The Lord Jesus Christ once spoke
to a man about his soul. That man was called Zacchaeus. And the Lord, our God, spoke
the most comforting words that ever a sinner on the face of
this world could hear. In Luke chapter 19 verse 9, the
Lord Jesus Christ said to this man, this day is salvation come
to this house for so much as he also is a son of Abraham. Let me explain what that means
very briefly. That little phrase, a son of
Abraham, means that Zacchaeus was a son of the covenant of
God. He was a beneficiary of the promises
of God, and that faith had been given to Zacchaeus because of
God's covenant promise. That man heard the words that
day, Salvation is come to you. We're going to be looking this
morning at a few verses in 1 Peter 1. And I want to draw your attention
to the fact that it's no surprise to us, or it ought not to be,
that the apostle Peter, whom we reminded ourselves last week,
was told to feed the sheep of God and was told to strengthen
his brethren. Almost immediately begins this
letter, this epistle, this letter that he wrote to the churches
there in that place that we now call Turkey. He writes to them
about the salvation that comes through the Lord Jesus Christ. And in verse 9 of this passage,
the last one that we read together, we read there that there is the
salvation of souls. in the mind of Peter as he writes
these words. So he is restating the words
of the Lord Jesus Christ when Christ said to Zacchaeus, salvation
has come to this house. So Peter picks up that idea and
he carries forward that idea and he says, Jesus spoke about
the salvation of this man's soul. And if I'm going to feed Jesus'
people, if I'm going to feed Jesus' flock, If I am going to
be a minister to the people of God, I will speak about this
salvation too. And that's what the true minister
of the gospel always does. He speaks about the salvation
that comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter is here talking
about the salvation of a soul. Could anything be more important
this morning than hearing about the salvation of your soul? What could we talk about? What could we talk about? Well,
there's a thousand subjects might take our attention. We could
talk about many, many different things. And I guess that some
of you people are pretty wise and pretty smart and pretty knowledgeable
about a whole host of subjects. And you could wax eloquent on
a whole number of great topics. Tell me about your life. Tell
me about your experiences. Tell me about your education.
Tell me about the things that you've done. Tell me about the
things that you know. We could talk about all of these
things. Sport or politics. The price
of gas here in the town. There are many things that take
up our attention and we talk about these things constantly.
Day by day we share these things. We chat about these things. But
the most important thing The most important thing that you
could be doing this morning is to be hearing about your eternal
soul. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
something to say about the souls of men and women. And Peter picks
up this message and every faithful gospel preacher carries that
same message to the hearts and lives of men and women. Could there be anything more
important Jesus said to Peter, feed my sheep. How did Peter
feed the sheep? By telling them about the salvation
of their souls. He said, strengthen your brethren. How do we strengthen one another? By returning again and again
to the subject of salvation. Today I want us to think about
eternal life and the salvation of a soul. The Lord Jesus Christ
once asked, what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole
world and lose his own soul? Now, I hope you've got ambition.
I hope that you've got hopes for your future. But I say this,
that whatever you achieve in this world, whatever you attain
to, wherever you go, whatever you enjoy and engage in as far
as this world is concerned, what will you have profited if you
gain the whole world and lose your soul? What is the salvation
of a soul? What is salvation? Now I could use a lot of long
theological words at this stage. And if I was careful, I wouldn't
be wrong in using them to describe what salvation is. And let me
say that it helps to know the language of the gospel, the words
of the gospel to safeguard against error. So I'm not knocking doctrine
by any means. But my friend in the hospice
over there is not right now teasing out the distinction between justification
and sanctification. She wants to feel the arms of
Jesus Christ around about her. That's what she needs. And that's what we all need.
