Jesus is Calling! Do You Hear the Call? Matthew 9:9-13

On a certain occasion, Jesus healed a paralyzed man by forgiving him of sin, and telling him to pick up the pallet upon which he laid and to go home. The crowd who witnessed this miracle that day was ecstatic with excitement, shouting praises to God for giving this kind of power to mankind! (And we still have it today through Jesus, The Healer.)

After leaving that incident, Jesus saw a man named Matthew sitting at a tax collection table. He looked at him and simply said, "Follow me!" (My punctuation). And Matthew immediately got up from where he was sitting and followed Jesus!

Later after Jesus arrived home, he sat down to eat dinner with people who had bad reputations; people who were considered sinners by the church-goers of that day in Israel. Some of these religious folk asked Jesus' followers why he was eating with such bad people.

The word finally got back to Jesus what was being said. Here is his response (Matthew 9:12-13):
12 ...They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

In other words, people who are well do not need a doctor. But people who are sick do!

13 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.

Or we would say, "You need to learn what I meant in the Bible when I said, I will have mercy on mankind (and shed my own blood) to forgive man's sin, rather than continue receiving the blood of animals which can never forgive sin. Because I have come here, not to call those to repent who are already right with God, but to call those to repent who are not!"

Jesus sees and knows that we are all spiritually sick with sin. He has come from Heaven to die for us, and to give his blood (like a sacrificial lamb in Israel) to heal us spiritually. But we must believe, repent of sin and ask for the salvation he has provided with his death on the Cross.

If you are already right with God, and you know it without a shadow of doubt, then this message is not for you. But if you know in your heart you are not right with God, Jesus is calling you right now to repent of your sins and to follow him, just as surely as he walked up to Matthew and told him.

He's in your face right now and he's saying to you, "Follow Me!" Do you hear the call?

If you do, ask him to forgive your sins, and to change your heart and make you a new person! He will, because you're the reason he came; and you're the reason he died and rose again!