This recording is from Christ Kingdom Church in Avalon Park, Orlando. Visit us online at ChristKingdom.org for our calendar driving directions and more audio recordings. Well, good morning. We'll try that again one more time. Well, good morning. All right, that's a little bit better. If you have your bottles turned to Luke chapter 6. They're going to be looking at verses 36 through 39. It's also, I believe, printed in the bulletin on the insert. I'll be on the screen as well. Well, this is our last Sunday of what's been a stewardship series that we've been going on over the past few weeks here in the month of October. And many of you have been here for some of it. Some of you have been here for all of it. That's been great. And some of you might be our guests in here for the first time here this morning. And a special welcome to you as well. Let me just go ahead and say right off the bat that we really only teach on stewardship probably once a year or so. And so you've come during that time that we are teaching on it. And my desire is for no one to feel that there is a compulsion here to as an application of the sermon that you're here to, especially your guest here or we're not your church home, that we have an expectation here of you to be giving or be a special part of our stewardship here in a way that that would be inappropriate. That's not the case. But we are a family and as every family, even your own personal family runs and operates. And so that's what the stewardship is important. And taking your finances and your time and your talents and those things seriously are very important because all those things are very valuable. And you have choices to make and what you spend those things in and you want those choices to matter. And if your parents are teaching that to your kids, hopefully already. And you know how important that is that you've grown up into adults and have seen how those choices can have big and little impacts along the way. Well, we're looking at that here as a church family here. And that's why we have a special stewardship lunch coming up afterwards. And by the way, if you are a guest here, I just want to let you know you're definitely invited and welcome to stay for that. We're going to take a little break right after our service here, which will end a little bit earlier than normal, about 11-15. We'll take a break about 15-20 minutes. And if you like to stay, you need no formal invitation. We've got extra space, we've got extra food. No obligation, though, to stay as well. And if you do call Christ Kingdom Church home, I really want to encourage you to stay. You know, maybe you didn't get a chance to the RSVP officially and that's okay. I can be made provisions with extras here this morning. But would love for you to be able to stay for that child care. We'll continue the back as well. But as we look here this morning, again, let me just remind us what stewardship is. Stewardship is not just about finances. It's as much about your possessions. It's as much about your time. It's as much about your abilities and talents as it is about your finances, which it includes. And the whole idea of stewardship implies several things right off the bat. One, it implies that it's not yours in the first place. God tells us everything that's been given to us is a gift from Him. Even your time, you have no idea what day you're going to be born and you have no idea what day the Lord's going to take you home. Or the day that Jesus is going to come back, whichever happens first. Time is a gift and it's something that we're given to invest for God's glory and honor. Your possessions, your talents are, and obviously your finances are as well. And as we look at a text here this morning in Luke chapter 6, this is one of the primary texts that speaks about giving that a lot of people look to in times like this. So we'll look at it as well. But let me remind you before we read this text, the text from the sermon on the Mount where Jesus says this in Matthew 6-21. He says, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. What you treasure with your finances, what you treasure with your time, what you treasure with your possessions, talents and abilities will very much be an indicator of where your heart is, what you ultimately worship. And God tells us, as his creation, that he is the one that we're supposed to be worshiping, the very first commandment, the highest commandment is to have no other gods before me, God said. And when Jesus summed up the commandments, he said, it's summed up in loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, which makes him the center place of worship in your heart and life. So with that in mind, let us look at the Luke 6 text here. I'm going to read that for us. This is Luke chapter 6 verses 36 through 39. Here God's word. The merciful, just as your father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. A good measure. Press down. Shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. He also told him this parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Well, they not both fall into a pit. A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. This is God's holy and inspired word. Let me pray one more time. God, I just asked that your word there that we just read would be just what your word says it is. Alive and active and sharper than a two-edged sword and it would pierce deeply God into our hearts. Father, pray where our vision is blurry or in some cases where our vision is blind