Just last week, my wife and I were driving home from school.
We were at the stoplight on rainbow and blue diamond.
My wife looks at me and she says, you're gonna laugh.
But has that brown water tower on blue diamond always been out there?
I said, at least for the three and a half years we've lived in Vegas.
Yes, it has. It's been there.
Why did she miss it? Why do we miss the moon walking bear?
We don't have the attention span, the attention processing power
to consume all that information and make sense of it.
So our mind just becomes blind to parts of it.
I don't know about you, but I find myself saying phrases like,
why didn't I see that? Inattentional blindness.
Inattentional blindness.
I don't know about you, but I find in my life,
oftentimes Jesus is like that moon walking bear.
That in my day to day life, I'm inattentionally blind to his presence.
Days go by and I just don't see him.
I don't connect with him. I don't realize he's there.
I have a lot of things I have to juggle in my life and I know you do as well.
A lot of moving parts in our lives.
It's easy for Jesus to pass by and we're inattentionally blind to his presence.
This morning I want to share with you three common distractions,
three common distractions that result in inattentional blindness.
All from the story of that wee little man Zacchaeus.
We're going to be in Luke chapter 19 today, Luke chapter 19, the story of Zacchaeus.
The scripture says that Jesus then entered and passed through Jericho.
Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector
and he was rich.
The first and most common distraction that affects us every day and keeps us
blind to the presence of Jesus in our lives is the pursuit of riches.
The pursuit of riches. Maybe better put as the
necessary pursuit of riches. You see, we're not told a lot about
Zacchaeus but there's two things we are told that should make us stop and
question who this man is. First we're told his name is
Zacchaeus and that's a Jewish name. Second we're told that he's a chief
tax collector. That should also get our attention.
It should make us ask the question, what would make a Jewish man
turn his back on his faith, on his culture, on his community, on his friends, on
his family to pursue this occupation to the level
that he's the chief over the region? What would make him do that?
In a word, I think money, but I think we can be more nuanced than that today.
Perhaps maybe we would be better put as the
the desire to survive in a hard world with few opportunities.
Maybe it's just the hunger to thrive financially,
to live a little better and suffer a lot less than his parents.
I don't, I think Zacchaeus is just a pragmatic man who made one pragmatic
choice after another and then one day in the city of Jericho
looked up and realized how far away he was from God,
how alone he was. You see, at the time that Zacchaeus would have been making his
decision about this career at least 30 years ago,
massive tax reform had swept the Roman Empire.
We read about it in Luke chapter two, the Christmas story begins
within the days of Caesar Augustus there went out a decree that all the world
should be taxed and a census would be taken.
Now we read that in this mundane information, no it's not.
This represents a radical shift in the Roman Empire.
Caesar Augustus is the second Caesar and the first to realize that with the one
big stone of tax reform he can kill three
political birds. The first one is he can
fund his standing army thereby allowing him number two
to neuter the power of the Senate, allowing him number three also
to pacify the provinces. Judea is a Roman province.
You see the the previous tax system under the Senate which went on for hundreds
of years was called tax farming and it was
it's hard to describe how corrupt and terrible it was.
The best way I've thought to describe it has been it's like if the IRS and the
mafia were the same thing. It's really bad.
The Roman government would basically say to these associations of tax collectors
whoever bids highest, meaning bids high, the highest bidder gets the right to
glean revenue from these provinces. The highest bidder.
So there we go in and associations get together and they they bid a high number
and then they had to glean that from the people.
It was a vicious system but when Zacchaeus was making his choice
Augustus had just changed all that. He brought tax reform. He was cleaning up
the the business. There was now a third party imperial task force
that was a check on all tax collector associations.
It's that rates that they could maximum rates they could charge people.
All this stuff was coming in. There was a new law pass that Zacchaeus even
mentions in our passage where if a tax collector is caught extorting money from
someone they have to pay four times that amount back to that person.
