We will partake of a New Year’s reflection this morning because New Year’s Day is coming up this week, as you know, and it affords us a great opportunity to refresh our thinking on some various issues that are taught in the Bible, at least it has for me over the last couple of weeks as I have looked to the new year starting in a couple of days.
I want to share today with you some reflections that I have had, especially in the past month, but in particular one commitment that I am going to be making even more so that I really began in 2008. It is very Biblical, I believe, and I am going to share it with you. Really, my intent for 2009 is to step it up yet to another level because I really think that there is a lot to be said about this particular issue, especially with the fact that we are coming so close to the end of time.
It has to do with what is referred to in the Bible as “publicans and sinners”—that phrase that we see over and over again that is mentioned in the New Testament in particular—and, specifically, how to treat them. That is one of the challenges, I believe, that any Christian, any believer, any proclaimed believer has.
I have had that difficulty, so I want to share with you some thoughts from the Scriptures today and hopefully challenge you, as well as myself, in going into the new year with a great Biblical way to view and treat “publicans and sinners,” whatever that may mean. We are going to take a quick peek in the Scriptures today to see what that is, and I want to start in Matthew 9:10.
I want you to follow with me here because I am going to ask you some questions about some differentiations here so that we understand it. If we understand it, it is going to be easier to try to apply it. It is not easy to apply a truth if you do not understand what it is first, so we would want to understand the root of what is being spoken here.
In Matthew 9:10-13, we read:
And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
We see the phrase “publicans and sinners” in that passage in verse 10, and then Jesus talked about the sinners at the very end of that passage in verse 13, but why don’t I start with specifically asking you what a publican is? Do you know what that word means in the King James translation here, publican?
Yes. I heard Sally say, “A tax collector.” Why was that such a bad term, because I think that you probably get the connotation here that, in this passage, “publicans and sinners” is kind of looking down upon them? So why would a tax collector be a negative connotation, Jim? Jim said that they collected taxes for Rome.
There is a specific reason why they were so hated, but I want you to realize that even Matthew himself—we read from the book of Matthew here—and Matthew himself was a tax collector, a publican. We know that from the next chapter. Look at chapter 10 in Matthew, Matthew 10:2:
Now the names of the twelve apostles are these…
And then I am going to skip right over to verse 3, Matthew 10:3:
Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican…
So Matthew himself was even listed as a publican. It was a big negative in that day because not only did they collect taxes for the Roman government, but the Romans controlled the land of Israel, as you know, in Jesus’ day and they would contract with local businessmen to collect taxes.
It was not like our law today. If you work in the state of Pennsylvania today, you have a certain income tax being taken out of your wages. If you work in the city of Philadelphia, you get 3.91% taken out of your wages if you are a commuter, a nonresident but you work in the city. It just comes right out of your paycheck; but in that day, it did not exist that way. They would contract with these local businessmen to collect the taxes and they would appoint underlings, called publicans, to actually go out and collect the tax, but there was no Roman law about the amount that they could collect. So Rome had its levy and that would be a particular percentage, but the publican would always add to that for his or her own profit.
In this case, the publicans got away with what they could. If they could charge you 5% more or 10% more, whatever it was that they felt they could get away with, they did it. That is why they were hated, because they were really overcharging the people, much more than what a fair take would be for the tax collection. So, of course, they kept the excess, whatever they could get away with. If Rome wanted $50.00 from that person and they charged them $100.00, they kept the other $50.00 for themselves and they gave the first $50.00 to Rome.
So they had a bad reputation and Matthew himself, we are going to see in Luke 5, was a publican. Let us see in Luke 5 where Matthew is mentioned again. In Luke 5:27, let us see what it says there about him:
And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi…
Now, that is Matthew, the same Matthew that we read about in Matthew 10. It is just a different title for him. It continues:
…sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me.
So Jesus is speaking to Matthew, or Levi, and saying, “Follow Me.” Luke 5:28-32:
And he left all, rose up, and followed him. And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them. But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
We can insinuate from that passage that Matthew had some money. He was able to hold a big feast in his own house. We read in verse 29 that “a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them” came to that feast. But, nonetheless, he heeded Jesus’ call to follow Him and he did do that.
Now, it says here, where Jesus said:
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
We are looking at the phrase “publicans and sinners” in particular. We saw that publicans, tax collectors, were hated because of the excess they would charge to people unfairly and get away with, but what is a sinner? What do you think the name or title of sinner means in these passages that we have looked at? Think of the context in which we read about these “publicans and sinners.” In verse 30, the Pharisees murmured, “Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?”