that you would open up our eyes, God, to see who you are. As a result, see who we are and the better clarify God what you called us to do, who you called us to be and how you called us to live. Father, we ask that your spirit who is the teacher would now speak and teach during this time. I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Well, if you are following along in your insert, let's see, can we get to the sermon outline section? There we go, thank you. Number one is this, believing is seeing the mercy of your father in heaven. I know the saying is that seeing is believing, but I want to tell you just as true, in fact more true in some ways is that believing is indeed seeing. You by faith make choices about what you see around you. All of us see very similar things, but all of us believe things very deeply, very differently about the very things we see. And one of the truth that comes here from this text is that believing is seeing the mercy of your father in heaven. There is something that happens to your belief, to your faith when you begin to see God as a father who has bestowed incredible mercy on his people. Look at verses 36 and 37 again, be merciful just as your father is merciful. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Well, let's first look at for a second what mercy is. The easiest definition I think of mercy is this, mercy is not getting what you deserve to get. Mercy is not getting something that you deserve to get. Obviously, the whole context of mercy is something bad, something that you've earned as a consequence that you don't want to have. Something that is judgment or condemnation, something that you earn right there on your own. Mercy is God's grace bestowed by not giving you that very thing that you deserve. And right here this text says that your father in heaven is merciful. He's in the business of doing that. Well, I got a real close hand picture of this just a few weeks ago and I don't share the story in any kind of a positive way because it's not. But I had just turned out in my neighborhood on Lake Underhill and was heading down the road and priorities as they were was getting my radio on the right station as I was moving along. As soon as I got right there on my right radio station and looked up, there was a police officer going. Now, if you've been on Lake Underhill in that section, you probably know exactly where I'm talking about. And I bet some of you may be perhaps who will go nameless, maybe have taken that same detour that I took to turn into Bradford Cove or whatever it was at that point. And I remember that feeling as I pulled in going, oh, great. I hadn't even looked at my speedometer. I'm sure since the radar gun that there was no sense and even argument, I couldn't even tell him what I was going. All I knew was I just pulled out and not been thinking like I should have been thinking. Well, I pulled over to the side there and I wait for him to walk up to my window and of course I'm thinking through how do all the people that know they get out of these things? What do they do? How do you act? What do you say? What do you not say? Do you act super humble? Do you need to be a little bit tough and challenging? I didn't know. I was just like, well, so I'm going ahead and getting the registration out and my driver's license out because I know that's coming. And sure enough, he asked for that. And he asked me, the police officer asked me, he says, why are you in such a hurry? And I just thought, you know, I'm just going to just say what it is here. I just say, you know, I just pulled out of my neighborhood. I'm headed to work and I hadn't even looked down. I was just turning the radio station on where it should be and I looked up and I saw you pulling me over. And he said, well, he said, where do you work? What do you do? I was like, oh, don't ask me that. So, you know, I'm like thinking, well, I've got to be honest here. So I'm just like, well, I'm a pastor. And then he went on to say, what church do you pastor? And I thought I've lots of different churches in Converge that we could be bonding together and I could mention a different church. But I thought I'll just say, well, I even actually said, you know, I don't think we want to tell you right now. Kind of smiling a little bit and he smiled and said, no, what church? And I said, Christ, kingdom church. He said, where do you guys meet? I said, we meet in Avalon Middle School in sunny mornings at 10 a.m., I thought maybe God could redeem this somehow to have this guy come to church. And he said this. He said, you know what? He said, you and me above all people ought to know better and ought to value how important it is to be obeying the laws of the land. And I was like, you know, you're absolutely right. So he right there, he called me on it on it and it was very honest on it. And I said, you're right and I'm very guilty as charged and I apologize for that because that's a very good point. Then he went on to say, you know, but I have a hard time writing a ticket to a pastor. So he handed me my things back and he said, pastor, have a good day. Well, as I roll the window up there, I can't tell you the feeling of flooding over me of relief. But I also understood that I'd become recipient of mercy at that point. Again, like he'd already pointed out, me above all people as a leader in the community should know better and certainly should have stepped up and paid consequences for that. But something that I deserve very, very honestly and