Rick Warren - How Much You Matter to God - When Jesus Comes to Dinner Pt.2

Good morning, saddleback. It's good to see you. I want

to say hi to all ten of our campuses, and

all of you in the different venues, and those of

you outside, and those of you who are watching online.

We're glad to have you part if you take out

your message notes. Last week we began a new series

I'm calling When Jesus Comes to Dinner, and it's just

a little miniseries we're doing in a couple weeks before Easter.

You see, it was the dinners with sinners that God

Jesus in trouble. The religious people of Jesus Day just

couldn't stand Jesus. They're really so righteous folks. They didn't

like him because he hung out with all the wrong people.

He was always going to dinners with sinners. He was

always partying with people they didn't like, people that they

didn't think he should be hanging out with, and it

ticked off the church goers. Last week, Pastor Buddy did

the first message in the series. We looked at when

Jesus had dinner with a prostitute and a pharis. Now

that's the opposite extremes, the very self righteous and the

very unrighteous. That would have been an interesting conversation. I'm

sure this week we're gonna look at when Jesus goes

to dinner with a corrupt government official that everybody in

town hated. Next week, which is a week before Easter,

we're going to actually look at the Passover. We're going

to do the passover here on stage, we're going to

have communion, and by the way, next Sunday evening we're

going to show the passion in the refinery. So we're

going to take it in order. The passover a service

and then communion and then Jesus' death on the cross.

And I hope you want to bring a friend to that.

But when Jesus did the passover, the most important dinner

of his life, the Lord Supper, he invites a bunch

of rednecks. I mean, that's exactly what the disciples were.

They weren't exactly sophisticated people. They came from Galilee. Galilee

was Hicckville. These people were country umpkins. They watched reruns

of Hehaw. I mean, they were illiterate. They were very

rough hewn men. And Jesus does not gather for his

world changing group a bunch of intellectual, very sophisticated people,

he gets a bunch of illiterate country Hicks and has

dinner with them, you know, I can you know, in

my life I have received a fair amount of criticism

from bloggers and things like that for people that I

have tried to befriend. Now, as an evangelist, I spend

much of my time with people who totally disagree with me.

But does that make sense? I mean, if you have

the gift of sharing the good news, you don't just

share it with people who already understand it. So I

spend much of my time talking to people who totally

disagree with me, and I would disagree with them, and

I have you know, they've written all kinds of things

about you know, Rick Warren has at dinner with this

religious group for that religious group, or he's had dinner

with you know, atheists or Gaze or worst of all, liberals,

you know. And I mean that's like the highest sin

of alls, that's the impardonable one, okay, liberals. And and

you know, as if you know, well, then that means

I agree with everything everybody I've ever had dinner with, well,

of course not. Can you imagine if Jesus we're alive today,

what the bloggers was to say about Jesus having dinner

with a prostitute or a corrupt government official or all

the other quote sinners. He hung out with lepers. These

were the off cast of society that nobody wanted to

hang out with. It be black people who have aids today,

who people are. I'm afraid I might get it, so

I want to get away as far away as possible.

And you know, Jesus his answer to all of this

was always, Hey, the well don't need a doctor. It's

the sick people who need a doctor. And Jesus says

many times several times he actually says, I didn't come

for the righteous. I came for the unrighteous. I didn't

come for the saved. I came for the loss. I

didn't come for people who think they've got it all

together and don't need to be saved. I came to

save people who realize they're broken, they don't have it

all together. The things don't always work in life. Frankly,

people who think they don't need to be saved, I

don't have any time for. But I came to be

with people who know they need help. I came for

the insecure. Now, the truth is I've learned this after

thirty years of pastoring. Everybody is insecure. Everybody in this room,

everybody's listening is insecure. He said, Oh no, I'm not insecure.

Oh really, Let me have thirty minutes with you and

I'll uncover you're hidding the insecurities. I'm to do it quite quickly.

I'm very good at discovering what people's insecurities are. It's

the reason why people don't get help before things got

it really bad in their life. If your marriage is

tanking and going down and you don't get counseling, or

your business is tanking and you don't get help, or

you got a relationship problem with your parents or your

kids and you don't get help and you don't get counseling.

And why do people are afraid to go to a

counsel because of insecurity? What if that counselor reveals something

to me that I can't handle and he points out

a truth about myself that I don't really want to know.

That's called insecurity. And it's the reason why people wait

until it's too late to get help in an area

of their life. It's because of their own insecurity. What

can they uncover that I can't handle. Now. The truth is,

one of your deepest needs in life is to feel secure.

One of your deepest needs in life is to feel valued,

to feel valuable, to feel like your life matters, that

it counts, that it's significant, that you're not just a sipher,

that you're not just some kind of zero in life.

You want your life to matter. You want your life

to have value and significance. And as a result, you're

constantly doing two things, evaluating and comparing. And you do

it all the time. You do it consciously and you unconsciously.

You're evaluating yourself and you're comparing yourself to other people.

And we compare everything. It's an indoor national favorite pastime

of Americans. And the problem is the four ways that

we judge our value are all furious. They're all false,

they're all phony, they're all fake. How the world tells

you you determine your value is one hundred percent wrong.

