Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 7, 2022 | RETOLD - Zacchaeus the Tax Man

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August 7, 2022 | RETOLD - Zacchaeus the Tax Man · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Glad you could be with us this morning.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't been with us before, we are going through a series called Retold.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are looking at stories from the Bible that if you grew up in a Christian home, you're probably familiar with.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And if you didn't, that's okay.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: These are just some of the stories that are most popular in our Bible.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the mistake that we can often make is assuming we know everything about them.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or actually, in the case of our story this morning, you probably do know everything about this story.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: The twist is that the application that is given to students or children, and the application that is then often brought up for adults, it's quite the same.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: The change is going to be how much you are willing to implement it in your life.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that's often true in a sense of the application for a story is how much are you willing to commit to this.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in our story this morning, the problem is that it has been stuck in a rhyme.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus was a wee little man.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: We little man was he.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: He climbed up the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now that rhyme is a lot of fun, and a lot of kids enjoy singing it.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: This is a TBC zone, Connor and Simon Branningham last Halloween as Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can see Connor here, he's got the little leaves on, and Simon cuts an amazing Zacchaeus figure.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: But this story, though, it needs to transcend the rhyme.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to go beyond that space because Zacchaeus, really what he is, beyond being the tax man and the little man, is an example for us of what our faith should look like when we commit to knowing Christ.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, you you probably already know most of the beats of this story.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It can be found in Luke 19.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in that narrative, we see Jesus is walking through the city of Jericho, and Zacchaeus is so excited to know Jesus that he climbs this sycamore tree because he's unable to see him, too short to see above the crowd.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that in this story, Zacchaeus is presented as a figure who should not be very interested in the Lord at all.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's a rich man, he's a tax man.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of those things, his faith that he ends up showing in the Lord is even more amazing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, Jesus recognizes his faith, calls Zacchaeus down out of this tree, and invites himself over for dinner.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus receives him joyfully and ultimately commits to giving away half of his possessions.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's basically the story.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: All cards on the table, there's not much more history, there's not much more like, hey, do you know what the Greek says here?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, there's really, that's pretty much it.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what we're going to look at this morning, though, is what I think is even more important is that as we dive deeper into this rhyme, as we dive deeper into this story about Zacchaeus, we're going to see, on the first hand, how amazing it is that he has displayed the kind of faith that he does, but also see that, frankly, he outstrips a lot of us when it comes to showing his faith for Christ.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: The story begins in Luke chapter 19, verses 1 through 2.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is walking, and he's on his way to Jerusalem.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here in less than a week, or in about a week, rather, he is going to be crucified.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's on his way to Jerusalem.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he meet, as he's walking through, he goes through a city named Jericho.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this Jericho, it's a lot different than the one we talked about a couple weeks.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's about 1400 years later.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's been rebuilt by Herod the Great, and it also doesn't even sit in the same location.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Today, if you would go to Israel and visit Jericho, you'd be walking through this Jericho, which sits a little bit to the south of the ancient one that we looked at.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Regardless, Jesus is going through this city and he meets this man, and two very important pieces of information are given about him.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Namely, that he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a couple things to say about this.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, he is already being positioned as somebody who might have a reluctant faith.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: See in Luke chapter 19, there was a parable about another tax collector who didn't make the right choice.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: There was the story about the so-called rich young ruler.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was also the famous phrase, again, just in the chapter before, about how it is harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of that chapter, it showed a poor destitute man who expressed faith in Jesus as a beggar and found healing and salvation.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so heading into chapter 19, the rich are not doing so well.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Being able to explain and assess their faith for Christ and to show it to others.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Zacchaeus isn't starting off well.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's also not starting off well because being a tax collector was not a popular gig in the ancient world.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you are aware, but let's talk about this.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, okay, most people don't like paying money to the government, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So knock there.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't like paying money to a government that is oppressing and ridiculing them, i.e., the Roman government, if you were a Jewish person.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't like it when one of their fellow countrymen, a Jew, was basically a turncoat and began working for the Roman government and then oppressing his own or her own people.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, most people don't like that.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Most people don't like it when then that individual, who they're already not a huge fan of, begins charging extra over and above the actual tax so that they can profit personally.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: They can disenfranchise people willy-nilly and charge however much they want and become exceedingly wealthy on their own.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably why Zacchaeus was so rich.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: He had oppressed his fellow countrymen.