A Savior Who Seeks The Lost (part 2) - [Luke 19:1-10]

Bethlehem Bible Church

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I don't know if you have a favorite, favorite fable or not. Aesop wrote a lot of fables.

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They said he was a slave. He was from Greece around 500, 600 BC. And the one that is my favorite is

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Hercules and the Wagoner, or the Wagoneer. A Wagoneer was once driving a heavy load on a very muddy way.

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At last he came to the part of the road where the wheel sank halfway into the mire. And the more the horses pulled, the deeper sank the wheels.

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So the Wagoner threw down his whip and knelt down and prayed to Hercules the Strong. Oh, Hercules, help me in this, my hour of distress.

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But Hercules appeared to him and said, Tut man, don't sprawl there. Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel.

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Moral of the fable, gods help them that help themselves. Self -help is the best help.

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Heaven helps those who help themselves. Now that's definitely a fable.

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I'd like you to take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 19 this morning. And we are gonna see the

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Lord Jesus Christ against the foil of many fables that come about theologically because of and in this passage.

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As you know, we have been going through the last three, or the last two Sundays, messages about the

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Lord Jesus. And by the way, it's great to preach to people. That orb there is very difficult to preach to.

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And you say to me, and it's very difficult to sit at home in the living room and watch you preach.

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And we've been talking about the Lord Jesus for four or five weeks, or that's what we wanna do because it's important to remember the

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Lord. If you like preaching about the Lord Jesus, you'll love this church. If you want a bunch of TED Talks and moralistic therapeutic deism, this is the wrong church.

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We need to understand the personal work of the Lord Jesus. We need not to understand what to do necessarily, although that's true, but how do we do it?

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How does a Christian obey? What power do we have to even obey God? And it always comes through the lens of the personal work of the

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Lord Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit directed by the Father. And so two weeks ago, we saw

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Jesus walking, stilling the waters. Who can do this? Even the winds and the sea obey

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Him. We learned last week that Jesus, even before Pilate the governor, the real governor of the universe was not

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Pilate. And today we're gonna look at the Lord Jesus and a man named Zacchaeus. And this is very, very important.

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And while our bulletin says worship service, because giving is worship, singing is worship, scripture reading is worship, listening to sermons are worship.

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If you think about it, service, who's serving whom in this service? Now we respond with worship, that's true.

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But in the old days, they'd call Sunday morning corporate worship services the divine service. Because just like with communion, you are being served by the frail sinful ministers of this church.

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And so when it comes to preaching, my responsibility, and I'm thankful for Steve and Andrew when I was gone, their responsibility and privilege is to serve you the

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Lord Jesus. Because all week long you live in a law world and now you need to be reminded about that God who's true, who loved you, who sought you and bought you.

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And so there's nothing like going to a gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ according to Luke and watching

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Jesus Christ. It's just fantastic. It's wonderful. Then after we finished the series about Jesus, I'm gonna talk about social justice and critical race theory for a few weeks because it is not unchristian, it is anti -Christian.

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And then we'll get into the book of Ephesians, not over three years, but six weeks, one chapter a week, jet tour through Ephesians, just because we have a lot of new people, it'll be good to just set the scene in the book of Ephesians and then maybe on to a couple books that maybe you don't necessarily read in the middle of the night when you need comfort, but after preaching through them, you probably will, probably the book of Haggai and Obadiah.

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Luke 19, Jesus highlighting who he is. Once again,

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I'll teach you the passage and then talk about some fables that are found in this passage if you wrongly interpret it.

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There aren't fables in the passage, but if you wrongly look at it, wrong hermeneutics, you might find some things in here that are not proper.

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So far in this gospel account, you have the prologue and Jesus is a small child.

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He grows up, he goes into public ministry, he goes to Galilee, he's now on his way to Jerusalem and chapter nine, verse 51, everything turns and it turns toward Jesus, setting his face like a flint to Jerusalem.

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He has a deadline, he has a day, he has an hour where he will be killed and crucified and he will be raised from the dead and so it's like we're rushing now headlong toward his destination.

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Some people call it a relentless progression to the cross. Jesus is marching and you could say marching to Zion.

