In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the role of Jesus as a friend of sinners. He highlights how Jesus never engaged in sinful thoughts, words, or actions, yet he willingly gave his life for sinners. The preacher shares a personal story of encountering an obnoxious and dirty man who he later discovers has been transformed by God's grace. This experience leads the preacher to understand the importance of working with sinners and sharing the message of Jesus' love and redemption. The sermon concludes with the preacher's realization that both he and his own son were sinners in need of salvation, emphasizing the universal need for Jesus as a friend and savior.

On Christmas Day, I have a little habit that I enjoy. I take some remembrances and presents, maybe some fruit and candy, down to our rescue mission. I spend, oh, an hour with the fellows at the mission. Usually we gather around, have a few games and chat, talk about their past and their lives and their children and so forth. Two years ago, I was at the mission on Christmas about noon. Spent a while with them. If I recall, I think we had a little question and answer session. They answered the questions right, they got a certain gift and so forth. And as I left the mission, one of the fellows who had been there for a number of years told one of the new ones. The new one said, who was that guy? He didn't know who I was either. Who was that guy? And one of the fellows who had been there for a number of years said, that's Brother Hiles. He's our friend. He's our friend. And I got to thinking about that as I drove home. I believe I'd rather him have said that than to say, he's our pastor or our preacher. He's our friend. And I am your friend, fellows. Because I, too, am a sinner, and someone who never sinned offered his friendship to me. Think about this for a minute. Our Lord, until his birth, had never been around sin. Never. Only one time had anybody ever sinned in the presence of our Lord. And that was when Satan sinned before the world was created, and he was cast with his angels out of heaven. Our Lord was never around a sinner. He fellowshiped with the Father. He had nothing to do with sinners. In John 17, he said, Father, restore unto me the joy which I had with thee before the world was. What was that joy? He fellowshiped with the Father. He was ministered to by angels, praised by the saints who were entering heaven. He had seen sin only once. Now, think about that. From eternity past, before the foundation of the world, until Bethlehem, Jesus had seen sin only once. And then, strangely and suddenly, he was thrown into sin. I mean, he lived with sin, though he never sinned. He lived with sin. His entire life has been occupied by sin from Bethlehem and will be until the rapture. Think of it. He who, through whose lips never came a bad word, into whose mind never lingered an evil thought, whose feet never trod a sinful path, whose eyes would not as much as even look on sin, and whose fellowship had been only with the Father and with angels, suddenly is thrown completely into an occupation dealing with sin. Now, that biography of our Lord, from Bethlehem to the rapture, is divided into three distinct eras. Era 1, he was a friend of sinners, numbered with the transgressors, as Isaiah 53, verse 12 says. Era 2, when he went to the cross and bare our sins in his body on the tree. Era 3, when he ascended to the Father and even now intercedes for sinners. And so you'll find the entire time, from the birth of our Lord to the rapture of our Lord, all of his time is centered around sinners. His life is occupied with sinners in three distinct eras. I want you to notice these three eras. In the first place, the Bible says he was numbered with the transgressors. Now, that started at Bethlehem and ended at Calvary. He was numbered with the transgressors. Now, follow me for a minute, listen carefully, and follow just for a minute. At his birth, he was numbered with the transgressors. Mary, his mother, and Joseph, his foster father, were coming to Bethlehem. Why were they coming to Bethlehem? To register, to have their names written. A census was being taken. It says in the English language that they were going to Bethlehem to be taxed. That is not exactly correct. It should be to be registered, a census. And each person had to go to his own capital city, and there had to register himself. And so Jesus, in his birth, was registered in the register of Bethlehem. He was numbered with sinners. That is circumcision. The very fact that he was circumcised numbers him with sinners. Circumcision was a right administered to people because of their sins. Admitting that one was a sinner. Forgive me for being a bit blunt here, but by the clipping of the wasted skin, it was a picture that the Christian ought not to have sin in his life. We ought to be circumcised from sin, if you please. Numbered with the transgressors. Our Lord, with the fact that he was circumcised, means that he was identifying himself as one of us, a friend