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then beyond all of that, Zacchaeus was their boss.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: He was over a bunch of tax collectors.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's not just, you know, uh sort of cubicle level.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's got the C-suite in terms of who is running the show here in Jericho.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of all of these things, like I said, Zacchaeus is set up as a figure, as because you're coming from Luke 18, you're in Luke 19, you're like, oh, this isn't going to be good.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we keep going, we see in verse 3, he was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: He's interested in Jesus, right?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, by this point and time in his ministry, wildly popular.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a crowd following him wherever he goes.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And this crowd is far more interested, honestly, in his miracles and his many acts of healing and things like that than they are in the savior, or at least the savior that's going to die for them on a cross.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're interested in him as the Messiah who's going to rescue them from people like the tax collectors, from the Roman government, but very few are actually in on the true business of Jesus Christ.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, got a huge crowd that's following him.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, because of that crowd, because of, you know, Jericho hearing, hey, Jesus is going to be walking through here.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: People are pressing the streets.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: They've been up early.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They made it, you know, they got out their lawn chairs and their drinks and made a picnic so that they can see Jesus when he walks through the streets.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, because of all of these things, Zicaeus was having trouble seeing Jesus because, as he has basically always been known, he was a short man.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's a short man in a short world.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: In the first century, we've recovered skeletons, and uh the average male was about 5'5, right?
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if Zicaus was short by those standards, pretty tiny.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Zicaeus, this though was his obstacle.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what's gonna be amazing is even though it is, it's really sort of the focus of the rhyme and the and the um, I don't know, the again, main signifying mark of Zacchaeus himself, it's really setting up the conflict.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Zicaeus wants to see Jesus, but he can't.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so what is he gonna do?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: He was running ahead.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: He climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: Zicaus, understanding that, and there's probably a lot more going on here that the crowd is, I mean, despises him.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: He was not a well-liked person.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so Zicaus is also probably getting butted out of anywhere where he might be trying to work through the crowd so that he could see Jesus.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So this crowd is working against him, his height is working against him, but he wants to know and to see Christ.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's running ahead, setting aside all of the other things that he could be trying to do, or just being satisfied, right, that he can't see Jesus, but maybe he can hear him.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he can sort of feel him walk by as he can't see him through the crowd.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus picks a spot up ahead where he can tell that Jesus is going to be walking, and he starts running into it.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Running to it.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's bustling through the crowd, and ultimately he climbs up a sycamore tree to see Jesus.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about this for a second, too, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a man who is he is not well liked, but he is respected in the community.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's extremely proud, right?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He is somebody who is known for being proper and being official and being a professional, and he is rejected, and here he goes, taking the most obvious position above everybody.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And beyond that, like, okay, how many of you beyond the age of like 10 have climbed a tree?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Not many is the answer.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yet in Luke 18, and all of those stories about those who are wealthy and struggle to know the Lord, Jesus commends those who have a childlike faith.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so they see Jesus walking ahead sees this man climbing up a tree.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: Not to um sort of dash your hopes, but it probably wasn't an actual sycamore tree.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: The word was uh probably some kind of evergreen fig, but you don't have to change the rhyme.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can keep it as a sycamore tree, and the story stays the same.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, Zacchaeus is climbing up this tree.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the effort he is putting forth.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is him saying, I'm not satisfied by not being able to see Jesus.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not satisfied by just standing in the crowd.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take it upon myself.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna climb this tree.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Verses five through six.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus sees this.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, God and man, knows who Zacchaeus is.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are some people who say that he Zacchaeus is just so well known, maybe as a chief tax collector, that Jesus would be aware of his reputation.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I prefer to think that, like many people, like the woman at the well, Jesus already knew Zacchaeus.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he knew that Zacchaeus would be there.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so he looks up and he sees Zacchaeus.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: He knows the state of his heart.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that he is often a complicated man who is so desiring to see Jesus that he's gone out of his way and embarrassed himself and is getting the ridicule of the crowd so that he can just get a glimpse of Jesus walking by.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he shows such great faith, oftentimes, but yet he's corrupt in so many other ways.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus, not even responding to the tree, is like, hey Zacchaeus, is it cool if we have dinner tonight?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, first of all, that's a pretty easy invitation to accept, you know, in the in the whole grand scheme of who would you want to have dinner with, and you ask that question, you normally have to cut out Jesus as the answer so that you can get other ones.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty easy evite.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, Hey, can I come over for dinner?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus welcomes him joyfully.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Welcomes him joyfully because this was way more about this was way more than performance.