The kid is hurrying, come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried down and was happy to welcome Him. That would be the understatement of the day. Then Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house. Because he too is the son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost. Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let it be like a day to remember. Salvation came to Zacchaeus and his wife and children and servants, his household. Great joy came into that place. He was set free. He was made whole. He became a new creation. He was forgiven. All these things just tumbled in his mind. I think this week, on Monday night, we rejoiced greatly because the orphan was forgiven. Didn't we rejoice? Oh, we didn't sort of smile much, and we didn't get to see him, but we rejoiced, didn't we? Sort of very nicely. And that Tuesday night, Mary Magdalene, If you guys knew what it is to be possessed by evil spirits for 25 years I lived in a country where being possessed by evil spirits was as normal as whatever. And it was just as normal to cast out demons. There's nothing to it. According to the practices we did all the time. I say it now. And I hope I get the same reaction that he got from me, John Carpenter. He just said the other day, that what happened, John, the other day. What happened, John? He got out! Yeah. I have a friend called Buster Womber, He was in a hole, and it was pretty secret also. There were about 40 or 50 people in this hole. And there was a man with an equal spirit. And he made an illusion of himself. I said, what did you do? He said, well, I did what Jesus did. I said, what did you do? I said, get out. And then I went in. He said, what happened? He got out, he said. I said, what happened there? Oh, nothing. I mean, when did people make all the necessary, just like in mind? But then did people become Christians? No. Did the men become Christians? No. They were just so glad to be a bit of an experience. But then, people come to believe, what is all the necessary? I don't care. Even the son of this Christ? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, because of the Word of God, they are Christians. Interesting. So salvation came, I had salvation came, but can you remember that day when salvation came to you? Now this is not a rhetorical question, come on. Can you remember the day that salvation for the first time came to you? And what happened? They all were just. Oh, not you then, all right. What shall I render to God for all His bounty to me? What is the answer? I will raise the cup of salvation and pray my vows to the Lord. You come with buckets full to the well of salvation, and you draw water from the well of salvation. You need one bucket full? Well, get a bucket full. If you want ten buckets full like I do, get ten buckets full. And guess what? The level of salvation never diminishes, and you can come and come with buckets and buckets, and you will just... All right, that's enough. I read in the first of John, once when I was not well, I had back troubles, and that seems to be part of our existence, and I read in one John, grace upon grace, and I did not quite understand what it meant, but I had a vision of grace upon grace, what salvation meant to me and what it means to us all. I saw a road being made, a road to heaven. And there was a line of trucks from here to eternity. And each truck was about 12 tons. And in each truck was 12 tons of grace. And they were building a road. And they were dumping all this grace. And they kept on dumping and dumping one truck after another. And there was no end to the grace that was being dumped. Oh, all right, all right. I mustn't get excited. I mustn't do that. Luke starts with the angel announcing to the shepherds, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is the Messiah, the Lord. And then Luke ends with this, thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in His name to all nations." And then it says, the last verse in Luke, the Gospel that is, "...and they worshipped Him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy." Alright. You're just looking at me as if you are tired, are you? Did we sing too much? We didn't. Would you like to do it all over again? Oh, no, please. Amongst other things, Luke is the gospel of forgiveness and joy. He's the only one that says, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. the story of Mary Magdalene from Luke, and the woman who was forgiven. And we've heard of the two men going in a temple from Luke 18. Great joy. I had a phone call last year, April, from one of my brothers. This brother, called Gerard, was a person we prayed for, but I never really believed that he would become a Christian. His heart was hardened. His wife had been a Christian for many years. His sons are Christians. Great credit to her. He did not want to go to church. He wanted to believe his own way. He had his own gods. He could not open his