Well, hello. I'm glad
to be back in the house with you guys today. Thank you for
letting Shari and I take a few weeks out to rest
and be with family. And I came back to
700 emails, but I'll get to them at some point,
I'm sure. No, we are super excited to be back with you guys.
I told the Thursday night crowd that it's. Man, it's just something.
Whenever you're out, you know, you can come back one or two ways. You can
come back and go, oh, I gotta go back to that place. Or you can
say, I can't wait to get back to that place. And that's really where we
were, you know, probably even around week two, we were thinking
a little bit in that direction, so it's good to see your faces. Thanks for
being here this morning. I have a couple of announcements before we get
rolling this morning into the Word. The first thing is we have a big event
coming up at the end of the month that we've been doing for several
years, and it has drawn, like thousands of people here
and it's just been kind of crazy. The Lord's just kind of covered it and
blessed it and made it fruitful. And we need your help.
If you have the capacity to greet people, to hand out candy,
to work a booth, maybe some time on the 31st, we'd
like to see you on the 26th, that Sunday, last Sunday this month, we're going
to feed you and we'd like to invite you to be a part of service
for our annual Fall Fest. And so if you'll sign up in
the app, we'll make sure we have enough food for you. And like I said,
this is Cross Ministries. All the ministries are gonna be represented and serving in
this. And so we would just ask you to make, you
know, consider having capacity to come and serve in that way the next week.
If you're new to Springhouse or you're newer to Springhouse, we're gonna have a
newcomer's lunch on Sunday, November 2nd. And this is an
opportunity for you to really meet the leadership here at the church. Hear more about
us, ask your how do you get involved?
And just to learn about the different ministry options that we have. And so we
don't have this up on the app yet. Oh, between services they put this on
the app and so you can sign up. There's the QR code. Sign up for
that. So we have enough food for everyone there.
So we wanna go ahead and put that on your
radar next. Yesterday I went and Visit. Boy, it's been an
active weekend. It's been an active weekend, but yesterday I went to go our brother
Chris Mincy, who is in the hospital and got to spend some time with Chris.
And, man, what a precious soul with a testimony, just a
testimony of life. And I
told Chris that we would pray for him. And he's watching right now on
Livestream. And so what I'm gonna ask, can you do this for me,
cameraman up there? I can't. Is that Chuck? I can't see who's behind the
camera. Would everybody stand and would you face that camera? And I'm gonna let
you take that camera and pan across so Chris can see everybody. Y' all just
wave at. I'm going to start waving. I'm hoping we're going to be panning the
camera real soon here. Are we panning it? We look in the right
direction. Okay, let's pray. Father, thank you so much for Chris
Mincy. Thank you for his life. I thank you, Lord, for the doctors that you've
surrounded him with. I pray for Jeanne and Chris right now. I pray for peace.
And I pray, Lord, that you would heal Chris, God, I pray that you would
touch him and that his testimony would continue to unfold. Of your faithfulness, God,
I thank you for his life, God, and what he means to this body. Touch
him today in Jesus name. And everybody said,
amen. Thank you. You may be seated. So we were
at sabbatical and we were able to get out of town a little
bit. And this is my family. And if you wonder kind of what you do,
like, what did we do? You know, for the most part, we did nothing, which
is very abnormal for the o' Day family. But mostly we did nothing and we
played hide and seek. You know, I mean, you gotta have a good game of
hide and seek in the house that you're in. And that's
Ruby. And we found her, and that was. That was good. So we
did bring back all four of the kids, and they are here today.
We're going to continue our series, the Greatest Stories
Ever Told. And I did get a chance to watch each of the week's
messages when we were gone. And, man, what rich soil. We are so blessed. And
I just want to thank Pastor Barbee and the leadership team here for holding down
the fort. The church has not burned down. We've got. Everything
is moving forward, and we are just a blessed people to have
such an anointed team of teachers and minister.
So just thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for Allowing Shari and
I this space. So we are going to get into the
scripture of a story that's really familiar, I think, to a lot of
us. But before we do, I want to talk a little bit about the
introduction of it. We're going to talk about a man named Zacchaeus today. Can you
say Zacchaeus? Can you spell Zacchaeus?
I learned to spell it. That was
rhetorical. So
when we start the passage, we're looking at Jesus, and Jesus is.
