Good morning, Church.
The reading is taken from Luke chapter 19, verses 1 to 10.
! You'll find it in your church Bibles on page 1053.
!
And he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy.
He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd.
So he ran ahead and climbed the sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.
When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him,
He said, Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your home today.
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter,
He is going to be the guest of a sinner.
But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord,
Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor,
and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.
Jesus said to him,
Today salvation has come to this house,
because this man too is the son of Abraham.
For the son of man came to seek and save the lost.
Amen.
Great. Thank you for reading for us, Yvonne.
Do keep your Bible open there.
Let me pray as we come to God's word.
Let me pray for us.
Heavenly Father, we are so, so very eager to hear your word.
But we know that you are even more eager to speak than we are to listen.
And so we pray that you might be gracious to us this morning.
That as your word is open, as there are many things to distract us,
it's warm in here,
we've maybe got other things on our minds,
we pray, please, that you might give us hearts and ears to listen.
And that you might lead us to repentance and faith in Jesus,
in whose name we pray.
Amen.
Now, the story that Yvonne just read for us
is probably quite familiar to many of us in the room.
Even if you've never been to church before,
you might somewhere in a memory of school, perhaps,
remember a story about a short man climbing a tree somewhere in the Bible.
If you're my age or a bit older,
you might have learned a song.
I'm not going to sing it.
Now, Zacchaeus was a very little man.
A very little man was he.
He climbed up into a sycamore tree to see if his saviour he could see.
And when the Lord Jesus was...
Anyway, right? I'm not going to carry on.
The problem with that song,
and even with our familiarity with the story,
is that I think we can actually miss what's really going on.
Because when you look at the story in its detail,
and how Luke's told it,
you realise the story has very little to do with the size of Zacchaeus,
or really very little to do with the sycamore tree.
Those things aren't that important.
What the story is really about is about repentance.
It's a story about a man
who was heading in one direction at the beginning of the story,
who is now heading in a totally different direction,
who has been transformed.
It's about a man who was at one point an outcast,
who has now become an insider.
A renowned sinner has become a saint.
A lost person has been found and brought near.
So what I want to try and do is show you five surprises from the story
that point to this meaning.
And I have a very limited and very dull PowerPoint,
which is because my PowerPoint assistant is on camp.
That shouldn't be allowed, should it?
But anyway, there you go.
So I'm going to try and go through it.
The first surprise is this.
Jesus is searching for Zacchaeus.
Because I think when you read it,
you think that actually Jesus is being searched for by Zacchaeus.
But really the story is the other way around.
Now, Zacchaeus is eager to see Jesus.
You notice that, don't you?
Verse 3, he wanted to see Jesus.
Verse 4, you see that he ran ahead
and climbed a sycamore tree to see him.
Both of which probably took a little bit of effort for a short man.
But it seems that the contrast in the story that Luke wants you to notice
is this contrast between Zacchaeus, the running tree climber,
and Jesus, the lost person seeker.
That's the comparison we're meant to make.
So notice Zacchaeus wants to observe Jesus from the safety of a tree.
He wants to stand at a distance, get a good look at what's going on,
and make his own assessment.
It's, I think, probably almost certain that climbing the tree
is a way for Zacchaeus to actually observe Jesus
without being observed himself, right?
People don't tend to, as they walk down the street, look up, yeah?
They tend to just kind of walk along.
And so Zacchaeus presumably thinks,
well, I can see Jesus from here,
but it's probable that people won't notice that I'm up here.
Zacchaeus had his safe spot.
But your contrast is that Jesus does actually stop.
And more than that, you're told in verse 5
that when Jesus reaches what is called the spot, right,
the particular location,
Jesus has been aiming deliberately for this destination
and has now arrived at that destination
and he looks up intentionally and calls out to Zacchaeus
and asks Zacchaeus his immediate action.
I'm coming to your house.
Come down from the tree right now.
Do it.
The contrast is so strong that as we were looking at with the children,
when Jesus summarizes the story in verse 10,
he says,
this story is about the Son of Man coming to seek and save the lost.
In other words, when you actually stop to think about it,
this story is not about Zacchaeus looking for Jesus,
but Jesus looking for Zacchaeus.
Zacchaeus goes to observe from the safety of a tree.
Jesus hunts Zacchaeus down and visits him.
Now, I want to suggest to you this morning
that that dynamic is all the way through the Bible.
All the way through the Bible,
we find that Jesus is looking for his people.
