Jesus Calls Matthew, The Tax Collector | Week 17

Let me ask you a quick question. Have you ever played Simon says? All right, great, let’s play a round. At home. You’re ready? All right. Stand up if you want to play. All right. There you go. All of you are out because Simon didn’t say, now you can be seated. There you go.

Simon says. You know this game right? Simon says Simon didn’t say. And if Simon didn’t say, then you’re out. That’s why all of you stood out. Because Simon didn’t say it’s a kids game. But but. And I don’t know. And I don’t know where I got this from, but it’s and this is really wrong. It’s not right. But when I was growing up, especially as a kid growing up in the church, I thought Christianity was a little bit like Simon says. Except it wasn’t, Simon says. It was like the Bible says, or maybe like Jesus says or something like that. Right? Like like, hey, and if you got it wrong, then you were, then you’re out. You know, Jesus says, go to church. The Bible says pray. The Bible says, don’t look over there. And if you look over there, then you’re out. And you don’t want to be out in this game because if you’re out, then you go to hell.

And that’s terrible. And a sad thing to say that that was sort of my thinking as it related to being a Christian in the church. And the really the worst thing about it is that in Simon says the point of the leader is to trick you so that you fail. And so think about how terrible of a vision of a God that is. God is in heaven trying to trick me so that I will fail. And it’s so bad. But somewhere deep in my heart and again I know it’s wrong but but it’s sad. But again, somewhere down deep in my heart, I thought the Bible was trying to make it hard on purpose for people to get to heaven. And so something that really confused and it was something that really confused me because because eventually what I learned is that playing this game was just I just couldn’t take it anymore. And in some ways, even though I knew my destiny, if I was out, my destiny meant that I was going to hell. I kind of like being out because life out of the game was a lot easier than life in the game, you know?

At least I didn’t have to follow those rules and think that this whole thing was just impossible for me to follow anyway. And the way it worked for me was that you would then like, listen all these rules and listen to these rules and go, Oh gosh, I don’t know if I can follow all these rules. And then eventually you go to teen camp. By the way, you can sign up for teen camp. I think today’s the last day for the discounted rate. So if you have teens, get them to teen camp. But you can go to teen camp or you would go to like, you know, a conference or you’d go to like, you know, talk to a spiritual friend and then they would kind of gear you up again and you go, All right, I’m going back in the game. I’m going to grit my teeth and I’m going to be miserable. Let’s let’s do it together. And the Bible says to pray. And I’m like, okay, pray.

The Bible says to read the Bible says to share your faith. The Bible says Confess your sins. And then here’s the other thing I noticed and maybe you noticed this, too, if you ever played this game. The longer you play the game, the more judgmental you are towards the people who don’t play the game. Right? Because if I’m going to be miserable, you’re going to have to be miserable with me. And maybe you experienced this, but it became a cycle for me. You do what the Bible says to do, then you get good at it and you become judgmental. And then you mess up and then you give up, and then you’re motivated to get back in the game and you overcome the thing that tripped up last time. And then you go back in the game and you get good at it and you become judgmental. And then you mess up and then you give up and the cycle continues and it’s just sort of a disaster. And something sometimes I wonder if maybe the reason that so many people in the faith are frustrated is because they view their Christianity a little bit like this game.

And maybe that’s why some people feel so disconnected. It’s because for them, being with Jesus is a list of do’s, do’s dos and a list of don’ts, don’ts, don’ts. And then they keep failing and then they get discouraged and then they feel like I’m not consistent enough, I’m not disciplined enough. I’m not I’m not even moral enough to keep all the rules that I think I have to keep. But what if I told you that Christianity is not a list of do’s and don’ts? I bet you if I told you that, you would then look at me and go, I know. And then I would reply to you. And this is what I would say. I would say, Well, do you live like you know it? That’s the question I would then ask. And that’s a whole different question, isn’t it? And here’s what I’d like to talk about today as we study out the calling of Matthew in Matthew Chapter nine, I’d like to remind you of something that you already know, that you already know.