So let me just mention them, because I want you

to understand that your value is not based on what

the world says about just what God says about you. Now,

there are four things that the world tells you you

need to look at if you want to know how

valuable you are, you might write these down. The first

way we judge our wealth are our worth is by

our appearance, and that is how do I look? And

we think, you know, if I look good, then I

must be good. And if I don't look so good,

then I must not be so valuable, I must not

be important. And our society has an entire industry that

is built on the idea that your value is based

on your appearance. It's called Hollywood, and Hollywood says, if

you really are ravishing, you're stunning, you're really gorgeous, you're

really handsome, then you're really worth a lot. But if

you're not so hot, then you're not. Oh I'm a

poet and I don't know it. Now. The problem with

this is there aren't that many really stunning people in

the world. I mean, most of us are just normal,

average looking people. In fact, everybody around you is normal

average except you. You're stunning and you know it. But

you are the only person in this room that actually

really is stunning. All the rest of us are just

kind of normal looking. Okay, we're just normal people with

normal looks. Now, if you only have high value in

your life, by being super attractive. That leaves most of

us out, and the Bible says that's not what you

valuate yourself on. The second false way to evaluate your

worth is not appearance, but by affluence, and affluence is

what do I own? And that's the myth of materialism

that says if I have a lot of things, then

I must be worth a lot. That if I have

a lot of values, then my personal value is a lot.

But if I'm poor or I'm broke, then I'm not

worth much as a person. Now I've told you many

times never connect your self worth with your net worth,

because if you connect your self worth with your net worth,

the recession will cause depression. And I have seen that many,

many times. I've seen a lot of people who when

their business hits the toilet, then their personal feeling about

themselves hits the toilet. And when they tank in their portfolio,

then they tank and how good they feel about themselves?

And I'm just not a very good provider, and on

and on and on. Your value and your valuables have

nothing to do with each other. Your self worth and

your net worth have nothing to do with each other.

The greatest things in life as I've said many times,

are not things. But the world tells you you got

a lot of money, you got a lot of stuff,

then you are really a valuable person. Not true. The

third thing that we judge our worth on is achievement,

and that is what have I accomplished? And if I

get a lot of things done, then I feel good

about myself. And if I reach a lot of goals,

then I feel good about myself. And if I get promoted,

or I win, or I get an honor, and I

have accomplished a certain thing, then I must feel good.

And this is what creates workoholism, and it drives us

because we want to feel good about ourselves, so we're

trying to achieve to prove that we are worthwhile. The

fourth is approval, and approval basing your worth on approval

says how well am I liked? And if I'm liked

a lot, then I must be worth a lot. And

if I'm only liked a little, then I'm worth a little.

And if I'm not liked by anybody, then I'm worthless.

That's just not true. Some of you have spent your

entire life trying to gain the approval of somebody who's

never going to give it. And if you haven't got

your parents' approval by now, I'm sorry you're not going

to get it. But here's the point. You don't need

it to be happy. Your happiness is not dependent upon

the approval of other people. If you build your worth

on what other people think of you, then you are

going to be devastated every time you get criticized, and

it's gonna hurt like the dickens. And you're going to

tend to always be going around saying what will other

people think? And if you're always asking that question, what

do other people think? You're already a slave to the

approval of other people. You've got to learn to trust

what God says about you. Now it is true. Psychological

studies have shown that you tend to base how you

feel about you on what you think the most important

person in your life thinks about you. That's where you

get most of your self esteem, what you think the

most important person in your life thinks about you. So

I highly recommend you make the most important person in

your life Jesus Christ, because he's going to tell you

the truth, and he's going to love you unconditionally, and

he's not going to say I love you if I

love you, if I love you, if I love you,

if I love you, if you love me, I love you,

if or I love you, because that's conditional love. Jesus

says I love you peeriod. In fact, you can't make

me stop loving you. Now. The problem with these four things,

appearance and affluence and achievement and approval, is that they

are are all unstable, unreliable sources of security. I mean,

let's just go down the list. Our beauty fades. Anybody

want to give a testimony on that. Okay, our beauty fads.

And if you think you're not looking so great, now

wait ten years. Okay, all right, okay, unless you're like

me on the Daniel plan, and in ten years, I'm

not half the man I used to be. All right,

Beauty fades. Possessions wear out, Okay, successes are surpassed. No

matter what goal you reach, somebody is going to break

your record and you're going to feel bad. Then if

your self esteem is built on that, and other people

are going to reject you no matter what you do,

some people just aren't going to like you. That's their problem,

not yours. The only solid foundation for self esteem for

feeling good about you is understanding how much you matter

to God. That's what we're going to look at today,

how much you matter to God. And if you get

what we're going to look at today, it'll change your life.

And it will set you free from the expectations of others,

from the grip of materialism, from the pressure of workaholism,

from the need to have to improve and always look

your best. And every time when you see yourself as

God sees you, it transforms you. Now, a great example

of this is a guy in the Bible named Zachias,

and his story is in Luke chapter nineteen. If you

have a Bible, you can turn to Luke nineteen. It's

there on your outline. You can read the verses with

me also on the screen. Now, Jesus is going through

a town called Jericho, and of course, large crowds are

following Jesus wherever he goes. He's walking through these cities

and crowds are following him everywhere. And there's a guy

in this town named Zachias, who is the most hated

man in the city. And the Bible tells us this

story Luke nineteen. Jesus was going through the city of Jericho,

and a man was there named Zachius, and he was

the chief tax collector, and he was wealthy. Now he

wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was too short,

too short to see above the crowd. So he ran

ahead of the place where Jesus would come, and he

climbed a sycamore tree so he could see him. Now,

when Jesus is walking through. When Jesus comes to that place,

and then there was this sycamore tree, he stops and says.

