“As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. Now it happened as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” - Matt 9: 9-13.
What does this mean? Lets use the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8: 1-11 as an example. In this story a woman is caught in the act of adultery and presented by the teachers of the law and the Pharisees to Jesus. Adultery was a crime punishable by death. Jesus performed a miracle of logic by affirmed the law in such a way that the death penalty could not be performed.
We can clearly see who has the mercy here: Jesus. The teachers of the law cared nothing for the woman and were happy enough to use her unto her death to make a point. But God is love, and God is mercy and God saved her life.
The teachers of the law and the Pharisees thought they were righteous, but because their hearts were not right, not merciful, they were exposed as frauds and evil doers. One can clearly see the evil in their hearts because not only did they not have mercy, but they did not truly love God's law like they thought they did, otherwise they would have brought both of the guilty parties. Clearly they were not motivated by love for God, but rather the opposite: hate for Jesus.
The point is that if we look for rules and regulations, but our heart is not right, if our heart is not loving, if our heart is not merciful then we will miss what the truth is just as surely as the Pharisees missed the truth of what God wants us to know.
Our lives as Christians change not because we are self-righetous, but because we have been granted mercy, and thus we learn to be merciful to others. This is what God wants: mercy, not sacrifice.
