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• Illustration: When a pastor calls to follow up with some visitors to his church, a little boy answers the phone, whispering that all the adults in the house, including the policemen and firemen, are busy. When the pastor asks what they are all doing, the boy replies that they are busy looking for him.
• What could motivate us to hide from God, when he knows all?

• The despised tax collector Zacchaeus climbs a tree to remain unseen while watching Jesus pass by.
  - Luke 19:2

• Illustration: In one of his books, John Ortberg recalls a childhood vacation that ended with the family driving home to Illinois, only to realize that Ortberg's sister had left her beloved doll in the hotel. The family drove all the way back to Canada to retrieve the doll.
• Jesus is the only answer to the sinfulness that causes us to hide.

• Jesus tells Zacchaeus to come down, because he wishes to stay at the tax collector's house. Zacchaeus gladly complies, although the people are shocked that Jesus would associate with such a sinner.
  - Luke 19: 6-7
• One of the keys to coming out of our hiding is admitting we are morally ragged and letting Jesus deal with it.
  - Illustration: Wenig remembers getting a miniature pet crocodile when he was a boy for the sole purpose of tormenting his older sister. When he began chasing her with it, his father told him that because he had sinned, his father would have to take the crocodile back to the store.
• Illustration: Wenig had a friend who became pregnant with her third child, and was diagnosed with cancer two months later. The woman chose her baby's life over radiation treatment for her disease, and died after giving birth; this is similar to the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross.
• We all need to be found and forgiven of sin.
  - Illustration: In the book Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo, bad guy Clabare robs fellow passengerson a ship and jumps into the sea to swim away with the booty. An octopus grabs him and drowns him. Sin does the same to those it entangles.

• Zacchaeus tells Jesus, "Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor. If I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount," and Jesus grants him salvation.
  - Luke 19: 8-10

• Are you hiding from God as you pursue affluence, significance, good grades, or achievements? Are you entangled in sexual immorality or guilt? Jesus is the only one who can free us.
  - Illustration: Abraham Lincoln once attended a slave auction, "bought" a young African woman, and told her she was free. She responded, "I will go with you."