The New Testament reveals that there were certain groups from which Jesus’ opponents primarily came. Those groups were the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the lawyers, the elders, and the priests. What is important to point out about these groups is that together they comprised the religious establishment of the Jews. Let me tell you just a little bit about these groups. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the two most influential Jewish denominations or Jewish sects; the scribes and the lawyers were considered to be experts in the law of the Hebrew Bible; the elders were community and national leaders who enjoyed seats of honor in the synagogues; and the priests were the Jewish clergy. You can see how together they formed the religious establishment of the Jews in the time of Jesus.

I would like to draw your attention to one indication that Jesus’ disciples were themselves somewhat impressed by at least one of these groups. Jesus’ disciples actually questioned Jesus for offending some Pharisees. You see, Jesus had delivered a stinging comment in which He called some Pharisees, "hypocrites." Listen to the reaction of the disciples in Matthew 15:12. They said to Jesus, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?" This question from Jesus’ disciples indicates that they did not think that Jesus should have been so strong in what He said against the Pharisees. Why did Jesus’ disciples think that? Did they respect the Pharisees? Did the disciples fear the power and influence of the Pharisees? I don’t know. But at the very least the disciples’ question is indicative of the importance of the Pharisees to the Jewish nation at the time of Jesus. And biblical and non-biblical sources make quite clear that the other groups were also extremely influential.

But notice how Jesus responded to the disciple’s question concerning His sharp indictment of the Pharisees. Jesus said,

"Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind. And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit" (Matthew 15:13-14).

Jesus insisted that the Pharisees were flawed, seriously flawed. The Pharisees, Jesus declared, were blind guides and whoever followed them would fall into a pit.

This morning we want to study the New Testament’s Gospels to discover how Jesus changed the world. And one of the things I want us to notice at the very beginning is that Jesus did not change the world by becoming an ally of the religious leaders of His day or by becoming a member of the religious establishment. Instead, the groups that made up that religious establishment were constantly at odds with Jesus concerning His teachings and His actions. And Jesus delivered biting criticisms of each one of these groups. In Matthew 16:6-12 Jesus forthrightly taught His disciples to "beware . . . of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees;" and in Luke 12:1, in the presence of a crowd of thousands, Jesus warned concerning the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. In Mark 12:38-40, Jesus taught, right in the Jerusalem temple, and denounced the scribes by saying:

"Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation."

In Luke 11:52 Jesus turned on the lawyers and said, "Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge; you did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering." Matthew 21, Mark 11, and Luke 20 all tell of a time when the chief priests, scribes, and elders were questioning Jesus’ authority. In response to that exchange Jesus told the Parable of the Wicked Tenants through which Jesus clearly revealed God’s disgust with these very leaders, and the text makes clear that those leaders knew that was what Jesus was doing. It is no surprise that all four Gospels reveal that it was the priests and the leaders of the Jewish people who conspired to have Jesus crucified, and all four Gospels make very clear that it was the Jewish religious establishment that made sure that the cry to crucify Jesus sounded loudly in the ears of Pilate, the Roman governor.

If Jesus did not change the world by drawing the religious establishment around Him, how did He do it? He did it by reaching out to the outsiders––those whom the religious establishment shunned, those whom the religious establishment humiliated and intimidated by their arrogant attitudes and behaviors.

Jesus effected change by touching the lives of the outcast. As our Scripture reading this morning reveals, Jesus was "a friend of tax collectors and sinners." And in Mark 2:15-17 we read,

And as [Jesus] sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners."

It seems verse 17 is teaching us that even if the Jewish religious establishment had been truly righteous, Jesus would still have not come to call them. Jesus came with the fixed intention, the clear purpose, to call those on the outside, those who were ostracized from the religious heritage which was intended to bless them and to give to them a covenant relationship with God. God sent Jesus to change the world by reaching the utterly lost.

And Jesus was true to the purpose for which God sent Him. Tax collectors were despised and shunned by the devout Jews of Jesus’ day. Jesus reached out and touched tax collectors in powerful and loving ways. Many of us can easily think of two tax collectors whom Jesus especially touched, one named Levi and another named Zacchaeus.

Jesus drew the sinful. We have the wonderful story in Luke 7 of the woman whom everyone seems to have known was a sinner. She bathed, dried, and anointed Jesus’ feet while He was eating in the home of a Pharisee. The Pharisee saw this happening and said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him—that she is a sinner" (Luke 7:39). Jesus’ Pharisee host believed that any claim that Jesus’ was a prophet was totally disproved by the fact that Jesus was allowing a sinner to touch Him. The story makes clear that Jesus did know who and what kind of woman was touching Him. In fact, Jesus forgave her sins and said to her, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace" (Luke 7:50). This Pharisee’s view of what God ought to do through God’s messengers could hardly be more different from the actual purpose of God as revealed in Jesus.

