1 And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich.
3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature.
4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way.
5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house.
6 And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully.
7 And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.
8 And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham.
10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Introduction
In Luke 19 you will immediately see that this chapter begins by telling us the story of Jesus and his encounter with Zaccheus. We are looking at some of the witnessing encounters that Jesus had during his early ministry and attempting to learn a few things about his witnessing techniques and remind ourselves that our Savior came to win men to faith in God, faith in himself, and as he said in John 20:21, “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” If he came to witness and to win, then he wants us to witness and to win others also.
I think we need to understand from the very outset as we think about being witnesses for Christ that not everyone we encounter is going to welcome our visit and our witness.
Jesus once told the story of the great supper. A man made a great supper and he invited many. When everything had been prepared he said to the servants, “Go and bid those who have been invited to come for all things are ready.” And they went with the invitation and the scriptures say, “They with one consent began to make excuses.” One man said, “I bought a piece of land and I must go and see it.” Another said, “I bought a yoke of oxen and I must go and try them out.”
Another said, “I married a wife and I cannot come.” And so today when you go to witness for Christ you must be ready for rejections and for objections on the part of those you witness to. You will hear an awful lot of excuses as to why they do not want to respond to the invitation of Christ, Some will say to you, “There are just too many hypocrites in the church.” Or some will say to you, “I’m afraid I can’t hold out. I can’t live up to the teachings of the Bible.” Some will say, “There are things I need to get straightened out in my life first. There are habits I need to quit. There are relationships I need to mend and when I get everything straightened out, then I’ll be ready to believe to become a Christian.” Some will say to you, “ I’m just not ready now. I’ll make that decision later. I fully intend to but not now.” And some will say, “Sunday is my only day off. The only day I have to play golf. The only day I have to work around the house. The only day I have to sleep late and I just don’t want to make a commitment to Christ or to his church.” And on and on, excuses go as to why they will not accept the invitation of Christ to come into his kingdom.
Sometimes those excuses are legitimate and sometimes they are cover-ups. The man who says there are too many hypocrites in the church may simply be trying to get rid of you. And if you sense that, then you need to leave. But sometimes he simply fails to understand that the people in the church are not perfect people. And that the prerequisite for being a part of the church and a part of the kingdom of God is to admit from the very outset that you are a sinner and that you’ve been saved not because you are good but by the grace and the mercy of God and the very excuse sometimes becomes an open door for further witnessing to that person. I think perhaps that in our day more than many other days and years gone it is extremely difficult to witness. There are two reasons why in particular. One is that we live in a frighteningly self-centered world. Self-centeredness is the very essence of sin. It is seeking my will and my way rather than the will and the way of God. Self-centeredness means that I put myself at the very heart and center of my life and I shove God out to the circumference of my life. I am number one and God is somewhere else down the list. Until a person deals with self-centeredness they cannot be a Christian for Jesus said, “You must die to yourself if you are going to be a part of the kingdom of God.” And the self-centeredness of our age makes it difficult for people to become Christians.
There is also a preoccupation with things in our generation that makes it difficult for many people to become Christians. In fact many people call themselves successes or failures on the basis of their accumulation of things. How much money they have. The kind of car they drive. Where they live and the number of things they possess. And on the basis of their material acquisitions, they count themselves successes or failures. In that respect, in being self-centered, and in placing an undue importance on material things, this man Zaccheus, though he lived in the first century was strictly 21st century.
You know from the reading of the scriptures that Zaccheus lived in the city of Jericho. Jericho was a wealthy and an important border town in the land of Israel, located on the eastern boundary line of that country, adjacent to the Jordan River. It was then and it still is today an oasis in the desert. There is a line of mountains that run right down the center of the land of Israel. It is like a person’s backbone. It divides the country in half. On the western shores of these mountains you will find lush pastures and meadows and beautiful trees, but on the eastern side of those mountains it is barren and desolate desert. And even today when you top those mountains going from Jerusalem over toward the Jordan River, one of the first things you see when you look out across that desert is the little oasis town called Jericho. It was so in Jesus’ day. It is so even today.
It was a wealthy town because its location on the Jordan River was at the point where the river was most easily forded. So people traveling into or out of the land of Israel would cross the Jordan River at that point. So it would of necessity be an important point of taxation. That’s where goods would come into or out of the country. So you would expect that there would be a taxation station in the city of Jericho.
