An Encounter With Jesus Changes Everything

Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Mm. Amen. Well, how we doing, 1230? Mm. Mm. Mm. Good, I like a rowdy crowd. So if I haven't met you, my name is Sam, and I serve as the outreach pastor here at Evangel. And I've been a part of our church family for the past 14 years, and I've been on our staff team for almost nine of those years. And I'm privileged. I get to serve alongside my wife. We've both almost been here for, wait, she's been here for nine years. Yeah, so I've been following behind her, and we get to serve this family and this community and our country together, and it truly is a gift. And I wanna take a moment and appreciate Pastor Josh. He and I met before I was following Jesus, and oh man, I wasn't expecting to get emotional.

But he has been just a steady presence in my life. He helped lead me to the Lord. He discipled me when I was extremely messy, and has been on me, been with me this entire journey. And I was actually just thinking about it about a half hour ago, is that I probably would not be married to my wife if it wasn't for him. We were standing in our old lobby, and my wife Anika, obviously not my wife at the time, walked by, and he said, whoever marries Anika Seavrood is getting himself a gem of a person. And I was like, really? And those, we've been married for over 10 years, and those words could not be more true. And yeah, we can give it up for that. And he stood with me on our wedding day and married us, and it has just been a fun journey. And it truly is a privilege to stand up here and say that they're not, Pastor Josh and Pastor Janay are not just who we see on a platform, but they're the same people behind closed doors, that they have integrity that has led them as they have served our church family. And so they're a gift to us, more than we will ever realize, and they're a gift to our community.

So can we give it up for them? And if we can, if you guys would bow your heads with me as we pray and we open God's word. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you that it is living and active, that it shapes us, that it molds us, and that even when our lives are going one way, God, you will meet us in those moments. And I pray that during this time together that that would be some of those moments where you would be there with us, and we would be there with you. And I pray that you would be there with us that would be some of those moments where you meet us here. And even if our life is going one way when we walked in, God, I pray that we would go a different direction as we leave these doors today. So we submit this time to you. I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart would be pleasing and honoring to you, and that your word would change us from the inside out. And if you believe it, would you say amen? Amen. So it's been fun to listen to the messages today, because we were all given Luke chapter 19, where Jesus had an interaction with Zacchaeus. And so in Luke chapter 19, verse one through 10, but before I do that, the title of my message is

An Encounter with Jesus Changes Everything. And so in Luke chapter 19, verse one through 10, it says, He, Jesus, entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he 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 he climbed 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 he said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried down and he received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled. This is the crowd. 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, 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. That's a good word. And he then said, For the Son of Man has came to seek and to save those that are lost. And I want to dig deeper into Zacchaeus' story for just a moment.

So there was this man named Zacchaeus who had everything the world could offer. He had wealth, he had influence, he had status, but internally he was still searching because he was lost and he was broken. Though he was rich, he was despised by others. And as a chief tax collector, he had gained wealth by exploiting his own people, the Jews, while working alongside the Roman government. And despite his success, something in him longed to see Jesus. So when Jesus entered Jericho, crowds were surrounding him and Zacchaeus, being small in stature, could not see over the people, so he ran ahead. And that would have been extremely shameful in those days for him to do that. So he humbled himself and he did it anyways. And he climbed a sycamore tree just to get a glimpse of Jesus. And when Jesus reached the tree, he stopped and he looked up and he called him by name. And he said, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. And in that moment, everything changed for Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus welcomed him joyfully, and the encounter transformed his heart. The man once consumed by greed became generous. The man once known as a sinner became a testimony of God's mercy. And as a result of that,

Jesus declared that salvation had come to his house. And the story of Zacchaeus reveals the heart of the gospel, that Jesus seeks out sinners, broken people, prideful people, hidden people, self-sufficient people, and he invites himself into our lives. And I want to take just a moment to look at someone else who encountered Jesus and everything changed for him. And so there are a few parallels of Zacchaeus' story when Jesus healed the blind beggar one chapter prior in the book of Luke. So in Luke 18, 35 through 43, it says, as he, Jesus, drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside, begging. And hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. And they told him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. And he cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And those who were in front rebuked him, telling him to be silent. But he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stopped and commanded him, be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you? And he said, Lord, let me recover my sight. And Jesus said to him, recover your sight. Your faith has made you well. And immediately he recovered his sight and followed him, glorifying God and all the people. And when they saw it, they gave praise to God.