He looked up, and he he said to Zachias, Zachius,

hurry and come down. I must stay at your house today.

Zachias came down quickly, and he welcomed him gladly. Now,

now all the people who saw this, they began to complain,

Jesus is having dinner with the sinner. Jesus is staying

with a sinner. But Zachiah stood and said to the Lord,

this is at his house. I will give half of

my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone,

I will pay them back four times as much. And

Jesus says to him, Salvation has come to this house today.

This man is a true son of Abraham. In other words,

he's the real deal. He's in with us and I,

the son of Man, have come to seek and save

people like him who were lost. This is an amazing story, now, Zachias,

of the four ways that we judge our value, this

guy has struck out on three of them. Okay, he's

struck out. He is wealthy because of his corruption, but

he has struck out in three different ways. In the

first place, Zakias doesn't like his appearance. The Bible tells

us he was short. In fact, he was so short

he couldn't see above the crowd, and he was shorter

than everybody else in the city. In fact, tradition tells

us that Zakias was the shortest man in the city

of Jericho. In fact, the Greek word here for short,

describes the body of an underdeveloped child. This man is

not just short, like a lot of people short. He

is abnormally short. He's a little person, probably dwarfed. He's

abnormally short, an undeveloped, fully develop body. Now because of that,

he's probably teased and ridiculed his entire life about his height.

Can kids be cruel and ruthless on the playground, Oh

you can remember it. Kids can be meaner than adults,

and on the patio they can say all kinds of

mean things about the way you look, or the way

you dress, or what you did. And probably Zachias's entire

life was given hurtful, cruel nicknames, and he learns real

quickly don't worry about the opinions of other people, because

he was constantly made fun of. He didn't like his appearance.

He's abnormally short, stunted, he falls short second. Zachias was

not liked by anybody else, so the approval factor is zero.

In fact, he was the chief tax collector, and that

means he's hated by everybody. Now, tax collectors are never

popular people. I mean, you don't just call up the

irs and say come over for dinner and do an audit. Okay,

that's not it's something you normally normally want to do.

But in those days it was even worse because the

Roman tax system was one hundred percent corrupt to the

core in the first place. In order to become a

tax collector, you had to bribe an official to get

that job, because once you got it, you were going

to make an all a lot of money. But you

had to bribe an official to become a tax collector,

so you had to be dishonest justs to get the job. Then,

in the Roman tax collection system, Rome didn't care how

much you collected as long as they got their percentage,

and you could collect two, three, four, five, up to

ten times as much as Rome required and keep it

all for yourself. So really, a tax collector in this

days is more like a mafia extortionist. He can come

to your house and say you're gonna pay me this

amount of money when Rome's only said this much, and

he said this much, and if you don't do it,

I'm going to throw you in jail. I'm going to

make you an offer you can't refuse, and you will

pay tribute to me. So everybody hated the tax collectors

because not only did they represent Rome, which was the

invading country of Israel, and they were under subjugation by

a foreign country, so they hated Rome. But second, the

Roman tax collector was corrupt, and you knew that that

guy was going to get rich off of you by

being dishonest, and you couldn't stop him. He could extort

all he wanted to from you. Now for a Roman.

For a Jew, which Zachias is, to become a Roman

tax collector is like treason. It's like going over to

the enemy's side. No who self respecting Jew would ever

become a Roman tax collector. It was unthinkable, without a doubt.

Zachias was disowned by his family because no family is

going to have a son who represents Rome in the

most corrupt area of taxes. So he's disowned by his family.

In fact, in those days, you were barred from going

to worship if you worked for Rome. You could not

go to the Jewish synagogue because they believed you had

sold out. In fact, Jewish law in that day meant

that the Roman anybody who was a tax collector for

Rome that wasn't considered in the same class as a murderer.

So he is not a popular This is the most hated,

unpopular man in the entire city of Jerusalem. So he

not only has an appearance problem, he's got an approval problem.

He's not doing good. And worst of all, notice it

says he was the chief tax collector, which means this

is the guy on top who runs the whole scam.

You couldn't pick a more hated person in the city

of Jericho that Jesus stops to talk to and invite

himself to dinner. Now, not only Isachius, he doesn't like

his appearance and he has no approval. He's hated by everybody.

But Zacchius doesn't like himself self. How do we know that?

Because he's not a proud of his achievements. He's got

all this wealth, but he got it by stealing from people,

from extorting it from people. You cannot be happy and

guilty at the same time. You cannot give up your

integrity and have harmony and happiness in your life. He

knew he'd ripped off people. He knew that all his

success was achieved by cheating others. So he lost all

his self respect and he didn't like his life. And

he's got a lot of money. He's got a lot

of money, but he's a very lonely, very unhappy man.

