I want to sing the song of Zacchaeus, the wee little man. But we need to make sure we read the story first. So if there's any kids in here that would be willing to help me, if you would come up here with Selah, because she wants to, I'm sure. All right, if you'll just sit right here up on the front. And we're going to read the story. Come on, all kids. You three look like good candidates. Just come, move your seat right here, and be seated. Anybody else? Come on, just join me here, okay? Thank you, John Asher, and it can count on you. Rob, you want to join us here? A few more? Somebody else back there? Come on, Rusteli kids. All right, all right, great. All right, you'll find the seat right here, okay? Find the seat somewhere along this area. And then, because what you are going to be, the Bible calls it the press, but what it is, it's the crowd of people that are waiting on the side, all right? So Gideon, you can come sit right over here. So let's imagine this is a street, and we have a bunch of people now on this side of the road, and now we got a bunch of people on this side of the road as well. And we're going to need one person who has not come up here to be Zacchaeus, the wee little man, all right? Is there a Zacchaeus out here today? All right, Knox, is this going to be you? All right, Knox, all right. Let's do this. It'll make your dad nervous. I'll love it. All right, come on up here, Zacchaeus. And I was going to, Carson, you ought to be thinking Knox, because you're about to be Zacchaeus, all right? All right, so I'm going to read to you the story. Come stand by me, Knox. I'll guide you. Come over here with me, Knox, okay? I'll walk you through this, okay? So this is Zacchaeus when the Bible talks about Zacchaeus, and this is the crowd of people, and this is the crowd of people, and you guys are going to have something you've got to say as well, so don't feel like you're going to miss out, all right? I know some of you did. All right. And so, all right, stand right here by me, Knox. I gotta catch my breath, okay, here we go, gotta think about this, okay. And so, verse one, this is Luke chapter number 19, that before this chapter, Jesus had come to this, the rich young ruler. This is somebody that all the disciples would have thought, that's gonna be the next disciple, this guy's gonna join us. Jesus tells him to sell what he has and follow, but the man doesn't follow Jesus. Then we get to chapter number 19, And Jesus entered and he passed through Jericho, so Jesus is coming. Imagine if he's going to come through this door over here. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. Where's Zacchaeus? Exactly. Which was a chief among the publicans and he was rich. My man. Alright, okay. And he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not for the press, because he was of little stature. So he comes out and he tries to find the seat. Follow me here. He tries to find the seat. He can't get in anywhere. There's nothing available for him over here. And so now he comes and he says, I'm going to climb up the stairs. And you can sit right there. And he climbs up into a sycamore tree. Why? for the Lord he wanted to see. Come on now. All right, so the Lord he wanted to see. And so he ran before and he climbed up the sycamore tree for Jesus was going to pass this way. And so Jesus came to pass, Jesus came to the place and when he gets here he saw and he said unto him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down for the day I must abide at thy house. And Zacchaeus, he made haste All right, come down. And he came down and he received him joyfully. What's up? Okay, here. I'm not Jesus here, all right. And when they saw it, they all murmured, this is you, that he was gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner. The person beside you'd be like, can you believe this? Can you believe it? And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, half my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold. Zacchaeus says it to the Lord. And Jesus said, This day is salvation come to this house for so much as he is also the son of Abraham, for the son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. Do y'all know this song, Zacchaeus, the wee little man? John Asher, you know this one? You know it? You should. You're a wee little man. Let's stand up, OK? Stand up here. And Thatcher, let's get the words. We have it in there, if you'll find it for us, because some people. Here we go. Let's sing this together. You know this song? Wait. Who knows the motions? We need the motions. I'm looking. What do we got? Who knows? Gina, how do we do this? Wee little man? Zacchaeus was a wee little man. We need you up here, okay? This is family programming. We need everybody involved. Zacchaeus, a wee little man. And a wee little man was he. And he climbs up in the sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see. And as you're passed that way, he looked up in the tree and he said, Zacchaeus, you come down or I'm going to your house today. All right, everybody stand. You gotta stand for this, okay? Let's do this. Y'all got all that? Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. He climbed up in the sycamore tree, for the Lord he wanted to see. And as that Savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree. And he said, Zacchaeus, you come down. For I'm going to your house today. For I'm going to your house today. All right, fantastic. You can be seated. All of you can be seated. You did such a great job. That was a lot of fun, all right. Or you can stick around if you want, Gideon. You look good there. All right, the two of y'all having a good time sitting there? OK. Somebody get a picture of that, all right. Robert seems more concerned than Justice does. All right, Luke chapter number 19, and we know the story. You probably knew it before we sung it, but Ms. Gita, you made it extra special, all right? And we need to find the song for each one of these. So we'll look at Zacchaeus. Jesus comes into the house of Zacchaeus. You and I, when we share our testimony, I would say something like to you, I'd say, I met Jesus when I was nine years old. I would say something like that. That means when I say that, you understand that I got to a place of understanding, convicted by the Holy Spirit, that I was a sinner, and I was in need of a Savior, and I rejected my doing of good and repented of that and said, I need you to forgive me of sins, and that's the day that I met Jesus. That's how we say that. When Zacchaeus says he met Jesus, this is what we're talking about. We're talking about Zacchaeus went to a parade where everybody was lined up one day to see Jesus because he was moving from one city to the next, and Zacchaeus wanted to see Him. What I love about this story, it's a great picture to talk about the implications of the gospel in somebody's life. The implications of the gospel in somebody's life. If you found a bio of me online, I would say, I was born at a very young age. I think that's really funny. And I say, I enjoy speaking about the gospel and its implications. The implications of the gospel in our lives, and Zacchaeus gives us a great picture of it. One of my favorite songs, Mark Tolston showed me years ago, talks about this song that says, it's called, This Changes Everything. I relate with it because so much of it describes my childhood. It says, I grew up in a little town, used to sing in the old church house. There in a pew where I used to hide, I learned the story about the man who died. Kristen, do you know I used to sing in church before my voice changed and then I didn't make the group anymore, all right? And so I sung in that. So the church learned about the story about the man who died. Well, I was sure, I heard that he got back up. But as we broke the bread and drank the cup, seem the faces told another tale. They were as dry as the bread was stale. Did I miss something? Was I not supposed to cry? Did they hear a preacher? Jesus is alive. If this is true, this changes everything. If this is real, I've got to tell the world. If He is God, then I've got a choice to make. If I believe, then I must follow Him. I love that. If this is true, it just has to change everything. That's what we see with Zacchaeus. He is curious. He wants to know about this Jesus that he has heard about. It says, "...a man named Zacchaeus, the chief, and he sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not." He sought to see who Jesus was, and when he meets Jesus, He recognizes this is the chosen one. This is the Messiah, the anointed one. This is the one that we've heard was coming and it changed his life. And so the gospel changed this small man in a big way. It changed this wee little man in such a big way. Jesus' ministry at this point could be described as coming for the lost sheep of Israel. The phrase in verse 9, it says, We heard stories of a prodigal son and of a lost coin in the scriptures. Here is a person who was lost, who needed to be found, and we find Jesus coming to him. And at the end of chapter number 18, verse 26, when he's speaking about this rich young ruler, he says, who then can be saved? If who is it that can be saved? Zacchaeus becomes as a poster child for what seems to be the impossible. People knew him as a sinner, but he'll put his faith and trust in Jesus. And so he gets a glimpse of Jesus by climbing a tree and looking over the crowd. Verse 4 says that he climbed up in a sycamore tree for he was passed that way. He climbs up in the tree. This is in contrast to the rich young ruler who walked away from Jesus. He is going to climb up in a tree so that he can see him and Jesus gives him an invitation. Make haste, hurry up, I'm going to your house today. Same invitation that we receive when Jesus invites us to come and see who He is. I thought I had forgotten that Pravin was coming a few couple weeks ago and I was thinking that Jens would be here. I would tell this to Jens. I did tell this to Jens. I said, Jens, I'm excited. I'm going to preach about Zacchaeus while you're here on a Sunday night, because you're a wee little man, right? Jens is kind of shorter. And he is, dear, I know. And I said this, and then I spoke to him as he was leaving this weekend. And God was placing some things in his life. And I told him this, and I'll tell this to you. When you look to see Jesus, there will always be provision to make that possible. There was a tree that was there that day for Zacchaeus to climb in. And Jens was just telling me about some things that were coming together. And I said, Jens, if you keep living a life where you just want to see Jesus, there's always going to be a sycamore tree in your path. You can climb up and get another look at him. And so isn't that wonderful here? There was a tree that was made available for Zacchaeus so that he could come to him. The rich young ruler did not know what he had missed because that kiosk is going to get the seed. And he looks over the crowd. And so you can imagine if some of you have been to places like Disney World and there's just lines and lines of people and you get your picture made with your kids on your shoulder and you're smiling but you think your legs are going to break because You've been walking all