At The Table: Zacchaeus (P1)
Notes
Transcript
Jesus Comes to the Table
Jesus Comes to the Table
Luke 19:1-10
Intro:
When you think of all the furniture in your house, what do you use most often?
Your Bed,
your couch,
Have you guys ever noticed how much happens surrounding a table?
End table/Coffee Table/ and finally the kitchen table.
I think the kitchen table is one of the most versatile pieces of furniture that is in a home.
A kitchen table is a place where meals are consumed.
Board games are played.
Holidays are celebrated.
Homework is done here, bills are paid here, plans are planned here.
Let us now forget the legos built, the coloring pages, the sculpting of play-dough.
It is place where letters are written and read.
A place where we can laugh, we can wish, we can dream, we can be honest, we ask questions.
Maybe you did not know that a kitchen table is all of that.
Maybe to you a kitchen table is just a kitchen table.
Maybe your life is way too busy, and you have to put everything in the your schedule and still miss something.
Life can be insane!
But have you ever been invited over to dinner with a family?
Or maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend invited you over to have dinner with the family.
Is it at a table?
Is it personal?
Formal?
Do Conversations Happen?
What about fancy holiday meals?
Come on all, I know we get around a table for this right?
We eat, we chat, we drink, and we eat some more.
We love being at the table.
However a table can also be off-putting.
It is the place where you were rejected.
A place that you did not have a spot at.
A place that you were not invited too.
This table has a lot going on around it.
I remember getting the table we have in our home now.
We just moved to Galesburg.
We did not know anybody.
And you know the one piece of furniture we did not bring?
A kitchen table.
We were going to get one here.
We found a smoking hot deal, this was of course after we tried to get one delivered and Amazon screwed that up!
But Alas everything happens for a reason.
We found a table.
Adam Welty, my neighbor helped me bring to our house.
It was sooooo heavy!
Adam still says that his back hasn’t been right since that day.
We set it up in our home and our journey began.
We had leaders over, students, staff, friends, best friends, and family.
We did everything that was mentioned above at the this table.
We played games, we ate so much food, we all did homework, and we all have had conversations.
Our kitchen table means so much to us.
We see it as a place of meeting.
That is what our cultures sees in a table.
It is a place of meeting.
At the table we can get to know someone, share stories, and just hang.
So we are looking at this series for the summer and it is called At the Table.
It is all about Jesus and the different people and lives that were changed over a table.
It is my hope that you will meet with God at the table and allow Him to change your life.
I also hope that we as a youth group can begin to unify as a group.
I feel like we are missing this connection with one another.
While we all have our breakout groups, where are awesome, know that there are some others here that are pretty amazing people that you should get to know.
To illustrate our point point of Jesus coming to the table, we are going to be looking at the story of Zacchaeus.
Know who can tell me this story?
Perfect, and can you sing it?
Amazing— my nana use to sing me this song, she was great at it.
She would alway pretty be expressive with the “Zacchaeus YOU COME DOWN!”
Like almost like, he had done something wrong.
Like he was in for a scolding.
But I don’t think Jesus was going to scold him, actually Jesus was inviting himself over for food.
So lets read the story and then break this down.
He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 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. 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. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 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.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
So right away we find Jesus.
It is written in Luke, one can only assume that Jesus is involved.
And we are proven right!
Jesus was passing through and there was a man a short man!
His name was Zaachaeus.
He was not only a tax collector but the chief guy!
He was rich, because of all the people he hosed.
The tax collectors were viewed as scum of the earth.
BUT there was something interesting about Zaachaeus.
He was seeking to see Jesus.
He no doubt had heard about him, and he wanted to see Jesus.
So he runs up ahead and he climbs a sycamore tree.
Here is what that looks like, (Photo)
Yes, I know— you are thinking Lion King and Raffki. (Photo)
It is not this tree and NO Zacchaeus was not Raffiki— that is a short person joke, and I am not buying it.
But he could have been.... anyway!
Zacchaeus climbs this tree to get a better view, anyone guilt of that before?
Of course we are.
But this simple act of climbing a tree would have been very undignified behavior, according to the culture.
It would give the impression (SNAPE VOICE) that they were up to something.
I think it was just to see Jesus, the text would not revile anything else.
Yet, here comes Jesus.
