The Mission, the Man, and the Message

Derek Wells, Speaker

Luke 19:1-10 | February 2, 2025 - Sunday Morning,

Sunday Morning,
February 2, 2025
The Mission, the Man, and the Message | Luke 19:1-10
Derek Wells, Speaker

Let’s go to the Lord once more in prayer. Lord Jesus we do thank you for that wonderful truth that you have come to us to save us, to sanctify us, to redeem us O Lord. We pray for our time this morning as we come before Your Word in the sacraments or that it would not be just another 20-30 minutes of checking the box off, but that you would speak to us, and O Lord that you would guide the words of my lips to minister to your people and that we would have hearts to respond. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

We’ll be looking this morning at Luke chapter 19 and verses 1 through 10. Looking at the story of Zacchaeus, very familiar story. Strangely had the urge all week to just kind of pray for all the short people in the world, Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues, a lot of you don’t know who that is, Tom Cruise, get a short person in your mind and pray for them. Tall people you’re out of luck this morning, sorry.

Luke chapter 19. Hear The Word of the Lord. He entered Jericho and was passing through and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead, climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him for he was about to pass that way, 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.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 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.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.”

One of the things that I love to do if I’m not reading through the Bible in a year is just to get in the Gospels and look at the encounters of Jesus with different individuals. I think we can learn so much about ourselves and about Christ through to just looking at those encounters, what it means to be saved by Him, Church of God, what it means to be transformed by Him, and the story of Zacchaeus is a great example of that. We are going to look at three things from this passage this morning, it goes along with the sermon title. We will look at the mission of Christ, what Jesus came to do, and then we’ll look at the man Zacchaeus, who was Zacchaeus, and how does that intersect with the mission of Christ, and then finally we will look at the message, what is the intended message of God to us. So the mission, the man, and the message.

Well first the mission of Christ. We see it clearly in verse 10, and it really serves as the interpretative key for this passage and the theme for this sermon, and here it is. For the son of man came to seek and save the lost. Now that’s probably not a new thought to the congregation this morning, but hopefully the goal of this sermon is that we come to see this in new and fresh ways and apply it to ourselves and maybe look at others a bit differently. The son of man came to seek and to save the lost. I wonder, how does that strike you this morning? Does that encourage you personally as you think about yourself, does it inspire you as perhaps you think about others, or maybe does it fall a little flat depending on your heart and your circumstances this morning. The mission of Christ is to seek and save lost people.

I want to start by pointing back to another story in the previous chapter in Luke 18 and that of the rich young ruler. Commentators know that the story of Zacchaeus forms something of a contrast to that of the rich young ruler. You’ll recall the rich young ruler he comes to Jesus with a seemingly sincere question. He comes to Jesus and asks, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, and Jesus says, “Follow the commands.” And the rich young ruler says, “All of these things I’ve kept since I was a boy.” By the way that’s a master class in self-deception that statement right there. He’s kept all of the commands and Jesus drops the mic on the rich young ruler when He says, “If you want to be made whole, sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and come and follow me.”

You know what the scriptures say, the scriptures say that rich man went away sad, why, because he had much wealth. It’s a sobering account, serves as a warning about the deceitfulness of wealth and attachment to worldly things, how they can keep us from embracing Christ and fully following Him, but it gets even more sober in verse 24. Jesus asked this question, ” How hard is it for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven? It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to inherit eternal life.”

Now Church of God, that’s a stunning statement. It would have been stunning to those who heard Him because they would have associated being rich with being blessed by God, but if you’ve ever just read this story at face value it begs the question that they ask, and that is the question, who then can be saved? I mean if those are your terms, sell all that you have, give it to the poor, and follow me and that’s your analogy, then who can be saved? Salvation seems not only difficult, but impossible for the rich if not for everyone. Jesus answers this perplexing, almost despairing question with this statement in verse 27. He says, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Now I want you to caption that as we come to this story about Zacchaeus and as we think about the mission of Christ which makes the impossible possible, not only for Zacchaeus, but for you and for me. So with the mission of Christ as the backdrop let’s look at this man Zacchaeus. Who was Zacchaeus? A few relevant details about him, he was wealthy, that’s no small detail, we just noted the rich young ruler, but especially as we look at the context of the Gospel of Luke, wealth is a prominent theme throughout the Gospel of Luke. Some people call it the Gospel to the wealthy and it contains warnings and wisdom for the wealthy. It was written to a man named The Most Excellent Theophilus. Now I don’t know how you get people to start calling you, The Most Excellent whatever your name is, but Theophilus did. He was a man of some status and note, likely a wealthy man.

