One of your greatest needs in life is to feel valuable; that your life matters; and that you are worthwhile. Because of this, you’ll find yourself looking around and comparing yourself to other people.
In our society we tend to base our self-worth on four things:
1 - We judge our worth first by our appearance.
"How do I look? The better I look, the more I am worth in people’s eyes."
2 - Then we judge our worth by our achievement.
What have I accomplished? "If I am successful, then they will accept me."
3 - Then we judge our worth on approval.
"How well am I liked? If people like me, I must be okay."
4 - Finally, we judge our worth on our affluence.
"Do I have enough toys? If so, people will accept me as their equals." (This is also known as "keeping up with the Jones’)
The problem with these four standards is that none of them are stable. They will all change. Appearances change with time. Others will soon surpass any records that we have set; how well others like you can change in the blink of an eye; and your affluence can change with one bad choice.
The trouble with letting things like these dictate your self-worth is that your self-worth will always be changing and you will never know from one moment to the next where you stand. And, what do you think your self-worth will be when those things change?
If you want to build your self-esteem in such a way as to make it last, you’ve got to build it on something that won’t change. And there’s only one thing that won’t change, and that is what God thinks about you.
When we understand what God thinks of us, it changes the way we see ourselves, and that starts changing our hearts to be Christ-like.
There is a very good example of that in the New Testament. It involves a man named Zacchaeus, and we are going to talk about him this morning.
Zacchaeus was a man who lived in the city of Jericho. One day Jesus came to Jericho and Zacchaeus had an encounter with Jesus that changed his life.
LUKE 19:1-4 tells us about that encounter.
“Jesus entered Jericho and made His way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was one of the most influential Jews in the Roman tax collecting business; and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowds. So, he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree beside the road, so he could watch from there.”
Zacchaeus was hoping to see this Jesus; the man everyone was talking about. He didn’t know this, but he needed Jesus in the worst of ways. If there was ever a man who needed a stronger sense of self worth, it was Zacchaeus, because in the four ways we evaluate ourselves, he struck out in the first three.
His appearance was not the most beautiful to look at because of his short stature; the only real achievements he ever had was overcharging people and cheating them for his own financial gain; and his approval rating was in the sewer because he collected taxes from the Jews and gave them to the Roman government. But, he was wealthy.
First of all, to become a tax collector you had to bribe an official. Secondly, Rome told you how much to collect, and if you were able to collect more, you could keep the extra. Similar to what it seems like the IRS does to us sometimes today. Zacchaeus was pretty good at gouging his fellow Jews, so he ended up being quite wealthy.
For a Jewish man to become a Roman tax collector was unthinkable. This was high treason. It was like going over to Iraq and joining the terrorists who are fighting against us today. You would be hated for being a traitor. If you became a Roman tax collector as a Jew it meant three things.
One, your family would disown you.
Two, you would never be allowed to worship in the synagogue, and
Three, you’d be looked at as bad as a murderer.
As a result, Zacchaeus was miserable on the inside. How do I know that? It’s very simple. I know because you can’t have a guilty conscious and feel good about yourself at the same time. He knew that he was ripping people off, and that would have caused him to lose most of his self-respect over a period of time. What we have here is a guy who has a lot of money but doesn’t like himself. But one day, a brief encounter with Jesus, changed his life. Why? Because he learned how much he mattered to God.
If you are feeling a little down or a little empty today, you came to the right place because this is a place of hope. This is a place of Jesus Christ. This is the place God wants you to be right now; His house.
How do we know we can have hope even when things are going wrong? Because we know that we matter to God.
The story about Zacchaeus illustrates three truths. If you will remember these you’ll never again have problems with how you feel about your self worth.
(TRUTH # 1) - JESUS NOTICES YOU!
No matter how badly I feel when nobody else seems to notice me; I know that Jesus Christ notices me.
Zacchaeus wanted to get a glimpse but he was so short he couldn’t see above the crowd. So Zacchaeus did two things that no wealthy Middle Eastern man would do. He ran through a crowd, and he climbed a tree. These were things that little boys might do in crowds but not well-known men.
That was shocking but what Jesus did was even more shocking. Jesus walks straight through the city, past thousands of people and walks right up to that tree where Zacchaeus was and stops. Notice what happens.
LUKE 19:5,
“When Jesus came by, He looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! For I must be a guest in your home today.”
