Climbing A Tree To See A Star

Worship team tonight and God bless you, everybody that's with us this evening online. And this is our last prayer meeting before Christmas day. And we've just got so much to be thankful for. So many people are writing in with the answers to prayer that God's given them in the last season, or maybe this year, or maybe even in the last week or two. One of them caught my attention though. And I wanna just share on this and then read a few before we go to the word of God tonight. And then after that, we're going to the communion table. So this is your opportunity or last chance really this year to get some bread and juice. And we're gonna have a communion together tonight in your home. But this one lady wrote in and she said, I have stage four breast cancer. And I was going in for surgery next week. And my surgeon said to me, why don't we postpone the surgery for one week and give Jesus a chance to do a miracle? Well, I don't know about you tonight, but I'm with that surgeon and I'm believing in God for a miracle for you, my sister. And so father in Jesus name, we just thank you Lord for just speaking to that surgeon's heart and giving him the courage to say things that most surgeons wouldn't say, not leaning on his own skill, but leaning on the skill of a greater physician than himself. So father, we just ask you to actually do a miracle and let this be a testimony of your glory, God, in our generation that this lady and her surgeon decided to wait one week and give you an opportunity to do a miracle. You are a way maker. You're a miracle working God. And so Lord, we just thank you that this is gonna be a testimony of great, great victory. We expect to hear a testimony of victory. And so father, we thank you for this wonderful report of confidence in you, even through a skilled surgeon. And we thank you for it in Jesus name. I hear some of the answers. I just wanna give God thanks for before. This is not related to what I'm speaking to tonight, but I just wanna give God thanks and may it stir faith in your heart and your situation. From the US, I went for a biopsy and the doctor said, there's no need because the nodule is nearly gone. Way maker, miracle worker, Christ the King, great physician, it just goes on and on and on. Praise God, we're just rejoicing with you tonight at what the Lord has done for you. New Jersey, thank you, Jesus. My prayers for funds to relocate to another township was answered on Friday. God knows and God hears us. And Gladys, you're right, God knows and God hears. And sometimes we think that God is so concerned about all the big things going on in the universe. He doesn't see us in our need and just our desire to be able to pay our rent or maybe live in another place, but he does see and he does know. And Gladys, we rejoice with you tonight. From Lumberton, hallelujah. My friend Sheila was Hindu. I had the honor of leading her to Christ on June 15th. She now prays for people in the name of Jesus. Praise God, my friend and sister whom you, Sheila, this would be the same person whom you prayed for was able to get a permanent job as a home health aide, thank you. So not only coming to Christ, not only praying in the name of Jesus, but given employment, given a sense of permanence and provision, thank God for that. New Hampshire, my cousin who had a heart attack on the 1st of December and was unconscious for days has now awoken and is able to go home for Christmas. Only God could do this, thank you for your prayers. Thank you, Bethany, for letting us know about this wonderful miracle. From Michigan, I was able to speak to my parents about joining a church and being baptized. Thanks for all your prayers. And Grant, we're just rejoicing with you tonight. I expect or suspect that you're a teenager at home. And I wanna thank you for just honoring your mother and father, which the Bible says is the first commandment with a promise that it may go well with you and you may live long on the face of the earth. And so thank God and God was able to move the hearts of your parents and let you join a church and let you be baptized. Grant, don't give up in your walk with God. Keep walking with God, you will never regret this. From Nevada, I'm 35 years old and have waited and prayed for a godly husband. I'm now happily engaged to a man that loves God more than anything. God honors the wait, we're so happy for you. And I know this is gonna be a happy new year for you because you've waited 35 years for this moment. And the Lord is faithful, God is faithful. He's on time, not on our time, on his time. He's always on time. From Connecticut, I sent a prayer request a year ago for Eli to be a healthy boy and have sufficient blood flow in his brain. Thank you, Lord. Eli is healthy and doing well in his school. Thank you so much for Bernie for letting us know about this miracle in this child, your child. If I'm London, UK, my son's mental health career in relationship with God has been completely restored. Praise God, thank you for your prayers. God is good. We pray together, we believe together for restoration of our homes and our families and God is always faithful to answer our prayer. Colorado, thank you for praying for my daughter. She has been healed of paralyzing fear. Now she's sleeping alone and staying home alone for short stretches of time. Thank you, Michelle, for letting