His Purpose – Why Did Jesus Come?

SERMON BRIEF

Date Written: March 13, 2015

Date Preached: March 15, 2015

Church: OPBC (AM) Sunday

FOUNDATIONAL ELEMENTS

Title: His Purpose – Why did Jesus Come ?

Text: Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)

ETS: Jesus gives witness to God’s love thru His actions!

ESS: We must give witness to God’s love thru OUR actions!

Background on Passage:

After 3½ yrs of preaching, teaching and ministry, Jesus was making His way TO Jerusalem! He was working His way to the place where He knew He would ultimately give His life on the Cross.

Now by this time, Jesus was a ROCK star! A man whose very presence demanded attention, but NOT because of His inflated ego, but rather it was because of His humility, teaching and the fact He was willing to get involved with and touch the lives of those around Him even when the world had washed its hands of them!

By this time, Jesus had already changed thousands of lives and word had spread far and wide about Jesus! So, wherever Jesus went, there was ALWAYS a tremendous crowd there to meet Him and follow Him around! The KJV uses the word ‘multitude’ on many occasions to describe the crowds that followed Jesus.

Now Scripture tells us that the religious leaders of the day were NOT happy with all the attention Jesus was getting. They were the religious leaders and the people should be paying attention to THEM, not this son of a carpenter…not this untrained, unskilled teacher wanna be…

In the eyes of the religious leaders, Jesus was the competition! He was the enemy! Even though they saw with their own eyes the great things Jesus was doing, they were still convinced that HE was the enemy and they wanted to KILL him!

But at this time Jesus was making His way TO Jerusalem and on His way, Luke tells us of several stories that reveal the purpose and nature of Jesus and His mission…none relate this more than the story of Jesus meeting Zacchaeus. Stand with me as we read Luke 19:1-10 from the NLT…it will be on the screen as well.

Read passage here…Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)

1Jesus entered Jericho and made His way thru the town. 2There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the CHIEF tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore/fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. 5When Jesus came by, He looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” He said. “Quick! Come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” 6Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. 7BUT…the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. 8Meanwhile, 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!” 9Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek and to save those who are lost.

Now many people see this story as a one time event. They see it as a picture of the mercy and love of Jesus being shown. But there are NOT many who will look at this story and relate it to their own walk with Christ!

This morning I want us to look at this story from the perspective of JESUS… and then I want us to put ourselves in Jesus’ place! When we read this story we can see:

A Clear Calling - The World Is Seeking After Jesus (v1-4)

1Jesus entered Jericho and made His way thru the town. 2There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the CHIEF tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. 3He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. 4So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore/fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

Have you ever had a desire for ‘something’ but didn’t know really what it was? Think about it now… have you ever caught yourself standing in front of your refrigerator with the door wide open OR your cabinets with the doors wide open…

You were LOOKING for something but really didn’t know what you wanted or what you were looking for…all you knew is that you WANTED something.

I’ve been there and tried to ‘fill’ that desire with chips but that wasn’t it… tried to fill it with cookies, but that wasn’t it… tried to fill it with ANYTHING but I ended up bloated & frustrated… My body would get filled by my DESIRE would never get quenched!