[Sermon Archive] - [Weekly Devotional Guide]

This Week's Sermon St. Matthew, Apostle & Evangelist 21 September 2008 "Cured by the Great Physician" Matthew 9:9-13 LSB Series A Vicar Gerald Heinecke Soli Deo Gloria!

As Malachi and I sat down to watch the Packer's opening game two weeks ago I couldn't help but pray that the Packer players would stay healthy. This year I especially pray that they stay healthy because we have a new quarterback. I have often been asked this year, "How is the team going to do without Brett Favre?" My response is, "If they, especially Aaron Rodgers, stays healthy they will be just fine." This is true of the Colts, or pastor's Steelers. Sports teams depend on their players to stay healthy.

Staying healthy is a problem for all people not just athletes. Injuries and disease can lead to death, doctors and researchers are constantly trying to find ways to help people heal and to prevent diseases. There is another kind of disease that is even more dangerous. This one disease leads not only to temporal death, but to an eternal, everlasting death. That disease is sin. Jesus has come to take care of that disease.

Our Gospel lesson today focuses on Matthew, the gospel writer, the worst sinner of the group of Apostles. He was a tax collector, despised by the Jews, and always unclean because he handled government money. Matthew, although a Jew, was hated by the Jews so he had to resort to becoming friends with other unclean people. They include other tax collectors, the sexually immoral, even gentiles. Matthew was diseased with sin, he was never healthy, he was never clean. What a wretched life, he was sick in sin and there was no way out, no place that he could go if he quit his job. His disease had taken over and left him destroyed.

Think about disease, especially something like cancer. Most of you probably know at least one person who has had cancer. Unchecked, without chemotherapy or radiation, what happens to it? It grows. It spreads. Some of the more nasty forms of cancer not only grow in size but they spread to other parts of the body and often spread quickly.

Now think about sin. Sin is like cancer in that it is deadily, but it is more like a contracted disease. This disease, though, was not contracted through a cough or contact with another person but at the moment of conception. This condition is more commonly known as original sin. The Formula of Concord in the Book of Concord deals extensively with this subject. It states that original sin is an inherited disease corrupting our entire nature. It is above all actual sin, for it is the chief sin, the deadliest sin, the root and fountainhead of all actual sins. (FC SD I, 5)

We must also recognize the originator of sin. It is clear from scripture that God is not the creator, author, or cause of sin. That distinction belongs clearly to the Devil and also to us. 1 John 3:8 tells us, "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning." (FC SD I, 7)

The difficult part of original sin is the diagnosis. Original sin cannot be detected by someone who has no training, just as you cannot go to anyone and find out from them that you have cancer, you must go to a doctor. Unbelievers and those who reject the truth of the scripture will be unable to see the need for the antidote. It is impossible before having been baptized into faith to diagnose because we are dead in our trespasses and sins, we are by nature children of wrath, we carry out the sinful desires of the body and the mind. So the body has no clue that it is actually infested by sin. (FC SD I, 8).

Once presented with the diagnosis of the severity of sin, the cure is made plain and clear. There is only one way to be saved, to be cured, and that is through Christ. Still, there is rejection of the cure, that salvation for a person's soul. In our text today the pharisees once again reject Jesus gift of salvation. They think they are better then the tax collectors and sinners.

Think about it though, What if there were a guaranteed cure and it was readily made available? What if it was free for all to use? Talk about an affordable universal health care! If our current Presidential candidates were able to provide top quality universal health care for free they would most likely guarantee themselves to be elected in November. Yet the Great Physicians cure of grace is rejected all the time. His free cure, made available to all people, is disgustingly dismissed as worthless.

There are even those who claim to be Christians who reject the free cure. They think, "The cure cannot be free. It must be paid for. We must do something to earn it." Or the other thought is, "Sure it's there. He has given it to us, but we have to choose to use it. We have to choose to accept what Jesus has done." There's no choosing! Jesus died on the cross for you, for your sins, but many Christians forget sin is like a disease. It gets into the very soul of your body, and causes eternal death and damnation. For us to try to do something for ourselves is to contaminate the cure, nothing we do can remove it. Just as you cannot take away even a part of a cold so you cannot even take away part of the disease of sin. The disease of original sin will lead to eternal death in hell. You cannot even choose to accept the cure. The cure just has to be administered.

