God of Sinners 1978

We just sang, when I see thee as thou art, I'll praise thee as I ought. And one of the chief reasons why we experience such a small portion of God's blazing presence in our hearts, when we could have so much more, and why we only rarely seem to be able to impart God's light to the hungry, thirsty souls around us, when we know very well this ought to be happening far more consistently, is that our image of God, the view of what God is like that we hold in our minds, is much closer to that of the Pharisees than we would like to admit. Now, the Pharisees believed in God.

And they were serious about their belief in God, serious enough that it made a difference in the way they lived. The Pharisees were serious enough about God to fast twice a week. They were serious enough about God to take twice off the top ten percent of their income and give it away to God.

They were serious enough with God that they were faithful to their wives, at least with their bodies, if not with their minds. And normally, these Pharisees were more reliable and scrupulous in business than most people. But the Pharisees believed in a God who really went in for sacrifice.

Animal sacrifice or any kind of sacrifice. Sacrifice of yourself, an offering up of anything of your own life, so that you proved your commitment to God by the impressiveness of your sacrifice. You really made your claim on God.

You demonstrated how serious you were by your sacrifice. And you really won God's favor by the depth of the sacrifice. And we all know what that's like.

How many times when it seems to us that God has drifted away from us and we don't seem to have that sense of his presence, we snap our fingers and say, oh, yeah, I know what's wrong. I'm not doing enough. And we begin to try to step up the sacrifices, whatever they may be in our lives, to get that feeling of God's presence back to us again.

And pretty soon we're so caught up in the treadmill of sacrifice that our sacrifices really don't mean anything. We're just exhausted and we're dry inside. That's okay.

Come on in. Don't run away yet. Go on upstairs.

Got a lot of room in the balcony. We should lock the door. Don't let him out.

And we experience that often. We try to increase our sense of God's presence by doing more until we're all exhausted inside. So that's how it was really with the Pharisees.

And no wonder they were upset when this Jesus, who obviously was some kind of prophet, eats with publicans and sinners, tax collectors and sinners. How can this man be of God and do things like that? And as he sat at table in the house of Matthew, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? But when he heard it, he said, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.

Go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice. For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

The true and living God doesn't specialize in seeing how much sacrifice you can get out of people. The true and living God specializes in showing mercy. He's not standing there waiting to see how much more we're going to squeeze out of ourselves to prove our love for him.

He's waiting for us, today again, to come to him with broken, contrite, hungry, thirsty hearts. What can be unclean hands and these unclean lips offered to God as a sacrifice? The only thing we have to offer God at all, if we see this clearly, is a broken heart. A contrite spirit.

This we can bring to God, crying out to him for his help. And when we have begun, then, to experience God's mercy as we bring these broken hearts to him, then we can offer to him a sacrifice of praise from our lips. We can present our bodies as a living sacrifice.

And we can then begin to learn to handle, and we need to do this, man and money and things in a way that is faithful and pleasing and right to God. But only then. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him.

And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them. Because this man is the brightness of God's glory, the express image of his person. And he is revealing, if we only had eyes to see it, that God is a God of sinners.

That does not mean that God loves sin. But it does mean that God loves. Oh, how he loves the man, the woman that draws near with all the sin and cries to him for help.

What can God do for a man who, by his attitude or his tone of voice or his expression, proves or demonstrates or seems to manifest that he really doesn't consider he has any sin worth talking about? He doesn't need any forgiveness. What can God do for a woman who's so sure of her rightness, you know, that she never considers it necessary to cry out for help from God, for forgiveness? And considers herself perfectly qualified to evaluate everybody else's life. What can God do for a person who may be? Oh, we admit, of course I'm a sinner, but without an ounce of remorse.

If we're ever going to truly draw near to the living God and know him and experience his presence and have anything of his like to give to anybody else, we're going to have to get clear in our minds and hearts a vision of what God is really like. We have to get to see that God is a God of sinners. In Jesus, we see a God who receives sinners.

This man receives sinners. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden. With what? Your guilt, your shame.

And I will give you rest. I have not come to call the righteous, if there are any, but sinners. What a comfort, you know, what an encouragement this is when we begin to see what this means.

It means that we can draw near to him the way we are. Jesus is not sitting in a palace isolated from the common people with a courtyard out there where the sinners first have to learn their manners before they can get near him. But Jesus is out among the people, mingling with them, available to them, always open and ready.

Anybody can come near to him. And most of these sinners back then, as today, had no conception of the fact that Jesus had come to save them from destruction, to give them a new life. They weren't aware of any of that.

All they knew was that this man was somebody that was good to be near. That's all. And he didn't check their doctrinal position.

He was just glad to see them. And so it is today. When our eyes begin to open, we realize that Jesus is the one in all the world who welcomes us as we are, without reservation.

Your husband, your wife, your child, your mother and your father can't do that for you, even if they want to. But he does. In Jesus, we see a God who eats with sinners.

The characteristic thing about religious people is that they're worried about being contaminated by the rest of the world. Be careful who you associate with, and especially who you eat with. You better watch out for those potlucks.

You might sit next to somebody who has running sores on his leg, cockroaches in his pocket, and bugs crawling around on his skin. And you might get some of that. This man receives sinners and eats with them.

How come your teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners? Doesn't he know any better? He does this because it's when you eat with people that it's possible for your heart to draw near to theirs and theirs to you. So today, God is coming to our potluck, right now. In a few moments, we're going to be having bread and wine, and it's all very dignified.