It got really dark in the house. Can we put up the lights a little bit that you already know? And it’s this. It’s this that that faith is not a list of rules, but a relationship with the Lord. You already know this. I don’t have to put it on the slide, but I want to unpack it for you, because I believe the tragedy is that when people lose sight of the relational nature of faith and when we begin instead to pursue a list of do’s and not and don’t do’s, inevitably we make discipleship into something it was never intended to be. And that slow sort of burn leads to utter destruction of faith. I’m going to tell you this. But most people who quit, will quit because Christianity has become a bunch of rules instead of a relationship with a living lord instead of something that is way, way, way more profound. And they over time become ancient, ancient, rather exhausted, exhausted with an ancient book. And I think it trips people up as they think about what the gospel really means.

So here’s what we’re going to do today. We’re going to see that throughout the scriptures. What we see is that Jesus is calling people to not a list of do’s and don’ts. Instead, as we saw in Mark chapter one when we began our sermon series, instead, Jesus has one simple thing to say to anybody in all time and every background, whether you’re rich or poor, whether you’re smart or dumb, whether you you did really well in high school or you failed, whether you are a sinner or not. You know, Jesus calls people to one thing and it’s this: Follow me. Follow me no matter who you are. Jesus extends this invitation. Religious, irreligious. This amazing adventure to be with the Lord. To become like Him and to do as he did. This morning, I want to take you to one such account. It’s somewhat familiar to us. It’s found in the Book of Matthew, as I mentioned before. It’s the story of the calling of Matthew. Matthew, chapter nine is where you’re going to turn to be to kind of follow along.

And you can turn there. And as you’re turning there, I want to kind of set the context for you, because the story is so rich. If you don’t just look at Matthew chapter nine, verse nine, but instead you unpack the whole thing. So. So here we are, right? As we come to Matthew Chapter nine, Jesus is walking along the seashore on the northwestern edge of the Sea of Galilee. He’s been in this place called Capernaum for the last couple of weeks. He’s out of the town, back into the town, out of the town, back into the town. And following him are a couple of his disciples. You can kind of picture this, you know, sort of like Hollywood Beach walking through Hollywood Beach. Not exactly that. But just imagine that for a moment. Walking through Hollywood Beach and behind him are a bunch of his disciples. They’re the people we’ve met who are John the Baptist, his disciples in John Chapter one, but now are Jesus’s disciples, because he called them in Mark chapter one.

So now Jesus has these couple of disciples, a handful, five or six guys. They are all fishermen from Bethsaida, and they’re behind him, following him as he walks along the sea. And behind them are thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people. This group will get to the size of about 20,000 by the time we get to John Chapter six. We’re talking a massive group of people. We call them the multitudes. That’s what Bible scholars call them, so that we’ll all call them, the multitudes. And they have been following him since pretty much day one of his ministry or day one of his healing ministry, I should say. And they’re following him for precisely that reason, because Jesus has been healing the sick and clearing the people with demonic possession. So crowds and crowds of people are following him. We read last week, right, that there were so many people following him that someone had to go onto the roof to get in front of Jesus. There are thousands of people, so Jesus is walking by the sea disciples behind him, thousands behind them.

And then we get to verse nine. On the shores of the Sea of Galilee, it says This: “As Jesus went from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collectors booth.” Now, up until this point, Jesus had been gathering disciples, and the people that had been gathered that he’d been gathering are generally, I don’t know, okay, people, you know? They’re normal guys, they’re fishermen. But the question you might imagine begins to arise in our hearts, like who could actually be a disciple of Jesus? And so Matthew in his gospel offers himself as an illustration. He is the illustration that Jesus is willing to call the worst of people because Matthew is a tax collector. Matthew’s a tax collector. Now, the idea of a tax collector in Jewish culture is hard for even us to understand. But I’m going to give you just a simple thing that you can write down that maybe be helpful for you as you interpret the scriptures from this point on.

Any time you see tax collector, you can think of this: tax collector equals the worst. They are the worst people in society. Jewish people collecting Roman taxes from other Jewish people. And we’ll explain why that’s so disgusting. But to the Jews themselves, they hated tax collectors, Samaritans and tax collectors. Bottom of the basement, by the way, later on, we’re going to read that Jesus is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. They had to make two separate categories. Tax collectors are so bad that they’re not even considered sinners, their worse sinners, they were hated. In fact, Matthew might have been the most hated person in his town. The town’s tax collectors were seen as just absolutely horrendous. I think Matthew is using himself as an illustration to show you that Jesus is willing to call just about anybody. So if you’re here today and you’re like, I’m the worst. Well, so was Matthew. You could be called by Jesus. Tax collectors. Let me just tell you why they’re so bad.

