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The world's most valuable jewels are very rarely found just on the surface of the earth, but are harvested by digging hundreds of feet through muck and mire and then removed in a rough form sunk into ore and hardness. The beautiful pearl is found on the bottom of the sea where the oyster had sugarcoated an irritant in it's shell. Some of the most beautiful things come from the most unlikely places, and so it is with the kingdom of God. Jesus said that the kingdom of God was like a field in which a man discovered treasure and then sold all that he had to buy that field. With God you find spiritual treasure in the most unlikely places.

That is the story of Matthew in a nutshell. Of all of the twelve chosen to follow Christ, Matthew is the most unlikely of all to be there. Nobody came further or made a greater change than he. If you and I had done the choosing rather than the all-seeing eye of the Master, then we would have hardly chosen such a vile man. And yet what looked like just hard and worthless rock turned out to be a diamond in the rough.

As with all of the disciples, Matthew was a Jewish man raised by Jewish parents. When we discussed James the Less, we mentioned how that he and Matthew were likely brothers because the scripture labels them as both the sons of Alphaeus and both are often found side by side in the lists of the twelve. We have already discussed how that James the Less and Matthew were somehow kin to Jesus Christ, the most likely scenario being that Joseph and Alphaeus were brothers or half-brothers so that Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary the mother of James and Matthew were sisters-in-law. That would make Matthew and Jesus first cousins. Understanding the possible family connections helps to realize why Matthew was able to immediately get up and leave his job to follow Jesus' call: he was not making a rash decision based upon nothing, but was acting on a decision to follow a man about whom he had heard much. People who make quick and rash decisions to follow Jesus rarely last, and when Matthew got up that day, he had already counted the cost and had just been waiting for an opportunity to hear the call.

What Matthew's lineage and family tree tells us is that he was raised by devout and very sincere Jewish parents. Matthew, of course, would eventually write the Gospel of Matthew and throughout the book it is very obvious that he had a great command of the Jewish laws and customs and religious feasts. As pertaining to the Law of Moses, the Gospel of Matthew is by far the most technical of the four Gospels and scholars almost unanimously agree that the book was written with the sole purpose of convincing learned Jews that Jesus Christ was the Messiah and the true "King of the Jews." You cannot read the Gospel of Matthew and not feel like the author had learned the "ins and outs" of Moses' law at a young, young age. The fact that the family had two boys chosen to be a part of the twelve disciples, supports this religious upbringing also.

And then we have Matthew's first name, his childhood name, which is given to us by the Gospels of Mark and Luke. Matthew did not go by "Matthew" for the first part of his life, but rather grew up being called "Levi." This is a direct reference to the descendants of the priesthood of Moses' day who were all of the tribe of Levi. The very name speaks of a unique calling and anointing of God to lead people in worship and service to Jehovah God. It literally means "joined" indicating that God had joined Himself to their lineage in a special way.

That Matthew first bore the name Levi, does not necessarily mean that he was from the tribe of Levi, and if his father Alphaeus and Joseph were brothers, then we know for sure that he was from another tribe, the tribe of Judah. But it definitely indicates a call of God upon his life from an early age. What it means is that Matthew Levi was a Galilean boy raised in a Godly home, learned in the scriptures, well educated, and who showed all the promise in the world of being used mightily of God.

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Some of you are thinking "I thought you said that Matthew is the least likely disciple of the bunch, and yet from what we know thus far, it seems like he is the most likely." But that is because I have neglected to tell you what became the main feature of Matthew's life. And that was despite all of this prestige and honor and background, that Levi left it all to become a "publican." A "publican" was to be a tax collector for Caesar. To tax the Jewish people for Rome. And it was the most lowest, most despised and dishonest position that a Jewish man could hold.

You may remember the story of the short little Zacchaeus who after he had become a believer, told Jesus that he would restore to the poor whom he had robbed four-fold! The Romans used the publicani system of taxation where they hired local agents to hand each city and region and the pay was very meager but the tax collectors -- these so called "publicans" -- could get filthy rich by charging much higher taxes than Rome required. And so these men would often charge three or four times higher rates and extort it from the people in order to have nicer houses and greater wealth.