What is a sinner? Japheth? That is a good start, a nonbeliever. A believer sins, too, but especially in this context, the sinners who are being referred to are those with public sin that is exposed; otherwise, how would you know what I am thinking? I may seem like I am a great guy and following God’s law, but how do you know what I am thinking in my heart? However, if I am committing sin outwardly, sin that is evident in public, then I am viewed as a sinner.
That is why we see this response from the Pharisees, because what did they think about themselves? What is the title that we would use for them? They thought that they were _____? It begins with an “s.” Self-righteous. They were self-righteous and they would look at someone else with a public sin and say, “That is a sinner,” even though the Bible says in the Psalms as well as Romans—they had no excuse even though Romans had not been written yet because the Psalms were already written—and what does the Psalm say, “There is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.” That is where the quote in Romans 3 comes from. So we have to realize that sinners are everybody; but in this context, the sinners that are really being referred to are those with a publicly-exposed sin.
Let us look at Matthew 21:31 as an example. Jesus is speaking and He says:
Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first. Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.
This is when Jesus is giving the parable to the Pharisees about two people. He says here, “The publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.”
So what word is being substituted for sinner? Harlot. And is that not a public sin? Yes. Harlotry is selling your body for money, so that was a public sin. People knew who the harlots in the town were and they, therefore, had a stigmatism attached to them or, certainly, they were known as being sinners, the worst kind. That is why Jesus said “publicans and harlots,” interchanged with “publicans and sinners.”
So let me go back then to the phrase “publicans and sinners.” What is being mentioned? Who, in general, are we speaking about when we say “publicans and sinners” then? It is a tough question, is it not? Gary said the non-Jews. Perhaps. I want to get a little bit more general than that, though.
Anyone who is not self-righteous would really fit into the category of a publican and a sinner. They are typically people who are outside of the Kingdom of God and they do not know much about God. They are contrasted with the self-righteous because over and over again we saw the Pharisees and scribes challenging Jesus, “Why are You hanging out with them?”—that is my language, because that is what we would say today—“Why do You keep company with publicans and sinners?”
Look at Luke 15 and we will see that contrast. Luke 15:1-2:
Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured…
They are murmuring, so they are complaining about this, and they said:
This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
Do you see the contrast? What is the contrast? The Pharisees would not eat with them. Why? Mary? Yes, they thought it would give the appearance of sinning themselves, for one thing. Secondarily, what else did they think? From other places in the Scripture, what else did they think in their mind? Not just the fact that they would be associated, perhaps, with that sin, but also the fact that they thought that they were above those people, too. They did not want to go near them, “Those people are not as good as I am. They are not as holy, especially, so I am not going to keep company with them. They do not deserve to be in my company. They have not earned it yet. They are not good enough. They have not suppressed sin successfully enough.”
Look in the same book, Luke 18:10, the same contrast:
Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
Do you see a contrast? The Pharisee on the one hand, contrasted with the publican on the other. Luke 18:11:
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men…
That is self-righteousness right there. If you say in prayer, “Lord, thank You that I am not like those people out there,” that is being self-righteous, and he says:
I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
And that is the great contrast. A self-righteous person lined up against one who recognizes, “Yes, I know that I am doing the wrong thing; but oh well, that is my life. That is who I am.”
Now, why am I bringing this up today? Remember, I challenged you earlier that for the new year ahead, there is a lesson to be learned in these passages that we have looked at and a few others that we are going to take a peek at before the study is over.
How do we treat “publicans and sinners”? I want you to think back at this past year in your life. Whether you are a school-aged child or a young adult or if you are an adult, how have you treated “publicans and sinners” in your life in the last year? Have you avoided them? Have you shunned them? Have you befriended them? Have you sought out to love them?
I am going to challenge you because I was faced with that this past month in particular. The Christmas season is upon us and we had a Christmas party at work. The reason that I thought about this phrase in the last couple of weeks was because a phrase was thrown out and it just caught fire. It went through the department for about three weeks. You either heard people joking about it or being angry about it or saying it.
Someone had asked someone else while riding in an elevator if they were going to go to the Christmas party for our company. The answer, apparently, as the story goes, was, “Are you kidding? I am not going to go to that party and be with those drunks and whores!”
You see, that is today’s language. Instead of “publicans and sinners,” the common phrase today is “drunks and whores,” insinuating that there are a lot of drunks and whores in our company.