That mission that he is on to come and seek and save the lost
is the mission that now carries on
through the preaching of the gospel like this this morning.
So perhaps I can say to you this morning,
maybe you're like Zacchaeus this morning.
You've not climbed a tree.
Maybe you've sat in the balcony or whatever the equivalent is.
You're hoping to observe Jesus from a safe distance.
Look and not touch.
See but not be seen.
I want to find out about Jesus.
I want to evaluate Jesus.
See what he has to offer.
See how that might fit with me.
And the surprise for you this morning
is that you might be looking to observe Jesus
from a safe distance.
But he's calling out to you
because he wants to encounter you.
He wants you to know him.
He wants to come and stay with you.
And even for us, if we're Christians this morning,
this is for us as well, isn't it?
We don't come to church to find Jesus, right?
It's not like Jesus has been hiding from us all week.
And unless we gather here like this, we won't discover him.
No, actually, Jesus has been with us all week.
And really, the dynamic of church,
and Pesh led this really well, didn't he, at the beginning,
to call us to worship.
It is God calling out to us, inviting us.
He is seeking and saving.
Again, he's not hiding from us.
He wants to have fellowship with us
and speak with us and be with us.
So that's the first surprise in the story,
that Jesus is the searcher.
Second surprise, Jesus shouldn't go to Zacchaeus' house.
Now, it's not that Zacchaeus' house wasn't very nice.
He was a wealthy man, according to verse 2.
So I imagine his house was quite impressive.
Rather, the problem is not his house,
the problem is Zacchaeus himself, right?
Verse 2 tells you,
not just that Zacchaeus was a tax collector,
which would have been bad enough,
but he is a chief tax collector.
Now, Zacchaeus was a Jewish man
who got wealthy by taking money
from his Jewish brothers and sisters
and passing it on to the occupying Roman forces.
And then, because he was a chief tax collector,
he organized other people to do the same.
Now, just think about what that means,
collecting money from your fellow Jews
and passing it on to occupying Roman forces.
What does that make you?
It makes you a traitor, doesn't it?
That's what it makes you.
You are a blasphemer of the nation.
You have traded national pride
for your own personal fast prophet.
He was a betrayer.
And in verse 7, we're told that all the people
are muttering about this.
Jesus has gone to Zacchaeus' house.
Jesus has gone to the house of a sinner.
In verse 8, which we'll get to in the detail later,
Zacchaeus is admitting, essentially, to shady dealing.
So Zacchaeus owns the badge of sinner, if you like.
But the problem isn't just Zacchaeus' sin.
It is Zacchaeus' sin along with Jesus' righteousness.
So in verse 7, their problem isn't so much
just that Zacchaeus is a sinner.
It's rather that Jesus wants to be with this guy
who is a sinner.
So notice their assumption.
The crowd assume that they know a few things about Jesus.
They've been with Jesus for a little bit.
They've heard him speak.
He's spoken with great authority
that no one ever else has had.
He's spoken about the sinfulness of sin.
He's spoken about the moral requirements of a holy God.
And now they see that man walking into the house of a sinner.
A notorious chief traitor.
And that seems to them a contradiction.
Why would Jesus go there?
Now Zacchaeus knows it.
The crowd know it.
And presumably Jesus is not unaware of it.
And I want to suggest to you this morning
that unless you actually grapple with that,
unless you wrestle with the idea of
why would Jesus go to Zacchaeus' house,
a notorious sinner,
you will not understand the story.
Jesus' eagerness to be with Zacchaeus
is the first surprise, isn't it?
He searches him down.
But it is nothing to do with Zacchaeus' worthiness.
Jesus' desire to seek and save the lost
is not because the lost are kind of attractive.
It's actually because Jesus is very gracious.
Jesus should have called Zacchaeus down from the tree
and said, right, listen.
Let me tell you that betraying your country
for the occupying Romans is a terrible thing to do.
We are going to now prosecute you for that.
But instead, he says, let me come to your home.
It's a great surprise, isn't it?
Jesus is more eager to meet with us
than we are with him.
Jesus is eager to meet with us
even though we definitely don't deserve his attention.
We deserve his judgment.
We're going to look at this in a bit more detail in a moment.
But what we really need to see here
is that this moral transformation that Zacchaeus undergoes
is not a condition on which Jesus arrives.
Jesus doesn't say, listen, I'll come round to your house
but you must tidy yourself up first.
You know, stop defrauding people
and then I'll come round.