us know about this wonderful miracle in your daughter's life. New Jersey, to God be the glory this 2020. He made me financially independent, able to refinance, pay all my bills and still have enough left to give to others. Thanks be to God. And from Kenya, last, I prayed and asked that I might know God more. He took me through some dark clouds, both physically, mentally and spiritually, but I came out the other side in victory. Amen and amen and amen. What wonderful, wonderful, wonderful praise reports. And we thank God for that. So don't forget that we're going to communion tonight and we're going to celebrate this wonderful birth and death of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that gave you and I the assurance that we have eternal life through Christ when we die. I want to talk to you tonight from Luke chapter 19. If you'll go there in your Bible, I'm old fashioned and I still carry a Bible. I read a Bible, I preach from a Bible. I wouldn't ever dare try to preach from one of these because I'd pull up a car commercial in the middle of my message. So, or as we always do, hit a button and everything just goes blank and then you're done. You're finished. So I'm just, I'm probably going to have a hard copy Bible till the day I die. That's just the way I am. Luke chapter 19. Father, I thank you God for the touch of heaven on your word. I thank you Lord Jesus Christ that you tell us that every time we open this book that you bring out of your treasury, things old and things new. Lord, thank you God that you can make old truths new to our hearts tonight. God, you can send your word and set people free. You can heal the broken hearted. You can open the door to those that are captive. You can correct the pathway of those who have deviated from truth. God, you can give clarity of thought to those whose minds are confused. You can give strength to those that are weary and resource to those that are poor. This is who you are. This is what you do. You said Jesus that this was your mission on the earth when you came as a man. And so I'm asking you tonight, God almighty, to give me the grace, give me the grace to speak your word. I recognize Lord that my intelligence is insufficient. You have to override my weakness with the power of your Holy Spirit. My words have limitations, but yours can go into eternity. And so I'm asking you Lord to travel through the internet tonight into homes, into hearts, into situations, into minds, into families. Help me God tonight to reach those who feel like there's no hope. Help me to reach those who have settled for a path that's insufficient. It's not what you've called them to be or where you've called them to go. God help me tonight and God help us to hear your word for your coming is soon. Prepare us Lord for the day of your coming. And we thank you for it in Jesus name, amen. I wanna talk tonight about climbing a tree to see a star. And it's really based on what Pastor Tim Delina spoke on Sunday morning. It's a great message. I encourage you to go back and listen to it. So I'm taking an off ramp from that message. And I wanna talk about that concept of God speaking to people and how he gets ahold of us in differing situations. Now this is Luke chapter 19. Then Jesus entered verse one and passed through Jericho. Now this is the scene, this is Jericho. Jericho is the first place that the people of God being brought out of captivity in Egypt and coming into the promised land 40 years later. This is the first place they conquered. Jericho represented strongholds in the promised land. Like there are strongholds in your place of promise. There was a city there that historians say that the walls of that city were so thick that you could ride a chariot. Now, whether you could or couldn't, that's what they say on top of those walls. As a matter of fact, they're big enough that people could actually live inside the wall of that city. Rahab the harlot, for example, when you read the story in Joshua, lived in the wall or on the wall of the city. It was Jesus, it was a pre-incarnate Christ who met Joshua when he led the people of God into the promised land and drew his sword and told Joshua to take his sandals off of his feet. It was that pre-incarnate Christ who won this marvelous victory. So Jericho is a place where strongholds come down. Jericho is the place where God, in a sense, proves that if you will walk with me, I will destroy everything that hinders your path. No matter how thick the walls, no matter how fortified or how long it's been there. We talked about that tonight. Pastor Brad talked about addictions, maybe to alcohol, to drugs. It could be mental addictions. It could be struggles and strongholds in your family. It could be in the history of your family. But you see, these things, this is the scene of where all of this now I'm about to speak about is happening. It's the same Christ, many years later, in that place, or one more time walking through that place, maybe as a reminder to people of the victory that could be theirs in the place of promise. Now in that place, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Now this is the irony of this whole story. Now Zacchaeus is of the family of faith, but ironically, Zacchaeus would be a man who had to actually build walls around himself to protect himself. It's not necessarily an enemy that's built the wall that