very truthfully I was given and bestowed mercy. Well, there is an example of that and there's a father in heaven who has a more pure and more holy and more true standard than any traffic law of this land. That very rightfully and justly could pull and could demand from you a payment to be paid for your sin. The fact he does. But he offers mercy by not giving you what you deserve and instead giving it to somebody else who didn't deserve it. His son, Jesus Christ. That's why it's called good news. It's called the gospel. You see Romans 14, 10 through 12 says this, for we will all stand before God's judgment seat. It is written as surely as I live as the Lord every knee will bow before me every tongue will confess to God. So then each of us will give an account of himself to God. There is a promise there. There is a command and scripture. The reality that you will face judgment for the choices you've made, for the things you've chosen to believe or not believe, for the thoughts you've had, for the attitudes that you've held. The reality is that through Jesus Christ, God doesn't judge us but he judges his son instead. Let me explain real quick a big misunderstanding that happens. Here is the misunderstanding. The misunderstanding is that God let sin go than unjudged. We think sometimes that because God has forgiven us, that what that really means is that even though there's this justifiable judgment out there, that God just chooses to kind of let it poof or go up like a balloon, a helium balloon in the air and just kind of disappear. But that's not at all with the Bible teaches that happens. That's not at all what can satisfy the just wrath of a righteous God who is holy and perfect, whom the angels never get tired of saying holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. They're not a record on skip kids, that's an old way we used to listen to music on that. They are just as passionately each moment saying that because it's just as true and fresh in each moment being the very presence of God moment after moment and they'll continue to do it from now to eternity, never growing tired, never growing board because this holiness is that great. You see, it's a misunderstanding if you think that sin goes unjudged because that's not the case. You see, it's one thing to believe that your guilt was just unjudged. It's quite another to believe that someone else was judged and paid your debt for you. It changes the game if you realize that. If you think that God just goes, well, let's just let bygones be bygones, let's just pretend it wasn't that big of a deal. God will be compromising His holiness and His justice and He can't do that because He's perfect and He's God. But instead, He places it and allows somebody else to be judged in your place. Believe me, it's seeing the mercy of your father in heaven. I remember friend telling me about his church out on the west coast. His church had been under the scrutiny of other local churches. He said his pastor and his church was getting ridiculed by another church in town. In fact, the other church was kind of making accusations against them was talking about how they weren't illegitimate church or how they weren't doing things biblically. And it had become quite public that this other church in town, which by the way was quite a very quite small church and been around for a long time, wasn't really experiencing much dynamic of spirituality and growth or life at all, had a lot to say about this bigger, larger church that was getting more attention. That seemed to be having more of an impact for God, it seemed to be more dynamic and growing. Well, those leaders in the pastor of that church had some choices to make. They could go around, they could spend time fighting down each accusation that's thrown, they could kind of just turn the other cheek and just say, hey, we'll just let the rocks fall where they fall and we're just going to continue on doing what they're doing. But after praying and thinking about it, this church decided to take a different approach. This church without much effort found out quite quickly that this smaller church in the pastor who had been leading it for all these years was in financial trouble. In fact, they were defaulting on loans that they needed for the mortgage of their church building. After praying and thinking about it, the pastor of the other church, my friend's church, picked up the phone, called the church office of the smaller church. Got the secretary on the phone and said, hey, this is so-and-so of such and such a church, but the secretary knew right away who it was. Is there any way I could talk to the pastor of this church? She said, let me check, put him on hold. He came back just seconds later and said, he's not available right now to talk. Can I take a message? He says, well, yes, this is the message of this. Would you have him call me back because our church would like to pay off the balance of his mortgage due? Would you have him call me back when it's convenient for him? She said, would you hold on for a second and put him back on hold? Within a matter of seconds, the other pastor picked up the phone. And the church, my friend's church pastor, began to explain that their desire was to pay off the existing mortgage that they had and that's something they could have done as a larger church. They have the resources to do that. But rather than using it for their own purposes or their own ministries or going further, they just paid off the debt at the other