We need to know experience, not in our head as a definition,
but in our heart as a reality, as a personal experience of union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. I was trying to think about a
way that I might explain this for the benefit of maybe some
of the younger ones. Anyway, Here goes. Think of it like a car. Think
of it like a motor car. I have no idea what a carburettor
does. No idea at all. I probably should. But what I want to know is, will
that car get me home? Will that car get me home? That's salvation. Salvation gets us home. It gets us into the presence
of God. It gets us to glory. It brings
us to heaven. Or have you ever been lost? Maybe
you don't know where you are and you don't know how to get
home. So you call a friend and he says,
or she says, no problem. I'll come and pick you up. I
know where you are. I'll take you home. And you see the wonderful thing
about God is that he knows exactly where we are. He knows where
you are right now. He knows where you are and you
are. He knows where you are in your
life. He knows where you are in your experiences. He knows
what you've been through. He knows where you've been. He
knows about the hard times. He knows about the times when
you've been deceiving yourself. He knows about the time when
you've been kidding yourself. He knows about the things that
you've done that you're ashamed of. And he knows that you're
lost. He knows exactly where you are. And he can come and get you.
And he can take you home. And that's salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ said to
Zacchaeus, this day is salvation, come to this house. Why? Why? Because Jesus had come to
his house. Because the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the saviour, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sins. That's what a saviour does. He
saves people. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
to visit Zacchaeus that day. He entered his house and he says,
Zacchaeus, I've come to save you. Salvation has come to your
house today. Salvation is a personal relationship
with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Another aspect of salvation
which Peter draws our attention to here is that it is a free
gift. of God's mercy. You don't have
to pay for it. You don't have to do something
to get it. You don't have to live a good life. We trust in the promises of our
God, and God promises that those that come to him, he will in
no wise cast out. Here's what Peter says in the
third verse of chapter one. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy
hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead. Now that tells us that This salvation
is God's gift to us because he says, blessed be God. Blessed
be God for his mercy towards us, for the new birth that he
has given us. Blessed be God for this lively
hope, this hope of eternal life, this hope of union with God through
Christ. Blessed be God, thanks to him. We don't thank one another. We
don't thank ourselves for what we've done and what we've achieved.
We look to God and we say, thank you, God, for salvation. And
that tells us that salvation is a gift from God. The source of a sinner's salvation
is God's mercy. And mercy is a beautiful theme. Mercy. Mercy. I guess we don't use it too often
these days as a word. But I'll tell you what it is. It's the opposite of justice. People say, we want justice. We want fairness. We want what's coming to us. We want what we deserve. Nobody should ask for what they
deserve from God. Because what we deserve is judgment. What we deserve is wrath. What we deserve is the rod of
his anger. Because the word of God tells
us the soul that sinneth must die. And we are all sinners. Whether we think about it from
that original sin that is part of our human nature. Brother
was talking about Adam and the fall in the garden last night
as he preached at the mission. Or whether we're thinking about
the sins that we have committed. We're all sinners. You want to see a big sinner?
Look to the left. Look to the right. Look behind
you. Look at me. But mercy finds a way of escape
in the midst of accountability. There is a law of accountability
with God. He is just, he is holy. He cannot
deny his holiness and therefore sin must be punished. But mercy
finds a way to deliver the guilty while satisfying justice. How is that possible? Mitch's
message was about sacrifice. He spoke about Isaac. He spoke
about Abraham. He spoke about the altar being
built and the boy being laid there on the top of the altar
with the wood and the knife being drawn to slay the son. And then
he spoke of the gospel, the good news that came, that another
had been found, a ram caught in the thicket, that Isaac was
to go free and the ram was to be taken and slain in his place. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of
the world. He carried the debt of his people
for the sin that they had committed. He paid the ransom that was due
when they did not have the resources to pay for it themselves. And
he sets the guilty free. That's mercy. Perhaps you imagine
that you're too big a sinner for Jesus to save. Well, I've
got good news for you. Peter talks in this third verse
here about abundant mercy. That's good news. That's good
news for big sinners. Abundant mercy. Mercy that is
commensurate with our need. For all the sin that we've got,
there is mercy sufficient. We are big sinners. But the Lord
God is big in mercy. And abundant mercy leads to abundant
life and God's gift to his people. He has begotten us again, Peter
says. To be begotten is to be born.
