SPEAKER_00: Well, we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we are going to do that today.
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SPEAKER_00: And as always, every week, we want to say hello and welcome to our friends who are joining us online.
SPEAKER_00: We're so glad you've joined us.
SPEAKER_00: And in the last week, here's just a few of the people who have joined us, and boy, they are spread out.
SPEAKER_00: We've been joined by people from Quezon City, Metro Manila in the Philippines, and from Johannesburg, South Africa.
SPEAKER_00: That might be the first time somebody's joined us from there.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: And then from Sao Paulo in Brazil, and then much closer to home, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, friends.
SPEAKER_00: We're glad you're with us.
SPEAKER_00: Pray that you would have a beautiful week, and the Lord bless you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, our passage today comes from Luke chapter 19, the first 10 verses.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are familiar with this story.
SPEAKER_00: A man named Zacchaeus, a tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: He lives in Jericho and he meets Jesus in the town of Jericho, and that meeting utterly transforms his life.
SPEAKER_00: And as I've been studying the passage this week, the last verse, verse 10, just has leapt off the page.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a key verse for this little story or for the chapter.
SPEAKER_00: It's a summary purpose statement of the entire gospel.
SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
SPEAKER_00: At one point, that was me.
SPEAKER_00: And at one point that was you.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know everybody here, so maybe this morning that's still you.
SPEAKER_00: And if if that's the case, man, I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Because I want to tell you about this Jesus who knows you fully, loves you completely, has a plan for your life, has a divine appointment with you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm calling the sermon to seek and save, and I'm so excited about reading this passage and just different things that I've been thinking about this week while we've been studying thoughts about divine appointment, about this divine discontent that I call a holy restlessness, the idea of being fully known and fully loved, and then this last idea that, gosh, the whole purpose of Jesus was to come to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray, church, and let's start reading.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, you have brought each one of us here today.
SPEAKER_00: We each have an appointment with you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And Holy Spirit, you know each of us individually, and you know the cares that we brought in with us, the things that we're excited about, ambitious about, the things that we're anxious about.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we find ourselves here together praising, worshiping, praying, and wanting to hear from you, Holy Spirit, wanting to hear from the Word, and ask that you would speak to us and call out to us, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: We love you and we ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: So starting in Luke chapter 19, verse 1, before we start reading, I want to remind us of our context.
SPEAKER_00: Back in in chapter 9, we read, when the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: So our passage today, we're still in the middle of that journey from Jesus leaving Capernaum, leaving his home, hometown ministry, and headed towards Jerusalem where we know he's going to be crucified, buried, and resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: So that's our context.
SPEAKER_00: We're still in the middle of this journey.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read verse 1 and 2 of 19.
SPEAKER_00: He entered Jericho, was passing through, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: He was a chief tax collector and was rich.
SPEAKER_00: So right from the outset, it seems like Jesus, he's, you know, laser focused on headed to Jerusalem, and we think he's just going to take the bypass and go around Jericho, but we know that that's not the case.
SPEAKER_00: He enters in Jericho and he meets this man, Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: We need to know a couple of things about Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: There were three inland cities in Israel where taxes were collected.
SPEAKER_00: That was Jerusalem, Jericho, and Capernaum.
SPEAKER_00: And we read that Zacchaeus was a chief tax collector.
SPEAKER_00: So Jericho was on a trade route.
SPEAKER_00: There would be all sorts of goods and commerce that were coming through.
SPEAKER_00: Everything's taxed.
SPEAKER_00: As a chief tax collector, Zacchaeus is going to have a bunch of tax collectors working under him.
SPEAKER_00: They all gather taxes.
SPEAKER_00: He gets money from all of them.
SPEAKER_00: He pays what's owed to the Romans, but he gets to keep whatever's left over, and he is rich.
SPEAKER_00: Really, really rich.
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus is the he, and he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not, because he was small in stature.
SPEAKER_00: So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.
SPEAKER_00: So Zacchaeus was short, small in stature.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think Danny DeVito short.
SPEAKER_00: You know, this was not a big guy.
SPEAKER_00: He's not able to see over the crowds.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think of the crowds lining the streets waiting to see Jesus, if he's in the back of the line and he's trying to wiggle through, he's despised and looked down upon, considered a traitor to his people because he taxes them and gives the money to the Romans.