day, and you go to find a place, and you can't find any place on the curb. You just keep walking. And so here's Zacchaeus. He comes, and there's no place for him. And so he is now going to have to get to a place. And we don't just see that the people on the streets didn't make any room. They didn't say, oh, there's the... There's the publican, there's that guy, he really needs a front row seat to see Jesus. Everybody, kids, scoot over, let's make room for Zacchaeus. There is no room for him. And then we see the response that when Jesus shows him any attention. And I would say this is the thing that we find in Matthew 20, about that same group of people when the story is told, about a person who hires people. Some come at the beginning of the day, some come in the middle of the day, and then some come at the end of the day. And those that came at the end of the day received the same payment or the same gift or payment as the person who came at the beginning of the day. An expression in Matthew 20 verse 12 is, Thou hast made them equal unto us. That's what they were upset about. We've been here all day long doing all the right things and now this is what we get. This person showed up late and now they're going to get the same things as us. That's the same spirit of the people that are murmuring. Murmuring unto the good man of the house. And so there's three types of people. Kids, when you grow up, you did a good job helping us. When you grow up, there's going to be three types of ways in which you can respond to what you've learned in church. Some of you will know better, so you will do better. Some of you didn't know better, so you didn't do better. And some of you knew better, but you chose not to do better. Let me say that again. Some of you knew better, so you did better. Some of you didn't know better, so you didn't do better. And some of you knew better, but you still chose not to do better. And so here's Zacchaeus, and he is not a person who had been doing right. He needed grace. And so, When the good man of the house of Matthew, he said, have I done thee any wrong? And he says, is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own? Can I not show grace to the people that I want to show grace? That day when this man who came in late to the show, who was a publican, and they look at him and they murmur, and they say, why would Jesus give this man any attention? God's grace came upon him, and the proper response to us ought to be, wonderful. I am thankful that this man has now had an opportunity to meet Jesus. That's the older brother syndrome, right? You say, I've done right my whole life, but the father's never killed a fatty calf for me. And the father responds and says, all that I have here is for you. And he shares that with them. And I pray that we never become like this group of people, not these little kids that are adorable, but the group of people in the story here who are saying, there's no room for anybody else. If you didn't get here earlier, then we don't have a place for you. And now Jesus is going to come home. Men, have you ever called your wife at the last minute and say, hey, I got somebody with me. I'm going to be there in five minutes. We're coming in the house, all right? Or you'd be like Evans, who's in our house and calls and tells us he's there, all right? But no surprise, he's going to come home. You have no warning. Can you imagine how Jesus says, I'm going to your house. Zacchaeus has to be thinking, can I have a few minutes, all right? I need to straighten some things up. And he certainly does. And you see the order here. For the day I must abide in your house, verse 5. And Zacchaeus stood and he said, behold, Lord, like a child saying to a father this expression of love, this is what's going to happen. I'm going to give half of everything I have to the poor. And that's good. He gave half of what he had to the poor. The Bible speaks a great deal about our care for the poor and the marginalized. And then he says, those that I have falsely accused, I'm going to restore fourfold, four times what I stole from somebody. So if he lied to somebody and said, I need 10 more dollars than they owed in taxes, and he took that, he's now going to give four times that amount. And so this life change is a result of the salvation. He didn't earn it. It's a result of the gospel, of the good news. And so Jesus coming to dinner really meant something. Inviting somebody into your home invites them into the real person that you are and it reshapes him. As Ikeas demonstrates, the creativity that the gospel brings. There's nothing more creative than a new creation. Stephanie, can I see those things you were just showing me before? Our sister in Christ, Joy Marie, she goes in this week to have some testing done, and I just asked Stephanie about what these are, and she has written Bible verses, And she had a windy amount, she had you eliminate these here. And is this right? Is this a true story? I sure hope so, because I'm preaching it right now like it's true, all right? This ain't true. Don't stop me. It really preaches, all right? I'm not telling the truth. I'm just preaching here. No, this is true here. I'm just kidding, kids, all right? Preaching is truth, all right? It should be, all right? But what I'm saying is that back to this story here is that Joy Marie a new believer in Christ, how God has changed. She wrote up these Bible verses to give the nurses. And there's nothing more creative than when the gospel finds itself in a person's life. What does it look like in the times of Jesus when a publican accepts the gospel? Zacchaeus will let you know. If