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Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason, and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching from God's words you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to him. If you're ever in the Madison, Alabama area, we'd love for you to worship with us on Sundays at 830 or 10:30 a.m. if you have any other questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison church, find [email protected] dot. Be sure to also check out our Bible study podcast, Madison Church of Christ Bible studies. Thanks again for stopping by.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Have you ever had the opportunity to meet maybe one of your heroes, as you think about that, the people I'm about to mention probably wouldn't be classified as the category maybe of hero. That would probably be relegated to, like, a family member or maybe a teacher I had growing up. But I will say this, there was a group of people that I absolutely loved to follow and looked up to a lot in the nineties, and that's the people you see on the screen behind me. That was the Atlanta Braves. I think every little boy in the southeast probably did. I think part of it is because there's no other team, but why else would you pick another team? I mean, the Braves are awesome. And I remember as a kid, there was something about some of those players that were just kind of endearing that you seem to connect with a lot. And so I grew up loving them. And I know, for me, growing up, I don't know if y'all experienced this, too, but especially in the nineties, there was a way that you knew about them. There's a way that you kind of followed who they are and what they're doing a lot. And that was through something that were called baseball cards. I know for me, this exact book is the one that I had growing up. I went with my mom to Hancock Fabrics. Some of y'all know it. I don't even know those are still in existence anymore. Went there and she said, hey, you can pick out the COVID And she sewed this for me. It's transformers, in case any of you don't know. But kind of the thing to do was to take your baseball notebook to school, put it in your backpack, and then when there was a break, if we were good at school, our teachers would say, you can get out your baseball cards. And kind of like, a way to tell that, like, you were in good status is if you could quote a lot of and share with your friends a lot of the statistics that were on the backs of those cards. So if you could talk about where you knew where Mark Lemke was from or where Tom Glavin played his high school ball, how many strikeouts Greg Maddox had, you know, those kinds of things would really, really impress your friends. And so I made it a chore, and I made it a job of mine to memorize their stats. So if you ask me about Mark Lemke, I could tell you a lot about him. If you ask me about Greg Maddox or Tom Glavin, I could tell you about their erade. And so, I'll never forget 1995, when the Braves won the World Series. One of the things that Bobby Cox, along with a few of the players, did, they did this tour all over the southeast where you could go and get their signatures. And so I was so pumped up, because some of those guys that were there that day, which was Tom Glavin, Bobby Cox and Mark Lemke, I was like, man, I'm gonna take my baseballs. I'm gonna take some cards, and they're gonna sign them. And so, I'll never forget, on the way there, dad said, you know, you were going through all these statistics about Mark Lympke. You were telling me all these things that you knew about Tom Glavin, and you were going to ask him some stuff and talk to him about things. And so we're in line with all these people, and we finally get up there. I've got my baseball in hand. It's actually still in my office right now. I've got my baseball in hand and my cards, and we finally get up there, face to face with Tom Glavin, and I freeze. He's like, go ahead. And I was like, it was kind of one of those moments. I don't know if y'all have seen him, like, in a movie where he's talking, but you're thinking about who that is and what they're saying, and it's just like.
And I'm like, oh, you know, I don't know what to say, don't know what to do. And here's what happened. I stood there frozen. But it's amazing. This guy that I knew so much about, I didn't really know, you know, how to break the ice. You would probably classify my relationship with them as knowing about them from afar, but not really knowing them up close. This morning, we're gonna look at a narrative that a lot of us are very familiar with. In fact, I was trying to think about what to talk about today for friends and family day, and I was thinking, you know, some of the narratives in the Bible that we all connect with. We all know you've got Noah in the ark, Jesus dying on the cross, and I think this one, Zacchaeus climbing up that sycamore tree. But my hope for you is, I guess, the hope of Luke and the hope of the Holy Spirit as he put together this text this morning. Is that why in the world is this in the Bible? Like, why do we have a narrative of a little man climbing up a tree, who Jesus invites himself to his house?
