Well, good morning, church. It's awesome to be with you today. Our lead, Pastor, Jamie, is on his way back from Scotland with the team, which I hear has been a fabulous and exciting week that we, as Ebenezer here, are going to get to really celebrate and be a part of just seeing how God has worked there. And so I am, Pastor Kevin, if you're new here, I get to serve as the pastor of discipleship here. And you've got me for preaching this morning.

And I was just thinking as we were singing today, I mean, really, when you say 10,000 reasons, that's probably not even enough, is it? Right. 10,000 is, like just a small amount to really celebrate how good and how great our God is. And I'm excited that today, as we get started, that we are on the first day of the start of a new week, right? And we often say to ourselves when we get up on Monday, that, man, it's the first day of the week.

And we start singing songs like, I owe, I owe, it's off to work I go, right? Because it's the first day of the week. But this is really not the first day. The first day of the week is today. Because today on the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, is for us as believers, the day that really makes every other day, Right?

It's the day in which it really sets our heart in the place it needs to be to sing and celebrate and live our lives to the pleasure and the glory of the one who loved us and gave himself for us on a cross. And this is not only a unique week that we are starting, it's the most important week in the life of Jesus Christ. If you were to ask God what was the single most important week in the life of Jesus, it would be the week that starts today and ends this next Sunday on Easter. Now, all of us, if we were to be asked that question, would have things that we would put in our list. If I said to you, what is the single most memorable, important, like the week that really just stands out in your life?

You would have one of those weeks. For some of you, it might be your first week of school. For others of you, that's probably the most traumatic day of your life, right? But some of you are like, man, I remember that day, man, when I went to school, it was the big boy day. Maybe when you entered high school, that was the week in which you remember most.

Maybe it's when you got your license and you could drive legally. Okay? Right. Maybe it's when you got engaged the week you got married, your honeymoon, your first job, your first child, your first grandchild. All those are weeks that just kind of like, man, that just sticks with me, means something to me.

Maybe it was the best vacation week you've ever experienced in your life. But the reality is not every week is a happy week, right? Not every week is a week in which you go, man, that was just the best. Some of those weeks are hard weeks. Maybe it's the week in which you found out you had terminal illness and there is just really no hope that's ever going to go away.

Maybe you lost your spouse or a loved one to death, and that's a memorable week. That's a week that's indelibly marked in your mind.

But it wasn't a fun week. It wasn't an easy week. And if we were to ask ourselves, Lord, what is it that you would put as the single most important week in your life? It would be the week that starts today, Palm Sunday, and goes through Sunday and resurrection. And the way I know that is because if you were to just kind of do a little math with the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they all tell this last week.

They all focus on the last week. There's 89 chapters that are about the life of Jesus, and 29 of them, listen to this, 29 of them are about one week this week. And that should tell us that really, when we think about Jesus, when we think about what we are thinking about him, it should be this week. That is the predominant thing that we are thinking about. It was important to God to make this week the single most important week in the life of the Scriptures and to cover it by all four Gospels and 1/3 of the whole four Gospels in each of those gospels is about this week really challenges me often to think about how often do I say and celebrate with Philip Bliss, who wrote in the words of that hymn, man of Sorrows.

What a name for the Son of God who came. I mean, you want to give him a name, he's got a lot of names. But man of Sorrows ruins sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. What a savior Bearing shame he writes and scoffing rude in my place Condemned he stood sealed my pardon with his blood Hallelujah.

What a savior. And that is what grabs us. That's what really compels us and as Paul says, constrains us. It's that kind of love for us that a Savior would come into this world and make this week the single most important week of his life, for which he came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. There's another interesting thing about this week that starts in this week is that it emphasizes in this week the love of Christ, the passion of Christ, the focus of Christ.

In fact, I would say the laser focused of Christ on individuals. It is true, it is very true that the Bible talks about God's love for the world. For God so loved the world, right, that he sent his only begotten Son. It is true that the Bible often tells us in the Great Commission, go into all the what world and make disciples. And Jesus even said, I am the light of the world.

And all that is true, but something gets lost if you're not careful. And that is the laser single focus on individuals. We can talk all day about how much God loves the people around us here and how much he loves the people in our county. But you really need to really let this soak in for just a moment. In this week we get opportunity after opportunity to see the laser focus of Jesus on individuals.

