Where's Jesus?
Luke 15:1-7
By Dave Redick
Hwy 20 Church of Christ, Sweet Home, OR
Many Christians over the years have had trouble with this issue of association. It seems to contradict the Bible's teaching on separation. Most of us realize that we are called to be holy. The word has several connotations, among which are the concepts of purity and separated from sin. How can one be holy and mix it up with sinners? How can one remain pure and go to dinner with impure people?
Introduction
How many of you are familiar with the children's game, "Where's Waldo?"
For those of you who have suffered the deprivation of a sheltered life (smile) and never played "Where's Waldo," let me explain. The game consists of a rather complicated picture with all kinds of scenes of people and animals and things going on. I've brought one along for you to see.
(Show slide)
The object of the game is to study the picture until you find Waldo. He's the little guy with the big glasses.
In the spirit of "Where's Waldo" this morning, I want to play a game that I've called "Where's Jesus?" The rules are simple. I'll show you a picture and you find Jesus in it. I don't have a real picture to put up, so I'll have to sketch it in your mind. Pay close attention. In the picture is a large grassy field, perhaps the edge of a park. On the left side of the picture is church building, much like ours this morning. The front doors are open. There are several hundred people present. They are standing with hymnals in their hands, obviously worshipping God with their singing. On the other side of the grassy field is a group of what many would call "undesirables." There are longhaired "biker" types dressed in their Levi's and leathers, covered with tattoos, standing near their chopped motorcycles. There is beer and marijuana all around. There are scantly clad women, purses slung over their arms, cigarettes hanging from their mouths. Many of them are prostitutes. Mixed in this motley crowd of misfits are a few bums and winos. The picture, as you take it in, is a study in contrast - the church service on the left and the rough crowd on the right.
So I ask you, where's Jesus? Can you find Him in the picture?
If you say, "He's in the church service," you're right. Congratulations! You now have one point. But you're not finished. He is actually in this picture twice and you've only found Him once, so look again. Where's Jesus?
Need a clue? Don't look for Him again in the church service. He's only in that group one time and you've already seen it, so keep looking.
"Wait a minute," I can imagine someone thinking. "The only place left is the crowd of sinners. Surely He couldn't be there!"
If that is what you are thinking, you just lost the game, because that is indeed where He is in the picture.
Now before one of you tells me that you don't like my picture, I need to tell you something more. This picture I have been describing to you is not really my own. Oh, I have embellished it a little, but it is actually a picture that is in the New Testament. Let me show you.
(Read Luke 15:1-7)
Now that you have seen the picture actually on paper, I ask you again: Where's Jesus? Do you see Him now?
"Yeah, I do, but I still don't like it," someone may be thinking. "Jesus is supposed to be holy. What's He doing with those people?"
Sometimes when you're playing "Where's Waldo," you have to examine the picture more closely in order to see him. That's what I want you to do in this message. I want to examine this picture in Luke very carefully so that we can really get a good look at Jesus and what He is and isn't doing.
When you play "Where's Waldo," you have to study each part of the picture closely to spot him. The same is true in this picture in Luke. Look carefully with me then as we study four things that are going on in this picture. The first is...
I. Associating.
Jesus is associating with sinners. I cannot see how we can reach any other conclusion.
Luke says in verse 1, "...all the tax-gatherers and the sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him." So where's Jesus? He is right in the middle of that crowd of sinners!
But the association goes even further than that. He has actually invited these people to come listen to Him and He has even gone to dinner with them! Luke tells us that the Pharisees and scribes were saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."
That wasn't a one-time accusation. There are numerous examples in the gospels of Jesus eating with sinners. For instance, in Matthew 9:10 we read,
"And it happened that as He was reclining at the table in the house, behold many tax-gatherers and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples."
There you have it: eating with tax gathers and sinners. (The reason the gospel writers mention tax-gathers so much in the context of sinners is that most of them were dishonest swindlers who bilked people out of many thousands of dollars. You couldn't call a man a dirtier name in their culture than telones, publican, tax collector.) Jesus actually mixed it up with this kind of people.
Many Christians over the years have had trouble with this issue of association. It seems to contradict the Bible's teaching on separation. Most of us realize that we are called to be holy. The word has several connotations, among which are the concepts of purity and separated from sin. How can one be holy and mix it up with sinners? How can one remain pure and go to dinner with impure people?
