Jesus Saw Matthew – WJS7

Reading: Mark 2:13-17

13 Then Jesus went out to the lakeshore again and taught the crowds that were coming to him. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him. 15 Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) 16 But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?” 17 When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Mark 2:13–17 (NLT)

Jesus was back in Galilee again teaching by the lake. He walked past a tax-collector’s booth on the promenade above the beach, spun on his heel, walked back to the tax-collector, and said, “Follow me and be my disciple!” We already know from Zacchaeus’ story that Jesus didn’t share the Pharisees’ prejudice against “tax collectors and other disreputable sinners”! But Jesus called Levi (soon to be known as Matthew) to become one of his disciples. Eventually, there were a lot of people like Levi the tax-collector and others who were considered “low-lifes”, among the followers of Jesus.

Jesus didn’t have a problem relating to them, going to dinner at their homes, and even calling them to be his disciples. Stay with me on this, friends, because the attitude the Pharisees had (why does he eat with such scum?) can so easily become our attitude toward those who are unchurched, and we can so easily forget that Jesus saw them as “confused and helpless” and as sheep without a shepherd! And that he saw himself as the shepherd of lost sheep and the healer of sick souls.

Levi became Matthew, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers. Matthew became one of the Twelve Apostles. Matthew became the author of one of the four Gospels and recorded for us much of what we know about Jesus. For the past few days, as we’ve been thinking about “What Jesus Saw” it’s becoming ever clearer to me that Jesus saw more than meets the eye! Jesus looked at people as they were and saw them as they could become! Jesus saw hearts that could learn and change and grow. I’m so thankful for people who saw more in me than I saw in myself and called me to grow and change!

Prayer:

Father, Thank you for seeing more in me than I could ever see in myself. One more time, I’m praying for my friends and me to See What Jesus Saw!