He's about to enter this city named Jericho. Okay? Now,
Jericho, the word Jericho, it literally translates into the word
walls. If you remember Joshua and the army walking around the walls
of Jericho. So Jericho translates through
walls. Translates walls. And Jesus is
walking through Jericho. And if you'll go with me, I believe that Jesus on
is about to walk through some walls. Metaphorically, he's gonna walk through
walls. And I believe that the same Jesus who walked through walls on that day
is the same Jesus who can walk through walls today in your life. And so
I believe today that Jesus wants to walk through some of the walls that we
put up. He wants to walk through some of the walls of the issues that
divide us. He wants to walk through some of the walls of politics,
the walls of pride, the walls of religion, the walls we built in our own
hearts. And when he passes through, he doesn't just want to get through to the
city, he wants to get through to us. He wants to get through to us.
And so if we would lay down for just a moment the distractions that
we drug into this place, I believe that the Lord, the God of the universe,
will minister to each of us today. Can we do that? Are we ready? Would
you stand with me? We're going to read from Luke, chapter 19. Now, you
probably were off the hook for a little while while I was gone, but I
want you to read with some gusto today. Read like you mean it. Here we
go. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was the
chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see
who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not
see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and
climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus
was coming that way. When Jesus reached the
he looked up and said to him, zacchaeus, come down
immediately. I must stay at your house today.
So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.
All the people saw this and began to mutter, he is
gone to be asked of a sinner. But
Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, look, Lord,
here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.
And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay
back four times the amount. Jesus said to him.
Today, salvation has come to this house because this
man too is a son of Abraham. For the son of
man came to seek and to save the lost. Can we read that last part
again? For the son of man came to seek and to save the
lost. Lord, I thank you for your word. I thank you that it brings life.
I thank you that it's true. Transform us today through the power of
your word and let everything that I have to say that comes from me
fall in Jesus name. And everybody said, amen,
boy. If there's anything I know to be true, it is that we are a
culture full of distractions. We're a culture
full of distractions.
And in the midst of distractions, when anybody tries to actually say anything to you
that is worth meaning, anything that you need to pay attention to, that would really
be life changing. It's very hard to cut through, through all of the distractions because
you can't hear, you can't really see. It's very difficult to really tune into that.
If you'll stand, I'll give you your blessing.
We are a culture full of
distractions. We live in a world full
of noise, headlines, arguments, opinions.
Everyone wants to debate what's right, who's wrong,
who's really standing up for the truth. And
I might suggest today that we start here, that the biggest
distraction the enemy can use is to get us focused on anything other
than Jesus. The biggest distraction the enemy can use
to get us focused on anything other than
Jesus. Last week in the message Pastor Ronnie brought, he
was talking in a moment about how the issue, sometimes we put
the in the center. We make that the focus. Other than Jesus. Well,
I want to talk about something today that's a little bit closer to home,
a little bit closer to home that every one of us deal with. And I'll
get to exactly what that is in just a second. But this
is why we gather here. It's not to take sides, but to take
the time to lift the name of Jesus. And I
believe that the biggest lie, Listen to me, the biggest lie that
the enemy can render is that Jesus big
enough or good enough to fix whatever's broken,
heal whatever needs to be healed, and bring clarity where there's confusion.
When we are distracted and we're looking at anything else but Jesus, we
begin to believe the father of lies that Jesus is
not enough. And so then we insert ourselves and we operate in our own
opinions, our own ideas, our own limited understanding of Scripture, our
own limited ideas, our own limited experience. Experiences. And we begin to assert
them as truth. And that's very dangerous. It's very
dangerous because we can walk as if there's truth where
there's actually a lie.
There's a lot of distraction out there today, and I want to be
very clear at Springhouse that we believe in
the Word of God. We believe in the whole
truth, nothing but the truth. We believe in the
Word of God. We believe it is the inspired word of God, and we
believe that it is the transformative word of God in your life. When you pick
it up and you open it, the Holy Spirit will engage you
in the words that come up. The Word tells us that the Word of God
is alive and active, and it is alive and active in your life
when you engage it. It doesn't do much when it's sitting on a shelf
collecting dust, but when you open the
Word of God and you begin to be saturated with the truth of words,
of the Word of God, it is transformative. It will change your life.
And here at Springhouse, we believe in the entirety of the truth of
God's Word. We believe in everything that it says,
everything that is in the Word. That's what we base our life. It is a
light unto our path, okay? And so we believe in the Word
of God, but the distractions are so thick
around us that we tend to become more desperate for
answers to issues and the need to feed into the cesspool
of gossip and opinions that we have no or little
desperation for Jesus. And I want to
ask you today, church, where is your desperation for
Jesus? What is your desperation level
for Jesus? Where is your desperation for Jesus? We're talking about a
man in scripture by the name of Zacchaeus who
I believe was desperate to see Jesus.
