David Hughes - Mateo de Cero a Héroe

Hey, we want to thank our video team. They're incredible. This series is incredible. If you're here for the first time, you may be a little confused. Jesus loved imagination to preach biblical ideas, and that's what we do here. We are in week number 5 of this series called Movies. Okay, here are some readers that we can see. My wife, Lisa, is a very good reader. I'm not that good. One of the most read books in the world. We have five here today. Okay, we have one by Dr. Rick Warren of 50 million copies. We have another by Harry Potter, which is also like 500 million copies. We also have Alice in Wonderland, more than 100 million copies. But if we compare them all, the Bible is the most read. The Bible has been bought and read approximately 7 billion times. 7 billion times. Okay, which makes it the most read book in the world. Okay, and the people who are currently buying the Bible the most are young people. Okay, this is the most read book in the world. But your Bible has 66 books in it. But there is one in particular. Okay, I was wondering out of the 66 books, which one has been read the most? And I did some research. I did a little bit of a survey to find out which book has been read the most. And we found books like Genesis, but the two most read books ever. One of the most read books is the book of Psalms, which is accepted by Jews and Christians. But the other one, the book of Matthew, the first book of the 27 books of your ancestors, the book of Matthew is one of the four narrative biographies of Jesus' life. The book of Matthew is the most read book in history.

Okay, Matthew, that was named the author, but it's about Jesus. It's about Jesus. And you probably might have said, well, he's a very special person. Jesus must have chosen him. Okay, and he wrote this incredible book about Jesus. And he's a very spiritual person, very correct. He's probably a very manly, very godly person. But I'm going to give you those assumptions, because, you know, other authors remark on that. There are other things. There are other books written by Solomon, the wisest man in history, the Psalms, the authors, David, yeah, that guy, David. The giant book of Psalms was written by David. David, my gosh. The book of David and Goliath, the history, he's a warrior, he's a politician, he's a king. He's been a very well-known person. The books of Noah, Romans, the first and second Corinthians, the first and second Ephesians, the first and second Corinthians, the first and second Corinthians, the first and second Corinthians, Philippians, Hebrews, all of these are written by Paul, by Paul, okay? But Matthew is the most widely read book, okay?

But he was not a very, I mean, not just a deliverer of God. He was a zero that God turned into a hero, okay? He was one of the twelve apostles. He was there, he heard all the parables, he's in the upper room, he's at the last supper. This guy's life was incredible, okay? Why had he done this? Matthew, who was a mistake, okay? Who was a marginalized person, who was a mischief, and do what's necessary and change him. Here's what happened. Matthew had the courage and the intelligence and he didn't stand and see and God just took it in moments. When I say moments, okay, in all of these moments, okay, I mean moments in time when everything changed. Okay, I also remember some moments. Okay, I remember the moment when Jesus called him by his name. Okay, I also remember very particular moments in history when in Philadelphia, the fathers of the nation signed the Declaration of Independence when Abraham Lincoln gave a speech about the Battle of Gettysburg, okay? a December day, 1995, where Rosa Parks refuses to give her seat to a white person. Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white person. This could be my opinion right there, I'm just saying. So that changed the story.

We should be applauding at this moment for that. You have moments in your personal life. I mean, God is with you every single day. Amen. Every day is God's day. You can take God with you. So there are the typical days. There are special days. For everyone. I remember a very particular moment, in 1997, when I was in my favorite restaurant, and I asked Lisa to be my wife, and we went. And she said yes. We had not even been out for a year, we hadn't even talked about marriage, but she said yes. Okay? A little bit later on, we actually put ink on our first mortgage, for the house, to buy the house. It's a very humble house. It wasn't in the neighborhood, but it was very close to the neighborhood. Okay? But I bought this small house, that we could pay for, and we paid for it all in two years.

