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Zacchaeus By Paul Thompson

Our God and our Father, you have recorded for us in your Word that you have said that,
your Son has said that apart from me you can do nothing.
Lord, we want to confess this afternoon that apart from you we can do nothing and we plead
with you and we cry that you might come this afternoon and open up your Word to us and
speak to us, because Father if you don't do that, what is the point?
So Father we cry unto you to open up your Word and to reveal yourself to us this afternoon
in Christ's name, Amen.
This afternoon we're going to do some climbing and you've heard of those marvellous alpine
climbs where you just seem to go up and up, the air gets thinner, the view gets more spectacular.
The chapters that Don has assigned to me from 19 to 22, we're really getting up onto the
high part of this great gospel and we're moving up onto one of the high ridges just
below the summit.
Of course the summit is the crucifixion, the death, the burial and the resurrection of
Christ and we're going to look out this afternoon I trust and get a view of something that's
wonderful and the passage and the text that I propose to look at this afternoon is from
chapter 19 verses 1 to 10, the story of the Caius and in particular verse 10 of chapter
19, for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Now it's important for us to note the context or the setting in which this particular passage
comes.
We just read about the rich young ruler offered salvation by God and yet he rejected it.
And then we have this incredible statement, with God all things are possible.
The disciples saying, who then can enter into the kingdom of God?
And Jesus saying, with God all things are possible.
And then we have this marvelous contrast in Luke 18 from verses 35 to 43, the conversion
of the blind beggar and what a contrast that is with our passage, the conversion of the
Caius in Luke 19, 1 to 10.
Where we see the God making possible the impossible, the rich man being converted and that's a
wonderful contrast for us.
Now I believe it will help us this afternoon if we refresh our minds with Luke's purpose
in writing the book.
Turn over will you to Luke chapter 1.
And Luke at the outset of his book says, it seemed good to me also, reading from chapter
1 and verse 2, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first to write
unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou might know the certainty of those
things which thou hast been instructed in.
That thou might know that they may believe, that he may believe, the readers of this Gospel,
that us might know with certainty those things in which they have been instructed.
So Luke is setting out to persuade, to convince the recipient of this book.
And I believe that when we come to look at this passage, this is the reason also why
Luke has included the story of Zacchaeus.
It's not found in any of the other Gospels.
His purpose I believe is to persuade us and to convince us that the Son of Man has come
to seek and to save that which was lost.
Now I want to look at verse 10 and I believe that verse 10, for the Son of Man has come
to seek and to save that which was lost, explains the rest of the whole passage.
It is a commentary.
It is, as it were, one of those pithy maxims that was taken into the life of the Church.
Of course we have that other famous one that Paul uses to Timothy, that Jesus Christ has
come to save sinners.
And it's such an important statement.
What does our Lord mean when he says the Son of Man has come?
Well of course he takes that title of humanity, the man of sorrow, the man who is able to
identify with our sinfulness.
And he takes that name freely upon himself and he says, for I have come.
And I believe here that he is alluding to three simple things.
He's alluding first of all to a previous agreement that was made, an agreement in heaven that
the Lord Jesus Christ would come to earth on a search and rescue mission to find his
people, to find people like Zacchaeus, and to bring them back to heaven.
I believe too that the reason why he said he was to come was because he came in such
a unique way.
He came through the Incarnation.
The whole point of the Incarnation was that God was to come as man, as perfect sinless
man in order to be the God-man, in order to be, if you like, the Son of Man.
And so he came through the Incarnation, born of the Virgin Mary, to seek and to save sinners.
And then he says, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
And my first heading for you this afternoon is you must believe Jesus.
People are lost.
You must believe Jesus.
People are lost.
Look at verse 1 of Luke chapter 19, and Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.
Jesus was of course on the way to Jerusalem, to his death.
It was by no accident that he happened to be passing through Jericho.
Jericho was a city lined with trees, and some of the trees had, some of the streets had
sycamore trees in them.
It was famous for the balm that came from the balm trees, and this was the trade.
Jericho was a great center of trade and influence.
It was a very important place, and high taxes and tolls were collected for the Roman government.
And of course Zacchaeus was the man who did this.
And our story begins with Jesus entering the city of Jericho.
