The Bible is full of unexpected converts.

One of them was a wee little man named Zacchaeus. (“And a wee little man was he.”)

This short-statured Jewish man from the city of Jericho was, by trade, a tax collector. In his world, this was one of the most despicable lines of work a person could be in.

Of course, people have never liked having government agencies come for their possessions—I feel for IRS agents and accountants this time of the year—but in Zacchaeus’s day, tax collectors were seen as more than government auditors. They were seen as extortionists, traitors working for the foreign oppressor named the Roman Empire. Tax collectors also had a reputation for taking a little extra money for themselves.

People would have put their noses in the air when they crossed paths with Zacchaeus. I imagine very few people took the moment to look down into his eyes.

But Jesus didn’t see him the way others did.

Zacchaeus could never have anticipated what Jesus would do in his life—never in a million years.

When Jesus came to town, Zacchaeus decided to go out and see what all the fuss was about. But Zacchaeus couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowds (and this was a day before big projection screens). So, he found a nearby sycamore tree to climb in and get a better view of Jesus.

Jesus spotted Zacchaeus, and the weird thing is, he knew him by name. “Zacchaeus,” he said. I can imagine Zacchaeus being stunned by Jesus’ knowledge of his name. “How does a famous traveling prophet know me, a tax collector?”

Jesus’ next words said were probably even more remarkable to him: “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house” (19:5).

Zacchaeus couldn’t get down out of that tree fast enough. He raced to see Jesus and “welcomed him joyfully” (19:6).

Of course, the town immediately started buzzing because Jesus was not only hanging out with religious people but all of a sudden he was hanging out with tax collectors who were thieving traitors to Israel.

Zacchaeus had a dramatic conversion. After encountering Jesus, he had a changed life, giving half of his wealth to the poor and promising to pay back people whom he cheated four times what he owed them.

Jesus said, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he, too [even if his business was disreputable] is a son of Abraham.”

Jesus then clinches this dramatic story with these words: “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (19:10).

Some of you might read Zacchaeus’ story and think, “That’s nice, but it could never happen to me. I’ve fallen too far for God to love me or use me. You don’t know what I’ve done.”

First, you should know that Jesus can transform any life. You can’t be so far from God that he can’t rescue you. Second, he knows everything about you and your life, just as he did with Zacchaeus. But he still invites you to be with him! He still wants to be part of your life!

Finally, you should know that as much as Jesus loves you, as much as he wants to make your life new, you have to be willing to climb down out of the sycamore tree. When he calls your name, you must respond in order to take the offer he has for you.

Imagine how the story would have turned out if Zacchaeus was too embarrassed to come down, or too nervous to let Jesus come over to his house. What if he felt too ridiculed to come out to see Jesus in the first place?

If you have never taken that initial step and listened to Jesus calling for you, we can explain how. If you are not part of a local church family who will encourage you how to know Jesus better, how you can have a changed life, we would love to have you be part of ours.

We meet on Sunday mornings at 1400 Williams Blvd, Kenner, LA 70062. We have a worship service at 10:30 a.m. and age-specific Bible studies at 9:30 a.m. We would love to have you.

If Jesus calls your name and asks to be with you, listen to his voice and come down from your vantage point to meet him.

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This week, there was a lot of hullabaloo surrounding the unfortunate decision of United Airlines to forcibly pull a man off an airplane. The news spread like wildfire, and social media went nuts with all sorts of jokes and spoofs of this embarrassing debacle.

Nearly twenty-four hours passed before I was in on the jokes. People kept on talking about them, but I was too busy to investigate what actually happened. When I did, what a shocker it turned out to be. I had been obvious the whole time.

The Bible records for us an important account of people who were oblivious to something much bigger than any social media scandal or news headline.

In Luke 24:13-35, we read the story of the experience of two men that fateful Sunday morning Jesus went missing from his tomb. The two disciples were making a seven-mile journey on foot from Jerusalem to a little village named Emmaus.

They had a lot to talk about on their trip. They were arguing about the events that had taken place. The flared emotions they had were consistent with the kind of disappointment they must have felt. Over the weekend, they watched the man that they believed would rescue Israel hang on a Roman cross like a common criminal.

Now, out of the middle of nowhere, a stranger shows up whom they do not initially recognize. (Luke tells us they were prevented from recognizing him.)

This stranger asks what all their fuss was about.

They stop in their tracks, astonished by the stranger’s question: “You must be the only guy in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that just happened there!”

The stranger prods them: “What things?” This stranger was clearly out of the loop, oblivious to what was going on.

So, to the best of their abilities, they begin to explain what Jesus was about to them. They said he was a great prophet. They said he was a great speaker. They said he was a great leader. They went on describing what a huge disappointment this was to them because they hoped this Jesus character would rescue Israel from her foreign enemies. But they also said their religious leaders handed him over to the authorities who nailed him to a cross.

