Seeing Jesus
Download MP3The reading for tonight is Luke 1835 through to 19 verse 10. As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. They told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
Speaker 1:And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and commanded him to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you? He said, Lord, let me recover my sight.
Speaker 1:And Jesus said to him, recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, gave praise to God. He entered Jericho and was passing through, and there was a man named Zacchaeus.
Speaker 1:He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not because he was small of stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
Speaker 1:And when they saw it, they all grumbled. He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. And Zaccheus stood and said to the lord, behold, lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, today, salvation has come to this house, since he is also he also is the son of Abraham.
Speaker 1:For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Our father, we ask that you would honor the very reading of your word, that it would penetrate our hearts,
Speaker 3:that it would wound us where we need wounding, and that it would heal us where we need healing.
Joel Brooks:That it would both convict and restore. God, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, Lord, but may your words remain, and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Tonight, we're gonna look at 2 stories about 2 different people who got to see Jesus, and that's really what these stories are about, people encountering or seeing Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Some of you might have heard of David Brainerd. He was a missionary to American Indians mid 18th century from about 17/43 to 17/47, And, the only reason we really know about him is Jonathan Edwards wrote a biography about him, and we also have some of his journal writings. And, in his journal writings, Brainerd, he talked about how hard it was to, to really communicate the gospel to these Native Americans and how we struggle with this. And and he would go and he would preach with everything that he had. And he wanted them to to know the seriousness of his message, and he often preached on the horrors of hell, and the judgment that awaited those who rejected Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And, he said that as he he would preach this message and he would preach it passionately, he he got some results, but it was very minimum, not much fruit. However, he said, when he began to preach to people about the beauty of Jesus, actually who Jesus was, the joy that we can have in him, the majesty of Jesus, he said that these Native Americans, they would actually fall to the ground and they would cry out. They would repent. He said that, as he was communicating these things about the glory of Jesus, this look of horror came across their face as to what they had missed. That all along this had been available to them, but they had missed it.
Joel Brooks:And they fell to their knees and they cried out in repentance. And my hope is that tonight we would all see Jesus clearly. We would see him for his beauty. We'd see him in his majesty, and that we would fall to our knees in repentance and in worship. So this these two stories are about, seeing Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And I and I need to confess that this is a lesson I did not learn while I was preparing this message. I alluded to it earlier, I was I've been sick this weekend after after studying all week, and then, I got to my office at 5 this morning to, to to write down everything that I had learned, and, it was brutal. The first three hours were brutal. I don't know if it was NyQuil battling caffeine, you know, together, and depending which one was winning, but after 3 hours, I had about 2 sentences, which wasn't gonna get very far. And, and so I began to get desperate thinking, okay.
Joel Brooks:I I mean, I've gotta come up with something here. I gotta come up with a message here. And I mean, I knew what I wanted to preach on. All week I've been studying this, and I became guilty of the very thing I was gonna preach about. I wasn't seeking Jesus anymore.
Joel Brooks:I'm your, I'm your pastor, I'm, I'm coming here to, to proclaim to you Jesus, And this morning as I was preparing this message, that's what I was doing. I was going to scripture for a sermon, not for Jesus. And I was just beating my head just saying, come on, sermon. Come on, sermon. And Jesus is saying, hey, come to me.
Joel Brooks:Forget the sermon. And, this morning, I mean I just pretty much almost gave up at one point, and I just got to my knees, and Jesus is like, finally, seek me. Me. And so I got to see the face of Jesus this morning. You have to remind me of his beauty.
Joel Brooks:Now, my hope is that this comes across in the message. That somehow you you somehow you you get a glimpse of this as well. I want to take a look at these these two distinct stories about people seeing Jesus. The first person is a blind beggar, the gospel of Mark puts a name on him, he's Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus is sitting by the roadside when he hears this commotion, and he's wondering what's going on.
Joel Brooks:And, so he says, What's this? And people around him say, Oh, it's Jesus of Nazareth, he's passing through. And this triggers something in him. Verse verse 38 says that he cries out, and this is, this word for cry here is the the same word that you would use to describe an animal cry or a wounded animal cry. This is a desperate cry.
