JESUS SEEKS ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE
Then Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man named
Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, who was very wealthy. He was trying to see who Jesus was,
but could not see over the crowd because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and
climbed a sycamore tree to see Him, since Jesus was about to pass that way. When Jesus
came to that place, He looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down, for I must stay at your
house today.” So Zacchaeus hurried down and welcomed Him joyfully.G5463 And all who saw
this began to grumble, saying, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinful man!” But Zacchaeus
stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I
have cheated anyone, I will repay it fourfold.” 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 the lost.”
Luke 19:1-10
Zacchaeus’s stature or lack thereof did not keep him from seeing Jesus. For some strange reason, Susan can relate to him. Really not strange at all because in 2015, she gave up twenty-three inches of her physical height. Following her leg amputations, she is now thirty-eight inches tall! Though Zacchaeus was small, he had to be strong and agile to run ahead and climb up a tree to have a better view. Jesus foreknew Zacchaeus’s situation and knew that he would be in the tree. He looked up and invited Himself to dinner at the tax collector’s house in order to bring him salvation. The saving grace of God trumped the social grace of waiting for an invitation to eat and stay at someone’s home. Jesus does not wait for us to invite Him in. He invites us and the Holy Spirit actively pursues us until we respond. Zacchaeus exuberantly climbed down the tree and received Christ with exceeding joy. From this encounter, Zacchaeus’s life was forever transformed, which is evidenced by the fact that he gave half of his goods to the poor and restored fourfold to all those from whom he previously had fraudulently swindled. In so doing, Zachaeus was doing even more than the restitution specified in the Mosaic Law:
19:8 I restore fourfold. Zacchaeus’ willingness to make restitution was proof that his conversion was genuine. It was the fruit, not the condition, of his salvation. The law required a penalty of one-fifth as restitution for money acquired by fraud (Lev. 6:5; Num. 5:6, 7), so Zacchaeus was doing more than was required. The law required 4-fold restitution only when an animal was stolen and killed (Ex. 22:1). If the animal was found alive, only two-fold restitution was required (Ex. 22:4). But Zacchaeus judged his own crime severely, acknowledging that he was as guilty as the lowest common robber. Since much of his wealth had probably been acquired fraudulently, this was a costly commitment. On top of that, he gave half his goods to the poor. But Zacchaeus had just found incomprehensible spiritual riches and did not mind the loss of material wealth (see notes on 14:28; Matt. 13:44–46). (45)
MacArthur Study Bible
The grumblers complained that Jesus was eating at the house of a sinner, but Jesus had come to seek out the lost people. People like little Zacchaeus. People like you and me. All kinds of people—short, tall, fat, thin, brilliant, not so bright. What we all have in common is that we have sinned. Jesus offers us freedom from the slavery of sin.
Romans 3:23-24 (NLT) For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.
If the Holy Spirit has tugged at your heart to draw you into a relationship with Jesus, have you answered “yes” joyfully? Are you and others seeing evidence of the change He is making in your life? Are you beginning to see the Fruit of the Spirit growing in you?
Father, thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to live among us and proclaim Your love, to die in our place on the cross, and to be raised from the dead as a demonstration of Your power to resurrect us! Thank you for drawing us to You that we might partake of Your grace and experience exuberant joy!