So, needless to say, some people got angry because they were thinking that they were being called that. Other people laughed about it, but it just caught fire for three weeks and that is all I heard.
So the one person and the other people who identified with “I am not going because I do not want to be with those drunks and whores” would be what I would call self-righteous. That is just not something that you would say, right?
Here is the thing. Why did it hit me? I am sharing this with you just so that it can drive the point home.
Someone else in the middle of that time period, perhaps in the middle of the month before we had our party, one of my friends came and said to me, “Someone was saying about you that they could not believe that you were friends with those drunks and whores.”
I was like, “Wow!” When I first heard that, I was taken aback and it bothered me at first. I was like, “Do I want someone thinking that about me, like, you know, I am hanging around, whatever that means, or that I am friends with them or that I talk to those people a lot?” And it hit me.
At first, I was uncomfortable with it, but then I started the book of Matthew a few weeks ago. So I thank God that in my daily reading, I had started Matthew and had stumbled upon these verses in chapter 9 and chapter 10 and then in Luke.
It hit me that, yes, this is good. I am actually glad, as opposed to being uncomfortable with that, because I want to be friends with the “drunks and whores.” I want to seek them out, not to do what they are doing, if that is what they do, but to love them and to be friends with them. There is a certain benefit to sharing the Gospel with people with little time left because when you look at what you have around you, if you become cloistered and homebound, what good is that? Why not be raptured today then? Right? Exactly, and so I am challenging you and I am challenging myself to step out, to really reach out to these people, because who am I?
Look at Matthew 11:18. This is John the Baptist and Jesus being contrasted by the people. Consider which side, not that either one is obviously very good here, but look at verse 18 and 19. Think about the fact that no matter what you do, you are going to be talked about anyway. Matthew 11:18-19:
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners…
So you can imagine that when I read that, that is when it clicked finally, and that was good. I am glad. I am glad that somebody noticed that I was friends with the “drunks and whores,” that I was reaching out to them, to those types of people. I am not shunning them. I am not avoiding them but wanting to go up and befriend them.
For me, that is a little easier to do in my own personal life because I was one of those when I was younger, so I know how they think. Who am I to step away from that and say that I am not going to be part of those people anymore?
One thing that I am a little ashamed of is that when the Lord first got hold of me, I absented myself from all of my friends who were in that environment. It is one thing to take yourself out of that place of sin, but it is another thing to take yourself out of that person’s life as a friend. I look back and I just dropped all of those friendships I had when God really started to wake me up to the Scriptures. I regret that today and I think that for a lot of years, I just shunned those people, that type of people. But who am I to say that about them because, at the end, what matters is that I found a better way. I found the right way, so why not share that?
So I just realized that this year and, finally, I really started to reach out more. As I noticed this, I had not done this purposely. I had not set this as a goal for 2008 as a behaviour change, but it has begun to happen and it has gotten some momentum now. I realized that with a little over two years to go, now it really is incumbent upon me to step it up and kind of go back to where I began and say that I am going to reach out to these people who were part of what I was part of. That was my life when I was a young adult, so I am going to step back because I understand their thinking, the mindset. I know exactly what that is all about.
Something that made it very easy for me to relate to that was when I read Matthew 7:1 and the Sermon on the Mount, a great, great verse. It really helps you to get over the hump with befriending people, whether it is in school or family members or neighborhood people or friends or just neighbors. I am talking about personal relationships here. This is not a message on general mission work and tract distribution with strangers. This is about personal relationships in the new year. Personal relationships are much less. They are not as big as being outside during an Eagle’s game passing out tracts with tens of thousands of people going in. You do not know any of those people and you are never going to see them again probably. I am talking about the personal relationships that you have with friends in school, family members that you see on occasion or in your own house everyday, or neighbors that you run across on a fairly regular basis. Matthew 7:1:
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
Does that not say it all? Who am I to judge another person? God is the Judge, right? Now, I, myself, was very judgmental with people whom I became friends with or whom I am friends with today, and maybe too much so.
I will share another story with you. This just happened again this month and it is the reason why this is on my mind today to share with you. One of my friends at work, maybe in that lifestyle, about a year ago, I was very tough on her, very judgmental and really trying to get her to get off that track and onto the right track and really judging her behavior. Naturally, you might think that someone who sits right next to you at work is going to be a little timid and not share with you when you are judgmental like that, which I was, but I began to realize over the last half a year at least that I had to stop being judgmental because I was just looking at a reflection in the mirror of me 20 years ago when I looked at her. So I said, “Wait a second. I have to love the person. God is the Judge of the sin. I have to love the person and then maybe I will have a much better opportunity to share.”
