Northside Church - Sydney
No Reservations Week 1: Jesus & A Traitor
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well good morning everyone, great to have you in church this morning and spare a thought for our poor senior pastor who is probably on the Champs Alise right now sipping coffee with his lovely wife and enjoying a well deserved break Graham just worked so hard in this place and it's great that he's able to go and enjoy a bit of time over there in Paris which got me reminiscing because I've been to Paris once before I was standing outside of Notre Dame the big cathedral there waiting in line you might have been there wait for ages to get into the place and this lady comes up to me and she leans in and she says partly fools on grace and I said you wouldn't happen to be American would you oh my gosh you do and how did you know big hair the whole lot right out it was awesome it was fantastic look there's something about encounters with people that have the great possibility to reveal something about who they are for that lady her struggling attempted French which was always well regarded I thought it was a good effort it revealed her nationality to me and there began the conversation you see encounters are important things it's why we begin a new series this week called no reservations what happens when we encounter the unexpected diner in Jesus I'm gonna look at three different examples in which Jesus leans into people's lives and begins and encounter with them and and as the son of God reveals something at the heart of who God is this week we're gonna look at God's heart for a traitor and next week we're gonna look at God's heart towards a sinner the third week we're gonna have a look at God's heart towards a failure and you see this week when we look at Zacchaeus or Zacchaeus however you might say it when Jesus encounters the traitor he was a traitor because tax collectors were despised most of us would be familiar with this passage we knew that tax collectors were hated back in those days they were despised you know there was no e-tax someone had to do the job there was no e-tax you couldn't submit your tax online someone had to collect money for the Roman governors and there was an incentivized type system that often the tax collectors would take a cut of what they collected in order to be incentivized to collect more money for the Roman oppressors and so in that sense they were collaborators they were extortionists and this guy Zacchaeus was exactly one of them now here's the interesting thing it says Jesus in the first verse of chapter 19 was passing through Jericho he wasn't going for a wonder though he was on a death march he was walking through like a man left walking on death row down between the cells as he goes through Jericho here because he had ten days left of his life ten days left as he went to walk through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem ten days and he's encountered with this tax collector showed us something as he looks over this crowd he points to Zacchaeus in the tree and he says come down I want to stay with you and so what this passage teaches us really is the nature of what we call salvation what it means to be saved how you get saved how God saves it teaches about the nature of salvation how do you get saved by God the first thing and this is what Zacchaeus did as a man who was saved the first thing you got to do is get over yourself pride is a real barrier to receiving salvation in your life you know when the rich wealthy Zacchaeus climbed a tree he paid a price these people hated him they want to spit on him there's probably you know all sorts of horrible things names they would have called him if he had have stepped out of the crowd and up into such a visible place on the branch of this sycamorphic he would have paid a price he had to get over himself I mean like if Julia Gillard got up in a tree we think that's absolutely ridiculous you know the Prime Minister wouldn't do that which he because they look climbing trees is the sort of thing the kids do right and that's exactly what Jesus calls us to do in order to be saved he says you know you must be like a child if you're going to enter the kingdom of God you must become like a child if you want to encounter God you need to lose your dignity you need to lose your social inhibitions to follow him how how do you do that how does that work in the 40s and 50s Australian kids all around this country would sit by the radio I had one in my lounge room because dad kept it from grandma's place and it was this big wooden thing and it was the centerpiece of life back then some of you may have experienced it yourself and he would listen to the tales of the jungle doctor and it was an Australian man who written all these wonderful stories of the jungle doctor our stories like the jungle doctor on safari or the jungle doctor operates or the jungle doctor attacks witchcraft or the jungle doctor's enemies and it was all these wonderful stories that had these hidden meanings behind it all and kids would gather around and listen now the other week the only reason I'm talking about it is because last Monday I was chatting to the old lady next door Ruth and she's starting to tell me her life story about 15 to 20 minutes into the conversation and she has a habit of chatting and and she talked about her husband who was a physician and used to go to Africa just before the war and and encountered all these sorts of incredible things and adventures and he came back and he wrote these stories called the jungle doctor and her husband had penned and and created this radio show around his own adventures you see we overcome our pride when we realized that we're part of a story that's actually grounded in an underlying reality these fanciful fairy tales were this guy's real life and yet they told of something much bigger and deeper look why don't we get caught up in the fairy tales because we're adults right we're big kids we're adults you know we don't think like that anymore we've experienced as Bruce Hornsby and Don Henley said the end of the innocence you know you know remember when the days were long and rolled beneath a deep blue sky didn't have a care in the world with mummy and daddy standing by but happily