Tax collectors are generally quite rich, and the reason they’re rich is because they own sort of like the franchise rights to collect the taxes from the town. And you could collect as much taxes as you want. As long as Rome got their cut, you could just keep collecting taxes. And so it became an extremely lucrative business. And it was also a huge slap in the face of Jewish people. Why? Because as a method of collecting taxes, Rome would highlight one person and it would be just a regular old Jewish guy, and it would elevate him to the point of tax collector. And so again, he would purchase that right from Rome, and then he would then oppress the people, taking their money, taking as much as you want, and giving whatever the percentage that Rome asked for to Rome. And so you were collecting from your own people horrible taxes from an oppressive government who was your conqueror. It could not be worse than this. Oh, what a terrible, terrible abuse of power. They would extort people.

They would amass a fortune for themselves. They would oppress their own countrymen. And so they were so bad that tax collectors were not allowed to attend the synagogue. They were barred from church. Imagine we had, like, a guard outside who was like, nah you’re an IRS worker? You can’t come in. It was something like that. They were terrible, forbidden from being witnesses in the court because there’s a book that I’ll reference later on. But tax collectors, they say, were if you were a tax collector, you were a liar. They invented taxes on anything they wanted. Carrying taxes, road taxes, package taxes, wine taxes, shipping taxes. They had ultimate unchecked power because you were backed by the Roman government. Vile, evil, oppressive people. Alfred Edershmim, I don’t know how to pronounce his name in his book, The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. He says this about the tax collector. He said that their Hebrew name was gabbai.

You want to hear a stupid joke? What do you say to your money when you give it to the tax collector? Gabbai That is that is as bad of a joke as I possibly could say. But there you go. So, Matthew, this Gabbai is sitting there at the corner collecting taxes. The worst man in the city. And Jesus walks over to him. Imagine it. Imagine it. Jesus. The disciples, the multitudes. They get to the booth. And Jesus is about to say something. Jesus takes a deep breath. He walks up to Matthew’s booth. And you would imagine that he says you should be ashamed of yourself. Maybe the people following him are thinking he’s going to curse them out. Oh, he’s about to get it. He’s going to tear this dude to shreds because there is no way anyone could possibly imagine what’s going to happen next. Sitting at the table, doing his thing at the tax collectors booth. And what does Jesus say? Follow me. Follow me.

Follow me he told him. And I could imagine that the scriptures, the scriptures don’t say it. But. But is there, like an audible groan from the crowd? Oh, oh, no. Maybe the disciples who are in earshot are going, Hey, Jesus, to know that he’s a tax collector and this guy’s like a fraudulent banker. He’s Bernie Madoff, you know, he’s the guy that, like, ruined the Luna Stablecoin. If you know anything about that. He’s. He’s he’s the Benedict Arnold. He’s the corrupt coward. He only cares about himself. And there is Jesus inviting this man to become one of his disciples. Wow. And I want you to notice something for just a moment. There’s nothing else that Jesus says. You don’t get anything else. You don’t get. Hey, do this. Do that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Instead, he’s just invited to a relationship. Hey, would you come and follow me?

Would you come and follow me? All he gives them is an invitation to a relationship. Come. Let me be your rabbi. Come. Let me be your teacher. Let me show you how to live. Let me show you how to really live the way you’re supposed to live. Come and walk with me. And be with me. And become like me. And you are going to learn from me. And have life to the full. And I don’t know what’s in Matthew’s head. We know that he probably knew who Jesus was because Jesus had become quite popular. But but the Bible tells us that he got up and he followed him. Matthew decides, Hey, I’m going to follow. Maybe he’s sitting there and he’s been waiting his whole life for a fresh start. Maybe he knew as a tax collector there was no way out. Maybe he had some moral dilemma and he was like, Man, I just need a solution to get out of this crazy system. He knew he would never be accepted.

