The Power of Jesus to Seek and Save Souls: Luke 19:1-10

We come to a somewhat familiar text this morning in Luke chapter 19 verses 1 through 10.

Luke 19:1–10

Beginning of verse 1.

He that is Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and he was rich.

And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.

So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.

So he hurried down and came and received him joyfully.

And when they saw it, they all grumbled, He is gone to be in the guest of a man who is a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

And Jesus said to him, Today, salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

Let us pray.

Oh Lord, we do pray and ask now that through the enabling power of your Spirit, as we've just sung, that you would give us ears to hear the word that you speak to us through your word.

And Lord, we ask and pray for eyes to see.

Help us in our doubt and our unbelief.

We thank you that you are a God who can work in the midst of hearts like ours.

And we give you thanks for that.

And we pray, be at work, O Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So I trust as we see this real life encounter and the conversion of a soul to Christ, Zacchaeus being the man, that it will renew us in hope and toward the power of grace.

And not only that, but that it would transform our thinking and direct our prayers as we share in the mission of Christ that has been our series that we've been coming back to the last few weeks Thinking, Praying, Living a Missional Life.

But before we take a little closer look at these words before us, I think it's important to make the vital connection between an encounter like this and Jesus' mission today.

To emphasize again what Pastor Tom spoke of last week and setting our minds on things above.

What is greatly important for us to hold together is the connection between Jesus' earthly ministry and his present heavenly enthronement.

Why is that?

Well, because we will soon become very discouraged if we read encounters like this and either deduce that this is a good historical story from Jesus' earthly ministry a long time ago.

Or on the other hand, that this is something that we must imitate in our own strength.

It comes back again to what Pastor Tom mentioned last week about Nike theology.

Just do it.

And so mission becomes a drain or associated with guilt or shame, and that's not what Jesus intends.

What he does intend for us is to be people of hope.

And the hope and confidence that we have in being on mission is not to be found in ourselves, but is to be found in the truth that Jesus is still very much active and carrying out his mission today.

Just as he was in his earthly ministry.

He's still the same God, yesterday, today, and forever.

And why that's so important is because as soon as we fail to hold on to the belief that Jesus is still living and active today, carrying out his mission, we will adopt the practical notion that we are more active than God.

And that the mission is all on our shoulders.

And I know from experience that this form of unbelief is a tremendously heavy burden to carry and a zeal killer.

What Jesus intends for us is that this mission be one of intimate partnership.

And the Holy Spirit will come and indwell you.

Meaning that we have an intimate partner in the mission that He's called us to.

Ministering to our fears, energizing our thoughts, transforming our attitudes, the attitudes of our hearts, so that we share in the work and evidence his powerful hand.

That's the basis for our hope and mission.

The mission that we've been called to by Christ.

Jesus is working.

We need to hold on to that.

He is active, and we're merely invited into that work.

The Apostle Paul spoke to this, speaking of toiling to proclaim Christ.

But he did it, he did so struggling, he said, with all this powerful energy that worked within him.

That was the power of the Holy Spirit working in him, this grace.

Now that, my friends, is a very different way of engaging in and experiencing the mission that he's called us to.

And it's for that reason that Pastor Tom again spoke last week of our union with Christ being essential to our bearing fruit, essential that we root our practice and our position as God's people.

And in the fall, it was revealed to us that the hidden mission of prayer is foundational to all that we do.

How do we align ourselves to the will of Jesus?

We pray.

We pray to the resurrected, ascended Lord who is carrying out his mission and is also active.

We ask to be filled with his presence and his power and the help of the Holy Spirit.

We need to drive out, therefore, any notion that suggests that the mission of Christ has us on is a solo mission.

No, it's a joint mission.

It's personal, yes, but it's not solo.

Which means, and coming back to this text, that when we come to an encounter like this, as familiar as it is to some of us, it first ought to encourage us with the hope that this same power of Christ is active today.

It's a mission that goes after and seeks and saves real people with real names, real faces, real problems, real stories.

Which means what Jesus did for the man who's before us this morning, he is able and willing to do in any one of us.

And so first we observe a soul in need of grace.

We read of a man here who Luke clearly wants us to take note of, and we know that because he uses the word behold, which gives the idea of pausing to look.