Now for those who were with us last week, there's going to be quite a lot of overlap
between what John brought to us.
But I believe in the providence of God that we should repeat some of these things.
And so I just make that point.
Now look at verse 2, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief
among the publicans, and he was rich.
And it draws our attention to a man.
Behold, he says, something wonderful is about to happen to a very important man called Zacchaeus.
And Zacchaeus' name means righteous, but like all of us, we so often don't live up to our name.
This is the only place in the Scriptures where this story is recorded.
And we need to gather as much light as we can from the rest of Scripture to throw on
it so that we can see some of the great truths that God has for us from His Word.
Our passage tells us four important things about Zacchaeus.
He was the chief publican, that was the head tax gatherer, or the head farmer.
He farmed the taxes from the people and the people of trade.
Secondly, Zacchaeus was very rich.
He was a wealthy man.
He was literally overflowing with riches.
Thirdly, Zacchaeus was a sinner, and we're told this in verse 7 by the murmurers.
They got one thing right, that was that Jesus was going to be the guest of a sinner.
And I have to say at the outset that this morning, this afternoon, there's two groups
of people in this chapel.
There's the sinners, there's those that are lost, and there are the saved.
Zacchaeus woke up one day a lost sinner, and at the end of that day, he went to sleep a
saved sinner.
If you are lost this afternoon, may God the Holy Spirit so transform you that by His grace
you can pillow your head this night a saved sinner.
Now as we've said, Zacchaeus was a tax gatherer.
Zacchaeus talked a lot about tax gatherers, and he alluded to them when he said that the
disciples were to go to the lost sheep of Israel.
He included them in that group.
Now I want to briefly look at Zacchaeus, and firstly the fact that he was rich.
Zacchaeus' riches unfortunately had separated him from God.
He was trusting in his riches, he was believing in his riches at the expense of believing
in God.
He was guilty of breaking not only the first commandment, but the eighth commandment.
He was not loving the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind.
He was loving his riches, and he was coveting, coveting what was not rightly his.
Now I have to say to you this afternoon, are you trusting in your riches?
You're trusting in your wealth rather than Christ.
I tell you if you continue to trust in your wealth on the things that you have rather
than trusting in Christ, it surely is this day follows the next.
You will spend forever in hell.
What does Jesus mean when he says people are lost?
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
He's using a metaphor, and Jesus used one when he said, when he called Herod a fox.
And the word lost means to perish or to utterly destroy completely.
Now today when we think of something being destroyed, we think of it being annihilated
or blotted out of existence, but the word doesn't mean that.
It means to lose, to suffer.
Turn over to Luke chapter 15.
What Christ I believe is alluding to here, and he illustrated it for us very carefully
and very clearly in three parables.
The parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost
son.
Looking then at Luke 15, what does he say?
What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety-nine
in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it?
And when he hath found it, he lay it on his shoulders rejoicing, and he comes home and
he calls his friends and neighbors saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep
which is lost.
And then in verse 24, the story of the lost son or the prodigal son, what are the Father's
great words of delight?
Verse 24 of 15, For this my son was dead, and is alive, he was lost and is found, and
they began to make merry, he was lost and is found.
And then the, I missed one, go back to Luke chapter 15 and verse 9, the story of the lost
coin.
There was a woman who had ten pieces of silver, if she loses one, doth she not light a candle
and sweep the house and seek diligently till she find it?
And when she hath found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together saying, Rejoice
with me, I have found the peace that was lost.
So this is, this is what Jesus is alluding to here when he is talking about the lost.
Now I want to say under the first heading, that people are lost firstly because of their
lifestyle.
People are lost because of their lifestyle.
There's a lot of rich people in this world who have a lifestyle that doesn't conform
with the Word of God.
There are many different lifestyles of people in this world, but the Scriptures make one
judgment upon all those lifestyles.
And God says that the people are like sheep who have gone astray.
They are like sheep who have gone astray.
And it's not only people's lifestyles that cause them to be lost.
Equally important, people are lost because of their heart style.
The design of their heart has gone wrong.
God made them with a perfect heart.
God made them to enjoy him.
And yet through sin, through their rebellion, something has gone wrong with their heart.
And because their hearts are wrong, their lifestyle is wrong.
