Now today in our study of the
book of Luke chapter 19, I thought of a couple of different titles
about this story of the conversion of Zacchaeus. Luke 19 verse 1
down to verse 10. We see a couple things here and
we could come up with many different titles. Before I've given this
title to the message, the effectual call of the gospel. And we see
that there, don't we? The effectual call of the gospel. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is that irresistible call of God. He makes himself to us
irresistible. We must have him. And I thought
of this title as well, and this is probably what I'll end up
with, the conversion of a sinner. The conversion of a sinner. Now,
here we see a mighty, mighty miracle. is lost and going away from God
and then when God crosses his path with the gospel and calls
him out of darkness to himself. I mean the Lord called Zacchaeus
to himself and Zacchaeus received him joyfully because the Lord
had called him by His power and by His grace. We find the Lord
Jesus Christ, as it says there in verse 1 of Luke 19, the Lord
Jesus Christ entered into this city of Jericho. It had a famous,
famous history. You remember the walls of Jericho
fell down? at the command of Joshua. Joshua
is a picture of God our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And like
what it says in Joshua, I believe it is maybe chapter 5, where
it says that Joshua saved Rahab. Who was Rahab? Rahab was a notable
sinner. She was a harlot. And Joshua
saved one sinner and her house in Jericho the day it was destroyed. And here we find the Lord Jesus
Christ passing through Jericho, this same city, this same city. And as he went out of Jericho,
he runs into this man by the name of Zacchaeus. We find that
the Lord Jesus Christ must needs go through Jericho like he must
needs go through Samaria. Here we find the Good Shepherd
crossing the path of his elect, his chosen, and giving him life. calling him out of bondage to
marvelous liberty in the Lord Jesus Christ, giving Zacchaeus
salvation. I love what he says down here
in verse 9. Can you imagine hearing these words of the Lord spoken
to your heart? This day, Zacchaeus, salvation
has come to your house. Now what does Zacchaeus need?
I mean, he had plenty of money. He was a rich man. He had plenty
of friends. He had plenty of influence. I'm
sure he had a nice house. But what did he need? He needed
salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Lord gives him salvation. This day salvation has come to
your house. Salvation is always in a person.
Forasmuch as you are also a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man
has come to seek and to save lost sinners. Now, there are
many valid and good reasons where to preach the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ. But we can sum it up with three
reasons. Whenever we meet together, our
focus and our aim is to preach Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ,
as the only way of salvation. We preach the gospel for at least
these three reasons. First and foremost, to glorify
God. That should be the chief aim
of everything we do, especially when we gather together in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and to worship Him. It is to
glorify His name. That's what it's all about. God
forbid we should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle writes this, whatsoever
you do in word or deed, do all to the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Salvation is all about His glory. That's why in the preaching of
the gospel, we preach salvation by Him, through Him, and in Him. Secondly, why do we preach the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ? Because the Lord has commanded
us to do so. The Lord has commanded us to
do so. We don't come here with clever
stories or funny stories. I'm not a comedian. We don't
come here to entertain people. We come here to the pulpit for
one reason, to preach Christ, because we're commanded of God.
The Lord has commanded His church to do just that. We preach not
ourselves, But Jesus Christ the Lord and ourselves, your servant,
for his sake, we preach Christ because we're commanded to do
so. And thirdly, the third reason
we preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, because God uses
the preaching of the gospel now, the preaching of the gospel.
Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of
God and the salvation to everyone that believe it, because the
Lord uses the preaching of the gospel to call out his elect.
It is a means that God has ordained to call out his people. to call
out his people. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. Now, it is a crucial
element of the gospel of Christ to hear the truth of the gospel.
Now don't turn, let me just read this to you in Romans 10. For
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in
him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they preach? How shall they hear without a
preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent as
it is written? How beautiful are the feet of
them that preach the gospel of peace, that bring glad tidings
of good things, that say, Behold, thy God reigneth. So when we
go, We must preach the gospel of Christ. I guard this pulpit
very closely. I don't just invite anybody.