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But what does he do when he's on his way to the cross? Let's find out and go to Luke chapter 19, verses one and following.

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You might be thinking, oh, this is like the kids thing, it's kind of funny, it's like a little anecdotal comic relief section.

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I don't think so. I think J .C. Ryle's correct when he said this passage should be studied by every

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Christian. Chapter 19, verse one, he, Jesus, entered

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Jericho and was passing through. Have you ever been to Jericho? Back in the day,

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Jericho was the city to be in. It was basically Club Med. There were balsam trees, palm trees, aqueducts.

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Oh, this was a great city. Pools, hippodromes, fortresses.

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They said some of the flowers in the, what do you call places where you put flowers?

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Gardens, would just have their fragrances waft through the valley.

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It just made everything just smell good. This place, Josephus called a little paradise.

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I mean, it was so special of a city that Mark Antony took the money that he got from the balsam plantations and gave them to Cleopatra.

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Oh, it was a great city. It was an excellent city. And it was last stop to Jerusalem. And you see all kinds of commerce coming through here.

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It was on a major kind of byway and throughway. And lots of people passed by.

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Herod did a lot of work on it in amphitheaters. Others called it the Eden of Palestine.

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So it's wealthy, a lot of rich people there. Lots of people have to go through. And it's, of course, governed by the

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Romans. And behold, it's like, pay attention, grab you by the shoulders.

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There's a man named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector and he was rich.

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I mean, Jesus is driving, as it were, and being driven by the Spirit. As the Spirit impelled Jesus into the wilderness, so too the

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Spirit of God impels Jesus, not just to public ministry, but his public execution. And he meets certain people as he goes.

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Oh, did we not just meet in chapter 18, blind Bartimaeus? And now there's another man,

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Zacchaeus. We have four children, as you know, and we didn't, I think the first couple, we knew what to name them.

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Then the last couple, we didn't really know what to name them. And you go to those little books about baby names, right? And what does this name mean?

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And you're trying to think to yourself, well, kind of in the old days in Jewish land, in Hebrew land, in the

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Bible world, you could pick a name for a kid hoping they would live up to it. And if you named your kid something, you think, you know what,

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I hope he lives up to his name. And so they named him Zacchaeus, which means pure, righteous.

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It's a derivative of Zechariah and it means clean, innocent. I wonder if he's lived up to his name.

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Parents hoping that that would be the case. But what does the text say?

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He was a chief tax collector. I think only time used in the New Testament. Chief tax collector. What's worse than a tax collector?

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A chief tax collector, an arch tax collector. And he was rich.

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And one of the things I've tried to teach you over the years and teach myself is that you want to read the Bible slowly.

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It's not kind of like speed reading. When I was growing up in the seventies, you could take speed reading courses.

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How to feel good about learning nothing, essentially. So you slow down, you think, okay, and behold, he's a chief tax collector.

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By the way, he's making lots of money. It's a perfect trade route. Everybody's got a pass through.

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If you want to go from Egypt to Damascus, you go through this area. And if you're a tax collector, you're

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Jewish. You've got the Roman people who run the show. They're the invaders. They've taken over.

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It's like in World War II, if Germany won and took over America, now we have Americans exacting taxes that the

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Nazis told them to exact. They're not going to be liked. They're going to be despised.

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They're going to be rich. They're going to take the money from the people, give some to the leadership, Rome, but take some for themselves.

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And he wasn't just a tax collector getting rich. He was the chief tax collector. And then the text interestingly says, it doesn't say he was a chief tax collector.

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If you look at verse two, and was rich in the original, the original is he was a chief tax collector and he was rich.

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Talk about hatred. Talk about despising. I think of words like scoundrel and scallywag, hatred.

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And so here's what Luke is doing. Jesus is the savior. I wonder if this guy could be saved.

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Kind of hard to be saved if you're hated. If you saw this guy, you'd want to hit him. You'd want to spit on him.

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You'd want to kick him. I mean, his name mightn't mean righteous. And he might be rich before people, but he's not rich before God.

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That doesn't commend him to God. How could anybody be saved? Who was rich and a tax collector?