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: This was way more than being seen as somebody who had the attention of Jesus.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a connection that's happening here.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what we continue to see as Zacchaeus subverts our expectations, he overcomes the obstacles, and he shows a great commitment to Christ.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense that this man who has everything going against him up to this point in the story is somebody who would joyfully accept Jesus.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those obstacles that came before, they don't have to weigh you down.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: They don't have to be the excuses, they don't have to be things that prevent you from knowing Jesus Christ better, but you do have to overcome them.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: You do have to put forth the effort.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus receives the benefit of his effort, the attention of Jesus here, given to him specifically.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, but the naysayers.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: All who saw it began to complain, he's gone to stay with the sinful man.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, I've been here since 4 a.m.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm through all of my drinks.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: This lawn chair is getting so uncomfortable.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's been, I mean, all we've had are like somebody walking through with hot nuts and trying to get us to, you know, calm down.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: The sky is so hot.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: We live in Israel.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And here it is, and and Jesus, I I mean, I'm a righteous person, right?
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at the front of the crowd.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I pushed a kid aside, and Jesus is coming through, and he's staying with a sinful man.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: What's up with this?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: What's up with that?
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is walking through, sees a man who put forth really more effort than anybody else, put his reputation on the line, acted like a child just so he could see him.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, that's the guy I'm gonna have dinner with.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not the people who think they're righteous, not the people who think they deserve the dinner date with Jesus, but I'm going to spend time with the one who knows that he needs to see me.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: Complain, he's gone to stay with a sinful man.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: This is how Zacchaeus was known.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that being, I mean, this is somewhat cultural, but imagine this is your identity.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of you, you've had this thrust upon you as an identity.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: You're a sinful man, a sinful woman.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: The past that you come from, maybe you characterize yourself as a sinful man or sinful woman.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about the attitude that every Christian should have as being a sinner in need of a savior.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the one that goes beyond that into a pit of shame that says, there's no coming back because all I am is a sinner.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is my identity.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, those kinds of things, those are destructive.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is how they viewed Zacchaeus.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in the stories about uh throughout the Gospels, when the Pharisees are criticizing Jesus, they often just lump the tax collectors in with the sinners.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: They say, He's eating with sinners and also tax collectors.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's how Zacchaeus was known.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine as he comes down out of the tree, you can hear the crowd grumbling and groaning and complaining at him and at Jesus for their connection.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, Look, I'll give away half my possessions to the poor, Lord.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if I've extorted anything from anyone, I'll pay back four times as much.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Another way you can translate that second sentence, um, it kind of depends, you can do both, but it either goes from him saying, If I have done anything bad, which, like we assume, you know, that's sort of the gig, all the way to because I have defrauded people, I will pay them back up to four times as much.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus comes and stands before the Lord.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Just the two of them.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's hundreds of other people, but just the two of them.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like a mirror is placed in front of Zacchaeus.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he understands for him, not for everybody, for him, what it is going to take for him to truly be able to commit and know Jesus Christ.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about money in the church, everybody puckers up, right?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's an idol for many of us.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that might not be true for you, but it's definitely true for Zacchaeus.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: For Zacchaeus, a man who loves money, hoards money, steals money, disenfranchises his fellow people just so he can have wealth, that he pushes others away for a coin.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is his idol.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he is giving it up so that he can know Christ better.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: People have often asked when it comes to the story of like the rich young ruler who ends much differently than this one, where Jesus says, Hey, why don't you give up half your possessions and give them to the poor?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, no, thank you.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna do that.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would rather have my money than I would have Jesus.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here, Zacchaeus cuts a different figure.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: He voluntarily gives up these things.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not because it is required that somebody in order to come to Jesus gives up half of their money, as so many people fret in these stories, but rather that Zacchaeus understood what his idol was in his heart, and he said, Here, Jesus, you can have it.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna hold on to this any longer.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because knowing you is better than me being able to know this thing that I have.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so he gives it up.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: What I love though is that when he is giving up half of his possessions to the poor, Lord, this is like their conversation does not follow if you were writing a novel about this kind of thing.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus is up in a tree.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't say anything about him being up in a tree.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: He just says, Can I come over for dinner?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then Zacchaeus comes down and he just immediately says, I will give up half my possessions to the poor.