And now we come to another wealthy man in Zacchaeus who was the chief tax collector in the local district. We’ll come back to that factor. Zacchaeus was a wealthy man, he also lived in this town Jericho. Now this is a pop quiz for you. Bells should be going off in your head as we’ve been in The Book of Joshua, we should know from our time in The Book of Joshua that Jericho is both a historically and theologically significant town. We know Joshua fought The Battle of Jericho. I think Kevin even sang that song. I’m not gonna sing it for ya. But Joshua fights The Battle of Jericho. Jericho was that place of the great victory of God for his people and now the greater Joshua nearing the height of his mission encounters Zacchaeus here. We have a snapshot, perhaps some commentators have noted an exclamation point about the mission of Christ. But by this time, Jericho had become a beautiful thriving city. The climate was delightful, sycamore trees lined the roads, there was a grand theatre in Jericho, it was the center of a vast trade network. There was lots of business and commerce which meant plenty of taxes. It’s the kind of place where a wealthy person would enjoy living and doing business so you could picture Zacchaeus there in Jericho, probably a member of the JCC, the Jericho County Club or something, ya know, there he is. Life is good it seems for Zacchaeus, a rich man in a rich city.

And finally, he was A Wee Little Man, you knew that was coming, and A Wee Little Man was he. I’ve had that song stuck in my head for weeks and I’ve been signing it around the house frequently, much to the delight of my family, they’ve really enjoyed that. Now it’s in their heads, and now it’s in your heads. But Zacchaeus was short, seems like an incidental detail, but it’s actually significant because here he is this wealthy tax collector who wants to see Jesus but he can’t quite do it, he’s too short, kind of like me trying to look over this pulpit whenever I preach, I just feel like I’m too prideful to get the stool underneath my feet. I have a hard time with that. But he’s too short so there’s an obstacle in his way. He wants to see Jesus and there’s this small, but natural obstacle there. And Zacchaeus, he could have turned around and just went back to his townhome, after all he goes to see Jesus, not quite working out, but he cued up a Netflix series, poured a glass of wine, and forgotten all about Christ. Zacchaeus doesn’t do that. He sees the sycamore tree and he climbs it.

Now just get that picture in your head. Zacchaeus climbing up the tree, Sinclair Ferguson points this out. Here’s this man, a wealthy man and he is just running ahead, scurrying up the tree. I mean, what would y’all do if in a couple minutes, 30 minutes or so, we walk out of here and we go out the north lobby and we’re going out the parking lot. To the right is the butterfly garden, and we all stop and we look up and in the top of the tree there’s Kevin DeYoung up there. What would you think, that’s, that’s our senior pastor out there, what’s he doing? What’s gotten into him? Just the spectacle, the indignity of it all. Zacchaeus doesn’t seem to care, in fact, he casts aside any sense of decorum and self-respect in order to climb that tree so he can see Jesus. It’s actually quite revealing and perhaps Church of God a lesson to us. Sometimes the road to faith and Christ requires taking very basic simple humble steps. We can view them as obstacles or we can view them as divinely ordained avenues to draw us further in toward Jesus.

Something was driving Zacchaeus though, what was it? What was driving him? Of course he had heard about Christ, Christ was well known, famous, who doesn’t want to get around a famous person, maybe he just wants to get a selfie with Jesus, perhaps have Jesus just wave to him as he goes by, just get a glimpse. No, we know it’s deeper than that. He knows the reputation of Jesus, this is a holy man, he’s a righteous man, a man who not only performs miracles, but a man who eats with sinners. Zacchaeus seems to know that he is a sinner. And so he’s in this tree, he’s just up there and he’s looking at Jesus, or looking for Jesus, and Jesus is coming by. We have this intersection, this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus and what we see next is very important. In verse 5, who initiates this encounter? Who initiates it? It’s Jesus. Jesus calls to Zacchaeus, he not only calls, but he commands Zacchaeus. He says, “Zacchaeus, come hurry down from there, get down from there, get out of that tree and come to me.” And what becomes apparent as this story unfolds, so we might think it’s Zacchaeus looking for Jesus, but actually what we come to see is Jesus is looking for Zacchaeus, and here we see his mission to seek and save the lost. He says, “Zacchaeus, I am coming to you, for today I must stay at your house.” So, Jesus invites himself over.

Okay, so what would you do after church if someone, a stranger just came up to you, they walked up to you and they say, “Hey, a, so a, what are we, what are we having for lunch today at your house?” Ya know, some of y’all would probably reel it off and say, “Let’s go.” Brothers, you might be taken aback, you might be caught off guard, you might think we’re not ready, our house is a total wreck, it’s a mess, we need to get our act together and get cleaned up before we invite a stranger over much less before Jesus enters into our home and our lives. Friends, that’s not the way the Gospel works and that’s not how this story unfolds. What do you have here, you have Jesus calls to Zacchaeus and then he says, “I’m entering in, I’m coming.” Doesn’t that just send presbyterian tingles up your spine, I mean there it is, effectual calling an irresistible grace right there, Christ calls him, He says I’m coming, how does Zacchaeus respond?