Zacchaeus is trying to push down or get through, but it's the type of a person who says, I belong to the family of God, but I've got walls around myself. Now, what do you mean by that? Well, Zacchaeus was a tax collector, which means that he had allied himself with an invading power and he's actually extorting money or exhorting money from his own people, keeping a large portion for himself, that's why he was rich. He would be literally hated by his own society and by his own culture. He would be viewed as a traitor to the people of God, yet he would consider himself probably one of the people of God. He was a tax collector and he'd gotten very wealthy doing this. A type of a man who's not leading his family in a right direction. Instead of leading them into grace, he's leading them into greed. Instead of teaching them to be abandoned to the will of God, he's teaching them to amass wealth in this world as he has done by whatever means necessary and probably bringing that home to his family as this is our stability, this is our future, this is our strength, outside of, in a sense, the victory in the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. But he heard that Jesus was passing through the place where he was and had built probably walls around himself. Verse three says, he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. The story gets interesting. This man wants to see Jesus. He hears of the fame. Jesus is really a star in his life. Jesus is healing the sick, he's raising the dead, he's calming the sea. The report of him is going all throughout the Holy Land, in the promised land as it is. This man hears about it and says, I wanna see this man. This is a new and a rising star. Let me put it that way, in the nation of Israel, in the kingdom of God of that time. But he couldn't see him because he was short. Now, not, he was physically short. We know that from the scriptures. But might I suggest he might have been a little short on integrity too as well. You know, a lot of people at Christmas time, you put up the tree and you stick a star on top of it and you really, you have a sense that Jesus is important, that he did something phenomenal 2,000 years ago that people still talk about him. Matter of fact, time changed because of this one birth in a manger as Pastor Teresa talked about 2,000 years ago. From the time changed to before Christ and after the death of Christ or after the existence of Christ as a man. But he was short, he couldn't see him. And the scripture tells us that he ran ahead and he climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him and he was going to pass that way. And I have it just the way my mind sees it. It's the type of a man who says, I'm a Christian. And there are some of you online like this tonight. You go to church, not all the time, but sometime you do. You believe, sort of. You trust in measure and more or less like Zacchaeus, you scrape and beg and push and plead and cajole to try to get what you think is going to be your security. You're not anywhere near the man you should be. You're short in the sense of what your calling is in God. You're short of what your character should be. Your family is short of what your family should look like. But it's Christmas time. And you are now keenly aware of Christ. You might even go to church and sing some of the songs. Matter of fact, you probably sang, "'O Come, Let Us Adore Him' with us tonight." But he heard that Jesus was coming, just as you do. You see, Jesus is coming. Whether you know it or not, whether you'll receive it or not, we're very close to his return again. And until the day he does come and take his church from the earth, he's passing by. And the reason you know he's passing by is because you're starting to feel it in your heart. You're starting to feel, as many do, that there's something unusual about this Christmas. There's something deeper, more profound. In one sense, there's an excitement on one hand, and on the other hand, there's a bit of a troubling, as we see the whole world rising in rebellion against him. But yet you know that there's something so special about him and something maybe that should or could affect your life. And so you're staring at your tree. You've got a tree, most likely, in your living room or your house, even if it's a little thing on your table. You still find yourself always looking at it. You ever wonder why you're looking at that? And your eyes will always go up the Christmas tree to the star that most likely you or somebody else put on the top of that thing. And very much, you're like Zacchaeus tonight. He climbed the sycamore tree to see the star, in a sense, that he had heard about, called Jesus, that was passing by. And when Jesus came to the place, it says, he looked up and saw him. Just as tonight, Jesus can see you. You're not hidden from him. He sees you. He knows everything about you. He knows what you're doing in secret. He knows what you're thinking. He knows what grips your heart. He knows what your pursuits in life are. He knows the mess maybe that you have made of things. He knows how you are sincerely short of what he's called you to be. And maybe your family suffers in some measure because of it. And you and I would think that Jesus Christ, looking at this man who's supposed to be part of the family of God, would just keep on walking and maybe just spend