He's miserable and he feels pretty hopeless about his life.

But on one single day, his life does a one

to eighty and in one snap of a finger, bam,

his life is transformed. What happens Jesus shows up. Jesus

is walking through Jericho that day, and of all the

people he stops to talk to, and of all the

people he pays attention to, and of all the people

he invites himself to their home, he chooses the most unloved,

the most disrespected, the most evil, the most unappreciated person

in the entire city, a guy named Zachias. Now he's

walking through town, and when he comes to the tree

that Zachias is in, he stops. He looks up and

he says, Zachias, I want you to come down now.

This story teaches us four truths about how much you

matter to God. You need to write these down. Four

truths about how much you matter to God. Number one,

The first thing we learn is that no matter how

small I feel, Jesus notices me. No matter how small

I feel, Jesus notices me. Now, as I said, Zachias

is very wealthy, but he's very lonely. And so when

he comes he hears Jesus's come the city. He wants

to see him, but being so short, he can't get

a glimpse. So he does two things that no Middle

Eastern wealthy man would ever do. First thing, he runs.

He runs ahead of the crowd. Now, in those days,

running was for slaves. No wealthy, self respecting Middle Eastern

man would run. But Zachias doesn't care. He runs ahead

of the crowd and he finds a tree, a sycamore tree,

and he climbs up in a tree. Second thing he does,

he climbs up in a tree. No self respecting Middle

Eastern businessman would climb up in a tree. That's what

you have a slave do. By the way, if you

want to ever see a sycamore tree, go over here

to the Ministry Center, because we planted one. Because outside

of that building are fifty seven different elements to teach

Bible stories to our kids. And they planted a sycamore

tree when they built that building so they could teach

this story. And there're actually fifty seven different elements around

that building that teach different stories from the Bible. So

we have a sycamore tree here on this property. Now

he's shocking. He's just hoping for a glimpse of Jesus.

But Jesus does something even more shocking, and the Bible

says this verse three, and Luke nineteen Zaccheas was too short.

But when he climbs up in a tree. But when

Jesus got to the tree, he looked up. Now he

stops at Zachieus's tree, and in a packed crowd, he pauses,

and of all the people in the crowd that he

notices and pays attention to, he notices Zechias. Can you

imagine how this guy's heart started racing? Boo boo boo

boo boom. All of a sudden, he thinks, I'm just

going to get a glimpse of this guy, And all

of a sudden, Jesus stops at my tree, looks up

at me and calls me my name, hello, And he's thinking,

Jesus is noticing me, and he's totally focused on me,

And so everybody in the crowd is totally focused on me.

He's not looking at anybody else. I'm little, I'm short,

I'm overlooked, I'm insignificant. But Jesus is paying attention to me. Now,

why did Jesus stop at that particular tree and look up?

Because he knew exactly where Zachius was. Now, let me

just say this, I don't know what you're going through

right now. You may feel like you're up a tree. Financially,

you may feel like you're out on a limb relationally.

You may feel like you're in a hole spiritually and

nobody even knows you're there. But God knows where you are,

and he's paying attention to you, and he notices you.

He's always had his eye on you. That's because you

matter to God. There has never been a moment of

your life when God took his eye off of you.

When you get to heaven one day, if you've trusted

in Christ, there's not going to be a time because, oh,

God says, oh, I didn't see that one happen in

your life. He saw you take your first breath, he

heard you scream your first scream. He saw you being

formed in your mother's womb. Why because he made you.

God fought you up. You wouldn't exist if God hadn't

thought of you first, and he wanted you alive. And

He's watched every second of your life, the good, the bad,

and the ugly. You may feel you're all alone right now.

You may feel that what you're going through God's a

million miles away. Well, you're dead wrong. God is paying intimate,

close attention and just as much as a year before

Zachieas even decided to go to that tree, God knew

he'd be there. God knows where you are right now.

He knows where you're going to be in the next hour.

He knows where you're going to be next month. He

knows where you're going to be next year. He knows

where you're going to be on the last day of

your life and the last breast you're going to take.

Why Because God is not limited by time. God does

not live on the earth, which rotates in a twenty

four hour cycle around the sun, so he's not limited

by time. God can see the past, the present, and

the future all at once, and he knows it all,

and he never takes his eye off you. And just

as much as a thousand years before this happened, God

knew Zachias would be in that tree at that moment.

I want to tell you, God knows where you are

in this and he's seen everything that happens to you.

He's seen every word of abuse that has been said

to you that hurt, and he heard it. He saw

every unkind act that's ever been done to you, and

he grieved when it happened. No hurt has ever been

hidden from him. He saw Zachius every mean thing that

was said to him on the playground about his size

when he was growing up. And God, no matter what

you're going through, has not forgotten you, no matter how small,

how insignificant I feel. Jesus notices me. Look at this

verse Luke, Chapter twelve. The Bible says, God never overlooks

a single sparrow. How many sparrows you think they're in

the world, How many birds you think they're in the world.

The Bible says, God notices every bird and everything they're doing,

every time. And he says he pays even greater attention

to you, down to the last detail. God knows more

about your life than you do, even numbering the hairs

on your head. Do you know what the greatest expression

of love is. It's not given somebody flowers. The greatest

expression of love is not buying somebody a box of chocolates.

