Most of us are chasing a version of success we'll never quite find. Not because we're not good enough — but because the definition of success keeps moving.

A 2024 HSBC survey asked the British public to define "wealthy." The answer: £213,000 a year. That's 5.5 times the national average. Only 1% of the UK population earns more than £207,000. We've collectively agreed that success looks like something almost nobody achieves. And yet the striving continues.

In this week's talk, Crowd Leader Ade Birkby — engineer, physicist, and Bible college student — opens up Luke 19 and the story of Zacchaeus to ask what success is actually for.

The Most Powerful Man in the Room

Jericho was not a backwater town. In Jesus's day, it was a prosperous, well-positioned city — the kind of place where careers were made and wealth was built. And Zacchaeus had built plenty of it.

As chief tax collector, he sat at the top of the local power structure. Wealthy. Connected. Influential. He had everything the world said you were supposed to want. By any external measure, he had made it.

He was also, by all accounts, completely alone.

Tax collectors in first-century Judea were despised. They worked for the Roman occupiers and typically skimmed a percentage on top for themselves. Zacchaeus wasn't just rich — he was the head of the operation. The crowd that gathered to see Jesus passing through Jericho wasn't about to let him through. He was too short to see over the heads of people who actively wanted him to miss out.

So he ran ahead. Climbed a tree. A sycamore fig tree, specifically — which carried its own cultural weight. It was known colloquially as the "sin-spreading tree." Whatever possessed him to make that choice, Zacchaeus was now literally perched in a symbol of disgrace, trying to catch a glimpse of a travelling rabbi.

This is what isolation looks like. Not destitution. Not failure. The most successful man in Jericho, up a tree, on his own, hoping nobody notices.

Jesus Calls Him by Name

What happens next is, by any standard, scandalous.

Jesus stops. Looks up. And says: "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." (Luke 19:5)

Not "you there." Not "tax collector." His name. Jesus knew who he was and went to his house anyway.

The crowd was furious. "He has gone to be the guest of a sinner." (Luke 19:7) In that culture, sharing a meal meant acceptance, solidarity, endorsement. The religious people couldn't understand why Jesus would choose this man.

But Jesus didn't come to Jericho to validate the crowd's approval system. He came for the lost.

What Changed, and What Didn't

"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 have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.'" (Luke 19:8)

Notice what Jesus didn't do. He didn't demand Zacchaeus give anything. He didn't issue conditions before coming for dinner. He didn't tell him to quit his job. Zacchaeus responded out of something that had shifted inside him — not out of guilt, obligation, or pressure.

He also kept his job. He just decided to do it differently.

This matters. Because one of the things Ade addresses head-on is a misreading of Scripture that has done a lot of damage: the idea that ambition, hard work, and earned success are somehow suspicious. They're not.

In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the parable of the talents. Two servants invest what they've been given and are commended. The third buries his in the ground out of fear and is rebuked. Productive, honest work is not a problem to be solved. It's part of the picture.

Ephesians 4:28 puts it plainly: "Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need."

Work honestly. So you have something to share. The purpose of productivity is community.

Leviticus 19 makes the same point in agricultural terms: "When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner." (Leviticus 19:9-10)

The landowner isn't told to feel guilty for having a harvest. They're told to leave the edges for others. The fruit of success is meant to reach beyond the one who earned it.

Conversation Street

"What does sharing your skills and money look like in your own lives?"

Ade reflected on the fact that the same skills he uses as an engineer and presenter — explaining complex things clearly, structuring an argument — are the skills he's now using to teach Scripture. Nothing changed about the skills. What changed was the direction they were pointed.

Anna spoke about keeping an open home and an open diary. Not just generosity with money, but with time and space — making room for people when it costs something.

Dave talked about time as the most precious resource. He shared a story about a homeless man he encounters near a Tesco — someone he now knows by name, whose preferred coffee and sandwich order he knows. It's a small thing. It cost him time and attention, not just money. That's what giving with cost looks like.

"I struggle to give because I feel I should rather than because I want to. How do I find the balance?"

Ade didn't offer a quick fix to Ellis. He talked about going through eighteen months of reading his Bible out of discipline alone — not desire, not feeling, just showing up because he'd decided to. He was in a hard season personally and spiritually. But he kept going. And eventually, the feeling followed. He signed up for Bible college. The wanting came after the doing.

"Fake it till you make it" isn't a phrase that normally belongs in theological discussion, but Ade used it honestly — and it fits.

Dave added something worth keeping: "Only when our hearts are changed do our feelings begin to change." Discipline has become an unfashionable word. But the Scriptures are full of people who acted before they felt ready — and found the feelings caught up.

Sharon added a final thread worth holding onto: what we give our attention to shapes what we want. We're not stuck with our current desires. They're more malleable than we think.

What This Might Look Like

Ade closed with three questions:

1. Are we searching for Jesus with the same determination Zacchaeus showed? He ran ahead. He climbed a tree. He made himself look ridiculous. The searching was active, not passive.
2. Are we willing to push through the obstacles — the crowd, the distance, the awkwardness — to get closer?
3. When Jesus calls, are we responding immediately? Zacchaeus came down at once.

And for the practical bit — the Zacchaeus response:

1. Name something you've held onto too tightly. Not to guilt yourself, but to notice it.
2. Give something this week that costs you something. Time, money, skill, attention. The cost is part of the gift.
3. Show up before you feel like it. Discipline before desire. The feelings are downstream.
4. Start with what you already have. Ade used engineering skills to teach theology. Anna used her home. Dave used a coffee order. You don't need a new resource — you need a new direction for the one you've got.

A Closing Thought

Zacchaeus didn't find what he was looking for by accumulating more. He found it the moment he was known — called by name, welcomed, included. That's what changed him.

Success isn't wrong. The drive to build, create, earn, and achieve is part of how we're made. But it was never designed to be the destination. It was always meant to be the fuel for something wider.

If you're in a season where having more hasn't made you feel like enough, you're not alone — and you're in good company with a short tax collector up a tree in first-century Jericho.

Jesus came to his house. He comes to ours too.

This talk is part of our current series, Jesus the Revolutionary. You can watch the full episode on the Crowd Church website or wherever you listen to podcasts.