Advanced Level, Block 9—Jesus’ Closest Followers
Week 88
Zaccheus—Responding to His Conscience
Point to Emphasize: Have you learned to have conversations to unload the bad feelings in your heart?
Reference Reading: Luke 19:1-10 w/all footnotes
Memory Verse: I acknowledged my sin to You, / And I did not cover my iniquity. (Psalm 32:5)
Sample Story
The Bible tells us a story of why and how a man named Zaccheus became one of Jesus’ closest followers. Zaccheus lived in the city of Jericho. He was a Jew, one of God’s people. But, he was not a very moral person. He had not kept God’s commandments since his youth. He was a greedy person. He worked as a tax collector taking extra money from the Jews. Others considered him a traitor because he gathered taxes for the Roman government. He became rich by “robbing” others as he collected taxes from them. The Bible calls him a chief tax collector. This made him a top sinner. What a terrible person!
How do you think Zaccheus felt? He was considered a traitor. Respectable Jews wanted nothing to do with him. [Lead the children in a discussion about how Zaccheus felt. Help them by saying Zaccheus probably didn’t feel good about himself. Maybe he really didn’t feel good about robbing people and being considered a traitor. In his heart, he knew he was wrong.]
Yes, surely Zaccheus felt very bad about what he was doing and how he was living. But, he was trapped by his greediness. He may have said to himself, “What I am doing is wrong and my heart tells me so. But, I don’t see any way out.” Something inside of him told him that he needed to see Jesus.
I want to share something that happened to me. I lied and told my dad that I was going to someone’s house. But I actually went where my parents would not allow me to go. When I returned home, I could see it in my dad’s eyes that he knew I had lied to him. Right away I felt terrible. My heart felt so bad. I was trapped by my lie. So, I continued to act as if nothing had happened. During our family time at the dinner table, I tried to pretend that everything was fine. I tried hard to ignore the feeling inside of me but I couldn’t do anything to quiet it. I found it hard to eat dinner and be part of the conversation at the table. I knew I had to do something about it. After dinner, I called my dad aside and confessed to him where I had really been. My dad forgave me and I felt so much lighter. It was easy to breathe again. It was as if something heavy had been lifted off of my chest. I felt so much better. [Storyteller, share a personal story.]
Zaccheus surely felt bad. And when I lied to my dad my conscience was bothering me. Our conscience is the part of our heart that tells us when we are wrong. We have songs about our conscience, but I want to know, has your heart ever felt bad like this? Even this week, each one of you has done things that were not right. You lied. You took something that was not yours. You talked back to your mom. You disobeyed. Maybe no one saw you do these things, but in your heart you knew it was wrong. What did you do when you knew it was wrong? Did you just ignore it? Did you pretend that nothing had happened? Did you try to convince yourself that nothing was wrong? I’m sure you just wanted to “sweep it under the rug”, cover it up, hide it. You didn’t want to tell others how wrong you were. But did it make your heart feel better after all of this? [Storyteller, this paragraph should be a discussion you have with the children to help them realize that trying to cover up or hide the bad feeling will not take care of the bad feeling in their hearts.]
Zaccheus was tired of carrying these bad feelings in his heart. He wanted to get rid of them. So he was desperate to talk to someone who could help him. He knew when Jesus was coming to his city. And because he was short, he climbed up in a tree to see Him. When Jesus walked by, He looked up into the tree and told him to come down. Jesus invited Himself into Zaccheus’ house. While in his house, Zaccheus had a conversation with Jesus and was able to tell Him about the things that were troubling his heart.
We can also have these kinds of conversations with God, with our parents, and with older people who take care of us. In our conversations, we can unload the bad feelings in our heart. We can tell them what we have done wrong. These are the conversations that help our heart.