Make It Right

Unstuck is the series we're in. We're exploring the transforming power of the Holy Spirit through the steps of recovery. Good morning. My name is Jared. I'm one of the pastors here. If we haven't met yet, this is my wife, Alicia, my son, Van. I feel like I have to reintroduce him every two weeks. I literally walk into the room and I'm like, did you grow six inches last night? This is my son in this moment. You parents know all about that. Though we have deep roots, the boys have deep roots here at Twin Lakes. We've been here for about two years and we have been just so blessed to be a part of this church and this community. So thank you. And we always enjoy coming up to be able to speak with you and glad to be here this morning.

Many of you might not know that for about 18 years before I came back to ministry and went to seminary, I was in the agency world, worked over the hill, did branding and design for companies over there. And I, during that time, realized how incredibly counterculture it is to live by faith in that arena. And some of you know about that, right? So in that world, it's you look out for number one. You pull yourselves up by your own bootstraps. You essentially get success at any cost, even by the way, if it means ruining your relationships with your family or maybe the people you work with, right? At some level, there is some of that there. But see, God shows us a different way. In fact, the steps we're looking at today come directly out of the scriptures. So I'll get more into detail on these, but they're steps eight, nine, and ten. Identify and live an ongoing transformed life. Now, this is tough stuff. Believe me, I've tried it. And I know there's a lot here. But as you know, some of the more difficult things in life that we do have the power to transform us the most, right? And I believe that's the case with this subject today.

In fact, if you could take these three steps, summarize them into three words, I would summarize it into this. Make it right. So today I want to teach from the subject, make it right. And although these are not easy, they're so incredibly important. Because nothing can keep us more stuck in our spiritual walk than regret over pain that we've caused to others. You can ask this to Charlie Allen. I want to introduce you to him. He was an amazing man. He was loved by everyone who knew him. He was known for being not only just a fun guy to be around, but he was also known for his practical jokes. And there was a day that he was doing a practical joke, and he didn't realize that this one wouldn't go so well. It actually would change and alter his life forever.

So while serving in the Korean War, he was out on a field assignment with some POWs. They were in the back of his truck, and as they were driving home, he thought, maybe I'll just kind of mess with them a little bit. So he kind of carelessly cruised down the road, hit a couple potholes, and he didn't realize that along the way, one of the men had actually fallen out of the truck. So he went back to look for him, couldn't find him. And then they go and look down and they realize that he had fallen down an embankment. And when they found him, he had hit his head and he died. Now, to make matters worse, Charlie went back and his superior officers didn't do anything. They sort of just kind of pushed it aside. He would have technically been court-martialed for this, but nothing happened. No consequence and no closure.

Now, this shattered Charlie. This shattered him because he felt like it was at my hand that this happened. In fact, later he took his very own military coat, found the man, and laid it over his body in some attempt to make it right. But it wasn't good enough. He carried this secret his entire life. He was a good man, but he never talked about faith, never talked about God, and definitely wouldn't darken the doors of a church. And I know this because this was my grandfather, my other grandfather, if you were here at my last teaching. How many grandfathers does Jared have? Two, just like you. But we were always confused why Grandpa Charlie wouldn't go to church, why he wouldn't talk about God. And a couple days before he died, we found out that it was this very event that had kept him spiritually stuck his entire life.

In fact, hours before he passed, he spoke some profound words. And he told us that it was this sin that not only kept him from forgiving himself, but receiving God's forgiveness and actually receiving his grace. So more to that story to come. But I think when we talk about hurt in our lives, we often talk about the hurt that we carry. The hurt that was done to us. Hurt that we experienced. But today we're going to flip that script. And we're going to talk about the hurt that we've caused to others. And as I was preparing this message, I was digging into these steps. And I was actually trying them for myself. And I realized very quickly how difficult, how many obstacles you can face when you're trying to make it right.

And I realized real quick, I mean, I could talk about it for hours. But I think one of the challenges is when we sort of fall into two extremes. On one extreme, we can say, you know what? We can justify it. We can say, you know what? They deserved it. You know what? They had it coming. If I didn't do it, somebody else would. On the other hand, we can live in shame and guilt and not really allow ourselves to be free from it, just like my grandfather. So how do we avoid falling into these two extremes? I believe there is a third way. And I think we discover that in this epic story of transformation of a man named Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1. So if you have your Bibles and you want to read along with me, we're going to be reading out of the NIV today.

