When Jesus Met Zacchaeus

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

My name is Russ.

If I hadn't had a chance to meet you, welcome this morning to Church at the Grove.

And I want you to join me in welcoming our Social Circle campus to join in with us this morning.

Would y'all join in with me welcoming now?

Yeah, we're excited to have you guys with us in Social Circle this morning as we share truth together.

It's exciting as we move into the series, the second week of this series, where uh it says that Jesus met.

When Jesus met, when he met individuals, um, I believe everything, I believe that Jesus changes everything.

Can you just say that with me?

Jesus changes everything together.

In social circle, can you say it with me?

Jesus changes everything.

And so as we start this morning, I want to give you a bit of an equation that's gonna be really the centerpiece and and and flow, hopefully, throughout our message as we talk about how Jesus met Zacchaeus.

And the equation is this is this anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus equals transformation.

Now, would you say that with me?

Say this equation with me.

Anticipation.

Say it with me.

Anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus equals transformation.

And so I have a question for you.

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

Is it possible?

Is it possible?

The question is often asked regarding whether or not a crusty old soul can be changed.

And when I'm talking about, I'm talking about myself, crusty old soul.

Or is there no hope?

That's the question.

Can somebody be changed?

Can somebody young be changed?

Can somebody middle-aged be changed?

Can somebody old be changed?

Can a crusty old soul be changed?

It's a major topic of conversation and study and writing in the theological world and the world of psychology.

And uh, can somebody truly change?

Is conversion a possibility?

Present-day psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists, they believe, contrary to Freud, that you can transcend your childhood, your upbringing, your abuse and neglect, and you need not be what your parents have made you to be.

Now that's good news, isn't it?

But it's not good news because it comes from psychiatrists or psychologists or psychotherapists.

The medical world is even examining the possibility of change.

You heard cardiovascular researchers have separated all types of people into two types, type A and type B.

Type A's are hardworking overachievers who are prone to die of heart attacks.

Type Bs go through life smelling the daisies, having fun.

I hope y'all all enjoy it.

Enjoying the world, skipping along.

They live longer.

Now, instead of concentrating solely on the methods of treatment for type A's, doctors are asking, is there a chance that a type A can be changed into a type B?

And I want to tell you that the answers are here.

The answers are available, but the answers aren't found in the psychological community.

They aren't found from the medical community, they aren't found in the educational community.

They don't have the answer.

Jesus changes everything.

Jesus changes everything.

Here's something that I think we all need to consider.

We all need to consider whether or not we have experienced a genuine Jesus change, a genuine Jesus conversion, a salvation, a point of redemption, a point of eternal change in our life.

We need to consider, have we experienced that?

And then we need to consider what evidence is there that you have genuinely been changed by Jesus?

Let me ask it again.

What evidence is there in your life that you have genuinely been changed by Jesus?

Nathan preached a couple of weeks ago about salvation, the biblical concept of salvation and how that necessitates actual change in our life.

What takes place for genuine salvation, redemption in Jesus to truly happen?

And what is, what's the tangible evidence that can point to that absolute, unmistakable, noticeable, observable difference in the life of a person who's met Jesus?

They're changed.

Something's happened in their life.

Had they been struck by lightning?

Abducted by aliens.

Old dogs can learn new tricks.

Because Jesus changes everything.

Which leads us to this story where we have this equation.

Anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus leads to transformation.

We'll start with the first part of the equation: anticipation.

Have you ever anticipated something?

Have you ever anticipated somebody that's coming into your presence?

Is it coming close to you?

Somebody that's going to visit you, somebody that might be famous, or somebody that's just important in your life.

Luke chapter 19, verse 1.

Luke 19:1

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town.

And there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he'd become very rich.

He had tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd.

And so Jesus is traveling with his disciples, and they're going through this town of Jericho.

And we think of Jericho as the place where the walls tumbled down after God's people walked around them.

And that is the place.

It's really considered the oldest city on the planet earth.

But at this time in history where Jesus is walking through the city of Jericho, it is considered, it would have been a busy, diverse, economic crossroad, bustling with people.

It was still part of God's promised land, and God's people were in the land.

But it was controlled at this time by the Roman Empire, and they ruled with a fierce control.

They were physically brutal toward the Jewish people while they were living in the homeland, while they were controlling God's people in their homeland, but they were also economically oppressive, placing heavy taxation upon Jewish people.

And here's how they were doing this: they were recruiting economically and business-savvy Jewish men to do the collecting of taxes for them.

