Seeking Out Sinners

Luke 15.

We'll look at the first verse and the second verse.

Two little verses.

Probably going to be a short sermon today.

That's probably everybody's favorite thing to hear when the preacher says it's going

to be a short sermon today.

That and this is the last verse.

Those are the two things that everybody is eager to hear the preacher say.

Luke chapter 15 verses 1 and 2.

Luke 15:1

It's a good chapter to read if you've never read this chapter before.

You might want to take a peek at it this week.

It's possible we'll be back in it in the next week or two.

Jesus often went around doing miracles and preaching and teaching and gathered a crowd.

There was something that was really unique about Jesus and that is he was compassionate

to everybody, which was a little different than many of the religious people of his day.

It appears that we see in this passage and that we see in other passages.

We're going to talk a little bit about that this morning.

Let's read through these first two verses in Luke 15 and we'll talk about it for a second.

All the tax collectors and sinners were approaching to listen to him and the Pharisees and scribes

were complaining.

This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you this morning.

We thank you that we can come here today.

I pray that you give us a good day.

God, it's different.

Everything's kind of hectic.

We got stuff going on.

We got food.

We got pictures.

A lot on our mind, dear Lord.

But I pray that for these couple of minutes that you would help us not to be worried about

stuff of this world.

We come in here today, dear Lord, some of us with really heavy burdens, God.

There are some people here today that are going through stuff, God.

And I pray that you be with us, whatever we're going through, whether it's a lot or whether

it's a little, whatever our stresses are, whatever our worries are, that you would just

help us to seek you this morning, that you would help us to be more like Jesus today,

God, that we would not think too highly of ourselves and think less of others, but dear

Lord, that we would learn to have the compassion that Jesus has.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name I pray it.

Amen.

Amen.

What a beautiful couple of verses for us to consider this morning.

That is how Jesus lived his life, how Jesus carried out his ministry.

Here were the tax collectors and the sinners, the worst of the worst people, prostitutes,

I mean, the most evil people you could think of, the people that a society would look down

upon.

We see those tax collectors mentioned a lot, not necessarily because they collected taxes.

That in and of itself is not the most horrible thing.

But the problem is that the tax collectors would cheat the people.

They would take more than they were supposed to.

Whatever they could get, they would get.

And you might could say that things haven't changed much today.

Whatever can be gotten from taxes is going to be gotten from taxes, whether it's justified

or not.

And so tax collectors were not looked at as good people.

And here Jesus is with the tax collectors and with the sinners, and he's eating with

these people.

He's associating with these people.

Now, this is a phenomenal thing, because if we are honest with ourselves, we probably

don't want to associate that much with the lesser-thans in our society.

We don't want to really associate those that are kind of dirty and kind of nasty, those

that we're a little better than.

We don't really want to stoop to their level.

We don't want to eat with them.

We don't want to be seen with them.

We don't really want to have much interaction for them.

We'll say, well, I hope they get to doing better.

Maybe they'll turn their life around.

But really, do we care?

Maybe we do.

Maybe we don't.

Maybe we don't really care too much about them, so long as they stay away from us.

And Lord knows we certainly would never want to invite them into our home.

We'd never want to sit down and eat a meal with them.

We certainly wouldn't want to go into their home.

But yet, this is the kind of compassion and love we see of Jesus.

That Jesus really did see people.

He saw people who were sinners.

He saw souls that were doomed to hell if they did not hear the gospel, if they did

not know the truth that He was going to preach, if they did not know what love was.

They were doomed.

And so Jesus viewed the world a little different than the other religious leaders of His day.

A little different than the other religious people of His day.

Jesus was always encountering the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes.

And these dudes I'm talking about, they were as religious as you could be.

I mean, they were at the top of the list.

If you want an example of somebody who was religious, you just find you a good Pharisee

in those days.

And they were the example, the definition of religion.

But to them, religion wasn't following the commands of God.

It wasn't loving other people to the Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes, at least it appears

many of them.

What they cared about was just looking apart.

They looked religious.

They probably said all the religious words.

Do we ever do that?

You know, there are certain words you only say at church.

You say those religious words.

You say them when you pray.

You say words that you never say anywhere else in the rest of your life.

But you say them in the right setting because these are the right words that religious people

say.

So we want to look the part.

We want to sound the part.

We want to follow the letter of the law, at least so much that we can twist and justify

to feel good about even the parts of it that we break.