And while you're turning there, let me set the scene. So Jesus is moving through Jericho right now with his disciples. And the crowd is going, he's at the height of his popularity. They are going wild. They're surrounding him. They're trying to get a glimpse to touch the Messiah. So if you were to see him, you would A, have to be right out in the public eye. And B, you'd have to really fight your way in there. And there was a man by the name of Zacchaeus who desperately wanted to catch a glimpse of Jesus. But instead of going into town, he actually goes outside of town. And he hides in a tree, hoping that Jesus will come by that way. So that's where we pick up the story.

If you want to read it with me, verse 1 of Luke 19, it says, Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector. He was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he couldn't see over the crowd. So he ran up ahead and climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached that spot, he looked at him and he said, Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I want to stay at your house today. So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to murmur. He's gone to be the guest of a sinner. But Zacchaeus stood up and said, Look, Lord, here and now I give half my possessions to the poor. And if I've cheated anybody of anything, I will pay them back four times the amount. Jesus said, Today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.

So I think at first glance, it's easy to just kind of brush over the impact of this story. But as we sort of unfold this passage, we see a powerful picture of what it means to make it right in Zacchaeus' life. The first thing we see is that it takes radical honesty. To make it right takes radical honesty. Look at step eight. It says, we made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends with them all. First, honesty over who we hurt. Now to fully understand the backstory, we've got to understand where Zacchaeus is coming from. Because this is really going to help us get our heads around this.

Zacchaeus, notice, as I mentioned, did not approach Jesus in town. He did not come right into the public eye. In fact, he went the opposite direction. How do I know this? Well, the sycamore fig tree, according to Jewish custom, which we would basically be our city ordinance, it was not to be planted in town, right? The roots would get into the wells and mess up the foundations of the houses and things like that. So the sycamore fig tree was planted outside of town, not to mention that it also was very thick and perhaps a great place to hide. Maybe even Zacchaeus chose this tree for a reason. Maybe he didn't feel accepted by his own people, let alone by the Messiah.

How do we know this? Well, first we're told he's short. Now, we don't know exactly what this means. But if you look back, there's scholars who suggest that the Greek here might be implying, even John Ortberg mentions this, might be implying what we would call dwarfism today. We call them little people, and it's something we get now. Little people can live normal lives as we understand it. But in that culture, it was totally different. In that culture, it wasn't just culturally taboo. It was also religiously taboo. In fact, Zacchaeus, if this was the case, would have been considered to have a deformity and not been able to be a priest and not even able to give sacrifice in the temple. So this, by the way, if this was true, it would have followed him all of his life.

But even if it's not true, we also see that he was a tax collector. Now, if you've been around Twin Lakes, you've heard Renée teach, you know that during this time, Israel was under Roman occupation. And a Jewish tax collector was somebody who partnered with the Romans to take money and taxes from his own people. They were partnering with the enemy. And to make matters worse, the guards would sort of turn their heads. They collected a little bit more than was required. And that's how these guys became very, very wealthy, which was Zacchaeus' third strike. He was super rich. And everybody knew it was from the money that he took out of their pockets that he became wealthy. So he's an outsider on three accounts. And it is, by the way, the people that were closest to him, his own Jewish people that he had robbed and wronged.

And as I approached this passage, as I mentioned, I quickly found that the difficulties with this process, with making amends. And I found myself listing, first off, people that I was like willing to make amends with. I'm like, okay, well, I could, yeah, it'd be great to reconnect with him, you know. You know what? I'm going down this list. Meanwhile, I'm ignoring the people that I probably need to make it right with. You know how that goes? We're not honest with ourselves. That's why honesty is so important. Matthew 5:23 says, If you're offering your gift at the altar and remember that your brother or sister has something against you, if you remember it, first go and be reconciled to them and then come and offer your gift. When it comes to mind, you got to roll with it, right? Sometimes it's often the people that we're closest with that we need to make it right the most. Right? It's the people that we live daily life with. A mother, a father, a brother, sister, child. Right? That's why honesty in this process is so important.

But it not only takes honesty to know who we hurt, but why we hurt them. See, Zacchaeus was an outsider. And because of that, he was most likely, because of his profession, spit on, criticized, and excluded and mocked by his people. Very, very likely that that happened. And so he had all the excuses to, you know, get back at him. Forget you guys. You guys have been treating me like this my entire life. Maybe that's why he partnered with the Romans. You know, if you guys are going to treat me this way, I will make you pay literally. You've heard it said that hurt people hurt people. I think this is true and maybe Zacchaeus felt justified in his actions. Maybe he was able to sort of downplay the impact of what he was doing.