Well, he's trying to give us a picture of who he is, Jesus Christ, but he's also trying to give us a picture of who his father is. And so my goal this morning is this. I want us to move from maybe just knowing about the man that meets this man in a tree to actually knowing him.
And we're all kind of, as we're going to look at today, just like Zacchaeus at times, we keep Jesus at a distance. We see him, and we love the things he does. We agree with who he is and maybe some of the things we know about him. But to move that needle a little bit from just merely knowing about him to getting to know him. And here's what I hope you'll see this morning, that Zacchaeus is us.
We're going to look at this morning that there's times and moments in our lives where we all feel small, where we don't measure up, where we don't feel like we have what it takes. And so I want you to turn with me to the book of Luke. It's in your New Testament. It's the third gospel account. And as you're turning there, we're going to be in Luke, chapter 19. Now, what's amazing about Zacchaeus is that he would have been somebody in his day that everybody loved to hate, and he was somebody that was always rejected on the outside looking in. And I don't know if y'all noticed this, but we experienced rejection at a very, very young age. In fact, y'all might remember what pe used to look like or recess. I don't remember being super organized, except there was a lot of days they would just take some kind of ball, roll it out there, and let the kids take over. And usually you had, like, two guys that were gonna take charge, and they were the team captains. They were gonna pick teams. And when you were standing there, as they were picking teams, the one thing you didn't want was to be, what?
Last. Last, right. Yeah. You didn't want to be the last person. And so maybe you felt it before. You're standing there, you're like, oh, man, just not last. Just not last. And then there's you and this other guy. He's like, I'll take the guy with the bowl cut. You know? You're like, yeah. Then you're like, wait, I was not last. But he went, the guy with the bowl cut. So anyway, at least I wasn't last.
Or maybe you've experienced it when you went to middle school, that feeling where you get your tray and then you look out and you're like, where am I gonna sit?
Because you don't know your place.
And then you get to high school, and you want to ask that girl to homecoming. And we used to do this thing. I don't know why we did this. Where you check, yes, no. And then we did this third category, which sets us up for so much confusion and failure, maybe. Which is basically, if you check, maybe you're basically waiting for the other person you really want to go with, but I'll hold you on the side until that happens. But. And so we experienced that a lot growing up. Then we get older. And I want to suggest to you, as we look at this narrative from Zacchaeus, I think we experience that the more we get older and older, because I think what happens is this, as we look at with Zacchaeus, we kind of lose that childlike optimism and view of who we see God to see us as. But we also start to listen to the enemy a lot. And so every time people are at that water cooler and they're having a conversation, just assume they're talking about us.
We've all felt that in some way or another. And so what I want us to see is that this man that a lot of people said and mentioned that would deserve to be rejected gets something completely different from Jesus Christ.
And so, as we look in this text, I want you to look in verse one with me, and this is a very important detail. It says this Jesus had entered into Jericho, and he was just passing through.
The reason why the Bible mentions that is Jesus was not planning to stay.
But one thing I love about Jesus that I would love to have the awareness and the patience and the wisdom to see and to do is in moments where I'm busy needing to do something that I have on my schedule, on my time, that I'm willing to open to being interrupted because I don't know about you guys, but have y'all noticed that what we think of sometimes as, like, an interruption ends up becoming like a divine moment from God that we almost missed because we didn't take time?
And so he was not planning to stop. And it says, this is who he ends up meeting, a man named Zacchaeus. And the Bible gives us two details from the beginning. He was a chief tax collector, and he was a very wealthy man. It was already mentioned so well by John this morning that being a tax collector was. If you don't think, like you like tax collectors now, you would have definitely not liked them. Then, like, say you're a widow, and you go up to this widow's house as a tax collector, and you say, excuse me, ma'am, you owe me $100. She's like, no, no, I owe you 50. Oh, no, no, you owe me 100. I can't pay you 100. Okay. It just went up to 150. I can't pay you 150. Well, the guy that's behind me with a club tells me otherwise, you better pay me. And what happens is, whatever he makes, he gets on top of what that rate was. And then on top of that. Think about this for just a second. We know this about Zacchaeus. He was a jew working for the roman government.
