Jesus and the Sinner W/ LeMarr Jackson

It is a pleasure to be in front of you this morning.

Um I haven't introduced myself in a while, so you know maybe there's some visitors in the crowd, but I'll say it again.

My name is Lamar Chandra Jackson.

I have the privilege of being director of youth ministry here at Madison Church.

And amen.

I've come to bring the word of the Lord this morning, but before we get into the text, um I wanted to talk about uh a movie that I watched not that long ago.

Um, and many of you know that I love to watch movies.

I I've been telling people that I own more than 1200 movies.

I looked, I think it was yesterday, and I guess I own over 1,300 movies now.

Uh yeah, my wife told me I told her I was gonna slow down.

I said, I don't remember that.

Uh I don't know.

Lord help me.

But so you might hear that and think that I've watched so many movies that I'm I've watched movies all the time, and yet there's so many classics that I've never seen.

And there was a movie that I saw not that long ago, and when you guys hear this, a lot of you are gonna be like, huh?

What?

You've never seen that?

Yeah, this is just a couple weeks ago in my life.

For the very first time in my life, I watched a movie called Bambi.

Shout out to my Bambi fans out there.

And there was it was actually a jarring experience.

And I'll tell you why, and this is relevant, uh, because I feel like this movie actually taught the way that Jesus does.

Uh, and so if you're familiar with anything about Bambi, you probably know what happened to Bambi's mom, right?

And so I knew about that going into the movie, and I knew what I was, I thought I knew what I was in for, but I also didn't know how it happened or what exactly was transpiring and things like that.

But as I watched the movie, I began to notice some things that I feel like I've never heard anybody tell me out loud before.

And by the time I got done with the movie, there was something that was pressing on my heart, and it kind of hurt me, but I thought it was a beautiful movie.

And the thing that shocked me and surprised me the most was that the villain of the movie is me.

I really appreciated the way that it told the story because it actually tells us that the villains of the movie Bambi are humans.

And Bambi actually it takes a really interesting uh way to tell us this because they never show us the humans in the movie, they just show us the destruction that we've brought.

And so when I watched that movie for the first time, just a couple weeks ago in my life, I watched it and I felt convicted.

And then I reflected this morning.

I said, This is how Jesus would teach.

He would tell people stories or he would interact with somebody's life, and it would convict them and shock them because at the end of the story, a lot of times we had to realize that we were the villains.

It wasn't them and they out there, but it was me right here.

And the face of God, I am a sinner, and that means I'm on the other side, and so I had to think, wonder, how does God treat the sinner?

Because it's me.

And so I don't know exactly why God placed this story on my heart this morning, but I'm praying that there's somebody in this audience, this congregation online, somewhere, somebody gets something out of this.

This familiar story that we many of us have heard so many times, but I hope maybe we can look at it with fresh eyes today.

And that we it can hit us like it hit the initial audience who experienced it.

Because it hit them in the same way that Bambi hit me.

And hopefully this leads to heart change and life change.

So I'm gonna tell us the story, I'm gonna reread that story of Zacchaeus.

But before I get there, I like to do a little bit of a many of you know that my wife was an English teacher for a long time, and so I have to do a little bit of English digging into a story.

We have to figure out why this story is in the place that it's in.

So in order to do that, we have to figure out about this author.

I'm gonna read it from Luke, but before I get to that, I actually need you to understand that the writers of these gospels, the authors, they had intentions, they had emphasis that they want to bring to certain things and topics.

Sometimes they were writing to certain people, so they would write a story a certain way.

So the way that they wrote the story is intentional.

And it's good to realize and know that uh they didn't write the stories with chapters and verses if you didn't know.

We put those in later to kind of help but reference different parts of scripture.

So oftentimes when I read scripture, I find like, oh, actually, this idea isn't just found in chapter 19, but it's actually found in chapter 18 before that leads into 19.

And when we preach, well, we have to kind of boil it down a little bit, but I want to walk back a little bit just so you know the context in which Luke brings this story into.

