A Word in Season: Receiving Sinners (Luke 15:2)

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Christians can sometimes get strange reputations and attract hurtful accusations.

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The insults that are slung at God's people can range from the fairly shallow to the actually dangerous.

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For some, we're just holy joes, do -gooders. Perhaps, sadly, we have the reputation, we give the impression even, of thinking of ourselves as too good for others.

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We might be perhaps accused of things more serious that give people an excuse to reject or even oppress and persecute the people of God.

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We can be slandered for all sorts of reasons and we need to make sure that we don't give people any good reason for such slanders.

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But when was the last time that you as a Christian or the church to which you belong or other faithful churches that you know were accused of being too close to sinners?

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When was the last time that the world sneered at us and scowled at us because we were too much associated with the ungodly in the eyes of the world, the lowest of the low, the people that other people don't want anything to do with?

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That was the situation in Luke's Gospel in chapter 15, when the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to the

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Lord Jesus to hear him. Now, the tax collectors were considered by the true

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Jews, the Pharisees and the scribes, to be despicable. They had sold themselves out to the

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Romans. Not only did they gather taxes for these oppressive powers who had come into God's own land in the

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Jewish idea, but they were typically thieves, skimming off for themselves a large helping of whatever they took, passing on to the

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Romans what they wanted and keeping some for themselves. And then there were the sinners. These were the openly and scandalously sinful men and women of the day, the kind of people that no self -respecting

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Pharisee would have had anything to do with, let alone sit down to enjoy fellowship with.

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Classically, this would have been, for example, the prostitutes of the day, who would have been despised socially because of their sexual immorality.

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And the Pharisees and the scribes complained against the Lord Jesus, saying, This man receives sinners and eats with them.

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Now, it's important to remember that the Lord Christ never overlooked sin, but neither did he reject sinners when they came to him.

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Rather, he welcomed them, he spoke to them, he cleansed and forgave them for their sins when they repented of them and put their faith in him.

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And in fact, that accusation is what gives rise to some of the best known of our

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Lord's parables, the lost sheep and the lost coin and the lost son. And in each case, in that one parable in three elements, the

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Lord Jesus is emphasising God's readiness as it is seen in him to receive repenting sinners, to go out after them and to bring them back.

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You see, Christ did not consider this truly a worthwhile accusation.

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What the Pharisees thought of as an insult was to Christ his glory. What was to them a reputation fearful was to Christ a reputation most sweet.

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All through the Gospels, you see Christ as the one who receives sinners readily.

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It's why he came. It is the very purpose for which he is in this world, that sinners like me and like you, in all our filth and misery and ungodliness, yes, to the very lowest of the low, might come to him and find in him everlasting life, the forgiveness of our sins, the putting away of all our guilt and all our shame, our sin and all its consequences, both with regard to God and ultimately in ourselves.

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Christ gloried in being the friend of sinners so that you and I, whatever we are and have done, we may go to him and it ought to be the glory of his people too.

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Once more, not that we condone or excuse sin, but that we are known as those who receive sinners, that all kinds of people, however they may appear outwardly and whatever they may really be inwardly, may come and hear from us compassionately, kindly, openly, transparently, warmly and earnestly, words of everlasting life.

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Our Saviour received sinners and so ought we to do for his name's sake, that his glory may be seen and despite the accusations and the sneers,