Things are moving, Jesus is on the move, he's going to Jericho, but see this man, named Zacchaeus.

And pausing to encounter this man is to encounter a man who was a tax collector by trade and a wealthy one at that.

Jericho was a wealthy city, and no doubt his chief collector status had won him a more lucrative location on a major trade route.

And so this was a man who was doing okay for himself in all sense of that word.

And so it probably bears significance that this was a man who uh was self-made in many respects.

We're told that he was also a man of small stature.

Uh and since it's something that Luke takes time to mention, uh it probably bears significance in the fact that he was on the easier side to identify and remember, but no doubt also played a part in shaping his sense of identity.

And so the portrait that we get here is that was this was also a despised man.

Despise because in collecting taxes, uh he was the middleman for Rome, which meant he accumulated wealth on the backs of others.

And that didn't go down so well.

Uh not only that, but the temptation to fix the books was also an occupational hazard.

And in order to take more cream off the top was often something that was a common practice of tax collectors.

And so some commentators have, uh for that reason dubbed him the kingpin of the Jiraco tax cartel.

A traitor to his own people, a sellout and an opportunist seeking his own good.

Zacchaeus, in other words, isn't the kind of guy, the under the kind of neighbor bringing you Christmas cookies to your doorstep or offering the shovel of snow on your doorstep, out of your driveway.

This is a, again, a self-made man, a man possessed by his possessions.

And yet in all of this, we learn that he was a man who was searching.

He's a man seeking to see Jesus, to see who Jesus was.

And from what we know, Zacchaeus's motivation was purely one of curiosity.

That's it.

Just curiosity.

Uh he he had he had heard that of this Jesus, no doubt, and he wanted to sit in the stands, as it were, and observe what all this commotion was about.

Why else would you go up and sit in a tree?

Um was it true of what all the fuss and the talk is about?

And I think this speaks to us of the power of grace.

It reminds us that we, what we what we might think is often small, what we might often think of as simple, can be used to be a part of a great and eternal work.

J.C.

Ryle, our former bishop in England, reminds us of this.

He says, the ways by which the Holy Spirit leads men and women to Christ are wonderful and mysterious.

He is often beginning in a heart a work which shall stand to eternity when a looker on observes nothing remarkable.

Simple curiosity has often been the forerunner to faith.

And I know many people who have entered a gathering like this, and they have come curious somewhat about the claims of Jesus, and so they've taken an interest in what is being said.

Or they've come to an inquirer's class, or they've been invited by a friend, and so they take the opportunity.

Others, again, have been curious to get clarity on what's what they've heard in public or private.

The power of grace, even in the small things like a simple curiosity.

Which reminds us that we may make it our aim to live by the exaltation of Scripture, be prepared to give our reason for the hope that is in you in our network of relationships.

We may aim to do it with gentleness and respect.

And yet, unbeknownst to us, the Spirit may begin a work in our heart that will stand to eternity.

We may feel like we've blown it, that when we speak, the words just haven't come out right.

Or perhaps the flaws of our own personalities before us.

But in the midst of our discouragement, a curiosity is sparked in our soul and has been used of God in his service.

We're reminded of Philip saying to Nathaniel in the scriptures, come and see.

And he came and he saw greater things than he ever dreamed of.

Let's ask for big things and be bold.

Let's ask God for big things.

But but in doing so, let's not despise a day of small things.

Surely this is an encounter that reminds us that God is pleased to do some of his greatest works in the small and the simple.

A soul in need of grace.

We also see the surprise of grace.

Zacchaeus here is looking to get a glimpse of Jesus.

Right?

But he doesn't find any success among the crowds, and so he takes the opportunity to see the way that Jesus is headed, his trajectory, and so he runs down the way and he finds a tree and he climbs up it so that it gives him some height in order to be able to see him even at a distance.

He perches himself up there, content on seeing Jesus for himself.

Meanwhile, Jesus continues on his way, and as he is surrounded by the crowd, he comes and he sees this man up in his tree.

And as he approaches the tree, he looks up and he acknowledges Zacchaeus and he says, Zacchaeus, come down.

Dignifying this despised man sitting in a tree.

And we read that many that were accompanying Jesus right at this point began to grumble.

What?

Him?

Why are you paying attention to him?

That's the critical spirit of a Pharisee.