And the Bible tells us that Zaccheus lived in that little town and Zaccheus was a tax collector. The name Zaccheus means “pure.” His parents had given him that name no doubt with the idea that it was a prayer of theirs for his future. They had dreams that their son would grow up to be a righteous and a holy man. But while Zaccheus’ name means pure, he was anything but pure in his life. In fact he had abandoned the faith of his father and he had gone over to the enemy to work for Rome as a tax collector. Rome ruled Israel. And wherever Rome ruled they taxed the people and they hired local citizens to collect those taxes. In fact they would farm an area out for taxation and people would bid on that area and the one who bid the highest price got it. Zaccheus had bid on that area and he had been hired as a tax collector. Not only was he a tax collector, the Bible tells us that he was the chief of tax collectors and in his tax collecting business he had become very rich. Zaccheus was a wealthy man. He cared for no one, he cared for nothing except himself. And the thing that mattered to him most was money and what money could buy. If you had been thinking of someone in the city of Jericho who could become a disciple of Jesus Christ, Zaccheus would in all probability have been the last person you would have thought of. In fact, if you had been taking a census to try to find prospects for the church, if you had come to Zaccheus’ house and you would have known that he lived in that house, you probably would have passed it by, thinking that there was no possibility that this man Zaccheus would ever come to faith and trust in the son of God. His whole life centered around himself. He cared about nothing except material possessions. You would have passed him by.
If you were a Sunday school teacher and somebody had handed you a prospect card with Zaccheus’ name and address on it, you probably would have made some excuse for not going. He was just not a likely candidate for the kingdom of God and we probably would have passed him by. Every town, including this one, has it quotas of Zaccheus. People who are self-centered. People who are materialistic. People whom you consider very unlikely prospects for the kingdom of God. They are not members of any church. They never attend church. They show no outward signs or interest in the kingdom of God. They often work at jobs that people in the church frown upon and do not respect. And the church not only has no contact with them, the church doesn’t even want to have contact with them. There are lots of people just like Zaccheus who live in our neighborhoods, who live in the shadow of this church, people whom we would never think would become followers of Jesus Christ.
The story of Zaccheus and the fact that he did become a follower of Christ ought to show us that there are no impossible people, that there are no people who are beyond the reach of God and the power of the Gospel if we can just find a way to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them.
You know the story. Jesus is nearing the end of his earthly ministry, on his way to Jerusalem. In a few short days he will be betrayed by Judas. He will go through the mockery of a trial. He will be nailed on Calvary’s cross and he will die for the sins of the world. Even as he makes his way to Jerusalem, the shadow of the cross is ever before him. We dare not miss the fact that the cross is very much on the mind of Jesus. As he travels to Jerusalem he travels through the city of Jericho, preoccupied in a sense with what is going to happen in a few days.
Zaccheus hears that Jesus is coming to town. He is not the only one who has heard. A lot of people have heard and so they line the streets because they want to see Jesus and they want to touch him. In spite of all the outer appearances that he is wealthy, that he is successful, that he is powerful, down deep inside there is a longing, there is a hunger, there is an emptiness in Zaccheus. There is a longing for something he has not yet found. And he leaves his tax office and goes out with the rest of the people to see Jesus come through town. We are not exactly sure what causes Zaccheus to go out there to see Jesus. Our first thought is that it might just be curiosity. I think it probably would take more than curiosity to get him to walk out of his office and leave his tax collecting books behind. He was so intent on making money that very few things could distract him from his work. It must have been more than just curiosity. It might be that Matthew, the disciple of Jesus, who was also at one time a tax collector, had already told Zaccheus about Jesus. It’s probable that Matthew the tax collector would know Zaccheus the chief tax collector. And probably they had communicated. Maybe they had visited together, because it was not such a long journey from any part of Israel to Jericho. Or maybe he had taken time to write his friend Zaccheus and tell him about his new master, about Jesus who had accepted him and loved him and changed his life. You know that some of our best opportunities to witness are with the people we work with day in and day out. In fact, sometimes we have a closer relationship with them and we have a better opportunity to witness to them than we do to our neighbors. And there is a strong possibility that Matthew who had heard the call of Jesus to come and follow him, had told his friend Zaccheus about Jesus and it was out of that conversation that Zaccheus came out to see Jesus for himself. It may be that he had simply heard that Jesus was the friend of sinners.