The greatest expression of love is not given them a

gift card to Best Buy. The greatest expression of love

is attention. It's attention paying attention, because when you pay

attention to somebody, you're giving them your time, and your

time is your life, and you're never going to get

that time back. You were giving them a part of

your life. And when you pay attention to somebody and

you look them in the eyes, that child, that husband,

that wife, that friend, and you pay attention to them,

you were saying you matter to me. It is the

greatest gift. Some of you grew up with parents who

thought that what you needed were things. Kids don't need things.

They need attention. After Easter, I'm going to do a

three week series on parenting, and one of the keys

to great parenting is simply showing up and paying attention.

That's what they need. They need attention. Little kids, They're

obvious about their need for it. They crave attention. Watch me, daddy,

Watch me, daddy. And for the rest of your life

you're going to be saying, watch me, daddy. You're still

saying it today. Watch me everybody by the kind of

car I drive. Watch me everybody by the kind of

clothes I wear. Watch me everybody by the way I

manicure my front lawn. Watch me everybody by how I

make myself stand out. You crave attention. It is a

fundamental human need. You crave attention. And there are people

all around you, the people you work with, they're starving

for attention. Your next door neighbors and the people around you.

They're starving for attention. And if you want to be

like Jesus, you pay attention. You show up and you

pay attention, and you be there when they need you.

There are people all around you dying to be noticed.

Most of you do not realize the awesome attention that

God is paying to you every single second of your life.

Why because you matter to God. Number two, not only

no matter how small I feel, Jesus notices me. The

second thing we learned is that no matter who ignores me,

Jesus knows me. No matter who ignores me, Jesus knows me.

That this is more than noticing. He doesn't just notice

you as one in six billion people. He doesn't just

notice you. He knows you, and he calls Zachias by name. Now,

all of his life, Zachias has been ridiculed and rejected. First,

as a young person, he's ridiculed and rejected for his size.

He's not as tall as everybody else. His appearance and

his physical handicap cause him to be the subject of

some mean spirited things. But then when he gets older,

he's ridiculed and rejected for his dishonesty, and his corruption.

Now you could only imagine the kind of gossip and

the kind of verbal abuse that this guy probably receives

daily for being a Jew who sold out to the

Romans and is ripping off his own people for his

own benefit. And he is being ignored by everybody. But

Jesus has another surprise, and the second part of this verse,

Jesus looked up at Zachius and called him by name.

He knows me and just noticed me. He knows me, Zachius,

he said, Now, imagine the shock. He knows my name.

How did he know? How did Jesus know the same reason.

Jesus knows your name because he made you, He created you.

He's God. That's why he knows your name. Because God

knows your name. Now, I want to tell you this,

God not only knows where you are, He knows who

you are. He not only knows what you're going through

right now and knows it better than you do. He

knows why you're going through it, and he knows how

you feel about it, even when you don't even know

how you feel about it. He knows you inside and out.

He knows you. He doesn't just notice. He cares about you. Personally,

because God is not an impersonal force. Now Jesus is

walking through the city of Jericho. A crowd is following him.

He stops at this tree and he looks up and

he sees the most hated guy in the community. And

he not only stops and notices him, he calls him

out by name, Zacheus, Come down, I'm going to your

house today. I'm going to have a party at your house.

He knows his name. Now this shocks everybody. First the

fact that Jesus, How does Jesus know this guy's name? Okay,

but in a packed crowd, he's noticing him. But not

only that, how does he know his name? The second

shock is the meaning of the name. Do you know

what Zacheus means? It means pure one, pure one. Now

that's the last thing Zachias was. He's anything but pure.

He's mister corruption personified. And Jesus looks up at him

and says, hey, pure one. It probably been decades since

anybody had ever called him by his real name. They're

probably call him Zachius every other name in the book, okay,

every other despised scoundrel. He's a crook, he's anything but pure.

They're using all kinds of derogatory names and behind his back,

but Jesus calls him by his real name. What is

he doing here? He is affirming his potential rather than

pointing out his past. Now follow me on this. I

told you in a few weeks we're going to do

a series on parenting. And by the way, you may

be eighty years old, but you're still a parent. Your

kids may be sixty, but you'll be a parent your

entire life, all right, So this is a parenting series,

not just for young couples, it's for everybody. One of

the principles of parenting is treat your kids the way

you want them to be, not the way they are.

Don't label them, help them see what they can become.

When you say you're just what are you doing only

reinforcing the past. Don't tell it like it is, Tell

it like it can be. Guys, if you want your

wife to treat you like a king, you treat her

like a queen. You treat people the way you want

them to be, and then they tend to measure up

to your expectations. Jesus looks at zach Chias, and he

doesn't point out his flaws. He says, hey, pure one,

come on down now follow me on this. The reason

your friends are afraid to come to Christ and the

reason why you are afraid to get close to Jesus

is you think if I get close to Jesus, He's

going to scold me. He's going to nag me, and

he's going to tell me and remind me of all

the things I've done wrong in my life. Wrong. Jesus

goes to the biggest center in town in the people's view,

and he doesn't say, Oh, Zachius, let me give you

one hundred things you've done wrong in the last three weeks. No,

he looks up at it and he says, hey, pure one,

let's go party. What's going on here? He is treating Jesus.

