Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
Luke 19, Finding Faith in Unexpected Places
We also dive into the essential lesson of treating everyone with respect and compassion, regardless of their societal roles or physical attributes. Through personal stories and relatable examples, we discuss how often we let outward appearances cloud our judgment and how adopting a Christ-like perspective can transform our interactions. As followers of Christ, our mission is more than just avoiding judgment; it’s about creating connections and embodying love to help others find their path to the Creator.
Finally, we draw from Zacchaeus's determination to meet Jesus, regardless of his obstacles, to inspire you to overcome your own challenges in seeking a relationship with Christ.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
All right, we're back today, still in the Gospel of Luke, and if you'd like to turn your Bibles to Luke 19, and we'll start from verse 1. Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was the chief tax collector, and he was rich, and he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd for he was a short statue. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass by that way. And when 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. So he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying he has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner. Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord Look, lord, I give half of all my goods to the poor and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusations, I restore them fourfold. 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 who comes to seek and to save that which is lost.
Speaker 1:Now, there's a couple of things to take note of in that passage there, and I think the first one is that it's almost like Jesus knew that Zacchaeus was going to be up at that sycamore tree, and this is a rather interesting encounter, which is the only one in the Gospels and the application of this has great majority of people these days fall into this categorization. Now, george Matheson was a Scottish pastor and a biblical biographer and scholar and scholar, and he said this and he described the paradox of this story as uniquely common. Zacchaeus is a spectacular person because he is not like any of the other characters who encountered Christ. He was not called as one of the disciples were, nor was Zacchaeus suffering from some kind of affliction. What makes Zacchaeus so special? That he was an average man. Now, when you're talking about being an average man, I'm trying to say that every one of us will come upon a type of Zacchaeus from time to time, and the reason I say this is because I think that everybody listening to this today will be able to relate to this. This today will be able to relate to this. You have a Zacchaeus in your mind and you have someone who you take note of, and you take note of them without realizing how judgmental you are, because you remember or recognize this person because they are tall, pretty, they've got red hair or blonde hair, they're bald, they're ugly, they're fat, they're rich or they're poor. Sadly, the reality in Western culture is that we often assign value to a person based on their physical appearance. But Jesus called Zacchaeus by name. Jesus illustrated how we should relate to people and how God relates to us. God knows our name. The Bible says in Numbers 6.25 that God desires his face to shine upon us. A shining face is beautifully described of someone who is happy to see you, to see you Now.
Speaker 1:I remember when we were young our children. I loved watching the response when they saw me after being at work. Their mum, my wife Maria, was studying at the time, which meant my kids would spend a lot of their time in daycare and they'd be the last ones picked up and one of the workers would usually escort the children to the classroom. When my little toddler would see Daddy at the door, you know her eyes would light up and she would run down the hallway with delight to give me a hug. Light up and she would run down the hallway with delight to give me a hug. You learn to appreciate those shining passageways to give their parents a hug.
Speaker 1:God is looking for us, is waiting for us to turn to him so that he can shower us with his love upon our soul. Now it is ironic and in some aspects maybe not so, but this scripture is where I'm at as I'm going through the book of Luke, but in a lot of ways it's very prevalent, because today is Father's Day and God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so whoever believeth in him would not perish but have everlasting life. John 3.16. Now why do I mention that? It's because this is the Father's love, that agape love that is there. Jesus called Zacchaeus by name. He made eye contact and spoke to him face to face. Jesus communicated to Zacchaeus that he was glad to see him, to Zacchaeus that he was glad to see him. This was not an interpretation in the Messiah's schedule. It wasn't anything that was planned or put in place. Jesus always has time for those who seek him.
Speaker 1:Small children would often say that they are the building blocks jumping off diving boards or some other task. Look at me, look at me. They want someone whom they love to turn their face to them and see what they have accomplished. And my kids used to always do that and I'm noticing now that even, uh, as a grandfather, um, I do some silly things with my granddaughter, um, but always, and I know kids have got a short um attention span so they don't hold their focus very long because other things attract them and their brains always processing and processing things. But my granddaughter lights up when she sees me, even when we're doing face time, and it's going to be interesting to see what happens when I go to Melbourne and I meet her face to face. But you know, people are creatures of habit but their facial expressions and everything change based on the circumstances that they find themselves in. And if they're excited to see you, that is a great joy. See, zacchaeus climbed a tree to get a look at Jesus, but he also wanted Jesus to look at him. The Savior did look and he is still looking to show his love for his children Now.
