Introduction
A few years ago, I sat in on the Chapel Service for the four-year-olds of our New Tampa Christian Academy preschool.
The teacher asked the children, “What is Christmas all about?”
With one voice, they loudly chorused, “Santa Claus!”
The teacher quickly helped the children understand that the real meaning of Christmas is not Santa Claus but Jesus Christ!
But, if Christmas is about Jesus, we must ask, “Why did Jesus come?”
Jesus himself told us the reason for his birth when he encountered a man outside Jericho named Zacchaeus.
Today, we will learn why Jesus came in his encounter with Zacchaeus.
Scripture
Let’s read Luke 19:1-10:
1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Lesson
We live at a time when we need to clarify the message of Christmas.
Our culture wants Christmas to be about goodwill and good cheer, not about Jesus and his cross. Our culture will tolerate Santa Claus but not Jesus Christ.
Mark Lowry, a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, openly propagated this view.
The November 15, 2002 edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram included a review of the Rockette’s Christmas Show by Mark Lowry.
In it, Mr. Lowry seemed highly offended that Santa Claus was forced to share a stage with Jesus and a manger:
For the first hour and 40 minutes, the big-budget revue succeeds in entertaining and building holiday spirit. But then the tone changes rapidly.
A recreation of the biblical Christmas story, complete with live animals, wise men, and shepherds, drags on for a good 20 minutes. An ominous voice narrates the entire story, beginning with Isaiah’s Old Testament prophecy, with such seriousness that it turns preachy and overbearing. You almost expect the narrator to tell the Easter story and read the Book of Revelation.
Had NextStage been a church and its congregation known what to expect, terrific. But to lure spectators of all faiths (and non-faiths) with the promise of an entertaining holiday revue and then to ambush them with Christian theology is dated and borderline offensive, especially at a time when understanding other cultures and beliefs is more important than ever.
Oh dear!
To think that the poor audience had to spend 20 minutes out of a two-hour show focused on the actual purpose of Christmas!
But what is the actual purpose of Christmas?
Why did Jesus come to earth?
Why was he born some 2,000 years ago?
Jesus tells us the answer in verse 10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Jesus’ purpose was to seek and save lost people.
Luke 19:1-10 shows us that the reason Jesus came was to seek and to save the lost.
I. Jesus Seeks the Lost (19:1-5)
The first thing we notice about this story is that Jesus seeks the lost.
Zacchaeus is an example of a person who is lost.
A. The Character of the Lost (19:1-2)
First, let’s observe the character of the lost.
In verses 1-2, Luke says, “He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.”
Zacchaeus is described as a man who was the chief tax collector and rich.
He had all the pleasures and comforts that money could buy.
However, lost people are not only wealthy people.
Lost people can be poor too.
Lost people can be educated or uneducated.
Lost people can be happy or unhappy.
Lost people are those who have no spiritual connection to God.
They have no relationship with God.
Someone once defined absolute failure as “living without knowing what life is all about, feeding on things that do not satisfy, thinking you have everything, only to find out in the end you have nothing that matters.”
Clarence Darrow, the great criminal lawyer of the previous century and famous for the so-called “Scopes Monkey Trial,” had among his friends a young minister.
This seems strange because, as you remember, Darrow is usually thought of as an atheist.
They were talking one day, and Darrow became reminiscent.
He spoke of his career and some of the famous trials in which he had been the lawyer for the defense.
He said, “This has been an exciting life.”
He had made at least a comfortable fortune, and he guessed he might be regarded as somewhat successful.
Then Darrow asked, “Would you like to know my favorite Bible verse?”
His friend said, “Indeed I would.”
Darrow said, “You will find it in Luke 5:5: ‘We toiled all night and took nothing!’ ”
He added, “Despite my success, that verse seems to sum up how I feel about life.”
No matter what you do in life, no matter what position you may obtain, no matter what you might come to own. . . if you leave God out, the time will come when life itself may rise and mock you with the word—nothing—nothing—nothing!
That is a picture of the lost person.
Is that you?
B. The Concern of the Lost (19:3-4)
Second, notice the concern of the lost.
Luke says of Zacchaeus in verses 3-4: “And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.”
There was an emptiness in Zacchaeus’ soul that forced him to look for an answer.