He is walking towards Zacchaeus, and he sees him and says---
ZACCHAEUS YOU COME DOWN!
and look at verse 5
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.”
I MUST STAY AT YOUR HOUSE TODAY.
There was a necessity here by Jesus to meet with Zacchaeus.
It is like he spots him and he yells hey you, Zacchaeus get over here!
Can you imagine the crowd--- all going oooooooooooo Zacchaeus is going to get it!
And instead of laying into Zacchaeus, he says I must stay with you.
This is a divine meeting between the two.
And Zacchaeus is overjoyed!
You would be too!
You would be fired up if Jesus said he was going to come stay with you right?
Maybe, maybe you are still thinking, I am not a good person and I have some stuff to work through.
While you may be excited or scared, look at what the others said.
HOW DARE JESUS GO AND EAT WITH A SINNER!
They grumbled, they were ticked, and they missed the point of the Gospel.
Jesus comes to a man who has stolen, cheated, maybe had some guys killed--- for some reason I think of tax collectors like the mafia.
That scares me so I pay my taxes so guys like John Wick and Dog the bounty hunter (Photo) leaves me alone.
But these people were ticked off and they did not want the tax collector to have time with Jesus.
So they grumbled.
You ever not get your way, we grumble and mumble often.
But here is the deal, while this was an exclusive dinner with Zacchaeus and Jesus.
It is different, how so?
Because Zacchaeus is just like us.
and with Jesus everyone has a place at the table.
Everyone has a place at the table (v.1-7)
Everyone has a place at the table (v.1-7)
Explain
Here is what I mean.
Jesus lets everyone at His table.
His table is not for those who have it all together.
He has room for you if you smell or you cheated on a test.
He has room at his table for those who feel left out and unwanted.
for those who have messed up.
And those who keep messing up.
Jesus has a place at his table.
Jesus could have came to this earth and lived a life more like us.
A life where we get selective on who we allow at our table.
We pick and choose the people we want to sit down.
We want to be clean, we want them to be good people.
We may even want them to believe in what we believe.
We all have people in our life that we would not want to share a meal with.
Can you think of a couple of people that you would never share a meal with?
I’m not talking about celebrates but people you may encounter everyday.
You got there faces in your mind?
You can hear them?
They are the worst in your mind— as Alfafa says, they are the scum between my toes.
Now picture Jesus, walking up and taking them to lunch and leaving you behind.
That is how this crowd felt.
You may even yell, hey Jesus stop, do you have any idea who this person is?
They are bad news, they are a terrible human.
They punch baby seals, of whatever.
BUT you see that is the difference between Jesus and us.
Jesus invites them in.
We say, no you hurt me too much.
No you call me names, no you are bad, no you are a sinner.
Instead Jesus comes to meet with those that we say NO too and by a divine appointment says “I must stay at your house.”
Listen, Jesus invites everyone to the table.
Everyone, at one point in your life, Jesus invited you to the table.
And it is possible that you had some haters, saying, no they don’t deserve that spot, that is for me.
If you are a believer here this evening, it is because at some point Jesus said, I must stay with you, come and sit at my table.
You still got that person in your mind, the one that you would SCOFF at if they walked away with Jesus?
What if you invited them to your table?
Some of you right now are scared out of your mind.
I am not saying that you need to go do that.
But what if you did?
What if we began to sit down with those that we despise, hate, reject and offer them love, mercy and grace?
What if you could look past your differences and offer the Gospel?
Maybe it’s not fair to compare ourselves to Jesus.
I mean that does seem like a pretty high ask right.
Here is the deal folks,
Begin at the table with Jesus will us to reflect.
Being at the table with Jesus will cause us to reflect (v.8)
Being at the table with Jesus will cause us to reflect (v.8)
Explain
Let’s pick up with the story here.
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.”
While at dinner, lunch, just on conversation we know that Zacchaeus was sitting down.
Because it says, that he stood...
Tables in this time would have been closer to the ground where sitting would have been more common.
But don’t lose sight of the the simple fact that while Zacchaeus was talking with Jesus, something changed.
Zacchaeus went from being greedy to giving back to the people.
Could you imagine the government going hey we cheated you over the last several years, and we want to give it back to you and then some!
Tax Collectors shouldn’t be giving money back.
But we see Zacchaeus have a conversation with Jesus and all of a sudden he is changed.