of sinners. Don't you recall in Luke chapter 5, Matthew, the tax collector, had just been converted. And Matthew decided he wanted everybody to hear about his newfound faith in Christ and about his newfound Savior. And so Matthew had a meal and called all the publicans and sinners from all around together. And he said, folks, I want you to know that I am resigning my position. I am leaving everything to follow Jesus Christ. And I want you to know Jesus. Jesus was there at that feast. The mockest crowd of people you ever saw in your life. And there is Jesus sitting perhaps at the head table. And the scribes and Pharisees said, well, he's a friend of sinners. He eats with sinners. I'm glad he does. I'm glad he is. I'm glad he was willing to eat with the sinners. And don't you recall how our Lord said, why the whole have no need of a physician? I'm the great physician. The sick people need the doctor and here are the sinners. They need me. And our Lord was defending the fact that he was a friend of sinners. Don't you recall Luke chapter 7? He went to the house of a Pharisee to eat. And while he was in the house of Pharisee, the Bible says a woman who was a sinner came to the house. And she had an alabaster box of ointment, expensive ointment. And she comes and she brings that alabaster box of ointment. And she breaks it and anoints the Savior with it. And don't you recall how that Judas Iscariot said, wait a minute. Why that could have been sold for a great price and could have been given to feed the poor. And our Lord said, the poor you have with you always. But the thing I want you to notice is our Lord was eating in the house of a Pharisee. And he was defending the act of a lady about whom the Bible says she was a sinner. In Luke chapter 15, they again accused him in verse 2. Young people next to the aisle. They again, young girl, turn around and face me. That's it. They again accused Jesus of being a friend of sinners. And our Lord began to tell the great parable of the lost coin. And the parable of the lost sheep. And the parable of the lost boy. Don't you recall he said, if a lady has a coin and she loses it, she'll search till she finds it. And if a man, a shepherd, has a lost sheep, he'll lead the ninety and nine and go out into the highways and hedges. And he'll find the one and bring the one back, the lost sheep. And he said, if a son goes off and is away in sin, when he comes home, the father will say, Oh, kill the battered calf. And put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet and a robe on his back. My son that was lost is now returned. He was lost, but now he's found. And one son, the son at home who'd never left, got mad and said, Well, you didn't pay me that much attention and I never did leave. And Jesus is simply showing that he was a friend of the fallen one. In his life, it was a blind Bartimaeus beside the road, or a Nicodemus at midnight, or a fallen lady at noonday, or a Zacchaeus with whom he went home to eat. Don't you recall in Luke 19 how that wicked, dirty tax collector Zacchaeus was up a tree. And nobody loves Zacchaeus. He was a dirty tax collector. Nobody cared anything about him. And our Lord said, Zacchaeus, I want to go eat in your house. And Jesus went and ate in the house of Zacchaeus. And the people criticized him because he was a friend of sinners. And then in John chapter 4, the disciples were going down to McDonald's to get some kosher hamburgers. And they'd only made about one million back in those days. And they were going down to McDonald's to get some hamburgers. And our Lord said, I'm going to sit here on the well. And a little lady walked up and she was living in adultery with a man at the time. And she wasn't married to him. And she'd had five husbands. And Jesus sat there by the well and talked to that lady. Oh, he was a friend of sinners. He loved her. He cared for her. Notice it was noonday. It wasn't at midnight. We talked to her. He talked to Nicodemus at midnight and to this woman at noonday. But our Lord loved her. Criticized he was, but he loved sinners. Always hanging around. Don't misunderstand me. He's not telling us to run with the wrong crowd. He's telling us to be a friend of sinners. And telling us that he was a friend of sinners. Even when he was on the cross. Oh, suffering as no man ever suffered. And yet he turned over to one thief. Number of the transgressors. Dying between two thieves. He turned over to one thief and said, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. That's why we have a rescue mission. Because we want to be like Jesus. A friend of sinners. That's why we have a class for retarded children. That's why we have a class for retarded teenagers. That's why we have buses that go up and down the area. That's why we put up with a lot of stuff. You wouldn't believe all the stuff we put up with. These bus kids and so forth. And they come from far and near. And many of them have never been to church before. Don't know how to behave. They don't even, what? They come up here to