10/31/21 Luke 19:1-10 “You Will Never Regret This!”

29 Oct 10/31/21 Luke 19:1-10 “You Will Never Regret This!”

10/31/21    Luke 19:1-10        “You Will Never Regret This!”

I would like to begin by clearing up something I said last week.  If you remember I told you about how we lost all of our basketball games the first year I played varsity.  I told that story several years ago and I got feedback then as I did this past week.  One of the people who actually happened to be there during this time of many losses told me that it might not have been quite as bad as I made it to be but we still didn’t win a game.  A man came up to me after service last week and told me that he could identify with me completely as he had a similar experience.  My memory might be a little foggy after 50+ years but I am still a character because of that year in sports.  I am glad that someone remembered and pointed out my error because it kind of leads us right into today’s Scripture.  I was feeling pretty big about telling this story and now I feel small because I told it wrong.   Today, we are going to try to talk about how important you are in the eyes of God no matter who you are or what you have done.  You can lose every game but you are still big in the eyes of God.

Brian Bill tells the story that took place in a local fitness center.  They were offering $1,000 to anyone who could show that they were stronger than the owner.  Here was the contest.  The muscle man owner would squeeze a lemon until all the juice ran out of it into a glass.  Then he would hand it to the challenger.  Anyone who could squeeze one more drop of juice from that lemon would be the winner and they would get the money.

Many people tried to win the money.  Weightlifters, construction workers and even professional wrestlers tried but no one could do it.  I would guess that the owner had some way to squeeze the lemon almost dry and when he relaxed his squeeze what juices were left in the lemon would recess back and disperse into the lemon so it would have been almost impossible to get any more out.

Anyway, one day a short skinny guy signed up for the contest.  After the laughter died down in the gym, the owner grabbed a lemon and squeezed away.  Then he handed the wrinkled pulp to the little man.  The laughter turned to silence as the man clenched his fist around the lemon and six drops fell into the glass.  The crowd cheered and the owner paid the prize.  But he had to ask what the little guy did for a living.  “Are you a lumberjack, a weightlifter or just what do you do?”  The man replied, “No.  I work for the IRS.”  This story flows right into our reading because Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector of the area.

Before we begin, let’s take a look at who Zacchaeus was.  He was a tax collector.  Here is how this worked and I think this is important to understanding our story.  The Romans would tax everyone at 10% and I don’t know if this was right or not.  I’m just using this figure for an illustration.  Then Rome would hire chief tax collectors who in turn would hire regular tax collectors.  Then the regular tax collectors would charge the people, let’s say, 20%.  They would keep 5% and give the rest to the chief tax collector who would keep 5% and send the rest to Rome.  Now the tax collectors could and did charge 30% or 40% if they wanted and keep much more.  They would charge whatever they thought they could get away with.  The chief tax collector would get richer and richer and he didn’t have to do much.  This would have been a very corrupt way of collecting taxes but then if you look at our system today, we are pretty corrupt also.

Anyway, Zacchaeus was a very rich man and very much hated by the people.  All the people knew about tax collectors and they were hated because they were so powerful and crooked.  There would have been three tax collection centers in Israel and Jericho was one of them.  This is our setting as we have Jesus passing through Jericho.

The first thing I wanted us to see is in verse 3 is that Zacchaeus wanted to see who Jesus was.  Today we would say that Zacchaeus was a seeker.  He had heard about Jesus and the things that He had been doing and he was curious as to whom this person was.  After all, Jesus didn’t hang with the same type of people that Zacchaeus hung with.  He wasn’t rich.  He wasn’t crooked.  But he was very famous and very popular.  He was thinking to himself, “How can this man have so many friends and be popular among everyone when he has no money or any of the things that I have?”  What is it that Jesus had that Zacchaeus wanted?  The same can be said for many people today, “What do those Christians have that I want so much?”  This is an important and very relevant question.  If people are asking this of you, then you are doing the right things.

Notice that Zacchaeus was a short man so he couldn’t see over the crowds.  So he runs ahead.  Please remember that Zacchaeus was also a very rich man.  Now I don’t know of any rich people who run anyplace like this.  If they are rich, they buy the best seats or places in the front of the crowd.  But Zacchaeus runs.  He not only runs but he climbs a tree.  The story is starting to get ridiculous.  If rich men don’t run, I guarantee that they don’t climb trees.  This story is getting out of hand.  The point is that Zacchaeus really wanted to see Jesus.

For some reason we seem to have lost this sense of wanting to see Jesus.  There are many reasons for this but this is what I think is one of the main reasons.  We have lost the ability to make Jesus an everyday miracle.  That’s right.  With Jesus in your life you will have a miracle every day and maybe many more.  We have a tendency to get so caught up in the false social gospel of helping others out and making sure that we don’t insult anyone that we have forgotten the relationship that must be in place before any social gospel can happen.  We are too busy being politically correct.  Our country has become a laughing stock to the world with all of its ridiculous woke laws.  And it will only get worse, a lot worse.  I would like to remind you that following Jesus is the only politically correct thing that you can do.  All these other things are garbage.  And Christians are not politically correct in our society because Jesus is for everyone and anyone who doesn’t know Him will spend an eternity in the place where no one wants to be.  That is about as politically incorrect as you can get but that is the fact.  The choice is either you are for Him or you are against Him and there is no in-between.

