God seeks and saves the lost.
Imagine a man who doubles as a judge and social worker. By day he wears a black robe and dispenses justice. By night he wears blue jeans and walks the sidewalks of his crime-ridden city, befriending as many gang members and drug addicts as possible, hopefully to redeem their lives. On weekends he visits prisoners in the penitentiary, giving life-coaching and helping convicts care for their families and prepare to return someday to society as upstanding citizens. On holidays he volunteers at the hospital emergency room counseling with people experiencing drug overdoses.
Although he judges criminals according to the requirements of the law, he also loves criminals. In love he seeks criminals to help them. In love he saves those willing to be saved.
In a similar way, God is both Judge and Savior. Because of his love, he does not want to condemn sinners. Because of his love, he does not want anyone to perish, but all to be saved. And so, because of his love, he seeks and saves the lost.
God’s compassion for the lost
This is what we learn about God from the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Jesus both taught it and lived it. He went from town to town preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, delivering people from demons. Thereby he demonstrated God’s love. He did not come to judge, but to save.
Seeking and saving one notorious sinner
One incident especially brought this into perfect focus. As Jesus walked with his disciples and a crowd of people through one town, Jesus suddenly stopped, looked up into a tree, and spoke to a man who had climbed it to see Jesus as he passed by.
The man was a notorious sinner, one of the hated Jewish tax collectors who in greed had betrayed his people in order to work for the Romans and cheated his own neighbors by demanding more than they were required to pay.
Lunch with scoundrels
Well, Jesus invited himself over for lunch, and the tax collector cheerfully brought him home. He not only brought home Jesus and the 12 disciples, he invited all his tax collector friends. In no time, the man, whose name was Zacchaeus, believed in Jesus and was ready to repent of his evil. He stood up and announced, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.”
Like a perfectly ripe apple ready to be picked and eaten, Zacchaeus had been a sinful soul just waiting for a Savior.
One lost soul does an about-face
Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:8–10 ESV).
In this story Jesus demonstrated his gracious, uncondemning love for sinners, and then as some in the crowd complained about it, he explained God’s love unequivocally: “The Son of Man [Jesus] came to seek and to save the lost.”
This was the purpose of Jesus and this is the purpose of the Father. When you see Jesus, you see the Father (John 14:9).
The compassionate heart of a savior
Elsewhere Scripture says, “God our Savior…desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3–4).
Stated another way, the Lord is “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Scripture specifically attributes God’s soul-saving desire to his love: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:16–17).
Jesus’ mission of compassion
In the early stage of Jesus’ ministry, he stood up in a synagogue to read Scripture. He chose a text that was a prophetic description of the ministry of the Messiah. Jesus read it as a statement of his mission. It reveals the loving sympathy God has for sinners. Even though they have brought suffering on themselves through their wrongdoing, they are truly experiencing all manner of torment, and the God of love cares for those who suffer. So, Jesus reads:
“‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
“And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” (Luke 4:18–21).
In other words, Jesus said, that’s me. That’s who I am. That’s who the Father is. That’s what we’re about. We care about the poor, the captives, the blind, the oppressed.
God’s compassion for Satan’s victims
God has compassionate love for suffering sinners. He wants to save them from what destroys them.
Scripture says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
Jesus demonstrated this with a crippled woman who for 18 years had been unable to stand up straight. Scripture says, “She had had a disabling spirit”; that is, a demon had caused this affliction. Jesus laid his hands on her and healed her instantly.
When the synagogue ruler objected because it was the Sabbath, Jesus said, “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?” (See Luke 13:10–17).
This woman was not perfect. She had sinned in many ways as all people do. Yet God had compassion for her suffering inflicted by Satan. In love he wanted to set her free.
Three parables of love that saves
On another occasion, “the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him,” and the religious leaders again objected to Jesus’ welcoming them. Jesus defended his actions with three parables that emphasize the love of God that seeks and saves the lost.
The first parable told of a shepherd who lost one of his sheep and therefore left the ninety-nine to hunt for it until he found it.
The second parable described a woman who lost a coin and therefore swept the house thoroughly until she found it.
The third parable told of a father whose son took his inheritance and left the family. After the son ruined his life and decided to return, Jesus emphasizes the love of the father, which he demonstrated by his joy over the salvation of his son:
“The father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’” (Luke 15:22–24).
God acts as both judge and savior
The Old Testament Scriptures frequently show God acting as first the righteous judge and afterward the compassionate savior of people from his very judgment. This is the plotline of the books of Judges and all the prophetic books from Isaiah to Malachi.
One prophet wrote, “Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up” (Hosea 6:1).
The prophet Jeremiah lived through the judgment God brought on Israel when he brought Assyria to conquer the nation and carry them into exile. In the wake of all the sorrow that entailed, Jeremiah wrote of the Lord: “Though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love” (Lamentations 3:32).
Our way and God’s way
Our way: In a world of suffering and evil, fallen people often question God’s love.
God’s way: God’s heart is moved with compassion for suffering people, even when they are suffering for their sins against God. The gospel perfectly reveals God’s love as a seeking and saving love for lost sinners. His love does not want anyone to perish, but for all to be saved.
The great irony is that God compassionately seeks and saves sinners from his own judgment. God saves sinners from God’s wrath! He is both Judge of those who are not willing to be saved and loving Savior of those who are willing to be saved.
Life principle: When you feel completely unworthy of God, he loves you still. He seeks you as you are in your sins and wants to save you from them. He will certainly receive you if you will turn from sin in repentance and trust in Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)