Hurry & Come Down

Good morning. We'll be proceeding here with a study, but it won't be Isaiah this time. Okay. So we'll have a kind of a break in the pattern. A couple of things just to get before you, before we start with that though. Katie and Laban, are they here? I can't quite tell.

There they are. Okay. Now they are expecting here in a couple of weeks. So you're aware of that. Just kind of keep it on the calendar. And then Adam and Cassie, I think a couple months out, right? Okay. So that's coming. And then we also have Brad and April who are expecting. So anyway, you can keep those on the calendar here. Get the specifics from Brad and April to the extent they have them. Okay.

We're going to proceed here. We're going to take a seasonal detour. Today being Palm Sunday and next Sunday, which I prefer to call Resurrection Sunday, looking at a couple of appropriate passages. Then we'll return to our ongoing study of Isaiah, but realize, of course, our intent, regardless of what we're studying, is to build up the body of Christ. So get your weights out.

We'll be looking at this passage in Luke 19, verses 1 through 10. And this is a passage where the background comes to the foreground. There are things that have to do with the background to this passage that will have great significance in how we understand what's going on. And so we'll be looking at that as we proceed through the passage.

It'll also be helpful for us to keep an eye on how does Dr. Luke, and Luke was a physician, How does Dr. Luke write? How does he use words? And what sorts of things has he already said? This is chapter 19 that we're stepping into, and he has already said a number of things about some of the subjects that come up here. And so we'll be taking a look at those.

It was the night before, but not before Christmas. Jesus told His disciples that He must be killed, and so He was basically getting ready to head up towards Jerusalem. And that's this time here that we see in this account. Jesus had already told them at the end of the prior chapter, He told them, He said, look, I'm telling you ahead of time, I'm going to go up and to be crucified and to die on the cross. I'll be handed over to the Gentiles. After they have killed me, I'm going to rise on the third day.

So after that, they got it just perfectly straight, right? They just understood clearly. Not exactly. They were clueless. As a matter of fact, look at how Luke says this. Well, you figure it out. But the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of the statement was hidden to them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said. How many times did he say that they were clueless? Three times, right? Basically, they were clueless, clueless, and clueless.

Jesus was passing through Jericho on the way to Jerusalem, and this is roughly the path that He took coming from the northern end of what was called the Sea of Galilee, and then crossing over towards the Jordan River, and then following down the Jordan Valley to Jericho, and then from there heading up to Jerusalem. That was His path.

And so, going a little bit closer here, here is Jericho. Jericho is about a thousand feet below sea level. Right now, I wouldn't want to be. going blah, blah, blah. But anyway, a thousand feet below sea level. And Jerusalem is over here. It's not that many miles. It is a steep climb, but it's not that many miles distant. The area in between is a very rough terrain. It's called the Wadi Kilt here.

Here is how that rough looking creek valley opens up into the plain where it is Jericho. Then by the way, that's the wadi kilt, not a wadid quilt. Okay. All right. Now this is the terrain. So he's looking at some rough terrain climbing through this to get up to Jerusalem. So Jericho is just before this little rough area you see before us here.

Now let's kind of get a timeframe. I'm going to present to you here what's called the traditional chronology. There are those who argue for some slightly different variations on the time. It won't make a big difference to what we're looking at here, but I think it's helpful to have an idea. Here's the way it looks.

Thursday, typically looked upon as the time of the Last Supper. Friday, the day of our Lord's crucifixion and death. Saturday, buried, and Sunday, resurrected. The Lord's table was given to us in this kind of handoff from the Passover to the Lord's table on Thursday, and then we were identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. So there's our connection for us who are in the church.

Now, if we step back here, it would, according to this schedule, mean that Friday he was in Jericho. Friday would be the day that he would be in Jericho and we would see this passage in about that time. He would the next day, Saturday, have been at Lazarus' tomb, saying, Lazarus, come out. I'm sure Lazarus was excited about coming out after being dead for a few days. And then on Sunday is what we typically, and I think it's a misnomer, but call the triumphal procession or Palm Sunday. It would be about a week from his last day in Jericho until the day of his death. So this is about a week before he's crucified. John 11 5 indicates that Jesus actually may have stayed with Zacchaeus a few days.