I get invitations. People write things to me on
the internet and send things to me on the internet. I get
emails from people I don't even know who they are, but they want
to come here and preach. Well, I'm traveling through that
area, and I'm a missionary from here, from there, and I want
to come through and preach, and I don't even answer them back,
because I guard this pulpit with my very life, because the truth
of God is at stake. I'm desperately interested in
you hearing the truth, not the lies of men. Now, we also must,
must, must preach. When we preach the gospel, those
five blessed points of the gospel that sum up the gospel of God's
grace, we call those the five points of the gospel, the doctrine
of grace. They came to be known during
the Reformation in Martin Luther's day, John Calvin's day, John
Knox, and all those old timers, they came to be known as TULIP,
tulip. T-U-L-I-P. You ever heard that
term? T-U-L-I-P. There is a little
gospel track out there on the table. T-U-L-I-P stands for total
depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible
grace, and that's what we see in our story today, and perseverance
of the saints. Now, most of you are familiar
with those things, right? Let us not get over familiar
with those things. Because those five basic foundational
truths make up what we call the gospel of Christ. Now you can't
leave one off. If you leave, well if you leave
off, we'll just leave off particular redemption. And we'll just preach
universal redemption. You don't have a gospel message.
You've just poisoned the well, and it will kill everyone who
drinks from it. Now, when we talk about T-U-L-I-P,
tulip, total depravity, and we can sum it up this way, and I'm
not going to spend a lot of time on these five points, but when
we talk about total depravity, we're talking about what happened
in the garden. What happened in the garden when
Adam sinned against God? Death and judgment and guilt
passed upon all men. That's the reason that we're
lost by nature. Total depravity. Do you consider
yourself a totally depraved sinner? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. If that
be so, if that be established, then thank God for this, unconditional
election. Had God not chosen a people unto
salvation, none would be saved. Had God not made the choice of
certain people and predestinated them to be conformed to the image
of Christ, no one would be saved. Because men left to themselves,
love themselves, love darkness, and hate God. Oh, they don't
hate the God they whittled out in their little puny mind, but
when confronted with the terms of God's Word, as God as God,
they say in their heart, unless God does something in their heart,
we'll not have this man to reign over us. God chose a people unto
salvation. We call that the Bible doctrine
of election. That's the blessed truth. Now,
if you ever get established on ruin, you'll thank God for his
elective love. The third thing we see, T-U-L,
L stands for limited atonement. And what do we mean by that?
And why do we insist upon that? We insist, as the book of God
teaches, that the Lord Jesus Christ laid down his life for
his people, for his sheep, for his elect. It makes no sense,
and the Bible does not teach, that the Lord Jesus Christ died
for folks who perish in hell. If he died for their sin, why
are they in hell? There's none, none in hell for
whom the Lord Jesus Christ died. He died to put away the sin of
His elect and He justified them by His blood. They are justified
eternally. They can never be unjustified.
He justified them by His blood. Call His name Jesus, He shall
save His people from their sin. Now, these are the things that
we insist upon. We insist upon, and this is what
believers believe. Why do we believe these things?
The book teaches them. We believe the word of God to
be so. Now the third or fourth thing,
T-U-L-I stands for irresistible or invincible grace. The irresistible
call of God, that is what happens in a sinner's heart. He irresistibly
calls. You see, the king, when he saw
Zacchaeus up that tree, the Lord of glory didn't say, hey, Zacchaeus,
you know, I know you're not having a good day, and it would probably
be a good thing, and why don't you just invite me into your
heart? The Lord didn't speak that way.
He said, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down. And what happened?
He skittled down that tree. I mean, he came down that tree
in a heartbeat. And that's what we call the irresistible,
invincible grace of God. And that's what happens in a
sinner's heart. And then the P stands for perseverance,
preservation. He preserves us. We're kept by
the power of God. And the saints of God, they do
persevere in faith. That's what takes place in a
sinner's heart. So we see what happened in the
garden, what happened in eternity, election, what happened at the
cross, limited atonement. We see what happens in a sinner's
heart, irresistible grace, effectual call, and then we see the perseverance
of the saint, what takes place in a sinner's life. Now those
are the five essentials of the gospel, of which we cannot vary. If you vary at any point, well,
I'm a four-point, well, you've missed the gospel. It's either
five or zero. It's either all or none. There's
no compromise. And we will not compromise. We
will not compromise here. Folks will say that's offensive.