Then they laid the real point of contention down—the thing which had these men arguing. This, they believed, was the real shocker.

They said that some of the women who were in their group went to Jesus’ tomb and couldn’t find his body there. They said they had seen angels who claimed Jesus was alive. They said they had reports that confirmed Jesus’ body was, in fact, missing from the tomb.

Then this stranger, who they didn’t recognize, laid into them. “How foolish and slow you are to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (23:25) In other words, why don’t you read your Bibles?

This stranger went on to explain to them that the Scriptures prophesy that the Messiah had to suffer before he could be glorified. He then gave them a long Bible lesson, going through the entire Old Testament to explain “the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures” (23:27). They didn’t know it, but they were being schooled by the Risen Lord.

Eventually, they invite this stranger in for a meal after their long journey. When the stranger blessed the bread and gave it to them, they suddenly realized who they were with, “their eyes were opened” (23:31). The moment they recognized Jesus, who they had unknowingly spent the larger part of the day with, he disappeared from their sight.

They were overjoyed. They couldn’t get over how their conversation with Jesus made the Scriptures come alive in their hearts. They couldn’t get over the fact that they had just seen Jesus—alive again.

So, they raced back to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples. I can assure you that the trip back to Jerusalem was a lot faster than the trip from Jerusalem.

They ran with a purpose, like men on a mission to proclaim the most life-changing thing that had ever happened to them—to anyone.

What’s amazing about this story is how oblivious they were to Jesus. Here’s the irony: they accused this stranger of being oblivious to what was going on in Jerusalem when they were oblivious to the miracle going on right before their face.

They were kept from seeing Jesus, naturally or supernaturally I’m not entirely sure. But Jesus explains their obliviousness to him was rooted in the fact that they were “slow to believe” and “unwise” or “foolish.”

Sometimes being slow to believe God’s word makes you oblivious to what God is doing in your midst. Maybe God is trying to get your attention now. Maybe God is wanting to bring you into a closer fellowship with him.

God wants to transform your life through the good news of Jesus. Do you recognize his voice when he speaks? Are you paying attention?

If you don’t have a church home, please join us for worship this Easter Sunday at First Baptist Kenner. 

We believe God has something important for you to hear. We believe that the good news of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection can change everything in your life.

You are loved,

Rhyne Putman

Interim Pastor, FBC Kenner

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I’ll never forget a phone call a student made to the office one Monday morning.

I literally answered the phone on the worst day of his life.

His voice was trembling on the other line, “Can you please tell the professor that I won’t be in class today?”

“Sure,” I said, “I can tell him. Is there something we can do?”

“I . . . I . . . just found out my seven-month-pregnant wife was killed in a car wreck. Hit by a driver coming off a long shift who fell asleep behind the wheel. My little girl was in the back seat.”

He was in total shock. He had to be, because he was calling his professor to let him know he wouldn’t be in class after something so tragic happened in his life. I guessed he was trying to find some kind of order, some kind of normalcy in the midst of the chaos.

I was floored by his words. I promised him we would be praying for him, something I immediately started doing so the moment I put the phone back on the receiver.

I have thought about that phone call a lot over the years. I wondered what had happened to the seminary student, his child, and the man who accidentally killed his wife and unborn child.

Nearly a decade later, I happened to come across an article about the crash on a national news media website. What happened after the crash was nothing short of amazing.

First, the little girl in the backseat escaped with minor injuries. The student remarried and is now serving as a pastor in a successful ministry.

Were it me, I might have gone to social media to endlessly gripe about how this driver destroyed my life. I might have gone out of the way to blackball him, to hurt him. Maybe, in a best case scenario, I would have done my best to forget he existed.

The student actually befriended the man driving the car. They actually became close friends. The student/pastor found the power to forgive and pour the love of Christ into this man’s life.

Wow.

Could I forgive someone for doing something like that in my life? Could I forgive the unforgivable? Could I reach out in love to someone who hurt me like that?

Forgiveness is hard. It means letting go of something that someone has done to us that still hurts us. Sometimes it means admitting to ourselves that we have done wrong by holding a grudge—no matter how “innocent” we think we were in what happened.

Can you love people who have wronged you? Can you genuinely care for them, go out of your way to be kind to them, and show compassion to them even if the pain that they caused still lingers?

Jesus longs for his church to show grace and forgiveness to one another, to show compassion to a world in desperate need of it.

Shortly before his death, Jesus gave his disciples this important instruction:

³⁴ “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. ³⁵ By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).

These words remind us of three very important things.