So very interesting. Now, We're going to divide this up into three different sections, and I know those lines are a little wavy, and that's intentional, but I don't want anybody to get it seasick, so let's go on to the next slide. All right, the first four verses, let's tackle those initially. Now, here's the irony. Zacchaeus is the Greek name. His Hebrew name would have been Zakkai, meaning clean or innocent. That's irony because the Jews would have looked down upon him He was a chief tax collector, the passage says, for the despised Romans. Now, tax collectors have never been terribly popular, but they were particularly unpopular during this time.

Patriotic Jews considered tax collectors for the Romans to be the worst of the worst, really bad dudes. Tax collectors and sinners was the phrase that would be roughly equal in our vernacular to the scum of the earth. That would be how they would refer to someone that they considered the lowest of the low, the worst of the worst.

Tax collector and a sinner. Here this phrase, tax collectors and sinners, is used in that way several times in Matthew, Mark, and in Luke. And similar phrase, tax collectors and prostitutes in Matthew. And they just plain tax collectors as sort of a summary statement for the worst of the worst in Luke and in Matthew a few times. There are also references to individual tax collectors, and we'll be looking at one of them here in this passage today. Now, here's something that may be interesting.

The Jews, of course, regarded the Ten Commandments very highly, that being the down payment, if you will, for the 613 laws that they had. And 365 of those were don'ts, so one of those don'ts, near the top of the list was do not bear false witness, do not lie. The penalty for lying was you would receive whatever consequence the person that you lied about was to get if your lie were to come true. So you would get their consequences if you're caught in a lie. It was because the Roman tax collectors were so bad it was considered okay in spite of the prohibition against lying, to lie to a Roman tax collector. Among the Jews, they figured that that guy was so rasty, nasty, that you could lie to him and it really wouldn't matter a whole lot.

God would not be offended. That's what they're thinking. So, that gives you an idea. That was you could lie to any tax collector. Now, this guy is what? A chief tax collector. Oh, that makes him just near and dear to their hearts. Believe me. Now, understanding, here's Dr. Luke's account. Here's Zacchaeus talking with Jesus. This is a shocking account.

That's one thing to keep in mind. When we read things in the Bible frequently, you know, not understanding the background to it, it's easy for us to kind of look at it and say, oh, that's a nice little story, you know. Not realizing that this is the kind of stuff people get really upset about. Not realizing that Jesus said what to who? It was shocking stuff. It was a revelation that just made blood pressure go up, eyes open, and jaws drop. That's the kind of an account it was. But as we see, as we go along here, there's even more shocking revelations.

We're not done. Alright, now, looking at this passage, and there was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus, he's a chief tax collector, and he was rich. Rich. Zacchaeus wasn't just a run-of-the-mill average sort of tax collector, he was a chief tax collector. He had the opportunity and took full advantage of it to get lots of bucks.

You see, here's the way the Romans did it. The Romans said, well, we can't have a lot of Romans out there collecting taxes, so we'll get people who will give us bids on how much money they can get out of this. And so they'll give us bids, and then they can keep anything they make above that. So what would happen is a Roman tax collector might come knocking at your door and say, you owe this much money.

And you're saying, but, but, but, but, but, but. And he's got a Roman soldier standing behind him and he's not saying, but, but, but, but. Okay. He's pulling the sword out. So you're going to pay. You're going to pay. And the people paid, but they really deeply resented it. So that's the kind of fellow this guy was. He was on top of this army of tax collectors.

Zacchaeus was trying to see who Jesus was. Now this is very interesting. Jesus had been around enough and he'd heard enough that he was curious. He was very interested in this Jesus fellow. We don't know exactly what his interest was beyond simple curiosity. It seems he was pretty motivated though and we'll see as we go through this. He definitely wanted to see Jesus. He definitely wanted to see this person that he'd heard about.

He was unable because of the crowd because he was small in stature. Now, I have been in different circumstances, a little small in stature. There was one time, I played high school football and looking back on it, I have no idea why I did that. But one time, I remember my junior year, They were announcing the lineup.

