The Seeking Savior

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That final verse, that final statement of our Lord Jesus is one of the most valuable, the most glorious and the most important truths ever revealed in Scripture.
“For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.”
We are saved because God is a seeker and a saver of those who are lost.
From the fall of man in the garden, when the Lord came searching for Adam and Eve who were hiding from Him, and He said, "Where are you?" ()
This is what our Lord is saying here. He is the seeker. He is the saver of those who are lost. And the story is an illustration of this great truth.
That is the Christian message. Everything in the Old Testament points to that. Everything in the New Testament defines that.
Sin has devastated all of humanity and all of humanity is marred, corrupted, evil, ruined, and headed for eternal damnation. We are all in that same condition.
This is why tells us: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
Every single sentence he drew from the Old Testament. This is not a new description of man; this is God's description of man's sinful condition from the start.
“They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.”
This is the human condition. We see the results of this condition every day all around us.
We hear of sexual predators soliciting nine-year-olds on the Internet.
We see teenagers slicing thin lines into the skin on their inner forearms.
We see bruises and broken marriages.
We’ve been inside homes where the grief is so intense, where the pain is so hot to the touch, all a person can really do is just sit there and hold people, cry with them, wait it out.
I can remember getting called to go sit with a family who just found out their daughter had been raped. What do you do in a situation like that?
On many occasions it is in a hospital when a doctor comes to deliver terrible news.
And when it’s not falling apart in front of some of us, it’s falling apart in front of all of us—another school shooting, a missing child, another tornado and its destruction, or a terrorist strike.
And so we understand here this morning that this world is full of corruption.
But the purpose of the coming of the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus into the world, is to rescue sinners from this condition.
So God sends Christ to rescue the lost from wrath and to preserve them safe and unharmed in heaven's eternal joys. That is the Christian gospel.
No writer in the New Testament puts more emphasis on this than does Luke.
is one of the most well known passages in this Gospel if you will remember:
“Now the tax collectors and the sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
· Vs. 3-7 “Parable of Lost Sheep” ~ A man goes, he finds the sheep, he rejoices with his friends because a sheep has value; verse 7, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” Heaven rejoices over one sinner’s repentance.
· Vs. 8-10 “Parable of Lost Coin”~ A woman who lost a coin. Again, that has value; she finds the coin; she calls her lady friends together: “Rejoice with me,” verse 9; I found the coin. The application, verse 10 “I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
· Vs. 11-32 “Parable of the Prodigal Son”~ A rebellious son that has totally disgraced his father and wasted his life “comes to himself (desperation)” returns to his father to work as a hired hand (repentance) only to find his Father running towards him to embrace him.
In , "As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you."
The highest joy in human life is the joy of a man and a woman in love coming together in the union of marriage. God finds His highest joy in the restoration and recovery of sinners. The Old Testament even says God shouts for joy, He's exuberant.
And I think John summed it up when he said, "We love Him because He first loved us."
He seeks us, and we seek Him as well:
says, "Those who diligently seek Me will find Me."
says, “you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart."
That's exactly what happens in the story of Zacchaeus. Out of nowhere Jesus seeks him and before it's over, his heart responds by seeking Jesus.
CONTEXT
For the last time, Jesus is headed for Jerusalem, leaving His ministry behind as He heads for the cross in a few days.
And so He arrives at the city of Jericho with His disciples and a crowd of followers headed for Jerusalem.
And the question was on people's minds is this Jesus the Messiah?”
Is He going to bring the promised Kingdom?
They had witnessed and heard about the many miracles he had performed.
They knew He was a teacher like no other teacher.
And in Jericho they knew He had raised Lazarus from the dead because just up the hill a little ways from Jericho is Bethany.
So He was followed by a curious crowd trying to figure out exactly who he is.
It was a customary thing that when pilgrims came through your town, to come out and greet them, asked them if they needed a drink, asked them if they needed something to eat.
But in this case because it was Jesus, the crowd was bigger coming in and the crowd coming out of their homes would have been greater than normal as well.
SINNER
And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.
This city would have had many, many tax collectors. This man is identified as a chief tax collector.
This is the sixth time our Lord has an encounter with a tax gatherer. And interestingly, all of them are favorable. So He defies the conventional wisdom.
In order to have a tax franchise, you had to buy it from Rome. So you were a traitor from the very outset to your own people who were occupied by the Roman idolatrous and despised pagans.
Rome would set a certain amount that the tax gatherer had to pay.
Whatever else he could collect, he could keep...a formula for corruption for sure.
The people had no idea what they were supposed to pay.
Yes, there were some foundational taxes.
There was a ground tax like a property tax, there was even a kind of income tax which was about one percent of a person's income. So they had those that were fixed.
But beyond that, you could tax anything that you could get away with taxing.
You could tax ones business by taxing every wheel, every axle on their cart, taxing every animal pulling the cart, taxing every product that they bought and sold, every way imaginable.
