The Difference Jesus Makes
Well, you'll see from the front of the service sheet that this an Invitation Service. We have these regularly, and they're geared for anyone just giving the Christian message a first or second thought. And if you're here through an invitation, or our parish visiting, I do hope you've felt welcomed. A few years back we had a member of the church staff who was a great welcomer. His name was Charlie. And one Sunday, he sat next to Jonathan Edwards who'd just broken the world record for triple jump. Charlie didn't realise who he was, and the conversation went something like this:
'Hello, I'm Charles. Who are you?' 'I'm Jonathan.' 'And do you come here often?' 'From time to time.' 'And do you work here in Newcastle?' 'Well, I'm based here.' 'And what do you do?' 'Well, I'm a sportsman.' 'Oh?' said Charlie 'Footballer?' 'No. Athletics.' 'Really,' said Charlie. 'I shouldn't think there's much money in that.' [This was when he'd just turned down a sponsorship Ferrari, I think.] 'Oh,' said Jonathan Edwards, 'I make ends meet.' 'And what do you do?' said Charlie [struggling for his athletics small talk] 'Running or throwing?' 'Jumping.' 'Oh,' said Charlie feeling on solid ground again. 'Long or high?' 'Triple, actually,' said Jonathan Edwards. To receive the priceless question from Charlie: 'And are you any good at it?
The answer was so modest that it was only next day that Charlie realised who he'd been talking to. You can go through a whole conversation without realising who someone really is. And you can go through a whole lifetime without realising who Jesus really is - this person who Christianity is all about. I've no idea what you think about Jesus. It's beyond doubt that he really existed. And I think it's beyond doubt that he's influenced the human race more than anyone else. Listen to this short piece about him, called One Solitary Life:
He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter's shop until he was 30, and then for three years he was an itinerant preacher. He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college... He never travelled more than 200 miles from the place he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. Then the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through a mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While he died, his executers gambled for the only property he had on earth - his clothes. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave, through the pity of a friend. Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today he is the centrepiece of the human race I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life. (Quoted in Evidence That Demands a Verdict, Josh McDowell)
Which is hard to explain if you don't realise who Jesus really is. If you think he was just a great teacher, like Gandhi, it's hard to explain why history was renumbered after him. Or why 2000 years after his death 500 million people (a conservative estimate) believe he's still alive. But read the New Testament (NT) and you find that three days after he was nailed to that cross and laid in that grave, he rose from the dead. Go to the tomb in Mecca and you can visit the remains of Muhammad. But go to Jerusalem and no-one even knows which tomb it was. Because Jesus was only in it for 3 days. And it's been empty ever since. That's the main claim of Christianity. Jesus rose from the dead, to prove that he was God's Son become human, to put the human race back in touch with God. So we're not talking about a person in the past, and the difference his ideas can make. We're talking about a person in the present. Who came 2000 years ago in the flesh. And who still comes into peoples' lives today, by his Spirit. And that's the difference Jesus makes. He can come into your life and put you back in touch with God. That's what he did for this man Zaccheus, recorded in Luke's Gospel. And he still does it today. So let's look at this snapshot of what it means to become a Christian. First, LET'S LOOK AT THIS MAN, ZACCHEUS
[Verse 1:] Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zaccheus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
Zaccheus was doing very nicely, thank you. He had a nice place on the edge of Jericho. The kids were in private schools. The wife was in Jules B designer clothes. And there was a smart new camel in the drive - with leather upholstery and sports alloy hooves. He not only had money, he lived for money. Look at verse 7. When Jesus invited himself to stay:
All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner'.
And in verse 8 he confesses to being a cheat - literally, it says 'If I've extorted/blackmailed anyone'. In other words, he was prepared to do anything for money. And that's the way to work out what you're living for. Just ask yourself the question, 'For what would I be prepared to do anything?' You might have heard that Newcastle United supporter interviewed on the radio last week. His Cup Final ticket had slipped down the back of the mantelpiece. So he ripped off the plaster and removed the fireplace to get it back. For what would you be prepared to do anything? 'I'd do anything for promotion.' That means you're living for success. 'I'd do anything for the kids,' means you're living for the kids. 'I'd do anything to move,' means you're living for a house. 'I hack this job for money to go drinking at the weekend,' said the hairdresser. She lives for the club. And Zaccheus? He'd have said: 'I'd do anything for money and what it can buy,' And those things people live for have one thing in common. They're not God. God certainly didn't feature in Zaccheus' life. He lived for something else and he was successful at it. There's no hint that he felt he needed God. No suggestion that he thought something was missing in his life. If we'd visited him in our parish he'd have said, 'I'm sorry, I'm not the religious type.' It was nothing more then mild curiosity that meant he met Jesus that day. Verse 3:
He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and [at risk of being taken for an environmental protester] he climbed a sycamore-fig tree, since Jesus was coming that way. (vv3-4)
And the point so far is this. God didn't send Jesus just for those who are interested or feel the need or think they're the religious type (whatever that means). It doesn't matter whether you're a success or falling apart; whether you feel any need or none at all. The fact is we all need God in our life, and that's why Jesus came. So, secondly, LET'S LOOK AT JESUS
[Verse 5:] When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.
