Trinity Baptist Church August 13, 2006
Winning Ways (series)
Being Where People Are
Luke 19:1-10
One time a fitness center offered a $1,000 prize to anyone who could demonstrate they were stronger than the owner of the place. Here’s how it worked. The owner was a muscle man, and he’d take a lemon and squeeze it ‘til all the juice ran into a glass. Then he’d hand the lemon to the challenger. Anyone who could squeeze just one more drop of juice out would win the $1,000.
Lots of people tried - weightlifters, construction workers, professional wrestlers; but nobody could do it.
Then one day a skinny little guy came in and signed up to try. After the laughter died down, the owner grabbed a lemon and squeezed away. Then he handed the wrinkled remains to the little man.
The crowd got quiet as the man clenched the lemon in his fist -- then six more drops fell into the glass. The crowd cheered, the manager paid out the winning prize. Then he had to ask: “So what do you do for a living?? You can’t be a lumberjack or a professional weightlifter are you???” The man replied, “Nope -- work for the IRS.”
Tax agents have never had a good reputation. Mostly of course, because people don’t like to be separated from their money. Long before there was an IRS, there were tax collectors of a very different breed.
Throughout history, governments and other entities have often decided that extracting excessive amounts of money from people was a great way to raise large amounts of revenue. That was rarely more true than within the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was, after all, an expensive proposition: all those roads, government buildings, local rulers and soldiers had to be underwritten. Heavily taxing the local citizens was an answer to the money need.
In the Israel of Jesus’ day, the Romans recruited locals to be their tax collectors. Local citizens would know who had money and who therefore could be squeezed for larger “contributions“. We meet such a Roman employee today.
Zaccheus is famous to New Testament readers, not because of his occupation, but because of his size. His short stature, not his short-changing of people in Jericho are how Bible readers remember him. We read in Luke 19, he hears that Jesus and a crowd were about to pass through, so he shinnied up a tree to catch a glimpse of the famous teacher.
But there’s much more to Zaccheus than his height. His Roman employment made him an outcast. Fellow residents of Jericho would have treated him like a Gentile -- a non-Jew and a foreigner -- because of his work. He’d have been considered a collaborator of Israel’s enemies and hated because he helped Rome maintain its occupation.
Back one chapter in Luke’s gospel, Jesus had just told the story of another tax collector, one who went into the temple to pray. Near him stood a pompous Pharisee. Jesus’ descriptions of the two men would have left His audience expecting Him to applaud the Pharisee and condemn the tax collector. But as Jesus told His story, most listeners were dumbfounded when He declared the tax collector who recognized his sin, left the temple justified. The Pharisee did not.
And why? Because with the God of all grace, Jesus showed, it’s never proud, self-assured religious people who gain God‘s acceptance. God demonstrates His grace in the life of the one who knows his sin and takes hold of forgiveness. Jesus said, the sick need a doctor,
not the ones who consider themselves to be healthy.
Now, in this account in Luke 19, Jesus not only deigns to talk to this person considered a “lowlife“, He chooses to go and spend time and break bread with him.
For three weeks we’re thinking about Christ‘s commission for us to communicate His claims to people around us. We moderns don‘t seem to be doing very well with that mission. Bill Bright said once, “in millions of surveys done by Campus Crusade around the world, approximately 98 percent of Christians do not regularly introduce others to the Savior.”
We’re not a very vocal generation of believers. Howard Hendricks said, “In the midst of a generation screaming for answers, Christians are stuttering!” If you’re like me, you need some help. I know no better person to instruct, motivate and mobilize us to share Christ’s good news than Jesus Himself. The gospels reveal that He very often spent time with individuals clarifying the Truth of His Nature and His mission.
This very personal example with Zaccheus helps us zero in on one of the principles we talked about last time: being where the people are. Last time in Acts 19, we saw Paul moved out into natural gatherings of people -- he regularly went to the synagogue and into the market place and engaged people with the claims of Christ. We witnessed him walk through the open doors of opportunity God gave him. Jesus does that as well, in ways that neither His followers nor His critics often understood.
Let’s begin at the end of the paragraph -- in verse 10 of Luke 19: Look at it as I read it again. This is the central idea of the passage.
Someone said that writers “often leave the key hanging at the backdoor.“ That’s what Dr. Luke does here. This is Jesus summary of the two encounters He had in and near the city of Jericho.
Luke 19:10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost (Luke 19:10)
We talked last time about the heart of God, the heart of God’s Son, and the heart God’s people so need, when it comes to evangelism. Verse 10 is a restatement of Jesus‘ heart for people. But it’s not just His heart He reveals.
