathe in love and power, the people who adore You.
Most blest are those, O Lord, who shout their praise before You,
who walk in paths of light, enjoying Your protection;
their shield is Israel’s God, the God of all perfection. (Ps.89)
Amen.