Zacchaeus                                                                                                                                   A - 3

 

This is a story of unearned, unmerited and unlimited free Grace.  It is another story (like “A Woman at a Well”) of a person going through the various emotional and spiritual stages of life and winding up (after meeting Jesus) in a new “But Now” life!

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.  He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd.  So, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately.  I must stay at your house today.”  So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a ‘sinner.’

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord!  Here and now, I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” 

Luke 19:1-10 (NIV)

 

Zacchaeus thought of himself as a tax collector, an outcast rejected by others for the financial harm he had caused.   But Jesus offered personal friendship to him, thereby rewriting all of Zacchaeus self-perceptions.

What a powerful story of Jesus working, healing, redeeming, and freeing!  What a powerful story about one man's new-found faith, his resulting repentance, his complete forgiveness, and his total re-birth into a new man!

What a powerful story of Jesus taking a person through his past and helping him arrive at a new “But Now” place in his life!

 

1) Before Jesus came to town, how was Father God working with Zacchaeus to prepare his heart? 

2) Before Zacchaeus ever wound up in that tree, what might he have come to believe about himself? 

3) How might he have felt about his height? 

4) Did wealth and status satisfy Zacchaeus?

5) Mentally was he alone in that crowd?  Did he have any hope that day? 

6) Zachaeus must have been very sharp to figure out a place right where Jesus was going.  So how important was this visit to him?

 

Find the words “immediately” and “must”.  What do these words imply?

7) Check out the last words of Jesus, especially the word: “too”.  What does that mean?  Imagine a sentence from Him to you, what would “too” mean?  

8) Why do you suppose Jesus choose Zacchaeus to have lunch with, when there were hundreds of people in the crowd?  What prompted Jesus in this story? 

After meeting Jesus and visiting with Him, there was a remarkable total change in Zacchaeus.  His patterns of thinking and his future actions were never to be the same as in his past.  He had a real “BUT NOW” moment!

 

If today you hear Jesus inviting Himself to have lunch with you, say “yes”.  It will change your life!