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Just last week, my wife and I were driving home from school.

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We were at the stoplight on rainbow and blue diamond.

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My wife looks at me and she says, you're gonna laugh.

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But has that brown water tower on blue diamond always been out there?

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I said, at least for the three and a half years we've lived in Vegas.

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Yes, it has. It's been there.

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Why did she miss it? Why do we miss the moon walking bear?

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We don't have the attention span, the attention processing power

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to consume all that information and make sense of it.

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So our mind just becomes blind to parts of it.

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I don't know about you, but I find myself saying phrases like,

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why didn't I see that? Inattentional blindness.

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Inattentional blindness.

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I don't know about you, but I find in my life,

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oftentimes Jesus is like that moon walking bear.

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That in my day to day life, I'm inattentionally blind to his presence.

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Days go by and I just don't see him.

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I don't connect with him. I don't realize he's there.

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I have a lot of things I have to juggle in my life and I know you do as well.

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A lot of moving parts in our lives.

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It's easy for Jesus to pass by and we're inattentionally blind to his presence.

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This morning I want to share with you three common distractions,

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three common distractions that result in inattentional blindness.

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All from the story of that wee little man Zacchaeus.

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We're going to be in Luke chapter 19 today, Luke chapter 19, the story of Zacchaeus.

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The scripture says that Jesus then entered and passed through Jericho.

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Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector

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and he was rich.

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The first and most common distraction that affects us every day and keeps us

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blind to the presence of Jesus in our lives is the pursuit of riches.

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The pursuit of riches. Maybe better put as the

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necessary pursuit of riches. You see, we're not told a lot about

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Zacchaeus but there's two things we are told that should make us stop and

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question who this man is. First we're told his name is

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Zacchaeus and that's a Jewish name. Second we're told that he's a chief

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tax collector. That should also get our attention.

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It should make us ask the question, what would make a Jewish man

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turn his back on his faith, on his culture, on his community, on his friends, on

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his family to pursue this occupation to the level

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that he's the chief over the region? What would make him do that?

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In a word, I think money, but I think we can be more nuanced than that today.

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Perhaps maybe we would be better put as the

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the desire to survive in a hard world with few opportunities.

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Maybe it's just the hunger to thrive financially,

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to live a little better and suffer a lot less than his parents.

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I don't, I think Zacchaeus is just a pragmatic man who made one pragmatic

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choice after another and then one day in the city of Jericho

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looked up and realized how far away he was from God,

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how alone he was. You see, at the time that Zacchaeus would have been making his

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decision about this career at least 30 years ago,

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massive tax reform had swept the Roman Empire.

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We read about it in Luke chapter two, the Christmas story begins

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within the days of Caesar Augustus there went out a decree that all the world

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should be taxed and a census would be taken.

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Now we read that in this mundane information, no it's not.

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This represents a radical shift in the Roman Empire.

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Caesar Augustus is the second Caesar and the first to realize that with the one

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big stone of tax reform he can kill three

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political birds. The first one is he can

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fund his standing army thereby allowing him number two

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to neuter the power of the Senate, allowing him number three also

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to pacify the provinces. Judea is a Roman province.

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You see the the previous tax system under the Senate which went on for hundreds

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of years was called tax farming and it was

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it's hard to describe how corrupt and terrible it was.

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The best way I've thought to describe it has been it's like if the IRS and the

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mafia were the same thing. It's really bad.

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The Roman government would basically say to these associations of tax collectors

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whoever bids highest, meaning bids high, the highest bidder gets the right to

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glean revenue from these provinces. The highest bidder.

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So there we go in and associations get together and they they bid a high number

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and then they had to glean that from the people.

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It was a vicious system but when Zacchaeus was making his choice

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Augustus had just changed all that. He brought tax reform. He was cleaning up

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the the business. There was now a third party imperial task force

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that was a check on all tax collector associations.

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It's that rates that they could maximum rates they could charge people.

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All this stuff was coming in. There was a new law pass that Zacchaeus even

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mentions in our passage where if a tax collector is caught extorting money from

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someone they have to pay four times that amount back to that person.

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It would have been easy for a pragmatic man to slowly rationalize his way into

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that career field and then look up one day and say

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how did I miscalculate this so bad? Here I am with all my riches and no

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one. The ancient historians tell us that the

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only friend of a tax collector was another tax collector

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and they describe them as the wolves and bears of humanity.

