Zacchaeus, Today I Must Stay At Your House Luke 10: 1‐19 1.
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Who was Zacchaeus? a. Zacchaeus = the lost child of Abraham i. The tax collector of Jericho, rich man, sinner, hated by people and short in body height. ii. Lives in compunction, low self esteem, confused, struggles and emptiness. iii. If we do not know the Lord, we do not know our selves and therefore, we could not comprehend many things = Knowing ourselves in the wrong way, knowing history in the wrong way. iv. Those who didn’t know the Lord, they live like the above mentioned < Ephesians 2: 1‐3> b. Jesus went to Jericho in order to seek Zacchaeus i. Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” ii. Zacchaeus is also one of Abraham’s descendants. The son of man came to save the lost. iii. The people did not understand why Jesus has to stay in the sinner’s house. :‐ Jesus, the son of man came to seek the sinners, not the righteous; He seeks the sick, not the healthy. :‐ Those whom are called to be God’s citizens were all salvaged by the Lord Himself…(Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Paul…). :‐ The Lord knew who are the people whom are called to receive God’s mercy, their background, relationships, location, time, experiences. c. Zacchaeus didn’t know much, he just came to see who Jesus is. Therefore, he went ahead and climbed up to the sycamore tree just to see Jesus… i. Before the Lord called to Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus rd just knew the Lord as a 3 party person. :‐ Before the saints were called by the Lord personally, what they learn are just surface knowledge of the Spiritual matters, they could not establish a relationship with the Lord, they couldn’t meet up face to face with the Lord and didn’t even know how the Lord has leaded their lives. The moment when Zacchaeus established a relationship with the Lord a. When Zacchaeus noticed that Jesus was walking towards him, and saw that Jesus lifted up His head to look at him, he didn’t expect Jesus to say: “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” i. This is truly the most important event in Zacchaeus’ life, and the most important experience in his life. ii. Zacchaeus has not thought that Jesus Christ had knew everything about him; In fact Lord Jesus Christ is the creator of Zacchaeus, the One whom had prepared everything in Zacchaeus; The Lord Jesus Christ came to Jericho, just to seek Zacchaeus…
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:‐ This is the secret of being born again and it is the starting point of knowing Christ, having communication with Him, and walking with Him. It is also the point in life, knowing how to discern between leaving the judgment of death and proceeding into eternity. :‐ Therefore, those who comes to the church without God in them, or those whom are called to be “vegetable people” in worship, they are people who crave for mysticism, good behavior, legalism, knowledge, human efforts or mood dependent. These people have failed in their starting point of faith. For those whom are called to the Lord in the bible, they have moments of meeting the Lord face to face, and through that, their matters of life and strength changes. All these will happen after they have seen the Lord… i. Abraham
/ Isaac / Jacob / Moses <Exodus 3: 1‐22>… Those whom have revived in Gospel after hearing the Gospel, they had the same experience <John 10: 3> “He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out”. <John 1: 13> “who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God”, <Matt 16: 17> “for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven”, “And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed”, “Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us...The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul”… :‐ These are the process of those who were called to be blessed by the Lord i. The Lord is the creator of my life, He is my only Father, and for all of my heart and spirit, it was personally designed and created by God, including the numbers of my hair, my days on earth, my borders of life, qualifications, relationships, everything was pre‐determined by the Lord. < Ephesians 1: 4> just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre‐ appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us. ii. When we were born, we do not know the Lord, but our ways were known by the Lord. The Lord allows us to live in the world, to experience sin, emptiness, and waited until our spirit knows meekness, weakness, thirst and until we could understand our days in the Gospel. < Ephesians 2: 1> you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.
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<Exodus 3: 7> And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. iii. When the time has come, our Father in Heaven will ordain an ambassador of the Gospel to us. Therefore, the Gospel which we received is directly from the mouth of our Father in Heaven. <John 12: 44> He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. how shall they preach unless they are sent? iv. The ambassadors of the Gospel are Christ body and the gospel which was delivered by the ambassadors was accomplished by Christ Jesus Himself. <John 10: 14, 27> I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. v. When we listen to the Gospel, the holy spirit will inspire us, making us understand and grow in faith…<1 Corinthians 12: 3> no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit, <Ephesians 1: 13‐14> after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. vi. The moment our spirit understands the Gospel, we understand the plans of our Father in Heaven, and we know how to call upon the name of Christ Jesus, we know that our Lord is in us and we in Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved.” <2 Corinthians 5: 17> Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation… vii. Our lives will hunger more for the pure milk of the Holy Spirit (The word of God), understand the perfect will of the Lord, and we’ll love to communicate with the Lord and walk with Him… <John 14: 26> But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. A higher standard of meeting the Lord i. Before the complete revelation of God (The Bible) and before the accomplishments of Christ (The word become flash, die and resurrected, sited at the right hand of God), before the age of the Holy Spirit, God calls and communicates with His people through image of a person, people’s rd mouth and actions through the 3 dimension; Today, how God appears to the saints is of greater standards and even more complete. ii. <John 20: 29> Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. <John 16: 7> Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait
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for the Promise of the Father. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you… Zacchaeus’ reaction after meeting the Lord a. So he made haste and came down, and received the Lord joyfully. i. Made haste and came down ÅÆ It is not doing research on Jesus, seriously observing Jesus or examining Jesus... = these are not the works of the Holy Spirit ii. Joyful emotion ÅÆ Not like the normal believers who are lukewarm, unresponsive, reluctant, full of sadness iii. Receiving the Lord Æ not only he receives an honorable guest, but he receives a master…** Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. :‐ Examine: Is the Lord in His first position of everything that I do? When I first meet with the Lord…? When I come before the Lord every day…? When I hear from the Lord…? What are my objectives, plans, contribution, timetable, are all of them belong to the Lord? b. Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold… i. This is the evidence of change in Zacchaeus’ life ii. Before knowing the Lord, monetary richness is the first dependent of Zacchaeus’ life (the god of mammon) = <Matt 13: 44> Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Examine: What are the treasures which I’ve discovered from the Lord? Are those treasures greater than everything else? What are the evidences? c. And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” i. When salvation reaches to a person or a family, the Lord will bring forth a “complete package” of blessings to them. ii. The son (descendant) of Abraham = those who believe in the Gospel which Abraham believed = those who receive the same things as Abraham and receives and the same promises as Abraham = those who live according to the same principle of living like Abraham who was being called = those who can enjoy all of the blessings which Abraham had enjoyed. iii. Through Jesus Christ, only then we could revive the perfect will from the Lord in our life objectives, plans and walk with the Lord together… iv. For the things and the time which all the saints experienced are different; but all revival of life, strength and evidences could only be visible after we, as saints, go through Zacchaeus’ experience.