SPEAKER_00: People are not going to be eager to step aside and let Zacchaeus come through, are they?
SPEAKER_00: Now there's going to be a little bit of an elbow thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Zach, didn't see you there.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he do?
SPEAKER_00: He runs down the street and he climbs into a sycamore tree.
SPEAKER_00: And these sycamore trees grew to about 40 feet tall, but they had really massively wide trunks and these broad, low branches.
SPEAKER_00: So it'd be easy for Zacchaeus to climb up and wait for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.
SPEAKER_00: So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully.
SPEAKER_00: You know, we read that Zacchaeus, he didn't want to just see Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted to know who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: Who was this man he's heard about?
SPEAKER_00: Who's a teacher, who's a rabbi, who's raised people from the dead, who has healed this person, Bartimaeus, just up the road, who's healed and cleansed lepers?
SPEAKER_00: Is this is this guy for real?
SPEAKER_00: Does he really forgive sins?
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus is wondering these things.
SPEAKER_00: So when we read that Jesus stops at that tree, right under where Zacchaeus is kind of hiding out in the branches, what is going through Zacchaeus' mind at that moment?
SPEAKER_00: Is he starting to sweat a little bit?
SPEAKER_00: And then when Jesus looks up at him and calls him by name, Zacchaeus has got to be thinking, How does he know me?
SPEAKER_00: How does he know my name?
SPEAKER_00: He's never met me.
SPEAKER_00: I've never met him.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus calls to him, come down.
SPEAKER_00: So how does Zacchaeus respond?
SPEAKER_00: We read that he comes down joyfully.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, I must stay at your house today.
SPEAKER_00: And Zacchaeus must be going out of his mind at this moment.
SPEAKER_00: The master called me by name.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking me, he's telling me that he has to come to my house.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus is happy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is happy.
SPEAKER_00: What about the crowds?
SPEAKER_00: Are they rejoicing, excited to see this transformation taking place in Zacchaeus?
SPEAKER_00: Let's read verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: And when they saw it, they all grumbled.
SPEAKER_00: He's gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay.
SPEAKER_00: So the uncomfortable question for all of us is how do we respond when somebody that we look down upon comes to Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: You know, does our inner Pharisee come out?
SPEAKER_00: Do we grumble, or do we just get thoroughly excited about the lost being found?
SPEAKER_00: Let's keep going in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so just for a minute, can we compare the response of Zacchaeus to Jesus with the response of the rich young ruler that Pastor Ryan taught about last week?
SPEAKER_00: The rich young ruler who came to Jesus asking what he must do to be saved, saying, I'd kept all the commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, looking at him with tenderness, knowing him, and knowing that this young man's wealth was what was standing in the way between him and Jesus, said, Here's what you need to do.
SPEAKER_00: Sell everything you have, give it away to the poor, and then follow me.
SPEAKER_00: And we read that the young man went away sorrowful because he was very wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus does not respond that way in the slightest.
SPEAKER_00: His response to being forgiven is, Lord, I'm gonna give half of everything I have to the poor.
SPEAKER_00: And if I've defrauded anyone of anything, which Zacchaeus, as his job, Monday through Friday, defrauded people every day of the week.
SPEAKER_00: He took as much as he could.
SPEAKER_00: And here he's telling them he's gonna give them back fourfold, which was the most severe Levitical penalty one could ever pay.
SPEAKER_00: And he's doing all of this as a result of being transformed by the love of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And what is Jesus' response to him?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham.
SPEAKER_00: For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God for this.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not telling Zacchaeus that he's been saved because all of a sudden he's Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Generous.
SPEAKER_00: No, the generosity, the spirit of Zacchaeus to give now and not take, that's the fruit of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: That's the result of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And when Jesus says he's a true son of Abraham, it's because, like Abraham, he's believing Jesus in faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just because of his bloodline as a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: And then Jesus finishes with this summary statement of the gospel: the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: Holy cow, what a great passage.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful to our brother Luke for recording this encounter between Jesus and Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said at the beginning, gosh, I've been thinking about a lot of things this week while we've been studying this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the first of those that has stuck out to me a divine appointment.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about divine appointments, chance meetings that aren't really so chance.