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Go back to chapter 18, verse 24. Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said how difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God.

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It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.

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Those who heard it said, then who can be saved? And Jesus said, what is impossible with man is possible with God.

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Behold, a guy who doubly can't be saved. You might call me pure, but on the inside,

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I'm not. And could anybody like this ever be saved? Does God save wicked, sinful, awful people?

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That's the question. He was rich.

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And he, from the human perspective, was impossible to be saved. I mean, he loves his money.

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Why do rich people not get to heaven often? Why would Jesus talk to this rich young ruler?

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He doesn't make it. Because he's gonna be sad if he gives everything up.

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He's worshiping the money, that's why. Verse three of Luke 19, as you read from your own

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Bibles, and he, Zacchaeus, Mr. Pure, Mr. Clean. Sorry, when

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I said Mr. Clean, you know it went through my mind. Okay, let's call him Mr. Righteous.

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Was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not because he was small in stature.

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Greek word, micron. He was little, he was wee. So he ran on ahead, climbed up into the sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

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I don't know exactly what Zacchaeus is thinking. But if you read Luke, here's what he could be thinking.

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I would like to see this man who's kind. I would like to see this man who's nice to rich people.

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He has done that in his previous ministry. Chapter five of Luke, and after this,

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Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and Jesus said to him, follow me, and leaving everything, he rose and followed him.

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That's Matthew. This is the God man, this is Jesus. He maybe doesn't understand that he's a

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God man yet, but whoever Zacchaeus thinks he is, I think this guy could give me hope. I'd like to go see him.

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That's probably what was going through his mind. Luke seven, verse 29, when all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared

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God just, having been baptized with the baptism of John. Verse 34, the son of man, they said, has come eating and drinking, and you say, excuse me,

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Jesus said that, and you say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is justified by all her children.

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And so, Zacchaeus is gonna try to find out who this Jesus is. Now, I can't paint the picture perfectly, but I imagine in my mind's eye, why would he have to go to a sycamore tree and climb up?

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Because he can't get through the wall of people. He can't stand on his tiptoes at the back of the crowd and see because he's too small, and he can't get through the crowd because guess what he's going to get?

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As my father would say, some knuckles. He's not going to go through the crowd because he's gonna get spit on, he's gonna get elbowed, he's gonna get punched.

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This guy is despised. And by the way, when you're in a crowd, it's easy to do things and people can't prove it.

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Edersheim called this a solid wall of onlookers. There's a barrier, how do

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I get through? And so there is a tree. And by the way, Jericho is known for palm trees, easy to climb or hard to climb.

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Well, it depends if you watch survivor shows or alone shows or something like that. It can be done, but I don't think Zacchaeus with his robes and everything are gonna be able to climb up.

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It doesn't say balsam tree, those are the two popular trees. Here there's a sycamore tree. I mean, this could be like perfect providential timing to have some kind of tree where there's lower branches where you can climb up.

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You can't try to climb palm trees, but you sure can climb a sycamore tree. Short trunk, lateral branches, or you can climb that tree.

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And I know the passage isn't ultimately teaching this, yet it's true. One writer said, now think of this for a moment.

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Was this tree on the side of that particular street in Jericho by accident or chance? Who created the tree?

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Why did God allow this tree to grow here at this time? What if the tree had not been by the roadside?

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What if it had been a palm tree instead of a sycamore tree in the city called

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Jericho, Deuteronomy 34, it's called the city of palm trees. But here is a blessed sycamore tree that was no mere accident of mother nature.

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Isn't that good? And as it's been preached by many people, I'll preach it too. This tree is gonna bear some fruit.

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The crowds, the press. I mean, Jesus is among the people. This guy can't get through.

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Little tiny despised tax collector, they're not gonna let him through. Verse five, and when

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Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, eye contact, divine.

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He knows his name. I don't think he's ever met him before face to face, but he knows his name.

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That's for certain. Hurry and come down for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.

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The master Jesus being masterful, I must stay at your house. You see it in verse five. It's called a divine imperative.

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I must, like I must be lifted up. The son of man must be lifted up. John chapter 12, this is gonna happen.

