The title of the message is,
Up a Tree on Purpose. That's what it is. He's up that
tree on purpose. Just like you. Everyone here this morning is
here by the purpose of God. You're not here by accident.
Nobody. Nobody. We're going to see how God saves
this sinner, and He's going to save him on purpose. It's not
an accidental meeting. Now it says that Zacchaeus was
chief among the publicans. And as I read that, it didn't
dawn on me until I was just sitting there, that the only sinners
that God saves are chiefs. We're all chiefs in this matter
of sin. We're all chiefs. But what this
means when it says he's a publican, it means that he was a tax collector.
And most of them were crooks. In that day, they were crooks.
They would extort money out of people. They would take more
money than they owed, and they'd keep part of it for themselves.
That's how they became rich. That's how many of them became
rich. And they were considered traitors. Well, they were Jews
working for the Roman government. So in short, they were absolutely
hated. We hear this phrase, publicans
and harlots. They were put in the same category
as harlots. Now it says in verse 2 that he
was a rich man. I found this interesting. That's
the reason why I read chapter 18. The Lord said, it's hard for
a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. The disciples said, well
who then can be saved? If a rich man can't be saved,
who can be saved? And he said, with men it's impossible,
but with God all things are possible. And what does he do? He saves
a rich man. He shows his power to save that
which was considered impossible. He saves a rich man. Now Zacchaeus
was Curious. He was very curious to see Jesus. What manner of man is this? I
have no doubt he heard about him. His fame went abroad. And no doubt Zacchaeus heard
about him. He wanted to see this man, Jesus.
He was curious. The Spirit of God will create
an interest in the heart of his elect to seek Christ, even if
it's out of curiosity at first. Even if it's just out of curiosity.
Someone told a man one time, you don't want to go hear Henry
Mahan. You don't want to do that. You know what he did? He had
to go hear him. He just had to go hear him. Hear him and then
believe the gospel. It's amazing how God works. As
the scripture says, despise not the day of small things. You know, you can take a little
seed and grow a great big tree out of it. Who knows? Who knows what will come out
of this service? Some years down the road, you don't know what
seed will be planted today and sprout 10 years down the road,
maybe 20 years down the road. You don't know. Don't know. Zacchaeus did not know that the
grace of God was already at work for him. Already at work. His grace was on his people long
before they ever knew grace, long before they ever heard of
grace, David said that His mercy would follow him all the days
of his life. God's mercy has been on His people. His kindness,
His mercy, His love has been on His people before He even
created the world. And you and I were born into
this world. We grew up children of wrath
by nature, as it says in Ephesians 2, even as others. But the grace
and the mercy of God was following us. Kept us. Also it says in verse 3 that
he was little of stature. He was a short man, and therefore
he had to climb a tree. He couldn't see over the crowd.
He had to climb a tree. For Christ, it says, was to pass
by that way. Oh, I hope. I hope and pray he
passes by that way this morning. I hope there are some Zacchaeuses
here this morning. Zacchaeus' shortness of stature
and that tree in that place at that particular time was not
by accident. It was not by accident. The Lord
was going to purposely cross his path and God is going to
use, God being a God of means, He's going to use this tree to
hold him in until he passes by. And Zacchaeus was totally clueless
as to what was going on, but not the Lord. Not the Lord. He knew exactly what was going
on. He was orchestrating what was going on. And that tree is going to hold
Zacchaeus till the time appointed for Christ to pass by and give
him an effectual call. Our Lord uses whatever means
He has ordained to keep His elect until the time appointed for
Him to cross their path. Whatever it was God used, wherever
He's put you, whatever He's used, He used that until the time appointed
for Him to cross your path. Our meeting of Christ will not
be by accident. It was not by accident. If you
meet Him this morning, it will not be by accident. You're not
here by accident. I do know this. In 2 Corinthians
2, verse 16, listen to this. Paul's speaking about the preaching
of the gospel. He says, "...to the one we are
the savor, the sweet smell of death unto death, and to the
other the savor or sweet smell of life unto life." Who's sufficient? Who's sufficient for these things?
Who's sufficient to handle matters of eternity, life and death? It will be one or the other to
everyone here. One or the other. Little does
Zacchaeus know that he was up that tree on purpose. He didn't know that. But he was. And little did we realize that
the things that happened to us was for the purpose of bringing
us to the Lord Jesus Christ. Like that Ethiopian, Munich. It says he went up to Jerusalem
for the worship. He went up there and he got a
hold of the scriptures of Isaiah, Isaiah 53 in particular. He's
reading it on his way back home. God sends Philip. to preach the
gospel to him from that same scripture. It says that Philip
preached Jesus unto him from that same scripture. And God
saved that man. God saved that man. God does not save men by chance
meetings. 2 Timothy 1.9. who has saved us and called us
with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace. That's why he's called us. That's
why he saved us. It's according to his own purpose
and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. He took care of this matter before
the world began. Then it says in verse 5, when
Jesus came to the place, the Lord always comes to where the
sinner is. Always. Always. The sinner is
not going to go to Him. Dead people, first of all, don't
go anywhere. Dead people don't go anywhere. And spiritually,
dead people are not going to go to Christ. Darkness, he says,
is not going to come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
So in order for us to be saved, in order for the Lord to save
us, he has to come to where I am. He's got to come to me. Just
like he did that man at the pool of Bethesda. He's crippled. And
the Lord asked him if he'd be healed. And you know what he
said? I have no man. I have no one to help me when
the water is stirred to help me get there. I sit here alone. I can't walk. I can't do anything. And that's exactly where he brings
us to when he saves us, to the end of ourselves. Christ had to come into this
world to get us. He had to come to the place where
the offense happened in order to save the offender. He had
to do it. Our representative, that's who
he is. He's our representative. He had to come to the place where
the crime was committed and take our place. and keep the law that
we broke in our place. He had to magnify the law and
make it honorable in our place. He had to do that. He was condemned
in our place. He had to die in our place. He
went back to the Father in our place, and you know what he did?
