Sobriety Intro And Zacchaeus Reading

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My name is Terry Feeney, and after practicing these twelve steps continuously, I've been clean and sober since June 18th, 1988, and also nicotine free. And for that I'm grateful. Thank you. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but he was short and he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed up a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. So he came down and at once was welcomed him gladly. And all the people saw this and began to mutter. But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, Look, Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. And if I've cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay him back four times the amount. Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. This is the word of the Lord.

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Thanks be to God. Awesome. Have you guys ever heard that song? Um, Zacchaeus was a wee little man, and a wee little man was he. Some of you are seeing it right thing. Climbed up a sycamore tree to see. And then he says, Zacchaeus, you come down for I'm going to your house today. All right. There you go. See you guys next week. That's great. Uh hey, um, so real quick, just before we hop in, uh, I wanted to just read it. Manu did this a second ago. This uh notes stuff. It's not popping up. It will pop up. Zach's not working. Um, so uh this this notes piece right here, uh, actually want you to be able to connect with this. So we've we've told you guys about this text thing that we have eight weeks ago. I introduced this to you guys. Um, and uh this is like a brand new thing

How Our Text Notes Connection Works

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for us. I just want you to know this is what it is. You this is actually us. So, like on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, like I'm actually talking to you and some of our team's talking to you. We're trying to figure out like how to connect a little bit more because what I don't want you to do is just come here and sit and just you know, like be a consumer and feel like you're not known, if that makes sense. Uh so there's a couple aspects of it. One, you can just add this as like uh uh in your context, this is Northgate Tech. So if something comes up and it has for some of you figure this out, like and you're like, oh my gosh, this thing's coming on. Will you pray for this interview? We'd love to partner with that. We've had some people that have like sent pictures and then also some like traumatic things, like I'm going on this crazy trip because someone in my family just got really hurt. I'm going to the hospital, you pray for me. We want to be able to carry that stuff with you. Or of like, hey, do you have something? This is what's going on. So this is really just to help you be known. And it's really us. Now, I can't say that I'm gonna be able to be, you know, immediate res immediately responsive all the time, but this is our way to connect with you, especially when you know we're in a big place with lots of rows. It's little ways we can circle up and get connected. Now, the other thing is this when you QR code this, and a lot of you guys have done this, uh, it automatically fills in the text part connect. That's great. If you've done it, uh, then all you need to do is replace that with the word notes. I put the notes in there for whatever we're talking about so you can engage, so you can keep track of this. But the other fun thing that hopefully is helpful for you, outside of just Sunday again, just uh collecting something, is uh you can go on there each day and you'll see in the very bottom of that notes section for the day, uh it has a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday like a quick devotional about what we just talked about. So you can continue to tease it out. Like a good way to think about it is uh like just the first five minutes of your day. A lot of us are getting into our week. It's going on. We just had Sunday, Monday happens real quick. We start to forget, we want to chew on some things, but that's an opportunity for you just to go back in there in that first five minutes of your day, just to be like, all right, what's this thing I can kind of chew and I can carry with me today? For those of you who are looking for something to do outside of, you know, the you version, like here's your verse for the day. This is great, but it's applicable to what we're doing, and it's kind of fun because we're all doing the same thing together. So, as an example for today, you can follow along or you can put in your own notes with me with today's message if you just type in notes to that same number. So it's a resource for you, it's a way that we're connecting. It really is me, it really is our team, it really is us. So today, step eight. Here it is. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends. Welcome to step eight. But first, I need to confess something. So, step eight is hard. Like, most of us aren't willing because it feels like having to face trauma that actually we've created, right? And owning is tough. Why? Because every one of us has a