time with some of the more important or dedicated people. And that's what we always feel that God is like, that he has time for others who maybe pray a lot more than we do or they read more or they do more or serve more, that somehow they're close to him and we're far. And so we're just kind of stuck looking at the tree or looking from the tree and just watching him pass by. And that's the way many of you are feeling and just saying, God, for just a moment, it just feels good because Jesus is passing by. Jesus is close to where we are and it just feels good. And you wonder, why can't this feeling last? And would God ever be interested in me? And after all that I've done, because Zacchaeus had to know, he had to know. He knew the history of his people. He would have read some of the scriptures anyway. He would have known what the calling of God is for the people of God, how they were to be a people who brought praise to the name of God in the earth because of what God was able to do in them and through them. And he would have thought, well, I'll catch a glimpse of him. Maybe I'll watch a movie about his life or I'll just cry a tear singing a song or I'll just catch a glimpse because that's all he's going to give me anyway. Even if he looks at me, he'll know what I am and he'll just keep on walking by. But Jesus came to the place, the scripture says, and Jesus looked up and saw him and said to him, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down for today I must stay at your house. That's an amazing thought. Now there's a sense of urgency in this as I read it. Come down quickly, I must stay at your house. I must come to you. I'm on a mission and I'm coming to your house. I must come, but first of all, you must invite me. You see, there's an urgency in this generation for Jesus Christ to come to your house. Not just be a song you sing in church, not just a thought that passes through your mind once in a while, but an actual visitor that you invite to your house. So the scripture said, he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. It must have overwhelmed him. Why this great prophet that's come to the nation of Israel wants to come to my house. I don't know, initially maybe Zacchaeus thought, you know, maybe there's something in this for me. Maybe I can get a, I don't know what his initial thoughts were, probably not completely pure in the sense of what a relationship with God should be like. But it says he received him joyfully. Verse seven talks about the crowd when they saw it, they all complained saying he's gone to be a guest with a man who's a sinner. You see, you're gonna have to fight those voices tonight. Jesus wants to come to your house. Do you understand me tonight? He wants to come to your house. You with the liquor in your cabinet, you with the ill gotten gain in your pocket, you who, you know you're compromised. You know that, you don't even know why you're in this prayer meeting. You're a Zacchaeus tonight. You're just on top of a tree trying to get a glimpse of God. That's why you're in the prayer meeting even this evening. But suddenly he's calling to you and says, I wanna come to your house. John, Vicky, whatever your name is, I wanna come to your house. So I wanna come there quickly. I must come to your house. There's an urgency to come to you. Then you gotta fight through all these voices that try to say, well, who are you to think that God's gonna come to your house? We all know what you do. We all know what you, we know you're a drug addict. We know you're an alcoholic. We know that you're living a hidden sin. We know that you're extorting the people for your own profit. We know that money is your God. So why would you even remotely think that God wants to come to your house? You see, you have to fight through those voices because he sees you. He sees you. He sees something in your heart. He saw something in that man's heart that Zacchaeus himself didn't even see. God saw it because he made that man. He formed him in the womb. He knew his DNA. He knew what was in his heart. And he knew that under the right circumstance, he would turn and begin to walk in righteousness. So God knows in spite of what you've been braced, in spite of what you've been captivated by, in spite of what your pursuits in life have been, he knows tonight. He knows your heart. This is why you're suddenly feeling like he wants to come to your house. There's no other way to explain it. He must've been as surprised as the crowd was surprised, but he also had to get through the voice. Can you imagine he'd come down from the tree and he's got to walk through a crowd of thousands of people and they're all murmuring. Jesus is coming to his house. Who does he think he is? Doesn't Jesus know who this man is? Yes, Jesus knew exactly who this man is. As a matter of fact, he knew he was going to write about him in the Bible. He knew he was going to leave his life story, this part of his life story as a testimony for you and I. A testimony means something that speaks about the glory of God and encourages us to believe. As Pastor Brad said tonight, that our mountain can be moved to as well. That we can be taken from a corrupt or crooked place into the place that God has for each of our lives. And then it doesn't tell us what happened between verse seven and verse eight. Verse seven ends with the voices saying, well, who