No, it's the very opposite of that, isn't it?
Jesus comes round to the man who he knows defrauds people.
Zacchaeus' moral transformation comes as a result of Jesus' visit
not as the precondition for it.
And so for you and I this morning
if we picture ourselves, you know,
we're up the tree observing Jesus from a safe distance.
He is looking up our metaphorical tree,
whatever that might be.
He's inviting himself to come and stay with us.
You know, don't you, he's not saying to you,
listen, you can have me over
as soon as you clean your life up.
He's not saying that.
He's not saying, listen, I will come over,
I will spend time with you
as long as you stop thinking like that.
As long as you stop doing that.
Clean your act up and I'll be right over.
No.
Here's the surprise.
Jesus wants to come to you in the mess of your life.
In the mess of your life.
With all your muck and sin and dirt.
Why?
Isn't he holy?
He is holy.
But he wants you to know,
he wants me to know
that he doesn't want to be with me
because I deserve it.
It's not something about me,
but he wants to be with me
because he's gracious,
loving, kind.
I don't know whether you do this.
When you have friends around to your flat, right?
Do you have a little bit of a clean up
before they come?
Do you have that place
where you shove stuff, yeah?
So that they don't notice it.
So, you know,
I'm going to put this behind that cushion.
I'm going to put that behind the curtain.
They'll never know it's there.
They'll never check there.
I once went around to a friend's flat
and I was in the kitchen bit
and it looked like it was something weird in the oven.
Now, probably a normal person
should have just observed that,
maybe noted it mentally
and then walked on.
But I was like, what?
It's in the oven.
So I'm going to open the oven.
I opened the oven
and there is their washing up
that they've not yet done, right?
And they had shoved it in the oven
in the hope that I wouldn't notice
when I came around.
But being the person I was,
I opened the oven and went,
why have you got your washing up in the oven?
And they're like,
oh, we were hoping you wouldn't find it.
Listen, you do that with your friends, don't you?
But you don't have to do it with Jesus.
You don't have to do it with Jesus.
You don't have to pretend
that you're better than you are.
You know, you don't go,
oh, my jealousy, my anger, my selfishness.
I'm going to put those under that cushion
and Jesus will never notice it there.
Pride, lust, people-pleasing.
I'll tuck those behind the curtains.
He won't look there.
He surely won't look there.
Of course, it's a stupid mistake, isn't it?
Not only because you can't actually hide
that sort of thing from Jesus,
but also it's a stupid thing
because he's not in your life
because he thought you were all sorted anyway.
He's come to seek and save lost people.
People lost in their sin, like you and me.
He came to us knowing our brokenness and our sin.
Let me say to you,
if you're a Christian this morning,
you know, don't you,
that you have no other relationship like this.
No one else is like this to you.
No one else is like this.
No one else knows all of your faults and failings,
sins and messes.
Some people will know some of them,
but no one else knows all of them
and still seeks you out.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
who was a theologian killed by the Nazis in Germany,
pointed out that we're very good
not only at hiding things from other people,
we are very good at hiding things from ourselves.
We lie to ourselves all the time.
So much so, says Bonhoeffer,
that not only are you essentially a mystery
to the person sat next to you,
you are also a mystery in some sense to yourself.
You yourself will not admit to yourself
how bad you really are or what you're really like.
You know, it's as if we've shoved the moral mess
behind the cushions
and we ourselves have forgotten that they're there.
But Jesus knows all about us.
He knows our mess.
He knows our lostness.
And he seeks us out
and comes to see us.
Next thing to notice,
the third surprise,
is that hosting Jesus changes Zacchaeus.
I think for Christians reading the story,
the surprise is that it doesn't seem to mention
Zacchaeus saying that he believes in Jesus, right?
I would imagine that if any of our church members here
were rewriting the story,
they would add that line in, right?
Zacchaeus knelt down and prayed the sinner's prayer,
something like that.
But there is none of that, is there?
Now, that's not because Luke doesn't believe
in the sinner's prayer
or doesn't believe that you should believe in Jesus
or say sorry for your sin.
Of course he thinks those things are important.
The point is that he's got a better way
of showing you that that happened
than just telling you it happened.
He wants to show you this radical transformation
that Zacchaeus has,
this heart transformation
which comes through this encounter with Jesus.
And he shows you that,
not by detailing it,
but by showing you its effects in verse 8.