church. Well, the smaller church pastor, as you can imagine, was blown away. Didn't know if it was a joke at first, but when the reality came and the check came in the mail, he was a changed pastor. That church was a changed church. Why? Because they understood that their debt had been paid by another. And it changes everything when you realize that someone else, a real person, has paid your debt. Well, Jesus Christ is a real person. And when God says that he's my father of mercy, he has bestowed his mercy to the cost of his own son on the cross. Jesus Christ. And it came in a high payment. And when you understand that, it changes everything. And that's why believing really is seeing and understanding that God is that kind of God, that kind of God of mercy. So here's the truth. God judges Jesus for your sins as if he actually committed them and treats you like Jesus deserves as being innocent of all sins. That's the amazing thing. And why we call it good news. Second Corinthians 5.21 says that. It says God made him who knew no sin to be sinned for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Jesus takes on the judgment for us. Well, Jesus is judged instead of us. And that's mercy. And that's why it's so imperative that we see our father in heaven as a father of mercy because that changes things. Romans 8 1 through 3 says, therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ, Jesus the law of the spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin of death. For what the law was powerless to do and that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own son and the likeness of simple man to be sin offering. An old fancy word used there is to be our propitiation. What does that mean to satisfy the wrath of God in our place? The extinguishes it. God's judgment on sin is not just kind of tucked away or stuffed beneath a carpet somewhere in some cosmic reality. It's poured out on Jesus. And so what is given to us in return? The joy, the love that he has for his perfect son, who is the one that was holding righteous is now given to you. That's the kind of mercy that God shows. You know, we also don't just deserve to be judged, but we deserve to be condemned. See, judgment simply implies that, hey, here's the process that you will be evaluated. But the condemnation this text goes on and says, do not condemn. You will not be condemned in verse 37. Especially not that you're going to be put under judgment. It means that your condemnation that you're so deserving of is going to be taken away and given to another. That's God's mercy at display here. Jesus is condemned in our place on the cross instead of us. That's mercy. And that's why believing is seeing the mercy of your father in heaven. Well, secondly, not only is believing seeing the mercy of your father in heaven, but secondly, believing is seeing the father as your teacher. Look at verse 39 through 40. He also told them this parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Well, they not both fall into a pit. A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained would be like his teacher. What's the point here in what Jesus is saying? Jesus is saying you got some choices. You can follow the ways of the world. You can follow other religions. You can follow other leaders. You can follow yourself, but you're the blind leading the blind. And you will fall into a pit. You cannot, it cannot be avoided. But he says instead, follow the teacher. And who's the teacher? God himself. That's the context here. Jesus is talking about the father's mercy and he's talking about the father as the teacher. And specifically through him is teaching and showing us the students how we should live and follow. February 17th, 1865 is probably not a date that stands out in any of your minds, particularly. But if you lived in Columbia, South Carolina, especially if you've grown up there, you probably would be familiar with that date, especially after the past few years at all. You see, it was that day, now centuries ago, where a devastating fire took place in Columbia and 36 blocks, roughly one-third of the entire city burned to the ground. Now, the catastrophe would not have been as great as it was if they had had proper fire equipment, which most of which had been destroyed during the Civil War. But something unique that happened during that time was that New York City, yeah, the Union, part of the country, had heard about the need in the crisis there. And they decided there to begin raising and they actually collected pennies, which of course had a little more value back then that they do now, but they just collected pennies around town to be donated for that, to help send down a fire truck down to Columbia, South Carolina as a way to help out a city who was not just recovering from the Civil War. But now it was recovering from a devastating fire. Many of those fire men who were part of that initiative there were former Union soldiers that were now having compassion on what who had been the enemy there at the Confederates. So anyway, they did that. They raised $5,000, which doesn't sound like a lot of money now, but was a lot of money then to actually send a fire truck down. As they sent it down, actually went down by boat. It actually came into a time of a storm and actually sank. And rather than just stop and say, oh, well, we tried, they went ahead and they raised money again for a second one. And the second one finally did make it down to that history records there that the Confederate