Why Jesus Eats With Tax Collectors and Sinners

Sermon Title: The Day Grace Came to My Table

Big Idea: The grace of Jesus isn’t reserved for the worthy, it’s extended to the undeserving. Matthew’s story reminds us that when grace shows up, it changes your seat, your story, and your view of others.

I. Grace Finds You Where You Are

“He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth...” (v.9)

• Jesus sees Matthew in his sin, not after he cleans up.
• Grace is the unmerited favor of God. His loving initiative to reach out, forgive, and restore sinners, not because of their worthiness, but because of His own mercy and purpose. 
• Tax collectors were sellouts profiting off their own people under Roman rule.
• But grace doesn’t wait at the temple it walks into your workplace.
• Punchline: “Jesus didn’t die for the cleaned-up version of you.”

II. Grace Doesn’t Just Forgive You. It Repositions You
“Follow me. And he rose and followed him.” (v.9)

• “Follow Me” isn’t just about direction… it’s about identity.
• In one moment, Matthew goes from collecting for Caesar to walking with Christ.
• He left the table of the empire for the table of the Kingdom.

The call wasn’t conditional. It was catalytic.

Forgiveness that doesn’t lead to transformation or discipleship is “cheap grace.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship…

Cheap grace is:

“Grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” – Bonhoeffer

• It desires forgiveness without repentance.
• It seeks comfort without conviction.
• It tells people they’re “saved” but doesn’t call them to follow.

Costly grace is:

“Is the gospel which must be sought again and again… It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life.”

• It begins with forgiveness, but moves into transformation.
• It involves denying self…taking up the cross and actually following like Matthew did. 

"The grace that calls you will also move you."

III. Grace Makes Space for the Unlikely

“As Jesus reclined at table… many tax collectors and sinners came…” (v.10)

• Matthew didn’t just follow, he hosted.
• He throws a party for people like him because grace throws open the doors.
• Jesus didn’t just “allow” these people in. He was comfortable with them. 

Reclining was intimate, not formal

In first-century Jewish culture:

• To recline at the table wasn’t casual. It was communal.
• It symbolized acceptance, peace, and friendship (not just tolerance).
• You didn’t recline with people you found unclean, awkward, or beneath you.

This is not condoning the sin! It means he loves you so much, that he will get in it to lead you out of it. 

The Pharisees were confused because grace disrupts religious gatekeeping.

IV. Grace Rebukes the Self-Righteous and Heals the Sick
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick...” (v.12)
“I desire mercy, not sacrifice...” (v.13)

• Jesus flips the Pharisees' critique into a classroom.
• They know the scriptures, but they don’t know the heart of God.
• Grace is not just about forgiveness; it’s about healing, restoring, and rewiring the soul.

Tim Keller: “The gospel is not for the morally upright. It’s for those who finally admit they’re not.”