It would have been easy for a pragmatic man to slowly rationalize his way into
that career field and then look up one day and say
how did I miscalculate this so bad? Here I am with all my riches and no
one. The ancient historians tell us that the
only friend of a tax collector was another tax collector
and they describe them as the wolves and bears of humanity.
And there's Zacchaeus. Now year by year day by day he never planned to stop going
to synagogue not initially. He just he just didn't want to be as
poor as he used to be. He never planned to never go to Shabbat
on the weekend with his family and with his friends.
He never planned to watch the pilgrims every year come through Jericho
up to Jerusalem for for Passover without him.
That wasn't his initial plan. How had he miscalculated this so wrongly
because the Talmudic law said tax collectors were considered robbers
and there was no redemption?
What was he going to do? He would easily happily give up half of his wealth
for just one person that would love him and be with him now
and that's exactly what he does.
Money demands our attention. The pursuit of riches is required
to survive life. We all have to do this. We all have to engage in this in some
way. It's the necessary pursuit of riches. I don't think anyone here is
possessed by a vicious greedy spirit
but I do think we're often very distracted
by the constant grind to get more riches. I thought about
citing a bunch of depressing labor statistics to you to try and drive this
point home but I don't think our souls need that much convincing.
I think that daily guilty thought in the back of our mind that we say to God,
I'm sorry I don't have time for you this morning.
I just I got to get out the house. There's things to be done.
I just don't have time to read today. Help us as we travel. Keep us safe on the
roads. Another guilty thought comes back
again at the end of the day. Oh God. I just got the kids to bed. I need
to try and at least clean something up in this house
and not just like my boss is still texting me and emailing me.
I'm just too tired. I don't have the brain capacity to study the Bible and
pray right now. Sorry I'll try again tomorrow.
And that guilty pattern goes around and around and around until we stop thinking
it all together because it just hurts too much
and we're too embarrassed and ashamed.
If we're going to push back on this distraction, which is
occluding our vision, resulting in inattentional blindness to the presence
of Jesus in our lives, we need to make two perspective shifts.
Two perspective shifts that will help you push back on the necessary pursuit of
riches which distracts us from seeing Jesus.
Perspective shift number one. Perspective shift number one.
Time with Jesus, daily time with Jesus, is not about deep
Bible study. It is not about passionate prayers for the
souls of men. That's not what daily time with Jesus is about.
Daily time with Jesus is much more about
leaning in and lingering for a second or two
in the warm embrace of a loved one. That's what daily time with Jesus is
really about. It's about taking that moment and the
chaos around us. We've all done it. You meet up with a friend at a coffee
shop. There's all the noise in the coffee shop and as you're saying goodbye,
you lean in and for that second all the noise is just kind of drowned out
and you breathe. Hey we've all been there at the end of a
kid's birthday party. We're trying to get out the house.
It's chaos but you lean into that hug with that friend
and it gets you through the day.
That's what daily time with Jesus is really like and making that perspective
shift allows us to make the second perspective shift which is this.
Daily time with Jesus does not require extended amounts of
tranquil time. Daily time with Jesus does not require
15, 20, 30 minutes of tranquil peaceful time along with Jesus in quiet.
It does not require that. It doesn't because it's just leaning into that
embrace in the midst of the chaos around us.
That's what daily time with Jesus is about.
This changes our lives. Suddenly that 15 minutes that maybe he's turning into
20 minutes we've been stuck in the Starbucks drive-thru,
turn the podcast off, turn the music off, give your attention to him.
That's your time to lean into the hug.
When you're sitting in the school pickup lane and all the other parents are going
crazy and cutting in front of you, let them cut in front of you,
relax and give Jesus your attention and just lean into that embrace so that
your soul is ministered to you. That's what daily time with Jesus is about.
But in the hustle culture we often forget that.
Or often, often or often and not for you and I, those little times that we have
to lean into the hug, well that's that's taken up with a podcast or music.
Well I mean good things, Christian music often, Christian podcast,
a sermon perhaps.
But I want to push back on even that habit as good as it is a little bit today.