Because it matters before we enter before we get introduced to Zacchaeus, we have to understand who Jesus was and how he would treat the sinner, how he would tell these stories and interact with people.

And so there's a couple of things that happen in Luke 18 that I just want to mention, and then we'll read Luke 19.

So in in Luke 18, it actually starts with a story of the persistent widow, right?

That little persistent widow who just keeps demanding justice, and she demanded so hard, the king had to relent at some point.

It's like, okay, all right, I don't even believe you, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

So it opens with this idea of this demanding of justice, this fighting on the behalf of others, and then it actually tells us Jesus does this really he does the Bambi thing here.

He tells this story about a tax collector and a Pharisee.

Now, the audience in that day, when if you just told them this story is about a tax collector and a Pharisee, they will probably stop and be like, Oh, I know exactly where this is going.

Oh, that tax collector is filthy.

Oh, he's dirty, he's evil.

Because tax collectors in this day were known as the enemy, but not just because they wanted to deem them enemies, they were known as enemies because they stole from their own people.

See, they were uh under the Roman control yet.

There were the people, the Jews there, they actually were in charge of taking taxes from each other.

And so, whatever the Roman government would say that they want taxes, say they wanted 10%.

Well, then the tax collectors were in charge of saying how much they were going to tax their people.

They might say, we're gonna tax you 15%, and then they would keep the 5% for themselves and give the 10 to the Roman government.

The Romans didn't care how much they taxed them, they just cared that they got what they demanded.

And so the tax collectors would cheat their own people, they would charge extra amounts just so that they could get rich, and they got rich off of their own people's suffering.

And if you could imagine somebody, can you imagine a family member of yours doing that to you?

You would be dis diset with them.

You might not even want to sit down and eat with them thanksgiving.

They can't come to my house because that's the one who treats those other people better than us, and they're supposed to be on my team.

So when they would hear this story is gonna be about a tax collector, they would say, Oh, yeah, those bad folk.

And then we tell them it's gonna be about a Pharisee, and then they would say, Oh, I know the Pharisees, the ones who know the word of God, the ones who keep it and maintain it and teach us, those good Christian folk.

But the story that Jesus tells doesn't actually align with these preconceived ideas.

He tells us about how the Pharisee comes in with an arrogant mindset and he began to pray to God, and he would make it so that everybody could see he would do it puffed up.

And then this poor little old tax collector, who's supposed to be the evil guy, comes in and when they said he wouldn't even bring his head up because he was so humble, and he would pray God to look to him.

And I'm sure that story shocked those people like watching Bambi for the first time.

What do you mean, Jesus?

Uh, the the tax collector's the humble one?

The Pharisee, the good Christian church folk, that's the one who's not doing good.

Wait, but I thought I was supposed to be like the Pharisee.

When we put it in their context, I think the story can hit a little bit different.

But when we read these stories today, it's kind of easy to overlook this idea.

It's kind of easy to we would pick the Pharisees out as like those are the guys that always fought with Jesus, so then they're on the other side.

But in their day, they were perceived as the church folk.

And so Jesus tells that story.

I'm sure it's shocking and jarring.

And then he tells the story about the rich young ruler.

He comes to Jesus, like, yo, I want to follow you, Jesus.

He's like, Man, well, then keep the commandments.

He's like, Oh man, I've been keeping those commandments since I was a child.

He's like, Oh, yeah, that's good, that's good.

Then he tells the rich young ruler, here's what you need to do give away all that you have, and then come and follow me.

And then the rich young ruler says that he he kind of gets sad because he had a lot.

He's like, that's a lot of giving away.

And he couldn't quite accept this life.

So he doesn't go and follow Jesus.

Okay, then there's another one.

It ends chapter 18, actually ends with the story of blind Barnamaeus, who's just fighting to receive something.

Jesus, I know you're around.

Jesus, I heard you're coming, I heard you're coming.

He's blind, he's like, yo, give me sight, give me sight.

Jesus eventually gives him sight, and we leave chapter 18 knowing that Jesus is a giver, a giver of life.