The coach was saying, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. And they said, Vern, you're going to be across from this other guy. And they gave me the name. And I forget the guy's name. I do not forget the fellow that he put me across from. He was the largest guy in the league. He was well over 100 pounds heavier than I. My advantage over him, I was short compared to him. And his knees were a real easy target. That was the only thing that gave me an advantage.

Zacchaeus was also one who was going to look for an advantage because he was on the short side. Looking at this side of things just isn't all that terribly exciting, and so Zacchaeus didn't want to do that. So here's Jesus as being accompanied by a crowd of people. This crowd had already been with Jesus, so the crowd had kind of hung along through this path. So Luke has already mentioned the crowd. And then now coming up to Jericho and then passing through Jericho, Zacchaeus was small.

This presented a problem. He didn't want to just sit there and look at the backsides of all these people in the crowd. So here is the Zacchaeus solution. All right? The Zacchaeus solution. He ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus.

That was his fix. That's how I'll do it. I will run up ahead and I will climb in anticipation that he's going to go by this route. That's how I'll do it. I'll solve the problem. Here is an example. This is a Middle East sycamore tree. It's a slightly different tree than some of the ones that we've seen in this country or in Europe. So Middle Eastern sycamore tree. And this one in fact is in Jericho. This is another example of the tree.

So you kind of get a little more distance. They are trees that have a wide, relatively short trunk. And then the branches are strong and fairly flat. There's usually a fair area to stand on that is also strong enough to hold somebody. So it was a pretty ideal place. He probably had it in mind, oh, there's some trees or a tree right over here. I know what kind of tree it is and I can get up in there.

So that's what Zacchaeus is thinking about. He ran on ahead in order to see Christ there. Now, So let's look at verses 5 through 7. This is the next step. Zacchaeus has set this thing up. He has made the strategy that's going to put him in a place where he can see Jesus.

So far as he is concerned, Jesus doesn't give a hoot about him. So far as he knows, Jesus doesn't care whether Zacchaeus is there or not. Zacchaeus just wants to get a look at him. Zacchaeus just wants to be able to see this guy, and the crowd that's been there has just not allowed it.

So he has figured out a way He can see Jesus. As far as he can tell, he has really made every effort on his part, and he has been doing all the planning. Jesus is not a part of the picture, so far as he can tell. Now we get to this verse. When Jesus came to the place, this is the place, remember, that Zacchaeus had strategized to be at. He said, I'll be there, I'll be up on the tree, I've already climbed up, I'll get a good posture, Boy, there's nobody that's tall enough that I can't see over. I'll be able to see Jesus for sure. So, it shows that he had this ultimate goal in mind. It showed that it did work well. Jesus did come to the place that he had in mind.

Isn't it interesting how, as human beings, we will look upon, oh, I'll do this, and I'll do this, and I'll do this, and I'll do this, and that will fulfill my end of the strategy. Notice what happens here next. He was about to find out that his plan was not the only plan that day. We can find ourselves in that situation. We think we're going to do this, and this, and this, and this, and the Lord has another plan. Zacchaeus was not going to just get a glimpse from a tree that day and be able to get down and then tell his friends, say, I saw Jesus today. No. There's a little bit more to it than that. As a matter of fact, quite a bit more. So he says, and he looked up, that is, Jesus looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down for today. I must stay at your house. Now, Zacchaeus was up on the tree, Jesus was initiating this action. Zacchaeus had planned to see Jesus, and so far so good. But what he hadn't planned on was Jesus' response. Jesus initiated this interaction, and there are several things about it that are very unusual, extraordinary. In fact, it will lead us to some good questions here. Here are some things to ponder.

Here's this crowd around How would Jesus know to even look up to see Zacchaeus? Think of where Jesus is headed. If you were thinking, you know, I'm going to be crucified in a week, what would you be thinking of? Would you be thinking of, you know, where's my next motel?

