It's a curse for grown-ups. I know I've got a couple of giggles from that title, which I appreciate. But the point that I was trying to make from this title is that the word of God is the greatest of all literature can speak to young and old alike. There's been plenty of counts of two-year-olds and three-year-olds. Thanks, Stephanie. being convicted of the need of a savior. Of course, we know that the Bible is milk to the young believer, to the immature Christian. Look, please, I'm not trying to be insulting to anyone. I'm trying hard to be a good boy. But for those that are young in the faith, the Bible supplies everything they need. It supplies meat for the mature Christians. Does it supply a word to the wise? Well, certainly the Magi who went all that way to see the young Jesus, they certainly thought so. They were obviously students of the Old Testament prophets of Nahum and Daniel. In fact, such is the word of God that it does say that the most intelligent, educated worldling can look at the word of God and be set at naught, not understand it. for it is spiritually discerned. The word of God is a word to all of us friends but Zacchaeus seems to be like Jonah in the fact that appeals to young people. I've spent a lot of time in youth groups and ministering to young people. I've heard various songs about Zacchaeus that I won't play you with. I'm not as brave as Pastor Fisher and I probably don't have anywhere near as good a voice so I won't sing any songs but Zacchaeus appeals to young kids for several reasons. First of all, the central character, of course, is a little person, just like them, receiving some grief from some larger people. There's a spot of tree climbing as well, which appeals. And of course, there's a happy resolution. But friends, there's also some deeper and darker concepts that I think we need to talk about, some grown-up stuff that, like I said, is as relevant today as ever before. An old pastor of mine used to say that the Bible is as relevant today as today's newspaper and perhaps even more so. So let's see what the Word of God has for us this morning. As we look at this account of Jesus passing through Jericho, of course we see this figure Zacchaeus. And in verse two, we're introduced to this man, the man named Zacchaeus. We're told a couple of things about him, three or four things in these early verses. We read essentially that he was chief among the publicans, he was rich, he sought to see Jesus, who he was, there was a level of curiosity there, at least, and could not for the press. As a young fellow, I always used to see that verse and giggle because I thought, well, the paparazzi obviously exist back in Jesus' time. That's not the true meaning of the word press. The large amount of people pressing upon Christ. I think you can see the imagery there. And of course, that became a real problem because Zacchaeus was little of stature. And as we discuss his stature, once again, I'm going to lay off the short jokes. I'm going to try and behave. I was a very small child, so it really pleased me no end when I shot up to this height when I was 15. I was so grateful for that. It was pretty miserable. up to about then. But when we talk about Zacchaeus' stature, the main issue and what flavours this verse is not because he was only four foot something or five foot something. The main issue was his stature before his fellow Jews. When we read in verse 2, We read that not only was he a publican, well, he was the head honcho of the publicans, and he was a rich publican, which meant certain things to the so-called good Jewish mind. Now, I know in Australia, whenever I preach or discuss publicans, I do take pause because the average Aussie would think, well, it's obvious a publican is a bloke that runs a pub. And we all know that. No, what a republican was at that point in time was the tax collector for the Roman Empire. These were actually Jewish men who collected taxes on the behalf of Caesar. And not only that, one of the other implications was that this man, because he had the Roman sword and Roman spear and Roman shield at his back, he had a fair bit of liberty to exact what he wanted from people. He didn't have to necessarily stick to the script, so to speak. It seemed to be very, very standard practice to skim a little bit off the top for oneself and, of course, for the average good Jewish citizen, they had two options, like it or lump it. In other words, they had no option whatsoever. So these publicans were considered to be the very, very basis of Jewish society, that perhaps there are no words that I can use to impose to you even a modern equivalent. But these men were at the very, very sump, if you will, of Jewish society. I looked through the gospel and I found that a very interesting phrase actually occurs nine times in the gospel accounts, and that is the term publican and sinners. In other words, you don't have to read very far through the gospel until you encounter this term. Let me ask you the question. Do you think I would be a happy man if I was to read in God's word the term forklift drivers and sinners? Would some of you be