Joel Brooks:This isn't the kind that's like, hey, Jesus, over here, hey, look this way. This was, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. There's a woundedness here. You know, you did this in our service, this kind of cry. We'd probably have elders come, you know, escort you out the doors, because desperate cries like that, we would see as a distraction.
Joel Brooks:That's why I have, you know, kind of strong elders. They they turn into bouncers in moments like this. You know, because we have very well ordered, civilized worship service. But here's just a person crying out from the deepest levels of his heart, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me. The people around him, they tell him to shut up.
Joel Brooks:They rebuke him. And you gotta wonder, I mean, when you read this you think, really, who's gonna rebuke a blind beggar for crying out for help? But they do. They tell him to shut up. And it's not because, you know, they don't think he needs help or anything like that.
Joel Brooks:The reason reason is because what he is calling Jesus, the name he is using for Jesus, Jesus, Son of David. That's a messianic title. When he cries out, Jesus, son of David, he's saying, Jesus, you're the King. Jesus, you are the Messiah. And they're saying, shut up.
Joel Brooks:If you remember when, when he asked who is this, they said, oh, it's Jesus the Nazarene. They didn't say it's Jesus, son of David. This is just Jesus from Nazareth. He goes beyond that. They're not ready to ascribe that to Jesus at this point.
Joel Brooks:They're not gonna give him such a lofty title, and you're gonna find the same groups of people around today in which you could talk about Jesus as a good moral teacher, you know, a spiritual man. Some people will even go as far as to say, yeah, he did some miracles. But the moment you say, hey, he's the King of kings, he is the son of God, people are like, will you just put that stuff away? Will you just be quiet? You've you've crossed the line at that point.
Joel Brooks:I like to think of it this way. I tell people, you need to do that, you need to put a bass drum on your back. And and what I mean by that is, you know, you've seen street performers and, if they just have a trumpet, people are like, Wow, it's a good trumpet player. You know, and if they're playing violin, you know, great violinist. You know, or if they're playing cymbals, great.
Joel Brooks:But if you put a bass drum on her back and you do all 4 of those at once, then the person's a lunatic. And and you're like, No, that person is absolutely insane. You've crossed the line. And I always tell Christians, Put a bass drum on your back. Make as much noise as you can.
Joel Brooks:Cross that line telling people that Jesus is the Messiah. He is the Son of God, and people will think you're crazy. Tone it down a bit. But he won't tone it down. He cries out even louder, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.
Joel Brooks:It's dangerous at this point. You gotta remember, he's a beggar. He's biting the hands that feed him. He relies on these people for help, and now he's ticking them off. He's crossing the line.
Joel Brooks:Keeps crying out, keeps crying out, and I can guarantee you that in Jericho there was there was many crippled, there was, probably many blind, there was many sick people in that day, but only one of them got healed. And this is the one who would not stop crying out even when everybody told him to shut up. Have you ever pursued Jesus with a desperation like that? Or do you cry out to Him in a very civilized, dignified way? Well, Jesus, he hears this man, and, he says, bring him here.
Joel Brooks:And when this blind man comes here, he asks him a very remarkable question. He says, hey, what do you want me to do for you? And, I mean, the person's blind. He's before Jesus, and Jesus asked him this question. And what I think he's he's doing, he's giving this person a opportunity to now publicly demonstrate his faith.
Joel Brooks:That's what this is. It's an opportunity to publicly demonstrate his faith because I guarantee once Bartimaeus got up there and Jesus said, what do you want me to do for you? He had an out. I'm sure his his his heart's beating out of his chest at this moment. He knows everybody's looking at him.
Joel Brooks:The the city, I'm sure, is calling down to a hush as everybody's looking, And the very safe answer would be, could I could could you give me some money? Maybe could you could you give me some food? That's a very safe answer. But to publicly ask for healing is a dangerous place. I mean, we see this in the church all the time.
Joel Brooks:You know, it's one thing to pray in private, God heal me of this, or God heal this person. It's quite another thing to pray in public, to publicly proclaim your faith that Jesus is going to do this, and that he doesn't back down. He says, I want my sight. And the irony here is of all the people around, this blind man is the one person who sees Jesus clearly. Jesus gives him his sight.