No. It is interesting that our Lord, in the process of heading on the way to where, you know, this is what was promised between the members of the Godhead in eternity past, was covenanted between them, now is going to be fulfilled. And Jesus doesn't just put His head down and have tunnel vision. He stops to talk to a man up in a tree. A short guy. That is amazing.

How did Jesus know Zacchaeus' name? He just had it by miraculous revelation? He knew because He was God? Oh, that's Zacchaeus. I've known Him from eternity past. Or, had Jesus asked His name? Hey, that guy up there in the tree, who is that? Or had somebody said, hey Zacchaeus, what are you doing in the tree? You know, we don't know the answer to that. But one way or another, the Lord knew.

With a great many people in the crowd, Jesus had been approaching. And remember, there was a crowd as he approached. That's what the end of chapter 18 tells us. There was a crowd as he approached Jericho. There was a crowd as he went through Jericho.

Why take note of a short guy up in a tree that everybody in society hates? Why bother? After all, you've got a lot on your mind. You're going to die in a week. for the sins of the whole world. Isn't that enough to kind of distract you? No, not for him.

Notice what Jesus says there, hurry and come down, and what was Zacchaeus' response? Exactly what the Lord said, even down to the point of having the exact same Greek words. And it's an imperative here, hurry and you must come down. Hurry as you are coming down, and as you're coming down, that's a must come down, not a, it'd be nice if you came down. He didn't say fall out, which is nice, but must come down out of the tree. And Zacchaeus' response was exactly in response to what Jesus said. The Greek words, he hurried and he came down, and other than being responsive, it's the exact same Greek words. He did precisely as was told.

Today I must stay at your house. This hurry and today give a sense of immediacy, which is kind of interesting. It is interesting, the Lord didn't give him apparently any advance warning. We've got no indication at all from this account that Zacchaeus said, hey, I'll climb a tree so that Jesus can invite me over, you know, invite me to have him host him at my house. No. So here, he would have to hurry and come down and kind of get things moving in the household. It also may have been later in the day, and that would mean even more time is of the essence. Get on it. Get started. Get going. Now, we might not catch the significance of Jesus saying, I must stay at your house.

You see, in the Jewish culture, and think of what they thought of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was the worst of the worst, and he was a chief tax collector. The worst of the worst of the worst, okay? So here is the worst of the worst of the worst, and in the Jewish culture, to eat with someone was to participate in their crimes. It made you what we would call a co-conspirator, or an accomplice, or an accessory to the crime, to eat with them.

That's how they saw it. So that would be one aspect of it that would be kind of amazing. Imagine, here's all these people, here's Jesus, here's this holy man, and he's going to participate and be a partner in crime with this guy. Unthinkable! Unbelievable behavior. Something else comes out of this.

Luke has been using this word, it's a short word in the Greek, day, it means must, It is a word that has the similar idea to an imperative in the Greek, but he has been using this word as a divine imperative, not just as a, you know, you gotta. He isn't saying Zacchaeus, you know, I really, really, really want you to host me at your house, but he's putting it as a divine imperative. Here's some examples.

Luke 2.48, This is where Joseph and Mary find Jesus in the temple. Jesus is 12 years old. And he said to them, why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be this word in my father's house?

Or saying the son of man must suffer. Christ must suffer. It wasn't just an optional thing. He must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised up on the third day. a divine imperative, or a couple chapters right before this account. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

So when he said, today I must stay at your house, it is not just a, hey look, I don't have any place left to go, would you put me up? It's not a, you must because I'm going to twist your arm until you do, or I'll turn you in, or anything else. but it's a divine imperative. It is a God-given appointment that I come to your house today. Now that is shocking stuff. And he hurried and came down and received him gladly. His response was positive. He did it gladly. Not only did he hurry and come down, but it describes his heart condition in the midst of it. He did it gladly, received him. Verse 7, when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying he has gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. Nasty, nasty man.

Now, verse 7 is significant because if we look at this here, the crowd hasn't been mentioned since a brief reference here in verse 3. They just were kind of in Zacchaeus' way. Now, a bigger impact. We hear that what the crowd saw, remember they saw this interaction. This wasn't something that happened in private. and we hear what they did in response and then what they then said to each other. The crowd couldn't have missed what happened.

