Repentance or Salvation?

 

Text: Luke 19:1-10

Focus: Repentance

Function: to help us see the nature of repentance and salvation.

19:¹He entered Jericho and was passing through it. ²A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. ³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. ⁴So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. ⁵When 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 down and was happy to welcome him. ⁷All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” ⁸Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” ⁹Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham. ¹⁰For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

My mom and grandmothers were big on Child Evangelism. Mom ran a good news club after school on Wednesday and it was there that I got exposed to a lot more of my Christian heritage.

I loved singing the songs used to teach us bible stories. And I vividly remember the son attached to this story. Zacchaeus, was a wee little man and a wee little man was he…. It included all kinds of body actions, the song could not be sung sitting down and it was a good way for us to burn off some of out childish energy while we were learning.

And the song taught a valuable lesson to us, Jesus loves short people!

I am being silly when I say that. But the story is packed with a whole lot more than a person who was so anxious to see Jesus that he climbed a tree.

The song did call us to a certain amount of zeal when it came to the way that we received Jesus. But it misses the entire point of the passage.

I titled the sermon “Salvation OR Repentance” but I hope that we understand at the end of the message that repentance is the key to salvation for this man.

In the first century, Common Era, there was a big class distinction in the Jewish culture. There were rich landowners who generally went along with the Romans and profited off the exploitive rents that they could charge the poor and there were the poor.

Most of the people were poor. The Tax collectors came from the elite class since it generally took a substantial bribe to gain the position.

The tax collector evaluated the property and charged accordingly. He could charge extra and pocket the graft since no one would stop him and he had an armed Roman soldier there collecting the tax with him.

Zacchaeus was already wealthy and now he was making tons of money off the backs of the poor.

But something drew him to Jesus. The text does not really tell us what the attraction is, except that he just wanted to see. He wasn’t ill and demanding a healing from some disease. And since he was wealthy, he really didn’t need anything. Simply speaking, he was curious.

And, something drew Jesus to him.

Jesus said that He came to seek and save the lost.

I don’t know if Zacchaeus knew it or not, but he was lost and Jesus loved him enough to call him out of his sin and set him free.

We do not know what kind of conversation takes place at his house that day. We don’t know if Jesus’ presence with the man is so overwhelming that the man repents in order to gain salvation, or if Jesus tells him that his riches are getting in the way of his salvation.

We can compare this story to the story of the rich young ruler. He was asked by Jesus to give away his riches and he refused, went away sad, because he was not willing to part with the physical things of this world in order to gain the hope of eternal life.

He decided to place his trust in his wealth instead of God.

But Zacchaeus has a completely different reaction to Jesus.

Let me throw out a very provocative statement: Zaccheaus repents from being rich.

He confesses that he has cheated people, as was the custom of tax collectors, but not enough to have made a fortune off of it since he has the means to pay back 4 times what he took.

I always wondered about this story, if he pays back the ones he cheated 4 times, where does he get the money? Then I realized like I introduced the story with, he was already rich when he became a tax collector.

He didn’t impoverish himself, by the way. He didn’t give it ALL away, but he gave away enough to prove that his confidence was truly in the salvation that Jesus has to offer compared with the false security that riches can make us feel.

Money is not the root of evil, the love of money is the root of evil. We have to remember the difference. We need money to survive, but if our confidence is in our wealth and we are stingy with it, if we hoard it, then it seems to me that we are not living by faith in our prayer that we only need to be concerned for today, God has tomorrow in God’s hand.

We live by faith and trust God to provide, that way, we can be generous with what God has given us.

Let me go back to that provocative statement, he repented from being rich.

I am guessing that his giving away half and then paying back 4 times what he cheated would have left him with enough money to survive, but no longer be considered rich.

I wonder also, if he, when the early church in Jerusalem began to put into practice these teachings of Jesus and started a commune, if he gave the rest of that money to the kitty.

We don’t know, except we know that that is what the church did. It seems that they all, in some way or another, repented of their confidence in their wealth and choose to live by faith.

Did you notice the subtle change. They repented their confidence in their wealth and choose to live by faith.

It is so difficult these days, living in a land of such affluence, to remember that God is our provider and that we live by faith in what God provides for us. We, as believers, are called to rest in God’s provision.

So, it isn’t money, it is the love of money, or the fear of not having enough, that causes us to walk in our own power instead of by faith in Jesus.

There is another lesson to be learned from this story. The people grumbled when Jesus choose “the sinner” over them.

In their opinion, of all the people worthy of Jesus’ presence that day, this man was the least worthy. And Jesus, the progenitor of an upside down kingdom by human standards, chooses to show them the nature and the power of God’s mercy.

Romans 2 tells us that it is the kindness of God that leads people to change.

I use the word change, rather than the word repent. They interchange with each other. Repentance means literally to turn around and go a different direction.

Lazarus repented of being rich and decided to live by the standards of the new kingdom.

A huge change came to this man that day, and it was proven by the fact that he didn’t just make promises, but he followed through.

So, let us be happy at the power of God to transform selfish people.