So the Jews did not like who? The Romans. But then on top of that, so he's got the Jews not liking him because they feel like he's betraying. And then the Jews also don't like him because he's taking money from them. And then the Romans don't like him because he's taking money from them, too. So he's got the despisement and rejection from all angles. And then on top of that, to be a chief tax collector, you were basically operating like a pyramid scheme. And here's how it worked. To get into being a tax collector, what you would basically do is say, all right, hey, here's this money to allow me to be. So it started with a bribe, and then after it started with a bribe and you worked your way up, you would then get people under you. You would say, you know, if you like this chariot, well, there's more. You can join me, and then you'll get a cut of this and so on. And so what happened is, he was actually taking money from all the people that were under him. So the people that worked for him, the people that were around him, the people that lived near him, and in that whole community, did not like Zacchaeus.
And what made it even worse is the Bible makes mention of what everybody saw, is he's wealthy.
Now, when you and I see wealth, what do we usually think? That person's got it going on. They've got a lot of things. They've got the, you know, the infinity pool, and they've got the nice house, the nice car.
But the more I've read this narrative, the more I really believe this is that it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter the kind of house you have, the kind of car you have.
If you are missing out on relationships, connection with God and his people, there's not enough money in the world to make up for the lack of human interaction and connection.
In fact, I think about Zacchaeus. Yeah, he might have a nice house, but a nice house doesn't mean much if you can't have people over.
And a nice car is great and all, but what does it really mean if there's no one to ride with you to go somewhere?
What I'm basically saying is that Zacchaeus was so broke, all he had was money.
And then we noticed this other detail about him the Bible mentions in verse three. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was, what? Short? He could not see over the crowd. I actually thought about asking Mike if he wouldn't mind leading a song we're all very familiar with this morning. Zacchaeus was a. What? A wee little man, right. We grew up hearing that song and singing that. And I've thought about that song this week, probably wouldn't be written today. But number two, never call a guy we. That's very demoralizing. But as I was reading this narrative and digging into it, one of the things, and y'all probably heard this before, is that most scholars believe that he wasn't just a shorter person, but that he was actually a little person.
And here's why that's a big deal, is, you know how today that if somebody at a school or something is picking on a kid, usually there's somebody to advocate for that person? Not all the time, but usually there is. I'm reminded of, like, when I was in fifth grade at ACA, we had some kids being made fun of for how they looked and how they dressed and all these different things, and they called this big fifth grade meeting, and they brought in people from the school that were in high school, people in college that were picked on and the kind of impact that it had on him and them. And I remember, even if you didn't say those things. The whole fifth grade was crying like it was. To have somebody be an advocate for you was a big deal. They did not have that during this day. And on top of that, here's what we do know, is if there was something physically different or wrong with you, usually that was a sign that you did something wrong or your family member did.
So this guy, growing up, heard a lot of things.
He was the object of a lot of jokes, sarcasm, mean comments, underhanded words and statements.
And the reason I say all of that is I heard this a lot, and you've probably heard it, too. That hurt people. Do what?
They hurt people.
I believe that part of the reason why Zacchaeus does what he does is because there's been times in his life where he's been hurt.
Doesn't it help us know the weight of what we say to people and what we don't say to people?
It's kind of like everything that comes out of our mouths and words we say absolutely should be true, but not all true things should be said, right? There's a time and there's a moment for those things. I think he heard a lot of hurtful statements.
And as I was thinking about Zacchaeus, here's the thing that's kind of interesting about this whole narrative, is I do believe he was lonely. I do believe he was hurting on the inside. Because the Bible chooses to mention his height.
Like, we don't know the color of Mary's hair, we don't know what shoe size Peter had or the length of Judas nose.
