In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Even though Jesus did many different miracles during the time of His earthly ministry, there are only three instances recorded for us in the Bible of Him actually raising someone from the dead. There is the raising of Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter, the raising of His friend Lazarus of Bethany, and the raising of the widow’s son at Nain, which we heard about in our Gospel lesson today from Luke chapter 7. In the same way that the Holy Spirit uses special numbers elsewhere, like 40 and 12, so that we can make connections between Biblical events and teachings, these three different resurrection accounts remind us of how our Lord gives us the victory over three different kinds of death.

So, in today’s sermon, what I’d like for us to do is consider together what those three kinds of death are and how Jesus alone saves us from all of them.

The first kind of death that we learn about in the Bible is spiritual death. In the garden of Eden, God warned Adam and Eve that on the day that they disobeyed Him and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. And yet, if you recall, when Adam and Eve eventually did eat from the tree, it was not that they immediately fell to the ground without a pulse. Yes, they died, but their death was not a physical one. Rather, it was a spiritual one. Adam and Eve brought sin into the world, and lost the image God along with their original righteousness. From that moment on, they made it so that every one of their descendants would inherit from them a fallen and sinful nature.

This is exactly what Saint Paul explains to us in Ephesians chapter 2. There he writes, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.” All of us, from the moment of our conception, as Psalm 51 also tells us, are conceived in sin and brought forth in iniquity. What that means is that even though we are born physically alive, apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead, just like Adam and Eve were after they sinned. Now, instead of being aligned with the will of God, and wanting to do the things that please Him, we constantly fight against Him. We don’t fear God as we should. We don’t trust God as we should. We don’t love God as we should. 

And because of our spiritual death, that is, because of our sinful condition, the Bible also teaches us that every one of us will eventually also experience the next kind of death, which is physical death. Of the three different kinds of death that there are, this is the easiest one to recognize by far. We see it very clearly in the account of the widow’s son at Nain, and many of us have seen it up close and personal with people that we know and love. But even though it is the easiest kind of death to see, that doesn’t mean that people always see it correctly. Many times, when people look at physical death, they think of it simply as the circle of life. Since everybody dies, they assume that death is just a natural part of our existence. And yet, nothing could be further from the truth.

God’s Word teaches us that far from being a part of His original design for the world, death is the wages of our sin. Death is the just punishment and consequence that we bring upon ourselves because of our disobedience to God. That’s what the Saint Paul tells us in Romans chapter five, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.” How do we know that every single man, woman, and child is a sinner who is spiritually dead apart from Christ? We know it because without the special intervention of God, every single man, woman, and child eventually dies. As James tells us in his epistle, “Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

In addition to spiritual death and physical death, though, which are both bad enough as it is, there is also a third kind of death, which is the worst one of all, and that is eternal death. Despite the dominant religious perspective in modern American, not everyone goes to a better place when they die. Sadly, as we learn throughout the Scriptures it is possible for an individual to die apart from the grace of God, while still in a state of spiritual death, and spend forever in hell because of it. Eternal death is not annihilation where a person ceases to exist at all and no longer has consciousness. Rather, as Jesus describes it elsewhere, it is a place of weeping and gnashing of death, where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. The most awful thing about hell, though, is not that it is filled with all kinds of terrible suffering, but that there is no access to the love of Jesus in the midst of it. Hell is separation from God for all eternity. As Saint Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1, “They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His might.”

So, those are the three different kinds of death that we learn about in the Bible: spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death. All three of these kinds of death are the result of sin and all three of them can only be overcome by the one who alone can save us from our sins, namely, Jesus. In fact, when Jesus raised the widow’s son at Nain, He showed us how He has the power to deliver us from every kind of death that there is.

First, our Lord has the ability to deliver us from spiritual death. Jesus does this when He forgives us of ours sins and gives us the gift of faith to trust in His atoning sacrifice on the cross. Just as Jesus touched the casket of the man at Nain, and then spoke to Him saying, “Young man, I say to arise,” Christ draws near to us through His Word and Sacraments, and raises us to new spiritual life through the power of the Gospel. Listen, for example, to what Saint Paul says in Romans chapter 6 about the gift of Holy Baptism, something that, God willing, we will get to see take place next week for little Gregory. He writes, “We were buried therefore with Him by Baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” And then there is also what we read in Colossians 2, “In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in Baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God.”

