Calling all sinners

“Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’” Luke 5:31-32
The first step in coming to Christ is to admit that you are a sinner. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken every one of God’s laws, or just one – the Bible tells us, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it” (James 2:10). Getting to heaven by keeping the law is like hanging on the end of a chain. It doesn’t matter if one, or ten, or a hundred links in the chain are broken, you are going to fall. None of us will be declared righteous by God, apart from faith in Jesus Christ (Rom. 3:20-22).
Here is one of the great mysteries of the gospel: that Jesus calls us while we were still sinners (Rom. 5:8). He reached down into the cesspool of this sinful world, and pulled us out. We can’t do anything to save ourselves. If we had to clean up our lives before we could be saved, then it would be salvation by works, and the door would not be open to all.
Another way of reading this verse, especially in the light of the attitude of the Pharisees He was talking to, is, “I have not come to call the self-righteous, but sinners.” The Pharisees were criticising Jesus for spending time with the tax-collectors, whom they viewed as traitors, having sold out to Rome. Jesus did not deny that these people were sinners, but He knew that they were spiritually hungry for Him. He did not spend His years of ministry debating with the Pharisees and persuading them to believe in Him. He made Himself available to those who knew they were sinners, and who wanted to be saved.