And all of this plays a role in Luke 19 when we meet Zacchaeus.

This Jesus who often flips the ideas that we have of society, that says that this person should be thought of as higher than this person or that person, and he flips this idea, but then he's also challenging people to be givers just like he is.

And that guy meets Zacchaeus.

So if we can turn to Luke 19, gonna start reading at verse 1.

We'll have it on the screen, and if we can stand in body and/or spirit those who are able, I want to read this with all of that backdrop in mind, thinking about who Jesus really is and how he loves to reframe these ideas that we have in our heads.

Here's Luke 19, starting with verse 1.

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus, he was a chief tax collector, and he was wealthy.

He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately.

I must stay at your house.

So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

Welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, he has gone to be the guest of a sinner, the villain.

He's going to be at his house.

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.

And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.

Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

You may be seated.

Allow me to pray for a moment.

Heavenly Father, we come to you, and I'm asking that you move Lamar out of the way and that you just allow your words to go forth.

Don't allow me to speak anything on this stage that is not from you.

Let it be from your spirit.

Let your spirit convict and transform our hearts and let us love the way that you love us by loving others.

In the name of Jesus, we pray and we thank you, Lord.

Amen.

So this story is really fun to me.

Um, and there's just a couple of things I just want to bring back to the forefront of our minds here as we go through it.

And one of the first things that jumps off the page to me is that we find that Zacchaeus is eager to see Jesus.

He so he begins to actively seek after him.

And I think this is this is very key because I begin to think and wonder what did Zacchaeus hear about Jesus?

We don't know that they really have a relationship, we it just says that he's eager to meet him.

So was it that he had heard that Jesus is a healer?

Was it that he heard that Jesus was a phenomenal preacher?

They came by the flocks to come see him.

Was it that he heard of his many wonders and miracles that he done that he had done?

Was Zacchaeus like, I just want to see one of those?

I don't know.

But what's interesting about the placement of this story as well is that this comes near the end of Jesus' journey on earth.

So pretty much anything that you can think of that Jesus did in his life, his human life, then you could say Zacchaeus might have heard of any of those things, or maybe even more that's not written.

But something about this Jesus guy got Zacchaeus interested, and so he began to do that.

One of those first songs that we sang today, he began to seek and chase after this Jesus guy.

And so what I I don't know what it is that drew Zacchaeus in, but I can imagine what Zacchaeus really wanted.

I actually could tell you what Zacchaeus needed, even see, this doesn't tell us that he was just a tax collector, but he was a chief tax collector.

So he was in charge of the tax collector.

So, I mean, he might even cheated the tax collectors after they cheated their people.

And it can be assumed that he probably wasn't even a friend to the people who were supposed to be his friends amongst the tax collectors.

We don't know that he has any group of community that he can say that he belongs to, who cares for him.

I can tell you that Zacchaeus was an outcast, he was despised, and he needed community.

So, how far do we see Zacchaeus be willing to go?

The text tells us that he runs ahead, it tells us that he climbs a tree, but these are things that it can be easily overlooked if we're not from first century uh Rome.

Okay, well, Jewish men in this time, they didn't do anything publicly that would make them look undignified.

Jewish men didn't run because that's what boys do.

Jewish men don't climb trees, they're not here to play around and play games.

You don't do those things as a Jewish man because those would be undignified.

So we see Zacchaeus cast away his own dignity just to get a glimpse of this Jesus guy, and maybe hoping and desiring just to maybe get a little bit of community with this Jesus guy.

The world might see him and say, What is that man doing running?

What is he doing climbing this tree?

Oh my goodness, this horrible guy, he has no respect of himself.

Well, I have a question for us today.

Are you willing to do things that make you look undignified to the world to get a glimpse of this Jesus guy?

Do those perceptions hold you back from trying to just get a glimpse of this Jesus guy?

Are the things that maybe you put on yourself that maybe society isn't even thinking about you, but you put on yourself and say, I can't do that because that's undignified.

I won't dance in church, I won't even sing because my voice is bad, that's undignified.

What things are holding us back from getting to Jesus?