SPEAKER_00: Here's an example of one.
SPEAKER_00: So one one time there's a kid, high school kid, he's 16, he's got a band, he's playing at the church picnic.
SPEAKER_00: And this other kid from school, who's 15, is a guitar player, plays a little bit, writes songs, he comes to the picnic, and a mutual friend introduces the two of these kids.
SPEAKER_00: And the 16-year-old who had the band, his name was John, that they listen to the kid.
SPEAKER_00: He plays a couple of songs for him, he talks to him.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, he shows him how to tune a guitar because the guys in the band didn't know how to tune a guitar, and they were pretty impressed by that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, so this kid, John, that guy that had the band, he was so impressed that a couple of weeks later he invites this younger kid, Paul, to join the band.
SPEAKER_00: That would be Paul McCartney.
SPEAKER_00: And the band started out being called the Quarrymen.
SPEAKER_00: A few years later, they had George and Ringo, and they become the Beatles.
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing chance meeting at a church picnic.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, TVC, picnics.
SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
SPEAKER_00: So this idea of divine appointment, let's think about this with our passage.
SPEAKER_00: You know, here Jesus is headed towards Jerusalem, we read, he's just gonna pass through Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: And what are the chances that Zacchaeus knew, you know, that Jesus was coming through?
SPEAKER_00: He knew the street he was gonna come down, that he had this curiosity to see who Jesus was, and he took it upon himself to climb this tree in hopes that Jesus would pass by.
SPEAKER_00: And then what do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus does pass by that very street, comes under that very tree, stops under that very tree, looks up, and says, Zacchaeus, come on down from there.
SPEAKER_00: I must stay at your house today.
SPEAKER_00: Zacchaeus does, and what a difference that made.
SPEAKER_00: The rest is history.
SPEAKER_00: What seems like a bunch of coincidences really aren't.
SPEAKER_00: It's a divine appointment.
SPEAKER_00: Look what Kent Hughes has to say about this meeting from his commentary on Luke.
SPEAKER_00: What we begin to see at this point in the story is that Zacchaeus' seeking of Jesus and Jesus' seeking of Zacchaeus, they were both sovereign works of God.
SPEAKER_00: God working in the background.
SPEAKER_00: The crossing of their lives at the sycamore was a work of divine providence.
SPEAKER_00: This meeting was ordained before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: The camel was about to go through the eye of a needle.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember, last week in the story of the rich young ruler, Jesus said it's harder for a wealthy person to enter heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
SPEAKER_00: Well, man, I just love that.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, each one of us, just like Zacchaeus, has a divine appointment with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: In retrospect, we can see that Jesus planned this meeting all along, at just the right time, just the right place.
SPEAKER_00: He's seeking lost people like you, like me, like Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that the intersection of Zacchaeus' life and Jesus coming together.
SPEAKER_00: That's a sovereign work, a divine appointment of God.
SPEAKER_00: Al Walter says in creation regained, God does not make junk, and he does not junk what he made.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have used that quote.
SPEAKER_00: Ethel Waters has used that quote.
SPEAKER_00: God will pursue us.
SPEAKER_00: He will give us every opportunity to say yes, to joyfully receive them, just like Zacchaeus did, because we are little image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: We are not junk.
SPEAKER_00: God does not abandon us, he pursues us.
SPEAKER_00: In his basic booklet, his booklet basic Christianity, John Stott says, you can never take God by surprise.
SPEAKER_00: You can never anticipate him.
SPEAKER_00: He always makes the first move.
SPEAKER_00: He is always there in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Before man existed, God acted.
SPEAKER_00: Before man stirs himself to seek God, God has sought man.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible, we do not see man groping after God.
SPEAKER_00: We see God reaching after man.
SPEAKER_00: Amen to that.
SPEAKER_00: And one of my favorite examples of this in Scripture is in chapter 3 of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: After Adam and Eve have sinned, after the fall, they're hiding in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: They've hidden themselves away from God.
SPEAKER_00: And we read that God is walking in the garden and he's calling out to Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: He's pursuing them.
SPEAKER_00: And he's calling out and saying, Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Which is a rhetorical question because of course he knows where they are.