Because I believe the second distraction which makes us
inattentionally blind to the presence of Jesus in our daily lives
is the practice of religion. The practice of religion.
Jericho was the second most populated city outside of Jerusalem in
this time period of Zacchaeus for priestly families to live in.
You know when the story of the Good Samaritan and talks about the Levi and
the priest coming down to Jericho? That would have been a normal thing
because a lot of them lived there. They'd serve them temple, they'd travel back home.
And yet when Jesus comes to the city of Jericho here,
he needs a place to stay overnight and he doesn't ask
any of these pious families. Some historians estimate 12,000 priestly
families living in Jericho. It's hard for me to believe that they're all
just corrupt, horrible religious people. I think a lot of them were really
sincere. They've been raised their whole like this is how you love God,
this is how you show God. And so that's what they did.
Not any malice, that's just that's what they knew.
They were honestly trying their hardest. Why didn't God go to any of them?
Why did he go to Zacchaeus instead? Zacchaeus was unencumbered by the practice
of religion and could actually see him for who he was and spend time with him.
You see Luke is doing some things here that we tend to forget about when we
read the story of Zacchaeus. Often because we our bibles are broken into
chapters, we leave, we end one chapter, we go all right new chapter of the book,
let's continue the story. And we forget everything that just happened in
chapter 18. We can't do this with Zacchaeus's story.
Remember last week Pastor Josh talked about juxtaposition, how
Luke is contrasting the disciples who are blind to who Jesus is,
with the blind man who can see who Jesus is? Luke is still doing that kind of
thing with the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus culminates the application
of almost all the teaching of chapter 18. Think about this parallel. In chapter
18 there was the rich young lawyer who came to Jesus.
An honorable profession. He was wealthy because of his honorable profession,
but the pursuit of riches blinded him to see Jesus and he walked away
sorrowful. Contrast that to Zacchaeus. But there's
another person that we should be contrasting with Zacchaeus that Luke
wants us to make a connection with. And it's from the parable in chapter 18
of that that self-righteous Pharisee and the humble tax collector.
Do you remember it? Pastor Josh preached it like two weeks ago.
Do you remember? It starts, the story starts with Pastor Josh's
high mocking tone and British accent. As the Pharisee gets up to pray,
I'm telling you after three years of his preaching all the Pharisees sound the
same. They have the same voice actor. Every time I read them I'm like oh
that's what they sound like. But look what he says. Let's look at it real quick.
If we look back at it, the Bible says the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with
himself. God I thank you that I am not like other
man extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast
twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.
This guy is so hung up on all the religious practices.
He doesn't even realize that in his prayer the presence of God is absent.
Oh believer, I've been there. I've been there.
So consumed in my life with the practice of all the religious things that I have
to do, that I miss like Samson in the Old Testament,
the presence of God has left me. He's not there.
Zacchaeus, why does Jesus go to his house instead of all these pious people?
Because he wasn't religious. He was relational.
He wasn't religious. He was relational.
A while back a young man came to me for some pastoral counseling. That's
something that I do here. Every Wednesday I've got time set aside to
meet with kids after school for counseling and things. But also on
Fridays you'll see my QR code up there and all that stuff. And we can meet and I
do pastoral, marriage, premarital counseling, all that stuff.
I'd love to talk to you sometime if you need. But I met with this young man a
little while ago and he, like me, had grown up in church.
Doing all the church things, born and raised, knew all the stories, knew all
the right practices. We had a problem and it was that
in his daily time with the Lord he didn't feel like he was connecting with him.
When he came to church just this worshipful spirit and he just felt close
to God but at home he just wasn't feeling it.
He wanted me to help problem solve that for him. So I asked him, I said, well
tell me about your your time with the Lord every day. He's like, I don't miss it. I
do it every day. I'm telling you the truth. I do it every day. I've got my
reading plan that I'm doing and I work through my reading plan.
And after I've read my chapters then I go to prayer and I've got a prayer list
that I've made and I pray for some of my needs but I
always make sure I confess my sins and I praise God a little bit and thank Him
for some things. And then I pray for my family, some co-workers who are unsaved.