Sure enough, that is what happened, just about, again, a couple of weeks ago. It all happened this month. She comes in one day hung over from the night before and just let it all out, just crying in front of me and said, “John, I want to stop this.” Because I had been loving and not judging her for a good six months, finally, she was open enough to share, “I want to stop! I want to stop this behavior,” not that she was looking to me as some role model, but somebody who hopefully had some answers to share from the Scriptures.
What a great time that was and what an emotional time that was to have somebody just open up to you and want to give up that lifestyle because it was empty. I could identify, so I said, “Look, that is a very empty and vain way to live because at the end, the Bible says in Proverbs that the ‘bread of deceit is sweet to a man.’ But what happens afterwards? What is your mouth full of? ‘But afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel.’”
It does not last; it is very temporal and temporary and it does not work, so that never would have happened had I remained what I am going to call more judgmental about “publicans and sinners” or “drunks and whores,” as we say today. If I had remained judgmental, that never would have happened. Now, we have an amazing thing going on where I share a Bible verse or a Scripture off the top of my head or I might pull out my Bible. I have it up on a shelf. I have a Bible at work and I pull that off and say, “Look at what it says here. Look at what I read this morning.” I do this just as an encouragement and she is very open to listening.
So there is a personal relationship with a friend that has been enhanced because I have stopped judging. As Jesus was friends with “publicans and sinners,” I am trying to reach out and not be the judge. The judgment is coming in 2 ½ years. That is God’s business. Let Him do it. In the mean time, I am to love.
I am here to challenge you today to do the same thing. Think about your life now, each one of you. Who can you approach in 2009 who you have been shunning or avoiding, either this year or for a lot of years? Think about it in school, you guys who are in school. What about friends that you do not want to go near maybe because of their reputation or whatever?
I am not saying to join with what they are doing. Do you see the difference? What am I saying? Do not ignore them, but go up to them. How do you befriend someone? Do not all human beings have the same needs, the same desire to be loved? Do we not all need to be loved. Yes, we do. That is why Jesus Christ loved His own unto the end, the Bible says. We are to love people because even the most hardened sinner, “public sinner,” still has a sensitive heart and needs to be loved and desires friendship with people, especially one that is deep.
For most of the “cool” kids in school, is it not all on the surface? It is all exterior a lot of times. I do not know if you guys face that where you guys go right now or where Rebekah is. I do not know if you have that issue in Junior High or High School, but I think that is pretty commonplace. But that is not deep because as soon as somebody upsets the other person, then they are angry and then they are enemies. But if you go up to people, not to indulge in their sin but to ask them how they are, ask them how their Christmas was when you go back to school or how their family time was, the wholesome stuff, which is what I am talking about. Think about wholesome things that you can bring up to a friend or to somebody who you want to become friends with and befriend. Think about the gamut between the most popular hardened sinner in the school to the one who is lonely and ignored who has no friends, and everything in between.
You pick out a person. I am challenging you, if you are a teenager today. Pick out someone who you do not talk to today in school, who you are going to make it your point to become a friend with, if they will receive you into their life, by going up to them and being proactive and loving them, not shunning them but not indulging in their sin, if you think that they sin here or there or whatever, not doing that. You have to be strong. You have to be able to be strong enough to withstand the temptation to join in the group, but I guarantee you that you will be respected. They know where you are coming from. They know your position, if you really do believe this book. They will.
I have found this over and over and over again, more and more people whom I have reached out to this year because I have the reputation, at least from what I was hearing over the last couple of weeks, “Can you believe that John is friends with the drunks and the whores?” Now, I am glad. I am glad because I have been doing that unknowingly, necessarily. I did not set out to do that, but I have been doing that more and I really want to reach out in the new year to the people whom I know.
When you work, you work five out of seven days, typically, and that is most of your life. Those are the people whom you are around the most and that is where you can have an impact with relationships, if you are a worker. If you are at home, it could be family members or neighbors. Reach out to someone whom you have been shunning. Maybe you felt a little self-righteous, maybe a little timid, maybe there is another emotion that causes you not to want to reach out, but there is only a little time left, so reach out to people because if you are a little bit self-righteous, it is the wrong attitude.
