Know, Serve, Impact Series

Sermon: Know, Serve, Impact

Series:

Slide Introduction

If you have your Bibles open to Luke 19 and I want you to see this interaction between a man name Zacchaeus and Jesus

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 

What you need to understand is this Zacchaeus guy was a bad, bad, bad man.

Because during this time he worked for the only known super power at the time and that power was the Roman Empire.

And in order to finance their great empire, the Romans would often levy heavy taxes on all nations under their control.

And so this didn’t sit well with the Jewish people because they didn’t like the idea of their tax’s dollars going toward a secular government with all its pagan false gods.

But like all things taxes no matter how much you hate to pay you still have to pay; and so the Jewish people were forced to pay.

And so, tax collectors were the most unlikable people. But there’s also a twist to this. The people who would usually collect the taxes from the Jewish people were often there own people.

So you would have Jewish people collecting taxes from other Jewish people for the Roman empire. And to make matters worse these Jewish tax collector would often scam there own people. Charging way more then what they needed so they would make some money.

This is why Zacchaeus is a very wealth man because he was scamming his own people and everyone knew it.

Verse 3: 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 

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

Understand climbing a tree for someone like Zacchaeus was very demeaning. For a man with such wealth and power this was very below him.

Slide When 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.”

Slide Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled.

Notice how willing Jesus was to be associated with sinners. He didn’t worry about the criticism.

Slide 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!”

Verse 8 is such a huge moment in the life of Zacchaeus and his story.

After meeting with Jesus Zacchaeus realized that his life needed to be different; that he needed to make some much needed life changes.

And we see this in verse 8. We see that Zacchaeus is willing to give half of his wealth to the poor and to give back to those he may have cheated.

We are seeing the inner change within Zacchaeus through his outward actions. You see just following Jesus with your heart or mind isn’t enough. There has to be some kind of outward action showing the change within.

And we see this Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus had an encounter with Jesus and it changed his life. Knowing Jesus should cause our behavior and habits to change.

And I want you to see how Jesus responds to all this…

Slide Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.”

Remember the religious establishment and the Jewish people reject people like Zacchaeus. They consider people like Zacchaeus scum.

And yet here comes Jesus saying, “Hey this Zacchaeus guy is a true Jew, he’s a true son of Abraham.”

Remember Abraham is the father of their faith. God had promised to make Abraham descendants into a great nation and they would be as numerous as the stars.

And so this infuriates the religious establishment but notice what Jesus does next…

Slide “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” Luke 19:1-10 (NLT)

The Good Shepherd had come to find His lost sheep.

That’s a huge and profound statement Jesus is making here because not only is he forgiving sin and restoring people’s relationship with God.

But He’s also laying out his mission. He’s telling us why He came. He came to seek and save those that are lost.

The Good Shepherd had come to find His lost sheep.

He came to bridge the gap between sinful man and a Holy God.

He came to take away our sin and to make us whole and pure.