Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning is good to be up here again with you and to be continuing on, in our sermon series.

What we've been doing this fall is going through the Gospel of Luke and specifically looking at the moment when Jesus eats with people, and what we found is that there's a lot of significance in the act of eating with others, and especially in the way that Jesus chose to interact with people, his meals were especially important to Luke.

You can tell.

Just from the way he emphasizes this throughout.

The gospel is always looked at a lot of different meals throughout the the Gospel of Luke.

And today, we are coming up on a story about Zacchaeus.

This is a well-known story in Sunday school.

James knows that Zacchaeus Was a wee, little man and a wee little man.

Was he in fact, one of his one of the things that will happen is he will take two figures and one of them will end up in a high place and the other one will be in a little place in the little one will say Zacchaeus you come down.

And Favorite game, cuz we know the story of Zacchaeus from Sunday school.

It's it's a popular one, but today, when I was studying for this sermon, what I found was a lot of the people that I read connected the story with an earlier story and that Zacky the story of Zacchaeus could be read as a response to something that happened earlier in the gospel.

So what we're going to do today is we're actually going to be two stories and we're going to read the story of two different rich men and compare them and as you listen to them, read back to back, you may start to pick up on the similarities, the connections between these two stories and ultimately, we're going to look at what it means to see the to see Jesus ministry as a Ministry of presence rather than a Ministry of Correction and Doctrine.

Don't let me read the two stories together for us and then we will unpack them.

The first Story begins in Luke chapter 18, verse 18, and then the second Story begins in 19.

A certain ruler asked Jesus, good teacher.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

Why do you call me good?

Jesus answered.

No one is good.

Except God alone.

You know, the Commandments.

You shall not commit adultery.

You shall not murder.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.

All these I've kept, since I was a boy, he said when Jesus heard this, he said to him, you still lack one thing, sell everything you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven.

Then come follow me.

When he heard that she became very sad because he was very wealthy.

Jesus looked at him and said how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is Rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Those who heard this asked, who then can be saved replied.

What is impossible with man?

Is possible with God.

Chapter 19, Jesus entered Jericho, and was passing through, a man was their name Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was sure, he could not see over the crowd.

So, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way.

When Jesus, reach the spot, he looked up and said to him that he has come down immediately.

I must stay at your house.

So we came down at once and welcome him.

Gladly all the people saw this and began to mutter.

He has gone to be the guest of a sinner, but psyche has stood up and said to the Lord, look Lord here.

And now I give half of my possessions to the poor.

And if I have cheated anybody 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 to is a sign of Abraham for the son of man came to seek and to save the Lost

The two stories, very close together, about two wealthy men and their encounters with Jesus.

And they end up with very different results from their encounters.

And so as we and in fact, the first story ends with the idea that it is very, very difficult for a wealthy person to get into heaven.

And then the very next chapter, there is a story of a wealthy man about whom Jesus says, salvation is here.

So what that means is that we should be able to learn something meaningful by comparing these two men and seeing what they had what was different about them?

And what, why they came to Jesus, how they came to Jesus, what Jesus offered them and how they responded?

So that's what we're going to do now is we're going to compare and contrast the Rich Young Ruler and Jackie has the first, let's look at their background.

What they bring to the story Jesus, when when the rich young man comes to Jesus.

And and says he wants to know the way to the king of Heaven, Jesus says, you know, the Commandments you shall not commit adultery.

You shall not murder.

You shall not steal.

You shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother.

Those are five of The Ten Commandments.

Now, Jesus is not saying that those are the five that matter that is a shorthand way of saying the Ten Commandments and a Ten Commandments are.

Also, we're always a shorthand way of referring to the entire law of Moses.

So he's bait his eyes, keep the commands follow the law of Moses that what you're supposed to do, and the Rich Young Ruler, says all these I have kept And Jesus except that.

Or he does not say you are lying or you're wrong.

What he says, is you still lack one thing?

Meaning that he apparently doesn't lock the keeping of those Commandments, too.

Similar to what we talked about last week for Jesus actually accept the premise that the Pharisees are righteous, but righteousness, isn't the point?

They were still missing something, they were missing Jesus.

In this case, the Rich Young Ruler Jesus accept the premise that he is a lock keeper.

He is a righteous do

Now, on the other hand Zacchaeus Was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.

In fact, you could also translate he was an arch like an archangel, he's an arc tax collector, like he's a tax collector, over tax collectors and tax collectors.

Were there were many problems with tax collectors about beyond the fact that tax collectors are never popular.

Cuz people don't like paying taxes, right?

But these guys were also dishonest, and they made their money by being dishonest about it, and they were keeping, they were collecting taxes on behalf of the Roman oppressors.

And in the process of doing that, they had to violate the law of Moses.

So they're unclean and their unclean for the sake of cheating people out of money and they're unclean for the sake of cheating.

People out of money on behalf of the Romans.

They're lawbreaking dishonest collaborators, and this is the guy who's in charge of the other.

Taxbusters he, he's the one who recruits people to collect taxes and he's the one cheats the other Tax Collectors out of money.

Even this is this guy's the worst of the worst.

So as we compare these two and their backgrounds, what we find is.

The ruler had been especially righteous and Zacchaeus have been, especially sinful.

They basically could not be more different in their backgrounds.

They come to Jesus from the exact opposite directions.

But they also come to Jesus for different reasons.

The Rich Young Ruler comes to Jesus, and says, good teacher.

What must I do to inherit eternal life?

He is there to ask Jesus a question to get the answer to that question into go on his way.

He's there to collect information, which gives us an insight into his character and perhaps, why he's been.

So fastidious about following the law is it he's looking to achieve something, his goal is to inherit eternal life and he figures.

Jesus is someone who can teach him, how do he comes to Jesus to get the instructions for how to get to eternal life.

He wants to know what he has to do to be saved.

Now, Zacchaeus doesn't have any of that.

In mind that he has, has one simple thing in mind.

He wanted to see who Jesus was

He's heard about Jesus.

And he's curious, he's interested he wants to know Jesus.

So we can also compare them this way.

The ruler wanted to get to heaven, Zacchaeus wanted to get to Jesus.

Do they have different?

They had different agendas in mind and I think it's important that we recognize that those are different agendas Getting to Heaven is not the same as getting to Jesus, right?