And something had gone terribly wrong with Zacchaeus' heart.
The way he thought, the way he felt about things, he decided about things.
It was because ultimately his heart was wrong with God.
He wasn't following the designers, and I say it reverently, the designers' instructions
for the use of his heart.
What do we read in Jeremiah?
The heart is desperately wicked above all things.
Who can know it?
Thirdly, I want to say people are lost not only because of their lifestyle and because
of their heart, but because people are lost because of their relatives.
No, not people's mother-in-laws or aunties, but our first descendants, our first relatives,
Adam and Eve.
We all know the story.
Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
They didn't listen to God's word.
They listened to the serpent, to the snake.
And they disobeyed God, and God said, as a result of your disobedience, I'm going to
put you out of my garden.
But something happened before that.
They wanted to hide from God.
They didn't want to have anything to do with God.
God's presence was obnoxious to them.
And this was the beginning of the lostness of our first parents.
They hid from God.
They were lost already.
They didn't want to have anything to do with God.
And God had to come and bring a word of hope.
He had to bring a gospel promise to them, but not without judgment.
He pushed them out of the garden.
They were in a sense lost.
They were away from His presence.
And you and I and the generations before us have had to suffer the consequences of that.
Who was the one who played a big part in their lostness?
Well, of course, it was the devil, the one who was called the destroyer.
And this word lost, which as we have said also means to destroy or to perish, from that
we get the word destroyer.
And of course, John the Bunyan takes up this idea, John Bunyan.
And he calls this man Apollyon.
And of course, that's the meaning of the word in the Greek, Apollyon.
And you remember the story, Pilgrim is tramping along the narrow way.
And all of a sudden, on the side appears Apollyon in all his apparent glory.
And he brings a word of deception to Pilgrim.
The pilgrim is able to continue on and go against the word of the devil.
But the devil is trying to take him off onto the broad way.
So we see, thirdly, that people are lost because of their relatives, because of our first parents
and the influence that the destroyer had, seeking to destroy them, to keep them lost.
If you continue in your lostness this afternoon, God says that you will certainly perish, you
will be destroyed, you will be lost from God forever in eternal hell.
Finally under this first point, I want to say fourthly, people are lost because of their
travel plan.
People are lost because of their travel plan.
Many people in this world have bought tickets, and they're first class tickets, they're very
expensive tickets, they're tickets that have cost them their soul, they're tickets that
are going to cause them and are causing them to be lost for a destination.
And that destination is of course hell.
And when they die, they will cash in on those tickets.
There's nothing more certain than that.
People are lost because of their travel plans.
What travel plans have you made for the future?
I pray to God that you have made travel plans with, and again I say it reverently, God's
ticket, the ticket of righteousness, that free pardon, that free pass.
Secondly, I want to say under my second head, you must believe Jesus.
He does seek people.
You must believe Jesus.
He does seek people.
He says in verse 10, for the Son of Man is come to seek, to seek the lost.
What does Jesus mean by this seeking?
Well, as we have alluded to, it's very helpful for us to look at those three parables of
the lost sheep, the woman who lost her coin, and the lost son.
Turn over, will you, though, to Ezekiel chapter 34.
And we want to look at that briefly for a minute.
Because I believe, and I'd like to suggest this so often with the sayings of our Lord,
He is throwing light on the old.
He is through the new, making the old plain.
And in Ezekiel 34, and in that great statement, God says...
In verse 16 of Ezekiel 34, I will seek that which was lost, and bring about that which
is driven away.
And I will bind up that which was broken.
And I will strengthen that which was lost.
I will destroy the fat and the strong, and I will feed them with judgment.
What Jesus is saying here is, as the Son of Man, as God incarnates, I am as God coming
to seek and to save that which was lost.
And of course, in the particular context in which we find this mention in Ezekiel 34,
the people were without shepherds, had run up onto the hills.
They were in a terrible state.
And God said, I'm going to be your shepherd.
I'm going to come and seek you out and find you and feed you.
And that's what Jesus is saying to the crowd as they've come round.
And as he gives this word to Zacchaeus, I am God, as the Son of God, I have come to
seek and to save those that have been scattered, the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
And of course, the whole of the Old Testament was pointing forward to the coming of the
Messiah, when he would come and gather his people in and save them.
