Someone asked Vicki and I to
sing that song this morning, but also it seems very appropriate
to sing it because Miss Diane taught me that song. You remember
that, Diane? That was the first time I ever
came to this conference in Danville, and I have no idea how long ago
that was, but I heard her playing that on the piano. I said, what
is that? That's pretty. And she played it and taught
me the words and all. And I thought it was the most
beautiful thing I'd ever heard, and I still do. But I appreciate
that. It's, as our brother read from
Proverbs, about crying out for knowledge, crying out for the
knowledge of our Savior. I pray the Lord would bring us
to that place. I can prepare a message, and I can preach a
text and be very thorough, at least by the standards of men,
and every point of it be true. And you can say amen a thousand
times in your heart, but unless God meets with us and speaks
to our hearts and shows us our need of our Savior this morning,
And shows us how beautiful he is. And how wonderful he is. We're not going to cry out. Cry
out to know him as Paul did that I may know him in the power. Of his resurrection, I pray for
that for for us this morning for me. As I preach and for you
as you hear Luke chapter 19 if you would. Luke chapter 19. Verse one. Luke 19 one and Jesus entered
and passed through Jericho. He entered. and passed through. Now the scriptures say in several
places that our Lord passed through a place, but this is the only
place that I could find in the word of God where it says he
entered and passed through. And it could just say he passed
through Jericho. We could assume that he entered
it if he passed through it. But I believe it says this because
Jericho is the place of God's curse in the scriptures. You
remember the story of the Good Samaritan, Jericho. He passed
from Jerusalem, city of peace, to Jericho, the place of God's
curse. And our Lord Jesus Christ entered
in to the curse and passed through it for us. He was in the place
of the curse that was ours, that was upon us deservedly because
of our sin by nature. But for our justification, for
our salvation, because of who he is, he passed through. He
passed through Jericho. And in verse two, behold, there
was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief among the publicans.
And he was rich. Now I might as well say he was
the chief among the sinners, because how many times in the
scriptures does it talk of publicans and sinners? They're synonymous.
They go together. It's the same thing. Publicans
and sinners. He was chief. He was chief. And yet our Lord passed through
Jericho, he entered in to Jericho. He was made a curse for us that
we might be redeemed from the curse of the law. And he went
right where Zacchaeus was, a man, behold a man. He came to save
sinners and he was rich. It just says he was rich. We
just, in the previous chapter, we see the story. of the Lord
and the rich young ruler, where the Lord said it's impossible
for a rich man to be saved. And then what did he do? He went
and saved a rich man. It's impossible with men. But with God, all things
are possible. And God walked among us. That's
how we're saved. Because God walked among us. Now Zacchaeus sought to see Christ,
it says. He sought, in verse three, he
sought to see Jesus, who he was, and could not. He could not. That's us by nature. Even if
we would seek, and we don't even, the Lord looked down to see if
there were any that did seek after him. The people are seeking
something, but they're not seeking God. They cannot seek God. He
could not, because He was little of stature, that's our problem
too. Our stature before God is such that we can't ever see the
Lord. We have to be completely born again of the spirit of God
if we're ever gonna see the kingdom of God, much less enter in to
the kingdom of God. We're of little stature. We can't
accomplish that, we can't ever find God, he's got to find us. And that's what he did for Zacchaeus,
didn't he? He could not. Zacchaeus climbed a tree. He
ran before in verse four and climbed up into a sycamore tree
to see him, for he was to pass that way. But Zacchaeus climbed
a tree, that was his solution to the problem. I can't see him,
I can't see the Lord. I'll climb a tree. I'll get higher. I'll improve my position. I'll
work and I'll pray and I'll read my Bible and I'll go to church.
I'll improve. I'll add to my stature so that
I can see. But that had to be undone. Everything
that Zacchaeus did in order to see the Lord, the Lord said,
come down from there. That had to be undone. Everything
he did do to see Christ had to be undone before he could meet
the Lord Jesus Christ. Come down, all of our efforts
to know God without his grace, our fleshly efforts are all counterproductive. The more we do to please God,
the more we sin. Zacchaeus thought he could get
to God by going up. The way to God is down for us,
down in the dust where we belong, as mercy beggars before his feet. The sycamore tree, it says he
climbed a sycamore tree in verse four. It's a type of fig tree.