He could never have a fresh start until Jesus one day showed up, looked him in the eye and said, Hey, would you follow me? And no doubt, the crowds and the multitudes and the disciples stopped. And they saw this sort of rotten, dirty, unclean man suffering in silence and the cloud of his own sin. And they watched him take a step out from his tax collectors booth and begin to follow Jesus. And again, what’s the point here? Jesus doesn’t invite us to a new list of rules, but into a relationship. And Matthew takes it. He looks and he takes the relationship and it begins to follow Jesus. In Luke’s gospel in the same account, it actually adds a really important detail. It says this. It says. “And Levi,” that’s Matthew “got up, left everything and followed him.” He walked away. He forsook it all. He left everything. Everything. And he just follows, you know, this is what real conversions look like, by the way. A real conversion.

Someone who really changed believes everything. I’m not bringing any of my old life. I’m not fighting to keep anything. Any of the garbage in my past. I don’t need that to be my present, my relationship, whatever like that could be. Go away. I’m dating that one horrible, toxic person. That’s Gonzo. How I deal with my money, how I care about the things I care about, the things that I’ve elevated in my life. All that stuff could just go away. I’m starting from a brand new, fresh slate because Jesus is more than anything I’ve ever had before, right? And so Matthew Levi just looks at all. He goes, Hey, Lord, you know, you today you might have the fight, right? Lord, could I could I keep my table but once a month? You know, can I just once a month still sit at the tax collectors booth? Because I do need to pay some bills. I’m a little high in debt, so I don’t want to.

But he doesn’t do any of that. Lord, can I just collect my franchise fees? Because if I collect that, then I’ll sell off my franchise fees. You know, it would be stupid of me and not very wise of me to give up everything. Think about all the ways that our common sense becomes the tyrant of us following Jesus. He left everything. He calls them to go and he goes, Hey, what Jesus has is much better than what I have. What Jesus has is much better than I’ll ever know. He couldn’t even get there fast enough. In that book I was mentioning before, he has this quote he loves I love this. He said, not a word for his soul was in the speechless surprise of unexpected grace. Far from being depressed about what he left, he could not run fast enough to follow Jesus. I like to think of it this way that Matthew lost a career but gained a destiny. He lost security, but he gained a dream. Lost some material things, but he gained a spiritual future.

Let me just say this. This is what a relationship with Jesus does. There is no greater joy, no greater purpose, no greater meaning in life than following Jesus. It’s amazing. And the man and the woman who was willing to give up all things and to follow him, even the worst of sinners can come into contact with the greatest living hope there has ever been. Follow me. Follow me. And really, if you could boil your faith down to one thing, if you removed all the list of rules and regulations and not ask yourself, are you a Christian? Are you a believer? How’s your discipleship this morning? Instead of asking yourself all those questions, maybe you can begin to ask yourself this week or this month or this year, am I following? Am I following Jesus? Not did I go to church? Though, if you were following Jesus, you would go to church, but- not am I reading my Bible? Because of course you would do that. But that’s not even.

But am I following Jesus? Am I following him? Do I love him? Am I being a disciple? Are you part of Jesus’s group? Do you identify with him? Would he identify with you? Do you serve like him? Do you sound like him? Do you respond to trials like the way he responds to trials? Do you love him? Are you following? What if for just a few weeks you could put aside all the other questions and just ask yourself this question at the end of your day? Hey, how did I do today following Jesus? How do I do? In fact, if you know, we’re going to find out in a minute that there’s like another group of people. So I talked about Jesus, the disciples, the crowds, but there’s another group, but they’re kind of in the shadows, and they’re following him the whole time, too. We’re about to encounter them. And and they’re thinking, hey, am I following is not enough. There’s a whole bunch of rules and regulations.

And there are these people that are called the religious leaders, the tax collectors, the judgmental. And they’re thinking to themselves, you can’t just invite the worst guy in the city to follow you and him become your disciple. It’s much more complicated than any of that. And so Matthew again, gives us some really interesting details and uses himself as an illustration about what Jesus is really looking for. What Jesus is really looking for if you want to follow him. Verse ten. That’s a lot of words on the screen. “While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners.” Remember I told you separate categories. “Came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” Matthew steps out of his tax collectors booth and Jesus is with him. And I imagine that the Matthew invites Jesus over for dinner. And at this point, Jesus’s reputation is at stake. Or rather, Jesus invites Himself over for dinner, and Jesus’s reputation is at stake because he’s sitting with tax collectors and sinners.