First, Jesus loved us and showed us mercy, grace, and forgiveness when we were not deserving of it. This forgiving man lost his wife in an accident, but we had done something much more vile. We are all sinners who have fallen short of God’s glorious standard for our lives (Rom. 3:23). We rejected the good things God gave us and traded his truth for a lie. All of us deserve death and eternal separation from God (Rom. 6:23).

But God shows how radical his love is for us in this way: while we were his enemies, he gave Christ to die for us (Rom. 5:8). Jesus showed us love, even when we were living in open rebellion to him. Jesus showed us mercy even when have failed to give it others. Jesus showed us grace by putting himself in our places.

Second, Jesus commands us to love another. The love that he calls us to is more than a feeling. The love he has called us to is love in action. We must extend love and mercy to those who wrong them, to tell them they are loved and valued, and to be Christ to them in the world.

Finally, the world will know we are Christians by our love. If the body of Christ doesn’t show love to each other, the world will never believe the gospel. If we don’t love our neighbors, they will never know the love we have experienced in Christ.

So, because we have received God’s love and forgiveness, extending it should come naturally to us. We should practice it with patience and endurance and longsuffering.

When you experience the seemingly unforgivable, remember how you were forgiven and rescued from your sin. Let love and grace change everything.

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The guy who decided the clock should roll back on Saturday after midnight must have been mad at his pastor because pastors and parishioners have been fighting the Sunday morning sleepies ever since! We lose an hour of sleep if we don’t go to bed early, and we are late to places like church on Sunday morning if we forget to set our clocks. It’s a lose-lose situation.

In my house, we love our sleep, and consequently, we love our snooze buttons. In the pre-children days, the alarm would sometimes go off several times between snooze button slaps before one of us got out of bed.

A snooze button is a great way to get a little more rest or to fight off the impending start of the day, but it is also a good way to fall behind or to miss opportunities altogether.

Sometimes people hit the spiritual snooze button. They hear God calling them unto salvation, service, and commitment. They recognize that if they are obedient to God and follow Christ, they will have to make sacrifices. They may have to abandon a treasured sin. They may have to give up their selfish way of life. Knowing this, they hit the spiritual snooze button by delaying obedience.

For some people, it’s simply easier to ignore God’s call. That’s why some people can hide from God by rejecting the gospel. I’ve had people tell me, “I have wild oats to sow, and will follow God later.” Others have said, “I can’t get too serious about my faith too quickly.”

Several people who encountered Jesus in the gospels hit the spiritual snooze button. Some whom Jesus asked to follow him responded, “[I will but] first let me . . .” Sometimes it was “first let me” go spend the remaining time I have left with a family member (Luke 9:60). Sometimes it was “first let me go and say goodbyes” (Luke 9:61).

Jesus wasn’t satisfied with people hitting the spiritual snooze button because he knew that it mean they did not prioritize his call in their lives. The call Jesus prioritized is that we would live our lives in complete surrender to the kingdom or rule of God.

For many who hit the spiritual snooze button, there will never be a chance to respond to God again. Take for example Aaron Burr, the third vice-president of the United States. Though he served under Thomas Jefferson, he was most famous for his illegal duel with Alexander Hamilton, who died in the gunfight. (Yes, before there was a song about this duel in a Broadway musical, this event really happened in history!)

The great tragedy of Burr’s life was the way he ignored God’s call to salvation in his life. He was the maternal grandson of Jonathan Edwards, the most famous preacher in American history. He was raised in a godly home but came to despise his Christian upbringing. He repeatedly ignored his grandfather’s pleas to place his faith in Christ.

Burr fell under great conviction for his sin, feeling God’s tugging at his heart to repent and confess Christ. Rather than surrendering his life to Christ, he asked God to take the conviction away. As he once told friends and family, “Sixty years ago, I told God that if He would let me alone, I would let Him alone and God has not bothered me since.”

Burr ignored God’s call on his life, and though he experienced a few years of political success, lived out the rest of his days in controversy, shame, and isolation. More importantly, he may have missed his only chance for forgiveness.

The eighteenth century hymnist, Joseph Hart, penned these words in his hymn, “Come Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy”:

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy,

Weak and wounded, sick and sore;

Jesus ready stands to save you,

Full of pity, love and power. . . .

If you tarry till you’re better,

You will never come at all.

If we wait until we’re better, we will never come to Christ at all. These are powerful words because they are a reminder that we can’t make our lives better on our own. We are fully dependent upon the grace of God. What Christ alone can give us.

I have personally shared my faith with some individuals who died unexpectedly shortly thereafter, who, to my knowledge, never trusted Christ with their lives and faced a christless eternity in hell. We are not promised tomorrow, and we should not put off the life with Christ we can have today.

Today if you hear the Spirit of God working on your heart, making you aware of your sin and your great need for Christ, please do not delay responding. “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Heb. 4:7).