Speaker 1:Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector. Perhaps you know him as the elected official. You might know your Zacchaeus as being the football coach, a teacher, a doctor, a dentist, a co-worker. You don't really know the person, but you know what position or title they hold in society and you remember them because of their attributes. And I'm not talking about academic attributes. I'm talking about the fact that if they're short, if they're fat, if they're tall, they're skinny, they've got a crooked nose, there is something unique about them that enables you to be able to remember them. But unfortunately, that's not what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to remember a person for who they are and we're looking at the heart of a person. We're not categorizing that person by their status, their statue in society or their looks.
Speaker 1:But Jesus immediately goes into a conversation with Zacchaeus and he says Zacchaeus, how is your mum? I heard she'd been in the hospital. Did anyone care that his youngest daughter was battling epilepsy? I am speculating because the bible doesn't say much about his personal life, but I know there was more to this man than just collecting taxes, which has to be problematic anyway, because naturally people aren't going to like him, but also because of his short stature. And you sometimes wonder why would Jesus go out of the way to exactly describe the fact that he was obviously a short person? Now, you don't introduce a friend or an associate that you have by their characteristics. You don't turn around and go say, oh, I haven't seen Susan for a while, maybe they have something wrong with them. It says, oh, I never noticed Susan was missing. Oh yeah, she's the fat one that always sits at the back of the church on the left-hand side.
Speaker 1:Now, without even knowing it, you just insulted the person and we're not supposed to be able to relate to a person because of their physical status or how they look or how they talk or anything like that that status or how they look or how they talk or anything like that. This is the important relationship that Jesus has with Zacchaeus, that he wants us to have with our Zacchaeus in our life, because we all have one, we all have somebody that when we describe that person, we describe their attributes that are not flattering to them and in modern society, realistically, what you are doing is you're not only insulting that person, but you're also discriminating against them, irrespective of how you personally look at them and they might be a very close friend of yours and you might enjoy that person's company, but the way you describe you know when you're going out with someone oh look, I just went out with Susan and Frank the other day. You know the Irish couple with the, you know the limp and you know things like that. Or maybe, oh, you know even something that is not seen to be insulting or defamatory, like I a lot of the time and I know Frank and Susan listen to this, but I'm just saying that Frank in particular I when I'm talking about him, people ask who he is or they can't remember him, and I say the Irish guy that did all the driving lessons for my kids. Now, that seems quite harmless to say something like that, but in the right context someone could hear that and think that I was speaking ill of the person, which is totally untrue. They're a lovely couple, very good friends of ours, and while I'm on friends of ours and people we know and all that sort of stuff Christina from Adelaide, I know she listens to my podcast.
Speaker 1:Say hi to you out there and just remember, on my podcast is a a thing called fan mail where you can put little messages and say, hey, I like this message. Or, um, go back to doing what you were before, pass the field, because this is pretty ordinary. You know, like stuff like that. But if you think that I'm a zakias, you might try and visualize, if you don, that I'm a Zacchaeus. You might try and visualize, if you don't know me personally, what I look like and what sort of status I have, and you think to yourself, oh okay, well, maybe this is a bald redhead and he's short and fat and has his deep, croaky voice all the time. So you know, we all do it. Okay, I can tell you right now that I would say that 95% of all of my listeners would use some sort of physical attribute to describe an associate of theirs, and it's just the way that we do things and the way that we can relate to things. But we need to be more Christ-like.
Speaker 1:See now, as a college worker, as a tax collector yeah, it was a lucrative job, but it certainly wasn't easy. Everyone in town hated him and you lived under constant stress working for the Roman Empire, which had a reputation of executing the hired help, of executing the hired help. Leaders of the empire had been killing members of their own family, while others saw just the tax collector. Jesus saw a man behind the position and sought to build a relationship with him by going to Zacchaeus' house for dinner. Now, was this just spiritual curiosity? It could have been. But I think that there's a deeper meaning to this. Most of the characters in the Bible experience a call from Christ, either as a personal invitation or through the public preaching of Jesus. Others sought Jesus because of some affliction.
Speaker 1:Zacchaeus was different. He was a successful businessman and had worked hard to move up the succession ladder and earned the title of the chief of tax collectors. He was wealthy. The text seems to indicate that Zacchaeus operated his business with integrity. Notice, he said, if I have cheated.
Speaker 1:We often assume that he was corrupt just because of what he was saying. All politicians are crooked, or all lawyers are liars, or all preachers care about money and nothing else. Everybody gets a preconceived idea of the role that we play in society, depicts the type of person and the type of character we have, and that means that you know it says don't judge a book by its cover. You know it says don't judge a book by its cover. But what we're actually doing is we're getting a book of tax collectors and a book of lawyers and a book of, you know, politicians, and they're all in that book and they're all categorised by a very small minority of them behave in a particular unsavory way, unsavory way, and so they're all tarred with the same brush, so to speak. We need to not do that. Jesus doesn't do that.