very happy if you were to read in God's word teachers and sinners? I think not. But in Jewish society at the time, basically the two were used as a synonym for each other, it seemed. And the fact that Zacchaeus was the chief of the publicans made him perhaps in the eyes of his society an Al Capone or a Kyle Williams or a Sheriff of Nottingham or perhaps even worse. And the fact that he was wealthy, the fact that he was stinking rich was just salt into the wounds of Jewish society because they knew exactly where that money had come from. It is very, very common to see in God's word whenever a publican comes to the Lord, yes shock horror, but they do in God's word that the first thing they do is invite other publicans to come and hear Christ and it was a logical step for them and the only step because the only friends that these men would have had were other publicans. So called good society would never be seen in the company. of such men as these. And so we see Zacchaeus' stature and of course Zacchaeus' stature comes into play when he has the desire to see the Lord Jesus Christ and the issue was not just his height And in a way, if it was somebody else's issue, it might not have been the crowd. If this was an average Jewish child, you might imagine that there would have been those in the crowd that said, look kid, come in in front of me. But for Zacchaeus, there's no chance. There's no record whether he ever said, excuse me, excuse me, can I come through? Perhaps he did, perhaps he didn't. Perhaps he realized that he was just wasting his breath and there was no way that there was any way through. The good people of Israel would not yield for such a man. They had to pay their taxes. They had to bow to his whim. They had to line his pockets. But in this instance, of course, they could acquire a little bit of industrial deafness and not hear Zacchaeus's treaty to let him pass. When you think of the city Jericho, you think of a certain structure, don't you? You think of the walls of Jericho, I trust I'm not alone in that. Well, there was a new wall that was erected on this occasion and it was a wall of flesh. It was a wall of society that had completely shut out this man Zacchaeus. This man who it seems had superior heart motives to what these other people had. We know that huge crowds follow Jesus up to a point. But as we look at this ministry that Christ had in Jericho, he was actually on the way up to Jerusalem. And all of you know what happened there. And the crowd that had the palms and said, Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Just a short time later, it seems may well have been the same people that said, crucify him. Crucify him. The crowd is fickle. And it seems perhaps that much of the motives of these people that were seeing Jesus on this day was nothing more than curiosity. There is something about fame, there is something about celebrities. Hopefully I'm not being overly cruel, but there are certain people that are always in the public eye that I wouldn't trust to do my taxes, that I wouldn't trust to do much for me at all, but they're there and they're famous and we're seemingly attracted to those people. And Christ was famous and popular and only for a season and the crowds turned against him. But Zacchaeus, this man who was being denied, had a different heart motive, and he proved it via the sycamore tree. Of course, it seems as though that he was a reasonably intelligent man. He was able to work out a solution. He had plotted the route that Jesus would have to pass through. He found his one friend. in the midst of all this, a sycamore tree, and he did the sort of thing that I dare say multi-millionaires are not accustomed to do. I don't know when the last time it was that this man would have climbed a tree. He would have had plenty of people tell him to go climb one, but it might have been the first time in years that he had done so. The sycamore tree. Now, I'm Not a gardener at all. I was allergic to everything down on the farm and I'm so grateful to actually live with a gardener. That is a blessing. And it makes rent inspection so much easier because our current agent is a gardener. So she'll come in and look at the house for about 30 seconds and then say, great, let's go out the back. And she'll look at all the flowers that Peter's made and make all these noises that I don't understand at all. But she's certainly very appreciative of God's nature, and that's great. I don't know much about sycamore trees, but I do know how to read my Bible and research. And there are some interesting facts about sycamores that we might not have focused on before. They are very common and considered to be very, very humble trees. As you read in the Old Testament, they actually used two trees to, if you like, go the full way of the spectrum. The common and the humble was the sycamore, and the granddaddy of them all, the BMW or Ferrari of trees, was the cedar tree, if you will. Books like First and Second Chronicles talk about the excesses of Solomon. They say, well, in Solomon's time, gold and precious stones were as common as ordinary stones, which