Her name was Vicky Harrison. By all appearances she was a beautiful 21-year-old perky blonde with a sweet personality, great ambition, and a seemingly bright future. Tragically she became another suicide victim. She killed herself after more than 200 unsuccessful job applications. She had dreamed of a career as a teacher or a television producer, but gave up hope for the future. A day after her 200th rejection, she wrote heartbreaking notes to her parents and boyfriend saying 'I don't want to be me any more' and took a huge drug overdose and died. She could no longer live with the thought of rejection.
Right after the brilliant founder of Apple, Steve Jobs died someone made this observation. They said 10 years ago our world had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope. Now, we have no jobs, no cash and no hope. It is true there are millions of people out of jobs. There are even more people who are out of cash, but if Jesus Christ is who He said He was and did what He said He did, nobody is without hope.
That is especially true of people who are “on the fringe”. They are people we would consider failures, messed up, total rejects. In this series we’ve been doing called “On the Fringe” we have been amazed and astounded at how the very people we turn our backs on Jesus turned His face toward. The very people we don’t give the time of day to Jesus gave most of His time to. Today, we are going to study about an encounter that Jesus had with a total reject. I first learned about this man when I was a preschooler. I learned about him in a song. You may remember it. In fact, let’s see how many of you remember the song and how it goes. I will recite (no- I’m not going to sing it) a part of it and you can fill in the blank.
Zacchaeus was a (wee little man)
And a wee little man was he
He climbed up in a (Sycamore tree)
For the Lord he wanted to (see).
And as the (Savior) passed that way
He looked up (in that tree)
And He said, (“Zacchaeus you come down!”)
For I’m going to your house (today).
For I’m going to your house (to stay).
That song comes out of a story that we find in the Gospel of Luke [Turn to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 19] The first two verses of this chapter clues us in to just how interesting this story is going to be.
“He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich.” (Luke 19:1-2, ESV)
This story takes place in Jericho, a city about 17 miles northeast of Jerusalem. It was a border city set at an international crossroads. This was a place where the northern, southern, eastern and western highway routes all came together. It was a rich city due to its great palm forests and fig trees. Taxes were actually collected at three places in Israel: Capernaum, Jericho, and Jerusalem. Jericho was by far the most lucrative.
Luke tells us that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector. That is the only time that term is used in the New Testament. To refresh your memory, the Roman government collected taxes from the people to pay for government services and infrastructure. They would bid out the position of tax collector to whoever would pay them the most money. They would then give them a quota of taxes to collect, but they were not limited to that quota. They weren’t paid a salary. They made money by adding a surcharge or a user’s fee if you will. That surcharge could be as high as they wanted it to be and you had to pay it.
Zacchaeus wasn’t just a tax collector. He was the chief tax collector. In other words, he had tax collectors working under him. In effect, he was the CEO of a tax-collecting corporation and he had people under him who went out and did the dirty work and then they paid him the greatest part of the profit. He was the “Godfather”. He was the chief thief of the Roman IRS and in cahoots with the Roman government.
You talk about a reject. He was a tax collector. He was a thief and he was a traitor. His family had disowned him, his friends had deserted him and everybody despised him. Understand, he was hated and ostracized because of what he had done. It was his own fault. His rejection came honestly. The chief tax collector was considered no better than a murderer, reprobate, and robber.
He didn’t even deserve the name that he had. The name Zacchaeus means “clean” or “innocent.” Zacchaeus was anything but that. He was dirty and he was guilty.
Then Jesus came to town. What we are going to learn today is not only how we should reach out to the rejected, but what happens to the rejected when they receive Jesus. Key Take Away: God receives the rejected and rejoices over their repentance. We are going to look at this story through two sets of eyes: the eyes of Jesus and the eyes of Zacchaeus. We are going to learn how to reach out to the rejected and how the rejected should respond when Jesus reaches out to them.
I. We Must Be Attractive To Those Who Feel Rejected
We continue the story in verse 3. “And 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 and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.” (Luke 19:3-4, ESV)
Jesus has now been ministering for three years. His fame and name had spread all over the country. The man who could raise the dead, walk on water, still a storm, feed thousands on a schoolboy’s lunch was coming to Jericho! No farming today, no school today, no working today – the whole city had turned out to see Jesus. The streets were jammed. All the front seats were gone. It was a sell-out crowd; standing room only.
The only seats left were in the nose bleed section up in the trees. Well, Zacchaeus had a problem. He was “small in stature.” That means he was probably not even 5 feet tall, but he had this passion to see Jesus. So, he runs ahead and climbs up a Sycamore tree.
To be specific, it was a tree about 40 feet high with a short trunk and very wide branches. Every time we go to Israel we always go to Jericho and they always show us a Sycamore tree and tell us it was the one that Zacchaeus climbed. How they know that they never tell us but I now suspect the street vendors who stand around that tree were the ones who discovered it and they may even have planted it!
Regardless, Zacchaeus runs and climbs up branches to see Jesus—a detail that seems minor to us but wouldn’t have been to that crowd. In that day it was considered undignified and even obscene for a man to run in public anywhere. It was considered even more undignified for a man to climb a tree, but this chief tax collector wanted to see Jesus.
