Be The Tree
Scripture:
Luke 19:1-10
1 “And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. 2 And, behold, there was a man named Zacchæus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich. 3 And he sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. 4 And he ran before, and climbed up into a sycomore tree to see him: for he was to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up, and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchæus, make haste, and come down; for to day I must abide at thy house. 6 And he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, That he was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner. 8 And Zacchæus stood, and said unto the Lord; Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. 9 And Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
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Introduction
This morning is not going to be your average Sunday before Christmas sermon. I had no peace when I tried continuing the series this week on the Polar Express. I feel like God has given me a prophetic word to release to you today.
Luke 19 is a VERY familiar passage of scripture. We know that Zacchaeus was a man of small stature who was a tax collector and made riches off of the people of Jericho.
We know that he wanted to see who Jesus was so when he got word that Jesus was passing by, he goes and climbs into a sycamore tree.
Tonight, I am not preaching on Zacchaeus, but I am preaching on the tree. The tree that lifted him up to give him the ability to see who Jesus was while also in the presence of the crowd who looked down upon him.
Too many time we resemble the crowd, but if we are going to expand the kingdom, we have to learn to be the tree.
- The Sycamore Tree
A. The sycamore tree is a different tree. It isn’t like an oak or a pine that dies in the winter and produces in the spring. A sycamore tree is different. It does not die in the fall or winter but it’s in those seasons of harsh weather that it begins to grow fruit.
God never promised that every season that we would go through would be a season of full bloom, but the season of the breaking is what prepares us for the making.
It’s in the fall that we see trees losing their leaves, by winter everything is bare, but the sycamore tree grows its fruit in the winter.
When everything else is dying, it is still producing.
When you enter into a season in which everything is dying around you, you have to make a choice to be fruitful even while you are in a season that seems unfruitful.
This tree will spend all winter growing fruit but when the spring comes it’s fruit will bust and its seeds will be scattered in the area with hopes that more trees will spout of from the seeds that was thrown onto the ground.
Our walk with God is not only defined by how well we live when life is easy, but it is based on how committed we are when life is not.
We have to come to a place of understanding that we are the tool in the hand of the master builder. The sycamore tree was a tool that God used to help Zacchaeus see Jesus. We are a tool that God planted here to continued the cycle.
If others aren’t seeing Jesus in us, then we are not fulfilling our God given purpose.
Long before Zacchaeus desired to see Jesus, God planted the tree.
Just like God strategically planted the tree to support Zacchaeus when everyone else was knocking him down with their words.
You can’t lift someone up, if you are too busy gossiping about them. You cannot be an encouragement to someone if discouragement is the only thing that proceeds from your lips.
That tree stood firm while also remaining silent.
When someone is lost, the first thing we want to do is point out their issue, but the tree didn’t point out his issue, it got him to a place where he could see Jesus.
God did send you an invitation for jury duty and he did not vote you in as a judge, but he sent you forth and told you to make disciples.
You are not going to make disciples if you are giving a false representation of the kingdom.
If you are hateful, slanderous, and bitter, no one is gonna want to come to your church. If you are knocking people down more than you are lifting them up, no one is gonna want to know your God.
Make sure that you are a representative of the kingdom of God and not the kingdom that you created on your own.
B. Sycamore Trees are fast growing trees and the Bible does not say that there were many of them there, in fact, it only speaks of one tree. That tells me that God strategically planted that tree there just for Zacchaeus.
I feel the evangelist coming out of me…
If you are going to be fruitful in ministry, you are going to have to stay where you are planted and grow roots there.
If you are going to help people see Jesus, you have got to stop bouncing from church to church every time you get your feelings hurt and something doesn’t go your way.
If you are going to be fruitful, you can’t walk away from the church when hell invades your home.
I just don’t feel like I belong - you ain’t stayed long enough to find out! I just don’t feel like I have a purpose. Before you discover purpose, you need to grow roots!
It probably took years for the tree to have its purpose fulfilled, but it didn’t mean that it served no purpose.
I came to tell someone who is broke, busted, and disgusted who feels like their life has no meaning or like God isn’t holding up his end of the call…
Your life will feel meaningless until Jesus passes by.
This random tree may have looked out of place to some but if it could talk it would have said…”I’m just waiting for Jesus.”
It might have looked out of place, it might have seemed useless. It might have seem good for nothing…but to a man named Zacchaeus, that tree was worth it all!
- Get Planted
This tree spent years unseen. Growing in the darkness below the soil. Seasons passing without applause, but God often plants purpose before we understand it.
This tree wasn’t a preacher, pastor, prophet…wasn’t in the five fold at all, but it just lifted someone when everyone else wanted to knock them down.
It stayed planted so that it could be used when called upon.
Many want to be used by God, but they want to live their life in a Nursery Pot.
I brought one with me today. A nursery pot is what a plant is temporarily in when you buy it in a store. You are not supposed to leave plant in the nursery pot because if you do, the roots cannot penetrate the bottom of it and get into the soil that gives it nutrients to grow.
Therefore, it never reaches its full potential because it is in a confined space.
If left in a nursery pot, the plant will actually be smaller than it was intended to be. Some of us are wondering why our life seems void, empty, and without purpose. You ain’t got out of the nursery pot long enough to grow.