And I know this was certainly the case for me in my marriage because if you were to ask me five years into my marriage who I needed to make it right with, the last person I would have mentioned is my wife. But at that time, I desperately needed to make it right with her. In fact, when we were first married, or actually when we first met, we were just so in love. And we're like, what's with all these married couples talking about arguing? We get it. We like, we understand each other, you know? They don't get it. And then within like one year, we're like, oh no, you didn't. You know? And we're like fighting over the stupidest things, right? I didn't know how to deal with conflict. I didn't know how to deal with my anger at that. We've been married now for 22 years. Should I put that in my notes? 22 years. And at the time, I didn't know how to control the argument, which was my goal. And so I came up with this really brilliant marriage hack called like cutting remarks. And I would just deliver these clear, beautiful, just straight to the jugular, painful statements. Yeah. And I was like, this is working. Except I did not realize how much I was actually poisoning the well of my marriage and really hurting her. No clue.

So actually, we hit a five-year brick wall, if you will, metaphorically speaking, and we knew we needed help. And so we reached out to my dad, who's a pastor for many years, and we said, Dad, we need help. I'm thinking, maybe Dad will go easy on me. Wait till you hear what he asked me to do. We go up on the deck, and he goes, hey, Jared, would you be willing to, in front of me and Alicia right now, share out loud all the things that you said in anger? I'm like, well, of course. It'd be, and as I began to play them back in my head, I realized that this is not going to be easy. And as I said those words out loud, I didn't need my dad to tell me that they were wrong. I didn't need Alicia to tell me they were wrong as tears were streaming down her face. I could see the words hanging there in the air. And I was so cut to the core, right? It just shattered me, right? And of course, I took a moment to apologize. It was easier then. And I would say that that was like a massive pivot point.

In fact, in 18 years since, I'm proud to announce that I've not made one mistake. Total lie. But yeah, she's like, no. But there was a massive change in our relationship, a paradigm shift at that moment. And not only did that take brutal honesty, but it also took tremendous courage, which brings us to our second point, is that to make it right takes courage. Step nine, check this out. We made direct amends with people whenever possible, except for when to do so would injure them or others. So first, courage to face the hurt that we carry. See, in this passage, Jesus says some things that gives us an insight into what's going on in the mind and the heart of Zacchaeus. Jesus starts by saying, today salvation has come to this house. What does he mean? Well, at some point, apparently Zacchaeus had turned and put his faith in Jesus for his salvation in the encounter.

And then he says something so incredibly profound. He says, this too, this man here is a son of Abraham. Now, I hope you can understand the significance of this statement. Because for his entire life, Zacchaeus had been told that he was not one of the Jewish people. He was not a son of Abraham. And here Jesus stands up and publicly declares, hey, Zacchaeus, you're one of us. You're in. That's powerful. If hurt people hurt people, I think the opposite is true, that healed people heal people. And I think this was the beginning of Zacchaeus' healing. I think this was his paradigm shift, right? True inner transformation that we seek ultimately begins by admitting our brokenness and trusting our lives to Jesus. And it's not easy, that process, because it does require us to look within. And that's not easy, but it's that kind of honesty that gives us the confidence we need to go and face the people that we ultimately hurt.

Which brings us to the second piece, which is it doesn't take just courage to face the hurt we carry, but it takes courage to face the hurt that we caused. Now, Kyle talked about this a couple months ago, but when important people would have dinner in Jesus' day, especially anybody meeting with Jesus, the people from the surrounding village would come and sort of watch. It was like dinner theater. It was like entertainment. Sometimes they would even come into the house. And that was probably the case going on here. But here's what's happening. The people looking in says that they were muttering, saying, he's gone to be the guest of a sinner. Here they are talking about how unworthy Zacchaeus is to be even sitting, to be a guest with Jesus. And in an almost like cinematic irony, he has to then turn and look. And it's, as he turns, he sees the very people that are scorning him and mocking him, knowing those are the people that I have to face. Those are the people that I have to make it right with.

So how did he do this? Well, he stood up and he says, look, Lord, I'll give half my possessions to the poor. And then he says, verse 8, he says, and if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay them back four times. By the way, that is twice what the Levitical law required for theft. So he's proving his sincerity by his willingness to sacrifice and change. Quick side note. By the way, him admitting his wrong does not mean the other people were right. And I think this is a really important piece because as I was approaching these steps, I realized, hey, if I apologize, they're gonna think they're right. And that's not fair, right? They still were wrong. Well, what we're looking at here is it's not about that. It's about owning our own actions. And in that process, we're not necessarily excusing theirs. Does that make sense?