Why Step Eight Feels So Hard

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name. Like, in fact, I think most of you just read that and already have one in your head. I didn't even have to ask you to think about it. It just showed up, right? Maybe it's a friend you stopped talking to, maybe it's your ex, maybe it's your mom or your dad, or your son, or your daughter, maybe it's someone you lied to, maybe it's someone you disappointed, maybe it's someone who still has no idea how deeply you hurt them. Whatever the name is, it has a way of following you and I around. And you can bury it under work, you can bury it under church, you can bury it under success or under time that just goes by, but I'm telling you right now, buried isn't healed. So step eight asks us to stop pretending the names aren't there. So here's the deal. I was supposed to be in Uganda right now, and that got canceled because of the Ebola breakout. And because of that, I wasn't going to be teaching this week and had a friend walking us through step eight. And unfortunately, uh, this last week he hurt himself and needed to cancel. So now it's me. No problem. Uh, but if I'm honest, I was kind of glad I wasn't walking this one out with you, right? It kind of felt like a get out of jail free card, but we're here. So let's go to prison together, right? So this week, while I'm prepping the message, I made a list. I made a list, I had to make a list too of everyone I own apology to. And I did what I always do with hard lists, like I rank them, right? Easiest to hardest. Like I was gonna knock out the easy ones first, build momentum, like an apology diet where you lose the first five pounds of guilt real fast, and then you hit a plateau around week three. Here's the world that we actually live in. We are like the most connected generation in human history, and somehow the worst at saying sorry to a real person's face. Like we have perfected the public apology, like the you know, the celebrity apology video shot with gray lighting, no makeup, just staring off camera. Like, I take full responsibility. I'm doing the work. This is not who I am, right? But meanwhile, they haven't actually called the actual person they hurt. Like we've turned confession into content. Like we'll apologize to a camera before we'll ever apologize to our own mother. Now, if you're new with us or just wandered in today because someone promised you free coffee and good music, welcome. You picked a really strange Sunday, but stick around because this series has a way of getting under your skin, I'm telling you, in the best way. See, we were walking through the 12 steps of the church this summer, using John Ortberg's uh book called Steps as Our Guide, because as it turns out, a bunch of recovering alcoholics figured out something about the gospel that a lot of us in church seats haven't caught yet. Back in week one, we turned the spotlight on ourselves, becoming a room full of people who stopped pretending to have it all together. Well done. And every step since then has asked us to name something broken in us and then hand it over to God. And today the spotlight turns outward. It's not just about what happened to us anymore, it's about what we did to somebody else. So, just a quick recap for those tracking with us. Step one, we said, I can't. We admitted our lives had pieces we cannot manage or fix. Step two, we said, he can. We came to believe a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Step three, we said, I think I'll let him. And we turned our will and our lives over to God's care. Step four, we took a searching and fearless inventory and we practiced saying out loud, there's actually plenty wrong with me. Step five, we confessed the exact nature of our wrongs to God, to ourselves, and to another human being. And then step six, we opened up our hands and became entirely ready to let God remove what needed to go. And then last week, step seven, we humbly asked him to do it. So notice the direction of travel. Every step so far has been an inside job. God and me, right? My heart, my hands, my willingness. And today that changes. See, step eight turns us around and points us at other people. Here again is how it reads. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Say that last part with me. Became as the one. Not made amends yet. Hold on. Just became willing. We'll get to step nine, the actual doing part next week. But today is about the list and the willingness. And I promise you, for most of us, that's already plenty. Our anchor text is a strange little story about a short man in a tree. And I'm gonna get there in just a minute. Uh, but I want to plant us first in Matthew chapter five, because Jesus already told us where reconciliation ranks on his priority list. And I think it's a higher than a lot of us would like. He says this in the Sermon on the Mount. He says, if you're offering your gift at the altar and you remember that someone has something against you, leave your gift right there in front of the altar. Go,