And just like Zacchaeus, the blind beggar desperately wanted to encounter Jesus. The blind beggar cried out for mercy. The crowd rebuked him and tried to silence him. Zacchaeus also faced obstacles from the crowd. And it may have even been the same crowd that rebuked both of these men. Neither man could reach Jesus on his own. Zacchaeus needed the sycamore tree. And the blind beggar literally needed Jesus to touch him. And both men were transformed after they encountered Jesus. And many people might appear successful outwardly, while inwardly they could be spiritually empty. And like Zacchaeus, we often try to satisfy ourselves with money, status, pride, comfort, or a sense of control while remaining far from God. Some hide in shame, others hide in self-sufficiency. Still others believe they are too sinful or too broken or too far gone for God to want to do anything with them. And at the same time, religious crowds are often pushing people farther away rather than helping them encounter Jesus. And it's interesting, the more I've studied this text, the more I've come to realize how much my personal faith story actually aligns with that of Zacchaeus. So before I was following Jesus, and when I first met him, I've noticed some similarities in my story, and so I wanted to take some time to share that. So I'm from the western side of our state,

and we were the family that would go to church on Christmas and Easter, and a few Sundays sprinkled in between that. And because of that nominal faith that we lived, there was no heart change in me. Me. And as a result of being lost and being broken, I was searching in all the ways I thought that I could find and fulfill and have hope that I was searching for. And so I, starting basically in middle school all the way through high school, I got into the party crowd in my high school, and we would just go and do destructive things on the weekend, and then we'd come around and we'd think that everything was okay, and then we'd go to do it again and again and again, never being able to satisfy that desire that I had that turns out I was always longing for what Jesus offered. But I was trying to find it and fill it in so many different ways. And I'm so thankful that when I got to the end of high school and was trying to figure out, and it's so much pressure as a high schooler, right? Like I'm lost and broken, and on top of that, my brain's not fully developed, so I'm trying to figure out and have all these answers and make these life-altering decisions without a stable mind, a stable heart. And so I did what any 18-year-old, I guess, would do,

and I went on Facebook and I just put out like, hey, what's your recommendation for college? I don't know that that's wise. And someone said Bismarck State College, and so I went on their website, and it showed that they had a carpentry program. And I sat there and looked at that and thought, well, Jesus was a carpenter, I think I could be one too. And it was just a thought that I had, but looking back all these years, I'm so thankful for that moment because then I signed up for carpentry school, moved here to Bismarck, and initially this was not good for me because being in the state that I was and wanting to party and do those things, and then showing up in a construction program where a lot of other people were living similar lifestyles, and so we just did it together. And I'm so thankful that by God's mercy, I did not die that first year of school because I was putting my hand towards partying at night and then going to a job site and operating power tools the next day. That's a problem. But God spared my life that first year of school, and there's nothing ever that's wasted with the Lord. And at the time, it was like, oh man, I'm going down this way, I'm going this direction, and I'm with all these guys that are lost too,

and we're going down this direction together. And I would get into it with my carpentry instructor because he's a follower of Jesus, and so I would be cursing at the job site as we're all building this house together, and he'd yell at me from across the job site, and right away, it was just this really tense friction. But then I think his heart started to break for me and just where I was in life, and he invited me and another guy to Evangel. And I remember coming in that first Sunday, and I was like, I think I called Evangel Rock and Roll Church for probably the first six months that I was here. And it was just so different from how I was brought up, but I knew something was different in the people that were here, and I wanted to find out what that was. And then someone invited me to our young adult group, and she had a very similar story as me growing up on the western side of the state, and she grew up in a religious home as well and had found hope in Jesus, and she was sharing her story like this, and I sat there at our young adult group, and I thought, I want what she has received through Jesus. And I'm thankful that that is the journey that I've been on is that that curiosity and that realizing the brokenness that I had was Jesus was the answer for that.

Yeah, amen, I like it when we say one claps or one shouts, we all like, we all clap, because it's something that we do in unison, together. But again, I'm thankful for Pastor Josh, because when I first showed up on that Thursday, he saw me in the back, and he started to invest in my life, and he'll tell you, I was going a way different direction, and he's like, hey, no, no, no, no, like, come this way, I have to show you a better way to live. And he and others began to disciple me and mentor me when I was far off. And the Lord, in his mercy, would, over the next many years, continually help me to recognize areas that I might have been, or not might have been, I was far from him, and he kept drawing me closer to himself. And so, community was an important part of my life. It is now, for sure, but it was such a staple, initially, when I was coming to faith and having guys, specifically, that I could walk with that were following Jesus, and they knew what it meant to have fun in a healthy way, because if I'm being honest, I thought that people that follow Jesus just sat around bonfires and sang kumbaya, like, I did not know that people who followed Jesus actually had fun. And I had to unlearn a lot of things that I was putting my hand and my life to that I thought was fun, but it was empty and it was fleeting. And so, I began this journey of relearning what it meant to have fun with believers.