Joel Brooks:He begins following Jesus and glorifying God. When he encounters Jesus, he becomes a disciple, and he becomes a worshiper. Story 1. We move into the second encounter here Jesus enters Jericho, and I'm sure after healing Bartimaeus there, Jericho is completely abuzz. I mean, people are wondering what's gonna happen now.
Joel Brooks:Crowds, I'm sure, were flocking there. Word is spread about what Jesus has done, And bless Jericho, it's only 18 miles away from Jerusalem. It's getting near the Passover. So I'm sure it was swelling with people. And actually, the population of Jericho was was, had a large priestly population, because it's where the priests who worked in the temple in Jerusalem, many of them would live.
Joel Brooks:And so, you've got all these religious pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem, who are likely in Jericho. You have all these priests that are in Jericho, and so it's a very religious population in there at this point. And in contrast to this, you meet this little man named Zaccheus, who's another person who wants to see Jesus. Now this is the last personal encounter Jesus is gonna have before he enters Jerusalem. It's the last one he's gonna have before, we start going on the events that will lead to his death.
Joel Brooks:I think Luke puts this here very strategically. In many ways, Luke, he wants us to see that right here is a summary of the mission of Jesus. Right here. It's a summary of what we've been looking up this far in Luke, right there at the end, for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Here's an example of this.
Joel Brooks:Here we get to see a rich, corrupt man come to know Jesus. In a lot of last week's message, you could say, here, we get to see a camel go through the eye of a needle. Not just a rich man, but a filthy rich, corrupt man. Jesus shows that what is impossible with man is indeed possible with God. I'm not going to go into everything that tax collectors are.
Joel Brooks:We've looked at that in Luke. We know that they were not just seen as IRS agents. These were traitors. These were turncoats. These were people who had forsaken the Jewish people and decided to go and work for Rome as a despised position.
Joel Brooks:And it says, Zaccheus was the chief tax collector, which means he was the most despised of all the tax collectors. He was the one you really hated. And so I am certain that the people of Jericho would be absolutely horrified to know that 2000 years after this, the only name we remember is Zacchaeus. He's immortalized forever in a children's song. They would not be able to believe it.
Joel Brooks:That hymn, of all people, will be the one name we remember. But here this little man, he wants to see Jesus. He says he can't because he's of small stature. It's not telling the entire story there because you're small of stature, or if you're a child, you can just say, excuse me, pardon me, can I get through? And people let you through.
Joel Brooks:You could go up front. You're not gonna block anybody's view. People let shorter people or children come forward. What what Luke is trying to say is nobody would let him come. He couldn't see over the people and as he's trying to get through, people are like, uh-uh.
Joel Brooks:No. Uh-uh. And so you have the the religious insiders keeping the sinner away from Jesus. That's what you have going on here. You have all these, these people, around Jesus, the crowds, the the self righteous, the priests, those on a pilgrimage and they see a sinner and they're like, No.
Joel Brooks:Keeping the sinner from Jesus. I believe this is one of the reasons Luke puts this story in here because he keeps pounding that in her head. I don't know if you've you've got that theme yet or not in Luke, but religion keeps people from Jesus. He he's pounding that in. Often, religious people keep sinners from seeing Jesus.
Joel Brooks:And here you see it in the most blatant way. They're physically keeping him from seeing Jesus. Zacchaeus, he he overcomes this by by doing what's made him very famous. He climbs up in a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. Now this would have been a really humiliating thing to do.
Joel Brooks:I mean, children do this. Children are always climbing trees. But wealthy, powerful adults don't climb trees. Yet, there he is doing this. Just so we could get a glimpse.
Joel Brooks:You might even say that he's becoming like a child. He's humbling himself. And, let me say something here and and and I hope I hope this doesn't sound too harsh. I know that there's a number of you here who, I've heard complain about the hypocrisy or the self righteousness of Christians. I wanna I wanna hear me say, you're right.
