Matthew: Choose Your Hard
SUMMARY
In this sermon, Karl Ihfe uses the calling of Matthew the tax collector to challenge the idea that following Jesus is the easy road. Drawing on the truth that every meaningful "yes" requires a "no," Karl reminds us that life isn't a choice between hard and easy — it's a choice between different kinds of hard. The real question isn't whether life will be difficult, but whether the hard we choose leads us toward reward and purpose, or toward regret.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Well, if you have your Bible with you, invite you to turn over to Matthew's gospel. We'll spend a little bit of time there together today. But I need to confess something as we begin this morning in Bible class we talked about Jacob wrestling with God and had a chance to wrestle with that text some. And I just want to let you know I've been wrestling with this sermon this week. So I don't know how this is going to go.
You guys, can I just be honest with you? It may get bumpy here in a little bit. This text has been chasing me this week as I've been thinking some about what it really means to be a disciple. And so my hope and prayer is that the Lord will take whatever gobbledygook comes out of this and makes it sound like something to you. But as we begin, I want to start with this question.
Have you ever made a life changing decision, one which you knew afterwards things would never be the same again? Maybe it was a new job, your first job, first time out of college, first time out of high school. Maybe it's first time in a long time you took a new job. Or maybe you decided to buy a house instead of renting, or you kind of are launching into home ownership. Maybe for you it was to move, to go to a different city, to pick up from where you had been, to go to somewhere new.
Maybe it was commitment. You decided to say yes to somebody who asked you a really important question. Maybe it was a leap of faith, maybe leaving something behind that was really familiar and chasing after a new dream, a new opportunity. Have you ever made one of those decisions We've all experienced in some way, shape or form or we soon will face some of those life changing decisions. And the truth about those decisions is when you say yes to something, it's.
It's also saying no to other things. I know you're thinking, that's great. Thanks Captain Obvious. Saying yes means saying no, but it really does. Saying yes to one career means saying no to any others that you could have.
Saying yes to one city means not living in another. Saying yes to buying a home means I'm saying no to the freedom of bouncing from maybe a different apartment or living by rent and having it be someone else's problem. Saying yes to one person means saying no to an infinite possibility of others. Every meaningful yes equates to a no to something else. Now I don't know about you, but that's not often the picture of discipleship when I think about it.
When I think about Following Jesus, I simply think of saying yes. We say yes and we follow. But I don't often think about how it's also a no, a no to an entirely different way of life. That's been the surrounding kind of thought. As I've been chasing this text, thinking about our character for today, our disciple today, and that's Matthew, or as Luke sometimes calls him, Levi, unlike Peter and John, unlike Andrew we saw last week.
When Jesus calls Matthew, he's not on a fishing boat and he's not following some other disciple already. He's actually sitting and a tax booth. As Jesus went on from Capernaum, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me, he told him. And Matthew got up and he followed him.
Now, for those of us who are familiar, we tend to read this verse and kind of skip right past a few parts or maybe start to assume a few things. Certainly Matthew's original audience reading this gospel would not have in the first century. They wouldn't have missed that he was sitting in a very specific location, right? He was a tax collector. He was collecting for Rome, the original evil empire.
He was making his living helping people who oppressed his family and his friends and his countrymen. Tax collectors were notorious not only for collecting their own tax or taxes for Rome, but collecting more and then keeping the rest the difference for their own wealth and their own prosperity. Matthew's neighbors saw him as a traitor, as someone who had betrayed the very ideals that he had been taught from the time that he was born. In fact, scholar William Barclay says there's perhaps not a more despised occupation in Jewish society than to be a tax collector. And so it's no accident that when you read through the gospel accounts and you ever come across a tax collector, it's usually in the midst of this phrase, tax, tax collectors and sinners, right?
This, they go together, tax collectors and sinners. Now, if we're honest, you know, well, rather the tax collectors and sinners were kind of those people, right? They were those guys. And if we're honest, we all have those people. Who is on your those people list?
We have them here in our country, just like Israel had in theirs. But who is on that list of people? You know, those people who don't live like us and they don't vote like us, and they don't talk like us and they don't act like us. They don't treat others the way that we do. You see, Matthew had made his yes decision and therefore he had said no to a Number of things.
And he was having to live with that. But his yes decision, even as we saw in the portrayal just a few minutes ago, that, that yes came with some benefits, didn't it? It came with some wealth and it came with some protection. It came with a little bit of influence. It may not have been much, but it was certainly more than any of his other countrymen would have had.