you look at his life, what does it look like when the gospel comes into your life? That's what we should ask every one of us. Take your life and whatever it is and say, what does it look like when the gospel changes the life of wherever you are in life right now? What does it look like to be a grandparent changed by the gospel? What does it look like to be a dad in the gospel? What does it look like with your occupation? With all the things that you do in your life, what would it look like if the gospel was to be applied to that or to be lived out? And so the gospel sends him on an adventure. And so Jesus comes into His life. Our family, at the workplace, the time between our home and our work, and our retirement decisions, and our parenting decision, the Gospel speaks to every area of life. Zacchaeus walks into the room. He had left the house earlier that day, and everything in his house was all about him. It was all about how we could get more. Everything was there. But that day, he stands at his door, and he has Jesus with him, and now he's been changed. And so everything he sees is now an opportunity to make much of Jesus. David, I just love your testimony. And by no means, and David, I think, did such a good job not guilting you. You may not have the opportunity to take off in the summer and go to do that. But that was something that was on the table of his life that he says, I can give this to Jesus and I can let the gospel be lived out. And what a wonderful testimony. And so what is happening now is that the gospel has come. And if you'd like to do some reading, you can Google an article by John Bloom, which reimagines what would happen after Zacchaeus comes to know Jesus. And I'll just kind of give you a paraphrase of it, but Zacchaeus comes and he knocks on the door of a house and he meets a guy, and I need a good Jewish name, what's this guy's name going to be? Thank you very much. All right, so he knocks on the door, and the guy opens up the door, and his wife's in the other room, and she says, dear, Zacchaeus is here. And she's like, not that little rascal, not him again. We have given him everything that we're going to give him. Tell him. And then she's watching, and there's the man standing at the door. And Zacchaeus says, I want to give this to you. When the man says, what is it you're doing? And he would say, I'm destroying the idols of my life. I'm giving my life to Jesus. I had stolen from you. The Bible would tell me, the Old Testament, the scriptures would tell me I ought to do this. I'm going to do even more. But I came to tell you about this man that I've met, this rabbi, this teacher who's the son of God. Not man would have received that and went and sat down with his wife and says, I think we need what Zacchaeus has found. That little micro story there, that's the story of the New Testament. That's the story of the book of Acts. That is all the stories that have led up to you in your life now receiving Jesus. Somebody was changed by the gospel, went and told somebody else. My uncle was trying to race a train, he got hit by a car, and one of his friends had got saved, the new Jesus, and they were starting a little Bible study off of a church on the other side of the county, and a little simple act of obedience to ask his friend, do you want to come to this Bible study now that you're not able to do work and all the things that you were doing? And he accepts Christ, and the gospel moves its way through my family. Your story is the same way. The gospel became real to somebody. It changed their life. and we saw it, we responded to it. So with the few minutes that I have here, I want to talk to you here about gospel implications. Quickly, when we speak about the gospel, we are speaking about truth. And it is this truth, that Jesus Christ, He died for your sins according to Scriptures, He was buried and that He rose again. And so when we speak about Christ dying for our sins and rising again from the dead, we're talking about the reality of our sin, the necessity of divine punishment, the provision that is made from the divine wrath, and this truth ought to be central to our lives. 1 Corinthians 2, For I have determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The gospel must be central to who you are. That is the gospel truth. Little bitty kids in here that was up on stage or sitting out there, don't let the gospel be defined as anything else. The Bible tells us what the gospel is. You have it in Scriptures. It's not a warm feeling. It's not just doing good to your neighbor. The gospel has a defined definition that is found in Scriptures. That's the only true good news. Because the fact that we're all sinners and that we're deserving of hell, there's no other news in this world that is good, that is greater than the fact that Jesus Christ came to this earth and died for us. So we call that the good news. Nothing else deserves to be called the gospel, which means good news, more than this truth right here. Then we have doctrinal implications. that because this is true, there's other things that are true in scriptures. There's things that are contrary to sound doctrine, but that aren't according to the gospel. I'll give you a few examples here the Bible provides. In Romans 5.1, it says, "...therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Having peace with God is the implication of the Gospel. Because of what Jesus Christ has done, I now have been reconciled to the Father. And so that is a doctrinal truth that hinges upon the Gospel. Paul is not here presenting the Gospel when he says, now, in Romans 