colonel Samuel Melton, who was there living in Columbia at the time, he made this promise on behalf of South Carolina. He said, should misfortune ever befall the empire city that they would, they would reciprocate and want to pay them back? Well, as most of you know, it would take some time, but the opportunity came September 11th, 2001, the 9-11 tragedy. And sure enough there, it was the local school school principal that realized that, you know, we had made a pledge some 100 plus years ago that if we ever had the opportunity to retaliate, or reciprocate in a way to help New York City that we would do it, and they remembered that and they began just in their school and then they caught widespread across the state of South Carolina, began collecting pennies themselves. They collected $350,000 worth of pennies to buy a fire truck to contribute back to New York City, although they lost dozens of trucks. It was called the South Carolina remembers. But what was so powerful about that, it's a picture here. It's a picture of seeing that we're New York City at a very difficult time. At a time that no one would expected a union city to have compassion, although it had been a former Confederate city, had compassion and taught and led by example. And the student, South Carolina had a chance to respond, some 100 plus years later in that New York City had been the teacher in South Carolina was this good student. And why is that? Because they had become like their teacher. They had become like their teacher. You see, Jesus is the teacher and he teaches us at least two things this passage shows us. He teaches us how to forgive, which is how he did. And he teaches us how to give, which was like he did. See, through Jesus, God teaches us how to forgive first. Look at verse 37, do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not condemn and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. And forgiveness is God not judging us. Forgiveness is God not condemning us. And instead judging and condemning Jesus in our place. Matthew 6, 12, know your passage because it's the Lord's prayer. Most of us know the part that says forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. That just below that, in verses, a couple verses later, Jesus says, for if you forgive men when they sin against you, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. What's the point? The point is this, to receive the forgiveness of God is to become a forgiver yourself. Let me say that again. To receive the forgiveness of God is to become a forgiver yourself. If you realize what God has forgiven you, it becomes the very seed that springs life and grows into forgiveness in your own heart and life. And to the greater degree that you understand what you have been forgiven from will be the greater power that you have to bestow that same forgiveness towards others. See, that's God. That's Jesus teaching you how to forgive and how does He do it through showing you how you've been forgiven. Let me just say here right now that what this means, because there's many of us maybe here in this room that struggle with forgiveness. And I bet a lot of you here have some very legitimate reasons why you struggle with forgiveness, because of things that you experience, because of wrongs that you've been on the receiving end of. Maybe from people who have no desire to repent or acknowledge or confess at all, but the power is it's not working up your grit and white knuckling it to the point where I'm just going to do it, I'm going to forgive. That's not the way to do it. In fact, there's no power in that. In fact, that won't last. And it won't be legitimate. God saying the power to forgive others is realizing how deeply, how incredibly you have been forgiven. For your own violations, which by the way make any violation you receive here on earth from another human being, look like nothing in comparison to a holy righteous God who created you, who created the world that you live in, who is deserving of complete allegiance and worship 24-7. There's nothing that you can experience that you need to forgive somebody else for here on earth that doesn't pale in comparison to what God has forgiven you for already. That's truth. That's reality. That's sometimes a hard pill to swallow, because it means we have to take a deeper look at who we are in ourselves. And more importantly, we have to take a look at who God is and what He has done for us. Let's see, that changes things. The game is changed at that point. You become a recipient of forgiveness, and their report forgiveness begins to grow inside of you. What Jesus doesn't just teach you how to forgive, according to this text, he teaches you how to do something else. He teaches you how to give, teaches you how to give. Look at verse 38. Give, and it will be given to you, a good measure, press down, shaken together, and running over. It will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, Jesus said. You see, giving is understanding that God gives Jesus to be judged in your place. Giving is understanding that God gives Jesus to be condemned in your place. Matthew 10, 8 says this, freely you have received, so freely give. Acts 20 reminds us in verse 35 that Jesus says, it's more blessed to give than to receive. But don't misunderstand that. It's not saying it begins with giving, it begins with receiving. When you understand that you have received what you have of mercy and grace from God the Father, you understand that the more you become like Him, you're