Jesus offended religious leaders of his day by hanging around with sinners.

Jesus explained his way: to find the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7).

In response to Jesus, church error number one: to stop finding the sheep.

When we give this up – that is, do no gospel proclamation – we demonstrate by how much we misunderstand Jesus. And perhaps that we are scared of hard work for Jesus. We can give it up deliberately or incidentally. It’s deliberate when we decide church is OK as it stands, or that we wish to focus on being pure for God. It’s incidental when we speak about evangelism instead of practising evangelism.

In response to Jesus, church error number two: we teach that the sheep are not lost.

There’s a lazy slide from ‘Jesus loves them’ to ‘therefore they must be ok.’ If we downplay the lostness of sin, Jesus’ work makes no sense. If ‘they’re ok’, then why did Jesus have to go to the cross? Why was there no other way (Matthew 26:39)?