Zacchaeus was up in the tree where he could be seen by everyone. Jesus speaking probably over the crowd, probably speaking up in such a way that Zacchaeus could hear him up in the tree, speaking out over the crowd, Zacchaeus, I must, by God's divine appointment, come to your house today. And everybody knew who Zacchaeus was, unfortunately. Dr. Luke uses a word that we call an onomatopoeia, and you can look that up in the dictionary if you like, but it's a word that imitates the sound that it names.

Diagon guzo. It's the idea of a noise moving through a crowd. If you go to a sports event, a lot of times you see them doing the wave, you know, they'll do this wave thing, you know, please don't do it here. No, no, not, that's inappropriate. They'll do the wave, and what happens, this is the verbal equivalent of the wave. Somebody says something and it goes, travels through the crowd, and this is designed to imitate that sound. Lots of noise. So grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble. With this grumbling going on, the buzzing from person to person is what gets conveyed. It has a negative overtone to it. Did you see that? Did you hear him? Who's he going with? You know about him. Yeah, he took my... That guy.

This brief exchange had lots of quick impact. You've never seen that happen though, right? Now, there's something very important that's small in this verse. Let's take note of the key word, all. The grumbling wasn't just among a few, it was universal. They all grumbled. Everybody had something to say. Dr. Luke said that they all responded alike. What's puzzling, they all passed negative judgment on the one who would pass judgment on them one day. It leads to the question, how much does the crowd's opinion count? How much does it matter? Does the buzz that travels through the crowd with a negative overtone? Is that really what matters in the final analysis?

A man who is a sinner. Here is Zacchaeus, the tax collector. They all knew who he was. A chief tax collector. It's the virtual equal of being a sinner. Of course he's a sinner. He sins habitually by character. That's just who he is. Now let's look at verses 8 through 10 here.

Zacchaeus stopped. Here it says in the New American Standard, stopped, and it has the idea that it's perhaps right there in the crowd. The King James has stood, and some translations even have stood up, and I think personally that that's a more likely understanding here, and we'll explain why in a minute. It would seem odd for Zacchaeus to have responded this way immediately. but after talking with Jesus for a time, it would make more sense, wouldn't it? So here's a cultural insight that I want you to get here. We might think that Zacchaeus and Jesus went from the crowd into some private dinner. Not right. That wouldn't be quite correct. Here's the insight, and this is mind-boggling.

If you invite somebody over for dinner, who are you having for dinner? Just you and those people, right? In the culture of the day, what would happen is they didn't have glass windows, and unless there was a storm, you didn't close the windows. As a matter of fact, until it was nighttime, you didn't close the door. And so it was perfectly normal social behavior while you're having dinner to have people standing at the door and looking in the window and making comments and interacting with you as you're talking. And they might say, Jesus, how's the matzo over there? Hey, that's really great.

Can I have some of that when you're done? And, boy, did you see that? Did you see what Jesus did? He spoke to that girl. Oh, that one. Yeah, that one. And he's having dinner with that tax collector. He talked to him. They both ate out of the same bowl. Oh, ugh. You see the reaction? So here's the social situation when Jesus is having dinner. It's not some nice little private dinner.

This is everybody who's in the crowd coming over to watch. Everybody looking in the door, talking about it, and interacting. So this noise and yak between them was continuing on as they were eating with the people making comments and asking questions, including negative comments about Zacchaeus and Jesus who was eating with them. It's clear that when Zacchaeus spoke, that he spoke in a public forum. If you look at the manner of how this is carried out, Jesus spoke with a number of people gathered. It may well have been in one of these situations where everybody's up to the door and the windows and making comments and leaning in and asking if they can sample the matzah after the other person's done.

And so he gives Half, he says. He stands up and gives half. This giving half in scripture is interesting. There are a couple of those in a position of royalty who said, up to half. He just says outright, half. I'll give half of what I have. Right out. Zacchaeus tells of his intent to restore his dishonest gains to people, and he gives two numbers for us to work with here. He'll start by giving the half, and then he says he will restore as much as four times any taxes taken dishonestly.