SPEAKER_00: He knows everything about them.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that they have sinned and fallen and broken relationship with them, but he is seeking them out.
SPEAKER_00: God is always the initiator, and we're always the responder.
SPEAKER_00: He is always pursuing us.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'd like to say, friends, if if you're here today, if you found yourself here with a friend or a neighbor, gosh, we're so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know Jesus yet, today might be your divine appointment.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in church, I've got to say, our lives, we know on this side, there are a series of divine appointments.
SPEAKER_00: God can use every moment of our lives for his purposes.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, are we open today to hear Jesus say to us, hey, come on down, I have to go to your house today.
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like for us?
SPEAKER_00: By the way, when Jesus said that, come on down, I have to go to your house today, how's that make you feel?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone like, yeah, come on over right now?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it more like, oh boy, I gotta get home and clean up before.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just saying, if you're gonna come visit us at our house, we need at least a 30-minute heads up.
SPEAKER_00: Prefer 24 hours.
SPEAKER_00: 30 minutes is doable most days, but you know, if you want to visit, give us 24 hours.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's another question.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says he wants to come to your house, and you say yes, can you throw the door wide open?
SPEAKER_00: Can you throw wide open every door in your house?
SPEAKER_00: I know that that's what he wants, and I'll be honest, some days I feel like that.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like Jesus, every door of the house of my heart is open to you.
SPEAKER_00: Come on in.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's other days where I'll say, yeah, come on in, the front door's open, but don't go in that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the basement.
SPEAKER_00: Don't go there.
SPEAKER_00: Some doors are closed.
SPEAKER_00: Church, Jesus is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: We can trust him and open every door of our house to him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, second point that I just have been thinking about so much this week is this idea of divine discontent, what I call a holy restlessness.
SPEAKER_00: I think the fact that Zacchaeus really wanted to see who Jesus was, not just kind of be a spectator and see him, but to see who he was, that tells us something.
SPEAKER_00: And I believe it tells us that Zacchaeus was realizing the vacuity of his life.
SPEAKER_00: You know, on one hand, man, he had everything money could buy because he was very rich.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he probably had the nicest clothes with gold thread and purple dye, the nicest leather sandals, probably lived in a huge house, ate the finest food, drank the best wine.
SPEAKER_00: And I just wonder if he was beginning to realize man, all this stuff, it's just not enough.
SPEAKER_00: And I wonder if he began to ask the question.
SPEAKER_00: Is this all there is?
SPEAKER_00: He was utterly despised by his fellow Jews.
SPEAKER_00: He had no friends.
SPEAKER_00: He had stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I read somewhere this week, stuff is just the container where meaning of our lives leaks out.
SPEAKER_00: He just he just had stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He had Tupperware.
SPEAKER_00: Expensive Tupperware, but he just had Tupperware.
SPEAKER_00: I think he was coming to the end of himself.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what Billy Graham has to say about that.
SPEAKER_00: He says, when we come to the end of ourselves, we come to the beginning of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's good, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I'm I'm praying that Jesus in his mercy allows us, maybe today for the first time, but but over and over again to come to the end of ourselves, to realize that all this stuff, it's just not enough.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to permanently fulfill us and satisfy us.
SPEAKER_00: There is a need for more in our hearts than fill in the blank with whatever money, sex, power, fast cars.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Alistair Begg says about this thought in his great devotional book, Truth for Life.
SPEAKER_00: It's so good.
SPEAKER_00: He says, we have hundreds of substitute gods, idols that promise us freedom, but in reality demean and enslave.
SPEAKER_00: Worship sex and it will corrode your ability to love or be loved.
SPEAKER_00: Worship alcohol and it will ensnare you.
SPEAKER_00: Worship money and it will consume you.
SPEAKER_00: Worship your family and you or they will collapse under the burden of unfulfilled expectations.
SPEAKER_00: Worship any substitute God and you will find that it cannot satisfy.
SPEAKER_00: Where are we this morning?
SPEAKER_00: You know, are we worshiping, do we find ourselves drifting into worshiping substitute gods, making good things into ultimate things, things that are good but are not God, things that cannot truly satisfy us?
SPEAKER_00: Many of us know this quote from Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the fourth century, you have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.
SPEAKER_00: Are we experiencing, which one are we experiencing this morning?
