Please take your Bibles this morning and turn to Luke chapter 19. As we continue our excursion through the Gospel of Luke, that great historian who wrote not only the Gospel of Luke, but the Book of Acts. If you actually count it all out, Luke's got more writing in the New Testament than the Apostle Paul. If you count all the words that he wrote, And the space that he takes, he's got the most words written in the New Testament, is Luke himself. And today we come to a very familiar story. Maybe you've heard, when you were growing up, the little song, Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up into a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And I can't remember the rest of it. He passed that way. He said, Zacchaeus, you come down to your house today. I'm coming to you. That's the first time ever I let a song right during my message like that. So Luke chapter 19, reading verses one through 10, let's get a grip on this very familiar story and sort of glean maybe some truths that we weren't aware of. Reading from the New American Standard. And he entered and was passing through Jericho. And behold, there was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus. And he was a chief tax gatherer And he was rich. And he was trying to see who Jesus was, and he was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. And he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see him, for he was about to pass through that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house. And he hurried and came down and received him. And when he saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, he has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner? And Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham. for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost." This account is rich and instructive, and the concluding verse, verse 10, is a verse that expresses the most valuable and glorious truth ever revealed, is that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. As we look at this passage, we're going to see a man who was actually, as the title says, was compelled to seek Jesus. Now, I don't know many people today who have been compelled. I mean, they want to know Christ. and they come to Him for salvation. It's a rare thing to see that. But what I find in Scripture, and as I look at my own life, when I was at the age of 19 and I heard the gospel for the first time while I was in the U.S. Army and I attended a church that was off the base, I heard the gospel. I was raised as a Lutheran. But once I heard the gospel, there was a a sense in my own soul that there is truth to this, and I wanted to know more. There was a compelling drive in my soul to know more of who this God is, who this Jesus is, and so I I became attached to that local church where the scriptures were taught. And I was there for two years. And I got discipled there. And I left there after two years with being ingrained in scripture and having a knowledge of scripture after just two short years. And then went on to Bible college. But one of the things I learned from this passage is that God seeks the lost because lost men Well, I learned this from other places in the Bible, that lost men are unable to seek Him. For instance, in Romans 3, verse 11, it says, there is none who seeks for God. I mean, it makes it very clear in Romans 3 that the natural man does not seek for God. Verse 11 says, the natural man does not seek for the things of God, for they are foolishness to him. The natural man has no desire to know God. And as we look at the scripture as a whole, outside of this passage, I think it's instructive to understand that the Bible speaks of two kinds of calls. Now, bear with me here. We'll get into the text. But there is a general call and an effectual call. In the general call, whosoever will may come. That's a call to everyone. It's a general call to all the world. Whoever may come. juxtaposed against that, or, yeah, the effectual call, which is directed specifically to individuals. Let me show you some verses of what I mean by this. For instance, in Romans chapter one, verse six and seven, Paul says, among whom you also, speaking to the Romans, you also are the called of Jesus Christ. He's speaking of a very specific call to the believers in Rome. to all who are beloved of God in Rome called, called, there's that word again, called as saints. It's very specific here. This is not the general one. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Or here's one of my favorite passages in Romans chapter 8. Paul says later in that book of Romans, there's a string here. There's sort of like a string of pearls, pearls of great truth. For those whom he foreknew, speaking of God, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. Now here it is. And these whom he predestined, he also called, and those whom he called, those he justified, and those he justified, he also glorified. Do you see the string there? It goes from predestined, to called, to justified, to glorified. that those who belong to Christ were predestined, called, justified, and will be glorified. But God puts it in the past tense as if it's already true. It's a foregone conclusion that the Christian, you, if you're a follower of Christ, are glorified. Now you say, well, I'm not glorified yet. Well, but God looks at you as good as glorified. It's already money in the bank. if you belong to him. You see that the string here cannot be broken. And part of that string is the word called. If you're called in the very effectual sense, in the efficacious sense, or some call it an irresistible call. We're talking about the one that was on this side. There was the general call. You've heard the verse in Matthew 22. Many are called, but few are chosen. Many receive the general call, but few are chosen who receive the effectual call. Yeah, I'm getting into some heavy stuff here, I understand that. But I think it applies to our passage. Because we see a man who is actually compelled to seek Jesus. He is driven to seek Jesus. How about some other verses? Verse 31, what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Well, that's a marvelous truth. If God is for you, Listen, it doesn't matter what happens to me because God is for me. If the whole world is against me, if God is for me, I stand strengthened by that, you see. Many martyrs went to their death probably with that verse on their hearts. How about another verse, 1 Corinthians 1.9, speaking of the term, the effectual call, God is faithful through whom you were called. You were called into fellowship. That's a specific calling there with his son. You were called into fellowship. or 1 Corinthians 1, 23 and 24, but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, definite article, the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom, you see the called there. There's an effectual call that targets people and it doesn't miss. Okay, it doesn't miss. God, whom he calls, he gets them, all right? Galatians 1.6, I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you, who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. You were called, Galatians. You're one of His, and you are departing to a different gospel? This is not good. Second Timothy 1.9, speaking of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity. When was it granted to us? From all eternity. You say, I can't figure that out. That's a good thing, because we have a God that's bigger than us, and I'm glad that he's bigger than us, and I'm glad that I can't always figure him out, because if I had a God who was on my level, what kind of God would that be? Not a very good God. A couple more here, and I'll move on here. I want you to see this, that I have 20 verses, 20 passages that I could show here, just in a rough shirt. There's more than that. 2 Thessalonians 2. But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren, beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. God has called you or chosen you. It was for this he called you through our gospel, that you may gain the glory. He called you that you may ultimately gain the glory. You see, whom he's predestined, he's called, and whom he calls, he justifies, and whom he justifies, he glorifies. It doesn't stop short of glorification. You can't have a salvation in Christ that stops short of total glorification. Do you understand that? It's a guaranteed thing if you're a follower of Christ. Oh, one last verse here, this is it. This doesn't really have the word call in it, but it just points out to a very precious truth. this is James 1.18, in the exercise of his will, he brought, he, he, God brought us forth, in the exercise of his will, he brought us forth by the word of truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits among his creatures. He brought us forth. Sort of the idea that he brought us, he called us. He did something. So you see here that there is a general call, and I just sort of touched on the whosoever will may come, There's a specific call that targets people. You say, I can't reconcile those two, that's okay. There's a lot of things I don't quite understand how God does it. I just accept them because he's God and I'm not. Just accept the truth if it's revealed. You say, I don't understand it, that's okay. That's okay. There's a lot of things I preach or teach that are way above my pay grade and I still preach and teach it because it's there. So we come back to our text and we learn that God is a saving God. He has come to seek and to save the lost. That's his goal. Jesus did not come to bring social justice. Jesus did not come to right all the wrongs and to chide our government and bring in a, he didn't come the first time to do this, and to bring in a perfect government. Now he'll come the second time he'll do that. But the first time he came, he's not coming to bring social justice or to right all the wrongs or what many liberals teach today, Jesus came to do this and