And he's inviting them. He is saying, I want you to. I want you to come. It's Michael. Listen, I'm going to tell you what I'm hoping as we go through the passage we're going to look at this morning, that you just don't hear Kevin calling you.

You don't hear Kevin pleading with you, but you hear the voice of Jesus saying, come, follow me. Come let me, let me, let me be the one that you need. I hope you hear his voice. Hope that's what you encounter in this place today. Because as we've been going through this series called Invitation, that's what we have been learning is that Jesus is the one who, who is calling.

Come, come. You remember when Jamie, Pastor Jamie started that first series? He introduced us to a Pharisee and a tax collector. The Pharisee thinks he's awesome before God. He's pouting, I mean, pounding his chest and celebrating what a good guy he is.

And the reality is he's so far from God. Cause none of that counts with this God. There's a tax collector up there as well and he's standing at the back of the room. He's not even gonna come in the building because he's so ashamed. He's so afraid that everything about him is going to keep God away from him.

But what he found is that's the one that God is inviting. He's the one that went down right with God. And then Jamie in the second message, talk to us about another individual, a rich young ruler. And it's a sad story about an individual because here's an individual that Jesus loves. It says an individual who Jesus said, hey, what I want you to do is I want you to come and follow me.

I want you to come follow me. That tax collector is told in the temple, yeah, you can come be with me. I want, I accept people like you. But this rich young ruler is told to come follow him. And the sad story, part of the story is that he made a choice not to follow him.

But you still see the individual love and passion of Jesus because the text wraps up in Mark and says, and Jesus loved him. He was saddened at his decision because he loved him. He loved him dearly. And then last Sunday, we saw a third individual, a man who was blind and a man who actually depended on everybody for everything. He had nothing on of his own.

He was broke, he was poor, he was suffering. He probably had nowhere to live, begging for food. He was dependent on everybody else. And he hears about this Jesus coming through and Jesus heals him, restores his sight, and he begins to celebrate, right? He begins to just become overwhelmed that this Jesus would love him as an individual.

And that brings us to our fourth guidance, our passage this morning, I'm going to have you to turn to it. And that's in Luke 19. The other two stories are in Luke 18. And now in Luke 19, we come to another individual, the fourth individual, and the fourth invitation, as Jesus is on his way in this final week to head to Calvary. If you'll stand with me, we're going to read Luke 19, 1:10, and then we're going to dig into this passage and I hope discover some things that it's just going to be life altering for us because the invitation to Zacchaeus is this.

Come, let me change you, let me change you. He has been telling people, come be with me, come follow me, Come celebrate me. Now he's saying, this is what it's all about. Let me change you. Verse 1 of Luke 19.

He, being Jesus, entered Jericho and was passing through. And there was a man called by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Zacchaeus was trying to see who Jesus was and was unable because of the crowd, for he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and he climbed up into the sycamore tree in order to see him, for he was about to pass through that way when Jesus came to the place he looked Up.

And he said to him, zacchaeus, hurry, come down for today I must stay at your house. And he hurried and he came down, and he received him gladly. And when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, he is gone to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, half of my possessions I have given to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will give back four times as much.

And Jesus said to him, today, salvation has come to this house because he too is the son of Abraham. For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Lord, we ask you today that as we have heard your words, that your spirit would take them and lift them off those pages. Craft the things that we say and we look at about them and speak to our hearts, apply them to our lives. Don't let one of us escape this room without hearing the voice of Jesus calling us through this word.

And by his spirit, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated. Now, I know when I read a passage like this, and then, you know, you don't have to raise your hand, because I know it's true. You're out there going, zacchaeus was a Wheeler.

Yeah, you can sing it. Go ahead, let me hear you. I want to hear you. See if you know it right? Zacchaeus was a Wheeler.

He climbed up in the.

And as the Savior passed that way, he looked up in the. Now, hold on. You got to do it like the kids, right? And he said, zacchaeus, you come down for. I'm going to your house today.

All right, good. Are you? Yeah, that's right. I know it's for, I'm going to your house today. I'm ready to get past it.