He said, I'm going back there to prepare a place for you. He
had to come to this place, take our place, then go back and prepare
a place. That's the work of Christ for
us. After coming to the ordained place where Zacchaeus was at
the appointed time, our Lord looked up. My what a condescending grace
that the Lord looks up on this sinner. But the sense of it is
this. He looked upon him in mercy and
in grace. Here is a sinner who has found
grace in the eyes of the Lord. Amazing grace. Amazing grace. Here is grace unasked for. Here is grace unsought. And that
is the way grace comes to us every time. It comes to us first,
unasked for and unsought. We weren't looking for Him. The
shepherd is looking for us. He's coming after us. He's the
one that went out after the lost sheep. He's the one. And then in verse
five, we have an effectual call. He says, Zacchaeus, make haste
and come down. When the Lord calls a sinner
effectually, that sinner is going to answer that call. I have been
in services in my youth and in my younger years. At the end
of the service, Some of the men, some of the older people that
were there, been around a while, they'd go back if somebody came
in that they knew had not made a profession, and they would
wear them out. Beg them, don't you want to be
saved? You don't want to go to hell, do you? Anybody that's
got enough sense to get in and out of the rain doesn't want
to go to hell. That's not salvation. That's
not... I watched, there's one man in
particular in my mind that I watched, he came to what they call a revival.
And I mean they wore that young man out until he finally went
up front and got down to the altar and cried and carried on
and it lasted about three or four weeks and he was gone. He
was gone. But I'll tell you what, If God
effectually calls you, you're coming. And nobody has to... I tell you, the best thing to
do is get out of the way. Get out of the way. Because the Holy
Spirit is going to do His work. He's going to call that sinner,
and that sinner is going to come to Christ, not to a wooden altar,
And if he comes to Christ, I'll tell you what he's going to do.
He's going to confess Christ, he or she, they're going to confess
Christ in baptism. That's how we confess Christ.
We don't confess Christ coming up front. We confess Christ when
we follow His ordinance, His command to be baptized. That's
confessing Christ. That's confessing Christ. So
he gives him, the Lord gives Zacchaeus an effectual call. And when the Lord calls a sinner
effectually, he's coming. I'll tell you, he's coming. My
sheep hear my voice and they follow me. A stranger they won't
follow, but they'll follow me. They'll follow me. And the first
call that the Lord gives to Zacchaeus is not to accept Him as His personal
Savior. It's to come down. It's to come
down. The first thing God must do is
bring us down off our high horse. We think we're somebody. I know
we're two. I'm like you. You're like me. I know what we
think of ourselves. First thing is to come down.
Put us in our place. Our Lord came to the place, went
back to prepare a place, and now he's gotta come and put us
in our place. He's gotta put us in our place,
which is in the dust. Strip us of all our righteousness.
Strip us of all false hope. They said we'd be Abraham's seed.
Well, so what? I wanna be Christ's seed. be
born of God. That's whose seed I want to be.
He is God's seed. He's got to strip us and lay
us bare and make us to see that truly now, truly, we are nothing. As he said to that rich man,
why do you call me good? There's none good but God. And
it takes a real work of God for us to finally come to that place. There's none good but God. And
if I have any goodness, righteousness, it's His. It's His. And He gave it to me. My rightness,
my rightness, my righteousness before God is a person. It's
Jesus Christ. It has absolutely nothing to
do with anything I have done, doing, or ever will do. Nothing. The sense of it is this. When
he says, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, and he gives this
effectual call. Today is the day of salvation. Now is accepted time. The Lord's
not going to wait around for him to make up his mind whether
he wants to come down or not. No, he's coming down. When God
calls you down... I remember when my dad... There
were times he called me down in public. But when my dad called
me down, buddy, he called me down. No ifs, ands, or buts about
it. And when God calls a sinner down,
he's coming down. And we know by experience, the
only way up is down. The only way up is down. Here's
the purpose for the haste. Here's the purpose. The Lord
gives purpose for this haste. Today, I must abide at thy house. Isn't that amazing? Today, not
tomorrow. I'm not going to come over next
month, three weeks from now. It's today. It's today. Today,
I must abide at thy house. This is salvation. Here's salvation. He tells Zacchaeus, I must abide
at thy house. Here's salvation. Christ in you. You know, he said where two or
three are gathered together, they're mine, they're mixed.