The question is, “Why?” Why was he so determined to see Jesus? Maybe because of the passion of Jesus. Jesus had developed quite a reputation, one very negative to a lot of people but not a guy like Zacchaeus. Here is what was being said about Jesus by the leading religious authorities of that day.
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”(Luke 7:34, ESV)
Nobody, who was anybody, was a friend of tax collectors and sinners. At least if you were you didn’t admit it. You certainly wouldn’t let anybody know it unless you were Jesus. This man who had no friends wanted to see someone who just might become his friend!
In fact, that is one of the amazing things about Jesus. People who weren’t like Jesus liked Jesus. The reason is people who felt so unloved by everybody else felt so loved by Jesus.
I want to say something to us as a church and I just want to remind myself of something as your pastor. The more those who are not followers of Christ are loved by those of us who are followers of Christ the more open they may be to following Christ.
It doesn’t matter who walks into the door of our church, our home, or our life. We should be attractive to them by the way we love them, by the way we respect them, and by the way we treat them. Just because I do not and will not approve of someone’s life style, does not mean I have the right to treat them with anything less than the love and the respect of Jesus.
It really isn’t our job to change people who need to be changed. It is our job to model for them the love of Jesus Christ and put them in a position where they will be open to Christ and let Him change them, which is exactly what happened in this story, which leads to a second principle.
II. We Must Be Attracted To Those Who Feel Rejected
What happened next blew the crowd away and probably almost caused Zacchaeus to fall out of that tree.
“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.” (Luke 19:5-6, ESV)
Don’t miss exactly what happened here. The reason Zacchaeus is even in the Bible is not because he was looking for Jesus. It is because Jesus was looking for him. If Jesus had passed by that tree and never looked up we would have never even known who Zacchaeus was. Jesus found the guy trying to find him!
You are going to see in a moment that Zacchaeus was caught because he was sought. They came together for two totally different reasons that day. He wanted to see Jesus. Jesus wanted to save him. He just wanted to check Jesus out. Jesus wanted to check him in. He just wanted Jesus’ autograph, but Jesus wanted his heart. He just wanted a picture. Jesus wanted a relationship.
One of the greatest novels ever written and one of the greatest movies ever made was Ben Hur. The story behind the man who wrote that novel is fascinating.
Many years ago there was an atheist by the name of Bob Ingersoll. He was talking to another atheistic friend of his and they got on the subject of Jesus. The man said to Ingersoll, “Jesus is a very fascinating man and I believe that someone could write a novel about Him that would be a best seller.”
Ingersoll thought about that for a moment and said, “I believe you are right and I believe you are the man to write it. Why don’t you write a novel about Jesus and tear down this myth about His being God’s son and dying for our sins and at the same time you could advance the case for atheism. Why don’t you write that book and just show Jesus was a man like anyone else?”
This man took Ingersoll’s advice and began to do the research needed to write this book, but the more he studied the life of Jesus the more he was impressed with the person of Jesus. This man finally came back to Ingersoll to tell him that after investigating Jesus he was convinced that Jesus was the Son of God and he had given Him his life. That man’s name was Lou Wallace, who wrote the novel, Ben Hur and while he was checking Jesus out, Jesus was checking him in.
That is why Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” (Luke 19:5, ESV)
He didn’t say, “I would like to stay at your house, but I ‘must’ stay at your house. I want to stay at your house. I am going to stay at your house.”
Remember, Zacchaeus was a man who always ate Thanksgiving dinner alone. When he cooked out he only needed one steak, because nobody else would eat with him. This is the only time we are ever told that Jesus invited Himself to be someone’s guest and of all people it was the chief tax collector.
Jesus could have stayed with anybody. Anybody would have gladly accepted Jesus, but it wasn’t the mayor of the city that got the invitation. It wasn’t the president of the bank, the rabbi of the largest synagogue, or the chief of police that got to hang out with Jesus. It was the reject. Like Jesus, we must be attracted to those who feel rejected, but once we are –
III. We Must Be Attentive To Those Who Feel Rejected
As astounding and incredible as it was to this crowd that Jesus had gone to eat with the least likely, least deserving, man in the whole town, what happened to this man next was even more astounding.
“And 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.’” (Luke 19:8, ESV)
We are not told what happened at Zacchaeus’ house. We don’t know whether Jesus got to eat dinner or even spent the night. We don’t know what they talked about, but it is very easy to see that whatever Jesus said to him brought him to salvation. Whatever else happened that day, Zacchaeus was convicted, converted, and changed. Jesus was attentive to his greatest need. His greatest need was not to be accepted by the town or accepted by others. In fact, the greatest need of the reject is not to be accepted by anybody. His greatest need was to accept God. There is no doubt that he did, because when you receive you repent.