Thank you, God, and our effort to pay for this house. Later on, we put ink on a much bigger mortgage, to buy another bigger thing. I'm a little bit, difficult with the money, and taking a loan, worries me a little bit. We also had Pastor Charlie, for about four months, in diapers, and Lisa and I were in the car, in the parking lot of the old church, praying, because they asked me to be the pastor of the church. Okay? They invited me, and they lied to me, that I was going to be the pastor. And I think God said yes, or he said yes to me. And this, and this, started this story, and started the story of the adventure of my life, to get to preach in the most spectacular church

in the world. God calls you at times. He calls you. He's going to call you. In the spiritual life, God is with you, and loves you. Every day of your life, there's a very particular moment, a special moment, a spiritual moment. You can be praying for someone. You can use a prayer of salvation. You can baptize someone. If you see all these opportunities, you can see the moments in which people are born in the spirit. There's a time, there's a month in which you were born. If you haven't nailed down that moment, you can do that today. You probably can't remember that day, but you can convert this into your day. You can tell a pastor, or a prayer partner here, to do the prayer, and receive Jesus, and enter into that biblical promise

that Jesus made for each one of us. The other interesting moment could be the baptism. Even if he doesn't save you, you can show the others that they were freed. Okay. A while ago, I started in a church because someone invited me to give classes to children in a Sunday school. I started to preach, and God used that moment in my life so that I can remember it so that I can remember the beginning of that idea. Okay, there are particular moments for each one of us. Suddenly, you're right now thinking about financial problems, or developing some skill, or seeing what your next step is. But Matthew stepped into a God-provided moment of all the important moments in the life of Jesus. Okay? In the spiritual life of Jesus,

in the preaching of Jesus. We can go to Luke chapter 9, but we're going to see Matthew chapter 9. Okay? We're going to describe one of these moments here. Okay? In Matthew chapter 9, verse 9, when Jesus left from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting in the place of taxes. He said, Follow me. That's the call. And Matthew got up and followed him. The next part of the story, it's just kind of fun. Well, Jesus that evening is having a dinner at his house. Many ways. He's having a dinner. He's having a dinner. He's having a dinner. Okay, so the pharisees ask why does your master He's having a dinner. get along with tax collectors, tax collectors? He's having a dinner. He's having a dinner.

And Jesus answers that no one needs a doctor but the sick one. Okay, they're different structures of the same letter. But we can see all these things. We're going to see some moments of Matthew's life. What do we know about Matthew? What do we know about his past? What do we know about his past? Okay, so this moment happens in the city of Capernaum. Okay, so the question, was he born in Capernaum? We don't know. Was he born in Capernaum? We don't know. Was he married? We don't know. Was he raised in Capernaum? We don't know. Did he have kids? We don't know. Did he have lots of friends? We don't know. Was he popular? We don't know. Was he wealthy? Definitely not. Was he wealthy? Stinking rich. Okay, so he fell down on verse nine. He's in the tax collector's booth. He's a tax collector.

He's a tax man. Okay, there's nothing wrong with that. If you're here today and you work for the tax, for the tax collection in this government, that's fine, that's normal. This is normal, okay? That's not an inconvenience at this time, okay? But this is not that. When the Bible says that he was a tax collector, he was considered a traitor. I will belabor this, but you look too far in the past. Okay, I've already said this before, okay? The Romans conquered Israel and used their nationals to collect taxes because they knew them. And so they collected taxes from their neighbors. He collected taxes to give it to the Romans, to the hated Romans. We have documentation for all of this. Because they did this everywhere. We have records, like Greek hated Greeks for taking taxes from the Romans. So no matter where you go, you're just going to hate the Romans for taking taxes from you. Why would anyone, why would you make yourself hated by all because you're a tax collector? Because you're not allowed to go to the enemy or you're not allowed to go to the synagogue or you're not allowed to go to the Hebrew men at the table.