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus looks at him and he says, Today salvation has come to this house.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus told him, Because he too is a son of Abraham.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now he is addressing the crowd that's grumbling at them.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: He too is a son of Abraham.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You think you're a son of Abraham or a daughter of Abraham?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: This guy is too.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man has come to has come to seek and to save the lost.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Today's salvation has come to this house.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's important to recognize, though, what Jesus is saying when he says that Zacchaeus has become a son of Abraham.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: We find out a little bit more information.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can probably guess, you know, Father Abraham, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Whole nother rhyme.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Father Abraham and his heritage and what it means to be a part of that promise.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul in Galatians 3 says, So then, does God give you the Spirit, his Holy Spirit, and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or is it by believing what you heard, just like Abraham, who believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know then that those who have faith, these are Abraham's sons.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to look at this because it shows us that Jesus, though technically his phrase about salvation coming to this house follows Zacchaeus' great sort of giving up of wealth, that was not the reason that salvation came to the house.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation came, and this, as Paul is saying in Galatians, he says, so then do you think, he's asking a rhetorical question, that because you've been obedient or you followed the law that God gives you the Spirit?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is because of your faith by believing what you heard, just like Abraham.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so Zacchaeus here, even though he's doing an amazing work because of his faith, the reason salvation came upon the house is because he had faith in Jesus Christ.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: We don't see all of those mechanations moving within him, right?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Where we don't get a narrator talking about the condition of his contrite heart.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what's happening.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: As he is moving through this space and getting to know Jesus better, this amazing act of generosity is a reflection upon the faith that he has in Christ.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So don't get those two things mixed up.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't get Zacchaeus' effort for the Lord mixed up with his faith in the Lord.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: His faith is what saved him, but his faith is also what spurred him on towards all of these other things.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Zacchaeus is a child of Abraham.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Salvation has come to this house because at some point between climbing a tree and climbing down off of a tree, Zacchaeus trusted in Christ.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know the exact moment, and it doesn't really matter.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: At some point, though, he had faith.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus moved beyond a figure that was walking down a road into the Savior of mankind for Zacchaeus.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now the other thing that Jesus says here, now he's at right, he's addressing the crowd.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: He sort of moves beyond, like you can tell you can see this in in if you picture it.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking to Zacchaeus, but he starts like talking louder, right?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: For he is a son of Abraham.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost, something that they did not understand.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it just so happens that tax collectors happened to be one of Jesus' favorite people to prove this lesson to.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: At the table in the house, because he also invited himself over for dinner there.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Many tax collectors and sinners came to eat with Jesus and his disciples.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, Why does your teacher, why does your rabbi eat with tax collectors and sinners?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now when Jesus heard this, he said, It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Matthew, the one who wrote Matthew, was a tax collector.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus has one of his disciples as somebody who is despised by those around him and is looked down upon.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Hey, I'm going to look deeper than that.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to look to your faith.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to look to your heart.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And also, and I'm going to come over for dinner.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're going to eat together, and we're going to rejoice in what it means to be a son or a daughter of Abraham.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I have come to seek those who are sick.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've not come to heal the healthy.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I love this.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite phrases that Jesus speaks because it just, I just think, gets to the core of who he is and the way he performed his ministry, conducted his ministry.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, in this one sense, gives this one-line remark to this huge question that they're asking.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: To the Pharisees, they're like, he's a rabbi.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: He's supposed to be telling people how to be righteous and he's eating with the unrighteous.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Help me out here.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, Oh, I've got one sentence for you.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus also responds with sarcasm.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's a holy sarcasm, you know?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a holy, like it's okay that he does it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always okay when I do it.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a holy sarcasm.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he's speaking to these Pharisees, and he's like, oh yeah, you know, not those who are already healthy, not you guys.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: No, those who are sick.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those who need me.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the ones I've come to minister to.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's so sad is that the Pharisees, as they're portrayed throughout the Gospels, and is that they're the ones who never recognize that they are sick.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: They never realized that really Jesus' ministry was to come for everybody.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: But like a doctor with an amazing cure, he can only heal the ones that come into the hospital.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a lot of people who are standing outside saying, What is he doing healing all these people?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why do they think they can go to the hospital?
