Can You Climb a Tree?

All right.

So back in the 1900s, we used to do this crazy thing.

You don't see it very often now, but as kids in the 1900s, we used to do this thing.

We called it go outside and play.

It's wild.

I know it's a unique concept, but we used to do that.

Nowadays it'll happen every now and then when there's like a power outage or the internet router goes down and you've kicked it, you've unplugged it, you've said some nasty words to it, and you're just like, I'm over it.

Let's go for a walk and cool off.

We'll do that.

But when I was a kid, we would go outside and play, and one of my favorite things to do was we would go to my grandma's house and she had this big tree in her front yard, and we would just climb the tree.

I mean, for hours, we would climb that tree, take sticks, throw them at each other.

No, I'm not encouraging you to do that, but I'm just saying that's what we did.

And we would climb this tree, and it was just a part of the normal thing we did when we would go over to grandma's house.

And it's funny, I I want to do an experiment real quick.

If you uh if you have ever climbed a tree, raise your hand.

Okay, that's quite a bit of us.

I mean, that's like 90% of us.

Okay.

Keep your hand up if you are over the age of 25 and have climbed a tree in the last year.

Yeah.

Two of us.

And you probably use a back brace now, right?

You it's probably you.

You know why?

Climbing a tree is such, I mean, 90% of the room, and who knows if you raised your hand online, so many.

We've all done it.

But you, there's a, there's a, there's a season of life where that no longer becomes a normal thing for you to do.

But at one point for all of us, it was an ordinary thing.

And it's gonna be an ordinary thing in the story we read this morning in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

You can find it in your phone, you can find it in your Bibles.

The Gospel of Luke, chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

We're gonna look at the first ten verses, a story about a man named Zacchaeus who is known for climbing a tree.

Here it goes.

In verse 1, Luke 19.

You can follow along on the screen as well if you would like.

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town.

There was a man there named Zacchaeus.

He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich.

He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd, so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way.

And when Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name.

Zacchaeus, he said, Quick, come down, I must be a guest in your home today.

Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy.

But the people were displeased.

He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner, they grumbled.

Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor.

Lord, if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.

In verse 9, Jesus responded, Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.

For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.

Verse 10 of Luke 19 is one of the most powerful verses in Scripture.

For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who were lost.

It's so powerful.

And that is the extraordinary thing that jumps out from this story.

But the ordinary thing is where God does something really extraordinary in the life of Zacchaeus and eventually the lives of others that we're going to understand as we unpack it.

So let's go there in the story.

Let's get to know it a little bit better.

It takes place in a town called Jericho.

It's in the Middle East.

I'll show you where it is on a map here.

You can see, kind of toward the bottom middle, you'll see Jericho.

It's underlined Jerusalem.

Now go up a little bit.

There is Jericho.

If you look to your left, you've got the Mediterranean Sea.

South, you're going to be hitting Africa.

East, you're going to be going to Asia.

Up here, you'll see Samaria.

To the right, you'll see Decapolis, Galilee.

As you keep going up there, you're going to get to places in the European continent eventually that Paul wrote to in his letters.

But I want you to notice something that's really unique about where this story takes place in this city of Jericho.

Where it's located is pivotal when it came to commerce.

So if you if you notice here, in the left side where you see Judea, this is what you would call the hill country.

So any goods or services that would come from the Mediterranean Sea inland had to go over the hill country or from Jericho over the hill country.

So Jericho is centrally positioned here in a way where it operated almost like a regional trade depot.

There were goods and services that passed through, and it's right here at the mouth of the Jordan River.

So as a result of its geographical location, Jericho served as this trading stop that would eventually take things, imports and exports, to three different continents.

So you've got a strategically located position in this town of Jericho where business had to come to and through.

And if you know anything about economics, you know that when a city's commerce goes up, the city's financial situation is typically blessed.

Add to that, Jericho, where this is located, was a hub for what was known as Judean balsam.

It was full of these trees that were made of balsam wood, these balsam trees, and they produced this aromatic smell about the air.