mouth without filth coming out of it. Ella and I just didn't like visiting him. And then he rang me and he said, Hank. I said, yes Gerard. Hank, he said, I've become a Christian. I said, what happened? He said, well, he said, something happened that day, and I don't know what, but there was something in me, and I don't know what, and I can't explain it, but I was sitting at the table, and I was sort of feeling a bit sorry, his marriage was breaking up, and he says, God came into me, He doesn't use clichés. He didn't know what was happening. He said, God touched my heart and grabbed my heart and I'm a Christian. He said something else remarkable. He said, Hank, God loves me. Salvation had come to his home. God loves me. And then he said, are you crying, Hank? I said, no, I'm not. And he said, Hank, do you know what I do in church? And I thought, what do we do in church? And I said, now, what do we do in church, Jared? He says, they sing praises to God. Do you know that? And I said, yeah, yeah, I know that. When salvation comes to a man, oh man! And he said, do you know that I pray in church and I give the word of God in church? Do you know that, Hank? I said, yeah, I know that. Well, how about that, you pewsitters? Next Sunday morning, just get going and start singing and praying. Oh, no, all right, all right, all right. So he rang me another day and he said, Hank, I'm going to be baptized in February. But I hear you coming to Holland. Is that right? Yes, okay, he went to the elders of the church and he asked if he could be baptized when his brother Hank from Australia was coming. So I said, what joy! And I said to him, Jared, I would love to dunk you! His wife said, I've just had a policy on his name, keep him under for ten minutes, will you Hank? Shelby, I didn't know that, he went to the elders and he says, May Pastor Henk help baptise me. So we went to Holland for the 90th birthday of my mother and we baptised my brother. Very moving. And then his daughter-in-law, a godly woman, sang to him, walk in the light with Jesus. And when his marriage was almost breaking up, a couple of months before, his wife walked to him, and there they stood together, arm in arm. Great joy! Today salvation has come to this house. Oh, what a joy! Who is this man Zacchaeus? He is a Jew, a descendant of Abraham by birth. He is not a true child of Abraham. He does not have Abraham's faith and righteousness. His name means the Righteous One. Now, some other scholars said, no, it means God is great. But I read another one that says the Righteous One, so I thought that's two against one, and it fits better in my sermon today, so I'll take that one. I don't know Hebrew. So His name means the Righteous One. This wonderful name, I believe, reflects more His godly parents, because he has become anything but righteous. He's the general manager of the toll collecting business of Jericho. He has become wealthy. The Bible said he is rich. His wealth was as a result of fraud and corruption and confiscating goods. He lived by the motto of the Roman emperor who said, money has no smell, out of whatever cesspool it may have been fished up. In Judaism, even Jewish toll collectors were regarded as unclean. They did not meet the ritual requirements to worship God or to offer sacrifices in the temple. Ceremonially, they were impure. and were not fit to meet with God. So they were expelled from the synagogue, and I dare to say if he wasn't expelled he would not dare showing his face there anyway, and banned from all but the outer area of the temple. They were regarded by the rabbis as renegade children of Abraham. In other words, they had forsaken their Jewishness They had abandoned their religion. They were not counted as sons of Abraham any longer. They no longer had the right of citizenship in Israel. The crowd's attitude shows he is excluded from the community. He represented Roman domination. At times he would be regarded as a quisling or traitor because of his close cooperation with the enemy. We in Australia do not know what it is to be occupied by a foreign force. It is awful. It is dreadful. And we had a neighbour, a few houses from us, who was a quisling, who was a traitor. He had sided with the enemy to save his own skin. He had a pushbike, we didn't. He had bread, we didn't. He had potatoes, we didn't. When there was a razzia, when the enemy came, they would come in all our homes and they came in our homes and I saw with my own eyes, I was only six or seven, eight perhaps, and I would count all the blankets and I said, eight people here, eight blankets, and I took everything away, but they didn't do it in his house. And guess what? The resentment just grew up. And my father said it was part, sort of, of the underground. He was helping them. He said, Henny, that was my pet name at home. I've had many names, Henny. He said, Henny, never ever talk to that man. Never says what goes on in his house. Never ever. Because