(John 1:11)
�He came unto his own, and his own received him not.�
The text verse for this week has to be one of the saddest verses in the entire Scripture. Jesus came into a world which He had created. He came into a world for which He was prepared to die so that the people of the world could have salvation from their sin. He came into this world because He loved humanity. Yet, that world rejected Him.
Back when Linda and I were taking in homeless men, we had one man who had been in a mental facility because of a mental breakdown. He was on his way back to his home, North of us, when he called his family. They refused to allow him to return. It seemed as though, when he gave us the story, that his wife, ex-wife by that time, and his children didn�t want anything to do with this �crazy man.�
He was with us for years before one of his daughters wrote and offered him transportation to her home.
He was trouble from time to time. He had mood swings and hallucinations. Part of this, of course, may have been heightened by the rejection which he felt from his own family. But, for his family to reject him, in the complete manner they did so, seemed to be somewhat heartless.
We did our best to make a home for him with us. Still, he knew that it wasn�t his home.
This is the sort of thing that happened to Jesus on the earth He had created and loved.
You know, sometimes our churches do this same sort of thing.
How many of us have mistreated those who have come by our houses of worship. They may not have been dressed �properly.� They may not have known how we thought they should act in �our� churches. They may have just been strangers and, therefore, not part of our �clan.� How sad, more - how unChristlike, for us to treat others with this sort of disregard.
How many of us have mistreated those to whom we should have ministered the message that Jesus Christ died in time so that we could live in eternity? Maybe they�ve never shown up on our church doorstep. That is certainly not a reason to treat them with distrust!? Maybe they just don�t agree with us on every point of doctrine. Maybe they are sinful in their lifestyles.
Jesus ran into such a person in the nineteenth chapter of Luke. This man, Zacchaeus, was rich. But, he was a hated man because he had become a tax gatherer for the Roman occupation. Zacchaeus was seen as part of the oppression. He was judged as a traitor to his own people.
Jesus, however, saw this man as a soul which needed salvation. Jesus reached out to this man. The reaction of the people of the day? �And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.� (Luke 19:7)
I guess Jesus couldn�t get a call to pastor that church!
We all need a little more love and Christ in our preaching. We have too often displayed loathing and chastisement.
I was once asked, by a church board, if I would go into a tavern to speak to a sinner, �If God told me I should.� That was an easy question. �Of course.� �No,� came back the horrified response! �That is against our church doctrine.� �But, if God told me to...� �No! That would still be wrong.�
Jesus came to this earth with a plan. �He came...�
Jesus came to this earth to rescue us from our sin. He did this even before we knew the danger of our situation. �For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.� (Romans 5:6)
Isn�t that a convicting verse when directed toward our smug attitudes toward others?
I just received a letter from my doctor. I�ve been given an appointment to go to the hospital for a scheduled check-up. It is a large hospital. To the right of the front entrance doors there is a small section where wheel chairs are located in the same manner as are the carts at a grocery store. You can borrow one for your time at the hospital if needed.
Now, I�ve never seen a display quite like that anywhere else. Why not? The business of the hospital is to treat people who have infirmities. The hospital is prepared to carry out its function.
So, also should the churches, and the individual Christians, be ready to carry out our function as bearers of the gospel of Jesus Christ into a world in need.
I would imagine that the hospital had to pay quite a lot of money to make themselves accessible to their clientele. It was worth it, to them, because it was necessary that it be done so they could complete their mission.
We, as Christians, should be willing to pay the cost of personal sacrifice, small though it be, so that we can complete the mission given to us in the Great Commission. Our pride cannot be a hindrance. Our sensibilities cannot be a hindrance. Even our piety cannot be a hindrance. We do not - EVER! - compromise our position as children of God, but we do not let our attitude and position stand between us and the need of the sinner. We do need to, �...lay aside every weight and sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.� (Hebrews 12:1)
People are in sin and need to be rescued.
Remember, Jesus came to redeem us from the sin which weighed us down. Others are in the same predicament. Someone once took the time, and effort, to sit us down and explain the facts of life as pertains to sin and salvation. Someone once took the time to take our names before the Throne of Grace. Someone else once was not afraid to get his hand dirty by taking our hand and leading us to the Cross of Calvary.