8.1, There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Because of the Gospel message, it is now true that there is no longer any condemnation for us. There is no penalty for sin in eternity that I will pay. Jesus Christ bore that upon the cross. And then in Romans 8.32, He spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us. How shall He not Him also freely give us all things? When people see the connection between the truth of the gospel, He spared not His own Son, that's the gospel, and the gospel truth freely gives us all things, the gospel will strengthen our daily trust in Him to provide for us. You're not going to understand this scripture if you don't understand the gospel. And then there's implications, and so we have the truth of the gospel, we have the doctrines that come from the gospel, then we have this change of behavior that comes. I've shared in Galatians some months ago one of my favorite stories about Peter and Paul having a conversation, and that's where Paul looks to Peter and he says, your life isn't living uprightly according to the truth of the gospel. You're not living in the way in which a person who says that they understand the gospel should be living. And that's in relation to his partiality that James teaches about towards a group of people that was there in the church. He did not want to be seen in fellowship with them. And so we conduct ourselves in a new way. Our conversation ought to be our lifestyle should only be as that that becometh of the gospel of Christ. Philippians 127. I'll give you four examples. Why should we flee fornication? Because you've been bought with a price. That's the gospel truth. Why should we forgive one another? Because Christ has forgiven you and given us an example. It's the gospel truth. Husbands, love your wives. Why? Because it's a picture of Christ loving the church. Why should we be generous? Because we're supposed to be content and witness the graciousness of God that has been provided to us by His death upon the cross. And so our life should be an outflow of everything that we know about the gospel. I didn't have a chance to speak to Zacchaeus that day. Nobody had an opportunity to take him through all these three differences, the gospel truth, the doctrines that are applied to the gospel, and the gospel implications. But what Zacchaeus simply said was, if this is true, it changes everything. And so before when he used to balance his books, he made decisions that reflected self-worship. And how does he get the most for himself in every transaction? Now Zacchaeus is looking down at his table and all the things that are laid out and he says, if this is true, it changes everything. And this is the question I ask you this evening about every decision you make in your life, is based on the fact that the gospel is true, how should that be applied to the decision that I'm making right now? Zacchaeus was a wee little man that was changed in a big way when he met Jesus. Well, in here, your testimony is that we're people that met Jesus. And just like Zacchaeus had that conversation with that man at the door, and he just said, my life is now different because I met somebody named Jesus. That ought to be the story of our life. It's also the way that the gospel goes forward in our families and our communities. Take your life and think, what would it look like if a person in my situation met Jesus and then prayed to the Lord and said, that's what I want my life to look like. I want to not only know the gospel, but I want to live it out with everything that's in me. Let's take a moment and pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the story of Zacchaeus and the picture that is given there. Now, Father, as my brothers and sisters, they consider What would it look like if you were to come into their homes? What would it look like if you were to come to their place of work? How would they view things differently? With heads bowed, eyes closed, I want you to consider that just for a moment. I can't make those decisions for you. Do you know the opportunities that are in front of you? Do you know the things that need to be addressed in your home? But what would you do today if you were standing in that place with Jesus and taking inventory of your life? You'd have to say the same thing. If this is true, it changes everything. What is the big areas? What are the small areas? What are the opportunities in your life that could be changed today from knowing that you have met Jesus? Heavenly Father, I pray that you look down upon this place and you see a church of people who believes that the gospel is true and that it changes everything. Father, I pray that you look down upon this place and with your eyes you look for people with a wholly devoted heart to you that is perfectly given to you and you would say you could show yourself strong, that you could show yourself powerful in their lives. So Lord, I pray that you would Help us have understanding. Give us wisdom in the way that we can live our lives that would make much of you. And then, Father, I come to you tonight on behalf of this church, Lord, and we ask that you would work in our sister's life, that you would work in Joy Marie's life, Lord. We love her so very much, Lord, and we know that you love her and that she has a love for you. Lord, we're praying for comfort for her. We're praying for her, Lord. as she lives out the gospel in spite of the challenges that she is facing. Lord, may the gospel go forth through all of our lives this week with the opportunities that we're given and with the challenges that we will face. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.