But if He's not in you and He's just in our midst, you're still
lost. You're still lost. It's Christ
in you, Paul says, the hope of glory. Christ in you. Christ taking up his abode in
you. And he made haste and he came
down. The power of God went with that call. Listen to this scripture
here in 1 Thessalonians 1, verse 5. Paul said to the Thessalonians,
For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in
power. and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you
for your sake. But the gospel didn't come to
you in word only. There are some who come, and
they hear the gospel in word only, and they walk away just
like they came, just as lost as ever. But there are some who
heard the gospel in power, And you've never been the same since.
And you won't be. You won't be. You can't be born
of God and be the same. You can't do that at all. So he made haste and he came
down. And notice here how Zacchaeus in verse 6 received him with
joy. With joy. You know, if you've
got to beg somebody to come down and accept Jesus and repent and
ask God to forgive you, that person's not receiving Christ
with joy. There's no joy in that. When
the Lord gave him an effectual call and brought him down, when
you hear the gospel, God has brought you down, you receive
Christ with joy. You do. You receive Him with
joy. When God makes His people willing,
it says in Psalm 110, Thy people shall be willing in the day of
thy power. And when God makes His people willing in the day
of His power, they receive Christ joyfully. There is a receiving
of Christ. That's what it says over in 1
John 1, the Gospel of John. We do receive Him. We bow to
Him. We receive Him as the Scripture sets Him forth. We do receive
Him. But the whole work is of God.
It's of God. In verse 7, I want you to look
at the crowd's reaction. Look at this crowd's reaction.
You'd think they would be happy. This is a publican. They can't
stand this guy. God's going to make an honest
man out of him. He's going to make an honest tax collector
out of him. God makes honest men and women
out of everyone whom He saves. He makes honest people out of
them. And He's going to make him an
honest man. And look, at this crowd, it says they murmured. They murmured. And when they
saw it, they all murmured, saying, He's going to be gassed with
a man that's a sinner. Now listen. That's the only home where he's
welcome. That is the only home where Jesus
Christ is welcome, is in the home of a sinner saved by grace. You remember when he went to
the home of Simon the Pharisee? That woman came in and washed
his feet with her tears and dried them with the hair of her head?
And he said, Simon, when I came in here, You didn't give me any
water to wash my feet, no towel to dry with. What he's saying
is, Simon, when I came to your house, you did not extend to
me the common courtesy of that day that you extend to everyone
else that comes to your house. You didn't do it. And they murmured. And they complained. They said, He's going to be guest.
Guest. He's welcome. Oh, welcome. Welcome, Lord. Welcome. They liked it. People like it
when you get religious, but they hate it when God saves you. That's
the truth. They like it when you're religious,
that way they figure you won't steal their lawnmower when they're
gone. You're too religious to do it. But they hate it when
God saves you and you tell the truth. You tell the truth. And the evidence, here's the
evidence of a work of grace in the heart In verse 8. And Zacchaeus stood, and he said unto the Lord, Behold,
Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and after I have
taken anything from any man by false accusation, and I'm sure
he did, I restore him fourfold. When the Lord called that man,
brought him down, saved him. Zacchaeus opened his
hole and opened his pocketbook. It'll do it. Grace will open
your hole. It'll make you hospitable and
it'll open your pocketbook. It'll do it. He gave back to
the poor instead of taking from them. Now how do we know, how
do we know that the Lord saved this man. How do we know that
he was really a child of God? It says in verse 9, "...and Jesus
said unto him..." Because that crowd's murmuring, he's not going
to talk to that crowd. There was one person, there was one
person in that crowd he had his eye, his heart fixed on. And that was Zacchaeus. That
was his whole purpose of going through that direction. That
was the whole purpose of that tree being there in that town.
That was the whole purpose of that man being born short. He'd
be up that tree when Jesus passed by at the appointed time. And Jesus said unto him, This
day is salvation come to this house, What did our Lord say to him?
Zacchaeus, I, I, I must abide at thy house. I must come to
your house. Take over the house. The strong
man, when I read that, I thought of this. When the strong man
takes over the house, that weak man has to leave. Satan
has to go. The strong man has taken over
the house. I must abide at your house. This day is salvation come to
this house for so much as he also is a son of Abraham." Well,
there's a bunch of sons of Abraham there. Well, yes and no. Yes and no. There were a lot
of sons of Abrahams according to the flesh, but the ones that are counted
for the sea are the sons of promise. They're the promised sons of
Abraham. And we have the purpose for his
mission and for going to Zacchaeus' house, for going by that way,
for calling him down. It's this. In verse 10, I close. For the Son of Man is come... This is His mission. He is come
to seek and to save that which was lost. Our Lord is going to
save every lost sinner. He's going to save every lost
sinner. Because I'm telling you the truth,
it takes God to get a sinner lost. It does. Until then, I'm telling you,
you'll have some excuse right down to the end. I'm not as bad
as other people. Well, I am a sinner, but just leave the butt out of
it. Goat's butt. Sheep follow. That's how God saves a sinner.
And everyone whom God saves, He saves on purpose.