Jesus raises us from spiritual death to new spiritual life in our Baptism, because in our Baptism God joins us to the death and resurrection of Christ and washes away our sins. God makes us a new person by filling us with the Holy Spirit and giving us the gift of faith so that we can trust in Jesus. Therefore, as we read in Mark chapter 16, “Whoever believes and is Baptized will be saved.” This is also why the very first thing that we Lutherans do at our funeral services is point people to the comfort of our Baptism. After the invocation, the pastor reminds the congregation that in their Baptism the deceased was “clothed with the robe of Christ’s righteousness that covered all their sin.” Jesus has the power to save us from spiritual death, and He does that through His Word and Sacraments.

Likewise, our Lord also has the ability to save us from physical death. As we see very clearly with the widow’s son at Nain, Jesus can cause a person to come back to life again simply through the proclamation of His Word. Christ can command death to depart from an individual and for their soul to re-enter into their body. And yet, while Jesus did do this for the widow’s son at Nain, it is also not the normal way that He delivers us from physical death. Usually, Jesus does not save us from this kind of death by not allowing us to experience it all, or reversing its effects temporarily in this life, but by delivering us from it completely on the Last Day.

It’s good to remember that not even the people who experienced a special resurrection in the Bible remained alive in that exact same way forever. Where is the widow’s son from Nain now? Where is Jarius’ daughter now? Where is Lazarus of Bethany now? All of those individuals eventually died again and are now buried somewhere in the ground. But that does not mean that they will stay that way forever. In fact, because of Christ’s own resurrection, we know that God has promised a universal resurrection for all people. As we read in John chapter 5, “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” On the day that Jesus returns in glory, just as He commanded the young man of Nain to rise again from the dead, He will command every individual to be raised too. After that, those who died believing in Jesus will live with Him in a new heaven and a new earth, and those who died not believing in Him will come into the fullness of their punishment.

Regardless though, Jesus will undo the effects of physical death. He will join the souls of every person back to their bodies and make them alive together once again. This is why the Bible repeatedly refers to the death of Christians as a form of sleep. Remember what Jesus said about Jairus’ daughter when she died? He said, “the girl is not dead, but sleeping.” And what does Saint Paul tell us in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4? He writes, “We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep.”

Because of what Jesus did for us, and how He died and rose for our sins, we can have confidence that everyone who have been joined to Jesus through faith will share in His resurrected glory. Even if they die in the most horrific way imaginable, our Lord will restore them and make them whole on the Day that He makes all things new. He will deliver us from physical death.

And lastly, and most importantly of all, Jesus has the power to save us from eternal death. Unlike spiritual death and physical death, which all of us have to experience no matter what, it is possible through the merits of Christ to avoid eternal death completely. As Saint John tells us so clearly with those famous words from the third chapter of his Gospel, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.” To perish is to die and go to hell. But Christians don’t perish. Even though they die, they continue living on in Jesus, and one day Jesus will bring them back to life entirely through the resurrection of their bodies. That is exactly what Jesus once taught Mary and Martha after the death of their brother. He said, “I am the resurrection and the life, whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

What did Jesus say to the widow from Nain when she lost her only son? He told her, “Do not weep.” It’s not that Jesus was teaching her that we shouldn’t be sad when people die. After all, even our Lord wept at the death of His friend Lazarus. But rather Jesus was showing her how He takes away our eternal weeping and promises to bring our sorrow to an end completely in the resurrection. Eternal death is eternal weeping. But eternal life is eternal joy. As we read in the book of Revelation, in heaven God will “wipe away every tear from our eyes.” That is what we have in Jesus. That is the hope that is ours because of His victory over sin and the grave. We have the assurance of everlasting life for all believers.

In the Bible we learn that there are three different kinds of death: spiritual death, physical death, and eternal death. No matter what form death takes, God’s Word teaches us that death is always our enemy. But Christ puts all of our enemies under His feet. He did that when died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead for our justification. Now we know that even when we do die, someday, the Lord will say to us like He said to the widow’s son at Nain, “Young man, I say to you arise.” Christ has already spoken those words to us once in our Baptism when He made us God’s children and washed away our sins. And on the Last Day He will say those words to us again and bring our Baptism to completion.

So, now we can rest assured of our salvation and look forward to eternal life even though we still see death all around us. We can look at our dying bodies and take comfort in the words that the pastor will one day speak over us at our burial: “May God the Father, who created this body; may God the Son, who by His blood redeemed this body; may God the Holy Spirit, who by Holy Baptism sanctified this body to be His temple, keep these remains to the day of the resurrection of all flesh.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The more that you read the Bible, the more that you come to realize just how many stories there are that have to do with angels. From Genesis to Revelation, there is hardly a single page of sacred Scripture that does not at least make mention of these magnificent and mysteries creatures. For example, the Bible tells us that an angel was placed at the entrance of the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve sinned in order to guard the tree of life. It says that angels visited Abraham and Lot and safely led Lot’s family away from Sodom and Gomorrah before God destroyed it. An angel protected Hagar and her son Ishmael when they were cast out into the wilderness. Angels appeared to Jacob in a dream, ascending and descending on latter to heaven. They also accompanied Moses when he gave the people the Law at Mount Saini. An angel stood in the way of Balaam and prevented him from passing by on his donkey to curse the Israelites. An angel came to Elijah and fed him after he ran away from the wicked queen Jezebel and fell sleep under a broom tree. An angel appeared to Zechariah, and Mary, and Joseph announcing the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, and giving them directions of what they were supposed to do afterward. An angel broke the chains off Paul and Silas when they were in jail at Philippi. An angel guided Peter out of prison and led him to the house of the other disciples in Jerusalem. And Jesus tells us that when He returns in glory, all of the angels will come with Him. It is impossible to believe that the Bible is the literal Word of God and not believe in angels.

So, on the day in the Church when we are given to think more deeply about the angels, namely, the Feast of Saint Michael and all angels, which we celebrate today, let us simply consider together why God tells us about them at all. What is the benefit of the teaching of angels?

The first benefit of the teaching of angels is that it humbles us by reminding us of God’s majesty. When we look around at all of the things that God made which we can see, it is overwhelming for us to think about already. The earth that we live on is massive. Outer space is enormous. There are stars and galaxies and planets which are so far away from us that we can barely view them with a telescope. And who knows how many thousands of lifetimes it would take a person to travel to one of them if that were even something that was possible to begin them. And yet, God reminds us in His Word that all of that is merely a small picture of everything that He has actually created. In fact, there is an entire world that exists alongside our world, which, without His help, we are not able to see at all. And that, of course, is the world of the angels. It is the spiritual world, filled with these spiritual and heavenly beings. 

Not only does the Bible teach us very clearly that angels are real, but it also tells us that there are a great number of them, and that all of them are extremely powerful. As Saint John says in the book of Revelation, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.” Sometimes angels are depicted today as cute and cuddly creatures. But that is not true at all. Even though there are so many of them that only God can count them, a single angel by itself can do more than a whole host of men combined. Remember how it was that a single angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in just one night? Or remember how a single angel struck down all the first-born sons of Egypt, also in a single night? The Bible tells us that angels can cause earthquakes and move oceans. They can travel the span of the earth in a solitary second, and they can disappear and reappear before us in the blink of an eye. 

Truly, when we stop to think about the angels, we cannot help but be filled with wonder and amazement toward God who made them. When we consider the vastness of God’s creation, both visible and invisible, how could we not be overwhelmed by the majesty of His glory and the great power of His might? In the span of six literal days, God created the heavens and earth and all that is in them, including the angels. And yet, at the center of His creation, the only thing that He says that He made in His own image and likeness, is us lowly humans. 

The second benefit of the teaching of angels is that it comforts us by reminding us of God’s loving care. Even though the angels are so great and powerful, the Bible tells us that God made them to serve us, and that their chief task is to watch over and protect us. In Psalm 34, we read that the “angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him.” And Psalm 91 tells us how, “[God] will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.” Likewise, the author of Hebrews writes, “Are not [the angels] ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?” While the Word of God is unclear whether or not each one of us has our own personal guardian angel, what is certainly clear is that none of us are without the help of angels. As Jesus tells us in our Gospel lesson today from Matthew eighteen, referring to children and all those in special need of God’s care, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.”