Now, that's going to take a lot of digging through Roman tax records, which are all on papyrus. He can't just pull up the laptop, plop on the emperor version of TurboTax, and fix it that way. That's not going to work. So he's got to pull out all these pieces of papyrus. That's a lot of figuring out to get people back their money.

Also, the rabbis taught that it wasn't prudent for anyone to give away more than 20% of your possessions, and he went way beyond the 20%. So guess what? Even his giving the money back brought on the disapproval of the rabbis who were around and anyone listening to the rabbis. How about that? You can't even do the right thing when you try to.

The rabbis are going to get upset. A man would make restitution above what was taken of 20% In the case of extortion, which this tax situation would be, paying back four times what you owed was basically limited to sheep rustling. Rustling sheep. He says, I'll pay back the highest amount as if I had violated the worst possible.

How about that? If I have defrauded anyone. Now, does that sound like it's just a big if? Does it sound like you're saying, well, I might have possibly, and if so, I'll do this. Guess what? The Greek is called a first-class condition. I won't ask you to dig into the details of what that is unless you're interested, but Zacchaeus was saying, if, and the statement that follows is true or is assumed to be true, I have defrauded anyone. He states it in such a way, he says, if I have done this, and actually I have, then I'll pay back. He admits to his error. He's not casting doubt on it, he's admitting it in the way he says it.

And Jesus, now Jesus responds here, being a tax collector was looked upon with such disfavor that a person was assumed guilty. You know, we take our legal system as you're innocent until proven guilty. No, if you're a tax collector, In the Jewish culture, you're guilty until declared innocent. And so here we can see an example. Here's John the Baptist. Tax collectors came to him and they said, what must we do? And the automatic assumption, collect no more than what you've been ordered to. Why? Because you have been collecting more, right? It was assumed.

So now, here's Jesus and what does he do? He makes that public pronouncement. This one here. This one here. is now no longer guilty. He's paying these things back. So Jesus did that declaration. Now, what Jesus says here leaves us with a bit of a question. Why is it that we have salvation announced without mention of Zacchaeus having faith? Oooh, what is wrong here? Is this messed up? What's happening?

Well, it turns out this way. In the typical Jewish mindset, there was an obvious logical connection between being a Jew under God and living out the law. You may deny that in the actual case, but you understood that there was a logical connection between the two. And placing one's faith in God was logically expressed then in living out So what Zacchaeus was doing was saying, I believe, and I believe to the point of carrying this out. This is real. I believe, and it is taken by me as fact that this is true, therefore I will live this out.

The law of Moses and the Old Testament prophets told repeatedly of the coming of the Son of Man, the Messiah. Zacchaeus had expressed that as well in recognizing Jesus as the Messiah. He'd come to express his faith and hope through obedience to the law and hope in the Messiah.

The Son of Man. This is a phrase that comes out of the book of Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14. It should not be thought of as just Jesus as another man, but as the Son of Man, the one who would come and reign upon the earth. as God Himself, God and man. He has come to seek and to save that which was lost. These words draw upon words that Jesus had already said in Luke and in Matthew.

In Matthew 10, He told the disciples to go out. The 12 told them to go out. He instructed them, don't go to the way of the Gentiles. Don't even enter a city of the Samaritans. Rather, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Matthew 15, 24, Just a few chapters later, he's talking about himself, and he says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Jeremiah 50 verse 6 spells out, my people, that is Israel, have become lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray.

You can also look at Ezekiel 34. The entire chapter is of that same flavor. Now, as we come to Luke 15, 1 through 7, What is it but another account of tax collectors? Tax collectors and sinners. They are represented in this account as the lost sheep. And he finds the lost sheep and takes them on his shoulders. He says, I have found my sheep which was lost. Now, we can say the thing here, your problem is you're not Jewish. If you were Jewish, you wouldn't have those problems. You've had different ones, right?

The Lord created the Jews and the Gentiles as people who were created and they have an earthly identification. It's based on your ethnicity. The church is not based on ethnicity. God has worked through these primary groups to fulfill his eternal purpose, as we pointed out in weeks past here. But since this account here is so much about Christ's ministry to the Jews, and specifically his ministry to a specific Jew in Israel, What do we do with it?

