Zacchaeus had been lost but now he was found. He had been in sin but now he has been saved. And ultimately, in its fullest sense, that's what salvation is: it's freedom from the power of sin. It appears that the major sin that Zacchaeus was trapped in was materialism. He was hiding in the pursuit of wealth, perhaps out of a legitimate desire for significance and security but it had so controlled his life that it caused him to hurt others and himself. But when he's found by Jesus and knows that he's been forgiven, he's finally set free from of the power of Mammon in his life.

In his great novel The Robe, Lloyd Douglas uses the story of Zacchaeus to describe the liberating impact which Jesus makes on us. After Zacchaeus promises to give away all this money, Douglas has Jesus ask, "Zacchaeus, what led you to do that?" And Zacchaeus answered, "Master, when I looked into Your eyes, I saw mirrored there the Zacchaeus I was intended to be." That's exactly what salvation does for us: it sets us free to be the people whom God originally intended us to be.

Let me ask you: What are you hiding in today? What's keeping you from becoming the person that God wants you to be?

Is it the pursuit of great amounts of money? Is it the pursuit of illicit sexuality? Or is it the pursuit of something far more "culturally respectable" - maybe achievements or accomplishments or higher education? Or maybe, just maybe, you're stuck in guilt. Something went wrong in the past, you messed up, but you're still there, unable to get free, and hiding from God and others.

There's only one power in the universe that can liberate us from the power of sin and that's Jesus of Nazareth. He has come to find us, to forgive us, and to free us, just like He did with Zacchaeus.

In the mid-nineteenth century, major portions of the United States were infected with slavery. The story is told that on one occasion when he heard about a slave auction nearby, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln went to observe what transpired at those events. When he arrived, he saw black Americans chained like cattle, auctioned off to the highest bidder. Eventually, a young woman was brought to the block and the bidding started. Lincoln put in a bid which was countered by another. He bid higher and was countered again. Finally, he outbid all the others and the auctioneer proclaimed: "Sold!" Then the slave traders brought the young woman off the block and set her at Lincoln's feet. He reached down, unlocked her chains and said, "Now you're free." She looked up at him with a quizzical look and asked, "What does it mean to be free?" And Lincoln responded, "It means that you can think anything you want, you can say anything you want, you can go wherever you want." The reality of her newfound freedom began to sink in and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she said, "Then I will go with you."

That's what Jesus wants to do with us. He has come to find us, to forgive us and to free us from the power of sin. Are we willing to let Him do that? And having let Him do that, are we then willing to go with Him wherever He wants us to go?

1W. E. Shewell-Cooper, "Sycamore" in The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 5. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1975), p. 549.

2John Ortberg, Love Beyond Reason, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), p. 11-12.