the baptistry sometimes. And I'm going to baptize them. They come in almost doing a breast stroke. While they come in. And I start to baptize somebody. And take them back and they go forward. And they're almost underneath forward. Before I have to grab them right quick and take them backward. They don't know how to behave. Over right now. And all over this building while we're here. There are hundreds and hundreds of poor bus kids. From over here in Chicago. And God bless them. I know they're little hoodlums. I know. I know what they do. And I know we had 13 of them. Got in the ladies' restroom the other day. And locked the door so nobody could come in the ladies' restroom. And we said, look fellas. I mean, look girls. And I know. And I know. And they say some words they shouldn't say. And we're working on them. And I know we have to sometimes disarm them. You know these things that the airlines have. These little machines you walk through. And a beep, beep, beep goes if somebody has a weapon. We're putting those on all the doors here at our church. From now on. I know. We had some friends from Texas who came to visit the other day. And I was showing them our buildings. And I'm proud of our buildings. And we went through our building. And oh, it looked so dirty. And the walls had marks all over them. And in some departments had Crayola marks. And in some places somebody had written a dirty word. Somebody tried to erase over it. And they hadn't quite done it. And I thought, oh my. I'm embarrassed. And then I stopped and I said, no, I'm not embarrassed. I said, if you're going to have a clean house, don't have any little babies. There's one house in this church that's never, never real clean. That's the streeter's house. It's never real clean. You know, they have more dirty towels than anybody in the church. And they have more dirty diapers than anybody in the church. And they have more footprints on the carpet than anybody in the church. And they have perhaps dirtier walls most of the time than anybody in the church. You know why? Well, because every nine and a half months they have a baby. And so they've got a house full of kids. Now, I'll tell you what. I know how we can have a real nice church where nobody ever comes in back in the back and we have to say, get out of here, you little brat, you. And I know how we can have it where nobody ever pulls a switchblade knife on a Sunday school teacher and nobody ever locks themselves in the restroom. I know how. Just do like most churches do. Don't be a friend of sinners. Be a friend of the elite. Now, I'm a friend of the elite. You know why? Because I'm a friend of sinners and the elite are sinners too, you see. But be a friend of sinners. I want there to be one church. Listen, that's how the Moody Church got started. The great Moody Church in Chicago. Dwight Moody didn't intend to start a church. He went to Chicago and started a Sunday school class for poor kids. And one day he was walking down the street in North Chicago and saw a little kid that had been absent the last Sunday. A little bus kid. It kind of hangs around here. And Mr. Moody said, Hey, hey, hey, you weren't there last Sunday. And the kid ran down the street and Mr. Moody ran. Mr. Moody was big and fat and he waddled when he ran. He ran down the street and the fellow opened the apartment house door and ran in the apartment house door. Mr. Moody got there just before the door shut and he ran in the door. And the fellow went up the stairs. Mr. Moody went up the stairs and this little kid opened the door to his apartment. Mr. Moody went in the apartment before the door shut and the fellow crawled out of the bed. Mr. Moody got him by the foot and pulled him out from under the bed and said, You weren't in Sunday school last Sunday. I want to see you. About the time the father came in and said, What's going on here? And Mr. Moody said, My name is Dwight Moody. And he said, Oh, you must be Crazy Moody. And that name stayed with Moody all the time. Crazy Moody. Everybody called him Crazy Moody. You know why he was crazy? Because a friend of sinners. Other churches didn't want their carpet dirty. Other churches didn't want their walls soiled. Other churches didn't want their... You departmental superintendents, forgive me. Their prizes for the fall program stolen. We decorate our rooms and actually they're decorated for one Sunday and then departments of all Chicago are decorated with our decorations after that. And I can tell you churches... Listen, I can tell you somebody would like to have a dirty towel this morning. I can tell you somebody would like to have a dirty carpet. Who is it? The Perkins. They had three little children buried in baby land around here. They'd love to have dirty carpets and dirty towels. Oh, listen to me, ladies and gentlemen. I know we're working at it. We met last night for over two hours, the superintendents and many of us did, trying to figure out how we can make it run smoother and how we can corral some of this stuff that's going on in