Speaker 1:See, zacchaeus does not appear to have any observable needs, but he is curious about Jesus, why the Bible says God has set eternity in the hearts, ecclesiastics 3.10,. God has placed in the soul of every human being a desire to connect to the Creator. Some fight it, some ignore it, some deny it, but the scriptures are clear. Beings that have no worldly credibility and the succession or the position they can satisfy. Their soul is longing to know God, irrespective of who they are and where they come from. Know God irrespective of who they are and where they come from.
Speaker 1:An application we must make as a church and as individual followers of Christ is to keep that need at the forefront of all that we do. See, lost people don't need our music or our wisdom or our nice facilities or our great sermons. They need Jesus. Music facilitates that, and preachers are wonderful tools if they help people connect with Christ, with Christ. You may recall the Stephen Green song that asks the penetrating question when will we realize that we need the Lord? Zacchaeus needed Jesus, and so does a lot of lost and dying people in this world. The thing is, most times you're seeing through the scriptures that people are drawn to Jesus because they have a need in their life, because they have a need in their life. But how many Zacchaeuses are out there that have everything that they can get from the world but they are still poor in spirit because they do not have a relationship with Jesus Christ?
Speaker 1:We can examine Zacchaeus' physical identity, his spiritual curiosity, and now we will consider his supernatural destiny. A person's destiny is more than the end result or achieving a goal. Than the end result or achieving a goal, destiny is a driving force that shapes and defines a person's life. You see, the story of Zacchaeus concludes with his life being distinctly different after meeting Jesus, and Jesus made this very bold statement. And Jesus made this very bold statement Salvation has come to your house. Zacchaeus got saved. He was born again.
Speaker 1:We must be careful to understand that Zacchaeus did not purchase his salvation by giving money to the poor. His actions just reveal a life transformed by an encounter with Jesus Christ. After experiencing the love of Christ, he became more concerned about others than he did about his selfish desires about his selfish desires. You see, other interesting part of the story is that Zacchaeus did not change jobs. He was a tax collector before he met Christ and he continued to be a tax collector after he met Christ. His job was the same, but destiny was different. He now used his job as an opportunity to give glory to God. You do not have to become a vocal minister to follow Jesus with your whole heart. The kingdom of God needs Christ's followers in the marketplace, shining the light on the gospel.
Speaker 1:Zacchaeus' destiny included his salvation, his vacation and his determination, which serves as a legacy of inspiration to all who hear this story. He overcome several obstacles to encounter Christ. Zacchaeus had physical limitations because he was very short. His peers criticized him and the crowds blocked his access to Jesus. Many of the crowd did not even know Zacchaeus was in the tree. Sometimes the offensive actions of others stand in the way of the painful lack of recognition. Some people struggle with being overlooked or ignored. They feel invisible, wondering if anyone knows they exist, wondering if anyone knows they exist. You see, zacchaeus was financially successful, which the Bible says makes it difficult for one to see the need for Christ. Even with all the obstacles, zacchaeus could not ignore that longing in his soul that drove him into the presence of Christ. Perhaps you've heard this saying To reach the fruit of a tree, you must go out on a limb. That is what Zacchaeus did. The salvation he received is still available today.
Speaker 1:Follow his example by not allowing anything to prevent you from resealing all that God has for you. If you get the main theme and the purpose behind this sermon, you'll see that. Let me put it another way what you do right now your job, where you go for holidays, if you go to church, if you don't go to church, if you go down to the pub with your friends, if you hang out with your ladies having a Chardonnay night or whatever, everything that you do in the natural does not stop you or cancel your ability to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. So many people think that they need to clean up their act and start behaving like Jesus before Jesus will listen to their prayers. That's not true. It says judge not yet ye, be judged. You know, but also there's another scripture talking about kicking against the goads. Now, it's not apparent in some versions of the Bible. If you've got an NIV or something like that, you probably won't see it there, but the reality of the fact is that it's in the scriptures.
