He came to seek and save the Lost

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zaccheus was trying to see who Jesus was, and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Him, for He was about to pass through that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly. When they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” Zaccheus stopped and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Luke 19:1-10

My challenge to you this morning is to invite someone here to your home that you’re not very familiar with and second, if you get invited, purpose it in your heart to accept the invitation. For their sakes, yours and for the sake of Christ.

Hospitality and Inconvenience

Open with Pashtun folk story about the man looking for good luck.

The Pashtun and Marcus Luttrell

The ancient practice of Hospitality. Etymology and Abraham

My upbringing with Hospitality 1) Getting biscuits and koko ready. 2) Letiting the guests eat before we do. 3) Solo fafago (Emphasise the inconvenience) . Talk about Uriah serving mum and dad with the solo fafago.

Why talk about Hospitality?

1. Have you guys seen this book?

2. It reveals that SDA’s are incredibly effective in outreach evangelism, however we are week in small group evangelism.

3. I’ve given them some thought and I have experienced this myself in my own churches and the relationships I’ve formed with my SDA family. Generally, we are not comfortable with people coming in. But we’re masters at going out. Now break it down, this means we’re happy to show and reveal what we choose to but do not want people to see what we don’t choose. This message has sent a message to the non-sda’s that “I don’t want to be apart of your church because I seem to treated more affectionately as an outsider.” And to the committed, it makes us nervous about bringing our family and friends to an environment that is not so hospitable to their own family. This is why. Well let’s go back to our reading.

4. Testimonies Vol 6. p341

5. Thankfully, Glenorchy Church isn’t too disadvantaged. From some of my visitations, I have noticed that some of us are well versed in hospitality, and I know people like Donna, Jacinda, Phil and Anita open their homes on Tuesday’s and Friday’s for these exact purposes. So we have a pretty solid platform to launch from.

Rahab

Read and detour to

Summarise the story and read the admission by Rahab in

The men keep their promise

The main point is that Rahab exercised faith in a God that she had heard about, and no longer believed in the gods of her people. As a result she and her whole family were saved. And furthermore she had the honours of being in the maternal lineage of Jesus Christ. ()

Zaccheus

Zaccheus was a tax collector for the Roman empire. And he was practicing a common practice among those who were protected by the state. Charge a tax that the Roman empire required, plus a little bit extra for yourself. And thus Zaccheus had earned a reputation where people loved him in that city.

2. He was not a loveable chap. I’m pretty sure the friends he had were similar to him in vocation and they probably got advice from him and he also received advice from them. In fact he probably looked to religion to help him, but noticed that even some of the Priests, Pharisees and Sadducees were some of the guys that liked to hang around with him and he noted their strategic practices to stay ahead on the Jericho Wall Street stock exchange. But deep in his soul he wanted to change, he needed to change for himself and his family. And then he heard about Jesus. He had heard that this man was preaching a message of hope, healing the lepers, deaf and the blind, restoring value to the poor and showing mercy to the weak. But what hope did Zaccheus have? He was neither blind, lame, didn’t have leprosy and he wasn’t poor, and he wasn’t weak. But he was short. He didn’t quite have the stature to see Jesus.

Ancient Practice

2. However, when Jesus passes through Jericho, Jesus not only sees Zaccheus, he knows him by name.

You could imagine the shock that Zaccheus would’ve had when he heard himself being addressed by Jesus. But the fact is, in times when you doubt your value, when you know the guilt you carry for what you did, Jesus sees you, he knows your situation, and he does the same thing to you that he did to Zaccheus. He invites himself into your life.

3 The bible says that Zaccheus joyfully accepted Jesus into his home and as a result. He and his household received salvation.

Jesus Christ and Hospitality

We open our homes as a way to inconvenience ourselves. When we are accepted there’s a high chance that they will accept us.

and implore us to entertain strangers! Make it a habit to allow people to come into your space and we will learn over and over again what it means to become a disciple.

Jesus Christ has made it incredibly clear that he has made a home for us. The theme of the Bible is Jesus preparing a place for us so that where he is, we maybe also. We will call that home.

If you think it’s inconvenient to have people in your home, you are right. Plates may break, you may serve food that you were planning to pack in your kid’s lunches the day after, you give up the grape juice that you’d been saving for something else, your visitor breaks one of your chairs, people put a hole in your roof so they can lower their friend down to hear Jesus. But if anybody has been inconvenienced…it is Jesus himself.

Jesus Christ who left the throne of heaven and died a torturous death so that he can reciprocate the invitation to those who had accepted him into their homes.

Appeal

1. It’s easy for us to teach Daniel and Revelation. We’ve been conditioned to do this, this is our bread and butter but we struggle to let people in.

2. How can we tell the world to be ready for Jesus to come when we ourselves haven’t honed the characteristics to permit him into our own homes yea our own hearts?

3. So here’s my challenge for the week. Today, invite someone to your home for a meal and a chat. Share your journey with Christ with one another and pray together. Put your hand up if you’re willing to accept this challenge.

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