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And there's Zacchaeus. Now year by year day by day he never planned to stop going

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to synagogue not initially. He just he just didn't want to be as

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poor as he used to be. He never planned to never go to Shabbat

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on the weekend with his family and with his friends.

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He never planned to watch the pilgrims every year come through Jericho

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up to Jerusalem for for Passover without him.

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That wasn't his initial plan. How had he miscalculated this so wrongly

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because the Talmudic law said tax collectors were considered robbers

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and there was no redemption?

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What was he going to do? He would easily happily give up half of his wealth

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for just one person that would love him and be with him now

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and that's exactly what he does.

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Money demands our attention. The pursuit of riches is required

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to survive life. We all have to do this. We all have to engage in this in some

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way. It's the necessary pursuit of riches. I don't think anyone here is

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possessed by a vicious greedy spirit

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but I do think we're often very distracted

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by the constant grind to get more riches. I thought about

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citing a bunch of depressing labor statistics to you to try and drive this

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point home but I don't think our souls need that much convincing.

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I think that daily guilty thought in the back of our mind that we say to God,

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I'm sorry I don't have time for you this morning.

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I just I got to get out the house. There's things to be done.

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I just don't have time to read today. Help us as we travel. Keep us safe on the

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roads. Another guilty thought comes back

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again at the end of the day. Oh God. I just got the kids to bed. I need

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to try and at least clean something up in this house

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and not just like my boss is still texting me and emailing me.

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I'm just too tired. I don't have the brain capacity to study the Bible and

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pray right now. Sorry I'll try again tomorrow.

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And that guilty pattern goes around and around and around until we stop thinking

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it all together because it just hurts too much

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and we're too embarrassed and ashamed.

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If we're going to push back on this distraction, which is

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occluding our vision, resulting in inattentional blindness to the presence

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of Jesus in our lives, we need to make two perspective shifts.

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Two perspective shifts that will help you push back on the necessary pursuit of

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riches which distracts us from seeing Jesus.

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Perspective shift number one. Perspective shift number one.

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Time with Jesus, daily time with Jesus, is not about deep

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Bible study. It is not about passionate prayers for the

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souls of men. That's not what daily time with Jesus is about.

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Daily time with Jesus is much more about

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leaning in and lingering for a second or two

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in the warm embrace of a loved one. That's what daily time with Jesus is

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really about. It's about taking that moment and the

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chaos around us. We've all done it. You meet up with a friend at a coffee

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shop. There's all the noise in the coffee shop and as you're saying goodbye,

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you lean in and for that second all the noise is just kind of drowned out

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and you breathe. Hey we've all been there at the end of a

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kid's birthday party. We're trying to get out the house.

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It's chaos but you lean into that hug with that friend

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and it gets you through the day.

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That's what daily time with Jesus is really like and making that perspective

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shift allows us to make the second perspective shift which is this.

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Daily time with Jesus does not require extended amounts of

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tranquil time. Daily time with Jesus does not require

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15, 20, 30 minutes of tranquil peaceful time along with Jesus in quiet.

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It does not require that. It doesn't because it's just leaning into that

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embrace in the midst of the chaos around us.

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That's what daily time with Jesus is about.

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This changes our lives. Suddenly that 15 minutes that maybe he's turning into

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20 minutes we've been stuck in the Starbucks drive-thru,

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turn the podcast off, turn the music off, give your attention to him.

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That's your time to lean into the hug.

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When you're sitting in the school pickup lane and all the other parents are going

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crazy and cutting in front of you, let them cut in front of you,

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relax and give Jesus your attention and just lean into that embrace so that

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your soul is ministered to you. That's what daily time with Jesus is about.

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But in the hustle culture we often forget that.

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Or often, often or often and not for you and I, those little times that we have

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to lean into the hug, well that's that's taken up with a podcast or music.

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Well I mean good things, Christian music often, Christian podcast,

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a sermon perhaps.

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But I want to push back on even that habit as good as it is a little bit today.

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Because I believe the second distraction which makes us

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inattentionally blind to the presence of Jesus in our daily lives

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is the practice of religion. The practice of religion.