In fact, the city of Jericho was sometimes called the City of Scent, S-C-E-N-T.

Because of these trees and the aroma they produced.

In fact, you can get balsam oil today.

It produced this sap and they would use it to make different things.

And balsam oil today, you can find it if you were to Google it as an essential oil.

In fact, I brought this with me.

This is a candle that I keep in my office.

This is a Christmas candle.

And when I pop the top on this bad boy, I can hear Bing Crosby.

Now I keep this candle in my office year long because I take the words of Ebenezer Scrooge seriously and I keep Christmas in my heart all the live-long day.

So this stays in my office year round.

It is made of fresh balsam.

And so it smells like Christmas.

You know the smell of balsam wood and balsam oil.

The sap was used and it was rare and costly.

It was used to make perfumes that would be a luxurious gift.

It was also used to make ointments, to cure cuts and sores and that sort of thing.

And it was such a luxurious gift.

It was seen as a royal gift item.

In the Old Testament of your Bible, there's a story of a man, he's known as the wisest person to ever live.

His name is Solomon.

He would be visited by people who would pay their respects to him.

In one instance, a queen, her name was the Queen of Sheba, that's you would know her as in the Old Testament of your Bible.

She brings gifts to Solomon.

And it is believed that one of the royal gifts that she brought to him was balsam oil.

It was a royal gift.

It was special, it was rare, it was costly.

They would even use balsam oil in the burial process of kings.

What would happen is a king would die and they would bury him and they would want to preserve it in a way, and there would go through this, it's called the embalming process.

And they would take the sap that they would make into this embalming oil from balsam, and they would use that in the process to bury the king.

It was a rare and costly item that Jericho served as a nuclear hub for this particular product.

So you take Jericho's geographical location on the map and its ability to produce this particular export of balsam and commerce in Jericho was good.

So it's no wonder that a chief tax collector like Zacchaeus would become very rich.

He didn't have to worry about that end-of-year bonus.

He knew business was good, business was booming.

Also, tax collectors at the time weren't known for being the most ethical.

And they would kind of get you with a little bit of price gouging.

You ever been to a restaurant?

You plot out how much your bill is gonna be because you see how much the chicken tenders are, and you see how much that appetizer is, and you're like, okay, I think it's gonna be this much, and you get to the end of the bill and you're like, where did all this come from?

And you start seeing all these extra fees, and you're thinking, a sit-down fee?

Why did I get charged for sitting down?

And you're like, what is this happening?

They would do this.

Tax collectors would find ways to gouge their fellow man.

Now, add to this something unique here.

Because we read the story of Zacchaeus, and it almost sounds like Zacchaeus is a bit of a hero in this story.

He climbed a tree, he met Jesus, it was great, he did some good things, but actually, it looks like he's the hero, but in the story, he's actually hated by people.

And here's why.

The Jewish people at this point in time in history were under Roman occupation.

The Roman Empire, one of the most well-known and vast empires that the world has ever known, they ruled over many different people groups.

Now, when you are ruling over that many and you are building and maintaining such an enormous empire, it takes money.

So the Romans levied their power over the people and placed heavy taxes on them.

But the Jewish people decided, we don't like that, and we're going to oppose you, we're going on strike, we we want nothing to do with these taxes.

You can almost picture it.

The Jewish people get told you're gonna start having to pay in all these taxes, and you can just hear them saying, We're not gonna take it.

No, we ain't gonna take it.

And you know what the Romans did?

They said, You are gonna pay it.

Because we are bigger than you who.

That's what happened.

You'll remember that now from Zacchaeus.

You're welcome.

You'll sing that on the way home from church.

So here's what they did because the Romans were strategically brilliant.

You know what they did?

They said, the Jewish people are are uh they're rebelling against these taxes.

Here's what we're gonna do we're gonna hire their own people to collect their taxes.

It's devious, but it worked.

And so they would go in and find people in the community and say, Hey, look, uh, I know you guys don't want to pay these taxes, but if you'll come work for us, we'll make you rich.

And so some folks in the Jewish community, like Zacchaeus, said, I'll take the job.