And that's the first shock. What Jesus says. Just imagine I shook your hand at the door on the way out. I've never met you before, but I say, 'Bring your car round immediately. I'm coming to your place, now.' I don't know if you'd call that pushy, or barefaced cheek, or the height of arrogance But you'd definitely call it something. But that's exactly what Jesus did:
'Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.' (v5)
It's not a hint or a request. It's a downright command. The kind of thing that makes you wonder, 'Who does he think he is? God?' To which the answer is: yes. That's exactly who Jesus thought he was, and taught he was. 'Are you the Son of the Blessed One [ie God]?' he was asked at his trial. 'I am,' he replied, 'And you will see the Son of Man [ie, me] sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One [ie, God] and coming on the clouds of heaven.' (Mark 14.61-62) That's the claim for which he was crucified. And 3 days later his resurrection proved it true. Here's C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity:
Then comes the real shock. Among the Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if he was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let's get this clear. Among pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say he was a part of God, or one with God But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.
[He goes on:] Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit. Still less do unprejudiced readers. Christ says that He is 'humble and meek' and we believe Him, not noticing that if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we would attribute to some of His sayings.
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic - on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg - or else he would be the Devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense abut His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
(If that's whet your appetite to read more, that book is available on the bookstall: C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.) Verse 5 again:
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.
He talked as if he owned the place. Because in fact he does. This is God in the flesh speaking. And if our lives are like a house, he's the rightful Landlord. So, the first shock is what Jesus says. The second shock is who he says it to: Zaccheus. Zaccheus, of all people. Extortioner, blackmailer and general selfish, greedy, nasty piece of work. So verse 7:
All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner'.
That's the second shock. Because we have this idea that Christianity is for good people. But that's not how God sees it. As God sees us, there are no good people. The Bible says this: 'There is no difference [between us], for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.' (Romans 3.22-23) And sin means pushing God out of our lives and living for other things. And Jesus didn't come for good people to say, 'Well done, you've done enough to be accepted.' He came for bad people - the only kind of people there are - to say, 'I'm willing to forgive you.' If our lives are like a house, God is the rightful Landlord. But we've all pushed him out and lived for other things. We've pretended to be owner-occupiers when we're really just tenants. And without God in charge, the house is a mess. As Jesus said,
For from within, out of men's hearts come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man unclean. (Mark 7.20-23)
Morally, the place is a mess. It was for Zaccheus, it is for you and me, if we're honest. And the amazing thing is this. Jesus doesn't come to Zaccheus or you or me and say, 'Clean the place up enough and then I'll come in.' He comes to us and says, 'I must stay at your house today.' Ie, 'I'll, come into your life just as you are, and start cleaning it up myself.' He's like the enthusiast who moves into a house barely fit for habitation, and starts renovating. That's why the Christian message is good news. Other religions say, 'Clean up your life enough and God will come in. Make yourself acceptable, and God will accept you.' Which is asking the impossible. Which is why other religions are such a miserable burden. But the real thing - Jesus - is totally different. Verse 5:
'Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.
Ie, Zaccheus, I'll come into your life just as you are. 'So,' v6, 'he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.' Literally, joyfully. And Christianity is the only religion where you'll find joy. Because the real God accepts you just as you are. And the people in verse 7 were shocked. How can Jesus - if he's come from God - go to be the guest of a sinner? And that may be the question on your mind. You may have heard quite a bit of the Christian message. But the question for you is: 'How could God possibly come into my life, given what I've done and what I'm like?' Surely God can't just sweep all the rubble and dirt of our sin under the carpet? Well, true. He can't sweep sin under the carpet. He has to bring it into the open and judge it. Which is why Jesus died on the cross, and took on himself the judgement that all our wrongdoing deserved. God doesn't sweep sins under the carpet. He took them on his own shoulders and paid the judgement in full. Which means he can come into your life and forgive you the past. Clear your conscience before him. And restore your self-esteem. He accepts us just as we are. But he doesn't leave us that way. He changes people. One last look at Zaccheus - the new Zaccheus, Zaccheus the 'Christian'. Verse 7:
All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a 'sinner'.
But Zaccheus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything I will pay back four times the amount.' (vv7-8)
That's the difference Jesus makes. It's not that Zaccheus has made a new resolution. Every New Year we prove to ourselves they don't work. It's not a new resolution. It's a new relationship. What's made the difference is acceptance, unconditional love. Jesus has forgiven him and come into his life. And when Jesus has done that for you, you find quite simply that you want to please him. Verse 8:
'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything I will pay back four times the amount.