So in verse 8,
you're not told exactly when it is
or to whom the declaration is made,
but it seems sometime on the same day
that Zacchaeus makes some kind of public declaration
that he is going to pay back what he stole.
Verse 8,
Look, Lord,
here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.
If I've cheated anybody out of anything,
I will pay back four times the amount.
Now, scholars will tell you
that Zacchaeus here is going way above and beyond
the legal requirements
or the expectation of the Old Testament law.
He's not deciding to give away a tenth
of what he has,
but a half of his possessions away.
He's not just making a double restitution
that is required for defrauded money.
He's paying back four times what was owed.
The transformation is incredible.
It is very thorough
beyond any of the requirements laid out by the law.
In other words,
Luke wants you to notice
that Jesus has managed to transform Zacchaeus
way above and beyond
anything that could be expected.
No list of rules would have done Zacchaeus
this transformation, right?
So Zacchaeus hasn't just received a list of rules
and said, okay, I'm going to obey those
because if he had,
he would have done less.
Jesus' transformation is deeper.
On the previous page in your Bible,
there's a story of a rich man
who comes to see Jesus.
This man is interested in Jesus.
He claims to have kept all the commandments,
but is sadly in love with his money.
And Jesus famously tells him and the crowd,
it is easier for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle
than it is for a rich man to be saved.
In other words,
think of the largest moving object you can,
a camel,
and think of the smallest hole you can imagine,
the eye of a needle.
It is impossible
for the camel to get through the eye of a needle.
And the disciples go,
well, who then can be saved?
And Jesus replies,
what is impossible with man
is possible with God.
And so here it is.
Jesus is getting the camel of Zacchaeus
through the eye of the needle
of God's holy requirements.
Jesus has entered into the mess of Zacchaeus' life,
which was much worse
than the rich ruler of chapter 18,
and has done what could never be done on his own,
and that is he's liberated him
from his love of money
and has transformed him into a lover of others.
Generous, gracious, kind.
Now, of course, Luke doesn't preface this
with saying that Zacchaeus said the sinner's prayer
or said that he stated his faith in Jesus,
because Luke expects you to read it and go,
wow, that's a miracle.
That's a miracle.
What a miraculous turnaround.
Jesus has made this notoriously greedy sinner
into a remarkably generous saint,
all at once, immediately, on the same day.
Zacchaeus doesn't go to rehab, right?
He doesn't go on a kind of therapy program
for the greedy and the kleptomaniac.
He doesn't.
Instantly, miraculously, his life has changed.
Let me say to you,
the same can be true for us this morning.
Jesus, as we've seen, is at the foot of our tree,
inviting himself into our lives.
He's more eager to be with us
than we are to be with him.
He's not expecting us to clean up before he comes.
He's expecting us to see that his desire to be with us
is a gracious and kind desire.
But listen, he's not planning on leaving you unchanged.
In fact, the sign of a genuine encounter with Jesus
is a radical transformation
that we'll be incapable of in our own strength.
This is what the Bible means by repentance.
Repentance in the Bible is not your decision
or my decision to try and clean my life up.
Yeah?
It's not that, do you know what?
I think I'm going to start going to church.
I'm going to start trying to be a better person.
That is not biblical repentance.
Biblical repentance is an internal transformation
that God does in our hearts,
liberating us from the hold that sin has over us
so that we are able to turn to God
and live for him in a way that
way exceeds our natural ability.
And so biblical repentance is not just saying
sorry for our sin.
Biblical repentance is doing sorry for our sin,
if I can put it that way.
As we're enabled by the Spirit,
we stop loving our money.
Yes, but we also give generously.
Zacchaeus gives away half of what he has.
Biblical repentance isn't just sad
that it stole from people.
It pays back four times what was robbed.
You know, repentance isn't just regretful
or sad for its pride or its lust
or its anger or its selfishness.
Biblical repentance does all that it can
to cut those things and run from them.
I was asked a really brilliant question
after the sermon last week.
See, if you were with us last week,
we were looking at Manasseh's repentance.
And someone asked me last week,
where's the justice in all of that?
Manasseh, in the Old Testament,
filled Jerusalem with the blood of innocent people.
And then we're told that he repented
and God forgave him.
And the question, where's the justice in that?
You know, where's the price
for all that innocent blood that Manasseh shed?
You know, do you get just to repent, right?
And then God forgives you,
it's a let-off.
Is that what's going on?
Is repentance just a way of dodging
the consequences of sin?
