Jesus Came for Sinners

“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”    —Mark 2:17

The other day, my daughter asked me to pick up a prescription at the hospital where she works. She gave me detailed instructions how to find the hospital’s pharmacy. I found a solid door with a locking handle, no windows, and a small sign that read, “Employees Only.”

As I waited to get the prescription, I was struck by the irony a hospital pharmacy for employees only. It seemed funny or odd or maybe sad. I know this hospital gives out thousands of prescriptions to in-patients every day, but I thought, “Don’t hospitals exist to heal the sick?” This particular pharmacy was an added convenience, a perk for employees.

The Church often functions like a hospital for healthy folks. The Church offers many great benefits to those of us on the inside. Sometimes only those who have been part of the church for many years know all the secret doors to open in order to find help. Those on the inside have all the connections to resources and assistance. A majority of the money in the western church goes to benefit those already righteous, already believers, already church members. Jesus said He came to call sinners. Jesus’ call and the Church’s mission are for those on the outside. Just as a hospital exists primarily not to benefit the doctors, nurses, and staff but the sick on the outside in need of healing; so the Church’s primary calling is to seek to save that which was lost. John Wesley told the early circuit-riding preachers, “You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work.”

The Church exists for those not yet a part of it. This makes for an interesting problem. Those who give nothing to the church budget, those having no vote or voice in the mission and vision of the church, and those most likely to criticize Christians are the exact persons whom Jesus calls us to focus on in ministry. We exist to reach outside ourselves. Of course, there should be great benefits to those inside. We should be responsible for each other just as a family cares for one of its members. Jesus told us to love one another, but Jesus also said to leave the 99 in the flock and to go find the one that was lost.

How much of your energy, money, and prayers go out to those who are lost. If we would do a time study, we would probably find most of our ministry time goes toward ourselves or those most like us within our church family. If we would do a simple analysis on our offerings and charitable gifts, we might be saddened by the fact we give in the exact opposite direction to the teachings of Jesus, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.” The next time you pray, compare the number of people you lift to God who are connected to a church with the number who have no church family.

We may not all be able to be Superman, Michael Jordan, or Sidney Crosby, but we can all serve like a Mother Teresa, encourage like a Barnabas, and pray with the faith of Peter, James, and John. The first command concerning the lost world was given by Jesus in Matthew 9, “Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest’” (37-38).

Many churches, Christians, and pastors are obsessed about the number of worshippers who attend their services. Jesus seemed to be more concerned about the numbers who are not attending. Jesus came to seek the lost and commanded us to go and make disciples. Which part of that command do we have trouble understanding, the “G” or the “O?”