You're a tax collector. You're an abuser. You're an abuser. You're an abuser. You're an abuser. You're an abuser. You're an abuser because they made the Romans go nowhere, for a good reason. The tax men got paid very, very well. The Roman taxes were very, very high. They even had a surcharge and there's all kinds of corruption. So they didn't have a lot of money. They were very, very poor. They were zero, they threw everything away. What is this? I love this story of someone who has a story. I love this story. Why, why, why? They can't choose the game. So maybe there's a reason, maybe there's a reason that maybe Matthew grew up in a neighborhood with poverty and a horrible life and it just ultimately outweighed him. So he turned into a bad guy because he had a bad background or a very bad family or a very bad, we don't know. We don't know. The only thing we know is that Matthew's not even given a name in the three accounts. Matthew is called Matthew,

but Matthew is also called Matthew. In the other two accounts, in Mark's account, in those two accounts, actually, Matthew is called Levi and I say three shepherds, but you people want to hear Levi. Listen, you know, all Israel, Israelites in this time were one of the 12 tribes of Israel. All the tribes are kind of composed of people like all of you, like the southeastern tribes of the SEC. They were teams like that. And so we don't know the team, but we know those teams. That's pretty important in the Old Testament. So for those of you that can test like Jesus, he's from what tribe? He's from the tribe of Judah, the tribe of Judah Kings. We learned later that Paul was from the tribe of Benjamin, but we don't know the tribe of Benjamin because we're all apostles with one exception. Matthew, his real name is Levi. No doubt, he and his famous ancestor, Levi. Now, when the people got out of that thing and came into the promise land, the Israelites entered the promised land. The Levites, or the sprinkles of cities throughout the country, the Levites, as they're usually called in that Bible, they had to be holy to themselves. They're the ministers. They're the ministers in the temple.

They're the people in charge of the ministry, professional ministry. The Levites were the ministers. Moses was with Aaron. Aaron was the high priest. And Moses, for example, and Aaron, which was a high priest, came from the same family. If you were called Levi, not part of the family, it was because you came from that family. And if you were a Levite in any part of your life, you were going to be called to preach, maybe you were a singer, a musician, or you were going to clean up. or to preach the temple in the church. You were going to be called to a ministry, no matter what you were doing. So it turns out that Levi was the son of a preacher, or the son of a Levite, okay? So they want to say that at that time, the temples and the house of the Lord were magnificent. They had everything, jewels, precious metals, incredible fabrics, everything, incredible scents. It was amazing. The house of the Lord, the temple, it was amazing, okay? And he had to follow the temples. That's what his father thought, that he had to follow the path to serve. But he decided to sell himself to another group, not God, but the Romans, okay?

He's a bad kid from a bad neighborhood. He's a bad kid or a bad kid from a very good neighborhood. Okay, he decided that. And when people approached Jesus, people asked, why approach him? Why Levi? Why? He's a thief. You're a traitor. You're a thief. Why would Jesus call that guy? Why would Jesus pass to him? Nothing in his presence was good. Nothing in his presence was potential. Jesus saw his potential. I say three, shout the word potential. One, two, three. He saw his potential. Jesus sees potential in people other people do not see. Jesus sees potential in you that other people miss. Jesus sees potential, aptitude, ability, intelligence that other people miss. What do you do? Jesus walks up to Levi, to Matthew. Everyone's talking about the power of the tablet, but he just saw it. That's it. He calls to him. He calls to him. He calls to him.

Why would he call to him? Okay, this is a sermon for smart people, for the good neighbors, smart people, for the good neighbors, smart people. You understand what's taking place here. You must understand that Jesus, the son of God, God is not limited by specific categories like time and space. God is the great unlimited God of the outside of time and the inside of time. You and I live in the outside of time and the inside of time. We have a path, we have a city, we have a president that's right now. God willing, we'll have a future that tomorrow. Right, we live a linear life. God can look at all of the things that Jesus does in the future, in the past, in the present, in the future, in the past. Okay, if he will choose Levi to read about his past, it was for a reason, because he could see, he knew where he was coming from. He saw his future and he could see his potential. Okay, all that's leading us into the moment of calling. God calls your name to step into your moment that provides what happens. Jesus walks up, he's audible. He sees Jesus, you won't get that. You don't have a vision, vision, you don't have a name. He comes up to him, he's barely following him. You don't have that. But the fact that he's not audible, but he gets a nudge,