So they were hated, they were social pariahs, they were outcasts.

People wanted nothing to do with tax collectors because the Jewish people saw them as traitors.

The Romans rule over us, they put these heavy taxes on us.

We said we weren't gonna do this, and now you guys said you're gonna work for them and take money from your fellow man.

They were despised.

You did not associate with them.

And I think it's an interesting note here.

Because that's who Zacchaeus is.

Not only was he a tax collector, he was the boss.

He was the chief tax collector, unavoidable, well known, of high status economically, but hated socially because he was viewed as a traitor.

Don't talk to him, don't have anything to do with him.

His friends were either bot or Roman.

But he didn't have much else by way of that.

And it's an interesting thing to note here, because every society throughout history has people or groups of people who were considered outcasts or hated.

It could be because of their political affiliation, their immoral behaviors.

It could be a number of different reasons, uh their socioeconomic status, but every society throughout history, there have inevitably, because of the brokenness of people, been those who were looked down upon, disassociated with, unseen, unaccompanied, and uncared for.

But you see here in stories like Zacchaeus, Jesus did not avoid these people.

In fact, Jesus went after them.

And I think that is a beautiful picture of the gospel.

Jesus even wraps it up because they grumbled, right?

Zacchaeus climbs down the tree, Jesus says, I'm coming to dinner, which is only a Jesus thing, right?

You don't do that.

You don't walk up to somebody, hey, happy birthday, I'm coming to your party.

And they're like, but are you?

Did you get the evite?

Oh no, I didn't get the evite.

Well, see ya.

Because you don't do that, that's awkward.

That's against the social convention.

You don't invite yourself to somebody's house.

Jesus does.

He did.

And then the people, when they saw it, they said, Oh, that guy?

Jesus is hanging with that guy?

And we think, oh yeah, they're jerks.

How many of us, I wonder, are bothered when God's grace, love, mercy, blessings, and provision find people who sin differently than we do.

And here's Jesus.

He didn't see these people as pariahs.

You know what he saw them as?

People who needed the gospel.

It's a beautiful picture of the gospel in Luke 19.

The Son of Man came to seek and save those who were lost.

We continue in the story.

Zacchaeus makes a point here to get to Jesus.

He was too short, he ran through the crowd, he had to climb a tree.

Now he does something here that was incredibly odd.

You didn't do this if you were Zacchaeus.

We talked about it, right?

And I'll show you what a sycamore fig tree is.

I'll put it up here for you.

This is what it looks like here in the Middle East.

You can see it's a little lower to the ground.

They got these big branches.

And so if you're around it, everybody's head is about here, but then you can climb up and you would just kind of perch on one of those branches.

Now, here's Zacchaeus.

You can picture people everywhere because this wasn't one of those situations, you know.

Zacchaeus usually, because of his status, the amount of money he had, you know, people did things for him.

He didn't have to get his hands dirty necessarily.

He didn't have to do a lot of things that others had to do.

But the way it worked with Jesus, which is interesting here, when Jesus passes through Jericho, it wasn't like Zacchaeus could go and say, Yeah, I'm gonna purchase the lightning lane.

I'd like to fast pass to see Jesus.

I'm gonna cut the line.

No, it was first come, first served.

So Zacchaeus, wanting to see Jesus, realizes I can't see over this crowd.

So he runs ahead and climbs a tree, which is we've already established adults don't usually do.

And you definitely didn't do if you were of a certain status level because it would have been looked at as humiliating.

Why are you hiking up your robe and climbing up this tree?

His pride would have kept him in any other situation from doing something like that.

But Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus so much because he had heard the things that Jesus was doing, the things that Jesus was saying.

So he climbs this kid-climbing tree.

If you were to hang out in Jericho on a Tuesday and you found a mommy and me class posted up in the city of Jericho, you would see kids just climbing the tree because that's what they did.

Here comes Zacchaeus, grown man.

It says he ran through.

Can you imagine?

He's just like, I gotta get there, I gotta get there, I gotta get there.

This is so he doesn't trip over his robe.

That's what it looks like.

