WHAT IS GOD LOOKING FOR?

Luke 19: 1 – 10

To begin this sermon, I’m going to read 3 brief passages of Scripture. And as I do, see how quickly you can discover the connection between them.
The first is 1 Samuel 9:2. It says "He had a son named Saul, an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites a head taller than any of the others."
Then Luke 19:1-4 says, "Jesus entered Jericho & was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector & was wealthy.
“He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead & climbed a sycamore fig tree to see Him, since Jesus was coming that way."
Have you figured out the connection yet? I think some of you have.
The third passage is 1 Samuel 16:7, which says, “But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
Do you see the connection between these verses? All three passages make mention of physical appearances.
I wonder how many of us have ever stood before a mirror & wished that we had a different face or a different body? Now, you don’t need to raise your hands.
But if you can honestly say that you have never wished for a different face or body, you are among the minority, because most of us, at one time or another, have wished that we looked differently than we do.
You remember comedian Don Knotts, don’t you? In one of his movies he said, "What I need is a body transplant." Some of us here have felt the same way.
There is such a tremendous emphasis in our country on appearance that it affects almost everybody. Just turn on your TV any morning & you’ll see all kinds of exercise programs, advertisements for the latest miracle diets, for health spas, & for low calorie or fat free foods.
So many people strive & strain to improve their physical appearance. But really, "Beauty is only skin deep," isn’t it? And at times we are reminded that “Beauty is also in the eye of the beholder."
But if "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder," it is not always clear what is beautiful & what is not.
In fact, in parts of Africa, a beautiful woman is one whose lower lip has been stretched out so far that she can insert a 12" round disk in it. The Ubangis may admire that, but it certainly isn’t our idea of beauty.
The Mayan indians believed that beauty was found in having a narrow, elongated head. So when a baby was born, while its skull was still soft & pliable, they tied boards to both sides of its head. They bound them together tightly, gradually increasing the tension to produce a head that was long & narrow.
And if you look back in history, up until the 20th Century much of the world thought that the most beautiful women were those who had plenty of meat on their bones. It has only been in recent generations that western civilization has begun to place so much emphasis on being thin.
Think about it. Maybe the key to solving all our concerns about our appearance is not more dieting, but just to change our definition of beauty back to what it once was. Then most of us could go on our way feeling very satisfied about ourselves.
But setting all that aside, I thought that the contrast between King Saul in the O.T., & Zacchaeus in the N.T. is interesting.
Here is Saul. 1 Samuel 9:2 tells us that he was “an impressive young man without equal among the Israelites – a head taller than any of the others.”
So if we were to describe Saul in modern day terms, what kind of guy would he be? Captain of the football team? King of the prom? Heart throb of every girl at school?
He is a success in everything he tries to do. Then he is chosen to become the first King of Israel, ruler over a whole nation. And everybody praises him!
But a few years pass by, & we come to 1 Samuel 15:22-23 where, because of Saul’s arrogance & frequent disobedience of God’s commands, God tells Samuel the Judge, who had originally anointed Saul as King, to say to him:
"Does the Lord delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you as King."
Later, Saul feels further rejection when the people sing, "Saul has killed his thousands, but David has killed his tens of thousands." (1 Samuel 18:7)
And finally, overwhelmed by his feelings, in the midst of a fierce battle, Saul took his own life because he couldn’t face the prospect of being captured by the enemy.
Now, in contrast to Saul, let’s look at Zacchaeus. We are told that he is a short man. That’s interesting, because Anthropologists tell us that the average man’s height back in N.T. days was 5’3", much shorter than today.
So when the Bible points out that Zacchaeus was short, it means that Zacchaeus must have been really short. Some scholars suggest that Zacchaeus may even have been a dwarf.
So can you imagine what his life must have been like when he went to school? Let’s put it into a modern context: Everybody made fun of him.
He was always last when they chose teams to play at recess. None of the girls wanted a date with Zacchaeus. Everybody laughed at him. So Zacchaeus grew up with a chip on his shoulder.
And when he became an adult, & the Roman Empire was looking for a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus jumped at the chance. Because you see, to be chief tax collector meant that you could "get even," you could "rip off" your own people.
Zacchaeus didn’t care, because no one liked him, anyway. They had always rejected him. So he took the job, & succeeded at it. He found himself making lots of money at the expense of his own countrymen. He built himself a big house, & became very wealthy
So Zacchaeus became a big little man in Jericho. He was important because he had made himself important.
Now I want to remind you about 1 Samuel 16:7where God told Samuel, “The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”"
He looks beyond whether you are too tall or too short or too heavy or too thin. He looks inside the heart & He sees what is there.
So a good question for us this morning is this, "What is God looking for when He looks into our hearts?" Let me suggest 3 things to you.
First, I think He is looking for a heart that will reflect His love.
Listen to Luke 19:5. It says, "When Jesus reached the spot, He looked up & said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.’ So he came down at once & welcomed Him gladly."