But what's so clear about this is Jesus doesn't get in the way from him because it's clear that Jesus doesn't keep away from him because of his flagrant sin.

There's no doubt that Jesus is fully aware of the greedy, corrupt, and covetous heart of Zacchaeus.

There's no doubt about that.

He knows what lies in his heart and what's been allowed to be cultivated and given free reign.

But there is a spark of interest and curiosity somewhere in that sin-saturated heart that was curious about Jesus and who he was.

And so Jesus stops and he calls him by name.

Zacchaeus.

Hurry down.

I must stay at your house today.

And what that says to us, I think, very clearly, is that no one is too bad to be saved.

Or lies beyond the power of grace.

No one.

Reminded of the wonderful hymn.

Amazing grace.

How sweet the sound.

That saved a wretch like me.

I once was lost, but now I'm found.

Was blind, but now I see.

That is grace, undeserved favor.

Nothing owing to works, all owing to his free and great grace of Jesus.

Bishop J.C.

Rawl again speaks to the wonderful freeness of the grace, of this grace, this pursuing grace of Jesus.

He says, a more striking instance than that before us is impossible to conceive.

Unsked, our Lord stops and speaks to Zacchaeus.

Unasked, he offers himself to be a guest of a sinner.

Unasked, he sends into the heart of a publican the renewing grace of his spirit and puts him that day among the children of God.

How wonderfully captured.

Unasked, yet shearing himself so lavishly.

Unasked yet knocking at the door.

I can't help but in the light of this grace, I think express my own pain over my own graceless heart at times.

My prayerless days.

The days of low appetite when it comes to loving others.

Time wasted on things that don't have much significance.

My heart is prone to shrink.

And yet into that heart, Jesus feeds me more grace.

Undeserved favor, forgiveness, light to my darkness, grace that changes me.

And I'm still amazed by it.

Because the truth is that even if we know this intellectually, we still have trouble at times believing that such grace is for certain types of people, and perhaps even ourselves.

John Calvin writes about the difficulty of loving those who are hard to love.

He writes, if he that is your enemy, not only merits no good, but has provoked you by injury and mischief, this still is no good reason why you should not embrace him in love and visit him with offices of love.

He has deserved very differently from me, you will say.

But what has the Lord deserved?

Whatever injury he has done you, when he enjoins you to forgive him, he certainly means that it should be imputed to himself.

In this way we attain to what is not to say difficult, but altogether against nature.

To love those that hate us, render good for evil, and blessing for cursing.

Remembering that we are not to reflect on the wickedness of men, but look to the image of God in them.

An image which, covering and obliterating their faults, should by its beauty and dignity allure us to love and embrace them.

The point here is that what comes naturally to us is to despise those who wrong us and don't have our best interests at heart.

To avoid them altogether.

But if that person seeks forgiveness, then drawing upon grace, we're to believe that Christ would have all of their sin in every form and color counted against himself.

Which means we're not to reflect on the wickedness itself, but the image of God in them.

No matter how flagrant the sin that covers that image, we're to return good for evil.

Blessing for cursing.

And that is a kind of love that dignifies the despised.

The kind of love that calls a tax collector by name and seeks to do him good when only evil has been done.

And it leads us to ask the question: how am I viewing those around me?

In the office, at the park, at school or church?

Am I looking at the sin of others with a critical spirit?

Of whom I need to distance myself?

Or am I looking for even the slightest evidence of a seeking heart?

A small spark of faith?

Am I praying for some evidence of interest and curiosity for God?

You see, with a passage like this, it's impossible not to see how infinitely motivated and willing Jesus is to seek and to save sinners.

That's the surprise of grace.

But we also see before us a personal trust.

Zacchaeus responds to this invitation of Jesus, calling him down from this tree, from this perched place in this tree, by receiving Jesus joyfully.

And what that says to us is that faith is a matter of personal trust.

And what I mean by that is the Christian life is not only doctrinal, but it's also experiential, or as old saints used to say, it's an experimental faith, that it is a living God who we worship.

And so he is someone to know by experience.

He is someone to receive.

He is someone having offered to give us his life to trust.

The grace of God comes to us, but it requires personal trust.

It's the faith, and it's that faith in Zacchaeus, which says later on, behold Lord.