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This must happen. This is a divine mandate. This is not, well, you know, I kind of like to go, kind of like to show up.

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I was in California this summer and I kind of invited myself to my friend's house.

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Said, you know, I'll bring over dinner, but I'd like to invite myself to your house. He said, yes.

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This is a divine, I must stay at your house. Not please, could I, do you have enough room?

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Have you been shopping? I must stay. Because Jesus, of course, as we're gonna learn in just a second, he has a divine mission in us to rescue sinners, both

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Jews and Gentiles. And this is not kind of like, well, I'm just gonna go through Jericho because I like the smell.

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No, no, this is Jesus. This is why he came. John Stott said, my faith is due to Jesus Christ himself who pursued me relentlessly, even when

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I was running away from him in order to go my own way. If it were not for the gracious pursuit of the hound of heaven,

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I would today be on the same scrap heap of wasted and discarded lives. Can't you identify with that?

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Can't you see for a second, I'm not in this passage, but my Savior is in this passage. And just like on his way to meet

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Zacchaeus, I know what he's done through people in my life, through preaching in my life. I must stay at your house today.

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And the text doesn't say it, but how can Zacchaeus not get through the crowd to see Jesus, but afterward

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Jesus has come down and it's like the Red Sea parts because Jesus is in control of the whole situation.

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And he easily can come down from the tree and come straight to Jesus. And it's not gonna be just come to your house to stay and have some fellowship.

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Something's going to happen. And how did Zacchaeus receive Jesus? What does the text say?

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How does every sinner receive Jesus? Remember when you first got saved and he received him joyfully.

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He received him rejoicing. Ongoing tense over and over and over, he's rejoicing.

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I would submit to you when you do get saved, when you have been saved, it's like 1

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Peter 1 .8 could be your life verse and mine. Though you have not seen him, you love him.

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Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

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I'm a sinner. I'm depraved. I'm wicked. I don't love God. I don't love neighbor.

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I break all the commandments every single day. And yet God sought me and bought me.

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Here we see verse 10 coming to fruition. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

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That's exactly what we see here. Jesus is going to save somebody who's unsavable.

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It's impossible for him to be saved from the human perspective. Verse seven, what do you think the people did?

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And when they saw it, they all grumbled. He has gone and to be the guest of a man who's a sinner.

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They're offended. But I thought if someone's sick, it's okay for a doctor to go.

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And they're grumbling and grumbling and grumbling. Chapter four, Jesus preaches, they're glorified.

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They're amazed. He's wonderful. And now he saves somebody that's lost. He's going to have fellowship with somebody that's lost.

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Somebody despicable. Somebody that they want to spit on. And then now, we're going to just grumble.

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And of course, at Bethlehem Bible Church, there are certain Greek words that we use. There are certain Greek words that we know, correct? You might know a koinonia, agape.

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You know different words. And you know this word for grumbling, do you not? It's where we get that kind of sound of a stomach kind of grumbling a little bit.

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And it sounds exactly like what it is. Congregation, the Greek word for grumbling is? Oh, to be a pastor of such a church.

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Instead of saying, God saves people, praise the Lord. Instead of saying, you know what?

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That's right, Moses in Deuteronomy 18 said there would be a prophet who would come. A greater prophet than even

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Moses. And he would save people. He would preach salvation. He would redeem people.

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They begin to grumble over and over and over. And it's a word that's got the

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English word through in front of it. Dia in the Greek. And so it could be like they're grumbling through.

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The grumbling goes through the crowd. The grumbling affects the crowd. It's affecting everything. Because that's exactly what complaining does.

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It's contagious. This man receives sinners and eats with them.

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That's Luke 15. That's the prodigal son. This man receives sinners and eats with them.

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It's true. Now, to be clear, Jesus doesn't celebrate sin. Our world says, you know what?

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We don't really want toleration and kindness to people that are different or in sin.

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We want you to celebrate the sin. Jesus doesn't celebrate sin. He's on His way to die for sin.

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To assuage the wrath of God the Father for sinners in the place of them.

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Jesus doesn't applaud sin. Way to go. He loves sinners though, and He's going to eat with them.

