Title: The worst? That’s me!

God does everything backward. That is, God does everything backward according to how we think.

When the Lord Jesus welcomed the worst of society’s sinners—IRS agents, telemarketers, spend-happy congressmen, anyone you would never invite for dinner—the holy guys went nuts. They muttered, "This man receives sinners and eats with them."

To their muttering, the Lord spoke about searching for the one lost sheep out of one hundred, and the one lost coin out of ten, and the rejoicing that shakes the floor and rattles the walls of heaven when the straying sheep and missing coin are back, safe and sound, in the fold and in the purse.

If you feel that only missing one percent of your sheep isn’t so bad—that you are content with ninety-nine—the Lord would ask you, "Where’s your head? Where’s your heart?"

If you were the lost sheep or coin, how would you feel if your owner gave up on you? If you were the lost sheep or coin, how would you feel if your owner did not give up on you, and finally found you, and brought you back to where you belong?

Lost sheep? Lost coins? We’re talking about lost sinners. And, every sinner is a lost sinner, unless and until found by Jesus Christ. And, in this world, Jesus Christ does His work of finding sinners through His Church—and that’s His pastors, and that’s His teachers, and that’s His every member. That’s you, and that’s me.

And, if Jesus gets in the face of the Pharisees, who couldn’t stand Him for hanging with the worst of sinners, telling about the rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents—over that one-hundredth sheep who returns to the fold, that one coin that once more jingles with the rest—then, you know how you should feel, you who claim to be sheep of the Good Shepherd Jesus, for whom He has already searched, and found, and returned to the fold of His Father’s green pastures.

Who is the lost sheep or coin in your life, in your family, among your friends? The last few weeks, I have been in an astounding number of places and situations, with both members and not, and witnessed so many of your family and friends who are in need of you to be searching for them, because they are straying sheep and lost coins.

Meet Saul. You know him better as Paul. You probably also know that he was not one of Jesus’ first apostles, but one of those close-minded, opinionated Pharisees, who continually accused Jesus of hanging with the worst sinners. Worse than that, Paul eventually found out that he was one of them: "I was a blasphemer—that’s a person who speaks lies about God—persecutor—he was going around having Christians put to death—and insolent opponent"—he was a bold, brazen, snot-nosed enemy of Jesus, who knew that he was right and Christians were wrong.

Thinking of the Gospel lesson, about straying sheep and lost coins, you would have considered Paul not worth your time or search. You would have thought him too far gone. You would have felt that he would never see the light, anyway, so why waste your time.

Can you imagine how heaven’s floor shook and walls rattled the day that the Lord Jesus knocked that blaspheming, persecuting, insolent opponent onto the pavement of the road to Damascus and set onto his feet the man who would be Jesus’ prime apostle and writer of the greater portion of the New Testament?

Ah, but, see, God does everything backward. That is, God does everything backward according to how we think.

So, this Paul chap admits who he was. He tells us that God was merciful to him. He had not been acting out against Jesus in unbelief—that is, he hadn’t rejected Jesus, but had been completely ignorant that Jesus was, in fact, whom we confess Him to be in the creeds.

Then, Paul writes something that is as backward to our thinking as a pineapple-upside-down-pizza: "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." Or, as better fits the familiar hymn we just sang: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief."

Here comes the difference between this world and God, making God’s thinking seem so backward to ours. This is the difference between Law and Gospel—between laws and love.

Imagine going before a judge, accused of a crime. What will your defense attorney have you do? He will have you plead not guilty. He will have you plead that, because that is what you have been telling him, even when you did, in fact, commit the crime.

When we are on the spot for a crime, for a sin, for an offense, for anything by which we could get into trouble, we do any of the following: we lie, we make excuses, we blame someone else, we claim that it didn’t really happen that way, we run. We don’t admit it. Admitting it means we have to suffer the consequences.

That’s why courts of law need judges and juries, because defendants lie and everything else, but rarely admit the truth and face the music. Under the law, you have to suffer the consequences, and who wants to do that? But, under love, God does everything backward.

Under God’s love, it’s actually the wise thing to freely admit your guilt, to say, "Yeah, I’m the one. I did it." When you are judged by God’s love, and not by law, the consequences of your crimes are not accounted to you. You don’t have to do the time. You don’t have to pay the fine. You don’t wind up with a felony rap sheet which will limit your freedoms.

In fact, it’s exactly the opposite. When you try to hide your crimes and sins from God, and not throw yourself on the mercy of His court—when you don’t throw your hope on the Good Friday death and Easter resurrection of Jesus Christ—then, you remain under God’s Law and are liable for the penalties of breaking that Law—and that’s eternal death and damnation.

Thus, you step before God and you freely, fully, and without embarrassment admit that you are a poor, miserable sinner. More than that, you claim to be the chief of sinners—that there’s no one else, in all the world, who has broken God’s laws more than you—er, wait, I guess I need to say, "More than I," since we are admitting that each of us is the chief of sinners.

In this world, you pay for your crimes. In God’s world, Jesus pays for your crimes. God has it all backward . . . in the most wonderful way.

And, so, the Church works backward. We teach you to admit your sins—and admit them with gusto—so that you can walk out as free people, the children of God. Here, we don’t pronounce sentence upon you; we pronounce forgiveness in the name of Jesus, who took your sentence to the cross. We bathe you in His Baptism. We feed you in His Communion. We teach your children in the church school and Sunday school, and we keep teaching you in Bible class, so that you think as God thinks: completely backward from the world.

So that you think from a position of love. So that you want to search for the straying sheep and lost coins of your life, the family and friends who need to know what you know: you are the worst sinner in all the world. And, in admitting the truth, you are the most blessed in all the world, for you possess the freedom of forgiveness in Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners. And, He found you, and saved you. And, heaven rejoices every time you recite that trustworthy saying: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief." Amen.