In addition to all of passages from the Bible that tell us how God promises to use angels to help us, there are also many wonderful accounts from the Scriptures of this actually happening to real people in the past. When Daniel fell into the lion’s den, who was it that closed the mouths of those ferocious beasts throughout the whole night so that they did not devour him? It was the angels. When Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace who was it that stood with them in the midst of the flames so that not a single hair on their head was singed? It was an angel. And in perhaps the most inspiring account with angels from the whole Bible, there is the story of Elisha and his fearful servant. When Elisha was trapped in the city of Dothan, completely surrounded by the Syrian army, and his servant trembled at the sight of the enemy, Elisha prayed that God would open the eyes of his companion, and when he looked up what did he see? The mountains around them were filled with angels. As Elisha said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

The teaching of angels gives us Christians comfort at every moment of our life.  If we are afraid to travel, and get nervous when we or our loved ones have to leave home, the teaching of angels reminds us that there are always those who accompany us along the way. If we are scared of the dark, and get worried about the safety of our little ones at night, the teaching of angels helps us to sleep it peace. It assures us that our beds are never left unprotected, and that even if we can’t stay awake and watch, there are always those who can. The angels are with us when we are tempted and they come to our aid when we suffer. After Jesus overcame the devil in the wilderness, the Bible tells us that it was the angels that came to minister to Him. And when His agony was so great in the Garden of Gethsemane that He sweat drops of blood, the angels were there too. Even in the hour of death, the God’s Word assures us that God’s holy angels never leave our side. As we learn from the account of poor Lazarus, when a believer dies, it is the angels that come and carry our souls to heaven. 

And finally, besides humbling us and comforting us, the teaching of angels also encourages us. It encourages us to live a godly life by reminding us that we are never alone. We may not always be able to see the angels, but the angels always see us. They see the good things that we do, and they also see the bad. If we actually do believe what the Bible says about the angels, and the spiritual world that surrounds us, how could that not change the way that we live? When we consider just how great and powerful the angels are, and yet how they willingly and loving use that strength to serve us, how could that not enliven our hearts to serve others too? In fact, the Bible even tells us that in serving others, it is possible to serve the angels themselves. Remember what we read in Hebrews chapter thirteen, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.”

God’s angels watch us when we work, and they also watch us when we worship. Their presence teaches us to take things like church seriously. When the women in Corinth, for example, refused to cover their heads during the service as a demonstration that they did not have to submit to their husbands, Saint Paul told them that they were offending the angels. And the same is true whenever someone takes God’s Word and Sacraments lightly today. It is with angels and archangels and the whole company of heaven that we laud and magnify God’s glorious Name in worship. From the moment that His Name is spoken at the Invocation, to the moment that His Name is in placed on us at the Benediction, the angels of God are there. And their presence encourages us to keep God’s Name holy. It encourages pastors teach the Word of God in its truth in purity, and it encourages the children of God to lead holy lives according to it. 

In fact, that is what the angels care about the most. There is nothing that makes the angels in heaven happier than when a sinner confesses his sins and looks to Jesus for forgiveness. There is nothing that gives them more joy than repentance. As Jesus Himself tells us in Luke chapter fifteen, “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” If you are thinking about or planning to do something than you know is wrong, and that God’s Word forbids, then think instead about the angels. If up to this point in your life you have lived in your sin with little or no attempt at stopping, then consider again the angels. And if you are sorry for the things that you have done, and want to do better, then remember the angels too. Remember the things into which the Bible says that even “the angels long to look.” The angels long to look at Jesus. They long to behold the face of the crucified and risen Lord, who died for the sins of the world, and they want nothing more than for each and every one of us to do the same. 