Joel Brooks:Many, many Christians are hypocrites and are self righteous. And I've had a conversation with with a number of you that have thrown that out as an excuse to not pursue Jesus. You've just, you know, well, if that's what Christians are, well, forget that. You know, I I don't the church has burned me in the past. This might sound harsh, but I'm asking you to get over it.
Joel Brooks:Get over it. Climb a tree. Humble yourself. Don't judge Jesus by the crowds around him, please. This is way too important for you to
Speaker 3:do that.
Joel Brooks:Take a fresh look and go to scripture, and look and try to see Jesus. Just read, he he will surprise you. Don't judge him by the people that are around him, and don't let them be an excuse for you not to seek him. Zacchaeus doesn't. He doesn't turn away, climbs a tree, looks at Jesus.
Joel Brooks:He's not looking for an encounter. He's not wanting to strike up a conversation. He's not like Bartimaeus, screaming, hey, hey, over here. He's just he's just curious. He just wants to get a glimpse.
Joel Brooks:But then something absolutely remarkable happens. I mean, there's throngs of people and Jesus goes and he stops. He looks and He calls Zacchaeus by name. Hey, Zacchaeus. He says, I must go to your house.
Joel Brooks:Notice he doesn't say, Can I go to your house? I think it'd be a good idea if I came over. He says, I must. This is something I have to do. This is my mission.
Joel Brooks:This is why I came. I came to seek and to save that which was lost. This is who I am, is seeking after people like you. I have got to come to your house, Zacchaeus. So I okay?
Joel Brooks:And so he notices this little sinner, because that's what Jesus does. He's always looking for sinners. He is drawn to them in a way we cannot imagine and we have seen this over and over in Luke. Luke 7, you have Simon the Pharisee, and you've got a prostitute. Jesus is drawn to the prostitute.
Joel Brooks:You've got Luke 8, you have the, you know, very respectable townspeople, and you have the demoniac, and Jesus is drawn to the demoniac. You go throughout and you have, you have the tax collector over here, and you have the Pharisee over here, and Jesus is drawn to the tax collector. You have the, the sexual insider over here, and the sexual outsider over here, and He's drawn to the outsider. All throughout Luke, every time you have a respectable person and then a person you really don't want your kids hanging around, he is drawn to that person over and over and over. It's who he is.
Joel Brooks:And the people around Jesus hate it because they're religious insiders. They hate it. Verse 6 says that everybody grumbled and said, can you believe this Jesus? He's gone off to be a guest with that sinner. That sinner.
Joel Brooks:You can tell a lot about a person by the way they say sinner. If you use that term to describe others, you're gonna miss seeing Jesus. If you can, let me sharpen the edge on that a little bit. If you can if you can talk about people like, like a Tiger Woods or a Ted Haggerty, or you can make your Bill Clinton jokes, and you can call them sinners, you're gonna miss seeing Jesus Because it is not a us and them. We are sinners.
Joel Brooks:We don't ever say, you need the gospel, we say, we need the gospel. All of us. And it's not that we don't say, hey, what you did is wrong, what you did is sin. Yes. It is sinful, but we we recognize, like Jeff preached last week, that we're all wretches.
Joel Brooks:We all are. We can't say how could they do that or I would never do that. If we say that, we don't understand our own heart. And I love it in Luke 11, when Jesus is talking to His disciples about prayer, and He just so casually mentions to His disciples, the 12, the apostles right there, and He says, you know, you being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. He calls the apostles evil, just casually.
Joel Brooks:The people who've given up everything to follow him. He's like, yeah, you know, you guys, y'all are evil and y'all do this. We all have that in us. There is no us and them. Also, look at what happens to Zacchaeus as a result of Jesus looking His way and coming over.
Joel Brooks:We see that his heart is instantly changed. Look at verse 8. So since Zakkiah stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it 4 fold. So Zacchaeus, he says, I'm gonna give away half of my possessions, and on top of that, if I've cheated anyone, I'm gonna pay them back 400%.
Joel Brooks:Which Levitical or, the law said you only had to pay back a 120%. So he's going way beyond that. Now, what what you're seeing here is this this is a spontaneous, joyful reaction to a person who's just encountered Jesus, is what this is. He's becoming like a child. Hey, Jesus, look.
