Luke 19:1-10 - Jesus came to seek and to save the lost

1.0 introduction

Well everyone, in case you have forgotten, it is tax return week!

Personally, I hate tax return week. It is such a laborious exercise isn't it?
Where you have to account for money earned, and money spent, and if you are like me, you are never quite sure if you are doing it properly. It is tiring!

I hate it so much, I gladly pay for an accountant to do it for me.

And my suspicion is, I'm not alone in this dislike of all things tax. I think it is something of a national pastime in Australia, particularly in tax return week, to hate all things tax, but especially to hate the taxman. I'd go so far as to say it is also a national pastime, even a rite of passage, to diddle the books just a little at tax time. I don't mean an Alan Bond type diddle, but maybe just a little one, like that money you can claim of your business expenses without receipts.

I used to work with bloke who claimed $299 of his $300 every year, irrespective of his expenses. And I think he thought giving them back the $1 dollar difference made him a good civic servant.

I'm sure the people who do do this with their tax, only do so, because they are extremely confident they are unlikely to ever be audited. But unfortunately, I suspect that this is also how most Australians treat their relationship with God. As one where it doesn't really matter, because I will never get audited.

But certainly Jesus message from Luke's gospel last week was that everyone will have to give an account before God of their life, and it will come on them so suddenly, they will need to have their things in order before it happens, because there will be no time to go to the shredder once the audit starts. It was a sobering message last week.

But today we are looking at Luke's gospel and how Jesus interacts with the tax collector, and it seems that just like Australia today, in the ancient world people hated the taxman.

And it seems the heart of Jesus message is for us, when it comes to giving an account before God of your life, (just like when you are doing your tax really) is that you better get an expert to do it for you.

When it comes to doing my tax I need an accountant.
But when it comes to giving an account to God for my life and the wrong things I've done, what the Bible calls Sin, I also need an expert. I need a saviour to represent me. And Jesus is such a saviour!

But first in this story we get to meet the hated taxman, and his name is Zacchaeus.

2.0 Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus (verse 1-4)

Luke 19:1    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.
3 He wanted to see who Jesus was,
but being a short man he could not,
because of the crowd.
4 So he ran ahead
and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him,
since Jesus was coming that way.

It seems Zacchaeus is a resourceful fellow, and he makes great efforts to actually see Jesus. He predicts the path that Jesus is going to go down, and he doesn't let the others exclude him from seeing him. He doesn't let his short stature get in the way, nor does he let the crowds antipathy towards him, stop him either. It seems he is determined to see Jesus, and maybe it's because deep down he knows that Jesus is important.

Zacchaeus doesn't let others exclude him from seeing Jesus, but this isn’t unique in the Gospel stories either. Many people went to great lengths to meet and see Jesus. There was a quadriplegic man whose friends literally removed a roof, so they could lower their friend down to meet Jesus. There was a woman who suffered terribly from bleeding, who struggled through a crowd just to touch the hem of Jesus robe. There were blind men who called out to Jesus even when they were told by a crowd to stop.

And these examples of people seeking Jesus, go on and on and on throughout the Gospels, from people who suffered from leprosy, to little children, everyone wanted to meet Jesus. Especially those who knew that they had great needs, they went to Jesus because they knew Jesus could do something for them that no one else could.

Zacchaeus wants “to see” Jesus, twice in the story it tells us that. Now it could just be because he was curios, but it seems likely it is something more profound. And given the context of the story you have to say the latter is the more likely.

Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus

3.0 But today, Jesus wants to see Zacchaeus (V5)

Luke 19:5    When Jesus reached the spot,
he looked up and said to him,
“Zacchaeus, come down immediately.
I must stay at your house today.”

Now just exactly How shocked you reckon Zacchaeus was at this point?
Personally I think it is lucky that he didn't FALL out of the tree!

