Life of Christ #7 -Why Jesus Felt at Home With Sinners and Outcasts

Here’s another 25,000 praying for the lost. But Gene…don’t be so sure. Just wait a minute. Here are another 50,000 praying for money, hope, help. Here’s another 350,000 praying for somebody…people who are sick. Then there are a couple of million out there just crying, “God, help me. I’m in big trouble. I know I got myself in this trouble. Get me out now, and I’ll just…I’ll repent for sure. I’m probably going to change my ways if You’ll just get me out of it.” All day long, there they are: two, three million prayers in the last hour—petition, petition, petition, petition, petition, and more petition.

When I ask you, if you were God, how did you feel about that? If you were God, Gene, you’re a radical. Can’t you qualify this a little bit? Not tonight. Not today. Tonight I’m going for the jugular. With their fasts and their many petitions. Petitions. God, do this. Please do this. Lord, I’m asking You for this. That is prayer as the Christian faith knows it today, and it is virtually the only kind of prayer known. There’s a little bit of adoration and worship thrown in, but it’s mostly words. It’s mostly, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. I want to say to you, one more time, you got it mixed up with Santa Claus.

What is God like? I’ll tell you what God is like. God just had a wonderful, a wonderful time at a banquet where people ate too much and drank too much. He’s got John’s disciples shocked, and He’s got the Pharisees shocked. They are looking at Him, and they are saying to Him, ” We have been watching You for one year, Jesus of Nazareth, and we have a definite impression. You folks believe in having a good time, and your disciples don’t pray.”

I want to repeat that. Don’t pray. Do you mean the followers of Jesus Christ don’t pray? That’s what it says: that the Pharisees have a multitude of prayers and a lot of fasting, and nobody has ever seen Jesus’ disciples praying or fasting. Think about it. No petitions are coming up from the Christians. They are doing something else. What are they doing, sister? Oh, oh, oh, that’s good, but more than following Him, what do they do? They’re eating, drinking, and making merry.

Throughout the Old and New Testaments, what does drinking and eating always signify? It signifies fellowship. They are having a great time fellowshipping with the living God, and He is having a great time fellowshipping with them. Well, I’ll tell you something. If I had to sit up on my throne up in the heavens somewhere for two or three thousand years listening to people say, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, I’d be ready for a little fellowship too, wouldn’t you?

Have you ever thought, dear Christian out there, that the Lord might just enjoy some fellowship with you? And if you would quit saying, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, and petition, petition, petition, petition, you might get to know Him? If you’d sit down and fellowship with Him and have a good time with Him…oh, but it says right here, Gene, that when the bridegroom leaves, then we’ll fast and pray. So, we Christians have to fast and pray.

Well, I’m not going to make a big case out of this, and I know there’s a point, but there are only three days in the history of mankind when this planet was left godless…and during those three days, they fasted and prayed. When I leave here, they will fast and pray. Well, perhaps they were fasting and praying on the day of Pentecost. I don’t doubt that. I want to come to that in a minute, but I’m going to put that off as long as possible.

Do you have fun with Jesus Christ? Do you fellowship with Him? Will you please see the living God on this earth taking time to have fun with a bunch of people? Really enjoying Himself to the point that it is shocking. His disciples are known for their capacity to put away food and drink, not for their capacity to pray and fast. This is incredible. Absolutely astounding. It’s revolutionary.

I want to say to you out there…yeah…we’re torn here. We don’t fast enough—no question about it. Christians are flabby when it comes to fasting. We don’t preach the cross of Christ enough. Brothers and sisters, do not bear the cross of Christ with one another enough. That over here on this end is greatly neglected, and that’s perhaps one extreme of the Christian faith.

What’s just as neglected on the other side is this marvelous fellowship with a God who likes to go to banquets and eat and drink and spend time with people and not sit there having to be begged all the time. So what do we do? We sit here in the middle with our petitions and our soberness and our seriousness…without going to the cross…and without enjoying Him. We’ve missed not one mark, but both of them. And we’ve ended up in the middle…with no fun, and no fellowship. Petitions and fasting are all that’s left. I get so excited to think. How much my Lord likes to eat and drink.

I come back to a story from the book of Exodus that I’ve been told so often. When they went to Mount Sinai, 71 or 72 people faced the living God. Instead of being struck dead, they sat down, ate with Him, and drank with Him. That should tell you a great deal about your Lord. I would admonish you to get up in the morning and remember that your Lord wouldn’t mind sitting and just having a really good, pleasant time fellowshipping. He likes to eat and drink, and He would like for you, even more…He would like for you to eat and drink.

Well, the Pharisees are having a hard time, and John’s people are having a hard time. The Lord tells a story that is very, very often mistold. I want to tell it because, in my judgment, He tells it both ways, and I think it is well worth hearing.