Transcript

Charlie Mitchell: 0:00

Today we're looking at Matthew chapter nine, verses nine to 13. And uh, I'm really excited and honored to be able to share about this passage because it should hit home for every one of us, no matter, um, what spectrum of the world you're in, where you're at in the world. This is a unique story and it tells us something about when we sit down at the table with different people. Anytime you get a group of friends, anytime you see a table full of people, maybe it was over this weekend, um, y'all were out there at the beach having a good time, or you were in the backyard at the table. If we were to get behind the scenes and ask, okay, well what, what? Why is he here? Why is she there? Maybe you've been to a wedding and um, you're sitting there and you're just looking. You know that. The bridal party and the bride has done meticulous work to make sure that the right people are sitting at the right table, right? And then you're sitting back there, you're surveying the crowd, seeing, oh, okay, that's her mom. That's her. Oh, okay. That's her. How did he get in here? You know that feeling where it's just like, well, what? Nah.'cause I remember. Now, who is he? Who? I don't know who he is. Nah.'cause they dated back in the day and then he cheated. And so like, how did he get in here? I don't know what's going on. How did he really, and it's even more awkward sometimes when you're the person that's wondering, how did I get in here? Maybe get invited to a lunch or a dinner or something and you're all prepped, ready to go. You're all dressed up thinking it's gonna be this thing, and it's, man, these people got suits on. I wasn't, I wasn't prepared for that. So we find ourselves in these situations that are very awkward, right? Very awkward. And some people, when you get into these spaces, they expect a seat. And other people, they can't believe that they were even considered to be at the table. I gotta tell you, this is not some far off weird experience for me because right now I'll probably have family members that are watching this, uh, in far flung places all over this country. And I will see my cousins in weeks, months, days to come. And the question has always been, so you really be preaching in front of all them white people. So how like. But break it down.'cause.'cause like for real. How did you. Like what? You know, somebody like, like how did Aaron knows? I'm like, nah, Aaron don't know them either. I'm like, I literally call me. I show up, I do my thing. But you really was up there talking like you be talking. And so I'm like, yeah, that's, that's kind of how I talk and. It's like that. Sometimes we're at spaces, we're at tables and you're like, man, how did that person get there? How did I get here? And what I love about this particular story in Matthew chapter nine is it is like that. It is very disruptive. It is uncomfortable. And Jesus pulls up to a table of people no one had expected him to sit at. For sure. What is Jesus doing at that table? And the people at the table are going, what is he doing at our table? Him, Jesus. So before we get into the story, we gotta discuss who this crowd is, because it's more than just a meal. It is, it's scandalous. It was, there was a buzz, there was some energy around why? Why would this take place? How could this happen? And Matthew will tell us that Jesus is eating with tax collectors and sinners. And so while we have tax collectors today that we gotta go and pay at Lee County or Collier County and we don't like them still to this day, it's not those kind of tax collectors and it's not those kind of sinner tax collectors. Back then were these people that were considered traitors. There is an opposing force, an oppressive force that is occupying their nation, and now they have levied heavy taxes on the people, the residents of this land, and they have recruited and some even cos. So you've got people from this nation who are being oppressed. Then they have people that are from that people group who coach, Hey, hey, I'll work with you guys to get the taxes you need. And so this is the utmost sense of betrayal. Now I don't know what's going on in the mind of the person who decides to become a tax collector in the first century. Hey man, I, I understand I'm a father. I got children, I got, I, I gotta put food on the table, I gotta survive. But I'm sure there were some that looked around and said, you know, this is, it's just business and I gotta do what I gotta do.'cause there's dog eat dog out here. They're going to oppress, they're going to rule anyway. So we might as well. Make the best of the situation. But as an average everyday person, when you saw a tax collector, you knew that they had turned their back on helping the oppressed people and they were benefiting from our oppression by working with the enemy. So that's a tax collector in this context. But not only are there tax collectors, there's a different category called sinners. And sinners was not just one of those polite church words that had just become, you know, known across everybody. It the, to be a sinner in the first century was a category. It was used to label people who were disqualified. Disqualified from access. You were outside, you were impure. You had, we had no reason to connect or deal with you. And I need you to know that Jesus even talks about how you're supposed to treat a tax collector or sinner. Jesus says that, listen, if you go to a brother and you try to, uh, build with them and reconcile with them after a dispute or something in the church, and then you go and you bring a couple other people and you try to reconcile and it's not working, you treat, you try to bring'em before the church and you try to reconcile, bring relationship, bring healing, bring connection. You know what you're supposed to do. If they don't listen, you're supposed to treat them like a tax collector or a sinner. So that means this is a distinct category that had weight and everybody knew how they were supposed to respond to that type of person. So back then it could have been a prostitute, beggar, drunks, the sick, the impure, the irreligious. It was the people that they would, if they saw'em coming down the street. They've clutch their pearls and walked to the other side of the street. We don't associate with those kinds of people, but today, when we hear the word sinner, we might think, well, well, we all sinners. I'm not perfect. You not perfect. No. We, I get that like it's, it's just a, it's just a word that is ubiquitous with just meaning. Ah, we, it's just, that's just regular humanity. Him, but I need you to understand it was deeper, deeper, deeper than that. I mean, I, you know, sinner is so synonymous with just regular stuff. I mean, biggie has an iconic line born sinner, the opposite of a winner. Remember when I used to eat sardines for dinner? Like it's even poetic. Yeah, I'm a sinner. It's on the t-shirts everywhere. Hey, I'm a sinner. You're a sinner. We get that. But in Jesus' day, there was no softness to it. There was nothing poetic about it. If you were a sinner, that meant that you cannot enter the synagogue, the place of worship where we go to meet God, hear from God, be amongst the people of God, you're not welcome. If you are a sinner, that means God wants nothing to do with you and it's your fault. You put yourself in that situation. You live in that lifestyle. You've embraced those choices. I don't care. You sick or you're impure, or you got this chronic illness, you, hey, you can't seem to figure it out. Get it put together. You're a sinner. We don't deal with you. In other words, there was no seed at the table to even receive grace if you are a sinner. But then Jesus comes along and he flips this whole thing on its head. He pulls up a chair. To one of these tax collectors and sinners, that category of a person. And he says, follow me. The people, everybody rejected, he says, that's who I came to rescue. And so what Matthew is going to tell us in this passage is, this is Matthew's Grace story. It's the day Grace came to his table, and that's the title of my message this morning, the day Grace came to my table. Here's what the word of the Lord says, Matthew chapter nine, verses nine to 13. As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, follow me. And he rose and followed him. And as Jesus reclined at table in the house, behold many tax collectors and sinners came and were reclining with Jesus and his disciples. So this is interesting. Jesus pulled up, said, yo, come follow me. The dude gets up, follows him. Next thing you know, there's a party with a bunch of them all together and Jesus is reclined at table with those people. Now we gotta keep going because there's a tension in the room and when the Pharisees, the church people. The church people, the ones that know theology, the ones that read the Bible, the one that went to Catechesis, the ones that go every week. The ones that serve, the ones that ha are on, they make sure that they block their time out on planning center, the ones that are good, godly people that pray and ask the waitress to make sure you need anything, for us to pray for us as we gonna pray for our meal. Those people show up, they said to his disciples. Um, so why, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? They won't talk to Jesus. Jesus chilling. Jesus chopping it up. He's laughing, he's cracking some jokes over there. They see him laid back on his elbow, just having conversation, meeting all these tax collectors and sin and they like, so, um, who, why is he so comfortable here? But when he heard this, he said, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Amen. Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I came not to call the righteous but sinners. Let's pray. Jesus, your word is true and is relevant for us here and now. Lord, I pray that you'll remind us that grace pulls up. It pulls up and, and pulls out a seat for us to sit at the table. Lord, there are so many different stories, backgrounds, experiences. We've heard these words and terms used before, but Lord, I pray that you would illuminate our hearts, transform us from the inside out. Lord, there are some of us that need a fresh encounter with your grace, or some of us are here. We're that older brother. We're that Pharisee. We're going, man, not they don't deserve it. But Lord, not realizing that they are in just as much need as the one that looks like they deserve it. So Lord convict us. I pray that we will confess. I pray we'll make room for you to transform us. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. My goal is that we would see something unique, that the grace of Jesus isn't reserved. For those that are worthy. It's extended to the undeserving. The grace of Jesus is not meant for people that have it together. It's not meant for people that look good. It's not meant for people that come from the right background and know all the things. It's not meant for them. It's actually extended to the ones who cannot, the undeserving. And so what Matthew's story is going to show us is that when Grace shows up. It changes your seat, it changes your story, and it should change our view of other people. And so the first thing we see is this, is that Grace finds you where you are. Grace is going to find you right where you are. Look at verse nine. He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. Now Jesus is doing ministry. He's rolling around, he's healing people, he's connecting with folks. His, his name and, and, and just kind of his influence is beginning to grow. He is known as a rabbi who, you know, he, he's educated, he does these great things and he seems to have this kind of prophetic edge, and so there's a bit of a buzz and a energy around him, and he has a bit of status and influence. And so when you see these religious leaders, they, hey you, if you are a sinner, especially if you a tax collector, you, you know, to keep your distance. Hey, I'm minding my business. Seems like church folks walking through here. I know I don't have access. I know I can't. I'm, I, I chose a side. So this is my position, this is my identity. This is who I am. But I love what it says that Jesus did. He saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth. In other words, Jesus sees Matthew in his sin before, not after he cleaned himself up. So I need some of us to get this because I can't tell you how many times I try to talk to people about, I just try to introduce'em to what the gospel is. It's good news. It's not bad news. It's good news. It's not bad news. It's good news. But you know what they hear some way they hear, I, you know, I gotta, Charlie, when I get myself together, then. That's the whole point. He sees you in your mess and he goes to you and says, Hey, I need you to come roll with me. So let's get a refresher on what does it mean, what does grace mean? Because I grew up saying grace at dinner, but then I didn't even understand what it meant. It's just a word. It's a name. It's something we throw around. But here's what grace is. Let's, let's unpack it for a second. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. So Grace is the unmerited. There's a lot of talk right now about meritocracy that you have to earn, that you have to show and prove that you have to be able to show that you are skilled enough to get the thing that you are aspiring towards. We're not just handing out free gifts, roles and positions. No, you have to earn it. What is your validation? What are your qualifications? Where did you come from? How did you do it? And here's what grace is. You can. Can't earn nothing. Doesn't matter. The background. Doesn't matter if you know somebody that works up there, doesn't matter. If you got Chatt BT and you pay$200 a month to get the best you can get, doesn't matter. There is no way that you could get access to the unmerited, not just I of God, but the favor of God, where he's saying, how do you become the delight of my eye? How do you earn that? You gotta, you gotta, you really gotta understand the Bible to do that. You really gotta go to church a lot to do that. You really gotta have like, like a spotless, spotless, spotless record to do that and, and God goes, no, you can never do it. And so what my grace, my grace is the unmerited favor of God, his loving initiative to reach out, to forgive, and to restore sinners, not because they were worthy, but because of his own mercy and his purpose. It says something about this God that says He's not waiting for you to get cleaned up. I know you didn't have the right clothes to wear. I know you probably sat closer to the back'cause you don't feel a little uncomfortable. I need you to know, like this church is very unique'cause the church I grew up in, if you came to church as a grown man with some flip flops on and some shorts, listen, you were under church discipline. Okay? Like that. That was a no. Well, boys couldn't even wear shorts at the church I grew up in. All right, so you're like, yes. Here in Fort Myers where it's very hot all the time. You're just in church sweating. You're like, yeah, yeah. Okay. This is a little bit of what hell is going to be like. Right. But when we look at this passage of scripture, watch this, Jesus sees Matthew sitting at the tax booth. In other words, he sees this man in the midst of his sin, where he is co-opting the oppression of other people. He didn't. He wasn't standing outside the synagogue. He was out there doing the dirt that got him into this mess. And Jesus says, Hey, I'm a, you look like a prime candidate to be one of my disciples. That's what's so scandalous about this. Grace doesn't wait at the temple, at the church, at the synagogue. It