Prior to that, I'm sure it was thinking to himself, I have my nice cosy posy, out of the way of all the people, and I’ll just be able to casually observe Jesus passing by, like being in the members stand at the SCG. I will be able to take my time and see for myself what all the fuss is about.

And then, of all the crowd, Jesus stops, and looks directly at Zacchaeus, in one of those harrowing and exposing public moments, that we all dread and have recurring nightmares about.

Like when the teacher makes eye contact with you, and picks your name out to answer the question in front of the whole class. Like one of those moments when the blue flashing lights in the revision mirror is for you!

Did you think Zacchaeus was expecting Jesus to address him today?
I don't think there's any way on this earth he thought that was going to happen.

Do you think Zacchaeus was ready when the moment came, when the opportunity came, that Jesus offered him that day?
I’d have to say he grabbed the opportunity with both hands don’t you think?

This whole interaction between Zacchaeus and Jesus, is a delightful turning of the tables isn't it?
A scene where the Hunter becomes the hunted as it were.
And so today Jesus wants to see Zacchaeus

4.0 Zacchaeus is a terrible choice! (V7)

Luke 19:7    All the people saw this and began to mutter,
“He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”

And so the crowd grumbled against Jesus, because Zacchaeus is a terrible choice. Amongst all the crowd there, could there in fact be a worse choice than Zacchaeus?

After all, he is a tax collector, a sinner, a rich man, and a lost son of Abraham. One of God's people, Israel, who have turned their back on the living God's way. Is there a worse choice in that crowd that day, Than Zacchaeus?

He is a chief tax collector. Now as much as we may cast our minds straight to some sort of ATO employee, that really doesn't explain the imagery all that adequately. To get the real sense of who a tax collector was in the first century.

We would be better off picturing ourselves in Belfast Ireland, seeing a Roman Catholic person, whose job is to extort money from his own people to pay for the occupying British troops. (This gives us a much better sense of who these tax collectors were). These people are basically traitors and grubby little ones with their hands in the till at that.

And so this crowd of people, this crowd of Jewish people it would seem, grumble against Jesus. But that is nothing new either, because if you know your old Testament, you know that the Jewish people, the nation of Israel, have always grumbled against God, they have always grumbled against God's prophets, they have always grumbled that God doesn't know what he's doing to his own people.

And so, Zacchaeus really is an unexpected choice, and yet quite in keeping with Jesus other company throughout the Gospel story as it is told by the apostle Luke. Two weeks ago when we looked the story of the lost sheep, people were complaining about Jesus hanging out with tax collectors and sinners then as well.

To everyone watching, Zacchaeus is a terrible choice!

5.0 Zacchaeus is the perfect choice! (V5-8)

Luke 19:5    When Jesus reached the spot,
he looked up and said to him,
“Zacchaeus, come down immediately.
I must stay at your house today.”
6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
Luke 19:7    All the people saw this and began to mutter,
“He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’”
Luke 19:8    But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord,
“Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have cheated anybody out of anything,
I will pay back four times the amount.”

As we have seen in Luke's gospel over the last four weeks, and in many ways culminating in today's passage, we know that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus came to help the helpless, he didn't come to placate the self-confident, he came to help the helpless, he came to seek and to save the lost.

Now It seems to me in our society today, people sometimes accuse Christianity of being false, because they think Christians are hypocrites.
They think Christians are people who do something, and then try and pretend that they don't.

Well whatever people may rightly or wrongly say of Christians at times, the same people cannot say, that God is a hypocrite, they cannot say the son of God, Jesus is a hypocrite, because Zacchaeus in today's story points out in exemplary fashion, that God is not a hypocrite.

Zacchaeus is described as being a tax collector, a sinner, a rich man, and a lost son of Abraham (belonging to the people of Israel, where God had promised he would be their God and they would be his people).

In real way is so much of Jesus teaching over the last few weeks in Luke's gospel, has been leading up to this man Zacchaeus. When we looked at Luke 15, we heard the story of a shepherd who left 99 sheep, to go after the one lost sheep and to save it completely.