Well, that was the Pharisees.

Maybe if we're honest, we're not so unlike them.

But the Pharisees were like that.

They looked very religious.

They acted very religious, but they had totally misunderstood who God was and what God cared

about because if they would have understood, they would have listened to Jesus and they

would have said, hold up, there's something different about this guy.

And this guy is special.

But instead, they said, there's something different about this guy.

And he doesn't do things any way the way we do them.

And we don't like that.

And so they saw Jesus eating with the tax collectors and the sinners, the worst of the

worst.

And what did they do?

It said that they begin to complain.

They begin to complain because Jesus was ministering to sinners.

What a beautiful thing Jesus shows us.

Jesus cared about people.

Jesus cared about those who were sinners.

Jesus was compassionate to those whose souls had a need for a Savior, but not the religious.

The religious didn't care about the souls.

The religious didn't care about the Savior.

The religious didn't care about anything other than keeping up appearances.

Now, we got to really be on guard here and we got to check ourselves to make sure we

don't fall into that trap.

Here's a good thing for us to do when we read the Bible, especially when we read stories

about other people in the Bible.

We read the stories and we see who the hero is and who the good guy is and who the one

that God has grace on.

And that's the one we are, right?

We're the one that God's going to come to their rescue and we're the one who does the

right thing.

And we like to see ourselves as the good people in the story, as those who are deserving of

God's grace in the story.

Do we ever see ourselves as the Pharisee in the story?

Do we ever see ourselves as the bad guy in the story?

Do we always see ourselves as the wise man in the story or sometimes do we see ourselves

as the fool in the story?

I think it's good for us when we read God's word to not read through it so quickly and

give ourselves more credit than we deserve because there are probably more times that

we would like to admit that we're not the good guy in the story.

We're the bad guy in the story.

We're not the wise man but we're the foolish man.

We're not the man who's seeking to live by God but we're the man who's living in disobedience

to God.

And it's good for us when we read these stories and we say, man, look at these people that

he's talking about.

We've got sinners in the story.

We've got Jesus in the story.

We've got these Pharisees in the story that don't care about anything but theirself.

Which one of these best describes us today?

Which one of these best describes our church today?

Maybe we're better than the Pharisees.

Maybe we're not.

Maybe we want the worst of the worst to come into our church but then again maybe we don't

because it's pretty good when you don't have those low lives coming in.

It's pretty good when everybody kind of knows how to dress the right way and act the right

way and say the right thing and do the right thing and everybody's kind of friendly.

You start going out into the world and you begin to reach lost people.

Spoiler alert, lost people live like lost people.

They live in sin.

They don't know any better.

Lost people, here's another thing about lost people, a lot of times they don't know that

they're lost.

They don't even know that they're lost.

They ain't even heard anything any better.

And some of you will tell me, I've heard people say this before, there's nobody in this county

in this state that's never heard Jesus before.

Oh, hold up.

There's people within a few miles of this church, I guarantee you more than one, that

have never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As lost as they can be.

They're a soul that is doomed to hell because they have not heard of Jesus Christ.

The question we have to answer today is do we even care?

Do we even care?

Do we pass by them and not give them any attention?

Do we pass by them and say, I ain't stopping at that house.

Look at that yard.

I've seen that person.

I know how they live.

I know how they act.

I know the kind of things that they do.

And if we're honest with ourselves, there's a lot of sinners out there that we pass and

we don't want nothing to do with them.

Why?

Because we're a little better than they are.

We come to church today.

We know what it means to be religious.

We don't want to get caught up with that riff raff.

And maybe if we're honest today, maybe we're not any better than these Pharisees.

How would we feel today if we begin to go out into our community and we go get everybody

else that the rest of the church has passed on?

The people that no other church wants.

The people that are as lost as they can be, that don't know how to look the part, that

just live in evil ways and we begin to reach out to those people and we begin to bring

them into our church.

What would be our reaction?

Now, I know what your reaction would be today.

You're saying to yourself, I'd say, praise the Lord.

And you probably would until they started coming into the church, until they took your

pew, until you started to actually hang out with them a little bit, until you had to speak

to them a little bit.

Pretty soon, you might not be so proud that they were coming to this church.

You may very well come to me and say, listen, Brother Shan, I know we're supposed to love

people and I love them, but I just don't think it's the church for them.