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Jericho was the second most populated city outside of Jerusalem in

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this time period of Zacchaeus for priestly families to live in.

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You know when the story of the Good Samaritan and talks about the Levi and

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the priest coming down to Jericho? That would have been a normal thing

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because a lot of them lived there. They'd serve them temple, they'd travel back home.

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And yet when Jesus comes to the city of Jericho here,

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he needs a place to stay overnight and he doesn't ask

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any of these pious families. Some historians estimate 12,000 priestly

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families living in Jericho. It's hard for me to believe that they're all

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just corrupt, horrible religious people. I think a lot of them were really

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sincere. They've been raised their whole like this is how you love God,

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this is how you show God. And so that's what they did.

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Not any malice, that's just that's what they knew.

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They were honestly trying their hardest. Why didn't God go to any of them?

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Why did he go to Zacchaeus instead? Zacchaeus was unencumbered by the practice

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of religion and could actually see him for who he was and spend time with him.

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You see Luke is doing some things here that we tend to forget about when we

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read the story of Zacchaeus. Often because we our bibles are broken into

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chapters, we leave, we end one chapter, we go all right new chapter of the book,

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let's continue the story. And we forget everything that just happened in

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chapter 18. We can't do this with Zacchaeus's story.

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Remember last week Pastor Josh talked about juxtaposition, how

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Luke is contrasting the disciples who are blind to who Jesus is,

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with the blind man who can see who Jesus is? Luke is still doing that kind of

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thing with the story of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus culminates the application

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of almost all the teaching of chapter 18. Think about this parallel. In chapter

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18 there was the rich young lawyer who came to Jesus.

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An honorable profession. He was wealthy because of his honorable profession,

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but the pursuit of riches blinded him to see Jesus and he walked away

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sorrowful. Contrast that to Zacchaeus. But there's

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another person that we should be contrasting with Zacchaeus that Luke

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wants us to make a connection with. And it's from the parable in chapter 18

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of that that self-righteous Pharisee and the humble tax collector.

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Do you remember it? Pastor Josh preached it like two weeks ago.

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Do you remember? It starts, the story starts with Pastor Josh's

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high mocking tone and British accent. As the Pharisee gets up to pray,

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I'm telling you after three years of his preaching all the Pharisees sound the

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same. They have the same voice actor. Every time I read them I'm like oh

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that's what they sound like. But look what he says. Let's look at it real quick.

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If we look back at it, the Bible says the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with

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himself. God I thank you that I am not like other

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man extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast

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twice a week. I give tithes of all that I possess.

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This guy is so hung up on all the religious practices.

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He doesn't even realize that in his prayer the presence of God is absent.

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Oh believer, I've been there. I've been there.

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So consumed in my life with the practice of all the religious things that I have

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to do, that I miss like Samson in the Old Testament,

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the presence of God has left me. He's not there.

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Zacchaeus, why does Jesus go to his house instead of all these pious people?

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Because he wasn't religious. He was relational.

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He wasn't religious. He was relational.

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A while back a young man came to me for some pastoral counseling. That's

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something that I do here. Every Wednesday I've got time set aside to

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meet with kids after school for counseling and things. But also on

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Fridays you'll see my QR code up there and all that stuff. And we can meet and I

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do pastoral, marriage, premarital counseling, all that stuff.

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I'd love to talk to you sometime if you need. But I met with this young man a

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little while ago and he, like me, had grown up in church.

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Doing all the church things, born and raised, knew all the stories, knew all

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the right practices. We had a problem and it was that

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in his daily time with the Lord he didn't feel like he was connecting with him.

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When he came to church just this worshipful spirit and he just felt close

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to God but at home he just wasn't feeling it.

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He wanted me to help problem solve that for him. So I asked him, I said, well

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tell me about your your time with the Lord every day. He's like, I don't miss it. I

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do it every day. I'm telling you the truth. I do it every day. I've got my

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reading plan that I'm doing and I work through my reading plan.

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And after I've read my chapters then I go to prayer and I've got a prayer list

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that I've made and I pray for some of my needs but I

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always make sure I confess my sins and I praise God a little bit and thank Him

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for some things. And then I pray for my family, some co-workers who are unsaved.