SPEAKER_00: Restlessness?
SPEAKER_00: Anxiousness because we're not resting in the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Or despite what's going on, are we experiencing the rest of resting in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Well, do you see how these first two things have combined in the story of Zacchaeus?
SPEAKER_00: Here he is, he's coming to the end of himself, this holy restlessness, looking to see who Jesus really is.
SPEAKER_00: And then lo and behold, there is a divine appointment where Zacchaeus meets Jesus and his life is transformed.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, I'm praying that God will help us become restless again, pushing us towards knowing that we need to rest in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: My third thought from this passage, it's about being fully known and fully loved.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, every single human being on the planet has this inherent, built-in, factory-installed need for to know and be known, to love and be loved, this need for significance.
SPEAKER_00: We cannot escape it because God has made us this way.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing and being known, that's how we define who we are.
SPEAKER_00: This desire, it's so deeply embedded in us, whether you're a believer or not, we have this desire.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to being known, we have a desire to be loved.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller talks about this in the meaning of the in the meaning of marriage, and I think he hits the nail on the head.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't a slide, it's just a paraphrase.
SPEAKER_00: He says, okay, on one hand, to be loved but not known, it's comforting, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it's superficial because there's this nagging thought, well, okay, I'm loved, but it's just on the surface, because if I'm really known down to the depths, then that love will disappear.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then on the other hand, to be known, to be deeply known and not loved, well, that's one of our greatest fears, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, where you say to yourself, yeah, just as I expected, once you got to know me, you don't love me.
SPEAKER_00: Those two concepts, being fully known and being fully loved, truly loved, that's what Keller says is being loved by God, and it's it's what we need more than anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's the way we're made, and that is the truth for every human being, and it's what we can have in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's who we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We're fully known.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that God doesn't know about us.
SPEAKER_00: He created us, he knows our highest highs and our lowest lows.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is hidden from him.
SPEAKER_00: Like David said in Psalm 139, O Lord, you've searched me and know me.
SPEAKER_00: You search out my path and my lying down, you're acquainted with all my ways, even before a word is on my tongue.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
SPEAKER_00: We are utterly, totally, completely known by Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And to be honest, I think that is both tremendously exciting and just utterly terrifying that we are known completely.
SPEAKER_00: But the one who knows us so completely intimately loves us deeply, fully, and truly.
SPEAKER_00: Brian Rosner, in his fantastic book, Known by God, if you haven't read this book, I highly recommend it.
SPEAKER_00: He says human beings are inherently social, and we know who we are in relation to others, and by being known by others, if one of the universal desires of the self is to be acknowledged and known by others, then being known by God as his children meets our deepest and lifelong need for recognition and gives us a secure identity.
SPEAKER_00: So in Christ, our deepest needs for being known, for love, recognition, and significance.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all met, and our identity is solid and secure.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that can take this identity away from us.
SPEAKER_00: It's a whole lot like what Ben Rector said in his hit song, Brand New.
SPEAKER_00: First verse, I feel like new sunglasses, like a brand new pair of jeans.
SPEAKER_00: I feel like taking chances.
SPEAKER_00: I feel a lot like 17.
SPEAKER_00: And then the chorus, like a heartbeat skip, like an open page, like a one-way trip on an aeroplane.
SPEAKER_00: It's the way that I feel when I'm with you.
SPEAKER_00: Brand new.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have in our life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for that great song, by the way, Ben.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, J.I.
SPEAKER_00: Packer says it like this, and I really, really love this quote.
SPEAKER_00: This tells us how deeply we're known and loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: What matters supremely, it's not in the last analysis the fact that I know God, but the larger fact which underlies it, the fact that he knows me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm never out of his mind.
SPEAKER_00: All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.
SPEAKER_00: I know him because he first knew me.
SPEAKER_00: That's so important.
SPEAKER_00: And continues to know me.
SPEAKER_00: He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is not a moment when his eye is off me or his attention distracted from me, and no moment, therefore, when his care falters.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, there is not a single moment in our lives where we are not known and loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: Even before we're born, God knows us.
SPEAKER_00: From birth to death, God knows us.
SPEAKER_00: Every stage and season of life, whether we are young, whether we're old, whether we're healthy, whether we are ill, we're known and loved by God.