Well, we see Zacchaeus say nothing for him.

He's gonna get a glimpse of Jesus if it's the last thing he does.

I do want to acknowledge that this isn't Zacchaeus just doing something crazy for crazy sake.

I tell people I've been skydiving, and many of you might be like, huh, you jumped out of a plane that was working.

And you might think, oh, that's just crazy.

And maybe that is crazy for fun's sake, but this was crazy for a reason, for a point.

So it's not just, I'm not telling you to just be undignified, just to be undignified, but for the point of meeting Jesus.

Jesus does something really cool.

Jesus sees him.

The man who I'm so sure, so certain was overlooked so many times.

I mean, why else wouldn't it tell us about his short stature?

I'm sure he's used to being overlooked.

I'm sure if they went out for recess, you know, and they were picking for their dodgeball team, Zacchaeus wouldn't be the first pick.

Might not even be the last.

She was being bullied by the people who supposed to be her community, and there was some antagonizing going on, and she was pregnant, and then she runs off into the desert.

Then the angel meets her in her need because God sees her.

In that story, she calls him El Roy, the God who sees me.

Jesus is echoing that, saying, I see you, Zacchaeus.

I came here this morning to tell you that Jesus, the Father, is still seeing you this morning, too.

I love last week, Pastor Vanderwell got to tell us the whole hide-and-seek scenario, and how God is one who seeks after us.

There is no place that we can hide where he can't find us because he is seeking us too.

It's not just us chasing after him, but it's him chasing after you.

Jesus is chasing after you and he sees you.

But there's something even more important going on the Zacchaeus here.

It's not just the fact of being seen, but Jesus does something cool.

He calls him by name.

Zacchaeus come down.

He confronts exactly him, who he is.

He doesn't just say, Oh, weird man in the tree and walk by.

He doesn't say, Oh, the bad man in the tree who's been dogging his own people.

How dare you, Zacchaeus! He says, Zacchaeus, come down.

We're having dinner at your house tonight.

There's something even better than just knowing him by name that's happening here, too.

Jesus is knowing him by his need.

He knows what his need is and he's addressing it.

That's why I believe why he called him by his name as well, too.

But he knows that he has that need.

Of community.

He has that need to be on the inside.

He wants to be a part of something because he's seeking and chasing after Jesus.

I mean, they tell us money can't buy happiness, and Zacchaeus is like, yeah, that's right.

You know, he's lonely.

And so Jesus addresses that need and says, Do you want to be on the inside of community?

Because we're having dinner at your house tonight.

Now, I do want to say Jesus is this big shocking guy very often, but that actually is not the shocking part of the story.

Him saying we're gonna have dinner at your house tonight is not the shocking part.

That was something that was normal in their culture.

So, you know, you might not want to do that to people today, you know.

You might want to find out if they got plans and stuff like that.

I don't know.

But it wasn't just this thing that Jesus inviting himself over that was shocking.

What was shocking is that he's doing it with the villain of the story, and so Jesus opens the door for community to even the villain.

And because this part strikes me as crazy in the story.

Zacchaeus is in the wrong.

It's not that he's perceived of being wrong, he is in the wrong.

He is truly doing his own people dirty, stealing from them, going against the word of God, thou shalt not steal, especially from your neighbor.

You know, your neighbors, anybody who's in need, well, don't steal from them.

But Zacchaeus is doing that, and so I when I look at this story, I might see Zacchaeus and say, Man, Jesus, you a nice dude and all, but like he deserves to be an outcast.

He is the villain, he's bad, he's not doing any, he wouldn't do it for me.

So why would I do it for him?

I had to reckon with this a bit.

Because when I really looked at the story, I'm like, Jesus, this dude is bad, he's not good.

I don't like him.

I don't like Zacchaeus.

Okay, maybe I'm the only one.

I'm sorry.

But Jesus takes that guy who is unliked, who's unloved, and opens the door for community to him.

Jesus meets him where he is, seeks him out, calls him by name, and asks him to join and be a part of community.