But there was part of me that I did not wanna give up, and that was, this is why I relate with Zacchaeus, is I was greedy, and I'm a young man, working full-time, making a bunch of money, and that was my pursuit, was I want a nice car, I want a big house, like, I want all these things that I can accumulate. And this pains me, but I got a brand new car, and I slapped the license plate, Very Blessed, on it. I'm pretty sure blessed was taken. But I slapped the license plate, Very Blessed, and as you know, they can't put, like, 10 letters across your license plate, so it was V-R-Y-B-L-S-D, Very Blessed. And so, what I had intended is, like, oh, people are gonna see this, and they're gonna see me, and they're gonna see the success that I have, and what I have done, and what I am doing, and instead, it's just, like, this confusing words on this license plate. And so, that was one of my pursuits, and then another, I had an online business at the time, and in my wisdom, I purchased the domain name MillionaireBeforeFacialHair.com. And I don't think, well, I know, neither of those things has happened. And I'm really okay with that. But I was on this journey that I had this badge of honor that I wanted to prove to the world, or prove to whoever.

And I came to the realization that I had to lay down those desires at the feet of Jesus as I learned that his way is truly better than my way. It was my journey of seeing the words of Psalm 34, eight that says, oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. How blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. And the more I encountered the grace of Jesus, everything changed for me. I went from wanting to accumulate all that I could gain and as much wealth as possible to laying it all down to follow Jesus. I met the merciful one who loved me, pursued me, and had more for me. And I experienced the mercy of Jesus through himself, through other believers, through his word, through prayer and worship, and being set free over and over and over again of the things that used to hold me captive. And so I wanna take a moment and look back at Zacchaeus. And the question I have is, can you imagine for a moment being Zacchaeus, who was successful on the outside, but inwardly he was lost and broken, and he saw the eyes of mercy looking up at him and calling him by name. That moment forever changed him. He had obtained what the world had to offer, that I just talked about, a big house, money, influence, and it was on the backs of his own people. Yet he saw the eyes of mercy peering up and saying, come follow me, I have a better way.

And it's interesting because Zacchaeus climbed up that tree, a greedy man, Jesus knew what was within his heart. He called him anyway. And he climbed down that tree with a seed of generosity in his heart, and began to experience true life. When Zacchaeus encountered the grace of Jesus, everything changed. And so the question I have for everyone here is, what is holding me back from inviting Jesus into my home like Zacchaeus did? And I wanna just read off a few examples of what might hold us back from following Jesus. The first is unforgiveness. Oftentimes we come to faith holding unforgiveness in our hearts. And this was a powerful lesson for me early on in my journey of following Jesus. When I realized that all that I had done has been forgiven, I began the process of forgiving those that had hurt me. And for some people in my life, this was a daily decision that I had to make to forgive them over and over and over again. Because there is this reality that forgiven people forgive people. Another thing I've seen that hold people back is offense. And I just wanna encourage you that if we're following Jesus, we should be so quick to forgive and incredibly hard to offend. Another is sexual sin, desiring what the world tries to offer as a quick fix for what ails us.

Another that I really struggled with is love for the world. Partying, wealth, possessions, and wanting to go down that road. It's really hard to lay those things down if we don't know what the end result will be with Jesus. Another is fear, fear of the unknown or having to change from our current lifestyle. And another is shame from the things that we have done. And this is one of the biggest things that I've seen hold people back. I've seen people carry the weight of shame, of something that the Lord forgave them of maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago. And in the Bible it says who the Son sets free is free indeed. And so God has forgiven, again, maybe 10 years ago, and yet we're still carrying the weight of those things that we have done. He's like, no, I have set you free. Now walk in that freedom all the days of your life. You don't have to look back at what happened. And I'm not saying that being set free from our sin relieves us from the consequences of maybe decisions that we made, but it does relieve us from the shame or the pain having to come forward in us in our lives. Because when we're set free, we are freed. We are cleansed, we are clean. We are as if we never sinned. And we can walk in the freedom that Jesus offers. And so there's this beautiful reality

that Jesus does not avoid sinners. He pursues them. We see how Jesus pursued Zacchaeus and the blind beggar, two people that the religious crowd would not want to associate with. They were outcasts. The blind beggar would have been told by many that his blindness was a punishment from his sin or the sin of his family. Jesus pursued him anyway. Zacchaeus was despised for how he had cheated others out of what they had, and Jesus pursued him anyway. And you could be in here hiding in sin or living in sin, but I want to tell you that Jesus is pursuing you anyway. Because the gospel's not reserved for people who appear righteous on the outside. It is for those willing to humble themselves and receive the mercy of God. And Jesus is still calling people by name today, like he did Zacchaeus. In an encounter with the mercy of Jesus does the following in our lives. Greed becomes generosity, shame becomes freedom, pride becomes humility, hiding becomes honesty, and those who are spiritually blind receive sight through him. And so there is this reality that we can either continue to go on our own way, pursuing the ways of the world, or the desires of our flesh,

