https://assets-cdn2.dropwave.io/086174f0-efbe-400f-a3e9-b91549a26ab7/media/Trinity 3 AD 2026.mp3

https://app.dropwave.io/show/our-savior-lynchburg/trinity-3-ad-2026

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You must be a sinner

The Pharisees were partly right. God does judge the evildoer. His law doesn’t have carveouts or special treatment. God is a jealous God. He will not give His glory to another. He punishes sin. Sinners receive the reward for their sin in this life; then with physical death; then with eternal separation from God in hell. The soul who sins shall die (Ezekiel 18:20).

The Pharisees are very interested to see if Jesus treats sinners the way that God does. If the Pharisees are right, then surely Jesus will only consort with the pious and the holy — with those who keep themselves pure before men. Those are the only people God loves.

That’s why the Pharisees are more than a little put out to discover that Jesus doesn’t only spend time with them. For all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him (Luke 15:1). Hold up! Time out! God isn’t supposed to hang out with them. He’s only supposed to hang out with the righteous. That’s us!

But Jesus won’t join their “us versus them” game. Jesus is asking something else. What is a sinner? Who is a sinner?

The Pharisees had a partial answer. A tax collector is a sinner. He betrays his own people by collecting taxes for a foreign occupying government — and then he collects lots more for himself. A prostitute is a sinner. (I won’t take time for the full argument here, but usually when the phrase “tax collectors and sinners” is used by the Pharisees, it means “tax collectors and prostitutes.”) Adulterers and fornicators and homosexuals are sinners. So are liars and thieves and robbers. Sabbath despisers are sinners. Also idolaters and those who fail to tithe properly — they’re sinners. Gentiles. Apostates. False teachers. Magicians and witches, sorcerers and necromancers — all sinners. Drunkards. Gamblers. Fraudsters. You get the idea.

Yet as broad as the Pharisees’ definition of ‘sinner’ was, God’s definition is more inclusive. For a sinner is one who transgresses God’s righteous law — in whole or in part — by actions or words or desires. Cursed is the one who does not confirm all the words of this law by observing them (Deuteronomy 27:26).

If you were a Pharisee, this definition of ‘sinner’ was a problem for you. The Pharisees’ outward deeds appeared righteous, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness… full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:27, 28). Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness (1 John 3:4).

The Pharisees were wrong about sin. Keeping your sin only on the inside so that your neighbor doesn’t see it doesn’t make you righteous. If you have sin in your heart or mind — evil thoughts, wicked desires — you’re still a sinner. You are still breaking God’s law.

But this is a dangerous place to be: outwardly bearing the appearance of righteousness; inwardly full of sin and death. It’s dangerous to your soul because you can start to think that being outwardly pure makes you righteous before God so that you don’t need any repentance. God threatens to punish all who break these commandments. Therefore, we should fear His wrath and not do anything against them (Close of the Commandments).

We should also pause to say that this doesn’t mean that inward sin and outward sin are equal. The Fifth commandment is broken both by bearing a grudge and by slaying your neighbor — but the state only punishes the murderer. The Third Commandment is broken both by those who openly reject or despise God's Word and by all Christians who sin against it in their hearts. Yet the church must discipline those openly despise God’s Word. Parents, too, even though they do not keep God’s commands perfectly, must discipline their children (more on that in a bit).

So long as someone is without repentance, he is lost to God and cannot find his way back. Whether one is outwardly righteous or not doesn’t change this reality. Anyone who wanders away from the Lord is lost.

Salvation for the sinner

The parables Jesus tells might be summarized this way: repentance is being found by Jesus. This is good news because, as Saint Paul reminds us: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief (1 Timothy 1:15).

Notice what part of his life Paul is describing. Not his former life of being the most meticulous Pharisee. Not the time he spent mistreating Christians and handing them over to death. Paul doesn’t just say that he was the chief of sinners then. Rather, now, as one of the Lord’s own apostles, he says I am the chief sinner.

That’s what makes it good news that Jesus comes looking for sinners. He came to find all those who are lost. He came to go after the sheep lost in the wilderness — the one that was too afraid to hope for rescue; too weighed down to rise up; too lost to even know which way to go. Jesus came to find that lost lamb “shamed and sunk in misery” (Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle).