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The following is a transcribed Video Q&A, so the text may not read like an edited article would. Scroll to the bottom to view this video in its entirety.
I would say, “then why did Jesus come and die on the cross?”. If we had to get our act together first, then Jesus wouldn’t have had to pay the penalty for our sin. He wouldn’t have had to live that perfect life. We wouldn’t have needed a savior we would have needed a life coach. But we don’t. We need a Savior. We are desperately bad, we are wicked.
Jesus never says, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest after you clean yourself up.” Those are never his words. His words are always welcome. When you look at his life, who did Jesus interact with? What was he accused of? Of being a friend of sinners. Glorious truth for us is that Jesus is a friend of sinners. You know who he didn’t like to hang out with? The people who thought they had to get their act together to come to him. Did not hang out with those guys, had some pretty gnarly words for them.
I want a Savior who is a friend of sinners because I qualify every day for that. Every day I wake up and I qualify. I need a friend, and I’m a sinner. And every day Jesus is like, “I call you friend”. John 15, I call you, my friend. And all I have to do to earn that is be a sinner. “Hey, I did it.” I did it today and I’ll do it tomorrow. That doesn’t make me want to be a sinner or continue in my sin. That makes me want to love Him and love His people with zealousness.
The common misconception is clean yourself up. But what Jesus says over and over again in the New Testament and how he lived his life was “I like the guys who are dirty, because I want to clean them up.”
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/AntonioGuillem
Originally published Wednesday, 31 May 2017.