When Jesus speaks those words, He declares His purpose and mission. This is why He did what He did. His coming and dying is wrapped up seeking and saving lost creatures.
It’s why He went out of His way. It’s why He went where no Pharisee would dare to go. It’s why He touched lepers, healed the outcast and send demons where they belong.
And listen: this mission is also why He will lead you and me to the kind of people and places He went if we will dare to obey Him. Jesus came to save lost people. This Christian generation should be about nothing else.
Three observations and then some truths we need. First:
1. Jesus interaction with Zaccheus illustrates personal care. (19:1-5)
Verse 1. He (Jesus) entered Jericho and was passing through. Drop to verse 4. Zaccheus hurries ahead of the crowd and scurries up into that sycamore fig tree, we read: in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. Notice something? Jesus wasn’t coming to Jericho. He’s on the road through Jericho.
If we’d read on, we’d see, He’s headed for Jerusalem. Jesus is now close to the end of His earthly ministry. He’s traveling to Bethany, to stay with his good friends, then He’ll go into Jerusalem for the triumphal entry and He’ll begin the final week before His arrest and crucifixion.
He’s passing through Jericho. But, as you will see displayed in the gospels again and again, even though He had an agenda, even though He had a clear plan and a clear path to follow, He always had time for the individual. There was the woman at the well; the woman who touched His garment in the huge crowd. The mother whose son had died and who stopped Him as He was on the way to heal another parent’s child. Blind people who cried out.
A demoniac no one cared about. In case after case, a very, very busy Jesus -- the Person Who had the greatest goal and agenda in all of human history -- stopped, and took time for individuals like this lonely despised tax collector.
Verse 5 says, He came to the tree. Jesus looked at him. Very probably, looked into his eyes. He called him by name. Astounding. Zaccheus, come down, for today I must stay at your house. Now, Zaccheus probably got called lots of things, but you can imagine he very rarely heard his name.
Jesus not only notices him, He goes to him, and then He seeks his company. He cared about Zaccheus -- therefore He asked to spend time with him. He treated a wealthy outcast like a human being who bore God’s image -- someone with great worth despite his sin.
I was with some of you in a crowd yesterday. It seems I so rarely look beyond the crowd and look past people’s facades and really see the individual. Jesus saw them. He noticed individuals, because He knew the worth of the individual. If you will follow Him into the world, if you’ll begin to look at people, and pray for individuals, He will give you a heart and vision for individuals like His. We will see them as He does. Not see them as they are, but as they will be. People’s sin doesn’t put Him off like it does us. Hard living and the bad choices people make don’t stop Him. He cares about people wherever they are in life. That’s His desire for us.
That brings us to the second observation.
2. Jesus’ interaction with Zaccheus exemplifies grace. (19:6-9)
He teaches grace by how He treats Zaccheus. First, is that graciousness of being willing to spend time one-on-one with a sinful person. Of course, His action set tongues wagging.
Verse 7 says, when they saw it, they all began to grumble. They murmured. The sad thing is, one of the common verbs associated with the “proper“ religious people of the New Testament is that verb of murmuring.
They said, He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. It’s like the time when Mary came into the house where Jesus sat at dinner and spread ointment on His feet, and then bathed His feet with her tears and wiped them with her long hair. That’s when they said, if He knew what kind of woman she was, He would not allow her to touch Him.
That’s the attitude of religious people. But to Jesus, Zaccheus, His lostness far outweighs what people think or say about Him. This is one of the great differences between the Pharisees and Jesus. They were so afraid of contamination, but in His grace, He is more than willing to touch, and speak to, and teach, and minister to, and to go to people who will then recognize their need.
He’s not concerned about His reputation being tarnished -- He’s going after someone who needs God’s grace. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. You can’t do that by staying in the safety of a self-satisfied and religious crowd. Holy huddles rarely provide us contact with people who need Christ.
Christ didn’t come to bolster self-righteous people, He came to save sinners.
If you’re going to be involved with Him, you will need to associate with sinners. Like in this instance, Jesus was known by the company He kept. People dared to call Him a drunk and a glutton, they often referred to Him as a friend of immoral people. But Jesus said, I tell you the truth, the prostitutes and the tax collectors will enter the kingdom before the righteous. (Matthew 21:31)
He modeled God’s grace. When lost people come face to face with God’s grace, many of them begin to understand their lostness, and God rescues them.