And for those who mourn their sins and put their faith in Christ to forgive them, one day, we will. One day, all those who trust not in themselves or their own works, but in the merit and blood of Jesus alone, will see Jesus face to face in eternity. No, we do not become angels when we die. Angels are spiritual beings without bodies and we believe in the resurrection of the dead. But even though we do not become angels when we die, we do become like them: confirmed in bliss, incapable of sin, completely united with the will of God, and singing His praises in the heavenly choir forever. May God grant it to all of us for Jesus’ sake. And may He use the teaching of angles to strengthen our faith along the way. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today in the Church we remember Saint Matthew, who the Bible tells us was a tax collector that Jesus called to be one of His apostles and later on inspired to be an evangelist. In our Gospel lesson this morning from Matthew chapter 9, we get to hear a little bit more about Saint Matthew’s call and also about some the events that happened after it. Apparently, after Jesus called Matthew, He went and had dinner at Matthew’s house along with some of his friends. This led to the Pharisees ridiculing Jesus and falsely accusing Him of supporting other people’s immoral behavior. It was a classic “guilt by association” kind of argument. In response, our Lord quoted the Bible to the them and said, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’”

So, what I’d like to do in this morning’s sermon, as we celebrate Saint Matthew, is do exactly what Jesus tells us to do in our text and spend some time thinking about what it means that God’s desire mercy and not sacrifice.

Now, the first thing that these words have to do with is what God wants from us. This becomes very obvious when we consider their context, and where they show up elsewhere in the Scriptures. The phrase, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” is a direct quote from the book of Hosea. If you remember Hosea was the prophet that God told to go and marry a prostitute in order to show the people of Israel how they were being unfaithful to Him by following after other gods. Hosea represented God and his unfaithful wife represented Israel. In chapter 6 of his book, Hosea speaks the words from our text and then he adds this after them, “But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me. Gilead is a city of evildoers, tracked with blood. As robbers lie in wait for a man, so the priests band together; they murder on the way to Shechem; they commit villainy.” The problem in Israel was that even though the people were regularly coming to the temple to make sacrifices to God, outside of the temple they were engaged in all kinds of wickedness. Apparently, things were so bad during the time of Hosea that even the priests were guilty of committing literal murder. So, do you think that God was still pleased with their sacrifices given all of the other things that they were doing too? Do you think that He was still happy with them for coming to the temple and going through the motions of worship, despite everything else that what was going on in their lives as well? Of course, not!

In fact, not only was God not happy with them, but because of their unrepentant sins, even their sacrifices were something that displeased Him. This is the exact same thing that we see taking place in 1 Samuel chapter 22, which is when king Saul offered to God a sacrifice that he wasn’t supposed to. There we read, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.” Or think about what David once said in Psalm 51. After his sin with Bathsheba, David rightly confessed, “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Ultimately, what God wants from us, and the first part of what it means when Jesus says, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” is for us to actually repent of our sins and look to Him for forgiveness. It’s for us to follow God’s Word, to be truly sorry for the times that we haven’t, and to trust that there is mercy to be found only in Christ.

That’s what the Pharisees got so very wrong in our text. That’s what they were completely unable to see. Not only were they guilty of doing many of the same things that they ridiculed other people for doing, like loving money and wanting stuff that didn’t belong to them, but they were completely unrepentant for it. They weren’t sorry for it. they didn’t think that they needed to be forgiven for it, because they didn’t think that they had done anything wrong in their lives at all. The Pharisees thought that God was pleased with them already because of their pious looking lives, when, in fact, their self-righteous deeds were the very things that condemned them. 

To put it into our own context, God doesn’t care about how many times a person comes to church, puts money in the offering plate, and takes Communion, if at the same time they are being stubbornly disobedient to Him elsewhere, treating other people like dirt, or only doing those things because they think that they can earn His favor by the mere act of doing them. It’s not that God doesn’t want us to do pray, come to church, and take communion at all, it’s that He wants us to do them in the right kind of way. He wants us to do them in genuine repentance and faith. Taking the Lord’s Supper, for example, which is supposed to be for the forgiveness of oursins, at the same time that we refuse to forgive someone else for their sins, is not taking the Lord’s Supper in repentance and faith. Giving a tenth of what you have to the church, when the reason why you have that money to begin with is because you stole it from somebody else or tricked them into giving it to you through bad business practices, isn’t doing it in repentance and faith. And saying your prayers at night, while you send text messages to your mistress, is obviously, not doing it in repentance and faith. Doing any of those things without repentance, and without faith, makes all of those things worthless to us. It makes God just as mad as if we’ve never done them at all.