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He's invited Himself to a sinner's house. And when you see the word sinner there, sometimes we think, oh yeah,

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I'm a sinner. Whoever falls short. But this is kind of like a name. This is like if you see somebody on the street in Worcester with a bottle of wine half open, and you'd go, you know, that person's a drunk.

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It's a word of characterization. The word names who they are by nature and actions.

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That's what this word is here. It's not just we're all sinners and fall short of the glory of God. That's true. But this is one of those names.

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One of these words. He's a sinner. He's not like one of us. Everything He does fall short.

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He's an awful sinner. He's not just an outcast socially, but spiritually.

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God's grace comes to someone. And what do the self -righteous do? They complain.

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How despicable. How disgraceful. I wonder what's more disgraceful and despicable.

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Zacchaeus' sin. Or their response to what Jesus is doing. Oh, well,

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Zacchaeus, will you ever say anything? Verse eight, Zacchaeus stood and said to the

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Lord. By the way, this is kind of like stopping. It's very vivid.

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The crowd is murmuring, and it's like Zacchaeus wants to stop and make sure everybody hears this before the

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Lord as well. Here's your testimony. Behold, Lord, the half of my goods

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I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone, and by the way he had,

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I restore it fourfold. Probably what's happening is they're getting close to the house, and before they go in, everybody's grumbling.

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Jesus is gonna go in and be a friend of sinners. That's awful. This is horrible. He stops and he addresses

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Jesus loud enough, I think, for everyone to hear it. Jesus saved

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Zacchaeus. And if you'd like to know if he saved or not, there are evidences. There are fruits, like conviction, like I'd like to restore things.

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And by the way, he had robbed so many people, extorted so many people, from so many people, stolen from so many people, that he's gonna end up being like the rich young ruler if the rich young ruler gave away everything.

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He's going to have nothing. This is not like, you know, I got millions and I'll give you 100 ,000.

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I think this is gonna bankrupt the guy. Legal restitution for extortion was 20%.

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How is he gonna go around and repay everyone? But unlike the rich young ruler who said, you know what,

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I've got to keep it all, so I'm gonna leave you here. I want you, and so I'm giving it all away.

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Verse nine, and Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

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For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. And I just thought, what a savior.

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Who saves people like that? Who saves people like you? Who would save somebody like me?

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So the nature of the savior, he comes to rescue. You wanna know why

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Jesus came? You're like, I'm a brand new Christian, or I'm not a Christian. Can you kind of like give me the essence of Christianity?

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Yes, I can, verse 10. He seeks and saves the lost. We're lost in sin, lost in depravity, lost in all kinds of idolatry, et cetera, et cetera, and God comes to the rescue.

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Here's what Ezekiel said, God speaking. My flock wandered throughout all the mountains and on every high hill.

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My flock was scattered over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them.

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Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. That's Ezekiel 34.

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We need a shepherd to seek out those sheep that are lost. Who's seeking out the sheep that are lost?

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Jesus, Jesus is the God -man. That's why he came. This is the gospel, seeking and saving the lost.

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Jesus said in Luke 5, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repent.

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One man said in Luke 19, verse 10, it's the whole gospel. It's a simple sentence.

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And in the English language, there's not even a word that has two syllables. Here's just the truth.

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He seeks and saves. The hymnist would write, man of sorrows, what a name, for the son of God who came, ruined sinners to reclaim.

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What's the response? Hallelujah, what a savior. Now he was a physical son of Abraham.

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He was circumcised, he was Jewish. That's who the Roman people used. His name was

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Jewish. But now there's a spiritual Abraham son, is there not? Romans 2, he is not a

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Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh, but he is a

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Jew who is one inwardly, and the circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the spirit, not by the letter.

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Paul said in Galatians, even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

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Therefore, be sure that it is those like Zacchaeus who are of faith, who are the sons of Abraham. Salvation comes to your house,

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Zacchaeus. I thought that was impossible with men. It is. He's a son of Abraham.

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Sovereign initiative of God. What man of you having a hundred sheep, if he's lost one of them, does not leave the 99 in the open country, and go after the one that is lost until he finds it.

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And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying, rejoice with me, for I found my sheep that was lost.