doesn't wait. It'll walk up on you in the midst of your messy, messy mass. Amen. And there are so many stories where you see Jesus in these walks. We're walking with Jesus right now, right? We're, we're seeing him in these walks, and it's always these people, they just get caught in the middle of it. Can you imagine, I, I roll up, man did this in Baltimore. It was quite awkward sometimes, man, you just roll up, you in the middle of a drug set. Oh, this is a little awkward. Who are you? You here to buy some dope or what are you? Nah, I'm an actual church planter here to uh, tell y'all about Jesus and bro. Move, like, go down there. We alright pastor. Cool, cool, cool. Thank you. I'll take the little flyer, but you go down there. We don't want you here, but that's how Jesus does it. What was the woman called? An active adultery. She got caught. She's busted red handed. Oh, she's in it. And Jesus catches us just like that. Grace finds you where you are. So Jesus is not here to die for your cleaned up version. He came for the messy version of you. Amen. The part of you that's so ashamed, the part of you that clears the history on your phone, the part of you that hides away and that part that you've never told anybody, that's what's in you. That's the part. Jesus goes, Hey, would you, um. You look like a prime candidate to be one of my disciples. That's what Grace does. So my question for you is this. I don't know everybody's story in here, but are you waiting to follow Jesus until you get better? You can't get better. That's why he came. Are you waiting for Jesus until you get sober? Don't wait until you get sober. You may never get sober without Jesus. Right, but even if you never get sober with Jesus, you are doing better than without him. So it don't matter. Don't matter what your status is right now. I need you to know that grace pulls up on you right there, and some of you're waiting like, man, I want you to come here today. We'll have time for you to respond. You can come up front, you can do the whole thing, but I need you to know you ain't gotta come to church to experience the grace of God. So watch this. It not only finds you where you are, grace doesn't just forgive you, it repositions you because as we go along in the story, right, he says, follow me, and he rose and followed him. So to follow a rabbi at that time was next to impossible. It was like a PhD a a professor coming and saying, Hey, you know what? Come on up to FGCU, we're gonna get you in the doctoral program, whatever. And you're like, I didn't even graduate high school. What are you talking about? Come follow me. I'm not going in there. And there's so much optics, there's so much insecurity that you would say, nah, I, I can't do that. I got in trouble for the illustration I used last time.'cause I said, man, if LeBron James and you're in the basketball and LeBron James comes to your house and says, listen, you got a full contract, you gonna come, I'm gonna make sure that you get all the training I get and I will make you a number one athlete like me, man. That's what it looks like to be a disciple. And I had to dude like, yo, LeBron is not even the best bro. Well, whoever the best is in your thing, that's who Jesus is. But better. And when he says, come and follow me, it is not so that you can come follow rules. He's going to change your identity in the process. So how you see yourself, that's fine, but that's not how he sees you. So in one moment, Matthew goes from collecting for Caesar to walking with Christ. Amen. He goes from making deals, having people broken. I mean, it is like the mob. He got dudes going out, breaking legs. They didn't pay me last week. Where's my money? You know what's gonna happen if I don't get paid the whole deal? And he goes from that to say, Hey, Jesus, can I throw a party tonight? Because I need my friends. I need them to come. Man, I, I, I didn't think this was possible. You know how many times people walked by my table and spit, you know how many times people said, curse me under their breath? You know, you know about this one time I got in a real big trouble and the people knew, you know, you know all the stuff that I did. And you said I could be, I could follow you. So you're going to forgive me and then you're going to make me one of yours. Yes. So he left the table of the empire for the table of the kingdom. And so it's not conditional on you saying a prayer one time back then. No. It is catalytic. My prayer for you as, as, as people that attend Summit and walk together with us and become a member and all of that kind of stuff is this. We got a value that if you are with us long enough, we pray that you're able to articulate your grace story, right? And that is, man, I came to faith at this time and this is what, this is how it was before. This is what God's doing to me now. This is why I do what I do. All that's fine. Well, and good, but I need you to know you'll have multiple great stories. Yeah, I came to faith maybe when I was 15, 16, but this afternoon at Culver's with my three kids. I might need Jesus to pull up right then. So you are going to have great stories. Of God continuing to, and some of us go, man, okay, we've got recovery. We got ministries that help