And as a reward for them collecting taxes for the Roman Empire, they were allowed to collect as much extra as they could possibly and pad their own pockets.

Sometimes large amounts.

Jericho was the winter home of the richest people of that day.

You can today, I just back in in June, I saw the ruins, the ruins of Herod's great palace.

And then just down the way, you could see the ruins of all the rich people, some Jewish religious leaders, other Roman leaders, other people from other ethnicities, these winter-rich homes.

And so Zacchaeus, if he was going to be a tax collector for the Roman Empire, he chose the right place to do it.

And so there's a problem.

These tax collectors found themselves in a precarious situation.

They were working for the Romans, but I can tell you the Romans didn't care for them.

They were hated by the Romans.

Even though they were collecting money for the Romans, the Romans treated them like dogs.

Now, how do you imagine their own people thought of them?

The Romans treated them like dogs, but and then just because they're collecting money doesn't mean the Romans see them in any higher level.

On the other hand, they were hated by their own people for being traitors.

Can you imagine?

And Jesus enters Jericho.

And Zacchaeus, who has been collecting money, patting his pockets, becoming extremely wealthy, hated by the Romans on this side while he's working for them, having no connection and no affection from his own people.

Jesus enters Jericho and Zacchaeus wants to see him.

Anticipation.

Anticipation.

He wants to see him.

There's this great anticipation.

Why?

Why?

He's too short to see over the crowd.

I can identify.

And so he runs ahead so he can climb up in a tree.

And so the first part of the equation is anticipation.

What's the second part of the equation?

Desperation.

Let's say it together.

Desperation.

Verse 4.

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

So what is so interesting about Jesus to Zacchaeus?

Jesus has probably been known for his authoritative teaching.

He's probably known for his miracles.

He's known for feeding massive numbers of people with just a few fish and a few loaves of bread.

He's known for touching lepers and leprosy being gone.

He's known for just making people whole and healthy from any sickness known.

He's known for casting out demons.

Jesus is known for so much.

Is it possible that Zacchaeus is desperate?

He's at the end of his rope.

He doesn't fit in over here with the Romans.

If I would collect money for them, at least I would have money.

Maybe they would like me, but now I'm an outcast with my own people.

When Sabbath comes on Friday evening, I can tell you that Zacchaeus has not been a part of a Shabbat meal, probably for ages.

There's nobody, there's no one, there's no place where he fits in.

He maybe has realized that having all the money and wealth in the world doesn't amount to anything.

And some of you know that.

Money can bring headaches with the perks.

Zacchaeus is tired of being treated like dirt by the Romans after he's been doing their dirty work.

He's tired of being an outcast among his own people.

He has nobody.

No friends, no community, no support, no prayer warriors, no men that he can confide in.

He is completely lonely and he is alone.

He is desperate.

He's desperate.

There's an anticipation and there's a desperation.

I want to see Jesus.

I want to see Jesus.

I want to see who he is.

He runs ahead of the crowd.

It says, because he is small of stature, he climbs up into the sycamore fig tree.

Which leads us to the next part of the equation.

Equation says anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus.

Let me tell you what is the most part of the equation?

I mean, it's Jesus because if you don't know the answer, just say Jesus.

That's just a good old church Sunday school principal.

Your Sunday school teacher says, hey, what's fuzzy?

Has a big, you know, fuzzy, fluffy tail.

I mean, you just say Jesus.

It doesn't matter if you're wrong.

You're close enough.

Verses five through seven.

When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and he called him by name.

Zacchaeus, he said, quick, come down.

I must be a guest in your home today.

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy.

But the people were displeased.

He is gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner.

They grumbled.

Can you imagine the excitement that Zacchaeus was experienced?

Jesus is coming.

The one with authority, the one that can cast out demons, the one who has healed the lepers, the one who has something different, something significant.

I've heard about our people.

I've heard of the scriptures speaking of the one who would come.

And so I don't know if you've ever had anybody exciting or famous at your house.

I I don't know that I've had anybody other than Pat Hardin come to my house that's well known and famous.

But I mean, you have you ever I've I one time I was able to go and and visit um President George W.

Bush.

I was able to go visit him.

I was with about seven or eight thousand other people.

But I got up close to him and he he turned and he looked at me.

And then he started looking at other people.

He didn't speak to me.

For Zacchaeus, this famous Jewish rabbi, unknowingly, maybe to him at the time, the Messiah, the Son of God, one of the Jewish people that that had been anticipated.