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And then I try my church prayer list. I try to pray for some of the needs on

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there. I usually can't get to all of them because I want to pray for some

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missionaries too. So I try at least to throw in one missionary or two and pray for them.

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I find myself on repeat saying, been there, been there, been there.

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There's a lot of checkboxes in that time and he described his time as this,

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my daily devotions. That's the word he used. That's the word I grew up using,

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devotions. I understand it's a good word. But I recommended for him a perspective

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change. I said this next week I want you to try and change your perspective on

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this time with God. So I don't want you to use the word

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devotion, whether thinking about it or saying it out loud as it relates to

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your time with Jesus. Because this time is not a burden of

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devotion you bear before God every day. That's not what this time with Jesus,

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daily time with Jesus, is not about that. So don't use that word anymore. Find

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another one. Communion with the Lord. Quiet time with him. Just find another phrase

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because you're trying to change your perspective.

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Then I said I want you to get rid of your, at least for this week, get rid of your

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reading plan. Once you open your Bible and read it until you just feel like

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stopping. And then do you know the songs? I want you

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to make a playlist of songs. Do you know the ones that just hit every time you

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listen to it? Oh, Run to the Father is one of those

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songs for me. Almost anything on Charity Gale's new album,

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Endless Praise, just hit. Make a playlist of those songs.

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And I want you to put your headphones on and I want you to pray

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those songs to God. And see what happens after that.

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The only words you need to say other than the words of the songs are

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Jesus, I miss you. Things like that. And just see

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where the Spirit leads you from there.

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We'll meet up next week and let's see how that works. That was what I prescribed

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for him to try. The next week we met up,

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his posture was lighter. There's a smile on his face and he said,

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my whole perspective has changed.

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God challenged my perspective recently through a book I was reading

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called Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools by Tyler Stanton,

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a wonderful pastor and author. If you want to grow in your prayer, knowledge,

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and ability, this is the book to get. This is the one you should get.

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Ignore the other ones. This is the one. It's really, really good.

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It balances perfectly practical application and rich theological truth.

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But in it near the end he says that the greatest illustration of prayer Jesus

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gave is the one he lived. The infinite other, the Alpha and Omega,

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the holy and infallible welcomes us to his table.

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He does not simply tolerate our company or benevolently

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entertain our requests. He affirms our person,

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chooses our company and delights in our presence.

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We come for gifts. We get the giver. And we find ourselves seated at his table,

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welcomed, accepted, loved, being fed, being listened to, relaxing in the warm

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presence of the loving God. From my personal experience,

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I've learned that my daily time with Jesus is not about religious practices.

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No boxes for me to take out. It's a relational hug.

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It's the end of the day. Yes, the kids are in bed and I don't have brain power

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to study the Bible. But I do have time to make a cup of

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tea and sit across the table

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and just say, what a day. God, I missed you today.

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How have you been? Here's how I've been. And just to relate with him like that,

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the practice of religion is often a thing which distracts us

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from actually seeing Jesus in our daily lives. We become

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inattentionally blind because our attention's concerned with

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doing the right things and not doing the wrong things

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and getting all the right boxes ticked. Daily time with Jesus is not about

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ticking the boxes. There's only one to tick and it's spending time with him.

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Perspective really does make a difference. Our perspective on our daily

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time with Jesus, how we expect him to be with us, makes a huge difference. So much

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though that the last distraction, the last

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distraction is the perspective of adulthood.

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The last most common distraction which causes

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inattentional blindness to the presence of Jesus in our daily lives

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is the perspective of adulthood. Kids are infamous for short attention spans,

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but nothing can kill your relationship with Jesus

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like the perspective of adulthood.

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We're going to read and finish that kiosk story here in just a second.

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But before I do, I want you to remember one more thing from chapter 18.

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One more thing from chapter 18. Let me read it for you.

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Luke 18, 16, 17, but Jesus called them to him

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and said, let the little children come to me. Do not forbid them, for of such is

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the kingdom of God. Assuredly I say to you, whoever

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does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child,

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will by no means enter it.

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Now, let's finish that kiosk story. And he sought to see who Jesus was,

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but he could not because of the crowd, for he was too short of stature.

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So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore tree to see him,

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for he was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked

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up and saw him and said to him, Zach, kios, make haste come down.