It�s our turn now. We haven�t been saved to sit on a cloud and play a harp. We haven�t been saved to look at the rest of humanity and say, �I�m sure glad I�m not there!� We haven�t been saved so that we can feel good about our situation in grace.
We have been saved so that we can be of service to Jesus in the carrying forth of His message of salvation. We have been saved so that we can be of service to others who stand in sin and need to be shown the narrow gate that leads to salvation. We have been saved so that we can build up our spiritual muscles while working with the Lord in His great passion of seeking the lost.
Jesus came to this earth to redeem the lost. But, He also came to redesign our faulty lives into the Heavenly model. The Heavenly model looks upon the lost of the world and says, �These people are in sin. They need a Savior.� The Heavenly model will not look on in disdain at those who are not yet saved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Heavenly model will reach out in love, to call these persons to repentance.
Notice to whom Jesus came. He came to His people. �...unto his own...
These people were sinners. But, Jesus considered them as His own. He loved them and wanted better for them than they had without Him. He came to offer salvation to them where they stood. He didn�t say, �Get a little better and I�ll speak to you.� He said, �Come as you are. I�ll show you a better path.�
He came, as we can not, as the Author of the Universe. But notice that He still came according to the prophecies of the Law and the Prophets.
There are, literally, hundreds of prophecies which Jesus fulfilled while on this earth. Read, as a for instance, the twenty-second Psalm. This reads like an after-the-fact recitation of His crucifixion. Yet, it was written about one thousand years before He came, physically, to this earth. It is an amazing prophecy.
We, too, need to come according to the prophecies of the Scripture. Our own theories of right and wrong, our own prejudices, even our own doctrine is not what is needed. What we need with which to approach a world lost in sin, is the gospel message of Scripture.
We can�t preach culture. Even our culture is changeable. If we were to preach our culture we would soon be out of date.
A couple of years ago I had the privilege of picking up some college students at an airport about fifty miles from here. These were incoming students who were coming from, literally, all over the world. I really enjoyed showing them some of the local landmarks on the way in. I gave them a little history lesson of the area. How often, on these trips, did I use the words, �This is the former site of...�
I have a picture, taken from an airplane, of the �East End� of the town where I grew up. It dates from, about, 1965. It is amazing how much that area has changed in the past forty years. Blocks of houses that used to be are no more. Park land now covers those blocks. Business has replaces residence in other places. A couple of large apartment complexes now sit where farm land once covered the earth.
I have some of my old Junior and Senior High School year books. As my kids looked at them, when they were young, they would say, �You guys sure dressed funny back then.� Now others say the same about them.
We can not preach culture and fashion. It will not remain relevant to the ears of our hearers. But, we can preach the Bible. In truth, we must preach the Bible message. God is the Constant Contemporary. He, and His message, never go out of date because men and women always need to hear the same message of sin and salvation.
That last sentence, �...men and women always...� When I was a young preacher I would have only said, �...men always...� It would have been understood that the word �men� referred to �humanity� as a whole. No more. Not always.
Culture changes. God�s message, and God�s standards, do not change.
Jesus also came into this world as a person under the Law. Galatians 4:4-5 says, �But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem then that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.�
I think that there are two things I should comment on about this verse. First, Jesus was - as the Creator God - not under the curse of the Law as are all human beings. He was under the law in the sense He came to be fully human as our Substitute. He kept the Law, even though He was the Author of the Law. He did this as part of His humanity.
Second, look at the phrase, �...made of a woman...� The Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ is not simply a doctrine. It is a reality. Jesus was born without the agent of a human father. Had He been born in the natural way, He would have been endowed with the same sin nature that separates us from God. The fact of the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ is a necessary tenet of Christianity. Without the truthfulness of this event, Jesus could not stand as our Savior. He would have only been another man. A good man, to be sure. But, He would not have been the God-man Who could stand in my stead and effectively offer forgiveness for my sins.