So it's from that place of accountability, from that place of healing, that we are able then to face those people. Quick caveat, it was possible for Zacchaeus to make it right with the people that were there. He could go to them. Now, in some cases, maybe there's abuse or a dangerous relationship. It might not be possible or even death like my grandfather. He couldn't go and fix that. In fact, this was the case for one of our TLC members that has gone through recovery. His name's Brent. He has a powerful testimony about this very thing. And we want to show you this video and have you hear his testimony. Then I'll come back up.

Hi, I'm Brent. First was introduced to, I guess, my struggle in my teens. I had a rough upbringing with my parents, my father, and our relationship was rough. About 12, I moved with my mother. In Santa Cruz, I discovered a lot of different soft drugs, alcohol, became pretty regular drinking that led me to harder drugs. Didn't go to high school because of my path of addiction. There's a lot of violence in my lifetime with the people that I ran around with and got to a point where I didn't want to continue doing the stuff I was doing, want to improve my life. I really had reached a threshold in my low and wanted to be better and be out of it. I was in a program and got introduced to the program to the 12 steps. There was a ton of information for me to learn about myself and my character defects, my resentments through the steps, going one step at a time, going through eight and nine, where we make a list of the people we've hurt and make amends to those people. A lot of cases, they're family. They're friends. They're people, places, and things that you'll encounter again or that have a familiarity or something that you're going to be a part of, right? So that repair is going to be necessary to have a healthy life forward.

I reached out to my sister. I had a rough relationship with my brother, and I was in jail and I told her, hey, if you can talk to him, if you reach out to him, let him know I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the stuff I did that upset him, hurt him or made him feel bad. And I forgive him for anything he's done. I just don't want to have the same relationship. When I got out of there to a program, I was reached and contacted by the counselor and found out my brother died in an accident, Carson. And my sister wasn't able to send that reconciliation out. So that was hard to overcome, you know, knowing that I waited too long. You know, after that, I found out I was kind of sitting out there doing security and it was in the valley. It was about 115 degrees out. And I sat and I prayed there that, you know, in my brother passing, he wasn't perfect. He was a good man. I prayed to God that whatever his relationship was, I hoped it was close to God and God would accept him into heaven. And the sky filled up with purple and orange clouds. It started just pouring rain, lightning and thunder. It was insane, right? And so it was something so meaningful at that moment. That was, you know, the point where it's like, yeah, this is, there's never going back. I started coming to the meetings and it has been the best thing so far to happen in my life. Having the support of the people in the meetings, I can't imagine now not being a part of that, you know, to give and to get what that fellowship has to offer and that what I can give back. I never thought, right, that I could be in a place. Everybody has bad days. I don't have bad days, bad moments sometimes at best. I never thought 12 years ago where I would be, but I didn't believe it would be at this point in my life. Being able to help people, for sure, and being a part of something so much bigger than myself.

Yeah, give it up for Brent. What a cool story. What a powerful example of the transforming work of Jesus in our lives. Sometimes, like with Brent, it is not possible to go back to that person and my grandfather. But in those cases, what do we do? We have this beautiful promise in 1 John 1:9. It says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us and will purify us from all unrighteousness. When it's not possible to turn back to those people, we can turn to the Lord. And he promises to forgive and to cleanse us. And it's from that clean slate that we can receive freedom and actually start the process of really, truly changing. Right? Which brings us to our final point. And that is to make it right takes surrender.

Step 10 says, we continue to take personal inventory. And when we were wrong, we promptly admitted it. First surrender to the spirit of God. Notice that Zacchaeus, after he puts his faith in Jesus, his first act as a believer is to go and make it right with these people. Right? To not rob them, but to pay them back. We don't have any record that Jesus said, hey, you need to go and do this. We don't have record that anybody in the house said, hey, you need to go and do this. We just know that he started to feel new desires, right? And sometimes people take that role in our lives. Sometimes people will want to tell you, hey, this is how you need to apologize, right? And that may be sometimes through the Holy Spirit, but sometimes not also.

I remember this story that my in-laws tell me. They were in a heated discussion when my wife was just this little blonde-haired, freckled little thing. And she was in the back bedroom and she was listening through the walls. And she just wasn't having it. And so she comes out of her room. She stomps down the hallway. She busts into their room in the middle of the conversation. And she goes, remember Jesus. Slams the door and heads right back. And she still tries that, by the way, today. Doesn't quite work the same. But they said, my father-in-law said, they started busting up laughing and it just completely shattered the argument, which was so great. But some people, and if you're not Alicia, it probably might not work that well, right? Some people try to take that role, but this is really the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is something only he can do. He can only bring to mind things that we need to change.