or we can humbly approach Jesus and look into the eyes of the merciful one and say, here I am, Lord. You can have all of me. One of my favorite passages to read from is in Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. It says, come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And Jesus does not require people to fix themselves before coming to him. He simply says, come. So if you're greedy, come. If you're self-centered, come. If you're self-sufficient, come. If you're prideful, come. If you're hiding in shame, come. If you're known as a sinner, come. If you're exhausted, come. If you're broken, come. And if any of these resonate with you, I would encourage you to lay them down. Simply lay them down at the feet of Jesus. You don't need to carry it any longer. I will often pray this way personally from Psalm 51, verse 10. It says, create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a right spirit within me. And there's nothing you can do that can stop God from loving you. And there is a reality that God has forgiven people far more wicked than you, or that you imagine yourself to be. And there is no sin too dark for the blood of Jesus to cleanse if you humbly repent or turn and turn to him. The woman caught in adultery, the thief on the cross, the prodigal son, and Zacchaeus all found mercy when they encountered Jesus. And if you feel broken or unworthy, you can trust in Jesus today. The Bible promises in 1 John 1, 9 that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so if you're not following Jesus today, but you want to, this is what I would encourage you to do. I would respond to Jesus the way that Zacchaeus did. By humbling yourself, repenting, or turning from your old way of life, welcoming him fully and allowing him in, and he will transform your life. Repentance or turning from sin is not a one-time thing. It is a daily surrender of laying things down at the feet of Jesus and knowing that his ways are higher and better than our ways. Romans 12, one through two says,

therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true and only way to live. If you are true and proper worship and do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test and approve His good, pleasing, and perfect will. what God's will is. And so if you're trusting Jesus for the first time or coming back to him, I'm gonna pray for you in a moment. And if you're a follower of Jesus, this is my encouragement for you. If someone in your life, your family or friend circle, are far from Jesus and they begin to actually reach for him, help them when they stumble. Do not shame them for struggling and walk with them patiently. Because when people recognize areas of their lives that need surrender, they need grace-filled community, not condemnation. I'm gonna read that again. When people begin recognizing areas of their lives that need surrender, they need grace-filled community, not condemnation. And when I started following Jesus, that is what I experienced, was grace-filled community of people that would hold me up when I had a hard day

or when I fell back into something. They would pick me back up and bring me back to Jesus. And we each need that in our lives. Because I often say this, that the discipleship journey in following Jesus is more like a slow cooker than a microwave. Following Jesus and laying everything down, that can take time. It's not just an overnight thing. Things take time where we have to recognize over and over and over again, oh, I did this. And this was the unfortunate result. And we have to learn over and over again that it's not good. And so there may be people in your life who once walked closely with Jesus, but they've walked away. And this happened to me early on in my faith journey. I honestly don't remember all of what happened, but I was shameful about something. And I started to kind of pull back and retreat from our community. And Pastor Josh showed up at my house. He was not invited. I did not know he was coming. And he showed up at my door. And I don't know that I would be standing here today if he didn't show up at my door that night. And so people in your realm of influence or in your family, they need you to be like that.

Where you show up when they know they've messed up again and they're trying to hide, but they need you in those moments. Because when we walk through hard moments, it can shake our faith. And there is this reality that the Lord allows the valleys of our lives to bring us closer to him. And I was on a REACH trip in Alaska recently, and we were sitting around talking, and the pastor said these words, and it just so struck my heart because we've experienced this in our personal lives and just in the lives of walking with people. But he said, things don't necessarily grow on the mountaintop. He said, things grow in the valley. That is where the fertile soil is. And so when people are in these moments, I would encourage you to walk with them. Show up for them, point them back to Jesus, because sometimes one act of faithful love in our hardest moments can make all the difference. Just as Jesus stopped for Zacchaeus and the blind beggar, we are called to stop for people too. Would you guys pray with me? God, I thank you so much for your incredible mercy that we're so not deserving of, but you freely give it to us anyways. And I pray if someone is in here and they are experiencing your mercy for the first time,

or maybe they're coming back to you, God, I pray that you would open their eyes to that reality, that they would repent of their sin, that they would lay it at your feet, they would trust you with the result. And when the prayer teams come forward, that they would come and receive prayer from them. And if there are those that have friends that are wayward or family that are wayward, God, give them grit to walk with them. Give them wisdom beyond their own understanding to point them back to you over and over and over again. And I pray that they would be people that are touched by you, that touch others, to point them back to you. And that many would experience your mercy because of this church family. So God, help us these coming days to have eyes to those that are hurting, that we would see them, and we would know that the answer is you, and we'd be quick to point them back to you. Thank you for this time. We thank you for your word and how it changes us and shapes us and molds us. And we ask it all in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.