Not many people liked Zaccheus. They considered him a traitor. They branded him a cheat and a liar and a robber and a sinner. The ordinary people of the street had nothing to do with Zaccheus and when he heard about this rabbi named Jesus who was a friend of publicans and sinners, he may have wanted to go and see for himself what kind of man would put aside the ordinary prejudices of life and accept and love anybody. Or it may have been that there was simply in him that inner hunger for something that things could not satisfy. And he thought in the back of his mind, maybe Jesus can supply that.
We are not sure why he went. Zaccheus was attracted to the fact that Jesus was coming to town and when he heard the news he rushed out to join the crowd standing alongside the road to see Jesus. The Bible tells us that he was a short man. So he was not able to see over the shoulders of those in front of him and so he ran ahead of the crowd, knowing the route that Jesus would take on his way to Jerusalem, found a tree, climbed up that tree, got upon the limb and there he could catch a good view of Jesus as he walked by. And you know the story. Jesus walked under that tree, stopped, and looked up at him and said, “Zaccheus, come down for this day I must abide at your house.” And the scriptures say that Zaccheus made haste and came down and received Jesus joyfully.
Though Zaccheus received Jesus joyfully the crowd did not receive this incident joyfully. In fact they began to be critical of Jesus, saying, “This man is going to the house of a publican; this man is associating with sinners.” They began to think of Jesus as they had previously thought of Zaccheus. It was as if Jesus said to that crowd that this lost man up a tree, this traitor, this thief, this liar, this tax collector is worth more to me than the opinion of everyone in this town. Think of me as you will. Criticize me if you want to, but this man matters to God and this man matters to me and if I take criticism for it I’ll still step across the social lines and I will fellowship with him in order to bring him into the kingdom of God.
They went on together. We don’t know what Jesus said to Zaccheus and what Zaccheus said to Jesus. I wish we had a tape recording of that conversation. It would be an interesting one indeed. But we do know that sometime that night, Zaccheus came to faith in God and committed his life to Jesus Christ. We know that because of the marvelous change that took place in his life. For Zaccheus said, “Lord, behold, the half of my goods I give to the poor.” All of his life he had devoted himself to getting. And now something happened in this man and instead of thinking about getting he is thinking about giving. There are poor people out there. People he has cheated. People he has wronged. People he has robbed and stolen from. All under the name of law. And without any direct commands from Jesus he said, I am going to give half of what I’ve got away to poor people. Then he made another statement that indicates the change that took place in his life. He said, “If I’ve taken anything wrongfully from any man [and you can bet your bottom dollar that he had] I will restore it fourfold.” So he is not only changed from grasping to giving, he has changed from dishonesty and from cheating to honesty and uprightness. And there is a desire to rectify all the wrongs of the past. And these experiences give evidence that a change had taken place in the heart and the life of Zaccheus. And that he had received Jesus Christ as his Savior.
And the simple truth is that the least likely man in Jericho to be saved, the last person you would ever have thought would become a Christian, had that night trusted Jesus as Savior. It ought to be a tremendous encouragement to us to know that if it could happen to that first-century Zaccheus, it can happen to a 21st-century Zaccheus and that people who are self-centered and people who are obsessed and possessed by their possessions and by wealth and by materialism can also be won to faith to trust in Jesus Christ if we do it the right way.
There are two or three things in this experience that I think we need to learn about the witnessing and the sharing of Jesus.
1. Be alert for opportunities.
The first thing is that Jesus was always alert to witnessing opportunities. You see Jesus witnessed this day, not by taking a prospect card from the church and going out and knocking on somebody’s door, but he witnessed as he went. Though the shadow of the cross was upon him, though he was worried and concerned about the future events and experiences in his own life, Jesus did not allow those experiences to divert him from an opportunity to witness. There needs to be in your heart and in mine a soul awareness. We need to begin to think about the spiritual condition of people and when we look at them, when they come into our store, when they walk into our office, when they come to our service station, or wherever we meet them. We need to see beyond the exterior of their life and to try to understand that these may be people who do not know Jesus Christ as Savior. And if we begin to look at people with a soul consciousness, with the kind of alertness that Jesus had, we can win them to Christ. Jesus was alert and when the opportunity came he seized it and he shared the good news with this man.