That any human being would be willing to live greatly by the cheating and defrauding of his fellow man was bad enough, but if a Jew was willing to take such a post and cheat his fellow countrymen, then he became a social outcast and a dog to the local society. The Jews deeply resented the Roman rule and hated to have to pay Roman taxes and so they held that if any Jewish man took on the role of a publican for the Romans that he was a traitor, disloyal to God, and a sinner beyond hope or help. To quote one Jewish source, a Jew who entered the publicani was, "a social outcast, a renegade from the national faith and a betrayer of the Messianic hope." That is why in the conversations recorded in the Gospels you find so many times the phrases "publicans and sinners" and "publicans and harlots" lumped together because in the Jewish mind there was no difference. One of the worst insults to the Jews was to be labeled "as sinful as a publican" -- such was their reputation in society. In fact, the Jews had a oft repeated saying that when translated went something like this:

Take the modern-day stereotype of lawyers and used car salesmen, add it to people's natural resentment to paying high taxes and multiply those feelings by some 100 times and you have something of the way the Jews felt about their tax collectors who were fellow Jews.

And so for all that Matthew had going for him in his youth, he willingly sold it all out for the love of money and worldly wealth. In his desire to gain more, think of what he sold:

He sold out his home circle. How his pious and sincere parents must have grieved for their beloved son whom they had so devotedly taught the ways of God, and yet he chose such a vile and untruthful way of life! What did his brother think? What did his uncle and cousins in the house of Mary and Joseph think? No doubt Matthew was the talk of festivals and family get-togethers. No doubt the parents often asked themselves "where did we go wrong?"

He sold out his friends. It must not be forgotten that Levi Matthew was a Galilean and a publican of his home area. He was not extorting strangers or stealing from foreigners, but rather was gaining his wealth from people whom had once trusted him. No friendship was sacred in his lust for another silver coin. And as such he was ostracized and excluded from the very people whom had once loved him the most.

He sold out his country. While his friends and family were chafing at the bondage to the foreign and idol worshipping Romans, Matthew was signing on to the enemy's cause. His Jewish patriot loyalty was easily altered by the lure of wealth and as such he sold out his very country's sake. Today, in America, we execute such men.

He sold out his conscience. He had been raised to know the reputation and what the circles of the publicans represented. The scripture says that the "love of money is the root of all evil" and as such the wealthy publicans were not known as the nicest or purest members of society. As is so often the case, their wealth opened up even greater avenues of temptations and they were known as winebibbers and an immoral lot. For someone who was raised Jewish to join such ranks was to totally violate and harden their conscience. For someone with the special and significant name of Levi to become such a person only added to the deceit.

He sold out his faith. Knowing the scriptures from his youth, Matthew knew that God considered "dishonest weights and measures" an "abomination." He knew that not only was he rejecting his countrymen and family, but he was rejecting God's Word. As such Matthew is a backslider from the worship of Jehovah. Not just in religious ritual, but he has thrown away every tenant of his faith for the sake of greed, and all of what could have been good traits only add to the degeneration of the man because despite having tasted all of these good things, he chooses the path of evil and sin.

I have chosen to take a little while to impress upon you just how far Matthew had sunk so that you can see the near improbability that such a man would become a follower of Christ, nevertheless one of the chosen twelve. Matthew's actions since his childhood had left every impression of evil and a lack of trustworthiness.

In the Gospel of Matthew, ironically, Jesus later taught His twelve disciples this:

This saying shocked the disciples much as it bothers people even today. In modern times, scholars have invented theories to try to explain away the harshness and the literalness of Jesus' teaching and have claimed that "the eye of a needle" was a gate in the Jerusalem's wall that was so short that for a camel to enter through, it had to get upon it's knees. Thus, they say, Jesus was just saying "it's hard, but not impossible for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." But all of that is fabrication. There is and has never been such a gate in Jerusalem's walls. You can further prove the absurdity of that story by going down to the zoo and going to the "camel ride" and talk that critter into getting on it's knees and walking for you. you will find that the camel is more stubborn than you are!

