Lifeguards do not sit on the shore for the best swimmers. They are not there for the fittest, not there for the skilled. They are there for the sinkers. One day as a 10 year old girl at camp that was me. I was sinking in the deep end of the pond! The lifeguard was searching and watching for me. So glad I was saved from drowning that day!
And so it is with Jesus…
“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Luke 5:32
Many thought Jesus came to establish a kingdom. To be a king and to rule on a throne.
Instead He came for the sinner and to give his life a ransom for many.
He came for the greatest of sinners like Peter, who denied Christ; Matthew, a tax collector; Paul, the chief of sinners; and Zacchaeus, a chief publican.
Zaccheus, with childlike faith, climbs a tree to see Jesus.
It’s been said “Long before Zacchaeus couldn’t see Jesus, the tree was planted to meet his need.”
Up in that tree, Zacchaeus sought to see Jesus, yet, he is the one that was found!
“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Luke 19:10
Christ called him by name. “Zaccheous,” He called. He knows the name of each lost person.
Losing my life and finding it in Christ is all about me seeking those who are lost. I heard in a sermon at my church recently, “What is on your to-do list today that will make it into eternity?
I recently attended a play put on by the Evansville Academy of Arts on the life of missionary Amy Carmichael. In the play they portrayed a dream Amy had about the lost souls of India. Church members were singing Bringing in the Sheaves. All the while blind, lost souls walked past and through the singers falling off a precipice into utter darkness, groping and crying out as they fell. Yet, no one in the church seemed to see them as they passed by or hear their cries as they fell into eternity.
Is the church so blind to the needs of a lost world today?
Years ago, I was rather new in a community and did not know everyone as well as others. I met a lady out and about. I was able to strike up a conversation with her about church and the Lord. Our conversation ended with the lady sweetly accepting Christ as her Savior.
Later that day I told a fellow Christian who knew the lady. She responded doubtfully with, “Well you know that lady is . . . “
I really can’t remember what my friend said about her. It was some fault or sinful way. I do not remember to this day what it was but I do remember thinking, “Yes! She was a sinner who needed a Savior!” I responded simply, “She prayed and trusted Christ. Only God knows her heart.”
I am sure I have been guilty of this sort of doubtfulness myself, but why is it we do not believe He came for the sinner? Why is it we do not rather rejoice if someone showed some or any positive reaction to hearing the gospel? Why do we only question the motives of a person’s heart that we cannot know?
Look at all the effort Zacchaeus made. Climbing a tree just to see Jesus!
Look how he made haste and joyfully received Him!
Let us never forget WHY Jesus came.
Loser Bible Study Series Theme Verse:
“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.” Mark 8:35
“Lose” from the Greek word “Apollymi” means “to destroy fully.” It is translated lost in Luke 19:10, our verse for today.
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