And here's the deal. Most of what we know about Zacchaeus probably is from that song, a good song. But most of what we know is here's a guy who was a wee little man, he climbed up in the tree, and Jesus made a house call. I mean, that's about it. But there is so much more to this passage, so much that God has for us to hear in this story of the final invitation on the way through Jericho, headed to Jerusalem to die on a cross for sinners.

In fact, I have Never, in my 46 years as a believer, 37 in ministry, have never, ever preached this passage until this morning. That's shocking, right? That's really shocking. And I am, verse by verse, book by Book kind of guy. And I just had never preached through Luke that gospel.

And so you're in trouble because here's what happens when Kevin gets a lot in him, it's just hard to stop him, right? So you know how they do the shows? They put the little cane and pull him off. Where's Caleb? If I need to get pulled off, just come jerk me off the stage here in a little bit.

But I hope we can kind of really quickly walk through this story. It's a story of a life that God changed. And this is a story that really, I hope, includes your story and that you as a believer will be sitting here going, that's exactly what happened when I met this Jesus. And if you are here and you have come, and we are so thankful you are here, but Jesus is not really your thing. You've never really come to a place and got out of your tree, as it were, and you've come to this Savior, I'm hoping with everything in me that by the time we get through this today, you're gonna say, that's the one I want.

I need him to change my life. So let's look at this passage. You ready to dig in? Let's kind of learn a little more than just the song that we know. Let's dig in.

And there's three pictures or three things I want to kind of paint in your mind, because in this chapter, which is only recorded by Luke, by the way, this story is, there's 10 verses, but this probably was a couple hours of things going on. I mean, Jesus can't pass through a town, climb up a tree, get down, go to your house, get saved. And that's just 30 seconds, right? It just takes a little bit to read it. But it's really about a couple hours event probably that was taking place.

And the first picture I want you to see, the first thing I want you to grab in your mind as we look at this text, and we just kind of let the text speak to us is what we see here first is Zacchaeus became a seeking sinner, a seeking sinner. Now, it's true. Listen to me. Every one of us are sinners by biblical definition. For all of us have sinned.

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. But the question I'm going to ask you is this. Was there a time when you were seeking as a sinner to find a savior? And if you're not again, I hope today is that day that that happens for you. But Zacchaeus wasn't Always a seeking sinner.

He was a sinner, but he wasn't seeking. So let me show you what I mean. As we look at verse one, it says, he that is Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. Now, that's a little statement I don't want to get past too quick, because this is not an accident that Jesus is passing through Jericho. You know, somebody said one time that with God there is no such thing as accidents.

It's all his design. He is intending always to walk and do the things he does with purpose. So he enters Jericho and he was passing through because he's headed to Jerusalem to die on the cross. And I hope that when you plan your week, this week, that Friday of this week, we are going to be celebrating that Good Friday, because it's a good day for us, because it's the day we know and we celebrate why Jesus was headed to Jerusalem, and that is to die on the cross. I hope you invite everybody you can and we pack this place out, and then the next time we'll gather after that will be on the Resurrection Day, will be another first day, the greatest first day of all days, and that'll be our Easter when we get together.

So when Jesus purposely comes through Jericho, it's important that you understand a little bit about Jericho or it won't make sense who Zacchaeus was. Okay, so Zacchaeus here lived in Jericho, and Jericho was like this oasis place. It was the place of all places. If you as a family said, what would be your dream vacation? Where would we go?

Everybody'd say, oh, we're going to. Not Disney. We're going to Jericho. Right? We're going to Jericho.

That's a place where all the wealth is. That's where all the pleasures are. That's where people would have their dream homes and their vacation homes. This is the place where you would go if you were going to do a retreat or a conference or experience all the wonders of a marble bath house and all the palace receptions and everything there that you could find. In fact, it was actually referred to by historians as the little paradise.

It became famous for its manicured landscapes, famous for rose gardens that were said to perfume for miles around. You just got near Jericho and you go, oh, that is Jericho. And you smelled it and you knew you were about to enter into the best of the best in the world. History records that the streets were also lined with palm trees. It had another nickname.