Desperate to see Jesus. What was going on with this Jesus
that he had heard of? There are four. There are four
characters in this story. There's Zacchaeus.
There's the crowd. There's Jesus.
And there's you. There's you.
You see, here's the thing. I believe that the Word of God is alive and
active, and sometimes we separate ourselves from the
stories that we find in scripture. But they are there to teach us
and to change us. And in order for them to change us, we must
be willing to insert ourselves into the truths that come from
God's Word. Zacchaeus is here, and he is desperate
to see Jesus. How do we know he's desperate? Well, the. So the word tells
us a little bit something about Zacchaeus that it doesn't tell us about some other
people. Zacchaeus was a short little man.
Zacchaeus was a wee little man. A wee little man. Was he right?
We get a little bit more detail about Zacchaeus, but we also
are told, based on what he does and based on the
response of the crowd, we can infer Zacchaeus wasn't liked
very much. He wasn't like. And I tend to, you know, I tend
to. When I sit with scripture, I kind of imagine. Because, you know, when we
talk about Zacchaeus, he's not a cartoon figure. Zacchaeus was
a real man. He was a real man. And I put myself in
his shoes. And I wonder because of his stature and what he ended up doing
in his profession and how he cheated people out of their taxes. I wonder
if as he was, as when he was growing up, if he was not an
insecure man, if he was not someone who was made fun of and.
And had to find ways to gratify himself
or to bring some security to himself. I wonder what it would be.
But it's very clear that the people hated him.
It's very clear that the people hated him. But something was really
interesting and strange about this particular day.
I don't know about you, but when I go into a room and I find
out that there's a lot of people who hate me, I'm not trying to bring
a big spotlight to myself, trying to hide under a chair kind
of behind a wall or get out of there. Because if I'm in a room
full of people who hate me, I'm probably going to be subjected to their hate.
Yes. But this particular day,
Zacchaeus chooses to climb a tree.
Now, I'm going to tell you, the people saw him climb this tree.
The people saw this man who they hate climb this
sycamore tree and say. Now, he didn't say anything. He was
looking for something. And let me tell you who he was not looking at. He
was not looking at the crowd. He was looking for
Jesus. Sometimes, in order to see above the crowd, you gotta
be willing to climb in a tree. Sometimes you gotta rise above the
crowd in order to see Jesus. So he
climbs this tree because he wants to see Jesus. His desperation
to see Jesus superseded the opinions of those around him. And
when Jesus stops and looks up, I can imagine that
moment when Jesus comes up. Because here's the thing. I Believe Jesus had
an encounter, a divine appointment for Zacchaeus on
this particular day. And Jesus strolls up, passing through
walls, all walls, supernaturally
strolls up and he looks up in that moment and he looks up and he
sees Zacchaeus. He doesn't see
a thief, he doesn't see a sinner, he
sees Zacchaeus. And he says to Zacchaeus,
come down from that tree. I want to come
and spend time with you.
The people didn't see Zacchaeus. They saw a sinner,
they saw a sinner. How do we know? Because their response
was Jesus is going to spend time with a sinner.
I think that's the most idiotic statement that could be said from those people at
that time. Because that's like the pot calling the kettle
black. The sinners are upset that Jesus
is going to spend time with the sinner. And as
ludicrous as that sounds, some of us operate the exact same.
Sometimes I wonder if we aren't more excited about someone's exposure and
punishment than we are about their freedom and grace.
Zacchaeus, hurry and come down. I must stay at
your house today. Here's the
foundational truth I want us to operate from today. Jesus doesn't start with
condemnation. He starts with connection. In
almost every encounter that we see Jesus in scripture, he does
not start with a judging, condemning hand. He
starts with a relational connect.
But a lot of us forget that what brought us into the kingdom and what
attracted us to Jesus and what saved our life was Jesus connection.
And all of a sudden we turn it out and flip it on its head.
When we're treating other people, when we're seeing other people
live their life, we start with condemnation. And if they get their life right, then
we'll go into connection. But that's not the order Jesus
modeled. You see? Do you understand as
Christians, we want to attempt to be like Christ. Do
you understand that? Is that a fundamental understanding? We're trying to be like Christ.
Even Paul, who was a wonderful man, an incredible,
incredible author of scripture and
writing letters to the church, even Paul, we are not called to
be like Paul. Paul says, emulate me as I emulate
Christ. Our goal is to be like Jesus Christ, not to
be like anybody else, to be like Christ. And so Christ
is giving us these examples. I just watched the episode of the Chosen last night.