A third observation:
3. Jesus’ interaction with Zaccheus aligns with His mission. (19:10)
With Jesus’ mission statement in verse 10, Luke reminds us of the parables about lost things which Jesus told three chapters back, in Luke 15. There was a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.
Jesus had taught a principle in each of those parables. Now He’s moves out to demonstrate the principle and to model it by His life. It’s obvious, He wants His followers to get this.
At the end of chapter 18, he had healed a blind man, another outcast in Jewish society. Here in 19, He brings light to Zaccheus‘ dark existence. Jesus’ mission and Jesus’ message of forgiveness is for both down-and-outers and up-and-outers.
Zaccheus had money. The text tells us he was wealthy. He probably had a large home. But he was empty; spiritually, because of how Jesus diagnoses him: he was lost. His sin placed him squarely outside of God‘s kingdom. Like people in every generation he’d tried to fill his heart with people, places, positions, possessions, but instead of filling him, it all left him emptier than ever.
If you could have read his thoughts, you’d have likely heard him say what people say today. The words aren’t new. He would have said to himself: “there has to be more to life than this. Life as it is doesn’t make any sense.”
He was hungry for something deeper. We know what that feels like, because we’ve all been there. In that lost state, God’s Son came His way.
He forgot his status and climbed a tree to see Jesus. Then came Jesus’ self-invitation. Verse 6 says, he received Him gladly. That word gladly means joyfully, the kind of joy that only flows out of a heart of faith. They spent time together, Jesus explained Himself to Zaccheus, and because of faith, the guy’s life was instantly and forever changed. His values and attitudes got touched. Before he met Christ, His focus was inward: “me and mine”.
When He met Christ, his focus was outward: he thought about the poor and the oppressed.
Before Christ, the man was in bondage. When Jesus came, Zacchaeus was saved! It’s not the decisions about money he makes in verse 8 that save him; those flow from what God did in Him that day.
The point we need is this: lost people are the kind Jesus came to find, and the same ones He seeks out today. You and I need to be out where He is, spending time with and presenting Christ’s answers to people who are lost and recognize it.
So, what can we take away from this encounter? Let me suggest three:
Truths for us
First, like we saw in Acts 19,
Evangelism requires intentionality.
Jesus demonstrates His purpose in verse 10 before He declares it.
He knew what He was about. In The Invisible War, Chip Ingram says, “we’ve believed the lie that life is a playground and the purpose of life is to make us happy.” If that’s the way I view life, I can tell you one thing: I’ll never plan on anything taking me out of my comfort zone. Jesus knew He was on earth to find and rescue people. Therefore, He made room and time for lost individuals.
If I don’t have room or time for people who need Christ, it’s pretty unlikely I will notice
one person in a crowd, even if he’s hanging on a limb all alone. Intentionality gets my eyes open to the individual in whose life God is working.
Second,
Evangelism requires proximity with people.
Jesus didn’t stay in religious circles and wait for people to come to Him. He went to them, He went to men and women like Zaccheus. He invited Himself into their environment.
It’s been said, we Christians have stopped fishing of men and have become keepers of the aquarium. They also say, fishing in your own bathtub may be terribly convenient, but it’s not very effective. If you want God to give you open doors of opportunity to us, you’ve got to be where people are.
We need to join gyms or clubs; go to meetings of organizations; be the ones who initiate block parties; initiate invitations to co-workers or fellow students to go to lunch. We need to exploit common interests like kids, or books, or languages, or serving the community, or taking adult education courses to get us out into the harvest field.
Finally,
Evangelism requires conviction about Christ’s mission.
Jesus never commissioned us to “play church“. He never gave us the mission to hold services at 10:30 on Sunday morning as our primary ministry.
He said the Son of Man has come into the world, to seek and to save that which was lost.
Did His mission stop the day He returned to Heaven? Of course not. He accomplished His purpose, then He sent His followers out to do the same thing. He said, as the Father sent Me, so I send you. He was saying, “This is what I’ve been about. This is what you must be about.”
Steps I need to take
I don’t know what it will take for you and me to get on the same page with Jesus Christ, but you and I both know that’s where we need to be. If your interest and courage and intention to share Jesus Christ with others has withered, then you need God to change your heart and mind and will.
So do I. I don’t know what map we’ve been on, or where we’ve been operating in Christ’s kingdom, but we’re not responding wholeheartedly to His commission.
Take some steps to gain convictions about His mission. Read His mission statements and meditate on them. Ask God every day to give you a heart for people and a heart to obey Him.
Let’s become known, like Jesus, as people who pursue lost people for Him to rescue.
