Powerpoint Pictures: Ladder; Climbing Wall; Stairs; Mountain; Building; Tree

What are some of the things you can climb? [Ladder; Climbing Wall; Stairs; Mountain; Building; Tree]

One day Jesus met a man who had climbed up a tree.  The man’s name was Zacchaeus and he was a tax collector.  Nobody liked tax collectors because tax collectors cheated people out of money.  Zacchaeus was not a good man.

Zacchaeus had heard that Jesus was passing through Jericho where he lived, and he wanted to see Him.  With the crowds lining the road, and Zacchaeus being a short man, he couldn’t see Jesus, so he climbed a sycamore tree.

As Jesus walked along, he stopped by the sycamore tree and looked up and said to Zacchaeus, “Come down, I want to go to your house for a meal.”

The crowd couldn’t believe it.  Jesus was going for dinner with this horrible man, this ‘sinner’.  He was offering this man friendship with God.

Jesus was showing people why He had come and why He was going to die.  To save lost people.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:19)

Jesus had to die not only to make it possible for people to have eternal life in heaven after they died.  He also had to die to make it possible for people who are not friends with God to become friends with God.

Now it’s time to look at how Jesus died.