And I believe this further shows how that man's efforts to cover
our sin or to get better, to get to a place where we can have
fellowship with God. Adam's solution, he had perfect
communion and fellowship with God. And now because of our sin,
we don't have that anymore. What are we gonna do about it?
Let's get some fig leaves and make an apron. And then God,
maybe God will have something to do with us again. Nope. No, they've got to be stripped
off too. And the fig tree, seems to represent that here. The Lord
came where Zacchaeus was anyway, in spite of the futility of Zacchaeus's
efforts, in spite of the fact that his very occupation was
synonymous with being a wretched sinner, and he was the chief.
When Jesus came to the place, verse five, he looked up and
saw him and said unto him, Zacchaeus, Make haste and come down. Forget about all your efforts
to see better. You're not gonna see anything
unless God reveals it to you. You can know the scriptures inside
out like the Pharisees mostly did. And what did our Lord say
to them? You search the scriptures. For
in them you think you have life, but you will not come to me that
you might have life. And they are they which testify
of me." Not only did he say, you search the scriptures and
what must happen in order for you to have life is to come to
me. Oh, and by the way, the scriptures that you search, every word of
them testifies of me. and you won't come to me, you
will not. You will not. That's different
than you haven't come to me. You will not. But the Lord, he said, not only
come down, not only forget about all you've done and undo it,
forget it, renounce it. Paul didn't just quit doing things
for righteousness. He said, I've counted but dumb
that I may win Christ. But not only come down, but hurry
up. Hurry up. Don't delay. Don't hesitate. Make haste and come down. Why? Because I've got to do something
for you. I must come. This is like when
Simon said, you know, Lord, I will, I will not deny you. I will follow
you to the end. I will die with you. And the
Lord said, no, you won't. That's what he said, Simon, you're
going to deny me before the cock crows three times, but I will,
I will. I will go to prepare a place
for you. And when I go to prepare a place
for you, I will come again and I will receive you into myself.
That where I am, there you may be. I'm going to do something
for you. David said, I'm going to build God a house. And God
said, no, you're not. But I'm going to make you a house.
That's what this is. Zacchaeus tried to do something
so that he could see the Lord. And the Lord said, come down
from there. I must abide at your house today.
I must abide. Salvation, the salvation of a
sinner is something that Christ must do. He must do that. He said, I must needs go through
Samaria. If he bought you, if the lamb
slain from the foundation of the world redeemed your soul,
he must. He must come where you are. Nicodemus, you must be born again. So the Lord came where he was in
salvation. Listen to it, when Christ comes
and saves, he comes to stay. He said, I must come and abide
at your house. Now, I don't think he physically
lived with Zacchaeus from that day forward. I'm pretty sure
that didn't happen, but the language is not, it's not a coincidence. When the Lord comes, he comes
to stay. In some pictures of salvation,
There are many pictures of when the Lord healed people, did these
miracles, he was not only saving people from whatever their ailment
was, but he was showing how he saved sinners. by his grace when
he opened blind eyes. That's a clear picture, isn't
it? Because we can't see, except a man be born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. We need that spiritually. When
he raised the dead, what a beautiful, clear analogy of the same thing.
And here it's the same teaching, what Christ must do for a sinner
to be saved, but it's expressed this way. I'm coming to stay
with you. I like that one too, don't you?
I like hearing about dead men being raised because I know that
I was dead in trespasses and sins. I like hearing about blind eyes
open, but I like this one. Don't you? I must come live with
you now. And he has. He has. Christ himself is salvation.