Jesus Puts Reconciliation First

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first be reconciled to that person, then come back and offer your gift. I mean, read that again. Jesus doesn't say, finish your worship and then go make it right. He says, No, like stop mid-worship, like leave the offering sitting there. The line to God runs through the person that you hurt. I mean, think about how shocking that is. Jesus could have said, like, pray harder. He could have said, you know, like read scripture more. He could have said, like, offer a bigger sacrifice, but instead, no, he says, go, find the person. Like, my goodness. So this means reconciliation matters so much to God that he would rather interrupt your worship than let you continue pretending everything is okay. Man, I'm telling you, friends, that is uncomfortable. And I think it's supposed to be. You cannot skip them to get to him. That should terrify us just a little bit because we have gotten very good at worshiping around our unfinished business. We raise our hands on Sunday and never mention the friend we ghosted in March. We sing about grace and refuse to text the person who's still waiting for an apology that we actually owe them. We are fluent in confessing to God and fluent in avoiding people. And this generation has built entire systems of avoidance. We don't confront, we mute. Like we don't repair, we block. We don't have the hard conversation, we quietly leave the group chat and let someone else explain why. We have more tools to avoid a person than any generation before us, and somehow we still feel worse than ever. Why? Because the line to God still runs through the person you hurt. Ghosting doesn't cost you anything up front. It costs you later in that version of yourself who no longer knows how to stay in a room when things get uncomfortable. And step eight asks you to make the actual list, like names, not vague categories like people from my past, like actual names. Ortberg is really blunt about this in his book. I love it. He calls this step naming the damage. And he means literal names. Get this on literal paper. Not because God needs you in your homework, but because you can't become willing toward a person you've not had the nerve to name. So here's our main text for today. It's found in Luke chapter 19, verses 1 through 10. So Jesus, he's passing through this place called Jericho, and there's a man there named Zacchaeus, and Luke gives us three facts about him in one breath that he was the chief tax collector, he was wealthy, and he was short. So let's just sit with each one because Luke isn't patting the story here. So first, I uh tax collectors in that world were not IRS employees doing public service. They were Jewish men who had gone to work for Rome,

Zacchaeus And The Offence Of Grace

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the occupying government, and collecting money from their own people, skimming extra off the top for themselves. Or uh, as we would say in these days, uh he was finessing folks, right? Legalized theft with a government badge. And I'm telling you right now, they were despised, not just disliked, they were despised. They were literally grouped with prostitutes and sinners. Every time in the gospel list, uh, when we saw who religious, the religious cloud couldn't stand to be near that they were afraid of. And Zacchaeus, here's the deal, he wasn't just a regular tax collector, he was the chief one. He had built an empire out of other people's pain, and he had a list of people he had harmed. It was so long, it was long enough to fund a mansion, and he was short. Luke doesn't need to tell us that detail to move the plot forward, but he tells us because it matters for what happens next. See, when Jesus comes through the town, Zacchaeus wants to see him, and the crowd wouldn't make room. Like nobody steps aside for the man that everyone hates. So this grown, wealthy, powerful man does the least dignified thing available to him. He hikes up his robe and he climbs up a sycamore tree like a kid trying to spy on the neighbors in front of the other entire town that literally already thinks he's a joke. Now I love this for our young people, especially because you know what it exactly what it feels like when you want something so badly you are willing to look ridiculous to get it. Because I know you've DM'd somebody you shouldn't have. You've shown up somewhere, you weren't invited because you needed to be seen. And underneath every hustle, every carefully built image, every follower account you check more than you would admit, there's a short man in a tree hoping someone notices him for something other than what he has taken. And Jesus does notice him. Here is that detail that I think should undo you. Jesus looks up into that tree and he speaks first. So, Zacchaeus, come down. I must stay at your house today. Before Zacchaeus apologizes, before he makes a list, before he offers a dime back to anyone he cheated, Jesus invites himself over. And this is the whole gospel in one sentence. If you remember nothing else today, remember this. Grace goes first. Repentance is not the price you pay to earn God's attention, it's the response you give after you already have it. And Zacchaeus didn't climb down, clean up his books, and then earn this dinner invitation. He got the invitation while he was still up in the tree, still guilty, still surrounded by everyone he had cheated. And the crowd hates this. Like Luke literally tells us straight out. When he's when they saw this, they like muttered and talked about this. He has gone to be at the guest of a sinner. Like nobody is clapping for this moment, like, wow, redemption, this is wonderful, right? The whole town watched Jesus walk past a hundred respectable houses to eat dinner with one man who had cheated every single one of them. See, Grace offends people who who've been keeping score because Grace doesn't check the ledger first. If you've ever felt the sting of somebody being upset that you got forgiven faster than they think you deserved, welcome to the club. Zacchaeus is the founding member. Now watch what happens next. Zacchaeus stands up at his own dinner table and he says, Look, Lord, half of my possessions I give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone out of anything, I will pay them back four times the amount. Nobody told him to say that. Jesus didn't hand him a step-by-step sheet, right? Grace touched him and willingness poured out on its own. I mean, think about what that willingness actually meant. Like Zacchaeus couldn't simply feel bad. He had to remember names, families, business owners, widows, fathers, every dishonest transaction, every extra coin, every life, every person whose life became a little harder because he became a little richer. Now, before step nine ever happened, there has to be step eight. So somewhere Zacchaeus had to start making a list. That's the order every single time. Grace first, willingness second, never the other way around. This is why, friends, Christians should be the easiest people in the world to apologize. Because our identity isn't built on always being right, it's built on being deeply loved. And if standing before God depends on my perfection, then I'll spend my whole life defending myself. But if standing before God rests on his grace, then I could admit when I'm wrong because my failures don't have the final word. Grace creates honesty. And then notice the math in this story. It's interesting. So the law only required repayment plus 20% for this kind of fraud. Zacchaeus offers four times the amount, on top of giving away half of everything he owns. This isn't a man calculating like with a minimum apology that'll get people off of his back, right? This is a man who has been so overwhelmed by being seen and loved anyway that he can't hand back enough. That's what real willingness looks like. It's not reluctant, it's almost reckless. Now, before some of you leave here today and fire off a group text to everyone you've ever wronged, let's just slow down. Because step eight and step nine are different for a reason. Step eight is the list and the willingness. Step nine next week is the actual conversation, the actual repayment, the actual apology delivered face to face wherever possible. The 12 steps puts literally a full week, sometimes a full season become before becoming willing and taking action. And there's wisdom in that gap. I was talking to my good friend, uh, who's one of the main leaders of our recovery uh group,

