When I was 17, I went to a prayer meeting. I was hiding in a tree called good works. I thought I knew God. But that night He passed through that house and there in the back, He saw me. He knew my name! For the first time, I came down from that high tree and confessed I was a sinner. I actually had been attending this prayer meeting for almost a year.
I heard the gospel several times, but that night, I finally came down from that tree. See, nothing is a coincidence. He is looking for you right where you are, right in your tree. Stop settling for second-hand experiences. Experience Christ for yourself! Not just through the eyes of a pastor or a teacher or an evangelist or a book or radio or dvd.
The call is to respond quickly Luke Jesus, the one-person search and rescue team comes calling. Look at what Jesus says in Luke Notice what He does not say. You look like a fool! You are a scoundrel and how dare you cheat people like this? You probably have stolen money on you right now. Then come see me. Also, I need to talk to you about your account and history of extortion. Jesus just calls his name and asks him to hurry down. Beloved, The One who spun the stars into space and gave them each a name Ps.
Even before your parents knew it, He knew it! What would you have done here? I would have been so shocked and probably have fallen off the tree and hit my head and taken to the hospital. Maybe Jesus would then follow me to the hospital! Stop hiding and pretending. Come to me with probably extorted money under your robe even as we speak. But look at me in the eye. Luke often uses this term to show that what Jesus is doing was a divine necessity, something that was planned in advance.
He responds like how you would welcome a friend you have longed to see for a long, long time. With leaves and twigs flying, he leaped down, obeying Jesus just as He had commanded. He welcomes Jesus joyfully. The coming of Jesus to share his home is a sign of fellowship and ultimately of forgiveness. Not everyone is a happy camper about this, however. May nothing stop you from your intimacy with Jesus. People may not understand and you may be ridiculed, but what does that matter if the God of the Universe is coming to your house!
Lessons from the Life of Zacchaeus
But look at how he responds to the call of Jesus…he did it quickly! Let me go home and clean up a little bit. Let me fix some things too in the bank. I also need to put on a better outfit.
Can we do this later? Jesus catches His fish and then He cleans them. They want to stop this habit first or start reading the Bible first. We may not have tomorrow. I like what C. But man is foolish in the things that concern his soul. Unless divine and infinite love shall teach him to number his days, he will still go on boasting of tomorrows until his soul has been destroyed by them.
You know, even as Christians, we do the same thing. We hear Christ calling our name when we have fallen and we hide in the trees of our sin. Let me stop what I am doing and then let me start reading the Bible and prove to God that He did not make a foolish choice in saving me. Why are you trying to earn grace? Why are you crying? Christ has already earned it for us! Come just as you are to Jesus! The call is to respond quickly! So far we said the search for Jesus is lost sinners and the call is to respond quickly and lastly,.
The rescue comes with joyful repentance Luke How do you know Zacchaeus has been touched by the love of Jesus Christ? Because His life is changed. True repentance comes in the form of action, not just words or emotions. We are not sure if he said this during or after dinner, or right there at the tree, or some unknown time later at his house. This is how you know you encountered Jesus. There is recognition of who Jesus is. Before He may have been to you just a Sunday School story, a grandfather in the sky or a picture in a book or a painting on a stain-glassed window or a life-less figure on a cross, but now He is Lord.
Second, look at his repentance.
You've got a man who is a professional thief, extortionist who has 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. Think about that for a second. How many people are we talking here? And where did he get this number? He gets it from the Old Testament. He would have been right on target. But if it was a robbery, you may have to pay up to double Ex. But he goes to the max. I am not sure if he will have anything left after this!
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Hey, look carefully as to what is happening here. A camel is passing through the eye of the needle! Zacchaeus is doing the opposite of what the rich young ruler did Luke This is genuine transformation and repentance. 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? Jesus responds with a declaration in Luke The declaration is that salvation had truly come to his house. He was born a Jew, but the Jews kicked him out of the community. Jesus brings outcasts into community; orphans into a family!
Lesson When Jesus Passes By (Luke ) | theranchhands.com
The Israelites were born Jewish and bragged that they were so righteous and close to God. Jesus turns the tables on them and declares Zacchaeus as the true man of faith. Jesus ends this by saying why He came. This is really the thesis statement for the entire book of Luke: Mankind is always looking for where they belong. Once you are found by Jesus, you belong to the greatest community on the planet: All of us are trophies of His victory won, when He came looking for us, breathed life into us, making us alive and then living in us to help us be everything He has asked us to be.
As I close here, perhaps you have come today needing a rescue. If you are lost, today He comes by calling your name and inviting you to Himself and wanting close fellowship with you. He sees you in whatever tree you might be in today. You need to respond quickly and receive the Lord.