Why do you think Jesus did that? I think it was because Jesus knew Zacchaeus’ heart, just like He knows your heart today.
You might be up a tree today, or maybe even out on a limb. And you may think God has forgotten you, but in reality, there’s never been a time when God took His eyes off you. He’s seen every breath you’ve ever taken, He’s felt every thought you ever had, and He’s seen every thing you’ve ever done. God has always had His loving eyes upon your life – because God really does care about you.
We have a hard time imagining God paying that much attention to us because we don’t pay that much attention to God. We may not be looking toward God every second of every day, but He sure is looking at us every second of every day.
You might feel that others think you are worthless, but you matter so much to Him that He let His Son die for you.
In LUKE 12:7, Jesus said
“And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to Him than a whole flock of sparrows.”
Just imagine; God thinks we are so valuable He knows the number of hairs on our head! Of course, with some of us, that would not be that difficult.
The deepest expression of love is attention. When you give somebody your attention you’re giving them your love. When you don’t pay attention to your husband or wife or kids you are actually being unloving. God is always paying attention to us. It may not seem like it to us because we really are not all that focused on Him, but again, He is always focused on us.
Little children do something they want to be noticed for, such as riding a bike with no hands, and they will always yell out, “Watch me, Daddy!” “Watch me, Mommy!”
Adults want to be noticed, too. And, just like children, we yell out, but we don’t necessarily do it with words. We act in such a way as to get other people’s attention, or we dress with the goal of capturing other people’s attention. But, what we are really doing is yelling, “Please watch me, somebody!”
For our own well-being, it is vital that we remember to stop depending on other people to feel worthy, and start depending on God.
(TRUTH # 2) - JESUS LIFTS YOU UP.
All of his life Zacchaeus had been ridiculed and rejected. We know that because the word used in LUKE for “short” actually means, “a child’s body that has not fully grown.”
And it would be safe to assume that he was the target of ridicule all of his life. And, this may have something to do with the fact that he was corrupt and didn’t care if he collected from the Jews and gave it to the Romans.
Jesus looked up at Zacchaeus in front of this huge crowd and called him by name, which shocked everybody because Jesus knew the name of the biggest scoundrel in town. But, in spite of Zacchaeus’ sin, Jesus lifts him up while everybody else is putting him down.
In EPHESIANS 2:10 we find out that we are God’s masterpiece. There are two types of artwork. There are prints, which are massed produced on a large scale, all being identical, and there are masterpieces where it may have taken months for an artist to complete.
We are not mass-produced by God, to be just like other people. By His own Word, we are masterpieces; made unique and made for good purposes - God’s purposes.
I have heard people say that God loves us so much, that if He had a wallet, He would carry our pictures in it.
In ISAIAH 49:16 God says
“See, I have written your name on My hand….”
When Jesus Christ looks at the scars in His hands He sees your hand. God doesn’t need to carry our pictures, because He has each one of our names written in the scars of His hands.
There are people who have had some very bad things said to them and done to them over the years. They have been told they are not worth anything, or that they are stupid, or ugly or all sorts of unkind things.
And, as much as they hurt us, we keep carrying them around. We need to get rid of these things so we can live and focus on God rather than to keep living and focusing on our past hurts.
The only way you can get over these things is by realizing that you are so special to Jesus, that He makes you a joint heir to the kingdom of God with Him.
Where we say, "I can’t see my value because of all that has happened to me.", God says, “I can see all your value in spite of all that’s happened to you.”
When this world trips you up, it is only Jesus who lifts you up.
(TRUTH # 3) - JESUS WANTS YOU.
I think the hardest thing for us to understand is that no matter what we have ever done in our lives, God still wants to have a personal relationship with us because he loves us.
People made Zacchaeus feel their hatred because he was a cheat and they hated him. So Jesus Christ did something. He didn’t just walk up to the tree and look up and notice him. And He didn’t just call him by name and affirm him in front of those who hated him. He invited Himself to Zacchaeus’ home for dinner.
In verse 7, it says,
“But the crowds were displeased” they said, “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled."
The truth is we are a lot like Zacchaeus was. We have all done things that have hurt others. But Jesus is far more interested in changing us than He is in condemning us. So He looks at you and He says, “I know you, I love you and I want you in spite of all that you’ve done. And I want you to love Me and have a relationship with Me.”
You remember the story about the Prodigal Son. A father has two boys and one of the boys is impatient and tells his father that he wants his inheritance now instead of waiting for the father to die.