That tree was planted. It was planted for growth and structure. It might have seemed meaningless to some but it wasn’t to a man name Zacchaeus.
What seemed to be meaningless and useless now played a vital role in Zacchaeus’ salvation.
Your life gains meaning when you support the weight of someone else so that they may receive the breakthrough they need.
Did you happen to notice who the tree lifted up? A sinner. Y’all ain’t gonna help me but I’m gonna preach it.
What makes you think for one second they are gonna ask you for spiritual help when all you are going to do is talk about them the moment they walk away.
We have gotten so opinionated that our opinions has altered our ability to reach the lost.
Well I know what they did, and I know the juice on them, and I have the scoop…THEY ARE A SINNER….of course they are going to have dirt on them
You aren’t a tree so that you can throw shade on them, you are a tree so that the seeds from the fruit you bear may grow root in them.
No more cliques in the church that say 3 and 4 but no more…you or I neither one are not here so that we can gather with your same group every week…you are here so that the kingdom of God may be expanded through you and your willingness to be used by God!
If the only people that sees Jesus in you are the ones that already know him…you’re doing it wrong.
All of these people were awaiting Jesus’ arrival but they got jealous when he wanted to go to the sinners house.
God forbid the day when the church gets mad because Jesus visits the sinner…
- Throwing Seed
The Sycamore Tree will endure the harshness of the winter, just to throw its seeds on the ground in the spring, hoping that it will take root. It doesn’t worry about the condition of the soil where the seed lands, but it just keeps sowing.
Listen to me, we are not to decide who is worthy to hear the gospel and who isn’t…we must throw seed, no matter where they land!
Luke 8:5 says “A sower went out to sow his seed” some of them fell on Stoney ground, some of them fell by the wayside, some of them were eaten by the birds, but the seeds that reached the good ground spouted up and bore fruit.
When that sower was sowing, he wasn’t distracted by the seeds that didn’t take root, he just kept sowing even when they didn’t land on good ground.
We cannot let the seed that fell by the wayside keep us from sowing on good ground.
We have to keep sowing seeds in the hearts of others so that they see Jesus in us and hear the testimony that he has given us. Have you ever stopped and thought what your life would be like if someone never sowed a seed?
We have to keep sowing even when it seems like the seeds are growing!
We live in day and generation where everyone wants credit for what they do for others or the seeds they sow in the lives of others.
If we feed the poor, we have to take pictures of it or it didn’t happen. If we give money to someone, we have to constantly remind them of it or it didn’t happen…
A sycamore tree has bark that resembles camouflage.
It serves a purpose but it doesn’t look out of the ordinary.
God doesn’t need a people who wants everyone to notice their deeds…God wants someone who will lift others up but never look out of the ordinary.
People who are content in the background and not on the main stage.
We have developed a generation who is entering into ministry with the mindset of a celebrity and not a servant. So we have a bunch of people who are more interested in winning a popularity contest more than they are souls.
We have idolized the pulpit and so now everyone who is called is automatically called to be behind the pulpit, and no one wants to be camouflaged anymore. No one wants to vacuum the floor and clean the toilets. No one wants to visit the elderly and tend to the sick.
Ministry is not about looking for a place to shine but a place to serve.
I am blessed to a be a mentor and spiritual father to many young ministers in the house today who serve here with excellence. Two of them have been with me a long time. When both of them told me they were called to preach, I made them clean the church before I ever let them behind the pulpit. Why?
If serving is above you then the pulpit is beyond you.
We are not here to gain a following but we are here to expand the Kingdom that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against.
We don’t need a group of people who crowd the streets for Jesus but has no burden for the lost. We need a people who will preach Jesus Christ and him crucified to a lost and dying world that someone may come to know him before it is everlasting too late.
Stand with me all over the house.
Conclusion
Because of a tree, Zacchaeus saw Jesus. Because of another tree we can know Jesus!
Zacchaeus climbed on a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus. Jesus climbed a tree for everyone to have the opportunity to know him.
If we want to know Jesus, we have to do so by way of the cross.
That baby in that manger wrapped in swaddling clothes did not stay a babe. He was the ultimate sacrifice for sin and he is soon coming back as the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords.
What’s amazes me is the fact that Jesus payed little to no attention to the crowd but went straight to the man who climbed the tree just to see him.
If you want to see God move in your life you have to become desperate enough to do something that crowd isn’t doing.
Zacchaeus was fine seeing him from a distance but Jesus wanted not to know him from a distance but on a personal level.
Some of us are fine knowing Jesus from a distance because we know that Jesus is going to change our life. Jesus will call us to a life of holiness and a life of purity.
Zacchaeus in Hebrew means “Pure and Innocent”. Matthew 5:8 says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!”
So many want to see him but they don’t want to live a pure life.
Maybe you are here today and God is speaking to you and you have never been saved, I want to encourage you today, don’t sit in your seat, run to Jesus right now.
Maybe you are here today and you say Ryan, I need to get planted. Planted in God so that I can grow roots. God desires to do a work in you today.
Ryan, I just want to be found faithful in the kingdom of God. I want to keep sowing seeds that I may reach one more should for the kingdom before it’s too late.
God..help us to endure the harsh seasons that prepare us to promote the Gospel so that we can produce more believers! Help us to run with the vision that you have given to this house.