To be begotten again is to be born again. And that's what Peter
is talking about here. And you see how Peter, in his
faithfulness to the Lord's message, takes the themes of the Lord
Jesus Christ in his own ministry and brings them quickly to the
attention of his audience? We've spoken about salvation
coming to the house of Zacchaeus. To whom did the Lord Jesus Christ
talk about the new birth? Anybody know? Nicodemus. Nicodemus, he said, you must
be born again. He spoke about a change. He spoke
about a conversion. He spoke about an alteration.
And here Peter is talking about the same thing. If we would know
something of the salvation of a soul, then we must know it
through the gift of the new birth, being born again. And salvation, it's God's promise
of new life. new life in the face of death. The salvation of a soul, the
salvation of our soul, our hope of everlasting life is founded
upon the blood, the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ and
the resurrection from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ's
resurrection is the evidence, the down payment, if you like,
of our eternal wellbeing. Peter calls salvation an incorruptible
inheritance, which is in heaven. Do you ever wonder what heaven
will be like? What will our loved ones that
go to heaven see when they get there? What will they hear when they
first enter into heaven? What will they smell? What will the experience of heaven
be like And what will we enjoy when it
is our turn to join them? That's the lively hope that Peter
is talking about in this verse. A lively hope that we have in
this life, in this world. Peter says, Verse four, to an
inheritance incorruptible and undefiled that fadeth not away
reserved in heaven for you. That's the lively hope, an incorruptible
inheritance. Now what's an inheritance? An
inheritance is something that is won on our behalf. If you
win it for yourself, then it's a prize. But if you get it given
to you by someone else, it's an inheritance. And the important
thing about an inheritance is that it doesn't come because
of what you do, but it comes because of who you are. It comes
as a gift from a father to a son. Perhaps we're familiar with the
prayer, our father which art in heaven, but have you ever
thought about the implications of that? Are you a son of God? Are you a daughter of God? Can
you truly say in your heart that you know God as your father? This salvation, the salvation
of a soul is God's gift to his children. to his elect people,
to his chosen ones, to those that he has loved from eternity. It's an eternal glory. It's rich. It's valuable. It's an inheritance. It's desirable. It's enjoyable. It's fulfilling and satisfying. And it is all of these things
because God is pleased to grant us his gift of an inheritance
of life. To be happy in that blessed state
of glory, to have every desire satisfied, is our lively hope
of eternal life. So it's an inheritance. But it's
not just an inheritance, it's an incorruptible inheritance. That means that it is certain
and it is sure. It means that it is an unbreakable
promise. I looked up incorruptible. I always like to know that I
know what these words mean before I start talking about them. Any
of you men ever had a rupture? You know what a rupture is? It's when something is burst
through. Incorruptible comes from that
word rupture. And what this is telling us is
that nothing will ever break through into that glory which
God has prepared for his people as an inheritance. It's an incorruptible
inheritance. Nothing will be able to spoil
it. Nothing will be able to damage it. Nothing will be able to hurt
it. It's incorruptible. Nothing remains outstanding. Everything necessary to complete
the wonder of God's gift to his people has been fulfilled. The Lord Jesus Christ has done
everything so that all that is left for us is to enter into
the joy of the experience of the incorruptible inheritance
that God has for his people. And if that wasn't enough, Peter
says it's an incorruptible inheritance which is undefiled. I think he's
laying it on thick here, isn't he? He wants us to make sure
that we understand just how wonderful this place of glory, this place
of heaven is going to be. It's beyond the reach of sin. It's undefiled. Nothing that
defiles it can enter in. See this body of mine, this body
is full of defilement. But there, there is no sin. There,
there is no fallen flesh. There, there is nothing to mar,
nothing to spoil. It is the epitome of purity. It is the pinnacle of perfection. It's holy like God is holy. Revelation 21 verse 27 says,
There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth,
neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they which
are written in the Lamb's book of life. That's the inheritance,
incorruptible, undefiled. And then says Peter, it'll never
fade away. It's an eternal gift, an eternal
blessing. The Lord has an eternal thing
for us. This lively hope that we have
is for something that will never be sinful, never be broken, never
be removed, and will never diminish in its splendour or its wonder. If it doesn't fade away, it's
still sparkling, After all these years, it's still
sparkling. It continues to be bright. It
continues to be colourful. You can't wash the colour out
of this one. That holy city that is described
for us in heaven or as heaven, have you ever noticed the way
in which the ways in which it's described speak about its richness
and its splendour and its majesty. We're told that it is bedecked
with streets of gold. It's full of gems, with crystal,
with well-watered gardens, with trees that grow strong beside
pools of water, whose leaves are the healing of the nations.