But the Bible decided to include this detail that he was short.
The reason is, is Luke loves to give what we call context clues, that when you understand who the person is, then you'll understand the dilemma they're facing. I want to say that again, that when we understand who the person is, you maybe won't jump to a conclusion. You'll maybe see it a little bit different.
And as I was reading this, I thought it was kind of ironic, because just this past week at Bob Jones, I shared the narrative of Saul. And do y'all remember how Saul, when other people looked at Saul, they said, man, you see that guy? I mean, he's head and shoulders above everybody else.
But the problem was he didn't have the what? He had the height to lead, but he didn't have the heart to lead.
Zacchaeus cannot control his height, but he can control his heart.
You got Saul. He can't control his height either, but he can control what he lets into his heart. Then, oddly enough, we have a guy named David. That's not all that impressive. He doesn't have the height to be king, but he's got the heart to be king. What you and I choose to let into our hearts matters.
And so maybe you're here right now, and you feel like Zacchaeus, you feel small.
You don't feel like you have what it takes for this, that, or whatever it is.
We have to be intentional in two different directions.
If you feel small, you have to be very intentional about Jesus Christ being the one that lifts you up. But on the flip side, if you feel very tall, like you got it going on and you know what's up and you know everything, you also have to be very intentional that God will humble you, too.
It takes intentionality on both sides of the spectrum. Again, we can't control our height, but we can control what's in our heart. But notice this other detail. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he couldn't because of the. What the crowd.
Luke loves to mention what we might call barriers.
And you go through the gospel of Luke, and you'll notice this detail that Luke will mention sometimes that there's a barrier of distance, there's a barrier of disease, there's a barrier of social distance. There's a barrier of sin.
He always chooses to mention the barrier. And isn't it interesting here that the barrier for Zacchaeus was the. What the crowd, and what the crowd is, is anything in life that will impede, block your view of seeing Jesus. And I want you to think about right now, for you, what would you say is the one thing that is blocking your view of Jesus Christ?
What's that one thing? Maybe that one relationship, maybe it's that one mindset, that one habit that's impeding your view of Jesus. Now, as you think about that, you think, well, okay, if there is something right now or someone blocking my view, like, what do I do? Because it feels pretty sad, like, to break free from this would be a tough conversation.
I might have to delete somebody from my phone. I might have to delete this situation, whatever it is. What do I do? Well, if you look at the narrative right before this, in Luke 18, we meet another man, and his name is blind Bartimaeus.
And here's what's interesting about Bartimaeus. The Bible says in Luke 18, beginning in verse 35, that Jesus was getting near a place called Jericho. And I personally believe that the reason Luke put these narratives back to back is they're so similar. You got a man named Zacchaeus that cannot see Jesus because of the crowd. But you also have a guy named Bartimaeus that cannot see Jesus or the crowd.
But neither one of those, whether it's a height issue or whether it's a heart issue, neither one of them lets the crowd dictate what they're going to do next. And you and I know this, that in any and every area of life, we have two options. We can either run to the crowd trying to seek their approval, or we can be like these guys and run to Jesus. So look what happens next. He was begging, and in verse 36, it says he heard the crowd going by, and he was inquiring what this meant. So he can't see, and he's like, hey, what's happening? And then someone told him in verse 37, that's Jesus of Nazareth. And he's passing by, and he cried out, jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.
But look what the crowd did.
What the crowd loves to do at times, right?
They rebuked him. And you can't sing out like that. You can't say something like that.
That's not how you do it. That's not how you act.
They told him it says to be silent.
So before we read what's next, I want you to think about for a second.
When we know we need to act, we know we need to cry out, we know we need to respond, we know there's something standing in the way between us and Jesus, and we might have to take a very difficult next step.
Do you listen to the crowd?
Because here's what he does next.
