Sinners, Not the Self-Righteous

 

Sinners, Not the Self-Righteous

 

In Luke 6:27-28 Jesus encountered a tax collector named Levi or Matthew & called him to follow Him & Levi left his tax collecting booth & followed Jesus. In verses 29 through 30 the Pharisees & scribes begin to grumble at Jesus’ disciples about why they & Jesus were eating & drinking with tax collectors & sinners.

 

Jesus says to the Pharisees & scribes, “Those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

 

In Luke 19:1-10 Jesus encounters Zacchaeus & goes to his house for lunch. Zacchaeus during the meal repents & places his faith in Jesus. In verse 10 Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”

 

Jesus makes it very clear that He came to seek & save the lost & call the sinners to repentance.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about knowing that Jesus came to seek & save the lost & call sinners to repentance.

 

I have read several things lately stating that Jesus did not hang out with sinners just to being hanging with sinners but to transform their lives. That is truth to a certain point, but He did spend time with the people that His culture labeled sinners. Yes, He spent time with them to transform their lives & bring them into a faith relationship with God. He also spent time with them because He loved them & did not want them to die & go into an eternity without God.   

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about spending time with people who do not know God because we love them & want them to know Jesus as their Savior & Lord.

 

Jesus never saw a person’s lifestyle as an insurmountable obstacle to a person being saved. Jesus reached out to tax collectors, Samaritans, women caught in adultery, lepers, & Gentiles. All of these people were concerned outcasts or sinners in the culture of that day.

 

The church is the body of Christ. We are to be carrying out the mission of Jesus. Jesus’ mission was to bring people into a faith relationship with God so that they could be saved & have eternal life. So, are we as the church carrying on Jesus’ mission?

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about us as the church carrying on the mission of the Head of the church & reaching out to those who are outcasts & sinners. And,

 

The Pharisees & scribes saw these sinners as hopeless. Jesus saw them as victims of the lies of Satan and, as their Creator, He wanted to redeem them & He knew they were not hopeless & that He could redeem them. If we as the church are not reaching hopeless, broken, messy, ungodly people, then we are not doing a Jesus kind of evangelism. We are to proclaim a gospel of grace that transforms sinners into saints. We are not here to proclaim a gospel of works or a gospel of money, success, & health, but of eternal salvation through Jesus’ grace.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls is about proclaiming the gospel of grace that leads to people receiving eternal salvation.

 

Raise the Roof & Remove the Walls,

Joe