Unforgettable: Life Changing Encounters With Jesus // Matthew & Zacchaeus
Unforgettable: Life Changing Encounters With Jesus // Matthew & Zacchaeus
Pastor Charlie Weir
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eOmj2jzkHU
· Unforgettable people make you feel seen, like you are the most important person in the room.
· Unforgettable people do more than make impressions, they leave an imprint.
· Unforgettable people are catalysts for transformation.
Jesus was and is the most unforgettable person ever!
Matthew 9:9-13: 9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Luke 19:1-10 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Both Matthew and Zacchaeus’ lives were changed when Jesus sees them. Lives are always changed when we see Jesus seeing us.
Being seen is a universal desire/need born into us.
God and Satan both respond to our need to be seen in polar opposite ways.
1. Satan will leverage every “over looked” and “forgotten” moment in your life to get you to give up on yourself, to give up on others and to give up on God. Satan’s goal is your insecurity. He wants to accentuate your feelings of invisibility.
2. God stays present with you waiting for your eyes to catch His eyes. God’s goal is for you to find your security in relationship with Him! He wants to accentuate the depth of His receptivity for you.
Psalm 139:1-16 (Message) 1-6 God, investigate my life; get all the facts firsthand. I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I start the first sentence. I look behind me and you’re there, then up ahead and you’re there, too— your reassuring presence, coming and going. This is too much, too wonderful— I can’t take it all in! 7-12 Is there any place I can go to avoid your Spirit? to be out of your sight? If I climb to the sky, you’re there! If I go underground, you’re there! If I flew on morning’s wings to the far western horizon, You’d find me in a minute— you’re already there waiting! Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark! At night I’m immersed in the light!” It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you; night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you. 13-16 Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! I worship in adoration—what a creation! You know me inside and out, you know every bone in my body; You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit, how I was sculpted from nothing into something. Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth; all the stages of my life were spread out before you, The days of my life all prepared before I’d even lived one day.
Matthew wasn’t going to be able to live out His new purpose within the confines of his old gig.
Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus doesn’t prompt him to leave his career, it was a catalyst to transform it!
People who didn’t look like Jesus, liked Jesus.
Matthew 9:12b-13 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Luke 19:10 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
Matthew 28:18-20 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Jesus didn’t just see people, He left His imprint on people and His salvation was the catalyst and power for their transformation.
1. Jesus does see you.
2. Jesus can save you.
3. Jesus is ready to transform your purpose.