There is only a little time left to share what you have found. Are you any better than anybody else because you found the truth? No. No. If you are in a family that reads the Bible every night, thank God. That is a rare privilege that you have. Most people do not have that, so you can get out there and make an impact. You know, God has given you a talent. Do not go and bury it in the ground. If He gave you ten talents, go turn it into 100. How do you do that? You do that by reaching 100 people, so-to-speak. You see?
So in other words, do not be introverted as a human being and shy away, because the only way that you are going to have an impact with people is if you get into their lives and become a friend with them, a gentle friend. To the “drunks and whores” or sinners out there, become a gentle friend. You are there always seeking that person to ask them how they are, the things that matter most to them.
I keep going back to those issues. How do you do that? You do that by simply loving them and by not being judgmental. Do not worry about whether they care about your life or not. It does not have to be a reciprocal agreement. It is just to give, to give of yourself. Be generous, be kind with your time, with your words, and be complimentary. That is always a great way to reach someone. If you see something that is very noteworthy, something that they do that is good, even the most hardened criminal still has some decent qualities usually, so try to find that one quality in the person and compliment them on that. Believe me, that will make them feel good and they will look at you more favorably. It works. I mean, I try that myself, over and over again, and it works, not to be fake, but to find. Your job is to find the good in that person and try to bring it out so that then they become more comfortable with you and then you can share.
What Christ did was He reached out to them, did He not? They felt comfortable with Him. All of the “publicans and sinners” came to hear Him. He loved them and that is why they felt comfortable around Him.
So you have your challenge. If you are in school, I really want you to pick someone or a group, maybe two or three or four or five, whatever, of your classmates, schoolmates, and reach out. If you do not have a relationship today, I want you to try to build one for the new year. If you are an adult, seek people out in your employment or family. Put three people’s names down on a list and pray, as a new year is upon us this week, that God will give you the ability to go into that person’s life and become part of them, part of that person’s life, where they will feel comfortable with you and share with you maybe six months down the road, where you can share the Gospel with them.
Always, always try to weave in the truth of the Scriptures with your friendship. You will be respected for that. Do not be worried that people are going to make fun of it. Believe me, if you do it gently, you will be respected. Most times, most people will respect that.
Remember what David said about Absalom, his own son? Was Absalom a murderer? Yes, and he tried to murder David, his own father, but what happened in 2 Samuel 18? Let me read this to you. In 2 Samuel 18, we find someone who did not deserve any love whatsoever, and this was a family member, so this is going to be our family example. 2 Samuel 18:31-32:
And, behold, Cushi came; and Cushi said, Tidings, my lord the king: for the LORD hath avenged thee this day of all them that rose up against thee. And the king said unto Cushi, Is the young man Absalom safe? And Cushi answered, The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise against thee to do thee hurt, be as that young man is.
And here is the verse that we want to focus on, 2 Samuel 18:33:
And the king…
This is David.
…was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!
Absalom did not deserve the love of David, his father. He was trying to kill his own dad and take the throne, but David lamented over his death. He was a sinner. He was a wicked sinner, but David lamented because he loved him.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Lay down your life for your friends. Make it a point to become friends with “publicans and sinners” this year, because the Bible gives us, over and over, these examples, that we are to do this.
If you have been touched by the Gospel, turn around and share it with other people, but you have to be proactive. You can not cocoon away in your own home or in your own neighborhood and get away from the world. It is not the right way to be these last two years. I want you to really challenge yourself, no matter what your personality. Whether you are an extravert or an introvert, there are ways that you can just befriend others. Gently or otherwise, you can befriend people so that you can share the truth with them, because there is only a short time left. With a short time to go, if you have been privileged enough with the truth, it is incumbent upon you to share it, and this is one way to look at it in 2009: personal relationships that you can make with the “drunks and whores” or “publicans and sinners” of the world.
Let me end with one verse that definitely has touched me and I hope it will you because this is what it boils down to, following in the Master’s footsteps. This verse, we will close with. John 13:1:
Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come…
Sound familiar? Do we know when the hour is coming for us? Yes. If we are not taken in death beforehand, it is going to be about two years and less than five months to go.
…when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world…
What did He do?
…he loved them unto the end.
And that is the challenge that I leave you with. The people who are in your life who are your own, your family, the friends that you have, the people who are in your class in school, the neighbors that you live near, they are the people whom God has put in your life. They are your own. “Jesus…having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.”
My challenge to you and to me is that the people who are in our lives, we would love them, not judge them, love them unto the end. Hopefully, God will have mercy on many in the meantime. Amen.