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Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.

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It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this brother of yours was dead, and now is alive. He was lost, and now he is found.

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Now, let me give you some fables. That if you're not thinking rightly, you might believe.

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But now that you know the passage, and what it says and means, I think you'll be impervious to these fables. Fable number one.

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A theological fable exposed if you know this passage. Fable one. The story of Zacchaeus is simply a feel -good story or myth.

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It's not true. It just kind of works for the Jesus narrative. Who wrote

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Luke? Well, you say the Holy Spirit, right? Okay, the human author was

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Luke. Luke says in chapter one, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me,

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Luke the physician, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account, an exact account, for you, most excellent

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Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. So this is not some fable with Zacchaeus just so you make sure

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Jesus is this nice guy. This is true. It's an orderly account written by Luke, inspired by the

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Spirit of God, so that you might know, so that if you're a Christian today, you say, I believe that. That's my

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Savior. I'm going through trials this week, and I don't know what's gonna happen, but I'm still trusting in the

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Savior. That's my Lord. That's my God. He sought me and bought me with his redeeming love. And if you're not a

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Christian, this is a presentation for you. You are lost, and you need a Savior. And your response has to be like Zacchaeus's, and that is trusting and believing.

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The Son of Man is presented for a reason in Luke, not for feel -good stories. Number two, fable two.

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The children's song about Zacchaeus is perfect in its theology. Now, it's easy to pick on hymns.

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I know that. It's easier to pick on children's songs. Zacchaeus was a wee little man. A wee little man was he.

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He climbed up in a sycamore tree. Insert here in my notes, pretend to climb a tree. For the

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Lord, he wanted to see. And as the Savior passed that way, he looked up in the tree, and he said, Zacchaeus, you come down from.

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For I'm going to your house today. Cup hands around mouth. For I'm going to your house today. Clap to the beat.

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Zacchaeus was a wee little man, but a happy little man was he, for he had seen the Lord that day, and a happy man was he.

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A very happy man was he. It could be worse. I can prove it.

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Another Zacchaeus song. Zacchaeus was a greedy little man. He cheated all the people in the land.

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When the rent they did not pay, he would take their lands away, and their furniture, and everything they had.

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Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus. Nobody liked Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus. Nobody liked

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Zacchaeus. One day he heard that Jesus was in town, the man who loved just everyone around. So he climbed the highest tree, for his luck he couldn't see.

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Such a wee little man was he. Then Jesus came along that very way, and full of love, the people heard him say to Zacchaeus in the tree, won't you please come down?

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For I'd love to come to your house for tea. You know, when we would sing kids songs like Father Abraham and many sons, many sons had

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Father Abraham, I am one of them. If you believe so, let's just praise the Lord. You have to spruce these things up a little bit.

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He's a true son of Abraham, and Jesus came to seek and to save him, and he rescued him and saved him by divine sovereign initiative.

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God's work alone, monergistically, mono, alone, erg, work, God alone saves. Of course, sing the song to your kids, and then preach them this passage.

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Go home today and re -read this passage, and you're gonna say, that's my Savior, that's my Lord, I need to have Him in mind.

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This is the kind of man I need in mind, the God -man, because I go through these trials, and the just shall live by faith in this

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God. Fable three. This passage gives credence to social justice gospel, and critical race theory people.

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In other words, if you want to be woke, you go to this passage. That's called a myth.

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That's called a fable. I'm gonna talk about this more in weeks to come. This has nothing to do with that.

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Zero. You say, well, he gave some reparations. Yes, to the people he personally did things to.

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Of course, we're gonna learn in weeks to come, we want to be kind, and James chapter two, judging no one based on external things, but please don't use this as some kind of social justice passage, making that we all define everybody by race, victim status, and the history of our ancestors.

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That's not what's going on here. Doug McCulloch said, once we go down the path of compensating descendants of historic victims, there'll be no end to the demand of economic justice.

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Reparations, intersexuality, economics more generally would create perverse incentives to claim historic victim status.

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And here's one of the most egregious things in my mind, which causes disunity in every church it's in.

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Misappropriate the identity of other groups of people, and you will have to relitigate our historical grievances.