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For today I must stay at your house. So he made haste and he came down

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and joyfully received him. Do you see the childlike enthusiasm in

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Zach Kiosk? He's heard of Jesus and now he hears Jesus

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has come to Jericho on his way up to Jerusalem for Passover.

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He's heard about Jesus. Oh yeah, the miracles and the teachings and that

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stuff, but that he doesn't care about that. He cares about the stuff. His heart

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is suspicious. It's just a smear attempt from the religious

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elites that Jesus spends time with tax collectors,

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with publicans and sinners, that he even lets them become his disciples.

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And so he just runs out of the house, no plan, and finds himself behind a wall

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of adults that he can't see over. So what does he do? Like a child, he

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runs up the road, climbs up a tree. His adult

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dignity forgotten. His insecurity over his height

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washed away under the weight of his anticipation, his childlike excitement

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that Jesus is coming this way and I get to see him.

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And maybe he'd stay with me like I've heard,

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like I've hoped.

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The year was 2001. My dad had accepted the pastorate of a small church outside of

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Aviano Air Force Base in Italy. So we packed up everything we had,

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went to the Atlanta airport. My Nana and Papa met us there

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and they wave goodbye. We flew to Italy.

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As a nine-year-old, I didn't fully understand what waving goodbye like that

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meant. You see, we always went to Nana and Papa's

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house for Christmas. We'd pack up everything in the van,

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drive down to Florida, sleep on the pull-out couches. They had like three of

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them. The real Christmas tree there. We watched

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the Christmas story. Nana hated Jimmy Stewart, so we never watched that movie.

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That was Christmas. But for the next three years, Christmas was

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presents in the mail. And Skype wasn't invented until 2003,

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and we certainly didn't have the technology to use it until 2008.

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So we literally didn't even see their faces. It was just a phone call on

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Christmas Day.

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Until 2004.

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I can still see the yellow light that would flash on our gate as the gate to our

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driveway closed behind our terrible gray minivan.

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Dad was headed to the Venice airport because Nana and Papa were coming to see

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me for Christmas. All the way from America to see me.

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I sat out that window and watched and watched and watched.

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Our poor mother, she's trying to get the house ready because her mother-in-law

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is coming over for the first time in three years.

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And here I am, useless child stuck against the window.

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No bribe she could make, no threat she could level, could tear me away from

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that window for more than a minute or two.

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And then it happened. The minutes began to feel like seconds.

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And that yellow light flashed. And that gate began to swing open.

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And the scream ran through the house, they're here, they're here.

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And I was out that door, still in my socks, through the door, open so hard it

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almost broke the glass in the door. Into the arms of Nana and Papa for the

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first time in three years. They still felt like Nana and Papa.

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A little bit fragile but strong. They still smelled like Nana and Papa.

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And they were here to spend Christmas with me.

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That's the perspective of the child of the kingdom.

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That's the childlike perspective that enters the kingdom.

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Jesus is coming to your house today. Don't you feel excited about it anymore?

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The child of the kingdom only has eyes for the window.

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The adult perspective says there's things that must be done.

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You should be busy right now.

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You should be doing something productive.

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But the child only has eyes for the window to look for the slightest sign of his coming.

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To look for the sign of his coming.

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Have you lost your childlike anticipation to see Jesus?

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That window watching, tree climbing enthusiasm?

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He's coming to see you every day. He's searching for you.

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Are you inattentionally blind to his presence there?

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He is searching for you. The scripture promises that from beginning to end.

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Zacchaeus, he got to have Jesus stay at his house.

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Because for the first time in a long time, he was not distracted by the pursuit of riches.

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He had been distracted by the practice of religion for a long time.

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And he was no longer inhibited by the perspective of adulthood.

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He was just happy to have Jesus at his house.

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Jesus is searching for you.

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And if we're not careful, he'll be like that moonwalking bear.

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He'll pass through our lives and we won't even notice it.

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And one day we'll look up and say, where have you been?

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Or why have I seen him?

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It might just be that we're inattentionally blind.

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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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Thank you for watching the Southern Hills YouTube channel.

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Make sure you subscribe and hit the bell icon to be notified every time we make a new video.

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And remember, we exist to make disciples for Jesus Christ.

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Have a great week. Peace.