“When Jesus heard it, he saith unto
them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are
sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” –Mark 2:17
I want you all to meet James.
Ok, technically, this James is not a real person he is a hypothetical
character I made up, but I think you will find that elements of his story are not
unlike many in Americans. James grew up
in a good home, with good parents. He
was taught about Jesus here and there but never in the way Jesus taught. By and by James grew up and went to high
school. He drank a bit, partied with his
friends but never got into the “hard stuff”.
He was a socially (and churchly) accepted sinner. Then college came, he was around some guys,
and took a pill. He liked it, he liked
how it made him feel. So, he sought to
have another, and then another. Pretty
soon, James was an addict. In a few
months his addiction caused him to flunk out of school, he was alienated from
his family because they could not trust him, his girlfriend dumped him because
she couldn’t take it, pretty soon all he has left is…..the next pill. Then one weekend, James needs a fix but has
no money, so he breaks into a car and before he can make off with some cash, he
gets busted by the cops and thrown in jail.
James is a sinner, Jesus loves James.
James is Jesus’s specialty.
The Bible is filled with cases similar to people like
James. People that have no hope, people
who are overcome by their appetite for sin.
Jesus looks on these men and women and heals them. He calls them to himself, he calls them to
change, and shows them a better way.
Some of you reading may know someone like James, some of you may at one
point have been like James, and some of you may think that people like James
are beneath you. The reality of it is
this, James is no different than any one of us before God healed us. James is doing what people do when they don’t
have the in dwelling of the Holy Spirit; disobeying God. Did we not all do the same? I came to God at twelve years old seeking
forgiveness. The sin nature in me had
not yet manifested itself in a drug or a drink, but did not God condemn it all
the same? Some time ago the news media
asked the owner of Chick-Fil-A what he thought about gay marriage. He responded “It’s wrong,” and then the media
all sounded so shocked and appalled that he would say such a thing. He is a Christian what did you expect? I ask you now, why is it that some
Christian’s expect sinners to act like saints?
If you meet someone on the street and say within yourself “I can never
invite them out to church looking like that;” whose fault is that? Theirs or your church? If a sinner doesn’t respect the Sabbath or
takes the Lords name in vain that’s to expected, but not accepted. Jesus understood this better than anyone. Jesus came for the lost, he saw what a sinner
could be, not what he should be; and he treated them as such.
In case you were wondering (as I am sure many of you are by
now), the sum of this little message is this: what if we treated other people
the way Jesus treated us? What if we
believed in others the way Jesus believed in us? Think back to when you were lost and sinning
away just as hard as you could. What did
God require of you? To repent. Follow me was the call, the invitation. That was the first thing. Did he want you to IMMEDIATELY know all the
songs at church? No. Did he want you to know every verse in the
Bible and say everything just the right way?
No. He wanted you to turn away
from your sin; he wanted you. Did you
reject him? Were you ignorant and hard
headed? I was, and he BELIEVED in me
further still. He was there: patient,
kind, loving, and at times exhorting. He
saw in a sinner, not a sinner, but a saint.
What if we treated others the way Jesus treated us? What if we believed in others the way Jesus
believed in us? What if our days were
spent calling sinners to repentance?