Non-Christian people I meet often have this nightmare idea of what it's a like to be a Christian. They often think I'm living this miserable life, always doing the opposite of what I really want. So they think I really want to get drunk, but I'm not allowed to. They think I really don't want to tell other people about Jesus, but I have to (like the Jehovah's Witnesses). But it's not like that at all. Once you know Jesus has forgiven and accepted you, believe it or not, what you want to change. You actually want him to be Lord of your life. And Zaccheus in verse 8 is a picture of what it means to have Jesus as Lord of your life. It basically means: giving over everything, and giving up some things. Let me explain. It means giving over everything. When you let Jesus into your life, you let him in as Lord. You hand over the keys to every room in the house - the room of money, the room of sex, the room of work, of sport, marriage, family, ambition, plans, the lot. You give them all over to him. And since lots of them are good in themselves, they don't have to be given up. Just given over to be used how Jesus wants them to be. So, for example, Zaccheus says, verse 8, 'Here and now I give half my possessions to the poor.' Nothing wrong with money and possessions in themselves. But now they have to be used how Jesus wants. So, giving over everything, but also giving up some things. Zaccheus sees straight away that now Jesus is Lord, extortion and blackmail have to go. So he says, verse 8, 'And if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.' And if God is still on the outside of your life, there would be things for you which have to go. Some dishonesty of your own may have to go. Some ambition may have to go. Fear of what people would think if you became a Christian; drunkenness; sex outside marriage would all have to go. But it is possible. Because with Jesus in your life, what you want, changes. I must wind up. Just look lastly at what Jesus says has happened. It's easy to read this encounter and to come away thinking that something small happened - 'Zaccheus got generous, that's all.' But Jesus said something massive happened - Zaccheus got saved. Verse 9:
Jesus said to [Zaccheus], 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham [ie, he's a genuine believer]. For the Son of Man [which was one of Jesus' names for himself] came to seek and to save what was lost.' (vv9-10)
People are not all that comfortable with language like, 'salvation' and 'lost'. They say it's corny, when in fact their problem with it is that it's too close to the bone. We like to think that if anything is wrong with our lives, it's fairly minor, and we can put it right. But Jesus says otherwise. It's major, and we need saving. Jesus says he came to seek and to save what was lost. And it's the kind of word the papers use in headlines: 'Climber lost on Everest', 'Yaught crew lost at sea', 'Civilians lost in Kosovo'. Jesus means lost as in you've had it, as in you're dead. Lost because we've pushed God out of our lives and are trying to live without him. Lost because if we die in that state, we'll be living without God for eternity. And the thing about being lost is that so often you don't feel lost. 'I know exactly where we are,' we protest to the other people in the car. 'I know exactly where we are,' I said at 6pm yesterday, in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales. I didn't feel lost. But by 6.30pm, it was clear that we were. There's no hint that Zaccheus felt lost in life. He knew exactly what he wanted, knew exactly where he was going in life. But he was lost. In the one thing that really matters, Zaccheus was lost. He'd lost God, by ignoring God. And that day 2000 years ago, God came looking for him. Christianity isn't for good people, it's for bad people. And Christianity isn't about man searching after God. It's about God coming after us:
'the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.' (v10)
Since he said those words, Jesus has died on the cross for our forgiveness, risen from the dead, and is now back in heaven. And the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, records these words of the risen Lord Jesus:
'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.' (Revelation 3.20)
I want to end by asking two questions. Number 1: Have you ever responded to Christ like that? And number 2: If not, do you want to? Are you willing to have Jesus Christ back into your life as your Lord and God? There's no doubt that he'll accept us just as we are. The only 'if' is on our side. 'If anyone hears my voice and opens the door' And I can only think of two reasons not to respond. One is that you don't believe what I've been saying is true. You don't trust the NT. You can't accept the miracles of Jesus or the resurrection, or whatever it is. The other reason is that you're not prepared for the changes it would mean, the giving over everything, the giving up some things. If that's you for either of those two reasons, can I invite you to join our next Food for Thought course? Five informal meetings to find out more, and ask questions. There are cards which explain how to join. Please do pick one up - we'd love to see you if that sounds useful to you. But it may be that you know this is true, and what changes it would mean. And it's as if your hand is on the handle of the door. You know that Christ is there. But you haven't let him in to be your Lord. For anyone in that position, I'm going to end with a prayer which would be a way of opening the door. Let me read it to you first so you can decide whether it would be appropriate for you to pray this morning: Lord Jesus Christ, I confess that I have been living without regard for you. I have not let you be Lord in my life. Thank you for dying in my place to take off me the judgement I deserve. I now open the door of my life to you. Please come in by your Spirit, to forgive me, be with me, rule me and change me. Amen. If you're ready to say that to the Risen Lord Jesus, and you're prepared to be public about belonging to Christ, then why not echo that prayer in your mind to God as I lead us? Let me read those words of the Lord Jesus again:
'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.' (Revelation 3.20)
If you've heard and opened in prayer, you can put your own name to that promise: 'I will come in.' Feelings vary, but Jesus does come into our lives by his Spirit, and the reality of that will become clear. If you have just prayed, it would help you today to tell another Christian, and ask them how to take the first steps now that Jesus is your Lord.