He's treating Zachias the way he wants him to be treated.

He said, I know you, I made you, I know

your potential. I'm not looking at your sin. I'm looking

at what I made you to be, and I made

you to be a pure one. They can't forget him.

Look at this next verse, this verse out of Isaiah.

God says, can a mother forget her nursing child? Can

she feel no love? For a child she has born.

The answer is obviously no. If you're nursing a baby,

there's no way. If you're nursing a baby, you're gonna

forget that baby. It's impossible. If you're nursing a baby,

you cannot forget a baby. But he says, even if

that were possible, God says, I would never forget you. See,

I have engraved your name on the palms of my

hand when Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross. And

I'm gonna look at this next Sunday night, when we

look at the passion again. They nailed nails through his hands.

Those created scars, and God says, I have engraved you

on the palms of my hands. This is how much

I love you. When you get to heaven, there aren't

gonna be any scars in heaven. You're not gonna have

any imperfections or any scars in heaven. The only person

with scars in heaven will be Jesus. For the rest

of eternity, we could see how much he loved us.

I have engraved you on the palms of my hand.

Look at the scars on my brow from the crown

of thorns. Look at the spear scar in my side.

Look at the nails in my hand, the nails in

my feet. These are the scars that say this is

how much I love you. I call this God's tattoo. Verse.

God says, there's no way I could ever forget how

much I love you. I've engraved you on the palms

of my hand. You see, in spite of Jesus' sin,

in spite of his zachie as the sin, Jesus affirms him.

You see, God has created you. You're his custom creation.

He made you. You weren't mass produced when he formed you.

He uniquely formed you for a purpose, and he knows

that purpose for your life. And he didn't use an

assembly line. And he lovingly crafted you. And he knows

your name, and he's impressed you on the palms of

his hands. I like to say say it this way.

God has your picture in his wallet. Do you realize

that you're not number one billion, four hundred and eighty six,

two hundred and eighty two whatever. God has your picture

in his wallet. He made you to love you, and

there's never been a moment of your life that he

didn't love you, that he didn't see notice, and that

he didn't know what's going on in your life. Some

of you have had some pretty tough shots in life,

and you've had some pretty mean things said about you,

and you can still remember the names you've been called, names,

you've been called by your dad, names you've been called

by your mom, names you've been called by people on

the playground or at school, and you've been the braun

of verbal abuse, and you can still record the recall

the words. And so you have a pretty hard time

feeling good about you. But I want you to remember this.

Even though all those other people called you, all those

other names, you'll never amount to anything. Why can't you

be like your brother or your sister. You're gonna failure,

You're gonna end up in prison, on on and on

and on, and all those things that people said about you,

and all the names they called you. You're dumb, you're uncoordinated,

you're a clutch. You don't matter, And all of that

doesn't really matter, because what matters is not the names

they've called you, but the fact that he knows your

name and he says, pure one. I see in you

what I made you to be, and I've never given

up on that, no matter how insignificant I feel, Jesus

notices me. And no matter how uh you know, things

go wrong in my life and people ignore me, Jesus

knows me. Number three, this is a bigger one. No

matter what I've done, Jesus wants me. WHOA No matter

what I've done, Jesus wants me now. Zachiah's appearance made

him feel insecure and lonely inferior. Zachias's accusers made him

feel bitter and resentful. He's pretty mad at society, but

Zakius's sins made him feel guilty and ashamed. So Jesus

does the most shocking thing of all. He invites himself

to Zachius's home. He doesn't wait for an invitation, he

takes the initiative and invites himself to the worst guy's

home in the city of Jericho Luke nineteen. Jesus looked

up and Zakia has called him by names. Had Zachias

come down quickly for I'm going to be a guest

in your home today? Do you think that was a shocker? Now?

Jesus knows that Zachius would be filled with guilt and

shame and would never think himself worthy enough to have

Jesus in his Homechs wouldn't even consider inviting Jesus to

come to his house, and goes, man, I'm a sinner,

I'm no good man. I'm a cheat. I'm not worthy

of having a relationship with Jesus. I'm not good enough

to have a relationship with Jesus. I've done too many

bad things. I don't deserve to have him in my home.

So Jesus takes the initiative, and he looks up and

he says, Zach, Keus, come on down. How long do

you think it took him to get out of that tree.

I think he probably did it in record time. I

think he slid down the tree. I think you're saying,

I don't care if I get splinters in my butt.

I'm hitting the ground as fast as I can because

I'm been invited. I've been invited by Jesus to take

him to my house. Blew his mind. Now, the fact is,

you're ashamed of a lot of things you've done in

your life. How do I know that? Because you're a

human being. We've all done things that we're ashamed of.

I've done things that I'm ashamed of. The Bible says

all have sinned and fallen short. He's not the only

short guy. We've all fallen short. I fall short as

a parent, I fall short as a husband, I fall

short as a pastor. I fall short as a person.

I don't measure up to my standards, much less God's

perfect standards. And neither do you. You don't keep all

your promises, you don't measure up to all your standards.

You fall short. Why because all have sinned, everybody. I

had a pastor friend who's teaching on that verse. One time.