Joel Brooks:How about this, I could give away half of my stuff. Would would that please you? I I I if I've cheated anybody, I could give them back 4 times as much. He's not trying to earn Jesus's favor at this point. He's not.
Joel Brooks:Jesus has changed his heart, now he's just trying to to please Him. This is like a joyful kid before the Lord. Can can can I do this? Will this bring a smile to your face? I've got a great idea.
Joel Brooks:How about this, Jesus? It's a giddy response. You know, Levitical law says that you should give 10% of your income. 10%. That's before taxes.
Joel Brooks:I could argue that if you you look at all the law there, it actually is 23.3%. You could talk to me later. I'll tell you how you could pull out. It's actually 23.3%. We saw last week when the rich young ruler, Jesus said, No, you're supposed to give 100%.
Joel Brooks:And now you have Zacchaeus giving 50%, you know, plus some change. So what are we supposed to give? I mean, how much do we give to god? Do we give 10%? Do we give 23.3 percent?
Joel Brooks:Do we give 100%? Do we give 50%? What's what's the rule that we're supposed to follow here? Jesus is saying, well, you don't follow rules, you follow me. Okay?
Joel Brooks:You're, you're following me. This is an adventure. This isn't a, a relationship that I'm inviting you into. I'm gonna change your hearts to where money is not your god. To where you will freely give, you will joyfully give these things.
Joel Brooks:You'll be like a child in my presence because money will not have a hold on you. You'll be like, Jesus can I give to this? Jesus can I can I serve you in this way? Would that please you? Because those things won't have a hold on you.
Joel Brooks:Have you ever given like that? Has ever the Holy Spirit just just began prodding you, and and begin giving you a giddy thought? This crazy thought about how you can maybe use some of your time, or use some of your resources, or or give to this person. This is giddy crazy thought. And then you've just said, uh-uh.
Joel Brooks:Practical law, 10%, 23.3%. And we give to God like we give to our taxes. Give taxes. Sometimes we do it willingly. Yeah, you give us good roads, you know, good school systems, if you're outside of Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:You know, we're all these things, so I'll give. But it's not this giddy delight, because government is not beautiful. It doesn't change our heart. Jesus changes hearts. He says, I want you to follow rules, I want you to follow me.
Joel Brooks:And I long to see that happen here. I hate it when when you see that spark of life that the Holy Spirit puts in somebody flare up, and people around it just push it down. Or you push it down yourself. No. No.
Joel Brooks:Uh-uh. Pray about that. Come before the Lord as a cheerful giver. It's a joyful adventure. When's the last time you have climbed a tree and taken a fresh look at Jesus?
Joel Brooks:Or is your your worship of him pretty stagnant? Do the same thing I did this this morning. You come to him for things, you know you're supposed to. You know there's some good things in here. You know, I've gotta got my quiet time.
Joel Brooks:I got, you know, I gotta pray. I gotta do this. Gotta fight sin. I know I'm supposed to worship. Well, you actually humbled yourself and just said, Jesus, I just want to see you.
Joel Brooks:And there's a desperateness to your cry, an absolute desperateness to where people are gonna look at you like you've put a bass drum on your back and you've crossed the line. We're gonna keep on pounding away. I don't care. Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. You'll scream it, you'll climb a tree, you'll come to him in giddy joy.
Joel Brooks:When's the last time that's happened? I I pray that that would happen even in this moment. You know, Bartimaeus, he certainly could have said, I'll catch Jesus when he comes back through. He certainly could have said that, but Jesus didn't come back through. That was the moment.
Joel Brooks:Now is the time to cry out to him. Pray with me. We can't stir it up ourselves. We can't, even if we try to become better people, that doesn't change our hearts. Our righteousness is before you is not a beautiful dress, it is filthy rags, even at our best.
Joel Brooks:So our hope is in you, Jesus, that you'll stop, you'll hear our cry of help, that you'll stop and you will call us by name as we humble ourselves. You'll say, I am going to come to your house. God, we invite you in. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