You do not need to clean up first, allow Him to catch you and He will clean you. You may have been relying on second-hand experiences. Turn from your sin and receive Him as Lord and Savior. How do you know if there is true transformation in your life? This means a change of mind that produces a change of way. It is more than regret or remorse feeling sorry mentally or emotionally , but true repentance leads to a change in behavior. It is a degree turn. It is wanting to obey the maximum and not get by the minimum. Lastly, if you are a believer, perhaps your growth has been stunted.
You feel like perhaps your career will compensate for your stunted growth. Perhaps you think it will be wealth or friends. These trees are easy to climb, but true stature for Jesus is repentance. This is how a little man named Zacchaeus increased in stature before the Lord. It is investing life with those who are less fortunate and following the Lord. Or maybe we are trying to earn grace today. A larger than usual crowd was making its way past Bartimaeus.
He is the Son of David, the Messiah!
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Bartimaeus instantly knew that this was his window of opportunity. Jesus was passing by. Soon He would be gone, never to pass that way again. Like a halfback who sees a brief opening in the line, Bartimaeus plunged through. The Master has more important things to attend to. Just as Bartimaeus had his opportune moment to cry out to Jesus, and then it would be gone, so it is with you.
Today is the day of salvation; you may not have tomorrow! Today you are hearing the Word of God, about a Savior who invites you to come to Him for mercy. Jesus is passing by, and He may never pass so close to you again! He is the only one with the power to open eyes that have been blinded by sin. Call out to Him while He is near! He cried out for all he was worth, and when people told him to shut up, he yelled all the louder! He kept shouting until he heard that Jesus was calling for him. His bold, persistent faith obtained what he was after. This blind beggar teaches us seven lessons in faith:.
He is the Son of David. Public opinion about Jesus was sharply divided.
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Bartimaeus had heard some argue that Jesus was an imposter: The deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the eyes of the blind are opened. If only He would come to Jericho and could give me my sight. There are two strands of support here that show us that Jesus is the promised Anointed One, the Messiah. Luke has traced this Davidic connection: The second strand that shows Jesus to be the promised Messiah is that He opens the eyes of the blind.
In the Bible, only Jesus opened the eyes of the blind, and there are more of His recorded miracles in this category than any other. It shows Him to be the promised Messiah. The point is, it is important that our faith rest in Jesus as revealed in Scripture, not in a Jesus of our own imagination. The cults have invented false Christs, who do not match up to the Jesus of the Bible. Others subjectively make up a Jesus of their own liking. But we must believe in Jesus as revealed in Scripture.
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He had nothing in himself to commend himself to Christ. Luke wants us to see that we all are blind beggars before God. This is perhaps the major stumbling block that keeps people from coming to Christ: God has to open our eyes to our true condition before Him. We have nothing in ourselves to merit His salvation. We are spiritually blind sinners, and the only way we can come to Him is to ask for mercy, not for merit. It might have been more polite to ask for healing for both.
But each man had to come on his own. Lord, please be gracious to me! Whenever you trust in God, you will encounter hindrances. Bartimaeus cried out to Jesus in faith, and the crowd sternly told him to shut up But the more they told him to be quiet, the louder he shouted. He persisted until Jesus heard him.
She kept hounding the judge until he granted her request. Probably those who told Bartimaeus to be quiet were embarrassed by his bold outcry. It interrupted the things that Jesus was saying as the group walked along. He cared about one thing: I was asked to give ten messages on faith. The next morning, we woke up to a cold house. The power had gone off in the night. I go out on a limb in faith and You start shaking the tree! He is the tornado-chaser type. After researching every country, guess where he picked? Then my mother telephoned and told Daniel I was gone that she had heard that the U.
My point is, whether you trust in Christ as your Savior or whether you step out in faith as a Christian, your faith will have to overcome hindrances. Learn from Bartimaeus to persist in faith in spite of the hindrances.
But Jesus never asked a dumb question. His question was designed to get Bartimaeus to be specific in stating his need in front of the crowd. Matthew and Mark both report that just prior to this incident, James and John had come to Jesus and asked Him to do whatever they would request. What a bold thing to ask, to receive sight! It reminds me of the story of Naaman, the Aramean army captain who was a leper. He had a servant girl from Israel who told him of the prophet Elisha who could heal his leprosy.
What a bold request! No one but God could do such a thing! God is in the business of answering impossible requests that bring glory to His name. As we saw Luke He lived each day in total darkness. Those who could see did not feel the desperation that Bartimaeus felt. He could walk out into the bright sunshine and it was pitch black for him. I once heard Bill Cosby tell how he was staying in the same hotel as the blind singer, Ray Charles.
It is when we realize our true spiritual condition that we will sense our desperate need for Jesus Christ.