They just ain't living right.

And we do exactly what these Pharisees do.

We complain because lost people who are living like lost people want to come into our church.

Whoa.

That's pretty serious.

And we want lost people to come into our church, I hope.

We don't want them to keep living like lost people.

Don't misunderstand what I'm saying.

I'm not saying we want people who are evil to come into the church and do evil and we

just say, well, they're doing evil, but they're at church.

We don't want that.

But there's a point that we have to have some compassion that as they begin to come, we

have to realize that they're not going to live like Christians because they're not Christians.

But how are they going to know the word of God if we don't go out and reach them?

How are they going to know that Jesus loves them if somebody doesn't tell them?

How are they going to come to church if you don't knock on their door?

Because you've passed by their door a thousand times and you know what?

So has every other church in the community.

So there are opportunities for us to have compassion on people, people who don't deserve

it, people who are rotten, people who are sinful, people who come to church and even

in church, they say things and you think, man, they should have said that's not appropriate

in church and it ain't sometimes.

But they have to be taught better.

They have to be taught and how are they going to learn if somebody doesn't have compassion

on them?

Pharisees, scribes, it doesn't appear as though from reading scripture, too many of them had

compassion on the sinners.

But Jesus did.

Jesus went where nobody else would go.

Jesus sat with sinners that nobody else would sit with.

He didn't find the most religious guy, the well-dressed guy at the front of the temple.

He didn't go up there and sit by him.

Jesus would seek out the worst of the worst.

What about you and I?

Who are you seeking out today?

Are you seeking out the people that pretty good people look pretty good?

Are you seeking out the worst of the worst people?

The people that you really don't want to talk to, the people that you really don't want to

come to church here, those are the people that you probably need to be reaching out

to.

So as we look at this story today, who are you in this story today?

Are you the Pharisee?

Are you the one who's complaining because the church is trying to reach lost people?

Maybe you're like Jesus.

Maybe you are having compassionate people.

Praise the Lord.

There's probably some in here that are.

That's great.

There's probably some in here who are reaching out to the worst of the worst, who are trying

to follow the example of Jesus Christ.

Praise God.

Maybe you're that sinner today.

Maybe you're that sinner today that's lost and you've been living like you're lost.

You've heard the Word of God.

You don't hate God.

You don't even deny God's Word, but you've never trusted in Jesus.

Maybe today that's why God's brought you here.

Maybe today he's brought you here to let you know that there is one who has compassion

on you, to let each of us know that we are sinners and we don't deserve God's grace,

but Jesus gives it to us, that we are sinners and our souls are doomed to hell apart from

Jesus Christ.

How are you going to know that if you don't read the Word of God?

How are you going to know that if you don't come to a church, if you don't come to a place

with other brothers and sisters in Christ who can tell you those things?

How are you going to know that?

People are going to know that when we follow the example of Jesus and we begin to love

people like Jesus loves people.

When we stop thinking too highly of ourselves, when we stop judging other people, when we

stop expecting lost people to start living like saved people until they get saved.

So who are we in this story?

Maybe you're the one who came here today and you're lost and you've been seeking something.

Well, praise the Lord.

The Bible says that if you're lost that Jesus has come to seek you.

The scripture says that Jesus came to seek and save that which was lost.

That's every single one of us apart from Jesus Christ.

We're lost.

We're doomed.

We're just poor and pitiful and horrible people that are in need of a Savior, that are in

need of deliverance, that are in need of something better than what this world has to offer.

And so today there may be some in this room who have come seeking something better.

I was reminded this week of a saying that I'd heard.

I didn't even know where it come from, but I remember this saying and you may have heard

this before too.

It says this.

It says, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Has anybody ever heard that before?

Probably some of you have.

Some of you have probably seen it before.

It's engraved in stone at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

A young lady by the name of Emma Lazarus wrote that 150 years ago for all of those people

who were coming to the United States who were looking for a better place, who were looking

to be free.

What a beautiful invitation.

Here was the Statue of Liberty as the people would come along and they would be on the

boats and there was the statue holding the torch and at the bottom of that statue was

that message of freedom that they could see that torch, that they could see that light,

that they could know that there was freedom on the horizon, that there was something better

ahead of them.

And Jesus uttered some similar words to these, more beautiful.

In Matthew 11 28, Jesus said, come to me you who are weary and burdened and I will give

you rest.