It was the episode where he's washing the disciples feet. And I just
sat there and wept. And I just thought, Lord, the example that
you set in real time, the example that you set in
real time you didn't just say it, you modeled it for us.
What an excellent teacher Jesus is. He doesn't start
with condemnation. He starts with connection. I was a Catholic, and then I
was a Baptist, and then I was whatever we are, and
I started as a Catholic. In Catholicism, where I was,
Catholics predominantly believe that you go to the priest and you confess your sin to
the priest, and the priest goes on your behalf to the Lord. And so I
was eight years old, I told this story before. I was eight years old, I
go into the priest's house and he sets me down. He says, hey, Kevin, tell
me everything you've done wrong. So I'm like, okay, I stole a cookie from the
cookie jar. I hit my brother in the face. I didn't do what my mom
told me to do. And, man, he was so encouraging. It's like, good, tell me
more. Good, tell me more. Tell me you sin there, too.
Come here. Tell me more. He was so encouraging
about my sin that I started to make things up.
If there was gonna be a sinner in that house, I wanted to be the
best one. And so I just started making up things to the point where he
had to say, okay, that's enough. As if that's all Jesus could forgive today.
And so there, under that teaching, I learned that I don't
have a relationship with Jesus. I've gotta go through this man on this
couch who's a priest to have a relationship with Jesus. Then
I moved to the Baptist church. And this isn't
a prod to put down Catholics or Baptists, I'm telling you my experience. But
I went to the Baptist church and the Baptist. Man, when I got in there,
let me tell you something, they came at me and they said, there is this
place with fire, and you're going there.
You are going to burn because you are a sinner and you're a bad person.
Even so much so that I remember in third grade, they lit a candle and
they had me put my hand into the candle flame to see how
long I could keep my hand there. When I'd retracted it back, they
said to me, if you don't want your soul to burn like that, you need
to get saved. I got saved that day. I was so scared.
My goodness. I said, jesus, whatever I gotta do, you
know? And then they told me, you know what they told me, Barbie? They said,
you better go tell everybody else that they're going to hell. You're going to hell.
You're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell and scared me
right into my salvation. So in that
particular setting, I learned. Well, at first, I learned
that I don't have a relationship with God. I got to go through some of
us. The second setting, I learned to fear him, to
run from Him.
And if I don't get saved, I'm going to a place called Hell. I don't
want to go there. Can I tell you that your salvation isn't about going
to heaven or going to hell. It's about being with Jesus for eternity.
Your salvation is about being with Jesus for eternity. But let me tell you why
the distractions become so big in our lives. The
distractions become so big in our lives because the luster towards
spending eternity with Jesus is only as
deep as your relationship with him is right now here on Earth.
When we don't have a real, true relationship with Jesus right now, there's not
really a luster to continue to lean into that relationship or the idea
of we're going to spend eternity with Him. And so guess what? Gets
boring. But it's more exciting, it's more exotic to talk about the issues
and the sin and everything else I mentioned
before. I wasn't going to necessarily talk about issues. I'm going to talk about something
a little closer. And that's this issue of sin.
It's the issue of sin.
I want to start here. Jesus didn't come for those who think they are whole.
He came for those who know they are broken. He
didn't come for those who think they've got it all together and working out. In
fact, I'll tell you, if you got somebody who's taken a glaring flashlight and pointing
out all your flaws all the time. There's somebody who thinks that they're whole
and are not in need of a savior. He came for
those who know they are broken. Anybody here know
that they're broken? Anybody in need of a Savior?
I want to be clear. Sin is a real thing. If you have a ball,
would you lift it in the air?
If you don't have a ball, will you say, I don't have a ball?
Okay, put your balls down for a second. Raise your hand if you don't have
a ball and somebody's going to get you a ball. Quickly, we got some people
in the back. Quickly, quickly, quickly. I need everybody to have one.
All right, Got several down here. Come on down here.
Thank you guys, for moving quickly. If anybody's about. We had several down
here. We got anybody over here that needs one? Got some people over here.
Loft you Guys, got your balls up there. Okay, everybody has one. We need several
more down here. Pastor Will, come on, let's bring him. John,
bring that down here.
Let me tell you something. If you come into this church and you see a
basket of balls out there, before you come into this place, you need to grab
one. Okay?
Has everybody got one?
Logan and Kelsey need one over there. Need two, actually.
All right, who does not have a ball? Everybody has a
ball. Praise God. Raise your balls in there. Okay?