And I actually want to bring up a couple of other stories in scripture that Jesus does some very similar things.

Because there's the woman at the well.

The woman at the well who's going to go get watered at noon, the hottest time in a hot climate, because she doesn't want to be around other people, probably because they tease her, they probably say things about her and things like that.

Yeah, she doesn't really have community either.

And when Jesus meets her, what's the first thing that he greets her with?

Compassion.

He gives her compassion first.

Later on, he gets into a theological thing, but first he gives her compassion.

If I look at the woman who was caught in adultery, when they bring the woman to Jesus and they're like, the word says, Then we gotta stone her.

Jesus would say you, and then Jesus greets her with compassion because he tells all of those people let he who is without sin cast the first stone and then they all walk away.

And then later on, at the end of it, he actually tells her, Well, go and sin no more.

But he doesn't open any of these stories with, hey, let me give you the Bible real quick.

You know what?

Hey, let me tell you about the word of God.

It's telling you that you are defrauding your people.

Don't do that.

That's not how he greets Zacchaeus.

That's not how he greets the woman at the whale, that's not how he greets the woman in adultery.

That just throughout scripture.

These sinners that Jesus interacts with, he doesn't first meet them with their sin.

That part of the story is also shocking to me.

Because if I'm honest, I feel I've heard, I've seen many times when the church of today has interacted with people.

Oftentimes the first things that we greet people with is their sin.

And there's an interesting part of this story, the crowd, how they tell that it says that they muttered and they say, Well, Jesus is going to be a guest of a sinner.

And this strikes me as funny because a lot of people in this crowd are people who follow the word of God or who know the word of God or know about it.

And I'm pretty sure they would identify themselves as sinners as well.

But for some reason, the guest of a sinner is only applied to Zacchaeus in this situation.

The crowd doesn't actually put themselves as well, he's teaching us, the sinners.

They don't do that.

They outcast Zacchaeus again, he's the sinner.

That actually implies that we aren't.

So sometimes when we greet people with sin first, then it's almost like we're telling them that you're a sinner, we're not.

I gotta tell you, that's not the way of Jesus.

And no, this isn't always what the church always does, but I'm just reading the text and trying to pull out here and maybe teach a little bit this morning.

Because it was convicting my heart as I was going through it.

Jesus doesn't open up with the sin of Zacchaeus, he opens up with his name and then opens the door for community.

And then the muttering happens.

And that really interesting part, I think this is fun here.

See, it tells us that the muttering happens, and again, I think the authors are being very intentional about the ways that they write stories.

We don't see Luke never tells us that Jesus ever tells Zacchaeus about the word of God.

We know we never see that, and maybe Luke has that in here for a reason, but check out when Zacchaeus starts to change.

Watch what happens.

It says that when the crowd begins to mutter and say he's going to be a guest of a sinner, and then it says Zacchaeus stops right there.

So I can't even imagine that they've gotten back to the house yet.

It's been Zacchaeus come out of the tree.

We're gonna have dinner at your house.

I was like, okay, maybe Zacchaeus is climbing out of the tree.

Then, like, what?

He's going to go be the guest of a sinner.

Zacchaeus hears that and he stops and then he makes his declaration for anybody that I you know what?

I'm giving back half of my wealth to the poor.

I'm giving it all back.

And then check this out.

If there's anybody that I've ever wronged, stolen from, he's actually trying to make restitution by the Mosaic law and actually tells us that if they stole a sheep, then they should give back four times the sheep of what they stole.

Then that's actually what Zacchaeus says.

So this tells me he actually knows the word of God because he says, I'm giving back half my wealth, and then if there's anybody that I've wronged, well, I'm giving back four times as much.

Because that's what the law tells me to do.

So this story tells me that Zacchaeus does already know the law, but something about the law hasn't convicted him yet.

The conviction comes later.

It wasn't the law.

So if we're having these conversations with people, greeting them with their sins first, if our intentions is to see them have transformed hearts, well, Zacchaeus knew the law and it did not transform his heart.

But that's the next thing that happens in the story.