And so tax collectors became filthy rich because what they paid Rome was only a portion of what they actually collected.
They also became despised and hated. They couldn't attend the synagogue.
They couldn't have any social relationships with people because the people wouldn't get near them because they were considered unclean and anybody who came near one of them would be polluted.
So the only people they could associate were the people who were also unclean, and so they were the collection of people called the tax collectors and sinners that we meet so often in Jesus' ministry, the very people that God loves to save.
In fact, Jesus spent so much time with the scum and the riff-raff, the tax gatherers and their assorted criminals, that they called Him, a friend of tax gatherers and sinners."
It is the reason why they thought that He represented Satan because He spent so much time with the people that they thought belonged to Satan.
Well here's one of them. There was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus.
Now his mom and dad had good intentions for him when he was born. Zacchaeus means: clean, innocent, pure and righteous.
Nice try, things didn't go the way they intended them to go. So he in his life defies the intent of his parents and becomes unclean, guilty, impure and unrighteous.
He was at the top of the pyramid, top of the pile. Everybody who collected everything, and there were lots of tax collectors, had to pay him a piece of the action.
And he was rich...and the people saw him as a rotten sinner.
So this man was left to live with the rest of the scum who were disallowed from any social or religious contact with the rest of the population.
Life would have been pretty tragic for him...a lot of money but outside of everything that was good and noble and meaningful.
3And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature.
He was interested in Jesus. He was trying to see who Jesus was.
But because his stature was small and the crowd is massive and he's bouncing up and down, bobbing back and forth trying to get a glimpse and he can't see Jesus.
Is he curious? Sure he's curious. But I believe there is more to it than that…you see, he has a dissatisfied heart.
· He knows he's alienated from God.
· He knows he has no eternal life.
· He knows that he's overwhelmed with guilt and sin.
· He knows the kind of man he is.
Yes he has a stockpile of cash… but he sees that all the cash is worthless…
As we find in Ecclesiastes: vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
That’s exactly where some in this room are this morning. You have spent your entire life trying to reach what you thought would bring peace only to find it is worthless..
The money, the success, the respect at your job, It’s all let you down.
I don't know exactly what was going on in his heart, but he was after Jesus for more than just curiosity.
Now he had two problems. Simple, verse 3, big crowd, small man...
Two problems, he was unable to see Jesus. The crowd was too large and he was too small.
But he's determined to see Jesus, setting aside all sense of embarrassment and these guys would probably keep to themselves and not expose themselves to large crowds very often because they didn't want to take the abuse that came to them because of who they were.
He comes out of his low profile kind of existence and he determines that he's going to see who Jesus is.
Well, you've got to get ahead of the crowd.
So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.
So he ran ahead of where Jesus was, ahead of where the crowd was and got beyond the crowd and he found a sycamore tree.
It’s a very...very low tree, short fat trunk and low broad branches that a little guy could climb rather easily and get up above the crowd and perch himself in those branches. And that's exactly what he did.
It's a lot like a live oak tree, And he sits there in the tree, waiting for Jesus to arrive.
SAVIOR
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.”
He said his name. the Son of Man knows who He's seeking.
He never expected to catch the eyes of Jesus.
He never ever dreamed that Jesus would know him.
But He does. And He says, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house."
You may be here this morning and feel like a nobody, but to the King of Kings you are a somebody!
He knows your name!
So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
Wow. "Today, I must stay at your house." And that phrase, "stay at your house," indicates to spend the night.
I'm coming and I'm going to stay overnight. By the way Zacchaeus didn't run a Bed and Breakfast.
This is a divine command.
Zacchaeus never could have anticipated anything like this because he knew he was a defiled person and no one who considered himself righteous or clean would ever come near him, let alone near his house, and worst of all, eat a meal with him which was equivalent to affirmation and partnership.
Yes, Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was, but far more than that, Jesus wanted to see Zacchaeus. So in verse 6, he hurried, came down and received Him gladly.
It would have been the first time any righteous, clean, noble, respected person had come to his house.
And here is the Lord, like that father, throwing his arms around a stinking prodigal son, kissing him all over the head and reconciling him and embracing him.
Of course he received Him gladly, profusely because he was so overjoyed. Contrast that with the crowd in verse 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”
No self respecting Jew would ever do this the most corrupt of all tax gatherers and then to eat a meal with him, to sleep at his house, absolute outrage.
But Jesus goes to his house because He seeks to save this lost man.
He is on a divine mission,
· He knows exactly who he is though he's never met Him.
· He knows his name though he's never heard it.
· And he has an appointment with salvation.
He received Him gladly.
What a contrast. And when they saw it, they began to grumble.
They never got it. People of Israel never got it. All the way to the end they're holding on to their vile, damning self-righteous religion while Jesus is saving sinners who have no merit, nothing to commend them to Him.
TRANSFORMATION
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.”
Wow, something dramatic has just happened.