People would call it the City of Palms. And that's important because you're thinking about a city that's not just got a bunch of sycamore trees in it, because that's the one that Zacchaeus is going to climb up in. And it's more than just a song that rhymes with for. He wanted to see the Lord, right? There's a real reason he picked a sycamore tree.

So here's the rich, wealthy, the city of millionaires, the city with everything that you could imagine. And Jesus comes into that city and notice who he is going to find. Zacchaeus. But notice that Zacchaeus is not just a tax collector. You need to underscore this.

He's a chief tax collector. Now, why is that important? Well, if you know anything a little bit about the culture of that day, tax collectors were the men who had a license, a permit from Rome, who was their enemies ruling over them. They got a permit to get taxes from their Jewish brothers and sisters, and they would take the taxes from them, give it to Rome, and satisfy what Rome demanded of their taxes. And so they had all these things set up for taxes and tariffs.

And I bet you that probably somewhere in Jericho, somebody stood up and said the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariffs.

I'm just saying it was a beautiful word to them. And there's nothing wrong with tariffs. There's nothing wrong with taxes. But what was wrong is how they got their wealth and how Zacchaeus got his wealth. These tax collectors would literally tax what was required by Rome and then kind of go, you know, I think that's worth a bunch more.

And they would tax them more, and Rome didn't care. Rome gave them the freedom and the privilege to just really take all they could from these Jewish people. So they taxed them as tax collectors, and they became the hated. Listen to me. Hated equal to a person who had leprosy.

You just didn't want anything to do with them. You stood away from them. You just didn't want them near you. And so when you read in the New Testament about Jesus going and eating with tax collectors and sinners, they're saying, those are the really bad people, the really bad. But Zacchaeus wasn't just a tax collector.

He was a chief tax collector, which means he was at the head of the tariffs. He would say to his guys who worked for him, okay, we need this much. You. You get all that is required and take as much as you want. And in fact, you better get enough, because I'm going to take some from you as well.

It's interesting that this area is one of three areas in the land at that time of the highest taxes and wealth that was being put on import and export stuff. So if there's only three places, and Zacchaeus is the chief guy, he is one of the three richest people in the area and he's the most hated of people, one of the three most hated kind of people in the world. When you think about rich and how rich he was here, think of it. The only thing I can think of in this day is the rich man that we all keep hearing a lot about, Elon Musk. $326 billion worth of money.

I didn't even get my mind around a billion 326. Zacchaeus had this. And that's no implication to say that Elon Musk has gotten his money like Zacchaeus. I'm just saying there's not a problem to have money and to have a lot of it. There's nothing in the Bible that says that's wrong.

What's wrong is how you got it and why you want it and what you think about it. And Zacchaeus loved it. He thought it was the thing that would make life happy for him. He's a man who has lived long enough to try everything in the city and, and do everything that could be done. And what we're going to see is that here's a man, obviously who never found happiness and found life in those things.

You see, he's trying to do what so many people do, thinking that the key to life is finding life in something God created rather than the God who created them. Thinking that if you just get your stuff that'll make you happy, if you get to experience this, life will be better. But that's just not true. And Zacchaeus knows that. He's a man who has lived long enough to know what the Bible says, that the way of a transgressor is hard.

It's just hard. Living life other than the way God designed and created us to be just ends up being hard.

It's hard for Zacchaeus because he's unhappy with whatever he's tried to experience. For sure. He's got broken relationships, probably family members that he has relationships broken with. He's got friends that he's robbed and stolen from. Zacchaeus is a man who's had it all, but really is empty and has nothing in the end.

So what does he do? Verse 3. This is just amazing to me. Verse 3. Zacchaeus was trying to see who Jesus was and was unable because the crowd for he was small in Stature.

So he ran on ahead and climbed up in the sycamore tree in order to see him, for he was about to pass through that way. Now, listen to this carefully.

It sounds just like life is normal. Zacchaeus is running around going, I can't see, I can't see. And then he's like, mmm, there's a tree. I'll go get in that tree. It sounds like life just being normal.

What you would do if you can't see, you find a place to climb up where you can see. And that is true. But what I want you to see in this, this is really God at work. This is God, as Randy likes to say, rigging it. This is rigged.