He says, thank God, he forgives all our falling shorts,

and yes, if your shorts fall, he forgives those two.

You've done a lot of things you're ashamed of. You've

had plenty of time to hurt people with your own

personal brand of selfishness. And we all have our own

personal brand of selfishness. You hurt people in your selfish way,

and I hurt people in my selfish way, and everybody

has their own personal brand. But it's all the same.

But you know what, Jesus is more interested in changing

you than condemning you. He said, I didn't come to

condemn the world. I came to save it. Says that

in John three, if you want to be like Jesus Christ,

then don't go out condemning the world. Jesus said, I

didn't come to condemn the world. I came to save it.

And I decided about thirty years ago I wanted to

have a ministry like Jesus. I didn't come to condemn

the world. I came to save it, Which means I

don't spend any of my time condemning culture. Why because

Jesus didn't. He said, I didn't come to condemn the world.

I came to save it. You see, most Christians spend

all their time either condemning the world saying how badly

society sucks, and then be looking for a political salution

to figure out how to get rid of the suckiness.

Neither of those work. Spending all your time condemning society

won't change it and looking for a political answer to

solve the solve problems society won't change it either. God

so loved the world, he didn't send a politician. Okay,

why because you can't change people's hearts by laws. No

law will turn a bigot into somebody who loves all

the races. Only Jesus can get rid of racism in

your heart. Only Jesus can get rid of selfishness in

your heart. No law is going to turn people who

are selfish and unselfish people. Jesus said, I didn't come

to condemn the world. I came to save it. And

so no matter what I've done, Jesus wants me, and

he wants you to know him, and he wants you

to love him because he loves you, and he wants

you to know how much you love him. You remember

the story of the prodigal son, the kid who tells

his father, Dad, give me my half of the inheritance,

and he splits and he goes to the sunside strip

in Jerusalem, and he spends all of his money on wine,

women and song, mostly women, and he ends up feeding

pigs and a pig sty and finally realizes this doesn't work,

so he goes home to his dad with a humble

attitude and smelling of the pig sty. The father runs

out to greet his younger son and he grabs him

in a big bear hug, says, my son has come home.

Let's have a party. He doesn't say to his son.

A son go in get a bath, get shaved, put

on some clean clothes, get rid of that stinking pig smell,

and then I'll give you a bear hug. No, he says,

I love you just the way you are. Jesus loves

you just the way you are, but he loves you

too much to let you stay that way, so he's

going to help you change. Many of you are. Remember

a story I told years ago when I went and

visited a prison where we had to celebrate recovery church

purpose driven Celebrate Recovery church up in a maximum security

prison in northern California called Sierra Prison, six thousand maximum

security prisoners, and they had invited me to come speak

on the prison yard and it was about the size

of a football field, about six thousand prisoners. I mean,

that was everywhere. And I got out to speak, and

I wanted to get everybody's attention. So I pulled a

fifty dollars bill out of my wallet and I held

it up and I said, is there anybody here who'd

liked this fifty dollars bill? Six thousand hands went up.

I crumpled it all up in my hand, and I said,

anybody still want this fifty dollars bill. Six thousand hands

went up. I took that fifty dollars bill and I

tore it and I put little pears all through it.

I said, anybody still want it? Every hand went up.

I took that fifty dollars bill and I threw it

in the dirt and I spit on it, and I

took my foot and I crushed it into the ground

and I held it up and I said, anybody still

want it? Every hand went up. And then I said, this, guys,

a lot of you, this is what your daddy did

to you. Your daddy said you're worthless, your crud, your crap,

you're nothing. You're never going to mount to anything. You're

going to end up in prison or die. And then

your dad walked out on you, and you were left

to be raised by your mom. And you've been hit

on and spit on and crushed into the ground, but

you have not lost one cent of your original value.

To God, I don't really care what you've done. I

don't care who you've done it with or how long

you've done it. What the matters is not where you've been,

but what direction your feet are headed today. And Jesus

says no matter what you've done, Zachias, I want you.

I want to party with you. I want to have

a relationship with you. I want to go to your

house and have dinner. I want a relationship with you.

And God says that to you. That's how much you

matter to God. Yes you've blown it, Yes you have.

And the starting point of salvation is when you swallow

your pride and admit I need help. I need a savior.

I need God in my life. God doesn't save prideful people,

he says, humble, not arrogant people, people who say I

need your help. I've made mistakes. I've blown it. I've

done wrong, I've sinned, and I need to try and

go your way. And you've made a lot of mistakes

in your life, but you have not lost one cent

of your value to the creator who made you. And

Jesus wants a relationship with you. He wants to come

to your house and have dinner. In fact, here's what

he says the next verse. I stand at the door,

the door of your life. I stand at the door,

and I knock, and if you hear my voice and

open the door, I will come in and eat with you,

and you with me. There's one other great truth number four.

No matter what others say about me, Jesus affirms me.

No matter what others say, Jesus affirms me. They may

call me this name or that, they may criticize this,

or that, they may misjudge this or that, But what

matters is that Jesus affirms me. Now, when Jesus goes

and he pays attention to the biggest sinner in town,

the most hated man that everybody despises, and he says,

I want to go to your house. I want a

relationship with you. Jesus did the unthinkable, and the reaction

is swift, and it is immediate. The cat crowd goes nuts.