Can you read between the lines? I wonder if maybe Jesus is the very first person who ever said, "Zacchaeus, I want to spend the day with you."
Did you notice how Zacchaeus responded? He came shinnying down that tree as fast as he could, & it says that "Zacchaeus welcomed Him gladly."
Maybe for the first time in his life, someone showed love & attention to this little, rejected man. Somebody reached out to him & said, "You count. You amount to something." So Zacchaeus welcomed him gladly. He was like a sponge, soaking up that love.
And when Jesus reached out to him in love, his heart was ready to receive it, & to be changed by it.
So I believe that when God looks into our hearts He is looking for a heart that will accept His love.
God is no respecter of persons. It doesn’t make any difference if you are tall or short, fat or thin. He just wants a heart that is ready to receive His love, & reflect His love to others.
A preacher was walking down the hall of a large hospital, & he saw someone in a wheelchair. He said that he really couldn’t tell at first if the person was a male or female because the body was so twisted & gnarled.
Well, it was a boy, & he was in one of those motorized wheel chairs that can be controlled by the movement of just a finger or two.
By moving your fingers, you can make the wheelchair go backward or forward, to the left or to the right.
Well, this boy was motoring up & down the hallways, going faster than all the rest who were walking along. Soon he whizzed by the preacher, went all the way down to the end of the hall, then turned around & came back.
And as he was coming back, the preacher looked into his face, & he saw a great big smile & a look of exhilaration.
Evidently he had just gotten the wheelchair, & all of this was the expression of joy in his new found mobility. And when the preacher saw the face, he forgot all about the twisted body. He saw only the sparkling eyes & the great big smile.
I think God is like that. He doesn’t see the imperfections, the scars & scrapes. He looks right into the heart. Is there love there that reflects the love of God so that the rest of the world can see it too?
I think that God is also looking for repentance & commitment. Listen to vs. 8. It says, "But Zacchaeus stood up & said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here & now I give half of my possessions to the poor, & if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’”
You know, so many times we sit around with hearts full of love, & souls that have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, & we allow our commitment to waste away.
God has given us wonderful news to share with the rest of the world, & we almost never share it, almost never tell anybody about what Christ has done for us. The result is that our commitment begins to die.
If God has done something wonderful for you, it only stands to reason that you would want to share it. Zacchaeus did!
He said, "My life is going to be different from now on. I’ll give half my wealth to help the poor. And if I’ve cheated anybody, I’ll give them 4 times as much as I took from them."
That’s repentance & commitment! He wants everybody to know what has happened, how his heart has been changed, & how his life is going to be different. And he is committed to making that known.
And how did Jesus respond to Zacchaeus? Listen to vs 9, “Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.” In other words, "Zacchaeus, today all your sins, all your faults have been forgiven, & you, too, are a part of the family of God. You belong to God!
Can you imagine what that must have meant to Zacchaeus? All his life he had been an object of ridicule & rejection. But Jesus has reached out to him with love, & then Jesus tells him a wonderful truth, “For the Son of Man came to seek & to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10)
I like the story about a man named Big Jim.Big Jim was the head of an orphanage, & he had a great ability to make people feel good about themselves. If there was a little kid with unruly hair, he had the ability to make that child believe that everybody wanted unruly hair.
If a kid had big feet, why he made him think that everybody envied him, that it was the "in" thing to have big feet.
He just had the ability to make everybody feel good about themselves, regardless of their physical appearance.
Well, one day when Big Jim was out buying groceries, the social worker brought a new boy to be cared for in the orphanage, a little boy about 9 years old who had an ugly birthmark on the side of his face. The kid had been abused, nobody seemed to love or accept him, & he was filled with hostility.
Well, when she left him, he began cursing her & everybody around him. Then he went over to the corner, sat down & sulked. He wouldn’t talk to anybody, not even the other kids.
The kids wondered what Big Jim would do when he came back. Finally, they heard his old station wagon pull up, & they all rushed to the door, greeting him & hugging him as they always did.
Big Jim walked into the room & there was this little boy crouched in the corner, with the ugly birthmark on his face. Big Jim said, "Well, what do we have here?" Someone said, "The social worker just dropped him off.”
"Well, well," said Big Jim. He walked over to that little boy & knelt down beside him. Then he swooped him up in his arms & kissed him right on that birthmark.
All the kids started clapping, because they knew that if Big Jim kissed the birthmark it was all right. It made it beautiful, just because Big Jim said it was.
People, that is what God has done. His love has covered us completely so that He doesn’t see the ugly parts of us any more. We are beautiful in God’s sight. He has made us beautiful.
If you’re here & are experiencing the loneliness of rejection, then I want you to know that God looks beyond all those things that people might consider ugly & unattractive. He looks at your heart. He looks for love. He looks for repentance. And He looks for commitment.
If you have those things, you’re beautiful in God’s sight. If you don’t have them, God wants to take you in His arms, the same way that Big Jim took the little boy in his, & make you all new again.
We extend the Lord’s invitation. We invite you to come as we stand & sing.

Contributing Sermon
by Melvin Newland