WHERE SHORTCOMINGS ABOUND, GRACE ABOUNDS MUCH MORE
- Pastor Mensah Otabil at International Central Gospel Church, Christ Temple Accra|| Sunday Service
For some time now, I have been doing a series about Rising. I started with ‘Let God Arise’ and last week I looked at ‘Rise up and Walk’.
Today I am following through from there and my message is titled ‘RISE ABOVE YOUR SHORT COMINGS’.
Everybody has some form of a shortcoming, a short coming is something that makes you fall short of expectation or fall short of a standard or your own desires. Church Gist. That shortcoming can keep you from a big thing that God wants to do in your life. A shortcoming can make you feel inadequate for what God wants to do in your life.
Today we are going to learn how to overcome the shortcoming. We are going to look at a man who had shortcomings and tried to rise above them. His name is Zacchaeus.
Luke 19:1-10
The story of Zacchaeus sometimes appears comical because you can imagine the height of the man and his whole sense of activities. I am going to use the story of Zacchaeus as a metaphor of how we rise above our shortcomings.
Zacchaeus was short, and his name meant pure but by his actions he was seen as not pure by the Jews. Zacchaeus had two main shortcomings, the first was his reputation. Church Gist. He had a bad reputation – he was a chief tax collector. To the Jews of Jesus’ time, tax collecting was not a good job. It was hated. Tax collectors were contractors who worked for the Roman Government in oppressing the Jewish people. People didn’t like them because they squeezed money out of the Jews. Zacchaeus was not just a tax collector, he was a chief tax collector.
His second shortcoming was his stature. He was a short person and he couldn’t be blamed for his height. He didn’t make himself short, he was born that way. He inherited that stature but he chose his reputation. Sometimes shortcoming are inherited, you are just born that way and other times it is as a result of the choices you make.
The Bible calls Zacchaeus a rich person meaning that he had found a way to manage his shortcomings. Church Gist. People didn’t like him but that didn’t bother him, he still went on and made money.
His shortcomings didn’t seem like shortcomings, then one day all of these things that he had managed so well came against him. He heard of Jesus and he wanted to see Jesus. Sometimes you can be okay with a shortcoming because you can manage it well until a day comes when you can’t manage it. That day for Zacchaeus was when he sought to see Jesus.
Although Zacchaeus had a bad reputation of taking people’s money from them against their will but deep inside his heart, he had a spiritual desire for God. There are people who can seem very rough inside but deep inside they have a deep hunger for God. That was who Zacchaeus was. He seemed to not care about anybody, he seemed to love money more than God until Jesus showed up.
The first challenge he had was a hostile crowd, The crowd didn’t like him and they felt he didn’t belong with them or was qualified to mingle with them. How do you survive in a place where people don’t like it? Sooner or later some of us find ourselves in places where people don’t like us.
The second challenge was that they hindered him because everybody seemed to be taller than him and stood in his way. The crowd is hostile to him and the crowd hinders him.
How did Zacchaeus deal with this hostility and hindrance? He understood his shortness but he didn’t allow his shortness to shorten him. Sooner or later you are going to have a dream and that dream is going to make all your shortcomings appear. Church Gist. You are going to be summoned to a place and then you realize that you don’t have what it takes.
Our desires can be very difficult to achieve because of our shortcomings. Some times you might want to live for God but you have some past entanglements that makes it difficult. You might want to have a happy marriage but you have a bad temper and that seems to be hindering you.
How do you see Jesus when you are in the wrong place and there is so much hostility and hindrance. First thing we noticed is that he ran ahead in other words, he left the crowd. He didn’t give up, instead of abandoning the dream, he ran ahead with it. If you stay where people want you to be, they will keep you in the place where they have designed for you to be.
He solved one problem, he left the hostile crowd but he is still short. He did something else, he climbed the sycamore tree to solve the height problem. He had to be creative, he had to use an opportunity that was ahead of him to get high. Zacchaeus anticipated where Jesus was going to pass and went to climb a tree there. When Jesus got there, he looked up. He didn’t look down on him, he had positioned himself in such a way that he will be visible and available for Jesus. He did that by running ahead and climbing up. Don’t abandon the dream, you are going to run ahead and climb up.
It’s time you found your own sycamore tree. The sycamore tree has tall branches that are broad and it’s branches reach downward, so they are at the point where Zacchaeus can reach it. Whether it is your height, finance, reputation, your temper or your education, or your past, or in your walk with God, for every shortcoming, there is a sycamore tree that God will put in your way.
1 Corinthians 10:13
God will make a way of escape so you can bear it. That is what he did for Zacchaeus, his height or reputation didn’t change but he ran ahead and found a way of escape. That way of escape was the sycamore tree. It could be stature, it could be a physical look, it could be academic, it could be financial, God will cause you to find solution.
The good thing about the Sycamore tree is that it was common, it was available and accessible. Even short Zacchaeus found something that was purpose fit for him and it lifted him up above the crowd, above people who despised his reputation. Church Gist. The sycamore tree is what I call the sufficiency of God’s grace for us.
There is always grace available for your shortcomings. Where shortcomings abound, grace abounds much more.
2 Corinthians 12:7-9
There is something about your weakness that activates the grace of God. There is something about your shortcomings that activates the grace of God, so that where you are weak, God’s strength kicks in. Church Gist. God is going to give you a way of escape but don’t just watch your way of escape, you have to run ahead and climb to meet it. You have use it. For every place of weakness you have, God has an appointment of strength for you. That is what I call your sycamore tree. It could be a person or an opportunity to help you rise up to the place God wants you to be.
The sycamore tree deals with your short coming but it doesn’t solve your problem. It only gives you a way out of your problem.
The story of Zacchaeus ends with him fulfilling his initial desire to meet Jesus. His hindrance and shortcomings didn’t stop him. When you have Jesus, He becomes the completion and perfection of every need of your heart. When you meet Jesus you find your heart desire.
We learn from Zacchaeus that we can have shortcomings – it could be reputational or stature, it could be inherited or stature and they could be a hindrance in our lives but God will always make a way of escape. When God gives you a way of escape you don’t look back at your past, you run ahead and climb up.
- May the Lord cause you to climb up above every limitations and shortcoming that wants to hold you down.
Father we pray this morning for every child of yours who feels like Zacchaeus with shortcomings, we ask that as you did for Apostle Paul you do same for each one of us. That your grace will be sufficient for us, that you will show us the person, the paths and the opportunity for us to get to the place that you want us to get to. Help us never to sit in a place of hostility and rejection but to rise above it to do your will and to fulfill your vision in Jesus name, Amen.
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