When they basically told him to be quiet. I love this. It says, he cried out all the more, which a lot of people believe. He yells it, son of David, have mercy on me. I love that. They're like, hey, be quiet, man. He's like, I can't. Like, I know that I'm in the presence of the one that can fix me. Like, why in the world would I be quiet at a time like this? Yes, I can't see Jesus. Yes, I can't even see the crowd, but that's not going to stop me. And so do you see what's happening here? You got one guy that he is impeded because of his height and only connected through what he can hear.
And so what does he do? He shouts. And then we see next Zacchaeus. What does he do when the crowd blocks his view?
He does what no self respecting man would do at this time, and that's climb up a tree. See, there's two things you didn't do as a man then. Number one, you didn't run in public. Y'all probably have heard of that, the very thing that the father of the prodigal son did. And number two, you don't climb up trees like those are the two no no's. Yet we see a picture of people doing that to reach towards God or God reaching towards them, and so he's climbing up a tree. And so here's why I mentioned this. If you're at a spot right now where you do feel like your view of Jesus is blocked, what I'm saying is you're going to have to take a bold type of action.
You know what I think about when Jesus says, I think it's in Matthew 18, that unless you become like these children, you cannot make it into the kingdom of heaven.
And I don't know about y'all, but I've noticed. Maybe it's just my kids, but they don't mind, like, shouting things that they need, right?
Like, I hear it. Like, I heard that. Okay, but have you noticed, as we get older, we're not willing to shout as much, to climb as much, to run as much.
Maybe we want it easy, or maybe we don't want to take the risk.
But I love the fact that you got one guy who can't see and one guy who can't see because of a crowd. And both of them came to Jesus. And so look what it says. When Jesus reached that spot, he looked up at him. And I know, maybe looking into this much, but I do think that's kind of interesting that the guy that everybody looked down on his whole life, now the son of God, the creator of the universe, is looking up to. That's pretty incredible. And then there's this verse, I think is a funny sentence in the Bible. There's a guy up in a tree.
Glad we have more context. And it says, and Jesus says to him, Zacchaeus, I wonder how many times he was actually called by his name.
Personally, I think he was probably called a lot of different names when he walked. There's that guy.
Here he is again. And probably all sorts of other things, yet Jesus calls him by his name.
You know what's really interesting is the Bible says that Jesus, as the good shepherd, calls his sheep by what name?
And you wonder, like, when was the last time he heard this name? And here's why this matters. If you look up what Zacchaeus name means, it means righteous one.
That guy was anything but righteous. Yet that's the name he's given. And y'all remember in the book of Philemon when Onesmus evidently stole something from Philemon and he says, hey, Onesimus, I want you to welcome the guy that did you wrong and stole something from you. I know he's been on the run, but please welcome him back. And this is what Paul says. The guy that used to be useless is now useful. You know why Paul says that? Guess what Onesimus name means? The guy that stole something, the guy that did that guy wrong and did him dirty. Do you know what his name means? It means useful.
So Zacchaeus is called righteous one. The man who stole something is called useful. Here's what's so neat about that is aren't you glad that God does not call us by our sin?
That's why I love one, Peter, when he says, listen, you're a royal priesthood. You're a holy nation. You're godsen, special possession. God sees us like Zacchaeus, like he does Onesimus, not for just who we are, but what we can be. And by the way, if you look up the story of Onesimus, most people believe he was a leader in the church, died a martyr's death, and helped the church grow. He was useful. But the other thing I think about in this whole narrative I used to picture, like, Zacchaeus was on the run trying to find Jesus. If I could just get close, but let's really think about who is seeking after who.
Is it really Zacchaeus that's seeking after Jesus? Well, yes, he's climbing up a tree, but it's Jesus going to the tree. And the reason I mention that is I think, and I fall victim to this mindset a lot that, you know, I'm going to do something and then that will get God's attention or that I'm going to try to, God, please be in this moment and please help me with this. As if he's like, well, let me see. I'm trying to decide, like, every moment that I've tried to wonder if is God here, I find in that moment that I wasn't actually reaching for him, he was reaching for me. That's why the Bible says, I think it's one chronicles. The eyes of the Lord are going back and forth all across this earth trying to find people to give strength to. Do you believe that? He's like, I'm trying to find somebody. I want to give them street. He's actually reaching towards us. And this is what it said. Zacchissa's response was, it says, he came down immediately.