Hitting the spiritual snooze button may not only cause you to be late to God’s plan for your life. It may cause you to miss it altogether.

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The part that wasn’t so much fun was the drive home Saturday evening. 

In case you aren’t aware, there’s no really easy way to get to New Orleans from Little Rock. There are no direct flights. There is no straight shot down the interstate, not unless you are willing to go several hours out of the way. 

I used my internet mapping tool and plotted out a number of different ways to make the trip. I chose one that would take the least amount of time on the road, but also one that put me on two-way highways for most of the drive. 

In addition to the interstate legs of my journey, I was on nine different highways traveling through the Mississippi and Arkansas delta. (When President Trump started talking about the need for road and infrastructure expansion last night in his address to the joint session of congress, I wanted to write him a letter to suggest making that first road to New Orleans from Little Rock!) Needless to say, it was a long drive that demanded constant attention. No cruise control. No easy to follow signs. No easy way home. 

The Christian life isn’t easy either. We travel a difficult journey along a narrow road (Matt. 7:14). 

Dangers lie on either side. One danger is a rejection of God in self-worship and self-destructive living. Another danger, equally great, is the temptation of self-reliance and a smug self-righteous attitude. Both of these ways are broad, meaning they are easy to travel, and both lead to destruction. 

The promise we have from God is that he will never leave us or forsake us. He cares about us. He values us. 

He loved us so much that he gave us his one and only Son, “who is your life” (Col. 3:4). 

We are also not without a guide. We have God’s living and active Word in Scripture. 

So the road may be long. It may be tough. There are moments when we are tempted to turn around and go elsewhere. But God is faithful. And he is good. 

Your interim pastor loves you,

Rhyne

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He wants to play football. All the time–even after football season is over. And when he doesn’t want to play football, he wants to play basketball, baseball, or soccer. 

Were it not for his dashing good looks–he looks like me after all–I might think we brought the wrong kid home from the hospital. 

Even when it’s dark outside, we have created a little path in the living room his Mama allows us to play football in–so long as we play with a soft Nerf ball and keep it relatively low in the air. Opposite sides of the living room make our end zones. 

He usually plays the Saints on one side of the line of scrimmage and I am forced to play whoever “the bad team” he’s imagined as rival. (I usually get a little squeamish when he asks me to play the Falcons.)

Now here’s the thing: this nearly kindergarten-age little boy understands the rules of the game. He knows them much better than I did when I was twice his age. He understands the down system, the point system, the key positions, and even some of the special plays. 

We run and pass up the living room for what seems like hours on end before bed time with the proviso that we don’t break Mama’s stuff. 

I’ll be quite honest with you: when we first began playing, I usually let off the throttle and let him win. He’d “pull” me down the ground for a “tackle.” And he’d never get stopped on the line of scrimmage like I could have stopped him. 

But something strange started happening: he started getting better and better with each time he played. It got to the point when I actually started having to exert some energy to stop him from running into the end zone and winning. 

When we take the game outside into a wide open field, he’s usually able to bypass me and make the run through the cones. 

At some point during our home games I made a conscious decision that it would be good for him (and maybe for my ego) to give him a little pushback and experience some loss. 

Learning to deal with loss well is just as important as learning to win, if not more so. Life is full of loss and grief and pain. We can’t always win. We can’t always succeed. Not in this broken, messed-up world. 

The first few times I started to push back and drive up the score and win, he grew very frustrated. He would throw himself down in the floor and have a fit–which caused Mama and Daddy to throw a flag and subject him to the penalty room. 

After some time, he grew to deal with loss. 

But in one particularly difficult moment I had to sit him down and explain to him that just because he was presently losing didn’t mean that he wouldn’t win the game. 

In football, I explained, there are moments called comebacks. Just look at this year’s Super Bowl! A team that is way behind can come back and win.

The concept not only cheered him up in the moment, it made him realize that playing the game even when you are down three touchdowns is still worth playing. There’s always a reason to play for when comebacks remain a possibility. 

In life’s most difficult circumstances, it is important for Christians to remember that God allows comebacks. In fact, for the believer who knows Jesus, the comeback is guaranteed in this present age or the next. 

We all say goodbye to those we love. We all deal with illness. We all deal with defeat in various ways. 

The good news is Jesus has won. Jesus has the victory. 

In the midst of all his hardships and difficulties, Paul knew this well:

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” (1 Cor 15:57)

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom 8:37). 

Jesus put it this way:

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Jesus has overcome the world. Jesus has overcome death. 

Jesus has overcome the devil. 

Jesus will overcome our pain. 

God not only allows comebacks. He’s promised them. 

Your interim pastor loves you

Rhyne Putman

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