When we want to be in Church, we plan in advance. When we want to see Christ, we also need to plan. Just like Zacchaeus planned in advance to see Christ, we need to clean our hearts, make plans for him, and be ready for Him. We do this by confessing our sins to the Church and restoring our broken relationships. There will be no room for Christ if our hearts are filled with bitterness and sin. Now is the time for us to plan to see Christ and welcome Him into our hearts.

Transcript:

My brothers and sisters. In this morning’s story of Zacchaeus, we hear a challenge. The challenge is for us to be like Zacchaeus. That part might be obvious because why would the church give us the story if they didn’t want us to be like him? When he knew Christ was coming, he planned to see him. He didn’t leave it to chance. Many times when I have conversations with people, we talk about church attendance, and I ask, when you come to church, when do you know you’re going to be in church? Do you wait until Sunday morning to think, “I think I’ll go to church today”? The answer 100% of the time is I plan to be in church in advance, even if it’s the day before, even if it’s the week before. Maybe it’s for a memorial, maybe it’s for this, maybe it’s for that, but we don’t leave it to chance that we’re going to be in church.

I would guess that every one of you today, before you woke up, knew you were coming to church. That’s being like Zacchaeus, planning in advance to see him. And so he runs up to the sycamore tree, now ready to see Christ. Christ says, “Come on, Zacchaeus. Come down. I’m going to stay in your house.” The crowd went crazy. Can you believe Jesus is going into the house of the sinner? Oh my goodness. But his heart was ready to see him, but he had some cleaning to do. Christ comes, and the very first things that Zacchaeus does is he confesses. He says, “Anyone I have defrauded, I’m going to give them four times what I took from them.” This is a matter of confession and restoring the relationship with those he had wronged. If we, my brothers and sisters, are going to accept and welcome Jesus into our hearts, into our home, we have to be prepared for him. We have to make plans in advance, and we must cleanse our soul to prepare and get ready for him to move in.

We all do the same thing when we have visitors coming to the house. Oh, they’re coming. We better clean the house and get it ready. Well, Christ is coming. It’s time now to clean our hearts to get ready for him. And so just like Zacchaeus, one of the chief ways that we can clean our hearts and get rid of the clutter is to go to confession, to confess our sins to the church, to make good and to restore whatever broken relationships we may have had so we can welcome Christ into our hearts. If our hearts are filled with resentment and anger and all of the other clutter that the world is going to throw our way, there’ll be no room for Christ in our hearts. We have to make room for him, and we have to just give it out and get rid of it, and purge our hearts of that resentment and that bitterness and our sin.

And so my brothers and sisters, as we continue, we’re now about to finish the first month of our new year, most of us, maybe even all of us, have already forgotten our new year resolutions. That was so long ago. Here’s a chance for another one. Let’s clean up what’s going on inside our soul so we can welcome God into our hearts. And make preparations to be with him, not just Sunday morning, but as often as we can to come to the church, to spend time with him, to be with him, to talk to him, to receive his grace. You’ve heard me say it before, and you will never hear me stop saying it. God has promised to be here for us when we need him. His physical presence is here every day, all day. Don’t wait for the crowds to come. Make plans to come, to welcome him and to see him, and to be blessed by him. And then we will hear those glorious words. Salvation has come to this house. This is what our hearts crave, but we have to make room for. Glory to God.