As you may remember the shepherd picked up the sheep and put him on his shoulders, and carries him into his own house to celebrate that this sheep was lost, and has now been found, it has been saved. Zacchaeus is such a sheep -- lost a son of Abraham who has been found.

God is not a hypocrite, he does not say one thing and do another. God is the God that loves to seek and save the lost, and Zacchaeus is proof perfect of that.

But not only that, in another story in Luke’s gospel, Jesus tells the story about how hard it is for a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact Jesus says you cannot serve two masters, you cannot serve both God and money. God is not impressed by what man is impressed by, but man is easily impressed by things that obscure his view of God. Jesus told them it was easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter heaven. And so the disciples asked, “how then can anyone be saved?”.

And what was Jesus answer to this question, “with man this is not possible but for God this is possible”.
Zacchaeus we are specifically told in Luke 19, is a rich man. And He is the concrete expression of God's truthfulness and faithfulness of what he tells us in his word the Bible. Even rich men can be saved by the power of God. because Zacchaeus is such a man!

God certainly is not a hypocrite, God really does delight in seeking and saving the lost.
And while this one sheep has up until this point been lost to God,
How does Zacchaeus respond to Jesus offer?

It is swift and emphatic isn't it?
He comes straight down the tree, and he acknowledges that he has done wrong, and he needs to change, and he rejoices. He publicly demonstrates that he is changed because of Jesus.

He knows he has done wrong and he stops doing wrong, and now does what is right, because of Jesus. And the Bible calls this change of behaviour, this change of direction, - repentance. Repentance means to change direction by 180°. You were heading away from God, and now you turn to God, you turn to Jesus and you follow him.

This one lost sheep Zacchaeus knew he needed forgiveness, but you know what, we all need forgiveness. None of us lives in perfect relationship with God all the time. All of us at various times in our life, in various ways, shapes and forms, have denied God as God of our lives and we have lived our life our own way, ignoring him as our God, and the Bible call to this pattern of behaviour - Sin.

And our experience of life bears out this truth. We all know we have made decisions off our own bat, that were wrong. We have made decisions that were hurtful against others, even hurtful against ourselves, and especially hurtful against God, the one who made us, to serve love and honour him completely.

And the Bible tells us this truth plainly in a book of the Bible from the old Testament Called Isaiah, in Isaiah 53:6 it says this.
Is. 53:6    We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity [sin] of us all.

When it comes to our relationship with God, we all need forgiveness just like Zacchaeus did. That is why Zacchaeus was the perfect choice from that crowd, he is the concrete demonstration for us of the truth that Jesus has told us, that God desires to seek and to save the lost. God desires to seek and to save lost sheep like Zacchaeus, but desires to seek and to save lost sheep like you and me.

6.0 Jesus came today to seek the lost and to give salvation (V9 -10)

Luke 19:9    Jesus said to him,
“Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too,
is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came
to seek and to save what was lost.”

Now it's all well and good, for Jesus to say he came to seek and to save the lost, he came to offer salvation, but the big question is;
how can Jesus offer salvation?

When it comes to salvation Jesus in the one true expert, and that is why he can offer salvation.
Luke 18:31    Jesus took the Twelve aside and told them,
“We are going up to Jerusalem,
and everything that is written by the prophets
about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.
32 He will be handed over to the Gentiles.
They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him
and kill him.
33 On the third day he will rise again.”

Jesus came into the world to seek and save the lost, to offer salvation to all who would accept his gift. Jesus paid the price of our salvation, by his death upon a cross. This innocent man, God's son, who always lived in perfect relationship with God his father, who always did what was right in this world, died this pitiful, thief's death upon that wooden Roman cross, and he did it in my place for my sin, he did it in Zacchaeus place, for Zacchaeus Sin. And he did it in your place, for your sin, if you will accept his gracious gift of forgiveness.
The Bible calls this act of trusting in Jesus death alone to pay the penalty of my sin towards God, it calls this act of trust -- Faith.