blessed. To be the one giving, to be the one bestowing mercy and grace is you so freely received. That's what changes you. That's what changes the whole game. You see, to be given Jesus as Savior is to become a giver yourself. To be given Jesus as a Savior and to truly understand that, to see that and believe it is to become a giver yourself. You can't receive that gift, that free gift of God and turn around and live a life neglecting giving. It's not possible because to be according to the Scriptures to receive the gift of God. Say, Corinthians 5, 17 says, you become a new creation in Christ. The oldest passed away and the new has come. It changes you. Yours made something into somebody new. Jesus says himself, talking in John chapter 3, he says, you are born again of the Spirit, which is where that terminology comes of being a born again Christian. So sad is not more of an honest description of who we are as a church, that we are truly born again, that we live like different people because we have become different people because we receive the Savior's gift himself. And it changes us into people that want to give. It changes our very DNA with that. A great example of this is in Luke 19 where Jesus is having this encounter with a guy named Zacchaeus. And if you grew up in church, you know the story because it's such a great story, especially if you're a kid, right? You hear about, here's Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a wee little man and wee little man was he. He climbed, Jacob was on a sick and more tree for the Lord. You know the story if you grew up in churches, right? But if you don't know the story, who was Zacchaeus, Zacchaeus was a bad guy. Now you read the story and you think, oh he's a good guy. Now he started off as a bad guy. He was a tax collector. He was a trader. Israel being oppressed and occupied by the Roman Empire would pick people, people not a good report, people of bad report, people that who could be bought to collect taxes from their own citizens, from their own people. And what the incentive, hey, here's what Rome requires. If you want to bring in a little extra for yourself, that's your business. That's between you and God. And so what do they do? Oh they took full advantage of it. Especially by the way, if you're going to be treated as a trader, you might as well get some financial benefit from it. So they would. They would swindle the people. They were some of the richest people in town. And they were looked at as traders. They were looked at as those that had denied their people and who had denied the faith. This is who Zacchaeus is. A swindler, a trader. So I did not have a love and a fear for God. But he was intrigued when a guy named Jesus came by. And so intrigued that he is a rich nobleman in town would climb up into a tree which might be something you do as a kid. But it's not something you do as a rich nobleman to climb up in a tree to see some money passing by. Oh no, no, no, no. You would see if they wanted to come visit you. And then you make a decision when not you're going to have them into your house. Not Zacchaeus. He saw something in this guy, Jesus. Something that began to change who he was on the inside out that made him become a very undignified tax collector. And don't you kid yourself. Do you think Zacchaeus had ever been ridiculed about being short, being small, being kind of a little wimpy little guy? In fact, that may have been part of the same reasons why he chose to be a tax collector. I'm going to get ridiculed in life in general. Why not have some redeeming value to it? Get back at the people around me who called me names as a kid growing up because now they got to pay me or get arrested. You got to see that all of that's at play in the midst of this. Let me read Luke 19, 8 through 9, says this, but Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, this is by the way after Jesus said, hey, I'm going to come to your house. I'm coming to hang out and eat with you Zacchaeus. He said, look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. Jesus said to him, today, salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham. Now, anybody standing nearby in this story, by the way, would have spread like wildfire, to hear that Jesus is saying this guy is a son of Abraham. Everybody in the community would have gone, you are going to be kidding me. This is the epitome of somebody who is not a son of Abraham. But those that were listening would have also heard that, did Zacchaeus say he was going to give half of everything he owned to the poor? And did he say anybody that he had swindled out of money, he was going to pay back not just what he had taken, but four times as appalling as Jesus comment was, everybody would have been like, there is no way. It has never been heard before that a tax collector would do something like that. But it was proof that the tax collector Zacchaeus had understood for the first time that he owed a tax that somebody had paid for him. He understood that Jesus was somebody that was worth following, that was worth laying down his life for. That was worth being undefiled, I mean, worth being defiled by climbing a tree and making yourself look silly as a prominent citizen. That was worth giving it all up to have come staying his house. That's why Jesus says, salvation has come to this house because Zacchaeus, who had been the one that had always been taking what wasn't his, took something that wasn't his. Salvation through Jesus Christ, took