he's the enemy. He was hated. According to the rabbis it was totally impossible for Zacchaeus and people like him to be converted. They were outside the covenant, forever lost, forever doomed. He was, Zacchaeus was, one of the lost sheep of Israel. On one occasion Jesus commenting on a person who could or would not be disciplined said, let him be to you as a Gentile and tax collector. Gentiles could not partake in the privileges and rich blessings of the covenant, and neither could Zacchaeus. How terrible. How terrible to be outside the covenant of God. He was despised because he was a tax collector. But why, we ask, did he become a tax collector? What do you think? He wanted to be rich. Why do people want to be rich? Because somehow we think, as Andrew told us today, people think wealth brings security. But the Bible tells us riches are deceitful. Nothing wrong with riches, as long as we are not hooked on riches. Zacchaeus was hooked, he was rich. He would have a big house with a swimming pool. and the latest model chariot, but still an outcast. There was another rich man, rich ruler. This story Luke told us in contrast to Zacchaeus. The rich ruler was unable to enter God's reign and rule. He's an earnest man. He's polite, upright in character, who was in search of eternal life. How would you like it if someone came to you next week, whenever, and says to you, I'm in search of eternal life. What would you do? What would you do? Come in. I remember a man by the name of Hank. I was 18 or 19, 50 years ago. He knocked on my door and he says, Hank, I want to be a Christian now. Well, I didn't know what to do. I said, well, come in. And I prayed. And I said, you're a Christian now. And he left. And salvation came in his heart. And I met his widow a couple of weeks ago. And she said the Lord took him home. a faithful servant, a deacon in the church, fifty years later, with a father. The rich ruler was ripe for the picking, becoming a follower of Jesus, but Jesus seemed to go out of his way to reject the man. He put such an impossible demand before him that he walked away shocked and crestfallen. The disciples are perplexed and so astonished that they exclaim, then who in the world can be saved? If this man cannot become a follower of Jesus, then who else in the world could possibly qualify? From a human point of view, he is an attractive catch. He has lots of money, and therefore greatly blessed. Wealth in general stood for a token of God's blessing, but Jesus reverses accepted human values. He says wealth is an impediment. So great a handicap in fact that rich people cannot enter the kingdom of God. It is just too difficult. It is even more impossible than the impossibility of a large beast to creep through the eye of a needle. The idol of materialism is so very strong. We lived in Africa for 25 years, and the first year I was there, I wanted to know the definition of a rich man from a Congolese man. I went to Yona. I said, Yona, what is a rich man? Who is a rich man? My name in those days was Pastor Henke. It's not funny. He said, Pastor Henke, a rich man is a man who can afford to drink tea whenever he likes with sugar and milk. I thought, by golly, I am rich. I went to another man. I said, what's the definition? Who is a rich man? He says, a rich man is a man who can afford to buy toilet paper. I thought that went to the bottom of things a little bit too much. You are so rich here that perhaps each one of you could buy all the toilet paper in Woolworths today. That's how rich you are. The disciples' astonishment in asking the question, then who can be saved? Jesus goes on to say, for mortals it is impossible, but not for God. For God all things are possible. I did not think my brother Jared would ever become a Christian, and God took him! A great miracle! It's a divine miracle. Something of extraordinary wonder needs to happen for rich people to become people of faith. Perhaps we will now understand what a great miracle it was for Levi to leave his text booth and follow Jesus. Follow me! And he did! Not only was he a sinner, but a filthy rich one as well. Perhaps we will now understand tonight this so-called even more impossible miracle of Zacchaeus' salvation. Zacchaeus hurry and come down and he did immediately. I think he fell out of the tree. Now I want to clear up a point. It is just as difficult for a poor man to enter the Kingdom of God. Do we now understand how great a miracle therefore it is for you and me to become children of our Father in Heaven? You're rich, it's impossible, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God, But somehow God has done something in your life and He has made you His son and daughter. Aren't you glad? And the miracle of salvation is just such that we cannot comprehend when the Spirit of God comes upon a man or a woman and grabs and touches his heart. Even we rich people. Oh, you're still not. You're still looking at me. Oh, never mind. Do not