If he's with us, God with us. If he's with us indeed, He's all we need. He's our wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, our bread, the water of life,
life itself to our souls. The folks around said he's gonna
be the guest of a sinner. In verse seven, they all murmured saying he's
going to be guest with a man that is a sinner. What an insult. Not too long ago, in this, if
you were studying the book of Luke, in Luke chapter 15, it
wasn't that long before this, that the Pharisees and the scribes
murmured also, saying, this man receiveth sinners and eateth
with them, in Luke chapter 15. And now they're saying the same
thing. He's going to be guessed with a sinner. Every verse of
this passage shows how Christ has saved us in every way that
a man can be saved. He's gonna be the guest of a
sinner. Christ accomplished what we cannot on Calvary. Righteousness
by his obedience unto death, propitiation by the shedding
of his precious sin-atoning blood, And as in our story here in our
text, he came to do that for certain people. He said, I must
abide forever with you, with you. I must come to your house
today at the pool of Bethesda. There's miserable, wretched,
sick, and hopeless people laying around that pool. And the Lord
Jesus walked past through, past many of them and came to that
one man and said, would you be made whole? And I love that story
because the man didn't even say, yeah, I'd like to be made whole.
He made excuses why it couldn't happen. The Lord said, would you be made
whole? And he said, I have no man. The Lord saved him anyway. He made him whole anyway. He
didn't even say yes. Rise, take up your bed, and walk. I must abide forever in the hearts
of those I came to save. He came and prepared a place
for us by living for us, by dying for us on Calvary. He prepared
a place for us with him. And all of this is pictured in
every point of this passage of scripture in every verse. And
in verse eight, look what it says in verse eight. And Zacchaeus
stood and said unto the Lord, behold, Lord, the half of my
goods I give to the poor. And if I've taken anything from
any man by false accusations, I restore him fourfold. Zacchaeus promised to do exactly
what the rich young ruler refused to do in the previous chapter.
The Lord said to him, go sell all that you have, give it to
the poor, come follow me. Get rid of your idols, get rid
of the stuff that's so valuable to you that you can't part with
it in order to come to know God,
who gave you all that stuff to begin with. Go get rid of all
that and come follow me. What a beautiful picture of the
fact that all we need is Him. What are we gonna do with all
that if we have Him? He'll add to us what we need.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All
these things will be added to you. If the one who made everything
and gave you everything you have says, go get rid of it and come
follow me, If you know who he is, you do, don't you? Zacchaeus,
that man, why didn't he do that? Because he had so much stuff.
He had great riches. And what that's saying is, in
his heart, that stuff was valuable. I mean, it was great riches to
him. He couldn't give it up. Zacchaeus, the Lord never told
him to make any kind of to make good on the stuff that
he had stolen from people. He had cheated people, charged
them more than they owed and pocketed the money. And these
people were notorious cheats, these tax collectors. And the
Lord never said, you need to go pay back everybody. And yet he did. He did, he said
he was going to. I believe he meant it. That's
because when God does a work of grace in your heart, you realize he's all I need.
He's all I need. By his grace, he reveals that.
I'm going to come live with you. Well, Zacchaeus knew that he
was a cheat. He had embezzled money from people
and cheated them out of their hard-earned earnings and made
a life of, and they threatened, they would extort people. They would threaten them and
falsely accuse people of things so that they would pay them,
making them afraid of being taken to law so that they would pay
them what they demanded that they pay. Zacchaeus couldn't
live with it anymore. He couldn't live with it anymore
now that he knew Christ. I tell you what, there's a lot
of sin that we can live with, but there's some we can't, now
that we know the Lord. Can you hear somebody talk about
a savior that tries and can't? Can you hear somebody, can you
sit down and so-called worship in a place where they say, the
Lord Jesus did the best he could, but now it's up to you. Could
you do that? I can't live with that anymore. By God's grace
now, I just couldn't. If he don't let me go, I can't
live with that. There's a difference in it. The story of the rich young ruler
shows us what happens when salvation is up to you. There ain't any,
that's what happens. There's no salvation when it's
up to you. The rich young ruler had a decision
to make. There's no salvation there. The
Lord didn't give Zacchaeus much of a decision to make, did he?
