I want to be a friend of God. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God (James 2:23; 2 Chronicles 20:7; Isaiah 41:8). I want to be a person after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). I want to follow after God’s word with integrity of heart and mind (Joshua 1:8). I want to live a blessed life.
How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night (Psalm 1:1-2).
To be a friend of God means that I must also be a friend of sinners. One the complaints made against Jesus by the Pharisees was “This man receives sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). In fact, Jesus didn’t seem to be too discriminating about the company he kept. He was known to eat at the table of Pharisees and tax-collectors alike. He sat with a Samaritan woman (John 4); and a known prostitute washed his feet (Luke 7:36-39). Because of the company he kept, he was accused of being a “gluttonous man and a drunkard” (Matthew 11:19). Jesus answered his critics,
It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: “I desire compassion, and not sacrifice,” for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners (Matthew 9:12-13).
I fear that we have failed to share the gospel because we are not friends of sinners. We insist upon a sterile environment thinking that its holiness, but it is only self-righteousness. Jesus accused the Pharisees of being “whitewashed tombs… full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matthew 23:27). The Pharisees believed that following the rituals of holiness made them holy. They refused even to enter the home of a Gentile, and they certainly would not eat at the table of a sinner. That’s what scandalized Jesus. Maybe that’s what we need in the church – a real scandal. I don’t mean the kind of scandal when the sins of a hypocrite are revealed; but when a sanctified believer becomes a friend of sinners.
Too many Christians prefer the naïve and sterile innocence of the three mystic apes – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. Our sterile pietism has caused us to be disengaged from the world corrupted by sin, and sinful people. But the world of the Bible is not sterile. As I read through the pages of the Bible I am confronted by a world of violence, debauchery, sexual immorality, and coarse language. In the midst of this world we find of the stories of holy men and women of faith who dared not to be defiled by the world, even as they lived in the world.
I often read the Facebook posts of various Christians advising their “peeps” that if “you post anything offensive on my page I’ll de-friend you.” Well, I’ve decided not to de-friend anyone. I’ve decided to be a friend of God in this corrupted and sinful world. I’ve decided to be a friend of sinners. Instead of being offended by the corruption of this world, I will offer compassion. I will walk in the Spirit with my eyes, ears, and heart wide open. I will seek to be the friend of sinners so that I my introduce them to my friend, Jesus.