Verse 6. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. So Zacchaeus receives Jesus joyfully. Now think about this, he might be a little bit intimidated. This is a holy righteous man, okay, and Zacchaeus knows that he is not holy and righteous, and we might think that he wouldn’t receive him joyfully, what’s gonna happen? How is it that Zacchaeus receives Jesus joyfully into his home. Well, as Bruce prayed, we have had the flu in our house all week long. It’s not been a very fun thing. One thing that I know is true. It’s when you’re really sick your appreciation for doctors tends to skyrocket. Not doctor’s offices, but doctors, right? So imagine you’re sick, okay, you have the flu, and you’re standing around talking with a group of friends. I don’t know why you would be standing around talking with a group of friends while you have the flu, but you are, just go with me on that, alright, and one of your friends says, “Hey, hey, here’s the deal. I know this great doctor, I mean I had the flu and I saw him and he made me better.” And then your other friend says, “Oh, oh yeah, I recognize him, I saw him last year. I had the flu and instantly he made me better as well.” You’re going, what’s the name of this doctor, how can I get ahold of him. A few hours later your cell phone rings and it’s that doctor on the line. He says, “Hey, he says I heard you were really sick and I’m coming over and I will see ya in an hour.”

Now how would you receive that news versus just a stranger coming over? You would welcome him with joy, I mean just exclaiming. “The doctor’s in the house, kids the doctor’s coming over, throw a party, I didn’t think doctors made house calls anymore. This one does and he’s coming.” You would receive him with joy, why, because you know that you’re sick, you know that he meets you condition. You can imagine something like that with Zacchaeus. Does Zacchaeus know how sick he is, well who knows. But he knows that Christ eats with sinner, he knows that Christ treats sinners and so Jesus is coming over.

And here we see another contrast that is important, not just between Zacchaeus and the rich young ruler, but between Jesus and the crowd. We look at the crowd and we see the indignation of the crown in verse 7. When they saw it, they all grumbled. He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. So you can see the crowd thinking, him, that guy, Zacchaeus? Not just a tax collector, but the chief tax collector. He was responsible for the taxes over the district, he worked for the repressive Roman government, he was a traitor. Tax collectors not only worked for Rome, but very often they charged extra for their own personal gain and Zacchaeus oversaw this district here so you have to get this in your head, being the chief tax collector is a bit like being the chief of sinners, and Jesus is going to eat with him.

Now this was the practice all along in Christ’s ministry, eating with sinners is repeated over and over again in the Gospel of Luke, Luke 15 verses 1-2. Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him, and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled saying “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” We could get the wrong impression here, Christ wasn’t just living it up with sinners, just celebrating their sin, no that’s not true, it’s more like a doctor going to be with sick people. In fact, Jesus says it, Mathew 9, read it earlier, speaking of the grumbling of the crowd, but when he heard it he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick, go and learn what this means. I desire mercy and not sacrifice for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

And so what was happening on these occasions is Christ was teaching them, he was preaching repentance and salvation to them, and they were responding, these were people who were eager to hear what Christ had to say, they were coming to Christ and Christ was receiving them to himself. Now note that church because you see a profound contrast here between the teachers of the law of the scribes and the Pharisees who were without mercy for sinners and Christ who was full of mercy for sinners, seeking them out and drawing them into himself. And such is the case with Zacchaeus. You’ve gotta put yourself in his shoes. I mean, think about this, his life was eaten up with sin, his life was eaten up with greed, his life was eaten up with deception, his life was eaten up with thievery and materialism. He seems a lot like the rich young ruler, does he not? Except that the rich young ruler came to Jesus seemingly as a righteous man, holding onto his riches, though Zacchaeus seems to know how poor he really is spiritually. And so he joyfully welcomes Him in.

And there you have it, this beautiful conversion story. It’s more apparent in verses 8 and 9, we’re coming to that, but I think you can see faith operating throughout this story. Faith in infancy and faith in action. Listen, faith to climb the tree. At the very beginning to take some simple basic humble steps to Christ, not just faith to climb the tree, but faith to get out of the tree. He doesn’t get stuck in the tree, but he obeys Christ’s command, and listen, Christ Covenant, I wanna speak to some of you, some of you are stuck in the tree, you’re just looking on and you’re looking at Christ and you’re hoping maybe you can just get a drive by wave and he just gives you two thumbs up, but Jesus says, “Get out of the tree.” He has more in store and that is to encounter Him, life changing salvation. Zacchaeus has the faith to obey Christ’s command. He gets out of the tree. And thirdly, you see infancy of faith, faith in action, faith to welcome Him. And so he welcomes Christ as the savior for sinners, he welcomes Him into his home, into his life to be taught by Him, to be saved by Him, to be changed by Him, and Zacchaeus’ life is totally changed as a result of this encounter. This isn’t he just got a get out of jail free card and got some forgiveness and just went on, no, his life is completely and totally turned upside down and changed as a result of this encounter. Look at verse 8.

Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor and if I’ve defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold.” So you can just picture Jesus in the living room teaching, preaching salvation and maybe it’s just that Zaccheus is almost like he’s just, he’s welling up inside and just, he’s had enough, and just stands up and says, “Look Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor. I’m gonna follow you, I see it, I know it clearly, I know my sins, I’m going to relinquish it in order to follow you. And so I’m gonna move from a life of self to a life of generosity.” It’s a great transition. And then he says, “And if I’ve defrauded anyone of anything I restore it fourfold. I’m making restitution Lord, full restitution and then some to those I have wronged.” So Zacchaeus is divesting himself of much of his earthly possessions right then and right there. We have the miracle of conversion going on there. He stands up and Jesus said to him in the presence of everyone, this tax collector, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he is also a son of Abraham.” Boy that would have been shocking to people. This man Zacchaeus, a salve to riches, becomes a son of Abraham. Not just physically, but spiritually a son. Jesus says salvation has come to his house.

Once again we could get the wrong idea, thinking that Zacchaeus somehow earned salvation by what he did here. But friends, it wasn’t Zacchaeus’ repentance that brought Jesus into his home, no, it is Jesus in his home that brought him to repentance. Do you see that? One comes before the other. Zacchaeus’ actions are the fruit, not the root of his salvation. The root of his salvation was Christ. It was Christ who sought him. It was Christ who saved him and he says today, “Salvation is in this house”, Zacchaeus’ home. And as Christ is saying this, one commentator says, “Christ sought him as a shepherd, seeking lost sheep, knowing that in a few days He was going to lay down his life for his sheep including Zacchaeus.” And that’s why the Lord could say that.

So what’s the message to us, Church of God. Well I think there’s lots of things that we could take away from this. As we think about the table and begin to prepare our hearts for the table. This story shows us three things about God’s work and salvation we want to note.

Number one, it shows us God’s power to save. God’s power to say that in salvation God makes the impossible possible. We might say it this way, “He threads the needle as it were in and through Christ and you watch this Wee Little Man, this tax collector, this camel walk right through the eye of the needle.” How? With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. Friends, that should give you Gospel hope no matter your situation or your circumstances. This is slave sinner becomes a son of Abraham, God’s power to save not only Zacchaeus, but us as well.

Number two, it shows us God’s mercy for sinners. So if you’re here this morning and you’re a sinner, I’ve got good news for you. You see God’s mercy for sinners reminding us that it is not the well who need a doctor, it’s the sick. That Christ did not come to call the righteous, but he came to call sinners like you and me to repentance, that’s why He came and so friends know this, whatever your sins are He knows your sins, He knows them intimately well, and He does not push us away without mercy, but rather in great mercy He calls you and me to come to Him as sinners and to receive mercy and grace. This is a story of God’s mercy to sinners, and if it’s to Zacchaeus why not you as well.

Number three, shows us God’s mission to make his dwelling with us. Did you catch that? Christ says to Zacchaeus, “I must come and stay with you.” Echoes of God’s promise to make his dwelling with His people. You see just a little snapshot of that. “I must come and stay with you, I must come to dine with you, to fellowship with you. In essence I have laid down my life to save you, to transform you, to make you new.”

So friends, the message is we must be in some sense like Zacchaeus. What do I mean by that? Well we must learn to see ourselves rightly because when you come to see yourself rightly, only then will you welcome Christ into your life joyfully. We must see ourselves rightly that we might welcome Him joyfully. And that is what this table is all about. It displays the truth that Christ came to seek and save the lost and here’s the other beautiful picture. It displays the reality, listen, that Christ is still eating with sinners like you and like me.

So Church of God may we respond in faith and repentance to that message this morning. May you respond in faith and repentance to that message welcoming Jesus, relinquishing whatever you’re holding onto, not thinking of what you might lose like the rich young ruler, but all that you will gain in Christ. Relinquishing your cares, relinquishing our possessions if they have hold of us, relinquishing our sins for the sake of Christ. May we welcome Him. Let’s pray for that.

Father in heaven we do thank you for the glorious message of the Gospel that Christ has come to seek and save the lost. O Lord may we not just remember that, but may that truth deeply penetrate our hearts even now and may we be changed by that. And we pray that in Christs’ name. Amen.