And then I try my church prayer list. I try to pray for some of the needs on
there. I usually can't get to all of them because I want to pray for some
missionaries too. So I try at least to throw in one missionary or two and pray for them.
I find myself on repeat saying, been there, been there, been there.
There's a lot of checkboxes in that time and he described his time as this,
my daily devotions. That's the word he used. That's the word I grew up using,
devotions. I understand it's a good word. But I recommended for him a perspective
change. I said this next week I want you to try and change your perspective on
this time with God. So I don't want you to use the word
devotion, whether thinking about it or saying it out loud as it relates to
your time with Jesus. Because this time is not a burden of
devotion you bear before God every day. That's not what this time with Jesus,
daily time with Jesus, is not about that. So don't use that word anymore. Find
another one. Communion with the Lord. Quiet time with him. Just find another phrase
because you're trying to change your perspective.
Then I said I want you to get rid of your, at least for this week, get rid of your
reading plan. Once you open your Bible and read it until you just feel like
stopping. And then do you know the songs? I want you
to make a playlist of songs. Do you know the ones that just hit every time you
listen to it? Oh, Run to the Father is one of those
songs for me. Almost anything on Charity Gale's new album,
Endless Praise, just hit. Make a playlist of those songs.
And I want you to put your headphones on and I want you to pray
those songs to God. And see what happens after that.
The only words you need to say other than the words of the songs are
Jesus, I miss you. Things like that. And just see
where the Spirit leads you from there.
We'll meet up next week and let's see how that works. That was what I prescribed
for him to try. The next week we met up,
his posture was lighter. There's a smile on his face and he said,
my whole perspective has changed.
God challenged my perspective recently through a book I was reading
called Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Stanton,
a wonderful pastor and author. If you want to grow in your prayer, knowledge,
and ability, this is the book to get. This is the one you should get.
Ignore the other ones. This is the one. It's really, really good.
It balances perfectly practical application and rich theological truth.
But in it near the end he says that the greatest illustration of prayer Jesus
gave is the one he lived. The infinite other, the Alpha and Omega,
the holy and infallible welcomes us to his table.
He does not simply tolerate our company or benevolently
entertain our requests. He affirms our person,
chooses our company and delights in our presence.
We come for gifts. We get the giver. And we find ourselves seated at his table,
welcomed, accepted, loved, being fed, being listened to, relaxing in the warm
presence of the loving God. From my personal experience,
I've learned that my daily time with Jesus is not about religious practices.
No boxes for me to take out. It's a relational hug.
It's the end of the day. Yes, the kids are in bed and I don't have brain power
to study the Bible. But I do have time to make a cup of
tea and sit across the table
and just say, what a day. God, I missed you today.
How have you been? Here's how I've been. And just to relate with him like that,
the practice of religion is often a thing which distracts us
from actually seeing Jesus in our daily lives. We become
inattentionally blind because our attention's concerned with
doing the right things and not doing the wrong things
and getting all the right boxes ticked. Daily time with Jesus is not about
ticking the boxes. There's only one to tick and it's spending time with him.
Perspective really does make a difference. Our perspective on our daily
time with Jesus, how we expect him to be with us, makes a huge difference. So much
though that the last distraction, the last
distraction is the perspective of adulthood.
The last most common distraction which causes
inattentional blindness to the presence of Jesus in our daily lives
is the perspective of adulthood. Kids are infamous for short attention spans,
but nothing can kill your relationship with Jesus
like the perspective of adulthood.
We're going to read and finish that kiosk story here in just a second.
But before I do, I want you to remember one more thing from chapter 18.
One more thing from chapter 18. Let me read it for you.
Luke 18, 16, 17, but Jesus called them to him
and said, let the little children come to me. Do not forbid them, for of such is
the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever
does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,
will by no means enter it.
Now, let's finish that kiosk story. And he sought to see who Jesus was,
but he could not because of the crowd, for he was too short of stature.