Step Eight Versus Step Nine Wisdom

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and he's like, Yeah, we call it slow briety, not just subriety, right? And I was like, I love that. I told him. I was like, I'm using that this week. The original language of step nine includes a warning, actually, I think worth borrowing early. So hang with me because it's really important. It's this make amends wherever possible, except when doing so would injure the other person further. Now that's not a loophole for cowards. It's protection for people who might otherwise turn their own healing into somebody else's crisis. Like if you show up at your ex's door tonight because you had a spiritual breakthrough at church this morning, that's not a mends. That's a crisis that you were handing to someone else to manage. Willingness has to be tested, prayed through before it becomes an action. This is why uh Ortberg splits this into three different sections or movements in his book. It says, first make a list, then become willing, and then practice forgiveness. Only after all three does the step nine begin. So today is not the day that you send the text. Give me again. Today is the day that you just write down the name. Now I want to speak to a few different kinds of people this morning because step eight lands differently. I think, depending on how you were wired. And I don't, I will, I literally want everybody to leave with something that they can. Use, not just the people who process pain the way I do. So first, you have the perfectionist, right? You're already three steps ahead of me. You're drafting the apology in the head, wordsmithing it, trying to get the tone exactly right so no one can, you know, accuse you of doing it wrong. Here's your word for today. Done. Done is better than perfect. You don't need the perfect

Perfectionists Avoiders Defenders Fixers

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sentence. You need the honest name on the page. Second, I think in the room we have the avoider. You're the one who read the words, made a list, and felt your stomach drop, right? Because your instinct in conflict has always been distance. You know, new city, new job, new church. And somehow the same unfinished business follows you every time because you can't outrun the name you refuse to write down. Your word for today is stay. Just stay in the discomfort long enough to write it. You don't have to fix it yet. You have to stop running from it. Third is the defender. Your inventory in step four with Pastor Ken probably got real short real fast because your mind is excellent at building a case for why other people started it. You have a folder of receipts on everyone who has ever wronged you and a blank page on your own part of it. Your word today is honesty. Somewhere on your list is a name you've been arguing yourself out of writing. And then fourth, I think it's the fixer. You want to skip step eight and nine and jump straight to the fully restored relationship by Tuesday. Because sitting in the tension of unfinished abends makes like your skin crawl. Your word for today is patience. Some relationships take longer to repair than your calendar wants to allow. And that's not failure, friends. That's just reality. So the perfectionist, the avoider, the defender, the fixer. Different wiring, same tree. Every one of us has a Zacchaeus moment waiting. Some name that we are too proud, too scared, or too busy or too hurt to write down. Now let me tell you about uh a quick text message that sat unsent in someone's drafts folder for 11 months. I know the story because more than one young person has told me the same version of it in my office. Two roommates, best friends since freshman year, split over something small that turned into something big, the way that it always does. One of them said a cutting thing in front of a whole friend group, and the other then screenshotted a private conversation and sent it around out of hurt and spite.