it's a Holy Spirit kind of burst, and it's like a little burst of something that's happening and it's confusing and it's conflicting. God, I want you to be able to do something. So you pray a part of the day, and you'll have two heads and two hearts at some point. I'm like, yes, I need two heads and two hearts, and I need to be worthy. What will people think of me? That's what most people think when something happens. Okay. So Matthew, so what happened when Matthew was called? Well, he called him by his name. Okay, let me explain it this way. I like the famous verses in the Bible. I like the famous verses in the Bible. We overlook some verses. The first verse is very good. We overlook the next verse, which is, question, what is the first verse or the most famous verse in the Bible? John 3, 16. John 3, 16. It's an amazing verse. It has the whole thing about Jesus and salvation in a verse. What does it say? It says, God gave to His only Son the world that he may be saved, that all who believe in him not perish, but have eternal life. That's a great verse.

That is a wonderfully made verse. That's John 3, 16. I love John 3, 16. Since God has not sent His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through life is saved. That's a great verse. The love of Jesus in Romans 10, 9, Romans 10, 9 is the clearest verse in salvation of all the Bible. We know how to be saved, it says, if we confess with our mouth, we confess with our mouth. And believe in our hearts, if God raised us again, we will be saved. If we believe in our hearts, we confess with our mouth, we confess with our mouth. That first verse says, it says, for with the heart, one believes results in righteousness. And with the mouth, you confess results in salvation. That's a good verse. Okay. There are people who love Romans 8.28 because we say that we have a God and all things are called according to His purpose. That each one is called according to His purpose.

And it is for each one that knew that can know who is predestined for each thing, it is Jesus. And He called those who predestined for this, and He called those who predestined for that, and He justified those who justified that, and He glorified those who justified that. Okay? Now, verse 28. And verse 30 is incredible. But when God calls you, He enters into your destiny, and it is transformative. And you can't escape that. Why? Because this is a small sample of theology. Okay? This verse has a package of everything. Okay? That we are glorified. What's that mean? That refers to our final and future transformation. When we fully take on the image of Christ Jesus, we are going to meet Jesus face to face. When you go to heaven, or Jesus comes to us, okay? When you're made a new creature with me, I get so sick and tired of myself. Okay?

Because I'm just battling me and my weakness, my temptations. In all those moments, sometimes I feel tired of myself. And to be glorified like your Lord is incredible. Don't you think? And we are justified. This is a legal term. It means the price has been paid. Jesus died on the cross to pay for the wage of my sins. I have been justified. My slate is now clean. Justified. It means it's just if I haven't done it. Call. Shout the word, call. One, two, three. I love this. Matthew in chapter nine, verse nine, is called by Jesus. He's so far within his future, his future. No one saw that. I love the call of God. God always initiates the call. When God initiates the call, Jesus called Matthew. There's always a divine initiation. It begins with God. It's personal. It's customized.

It's called for you. His call is personal to respond to the call of God. By the way, the call of God, when he calls your name, when he provides your moment, it's almost always inconvenient. It's disconcerting to call him. It's never convenient. It's not convenient. It's taxing. It's a business thing. It's the rules of the land. It's not for me. That's the worst day for you to invite me to follow you or something like that. No. He didn't say that. When he provides that moment, that calling moment, and then I have a predestined, predestined, okay, predestined, those who are predestined, what does that mean? What does that mean? For new, new, God, of course, knows what's coming. God's a genius.

There's nothing that God doesn't know. Yes, God has knowledge of the future. He can see it by healing outside and above time. He sees everything in the past, present, and the future. Okay. You have your knowledge, you know what you're calling. God knows that. Before knowledge, God knows what you're calling. It's just knowledge. We're still responsible. Think about it this way. If the man predicts rain, and it rains, another man made it rain. He just predicted it. He knows God for new. He also predestined to become in front of the images of God. For those who have been predestined and conformed to the image of their son, they'll also be called, those he calls, and also just about, those first born, those first brothers, they'll be called, and predestined to work together.