May we always be cognizant of the fact that we, too, are under the law. When we attack others, we are just as guilty before a holy God as are they. The only thing that separates us from the world of sin is the fact that Jesus Christ died on the Cross of Calvary. When that sacrifice has been appropriated to our souls, we have forgiveness of our sins. This does not make us better than anyone. This only makes us redeemed.
Don�t misunderstand, this salvation that we have obtained from the sacrifice of Jesus, is the most important thing that we will ever possess or experience. But, it is not of us in any manner at all. Salvation is wholly of Jesus.
As Christians, we have no right, no reason, and no permission from the Lord, to �look down our nose� at any one. We have only the obligation to present the claims of Christ to others who are such as we once were, so that they may have the opportunity to experience this same great salvation. This is the purpose that Jesus sent us into the world. We are to continue His work of seeking sinners for salvation. We should do this in the same manner which He did this: With love, with compassion, and with respect for the person and the person�s need.
Jesus came as a provider of a sacrifice that no one else could provide.
We certainly can�t! We have no goodness, or specialness, within ourselves.
But, we do have the testimony of the truth that He has done this. We can, we should, we must relate this message to a world in sin. Our duty is to provide the story of His sacrifice so that others may be redeemed by His blood.
Of Jesus, may we also note His passion. �...and his own received him not.�
Jesus came to His Own people, in the natural sense, as the King of Israel. He was of the house and linage of King David. He was announced by prophecies. He was, is still for that matter, the promised Messiah.
The leaders of the religion of day never accepted Jesus as Who He was. At His crucifixion, the Roman governor placed a placard on the Cross. This was always done to announce to the crowd who might watch, that crime which the person being crucified had committed. The Roman governor wrote, �...JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.� (John 19:19) The reaction of the Jewish religious leaders was, �...Write not, The King of the Jews, but that he said, I am the King of the Jews.� (John 19:21)
Earlier in the chapter, verse 15, these same religious leaders had made the traitorous statement, �...We have no king but Caesar.� How offensive to their own religious sensibilities was that statement!
Still, they said these things rather than accept the Prince of Peace as the Messiah, The King of Glory.
Most of history has never seen the acceptance Jesus as the perfect sacrifice.
Jesus came to earth with one overriding purpose. He came to be the prefect sacrifice that could take away the sin of the world.
Never has mankind, in general, accepted this. Even in the, so-called, Christian churches, all too often, mankind has been told to accept the sacraments, to follow the church dictates, to do the best he can, to mortify his own body with pain, to meditate on Scripture as a means of salvation.
Any of these, when done as means of obtaining Grace, is an impediment to obtaining that Grace. Salvation is to trust, completely, in the work which Jesus did on the Cross of Calvary. When something else, anything else, is to be done alongside that trust, then the trust is not in Christ alone. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, �For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.�
How sad it is that mankind, even �religious� mankind, will not simply Trust the Christ Who came to earth to save our souls. How insulting that is toward Him!
Never has mankind, in general, either accepted Jesus as the Prince of Glory. He has been called a �Great Teacher.� He has been called a �Moral Example.� Reaching to sound religious, some have even called Him a �Religious Teacher.�
These are all true. But, they are all wrong.
One of my favorite meals is meatballs and spaghetti. Many times, when it was Linda�s turn to cook, she would say, �I�m making spaghetti tonight.� I�d ask, �With meatballs?� She would say, �Of course, with meatballs.�
Do you see the difference? Spaghetti is true; but, it is not accurate. Spaghetti, with meatballs, now that�s a meal!
Jesus is all of the above things. He is also the Lord of Glory. He is also the Prince of Peace. He is also God in flesh.
But, the important thing, from my personal standpoint, is that He is my Savior. His trip to the Cross bought my salvation. I can�t earn this. I can�t ever deserve this. But, I have received this salvation because Jesus, in history and in reality, bore my sins upon that Cross and has given me the remission of my sins on the basis of his atonement!
The great glory of that statement of fact!
What about you? Have you ever accepted Jesus as your Savior? Are your sins forgiven? Are you on the way to Heaven?
Why not just right now - where you sit, accept Jesus as your Savior? Accept the Gift of Salvation He offers.