· Whoa! You've got a man who is a professional thief, extortionist who is now become an instant philanthropist.
· You've got a man who spent his whole life taking who now wants to give.
· You've got a man who is defined by selfishness now acting in an absolutely unselfish way.
Something dramatic has happened here. And by the way, there is no discussion of the conversation that Jesus had with him.
There’s no verse between verses 7 and 8 that say “when Jesus got to the house, Jesus preached to him concerning repentance and the Kingdom of God, and the need to enter the Kingdom by faith.”
It doesn't say that. It doesn't say anything about Jesus confronting his sin. It doesn't tell us what the conversation was.
Obviously what Jesus did was recognize the conviction of sin in his heart, the emptiness, the isolation, the lostness.
Jesus addresses that, talks to him about forgiveness, about repentance, about the Kingdom, and he embraces it, by the power of God he embraces it.
That's obvious. You say why? Because in verse 9 Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house."
So rather than go through the discussion and some verbal response from Zacchaeus, the Lord jumps right to the evidence of the transformation.
TALK IS CHEAP
CONFESSION
Look at verse 8 again; Zacchaeus, after the conversation is over that we can assume took place, rises, sets himself and makes this confession.
And said to the Lord..., Lord," that's enough right there. He's confessing Jesus as... Lord.
This is foundational. This isn't something that comes later. This is foundational. If you confess Jesus as Lord, you're saved,
First thing he says when he takes his stand is, "You're my Lord."
Second thing, "Half of my possessions I will give to the poor."
SELF DENIAL
Wow that is a change. This is self-denial.
This is, "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself." That's it. "Take up his cross and follow Me." He has affirmed that Jesus is his Lord and he says immediately, "I'm going to give half of everything that I possess to the poor." Now he possessed a lot.
it's very much different than the rich young ruler back in chapter 18
True righteousness results in a transformation, a transformation that hits at the very core of your dominant category of sin.
"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”
Now you can pick a lot of categories. For this guy it was money and extortion.
But when true salvation comes and real transformation comes, it strikes a death blow at the core, category of one's wretchedness.
You remember that James wrote, "Faith without works is...what?...dead." You remember
that :10says that you were saved unto good works which God has before ordained that you should walk in them.
Half of my possessions I'll give to the poor. And now he's got half left, what about the other half? "If I have defrauded any one of anything, I'll give back four times as much." Wow!
Anybody that I've defrauded, I'll give back four times as much. Now how many people would that be? Hundreds? Thousands? Just play that scene out in your mind. This isn't a parable, this is a real man in a real story in a real place and one can only imagine how many weeks people were in line, right?, getting back four fold, four hundred percent.
Now where did he get that idea? Did that just come out of the air?
Take a look at Leviticus and maybe Numbers.. you find that this is the prescription for restitution was to add 20% when you wrong someone.
Well why did he say fourfold? Because in , if you robbed someone with violence and destruction, a fourfold response was required. He went to the max.
He said, "I've done this, I've done it violently, I've done it destructively. I will gladly pay back the max."
He knew his Old Testament Law.
It's not a, "Oh, is that what I'm supposed to do? Or do I have to do that? How little can I do and get away with it? How little can I obey and still be considered a Christian? How close can I walk to the edge?"
It's, "Look, just show me the maximum demonstration of obedience, that's what I want to do."
This is the real deal, folks
He was determined to do more than was asked, more than the law required.
This is the kind of obedience that marks the one who has denied himself, taken up his cross and followed Christ and doesn't live on the minimal but lives at the maximum level of obedience.
This is transformation that is stunning and staggering, the revelation of a totally transformed heart.
You say, "Well maybe this was just an anomaly."
No, this is not an anomaly, this is the very reason Jesus came, to seek and save that which was lost.
This type of transformation must be the norm of Christianity!
And this is one final comment made to Israel.
You haven't gotten it all along and you don't get it now. You're still grumbling and you're still complaining because you don't get it.
It is the most magnificent expression of the redeeming grace and love of God. Jesus came to seek and save sinners and then to totally transform them.
We're all in the same state that this man was in, spiritually dead, defiled, slaves of sin, full of guilt, living in isolation, alienation, ignorance, darkness.
· We need a prophet from God to come and tell us the truth.
· We need a priest of God to come and give us access to God.
· We need a King to come and guide, protect and provide.
· We need a shepherd to come and feed and lead.
· Jesus is the prophet priest, king, and shepherd.
He didn't come to demonstrate a noble ethic.
He came to save people from their sin, from eternal hell, to bring them into His everlasting Kingdom and heaven, to make them the possessors of everlasting life.
And there are some Zacchaeus' sitting in the trees here today and you're curious enough to be here and you're looking through the leaves at Jesus trying to find if he is really the Messiah.
There are others that claim a relationship but have not experienced the TRANSFORMATION.
I pray this is the day when He calls your name, comes to your house and brings His salvation. Open your heart and receive Him gladly.
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