If it is, we'd all do it, right?
No, that's not what biblical repentance is, is it?
No sin in the Bible goes unpunished.
That's what the cross of Jesus Christ is about.
That's where sin gets punished.
But the other answer to the question,
which is answered here in Luke 19,
is that genuine repentance,
biblical repentance,
seeks to make restitution for past sins.
The repentance that Jesus brings
comes with this desire to put things right.
The repentant, fraudulent tax collector
doesn't get a let-off.
Rather, his sin is punished in Christ,
and he himself seeks to put things right.
Christ pays his moral debt
before a holy God at the cross,
and through the change that God has brought in him,
he seeks to make restitution.
Imagine you were one of the people
that Zacchaeus defrauded, right?
He had taken your money off you,
yeah, taken it away from you,
and suddenly this happens to him,
and he pays you back four times what he took.
That was better than any savings account.
I wouldn't even got that in an ISA.
So, and yet Zacchaeus has put it right
because God has worked in his heart.
So, let me say, for you and me this morning,
it is not possible for us
to be both biblically repentant for our sin
and hold onto it at the same time.
We can't be Bible sorry
and also unwilling to put things right.
Sometimes it's obviously impossible, isn't it,
to fix the damage from past sins.
And we need to be clear about that.
Biblical repentance doesn't stop a criminal
from going to prison if that's where they need to go.
It loosens the chains of sin on their hearts.
But biblical repentance leads us to seek restitution.
Biblical repentance leads the unfaithful husband
to own it and face the consequences
and seek reconciliation.
Biblical repentance is prepared to say sorry publicly
when a public sorry is required.
Biblical repentance puts things in place
to remove temptation,
to find accountability,
to stop doing what it was doing
and start doing what it should.
And it doesn't do those things out of some kind of dry duty.
Rather, we do them because having met with Jesus,
we hate our sin as much as he does.
And we want to be rid of it and put it right.
So let me ask you this morning,
if you're a Christian this morning,
can I ask you,
are you doing repentance?
Not just asking,
are you saying sorry?
I'm asking you,
are you doing sorry?
Are you seeking to put right past wrongs?
Are you fleeing from the sins of the past,
from temptations of the future?
Are you putting things in your life
to help you in that battle?
Have you left that friendship group
that keeps leading you astray?
Have you spoken to that person
who you know you've wronged?
Have you put back what it was that you took?
Because if you encountered Jesus,
then that's what encountering Jesus
enables you to do,
in his strength, not your own.
Fourth surprise.
Repentance is the condition of salvation.
This is the tricky bit, right?
Notice what happens here.
Jesus hunts Zacchaeus down.
He goes to his house,
despite knowing he's a sinner,
and Jesus' visit,
or his call, if you like,
wasn't conditioned
by Zacchaeus' willingness to repent.
Rather, Jesus' call of Zacchaeus
brought to Zacchaeus
that repentance.
And then Jesus,
having witnessed the repentance
that he has brought to Zacchaeus,
says, verse 9,
today,
salvation has come to this house.
And what does that mean?
Well, it doesn't mean that
Zacchaeus' repentance
is a work that he's done
which has shown him
that he is now worthy of salvation.
It's not that, is it?
The whole story is written
to show you that Zacchaeus
is way too bad
for that to be the case.
And Jesus is far too gracious
for that to be needed.
Rather,
the point is that
this miraculous repentance
that Jesus has brought
via his visit to Zacchaeus
has become the means
by which Zacchaeus
receives salvation
salvation in Jesus Christ.
Literally,
verse 9,
he receives Jesus.
Jesus is the salvation.
Perhaps we can put it this way.
It was not possible
for Zacchaeus
to have a saving encounter
with Jesus
and keep a hold of his sin.
And in turning from his sin,
he receives Christ as saviour.
Theologically,
you might want to say
that biblical repentance
and biblical faith
are essentially
two sides of the same coin.
You cannot repent
and turn from your sin
without also turning to
and receiving Christ.
And you cannot turn to
and receive Christ
unless you have turned
from your sin.
They're on the same ticket.
They come together.
It is possible,
isn't it,
for us?
And I think we can make
this mistake.
And if you're making
this mistake this morning,
please listen to me.
It is possible for you
to be sad for your sin,
to regret what you've done,
and still not become a Christian.
Plenty of people do that.
Plenty of people feel guilty
and bad and sad
about the things that they've done.
That's why the mosque
is full on a Friday, right?