Because his body had no immune system to fight disease, a young boy in Texas lived out his short life inside a bubble. You may remember his story. For more than 10 years he lived in the plastic dome, isolated from the infectious agents that others might bring to him. He breathed filtered air, ate sterile food, and until his final days was touched only by hands wearing sterile rubber gloves. Is that the way Christians should live - in isolation? Some think surely think so. But I ask you, is that the way Jesus lived? He is supposed to be our model for living. Where's Jesus in this picture? Obviously He didn't isolate himself from sinners.
But having said that, there is a very important point that needs to be made. He did not sin! Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was "tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin."
Jesus remained separated from sin, not sinners!
Several years ago, Joe Aldrich explained it by putting up two extremes. On the one side was total isolation from sinners. On the other side was total immersion in sin. He proposed that the Christian must live in the delicately balanced center, between the two extremes. He associates with sinners, but he doesn't participate in their sin. His association can only go to the edge of where sin begins. It's the best explanation I have ever seen.
Many of us would just as soon leave our jobs and other places where we are forced to live and work alongside sinners. I hear it quite often. "Dave all the swearing and foul talk and fornication and cheating and lying that goes on down there - I just wish I didn't have to work there!" I understand your feelings. I've been there too. It can make living your Christian life very tough. But I need to ask you once again, "Where's Jesus in the picture?" If we are going to be like Him, where are we to be? Let me ask you another question: If we all went off and hid in some monastery or Christian commune someplace, how would the world hear about Christ? How would they spot Jesus in the picture?
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:9-10:
"I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one."
According to Paul, we are to collectively disassociate ourselves from those who say they are Christians, but refuse to repent. We are not to disassociate ourselves from sinners in the world. Why? Because, as we shall see in another part of this picture, God wants to use us to win them to Christ and if that is to happen, we need to be where they are.
What else is going on in this picture besides associating? Look closely and see that a second thing that is happening here is...
II. Grumbling.
"And both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble."
They didn't like it that Jesus was associating with sinners. Like some religious people today, their understanding of holiness didn't allow such a thing!
The Pharisees were the "Separated Ones." The prided themselves in who they did and didn't associate with. They then set this up as a standard by which to judge others.
In Luke 7 there is an account of a certain woman, a prostitute, who came to one of the dinners served in the home of a Pharisee. As she listened to Him speak, she was crying on his feet. As the tears fell on his feet, she began wiping them with her hair. Luke says,
Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner."
Now you have to commend these people for their concern for holiness. But you see, they had taken the biblical doctrine of separation from sin and twisted it into a false doctrine of separation from sinners. They used it to separate themselves from the very people that God wanted them to help. They became what some have described as "too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good." Now I am not suggesting that we should not be concerned for personal purity. Nor am I saying that there are not times when, because of weakness, we must disassociate ourselves from certain people. The Bible warns us about certain companionship and exhorts us to be holy. Peter wrote: "like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior..." A faith that does not stress holiness is not the faith "once for all delivered to the saints." But it is likewise true that the quest for holiness cannot be used as an excuse to withdraw completely from the world God has called us to reach. Jesus did say, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel..."
We've seen where Jesus is in this picture. Now see if you can find yourself. Are you there grumbling along with the Pharisees? I hope not.
The third thing going on in this picture is...
III. Seeking.
To get his point across, Jesus told a parable that begins in verse 4: (Actually, He told three parables. We're only looking at the first.)
"What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?"
Just what was Jesus doing out there among all those tax-gatherers and sinners? He was seeking them! He wasn't mixing it up with these people so that he could indulge in what they were doing. He wasn't there because He had a lot in common with them. He was on a mission. These people were lost and they needed to be saved. He had a purpose in this association with sinners.
We live, work, eat with, and coexist with sinners for the same purpose. God wants us to seek them for Him!
This room we are in this morning isn't the mission field. It is the "open pasture" of safety we just read about. Not very many lost people come in here. Sunday after Sunday I preach mainly to Christians. Out there, where you live and work is the mission field. You are the missionary. If you work for Willamette Industries, you are a missionary to the people who work there with you. If you work for Smurfit Corporation, you are a missionary to the other people who work there. If you work for Walmart or Thriftway or the cannery in Staton, you are a missionary to that place. If you drive a log truck or roof houses or sit on the school board or the PTA you are a missionary. If you take care of elderly people in their homes or your own children in your own home and you have neighbor kids in, you are a missionary. You are one who seeks that one lost sheep that Jesus referred to.