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says, I've come to seek and to save the lost.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's who Zacchaeus was.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus was the lost man that became the found man.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk about this story of Zacchaeus and Luke 19, we have to recognize once more that the application is fairly straightforward.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: You look at the life of, you look at what Zacchaeus did, you look at the obstacles he overcame, the right, the crowd, the excuses that he had.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: He was a short man, the temptation that he found, give me the money, right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: All of these things that Zacchaeus had that he's presented as, and we see that he overcame them all.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And he didn't overcome them because Jesus made him taller, he didn't overcome them because Jesus parted the crowd.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't overcome them by taking away Zacchaeus' money.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we saw that Zacchaeus climbed a tree for the Lord, and in that act is like everything.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the line, Zacchaeus's interest turned into faith, and that faith turned into action.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about this story with Zacchaeus, I want you to picture a tree.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to picture this tree, whether in your mind it's a sycamore tree or an evergreen fig, does not matter.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a tree in your front yard.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to picture a tree.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And on that tree, I want you to picture the effort that it would take to climb it.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know most of you haven't climbed it, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: The effort that it would take to climb that tree.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now I want you to assign that tree to something that is important to you.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because for Zacchaeus, climbing the tree meant being able to know and to see Jesus Christ.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the question that I have for you this morning is, what tree will you climb?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is, if you will, and you're rocking with me in this analogy of a tree, what I'm saying is, we're all climbing trees for something.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're all putting forth effort for something.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But for some of us, it's not the tree that overlooks the route where Jesus is at.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: For some of us, we are putting our effort into things that are not important.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that they're bad, and that is what can be so tricky when we talk about the life of Christ is that there are often good things that we are doing, but we are pursuing them with such abandon and effort that they become idols, and we're not willing to give them up in order to climb the tree so that we can know Jesus Christ.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for you, maybe you are somebody who, hey, you're a student, and grades are so important to you.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And having good grades is a good thing.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: But you put so much time and effort and your own identity into being that straight A student.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: What if you put that kind of effort into knowing Jesus?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: What would it look like if you took the same amount of passion that you have for being known as a straight A student and you were known as somebody who loved and studied the Word of God?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: See, this is what I'm saying.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: We put effort into lots of things in our life.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying anybody's not a hard worker, but the idea is that our priorities might be mixed.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're somebody who spends an insane amount of money on beauty products because you want to put so much effort and time into looking like you are five years younger than you really are.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: You want to put so much effort into this thing and so much money into this thing because that's where your identity is.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're somebody who constructs a world on social media, selectively editing and choosing the right photos so that the right people that you care about can think your life is something that it's really not?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: That takes a lot of effort, a lot of anxiety related to that.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: What if you constructed your life around Jesus Christ, followed him, and then allowed people to make their own assumptions based upon your dedication to the Lord?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: What about trying to be relevant in all of the TV shows that are coming out right now?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You think I'm I'm being silly, but we watch way too much Netflix.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And for everybody who wants to be able to know like what the new Marvel show is, or Stranger Things 4, or whatever new show is coming out on Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Paramount, HBO Mac, all these kinds of things.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be able at work to be the person who's up to date on these kinds of things.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: You want to know whether Benefer is going to work out this time around, or whether they're going to break up again, right?