And he gets there and he climbs the tree, and he's probably got people looking at him like, this guy, what's he doing?

And then what happens?

In verse 5, he climbed a tree and Jesus passed by, and when Jesus came by, he looked up.

You can picture it.

Jesus is walking by and he looks and he's like, Zacchaeus! If you're Zacchaeus, you're thinking, What?

Because if you noticed in the story, they had not been introduced yet.

Zacchaeus! He called him by name.

I want you to take this with you because I don't think we remember it as often as we should.

In fact, I think a lot of us we miss something about Jesus.

Jesus knows you.

Because some of us don't feel known.

And I'm gonna say that again because some of us this week have felt like nobody loved us.

Some of us this week have felt like nobody sees us.

Some of us this week have needed love.

We looked for it in certain places and we didn't get it.

I need you to hear this.

I want you to hear this.

Please, please hear this.

The Savior of the world, Jesus, knows you.

He knows you by name.

See, sometimes I think we miss that.

Sometimes we see Jesus as this far-off figure, maybe outside of everyday life, maybe a God who doles out sound bites and helpful information to only people who are worthy or who are of a certain status or you know meet certain qualifications, but that's not who Jesus is.

Jesus is not this conflated king who's disconnected from the daily lives of people.

Jesus is the king who humbled himself unto death, death on a cross, who gave everything for you to know him so that you would know that you are known.

Jesus knows you.

He knows your name.

Do not miss that from the story of Zacchaeus.

And then Jesus does what we said he shouldn't have done by way of social convention.

He looks up at Zacchaeus.

Zacchaeus, get down from that tree and go put something in the crock pot.

We're coming over.

And what happens?

The people are like, he's gone to what?

And they call Zacchaeus, this poor man Zacchaeus.

Luke writes, Dave.

Can you believe Jesus just went to dinner at that house of that notorious sinner?

And I love this.

Luke just skipped that.

Right after saying that, he's like, Yeah, they said this.

Meanwhile, let's get back to what Jesus is doing.

Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, I will give half my wealth to the poor.

Lord, if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.

This sounds like an easy, simple thing that we just overlook in a story.

Okay, great, he gave money to the poor.

Good guy, what a good guy.

Way to go, four times as much.

Man, he must have had a lot of money.

You need to understand something here because it is paramount to the story.

The sheer amount of good that would have resulted from this change of heart that we read about in Zacchaeus, it can't be overstated.

He was a man of such means and such wealth that his identity was likely found in his financial situation.

But here's what happens.

He meets Jesus and it changes him.

Zacchaeus goes from being a man who was hated, prideful, outcast, but desperate to see Jesus.

Jesus presumably relays to him the truth of the gospel in this dinner conversation as Jesus invites himself over to his house.

And it changes Zacchaeus.

The sheer amount of good that is the result of this, it just can't be overstated.

He has an encounter with Jesus and it changes him.

Here's what happens Zacchaeus.

Becomes a grateful person.

Grateful for the gospel, for the good news that Jesus says salvation has come to this home today.

And this highlights something very, very important for all of us when it comes to following Jesus.

And here it is, it changes you.

Faith moves beyond words.

Faith translates beliefs to behavior.

If you believe in Jesus, your life should look like it.

It's why our mission here at Sunrise Church is to both help people know and follow Jesus.

Because when you follow Jesus, your life will show it.

It changes you.

This man went from taking to giving.

And only Jesus can do that.

His identity was found in his finances, his position, the comforts of life.

And he found new identity in following Jesus Christ as his Lord because it says he stood before the Lord and called him Lord.

Now that doesn't hit us often as much as it could, because we glaze over exactly what happens.

But Zacchaeus takes the thing that mattered most to him and said, God, it's yours.

If you're to read the description of this story, it doesn't sound extraordinary.

If you're to pick up uh, you know, the back of the DVD case back in the day, or now if you were to read the description on Netflix, you would read a story of, okay, Jesus goes to Jericho, cool story, uh, meets a guy.

He was a little shorter, he wanted to see Jesus, he climbed a tree, okay, that's fun.