Some may also think, "I am baptized, confirmed, married in the church so now I will be okay. I no longer need to come to church, I can forget about church, I no longer need to go and how dare you suggest that I do!" On the contrary, original sin remains despite the fact that we are cured of it. The cure is a daily administration of Christ. It is not a once in a life time shot. And as soon as we stop using the cure, sin comes bursting forth and will take over the body again.

Another way to explain it is to say that original sin is the lack of original righteousness. Original righteousness is defined as the keeping of the commandments not only those to our neighbor, but to God as well (Ap II, 16). It was the perfect sinless life, a life possessed by mankind only before the fall. Even now we cannot posses original righteousness because of our daily sin.

Although original righteousness was lost in the Fall, we still possess righteousness. We have been given the cure for original sin. This righteous was gained when the great physician, Jesus Christ healed us. It comes to us through Christ who sacrificed himself for us. Christ died so that we are saved from the cursed disease of sin. In today's text we see how simple it was for Matthew to be saved from that horrific disease, a disease that kills millions each year and sends them to an eternal death. We see in Matthew 9, 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. That's it, it's all right there. Matthew is cured through the Word of Christ! He is cured by Christ through his death on the cross by grace alone!

This is why we celebrate Saint Matthew's day, Matthew heard the Word incarnate speak to him. Matthew did nothing to earn his discipleship, he did not choose to follow. By grace Matthew was called by the Word. Matthew through Jesus' call of "follow me" realized what the hymn of the day said, what is the world to me? The conclusion: this world is nothing, it offers nothing for Jesus offers everything. Jesus is everything, he is our treasure, peace, and rest. Matthew most assuredly knew wealth, and fame, friends and fine food. But Jesus offers a greater treasure, greater friends, a greater pleasure. Matthew would come to know the price that Jesus paid for these great gifts. He would then record for you in his gospel what that cost was.

It sounds so simple here in our text, Jesus calls you and we are saved. It is that simple. Jesus, through the Holy Spirit has called you by the Gospel, enlightened you with his gifts, and sanctifies and keeps you in the one true faith. Matthew's conversion was just that simple. For Matthew though Jesus calling him by grace was not the end. Matthew continues his gospel telling you how Jesus paid the price. He took all of our sins upon himself. He was abandoned. He was whipped. He was beaten. He was spit upon. He received abject humiliation so that we are healed of our sin and come to eternal salvation.

Jesus Christ, works through the Holy Spirit to give us salvation. Diagnosis made, cure miraculously and lovingly developed, now it must be administered. Its administration is as simple as Jesus call to Matthew. Word and Sacrament. This is nothing high tech. It is not the latest developed technique. It is not a new motivational tool. There is no special 12 step program and there are no ulterior motives needed to dispense of his gracious gift.

It is the simple Law and Gospel message delivered from the Bible. It is the simple water combined with God's precious Word found in Holy Baptism. It is Jesus' body and blood distributed to us simply in, with, and under the bread and the wine. It is the Pastor speaking to you in the stead and by the command of Jesus Christ. Nothing unordinary, but it is truly special because God has promised to work faith in our hearts. He has promised to cure us from the dreaded disease of sin. He has promised to make Jesus our final rest.

Matthew was most certainly a sinner, but he was called by Christ to leave that tax booth and follow him. Tradition has it that Matthew's life is filled with evangelism. He was an evangelist, writing the Gospel of Matthew. He also is said to have spent time preaching throughout Asia Minor and Persia before he went to Ethiopia. Here he eventually received a martyr's death. Matthew's life after becoming an apostle is not clearly laid out for us, just like most of the Apostles. That does not mean his work was ineffective. Matthew's greatest work is found scripture where his gospel is read throughout the world today. An amazing turn of events from being an unclean, sin ridden tax collector to one of the most well read authors in the world.

We will not be evangelists. But we do have the opportunity to read God's word every day. We know that the cure to the disease of sin is Christ because the evangelists wrote it down for us. Through these writers we have the confidence that our Great Physician, Jesus Christ, dispenses the cure of Word and Sacrament through his death on the cross. We trust his precious word and receive eternal life because he conquered sin for us. The Great Physician has healed the deadliest disease and gives you eternal life in its stead.