The Unsent Apology Draft Story

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And within a week, the friendship was over, right? The group chat quietly split into two group chats, and both of them told themselves the same story. Like, it's fine, like we just grew apart. People change. Eleven months later, one of them is sitting in church on a Sunday, not unlike this one. And the pastor says something about a list, and a name shows up in their head before she can stop it. She opens up her phone. There's a message already typed from months earlier, never sent. Like I've been thinking about what happened between us. I said something I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. It just sits there, you know, cursor blinking, deleting the delete button, just like one little tap away. Here's what I told her when she told me this story. The unsent apology does you no good sitting in the drafts folder. It's not repentance, it's just a rough draft of repentance, which is a fine place to start. But frankly, it's a terrible place to stay. Have you ever noticed that it's easier to confess to God than to confess to other people? That's because God already knows. People don't, right? Confession to God costs pride. Confession to people often costs reputation. That's why step eight feels so terrifying. It asks us not to trust that grace is bigger than our image. Step eight is not the is not finished when we just write the words. It's finished when you become willing enough that you no longer need the perfect moment to send it. She sent it, by the way. It took her another two months of work to get up the nerve. The friendship didn't fully come back the way that it used to be, but something did in her. And by the way, that's normal, right? We're not asking you to send anything this week. Again, hear me really clearly. Just a list. And one more thing before we close, because Orberg doesn't stop at just making a list and becoming willing. His third movement in this step is forgiveness. And here's the part that we skip past. There is a name on some of your list that you have not written, and it's your own.

Forgiving Yourself And Writing Your Name

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And you've never been willing or even become willing to forgive yourself for doing the thing that you did at 22, or maybe the marriage you couldn't save, or the kid you weren't patient enough with on that one hard day. Hear me. Self-contempt is not the same as repentance. Satan loves to keep confusing those two. Because if he can keep you hating yourself, he never has to worry about you actually changing. Self-contempt can look spiritual, it feels humble, but it never produces life. Grace does. Repentance turns toward God and then receives grace. Self-contempt just replays the tape. So if the list that you're building has everyone else's name but your own, it's not finished. So here's your assignment this week. And it's actually smaller than it feels. It's not the apology, not yet. Just the list. Find a piece of paper, like an actual piece of paper. Not a note on your phone that you can swipe away. And then write names. Like the friend you stop speaking to, the parent you keep at arm's length, the coworker you threw under the bus to look good in a meeting, the ex, the sibling, your spouse, maybe your own name at the bottom. You don't have to know what to say yet. You don't have to be ready to send anything. Now I wonder. I wonder what Zacchaeus did after dinner that night. I wonder if he like laid awake staring at the ceiling, thinking of every name, every family, every person he cheated, every conversation he knew was coming. I mean, the list had to have been overwhelming. But I'm telling you, I don't think he was afraid anymore. Because before he ever faced the people he had hurt, he had already been found by grace. That's step eight. Not becoming perfect, becoming willing. And grace always goes first. Jesus is still standing under the tree today, looking up at you, saying the same thing. Come down. I want to come to your house today. Before you've made anything right, before you've earned a seat at the table, grace goes first. And it always has. So your job this week is just to become willing to let it work. Would you stand with me? Some of you have a name sitting in your chest right now, and you knew it before I finished the sentence. And I'm going to ask you now to hold your hands in front of you the same thing we actually practice for step six. Not closed around excuses, open. That is what willingness looks like on the outside. An open hand towards a name that you

Prayer For Courage And Willingness

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would rather keep buried. Would you close your eyes? Let me pray for you. God, you know every name we're avoiding right now. You know the ones we have wronged and the ones who have wronged us and the ones we are still arguing with in our own heads. Would you give us the courage to write the list? Give us the willingness Zacchaeus had before we even understand what it'll cost. And for the ones of us who need it most, give us the grace to write our name down to.