“Go and learn what this means…” S31e116 Matt 9:13

There is a little homework assignment after a statement from Jesus in Matt9:23.  He says, "Go and learn what this means..."

What is He referring to? He's referencing the way God treats the undeserving. The Lord extends a covenantal love to those who break His covenants. He gives grace to the undeserving: kindness to the ungrateful.

Come watch for 7 beautiful minutes and see what is on offer.  It is THE defining characteristic of God in the Bible. 

https://youtu.be/nKWSDSrz10w

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My brothers and sisters. In our passage today, Jesus says, Go and learn what this means. Well, we better pay attention to it. So it's a specific challenge by our hero who's Jesus in the story. So let's go find out what it is. We're in the story of Matthew, the tax collector, who eventually writes this in a first-person account in the Matthew Gospel. And the story goes, he's at his tax booth, and Jesus comes by and says, Follow me. Then Matthew rises and then follows. Then he eats with sinners and tax collectors. And they're having a meal, and somehow they get a criticism from the Pharisees, like in real time. And the criticism doesn't go to Jesus, the criticism goes to the believers in the group, the disciples in the group. Why is Jesus, why does your teacher, kind of third person, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Now Jesus eventually hears of this, and then he says, Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. And of course he means spiritually sick, in other words, sinners. Now this is all from Matthew chapter 9, and then verse 13 is kind of the big one today. Then he says, Go, Jesus saying this, go and learn what this means. Wow. What? And he says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came to call sinners, not the righteous. So first, the Pharisees, the most learned people in the society. This would be like going to a college campus, uh like a faculty room, and then sit saying to these most learned people, go and learn. So it's challenging. It leaves uh a little call here. It's provoking or perhaps even condemning them depending on how how how acute the call is. So the greater the resistance to the teaching, perhaps the more reproving this is. Now, imagine a response like this. He says, Yeah, I have things about Jesus here that I can take with me. I can take take them and chew on them and think about them and consider them and maybe get them into the fabric of my life. And that's the kind of people he's looking for. So let's try to be, you know, one of those people. I may know a lot, like like these Pharisees, but I don't apparently know the necessary thing, the stuff about my Savior. And he wants me to know this it is mercy, I desire not sacrifice. Now, a good Old Testament scholar would see the reference to Hosea chapter 6 and verse 6. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. Now, this is a passage about Hesed. Now, Hesed is an Old Testament word, it's used hundreds of times, 254, I think. I desire steadfast love. Hesed is translated as steadfast love often and a few others as well. Now, steadfast love is generally expressed from the Lord to us, the Lord's perspective down to us. And then here in our passage, he says, I want you guys, I want you guys to do a similar thing. So let's talk about Hesed just for a minute. The Hebrew word, Old Testament is written in Hebrew, is Hesed, the steadfast love. The Greek word in the New Testament, written in Greek, the similar concept is mercy, Ilios. But mercy might be even a little bit incomplete, so we have to kind of go back to the Old Testament and rely on some of the fullness that's developed in the Old Testament. So, what is Hesed? Hasid is God giving grace to the undeserving and kindness to the ungrateful, and having steady covenant with those who break his covenant. The way I like to say it is when God butters the bread on both sides. Just abundant blessing. Now, it's often translated as steadfast love, as it was in this Hosea passage, but also kindness, also faithfulness, also beauty, also loyalty. And the reason is it's more of a world than just a word. Psalm 63, and what a great word, but one fun passage is Psalm 63, 3 says, Hesed is better than life. So Hesed is this covenantal love of God. And God never breaks his half of any covenant. Now we often do. So the steady presence of a covenantal God who has made faithful covenant to a bunch of unsteady knuckleheads, us. So Hesed is when a person, capital P, person, God person, from whom I had I have a right to expect nothing, gives me everything. And Hesed combines this warmth of God's fellowship with the security of God's faithfulness. I would say that Hesed is the defining characteristic of God in the Old Testament. It certainly is arguably, it's certainly that. And if there's another one, you let me know what it is. It's this Jupiter of spiritual concepts. It carries this great gravitational weight. But here in our Matthew passage, the Lord is asking something very interesting. He says that the Lord is asking that we be doing hesed amongst each other. And that, if I do it amongst my people here, it demonstrates to God that I get this. So I then extend unmerited grace to the undeserving. When I receive unmerited grace from the Lord and understand it and appreciate it, and I might extend it to people, God says, Yep, there's a person that gets this. So I can be merciful to those who don't deserve it. I can be faithful to those who have been disobedient, to those who are shaky, to those who have broken, uh broken either with their God or with me. So stay with me now. We're gonna talk about this for one more day tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, because Jesus says just flat out, go and learn what this means. What is he talking about? He's talking about Hesed. He's talking about his faithful and covenantal love that we receive from him and that he is going to want us to share with our fellow mankind, our tax collectors and sinners. Thanks for listening.