God desires mercy and not sacrifice. What He wants from us the most isn’t our money. It isn’t our prayers. And it isn’t our church attendance. It’s our repentance. God wants us to turn away from our sins, follow His Word, and to come to Him for forgiveness and healing when we fail.

And that brings us to the second part of what these words from Jesus mean. Besides having to do with what God wants from us, which is always our repentance, the other thing that they have to do with is with what God wants for us. What God wants for us most of all, is for us to be saved. He doesn’t just want us to confess our sins, and be sorry for them, He wants us to be forgiven of them and cleansed from them too. As Jesus says so beautifully in our text today, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Our Lord did not come down from heaven in order to tell righteous looking people that they were doing a really great job on their own already, so keep up the good work. He didn’t become incarnate as a man and walk on this earth as our Great Physician, simply to tell us that we have a clean bill of health as it is. No, Jesus came to call the whole world to repentance, and then to die for the sins of the whole world too. He came to show us the real sickness that we have, which is our sinful condition, and then to bear our sins in His own body, crucifying them on a cross, so that everyone who believes in Him might be healed and saved.

The entire point of our Lord’s Ministry was for the purpose of saving sinners from their sins. The entire reason why He lived, breathed, preached, and died, was so that we, who are otherwise dead in our sins and trespasses, could have new life. Why does God want us to repent? Why does He constantly show us our sins and insist that we turn away from them? He doesn’t do it to be mean. He doesn’t do it to spoil our fun. He does it because He actually wants us to have forgiveness for them. He actually wants us to receive the cleansing that makes us whole. 

God desires mercy and not sacrifice. As the prophet Jeremiah tells us in Lamentations chapter 3, “His mercies are new every morning, they never come to an end.” There is not a day that goes by that God does not offer to us His mercy and love. There is not a sin that we commit that He is unable or unwilling to forgive. And there is not a person on this earth that He does not want to save. It wasn’t just the tax collectors that Jesus wanted to save. It was the Pharisees too. He wanted the obvious sinners, and He wanted the not so obvious ones as well. He wanted people who were secure in their sins, and He wanted people who didn’t think that they had any sins to begin with. Jesus told Matthew to come and “follow me” and that is exactly what He was doing when He told the Pharisees to go and learn what this means. Jesus was inviting everyone into His Kingdom. 

The call of God’s grace is a universal call. As the Scriptures teach us elsewhere, “God desires all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth,” and “He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.” It’s true that not everybody listens to God’s call. Not everyone cares about His invitation. Some people embrace their sins, and other people embrace their own righteousness. But that doesn’t mean that God never tried to call them. And that certainly doesn’t mean that He never wanted to save them.

Just like there are two different ways for us to understand the words, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice,” where one has to do with what God wants from us and the other has to do with what God wants for us, there are also two main takeaways that we should apply to ourselves this morning. On the one hand, these words from Jesus, are a clear call to repentance. If you are doing things in your life that are against God’s Word with no intention of stopping, thinking that as long as you go through the motions and act like a Christian one day a week, you’ll be fine, then think again. God will not let you into heaven just because you showed up a few times at church. He will not give you a place in His Kingdom just because you gave a few dollars in the offering plate. You can’t serve your sinful nature and also serve Jesus at the same time. Eventually, the disease of your sin will spread until it kills you.

On the other hand, these words from Jesus, are a clear invitation to receive His grace. If you are sorry for the things that you’ve done, and nervous that maybe you’ve done them one too many times in the past, then think again. Jesus is the Great Physician. He is the healer of body and soul. There is no wound that our Lord cannot mend. There is no sin that He will not forgive. No one who comes to Christ with sorrow in their heart will be turned away. No one who seeks His grace will be denied it, regardless of how much they didn’t want it before. Jesus called tax collectors and made them apostles. Jesus called thieves and made them evangelists. Jesus called sinners and made them saints.

So, go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.