If you have a ball in your hand, you are a center.
Keep him up.
You are led in worship by sinners.
You are taught from the pulpit from sinners.
No one is exempt from the curse of being in
a world full of sin. The Bible does not say when you get
saved that you stop being a sinner. It says that you stop being a slave
to sin. And in that freedom, you don't have to
engage in the sinful nature that you're a part of, but you are a
sinner. Here's what the word says. Keep your balls up for just longer, and if
your arm gets tired, just bring them right here. Okay? For all have sinned, say
all. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Where it
also says, if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth
is not in us. All right, now put your balls down for a second.
If you have a pink ball, would you raise it in the air? Okay. If
you have a pink sin, that sin is okay, you're good. This is what
most people struggle with. So you can make that loud and proud. You got it.
You're carrying it in. Okay? But if you've got a green ball, would you raise
that in the air? Okay, now. Now
this sounds a little edgy.
You probably want to be a little careful.
If you've got a yellow ball, I need you to try to hide that real
fast because those
with the yellow sin, there are people here that would like to see you leave
the church. You're not qualified to serve. You're not qualified to teach. You're not
qualified to leave because you're dealing with that yellow ball.
Don't get me started on the red balls.
But, guys, this is exactly what we do.
This is exactly what we do. We look at each other and we
examine. Oh, guess what? I don't have a yellow balls in. So I
can tell you everything. I've got my opinions. I can tell you everything
about. I don't struggle with the same thing you struggle with. So, hey,
I'm going to just blast you with it. And
I'm going to send an email to the pastor to say, could you make sure
you preach on this message? Don't talk about
the red sins, though. Every
one of us are sinners and every one of us need the blood
of Jesus Christ to set us free.
And when we focus on our sin, when we make this the
issue, we say, jesus, you are not sufficient enough.
We need to examine this so we know how to get out of it. But
what we don't understand is the only way to get out of it is with
him. Is with him.
Everyone in this story was a sinner,
save Jesus. Everyone was
a sinner. And sin is not just breaking the rules. This is what sin does.
Sin separates us from living God's best.
That's essentially what sin does. When you engage in sin, you
can actually not be a slave to sin and be engaging in
sin and not get God's best. God
wants his best for you. Well, what is sin?
Well, get in the word of God and find out. It's listed in
here. Basically, sin is anything that
separates you from God,
anything that comes between you and God.
It separates us from peace, from joy, from purpose, from
one another, and from the presence of God himself.
That's why he didn't spend his ministry praising the Pharisees for rule
keeping. Pharisees looked at everybody and said, you're sinning,
you're sinning, you're sinning. You need to straighten that out. You better
straighten that up. You better straighten that up. You better straighten that up.
Jesus didn't spend his time praising them. And they were getting, they were
checking things off the list, but they missed the heart
of God.
And so if we're going to talk about sin, we certainly can't exempt
ourselves from a hidden sin that creeps up, especially in such a
volatile and polarizing climate we live in. And that is the sin of hate.
A definition of hate is to separate, to sever, to turn away from in
rejection. You ever heard the phrase hate the sin but
love the sinner? A lot of us hate the sin and hate the sinner
because our response to what's going on in their life is this. We've separated,
we severed, and we turned away in rejection.
And we walk around like the Pharisees
in self righteousness because we
forget that we too were saved from the thing that we're carrying.
Jesus had a response to Zacchaeus that the crowd did not
have. The crowd rejected Zacchaeus
in the midst of sin. But Jesus
loved Zacchaeus. And leaned in.
Jesus gives us a command, a new command. And he says this.
Love one another. As I've loved you, so you must love one another.
Now, here's the thing. I hear so many people have walked in the faith for
a while. They come, they say, well, we're supposed to be disciples of Christ. And
so what that means is, I gotta walk with you, Barbie, and be a disciple,
and I need to make sure you know what you're doing wrong. That's part of
the discipleship process, is me making sure that you've got all your X's and O's
together and all of those things. No, that's not it. He says, by this
loving one another, then they will know that you're my disciples.
Well, so what is love, then? If that is love, if we're supposed to look
at people and sinners and let them know that we belong to Jesus, what does
that look like? It is this. Love is patient. It's
kind. It's selfless. It keeps no records of wrongs. It always
protects. It always trusts. Here's what love does, and here's what we see
Jesus do in the story. Love leans in closer.