Jesus invites himself to dinner, have this awkward exchange.

Jesus has dinner with him, he believes in Jesus, he chooses to follow Jesus.

Uh he paid back the people that he wronged, and then he was really generous.

It's kind of got that Ebenezer Scrooge vibe to it.

That's really cool, great.

I've seen about a dozen of those stories on Netflix.

And it might not strike you as extraordinary, but it is extraordinary, and here's why.

It is a story of Jesus changing lives.

It not only changed the life of Zacchaeus.

Can you imagine the people who were pointed to Jesus because of the generosity of a man who was once known for taking gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, and is now known for following Jesus and giving love away?

It doesn't sound extraordinary, but it is.

You know why?

Any life changed by Jesus is extraordinary.

But how did he get there?

Through an ordinary thing?

He climbed a tree.

What a simple thing.

Really, what it is, Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, couldn't, so he had to make a little change.

He had to make a little adjustment.

He couldn't see from here, so he did something simple, and he climbed a tree so he could see Jesus, so he could meet Jesus.

Ultimately, when you look at the story, he made an adjustment that allowed him to get closer to Jesus.

Now I'm gonna say that again because we're gonna drill down on that.

Zacchaeus made an adjustment that allowed him to get closer to Jesus.

So I'm going to pose this question.

Is there anything in your life that needs to be adjusted?

Is there any seemingly small change in your life that if you made it, would bring you closer to Jesus?

Let's get practical and maybe invasive for a moment.

Do you need to forgive someone?

Have you been holding on to anger or bitterness?

And the weight of that is consuming you.

Is the little thing you need to do, is the adjustment you need to make to forgive someone so that you too can be released from carrying the weight of all of that.

Maybe for some of us it's man, it's time for us to start serving other people.

Maybe at home, in our community, maybe we serve on a team at church.

Like the story we heard in our prayer huddle this morning of the lady who came to see a CYT show and said, I'm not much of a musical person and I'm definitely not much of a church person.

Well, a year later she goes to church here and serves in our kids' ministry.

It changed her life.

And not just that, how many families bring their kids to this kids' ministry who are now on the other side of her service.

See, it sounds like a little thing, but it's extraordinary.

Maybe that's the case for some of us.

Maybe for some of us it is like Zacchaeus.

And money is where we find our security.

And so this idea of a faith that propels us to give to and through the local church is something that makes us a little uncomfortable because money is where we find our security, and it's the thing that matters most to us.

And we read a story like Zacchaeus, and this man gave half and then paid people back four times, and you're thinking, whoa, the church is only asking for a certain percentage, thank you.

But in all seriousness, I understand that because there are things in life that matter most to us, and we hold on to them because they're where we find our security and our status and our comfort.

And that can be a scary thing for people.

But if you ever want to know that God provides, trust Him with the things that matter most.

Why is it so easy for us to trust God with the eternity of our soul, but not the entirety of our bank account?

Maybe for some of us that's the shift that will teach us to trust God in every season at new levels.

Maybe for some of us, that little change is to actually share our faith with someone in our lives.

Have you considered what a small invitation might do, not only in your life, but in the life of the person you invite, is bringing that friend, that neighbor, that coworker, that family member with you to church.

Is that the thing that changes their lives?

It might be a simple shift, but for some of us, this year, may be that year that for the first time we bring somebody with us into Christian community because they need the gospel, they need Jesus, they need Christian community.

Maybe that little thing is extraordinary because it has life-changing possibility.

Maybe for some of us, there's a substance that we overuse or abuse.

And a little shift might bring us health and freedom in a way that we've been wondering why we can't find.

Maybe for some of us that's what it needs to be.

Maybe we need to say, I'm gonna take a step back and stop relying on this to make me feel a certain way.

Maybe God gives some freedom in that area, or maybe, maybe it's that thing, get ready.

Maybe it's that thing we look at on our screen or on our phone when no one's looking, things like pornography that we don't think is hurting anybody.

That's just between me and the screen.

God doesn't know or care.

