Jesus Comes To Seek And Save

Jesus Comes: Jesus Seeks and Saves

A new year starts and many folks are already worried about the promises they made just before the new year began.

It’s safe to say… we break promises; not because we want to, but because we simply do not have the fortitude to endure through the challenges and changes which mount up day after day.

We face insurmountable obstacles which tend to dismount our stance upon more meaningful moments in 2015.

Again, we break promises… please note… God does not.

The proof of God is found in the formidable promises He has made which have not been forsaken, nor forgotten.

Those promises prove the practical nature of the Divine.

Those promises prove the practical nature of mankind as well.

John 1:5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

John 13:17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

2 Peter 1:4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,

6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,

7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.

8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It’s not about us promising ourselves or promising God anything… it’s about God’s promises to us for which we cling to by faith and grow in this faith supplied by God through the grace given by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus Shows Up

When Jesus showed up on the earth, He traveled about making old lives new.

Many of those He touched were not expecting the freedom or newness brought to them by the Lord Jesus, but He was on a mission.

Jesus came for many reasons, but ultimately, He came…as

Luke 19:10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Zaccheus

I want to start with the story of Zaccheus – a conniving, cunning, concern when it came to collecting taxes from his kinsman.

His story is found in Luke 19

Luke 19:1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.

2 And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.

3 Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature.

4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way.

5 When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”

6 And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly.

7 When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

8 Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”

9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ‎10 “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Zaccheus was a Jew, a child of Abraham, but most thought he was a traitor because he cheated them by taking more than necessary as a CHIEF TAX Collector in Jericho.

Zaccheus was rich… and even influential within the circles of wealthy individuals of his day, but he was not faithful and thereby found himself coming up short in the eyes of the people – you see he was a short man.

BUT GOD…

Jesus came… people flocking around Him and wanting to touch Him, hear Him, capture His favor… except a short man named Zaccheus who could not see through the crowd.