God’s Love for the Lost

Luke 15

1Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

“Sinners” (Lost Causes) were the people Jesus hung out with. He could’ve chosen anyone, but these are the people he reached out to personally. In a crowd, these are the ones who caught his eye. So they need to catch our eyes, and we need to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. These were the people who Jesus evangelized. They were the ones who needed it most, and often they were the ones who were most open to it.  And he did all this never traveling more than 100 miles from his home. There was enough need right where he was.

Allow me to contrast this with the life of the religious people in Jesus’ day. The Pharisees were the rule following uptight snobs of Jesus’ time. The Pharisees were so focused on their rules that they were blinded to their Messiah. The Pharisees had created an insular culture to protect them from all the evil sinners outside of their club. They tried to only do business with other Pharisees. They wouldn’t associate with those who might be considered unclean. They would only be seen in public with other people like them. They traveled together, they stayed together, they lived in a Pharisee bubble. Their message to people outside the bubble was: “Become like us (translated: believe like us, dress like us, vote like us, act like us, like what we like, don’t like what we don’t like. If you become like us (jump through our cultural hoops and adopt them for your own), we will consider you for membership.” Sound familiar? We have those religious types in our world today too. That’s not who I want us to be, and it is hopefully not who you want us to be either.

Jesus’ evangelism strategy was the opposite of the Pharisees. Rather than expecting people to come to him, seeking out membership in his club, he had a “go get ‘em” attitude. Instead of withdrawing from the world for fear of contamination or what other people might think, he ate with them. He hung out with them. He was friends with them. This of course horrified the Pharisees, and that brought on the charges I read to you earlier – This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. Instead of insisting that people clean up in order to come to God, Jesus preached that God accepted them as they are. The Pharisees said here’s the rules, change and follow them and you might be good enough. Jesus said you are good enough, and because I love you, and through loving me you can be changed. Instead of rigid religious rules, Jesus offered abundant life through a personal relationship with God, and it is still the same today. This is why the Pharisees considered Jesus to be such a threat. He was threatening their very way of life, their system of rules, their system of power.

Glad to hear some of your thoughts…

Daniel

Gratitude…Applied

we’ve had a wonderful series on gratitude over the last four weeks, and learned that we have so, so much to be grateful for, even in the midst of the worst circumstances.  we can be thankful:

- that our very identity has been completely transformed by Christ, that we are new creations, and that the old has gone and the new has come.

- that when we see our lives and circumstances not with the world’s eyes, but with our faith, that we have a God who is good, and sovereign, and very present in our midst.

- that our gratitude fixes our eyes on the rich blessings of God, making the temptations of sin and this world so very small in comparison.

- that through the cross, we can remember exactly who our God is – merciful, loving, forgiving, holy, and just – and that the God who gave himself on the cross would never abandon us, and is surely mighty enough to save.

now, after learning so much, it is time to turn our minds to application, because ultimately, unapplied gratitude is no gratitude at all.  what are the ways in which these conceptions of gratitude can be applied in your life, and the life of our church?

p.peter

Gratitude — Even When We Can’t See His Footprints

Psalm 77.  The Psalmist opens his song with a tired but desperate cry.  His song then begins to take an inquiring tone, asking a series of questions to God.  Only as he wrestles with his questions does he come to a place of firm resolution.  “I will remember God and His deeds,” he sings.  It’s here that he encounters God’s greatness, His deliverance of His people through the Red Sea and and His tender care upon the “flock” of Israel.  His song ends with a greater and deeper realization of God’s character  and with hope.

How far do we as congregations and individuals go in singing our own respective “Psalm 77″ songs?  Especially in our Western 21st century setting.  Do we know how to lament well?  How often do we even cry to God?  Do we come to a place of questioning?  And then remembering Him and His deeds?  Often times, we tend to look to our jobs, vacations, errands, shopping, video games, etc. to somehow distract (”medicate”?) ourselves from this lamenting process.  Imagine how we could deepen our walk with Him if we only allowed oursleves to lament before Him in all the dark nights of our souls.

One day after Sunday…

Its Monday afternoon.
The girls are finally down for their nap, and I have maybe an hour, hour and a half, to breathe and be sane.

I’m looking at my laptop as I type this post. And as I shared yesterday–across the top of my screen are the words: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God” [Matt 5:8]. I printed that verse out on a sheet of paper, cut it out, and taped it across the screen of my brand new Macbook. It looks horrible. It looks like a bad bumper sticker on a nice car. But I’m going to keep it there because it’s a great reminder. Every time I flip open this laptop I want to see this incredible promise in front of me—that I have something precious to guard. I’m not going to give away my intimacy with Jesus for cheap thrills.

We so often try to fight sin in theory. And what I mean by that is we try to convince ourselves sin is bad when we know it’s not. We long to sin. We have deep unmet desires that refuse to stay corralled. The man or woman who is truly able to fight sin is not one who represses these longings but finds their complete fulfillment in God.

In preaching yesterday’s message, I was powerfully reminded that unless I am enjoying my God, unless I daily draw near the cross of Jesus, unless I treasure the awesome promises of God–I am a tottering fence waiting to be blown down.

How is this actually done? How am I supposed to daily enjoy God? Probably one quiet time after another. That’s a good place to start–a daily diet of God. I think the best thing we can do to fight sin, is to actually sit down, or perhaps even kneel down, and meet with God. The more I eat, the more I’m satisfied, the less I sin. That’s the way I see it. 

 

PD