The Jewish religious establishment wanted a religion of separation, a religion of distance, a religion centered upon a God Who was only interested in the religious, the religious who valued a personal purity based upon rituals and acts of piety. God’s love was far too big for that. God’s love in Jesus reached out to the ones the religious establishment would not even touch much less love.

Jesus changed the world by reaching out to sinners, and not just any sinners. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, the lawyers, the elders, and the priests were sinners; the text of the Gospels makes that clear. But Jesus reached out to the sinners who were the most isolated from faith and worship and a sense of covenant with God. They felt themselves unworthy of God’s love; and it seems that everyone else felt the same way about them, that is, except for God. God sent Jesus to reach them, to reach those sinful persons whom the pious would not even touch. And through the reaching and touching of the untouchables, God changed the world through Christ Jesus.

Last week we saw in the Old Testament that God sought to effect change in the world by blessing people through what God did with, through, and for God’s people. God wanted Israel to be "a light to the nations" which would draw people to faith in God. I do not believe that God’s purpose has changed. God still wants the people of faith to be a conduit of blessing, a light to the nations that God uses to draw people to faith, to draw people to the abundant life found in Christ Jesus. And I believe that God still wants to do that by reaching out with special energy toward the utterly lost. And who are the utterly lost? They are the ones who have no connection to the covenant of God in Christ Jesus. They are the ones outside of any community of faith. They are the ones who are rarely if ever exposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In Jesus’ day that group of utterly lost was made up of the poor and the rich––from the wealthy tax collectors to the blind who had to beg just to get by. It was made up of those who were religiously confused, like Peter and his fishermen partners. The utterly lost of Jesus’ day were also those whose lives were filled with moral darkness, like the prostitutes. Jesus reached out to many types of people, but the common denominator was that they were on the outside of meaningful engagement in the covenant community of God.

Please take the special handout from your worship bulletin. It is the one with "Ever Becoming a People of Love" printed along the bottom. This handout contains a statement of Broadway’s foundational beliefs, Broadway’s mission, Broadway’s vision, and Broadway’s goals. We looked at the foundational beliefs and mission last week, but let me say again that the beliefs and mission portions of this material point us away from ourselves; they direct us outward to the lost. Look, for example, at the mission statement: "The Broadway church of Christ exists to call all people to God through Jesus Christ; to equip all members with a faith that works in real life; and to send those members into the world for service in Jesus’ Name." This statement begins and ends and is always focused on reaching out. We want to call people to God––that is outreach. We want to equip every member of this body so that can serve in real life––that is training in outreach. We want to send those equipped members into the world for service in Jesus’ Name––that is outreach.

Now look at the vision statement which is also found on the banner over my head: "Ever Becoming a People of Love." We want to love and we want to love like Jesus loved. We want to reach out to the ones who most need the gospel without regard to their station in life, without regard to how religiously or morally impure they may seem, without regard to anything but their desperate need for Jesus. We are going to quit focusing our attention on arguing with other members of Lubbock’s religious establishment. We are going to follow Jesus’ pattern of touching the religiously untouchable. We are going to be used by God to effect change in the world by transforming the lives of those who are the most distant from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Now look at the foundational goals on your handout. Notice that they are organized according to four areas of our church-life: worship, evangelism, benevolence, and edification. I want to read through these very quickly and them comment on them as a group. The first one relates to worship and says, "Our love for God and for people causes us to commit to worship assemblies that God can use to draw people into God’s redemptive presence." The second one on evangelism says, "Our love for God and for people causes us to commit to active involvement in God’s work to redeem all people from sin in order to give them abundant life. The third one on benevolence says, "Our love for God and for people causes us to commit to an active, generous, and redemptive compassion for the poor and troubled." The fourth and final statement relates to edification; it says, "Our love for God and for people causes us to commit to the nurturing of faith in people of all ages and to the enriching of Christian fellowship and unity." Again the goal of reaching people and growing people and blessing people like Jesus did is at the heart of everyone of these goals.

Sisters and brothers, may we all take hold of these foundational beliefs, this mission, this vision, and these goals. Let’s follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Let’s be a light to the nations. Let’s reach out to the utterly lost with the message of Christ Jesus our Lord!!