SPEAKER_00: Our identity is still secure in Him.
SPEAKER_00: There is not a moment when His care for us falters.
SPEAKER_00: So a part of that identity is that we are sought after by God.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings me to the last thought I had from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The ultimate mission of Jesus, that amazing verse 10, for the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.
SPEAKER_00: That's the ultimate mission of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole gospel.
SPEAKER_00: In how many words is that?
SPEAKER_00: Twelve words, something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't accidentally stumble upon us while he's out wandering around aimlessly.
SPEAKER_00: He is out actively, intentionally seeking each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came for us in pursuit of us, seeking us out while we were still far away from him.
SPEAKER_00: He sought us before we ever thought about seeking him.
SPEAKER_00: The initiative is all Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the way John Stott says it, second John Stott quote of the day.
SPEAKER_00: Our Christian life began not with our decision to follow Christ, but with God's call to us to do so, creating that holy restlessness.
SPEAKER_00: He took the initiative in his grace while we were still in rebellion and sin.
SPEAKER_00: In that state, we neither wanted to turn from sin to Christ, nor were we able to, but he came to us and called us to freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how beautiful it is that Jesus loved us before we loved him.
SPEAKER_00: How beautiful it is that Jesus sought us before we sought him.
SPEAKER_00: And that our Christian life, this amazing thought, it doesn't begin with our decision to say yes to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It begins with God taking the initiative himself and seeking us and calling us, calling us to freedom.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus doesn't stop with the seeking.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a casual seeker, like, hey dude, glad I found you.
SPEAKER_00: No, after he finds us, he saves us.
SPEAKER_00: That's such an important part of this equation.
SPEAKER_00: Just like he did with Zacchaeus.
SPEAKER_00: He sows these seeds in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We start trying to understand this restlessness, what's drawing us.
SPEAKER_00: Then we say yes to Jesus and we just discover in the end, man, it was Jesus calling us all along.
SPEAKER_00: That's just amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I love how Leon Morse puts it in his commentary on Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Short little thing.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Jesus sought Zacchaeus, a man who was certainly among the lost, but Jesus did not leave him there.
SPEAKER_00: He saved him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he does with all of us.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to us, he seeks us, he calls to us.
SPEAKER_00: Come down.
SPEAKER_00: And when we come to him, he saves us.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, I know we say this often, but we all come to this service today in different places in our lives, in our spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_00: And here's my encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: No matter where we are today, whatever we're saying yes to and no to, Jesus has a divine appointment for each of us.
SPEAKER_00: Each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: We are each fully known and fully loved, no matter where you are in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, I am praying that each one of us comes to the end of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Says yes to Jesus and with great confidence just opens wide the door of every room of our heart to him.
SPEAKER_00: Things we may have never given to him.
SPEAKER_00: Open that door.
SPEAKER_00: So close with two scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: The first is this beautiful verse from Isaiah.
SPEAKER_00: It's exhorting us in the response of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 45, 22.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: For I am God and there is no other.
SPEAKER_00: Amen to that.
SPEAKER_00: That is so strong.
SPEAKER_00: There is no other.
SPEAKER_00: And would you read this last slide with me?
SPEAKER_00: It's from Psalm 109.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read this together.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
SPEAKER_00: Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands.
SPEAKER_00: He satisfies the longing soul and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So before we pray, I'd like to remind you that we have a prayer team that meets in the back.
SPEAKER_00: And gosh, if there's anything that we've talked about this morning that prompts you or makes you curious or is nudging you, if God's making you uh restless in some way, go back there and pray with them.
SPEAKER_00: They would love to meet you and pray with you and for you.
SPEAKER_00: Um let me let me pray for us, church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we are grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Um grateful that you come seeking each one of us, that you have provided a divine appointment to meet each one of us.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for this story about Zacchaeus and how, in the face of the work he did, the way he lived his life, that you called to him, and he joyfully answered.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for that example.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray today that you would call to each one of us and nudge us and help us, help us realize that you're what we need all along.
SPEAKER_00: The things that we're looking for to satisfy us, it's you all along.
SPEAKER_00: It always has been.
SPEAKER_00: So lift this up to you in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.