Full of people who know
that they need
some kind of forgiveness.
But if you turn from your sin
in the Bible sense,
if you have an encounter
with Jesus Christ
which turns you to hate your sin
like he hates it,
then you will also turn to him
and receive from him salvation.
Perhaps I could be bold enough
this morning to phrase it
as a question.
Let me ask you,
do you want Christ?
Do you want the salvation
that Christ alone can bring?
Do you want forgiveness?
Do you want freedom?
Do you want eternal life?
The eternal life
that Christ alone can bring.
If you want that,
then you must let go of your sin.
You must let go of your sin.
And you let go of your sin
when we've had this encounter
with Jesus
who brings this miraculous repentance.
And if you're a Christian
this morning and you're going,
do you know what?
I want more of Christ.
I want more joy
in my Christian life.
I want a greater assurance
of future glory.
I want freedom from guilt.
I want courage
to face the future.
Well, let me say
if that's what you want,
let go of your sin.
Pray even if you're bold enough,
Lord, show me my sin
that I might repent
and have more of you.
That's what I want.
The fifth and final surprise.
Jesus brings great assurance.
Verse nine is an amazing statement
by Jesus.
It's addressed to Zacchaeus.
Everyone gets to listen.
Jesus said to him,
today salvation has come
to this house
because, here it is,
this man too
is a son of Abraham.
Now, Jesus could have really
sort of said to Zacchaeus
that he was saved
in any number of ways,
couldn't he?
But he chose to call him
a son of Abraham.
It's really cleverly put.
To be a son of Abraham
is to be a genuine part
of God's people,
a treasured member
of the family,
right at the center
of God's people.
And this is amazing,
isn't it?
Because Jesus says
to the outcast
and the sinner,
the traitor,
now listen,
now you're right
at the heart
of God's people.
You're adopted
into God's family.
You know God as Father.
It's amazing,
isn't it,
you can imagine,
can't you,
just the look
on Zacchaeus' face
as Jesus looks him
in the eyes
and says,
listen,
traitor,
you're a son of Abraham.
You're right
at the heart
of God's people.
I love you.
You're a child
of the covenant.
You're included
in the family.
Jesus invited himself
into Zacchaeus' home
so that Zacchaeus
could be invited
into Jesus' family.
And notice what that means
then for the story.
Think about what
the story is about.
You know,
Zacchaeus goes up
a tree to see Jesus,
to watch from a safe distance.
But Jesus wants more,
doesn't he?
He wants to bring salvation.
So Jesus climbed
his own tree,
but not a sycamore tree,
a tree to which
he was named.
Knowing that for Zacchaeus
to be included
in God's people
meant that he would
have to be excluded
from God's people.
For Zacchaeus
to be made holy,
Jesus would have
to be made sin.
For Jesus to be able
to say to Zacchaeus,
you are mine.
Jesus had to say
to his father,
why have you forsaken me?
So for us this morning,
if we've encountered
Jesus like Zacchaeus,
this is our assurance.
Christ was put out
so that we might
be brought in.
He was made sin
so that we could
be made holy.
So that you and I
could hear Jesus
say to us,
you're mine.
You belong to me.
You're one of my people.
You're included.
You're a son of Abraham.
You know,
the rest of the world
might not think
anything of you.
They might think
you're very insignificant
and unimportant.
But Jesus says,
I have given myself
for you.
I climbed my tree
for you
so that you might
be mine.
Let me ask,
how do you know
if you've encountered
Jesus like Zacchaeus?
It's obvious,
isn't it?
You've repented
like Zacchaeus
and you will keep
repenting like Zacchaeus,
knowing that you were
lost but Jesus
found you.
And that's the
application,
isn't it,
of the story of Zacchaeus
as we were looking
at last week.
Repent then
so that your sins
may be wiped out
and times of
refreshing
may come from the
Lord.
Let me pray
as I close.
Amen.
Heavenly Father,
we thank you so much
that you are gracious
to us
and you send
the Lord Jesus
to call out to us
not because we've
cleaned our act up
but because you love us
and you want us
to encounter you
and know you.
And thank you
that in meeting Jesus
you don't leave us
the same.
you transform us
and you enable us
to take hold
of salvation
in the Lord Jesus
and hear these
great words of assurance
that we belong to you.
And so Lord,
we pray
that you might make us
ongoingly repentant,
turning from our sin
and receiving more
and more of Christ
as we pray in his name.
Amen.
Thank you.