Be Present Among The Lost Series

It is my desire to preach on real issues that we deal with as believers, so here’s a real observation to start off with: Some believers act like once they have received God’s forgiveness and been saved from their sins by the blood of Jesus Christ that they’re somehow better than the lost. However, I must point out that believers are not without fault, but forgiven (1 John 1:9); they are not better, but blessed (Ephesians 1:3); and they are not greater; but rather, they have received grace (John 1:16).

It’s a sad fact that some believers become prideful in their position before God. C. S. Lewis stated that when an individual Christian starts “looking down his nose at other people . . . he has taken the wrong turning.”(1) Some believers are looking down their noses at those who are spiritually lost. They insist on keeping a safe distance from them, feeling that maybe their sinful behavior will contaminate them; or that, perhaps they will be seen as guilty by association; and for these biased reasons believers can fail to share their faith with the ones who actually need their help.

In our passage today, Jesus challenged those who deemed themselves as being the spiritually elite to consider just how valuable the lost are in the eyes of the heavenly Father.

Jesus Spent Time Among the Lost (vv. 1-2)

1 Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”

Here, we read how the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him teach, and that the Pharisees criticized Him for it. It’s interesting that the Scripture doesn’t simply throw everyone who was present into one big category and call them all sinners. There’s a distinction made between “tax collectors” and “sinners.” First of all, tax collectors were seen as the vilest offenders.

Tax collector [was] not a popular job, although presumably it paid well. In addition to taking people’s money, tax collectors were working for the Roman occupation forces; it wasn’t uncommon for the Roman authorities to auction off the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder.

In order to pay the Romans and still earn a profit, tax collectors and their publican employees could use vicious tactics to extract money from people - not that the Romans cared, so long as they got their share. In addition to the perception of tax collectors as being dishonest, they were also regarded as impure because of the constant contact with Gentiles.(2)

What about this group called sinners? When we hear of sinners we often think of the average person who tried to live according to the law and what was right, but would occasionally fall short. Even Christians sometimes mess up. The Bible says, “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10) and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

Some scholars suggest that they must have been deemed sinners because they didn’t keep the standards that the Pharisees kept; meaning, they did not wash their hands before eating, or some other aspect of ritual purity.(3) This interpretation is incorrect. Listen closely as I share from a commentary:

The “sinners” in the New Testament were not the ritually impure. Nor were they the everyday, average person who tried their best but who, because of human failing and limitation would tend to sin. In the New Testament, those people are called “the crowds.”

The term “sinners” that gets used in the New Testament (hamartoloi) is the same word that gets used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the word “wicked” . . . The sinners are those who know what the right thing to do is and just don’t care - the wicked [and] the unrepentant.(4)

Here we find Jesus eating with those who were dishonest crooks (the tax collectors); and keeping company with those who did not live according to any standard of righteousness, but who lived entirely for themselves (the sinners). So basically, we learn that Jesus spent time “hanging out” with the lost.

Are you, as a believer, being intentional about socializing with lost people - the ones who don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and who only seem to care about living for themselves? Or, are you afraid that if you do, that you’ll be condemned by the Pharisees of today - those legalistic individuals who tend to judge you, saying that you have lost your faith?

You have likely heard someone declare in a lofty manner, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (2 Corinthians 6:17); or perhaps, “Be ye in the world, but not of the world,” which, by the way, is a scriptural misquote from John chapter 17 (vv. 11, 14). Immediately after this often misquoted verse, Jesus prayed in John 17:15 that His disciples be kept safe from Satan while in the world, not that they be removed from ministry in the world.