all of it. I know churches that don't have any problem, but they wish they did. I know churches that never have a sinner kneel at the altar and never have a drunkard made sober and a harlot made pure or a poor little bus kid made right. Listen, you know we've got about a dozen of our bus kids now studying for the ministry. Did you know that? And we have in Christian colleges our little bus kids. And they were little urchins like everybody else. The rest of them are. I'm simply saying, I want there always to be one church in the greater Chicago area where the people are friends of sinners, the up and out, the down and out, the high, the low, the rich, the poor. Look at the crowd this morning. I wish you could stand here. Dr. Billings, as we stand here this morning, there are people out here that run great businesses, and there are people out here that don't know how they're going to get home after church. Really. We have folks here this morning who will drive home in Cadillacs. Stolen Cadillacs. What Cadillac? We have folks this morning. Did you hear about this rich man that he went to the eye doctor and somebody said, What you got, a Cadillac? He said, No, a Lincoln Continental. But we have folks that will drive home in Cadillacs. And we have folks this morning in this room that don't have any way to get home. We'll have little ladies this morning walk two miles in the slush and snow because they don't have any car. We have folks who will go home today and eat turkey. You've been eating turkey for four days, but you'll have maybe steak or somebody will go out to T-Bones and eat a steak or a fish dinner at Phil Smith's. And we have folks this morning who will go home. I know them. We have some folks who will go home, and they'll have maybe a piece of bologna, and that's about it, if they have that much. We have people this morning in this building who have Ph.D.s and people of all kinds. We have, I know, I know. I took a poll one day, and one time in our life, over half of our bus workers had at least two years of college, over half our bus workers. And yet we have people this morning, I know them, that when they sign their name, they have to put an X, and then somebody writes beside it, C.W. Fisk. We have all kinds of people here in our church. All kinds. One of my greatest blessings is when I stand here at the pulpit on Sunday morning. Our deacons come. One morning I was standing here. I looked down, and there was Mr. Crawl, Frank Crawl, kneeling beside a poor little fellow that was barefoot. Mr. Frank Crawl is one of the vice presidents of the Conrad Hilton Hotel chain, and he was praying with this fellow. And I looked down, and there was Mr. Baldwin, who owns a realty company in town, and he was kneeling beside some little poor girl that had long, straight hair and dirty clothes and tennis shoes on. And I watched these men of all walks of life, these good deacons of our church, as they knelt here with poor, poor little boys and girls, and none of them felt too good. And I thought, and I think so often, I think that's what the Savior did. I think that's what it's all about. They brought some little kids to Jesus for Him to bless, and the disciples said, We're not going to run a bunch of us routes here in Jerusalem. That's in the Hebrew. The Greek, you'll find that in the Greek. That's not in the English. And Jesus said, Don't keep the little children away. Oh, I know, but they'll mess up our service. Jesus said, Let the little children come on. I know, but our Lord said, He's a friend of sinners. Why do you eat with sinners? He runs with Pharisees. He eats in Zacchaeus' house. Look at him with Matthew and all those dirty publicans. He eats with sinners. Our Lord said, Yes, I was numbered with the transgressors. I was numbered with the transgressors. That's the first part of His life. But now are you listening? The second part of His life started when He went up Golgotha. He had been beaten until you couldn't even tell He was a human being, Isaiah 52 says. And He was bearing the cross up the hill of Golgotha. And He got to the top of the hill, and they put His body on the tree, and they put nails and spikes in His hands and feet. And Jesus, the perfect, sinless, spotless Lamb without blemish, was nailed to the tree. Why? To show us how to die? No. No. To show us how to be a pacifist? No. Why was He nailed to the tree? He was bearing the sins of many. Follow me now. Remember that fallen woman? Huh? Remember that woman at Sychar's well? Jesus took her adultery off of her. Wrote it on His own record. Remember that dirty publican Matthew? He took all of Matthew's extortion and charged it to His own record. He took the thieves, the robbery of the dying thieves, and wrote robbery on His own record. He took the pride of the Pharisee and wrote pride on His own record. Now follow me. He who never had a dirty thought became an adulterer. He that never took one thing that wasn't His became a thief. He who had never mistreated anybody or pulled a crooked deal became an extortioner. He