How does called predestine to work together? They're usually in conflict, because called implies I have free will. I might say yes to the call, or no to the call, but predestined to work together. How do you know which is free will? But that makes no sense. We're talking about God. God has all the power, but we're talking about Him. He's going to let you choose. He's going to call you. At some point, He's going to call you. You might be the smartest person in this church. You might have 150 IQ, but God must have 150 million IQ. Okay? We can't think the same way, because we have our brains, and our brains are small. with a predetermined space and time. God is eternal, sovereign, and all-powerful. He has no limits in His thinking. That invasion is your moment of a calling. He doesn't prepare you at all for the moment He will call you. He prepares the moment to call you. He predetermines those who are going to be called, how and when.

I think I've come off here with a perfect illustration of the willingness to work together, isn't it? Okay, true. So far from perfect was my best shot, right? This is probably woefully inadequate because we're going to be too busy trying to reconcile, I think I can do that. But we're going to try to do things like this. I love visual aids, visual aids. We're going to try to use a visual aid, yeah. Because a whole idea is just to prepare yourself for that. And preparation is important, right? I think predestination, predestination, is something that God from long ago has prepared a long time ago for that moment to happen, okay? Because when you value something, you make preparation. If I invite you to my house tomorrow morning, if I invite you to my house tomorrow morning, and you show up at my house and you knock on the door, and I'm on the couch, and you come on in and you see me, my hair is messy, my hair, I haven't shaved, and I don't know, maybe I brush my teeth, and I'm wearing an old T-shirt from The Choice by the Glades or a pair of jeans. I say, hey, I'm here, I'm hungry. And I say, okay, I think there's some great food here. And I'll be in the car park if you're hungry.

If you're hungry, there's something here to eat. Okay? All that can happen. It's nice, it's casual, it's incredible. But same house, over at night, and I have a room, and Lisa's there, and you come to my house, and the house is set up for you, and the table is set up for you. And we use a particular song. I reached out to your wife and I asked what your favorite kind of music is, and I'll play it for you. And I put it in the dining room for you. And everything is done, that's a miracle. My home could be your favorite food. You find your favorite foods, you ask your wife your favorite foods, and the table is set up for you. And we cook your best food, and preparation, like, oh my gosh. I'm not important, I'm not casual. I'm not predestined. It was done with preparation because we care. Okay? This is an illustration. I need a volunteer here. Jenna, come on up here. Give it up for Jenna. Jenna, come on up here.

Jenna, thank you so much. All the way over here. What you want to do over here, Jenna? This is a really simple illustration. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. This is a very simple illustration. This is a very simple illustration. It's not a big deal. Now stand on this X right here in the middle. Now Jenna is a faithful person here in our church, she sits in the front row, she sits in the first row. No, you think the first row is for the people who give the most. No, it's for the people who have more faith, that's our new ministry. Thank you for serving there. You have a live group, it's a Pickleball live group. Thank you for doing a good job. I want to give a shout out to this beautiful girl. I want to thank her for serving to be part of this ministry. We don't know her, but I want to do this. We don't know her, but I want to show her. I want to celebrate her up on the stage.

I want everybody to stand up and we want you to cheer and we want you to celebrate Jenna today. This is from your family, your church, and we're very grateful for you. Okay, we're going to give a round of applause. Perfect. Perfect. You may be seated. Jenna, that's all. That's it. You can sit down. Open it up. Open it up. Just those steps. Okay. Thank you so much for helping. So she's safe going down. Right? There we go. Perfect. Perfect. Now, now, David, I don't know what I'm going to do here. So I'll leave it to you to tell me all that. At my desk, writing my sermons, and it was on the table, and it was on the 20th floor. And it was on the 20th floor. And it was on the 20th floor. And it was on the 20th floor. And it was on the 20th floor. And it was on the 20th floor.

