Zacchaeus was a short man with a bad reputation who had an irresistible desire to see Jesus as He passed through Jericho. Alistair Begg explains that although Zacchaeus went to great lengths to see Jesus, their encounter played out according to the Lord’s purposes. Just as a radical transformation took place in the life Zacchaeus, our lives cannot be the same once salvation comes.
Jesus and Zacchaeus
1He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5And 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.” 6So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8And 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.” 9And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Series: An Extraordinary Encounter
Other messages in: An Extraordinary Encounter
What was it like to have a face-to-face encounter with Jesus? From the physically broken man of Mark 2, to the devoted religious man of John 3, and to the promiscuous woman of John 4, Jesus personally engaged unlikely individuals with extraordinary results. None of them walked away from their encounter with Christ unchanged. In this series, Alistair Begg reminds us that each of these individuals had something else in common: their greatest need was not for physical healing or stature, but for a Savior. Jesus offered them a spiritual transformation, and He offers the same thing to us today.