Speaker 1:So my point I'm trying to make with you today if you have a look at yourself, your life, the direction you're taken, whether you have money or don't have money is irrelevant. Whether you have a job or don't have a job is irrelevant. Whether you're a stay at home mum or dad. It's irrelevant Whether you have standing in the community. Perhaps you are a local politician or maybe you're actually part of the Senate, or maybe you're a mayor or a local councillor. You don't need those positions to define who you are. What you need is a relationship with Jesus Christ. We are a spirit, soul and body and our soul has to connect with Jesus. Once you've done that connection, you know then you've got spirit to spirit okay, and therefore you cannot sin, but you still can because you have your logic, reasoning, your mind, your thought patterns and everything.
Speaker 1:So next time you go to go out somewhere, just think about where you're going and who you're associating with. And are you basically behaving like the group because that's the way they all do it, or are you doing it because that's what you want to do and you enjoy that life? If you answer yes or no to either of those questions, the thing is that does not change your relationship with Jesus Christ, but it lets you think about am I really doing this particular event or outing for the right reasons? Why am I going to the pub every Saturday night and, once a fortnight, go down to the pokies or to the races or whatever? Why do I always have to make sure that the boss at work notices me? He knows that I'm there and he knows what I'm doing? Because you're trying to bring favor for yourself. Why don't you see about bringing favor with God? Why don't you see about trying to make sure that you always find time for him and those Zacchaeuses out there that you know start to change the way that you know them.
Speaker 1:It's not the fat lady, the skinny lady, the tall one, the one with the accent or whatever it's. I have a friend and my friend's name is Rick. He's a really nice guy. He works here. If you don't know him, you haven't seen him at church. Well, next time we're around I'll introduce you. But he said oh, I don't think. Think I recognize him. Has he got any distinguishing features? No, not really. He is just a guy that I associate with, because you can be dragged into that trap yourself by actually saying well, you know, give me a clue of who this person is, so you pick out something obvious that the person has that makes him stand out in the crowd. You don't need to do that. Followers of Jesus don't need to stand out in the crowd. We need to be behind the scenes doing what we do. I do this podcast the scenes doing what we do. I do this podcast. I don't shout from the treetops or everything or go out handing out flies, telling everybody who I'm about. I truly believe that I'm being led by the Lord, and these sermons that I do on the podcast are important because they're touching and impacting people's lives.
Speaker 1:Now, to finish off, I'll just say this I'm about to journey over to the eastern states because my wife's mother has gone to be with the Lord. Praise the Lord, she was born again, even though she was still Catholic. She was very much a Christian as well, and she was a praying lady. A lovely, warm-hearted lady would literally give you the shirt off her back. It's just the way that she was. It's just the way that she was.
Speaker 1:But every member of the family sees their mother in a different way, because there was something that she did that had a huge impact on them and showed them the love of the mother. I'll give you a classic example. I only heard this the other day. My wife was saying this. She had her own little secret and probably this will get out now if she doesn't say anything about it. But when she was the middle kid she was like you know, before the twins come along in the family, her mother would always say, don't tell the others about this, and she would get ice cream. So she got ice cream because she was at home with mum and the others didn't. She always remembers that. Now, not only she's been away from home like 41 years now married to me, but it's something she remembers, and there's other things that we remember.
Speaker 1:So today is Father's Day. Why don't you just visualize your father right now? Whether he was a good father or whether he wasn't a good father, there is always two sides of the coin and I want you to just close your eyes and picture your father in your head right now it doesn't matter whether he's alive or whether he's gone to be with the Lord and just pick out something precious to you, irrespective of. I mean, I had a really tough dad. He was really really hard, but there were some very precious moments with my father, and so when you do that and you find that little precious moment that you can think of about your father and it's not about his attributes, it's just something that enabled you to connect with him this is what you've got to do through the word of God is spending time in the word. You can actually get that connection with our Heavenly Father and as you get that connection with that Heavenly Father, there will be things that are so precious to you. When you spend time with the Lord and it's special for you because you get to do it. It doesn't happen to you.
Speaker 1:I've probably said this a thousand times throughout my messages, but when I used to be in a wheelchair and God raised me up out of that wheelchair, the one thing that I remember about that is that I used to spend time in prayer with the Lord, and it wasn't a matter of just going through scriptures and all that sort of stuff. It was about having a relationship with the Father. Having a relationship is it's a two-way street. You know, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In other words, he wants to have fellowship with you and he wants his word to be in your mouth by day and by night.
Speaker 1:I hope this has helped. And if you want to go through the book of Luke and read all about Zacchaeus he's only mentioned there and try and understand why Jesus thought it was so important to meet him and bring him to salvation when he's constantly surrounded with so many people. Thought for the day and for all those fathers listening. Happy Father's Day and, irrespective of their age, go and give your dad a hug and a kiss. All right, god bless. Talk to you next time on Grapevine Ministries. Bye for now.