Too bad. Saints aren't offended with the
truth, are they? They love the truth. Now, today
in this message, we see the conversion story of Zacchaeus, and we see
the truth of God's effectual, irresistible, invincible call
of a sinner to life in Christ. That's what we see. Zacchaeus
here is a pattern, a pattern of how God saved sinners. Zacchaeus
was a notable chief He was a notorious sinner, yet the Lord crossed
his path and the Lord had mercy upon him. We see the call of
God's sovereign grace to a notorious, wicked man. Zacchaeus was a bad
man. He was the center by birth, nature,
practice, and choice. He lived in a bad city, Jericho. He was in a bad business. He
was the chief tax collector. And yet, this man's sinfulness
did not deter the Lord Jesus Christ from crossing his path
and calling him out of darkness into his marvelous light. We
must understand that our sins don't keep us from Christ. Our sins don't keep us from Christ. You know what will keep you from
Christ? Your supposed self-righteousness. As long as you trust yourself
that you're good enough, moral enough, pure enough, you'll never
come to the Lord Jesus Christ as a vile, wretched sinner. There is no sinner too vile,
no sinner too mean, no sinner too wild. There is no case that
the Lord Jesus Christ cannot heal and cure. For he came to
save sinners. Paul said that he was the chief
one. Aren't you glad for that fact?
Now, think about this. And here's the thing for us personally. We know the Lord Jesus Christ
died for the ungodly. We know that he didn't come to
call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Now the question
for you to consider before God, are you ungodly? Are you a sinner? Are you by nature lost without
God, without hope and without Christ? That's whom He came to
save. You see, He's able to save to
the uttermost all that come to God by Him, saying that He ever
lived to make intercession for them. Now, we find Zacchaeus
up this tree out of curiosity to see who the Lord Jesus Christ
was. And verse 5 in our text, Luke
19 verse 5, when the Lord Jesus came to the place He looked up
and he saw Him. Now this was not the first time
that the Lord saw Him. And I'm not talking about maybe
a week or two or a month before. The Lord Jesus Christ saw Zacchaeus
in that eternal covenant of grace when he chose him in Christ and
made him an object of his love. And he looked up and he saw him
and said unto him, Zacchaeus. You see the Lord knows his sheep
by name. The Lord had known this man as
one of his sheep from all eternity when God chose him in that covenant
of grace. The foundation of God standeth
sure, having this sealed, the Lord knoweth them that are his. Remember our Lord said to Jeremiah,
before I formed thee in the belly, I knew you and ordained you to
be a prophet unto the people. The Lord knows his people and
he has known his people from eternity. Before I was ever born,
March 22, 1952, Gooding, Idaho. Before my mama ever named me
Thomas, the Lord knew me in that covenant of grace and ordained
me to believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. I find it
quite amazing. That's your story too, if you're
a believer. And the Lord said, make haste,
come down, for today I must abide at your house. I must, I must
abide. And this is what happens when
God calls His people. He calls them affectionately
and He calls them by name. It's a personal call. Matthew,
follow me. Lazarus, come forth. It's a personal
call. It is a powerful call. It is
a prevailing call. And it is a call that will be
answered. It's not the call of the preacher.
It's not the call of the preacher, it's the call of God through
the preaching of the gospel. The Ikea's make haste, come down
for today. I must abide at your house. Now, this was not an invitation. The gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ is not a mere invitation. It's the command of the king.
The command of the king said, Zacchaeus make haste and come
down, what's going to happen? What if he said, nah, I'm not
interested. That's not going to happen. And
he made haste, and he came down, and he received him with a joyful
heart. You see, God made him willing
in the day of his power. He received him Joyfully salvation
is in our Lord Jesus Christ. Now again the religious folks
got upset when they saw the Lord Jesus Christ sovereignly calling
this sinner when he singled out Zacchaeus and left everybody
else in their sin. They saw it and they murmured, man, that he was gone to be a
guest with a man, think about this, the Lord of glory, the
holy God, the eternal sovereign king of all the earth, he goes
home with a man, that's a sinner, that's a sinner, a sinful man. And Zacchaeus stood and said
unto the Lord, verse 8, Lord, half of my goods I give to the
poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation,
I restore unto him fourfold." Now something happened to this
man Zacchaeus. He was a changed man. The Lord
affectionately called him, but he also changed his heart, his
mind, his motive. Before Zacchaeus was on the take,
he was taking from everybody. Now he has a generous heart,
a loving heart, a forgiving heart. Now he's giving, willingly giving
back. And that's what the grace of
God does. It makes us, the grace of God makes us gracious and
generous, loving, kind, and long-suffering like our blessed Lord. Salvation
that we experience is a hard work. God who begins a good work
in you, he will finish that work. Now, look at verse 9 and 10.