The truth is that Jesus was repeating a common saying of the day that was a figure of speech for a near impossibility. It is still used today and it is found in ancient literature either as Jesus quoted it or as an "elephant" passing through the eye of a needle. The "eye of a needle" refers to a sewing needle very similar to what we have today -- a bit bigger and more cruder perhaps, but not as big as to pass a camel through it.

As uncomfortable as it makes people, Jesus was meaning the very literal meaning of the statement here and overall the Bible tends to take a negative view of rich people. In the story of Lazarus and the Rich man, it is the rich man that goes to hell. In the parable of the rich fool, it is a rich man who just when he had gained enough worldly wealth so that he could "eat, drink, and be merry" God said "thou fool, tonight your soul will be required of thee." Jesus taught this:

Will there be people who are well off in this life make it to heaven? I believe so. Certainly you do not have to live your life in poverty to be saved and it is the will of God for us to be blessed and blessed abundantly. The point that I think that Jesus was making is two-fold. One, it is hard to live for God and be saved with great wealth because of a myriad of reasons. Here are just a few:

1. Great wealth brings a greater amount of new temptations and sins.

2. Great wealth brings a whole new set of worries.

3. Great wealth brings the tendency to not listen to anyone who is financially poorer than

you, even if that person is a man of God or a pastor.

4. Great wealth brings the tendency to trust in your money rather than God.

The second point that I think Jesus was trying to make is that while there will be people who are well-off financially make it to heaven, there will be no people who are moved more from the pursuit of wealth than the truth of His kingdom In other words, those people who derive their primary identity from their monetary wealth, will not make it because we are to be known as servants of Him. God wants to bless you even monetarily but not if it makes you trust yourself and that money more than the ways of God. There will be people who are wealthy who will live for God and make it to heaven, but only if they trust in God and make His kingdom their focal point for living. God does not mind you having money, as long as you trust in Him more than your money and use your wealth for His kingdom's sake. And few people are able to be wealthy and generous, thus the sayings of Jesus Christ about how "hard" it was for such people to be saved.

Let me point out that a literal camel can get through the literal eye of a small needle, but only if it is broken up and reduced to so small a parts as to lose it's identity as a camel at all. Only God could take a camel and reduce it to parts small enough to fit through that eye and then reassemble the camel on the other side, and so I do not think that it is any accident that Jesus used this saying to teach about the rich. Because like everybody else, the rich must allow God to break them and remold and shape them from their very core being so that they are transformed into a new creature. It's not that it's physically impossible for the rich to get to heaven, but that it's impossible for them to get there without God's great intervention and power. Anyone consumed by anything else other than the kingdom of heaven must allow God to reshape them and make His Word their primary source of trust. As Jesus once said:

That is the lesson of Matthew's life. I'm not preaching to you about money, per se, but trying to get you to see the hurdles and the great distance that such a person as Matthew Levi would have to overcome to follow Jesus. If we would have been there with our natural mind, then we would have said "it is impossible for this man to be of any use to the kingdom of God." All the cards were stacked against him. He was untrustworthy and eaten up by greed. He had turned his back on everything that God's Word had taught him. To the people of the day, there was no more hopeless case than this publican named Levi. If anybody was a God reject, then surely this man would live his life as such.

