Do We Measure Up?
Good Morning Friends,
Today we learn about God’s invitation, His timing, ways and words so that our future with God will be everlasting. Today we consider the last time we climbed a tree and went out on a limb for Jesus. Today we consider the power of humility and what is necessary for salvation and ask as a child: Do We Measure Up?
Scripture: He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”
Luke 19:1-10 (NRSV)
O LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me. O Israel, hope in the LORD from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 131:1-3 (NRSV)
More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.
Philippians 3:8 (NRSV)
At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
Matthew 18:1-5 (NRSV)
Message: Arrogant pride… that self-interested, self-absorbed, self-promoting selfishness lingers just below the surface in even the most apparently spiritual Christians. And this pride works against us when we are trying to replace anxiety with a calm soul. The challenge is to wean ourselves away from the temptation to place our human confidence in rubbish. The challenge is to realize that there is a God and that we are not Him. Until we each realize that the most important person in the world is not us we are still addicted…we still have not matured in the faith. And here we might just get a glimpse of the powerful serving in God’s Kingdom. For in God’s Kingdom we are to be not anxious for anything. In God’s Kingdom we are servants. In God’s Kingdom we find the power in humility so we might trust Jesus to not only seek him but also respond to his call and to open our heart and home. For someone called “Little Johnnie” for most of my childhood today’s scripture for me is one of the most memorable stories in all the Bible. And here in our smallness we might just discover that things are not always as they seem. What we think is failure may not be failure at all. What we think is success may not be success at all. In today’s story Jesus extends an invitation not just to Zacchaeus but to all of us and in our acceptance Jesus takes our smallness and desires and liberates them from our earthly pride and then untethered from our twisted culture transforms them through the sacredness of his presence. Friends, we will never measure up without Jesus. That is why we must come to him as a child.
Pray we receive Jesus joyfully. Pray
we be people of integrity but also of humility. Pray we increase our humility. Pray we discover the joy, fellowship and unmerited grace in humility. Pray we recognize the danger of pride and the value of humility. Pray we respond to Jesus with trust believing that He is our Lord. Pray we come out of our sin, get up from our self-pity, come down from our pride, and come to an understanding of the mystery of Christ on the tree. Pray we have the courage to find the blessing, the joy, the happiness found in a child’s trust and faith.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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