you come out of dark things, vices, habits, things that you just feel like you can't come out of. We want you to do that. But then there's those of us, somebody that grew up without parents. You know what I feel inside? I feel like an orphan. I ain't got no grandparents. I don't have no parents. I feel like an orphan. But you know what Jesus says to me? Hey Charlie, I didn't just give you grace and salvation. I made you a son. You're a son. Some of you walk around with labels over your head, things your mom might have said to you. Things that abuse that might have happened to you. When Jesus says, I change names. I will change your status. You were abused. Yeah, you were abused. That's okay. I redeem man. You were. You deserve this. You deserve, you are right. You deserved it. But I will take that on me. So grace is catalytic. It's not conditional on a one time moment. And so what table is God calling you to leave behind?'cause he says, listen, I know that's who you were, but this is who you will become with me. Right, and notice who you are. And some of you just go, man, that's impossible. It is on your own, right? It is, man, what did we just sing? We just sing it over ourselves. And I need you sometimes to know Jesus. Don't need to hear us sing it'cause we can't sing most of the time. But sometimes in worship, a lot of it is catechizing and transforming ourselves. It is not about performance. It's not about status. It's not about what I could do. It's not about my achievement. It's only by the, it's only by the blood. And so what table is he calling you to leave behind? You're not an orphan. You're a son. You're not left behind. I see you. You're not overlooked. I value you. You're not trash. I died for you. You're not forgotten. I love you. So come on, you're gonna need to hear that over and over again. And so this is what leads us to this third point.'cause I couldn't deserve that. I couldn't earn that. And so the third thing that Grace does is it makes space for the unlikely, if makes space for the unlikely. If look at verse 10, as Jesus reclined, that table, many tax collectors and sinners showed up. So Jesus takes the invitation from Matthew, okay, you're gonna be with me, so you're going to invite me to your people. Yes. And the way they would do it in the first century is this. He would set up a, he would have a party and they have to lay recline, like lay down on the floor to eat together. And that's intimacy that's connected. I don't like sitting on the floor at a bar, like at the beach. I don't like sitting on a towel. But Jesus is like, nah, come on. I'm gonna come to your house. We're gonna set up shop, introduce me to everybody. I wanna meet him. And he's reclining at the table. He throws the door of grace wide open. And what does it say That he was comfortable around him. He was not shocked. Some of us, the way we see Jesus is like he's an old nun that's afraid of the darkness of this world. Like he ain't never seen nothing. He ain't never been through nothing. He's just some little sheepish church mouths. No, Jesus goes into the deepest, darkest, most messiest of messes. And so I love the fact that he can meet you in your prison cell. He can meet you in your porn cell. He can meet you in your, your abuse cell. He can meet you in your polarized cell. He can meet you wherever you find yourself. Jesus ain't scared of none of that. So the recline at that table, it caused problems for Jesus.'cause they started whispering about him. And I understand it. The band could come up. I understand it. Can you imagine? We've got some sketchy businesses around this area. Got some sketchy businesses. So imagine you walking outta Publix. This got your little pub sub. You're excited. Lunch is gonna be good. And, um, you come walking out of there and you see Jesus over there as some weird establishment, and we got some weird establishments, right? These little places, these little off the wall places where dirt can go down or just, uh, it just seems unseemly. If you saw Pastor Orlando rolling up outta one of these vape shops smelling like lemon lime Ninja Turtle vape sauce, you know what I'm saying? And you see him high fiving people and it's like, yo, what, what is, what is pastor O doing walking up out of there? That's what it was like for Jesus. You see him rolling. He's sitting out there eating lunch. Jesus got all these prostitutes. He's on the strip. These ladies know his name. They laughing, they hanging out with Jesus. One got her arm on Jesus. You are like, yo, does he know? Does he, does he not know? I gotta send an email.'cause I, I can't have him preaching because those people, but what we forget is I am those people. You are those people, and what Grace does is it'll separate. It'll separate. Fourth thing I want you to see, grace rebukes the self-righteous, but it heals the sick. It'll rebuke the self-righteous'cause when we really understand grace. Each and every one of us has a tax collector and center box in our own heart and mind. There are people that you cannot agree with. Our country is so politicized right now and fragmented, polarized that man, if we could see the kingdom of God, like if we could see what Jesus sees, if we could see all the people that are a