The unleavened bread even has something turkey-stamped on it. You know, everything's sanitary, the glasses have been washed. But just imagine what God goes through to come down at this table and eat with us.

Don't we look pretty good? But running sores and bugs on our bodies and cockroaches in our pockets are nothing compared with the filth and the ugliness God sees when he looks into any of our hearts, without exception. And he draws near to us, eats with us, joins himself to us, makes us flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, his body his bride. In Jesus, we see a God who intercedes for sinners.

From that lesson that Tom already read and that we were into a couple Wednesday nights ago, the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them. But of you I will make a great nation.

But Moses besought the Lord, his God, and said, O Lord, why does thy wrath burn hot against thy people, whom thou hast brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Now, who is this Moses who can talk to the living God like that? This Moses is a man who at that moment is inspired by the spirit of Christ. And it's God's very spirit moving in Moses that intercedes like this. Sin has to be dealt with, must be dealt with.

But, O God, don't put it on them, put it on me. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And when Jesus prays to his Father like that, does the Father get angry? The Father weeps for joy.

Where would you and I be if it were not for the Lamb of God interceding for us by name before the throne of his Father? Where would we be were it not for people inspired by the spirit of the Lamb praying for us? Daily there are people praying for us by name. People waking up in the middle of the night praying for us. People going without food praying for us.

Inspired by the God who intercedes for us before his very throne. But this God, who receives sinners, eats with sinners, and intercedes for sinners, is not satisfied that we should remain sinners forever? He wants to see a change. And so in Jesus we see a God who calls sinners to repentance.

Oh, but that's for the people who aren't saved yet. Repentance for us is not just something that happens once and done, it continues. It's a repeated thing.

It's a continuous turning away from darkness to light, from death to light, from self to God. And this turning has to go on all the time until that blessed hour when there won't be anything left to repent of. But we got a long way to go.

Right now, his voice draws near to us in infinite love and says to each one of us, repent! Turn! The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in my gospel. Turn away from your old life.

Leave your fishing boats. Walk away from your tax office. Leave that old way behind.

Depart from those ugly thoughts that inhabit your mind and heart so much of the time. Turn away from those devious methods that you use. Get that crud out of your heart.

The door of the kingdom of God is open to us and we walk through that door moment by moment, hour by hour, but we can only walk through that door by repenting. In Jesus, we see a God who restores sinners to himself. And when they saw it, they all murmured, He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, half my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham.

For the Son of God came to seek and to save that which was lost. He takes Zacchaeus, this little rich tax collector, and restores him to the Father. He does the same with this woman.

And when the Pharisees, who had invited him, saw this, the Pharisee, whose name was Simon, saw this, he said to himself, If this man were a prophet, he would have known what sort of woman this was who is touching him. For she is a sinner. And Jesus answering said, Simon, I have something to say to you.

What is it, teacher? A certain creditor had two debtors. One owed him 500 denarii, the other 50. When they could not pay, he forgave them both.

Now, which of them will love him the more? And Simon answered, the one who, he forgave more. And he said, you have judged rightly. Then turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, Do you see this woman? I entered your house.

You gave me no water for my feet. But she has wet my feet with her tears. Wiped them with her hair.

You gave me no kiss. But from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil.

But she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much.

But he who is forgiven little, loves little. And he said to her, Your sins are forgiven. And restored this woman to God.

And he went to restore each of us to God today so that we know God. All we have to do is come with a contrite heart. In Jesus, we see a God who rejoices over the repentance of sinners, one at a time.

There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who don't need any. There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents. In Revelations 7 and 14, we see this great multitude which no man can number.

Of all people and nations and kindreds and tongues. Multitude. No human being can number it, but that multitude was assembled one at a time.

And every one of those had a party celebrated for it in heaven by the angels as they took their robes and washed them in the blood of the Lamb. And every time you and I turn, every time we repent, every time we come off our high horse and come down before the throne of the Father on our face, every time we turn away from that junk we're into, God rejoices. And we can bring joy to the heart of God today.

All we have to do is some specific repenting, turning away from things in our lives right now that we know have been doing nothing but cause us harm. God help us to do that today. That we might bring our Father joy And finally, in Jesus, we see a God who takes redeemed sinners and immediately sends them out to find others.

Peter had denied his Lord and he was ashamed. The resurrection is past now and they're having breakfast on the shores of Galilee one morning. And Jesus is there.

And Peter is still troubled by this. But as Jesus talks to Peter, he's not reminding him of his sin. He's reminding him the sin he's been atoned for.

The issue rather is, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Feed my lambs. Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep.

And who are these sheep that Peter is supposed to tend and feed? Sinners! And the sheep that you and I are to be tending and feeding are not all assembled in this room. Most of them are outside these walls. Most of them don't even know they belong to the shepherd yet.

But they will find out. And they will come to life as a result of the good news of God flowing across our lips as we proclaim to them the God of sinners who sent his Son to die to sinners that didn't weep. When we see God as the God of sinners, when we see that, then we will have God in our hearts.

And then we will be able to impart his life to those around us. God help us to see that today. Let's pray.

What can we bring to you, Heavenly Father? What can we bring? Help us to bring the one thing that is pleasing to you. Help us to bring the sacrifice of a broken spirit and a contrived heart this day. And in whatever way we have to do it, Lord, give us the freedom to do it.

Take away from us the fear of man and this damnable pride that continues to hem us in and make us a prisoner. Set us free to be before your throne, the broken, humble, undone people needing your mercy that we really are. That we might receive your life this day and have enough of it to share with those around us.

We ask it, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.