that. No, he came to seek and to save that which was lost at his first coming. His second coming's entirely different. That's another deal altogether. So we see that God is a saving God, and it's interesting that in Titus and in 1 and 2 Timothy, God is called God our Savior. Jesus is our Savior, but God is our Savior. You say, well, there's no difference. That's right. But God is called a saving God all throughout the Old Testament, even in the New Testament, Titus 2, verse 10. not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior. Or 1 Timothy 1.1, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the commandment of God our Savior. See, God our Savior. I'm really hitting that. God is our Savior. He is a saving God. And so we come back to our to our passage, and we see that God loves to save. We've always seen that Luke likes to talk about this. He talked about this back in Luke 15, where he talked about the lost sheep, and the woman who lost a coin, and the father seeking a lost son. I mean, Luke loves to talk about the Savior and the saving God. And so we come to this story of Zacchaeus. It's one of the clearest biblical illustrations of a God who seeks a specific sinner. When we go out and share tracks, and I got to see how Parker has done that over the months we've done it, and he really was aggressive. I was kind of like, wow. I mean, I first did it with him. I thought he was going to be real timid. He got pretty aggressive with people out there, I mean, in a loving way. Not in a bad way. I mean, you have to kind of, and you only have like a short minute, not even a minute or two with some people. Some people you get a longer time, but you don't have very much time to speak with someone. They want to leave, they want to take their groceries and leave. They don't want to spend much time talking to some yay-hoo about some Bible thing. But you have to kind of get them to think. And I appreciate that about Parker. And the story of Zacchaeus is a clear example of how God, or in this case Christ, who is God, sought a specific individual by name. As we come to these last final of passages regarding Christ before he goes to the cross, we're at this point, we're probably, I'm guessing, two weeks before Christ goes to the cross. And in those final two weeks, last week we saw a guy by the name of Bartimaeus, and the other gospel said there was a second blind man, and they both got healed. We saw that last week. Two blind men who are outcasts in that culture got healed. Today we see another outcast, albeit a very rich man, and he gets spiritually healed. He's saved, and his name is Zacchaeus. And then a little bit later, on the cross, Jesus is on the cross, and one of the thieves says, remember me when you come into your paradise. Remember me, Jesus, remember the other thief on the cross? And then after Jesus died, there was a Roman who said, truly, this must be the, so in the, the son of God, so in the final couple weeks of Jesus' life, you have two blind men, Zacchaeus, a thief on the cross, and a Roman centurion, all of them considered outcasts who came to Christ. Four or five, if you count the two blind, I guess there's five, if I do my math correctly. I went into ministry because I wasn't very good at math. Just asked my algebra teacher, to whom I had to go many hours of remedial training just to try to get the next algebra equation. So anyway. So we come to this passage. Another outcast. Another outcast. And so we're going to see three points there in your bulletin. We're going to see about the sinner who was sought by the Savior, verses 1-4. As we read between the lines, we're going to see that he's very defiled. He has come to this man, Zacchaeus, verse one, and he entered and was passing through Jericho, and there was this man, Zacchaeus. Now, this occurrence of Zacchaeus probably took place just within a very short walking distance of where Jesus healed Bartimaeus. It wasn't very far. Jesus is going through the town of Jericho, and he heals Bartimaeus and the other blind man. And then he walks a little further, and then he comes into face-to-face contact with this guy named Zacchaeus. It wasn't very far down the road. Within a very short walking distance, Jesus comes to this man, Zacchaeus. Now again, Jericho was a strategic location, and we learn in verse 1 or verse 2 that Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector or gatherer, meaning that there were guys who worked under him. But Zacchaeus, back in those days, you would purchase from Rome the right to tax, and the Romans, Romans would say to a person like Zacchaeus, here's your franchise to collect taxes in Jericho. It's like having a McDonald's franchise, well you have a taxing franchise, and we will collect, here's the minimal amount we expect from you every, whatever it is, every month, every quarter, however they collected it. And whatever you collect over that is yours. And so Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector, and he