who was the humble, meek, lowly one of Galilee became proud. And then, with your sins and mine on His own body, against His own record. Listen to me. I think you've said there's one place I can look. My own family has forsaken me. My own race has forsaken me. My own synagogue has forsaken me. My own disciples have forsaken me. My beloved Peter has forsaken me. Judas the treasurer has forsaken me. Every man has forsaken me. There's one who will never forsake me. That's the Father. He's always looked down and smiled upon me. And Jesus looked up to see the face of the Father. But there was no smile on His Father's face. In fact, His Father wasn't even looking at Him. All He could see was the Father walking away from Him. And Jesus said in so many words, Father, I expected the Jews to forsake Me. I expected My family to forsake Me. I expected My disciples to forsake Me. I expected My nation to forsake Me. I expected My synagogue to forsake Me. But Father, My God, My God, why has Thou forsaken Me? You know why? Jesus at Bethlehem, who had never been with sin, suddenly became numbered with transgressors. That's the first chapter in His biography of being associated as a friend of sinners. And the second chapter is, He died for sinners. He paid the penalty for you and me. He paid the price for your wicked sin and mine and became our substitute on the cross. Chapter 3. Chapter 3. He began to make intercessions with the transgressors. Hey, He's back to heaven now, Dr. Billings. He's back to the Father. He's back where no sin ever enters. He's back where He doesn't have to be associated with sinners anymore. He sat beside a well with a fallen woman. He ate with a Pharisee. He ate with Zacchaeus. He was a friend of sinners and numbered with transgressors, but now He's back to heaven again. He won't have to be bothered about sin, but He is. Chapter 3 is, from the time He went back to heaven to the time He comes again, He'll be interceding for sinners. Today, He sits on the right hand of the Father. You've heard me tell the story about the little boy who went to church and heard his dad preach. He came back home and the little boy said to his preacher father, he said, Isn't God wonderful? And the father asked, Why? And the little boy said, Because He's left-handed and does everything with His left hand. And the father said, Who said that? And he said, Dad, you said it in your sermon this morning. Why? I said that God does everything with His left hand? Yeah, he said you said that Jesus was sitting on God's right hand. Now, that's not what he's doing. He's not sitting on God's right hand. But Jesus this morning is at the right hand of the Father. Not long ago, Dr. L.C. Stewart, a preacher, was wronged with the courts of our land and wrongfully indicted for murder. And they tried him and gave him 14 years in a penitentiary. And they appealed the case. And the appellate court gave us another chance. And our church, our own money, raised over $25,000. And I called on the telephone and said, I want to talk to Mr. F. Lee Bailey and talk to Mr. Bailey. And Mr. Bailey was employed by our church to represent Dr. Stewart. They told me at Mr. Bailey's office that he had had hundreds and hundreds and thousands of cases. He had only lost four cases in all of his time. We felt so confident. I was in a motel room in Wichita, Kansas. And they called long distance. I did. And I said, the trial is over, is it? And they said, yes. And we lost. And Dr. Stewart's back in prison, faithful preacher of the gospel. And I went outside and I clapped my hands and jumped up and down and said, praise be to God. You say, why? I'll tell you why. Because the attorney who represents this sinner has never lost a case. F. Lee Bailey, he lost. We gave him $25,000. But Jesus, my attorney, my lawyer, my advocate, my daysman, my intercessor, my mediator, has never lost a case. He's at the right hand of the Father pleading for sinners. This morning, he looks down at me, Dr. Billings. And the Father looks down at me and he says, you know, you know, he said, Hiles shouldn't be so hard on those lushers. Those are deacons. They love him. And Hiles is hard on those deacons. I think I'll just kill old Hiles. I think I'll send a tornado to his house and blow him right off the face of the earth. And Jesus says, why, Father? He's at the right hand of the Father. He's my lawyer. And the Father says, I'll tell you why. Because the way he treats those deacons. And Jesus says, Father, you don't understand. You never have been down on earth. I was down there. I know deacons. I know them. Father, you never have been to a deacons meeting. I have. Now, Father, if you knew what I knew, you'd say amen when Hiles gets hard on those deacons. You see. You know what he's doing? Does that mean that I'm right always? No, it just means he's interceding for sinners. And so our Lord, who had never had been associated at all with sin, he, chapter one, was numbered with the transgressors. Chapter two, he bared the sins of many. And chapter three, he