I think that it is time that we demand that our pastors start to preach from the Bible and applying it to our society.  We have to quit starting in society and making our warped societal values fit into our Holy Book.  Nothing warped ever belongs in the Bible!  As Christians, we have certain rights and one of them is to hear the truth and not some watered-down version that comes from people who don’t even know Jesus.  Now I had better leave this topic before I get worked up.

So we have Zacchaeus wanting to see Jesus.  Then as Jesus is passing by he looks up into the tree and calls Zacchaeus by name.  We find that Jesus is looking for him.  Not only that but He tells him that He must stay at Zacchaeus’ house today.  Remember that Jesus is just passing through and hadn’t met Zacchaeus before today and yet he knows his name.  There are lots of miracles happening here and this is one to notice.  Also remember that Zacchaeus was hated.  He had no friends to speak of.  Plus, he was filthy rich.  He was about as big a sinner as there can be.  But Jesus is looking for him anyway.

It is the same way with us today.  Our preachers might not be teaching us the right things from the Bible.  We might be living our lives in a beer bottle.  We might sell our souls for more money.  There are so many vices in the world that it would take forever to name them but I think that I can say this and be accurate.  There is not a person today who is listening or reading to this that does not have at least one of these vices in their lives.  I might even go as far and say that we may be like Zacchaeus and have several areas in our lives where sin is running rampant.

And it all begins by us wanting to climb a tree and observe Jesus at our leisure.  But Jesus will have none of this as he calls for us.  I have met so many people in my life that feel that they are too bad to come to Jesus.  They feel that Jesus would never accept them because of how bad they are.  Some of these people live right here in your community.  There might even be someone like this with us today.  There is nothing that could be farther from the truth.  Jesus will accept a terrible sinner like Zacchaeus.  He even offered forgiveness to Judas right before he betrayed Him.  This is the beauty of all this.  Jesus Christ is for everyone.  There is not one person who is alive in this world today who cannot have Jesus if they just ask.  He will call you by name because He already knows all about you and your life and He still loves you anyway.  There is no way that you can escape His love so why not embrace it.  If you know you can’t get away from it, why not grab onto it with both hands?

This is what Zacchaeus did.  He hopped right out of that tree and took Jesus to His home.  And the people who had gathered muttered and grumbled as they didn’t think that it was right that Jesus would go with a sinner when all these good people were waiting to be with Him.  And that is the way it is today also.

Young men and young women to a certain extent, I address you with this.  When you come to Jesus I guarantee that you will be a better person.  Leave the ‘boys’ or the ‘girls’ behind.  Leave those people behind who want you to hunt all the time or play softball all the time or party all the time or spend all your time with them.  Leave them all behind because they don’t want you to leave their group because they are lonely.  You may think that you can have all kinds of fun with these people but they only want to drag you down.  You can still take part in some of these activities but I have seen too often where the young married man envies his old pals.  These so called pals make fun of the married lifestyle and they bring many people down.  Don’t let them.  Their lifestyle is empty.  Yours is full.  Stick with Jesus and you will never regret it.  They will grumble and mutter when you leave but don’t listen to them.  Jesus is there to save you when you are lost.

Then Zacchaeus tells the Lord that he will give half of his possessions to the poor.  Remember how I said you have to have salvation before you practice the social gospel.  Well here it is.  He gives half of his wealth to the poor and he will give back 4 times what he cheated people.  This would have been a huge amount of money.  In today’s world we have a tremendously hard time to give a tithe or 10%.  Just as a little sidebar here, I have been giving 10% of my income for almost 30 years.  I am far richer today than I have ever been in the past.  The blessings that God has given us have never been instant.  But the results over time are unbelievable.  Remember this.  I’m not asking that you give more to the church.  I’m asking that you do what the Lord tells you to do and you too will receive many blessings.

It is not my intent today to go down the stewardship road.  So, as we finish this reading, we find that Jesus came to save what was lost.  Jesus came to this world for a lot of reasons but this is the main one.  We can talk of how we fail as a church or how we fail to respond to Jesus or how we fail to give.  But none of this is as important as helping the lost to find Jesus.  There is nothing more important that any church can do.  And the lost are out there.  They play games, like golf or softball, on Sunday morning and tell us that it is the only time to do it.  They call our children to our schools on Sunday for different events and tell us that this is the only time for that.  We have lots of people in our midst who don’t know Jesus and need Him.  It is up to us to help direct them away from the devil and into the loving arms of Jesus Christ.

We are like a child in a department store.  The mother tells the child that if he gets lost, just stay where you are and I will find you.  If one person stays put, it is easier for the other to find him.  In this case it would be far wiser to have the mother looking as she is much smarter than the small child.  We are the child in this case only we have decided to walk around.  God is by far the smarter between us and He is looking.  Some of us have gone into the dressing rooms.  Some are hiding under the shirt rack.  But Jesus still comes to you and calls you by name.  He knows your full name.  He knows how many hairs you have on your head.  He knows every fault that you have or have ever had.  Still He calls you by name and loves you.

Today, I ask that you respond to His calling.  Take His hand as He reaches out for you.  Answer as He calls your name.  I cannot even begin to describe the love that He has for you.  It will never end.  It will always be there no matter what happens in your life.  This will be the best decision that you ever make in your life.  This will be life changing and it will be life changing for the good, for the best.  You will never regret it.  I have never regretted it in nearly 30 years.  I thank Him every day for the love that He has for me.  He has it for you too.  Thank you, Jesus, for always being there and first loving us.   Let’s pray.