might not have been a good thing. Some people compared Solomon to Louis XIV of France, which isn't complimentary, by the way. And they also said part of Solomon's reign was that sycamore tree was as common as the cedar tree. These things ought not to be, but there you have it. The sycamore tree was a very, very humble tree. As my mum might say, it was as common as mud. And we read that the sycamore tree was even in Egypt. In the Psalms we read that the sycamore tree was affected by the plans of God. A humble tree. And this tree was actually associated with low-lying places. In other words, you weren't so much used to going and seeing the sycamore tree on the mountaintops. That wasn't the sycamore style. But you can find plenty of them in the valleys, in the low places, if you will. A humble low tree from a man who was attempting to make himself low before God. There is a very, very good reason that Zacchaeus didn't find an accommodating cedar tree. I believe that the Lord's hand is very firmly in this. A humble tree for a man whose interest in Christ went just beyond morbid curiosity. It seems as though Zacchaeus came to Christ with a great sense of need, with a great sense of his own sin nature. And even though he sought to make himself lower, it is that realisation of himself that lifted him high, and of course lifted him before the Saviour's attention. Friends, one of the reasons why I'm presenting this to you today is that I'm really preaching to myself that sometimes when you are surrounded by unsafe people, as I am at work, it's very, very easy to take a societal view to these people. Yes, some of their stories are very, very unsavoury. And yet we see that it is the love of the Lord Jesus Christ for this man. Could such a man be saved? Would society accept this man being saved? It certainly seemed to be against society's wish. And yet we see in this act of humiliation that Zacchaeus does, the Saviour looked up in verse 5. And this is a very, very noteworthy verse because I will tell you this, this is the only time recorded in scripture that the Lord ever invited himself to anybody's house. This is the only account where you will ever find it. A momentous thing indeed. And we come, of course, to number four, Zacchaeus' song. And I've got that inverted commas. I'm using a little bit of poetic license for the sake of alliteration. But we do see, do we not, at various times in the Bible, Those people who are so overjoyed that they burst into song, we see that Mary did it, we see that Elizabeth did it, the children of Israel after Pharaoh took an unexpected swim, they did it back in Exodus. And I believe that perhaps if Zacchaeus had the capacity, then he would be singing also. We see in verse six that his heart is full of joy. The joy that we saw in the heart of the Magi, the joy of those that had had a personal encounter with God, that joy had filled the previously blackened, darkened heart of Zacchaeus. And it's the words of this song, or perhaps more accurately, the utterances that Zacchaeus make, that really we should give very close attention to, because Zacchaeus And I'm sorry to say this, but Zacchaeus took some baby steps, his first tottering, teetering steps as a young believer. He took some steps that some older Christians who should be meek Christians hesitate and struggle to make. Zacchaeus immediately went about the ministry of restitution and reconciliation. Dirty words to some, but this is what Zacchaeus did. Zacchaeus said in verse 8, he stood, maybe that's because the Lord could say the Lord could see him. I'm not entirely sure. I did say no short jokes, didn't I? And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I've taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. Now, there's a couple of things that we need to see in this verse. First of all, in Worce translation, he actually does not have the word if there. When we read and if I have taken, there are those reputable Bible scholars that believe that it should read and since I've taken, in other words, this is a curse, stepping up and fessing up that he was as crooked as a crankshaft. But now he actually wanted to do something about it. Did you know that these promises that Zacchaeus made, and there's nothing to suggest that he did not fulfill these promises, all these promises actually exceeded the demands that were placed on him by the Old Testament law. Did you know that? Depending on the crime, There are various passages that demand that a man restore to the ones that he's wrong plus 20%. That was interest rates under the Hawke and Keating era. You remember those times, Mr. James. But 20%, you restore to that man plus interest. In the case of livestock, which was livelihood for some people, you had to restore double. in certain bad cases. Nowhere does it say that you give the man that you have wronged a 400% bonus. Where did this come from? This came from the joy of Zacchaeus' heart. This came from the fact that he had found what he was looking for. You know, there are many, many people, as I said, that feel very threatened by young believers, and it is so wrong. We are so