My name is Mark. I’m a 52-year-old husband and father of two grown children and I live with my wife of 31 years in a little white house in northern Indiana. Like most of the men who share my station in life, I have a loving family, a decent job, some favorite possessions and pastimes—and a fair number of friends and dreams and aspirations. All in all, I lead a pretty normal life.

But there is one outstanding thing about my life that I would like everyone to know about. One relationship I enjoy and treasure above all others. One person I have come to know in a uniquely intimate way. One introduction I long to make to everyone I meet, including you. I would like to present to you my best friend—Jesus.

I know—you have heard the name before. After all, Jesus is probably the most famous man who ever lived. In fact, introducing Him as my “best friend” may come across to you as a bit presumptuous, or flippant, or even ridiculous. But if you take the time to read this introduction, I can assure you beyond the slightest doubt (at least in my own little mind!) that a wonderful opportunity awaits you, especially if you haven’t yet come to know my friend Jesus.

I could begin by telling you my own story regarding my friendship with this Man, how I first heard about Him as a young lad and began speaking and listening to Him. But I can sum it all up by saying that Jesus is far more to me than just my friend, for many, many reasons. Jesus is my teacher, my leader, my counselor, my life-saver, my provider, my priest, my shepherd, my elder brother, my captain, my king, and my God.

Yes, we are talking about religious things here, but don’t turn me off just yet if you can help it. Jesus is not just a “religious figure” who gave me a list of do’s and don’ts to follow. Many religious figures walked through the pages of history, and most of them gave mankind superb words to live by. But my Jesus is unique. Our relationship with one another is grounded in a love and affection that is warm and true and real. When I talk to Him and share my hopes and fears, my wants and needs, my victories and failures, Jesus truly listens and truly cares. He speaks back to me with eternal words of love, tenderness, understanding and help. He has never made a promise and failed to keep it. He has never let me down when I trusted Him. He has never given me a reason to doubt or deny His love for me. What other friendship could make such a claim…

Like many people, I heard stories about Jesus Christ in church and Bible classes when I was very young. These stories described a kind, virtuous, powerful teacher and miracle worker who “came to save His people from their sins.” They were stories of a Man who said and did things that only God could have said and done. Jesus walked and talked and rode on donkeys and in boats. He got hungry and thirsty and lonely and sad. He was a human being just like me. But He was more.

Jesus knew what people were thinking. He knew that someone was sick before anyone told Him about it. He made sick and injured people better just by speaking or touching them. He walked on the top of a stormy lake. He stopped the storm by speaking to it. And when people bowed down to Him like He was God, He accepted their worship. To sum it all up, this Jesus was a Man who was also equal with God Himself. He called God “My Father.” He told the crowd, “I and My Father are one.”

Often we hear that a true friend is somebody who will tell you the truth if you need to hear it, even if that truth is painful or unpleasant. I guess you could say that this is the very way that my relationship with Jesus began. But Jesus, who came to save people from their sins, wasn’t just here to tell us all the wrong things we needed to change in our lives. As the God-Man, He was here to actually do something about those wrong things. He was here to save us from our sins.

Most of the people who met Jesus here during his lifetime on earth, hated Him. Why? Because He kept on teaching again and again that what they were doing was evil and wicked in the eyes of His Father and in His own eyes. He warned people again and again that one day, God’s anger against their wickedness would bring eternal punishment down on them. He told everyone who listened to Him that they needed to turn from their evil ways or else they would suffer terrible punishment that would never end.

People needed to hear this bad news from Jesus because they were all believing the lie that they could be good enough to please God on their own, just by doing their best to keep all of God’s laws. To the ones who accepted His words and believed Jesus came speaking the truth of God, He offered forgiveness of sins and eternal life because they trusted in Him, and not their own goodness, to save them.

But Jesus also did something even more amazing. He willingly allowed the angry people who rejected Him to put Him to death on a cross. This was the most painful, humiliating form of death people had ever devised. But that wasn’t the worst thing that happened to the God-Man. When Jesus was being crucified, His Father in Heaven placed all of the broken laws and ugly sins of all of His people on His Son’s tortured human body. Jesus was bearing the guilt and shame and responsibility for all of those crimes against a holy God—and God Himself was pouring out His eternal punishment for those sins onto His own sinless Son. Then, after Jesus accepted all of that unimaginable pain and separation from His Father, He gave up His human life declaring, “It is finished!”

Jesus had told his friends that His death was going to take place, and how it would happen. He also told them that after three days in the grave, He would come back to life again. And, true to His word, that is exactly what He did! He had said to his followers before He died, “I have the power to lay down my life, and I have the power to take it up again.” Only God could say that! When He left the earth behind to return to Heaven, He assured all those who believed in Him, “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Soon His followers were scattering all over the world telling people the good news that Jesus could save them from their sins if they would trust and follow Him.

My friend Jesus didn’t only die for the sins of the ones who knew Him during His life on earth. He was bearing the punishment of God for everyone who would trust Him because of His followers’ words as well—and that included me! Whoever hears and believes the truth about Jesus and His saving work, and turns from his or her sins to follow Him, will begin a never-ending friendship with this “Friend of Sinners.” That might sound like an odd name for the Son of God, the greatest Man who ever walked the earth. In His holy book, the Bible, He is called by many names: the Lord, the Christ, the Messiah, the Lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, Jesus of Nazareth, etc. But Jesus is glad to be known by that other name: “Friend of Sinners.” And I am so glad that He is.

He said Himself that He “came to seek and to save that which was lost.” His enemies thought it was scandalous that Jesus befriended the wicked, sinful, outcast people to whom they wouldn’t even give the time of day. Jesus answered those critics: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Jesus didn’t come into my life because I was somebody special or smart or talented or virtuous. He befriended me because I was a sick, unholy, wicked, pathetic, twisted sinner. He made a point of letting me hear about Him, even though I had no interest in knowing Him. He reached into my life when I couldn’t have cared less about God or what my sins deserved in God’s sight. He changed my dark, sinful heart into a brand new heart that truly wants to follow, love and serve Him. He showed me in His words a fantastic love story that sounds far too good to be true.

Your own name might also become a part in that incredible love story! You are also a hopeless sinner in God’s eyes. You need to be changed and to have your sins forgiven and washed away by the saving work of Jesus. You are powerless, just as I was, to get rid of the guilt of your sin that will one day force God to condemn you to endless punishment in hell. You need a sin-bearer. A substitute who came to take the sins of His people and suffer God’s wrath for those sins. Otherwise, you will suffer that wrath on your own—forever.

Jesus promised all who would trust Him: “Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” Ask God for that faith and trust and repentance from sin, today. Believe Jesus and His words of promise to every sinner who follows Him: “Whoever believes in Me will never perish, but have everlasting life.”

Thank you so much for allowing me to introduce you to my best friend:

Jesus, the Friend of Sinners (like you and me).

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