I Love Sinners...

That may not come as a shock to many of you (or to the two of you that actually read this...) but I really do love sinners. I love to be around people who do not know the gospel of Christ and have yet to be changed by his loving grace and forgiveness. Some of my closest friends are people who are either foreign to or hostile toward the gospel of Jesus. And that's okay. Because I believe that loving sinners in a way that places me right in the midst of their lives actually brings a smile to the face of Jesus. And I believe it places me right where he wants me to be.

Yesterday in our Sunday morning college Bible Study we talked about the story in John 4 where Jesus encounters the woman at the well. Here is this woman, living in sin and ashamed of where her life has taken her. She even goes out of her way to make her daily water runs at a time when she won't have to encounter anyone who might cause her more shame or bring more judgement into her life. And yet as she goes through her daily routine, she encounters the One who loves sinners so much that he came and lived in our world. Jesus begins to talk to the lady on her turf and in her language. He shows her, through his conversation, that he genuinely cares about her. And then he drops a couple bombs on this poor woman. First of all, He calls out her sin to her face. Imagine what that must have felt like. I know I wouldn't want to be in her place. And then, after that, he tells her that He is the Messiah. Can you imagine the thoughts that must have been crashing through this lady's head. She has just come face to face with God in the flesh and He knows it all. He knows her darkness, her shame, her sin. He knows her loose lifestyle and every poor choice that she has made. Yet here He sits, sharing conversation and water with her. He knows it all, yet here he sits telling her that she is welcome and invited to worship the Father in spirit and truth. Here is the One who knows everything about her, yet he loves her anyway. I hope you can imagine what thoughts rang in her mind, because the One whom she encountered at the well is the One who encounters each of us, inviting and welcoming us to come and follow Him and worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Mark Driscoll says that our mission as believers is to be close to Jesus. He says that the gospel of Jesus and our freedom in Him is intended to allow us to dance as close to sinners as possible by crossing the lines that unnecessarily separate the people God has found from those he is still seeking. Driscoll says this actually protects us from sin, because the way to avoid sin is not to avoid sinners, but to stick close to Jesus.

I thank God that he has allowed me to live life in places where people do not know His love and grace. I love that my path in life sometimes takes me to places where I have to really struggle and strive to find where in the world God could possibly be working in a situation. I love sinners. And I love that the God who loves me loves sinners. It means that he loves me, because I'm one too. And it means that when I find myself close to those who do not yet know his love and whom He is still seeking, I find myself close to Him.