bares, intercedes for the transgressors. Let me see if I can show you something. Once a year, once a year in the life of Israel, on the seventh month of the year, the tenth day of the month, there was what was called the Day of Atonement. It would be near our October the tenth. On that Day of Atonement, are you listening, the high priest who wore royal garments, pomegranates and bells around the hem of his garment, royal, beautiful garments, only one high priest, the high priest, once a year, with a fist, he'd take off his royal garments. And he would just be without his royal garments. He would take a lamb. He'd sacrifice that lamb. And then he would take the blood of that lamb. Bear in mind, without his royal garments, he'd walk inside the Holy of Holies, where no one else could go but he, and he only once a year, for him, and he only once a year. And he'd sprinkle the blood on that mercy seat. And then he would come back out, as God had accepted the sacrifice, he'd come back out and he'd shout, It is finished! What did it mean? It means that the high priest had laid aside his royal robes and had offered a lamb for the sins of the people and had gone in to pay the penalty to intercede for his people and then come out and say God accepted it. That's what Jesus did. He was the one who laid aside his robes of heaven. He who never was around sin. He who was in the image of the Father. He who was the fullness of the Godhead bodily laid aside his royal robes and took upon himself flesh like we have and walked with sinners. Then he became a lamb and on the cross he became that lamb offered on the altar. And then he took his blood up to the mercy seat and sprinkled it on the mercy seat in heaven. And then on the cross he said, It is finished! What's finished? Sin has been paid for. And now he can put on, someday when he comes again, he'll put on his royal robes once again and come as king of kings and Lord of lords. What's it all about? Jesus, our high priest. Jesus, our lamb. He who never heard a sinful word. He who never spoke an evil word. He who never thought an evil thought. He who never trod an evil path. Suddenly gave his entire life to sinners. Chapter 1, a friend of sinners. Chapter 2, he died for sinners. Chapter 3, he intercedes for sinners. And I left the rescue mission. I think I'll tell you just a brief story. When I came to Hammond, I was apprehensive. Apprehensive is a Greek word. It means scared to death. I was scared. I was a Texan, coming up here to preach to people that couldn't talk plainly. And I was apprehensive. The first day I was in my office, full day, secretary buzzed me and said, someone wants to see you. I invited him in. It was the most obnoxious man I've ever seen. I've never seen anybody as dirty or as filthy. He walked in. And I talked with him. I told him about Jesus and knelt to pray with him. And as I knelt to pray, I saw the 8th Psalm on the wall of my study. What is man that thou art mindful of him? The Son of Man that thou visit is Him. And that poor old bum off the street received Christ. I wondered if he were sincere. I wondered. But I took it as a lesson from God that God wanted me to work with sinners while I was here. And there's a long story there, but I won't go into it. A few weeks and a few months passed. David and I went to a rescue mission one night to preach in this area. David was 6 years of age at the time, just 6 years old. And he and I went to preach at a rescue mission. And right before I preached, a man stood up to play the guitar and sing a solo. I'd seen the man somewhere. They introduced him that he was the assistant superintendent of the rescue mission. I'd seen him somewhere. And suddenly it dawned on me, that was the man. That was the man that came to my office the first day I was here. I gave that man a suit of clothes. He still had on the trousers I gave him. He was assistant superintendent of the rescue mission. Months had passed. He was still serving God. And I thought, where have I seen him? He looked out at me and did that, like that, before he sang. It was that man. It was that man. I preached that night on the 8th Psalm. Went home. And David went to bed. I was sitting in the living room. And I heard a call. Dad? Hey, Dad? Can I talk to you? The line of communication has always been open along that way. I said, sure, son. Dave came down to the living room and said, that was a good sermon tonight, Dad. I said, thank you, son. He said, wasn't that wonderful about that man, that man God saved? I said, yes, it was. And Dave said, Dad, do you think God has saved me too? And I won David to Christ that night. Rescue mission man and my own six-year-old boy, both sinners, both needed the same thing. And that's what you need. Jesus is the friend you need. Such a friend is he indeed. He who knoweth every tear, he will banish every fear. Jesus is the friend you need. What a friend we have in Jesus. There's no friend to me like Jesus. Jesus is the friend you need. He's the friend of sinners. He loves you. Let us pray.