And so, Matthew, what he does is he invites every single person that he knows. And who does Matthew know? Tax collectors and sinners. That’s who he knows. And it’s a nightmare for the religious leaders. If you’re a religious leader, why would you be willing to do this? Well, here’s something you know, and we will note this throughout the ministry of Jesus. But Jesus was comfortable with people who were nothing like him. Jesus was not a sinner. Jesus was not a traitor. Jesus had nothing in common with any of these people. But he loved to be with them and they loved to be with him. So he’s hanging at his house and all of a sudden the Pharisees are outside and they ask the question, you know, why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? Hey, he’s a rabbi. He’s a holy man. We’re holy people. You know, you and I are on the same level. Why would he do this? This is ridiculous. If he was really a rabbi, he would know exactly who was with him.

And Jesus shows his divinity on hearing this because he has supersonic ears, because he’s Jesus, Jesus said. It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. This is kind of strange because Jesus says this out loud. It’s not the healthy, you know. You could think about it like we’re all eating and and the Pharisees are outside that door and it’s like, Hey, it’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. And if you’re Matthew and even invited this man to your home, you might be thinking, Wait, I’m sick? And the healthy are outside? That’s kind of offensive, right? Except it’s important to realize that this doesn’t offend Matthew at all. We don’t have a single line that says it offended Matthew. You know why it doesn’t offend Matthew? Because Matthew knows he’s sick. And you know what? I think if you’re really honest with yourself and I’m really honest with myself, or if our spouse is really honest with us and our children were honest with us or our roommates were honest with us or our best friends were honest with us, you know what they would think? They would know we’re all sick.

You know this about yourself. But there’s something really wrong with you. You’re not even consistent with your own morality, are you? You know, you don’t keep the rules you want your son to keep. You don’t keep the rules you want for your daughter. And you say to yourself, you know, again and again and again, you you stumble in a sin. You go, I’m never going to do it again. And then you guess what? You do it again. If you’re really honest with yourself, you know you’re sick. You have some addictions that you’re struggling with. You lust for more things and more things and more things. There’s some materialism in you. You get angry at your kids in a way you shouldn’t. Sometimes you do things that are crazy. You’re driving in a car and you see someone cut you off and you want to curse at them and you’re shouting, get away from here. And you’re a Christian? You tell people things.

You talk bad about people behind their back sometimes. You do some things that are just not good. If people knew your heart and your mind, they would think very differently of you. You know you’re sick. You don’t even live to the standard you preach. You can’t keep your own rules. You break the rules. You break your own rules. Can you imagine the rules that you break that are God’s rules? You know, whenever God’s judgment comes, if you’re left on your own, you are in trouble. You’re a sinner. You’re broken. You don’t hold your own standard. You fall short. You don’t need people to tell you. You don’t need me to tell you that you’re sick. But Jesus is so comfortable and so righteous and so compassionate that He can say out loud, Hey, all the people in here are sick. And you guys are healthy and all the people inside are going, Yeah, that’s pretty much me. I’m not offended. I’m not offended because I’m sick. Hey, Church, here’s a thing that you should maybe write down somewhere.

I’m sick. I’m broken. I am. I am broken. I need some help. My story is messed up. I got I got all sorts of things that I’m disappointed about. There are there there are times I don’t want to come to church. And I’m the preacher here. I struggle with materialism. Like when I see someone in a Tesla, I’m like, I would like that. And I would like it now. And I’m like, Babe, what can we sell? Spleen? I struggle with anger. I was on the golf course with my dad. I’m getting mad because I hit a ball into the woods. Like, What is wrong with you? You’re a preacher. I don’t do the things that I say that that other people need to do. Sometimes I tell people things that they need to do, and I don’t even do it myself. I want to do them. But. But, look, I got stuff that’s all messed up.

I’m proud. I’m you know, I was at dinner the other day, and it was it was a remark. We were joking about some stuff, and some people were like, you know, I’m telling you, you need Jesus. And I go, I do. I really, really do. I really do. But here’s the deal, right? Only men and women, teenagers, college students, married people, singles who are willing to look in the mirror and go, look, I am messed up. I need help. Only those people are candidates for the Kingdom of God. I like to think of it this way. The flawed are the only candidates to follow Jesus. Everyone’s flawed. But just this sort of. I could add a word. Only those who admit that they’re flawed. Let’s end here. This is so offensive. This is so offensive. Jesus. Jesus looks at them and continues the statement. “But go and learn what this means.” Hey, it’s not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick.

