Jesus Came to Seek the Lost

Luke 19:1-10

Jesus and Zacchaeus

He entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. 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 in 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, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” And Zacchaeus 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 also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Jesus meeting with Zacchaeus was right before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and then his arrest and death. The story of Zacchaeus shows us that Jesus came to save those of his who were lost. This meeting was not just happenstance; it was a meeting divinely ordained and carried out. No one is unsavable. We are called to do the Lord’s work - to seek those who are lost. The church has been ordained by God to share the good news of the gospel and to equip believers for the battles ahead.

“What we begin to see at this point in the story is that Zacchaeus’ seeking of Jesus and Jesus’ seeking of Zacchaeus were both sovereign works of God. The crossing of their lives at the sycamore was a work of divine providence. This meeting was ordained before the foundation of the world (cf. Ephesians 1:4–6). The camel was about to go through the eye of a needle!

God orchestrated Zacchaeus’ interior compulsion to seek Jesus, and the exterior crossing of their lives at the fig tree and Jesus’ call were all divinely managed. Zacchaeus was caught because in his seeking he was sought.” From - Preaching the Word Commentary