And it was on the 20th floor. So I'm going to tell you a thing. All that was preparation for this moment. And at that point, I called you by name. And at that point, you had a choice. Is by the time of preparation, you had a choice. Is by the time you say yes to the call, you had a choice. Is it a call or not? I mean, you've been preparing for this, because you've been serving and being here. Not exactly, not exactly. But God knows what you're going to do, puts it all in place. Is having all of those ten options to choose from, but normally He knows what you're going to do. He had you on His mind. And He loves you, and you want to be a factor for Him, moments to call you to baptism or salvation to baptism or salvation or re-commitment. So He's come by purpose. If you're a person who's trying to baptize, even drifting spirit that you use, God's calling you to do that. And if He's trying to restore you for years, yeah, He had a past. Yeah, He had a past. Well, let's speak about that, okay? Jesus, He's your potential. If I can give you an interesting detail, Mark,

about this, this account that I referred to in this story as Matthew, is Matthew's account. Now, for those of you who haven't read it, it's in the Bible, it's called Matthew. His name is Matthew. But in Mark's account, in Luke's account, his name is Levi. He was a traitor, he was a levy guy. Levi, he was a good guy, he was a good Levi, but he was a bad guy. I love the fact that Jesus loves to give new names. The Bible, Jesus always gave him new names. Like, He gave a new name when He was Simon. I love how He nicknamed the rocks to James and John. That means the sons of the thunder. We call the church Thunder, that's our church name. But Jesus did not call Levi Levi. Jesus gave him everything. I kind of feel like maybe He gave him a new name. I think Jesus came up with Matthew. Matthew in Hebrew is Matayahu. Matayahu is a translation of Yahweh. Yahweh is a gift from God before. Jesus is a guy who nothing's appealing about Him, nothing notable. He is selfish. He is trying to achieve something noble, which is his mission. He decided it first, before the rest. And Jesus called him Matayahu.

Okay, He just said it, it's not recorded. It's a gift from Yahweh. Who you talking about? That guy? No, no, no, no, Jesus is talking about Him. It's not recorded. It's our worst neighbor. He's got us robbed. That guy is a problem. The guy is a pain in the butt. Jesus saw Matayahu. And then Luke tells us in chapter five, verse six, when he finally gets up, He leaves everything. He leaves everything behind. Matthew left everything behind for the adventure of following Jesus. He left his money, his job, everything he knew, without knowing where he was going, simply because Jesus called him. You're no longer satisfied to live like the old way. And your old nature has no appeal. And your old nature has no appeal. You could be. He left everything behind. I'm going to leave that behind. He left everything behind. Unpacked everything. Hearer who, in that moment, walked away from his mission. He left all of those fine clothes. He left that escalator.

He left all of those things. Remember, he left everything behind. He left behind the tax office. He left all behind. He left his checkbook. He left his keys. He left everything behind. But Jesus left everything behind. Follow me. He left it all behind with one exception. I think maybe, go back, go back, go back. Take your pen, take your pen. Because tax collectors, he's a pen. He's a pen. He's a pen. The tax collectors would have a pen in front of your pen. He's saying, all the disciples were educated. The Jews, the first city value that you could read or write with the Jews, the only disciple you could read or write with the Jews, was Matthew. And that required a profession. You'd have to write. Writing was good with the Jews. My grandfather, he died. He was a fisherman. So they were very well equipped to take fire. But Matthew was not allowed to read or write. He could read and write, but Matthew could take records of things. And he had taken records for him and for the Romans.

So Jesus called him to record, to take records. But only Jesus could know that. Only Jesus could see that potential. I want you to be captured by this one vision of what life can be. Because God has manufactured a moment for you. And you can have courage. I know it's not convenient. I know it's not the perfect moment. But if God calls you, it's always a disruption. We have the good news is that God will provide a moment because everything that you do, you stepped into a perfect moment. And that's Jesus. That's the end of the race. Matthew stepped in and he did that. Matthew stepped into kingdom. Okay, Matthew stepped into potential. Matthew stepped into this. And you are no different than Matthew. Jesus is saying, boys, come follow me. Take that next step. Go ahead. Father God, I want you to lead me to the path that I know there are hardships. Father God, I want you to give me the strength to go through insecurity and overcome that insecurity. That is attacking our hearts, attacking the people of our people. We ask you to give them strength to come,

to enter into this, to enter into you. Give us courage right now in the name of Jesus, amen.