Jesus calls sinners like you and me, to repent, to turn from our way of sin and ignoring God, to turn to Jesus and follow him. To repent, and to have faith, to trust alone in Jesus death. The Bible says that if we're willing to repent and have faith in Jesus, he will be trustworthy and give us the gift of salvation. Jesus is the expert in Salvation and that is what he can give you salvation, just like he gave it to me, just like he gave it to Zacchaeus.

And just to prove he is the expert in all things salvation, God raised him from the dead on the third day. As surely as Jesus has been raised from the dead, we can receive the gift of salvation, because Jesus came to seek and save the lost like you and me, and like Zacchaeus.

Now just as an aside, I guess you could ask the question, did Zacchaeus buy his salvation?

Well no, this isn't an episode of secret millionaire, about a generous person giving away their hard earned cash. Quite the opposite. This episode, is about a thief acknowledging the truth about themselves, and the truth about their behaviour before God. It is about them stopping their behaviour and turning from it, because God has forgiven them.

The Bible tells us clearly, that salvation is God's gift, his free gift to the most unexpected people. No one can earn salvation, as though God owes it to them. Not by their money, not by their being good, because they will never be perfect. And not by their religious piety because once again it is always with mixed motives, & it will never be perfect. We will never do anything so well as to have God in our debt.

Another part of the Bible puts it this way
Eph 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

Grace means God's gift, Faith means to trust God, to trust Jesus alone. And faith always exhibits itself in obedience to God. And obedience always involves repentance, in turning from wrong and doing what is right. The thief no longer steals, the adulterer no longer sleeps with another man's wife, the proud before God are now Humble.

And Once again we can see that there is something even more special about Zacchaeus as he embodies Jesus teaching of what God is like towards us.
Because Jesus also told another story about Pharisees (the great Jewish religious leader) and a tax collector. Jesus told how the Pharisees stood up to pray in the synagogue and thank God that he was not like other sinners, especially like the tax collector over there. But the tax collector prayed, God have mercy on me a sinner. And Jesus tells us that it was the tax collector who humbled himself and asked for forgiveness, who was put right with God, not the proud Pharisees who thought he had something to offer God, like God would now owe him something.

God isn't a hypocrite, he is a generous God who delights to seek and to save the lost, and there is something special about Zacchaeus as he embodies this truth. He embodies Jesus teaching of what God is like. He is the lost sheep, the rich man, the tax collector, the man who went home saved because he humbled himself before God an accepted God's salvation.

7.0 Conclusion -- is Jesus your cause for grumbling or rejoicing today? (V6-7)

As we've looked at aspects of Jesus life in Lukes GOSPEL over the last few weeks, you can't help but notice there's a lot going on in his life. He packed more into three years of public ministry that most of us will do in a lifetime, he was quite a man on a mission. In fact you could probably say, he was the original man on a mission, a mission to seek and to save the lost. But you'll also notice he didn't hang around too much either, he spoke to people clearly and then he gave them an opportunity to respond, and then he moved on to seek more lost. He really was a man on a time schedule. Which meant the people were also on a time schedule if they wanted a chance to respond to what he had to say.

In that crowd that day, there were two groups of people who responded to Jesus. Some grumbled because they were proud, and thought they had no need of his salvation. But others rejoiced because they humbled themselves knowing full well that they really did need his salvation.

In this crowd this day, there are two groups of people responding to Jesus words to them today. The question is, which one are you? Do you grumble about Jesus? Or will you be humble about Jesus, knowing that he alone is the expert in Salvation, that he alone can offer you true forgiveness and restored relationship with God.

Jesus is speaking to you today from the pages of his word, how will you respond?

In another book of the Bible we have been looking at recently, Jesus says this
20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.

Let me finish with Jesus Words to Zacchaeus:
Luke 19:9    Jesus said to him,
“Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too,
is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of Man came
to seek and to save what was lost.”