And the theological word for this is sanctification. Sanctification is a big word that basically just means the Spirit's work to transform us, to make us more like Jesus. See, when we believe we're justified, that's justification. That's getting us out of the world. And when that happens, now God sanctifies us, which is getting the world out of us. How does this happen? Well, this transformation happens according to Galatians 5, through the work of the Spirit in our lives, that the Holy Spirit begins to change us, give us new desires, and produce what Paul calls fruit in our lives. And our role, all we do is simply cooperate. We just follow those new desires, and we begin to change.

See, saying, I'm sorry, is really important. And saying, you know, apologizing is really important. It's a great first step. But if it doesn't come with change, it's just words, right? And you know that. I spoke with a lot of people in recovery. They say, you know, my loved one, whoever that was, would come to me year after year based on the steps, and I never saw change. And it's because this really has to be a work of God in your life. And it's really, really important that we cooperate with those new desires that God gives us. But not only does it take surrender to God's spirit, but it also takes surrender to God's grace, which is our final point.

I think this is really important because all of this is made possible through God's grace. Through God's undeserved favor that he gives to us, we are able to receive forgiveness for ourselves. And that grace begins to change our lives and is the foundation by which we extend grace to others. We were all lost like Zacchaeus. But yet the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost. By the way, isn't this such a beautiful picture of the gospel? Here's Zacchaeus, this marginalized, insecure outsider. Doesn't even feel worthy to go up to Jesus. And Jesus, the Messiah, God himself finds him hiding in a tree. And he says, hey, I want to come to your house. You're one of us.

See, at some point there was a breach between God and humanity. There was a break in that relationship. And God wasn't satisfied to leave it there. In fact, he made a plan to redeem us. He came down, took on humanity, ended up dying, not for his sins. He was sinless, but for us, for our sins, so that he can reconcile us to God. So that he can essentially make it right with us. All the while, by the way, knowing that many of the very people that he died for will outright reject him. See, Jesus is not asking us to do anything that he himself was not willing to do and did not do first. That's the beautiful story of the gospel. And it certainly was the case for my grandfather.

Circling back to his story, his story did not end in regret. Praise God. But it ended in redemption. In fact, for 40 years, my mother and my aunt prayed that he would, prayed for his salvation, that he would turn to Jesus, that he would receive grace. And it wasn't until three days before he died in a moment of radical honesty that he opened up to my dad and told him these few stories. One of them was the story that I told you earlier and he said it was this sin and that actually opened the door for my dad to speak truth into his life, to tell him the gospel and over the next three days, I'm not kidding you, it was like a Norman Rockwell painting. The entire family in the hospital watching him as he passes in and out of consciousness, having visions, talking about Jesus, coming in and out.

And he said many things that day, but I want to read you a few. There is so much light up here. It's incredible. I just found out I love him. He brought all of you to me. I can't believe it took me this long to get here, especially because of that sin. How can you not believe, Jesus, I've waited my whole life for this. Please let me be alone with the Lord. I want to be with him. Wait until you see what I see. Goodbye, I love you all. And hours later, he passed. See, he met Jesus. And we watched him for the first time in his entire life. Receive God's grace for that secret sin, as he called it. See, God's timing is perfect and always is. But I guarantee you that if my grandfather was here and Brent and if Zacchaeus was here, they would say, don't wait. Don't wait till your deathbed to make it right.

And although some of us and many of us do have people in mind that we need to go make it right with, many of us ultimately need to make it right with God. And the good news is that no matter where you come from, no matter what you've done, he says, hey, I want to come to your house. I choose you. Imagine what it would look like for you today to, in a sense, like Zacchaeus, come down from the tree and submit your life. Trust Jesus with your life. Now this doesn't happen, by the way, through us cleaning ourselves up and trying to get to God. It happens simply when we change our mind about who Jesus is. Turn to him and trust him with our lives. And this could be the beginning of a transformation in your relationship with others and ultimately God himself. So let me pray for you.

Father, thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for the fact that you will give us that strength that we need to go out and make it right. And that ultimately you sought to make it right with us. Pray for each and every person here, no matter where they're coming from. Lord, that they would truly be able to step into this process of making it right with people in their lives. So they can experience that true change with your strength and your power. Amen.