But as we also have seen, or at least we'll see as we follow Matthew along, is it's also brought some loneliness. It's brought some shame and isolation. As I was thinking about his story this week, I found myself coming back to this question over and over again. Why? Why would anyone knowingly choose a life that left them isolated from everyone else around them?
We sometimes think about some of these decisions as like falling off a log. But this was not one of those decisions. This was a life changing decision. Why in the world would Matthew make this decision? Why would he do this?
Why would he choose to betray all that he had ever known?
Now, I think I always pictured Matthew sitting at the tax collector booth, counting out his money most of the time, just kind of keeping track, making sure the Numbers added up, head down, avoiding eye contact, not really listening or engaging to the people who walked up. Because he knew what they had to say. He knew how they felt about him. He knew what they were thinking before they even thought it. I just want to get through the day, just want to make sure the Numbers add up.
This week I began to wonder maybe he wasn't just counting the coins.
I wonder if there were some moments in his life where he was counting the cost.
You see, every day he became a little richer and a little emptier.
I wonder if the Numbers weren't adding up for him after a while.
For years I thought that if I just made enough good decisions, if I could just figure it out, then life would get easier, I'd get better at this life thing. And if I could just be a really good decision maker, then life would actually start to go my way a little better. It stopped being hard. But the older that I get and the more life that I've lived, I began to realize that it's that very rarely in life is it choosing between hard and easy. It's choosing between hard and hard.
Life is hard. It's choosing different kinds of hard. Right? Integrity is hard. It is hard to live as a person of integrity.
But you know what? Compromise is also hard. It's hard to live when you've compromised your values. Forgiveness is hard. If You've ever tried to truly forgive someone, you know, it's hard.
But you know what? Bitterness is hard. It's hard to live a bitter and angry and resentful life. Choose your hard right. As motivational speaker, Michael or Marcus, excuse me, Marcus Taylor would say you got to choose your hard.
You see, the question in life is not, will it be difficult? The question in life for us is, is the difficult leading us toward a reward or toward regret? Like, which hard have I chosen? Which way is it leading me? Which hard leads to purpose?
Which hard leads to becoming the person, the man, the woman that God created you to be? Am I choosing the right hard? You see, Matthew had already chosen a hard. And then one day, Jesus came.
Now, the chosen's taking a little license with this story, and I like it, but the text is pretty clear. Jesus said, two follow me. Follow me.
Not a lecture, not condemnation, not follow me. And if for the next 60 days, if you keep your nose clean and don't fall away, then you're in, buddy. It's follow me. And Luke tells us Levi's response. I love Luke's version of this.
Matthew doesn't tell on himself the way that Luke does. Luke tells us, Levi got up, he left everything, and he followed him. Now, think about that for a minute. We saw it in the portrayal just a moment ago, Levi. Matthew gets up and he leaves everything behind.
Now, the fishermen, they could go back to fishing if they wanted to. And in fact, later on in the story, after Jesus has been crucified, guess where they go back to fishing. But we saw it here, even, didn't we? As Levi's leaving that booth, as Matthew is walking away, Gaius stops him and says, do you know what you're doing? There's no coming back from this.
This is it. Barclays says perhaps Matthew gave up more than any other disciple because he gave up his entire life. He could not go back. Now, think about. You talk about a man without a country, right?
His first heart that he chose his family and his whole country rejected him. All of his people rejected him. And the one group that he had is now the same group he is just told no to. And he's walking away.
Came across a story this week. I'm thinking it's a preacher story because I couldn't confirm it, but there's a story of an explorer who's going through the countryside and he comes across this creek, and it's big enough that he can't quite cross it just on his own. He's going to have to think about it. He's going to have to make a plan. He's going to have to do something to get across this creek in order to keep going.
You know, the first thing he does is he takes off his jacket and he throws it across to the other side. You say, why would he do that? Because he knows there's no turning back now. It's going to get cold, and it's probably going to rain, and I'm going to need that coat. So if I'm going to get that coat, I'm going to have to cross.
There's no turning back from this decision. I think that was Matthew, right? He threw his coat across the creek. He knew there's no coming back. He left the money, he left the power, he left.
He left the protection. He left the influence behind.
But not because following Jesus would be easier.
It actually would be hard, too. But because he realized following Jesus is better.
You see, sometimes we've unintentionally told people that following Jesus is like falling off a log. You know, just follow Jesus and everything's gonna go great. It's like playing a country song. Have you ever played a country song backwards? Right?