Love leans in closer. Can I tell you guys, love saved
my life? It wasn't going to that Catholic priest. It wasn't
in that Baptist church where I was scared because of hell. It was through people
like Ronnie and Margaret Meek, who invited me into their home and showed me an
extraordinary love, imperfect as they were, showed me an
extraordinary love. The grace of Jesus Christ did not look at
me for my flaws, but accepted me and said, come on in. Let me point
you to him. Love saved my life. And guess what? If
you're honest with yourself, love saved your life, too.
Love saved your life, too. Why
will we not allow love to render that same power to other
people?
Love leans in closer. We lost our dog over the sabbatical. This is Koda.
15 years of stories and fun,
poop and pee. It was great. We lost
him over the sabbatical. But one of the things that this conjured up was
a memory about when Hadassah was about three years old, we lived over
here, close to the church. And she would
be playing with toys or she might be watching a show or whatever. And when
I was on my way home, Shari would say to Hadassah and
Dakota, daddy's on the way home. And, you know,
it didn't matter what was going on. It didn't matter. The toy,
it didn't matter. The TV program, it didn't matter what they were eating, this
is what would happen.
You know why? Because they wanted to see their daddy.
Hadassah wanted to see her daddy. And there was nothing better
than me to pull up and see my child waiting there eagerly to see me.
Oh, do you know that you have a father who loves you so much? Where
is your eagerness to see him? Where is your eagerness and your
desperation for this Jesus? Jesus says
to Zacchaeus, he says, come down. I want to
be with you. And he's saying to you
today, I want to be with you.
I'm not casting. He didn't look up and go,
zacchaeus, you wretched sinner. You know what you've done. You know what
you're hiding. You know it. Get out of that tree. No, he says, I
want to come to your house today.
I want to come to your house today. Come down here.
Jonathan, earlier was referencing holiness,
and that's a big buzzword in
Christian circles is holiness. It's an important word.
But if we're going to be like Christ, we cannot call distance, holiness,
not separating from people.
It's not being separated from people. It's being set apart to
love people. That's holiness, being set apart to
love people. Jesus says, come
down. I want to be with you. He doesn't lecture. He invites. He doesn't accuse.
He approaches. And I believe that's who he is. Still today,
when everyone else pulls away, love says, I'm staying. When
others walk out, love says, I'm coming in. When the world
severs, love restores. And that kind of love
is the love that changed that kiosk. And it's the only kind that still changes
hearts today. And that's why it must be the focus. It's
why Jesus must be in the center. And this is
why here at Springhouse, we make every effort, every Sunday
to make sure that Jesus is at the center of what we are teaching and
what we are saying and who we are singing about. Every single week.
When you walk out of here, you should be thinking about him. Good
Lord, you got enough to think about the rest of the week.
This is what love in action looks like. You got
somebody dealing with sin. You see them, and here you
are. You're a sinner, they're a sinner. Here you are,
and you've got your eyes fixed on Jesus, and you understand that Jesus is the
one who set you free from this. But
this person has their focus in the wrong place. And what we
want to do is turn them toward us and say, you need to put that
down. You need to stop doing what you're doing. Don't you see that? This is
the red ball. Now, if you had a pink ball, it would have been okay,
Kurt, but you don't. You got a red ball. You understand how bad that is?
That's what we like to do, all the while carrying our own.
But here's love in action. Salvation. I'm a sinner.
And my gaze and my focus is Christ. And I look over and
I see someone whom I love struggling and looking at their
sin. This is what love looks like
when we look at Him. He gives us the power to lay that sin
down. He gives us the power. He's
the one. And because you love and you lean in,
you show and model the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank
you, Curt. You can sit down. And it renders people free
to see the power in the love of Jesus, the
grace in the love of Jesus. And that's what sets people free.
That's the power that we are able to let go of what so
entangles us.
The church is not a museum for saints. It is a hospital for
sinners. And if we're honest, most of us are more comfortable with our sin
than we are with the cure. I was at the hospital about three years
ago with a kidney stone. Do you know when they. When I went into that
hospital, Tina, I walked in, there was no
question about whether or not I was in pain. I did not need them to
come up to me and say, you're in pain. I didn't
need them to come up to me and say,
you look like you're screaming. You sound like you're screaming. I didn't need them to
point out to me that I even had a kidney stone. Why was I
there? I was there because I needed a cure. And in
a hospital, you want them talking more about the cure than the
disease. Give me what I need so that I can be
healed. So why is it when we come into the church, it is a
problem when we don't talk mostly about the cure and we want to talk
all about the disease?