And everything that is described for us in Scripture speaks of
the durability of heaven. Now I don't imagine that there's
going to be physical gold metal or even physical diamonds and
jewels or trees growing. Maybe we'll get a surprise and
there'll be all of those things. But here's the point, that whatever
it is that's in heaven will last for eternity and it will not
fade away. and we will enjoy it for eternity.
This is our lively hope. This is the inheritance of a
soul that has been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing lasts
in this world, but heaven will last forever. Here, everything
declines. Everything grows old. Everything
fades away. We'll have the opportunity, perhaps
sooner than we hope, of being able to say dust to dust, ashes
to ashes. And that is the way of all flesh.
But in heaven. The glory of God, the glory of
his people, the inheritance that is ours by lively hope will never
fade away. 1 Corinthians 2, verse 9 says
it is written, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither has it
entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared
for them that love him. And oh, how we long to see those
things which we can't even imagine yet. How we long to hear about
it, to smell, to touch, to taste all the joys of glory, to experience
it personally, to enjoy it, to possess it. And here in our state of time
and flesh, We can but trust the Lord Jesus Christ who says, in
my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you, I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself. That where I am, there ye may
be also. I will come again. Lord Jesus
Christ who rose from the dead is coming again and he will be able to say come and inherit those things
which have been prepared for you. Peter says this unfading
Inheritance is reserved for you personally, specifically, you
who are the children of God, you who are the people who love
the Lord, you whom the Lord has loved and chosen and brought
through the preaching of the gospel to that place of believing
in the promises of God. It is reserved for you personally,
specifically, undoubtedly. Don't you just love it when you
walk into a restaurant and there's a little card on the table and
it says reserved for you. And all these people are standing
around waiting to get seated, waiting to get served. And she
says, oh no, you come this way. We've got a table reserved for
you. It just makes you feel like a million dollars, doesn't it?
or when you pull into the car park and all the cars are there
and you're looking for a space and there's no spaces and then
you see, ah, wait a minute, there's one reserved just for me. You see, it's no one else's.
No one else can sit there. No one else can be there because
it's reserved for you especially. And Peter says that there in
heaven, is an inheritance, incorruptible, undefiled, that fadeth not away,
reserved in heaven for you. These heavenly mansions that
the Lord Jesus Christ has been preparing, these are the eternal
promises of God for his people. And they have our names written
on them. they're reserved for us. I began
by talking about Christ's visit to Zacchaeus' house and the words
that were spoken by the Lord when he said, this day is salvation,
come to this house. May the Lord be pleased to visit
each of us this day with a personal experience of those very words. May he grant us faith to believe
his promises. May he grant us to hear the glorious
words of eternal bliss. Well done, thou good and faithful
servant. Thou has been faithful over a
few things. I will make thee ruler over many
things. Enter thou into the joy of thy
Lord. Amen.