You get your car back, you get your house back, you get your wife back, you get your friends back. We think following Jesus, it's all just going to come up roses. But the truth is, Jesus never promised that. In fact, if you listen carefully to what Jesus says, he actually says the opposite, right? In John 16:33, he says, in this world, you will have trouble.
In Matthew, he records these words in Matthew 16. Whoever wants to be my disciple, well, they're going to have to deny themselves, and they're going to have to take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. But whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their soul?
Or what can anyone give in exchange for your soul? You see, Jesus never invited us to an easy life. He invited us to a meaningful one.
I know some of you are thinking, yeah, Carl, I know my Bible. What about Matthew 11, 28, 30? Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy. Right there, Carl, in yellow. In some of your Bibles, it's in red. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. And I go, nice Try, nice try, right?
The word there for easy does not mean simple, not difficult. That word. It's when you describe someone in that way, they're trustworthy. It's true. It's good for my yoke.
It's good. It's actually the life that leads to true life. Jesus is saying, if you're burdened by the heart that you have chosen, maybe it's time to choose a new hard. Maybe it's time to choose a hard that will lead you to a meaningful life, to something that really matters. You see, Jesus was the original choose your hard guy.
I mean, that's why he asked that question in Matthew 16. What good is it to gain the entire world at the cost of your soul? Like, what can you give for that? What's it worth to you?
I mean, what good is it to spend your whole life chasing after things that ultimately lead to regret, to lead you sitting in a tax booth counting your coins and the cost going, what am I doing?
See, Matthew had already chosen his hard, and Jesus invites him to choose another one. Now here's what makes Matthew's story so amazing. And I take a little issue with the way the chosen portrays it because I kind of like the way that Matthew's gospel portrays it. First thing Matthew does, he throws a party. Now how about that for discipleship church.
How about that as a disciple making movement, how do you reach people who are far from God? Matthew would say, well, here, start with this. Throw a party. Throw a party and invite Jesus to join you. It's an amazing thing.
Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. Now think about this picture here. Tax collectors and sinners, outcasts. People who, like Matthew, had spent their entire life knowing and understanding how they were viewed by other people. They had chosen hard and were living with the consequences.
Matthew knew exactly what it felt like to have and believe about himself. But others believe no respectable rabbi would ever choose you. And then Jesus shows up and Matthew's first thought seems to have been, well, if Jesus wanted me, I wonder if he would want some of my friends too.
I mean, again, how about that for a disciple making movement? Matthew didn't have all the answers. He didn't even know half the questions. That's one of the things I love about the portrayal of Matthew in the Chosen is he's constantly going, now what's the law? What does that say?
What does this mean? Tell me more. He's curious because he doesn't know and yet he brings all these people to Jesus. He wanted them to have the same opportunity to make a new decision, the same one that Jesus had given him. But of course, if you've read the story, you know, not everybody's happy about the guest list.
When the Pharisees saw the party happening, they asked his disciples, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Right, tax collectors and sinners. There's that phrase again. Outcasts. People who don't belong.
People who have spent their whole life assuming religious people don't want anything to do with them. And then the Pharisees show up and prove the point. Exactly. Exactly. See, this is what we're talking about.
Jesus. Your people don't really like us. They all think we're going to hell. And you know what? They're okay with that.
They don't lose a wink of sleep. And yet none of these people leave. Jesus. At the party, you notice that nobody leaves early. Nobody's like, phew, got an early morning, Jesus, I gotta get on the road here.
They all stay.
One of the gifts that I uniquely get as being a preacher is getting to show up sometimes to places and with groups of people who don't know what I do, and then getting to watch their face when they find out. Right. I've been given this gift a couple of times this year. In fact, just in the last couple of months, I've had a couple of experiences where I've come to an event and there's some talking going on, some stories are being told. And the story connoisseur is sprinkling the story with a few of what Patrick would tell his friend Spongebob.
Are called sentence enhancers. They're words in which you sprinkle them on top of any sandwich and it makes a spicy sandwich.
This happened just a few weeks ago. I was with a group and. And this sentence connoisseur had sprinkled liberally some enhancers, until one in the group turned to me and said, well, hey, Carl, nice to meet you. What do you do? And I had that moment, right?
Am I gonna. Oh, you know, I work for a nonprofit. I've got several ways I can go with that. But this was an especially delicious conversation. So I said, I'm a pastor.
You know, I'm a preacher. And immediately the sentence connoisseur was like, oh, Pastor, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean that. I actually didn't say that word. I said this word.