set in our ways, we've got ourselves organized, and when a new Christian come, and we're sort of comfortable with the level that we're at, and a new Christian comes in, like some kind of puppy, bounding with all this energy and wants to do this and wants to do that, and we actually feel threatened by these people. We need to calm these people down. Take a chill pill, as some people might say. And once again, that is wrong. We need to take deep care, friends, that we do not stand with society, that we need to see Zacchaeus the same way that the Lord did. In a way, the stakes were high for the Lord because there's no doubt that as he looked up to the tree, as he actually invited himself to a place that no good Jew would ever go, his popularity no doubt took a major hit. If they had a Morgan Gallup poll or whatever they have today, a Galaxy poll, there's no doubt that you could see the line go, this was a major thing. as far as the Jews were concerned. And we see this in verse 7. And when they, the crowd, saw it, they all remembered saying that he was gone to be guessed with a man that is a sinner. But I love the comment that MacDonald in his commentary made where he said, they overlooked the fact that coming into a world like ours, he was limited exclusively to such homes. All we like sheep have gone astray. The glorious song of Zacchaeus. The glory of someone destined to eternal punishment that has now received into eternal life. The words of Christ in verses 9 and 10. This day is salvation come unto this house for as much as he also is a son of Abraham. And the Lord is not referring to Zacchaeus's birth in the first place, but rather his second birth. His salvation for the son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. are those in times past, in Christendom's past, that sometimes feel a little bit uncomfortable in telling people to get out there and to go into a lost and dying world, because there are those people, true, that do so in defying Psalm 1 about sitting with the seed of the scornful. Sometimes there is that very real danger as you're going out, you're following your evil heart and not the Lord. And you just want to be with the unsaved because you prefer that company. And yes, there is that very real danger, friends, that I face every day. But the call is there. And I know that there has been some shocking headlines lately, and there is the temptation as we live in this society to look upon a certain group of people that are always in the headlines. And yes, friends, they've done dark and despicable things. But when we look upon them, we should also think of the face of the saviour who did not look at this great flesh curtain around him, but looked up and actually called this man by name Zacchaeus. A great shock to the good person. Yet, The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost from the uttermost to the gutter most. These are the people that we should be concerned with and we should be praying to the Lord like Paul did. Lord, I wish to reach these people. Make me not a castaway and make me not as these people as we see in Jewish society. As I minister friends, there's been times that, yes, some of their stories have made my stomach churn. Some of their attitudes have left me greatly, greatly disheartened. And yet, if I really wish to obey the Lord's leading in my life, my need to lift up my eyes and behold my mission field, because it is white and ready under harvest, it is no accident that I am where I am. And I wish to reach the lost. We're all familiar with Acts chapter 16 and verse 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and they all shall be saved. We're familiar with that. We may be less familiar with the lead up verses where Paul and Silas were beaten. were put into maximum security. Their feet were in stocks. Yes, placed in stocks by the very man that they were eventually saved. And their reaction was not to look down on this man with condemnation, but to do what Paul put in the epistles. He practiced what he preached. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. The lost do not need to see your condemnation. Because as a society, we're very, very good at that. They need to see joy as the flag flown high from the castle of your heart. They need to see your joy. They need to see your love. We live in a very, very judgmental society today. But we also read that Christ did not come to call the just or the self-just to repent. It's the sick that need a doctor. And we can always shake our heads at this sick world, can't we? But then again, we're just doing what the world does. A wise man once said, it's better to light a candle than curse the darkness. And I believe that. Do you have a grown-up view of this passage of Zacchaeus? Can the lost people that you encountered, did they experience your vitriol and your condemnation? Or do they see the love and the joy that only the Savior exclusively, Him alone, can shine into their lives, perhaps to their saving souls? There is no one. Beyond salvation, while there is life, there is hope. Someone needs to see your Christ-like spirit, perhaps even today.