My Message to the Lost, the Hurting, and the Sinners

What sinners need to know about Jesus …

Jesus! 

He has become many things to many people over the last 2,000 years. Many pastors and teachers have staked their entire careers on deciphering his words, trying to determine when the end of time will come. To others, he is the distributor of wealth. Just give a little cash (or a lot) to the ministry as seed money, and you’ll get a hundred-fold return. He is the healer of diseases and protector of those in danger. 

It is true that he is some of those things. He has promised to return in blazing fire to render judgement on those who did not value him. He also rewards a generous spirit. And I’ve anointed folks with oil while pleading with the Almighty for healing from cancer, heart disease, and other life-threatening ailments. I’ve seen him come through on that too.

But these attributes of Jesus are easy for us to latch on to because they’re things we desire. We want to be healed! We covet material wealth! We want to know what the future holds. 

But I would argue that if that’s all Jesus is, no one would have strung him up on a crossbeam for passing out money or making sick people well. Who would kill him for that? No one would have. If that’s all Jesus was, he would have been the most popular guy in town. For example, after he fed the 5,000 in John 6, the people were so impressed that they planned to take him and make him king by force.

He could have gone along with it if that was all there was to him. Instead, he slipped away quietly because he had bigger fish to fry (pun intended). He had other plans. More important, bigger plans.

Jesus was on mission — one mission — and he would not be deterred. In Jesus’ day, a tax collector for the Roman government was universally hated by the Jews. They were extortionists who often collected far more from the Jews than the government required. So, when Jesus scandalously entered the house of Zacchaeus (a tax collector), the people began to wonder what kind of man Jesus really was. Surely, if he was really the Messiah, he would have known what a “sinner” Zacchaeus is. 

But Jesus did know, and that was the point. If he was looking for short-term gain, he would have made the gospel of the kingdom an easy pill for the people to swallow. But he wasn’t concerned with easy-to-swallow pills — he was after altering their hearts toward and about God. His response is often quoted even to this day:

For the son of man came to seek and save the lost!

—Luke 19:10

On another occasion he said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mark 2:17)

He touched lepers and prostitutes. He defended women who were caught in the act of adultery. He spoke to the Samaritan woman at the well who had been married multiple times and was now shacking up with a dude. In other words, he went out of his way to touch people like some of us are. He loved sinners.

When Jesus came to John for baptism, John said about him, “Behold, the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)

This matters because I can be rich and not know God. I can be healthy and still be unable to enter his courts because of my sin. Jesus did come to serve us, but not by being a heavenly Santa Claus. He came to take away our sin and bear it himself on the Cross. And when we believe that this one sacrificial act was more than enough to make us clean enough to approach God, we are ready for Jesus. 

Who knows? Maybe he will cause material wealth to come your way. Perhaps he will heal your cancer or your crippled leg. If he restores your sight, I will praise him for it. But since we are all going to die and won’t take a thing with us, I’m most grateful that he is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Yes, I get to go to heaven. But heaven only appeals to me because he’ll be there. And the good news is, I can begin knowing him now. And the more I know him, the more I want to fall on my knees and worship him right now, right here!

“Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
     to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
     and honor and glory and praise!” 

— Revelation 5:12