would have people who worked under him, and they would be collecting these taxes, and he would get a piece of all their actions, like a nice little pyramid scheme here, and he would purchase that right to do this from Rome. Interesting. It was a nice gig. And he became very, very rich with this gig, doing this job. And as well, he became very, very hated. I mean, you become despised. I mean, you're a Jew, and you've sold your soul out to Rome. And yet, you claim to be a Jew. You were despised by your own people. And it's in Jericho, a very wealthy area. And Jericho was about six miles north of the Dead Sea, if you can imagine, think of the Dead Sea in Israel. And it's about six miles from the Jordan River. And it was 18 miles east of Jerusalem. Now Jericho was 850 feet below sea level. And it's down there by the Dead Sea, where everything just kind of, goes down, and it's just dry, and it's just low sea level wise. I would love to get over there someday and just float in the Dead Sea. I've heard of people doing it. You just go in there, and you can't hardly sink yourself. The water is so salty. And so Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem, which is 2,500 feet above sea level. Jericho is 800 feet below sea level, so that's a difference of about 3,300 feet in 18 miles. And so if you're going from Jericho to Jerusalem, as Jesus was about to do, you're walking uphill the entire way. because Jerusalem is up high on a mountain-ish type of place, not a mountain like the Alps, but it's higher up. Jericho is way down here, and it's an 18-mile walk up to Jerusalem, literally going up the entire way. Jesus is now going through Jericho. Jericho is called the City of Palms. It was well-watered. It had two springs there. It was a wonderful city. As I mentioned last week, it had been a great place to live. Herod built a palace there, and he had, it was actually, Mark Anthony gave the city of Jericho to his sweetheart, Cleopatra. And Herod built a palace there, and this is Herod the Great. Remember Herod the Great, who had all those two-year-olds killed? And he went, he shortly died after all that. He went to Jericho to die. Nice place to live and a nice place to die, okay? Nice, warm, arid climate. Just the kind of climate that I wouldn't mind being in, you know, if you had some well-watered golf courses in the area. And again, Jericho had some springs, had two major springs that fed the city and irrigated all their crops, and they grew dates and almonds and all kinds of things grew there. And so, large caravans of people would be passing through Jericho on their way to Jerusalem for all the feasts during the year. And Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem as well. And so, here is this man, Zacchaeus, and the text tells us he's the chief tax collector, and he was seeking to find Jesus, but the problem is, verse three, There was a crowd, because this crowd is energized. They had just heard a little while before Jesus got to Jericho, He healed Lazarus from the dead. He raised Lazarus so that the people are energized about Christ. They all want to see Jesus. And here's Zacchaeus. He wants to see Jesus. In fact, he's compelled to see Jesus. But the problem is the crowds and he's kind of short. And I read in one place that the average person in that day was 5'5". And that's kind of short. But Zacchaeus was shorter than that. I'm going to guess Zacchaeus was 4'9", 10 or 11 inches. That would make him shorter than my wife. Zacchaeus was a short man. And so if you're a short man and you're trying to see Jesus and everybody's big up to you, it's hard to see. And so he's going to try to innovate a way that he can see Jesus. And that's exactly what he does. In fact, it says there in verse 4, he ran on ahead and he climbed into a sycamore tree in order to see Him. Remember, Zacchaeus is a rich man, and for him to be willing to kind of, I mean, it's not very adult-like or dignified for a rich man to climb up into a tree, is it? I mean, if you're a rich man in town, do you want to be so undignified as to climb up into a tree? I don't think so. But Zacchaeus, that didn't matter to him, because he is compelled to see Jesus. He wants to see Jesus. And so it didn't matter how undignified he had to be to do that, even if it meant climbing up in a tree. And furthermore, if you're Zacchaeus and you're one of the most hated guys, if you're trying to worm your way through a crowd and they see it's you, the Roman tax collector, Good chance that you're gonna get an elbow to the face. You're so short, I could put my elbow right in your face real easily. Boom, and really hurt you or step on your foot or whatever because you're so despised. So Zacchaeus innovates and he says, I'm just gonna climb up into this sycamore tree in order to see Jesus. His soul here is clearly tormented. As I read between the lines here, I think Zacchaeus wanted something from Jesus, which he gets. He needed Jesus, he wanted Jesus. There was a sense in his own