How are you to do it? Look again at the picture. What is Jesus doing? He associated with them. He ate with them. He didn't turn them away. He spoke to them about Himself and God. He loved them. He became their friend.
You ladies with young children at home can do it, too. Your kids will attract other kids to your home. Instead of letting it frustrate you out of your mind that all these kids are running through your house messing things up, why not invite them to sit down and have some cookies and watch one of the videos we have in the library that has a Christian message? Kathi and I know several adults who are Christians today because they associated with our children when they were young. One of them, a graduate of West Point, whom we love very much and are as proud of him as we would be of one of our own, is career military. There is little chance I would have the opportunity to teach such a man as him today. Our paths probably wouldn't cross. But because he heard the Christian message in our home, while he was young, he serves Christ today.
The Pharisees and scribes called Jesus in derision, "a friend of tax gathers and sinners." They were right. That is exactly what He was. Guilty as charged! What they didn't realize is that they should have been the same. What we need to realize is so should we.
Associating, grumbling, seeking... my, this is a busy picture isn't it? Remember, we're asking the question, "Where's Jesus?"
I'll point out a fourth one then I'll quit. We see also in this picture...
IV. Rejoicing.
Verses 5-7 say, "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!' I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."
Wow! Do you see what motivated Jesus to go out among people, who, at times, must have disgusted him by their antics - by their sin?
He was looking for that one or two lost sheep that wanted and needed to be found. That kept Him going. That kept Him on task. That was His mission.
It can be yours, too.
I want to share a story with you that is very personal to this congregation. I hope I don't embarrass anyone, because that is not at all my intent.
Several years ago, our brother, Tom Ballwebber, lay in the hospital with major heart problems. Those problems would call for open-heart surgery. His dear wife Evelyn was right there by his side. Tom was understandably nervous. We all were. None of us knew whether he would survive. As Tom lay there in the hospital, he shared with me that he was sorry that he had not been more effective in winning others to Christ. I tried to encourage him by telling him once again about God's grace and how our salvation does not depend upon effectiveness, but faithfulness. Tom had his surgery and survived. Since that time he and Evelyn have taken the issue of reaching out to lost people seriously. As a result, this morning we have two ladies with us: Sher and Bonnie. Both of these ladies came to the Lord as a result of the friendship of Tom and Evelyn.
Now Tom and Evelyn aren't theologians. They aren't preachers. They aren't slick salespeople. They're just common folks like most of the rest of us. But their lives have born fruit as they left the safety of the ninety-nine and went out to seek the one.
Is there rejoicing? You'd better believe it! On earth and in heaven, because that's the way it works.
Jesus was a friend of sinners. We should be, too.
Conclusion
As Thanksgiving approached in 1986, Graham Lacey, a Christian from England, was in New York City with some friends. They asked themselves who might be the loneliest man in the city and decided it would probably be the Libyan ambassador to the U.N. They invited him to Thanksgiving dinner and were pleased when he came. He said, "If people knew who I am, they would spit in my face. Your country has just bombed mine. Your people don't like Colonel Moammar Gadhafi, my leader."
After several weeks of interaction with the ambassador, Mr. Lacey received an invitation from Colonel Gadhafi to visit Libya in August 1987. He went, and during an audience with the leader in his Bedouin tent, he had the opportunity to speak of his faith in Jesus Christ. He was accused of believing a Zionist lie and replied, "Sir, I know Jesus Christ personally. I've experienced Him in my life."
A lengthy discussion followed, after which Lacey asked if he could pray. After consulting his advisors the colonel looked him straight in the eye and said, "Sir, you may pray."
Lacy says, "I prayed in the name of our Lord and Savior for (Gadhafi's) salvation, for his wife's and his family's and for revival, for an unprecedented outpouring of the Holy Spirit's power in Libya."
The Libyan leader embraced him and then had more discussion with his advisors in Arabic. Mr. Lacey was then told, "The distinguished leader would like you to pray again." When he hesitated, Gadhafi told him, "Nobody has ever told me before about Jesus. Nobody but a Muslim has ever prayed with me. I would like you to get down on your knees and pray again. This time Libyan television will televise it."
All this happened because a handful of Christ's servants chose to befriend a foreigner who was all alone.
That is how it happens, my friends. Whether it is in New York City or Sweet Home, Oregon, that's how it happens.
Where's Jesus in the picture? I think you know by now. And I think you know too that where He is, we should be also.
Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.
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