He said, I must stay at your house.
So he came down at once and received him gladly.
If you look in the Greek, that word received is the same word that is talked about of what Paul wants for Philemon to do with Onesimus, to not just say, hey, I'll give you a job, but I'll make you a room. I'll give you a place.
When you think about that for just a second, that's incredible that change happened that quickly.
And I don't care if you grew up in the church or you did not, I want to encourage you to know that that's how quickly Jesus Christ can change somebody's life.
I looked at pictures of sycamore trees, so this is not like some scientific measurement by any stretch of the means. But after I looked at those trees, I started to wonder, well, how long does it really take to get down from a sycamore tree? If you're climbing up, if you look at a picture of them, I was guessing, like, three to 4 seconds.
And the reason I mentioned that is, yes, Zacchaeus took a risk, and we will have to, too. You might have to shout it.
You might try to cry out his name. You might have to run from something, climb up something, whatever it is.
But I want to encourage you in those moments. Maybe you're reading God's word. Maybe, as one lady told me this morning, she calls them God nudges that. We know we need to act in faith to do something.
To me, those moments happen just kind of like from the limb to the ground in those three second moments, you know what I'm talking about, that you see a need, and it's like your mind is thinking, should I? Should I not? And you decide what you're going to do within the 3 seconds.
Or maybe for some of you, what it is, is you've sat in a pew, and I've been at times, too, where I'm listening to what Brandon's sharing from God's word. I was like, I know I need to respond. I knew that I need to act. I need to reach out to my shepherd and ask for prayers or whatever it is. But then I'm like, no, I don't need to do that.
And so the very thing I knew I needed to do within, like, 3 seconds, I've talked myself out of it. What if we started every time we knew we needed to do something, we did it. In fact, that same lady told me this morning. She said, I don't know if you've ever done this before? But the moment somebody pops into your mind, what if you reached out to them?
And when you think about that, have you ever had one of those moments that that person popped in your mind? And when you did, in those 3 seconds, got out your phone text and said, hey, I'm praying for you, just thinking about you. You don't know why they popped in your mind, but they did what usually happens. What do they say? Well, how'd you know?
What if we all took those risks to reach out to that person in those three to four second moments of life? So let's go and say, let's make that a challenge this week. Whoever it is that pops into your mind this week, don't say, I wonder how they're doing. Find out how they're doing. Send them a text, reach out to them, and I'm telling you, you will be surprised.
And notice what happened is all, the people saw this, so this is not just a few. And they began to mutter, he's gone to be the guest of a sinner.
So what? Did they not see themselves as sinners.
We can't see Jesus properly until we see ourselves as a what? A sinner? Zacchaeus did not see Jesus really until he saw himself as a sinner.
I know we kind of sometimes, if we're not guilty, divide the world into two groups. There's those of us that got it all together. We help those, and we, you know, yes, we do. But we're both like, we are people that have been helped by the gospel, and we help, we don't ever look down on people because we've been there, too.
But the other thing I think about it, isn't that a reminder for us to not be like that crowd?
Because the goal of the church is not for us just to come together and make righteous people more righteous, but to bring people that do not have a relationship with him. To him.
We have to always remember to not be like that. Muttering crowd and so Zacchaeus, he stood up, he said, look, lord, here and now I'm going to give half of my possessions to the poor.
So this guy that quickly went from, taken from people, now he's giving back to the people.
And, and I know I have been very guilty at times of doing good things, whether it's trying to be generous, trying to be helpful in order to win God's approval, this text shows us that that's not the order. We don't do good things to try to win Jesus approval. What happened in this text is he won Jesus approval. So he did good things. When we operate from that place, that's what lasts. That's what actually has endurance.