But with God, what is impossible to man, is possible! And so the great lesson of Matthew's life is that in the worst possible scenario of humanity, if God is involved there is still opportunity. In the most hopeless case, with God there is hope. Matthew gives us hope for the impossible even today because if it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of the needle than someone who is overcome with greed to get into the kingdom of God, then Matthew was that camel that made it through. If the Prodigal Son was the one who had sold out his father's fortune for the lure of the far country of sin, and yet came back, then Matthew is the best example that we have of a real life prodigal. If God can do the impossible, then you have to look no further than Matthew for the proof and evidence of such. Because despite what man saw and all of the degeneracy of character, Jesus saw someone that could be a tremendous asset to the kingdom of God. And when the call of "follow me" came, Matthew got up, left behind the wealth and the power and the friends of sin and followed Jesus absolutely and with complete dedication. Never forget the power of God that is so powerful that it is able to take the most degenerate, sinful, untrustworthy, traitor of a man and turn him into a foundational stone in the kingdom of God. Matthew proves that God is able to do the impossible if men will simply forsake all and follow Him!

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There is, I think, only one other more unlikely convert in the Bible than Matthew and that was the Apostle Saul/Paul. A Pharisee of Pharisees, Paul was a man so consumed by misplaced religious zeal that he persecuted all of Christianity with a blood thirstiness that bordered on insanity. This was a man who knew the scriptures backward and forwards and yet refused to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ and seemed to get some sort of perverse pleasure in killing and persecuting Jesus' followers. If you would have been alive then, you would have had Mr. Saul on the top of your unlikely list to ever be a Christian. When word of Saul's conversion did reach Jerusalem, none of the Apostles would meet with him at first because they were afraid that it was all a trick to get into the inner circle and kill more believers. There was almost nobody praying for this guy to be saved, but rather they were probably praying "Lord, kill him" and "Lord, take him out." But where everyone else saw an impossibility, God saw the greatest missionary that would ever live! All it took was one experience of God's light of truth shining into Saul and one revelation of who Jesus Christ was and all of a sudden the one who had been the church's greatest enemy became the carrier of the torch of truth! This most improbable convert would write two-thirds of the New Testament, just as the publican Levi would go on to write one of the most beloved Gospels!

And from this a principle emerges that God often chooses to take people whom others wrote off as "being impossible" and yet turn them into a mighty preacher and carrier of His Word to the world. I stated several years ago and I still believe it that before the Rapture of the church takes place, we are going to see some conversions in this town of some of the hardest and most unlikely sort. There are going to be people, whom if I were to even know their name and mention that they might live for God, there would be none of us unable to believe it because it just seems highly unlikely. There are going to be people, who could be considered the greatest enemies to truth and the Apostolic message in this town and county that God is going to get hold of and reveal Himself to and who will become some of the biggest supporters and participants in the revival that God has for us. If God can save Matthew, then He can save anybody. If He can use a Saul to preach His Gospel, then He call anyone He chooses. It may not be the local tax collector that God chooses to turn into a might testimony but it might be someone that to your standards is way too far gone to ever live for God. Be careful of what you say is impossible because the impossible is always a key ingredient in God's revivals and harvests. Indeed, some of you are what others thought "impossible cases" and yet you are here today praising God. Thank God for the Matthews! Thank God for the Sauls. Thank God for the examples of mercy that I see sitting here even tonight, because with God nothing is impossible!

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I am struck by how great a soul winner Matthew became after deciding to follow Jesus. The scripture say that he threw a great feast and invited all of his sinner friends and fellow publicans to dine with Jesus and the disciples. Not content with just deciding to serve Jesus himself, Matthew Levi wanted all of those of his past to have the same opportunity.

It must have been some kind of party because the scriptures say that it drew a "great company of publicans." It must have drawn the local riffraff and sinful crowd because it drew the criticism of both the Pharisees and the disciples of John the Baptist. They couldn't understand why Jesus would choose to eat with such blatant sinners. And yet Jesus replied with:

We do not know how many of those who attended became followers of Christ but we do know that little Zacchaeus later climbed the sycamore tree to see Jesus because he had "heard about him." That dinner at Matthew Levi's house had caused talk of Jesus in the most unlikeliest brotherhood of the publicans of the day! And when Zacchaeus offered to make things right and give back to those whom he had stolen from, he was following the example of a Matthew who had already forsaken all of that to serve Jesus Christ.