read the story of Zacchaeus as an isolated story. We have a tendency in the Gospels to read and study without taking into consideration what went before or what comes after. How come salvation had come to Zacchaeus and his house? And in this story we see the seeking and saving grace of the Father. The Father is always seeking people to worship Him. He says that in John 4, Jesus seeks the lost, the Father seeks worshipper. Luke tells us early in his Gospel, when the day drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus' mind was set on Jerusalem all the time. Luke is telling us again and again that tax collectors are at the bottom of the heap. But to record an astonishing parable by Jesus, which was nothing short of scandalous. In the previous chapter, two men in the temple and a tax collector saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. That man went home justified. Luke has sown a seed. that even the impossibility of tax collectors, that they can be saved. Immediately before the story of Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus, Jesus says, he took the disciples aside, he says, we're going to Jerusalem, I'll be delivered up, I will suffer, they will flog me, they will kill me. But I will rise on the third day. They understood nothing. about all these things. In fact, what he said was hidden from them. They did not grasp what was said. Mark tells us that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and this is a divine must. Jesus was passing through Jericho on his final trip to Jerusalem in order to die on the cross for the sins of the world. This story of Zacchaeus is the last in the account of Jesus' trip from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south. Luke tells this story only because of what is going to happen in Jerusalem in a few short days. As a matter of fact, after he had stayed overnight with Zacchaeus, he walked 25 kilometers to Jerusalem, five hours trip, and there they sang Hosanna! Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David. It is because of Jesus' death and resurrection that salvation has come to this man Zacchaeus and his entire household. Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. What made Zacchaeus climb the tree? Luke simply says he was trying to see who Jesus was. He was short of stature. The crowd would not let him go to the front. This shows how much he was hated. I always thought when you're of short stature that you had a great advantage when there was a carnival or there was a procession or Christmas present, because you could sneak under the legs of people and you could sort of get your way to the front, but no. The minute the keys wanted to go to the front, I closed the wrench. I hated him. Now, just a little bit about this person of short stature. labour on this, but I want to tell you something that you need to hear. Before God there are only persons. There are no little persons, there are no tall persons. Someone said tonight, how come you tall one are going to talk about a short one? I remember once I met a Tutsi in Beni, a township near us in East Congo, and he introduced himself and I said, how do you do sir? He was so tall there was snow on his head. There are no skinny people, there are no fat people, there are no high IQ or low IQ people. God made man and woman. You are a man or a woman. God had made Zacchaeus of short stature. So what? He has created you the way you are. Never thought of that? Have you thought of that? Are you happy with your body? Are you not? Well, you can't all be handsome like me, I know that, but... God has created you the way you are. He created Zacchaeus to be short. So what? He could have made him tall, he could have made him... No, then we wouldn't have climbed in a tree, so no, he didn't do that. The size of the partial does not alter the person. So get on with life. Your identity is in Christ Jesus. Zacchaeus, a short man, became a son of Abraham. He was set free. The Bible doesn't say he was a short son of Abraham. You're a child of God. I remember living in amongst a million people, I was the only white face. I stood out like a sore thumb, I tell you. So people would throw rocks at me and tomatoes and dung, but that's alright. See, I was different. I was a man in my church who could play the trumpet so beautifully, you would just sit there with tears in your eyes. And he played his heart out. And then I preached. And then we sought one another. And he said to me, I wish I could preach like you. And I said to him, I wish I could play like you. And we looked at one another and we started crying, both of us. Because I wanted to be him and he wanted to be me. And we'd forgotten that God had created him to be a trumpet player. And he had created Hank to mumble a few things now and then, occasionally. Aren't we stupid? Well, I was anyway. Your identity is in Christ. So why did he climb the tree? Had he heard how Levy, a toll collector from