Billy Graham once said: “We live in a hurting world. The pieces aren't fitting together in marriage, politics, or whatever. And they never will until people finally turn toward and discover faith in Jesus.”
The evangelist noted that everywhere he preaches, he can count on five areas of human need facing contemporary men and women, which affect people worldwide: emptiness, loneliness, guilt, fear of death, and a search for something to believe in.
I don’t know the specific need in Zacchaeus’ life, but I know he was lost.
He was cut off from God.
His sin caused a barrier between himself and God.
Although he may not have seen himself as a sinner, he knew something was missing in his life.
People today are lost.
They are cut off from God.
Their sin is a barrier between themselves and God.
Although they may not see themselves as sinners, they know something is missing in their lives.
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo (354-430 A.D.), once said of God, “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”
Is there an emptiness in your soul?
Is there something missing in your life?
C. The Calling of the Lost (19:5)
And third, let’s see the calling of the lost.
In verse 5, Luke says, “And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.’ ”
Even though there was a great crowd, Jesus singled out Zacchaeus.
And, very simply, yet very purposefully, he called Zacchaeus to come down and take him home.
Jesus’ call comes in different ways to different people.
Most of our covenant children grow up in homes where Jesus is present daily.
He uses Moms and Dads to lead little ones to himself.
Others hear the call of Jesus through friends or colleagues.
Others attend churches like the Tampa Bay Presbyterian Church, where the Gospel is preached, and they hear the call of Jesus.
Jesus uses many different ways to call people to himself, like the story of a young Russian I read about several years ago.
In the 1930s, in Stavropol, Russia, Stalin ordered that all Bibles be confiscated and Christian believers be sent to prison camps.
Ironically, most of the Bibles were not destroyed, yet many Christians died as “enemies of the state.”
With the dissolution of the USSR, a CoMission team arrived in Stavropol in 1994 for ministry.
Their request to have Bibles shipped to Moscow was being held up.
But someone told them about a warehouse outside of town where confiscated Bibles were still stored.
Remarkably, the team was granted permission to distribute them.
Hiring local Russian workers, they began loading their trucks.
One young man, a hostile agnostic, came only for the day’s wages.
But not long after they had started, he disappeared.
He was found in the corner of the warehouse, weeping, with a Bible in his hands.
Intending to steal it for himself, he had picked up his grandmother’s Bible!
Her signature was on the front page.
Jesus used his grandmother’s Bible to call that young man to himself.
Today, that young Russian is being transformed by the Bible that his grandmother was persecuted for but still held dear.
Jesus seeks the lost.
The lost are men and women, boys and girls who are not in a right relationship with God.
They are cut off from him.
Their sin is a barrier between themselves and God.
Lost people may not be able to identify their sin, but most often, lostness expresses itself in emptiness, loneliness, guilt, fear of death, and a search for something to believe in.
Jesus is concerned about the lost and calls them to himself.
He does so in a way that is as different as people are different.
Is Jesus calling you to himself?
II. Jesus Saves the Lost (19:6-10)
Now, let’s see how Jesus saves the lost. Notice the following.
A. The Lost Trust Jesus (19:6)
First, the lost trust Jesus.
We read of Zacchaeus in verse 6: “So he hurried and came down and received him [that is, Jesus] joyfully.”
Zacchaeus had undoubtedly heard about Jesus.
He had heard about who he was and what he had done.
Now, he saw Jesus for himself.
And when Jesus called him, he responded with childlike simplicity.
He trusted Jesus.
Faith is simple.
It is trust in Jesus alone for salvation.
You don’t need to have studied theology and gone to Seminary to trust in Jesus.
You don’t have to read your entire Bible to trust in Jesus.
You simply need to believe that God has provided salvation for you in the person of Jesus.
In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning describes an incident one day when a two-story house caught on fire.
The family was leaving the house when the smallest boy became terrified, tore away from his mother, and ran back upstairs.
Suddenly, he appeared at a smoke-filled window, crying hysterically.
Standing outside, his father shouted, “Jump, son, jump! I will catch you.”
The boy cried, “But Daddy, I can’t see you.”
“I know,” his father called. “But I can see you.”
Faith is believing that God sees you and that he alone can save you.
B. The Lost Repent of Sin (19:7-8)
Second, the lost repent of sin.