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When Zacchaeus said half of my goods, I give to the poor. He's doing what Exodus 22 said.

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He's doing what second Samuel chapter 12 said. He's showing that he really repented with the fruits of conversion, the evidence of conversion.

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Fable number four, the fruit of repentance is the same thing as repentance.

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The fruit of repentance is the same thing as repentance. Luke says in verse seven and eight of chapter three, he said, therefore, to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come.

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Bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say to yourselves, we have

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Abraham as our father, for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.

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Here's what I mean by this. Fruits of repentance, like his restitution, are fruits, they're not the root.

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He might be thinking rightly about sin, and what it means against God, which we call repentance, but the fruits of repentance are not repentance.

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To make it even more clear, Zacchaeus didn't need to say to Jesus, I know you'll save me if I make restitution now.

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I'll do this in order to be saved. God justifies the ungodly, and there is a fruit of faith, it's repentance, and there are fruits of repentance called all kinds of things in the

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Christian life. We don't clean ourselves up in order to be put in a savable position.

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If you preach the gospel, which means good news, and you say to people, change your life so that God can save you, stop sinning so you can come to Christ, that's not gospel preaching.

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By the way, it's not good news at all. If someone says,

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I'm enslaved to sin, we talked about this at the theological campfire the other night. I'm in a bad situation,

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I'm enslaved to sin, I can't get out of it. Dear friend, Bethlehem Bible Church, do you read the Bible? Can you help me?

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I know I'm gonna go to hell in this sin, I know I'm gonna die, and if I don't have a mediator, I'm in big trouble.

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Do I have to stop sinning? I can't stop sinning, help me. What do you do? If you say you must stop in order to be saved, you have confused repentance and the fruits of repentance.

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You should say something like this, dear friend, I'm glad you're convicted by sin. I'm glad you understand

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God's holy law and what you will have to go through in eternity without the Savior. But I have good news for you.

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I have great news for you. I offer you the gospel freely. And by the way, dear friend, God will not only pardon you for your sins,

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He'll also give you power, the Spirit of God who dwells in you so you can say no to sin.

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And you will say no to sin. There is nothing before faith, nothing antecedent.

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When you preach the gospel to people, you give them good news and you tell them, believe, because faith isn't anything saving.

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It's a little faith, it's sinful faith. And by the way, all of our faith is sinful because we're still enslaved.

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I shouldn't say we should say enslaved. You have to be careful when you talk to a theologically literate congregation. We're still affected by the fall, right?

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The penalty of sin taken care of. Power of sin broken. Still the presence of sin until glory.

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Fable five, Zacchaeus was the real seeker. There it is, verse three. He was seeking to see

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Jesus. See, we seek, then God seeks. Well, just because a Greek word is used, seek, it doesn't mean theologically that dead people, unbelievers, seek on their own.

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Romans 3, Psalm 14. No one seeks after God.

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From our perspective, you know what I see, Zacchaeus? Here's how you theologically look at Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is being drawn by the

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Father. See, it's like being reigned in by the Father and here he comes to seek.

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I know you would never get to heaven and say, God, I know I did all the seeking and I'm glad you put that exclamation point at the end of the sentence.

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You would say, no, no, I thought I was seeking. I was inquisitive. I was reading things about Christianity.

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I was reading the Bible. But now I recognize, I step back and go, you did all that. You gave me the appetite.

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You gave me the people in my life. You were drawing me and then the Son saved me. That's the astonishing kindness of God.

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The Father, the Son, and the Spirit. One writer said, "'Tis not that I chose thee, for Lord, that could not be.

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This heart would still refuse thee, but thou hast chosen." Jesus had to go to Jericho, just like he had to go to Samaria.

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From the human perspective, I understand people say, oh yes, I'm looking and searching. But theologically speaking, without exception, because of our body, soul, mind, and strength affected by sin, no one seeks after God.

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That's Romans chapter three. That's why God, the shepherd, Ezekiel 34, has to seek.

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That's why John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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If you're a Christian, it's because God has drawn you and Jesus has sought you. And then lastly, the final fable and where we started.

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Fable six, God helps those who help themselves. We know it's not true.

