By Barnabas Piper
Scripture Reading: Psalm 25:3, Psalm 28:6-9, Jonah 3:1-10, Luke 19:1-10, Acts 9:17-31, Romans 5:6-11
I have two teenage daughters, which means a good portion of my energy is spent worrying about them. I worry about their safety, their peer group, their social media interactions, but I especially worry about their spiritual well-being. I realized recently, though, that my worry denies the heart of God toward sinners and the means He uses to call them to Himself. I don’t trust that God will be as faithful to my children as He has been to me, despite an abundance of evidence in their lives, in my life, and especially from His word.
The Bible makes clear God’s posture toward the lost. We see it in stark, unmistakable terms in Romans 5:8: “But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” God sent Jesus to save sinners. His heart is for the lost, to call them to Himself. Jesus says as much in Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” This was the purpose of Jesus’s ministry and why he was called the “friend of sinners.”
Notice the phrasing of that verse, however. Jesus came to seek and save. He didn’t merely wait for sinners to find him, He sought us out. When Jesus does this, it is an embodiment of the heart of God. God did not develop a heart for the lost; He always had it. That’s why He sent Jonah to Nineveh to call a city full of sin and rebellion to repentance. It’s why the psalms tell us to cry out to Him and that He is a strength and shield and shelter. We see that in the story of Zacchaeus when Jesus declares that He will be a guest at the house of this dishonest man, only to lead Zacchaeus to repentance and new life. God desires lost people to come to Him. And He uses unlikely means to bring them.
Jonah was a reluctant prophet (to put it kindly). Paul was a persecutor of Christians. Both experienced God’s profound patience and mercy and then proclaimed the truth of God’s word, leading thousands upon thousands to repentance. They were unlikely messengers, known more for their failures than their holiness, and God used them. In fact, the Bible is woven through with evidence that God seeks out the lost, shows mercy to them, calls them His own, and then puts them on mission for Him.
So when I think about my children, why worry? I see God’s heart and His history. When I think about my own life, I know I was sought and saved—and now get to call others to new life in Jesus. All of us who are followers of Christ have received this, and now we are called to seek out the lost as we were sought out, welcoming them as God in Christ welcomed us.
Written by Barnabas Piper
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