From the June 19 sermon, "Jesus and Zacchaeus," preached out of Luke 19:1–10: Zacchaeus was not just a wee little man, he was a man idolizing money and power and taking advantage of his neighbors. But when Jesus calls out to Zacchaeus, his life is changed forever. Zacchaeus immediately repents and offers restitution to anyone he’s wronged, which results in much rejoicing.

Who, if God saved and forgave them, would cause you to grumble? The person who abused you, ripped you off, harmed you, betrayed you, cheated on you, divorced you, hit you, lied about you, or fired you? Who would it be that, if God loved and saved them, you would be grumbling? "That just really frustrates me. So what? They just get forgiven? It's just fine and now it's all over?" They grumble. They grumble. And the key, friends, is to know this: in the sight of God, we're all guilty. And that God would call any of us and love any of us and forgive any of us, well that's a miracle. And at any point that we struggle for God to love, seek, save, serve someone, we are saying, "I deserve salvation, they do not." And we have missed the gospel of grace altogether. Altogether. We want to be a people who rejoice when anyone responds to the invitation from Jesus to be friends with him and have their sin forgiven. Some of you are here today and you may be wondering, "Could Jesus really call me to be a Christian and his friend?" Some of you are keenly aware of the things you've done and failed to do and the way you've lived and how really in the sight of God it is dishonoring. Even if it's not illegal, it's sinful. And some of you have that which is also illegal. And from Zacchaeus we get so much hope and encouragement. It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what you've done. Jesus calls out to you and he will welcome you as a friend and he will forgive you of any and all sin.

Jesus is generous. What did he just give Zacchaeus? Forgiveness of sin, eternal life, and a new nature. What did Zacchaeus do? Nothing. What did he pay? Nothing. Zacchaeus just got the gift of salvation, and that generosity changed him to become a generous man. See, you need to see Jesus as generous. For God so loved the world he, what? What does the Bible say? For God so loved the word he gave his only Son that whoever believes him shall not perish, but receive everlasting life. Our God is a giver. The greatest gift that's ever been given is the gift that in this story Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem to give. He's gonna die in your place, my place, his place for our sins as our substitute, canceling our debt and giving us forgiveness of sin, new nature, new desires, new life, new Lord, new community, new eternity. He's a giver. And Zacchaeus just met the Giver of givers. And he knows that his sins are forgiven, but he is immediately practicing the works of discipleship. He's becoming like his teacher. He's becoming, by the grace of God, through the power of the Holy Spirit, he's becoming more like Jesus. "Well, if Jesus is gonna be so generous, I wanna be generous, 'cause he's now my Lord." It's beautiful, isn't it?

"Jesus Forgave Zacchaeus and That Changed Him," after the jump:

The result of this is not religion, it's rejoicing. And so [Zacchaeus] here repents. He publicly, in front of a crowd, acknowledges, "Yes, I have sinned. I have sinned." There's a constellation of words in the Bible, Old and New Testament that speak of repentance, but they all essentially communicate the same big idea: There is Jesus and sin. And you can only go one direction at one time. Sin is when we turn our back on Jesus, we walk toward our sin. For him it was money and power. Repentance is where we have a change of mind and a change of heart and a change of desire by the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, we become born again spiritually, and we literally repent. It's a turning. We turn our back on our sin and we turn our face toward Jesus and we begin walking with him. In its simplest understanding, that's repentance. Back on Jesus, face toward sin, turn around, back on sin, face toward Jesus. He here repents. And it culminates in restitution. He has sins of omission: he's not helped the poor. He has sins of commission: he has defrauded others. That's exactly what he says. And immediately as a brand-new person he does something he's never done: he publicly confesses his sin, he publicly practices repentance, and he also guarantees restitution.