I mean, God is giving, and God is working in this center, drawing him to himself, which John 6 says, nobody comes unless the Father draws himself. How's he drawing him? Well, here's what he's doing. He's giving him enough time to run out all of his options of trying to see through the crowd. He gives him enough time to really go find a tree and get up in the tree.

And he gives him enough time for him to be able to really get settled up in the tree and get on the exact street that Jesus is going to calm down. All of that is God who is at work. God is the one who is using that curiosity and that seeking that's starting to happen. And I believe it's a God, the God of the universe, who is being the one who is just setting it all up for him, you know, and maybe today you've come into this place and maybe you're here and life is just like Zacchaeus. It's just falling apart.

There's nothing that satisfies. Maybe you're mad about it, maybe you're unhappy about it. Maybe you are at this place to where you're seeking and you're curious and you just want to know about this savior. That's Zacchaeus. Something's changing.

And I think that's a divine thing. That's a God thing. That's not a human thing that just naturally happens. And you'll see that a little later as we look down in there and we see the crowd, because they. The crowd, the rest of them, it says down in the text were saying, what is this?

This man is going to eat with sinners. That's weird. Why would he do that? And what they're saying is, that's what he is. That's not what we are.

Right? And that's the world we live in. That's Even the church world we live in where there are people who will say, don't call me a sinner, don't say I'm a sinner. Don't tell me I've displeased God. I'm a good person.

And what you're saying is just what Jesus meant when he said, those that are whole don't need a physician or a doctor, but those who are sick do. Now listen carefully. He wasn't saying there's some people who are not sick and they're whole, and others are sick and they are not whole. He. He is saying, there are some of you who realize it and the rest of you don't.

Zacchaeus started recognizing it. He started realizing it. And listen, about this little tree, not this little tree, but this tree that he climbed up into. I'm gonna throw it up on the screen for you. This is a picture of a sycamore tree in Israel.

You see, it's a big tree. It's got low branches. It makes sense that Zacchaeus would climb up in that tree because he's a wee little man. He can get up in it, right? He doesn't have to, like, try to get a rope and catch a low branch and pull himself up.

He just gets on the bottom and walks right up into that tree. But there's something about this tree that he gets in that says something pretty amazing to us. If you look at the next picture, you'll see that this tree has some figs on it. In fact, in Amos, chapter three, verse two, which is one of six times in the Old Testament where the word sycamore tree is used. It's only used one time in the New Testament, but six times in the Old Testament, this sycamore tree is used and it's referred to there as a sycamore fig tree.

And Amos is called to be the prophet in that passage to go tell the people, come back to God. And here's what he basically says. God, why are you sending me? I mean, I'm not trained to be a prophet. Why would you send me?

In fact, all I do is herd sheep. I'm a shepherd and I raise sycamore fig trees. What he's saying is, I'm the low class kind of person. That's what Amos is saying. Now, whenever Zacchaeus climbs up in that sycamore tree, it's a sycamore fig tree.

And it doesn't say so much about where Zacchaeus was, but more about what he was. And what he was is highlighted by where he was. Because you see those figs that are there? They are not the good tasting figs that you and I enjoy off a fig tree. I grew up and my grandparents had fig trees.

And I remember I would go out in the backyard and eat them suckers so much because they were so good. And then I was in real trouble, you know what I mean? The only people who ate the sycamore fig tree were poor people. Because you can't afford as a poor person to buy those really nice figs, but you could get those poor ones. And so Zacchaeus, when he climbs up in the tree, it's saying not so much about where he is, but what he is.

He's a poor, broken, empty sinner. And I just wonder, does that describe you? Because I can tell you that's happened in my life, you know, 46 years ago, when I realized how I had spent my life, living for myself, pursuing my own happiness, my own pleasures, and in my case, it was relationships and drugs that I thought would really satisfy me. And it never did. Everyone did what it was designed to do, leave me dissatisfied.

And so Zacchaeus here has climbed up into the tree because of the Lord. He wants to see. And it's indicating to us that he has a thirst and a hunger to find the answer. Second point, and it's rather quick now, so don't worry, you're going to get out of here in just about five minutes. A preacher's five minutes.

Okay. All right, number two point, I want you to see here is he met now a seeking savior in verse 5. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, zacchaeus, hurry and come down. For today I must stay at your home. Now, I want you to get the intensity of this.

