Have you ever been judged as “guilty by association” simply because of the people you were around? We often worry that associating with the wrong people will damage our reputation. Yet when we look throughout Scripture, we find that God repeatedly chose to work through and associate with some pretty shady characters.

Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David were all greatly used by God, but none of them were perfect. They had failures, weaknesses, and sins in their past. Yet God did not abandon them. He worked in their lives and accomplished His purposes through them.

That should challenge us to ask: Are we willing to associate with people whose lives aren't perfect? Are we willing to leave our comfort zones and risk what others might think in order to reach people who need God?

Jesus demonstrated this throughout His ministry. He wasn't afraid to be seen with sinners because His mission was to seek and save the lost. Reaching people sometimes requires us to go where hurting and broken people are rather than waiting for them to come to us.

Justification and Righteousness

Justification means being declared right with God without being able to earn it ourselves.

Righteousness means being in right standing with God.

We sometimes talk so much about justification and grace being free to us that we forget something important: grace wasn't free to God.

Our part is faith—to believe and trust in what God has done. But our salvation came at an enormous price.

It required the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

No amount of good works could ever erase our sins. No religious activity could make us righteous enough. Only the blood of Jesus could truly cleanse us.

Before the cross, God dealt patiently with the sins of people like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and countless other “shady characters.” He could do so because the sacrifice of Jesus was coming. The cross would ultimately provide payment for the sins of those who trusted God before Christ as well as those who would believe afterward.

The cross reaches backward and forward. And that includes us. But grace should never become an excuse to deliberately continue living in sin. We don't earn salvation by being good, and we don't keep salvation by somehow becoming good enough. Salvation is God's gift received through faith. But genuine faith changes us.

If we truly love God, we will desire to obey Him. We will begin turning away from the lifestyles and sins that once controlled us. Not because obedience purchases our salvation, but because obedience is a response to the One who saved us.

Good works aren't the price of salvation; they are the fruit of salvation. God has always worked with shady characters. Abraham had his failures. Jacob had his schemes. Moses had his temper. David had serious sin. And every one of us has a past.

The good news of the gospel isn't that God found a group of perfect people. It's that Jesus paid the price to make guilty people righteous before God. So instead of avoiding the “shady characters” around us, perhaps we should remember that God reached us while we were sinners too.

The question isn't simply, “Who am I associated with?”

The better question may be:

“Who am I willing to reach for Jesus?”