Now, you must believe Jesus, he does seek people.
Firstly, Jesus does seek people, because he gives them a desire to see him.
Jesus does seek people because he gives them a desire to see him.
Let's read verse three of our passage in Luke 19, talking about Zacchaeus, and he sought
to see Jesus, who he was, and he could not for the press, because he was of little statue.
He could not see Jesus because of the crowd.
The word sought is the same word that Zacchaeus uses for seek.
Zacchaeus is seeking to see Jesus, and Jesus is seeking the lost.
Zacchaeus was trying to sort out which man Jesus was.
He was curious to see Jesus.
And there's a great principle here.
If you are seeking God, there's nothing more certain than he is first seeking you.
What do the words of the hymn say?
I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew.
He moved my soul to seek him, seeking me.
It was not I that found, O Saviour, true.
No, I was found of thee.
Now you say maybe I know that I'm lost, and I've been seeking Christ, but I can't find him.
Well the answer, friend, is you say you've been seeking Christ.
Christ says he has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
How long do you think it will take before you find each other?
I will cry to God, Lord, you have promised in your word.
What do we have recorded in Jeremiah 29?
And you shall seek me and find me.
The obstacles will be overcome.
When does Jesus seek the lost?
Jesus seeks the lost when it pleases him on his terms.
What was Paul's testimony in Galatians chapter 1?
Galatians chapter 1 and the verse 15 Paul gives as his testimony.
But when it pleased God, he separated me from his mother's womb and called me by his grace.
It pleased God at this particular point.
It pleased God, it pleased the Son of God at this particular point in time
to seek out Zacchaeus on God's own timing.
And we read now in verse 4 of chapter 19
And he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.
Zacchaeus was like a little schoolboy.
He forgot himself and with such naturalness and impulsiveness
he literally runs up one of these sycamore trees.
They had these very low branches
so it was very easy for anyone just to virtually run up them and grab hold of the big leaves.
And he runs up this sycamore tree in order to see Jesus.
He solves the problem in a childlike way.
And I say to you this afternoon, the principle is to get into a place where you can see Jesus.
Are you in a place where you can see Jesus?
Well of course you're in a place this afternoon and week by week.
You're in a place where you pick up your Bible.
You maybe listen to a tape or a Christian book.
If you're seeking and have a desire to seek Jesus this afternoon
get into that place where you can seek Jesus.
And his promises will be true for you. You will find him.
Of course Zacchaeus was in a privileged position.
He saw with his own natural eyes the Son of Man, God incarnate.
And Jesus said, blessed are they that have not seen and believe.
You will see Jesus through the preaching of God's word, through the reading of it.
And this is the great task of the church today.
So preach God's words that people will see Jesus by faith.
Secondly, under my heading I want to say Jesus does seek people because he calls them by name.
Look at verse 5. Jesus does seek people because he calls them by name.
And when Zacchaeus came to the place he looked up and he saw him and he said to him,
Zacchaeus, make haste, come down, for today I must abide in your house.
You remember the words of Christ the poor on the road to Damascus?
Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?
The Lord here names Zacchaeus. He knows Zacchaeus' name.
He's never met Zacchaeus before. How does he know Zacchaeus' name?
Well as we said at the beginning, Jesus has come with a list of names imprinted,
embalmed if you like, upon his heart as a result of the covenant of grace,
the agreement that he made between himself and the Father.
He comes with a list of names and one of those names is Zacchaeus.
And that list of names is going to be opened up for us at the judgment.
And if we go down the Z, we'll find Zacchaeus.
And by the grace of God, wherever our name sits in, there it will be,
when the book is open and the names are read.
The Son of Man is coming and seeking Zacchaeus, this lost man.
And he calls him by name. Jesus said, many are called but few are chosen.
Jesus called many people. You remember he called the rich young ruler.
And his word was to no avail. But Jesus called Zacchaeus with such an effectual call,
with such a summons, with such power that it begins to produce faith in Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus belonged to Jesus.
Suddenly I want to say, Jesus does seek people because he gives them an invitation.
Jesus does seek people because he gives them an invitation.
In notice he says, Zacchaeus make haste, come down, for I must abide at your house.