2. Accept those whom others reject.
There is a second thing about the witnessing of Jesus that is important and that is that he accepted this man whom other people rejected. He was an outcast to society, but he was not to God. And though other people had written Zaccheus off as useless trash, as the lowest kind of sinner, Jesus knew that God had not written him off. There is no person you will ever meet who is beyond the love of God and beyond the mercy and the grace of God. We need to be concerned about the down and outs in life, but we need to be just as concerned about the ups and ins of life. For no matter whether they are poor or rich, successful or failures, regardless of who they are or where they live, if they do not know Christ as Savior, they are lost and God cares about them and we need to care about them also. So Jesus was alert to the opportunity when he came and they come to us day in and day out and we are just not alert to them.
More than that, Jesus was accepting of this man. Others rejected him, but Jesus accepted him as somebody who was worth something to God and his kingdom.
3. Be sensitive to people’s needs.
There is a third thing that marked the witnessing of Jesus and that is he was sensitive to the spiritual needs of this man. Don’t be fooled by those designer clothes or that fancy automobile or the glittering jewelry or the fancy house on the hill when you look at people. For in spite of all the things they may have in this world, like Zaccheus had, down deep inside there will be a hunger, a spiritual longing for something they have not yet found. Nobody is getting along well if they do not have Jesus Christ as their Savior. I don’t care how it appears. I don’t care what kind of front they put on. Don’t be fooled by it—be sensitive to the spiritual needs of their life for without Jesus Christ they are not getting along well. When we have that kind of sensitive spirit we will reach out to them in faith and witness.
It was the great Episcopalian preacher Sam Shoemaker who said, “Every person has a problem or they live near one. A man is like an island. You may have to row around him several times before you find a place to put in, but if you get to know him, if you really spend some time with him, if you talk with him, you will find a place where you can put into his life, you can touch that problem with an answer from God’s word.” But it takes someone who is alert, someone who is accepting and spiritually sensitive as Jesus was.
4. Take the initiative.
There is a fourth thing about the witnessing of Jesus and that is that he took the initiative. Jesus didn’t wait until Zaccheus came to him like Nicodemus did under the shadow of night and begin a conversation. Jesus saw a man, Jesus saw a need, and Jesus took the initiative. He said, “Zaccheus, come down, this night I’m going to abide in your house.”
As the people of God, we don’t wait until others ask us about the Bible, until others ask us about the church, until others ask us about Christ and salvation. We take the initiative. The Bible keeps talking about boldness and the word boldness means unashamed liberty to speak to people about Jesus Christ. When I sit down next to a person the plane I have no hesitancy about talking to them about the Dallas Cowboys. I love the Cowboys. I talk freely, unashamedly about them. Well, why am I so timid and so ashamed to speak to another person about Christ? I need to take the initiative, not in brashness, not in rudeness, not in crudeness, not buttonholing or embarrassing or being overbearing to a person, not that at all. But in a sweet and a gentle spirit I can initiate a conversation that centers on spiritual things as Jesus initiated the conversation that way.
I received a letter from one of our men. This is what he said about witnessing. And it is a marvelous statement. He said, “I’m convinced that you never really learn to witness until you just step forward and do it. I believe that it is necessary to do your homework, meaning to study and to learn how to witness and to know scriptures, but after that, you must rely on the Holy Spirit and step forward in faith.”
Let me tell you, if you wait until you have no fear and no misgivings, you will wait until eternity before you ever witness. And sometimes you just have to take a chance. Sometimes like Jesus you initiate the conversation and you point it toward spiritual things and God bless that and he uses that if you do it in the right way.
So there was in Jesus an alertness. There was in Jesus an acceptance of all people. There was in him a sensitive spirit to the spiritual hunger and needs of those around him and then he initiated the conversation and pointed it toward spiritual things.
One other thing: we learn indirectly from this experience that when Jesus talked with Zaccheus he made the demands of the kingdom of God clear. I said that we don’t know what Jesus said as he and Zaccheus talked that night. I wish we had a taped conversation. We don’t know what he said, but we know that he made the demands of the kingdom of God clear to him because Zaccheus knew that following Christ meant a change in life. A change in attitude toward people and toward possessions as well as toward the things of God. Zaccheus gave evidence of his clear understanding of what it meant to follow Christ when he said, “Half of what I’ve got, I give to the poor. If I’ve taken anything wrongly from any man, I will restore it fourfold.”
I think the experience of Zaccheus as recorded in Luke 19 should help us to have faith that the Gospel can change the lives of those we think most difficult to reach. But it can only change them if we like Jesus find some way to confront them person to person, face to face, one to one, with the claims of Christ. We cannot escape the fact that God has commissioned us to witness and may he help us to learn from Jesus to be effective at doing it.