Luke continues in verses 7-8: “And when they [that is, the people] saw it, they all grumbled, ‘He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.’ And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, ‘Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.’ ”
Zacchaeus’ whole life was changed.
He repented.
This is demonstrated in the fact that he willingly gave half of his possessions to people experiencing poverty and made restitution to those whom he had cheated.
His life was completely turned from a life of sin and self to a life of righteousness and obedience.
In answer to question 87, “What is repentance unto life?” the Westminster Shorter Catechism states:
Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.
Repentance comes from God and his grace.
Repentance involves a true sense of sin.
Repentance apprehends the mercy of God in Christ.
Repentance grieves over sin.
Repentance hates sin.
Repentance turns from sin toward God.
And repentance includes a new desire to obey God and his word.
We see this kind of repentance in Zacchaeus and in the life of every lost person who repents.
C. The Lost Receive Salvation (19:9)
And third, the lost receive salvation.
Luke says in verse 9, “And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.’ ”
Zacchaeus received salvation.
He became a spiritual child of Abraham, a child of God, and a co-heir with Jesus.
One characteristic that distinguishes Christianity from all the other religions of the world is that salvation is by grace, through faith, apart from human works.
For this reason, I was especially interested in the headline in the Grand Rapids Press I came across some time ago: “Conversation to Hindu Faith Is Tortuous.”
The article stated:
A West German businessman has completed his conversion to the Hindu faith by piercing himself through the cheeks with a ¼-inch thick, four-foot long steel rod and pulling a chariot for two miles by ropes attached to his back and chest by steel hooks. Others walk through twenty-foot long pits of fire, don shoes with soles made of nails, or hang in the air spread-eagled from hooks embedded in their backs.”
What a contrast to Christianity!
Aren’t you glad that God’s grace in salvation is received simply by trusting Jesus and repenting of sin?
Conclusion
Jesus came into the world to seek and to save the lost.
That is how Jesus understood his mission.
Zacchaeus illustrates one person who was sought and saved by Jesus.
Remember that Jesus came to seek and save the lost this Christmas.
If you are a Christian, rejoice in the salvation that God has given to you. And tell others about Jesus’ purpose in coming to this world.
Tell them that he has come to seek and to save the lost.
During a safety test, one Mercedes Benz TV commercial shows their car colliding with a cement wall.
Someone then asks the company spokesman why they do not enforce their patent on the Mercedes Benz energy-absorbing car body, a design copied by other companies because of its success.
He replies matter-of-factly, “Because some things in life are too important not to share.”
How true.
In that category also falls the gospel of salvation, which saves people from far more than auto collisions.
So, this Christmas, tell others why Jesus came.
If you are not a Christian, I want to remind you that you are lost, spiritually speaking.
That means that you are cut off from God.
You have no relationship with him.
I invite you today to trust Jesus and repent of your sins.
If you do, I can assure you, based on God’s word, that you will receive salvation.
You will receive the best present of all—Jesus!
Even though he had strict religious training in his youth, education at Oxford University, and missionary service in the new colony of Georgia, Charles Wesley was not a Christian.
He had no peace or joy in his heart and life.
Returning to London after a discouraging time in America, he met with a group of Moravians in the Aldersgate Hall.
He realized that “salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.”
In his May 20, 1738 journal entry, he wrote: “At midnight I trusted Christ, assured then that I was safe, whether sleeping or waking.”
In this spirit of joyous enthusiasm, Charles Wesley began to write new hymns with increased fervor.
He traveled throughout Great Britain with his older brother John Wesley a quarter of a million miles, mostly on horseback, leading great crowds in singing his hymns in mass outdoor services of up to 40,000 people.
One of the great hymns written by Charles Wesley expresses so beautifully how God saves us:
And can it be that I should gain an int’rest in the Savior’s blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
He left His Father’s throne above, so free, so infinite His grace! Emptied Himself of all but love, and bled for Adam’s helpless race. ’Tis mercy all, immense and free, For, O my God, it found out me.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay, Fast bound in sin and nature’s night. Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray: I woke – the dungeon flamed with light! My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.
No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in Him, is mine! Alive in Him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach th’eternal throne, And claim the crown, thru Christ my own.
Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.
He saved Zacchaeus.
He saved Charles Wesley.
And he will save you, too, if you place your trust in him. Amen.