According to the law if a thief voluntarily confessed to stealing something he only had to restore what he had stolen, plus twenty percent interest. Zacchaeus was so changed he wanted to do more. He was going to pay back 4 times what he had taken. That is 300% interest! That is 15 times more than what the law required. Furthermore, he was going to give half of everything he owned, beyond that, to the poor. Again, the law only required that you give 20% to help poor people, so he raised that ante 2 ½ times! What had happened? What would turn the greatest robber, into the greatest neighbor, and the greatest taker into the greatest giver? The answer is in verse 9.
“And Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.’” (Luke 19:9, ESV)
Salvation had not come to Zacchaeus because he was going to give all this money away. Salvation was not the result of his giving; salvation was the cause of his giving. God does not save you when you decide to change. You decide to change when God saves you. Because a lost man became a saved man a little man became a big man.
Can you imagine getting a knock on your door and you open it and there stands Zacchaeus? With anger flashing through your eyes you say, “You little thief! What do you want?” He says, “Do you know how much I have taken from you over the years?” You say, “Yes. A hundred shekels!” He checks his books and says, “You are right- a hundred shekels. Here is your hundred shekels, plus 400 shekels more. Does that make us square?” You stammer, you stutter, and then you say, “Yes, but I’ve got to ask you a question, ‘What has happened to you?’” That wee little man smiles and with tears in his eyes says, “I met Jesus and I have learned that God receives the rejected and He rejoices over their repentance.”
I don’t want you to miss where this story intersects with your life and mine. Sometimes we need to reach out to the rejected. To those of us who have been rejected we need to repent of why we have been rejected and we need to make things right with people who have rejected us for what we have done to them. Don’t miss this next statement. What God forgives and God forgets we should remember and we should repent.
When God comes into your life He not only makes you right with Him, but He makes you want to be right with others. Things are never right until they are completely right. Zacchaeus was not going to be completely right until he made things right with the people he had wronged. When Jesus comes into your life not only should you know it, but other people should know by the way you respond to them.
Too many people are like the wife I heard about who before she got saved nagged her husband, picked on her husband, berated her husband, and always complained to her husband. She became a Christian and nothing changed. She kept nagging. She kept berating. She kept complaining. Finally, he looked at her and said, “I don’t mind that you were born-again, I just wish you hadn’t been born-again as yourself.” Listen - there is no such thing as forgiveness without repentance that does not produce holiness.
I share with you one of the most painful stories of my life. Back when I was in college, years before I met Teresa, I got engaged to another girl. We dated my sophomore year and got engaged my junior year. Before I began my senior year, for a number of reasons, I broke off the engagement. Looking back now, I realize that was God’s doing, but I crushed the heart of this girl. It put her into a tailspin and caused her to make some poor choices in her life. She dropped out of school and I went on to graduate. Almost 20 years went by with no contact, but the guilt of what I had done to her haunted me.
I was invited to speak to a church down in Florida about two hours south of where she knew she might be living. I was sitting in my hotel room going over a message I was going to preach on repentance and the Lord brought this girl to my heart. I knew what I needed to do. First, I called Teresa and told her what I wanted to do and got her permission.
Then, I was able to find the name of this lady who was now teaching in an elementary school. I called the school and asked if I could speak to her and she just happened to be on a break and she came to the phone. When I told her who I was she was totally silent. I told her that I would like to see her and there were some things I needed to say to her, but I also made it plain that I would not come unless (1) she called her husband and got his permission and (2) we would meet there, at the school, in a public place. She assured me she didn’t need to call her husband, but I assured her I wouldn’t come unless she did. I drove up in one of the longest two-hour drives of my life.
I did not know what she would say when we met. We sat down there in the office of that school and it wasn’t long before all that hurt and heartache I had caused her burst to the surface and she began to weep. I leaned over and took her by the hands and looked her in the eyes and told her how wrong I was and what I’d done and the way I’d done it. I asked her to forgive me. In an obligatory way she said I didn’t need forgiveness, but I let her know I had not driven two hours not to be forgiven and I would not leave until I was. She did graciously forgive me. When I walked out that door a twenty-year burden had been lifted off my shoulders.
If you are here today you may need to answer some questions perhaps yourself. Who do you owe? Whom have you hurt? Whom have you wronged? Who has rejected you, because of what you have done to them? Are you willing to repay what you owe, repair what you have broken, replace what you have taken?
If you are rejected today by those whom you have hurt, mistreated, or wronged in the past the first thing you need to do is simply let Jesus find you. That is why Jesus says at the end of this story, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10, ESV)
Jesus didn’t say that He came to be found by those who were seeking him. He came to seek those who are lost. What motivated Jesus to go to Jericho? The same thing that motivated Jesus to leave heaven and take on the form of human flesh, to die on a cross, and to be completely separated from His Heavenly Father. He came to seek those who have been rejected.
Now we know that Zacchaeus found Jesus, because Jesus was looking for Zacchaeus. It was Jesus who left heaven to come to the earth where Zacchaeus existed. It was Jesus who came to the town where he worked, to the street where he walked, to the tree that he climbed, to the home where he lived.
Just like Jesus, we should be attractive to those who feel rejected. We should be attracted to those who feel rejected and we should be attentive to those who feel rejected. For Jesus, receives the rejected and forgives them. When the rejected receive Jesus they repent and then everybody can live happily ever after.