ever after fails and we've been poisoned by these fairy tales the lawyers dwell on small details since daddy had to fly but I know a place where we can go that's still untouched by men will sit and will watch the clouds roll by and all the tall grass wave in the wind you can lay your head back on the ground and you can let your hair fall all around me offer up your best defense but this is the end this is the end of the innocence where do we as adults go to a place where we can still go that's untouched by men there's no place such as that right oh yes there is there's no such story oh yes there is there's a story that has the power to make an adult a child again it's the story that can transform a grown up back into those fairy tales it's called the gospel it's it's it's a gospel is a story of an evil sorcerer who has this under his spell and yet a hero from another world has broken in the common rescue us and save us from that evil curse sounds like a story right no Jesus is the jungle doctor of all fairy tales Jesus is the underlying reality the which all fairy tales in this world point you see guys what am I trying to say look the only way that you're going to get over yourself as if you ground yourself in the underlying reality of the fairy tale and only then can you in your own sense of the world overcome your own pride and and sense of self and of importance and climatry it's the first step in being saved by God you've got to get over yourself the second one is you've got to get over the crowd here's a question why did Zacchaeus climb the tree because he was short says he was he was a short man I thought finally a passage that I can relate to this morning oh thanks brothers and sisters you see the crowd blocked as Zacchaeus's view and you know here's the thing he wasn't content to be obscured by the crowd he wasn't content to hide behind the crowd you see what let's teach you this morning is itself righteousness is another barrier to encountering Jesus if pride's the first one then the second one's self righteousness and you think and hang on Sam where'd you get that from okay let's have a look verse seven here what's it say Luke 19 verse seven all the people saw this the crowd saw this and began to matter they began to matter another way that the translations talk about it is they had contempt on him they look down their noses at him why because they they thought they were in the know they thought they were in the know they thought that they were the ones who should be hanging out with Jesus and they thought they knew who Jesus should and shouldn't be talking to and they thought they knew who Jesus should or shouldn't be leaning into they were the moral majority right the good ones the good crowd not this filthy traitorous tax collector and as a result there was exclusion there right he was on the outside Zacchaeus was on the outside he had to scramble into a tree to get over the crowd you see religious people use the word sinner like a groundsman uses white chalk to mark out the boundaries of a field there's always the insiders and the outsiders religion always divides people into good people and bad people and the big sins and little sins in the insiders and outsiders so how do we get over the barrier of self righteous moralistic people you have to do it Zacchaeus did get over the crowd you see that is you get over the crowd when you move to a vantage point when you can see Jesus directly get a clear view of Jesus if you've got your skepticism see him clearly and you begin to see that throughout the pattern of his life you see that when you read the Bible when you look at his stories when you read it from cover to cover one of the challenges in churches that we pastors pick a little bit here and a little bit there but if you read his whole story you'll see all sorts of patterns begin to emerge in his life he had ten days ten days left why this guy why Zacchaeus why a tax collector why up to the train saying I choose you over the crowd come down what's the teaching here I think what God's word saying to us this morning is that Jesus himself is is turned off by religious self righteous people as you are he gets his anger at them as you might be he's against the insider and the outsider we sit all the time in his encounters you know look chapter four he goes to his hometown in Nazareth remember and and he pulls out the Isaiah scroll and he reads it and he says it reads out you know I've come to set the prisoners free and today the scripture has been fulfilled in his house and they got real angry and often we think they got angry because he was big knowning himself and and he said that I'm the fulfillment of this scripture that's why they got angry when I went back and looked at that passage it's it's not that at all in fact it says that they were amazed when he said that but it's a bit later on when he goes and he tells a story tells a story how many in Israel had leprosy and no one was healed by the prophet Elijah except this guy name and the Syrian who was naming a non Jew a Gentile an outsider and then the crowd became angry because the moral majority suddenly saw that Jesus was breaking access to God out of cultural captivity you no longer encounter God through Israel and its religion you encounter God through him through Jesus and so for Jesus it's all about letting the insiders know that they're in and letting sorry letting the insiders know that they're out and the outsiders letting them know that they were in that's how he works it's how he always talks Matthew 21 the prostitutes and the tax collectors he said are getting in ahead of you and Matthew 23 why do you teachers of the law and Pharisees you hypocrite you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces and you yourselves do not enter nor will you let those that enter who are trying you see it's his mission it's his mission verse 10 of this passage for the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost that was lost what's he doing he's bringing something back into its rightful place you see sin is not worthless unless if someone's a sinner they're not worthless I say the guys in Christianity explain if you lost your lottery ticket that had won the lottery is that worthless you'd be doing everything you could to