does this guy think he is? And does Jesus know what kind of a man this is? He's going into the house of a man who's a sinner. Now, even though the man was of the lineage, at least of the people of God. So there's a conversation that the Bible doesn't tell us what transpired there, but whatever was spoken in his house, it so moved this man's heart that he stood in front of his whole family. You can imagine, if Jesus is at your house, his cousins are there, his aunts are there, his uncles are there, everybody. They're knocking at the door. His kids are there, everybody's there. And everybody knows what kind of a man this is. Jesus is speaking something and it so stirs him that suddenly he stands up and he says, look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor. You see, that tells me he found another treasure. That tells me that suddenly there was a shift in his heart and his security was no longer in the things of this world. He'd heard something from Jesus that so touched him that he's giving away half of everything he's gotten. And he says, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore it fourfold. You see, what we're looking at here is called a conversion. It's called, it's no longer a religion. It's now a relationship with the son of God. There's a lot of people listening to me tonight. The reason you're in such a mess in your house and in your family is because all you have is a religion. You have some knowledge of Jesus. You do go to church. You do sing songs once in a while. You even shed a tear at some of the testimonies, but you yourself are not walking in the pathway God has ordained for your life. You've gone to his house, but you've never invited him to your house. You haven't let him come in your house. You haven't let him come in and be Lord of your house, Lord of your home, Lord of your family. And when Zacchaeus stood, you see, what he had experienced is a conversion. It's a change. It's turning from the way we used to walk and the way we used to think and becoming that person that God has destined us to be. And suddenly you see Zacchaeus who has, before he had no problem extorting his own brethren for money. Now he says, if I have, if I have taken anything by false accusation, I restore fourfold. Not just dollar for dollar, may I put it, but $4 for every dollar I've taken by fraud. He's already giving half to the poor. And if he follows through with this, which I believe he did, he's probably giving the other half back to people that he took money from by false pretense. And Jesus said to him, verse nine, today salvation has come to this house because he also is the son of Abraham. For the son of man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Today, you see, when the day that salvation comes to your house, there's a change. That's why the Bible says, if any man be in Christ, that includes women, he is a new creation. The old things are passed away and behold all things have become new. God's promise to you and I is a new heart, a new mind, a new spirit, a new present, a new future and a new eternity. God's promise to us is exactly what happened at the beginning of this story, that even the walls we have built around ourselves will come crashing down if we'll turn to him one more time. It was a wall of money and it just came crashing down. The wind blew it all away in just a moment of time. And all Zacchaeus did was just allow Jesus to come to his house. Matter of fact, he didn't invite him. If the truth be told, Jesus invited himself. I want you to think about that. What will you do tonight if he invites himself to your house? If he says to you, even after this meeting is over, Paul, Jim, John, Sean, Keyshawn, whatever your name is, I wanna come to your house quickly, prepare for me. And if he does come, can he speak? Can he challenge your belief system? Obviously he challenged Zacchaeus because his belief system, just like the walls of Jericho, it literally fell over. It just collapsed and he became a new man. You see, the miracle of salvation is that God didn't come to save those that have it all together. He came to save those that are lost in their sin. And those who are willing to admit that they're lost, their lives have fallen short. They love to see Jesus, but they never brought him to their house. I don't know the rest of the man's story, but I suspect that there was joy in that house. I suspect that, you know, I know people who live for money, they're always nervous and they're always winking and fangling and, you know, they're always doing something and scheming and you can never trust them. But I can just see this man just giving and giving and giving and God giving back to him and he's giving, he's giving. Everything is changed. I can see his sons and daughters are given a new heart. I can see his marriage is strengthened. I can see that any other addictions that came into his house or home are gone because he made the choice as the covering in his home, he made the choice to do it God's way. And so I'm speaking to you tonight, sir. I'm speaking to you, ma'am, whoever is the head of your house. I know there's single moms online tonight and I know there's father single fathers and I know there's homes in difficulty where maybe only one of you is a believer. But if you will make the choice just to do right, whatever right is according to the word of God