He is the perfecter of our faith. He is the one who
changes everything. I can't change a thing, Dustin. I don't want you
walking in sin. I think you won't have God's best with that yellow
ball. But all I can do in your life is to point you and tell
you about the Jesus I've been looking at. And when you do that, you're going
to see something from him. You're going to feel something you're going to know something
about him that's going to cause you to go, this ain't worth it. This
ain't worth it. And it might change your life. And when it changes your life,
guess what? You're going to look at Tina and you're going to say the same
thing. Look at Jesus, Kurt. Look at Jesus. And it goes on
and on and on.
The goal of church isn't to make bad people good. It's to bring dead people
to life. John 12:32. When I, Jesus, am
lifted up, I, Jesus, will draw all people to myself. It's
not when Kevin's lifted up, not when Kurt's lifted up.
It's not when Lisa's lifted up. It's when Jesus is lifted up. It's not when
your sin issue is lifted up. It's not when the politician is lifted
up. It's not whenever the teaching is lifted up. It is when Jesus is
lifted up, when the main thing is the main thing, he will draw
all men to himself.
When we lift Jesus up and make him the focus, not only are we no
longer slaves to our sin, we are free to hope for and celebrate the freedom
in others. Jesus calls Zacchaeus down because of his love for
Zacchaeus. And Zacchaeus response to the love of
Jesus, to the leaning in of his love is, look, Lord,
here and now, I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I've
cheated anybody out of anything, I'll pay it back four times the amount.
Who is he talking to? He's not talking to the crowd, he's
talking to the Lord. Why is he talking to the Lord? Because Jesus
leaned in. And just the presence of Jesus will illuminate
all the darkness and cause everything that's not supposed to be there to
flee. Jesus changes everything.
Jesus didn't have to say a word about the sin. Just his presence
changed Zacchaeus heart.
So I began today talking about distractions. There's a book that I love, children's book
called you are Special. And there is a girl in it named Lucia. And
the basic premise of this schedule, this story, is that there
are women, there are wooden people. And the wooden people go around and they put
stars on the ones who do good things, and they put dots on the ones
who do bad things. So if you are talented and you can jump high, you
can ride the cycle, whatever it is, you get a star. But boy, if
you trip up and you mess up and you're a failure, you get a dot.
So they go around and they put Stars, and they put dots. They put stars
and they put dots on each other all day long. Well, Punchinello, the small guy
here, he's one that gets dots a whole lot. And I don't know about you,
there might be people in here. You feel like you would be one getting a
lot of dots. I know I would. She goes up to Punch. He goes up
to Lucia, and he says, lucia, you don't have any
stars or dots on you. Why don't you have stars and dots? You're a
whimmick, just like me. And she says, oh, that's
easy. Because every day I go see
Eli. Pachenello said, eli? Who's Eli?
Eli's the one who made me.
His voice matters most. And when
you make Eli the focus and what he says, the focus,
none of the stickers stick. The stars and the dots,
they fall. She says, the stickers will only stick if you let
them. The stickers only stick if
you let them. There are people under the sound of my
voice who have a bunch of stars, who've got a bunch of dots.
And you're wondering in comparison to other people, why you've got stars and
they've got dots and they've got dots and you've got stars, all of these things.
And you're listening to the voices around you.
And Jesus says, listen to my voice. Listen to
who I say you are.
And so in that when we talk about distractions, guys, as a fellow
believer, if Jesus truly is the way,
you know that scripture in John that says, he is the way, the truth, and
the life? If that is Jesus, it doesn't say, kevin is the truth, the way,
the way, the truth, the life. It says, Jesus is the way, the
truth. You need any of that. You need a way. You
need some truth. You need life. It's him. And if Jesus is the way, I
don't want to be in his way.
I don't want my voice to be a distraction to you. I don't want my
presence to be a distraction to you. I don't want my actions to be
a distraction to you. Jesus is the way.
Jesus is the way.
You can trust him to make the wrong thing right.
You don't have to try to be somebody's holy Spirit,
and you don't have to be someone's distraction. This
is Merlin Henderson, and Merlin is sitting right
here in front of us this morning.
Merlin's gonna go see Jesus real soon. Soon.
He's going to go see him real soon.
And I got the pleasure of going over their House and spending a few
hours with Merlin. And, you know, the family told me Merlin was talking a
whole lot more than he usually does that night.
Merlin, you were telling me all types of stories.
Merlin's about to meet Jesus. And I'm.
I'm a bit jealous, to be honest.
He's about to meet Jesus. Can I tell you something? Three
hours of conversation. Not one time did he mention the name Donald Trump,
Joe Biden, Charlie Kirk. Not one time did he mention sin.