Jesus's invitation is he says, come to me.

You who are sinners, you who are evil, you who are prostitutes, you who are tax collectors,

you who lie, you who cheat, you who steal, you who commit adultery, you who have done

whatever sin you can think of.

Jesus tells us today it's written in the Word of God and we can look to the Word of God

today and we can know that there is hope and that there is freedom in Jesus Christ.

That we today are those who are broken.

We today are those who are sinners.

And there was a day in our life for those who have trusted in Jesus Christ, there was

a day in our life that we were a lost person living like a lost person.

But somewhere along the way we heard the gospel.

Somebody cared enough about us in our pitiful rotten sinful state that they shared Jesus

Christ with us.

For some of you there was somebody in your life that cared enough about you that invited

you to church.

You heard the Word of God.

You heard the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And you went from a sinner to a sinner saved by grace.

And we want to be a church.

And we want to be a people that does not forget where we come from.

We want to be a people that does not forget that one day we were sinners at the bottom

of the barrel doing stuff that we don't even care to speak about now so bad.

But Jesus changed our life.

And those people that we may be tempted to pass over, Jesus can change their life too.

We don't need to just look at sinners and see their sin.

We need to look at sinners and see their soul.

It's a soul that God put within them.

It's a soul that God wants to be saved.

So let us not make the same mistake as the Pharisees.

Let us not complain about the work that Jesus did.

Let us not complain about the work that God may do in our church.

I pray that God will send us the worst of the worst, every one of them.

You can complain to me if you want to if they start coming.

I hope they do start coming.

And I hope we love on them.

And I hope we share with them the love of Jesus.

And I hope that they would put their faith in Him just as many of you have today.

But maybe you're here today and you haven't.

Maybe you're here today, maybe you've been to church a lot, maybe you've heard scripture

a lot.

But maybe today you realize for the first time you've never asked for forgiveness of

your sins and your soul is doomed.

But I want to tell you there's a savior for your soul today.

And praise God that Jesus came for the worst of the worst of the worst.

And that's you and I today.

So let us look to Him and find hope in Jesus Christ this morning.

Let's pray.

Father God, we come to you today.

We thank you for your good word.

I pray God that you would help us not to be like the Pharisees.

And maybe if we are honest, we are too much like them sometimes.

Maybe we do real good at looking religious.

But maybe our hearts are far from you, dear Lord.

So I pray today that if that's the case that you would grab a hold of us, help us to see

that.

God, I pray that we would not complain when you begin to work.

That we wouldn't complain about the people that you bring to us, the people that you

put in our life, dear Lord.

But that we would minister to them and that we would love them as best we can, God.

Pray that you would help us to be more like Jesus.

That we would take that step as scary as it is, as tough as it is.

That we would ask you to help us with our judgmental attitude.

And that we would see people for who they are.

There are people created by you who are lost and in need of a Savior.

And I pray that we would take that step, dear Lord.

We may be the only one, dear Lord.

We may say that we'll pass by and the next person will get them.

But dear Lord, for some people, they've been passed by their whole life.

So God, maybe we are the next person that's going to walk by their path.

And I pray, dear Lord, that you would help us to love on them.

Dear Lord, maybe there are some here today and they are that sinner that has never experienced

the grace of Jesus Christ.

They've never asked for forgiveness of their sins.

Maybe they know about you, dear Lord, but they have never really put their faith in

Jesus Christ.

To live for Him and not for themselves.

God, maybe there are some whose hearts today you're working on.

You're convicting them.

They know that they don't really know you, dear Lord, but they need to.

I pray that in this moment, dear Lord, that they would just pray to you.

They would ask you to forgive them.

God, that they would seek you right now.

That they would repent of their sins.

And that they would accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

God, if there are some here this morning that have done that, I pray that in this song of

invitation that they would walk up front and let us know that we can celebrate and rejoice

with them, dear Lord.

That we can baptize them just as Jesus has commanded.

Maybe there are some here today, dear Lord, and they're yours.

But maybe they see some of their sin that's kind of been brought up to the surface today.

And maybe they realize they hadn't been doing what they should and living the way they should.

I pray, God, that they would seek you today.

God, if there are any that need prayer, I pray that they would come forward today.

I'll be glad to pray with them.

But, dear Lord, I pray that as we have this moment of response, that if you've worked

on anybody's heart, God, that they would seek you and call out to you now.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.