scramble and find that thing and pick it up and take it to the news agent and the Bible always talks about our sinfulness is a lostness away from God not a worthlessness and so Jesus is saying I've come back to place the misplaced and so wherever there's a choice the morally lost or the sexually lost or the religiously lost Jesus Jesus chooses them the outsiders are now on the inside and it shows us the difference between the religion and the gospel because you know what religion is people say and what's religion I'm seeking to find God I'm seeking to do my thing I'm seeking to I'm seeking to find and go and reach him and if I don't find him it's his fault but the gospel says not you know I'm good enough and I'll find God Christianity says God finds you the gospel says God is finding you the gospel says Jesus walks up to the tree in this encounter looks over the crowd and says Zacchaeus I choose you come down that's what this encounter is showing us and so don't let self righteous religious people turn you off Jesus when he's just as turned off by them as you are you need to get over the crowd and see Jesus more clearly and when you do then this deliberate inclusion of the excluded you'll see that he's just as against exclusion of people as you might be it might also be a slap in the face as it was for that crowd to us today to say how are we obscuring people's view of Jesus how we like linesman drawing our own lines and boundaries in terms of who's in and who's out one of my favorite stories at exchange was we had a guys become a good friend been here for six seven months and he turned up to our inside north side and and Graham said how long have you been a Christian he said I'm not a Christian I'm a Muslim and our mate Ali has travelled with us for six or seven months and at exchange we were reading the stories of Acts 15 when they had this exact same problem in the church of the religious insiders excluding the outsiders we talked about the way that God makes no distinction with us on the basis of our of our good doing and yet chooses to be with us and he reads through this passage and he says you know what this this place is just like that as you walk through when you go through the scriptures and he talks about the Jesus as he called him and the Jesus and what it and it is his face lights up when he begins to hear the message you know what was happening there he was getting over the crowd and he was seeing Jesus more clearly that the outsiders are on the inside and the insiders are on the outside you got to get over the crowd and finally you got to get over to Jesus verse five to six it says Zacchaeus come down immediately I must state your house today and so he came down at once and what does he do he welcomed him gladly you see you need to see Jesus clearly but you can't look at Jesus from a distance you can't watch from a distance for too long you need to get close to him how do we know that the combination of these words the nature of the request verse five stay verse six welcomed verse seven guest you know it's all hinting that look Jesus is not trying to pop in here for a quick scone and a cup of tea and then move on to Jerusalem okay he's getting prepared to stay the night with Zacchaeus and it meant that the Jesus was going to be at the very heart of Zacchaeus's life to stay with him over his house for a sleepover you can't observe him from a distance and what we saw then in this interaction was first of all the pattern of grace the pattern of how God saves you know Jesus says I choose you in verse five he looks up Zacchaeus come down immediately I need to stay with you it's careful to look at the order because he says I choose you Zacchaeus and then it's at that point that Zacchaeus says I'm going to give my money away see what's happening here Jesus is saying in spite of your sin in spite of what you've done Zacchaeus I'm going to stay with you and it speaks to you today the people that think I've got to get my life together I'm going to get myself in order or I've got to get things right before I go and encounter Jesus he doesn't know he chooses you first and then he says eventually I'll make you right and then it's incredible we see here that Zacchaeus in terms of the joy that flows from his life begins to give his money away you see first and foremost we see that you are loved before you obey in Christianity that Jesus chooses you first that's the difference between religion and Christianity you don't obey God for love you obey God because you are loved and so therefore the repentance here of Zacchaeus the change in his mind didn't bring the love of God through Jesus instead Jesus' love and his choice to Zacchaeus is what bought the repentance the change in his mind but it also shows us the power of his grace you know as the crowd looked on you know there was no doubt that this guy got saved there's a real clear indication here it's here in verse 9 let's have a look it says verse 8 but Zacchaeus stood up and he said to the Lord look Lord here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor and if I've cheated anybody out of anything I'll pay them back four times the amount you know it was when we look in at the language it's not something here that says that he did it out of obligation look Lord the way it's translated is literally look daddy the way a kid would go and take a bit of clay that they've made at school and proudly holds it up there Father and says look daddy look what I did for you and the incredible thing here is that the generosity of Zacchaeus was a sign of the underlying saving of God in this sense he says I'll pay them back four hundred times you know the law said something radically different in numbers 5 verse 7 it says that if you've wronged anyone that you were required to pay them back the amount that you wronged them plus 20% Zacchaeus says 400% and so see what happens here see what the power of grace did to Zacchaeus here's what it did it it severed the spiritual umbilical cord to his money and I know you think and here we go here's the stitch up big call get the wallets out another one again now guys let's look at as far as Zacchaeus was concerned what what did money represent for him it was money was at the heart of this guy's life it was his identity