He said, get down here, I've got to go live with you. I've
got to go abide at your house today. I must. But what did he do? There were
some things he couldn't live with anymore. There's a lot of
sin, of course, that we can live with, sadly, and do. You know,
there's two kinds of sins. There's the sins that you call
sins and say, boy, boy, I wish, pray to God that I never, God
forgive me for that. And then there's the sins that
you're proud of. There are the sins that you call
sins and there are the sins that you call righteousness. And me too. But the rich young ruler, the
story of the rich young ruler is God showing us what happens
when salvation is up to you. Zacchaeus is God showing what
happens when he saves somebody that cannot be saved any other
way. With men, it is impossible. But then there's Zacchaeus, and
we see in him that with God, all things are possible. We're
reminded with Zacchaeus that a sinner, you know, we almost
romanticize the idea of being a sinner sometimes. Well, he's
just an old sinner, you know, and kind of. Zacchaeus, not somebody
you would have liked. Neither am I. Neither am I. A sinner is a wretched, vile
thing in the sight of God. And if we had any sense, we wouldn't
be able to stand each other. We wouldn't be able to stand
ourselves if God gives us any sense. Job said, I abhor myself. I'm sorry. I repent. So when Zacchaeus says, I'm going
to give it all back, A third part, what did he say,
a third part? Half of my goods to the poor.
And with the other half, I'm gonna pay back everybody I cheated.
He did exactly what the rich young ruler would not do, and
the Lord never asked him to do it. That's grace. That's grace. Works have absolutely nothing
to do with salvation. But works have quite a bit to
do with saved people. You look at the scriptures. Unto
good works which God hath foreordained that we should walk in them.
It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his
good pleasure. You wouldn't even want to do
it without God's grace, much less do it. But you do want to,
and you do by his grace. Not to establish a righteousness
before him, but because he is your righteousness. because he loved you and chose
you and redeemed you, and now you love him because he first
loved you. By grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. That's probably one of my very,
very favorite passages of scripture, but it doesn't end there. For
we are his workmanship. There's a work that God has done
for us. Christ himself was made an offering
for our sin. He died on Calvary for us. That was something that happened
between the father and the son, for us. He's also done a work
in us. He's done a work to us. We are
his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. You can't
get any glory out of what God did for you, and you're not gonna
get any out of what he did in you either. He's gonna get all
of it, is that all right? He's gonna get all of it. and he's worthy of all of it.
Verse nine in our text, and Jesus said unto him, this day is salvation
come to this house. Now listen, salvation came to
Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus didn't come to salvation.
He didn't come to a knowledge. The Lord came to him. Sinners
do come to Christ, but they don't come until he comes to them.
That's just the truth of scripture all through. This whole transaction,
you think about everything that happened. The Lord just happened
to be walking by that way. And Zacchaeus is probably just
curious, like everybody, I wanna see this fellow. Everybody's
saying he's healing people that are unhealable. He's doing miracles. He's doing things that only God
can do. I've got to see this guy. And
so he's short, he looks around, there's a tree, he climbs up
that tree. You know how God describes all that? Salvation came to your
house today. What about your story? Well,
boy, I don't know how I wound up in Danville, Kentucky, but
I heard somebody was preaching the gospel, you know, in Danville,
and I was interested. I remember you heard a message
on television, on the radio, and you thought, boy, that rings
true. That's not what I've been hearing.