He calls Jesus his Lord, acknowledging his lordship over all things, including his life.

We may remember that time when we sat in the tree, as it were, to observe who Jesus was.

But there was a time when we had to come down from that tree and receive his invitation to give us his life.

We have rejoiced as a church and a body many times for this seeking and saving grace.

Sometimes someone comes in and they sit in these chairs or in an inquirer's class or in a living room with the Bible opened.

And they sit in the sycamore tree, as it were, observing, watching, listening to what takes place.

And the powerful grace of God comes and has met them.

And their eyes have been opened, their hearts have been acclined to Him.

And they've received that life and believed in their hearts and been added that day to the very family of God.

We have people who can testify to that even this year.

That can happen to any one of us.

It can happen today.

Jesus' purpose, you see, in calling Jesus down was to lift him up.

And why I want to point that out is because underneath a grasping, covetous heart is usually a heart of unbelief that has adopted the lie that God is trying to keep us down.

He's trying to withhold things from us.

A very ancient problem, but a very common and present whisper.

But you see, grace intervenes in the midst of unbelief and shows us the generosity of God.

Zacchaeus, I want to come and have supper with you.

With you.

The fellowship that's been lost.

I want a relationship with you, Zacchaeus.

Oh, the emptiness of desiring that gifts take the place of the giver.

What greater gift exists than to be pursued by our God who coded himself into creation?

And having lost that fellowship was willing to come from heaven into this world to take on human flesh, to live a perfect life in the face of much opposition, to die and to rise again.

So on that basis, you and I could become someone that we could never become and be by nature, by natural birth, or our own will or exertion, and that is to be adopted into his family.

A son or a daughter of God.

And by his continued lavish and plentiful grace, made to become someone we could never be without his fellowship and friendship.

You see, the capacity that God gives those who have his spirit to enjoy his friendship is the chief of gifts and will be the most precious thing to us eternally.

So Jesus says, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone, and he means anyone, you might have done the unthinkable this week.

Things that even you despise.

Come down and rest in his communing love.

Draw life from his fullness by personally trusting him and taking him in his word.

These things are spiritually discerned.

But having been given the Spirit, we discern them.

Because Jesus never makes a promise he doesn't intend to keep.

That invitation is for you.

And we find that in doing so, this grace is such that it changes us.

You listen to the speech that Zacchaeus gives at the supper, and it's one of penitence.

Half of my goods, he says, I give to the poor.

I'll restore fourfold of what's been defrauded.

It's a believing repentance.

He doesn't give away all of his money, and Jesus doesn't scold him for it.

His response is one of gratitude, that being freed seeks to do the will of God.

John Murray, scholar and theologian, he writes this.

He says, the faith that is unto salvation is a penitent faith.

And the repentance that is unto life is a believing repentance.

Some people worry about this.

Well, which one comes first?

Do I repent and then believe, or do I believe and then repent?

The important issue is not the order, but are both present.

Is the reality present, like two sides of a coin.

Because the nature of grace is such as that when we see Jesus as he truly is, we can't help but see sin for what it really is.

Something to despise and to seek to put off.

A response of gratitude and a willingness to align ourselves to the will of God who loves and cares for us and has our best interest at heart, sustaining us every walking and waking hour.

How wonderful to behold the transforming grace of Jesus.

It takes a greedy tax collector and transforms them into liberal, generous Christian.

Twas grace that taught my heart to fear.

Again, Newton said, And grace my fears relieved.

How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils, and sneers, we have already come.

Twas grace that brought us safe thus far.

And it's grace that will lead us home.

Oh, may our hearts be stirred anew to pray for this amazing grace.

To be at work within us and to be shared by us.

And may we be led to see greater things than we've been given to see.

As we seek his glory and walk with him.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Oh gracious Father, we thank you.

Sometimes we brush past those words, gracious.

And yet, indeed, Father, you are so generous to us.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saves wretches, sinners, people like us.

Lord, we marvel at your generosity and kindness.

We marvel at your seeking and saving power.

And Lord, all we ask is that you would continue to use us to see many more come to taste of the sweetness of this grace.

And so, Lord, we ask and pray that you would enable us to open up our hearts, open up our hands, open up our lives, that we might live and serve you in gratitude and faithfulness.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray these things.

Amen.