
More Than Ever, part 2: A House United
Luke 19:1-10
“There is ALWAYS a place for you.” (artist: Hannah Joiner)
Having a
Context - Jesus makes an unexpected house visit
1 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”
8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”
9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” —Luke 19:1-10
“I must stay at your house today.”
What is a house?
A place where Jesus goes to hang out with
Jesus doesn’t come for the healthy, but for the sick.
A place where our
Jesus overturns the tables in the Temple and tells everyone they’ve turned His Father’s house into a den of thieves.
Will you ask the people in your house, “What can I do for you today?”
- A place where we
Today, salvation has come to this house.
Ashley Ridge needs a house.
- A place where teenagers can show up with mud still on their shoes - and while they might get fussed at about the mud, they’ll never get turned away
- A place where people who are hurting don’t have to hide - instead, they can stand up and say, “I need someone to pray for me what I can no longer pray for myself.”
- A place where we walk in with an expectation of being changed - challenge and conviction don’t have to beat us down, but they can give us life that is truly life
- A place where we look beyond ourselves to the lives and needs of others, where we show up not only for what we stand to gain, but for the person who will sit next to us
It’s time to build our house, a place where we will ALWAYS belong because the Father of the house says it is so.