I want you to get the really, the seriousness of this. It is a command. It's not a, hey, I'd like to come to your house. Would that be a good idea? And Zacchaeus would say, no, no, no, no, no, we haven't vacuumed the house yet.

It's not clean, you can't come. Or no, no, the grass needs cutting. How about we schedule for next week? No, Jesus said, I'm telling you, come down now, right this second. Respond to me.

And I'm telling you, you need to hurry because today, not tomorrow, and not even next, later this afternoon, but right now, today I'm coming to your house. And coming to your house is not. I'm coming by to, you know, have a quick visit and go on. I'm Coming to. To your house.

And the idea here is, I'm going to spend some time there. I'm going to spend some time there. So he hurried and he came down and he met a savior who was seeking him. Verses 6 through 10, the last point, and this is the key focus of the whole text, it all gets us to this. He became a seeking center.

God was drawing, God was working, God was preparing the soul of his heart, getting him ready to hear. He met him and he says, I'm going to your house. And now the third thing is Zacchaeus found a supernatural salvation. Only a supernatural born again, making you a new creation could explain what happens in Zacchaeus life. Now, I want to just have you notice something, and it's kind of one of those textual things that bothers me because I just like to know all so much.

In verse 7 it says, when they saw it, they all began to grumble, saying, he's gone to the guest of a man who is a sinner. That's those people who don't think they're sinners. They don't think they need Jesus. Verse 8 then says, Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor. And I have defrauded anyone of anything.

I will give back four times as much. So here's the picture. They go into Zacchaeus house. They're in there having a conversation. And all these people are probably out there in the yard going, man, I can't believe that Jesus is in that guy's house.

And some time had to elapse. And then the next thing you know, Zacchaeus is out there saying, lord, here's what I'm going to do. This is what bothers me. Like between verses seven and eight, I want to know what they talked about. I want to know the conversation in the house.

And obviously there was a conversation. We know that faith comes by hearing and hearing the word about Christ. We know that the prophets all talked about what he was going to do. Surely there was some gospel conversation, but it's not the point of the text. The point of the text is to say that what happened is when he heard and understood the gospel, this is what it really looks like when you believe it.

It's not so much about how do we get to Christ. The pathway, what is the gospel? What's the Roman roads or the four spiritual laws. It's not any of that, as good as they may be. What it is, is what's the proof.

How do you know that really you met this Savior. It's a changed life. I mean, he is radical here in what he does. What he does here is he says he's going to give fourfold back, which is what the Bible taught in the Old Testament. The Pharisees had taught them that, hey, listen, if you steal from somebody, all you gotta do is just pay back what you took.

But God had said, no, no, you need to really demonstrate a real radical change here. And Zacchaeus is showing that and he's wealthy beyond wealth could imagine and he's going to give half of it back to the poor. Why would he do that? Something in that conversation must have been life changing and supernatural. Now I'm going to take a guess of kind of how that conversation could have gone.

I think it fits biblically with what the Bible would teach and what the gospel. And this week in Jesus life is all about him dying for our sins. Maybe the conversation went like this. Zacchaeus, this week as I'm coming through your town, I'm headed to Jerusalem and there I'm going to bear the sins of many. And when I go, I'm going to be pierced for iniquities.

I'm going to be crushed and bruised for the sins of others. It's not that I did anything. They're going to take me, they're going to beat me, they're going to kill me. And Zacchaeus, it's all because of your sin, which I'm glad, Zacchaeus, to take it. I want to bear your sin.

I am going to be bruised and crushed for your sin, Zacchaeus, I am going to bear the wrath that your sin deserved. It is your place. And in your place I'm going to stand condemned. And I love you Zacchaeus, and I want you to know I'm glad to bear it in your place. That is a gospel message.

It's not Jesus plus me doing something, that's Jesus doing it all. It's me saying to Jesus all, I owe all to him. I surrender. Listen, what he did is not what saved him. What he did demonstrates that he really met this Savior and it changed his life.

I remember like I said, 46 years ago when I was the long haired ace freely rock and roll kiss looking guy. It's true. I can show you the pictures. And I remember a night of heavy partying and drinking and relationships, going home, passed out on the way home, ran my car down into a cow pasture, came back up, somehow got home that night, got up that morning, walked out and saw My car. And all this grass was underneath the car.

