ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT - Matthew 9:9-13
What Does it Say?  Jesus calls Matthew, a tax collector to be His disciple and Matthew follows Him.  Matthew invites Jesus and the disciples home for dinner with his friends.  The Pharisees ask the disciples why they are eating with such scum.  Jesus answers that the sick need a doctor not the healthy.  He tells them to go and figure out what it means to show mercy not sacrifice.
What Does it Mean?  If I was choosing disciples, I would not have chosen Matthew.  I would have chosen someone that was already following Jesus because I would have wanted to see her heart for Jesus.  Jesus knew Matthew's heart and he knows who is ready to follow Him today; but we don't.  Every day we need to ask God who he want us to invest in.  The Pharisees were not impressed with Jesus having dinner at Matthew's house with his ‘loser’ friends.  They thought they were too good for that and couldn't understand why Jesus would want to bother with them.  When they asked Jesus disciples, Jesus answered that He had come to save sinners, not feed the fatted saints.  Who do you see on a regular basis?  What does your attitude tell them about Jesus?  Jesus told the Pharisees to go home and try to figure out how to have mercy rather than sacrifice.  The sacrifice Jesus is talking about here is a legalistic following of the law without caring about people as talked about in Hosea 6:6 and Micah 6:6-8.  Mercy is gentle and kind, not self righteous and critical.  If we have an attitude of sacrifice, our attitude could come across as condescending with a message like 'I am better than you sinners.’  What would that attitude tell them about Jesus?

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