God likes to work in the unlikely cases because the testimony of such people is so great that it cannot be ignored by anyone. For years to come, the tax payers of the area would be reminded when they did not see the familiar face of Matthew at tax time of the merciful and life-changing power of Jesus. Imagine the shocked faces when people opened the door to find little Zacchaeus standing there with money bag in hand repaying times four everything that he had extorted from them! "But why are you suddenly having a change of heart, Zacchaeus?" And the reply was "I have met a man named Jesus, and He has transformed my life." What a testimony! What a revealer and witness of the power of God!

If Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, then know that we too will see revival spring from the most unlikely places! God has people whose testimonies will one day shake this town. And let me say this: we tend to have a preconceived idea of what kind of person God can save and fill with His Spirit. Typically our idea of what is normal is similar to what we came from. We have in mind someone who is new to religion without any prejudices or such. We have in mind a poor person who is desperate for anything to hang their hat upon. But God has some Matthews that break the mold. God has some rich people who are just as hungry for Him. God has some people who have known truth and been in every way unfaithful and a traitor to the kingdom of God that yet, in His mercy and power, He will restore and still use them mightily for His purpose. If you think that it is impossible, then know that God can do the impossible! If He can save Matthew, then He can save anyone! There will be people that God sends to us whose testimony will become the talk of the town and who will cause truth to be proclaimed in some very unlikely circles all to the glory of God!

It is interesting that there is mention of money more often in the Gospel of Matthew than in any of the other Gospels, and Matthew referred to the higher-value coins of the day. Matthew is the only Gospel to speak of all three of the precious metals of his day: brass, silver, and gold. And yet, Matthew was willing to leave all of his wealth and follow the One who did not even have a bed to lay His head upon. Such is the power of God to transform lives. There is nobody that is an impossible case. What was someone's worst trait and weakness, God can turn into an avenue to share the Word of God with others. The therapists say that it takes a long time to change human behavior. The AA clubs say that once an addict you are always an addict. Psychologist say that there some traits that are impossible to reform, but to all of that there is a Matthew who in a moment and time was delivered of greed and a hardened conscience and who was willing to sacrifice all. With man all the vices of sin and shortcomings of the human nature, can be overcome simply by being "born again." If a man is truly touched by God, then everything in the past can instantly lose it's hold upon them. Just ask Jacob the Deceiver. Just ask Saul/Paul. Just ask a hated publican that was named Levi. With man, God can still do the impossible. Matthew can testify to that!

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Of the life of Matthew after the scriptural record, we know precious little. We know that he was on the Day of Pentecost. We know that the wrote his Gospel some thirty years after the life of Christ. It is a fairly reliable tradition that for the first fifteen years or so after the Day of Pentecost, Matthew stayed in Jerusalem and preached to the area of Judea. His Gospel is a testament that he never lost a burden for reaching the Jewish people, even after men like Paul and Barnabas had decided to focus on the Gentiles. Could it be that knowing where he came from kept Matthew from every saying that the hard-headed Jews were a hopeless case? Matthew knew that even if it looked impossible, that it just might be possible to win another Jew to Jesus Christ!

It is also a very safe assumption that after spending a decade and a half preaching in Judea, that Matthew began to travel into surrounding countries preaching to the Jews that had dispersed there. Traditional sources cite Ethiopia, Persia, Macedonia, and Media as nations that heard the Gospel from Matthew. He probably died of natural causes in either Ethiopia or Macedonia. Most scholars agree that the later tales of the martyrs of Matthew were a later invention of the Roman Catholic church. His Gospel's authenticity and origin has never been seriously doubted and has been accepted as genuine from the earliest times.

But when you pick up your Bible and turn to the New Testament and are met with the very first book of the Gospel of Matthew, be reminded that it is a testament to the far-reaching mercy and power of God. If God can save Matthew, He can save anybody. This most unlikeliest of converts became one of the pillars of the New Testament church. When God got involved, Levi finally realized His potential and far exceeded even his pious parent's dream! Such is the life-changing power of God Almighty! Such is the lesson of the disciple named Matthew Levi.