We say, that's great. It was nice. Good story. Kind of has sort of a familiar ring to it for some of us. But what do I do with it? How does that apply to me? What are some things that I can take home today? God isn't just dealing with global and historical issues. God isn't just saying, I'm too busy causing this hurricane over here to pay attention to you. God isn't saying, I'm too busy dealing with this large group to focus on you." Zacchaeus was in a tree for a passing look. There would be Jesus just passing by. Oh, I saw Him as He went by. But Jesus was pursuing fellowship with one man that day, one person.

When we studied Revelation several years back, you may remember this statement by Christ in Revelation 2.17. Christ says to the church there, he says, to him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it. One of the things we talked about, the white stone in those days was given with your name on it as your pass to the victor of an athletic event, your pass to the victory celebration. That's your white stone.

And notice, it's your name. and it's personal, it's only known between you and the Lord. The Lord, like we saw with Zacchaeus, intends a personal relationship with each one of us. It isn't like the Lord says, oh, that's the church group, and there's kind of X number of people in the group. No. He says, you, and I mean just you, just like Zacchaeus. I mean just you.

That's the relationship that He desires. And if He has to talk over the crowd, To say that, He'll do that. If He has to offend a whole bunch of people in order to say that to you, He'll say that. Because He loves each and every one of us and cares about us personally. Yes, you.

The crowd may get in the way of our beholding the Lord, just like it did for Zacchaeus. meaning the culture, the mass of people, what everybody else says, what everybody else does may get in the way. The opinion of the crowd may well be in direct opposition to what God has in mind for me as well as for Himself.

What would the crowd have dictated to Jesus that day? Oh, don't stay with that guy, he's awful. He is a rasty, nasty fellow, don't stay with him. That's what the crowd would have said. Was that what God had in mind? There may, in fact, be a time when the crowd is dead wrong. By outward appearance, wasn't the crowd close to Jesus? On the outside, wouldn't you say, here's the crowd, aren't they close? Being apparently close to Jesus isn't the same as being close to Jesus. The crowd, the mass, walked along with him, but it was Zacchaeus up in the tree that he called for fellowship.

In Galatians 3, 6, and 7, even so Abraham believed God and was reckoned to him as righteousness. We see the phrase son of Abraham in here. And Zacchaeus was a son of Abraham because as an ethnic Jew, in other words, his ethnicity was a part of it, he had expressed faith in Jesus the Messiah and responded according to the law that God had given the Jews. We are now sons of Abraham by faith in Christ apart from the law. See the difference? We are sons of Abraham as well, but by faith entirely apart from the law.

The Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled His appointed ministry that day so that a lost Jew named Zacchaeus could be restored to seek and to save that which was lost. But in just a week, Jesus would fulfill a ministry to all those who were fallen in Adam. He would die on the cross just a week later. By doing so, he would take upon himself the penalty for the sins of the whole world, paying the price for you and me. By birth, God gave the Jews a door of opportunity by faith for a spiritual position. Their faith was to be expressed by living the law in their daily condition.

We're in a different place. We, the church, by spiritual birth, which comes by faith, have been given an eternal position in the heavenlies. It's in Christ. It is apart from the law. It's expressed by Christ's life in and through us in our daily condition.

The Jews, excuse me, Jesus said to Zacchaeus, the lost Jew, hurry and come down. Now I don't know what tree the Lord called you out of, but Jesus says to you today, if you put your trust in him, you are a saint within the church. Stay right where you've been seated with me.

Ephesians 2.6 says we've been seated with Christ in the heavenlies. Stay there. Zacchaeus was invited to fellowship with the Lord that day in Zacchaeus' own earthly house. We are invited to fellowship with the Lord every day in the Lord's house in the heavenlies where we're seated. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for what you have laid out for us here. We've seen how you have sought out one specific one that you have indeed sought out to be saved. And Lord, you have sought out each of us And we thank you for what that means and the eternal blessing that comes with it. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.