soul he's being drawn to Jesus. Jeremiah 31, back in the Old Testament, the Lord appeared to him afar saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness. There's that word drawn. I've loved you and I'm drawing you to my, there's a spiritual dynamic there that takes place. I never have to worry that God's going to get the people that He wants to be with Him forever and ever. I do my part. We want to share the gospel. We want to appeal to men to the best we can. But on the other hand, I know that God is big enough and strong enough to get the people that He has targeted with a specific call. Yes, we give the general call. Whosoever will may come, but I also know that God's going to get His people. I don't have to worry, oh, is God able to do it? I don't know. I have to help Him, because if I don't help Him, He can't do it. Well, He has chosen to allow me to help Him, and He's blessed me so that when I do help Him, I'm involved in the process. There's a joy in doing that, but God doesn't absolutely have to need me personally, David, John, George, if He could do it without me. He can do it without any person. And so we see the Lord Jesus Christ here. Or one last verse here, Jesus said later in John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up in the last day. Just let that soak in. There's a spiritual dynamic here in the salvation process. And so we're praying this week during VBS that that spiritual dynamic touches the lives of the kids who come here. That when they hear truth, when it's presented to them and we make appeals to their soul to receive Christ and to trust him, that they respond to the truth and come to Christ. Let's just skip that. So we see, we saw first of all then the sinner who was sought. But we move to verses five through seven, and we see the Savior who sought the sinner. Now he enters in Christ. Christ becomes more clear here in our story. Verse five, and when Jesus came to the place, remember Zacchaeus is up in the tree, looking very undignified as a rich man in Jericho. But he's up in that tree. Jesus knew he was in that tree. I love it. Jesus looked up and said to him, don't you love this, the intimacy, the word that comes to mind is the ethos here, the relationship here. Jesus comes and he says in verse five, hurry and come down for today. I must, I have to stay at your house. This is, I mean, that would be taken to, I'm gonna not only stay at your house, this means spend the night. It's not, by the way, it's not a request, it's a command. Jesus commands Zacchaeus, I'm gonna stay at your house. Now, if someone came to me and said that to me just on the whim, you see, I'm not, you don't make that command of any person. I don't go to Rick May and say, I'm gonna stay at your house tonight. I mean, he'd probably punch me in the nose. You can't make that command of me. But Jesus does it because there's a dynamic here. There's a dynamic here. And he already, interestingly enough, he already knows Zacchaeus' name, demonstrating again that this was something God had ordained. He knew that this is his omniscience, meaning he's all-knowing. One definition, in God's omniscience, God inherently possesses perfect knowledge so that he never has to learn anything. He knows all things perfectly well. He knows all things perfectly well as the next thing. And so Jesus says, hurry and come down. Again, it's a command. There's a sense of urgency here. And I, you know, certainly Zacchaeus would not have expected this in a gazillion years. Jesus is gonna look up in the tree and tell me that he's gonna come to my house? He would not have expected that. Today, you know, he says, today I have to come to your house. Hebrews chapter four, verse seven. He again fixes a certain day. Today, saying through David, after so long a time, just as has been said before, today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. Today, there's a day that God comes knocking on the heart souls of people and you need to respond. And if you don't respond, then you've missed it. You don't necessarily get a rain check here. Zacchaeus, you don't get a second chance here to have the God of the universe come to your house. You won't get another opportunity. This is it. This is your shot. And Zacchaeus didn't miss. Praise God. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 5. It's interesting to note that life comes from God. God is the one who works in our hearts. Paul says in Ephesians 2.5, even when we were dead in our transgressions, and that's every person before Christ, we're dead in transgressions. He made us alive together with Christ. In other words, if you go back, it's God who's the antecedent here. God makes us alive together with Christ, for by grace you have been saved. God is the one who gives life. God is the one who opened up the heart of Zacchaeus, or any sinner, to say yes to Jesus, come to my house, and I'll take care of you. As if God needs to be taken care of, but anyway. And so you see here, Zacchaeus, like all of us, was overjoyed that Christ would do such a marvelous work of grace in his life. And so you see there, moving to verse 6, he hurries on down and he receives him. And you come to the negative folks, verse 7. The key here turns to the minor key, if you're going to put this to music. And when they saw it, verse 7, they all began to grumble, saying, He has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. Here we're back to the naysayers, and how could Jesus Doesn't he know who Zacchaeus is? He's a chief tax collector. He rips us all off, and he steals our money, and he spends his time with the other outcasts, including prostitutes. Doesn't he know who Zacchaeus is? I mean, that's why Jesus told the prodigal son parable, because people were intensely hostile to Jesus spending time with sinners. Instead of saying, wow, what marvelous grace this is, instead of saying, wow, what compassion that is, what a wonderful Savior, the crowd here indicts Jesus. He's gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner. Legalists would view the grace of God with disdain. Legalists always view the grace of God with disdain. They look down their long noses and they disdain the grace of God. They don't understand the grace of God. They think anything that God does for you must be received with a price that is paid out. that to receive the grace of God, I have to pay out something. I have to give something. I have to earn it. I have to do something. That's the heart of a legalist. And they don't understand grace. And so we see here the Savior. He comes and he meets this sinner, and he invites him to be with himself. And we see there in the latter part of the text, we're gonna see here, lastly, the salvation wrought by the Savior. And you're gonna see some amazing things here. You never see salvation because you can't see what goes on in a person's heart and soul. You can't see that. You can't see what's in my soul. I can't see what's in your soul. You can't see it. But you see the outward effects of what's happened on the inside. That's what we see here. And Luke does not describe the Lord Jesus' presentation of the gospel. You don't see that here. Luke doesn't say that Jesus said, here are the four spiritual laws, or here, you know, he doesn't say, this is what Jesus said to Zacchaeus. He doesn't say that here. We are told that Zacchaeus simply stops and he says to the Lord in verse 8, he said, Zacchaeus addressed Jesus as Lord, Messiah, God. He understood to the extent that he could, he understood who Jesus was. I mean, if he could raise some dude named Lazarus from the dead, who'd been dead for four days and already began to stink from his rotting corpse, but yet raise him from the dead, this guy's gotta be something more than just a mere man. He is Lord. Verse eight, behold, this is what Zacchaeus says now, you don't see, but somewhere in the space between verse seven and verse eight in the white space. If you look really, really close in the white space between verses seven and eight, salvation took place in the heart of Zacchaeus. Verse eight, behold, Lord, half of my possession I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much. Now you're gonna see several things here. we're gonna see that Zacchaeus testified and confessed, he repents, and he provides restitution. Those three things happen in the tight little space here. He testifies, or confesses, he repents, and he provides restitution. And you see that testifying in verse eight, where he says, behold, Lord. Just those two words, behold, Lord. He's announcing who Jesus is. He's Lord. And then he says, half of my possessions I'm going to give to the poor. That's right off the bat. Not only that, he says in verse 8, and if I've defrauded anyone of anything, which you have, which I have, if I'm Zacchaeus, yes, I have, I will give back four times. Now, if you go back to the Old Testament, if you go back to a passage like Exodus or, excuse me, Leviticus 6, verse 5, if you were to provide restitution according to the law, you provide back the full amount plus a fifth, or 20%. The law says you give back whatever you stole plus a fifth. Zacchaeus exceeds that, dramatically exceeds that. I will give back, what's he say there in verse eight? Four times as much. I'm not just giving back the original amount plus 20%. I'm giving back the original amount plus four times as much. So if I stole $10 from someone, he's giving back 40, I think, if I do my math correctly, right? Something like that. If I stole $1,000, I'm giving back $4,000. He exceeds the law. His restitution was far more than what the Mosaic law requires. So it's important that we recognize that his faith, Zacchaeus' faith is actually demonstrated as real through these things here. He testified, he repented, He's changing his mind, that's what we mean by the word repentance. He does a 180. Repentance doesn't mean you feel sorry. People sometimes equate repentance equals being sorry. Now, there is a sorrow, Paul