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows at this point?
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be the person who's up to date on these kinds of things.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're relevant, you're cultural, you understand, and it takes an insane amount of reading and time for you to keep up with all these things.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's the tree that you're climbing.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you are somebody who has a kid that is on every single travel team that has ever existed in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: You have eight days out of the week that are filled with your soccer tournaments, your baseball games, your triple quadruple headers, your traveling kids all over, you are basically a bus service because you are so concerned that your kid is going to be an amazing athlete, and you're forgetting what it means that by doing all of these things, you are telling them where their effort should be placed.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: What if that same kind of effort and dedication was put forward into their relationship with Christ?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Last one.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you who are businessmen and women, taking the extra shifts, taking all the hours, taking the new projects and the hard projects and the ones that you don't want to do, but you really want your boss to recognize you because you want to be seen as somebody who's a hard worker and worthy of that promotion.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: That takes a lot of effort, takes a lot of time.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, and what my point is with all of these things, as hopefully you can begin to fill in the blank with what your tree is, is that we are often putting our effort towards things that are not eternal.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: We are not putting our effort towards things that are ultimately satisfying, we are putting our effort towards things that are sometimes good, but oftentimes become an idol in our lives.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when we come face to face with Jesus, like Zacchaeus did, a mirror comes before us, and we say, Boy, I really need to give that up so that I can know him fully.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, we say, I would actually be a part of the crowd.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's my comfort spot.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'd rather be somebody who saw Jesus, but didn't have to give up any of those things.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows him, who got to see him, but doesn't know him personally.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is the crux of Zacchaeus and his story.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know the application.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: How far will you go in applying it to your life?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately, what we want is we want to climb the tree for Christ.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know who climbed a tree?
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Was Jesus.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus climbed a different kind of tree.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: As he was walking through Jericho, right?
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was on his way to Jerusalem.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in roughly a week or so, he's going to be climbing a different kind of tree.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: This one was cut timbers and it had nails in it, and later on it would have his blood on it.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus climbed that tree for you and me.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that we might be forgiven of our sins and find salvation in him.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I just, I'm not trying to condemn.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my idea is that, I mean, our mission at TBC is leading people to life in Christ.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's like on the website, right?
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is our mission.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I desire, I deeply desire for you to have life in Christ.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I see people who are not having life in Christ.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: They sound like the crowd who's saying, why is Jesus having such a close relationship with that person over there?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because they're not saved or don't trust in him, but it's like, well, he climbed the tree.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: He knows what it is like to give up his life so that he could find it in Christ.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is why he gets to have dinner with Jesus.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is why he knows the fellowship of Christ.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is why Zacchaeus is the hero of this story.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's not the tax man, he's not the rich man, he's the man who gave up things so that he could know Christ.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, here in a moment, I'm going to pray and then we'll head into a time of communion together as a church.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the things I would love for you to think about.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you desire to have life in Christ and life to the fullest by knowing him, what does it mean for you to climb the tree for him?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: And is there a tree that you're already climbing for something else that you shouldn't be?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go ahead and pray.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: God, you are good.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: You are so good.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for the life that you have blessed us with.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we are thankful that Jesus climbed a tree for us.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: He climbed that tree because he loves us and was willing to give his life so that we could have an eternal one with him.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I ask, at least for myself, that you would forgive me for the ways in which I have climbed many other trees besides the one that leads to Christ.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Father, if there's anybody else here, might your spirit convict us so that we can see these areas of our life, we can change them, we can give up these idols, Father, and we can run after you as he did, as Zacchaeus did.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, what does that look like in all of our lives?
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of people here, Father.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Only you know, like you knew Zacchaeus in the tree.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I ask that you would reveal these things to us as we sit for a moment and consider communion and what it means to eat the body and drink the blood of Christ.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for those things.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for how they inspire us on to love and good deeds, and thank you most of all for our salvation.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.