And in verse seven, all the people saw this, this

interaction between Jesus and Zachias, and they began to complain.

Jesus is having dinner with a sinner. Jesus is staying

with a sinner. And what's his reaction to that? What

does he do? He defends this guy in the front.

He defends this guy to the religious, selfrighteous people. Next

verse Jesus says, this man is a true son of Abraham.

Does that mean he hadn't said no? He just said

he's one of us. He's going to be in my family.

And if you hear my voice, he says, and I,

the Son of Man, have come to seek and to

save people like him who were lost. He affirms him,

he defends him, he protects him. Jesus always did that

in the face of criticism from religious people. Now you

may have been coming to sattle Back for weeks or

months or men, maybe even years, and you've never really

opened your life to Christ. You know about him, but

you've never said yes. Today's your day. Because think about this,

knowing the fact that Jesus sees everything in my life

that he made me. He notices me, he knows my name,

he cares about me, and no matter what I've done,

he wants me, and he wants a relationship with me.

How should I respond to Jesus the same way Zachias did?

Look at the next verse, verse six, So, Zach, he

has came down at once. He didn't wait, he didn't delay,

didn't put it off. So let me get every week

to think about it. He came down at once and

received him with joy? Have you received Jesus with joy?

I love the message? Translation says zach He has scrambled

out of the tree. He opened his heart and his

life immediately to follow me. On this the logic on

this with a god who loves you this much, with

a god who loved he created you, he made you,

he saves you. He's engraved you on the palms of

his hands. He wants a relationship with you in spite

of all your rebellion. Can you name one logical, rational,

intelligent reason for saying no to your creator? If you

can think of any logical, rational, intelligent reason for saying

no to the God who made you, loves you, saves you,

wants you in a relationship. If you could think of

one a good reasons, stand up and tell us right now,

because I can't think of one. In fact, to reject

this is stupid, It's insane. It is the most irrational

thing to do, to say I reject the creator who

loves me that much. It is the only sane approach

to life. And notice the change in Zachias is immediate.

The next verse, Zachius, after he's shown this love and grace,

he says to the Lord Lord, I'll give half of

my possessions to the poor. And if I've cheated anybody

I'll give back four times as much. Now I want

you to circle the phrase i'll give. He says it twice,

I'll give, and I'll give now the moment Zachiah says

that he was converted, he was saved the moment he says,

I'll give you say, how do you know? That's his conversion?

Because the most selfish man in the city became the

most generous man like that, and only Jesus can do that.

All of a sudden, he's going, how can I help

the poor? How can I help other people? How can

I pay back the people I've ripped off and cheated?

Only Jesus can change a totally self centered, selfish it's

all about me, and I don't care who I have

to put down to get a lot of money and

who have to climb over in order to get to

the top. Only Jesus can change that. And have a

guy who's going, it's all about me too, How can

I help other people? That's his conversion. How do you

know when you've really met Christ, I'll tell you how

you know. Attitude toward giving changes. Yep, you become generous.

All of a sudden, you go, it's not about me.

I want to give back. How can I help people?

How can I help my neighbors? How can I help

the poor? How can I help my family? How can

I help the people around me? How can I help

people who don't know about Jesus? All of a sudden,

you become generous, You become like Christ. He because a

public demonstration of his change. Jesus asked us to make

a public demonstration of our change. You know what it's

called today, baptism. Baptism says I want the whole world

to know that I'm changing on the inside, that He's

changing me, that I want to be a different person.

I want Christ in my life. If you've never been baptized,

I can't think of a better time than Easter season.

And we're going to today after the service baptize and

in all of our different campuses. If you can't be

baptized at a pull out a card and say I

want to be baptized, and we'll make an appointment because

you need to do this during the Easter season. Now.

I don't know what you're going through, Lisette. You may

feel like you're out on a limb relationally or financially

or physically. You may feel like you're up a tree

and I invite you to jump out of a tree

and into the loving arms of the Savior who made you.

That's power. Heads, But you pray this prayer, Dear God,

to say it in your mind, Dear God, Man, I

have tried to find my worth on all the false ways.

I've judged my value on how I look, my appearance,

and on what I own my affluence. And I've tried

to support my value on what I've done, my achievement

and it makes me overwork, and on how well I'm liked.

And I've really, in many ways lived for the approval

of other people. Thank you for this story of Zacchias.

Thank you that no matter how small and insignificant I feel, Jesus,

you notice me everything in my life. Thank you. No

matter who ignores me, you know my name, and you

have engraved me on the palms of your hand. You've

got my picture in your wallet. Wow. Thank you Jesus.

No matter what I've done, you want me. You want

to come to my house. You want a relationship, not

a religion, a relationship with me. And thank you that

no matter what other people say about me, you affirm me.

When people complain about me. You say this is my child.

Write Today, I do the most logical, rational thing. I

surrender to your love. I invite you into my heart

and my life and my mind. I want to learn

to trust you. Please start making the changes in me.

Thank you for not being ashamed of me. I don't

want to be ashamed of you. If I need to

be baptized, I want to be baptized to show my

joy in your name. I pray Amen,