Whatever your story is, the Lord brought you to the place. He brought you to himself. He
is the place. And the whole description, God's
description of the whole thing is salvation came to you. Whatever the details are, there
was a lot of details in this story. Salvation has come to
your house. That's what it is. That's all
it is. And the Lord added this to that
statement. because you're a son of Abraham. You're a son of Abraham. Two reasons are given why salvation
came to Zacchaeus' house. The Lord gives two reasons for
it. First of all, he's a son of Abraham. That place was full
of sons of Abraham in a physical sense. Salvation didn't come
to their house that day. It came to his house because
he's a spiritual son of Abraham, what Paul talks about in Galatians
and in many places in the scripture. There's one in this verse, he's
a son of Abraham. And there was a lot of those
around now, but not the way the Lord meant it, not the way he
said it. You're a son of Abraham because
he is a son of Abraham, a spiritual Jew. And we could spend a lot
of time talking about that. Let me read you a couple of scriptures
about that. God's elect people are called his spiritual Israel,
the Jews, the spiritual Jews. The Old Testament nation of Israel
was a type of God's elect all through. The promises were made
in Christ, not to an earthly nation, but to a heavenly nation,
God's Israel. People get pretty confused about
this sometimes, but there's no reason whatsoever to. Listen
to Romans 2, 28. Paul said, he is not a Jew, which
is one outwardly. A lot of Jews would probably
argue with that, don't you reckon? Wait a minute, you're saying
I'm not a Jew? That's exactly what Paul said. Not unless you
know Christ. If you don't belong to the Lord
Jesus Christ, you are not a Jew. Neither is that circumcision,
which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew, which is one
inwardly. And circumcision is that of the
heart, in the spirit, not in the letter, whose praise is not
of men, but of God. You can brag about being a Jew
in an earthly sense, if that's something that you feel like
needs to be bragged about. You can brag about your keeping
of the law, which circumcision represents, or you can brag about
that. But if you're not a Jew, if you
are a Jew, if you are a spiritual Jew, if you're one of God's sons
of Abraham, Christ's, you belong to Christ, you don't have anything
to brag about either. Listen to Galatians 3.29. And
if you be Christ's, Christ's sheep, Christ's elect, Christ's
little ones, I love that Christ's, apostrophe S, if you be his, then are you Abraham's seed and
heirs according to the promise. God's promise was never made
to the earthly nation of Israel. All of God's promises are yay
and amen in Christ Jesus. Now here's the second reason
given that salvation came to Zacchaeus' house. He's a son of Abraham, and he, the Lord Jesus Christ,
came to seek and to save that which was lost. This man is one of the ones that
I came looking for. His purpose for coming and what he would accomplish,
he spoke of in another place in John chapter six. If you would
turn over there with me to John six in verse 37. This is why our Lord came, to
seek and to save that. He didn't come down here to save
the world. If he wanted to save the world, he could have saved
the world. He said, my hand's not short
that I can't save. But his lost sheep, one of the
lost sheep of the house of Israel, John 637, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. All sons of Abraham, all of his
sheep, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,
for I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the
will of Him that sent me. In other words, there's not God's
will and then the Son of God's will. There's nothing separate
about it. He came down to do the will of God. He is God. And
their will is one and the same. The two persons, the three persons
of the Godhead, their will is the same. God chose a people. Christ redeemed a people. The
Holy Spirit regenerated a people. They just happen to all be the
same people. What a coincidence. No, that's no coincidence. He's
God. not to do my own will, but then
verse 39, and this is the Father's will, which hath sent me, that
of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should
raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth
on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the
last day. The Jews then murmured at him because he said, I am
the bread which came down from heaven. And they said, is not
this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?
How is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven? Jesus
therefore answered and said unto them, murmur not among yourselves.
No man can come to me. except the father which hath
sent me, draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. That's verse 10 of our text,
for the son of man is come to seek and to save that, those,
them, those that the father gave him. And nobody can come except
the father draws. Those that he gave the son, he
draws them where? We read that a lot of times and
we emphasize that word draw, and rightly so. Because you can't
come to God unless, and that word means to take something
from where it is and bring it to another place. He's got to
take us out of our sin and rebellion and self-righteousness and pride
But here's the part we don't necessarily usually emphasize.
It's the emphasis of all of scripture. The word draw is very important,
but where does the Father draw you? To Christ. To Christ. When you come to the
Lord Jesus Christ, since no man comes any other way, with men
it's impossible. If you come to the Lord Jesus
Christ, it's because God Almighty took you from where you are.
and brought you to himself. The son of man has come to seek
and to save. Not to seek and give you a chance. Not to seek and give you an opportunity. He came to seek and he came to
save. He came to save. Now, did he
save? Did he do what he came to do?
Of course he did. He's God. God came to Zacchaeus'
house that day. Salvation's a person. May God give us grace this morning
to look to him and to see that all of our efforts are vain unless
he comes right where we are and blesses us. May he do so, amen.