Not one time did he mention what I'd done wrong or what. Guess what? Merlin's
gonna. Merlin is taking to the grave with him his sin,
and he's gonna be resurrected with Jesus. But here is
where we fall short in our understanding. Here
is every one of us could be that close as well.
Yet we have these walls in our life that we allow to just build and
be strong. I'm going to build this wall. I'm going to cement this issue.
I'm going to cement this relationship. I'm going to cement this wall against
you and me. And it'll wait till we get to a moment
where there is a casket here to then allow the wall to come down. What
are you talking about?
The reason that happens is because we're distracted people. And when
you look at Jesus, you have no choice but to look at him and say,
I'm going to exude love. Because, man, the love you've lavished on me is so
much greater and weightier than anything else I've ever had.
Marlins is a life well lived. Telling me stories about
how he saw the people who weren't seen. The memories that
are coming up are. Is a man being utilized by the Holy Spirit to
bless people. And brother, you're about to hear well done, good and
faithful servant.
I haven't even gotten to the most powerful part of the story of Zacchaeus.
Here's the most powerful part. When
Jesus strolls up on that scene. I told you, it's a divine appointment. Jesus is
walking through walls. He walks up and he sees Zacchaeus in the
tree, and he calls out Zacchaeus name. He
says, zacchaeus. Do you know what
Zacchaeus name means?
The purest one, the innocent one.
Only Jesus can look at Zacchaeus
amongst the crowd of sinners and look and see a pure one,
an innocent one. And he's the only one who can look at you and call
you by the name he's given you.
So you in that tree today,
you're contending with the sin issues of your life.
Jesus wants to Lean in. And I
apologize to you for those of you who have
experienced hurt because Christians who were supposed to be acting like Christ
decided to sever from you, decided to throw stones at
you. Do you know that story about the woman in the stones? We love that
story where they says they're all there throwing the stones and she's caught in adultery,
right? Big sin, big time sin. That's probably a red ball.
Our favorite part of that story is go and sin no more. We love to
preach on that, make that the whole point. You know, the
power of that story is not in that line. The power
of that story is let he who is without sin cast
the first stone. Let me tell you why. See, we forget that that
woman had more life ahead of her. Now, I don't
know if she tripped up in that same sin of adultery when Jesus said, go
and sin no more, but I guarantee you she's tripped up in something else.
And she needed that same grace that she had that day. On
Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday. What
she didn't need was a bunch of people holding up stones who are contending with
the same things, ready to kill her.
Jesus says to you, go and sin no more. Why? Because the life you're
living in that sin is not worth the life
that you're living. I have so much better for you.
Choose better. Choose better. You can't do it on your
own. Guess what? Got my Holy Spirit. I
got people who are going to come alongside you and love you and hold on
to you and walk with you.
He's saying, come down. I want to be with you. And guys, this is the
gospel. It's the cure. Jesus is the cure. That's
the love that leans in. That's my Jesus.
I may be pastor one more week or five more years, 30 more years, I
don't know. But as long as I'm pastor here, we're going to center in on
Jesus every single week. We're going to center in on Jesus every single week.
And I welcome you to be a part of the journey because he'll change your
life. If you go with us with those who
are going to serve the elements, come forward. Going to end today by
remembering why we are here.
It's the broken body and the blood of Jesus. And so what I
want you to do today, every one of you got a ball.
I want you to bring that ball and I want you to drop it in
the tub and receive the grace of Jesus through his broken body
and the blood that cleanses all sin.
And once you receive the broken body and the blood. I would like you
to go back to your seat. And if you're able. If you're able.
We used to do something back in the old sanctuary with the pews, but we
would make these our altar space. And if you're able
to do this, I'd like you to. I just want to invite you to make
this your altar space. You know, we do have prayer
time. Pastor Barb. We have prayer time here where you need. If you need healing
and we need. Your needs need to be. That's not what this is about. This
time today, we're going to remember him.
And if you came in here with a wall that just seems like you can't
penetrate, this is a time to invite Jesus into that place to
say, lord, I've not been able to penetrate this wall. This is a
hard place in my life. I need you to penetrate it. And let me tell
you, he may have you do some things that you don't even understand
because he is so much bigger than the issue or the situation or whatever it
is. And if that's not you and you don't have a wall, there's people in
here that probably do. Go before him and ask him that. We would
keep him. The main thing. Guys, stand with
me. Father, thank you so much for the bread. Thank you for the juice, the
blood that pays for our sins. Thank you for Jesus.
Come receive.