God is under no obligation to seek and to save you or to save anyone
because of our lostness, because of our sinfulness.
He perfectly just in sending all of us to hell, into damning Zacchaeus on the spot for his covetousness,
his wicked lifestyle, his wicked heart. But God in his grace and in his mercy stops
and he looks at Zacchaeus and he gives him that invitation.
Jesus, the Son of God, is under an obligation to seek and to save his elect.
How do we know that Zacchaeus is one of God's chosen people, is one of his elect?
Well, we know from scripture, Paul says that those that God predestinates he calls
and those he calls he justifies. And this is a beautiful picture of Zacchaeus,
a beautiful picture of Zacchaeus. Many are called but few are chosen.
Zacchaeus heard the irrevocable call of God and he answered it.
And what was that invitation that Jesus gave? He said, today I must abide at thy house.
In John he said, if anyone love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him
and we will come and make our abode in him.
Zacchaeus, I don't just want to come and have lunch with you, to rest and to stay at your home.
This day and for eternity I am going to join myself to you.
You will know my presence. We will have sweet fellowship together.
We will be in a new relationship. And this is the input I believe behind this invitation.
And the Gospel invitation is exactly this, come all ye who are weak and heavenly laden
and I will give you rest.
Now, we have to say too that not only Zacchaeus saw the Lord but he heard the Lord.
Zacchaeus saw the Word and he heard the Word. He saw the living Word and he heard the Word of God.
He heard the Word of the Son of God, of God made flesh.
And the moment he heard the Word, faith at once leapt into his heart.
And it takes only one look by faith at the faith of our Saviour
to be fully persuaded that in him alone is our salvation.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.
As we said Jesus spoke to many and his Word was not mixed as faith
as we are told in Hebrew and it came to no avail.
But we have to say that this faith that had sprung up in Zacchaeus' heart
was not something that came from within him that he was trying to work up.
We know that faith is a beautiful gift of God.
The gift that God had given him when he heard Christ and when he saw Christ.
Not only with his physical eyes but now with new spiritual eyes.
For the first time he behold, this is the Messiah, this is the Son of God.
This is the one who has come to seek and to save me.
And of course Paul says in Ephesians,
For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works, that anyone should boast.
This faith was the gift of God.
Thirdly I want to say under my third heading to you this afternoon,
You must believe Jesus, he does save people.
You must believe Jesus, he does save people.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
And I want to say under this first heading,
He does save people because he gives them new hearts.
Zacchaeus is given a heart of flesh.
God takes away his heart of stone.
Read in verse 6,
And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully.
What did Jesus say?
There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that is saved.
Zacchaeus has a new joy and that joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, it's the same word that's used.
He hurries down.
He has a new heart.
God has saved him.
Luke records in the story of Lydia that God opened her heart.
God opens Zacchaeus' heart and he rushes down completely out of character.
This tax gatherer, this farmer.
And what do we read in verse 7?
And when they saw it, they all murmured saying that he has gone to be the guest with a man that is a sinner.
Here, if ever we have it, is man-made religion.
Misunderstanding and misinformation about the Gospel.
The crowd and no doubt amongst them, stirring them on, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the religious people.
He has gone to be the guest with a man who is a sinner.
Yes, they were right.
Their theology was perfect on that point and yet they had missed,
they had missed the wood for the trees, the trees for the wood.
I forget which one it is but they had missed the point completely.
And I believe one of the reasons why Zacchaeus, why Jesus makes the statement in verse 10
is for the religious people, for the Pharisees, the people who misunderstood and who were murmuring.
They had a different idea of Jesus.
An idea of Jesus mixing with scum, mixing with those that smelt of filthy lucre, of money.
Mixing with beggars, people that were blind, with leopards.
And for us who are the Lord's people, there's a great lesson here.
If we were to evaluate Australian churches, we would have to say by and large that they are churches full of middle class people.
Now we don't take away from the fact that the Gospel transforms people.
They work hard. They lift their station in life.
This is one of the great results of being transformed.
But by and large our Australian churches are middle class and we need to take this lesson from Jesus.
Surely if it is good enough for the Son of Man to go and to seek the lost, it's good enough for you and I.
And we rejoice that God is helping us to do it and may He help us more.