His father gives it to him and he goes to the bar scene in the city and he invests all his money in wine, women and song (and we’re not talking hymns, either).
He ends up dirt broke on the street all tapped out. He ends up having to get a job feeding pigs in a pigsty.
He finally wakes up and goes home. He plans on telling his dad that he is unworthy to be a son, and he plans on begging his dad to hire him to be a servant. The boy has a very bad self-image, doesn’t he? He thinks he is not worth anything. But what does his father do?
His father sees him coming down the road and runs out to meet the boy, giving him a hug. He did not lecture him and tell him how bad he was or how stupid he was. He told him how loved he was.
Some people think that if they go to Christ with all the dirt in their lives, Jesus will either lecture them or downright deny them. And, the devil likes people to think that.
There is a story that says God and the devil were talking and God told the devil that He was going to take some things away from him.
God said He was going to take sickness, poverty and many other things away from the devil, and the devil said no problem. Then, finally, God said He was going to take discouragement away from the devil, and the devil came unglued!
The devil told God that was the best weapon he had. He said when everything else fails, all he had to do was throw a little discouragement in front of somebody and they would always fall for it and lose focus of the truth.
The devil uses the discouragement in our lives to keep us from having a healthy and loving relationship with Jesus, too. And, the said part is we always seem to fall for it.
No matter what has ever happened in your life, no matter how badly you have ever been hurt, or how badly you have hurt others, Jesus wants to love you and have you love Him.
If I held up a fifty-dollar bill, and asked who wanted it, how many of you would say, "I do?" Now, If I crumbled it up, stepped on it, got it all dirty and wrinkled, how many would want the $50.00? Raise your hands.
See, no matter what it has gone through, it has not lost its original value. That is a rather loose comparison, but you see what I mean, don’t you? No matter what you have gone through before today, God still loves and wants you, because He knows you have not lost your original value to Him.
Jesus says, "Those the Father has given Me will come to Me and I will never, never reject them.”
God notices everything in your life, His eyes of love are constantly watching you, and He knows your value no matter what anyone else around you is saying about you. He knows the truth, they don’t.
God has a plan and purpose for your life, He made you and He wants you in spite of the fact that you’ve rejected Him in the past. How should you respond to that kind of God?
The way Zacchaeus did. Verse 6 says,
“Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house with great excitement and joy.”
With a God that offers us so much love and eternal happiness, I think we should react in the same way as Zacchaeus did - with great excitement and joy! I cannot comprehend why anyone would refuse God when He is standing there with His arms open.
Zacchaeus took Jesus up on His offer for a relationship, and he was changed instantly. There was no waiting for the slow change to take place either; it was instantaneous.
In verses 8-9, it says,
“Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have overcharged people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.” Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a son of Abraham.”
Something had happened in his heart because the most selfish man in the city all of a sudden became the most generous man in the city.
What happened? Jesus Christ and the love of God changed him - that’s what happened.
How do you know if you’ve really met Jesus Christ? Your attitudes change. You become a more generous person. All of a sudden you start thinking about other people. You realize how much you’ve been given and you want to give back.
Too many people forget that everything they have is from God and they want to hold onto everything they have. But, when Jesus touches them, they start thinking about what they can do to help others.
We were made in God’s image, and when we receive Jesus, we start changing to reflect that image. It’s an image of true love.
Zacchaeus publicly demonstrated his change of heart. He said he was going to give it all away. When you receive Christ He wants you to publicly demonstrate what’s happened on the inside of your heart, too.
That first public demonstration is called baptism. Someone once said it is an outward display of an inward change. It is a public statement that you are now the Lord’s and no longer the world’s.
There are some who have excuses as to why they do not need to be baptized. My feeling is that if you really do receive Jesus in your heart, you will want to do everything He commands us to do, and that includes baptism. After all, being baptized is a small price to pay to show the Man who has our names written on His hands that we love Him.
Jesus knows you have been terribly hurt in the past. He knows that hurt is still with you even today. And He wants you to know that He loves you enough to take that hurt away. He loves you enough to set you free from it.
Do you love Him enough this morning to let Him take the hurts away? Do you trust him enough to open your heart to Him this morning? It does not matter whether you have ever responded to an invitation before. Jesus wants so desperately for you to respond to His invitation to you today. Will you do that for Him?
INVITATION