He's come.

And he's coming to his house for a meal.

Zacchaeus says, He knows my name.

How does he know my name?

He knows my name.

Zacchaeus.

Hey, I'm come down.

I'm coming to your house.

But what was the response of the others?

But the people were displeased.

He's gone to the guest of a notorious sinner.

They grumbled.

I can tell you a lot of us are party hoopers when it comes to seeing how God can work in somebody else's life.

Some of us believe that old dogs can't learn new tricks.

But Jesus changes everything.

Anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus equals what?

Transformation.

See that conversion, transformation.

Conversion is at the very center of the biblical message throughout the Old and the New Testament.

The message is that it's never too late to change.

Remember the thief on the cross?

It's never too late to change.

You need not be locked into what you have always been and done.

You are not a prisoner of your track record or your past.

For too long, we in the church, we thought sudden conversion, the Billy Graham kind of conversion, that it was just for fundamentalists or for weird charismatics, for gospel missions or tent meetings.

But the possibility of sudden conversion is a gift that God can give everybody.

Whatever your perspective, whatever your background is, whatever your political or theological stance, it's never too late to repent and to turn to God.

And sometimes salvation and conversion, it's sudden.

Sometimes it is sudden.

Sometimes it is more gradual over time.

But history abounds with the examples of surprising conversions, surprising works of God in people's lives.

You've heard of John Wesley.

After he'd already been to the United States and been a part of God moving in great ways, he goes back to England, this theological giant, and he's discouraged and he's defeated.

And one day he's sitting in a chapel in Aldersgate, and he found, and this is his words, his heart strangely warned.

A man who thought that he would have been saved for many years.

Suddenly he's truly saved.

John Wesley was converted and became the great fountain of life for the Methodist and for God's work and all of England.

Saint Augustine had a dramatic conversion, the same monk who had struggles with temptations in the flesh that were great.

He prayed one time, Oh Lord, make me pure, but not yet.

But he became the great saint that we revere in the writings that we read today.

William Booth.

Do you know William Booth?

You know who he is?

He was an unlikely convert, this rough-cut man.

He was appalled that the poor and the homeless had nowhere to turn.

He founded the Salvation Army.

And one day he prayed, Lord, I give you everything there is in this man, William Booth.

Do with me what you will.

With that, one man's conversion, a movement started that changed hundreds of thousands of lives.

Just this past week, we celebrated really two giants.

Two giants in the faith.

Ken Fraker, who was part of our own church, that really was the contractor.

This building wouldn't be here if it hadn't been for Ken Fraker.

And then yesterday we celebrated Milton Wood, and I could go on and on about Milton, but Milton was responsible for hundreds of churches planted and thousands of people baptized in just recent years.

I can tell you that people would look at the butcher family and think it quite strange that three sons of Buddy Butcher would end up following Jesus and having impact for the kingdom of God.

Jesus is traveling through this diverse, rich economic town where all these wealthy people had these wealthy homes.

Of all the people, why was it Zacchaeus that would do something so out of character for a rich tax collector?

It's simple.

Why would he climb up into a tree?

Because he anticipated something different about this man named Jesus.

Can he be real?

He was desperate.

He was lonely.

He was empty.

He felt insignificant.

He was hungry for something outside of himself.

Why did Jesus stop and pick Zacchaeus out?

I think Jesus went through that town looking for the most ready and open person there.

And though Zacchaeus seemed the least pious and the least religious, he was the most hungry for the new life that God had for him.

Transformation is the result.

Anticipation plus desperation plus Jesus equals transformation.

Verse 8.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor.

Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.

Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today.

For this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.

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

Who would do most of the talking?

Did Jesus tell Zacchaeus all about God, conversion, prayer, and Christian ethics and theology?

Was Jesus the great inexhaustible fountain of wisdom and in the presence of God?

I mean, was he just sharing all this wisdom about who God is and who he was?

Or is it possible that when you are in the presence of God, he simply wants to ask about you?

In Zacchaeus' case, things like, hey Zacchaeus, tell me about your life.

How'd you get so rich?

Do you have any friends?

Do you and your wife get along?

Zacchaeus, tell me about your kids.

We don't know what happened.

We don't know what took place in that conversation.

But I have the feeling that when you sit in the presence of ultimate love, you are the agenda.

When you sit in the presence of ultimate love, you are the agenda.

There's a realization that I know that Jesus has.

I know that Jesus is aware of the significance of this whole experience as he's walking through the town of Jericho.