This and this isn't him deciding to pay for his salvation.

I have to say this.

He's not paying for his salvation, but it's because of his transformed heart that we can see the works of his salvation.

His life begins to look different.

Remember those stories that we talked about earlier.

Let me say it this way, then.

I love John does this really cool thing where he gives us the mission statement of the enemy and the mission statement of Jesus in John 10 10.

He says that the enemy has a mission statement, and here's what it is to still kill and destroy.

Since that's what the enemy came to do, that is his mission.

He will still kill and destroy.

And then he tells us that Jesus has come to give life.

He has come so that you will have life and have a full life, have it abundantly.

So if I broke those down, I would say that still, kill, and destroy.

Those sound like taking, still, kill and destroy.

And Jesus is the giver of life, came to give you life.

He's the giver.

There's takers and there's givers.

Then I had to reckon with, well, then what does my life look like?

Do I align with the enemy's mission statement?

Or am I going to align with the mission statement of Jesus?

Because Zacchaeus is confronted with a similar question: do you want to be a giver or continue to be a taker?

Because Zacchaeus is a taker at this time.

But that's where when and where Jesus meets him.

He meets him as a taker and invites him into community.

His heart transforms, and then he becomes a giver.

And he begins to be a giver of life, just like Jesus.

Anybody that I've wronged.

There's one more scripture I want to bring up.

Can we bring up that Galatians passage?

This is what I mean by this, this, this, this giver of life.

Paul actually writes it like this as well, too.

He says, for the whole law, then it explains what the law we're talking about in specific here.

Concerning human relationships, it says, is fulfilled in one precept.

That is, you shall have an unselfish concern for others and do things for their what?

Giving.

Sounds like giving, not taking.

And then the next verse it says, But if you bite and devour, though it sounds like taking, but if you bite and devour one another in bickering and strife, watch out that you, along with your entire fellowship, are not consumed by one another.

Let the church of today look like the ones that love their neighbors, pursuing our neighbors' benefits.

Let Madison of today look like a church that is pursuing the benefits of others, that looks like we align with the mission of Jesus and we want to give life.

We're not here to take it.

Closing out here.

Not just for the sake of this one villain, but for the sake of all of us villains.

He's doing this for the sake of you too.

It can be easy to read stories and see ourselves as the heroes.

But I'm gonna ask you to maybe read the Bible kind of like I watched Bambi for the first time.

If I always read the Bible and it was just patting me on the back, I might be reading it wrong.

But if every now and again I read the Bible and it points back at me and says, Lamar, here's where you're a villain, then I know this is where Jesus is calling me to change.

Inviting me into change.

Looking for that transformation in my life that only he can provide.

Comes through the Spirit ultimately.

We just did a holy, a whole Holy Spirit series.

So he does this for you, he does this for me, he does this for us, he dines with sinners.

Our role seek after him earnestly, even if it looks undignified to the eyes of society.

My role is to just seek after this guy because I know he's seeking my goodness.

We gather in this hospital looking for the one who can save us, not just physically, but spiritually and eternally.

So just be eager to meet Jesus.

Let no barrier keep anybody else from meeting Jesus.

And as he's already done with them, we too can dine with sinners.

We dine with ourselves too.

We too can open our doors and bring villains into community.

We can invite them in and say, Do you want to be a part of the givers?

You want to be a part of the takers?

If you're a sinner, you are in the right place today.

And he's come for you.

So let me pray for us.

God, I thank you for looking down on us villains and having compassion.

Thank you for not just throwing us away.

Thank you for loving us so deeply by saying you will give us community.

I pray, Lord, that we go out and express in the same way, in the same manner, when we meet people that we think are villains, that we don't confront them with antagonizing and trying to fight, but we confront them with community, opening the door for them to be connected and tied into the fellowship of you.

Help us to walk in the right way so that others can see you for who you truly are.

A lover of us and humanity.

Thank you, God, for dying on the cross.

You took it a step further than just eating with the sinners, you died on the cross for us.

We thank you, we love you in the name of Jesus we pray.