When we pull up a seat at the table with Jesus, who invited us in, we begin to look at our lives, in relation to Jesus’ life.
And I don’t know about you but my life compared to Jesus life is no comparison at all.
I would be embarrassed, ashamed, broken.
My life is full of lies, and deceit, lust and greed, anger, hatred, fear, and disobedience.
So if that is what we are bringing to the table, how would we have anything interesting to say?
Because at a table you want to be interesting right?
You want to have a good story, make people laugh.
I just met some of my college buddies yesterday, and we were all catching up around a table of course, and we all had stories to share.
And in sharing these stories what happens naturally?
We begin to compare.
We begin to compare jobs, parents skills, friend skills, or a host of other things.
We play this comparison game.
And when we are at the table with Jesus, I bet we can feel intimidated, judged, embarrassed, broken, unloved, and unwanted.
Yet, that is not how Jesus wants you to feel, that feeling that we get the brokenness, unloved, unwanted, that comes from a world or a culture that tells you no body wants you.
Yet Jesus is saying come and sit, I want you hear.
Do we grieve over sin!
HECK YES WE DO!
God hates sin, he hates it, he hates it, and he hates it!
We should have a distain for sin as well.
But while God hates sin, he loves you, and he sacrificed His own Son so that your sin, my sin could be covered.
I think Francis Chan said it best;
“The two biggest lies our culture believes is that we are good people, and that because God is loving, He will not punish sin.”
When we pull out the measuring stick to measure our goodness, or our righteousness, it will come up milliliters, it will be nothing at all.
Hence why we are at the table with the only one who can take those sins and cast them as far as the east is from the west— that is really far.
Jesus knows you can’t compete with Him, and that right there may be the biggest weight off your shoulder.
Jesus knows that you do not compete with Him, he is not ask you too.
He is just asking you to believe in Him and share the Gospel.
I wonder what Jesus said on that day to turn Zacchaeus.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall.
When Jesus invites us to the table, be begin to see our lives as a reflection of Christ.
That is what Zacchaeus did, he wanted to give everything he had back, four times over.
When you come close to prefect love, it will cause your life to change.
It is impossible to stay the same.
Has your life changed since you came to know Christ?
Zacchaeus started to give back money that he stole— what changed when you were saved?
When Jesus had that divine appointment with you, where you sat at this table, and you reflected, you repented, and you were changed.
What changed in your life.
What transformation did you see?
Jesus is in the business of saving souls.
I mean lets finish this story up.
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Sometimes, I think we as Christians, miss this.
We do not seek the lost, in order to save the lost.
And yes of course it is not us doing the saving but it is Christ alone.
But if we are not even willing to have those conversations to point people to Jesus, then what are we doing?
I know, I am asking a lot of your faith right now.
But if you believe in something then why don’t we talk about it?
Brittni and I just started crossfit this week, and you want to know what majority of our conversations have been about this week?
Crossfit.
My brother who also does it, guess what we talk about now all the time.
I was telling some dude in line at Wal-Mart about it.
Is it a cult, no— at least I don’t think it is— But truly it is something, I am excited about and I want others to experience how I feel.
SORE— but able to reach your fitness goals.
But Jesus is greater than crossfit.
And should not our joy in Him cause us to talk to others about Him.
I think it should.
Regularly.
So, Here we go our last point is:
Meeting with Jesus at the table is different.
Meeting with Jesus at the table is different (v.9-10)
Meeting with Jesus at the table is different (v.9-10)
Explain
Jesus being at the table is different, but not in the way where you have to sit straight, and be proper, and fancy, drinking your tea with the pinky out.
Jesus invites you in to show you that he cares, that he love you, no matter what you have done, who you have hurt.
He still loves you.
Over and over again.
Nobody else as a table like that.
If you feel broken, rejected, unwanted.
May i suggest that before you go looking to a world for answers that you pull up a sit at Jesus’ table.
For his table will leave you changed, transformed and loved.
Let’s pray:
Over the next couple of weeks that we meet— I challenge you to invite some friends to your table.
Maybe that table is here with your small group?
Something that was so cool about this graduating class was how close they are.
and many of them dragged their friends here, and guess what in doing so… Jesus changed lives.
If each person would bring one extra friend to Break-Away I promise you, will not regret it!
Alright, you can head to breakout, we are off the next two weeks.
And don’t forget that YOU ARE LOVED.