But you, you, you, you religious people. “Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” He is quoting from the book of Hosea. I don’t really care about your religiousness. I want you to learn to love people. Learn with this means I desire mercy, not sacrifice. Then he says this, “For I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” Another way to say this is I have not come to call those who think they’re righteous, but those who know that they’re sinners. This is the whole Romans chapter three thing, right? No one is righteous. Not even one of us. Until you know, and you believe that you are a sinner, you until you know and believe that you are in desperate need of God, you will always stand outside of where he is. So the Pharisees had been looking for for Jesus their whole lives. Right. They read the study, and as they read the Old Testament, they studied it.

They were looking for the coming Messiah. And the thing is, they never realized what they were actually looking for was inside that house. But they were too healthy, too righteous to admit that they actually needed some help. And my fear is that we will become a people who believe all the right things. We’ll even do some of the right things, and we’ll play the whole Christian says or God says, Jesus says game. And we will always miss that we too are sinners and tax collectors, that we will think that we’re good and that we’ll miss that we’re sick, that will think that, you know, somewhere I arrived because I’ve been in the faith for 30 years and no one has to tell me what to do. And I can sit in judgment of all those young Christians because they don’t read their Bible like they ought to and they don’t follow the rules like I used to follow. And we’ll sit on our high horse and will judge the world, and we’ll forget that, in fact, we are sick too.

That we need what’s inside of that house. That to get to Jesus, we have to admit that we are broken. Look. And if you live that way. If you live that way, if we fail to see our flaws, we will always find ourselves outside of the room where Jesus sits to save. We’ll always sit outside of the room, judging all the people inside of the room who are at the feet of Jesus. This story will happen again and again and again. There will be a woman one day who comes in, who looks at Jesus feet, who cries on them, who puts her hair, who washes them with their feet. And there’ll be some people go, Do you know the woman who’s touching you? And Jesus will think to himself, Hey, look, this woman, she’s healed. You, you you are still in your sin.

So where do we go from here? Here’s the question. Not am I following the rules. Am I following? Am I being a follower of Jesus?

Am I a life changer? You know, do I do I follow him to changing other people’s lives? Do I follow him? Do I follow the great doctor, the great physician, the great teacher, the great friend? And if I do if I do, if I do, the things that are most broken in me will be put back together in a beautiful way. But if I don’t realize that I got some problems, I don’t realize it. I’m always going to be outside of the place that Jesus is. Let’s contemplate these things as we take communion. Father, we come before you understanding that. Oh, gosh. You give us. You give us so many chances to be righteous before you, and we just can’t get it together. Lord, Maybe think about it like our sin humbles us so that we can actually approach you, so we can not think of ourselves more highly than we ought to. But I just think about this whole picture of of Jesus calling Matthew and, and and how in many ways I am a tax collector.

I am the worst. And and all of us are in that same boat. I just pray that we’re humble enough to admit our faults and our sin. There were humble enough to admit that we got we got real problems, that we’re humble enough to to sort of approach your throne with with the understanding that there’s some things really a mess about us and that and that then we can find healing, lord. I know, God, you tell us again and again, you make it clear that if we stoop down, you’re willing to lift us up. If we humble ourselves, you’re willing to raise us up. But if we’re haughty in our own, in our own eyes, or for prideful and a prideful in our own eyes, Lord that you will crush us. God, let us not be the subject of your judgment with our pride, but let us be the subject of Your Grace, with our humility. Dad, and as we take communion, let us remember that Jesus was the perfect illustration of humility, who became a man, poured out His Divinity to live among us, to challenge or to challenge the status quo, to live the way he lived and to heal us.

God, let us have the mindset of that of Christ. Jesus, who, being in very nature, God did not consider equality with God to be used to His own advantage, but made himself nothing. Taking on the nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance of a man. He humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. Therefore, you exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name that the name of Jesus, every nation and heaven on earth and under the Earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father. Lord, let us have the mindset of Christ. Jesus. Let us think about communion in this way, as we take the bread that represents his body and the juice that represents his blood. Let us humble ourselves out so that we could find grace that only you could give. We love you God. We praise you, Christ name. Amen.