But I wonder if making that shift, if disciplining yourself to walk away from that day after day, what you would see in your relationships, what you would see in your marriages, if you changed that.

Maybe for others it's gossip or a negative attitude.

And if we stopped feeding the beast of negativity in our lives, what joy we might experience, what our friendships might look like, what our Christian community might look like, what our family dynamic might look like.

Is there something, even little, maybe seemingly little in the everyday, but extraordinary in the payoff?

Is there something small that you just need to adjust?

Is there a step you need to take?

Is there a tree you need to climb that will bring you closer to Jesus?

Don't underestimate small changes made daily and how they grow you.

We call it discipleship, but discipleship is not this buffet you have to eat all at once.

Discipleship is daily decisions to follow Jesus that add up over time.

So is there any in your life that needs to adjust?

There's a legendary story of Walt Disney.

Back in the 1920s, Walt Disney initially had an animation company and he lost it.

It went bankrupt.

And he lost his uh IP and it was it was a disaster for him, and he had essentially hit rock bottom.

But even though he was depressed and depleted and seemingly defeated, Walt Disney was a determined individual.

So determined to bounce back from bankruptcy and disaster, he starts crafting, as an animator does, a new character.

And he sits down and he puts pencil to paper and he and he creates this character and he he draws it up and he wants to show his wife, Lillian, and his uh business partner, a man by the name of Ub IWorks.

If you ever go on Disney Plus and you watch any of the older Disney cartoons, you're gonna see in the credits a man named Ub IWorks.

And so Disney writes this character down and he starts drawing him, and it comes out and he and he shows it to his wife and he says, Look, I've created the new character, and I'm gonna build my animation studio on this character.

And she looks at it and she goes, It's a mouse.

And they're like, You're gonna do this with a rodent?

And he says, No, no, no, hear me out, hear me out.

I'm gonna change the world with this mouse.

Walt's a dreamer.

He says, No, Lillian, Lillian, I want you to hear me, hear me.

I'm gonna put Ariel under the sea with this mouse.

I'm gonna find Nemo with this mouse.

I'm then gonna find Dory with this mouse.

I'm gonna put Simba on Pride Rock as the Lion King.

With this mouse.

I'm gonna charge people$10 for a churro at my theme park with this mouse.

I'm gonna bring beauty and the beast together with this mouse.

I'm gonna help Elsa let it go with this mouse.

I'm gonna make friends out of Mike Wazowski and Sully.

Out of Lightning McQueen and Mater.

I'm gonna make friends out of Woody and Buzz with this mouse.

We're gonna become the most recognizable production and entertainment company in the world with this mouse.

And this mouse is gonna be called Mortimer Mouse.

And his wife looks at him and goes, Mortimer?

Don't call him Mortimer.

They're on a train and she nudges Ub.

Ub, wake up.

He wants to call this mouse Mortimer.

They say Mortimer sounds like a prude.

You're not gonna change the world with Mortimer mouse.

And his wife Lillian looks at him and says, Why don't you name him Mickey instead?

Small change.

Small change.

Is there anything in your life that needs to be adjusted?

Forgiveness, generosity, service, grace, mercy, kindness.

Is there anything in your life that if you changed it, it would change you and bring you closer to Jesus?

Take that question with you.

Let's pray before we linger in the lobby.

God, thank you again for this day.

Thank you for your word.

I pray, Lord, that what we learn here doesn't get left here, but that we take it with us, that you would give us the wisdom to know what to adjust, what to change, what to give to you, and then the courage to do it.

We pray, as we always pray, that what we say, do, sing, and celebrate here in this place honors you and helps us grow in our faith together.

So, God, thank you for all you're doing and what you will do, lead us from this place.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you so much for joining us today at Sunrise Church.

We hope this message encouraged you and blessed you.

If one of the ways that you choose to worship with us here at Sunrise is by giving online, there's a link right here that you can follow and it'll take you to that payment portal.

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If you want to get further connected, whether in person or online, you can email this email right here, and either myself or some one of our team members will be there to answer it and help you get connected in any way that you need.

Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll see you next week.