And anybody in their right mind would look at that and say, man, that was rough. And I had this thought, when I looked at it, it was the very first time I'd ever had this thought and a thought that went this way. See, I had all kind of thoughts about, man, I could have died. My mama's embarrassed that I got arrested by the police. I'm embarrassing my family, all those things, my friends, all that stuff, all that this way kind of worldly sorrow.

But for the first time in my life, I looked up and I said, oh, God, I am so ashamed of me. I have lived my life for me. I have really cared about pleasing nobody but me. And I am ashamed of me. I am so ashamed of me.

And I don't even know what this means. I know what it means now. I know that's God calling and God drawing me into himself. And I know that that's God. Bringing back some memories of when I was a little kid and my mom taught me all these Bible verses and taught me to sing.

Zacchaeus was a wee little man. All that's coming back in. It's all part of that divine plan of God working. And I said, lord, I don't know what this means, but what I is, I want you to change me.

I'm miserable in my sin. I want you to change me. And he did. That day, I didn't know a word like justification, sanctification. I didn't know any words about election predestination.

I didn't know any Bible words. I didn't know the word repentance. But I was experiencing all of that stuff right there because that's the God who comes seeking the lost you see in this passage. And we wrap it up here. That was more than 5.

I know. We wrap it up in this final week, starting today through Sunday. Jesus has walked towards Jericho, into Jericho, healed a blind Bartimaeus a picture of opening his spiritual eyes, saving him, and now he's saving the worst of the worst of the worst guy. That would be shocking, wouldn't it? And that's what should happen in our life.

See, the passage is not saying that Zacchaeus had this sovereign work of God changing his life and God changing him and causing him to be born again. He didn't say that is because he did something. He's saying that's what it looks like when God really changes your life. So what you value, if you value the Savior, you love the Savior. That's going to govern how you live your life.

If that's not your treasure, if that's not the thing that captures you and amazes you as it did Zacchaeus, then you'll live your life just continually like the crowd thinking, man, I don't need that. But I hope that today what you're experiencing is that you do need that. And I'm going to ask you to stand as we end and we kind of just have a few moments together with the Lord. We're going to sing, sing an old familiar hymn.

Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, and I hope that's kind of where you are, that what you were saying is that that's exactly what is going on in my heart and my life. I think the invitation is really simple two ways. Either Jesus today is calling you to him, come, trust me. Come let me be the one that changes your life. Give up on your goodness because you don't have any.

Give up on everything you think will make you happy and satisfy you. Just throw it away and look to me and let me be the one that changes you and saves you. I gladly took your sin. I gladly. He would say, bore everything.

And you got your list of every sin you know and things you've done, things you're ashamed of and you wish nobody in this room ever knew. But he knows it and he's saying, I bore it for you. I stood condemned in your place. Maybe today the invitation is for you come. Come to the Savior.

Let him change you. Maybe. Maybe as you're hearing this and you're remembering your story and you're saying, man, I forgot. I forgot to go and let my life reflect that. So the invitation for you is simply go and tell.

This week you got the greatest week of all weeks to go and tell. And maybe you want to come. You want to pray because you're coming to the Savior and there's going to be people here. You'll never come. Come down here and you'll be alone.

People are going to pray with you. They're going to encourage you. They're going to celebrate with you. Or maybe you just say, lord, I need to come back and say, that's true of me. I remember that day and I need to really have a passion to go and tell.

Would you put that in me? Would you work that in me? You're going to come and people are going to pray with you as well and celebrate. Lord, thank you today for an amazing passage, a simple little song we have learned, but so much more to this grand story of a Savior. Who loves sinners, individual sinners, who seeks us out, who came to save the lost, the ruined, to rescue them, because, you know, we cannot rescue ourselves.

And what an amazing thing, this Zacchaeus, whose mom and dad gave him that name, which means righteous and pure. Pure. And he was everything but that in himself. Now, for the very first time, is going to be looked at and treated by you as righteous and pure. Work in our hearts.

Do what you need to do at this hour as we sing in Jesus name, amen.