up north, had become a follower of Jesus? Had he picked up the rumor that Jesus was a friend of tax collectors and sinners and other outcasts? and feasted with them in their homes? Had he heard the parable of Jesus, of the two men in the temple? Or had he heard about Jesus' ministry, his preaching and healings, these things he was famous for? People came from far away to hear Jesus. Or was Zacchaeus bored with being rich, looking for something to fulfill the void in his life? This is all speculation, we don't know. He wanted to see Jesus climb the tree. He may have known the blind beggar and just heard of his healing. We knew all the blind beggars, we knew all the beggars in Ben. When once a week or once a fortnight we would do our shopping, the same beggars would come to us and we knew they were drunks and we knew they were this or that, but we just gave money away. Well, not that much. But we knew our beggars. Zac may have known him. Luke tells us that when Jesus and the crowd approached Jericho, the blind beggar was told, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. As there was quite a crowd of pilgrims going to Jerusalem through Jericho, he had to shout to be heard. He then shouted out twice, not, Jesus of Nazareth have mercy on me, no he shouted, Jesus son of David have mercy on me. This blind beggar was revealing something that even the disciples did not know. Son of David is synonymous with King of Israel. Mary was told by Gabriel, sent by God, he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. So son of Tim was healed by the Son of David. Bar means son, so son of Tim. He was healed. Immediately he regained his sight and followed Him, glorifying God. And all the people, the crowd, the pilgrims, when they saw it, they praised and glorified God. So just bear with me a minute. They're entering Jericho. Alright? It just happened a few hundred meters before Jericho. And this whole crowd is singing, glorifying God, praising God. And there is a man jumping with joy. The Son of David has healed me! The Son of David has healed me! Why? Because He appeared! The Son of Jesus has healed me! And he would shout and they would glorify God. And there was a commotion. And Zacchaeus heard all that. No wonder he wanted to see this Jesus of Nazareth, claimed by the crowd to be David's son, the coming King of Israel. This man, Jesus, had something to show and something to say, so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. A sycamore tree has easy branches, low down, much leaves. I recall a joke by Jeff once, a story by Jeff, a man was chased by a bull, a ferocious bull in a paddock, steam coming out of his nostrils, you know, and he ran for his life, and there was one tree in the paddock, and the lowest ground was five metres. Well, he missed it, but he grabbed it on the way down. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry, come down, for I must stay at your house today. Zacchaeus, I can't say Zacchaeus with a ton of love behind it. I mean, my wife sometimes says Hank, and she says Hank, or sometimes she says Hendrick, But sometimes she says Hank in such a way that all her love is in that sentence, in that word. My Hank! Ha! Oh, it's so lovely to belong to a woman, especially to Ella. She's an Ella of a good wife. Zacchaeus! How do you say that? Can anyone tell me with a ton of love? You know, Zacchaeus? I don't know. Perhaps Zach? I don't know. The Good Shepherd knows me! He knows my name! He knows my name! Here was a personal encounter, a personal call. When Jesus called his name and looked at him in that very moment, Jesus touched his heart. He grabbed him. This famous preacher, this prophet of God, this son of David, this godly man who claims to be the Messiah, this man stopped and talked to Zach and called him by name. What love! The Good Shepherd knows His sheep by name. He knows you and me. Hurry, He said, hurry! Not, please, Zach, may I stay at your place tonight? No, I must stay at yours today. This is a kingly must. This is a divine must. The King of Israel is to be obeyed. When the king said to a bunch of fishermen, follow me, they left the nets and I followed him. When he showed a leper, a leper came to him and he said, be clean. And guess what? He was clean. He said to a man, get up. And guess what? He said to a man, your sins be forgiven you. And guess what? Ah, salvation! And when the crowd heard that Jesus invited himself to this sinner's home, they were shocked. The same crowd who a minute before had praised and glorified God on account of the healing of the leper. Beggar, blind beggar, sorry, get mixed up. What does this mean to stay at your house today? Well, it means to have a meal. Abraham, once unwittingly, had given hospitality to angels without knowing it. Now this word became flesh, is having a meal with one of Abraham's sons. Now, time doesn't allow me to say much, but there is one thing that I want to say, that Jesus had meals with