in your life, you'll make the choice to do right. There is a joy that will come into your heart. There's a joy that will come into your home. You see, Christmas doesn't have to pass you by one more time. You see, you don't have to put all the decorations away at the end of the Christmas season and just go back into the same old, same old. You'll actually be in a place where Christmas never ends. And so tonight, I encourage you to admit, just admit that you need Christ. Admit that you need him. Admit that you can't do this on your own. Admit that your life is so sort of what it should be because of some of the things that you do. And believe that he has come to you to forgive you and to save you and to set you free. Not just you, sir, not just you, ma'am, but your whole house, your family. He'll be faithful to you. Won't all happen overnight, but it will happen. God will be faithful and confess him. That's what Zacchaeus did. He stood up and confessed him to be, he called him Lord. Lord, he confessed him. I'm gonna go to the video section of heaven when I get there, I wanna watch this because he stood up in the midst of, and it had to be a packed house. This man had money, so obviously a lot of friends because he had a lot of money. But I mean, his whole family is there and he stands up and he calls him Lord. In other words, I give you the right to my life. I give your truth, the right to my heart and my practice and my future. I'm done trying to do things my own way. Now, I wanna be kind when I say this, but a lot who write in and you send in your texts and you write in your prayer, but not everybody, but a lot. You're in trouble just because of this one thing that you just have a religion, you don't have a relationship. You know all about Jesus, but you've never invited him to your house or maybe open the door when he invites himself. In Revelation, he says to the church at that time, I stand at the door and knock. He's knocking at the door of your house. And if you will do like Zacchaeus, admit what you really are. Believe that Jesus can change your life and forgive your sin and confess him as Lord, which means, it's not just a verbal confession, but that means your ways are now gonna become my ways. Your word is going to become my guide. And you promised to give me a new heart. So your heart will become my heart and your speech will be my speech and your will will be my way. And we see a miracle transformation in the life of a man called Zacchaeus. I want to lead you in a prayer tonight before we go to the communion table, because it's the end of the year 2020 and I'm telling you, and you listen to me tonight, you listen to me, Jesus is coming very soon, very soon, sooner than you think. And he said to Zacchaeus, I must come to your house tonight, I must. And I'm speaking to somebody tonight that's listening to me online. The Lord says to you, I must come to your house tonight. Prepare for me to receive me. Even if you have to just, by faith, get up and open the door of your house and just let him in. I say, Jesus, you are welcome in my house. Sit at my table and talk to me. And tell me what you have for my future. And challenge me where my behavior has deviated from what my life should be. And give me the courage to do what I must do to start walking in a way that is right in your sight. I want you just to pray this prayer with me out loud in your living room tonight. Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you tonight for speaking directly to my heart. I'm going to do what this pastor says. I open the door to my house and to my heart to you. Jesus Christ, I invite you into my heart to be my Lord and my Savior. As you speak to me, I will follow you. I trust that you have forgiven me tonight because you said that you came to seek and to save those that are lost. And I've lost my way. But tonight I call you my Lord. Tonight I call you my Savior. Starting tonight, I call you my God. And I call heaven my home. Give me the courage to do right from this day forward in Jesus' name. Now there's going to be a number on the screen. We're going to, our worship team's going to come and lead us in one song as we prepare for communion tonight and there's going to be a number on the screen in front of you. I want you to text in that number and text the word decided, decided. And somebody from Times Square Church will either text you, email you, or if you prefer, will actually physically call you and talk to you. Let us help you. Let us help you because Jesus has just come to your house. Let us help you to understand his words. Let us help you to learn what you must do now and how you must journey and what God would have for your life in the future. And tonight I want to tell you something. You have every right, if you have prayed that prayer from a sincere heart, you have every right to partake of communion with us this evening. The juice represents his blood that was shed on a cross to pay the price for the wrong that you have done. The bread represents not only the broken body of Christ, but every promise that God gives to you through him that your strongholds will be broken and God will give you a full, a new, abundant, meaningful, victorious, and eternal life. That is your promise in God. We're going to sing one song while you prepare and we're going to come back and have communion together. God bless you.