We ourselves have been looking in John chapter 4 at the woman caught in adultery and what a lesson it has been.
This woman who is living with a man who's not even her husband and she's had apparently five husbands before that.
So this is a great challenge to us this afternoon who are the Lord's people, to go to the lost.
Now let's carry on because we're running over time.
Just run briefly through the remaining headings that we have.
You must believe Jesus. He does save people.
Thirdly, Jesus saves people because He produces repentance from sin.
Look at verse 8.
And Zacchaeus stood up and he said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of all my goods I give to the poor,
and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.
What an incredible statement for this man to make, to come out of his mouth.
He's in his home, people are pushed in, people are sitting around him,
maybe there are other tax collectors, and he makes this incredible statement.
But he makes it as a new man. He makes a statement of repentance.
This gift that has been given him, this gift not only of faith but of repentance,
he is turning away completely from his old lifestyle and he is claiming and professing a new lifestyle.
And he is saying, I will restore fourfold. I'll give half of my goods.
And you can almost imagine Zacchaeus going to the safe deposit box or the place where he keeps his money
and pulling out the bags or whatever it was and saying, yes, I took from you such and such.
Here's three bags full of money. It's incredible.
When he says fourfold, we could basically say he gives back four dollars for everyone that he took.
This man literally was overflowing with wealth.
Now we want to hurry on and look at verse nine.
And Jesus said unto him this day, salvation come.
And Jesus said unto him, this day is salvation come to this house for as much as he also is the son of Abraham.
Jesus saves people because he accepts them as righteous.
Jesus saves people because he accepts them as righteous.
Jesus says to Zacchaeus, this day salvation has come to you.
Zacchaeus, I'm treating you as though you have never sinned, as though you have never been lost.
And Paul says, therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Zacchaeus has been justified by faith, by hearing the word, by seeing the word, by this gift of faith that has been put within him.
And it's interesting because in John 18, don't turn to us.
Caiaphas the high priest is recorded as saying, it was expedient that one man should die for the people.
And the word here is lost, that one man should be lost for the people.
The son of man came to seek and that which was lost. And how did he do it?
He lost himself. He lost himself on the cross. He was separated from God. He was lost.
And that is the basis on which Jesus can say, salvation has come to your house.
Because in a few days hints, Jesus is going to lose himself for his people.
Zacchaeus, I must be destroyed for your sin.
Jesus saves people because he gives them a new family.
Jesus saves people because he puts them into a new family.
It says in verse 9, for so much as he also is a son of Abraham.
Abraham believed God and it was credited to his account as righteous.
It was credited to his account as righteous.
Abraham was through his belief, through the faith that God gave him, made righteous.
As though he had never sinned.
And of course Paul talks about Abraham in Romans chapter 4 and in Galatians.
Abraham, the father of many people, of God's people.
Abraham, the man who couldn't have any children and yet God performed a miracle.
Now turn with you to Matthew chapter 1.
There's an interesting thing, little piece of information here concerning this word,
the son of Abraham.
Matthew begins his book and he says, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.
The son of David, the son of Abraham.
What does Jesus say to Zacchaeus?
This day is salvation come to this house for so much as he also is a son of Abraham.
Matthew says this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of God, the son of Abraham.
Jesus says you are a son of Abraham, you are in my family, you are equal in a sense to me, not as God.
But you are my brother, my companion.
What an incredible statement that was.
What a word of assurance to Zacchaeus.
And then finally under this heading, Jesus saves people because he gives them new hope.
He says not only that you're a son of Abraham, that you're in my family.
I've taken you out of the family of Adam and I've put you into my family, the family of Christ,
but that for the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
Jesus said to him, this day is salvation come to this house for as much as he also is a son of Abraham.
For the reason why is because the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
He gives finally Zacchaeus a word of assurance.
Jesus saves people and through that salvation he gives them a word of hope, a word of salvation.
And we have to say that this assurance, although it's not essential to salvation, we must seek it.
Zacchaeus would have had ringing in his ears that night when he went to sleep, the words of verses 9 and 10.
And they would have been imprinted upon his heart and whenever he was caused to doubt his salvation,
they would have come back with such power.
This day is salvation come to this house for as much as he also is a son of Abraham.
For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.
May God bless his word. Amen.