And, you know, don't. I mean, I love watching those conversations take place. So I wonder how many times that happened at Matthew's house, right? Where they're into a story and they're like, you'll never believe what he. Sorry, Pastor.
Sorry, Rabbi. You know, Jesus is standing there kind of listening or watching. How many times did this happen? And yet nobody left. Nobody left.
They stayed. They kept talking and they kept eating and they kept fellowshipping and they kept asking questions. I mean, that's a miracle. Why did that happen? Why would they stick around for that?
And I've become more convinced this week that I think it's because Jesus chose a particular kind of hard that he invites us to choose. But most, maybe many, choose not to because it's really difficult. Jesus chose the heart of being holy without being hostile, right? The Pharisees had chosen to be holy, and they thought the hard part of that was staying distance from the people who were unholy. They thought it was about building rules and living in such a way that nobody infected your situation.
Jesus shows us the heart is actually being holy and staying connected to other people who aren't. You see, Jesus was convinced that his holiness would infect the unholy. But somehow the religious world, we've gotten that flipped around. It's about staying away from. Because that unholiness can infect us.
And if it infects. And Jesus going, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you're forgetting who's more powerful here. Which is more powerful, unholy or holy? And Jesus says, no brainer, hands down, holiness, way more powerful when it's used correctly, when it's used as an opportunity to love and to move toward people.
You see, extending grace to people, especially to those who you know or you believe don't deserve it. I mean, the truth is, mercy is hard. Compassion is hard. Grace is hard. Forgiveness is hard.
I mean, especially to those people you've already decided don't deserve it. Everybody in the story had chosen a hard right. Matthew had chosen a hard. The tax collectors and the sinners, they had chosen a hard. They, the Pharisees, had chosen a heart.
Even the disciples had chosen a heart. The only difference with Jesus was he kept inviting them to make another choice. You see, some of us are like Matthew. We are specially acquainted with what it feels like to be written off, to be seen as. Yeah, we had hoped, but too far gone.
Some of us are sitting at Matthew's table now. We're wondering, could Jesus really.
He's talking to me.
Some of us, if we're honest, are like the Pharisees, not because we're trying to be cruel, but because we've convinced ourselves that holiness means keeping our distance. It means erecting walls and boundaries around us so that the bad guys don't get in. See, Jesus says, no, no, no, no. Now, holiness is hard, but it's hard because it's staying connected to other people. It's closing that distance and offering another choice.
You see, everyone in the story had chosen a heart and they were dealing with the consequences of it, right? Matthew had chosen the heart of compromise. The tax collectors had chosen the heart of betrayal. The Pharisees had chosen the heart of self righteousness. But Jesus chose mercy.
And he invited others to choose again. Church life is hard. Life is hard. Jesus never promised otherwise. But he did promise that he will.
He will will help us and he will be with us. And the heart of following him actually leads to life. It leads to hope, it leads to peace, it leads to joy. So maybe the question this morning isn't how do I avoid a hard life? The question is, which hard will we choose?
Father, my prayer this week is that you will help us to choose the hard life that leads to reward, that leads to hope, that leads to the life that is truly life.
God, in this world, this side of heaven, until you return that one day, as Terry reminds us, one day, Jesus, you're coming back. But between that day and this, it's hard in this world, we're going to have some trouble.
But God, you promised to be with us and that we don't have to walk this journey alone, that we get to have each other and we get to have you in our midst, leading and guiding and shaping and forming. And God, you promised that if we will, if we will die to ourself and if we'll take up our cross and if we'll follow you each day one step at a time, one moment at a time, one conversation at a time. If we'll trust and ask for your help, God, that you, you long to give to us, you want to show us the way, God, would you help us choose that hard this week? Would you confront us in those moments where we've made a different choice, where we've chosen the hard of bitterness or anger or resentment, we've chosen the hard of going our own way of making our own decisions, of doing our own things. God, would you show us the futility and how that life leads to regret and instead bring us back to this moment like Matthew faced that day when you were walking by God?
Would you give us hearts that count the cost of the decisions that we're making right now. Holy Spirit, would you convict us in that moment just the way you convicted Matthew? Would you help us to choose a different way? God, thank you that each week we get to gather in this place and proclaim our love for you and our love for one another and we get to choose again. God, would you help us to make a new choice again this week to choose the hard that leads to life?
God, would you help us to live more fully in that? I pray in Jesus name. Amen.