Jesus' righteousness, Jesus' life on his behalf, and it changes him. You see Zacchaeus sought forgiveness by paying back four times in the amount he had cheated. Do you see him seeking that? Do you see him becoming a forgiver like he had been forgiven? I mean, there was probably a lot of people that were still mad at Zacchaeus for the years that he'd been doing this. But the thought that he was going to pay back four times restoration in those relationships would have started to happen. If people knew they were going to, they had just been an investment all these years and they weren't how are you going to get four times back. These Zacchaeus is building forgiving relationships with others, seeking their forgiveness from him. Zacchaeus says that he was going to give one half of his possessions to the poor. One after he'd pay back four times what he owed other people that he'd swindled from which he had been swindling all his life as a tax collector. And he was going to give half of what he had left away. There wasn't going to be much else because he wasn't going to be a living for that anymore. He's going to be a living for Christ. It's that forgiveness, it's that giving that's an illustration that Zacchaeus had become a different person. Well, let me just summarize up a few things here and ask you a couple of questions. Have you seen the mercy of the Father in heaven extended through Jesus Christ to yourself personally? I mean, I know you may have heard about it growing up in church if you did. I know you may have heard about it watching something on TV or talking to a Christian friend if you're not a Christian here now. Have you received it personally? Have you understood that his mercy you are in need of and that he offers to give it to you personally? Once you truly see that and receive it, you become a believer. If you believe his mercy and forgiveness that he's given to you, if you receive that and believe that, have you seen the Father as your teacher? That you're a student, that you're his creation, that you've been bought with the price, that you're there for to glorify him with your body and your life and all your resources. Do you follow him as a teacher, modeling your life after his, realizing that God's everything I have is not mine. Even the time I have, you think you've got 75, 78 years here on earth. If you're not having some kind of disease right now, we all think that, right? But the reality is that you may not have longer than this week. We never know when God's going to call us home. But understanding that all we have is his anyway, changes how you live. Understanding the financial resources God's given you. They're not yours. And if God does take you home this week, which Lord forbid, I don't wish that on anybody. Somebody else is going to get those financial resources and they're not yours. They're yours on the loan. And by the way, they're not whoever's going to inherit them, they're God's freely given as you freely receive, so freely give. God's quite capable of caring for his children. He does it the best. You see, teaching you how to forgive is what Jesus in the business of doing. But has that empowered you to be a forgiver? See, Jesus teaches you how to give. My question is, is that empowered you to learn how to be a giver like He has been? He is the Father of mercy. He is the teacher. And He invites us to be His students and His recipients of His mercy and grace. Let's pray. Father, just ask that you would do just that for us this morning. God, that you would teach us by your Holy Spirit, that you remind us of the grace that we have, and the mercy that we have received, so freely from you. And God, would you now do a transformational work in our hearts? God, as we understand, is how deeply we've been forgiven, and will you make us more and more forgivers like Jesus. God will be understanding just how richly you've given to us. Will you transform us into being givers just like Jesus? So follow, we know that cannot happen without the work of your Holy Spirit, so we invite you now to come and to do that. And Father, for those that might be sitting here right now this morning, then know that they have not yielded their life to you. Oh, they might have played religious games. They might have done a lot of religious stuff. But they know sitting here right now that they haven't yielded their life and controlled to you. God, would you draw their hearts to you? Would you give them the faith to simply reach out and say, God, I need your mercy. I need your grace. And as they confess their sins, God, would you remind them that they can be forgiven as they trust in you, that they can be all placed on Jesus. And that Jesus' righteousness will be given to them if they do that. So God will you bring salvation today, like the day you did it was that he is hearing this place. And for God who are those who are followers of you who are struggling, who are feeling condemnation for the ongoing pressures of life, wondering whether or not they've really measured up. Would you let them be assured this morning that as they repent of their sins, as they confess those, as they turn away from those, that your promise is a forgiveness are very real. And you promise they'll be confessed to our sins. You're faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We draw hearts, God, to you in doing that, and we transform us to being forgivers and being givers as you are. For your glory and for your honor, and we pray this in Christ's name. Amen.