Sermon 3.11.2019
Focus Scriptures: Isaiah 1. 10-18; 2Thessalonians1. 1-12; Luke 19.1-10.
Sermons are like children, you never quite know how they are going to turn out. But sermons and children are great faith developers….they frequently drive us to fervent heartfelt prayer.
We preach, in the holy hope, that the spoken words, through the wonder of grace, are blessed by the Holy Spirit…..Our Comforter, who settles amongst us ready to bless our spirits with the fragrance of His Presence and Love…. reminding us again that God our Father is All-together Good…..all the time ….+that He cannot love us more than He does, right now, at this very moment….. Drink deep of this Truth .
Today’s readings particularly Isaiah and Luke issue an invitation to us….An invitations from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. A unique invitation stamped with the Seal of the Holy Spirit…. without whose active presence in our lives, this invitation would sit and remain unopened on the hall table of our heart. It is important to note that the invitation has an RSVP attached to it.
Starting with Isaiah, our Father invites us, his people to a family meeting. He is always sensitive and alert to the quality of our relationship with Him.
Relationships, both individual and corporate, are living things needing fostering and mutual respect and interaction. Relationships if static can go stale and linger rather than live.
Father invites His people to ‘Come now’ …not ‘, ”Come whenever you have time”. It’s ”Come now”….‘now’. ‘For all is not well in our set up and some serious issues need sorting between us.”
(Our lectionary translation says ; ”Come let us argue it out” I prefer the less fraught translation of the King James; ”Come now let us reason together”.NIV has ‘settle’).
God’s wants His people to take stock. Slippage from pure religion and spirituality has gradually occurred. Though religious and spiritual observances continue they are to all intents and purposes in form and not in spirit. That which is precious to behold has become fake and false.
God great Initiator in our relationship has given dearly in this relationship and He is not happy. Here in Isaiah ,He is seriously calling us out.
I have had enough… I do not delight…
Trample my courts no more;
bringing offerings is futile;
incense is an abomination to me…
.my soul hates…
(these situations)have become a burden to me,
I am weary ….
I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen…”
A relationship where it is necessary for one of the partners to use such language is in dire straits.
Thankfully again thankfully God doesn’t seek to separate or divorce…He invites us( corporate and individually) to ‘reason together’…God again holds on in there willing to make things ‘right’.
We cannot afford to turn a blind eye to warnings regarding our spiritual health. For with sin we miss the mark of our high calling in Jesus. Sin has incremental steps making it all the more insidious. It deceives, blinds, hinders, hardens,robs and eventually damns.
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Fortunately God is committed to us. All is not lost for the Holy Spirit is a wonderful Counsellor. And in the passage outlines the remedy, where we co-labour with Him in revitalising our relationship. His prescription might be called ‘tough love’ …no nonsense non-pc hands-on approach…
(clean up your act) repent…. remove evil….cease to do evil, learnto do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
For, brothers and sisters,we must not be mere hearers of the Word but also doers. Actions, not words, will testify to our change of heart. In this undertaking we are neither helpless nor alone. For what God desires of us His grace enables in us.
In all things we look to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, because
”…in him all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily, ”
We find Jesus in Jericho, a great trading city. Josephus called it “a divine region,” “the fattest in the land.” To the Romans it was a wealthy city, from which to garner substantial taxes, and
”Zacheaus was a chief tax-collector and was rich.”
His wealth was not due to the prudential saving of a few spare shekels every month.
The position of chief tax collector, in the hands of an enterprising person was a licence to print money. Illicit ‘fringe’ benefits hansomely compensated for the virtually total social ostracisation that went with ”the job’. Tax collectors were despised dishonest grafters, turncoats, cheaters and collaborators with Romans.
Even Jesus himself used the commonly held opinion of tax collectors as an illustration of the final stage of church discipline: when a person is excommunicated, Jesus said to “treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector” (Matthew 18:17).
Given the pariah status of tax collectors, the religious establishment’s constant criticism of Jesus was that He spent so much time with them.Not kosher. He was eating that meal with “many tax collectors” .
These were sinners and ritually unclean….touch the unclean become unclean…no observant Jew would enter their house not to mention break bread with them. And to top it all, this Jesus had made a well known tax collector,Levi/ Matthew a member of His core group of followers.
Unlike the old dispensation, where touching the unclean rendered one unclean… in the new dispensation touching the unclean, cleaned them.
In all our lives the timing, the love, the mercy and the calling of God are effortlessly perfect.
So with Zachaeus…his behaviour exhibits keen desire……What had he heard through the network about Jesus? Whatever he heard triggered his determination not to miss out. And now despite many ,probably unfriendly people cold shouldering and hindering him from getting to the front of the crowd….he persists in his desire to see Jesus.
Zachaeus changes course fast to find another move good vantage point. Putting aside his dignity….He runs……and then scrambles up a tree with little time to spare. He sees Jesus + to his utter amazement Jesus sees and acknowledged him…publically honouring him.
When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him,
‘Zachaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’
So he hurried down and was happy to welcome Jesus.
A
life damaged by sin is a restricted life. Sin hardens the heart.
Closes and lock its doors. Joylessness restricts the ease of its beat
and two way unforgiveness embitters it.
Hebrews says; “ ”the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit…it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart .”
Jesus spoke
The words of Jesus transform Zachaeus.
Zachaeus scrambles down +stops in front of Jesus + before all declares:
“Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.”
This would have staggered the crowd. In his restitution he went far beyond what was legally necessary. Only if robbery was a deliberate and violent act of destruction was a fourfold restitution necessary (Exo 22:1).
Zachaeus showed by his deeds that he was a changed man. God loves an extragavant giver, being one Himself.
‘Today salvation
has come to this house…For the Son of Man came to
seek out
and to
save the
lost.’
Our Lord Jesus ”is the same yesterday ,today and forever.’‘ He did not look down on Zachaeus. He looked up…..and told him to hurry…”for today salvation has come to this house…”
The Holy Spirit of Christ issues the same invitation here this morning.
Open it….Accept it…..Reply to it….. and be eternally restored.
Amen.