There once was a man who had achieved a certain level of worldly success and truly had all of his earthly needs met. He could afford to buy whatever he wanted or needed, but there was something missing from his life. Religion hadn’t met the overarching desire of finding meaning and purpose for life, and he was searching for answers. So when he heard about a new teacher who was teaching a new type of faith, he determined that he needed to see him.
The young teacher was quite popular and a great crowd surrounded him as he walked along the road. The man was afraid he would miss his opportunity to see this new teacher, and so he did something a bit childish but also radical… he climbed a tree so that he could see over the crowd. When Jesus reached the tree he stopped, and looking up he told Zacchaeus to come down from the tree because he wanted to have dinner with him that night.
Well, you know the story, Zacchaeus became a follower of Jesus that night…and it radically transformed his life. How do we know that? Because he demonstrated it by giving 50% of his wealth to those in need… old priorities were gone and new priorities had been born. Have no doubts, that night… Zacchaeus became a disciple of Jesus, because he applied Jesus’ teaching and example to his life. It’s quite incredible how quickly Zacchaeus learned to love God and love people.
Today, we certainly have many opportunities to practice loving God and loving people in our Christian faith. Disciples of Jesus, realize that old priorities in our life must fade and new priorities… the priorities of Jesus… must become reality in our life. Today in our services you will hear about one way that you can live out Jesus’ calling of loving others with compassion. Let’s follow the example of Zacchaeus. It only took one evening with Jesus for Zacchaeus to change his Worldview. Was his pocketbook lighter? Sure. Do you think he missed it? I doubt it.
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