Zacchaeus the what tax collector Zacchaeus the money collector it was the heart of his identity it was his patent for life it was his meaning for life it was his reason for life it was the source of his life and he experiences the grace of God when Jesus says I choose you and he says I give it up the cords being severed and he goes far beyond what the law is required he goes four times guys what's it trying to say to us this morning it's not a legalistic interpretation saying you know if you experience God get the wallet out this morning that's not what we're getting at what it's saying here is that Jesus for Zacchaeus became his lifeline it became everything to him his identity was changed his source of life was changed his reason for living was changed if you've been if you've encountered the grace of God in Jesus that it means change will happen for your five principal it won't happen overnight but it will happen all right thanks mate I know it's a good one I love it guys there should be change it won't happen overnight but it will happen there should be the severing of these umbilical cords to the things that are what you saw before you encounter God as your survival so guys as I finish this morning going to get over yourself get over the crowd get over to Jesus you know see here's the funny thing the the crowds saw Zacchaeus hanging from a tree right crazy sight short tax collector he lost what do you lost his dignity he lost his pride lost any sense of respect if there was ever any left in that world for him he lost it all because he climbed a tree party got a new life he got a new lease on life he got a new joy in life greater generosity greater joy look maybe asking this morning how do I get that maybe maybe you're a Christian this morning you say how do I get a joy in generosity into my life I think it's here in the story you know like I said before Jesus is the jungle doctor right Jesus is the reality under every story that we read not only in the Word of God but in this world and the same crowd that saw Zacchaeus hanging without his dignity from a tree this was just hinting at something you see this same crowd perhaps we're about to see someone else hanging from a tree ten days later the same crowd is going to see someone else who lost his dignity and lost his pride lost his life and he got a new one back now is it me or is there a recurring theme here guys it's pride a barrier in your life look if you're worried about looking silly in following Jesus Christ you got to realize that at the cross Jesus looked more than silly he looked eternally silly they say the cross is the foolishness of man verse 35 of Luke's gospel said the people there stood watching and the rulers they even sneered at him and they said he saved others let him save himself if he's the Christ the God the chosen one you think Zacchaeus copped a few insults while he was hanging from the tree he was just a shadow of the one who would cop the ultimate insults if you worried about getting over yourself realize that Jesus Christ first got over himself if you feel like an outsider this morning recognize that at the cross Jesus Christ became the ultimate outsider when he yelled my God my God why have you forsaken me he'd lost the inside relationship with his father the perfect insider's relationship he went to the outside so that you could be bought to the inside this morning if you feel like this morning maybe God's not real I've been searching for him I can't find him I've done all I can't I can't reach God at the cross you got to realize that that's God reaching for you he's not something abstract he's something real and he died for you would you like a new life this morning you can be like Zacchaeus and welcome him gladly this morning in faith I'm going to pray after the service you can receive this but if you really want to encounter Jesus both Christian non-Christian we're going to get over ourselves we're going to get caught in the bigger story we're going to see the jungle doctor for who we really is we're going to get over the crowd we're going to see Jesus more directly we've got to get into the word maybe we've got to stop being part of the crowd and obscuring other people's view of Jesus Christ most importantly we need to get over to Jesus we need to get closer we need to stay with him we need to live with him we need to be with him allow him to turn us into people of joy and of grace and of wonder and of generosity like Zacchaeus was that transformations possible for you and I this morning let's pray heavenly Father we thank you for the reminders that we have in your son Jesus Christ of who you really are that you're a God that saves that you're a God that looks above the crowds of the molarally riot and the insiders and you're constantly centralizing the marginalized Lord constantly bringing those that are on the outside end of the inside Father I just pray for anyone here this morning maybe they're in this place because they've been away from you for a while they've been out on the outside and yet this morning they hear in your word and the examples of your son Jesus Christ that they can be on the inside Father I pray for the ultimate outsiders in that sense people who are yet to experience your love and your grace through faith in Jesus Christ that may they understand that Jesus looks up into the branch of their life today and says I choose you to come down come down immediately Father I pray if there's anyone in this place that might do that come out of the branch come up the back receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior Father for the rest of us this morning that here this seat is such a familiar story seat is a reminder of yes you regard that saves Father I pray that through your Holy Spirit this is going to be made new you know your spirit doesn't give us new information he just makes the same information new to us and so make your grace and your salvation new in our lives this week convict us Lord of the ways like the lines and we might consciously or subconsciously be drawing lines between people moving people to the outside Father convict us of that but also may we also rejoice in the way that you have brought us into you may we live that truth this week and we pray this now in Jesus man