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Even though I think Ben Franklin said, Ben Franklin's statement, God helps those who help themselves, like 80 some percent of people believe that.

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And I always want to say kind of snarkily, how's that going for you? Because what you'll do is you'll just lower down the law.

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You just say, love God, heart, soul, mind, and strength, delighted, glorifying God, love my neighbors, myself, love my wife, love work, love all these things.

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And it's like, well, I kind of don't do it, but compared to this guy, I do pretty good. So they just take the law of God that's irrevocable, that accuses and it demands and reflects

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God's holy character and they're like, well, if I can just bring that down a little bit, and by the way, I'm not so bad as I think

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I am compared to other people and I'm working on myself and I do watch a lot of TED Talks and other things and I meditate.

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So I'm not so bad. So now the gap can be bridged by, I don't know, anything except the

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Lord Jesus, because if there's a chasm between God and man, the just has to die for the unjust that he might bring us to God.

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If God helped those who helped themselves, not one person goes to heaven. If God only helps those that help themselves, it'd be true of what

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Judas is true of, it'd be true of you. It would have been better if you never had been born, but we know

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God seeks, God saves. Nobody could have thought that Zacchaeus could be saved.

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You probably think about that yourself. Out of anybody, how could I be saved? We sang that song,

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He Knows My Name, and He knew everything you did and will do, and He still said, I love sinners,

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I'm gonna send my son to die for you and rescue you. I can't explain it.

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No wonder Wesley said, amazing love, how can it be? John 3 ,8, the wind blows wherever it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you don't know where it comes from and where it is going.

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And so is everyone who was born of the Spirit. You can't control the wind, you can't control the

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Holy Spirit, He saves. Romans 9, I will have mercy on whom

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I have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. Jonah 2, salvation is from the

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Lord. Ephesians 1, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself according to the kind intention of His will.

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You're a Christian because God is kind, because He loves sinners. 1

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Corinthians 1 ,30, are you a Christian? I'll tell you why you're a Christian. By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus.

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Yeah, but I believe, yeah, but even the faith that He, even faith He gave you, as many as received

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Him, said to them, He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of.

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No wonder heaven is filled with the praises of God, you did it all. Jesus, you paid it all.

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Dear Christian, while the world seems like it's in a mess, would that be a fair statement?

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God would like to serve you today through somebody like me. And here's how

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He serves you. That you need to remember to look at the world through God's perspective.

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And God's perspective starts, if I can use human words, in eternity past, when the

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Father, Son, and the Spirit, one God, three persons, said,

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I'm gonna go rescue you. Brian Bartlett, I'm gonna go rescue. And then in time, the

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Lord Jesus comes. He lives the life that Bartlett should have lived. He dies for the sins of Bartlett, and is raised from the dead.

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And He did it all. God did it all. And God saves people. There is this temporal world, but there is an eternal world.

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There's a future world. Our citizenship isn't on this earth. We need somebody to save us, to rescue us.

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And so when you see the world going chaotically, you say to yourself, but Jesus has called things for a reason.

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Rock, fortress, stronghold in the day of trouble. But I don't know if I can trust

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Him. Maybe He's not omniscient. Maybe He's not powerful. Maybe He can't get the job done without my will.

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And we come to Luke 19, and we say, powerful, strong, full of knowledge, wisdom,

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God incarnate, I can trust Him. He sought me.

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He bought me with His redeeming love, redeeming blood, and all my love is to Him.

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And I think that's the best news any pastor could give as he serves the people, Jesus Christ, the

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Seeker and Savior. Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. We bless your holy name, that you would send your

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Son, that the Spirit would attend. And now we're saved, adopted, forgiven, redeemed, reconciled, children of the living

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God. No matter what happens, if this is the last day on earth for us, if the world ends and the

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Lord Jesus comes back, we have a Savior. He's strong. He's mighty. He has astounding kindness for us, kind intention of His will.

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Oh, that we could have you as a God. Thank you for being our

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God. I pray, Father, that if there are people here who aren't trusting in the risen

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Savior, today you'd convict them of their sin for turning their back on such a Savior and grant them saving faith.