sinners and prostitutes and tax collectors, and this was as much showing the kingdom had come as casting out the demon. Jesus' meals with tax collectors and sinners are an expression of the mission and message of Jesus. They are anticipatory celebrations of the feast in the end time in which the community of the saints is already being represented. One day we will sit down with Messiah Jesus in the Kingdom of God. We will eat bread with Father at the same table. And he will say to Father God, thank you Father for the bride you have given me. I love that bride and father you love that bride and the bride loves me and the bride loves you. And so we will sit with father and son and eat bread with him at the same table. Right worship as joyous eating is not only a faithful enactment of the goodness of creation, it is an act of hope, a foretaste, of the common abundance when there will be more than enough for all. Repentance is a beautiful gift from God. Zacchaeus repented that day. I don't want to answer him when did he repent. I think when he heard his name said. That was the minute, the moment he repented. He fell out of the tree and he went home with Jesus. And when he repented, he took total responsibility for his sins. Repentance is such a wonderful gift that God gives and wants to give to you. A few weeks ago I stood at the grave of St. Patrick in Northern Ireland. St. Patrick, all I knew about St. Patrick was green and getting drunk. I tried a pint of Guinness and I didn't like it. Oh sorry, I shouldn't have said that. And there was an exhibition, there's an exhibition in Northern Ireland about St Patrick, it's a wonderful exhibition, museum type, and you walk in, you stand on a spot and they give you a video or you hear something said, and the first thing What is being said in this exhibition is, you hear the voice of St. Patrick, well, sort of, and he said, I am a sinner. And then he tells the story of his conversion. Zacchaeus stood up and made a big announcement. Half his goods to the poor, and he paid back four times the amount he had fraudulently obtained from people. This was far more than the law of Moses ordered. You give back the amount, plus twenty percent. So he gave half away to the poor and four times. Guess what? How much did he have left? Do you think how much he had left? Nothing. He was rich no longer. He got rid of what was closest to his heart, his riches. Jesus had set him free. I'm not telling you tonight to give away your riches, but I am telling you tonight to repent. He had become a true son of Abraham because of the Son of Man. A true son of Abraham is a blessed person. A true son of Abraham, or a daughter of Abraham, is a person of faith. He is a righteous man. His name, the Righteous Man, had become true. Jesus said, today salvation has come to this house. He is a true son of Abraham. Here is a blessed man. Here is a man of faith. Here is a man who is righteous. Here is a man who is clean. Here is a man who has been forgiven. Here is a man who repented and received from God all that God had to give to him. in God is trust in the God who seeks us. We are saved because He has sought us in our lostness. So today, call upon the name of the Lord. Today, Jesus says to you, if you do not know, and if you are not a son or daughter of Abraham, Jesus says right now to you, today, hurry! Say yes, let Him grab your heart. Zach came down from the tree. And Jesus went up the tree to die for Zacchaeus. It's so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law, Gentiles, well, I became as one outside the law. Doesn't matter, because the law of God is over all of humanity. See, I'm not free from God's law, of course. He says, I'm under Christ's law, the law of the true humanity. So of course I'm going to serve him. And of course I'm going to love, because that's what it's all about. I want to see these people come to the same freedom that I know. So to the weak I become weak, that I might win the weak. I become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. And I do it all for the sake of the gospel. so that I may share its blessings. Here is a man who knew the power of anger because of his failure, and because of the failure of others, to become a man who said, I now know what love is, because strong, strong love has conquered me. But the love that has conquered me is not something mystical, It's the law of Christ, the man. Who are you, Lord? I'm Jesus, whom you crucified. That's the love. There is love in the creation. There is law. And it's come to me and washed me clean. And it's no longer I who live. I'm in that man, and he's in me. I don't need to apply that, do I? No. God is faithful, and his mercy that came to Saul is the mercy that's come to us, and keeps coming. And the love of God which is shed abroad in our hearts wasn't just a once for all thing back then, But it still flows because Christ hasn't stopped loving and the Father hasn't stopped loving.