I know that Jesus knows the whole story.

Jesus is aware.

He's aware of the significance of what is taking place.

And he he walks and he finds Zacchaeus in a tree.

Jesus is aware.

He's aware of what's coming down the road.

And he says, Zacchaeus, you come down.

You come down.

Now I know I know Jesus is aware of this.

Jesus knows.

Zacchaeus, you come down from the tree.

Because eventually the tree is the place for me.

I will be the one hanging on a tree.

Do you see it?

Do you see the exchange that is taking place here?

Jesus is saying, Zacchaeus, you come down, there's a great exchange that takes place in conversion and salvation and in redemption.

Jesus takes our place ultimately on the tree of Calvary.

You come down, Zacchaeus, because that's my place.

I'm the one that will be on the tree.

I'm the one that will be in your place.

I'm the one that's going to give you eternal hope and give you eternal life.

It won't be the money.

It won't be any friendships that you think you desperately need.

It's me that will give you hope.

Because Jesus changes everything.

Zacchaeus, you come down.

My place is on the tree.

I drove over to Marietta yesterday just to hang out with my twenty-four-year-old son.

And we talked about my family.

About eight weeks ago, I buried my dad's older sister.

And it was a time that family gathered, and we talked about our upbringing and our family, just like you would do when you bury somebody or you celebrate somebody or you have a memorial.

And I told my son that I said I messed up a lot when I was a dad, when you were younger.

And I said, part of it because it was because you were you were the first.

And we laughed.

I said, but I was a wounded dad that came from a wounded dad that came from a wounded dad.

And I said, I said, Josiah, I said, my whole life I've wanted to break the curse.

And he said, Dad, you have.

He said, you have.

He said, thank you.

Zacchaeus was saved.

And immediately he responded with something that was extremely practical.

Let me tell you something.

When salvation is genuine and real, spiritual formation and discipleship always begins immediately.

And so Zacchaeus, he says, here's what I'm going to do.

Everybody who I've wronged on their taxes, I'm going to give back fourfold.

And I'm going to tell you this that was that was great.

It sounds great, but it really wasn't that big of a deal because that's what the Roman government required.

But then what he does next is significant.

But he, because he chooses out of his own free will, he says, I'm going to give half of everything I have away.

Do you see it?

Discipleship always begins with something tangible.

It's a response, and it's not filling out a card.

It's not a repeated prayer.

It might involve those things.

It always takes place through baptismal waters, but it's other things, it's relationship changes.

Let me tell you, in our culture, the two most practical areas where I believe that change ought to happen in a believer's life when they've truly been changed by Jesus.

Number one is their calendar and their time.

And number two is their pocketbook, their checkbook, and their finances.

Zacchaeus gets this.

He gets it.

And he says, I'm going to give half of everything I have away.

And Jesus says this.

Salvation has come to this house.

Can Jesus say that about your life today?

Can Jesus say that about your household?

Salvation has come to this house.

And here's what I'm telling you, church.

And I feel responsible to lead our church down a path that is going to involve change in how we handle our time and how we handle our finances.

Has salvation come to your house?

Is it real?

Is it genuine?

Is it observable?

Now I'm going to turn it over to Pastor Nathan in Social Circle right now.

For him to lead social circle through just a time of decision.

But I just want to take a second right now as we go into a time of response.

I want to ask you, has salvation come to your house?

And what is the tangible response of that?

Is there a change in how you handle your time?

Have you been willing to say no to busyness and say yes to authentic community?

Have you been willing to say no to extravagant things that the world tells you you need and say yes to generosity and to really put our our um our creed, our our uh our our what do you call it?

What do we read together?

We're what liturgy.

We're not a liturgical church, but we are becoming one.

Liturgic liturgy.

Can we say we're putting our liturgy into practice, making sure that there is no poor in our community?

Father, we believe that Jesus changes everything.

Father, we believe that life can be changed in a family heritage where a wounded father who had a wounded father who had a wounded father can meet Jesus and break the curse of sin in a family's generational curse and sin.

And so, Father, would you move?

Would you work?

God, would we believe anticipating?

I think of what the apostle Paul said that you will do exceedingly and abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power working in us and through us?

Are we desperate?

Are we desperate enough to allow ourselves to be undignified like Zacchaeus in the very presence of God?

Hallelujah for Jesus who provides transformation.

Hallelujah, hallelujah for Jesus, who gives us hope.

Father, would you continue to work?