Here's where I want to get to for just a minute. I'll let you
go. Here is a spiritual biography
of every sinner whom the Lord saves. And the Lord Jesus Christ
said to him, today is the day of your salvation. This day,
this day is salvation come to this house. Salvation has come
to this house. For as much as he also is a son
of Abraham, here is the spiritual biography of everyone God saves
by His grace. For the Son of Man has come to
seek and to save that which was lost. The effectual call was
the result of this eternal covenant of grace. He's saying, you are
one of those special sons of Abraham. Zacchaeus was more than
a natural descendant of Abraham. He was a spiritual son of Abraham,
chosen of God in that eternal covenant of grace. They which
be of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. All of God's
elect are the spiritual sons of Abraham. That's right. He is not a Jew, which is one
outwardly, but inwardly, and that circumcision is of the heart,
of the heart and of the spirit. Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called sons
of God. Now, I want to look at three
things in verse 10. The first thing is this. In one
word, sums up what we are by nature, L-O-S-T, lost. And this is the way we're born.
All we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to our
own way, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all. This
is our state by nature, L-O-S-T. Without God, without hope, without
Christ in this world, lost, dead in sin, dead and shut out. Our sin has separated us from
God and there's no way we can get back in and reconcile ourselves
unto God in the energy of the flesh because we're lost. I've got a pretty keen sense
of direction and I usually know when I'm out and about in the
woods or different places. I usually know north and south
and east and west. But I remember one particular
time I was out in the woods just kind of looking around and I
got sidetracked and I turned around and in an instant I just
turned around in an instant, and I didn't know east from west,
north from south. I was absolutely lost. I didn't know which way was which
way. I didn't know how to get home.
I couldn't go this way. I couldn't go that way. I didn't
know which way to go. I was lost. That's exactly our
state by nature, lost. away from God without hope and
without Christ. Now, here's the remedy. The Son
of Man is come. That's the only way that lost
people are found. You see, He finds us. We were
lost. He found us. The Son of Man is
come. He is come. Why did He come? Why did the One who was called
God the Son, God Almighty, in the beginning was the Word and
the Word was with God and the Word was God. Why was the Word
made flesh and dwelt among us? The Son of God is come. The Son
of Man, the Son of God became the Son of Man in order to save
His people. Without controversy, great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. In the fullness of time, God
sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law to redeem
them that were under the law. The Lord Jesus Christ came on
a mission of mercy to save His elect. The Son of God became
the Son of Man that He might make the sons of men sons of
God. Did you get a hold of that? Behold
what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we
should be called sons of God. We were lost, the Lord Jesus
Christ was Son of God to save us. Thirdly, to seek, oh He seeks
them out. He knows where His sheep are.
and their lost sheep, and he seeks them out, he came to seek
them, and he came to save them. The Lord Jesus Christ is on a
mission of mercy to call out his elect among the fallen sons
of Adam, He came to seek and to save. Call His name Jesus.
He shall save His people from their sin. And the Lord is going
to save and has all of His lost sheep. Now if you'll find John
chapter 6. John chapter 6. Look carefully at John 6, 37. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Now, here we see that eternal
electing love, don't we? All that the Father giveth me,
they shall come to me. There we see that irresistible
call. They shall come to me, salvation
in Christ. And him that cometh to me, he
says, I will in no wise cast them out. There is that perseverance
of the saints. For I came down from heaven,
not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. John
6, verse 39, And this is the Father's will, which hath sent
me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing,
but raise up again at the last day. And this is the will of
him that sent me, that everyone would seeth the Son. and believeth
on him may have everlasting life and I'll raise him up at the
last day. Now the Lord Jesus Christ is
gonna save every lost sheep. None will perish for whom the
Lord Jesus Christ came to seek them out. Now if he came to seek
them and to save them, be assured He will lose not one sheep. He can't. He can't. We are, one
more reading, I've written down here, 1 Peter 2. Verse 24, 1 Peter 2.24, who his
own self, bear our sin in his own body on the tree, There is
that limited atonement. He bear our sin in His own body
on the tree paying our sin debt that we being dead to sins, should
live unto righteousness, by whose stripes we are healed. You were
healed, for we were a sheep going astray, lost sheep, but now are
returned to the shepherd and bishop of your soul." There's
that effectual call of God returning unto the Lord. Well, I pray the
Lord will cause you to read over this conversion story again of
Zacchaeus and see again that our salvation is of the Lord
and of Him only and by His grace and His grace alone.