So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree to see him,
for he was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked
up and saw him and said to him, Zach, kios, make haste come down.
For today I must stay at your house. So he made haste and he came down
and joyfully received him. Do you see the childlike enthusiasm in
Zach Kiosk? He's heard of Jesus and now he hears Jesus
has come to Jericho on his way up to Jerusalem for Passover.
He's heard about Jesus. Oh yeah, the miracles and the teachings and that
stuff, but that he doesn't care about that. He cares about the stuff. His heart
is suspicious. It's just a smear attempt from the religious
elites that Jesus spends time with tax collectors,
with publicans and sinners, that he even lets them become his disciples.
And so he just runs out of the house, no plan, and finds himself behind a wall
of adults that he can't see over. So what does he do? Like a child, he
runs up the road, climbs up a tree. His adult
dignity forgotten. His insecurity over his height
washed away under the weight of his anticipation, his childlike excitement
that Jesus is coming this way and I get to see him.
And maybe he'd stay with me like I've heard,
like I've hoped.
The year was 2001. My dad had accepted the pastorate of a small church outside of
Aviano Air Force Base in Italy. So we packed up everything we had,
went to the Atlanta airport. My Nana and Papa met us there
and they wave goodbye. We flew to Italy.
As a nine-year-old, I didn't fully understand what waving goodbye like that
meant. You see, we always went to Nana and Papa's
house for Christmas. We'd pack up everything in the van,
drive down to Florida, sleep on the pull-out couches. They had like three of
them. The real Christmas tree there. We watched
the Christmas story. Nana hated Jimmy Stewart, so we never watched that movie.
That was Christmas. But for the next three years, Christmas was
presents in the mail. And Skype wasn't invented until 2003,
and we certainly didn't have the technology to use it until 2008.
So we literally didn't even see their faces. It was just a phone call on
Christmas Day.
Until 2004.
I can still see the yellow light that would flash on our gate as the gate to our
driveway closed behind our terrible gray minivan.
Dad was headed to the Venice airport because Nana and Papa were coming to see
me for Christmas. All the way from America to see me.
I sat out that window and watched and watched and watched.
Our poor mother, she's trying to get the house ready because her mother-in-law
is coming over for the first time in three years.
And here I am, useless child stuck against the window.
No bribe she could make, no threat she could level, could tear me away from
that window for more than a minute or two.
And then it happened. The minutes began to feel like seconds.
And that yellow light flashed. And that gate began to swing open.
And the scream ran through the house, they're here, they're here.
And I was out that door, still in my socks, through the door, open so hard it
almost broke the glass in the door. Into the arms of Nana and Papa for the
first time in three years. They still felt like Nana and Papa.
A little bit fragile but strong. They still smelled like Nana and Papa.
And they were here to spend Christmas with me.
That's the perspective of the child of the kingdom.
That's the childlike perspective that enters the kingdom.
Jesus is coming to your house today. Don't you feel excited about it anymore?
The child of the kingdom only has eyes for the window.
The adult perspective says there's things that must be done.
You should be busy right now.
You should be doing something productive.
But the child only has eyes for the window to look for the slightest sign of his coming.
To look for the sign of his coming.
Have you lost your childlike anticipation to see Jesus?
That window watching, tree climbing enthusiasm?
He's coming to see you every day. He's searching for you.
Are you inattentionally blind to his presence there?
He is searching for you. The scripture promises that from beginning to end.
Zacchaeus, he got to have Jesus stay at his house.
Because for the first time in a long time, he was not distracted by the pursuit of riches.
He had been distracted by the practice of religion for a long time.
And he was no longer inhibited by the perspective of adulthood.
He was just happy to have Jesus at his house.
Jesus is searching for you.
And if we're not careful, he'll be like that moonwalking bear.
He'll pass through our lives and we won't even notice it.
And one day we'll look up and say, where have you been?
Or why have I seen him?
It might just be that we're inattentionally blind.
Because we know for a fact that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.
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Have a great week. Peace.