UNLIKE JESUS! One Area Where Jesus-Followers Excel! (Part 1)

In this new series of posts, I want to investigate one specific area where we Jesus-followers aren’t following Jesus as we should.  Of course, we fail in many ways to be like our Lord, but there is one particular area that I’m convinced we’re missing.  And we (and the church) are worse off because of our oversight.

That area is . . . being a friend of sinners as Jesus was.   We read in Matthew 11:

¹⁶ “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

¹⁷ “‘We played the pipe for you,
    and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
    and you did not mourn.’

¹⁸ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ ¹⁹ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”

There is so much in this passage that we need to examine.  The Lord Jesus is giving His evaluation of His contemporary culture and He says that it is like a bunch of children pouting!  They are upset, He says, because He (and John the Baptist — the “you” of verse 17 is plural) aren’t dancing to the tunes they are playing.  He is neither dancing to nor mourning because of their music — and they are upset with Him.  Their vocal mockery and taunting highlight the fact that Jesus is living out His life to the music of another Singer.  And this did not please them. (to be continued)