part of the kingdom. We would be like, how? No, bro, how did he get in here? How, like, what qualified him? She's in here. How? Like, no, no, no, no, no. Because I saw, and I read and I know how, how in the world and what Grace does. It'll, it'll separate and it'll, what it'll do is it'll reveal the pride and self-righteousness in my heart. Because I got them kind of people, but then at the same time, I gotta be reminded I'm, I'm them. I am them. If it weren't out for the grace of God, where would I be? Where would I, I mean, not me. Where would you be? Because you can't earn it either. Where would you be? So Grace will rebuke the self-righteous, but it heals the sick. So it becomes a sword to those who feel like, nah, his grace is too big. It's too much. It's too much room at this table. But then for those of us who know how bad off we are, what we really deserve, it becomes the surgical tool that brings my healing. I need you to know every month I go and I get a IV infusion for my medication. And I go to this place, it's at the Cancer treatment center and I gotta sit with all these sick people and we're all sick. We know it, and I hate it'cause I gotta get an iv, I gotta get a needle in my arm. Little nurse comes over, Hey Charlie, how you doing? I'm, I don't wanna talk. I don't wanna talk.'cause you gotta do something to me that I don't like. A needle's gonna come out and she's going to stick me in my arm. And I hate those little ladies. I love'em, but I hate'em because a lot of them go. Well, you too big to be all scared of this little old needle. Well, that's none of your business, ma'am. That is none of your business. You do what you gotta do. I do what I gotta do, and hey, we gonna be all right. But man, I need you to know, oh man, if it were not for that needle, it hurts. It exposes, it reveals my weakness, but it's what keeps me alive. It's what brought me healing. And you know what kept me sick for so long is I walked around with a sickness in my self-righteousness thinking I was better than what I was, and I needed the healing grace of God to remind me, oh Charlie, you're a need of grace. So this is what. The gospel is not for the morally upright. It's for those who finally admit that they are not. So for many of us, here's two responses we have. Some of you, if you believed and trusted in Jesus, we're going to take the cup together because we can forget. How amazing the grace is. And some of you, I shared this with one of my brothers back there. Some of you have been at the table for so long, you've taken it for granted and you slid back from the table'cause of your shame. I need you to go on and pull that chair back up'cause you said I ain't, I'm not scared of that. I wanna work with you. My grace is sufficient for you. But for those of you who've never, I need you to know he's, he's at your table today, and no matter what your story is, he's here to change it. This man went from being an agent of the oppression of people to Matthew now being one of the people we read in the story and go, how could he if he can become a disciple? So can you, so I'm not telling you to follow rules. Jesus didn't say follow me, and then here, here's this, this, and this. The enemy is spread a alive, so pervasive that if I follow Jesus, it means I have to shrink my life and my life is down to duty. And I just wish I could. But if I'm clear, John 10. 10 is very clear. It says The enemy came to steal, kill and destroy. Not just your life, but your joy, your in it. Don't taste good. You are trapped and it don't feel good, and Jesus said, I have come to bring life and life everlasting. I came to give you a flourishing life. So he's here to take the lid off your joy, off your pain, off your story. He's here to take the lid off so that you can enjoy walking with Jesus. So those are our two responses. I want to give space this, this morning that if you need somebody you don't know the words to say, we'll have deacons and some leaders up here that'll just, you can just lean on them to believe. Sometimes I need an empathetic witness, but then for those of us who have trusted in Jesus, here's what I want us to do. Take the bread in order to remember that his body was broken. His body was broken, so that you would have life. So let's take a eat together and we drink the cup together. To remind us so that we remember. It was only by the blood that I have access to the grace of God that I didn't go looking for, but he came after me. Let's drink together. Jesus, we want to leave room for you to, to do your work. I've talked enough. I've yelled, I've spit a little bit. But Jesus, there are those in this room that you, you've sat at their table and they're a little reluctant. Lord, I pray that you will move in their hearts. If they need prayer, I pray that they will just call out to you. Maybe under their breath you'll meet them right where they are. They don't gotta come up front. But for those of us that need to be reminded, I pray, Lord, that we will be vulnerable and just go, man, I need, I need, need a reassured. And Lord, I thank you by your spirit. You give us that reassurance, by your word, by your people, by your presence. So lead us in this moment, I pray, before we depart. In Jesus name, amen.