So one of the things we know that brought about change in Zacchaeus is that three second moment, that nudge, to listen, to walk forward, to do whatever it took. He listened to it.
But the other thing I think is this. He saw how empty that money was.
That money wasn't going to give him what he needed. But once he met Jesus, he's like, oh, this is it.
As I think about Zacchaeus, he kept popping into my mind, and that's Robin Williams. If there's somebody that we would put in the category of, like, one of the funniest, happiest, joyful people in comics, actors of all time, he's probably going to be in that, that category.
And I think that's partly why we were just devastated and blown away that this man ended up taking his life. That how in the world could somebody like that? Well, the more you look into his life, y'all remember the statement he might have said?
He said that I'm only as happy as my last performance.
I know we might not, like, say it like that, but how many of us tie our joy more to our performance than Jesus Christ?
The danger of that is when you're doing great, oh, you're doing great, but when you're not doing great, you're dependent on your own agenda, your own ability to pull yourself up. One of those will last and the other will not. So here's what I want us to think about.
Since he is us and Zacchaeus got a glimpse of how empty money was, I want you to think about for just a second what you could put in that blanken.
What is something that you've just put all your focus into, and you'll probably notice, like a lot of things, it's not necessarily bad things, but it's things that become God's, or whatever it might be.
As you think about that, what's amazing about this narrative, to me is how it ends.
In Luke, chapter 19, verse ten is one of the most popular verses in the Bible. It says this, that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost.
Now, I know a lot of times I used to know that verse, but not even know it was in the context of Zacchaeus.
What Jesus is saying here is the whole point of why this is in scripture and, you know, today about this interaction, even with our little kids, we want this to be ingrained in their heads, is because he wants us to know this is who God is, but to never lose as little kids that childlike faith to climb up or to run. So maybe you're here today and part of what has challenged you from God's word is that as you've grown up and was even mentioned by David a little bit, sometimes we can even grow cold to the things that should make us happy, that should bring us joyous. And maybe it's because we've seen it wrong.
Maybe for some of us this morning, what it is, is we know we need to do something. But when those three to four second moments happen, we kind of ignore it.
We maybe know we need to walk forward and ask for prayers or walk to one of the shepherds in the back and ask for prayers, or we maybe need to ask for that person and to ask for prayers from them.
But I also understand that maybe some of you that are here this morning, you've never made that decision to begin a relationship with Jesus.
Let me just show you how quickly things can change for you.
In acts chapter one, the very people that put Jesus on the cross, by the way, God doesn't rank sin. We do. But if you were to rank a sin, you would think killing the son of God would be like way up there. Okay, the people that killed him, the Parthians, the Medes, the Edomites, and all these other hard to name groups of people, they're all assembled on the day of Pentecost. They're all there.
And then Peter shares with this crowd that doesn't like each other or the message he's preaching originally. And they said, hey, we just realized we put to death God's only son. What should we do? He's like, well, there's nothing you can do, Zacchaeus.
That's not what he says, right? He said, what?
Repent and be baptized, every single one of you, in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.
So we know about at least 3000 people that were there that day that accepted that invitation.
What they did is they obeyed that three or four second nudge.
And then what's amazing was what you read next. In 42 through 46, that same group of people ended up selling their possessions, giving the money to the poor. They ended up spending time together. It says they were going house to house.
I mean, what a difference that quickly they made.
So I encourage you this morning, whatever it looks like for you, maybe it is, to come forward and to ask for prayers for this church, to walk to one of the doors back here and to find a shepherd and say, hey, can you pray with me about what I'm dealing with and going through?
Don't talk yourself out of what you need to do. And maybe you're here today and you want to put on Christ in baptism. We would love to support you and encourage you in that. It's so awesome to know we serve a God like that. That doesn't just see us for what we've done, but for what we can be. And so I want you to have that in mind as we sing this invitation song as we stand together.