says, he talks about it in 2 Corinthians, a sorrow unto repentance. But sorrow by itself is not repentance. Should we be sorry for our sins? Yeah, have a sorrow unto repentance. But sorrow by itself doesn't mean you've repented. Repentance simply means I've changed my mind. And he changed his mind. He's not going to be the same person anymore. And he proves it by providing restitution. and he provides payback to everybody that he has stolen from, taken from, in a very, very magnanimous, and to think that he's probably still gonna have a lot of money left after, he's still gonna be a very wealthy man even after he does all that. Even after he does all that. He's still, he's not gonna be hurting for his next meal still. He's still gonna have his very nice home. He's gonna have all that. And so, what does Jesus say? Verse nine. Here it is, Jesus said to him, today, today salvation has come to this house because he too is a son of Abraham. Salvation has come. Salvation has come fully, and finally it's done its work in this man's life. It's brought forth the fruit of salvation. It's clear here. To me, it's hard to believe that a man could change as fast as this text seems to make it sound like. He changed so fast. But I think God had already been doing a work in his heart before he even climbed the sycamore tree. God was already doing a work in his heart. And so when he finally connects with Jesus, it's like, boom, it just happens very quickly. But there was lead up to that. There was stuff going on. He was feeling discontentment. He was not satisfied with the kind of life he was living as stealing from people and spending all of his time with perhaps the wrong kinds of people and all kinds of stuff like that. He welcomed Jesus and the opportunity to connect with him, and now he comes in simple faith and repentance. And he's a changed man. Well, then Jesus completes this circle in verse 10. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. And as I said earlier, at Christ's first coming, His purpose was not social justice. His purpose was not to overthrow the Romans. His purpose was not to straighten out all the iniquities of the world. His purpose was not to right all the wrongs. No, His only purpose was to seek and to save that which is lost. That's it. And if you add other purposes to Jesus' life, you've just destroyed His ministry. And liberal people in liberal churches and liberal theologians, they love to say, well, Jesus wants to straighten out all the social iniquities. Well, yeah, OK. He will do that at his second coming. He will do that later. But today, it's all about seeking the lost and bringing them to himself, people understanding their sin and being connected to Christ in terms of that. There is no one who seeks after God, but God seeks after us. God was seeking after the life and person of Zacchaeus way before he climbed that sycamore tree. He was doing a work in his heart. Did God do that work in your heart? Are you one of his? If you were to die today and and God were to say to you, why should I let you into heaven? What would you say? Well, I've been a good person. Everybody says that. I'm a good person. You weigh out the good with the bad, there's more good. We've talked about that. That's not good enough. Heaven's gonna be, excuse me, put it this way. Hell will be filled with lots of good people. Hell will be filled with all kinds of people who were good. Heaven is only filled with people who are perfect. You say, well, I can't be perfect. Precisely, that's why we need a savior. We can't do it. You need the righteousness of another. I need the righteousness of another, namely the righteousness of Christ. Zacchaeus received that. Zacchaeus threw himself onto Christ and received his grace and received his mercy. I'd like to bow for a word of prayer, and then we're going to close by singing a stanza of amazing grace. Father, I just thank you again for your word this morning. We thank you for the life of Zacchaeus. I thank you, Lord, for the clarity and the power of his salvation, how he confessed you and how he repented and how he provided restitution that he gave back much more than he took to all those that he could connect with and pay them back. And the Lord Jesus said, today salvation has come to this house. I pray, Lord, that everyone in this room this morning has that same salvation through faith in Christ that Zacchaeus had. that we too might become sons of Abraham through faith alone in Christ alone. Thank you again for your amazing grace as we testify of that grace right now as we sing together Amazing Grace. Let's all stand together if you can. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. T'was grace that taught me. and grace my fears relieved. How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed. dangers, toils, and sins, I have already come. Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. When we've been there ten thousand Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.