Delight

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to Thrive. It's good to have you here today. We are finishing up today our series called Emotional Jesus, because we find in Jesus Christ, who is fully God, fully human, that he is the extremely emotional. God in fact created your emotions. He created a relationship with you. Your emotions are what you connect with other people. It's not through just ... We aren't really rational creatures, by the way. I know. I want to think I'm logical about my decisions, but we are actually, what St. Augustine said, we are desiring creatures. The Bible talks about how we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. Love is an emotion, as well as a decision, as well as an action. It's not simply just logic. We have been doing this series, because I think as well, it kind of brings us to the next series we're going to do. We are here because we have a God who understands us inside and out. As Hebrews states, he sympathizes with us. He understands. He understands our weaknesses. He has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. He gets you. He understands. He does a better job with his emotions. He's perfect, of course. My emotions are a little of a mess, but his are right on, and today we're going to be looking at the emotion called delight, and I think it's a great way to end this series. We're going to be looking at two stories in the Gospel of Luke, okay? In Luke chapter 18 and Luke chapter 19. They are, by the way, connected. In fact, they are right after each other. You realize that the chapters and verses were added into the text of the New Testament well after Luke or Matthew or Mark or any of them were written, well after that in the Middle Ages, and so somebody decided to put a chapter division between these two stories, but I think Luke connects them together, and I think they are about two people in whom Jesus delights, okay? One is oppressed, a blind man by the side of the road. His name, we find out from Mark, is Bartimaeus. I think that's significant as well, and the crowd pushes him away, wants him to shut up. That's actually the word, I mean, with that kind of force, they rebuke him. The other is the oppressor, Zacchaeus, who has oppressed everyone in Jericho. One happens on the way into Jericho, one happens on the way out of Jericho, and Jesus invites both. In fact, Jesus invites himself into Zacchaeus' house, which is unheard of, so we're going to be looking at those stories now, and so you can follow along. First of all, in Luke 18, 35 and following, and then we'll go into Luke 19, 1-10. As he drew near to Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging, and hearing a crowd going by, he inquired what this meant. 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 to be brought to him. And when he came near, he asked him, what do you want me to do for you? 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, when they saw it, gave praise to God. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus, he was chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him. Since Jesus was coming that way, when Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and he said to Zacchaeus, to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately, I must stay at your house today. So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, he's gone to be the guest of a sinner. But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor and I have, if I cheated anybody out of anything, I'll pay back four times the amount. Jesus said to him today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham, for the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. These are the last two encounters Jesus has with people before he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And I think Luke specifically picks these two stories out, one of an oppressed and another of an oppressor, one of a person born blind and one who was so short he couldn't see Jesus. Both want to see Jesus, both want to be able to see, the crowd pushes one away, the crowd despises the other, Jesus invites himself into the life of both of them. And I think it's really because the summary statements for each of these stories...