Voyage to Eternity
Passage from a Rock to a Good Place
There is a story of a sailor who was shipwrecked on a South Sea island. He was seized by the natives, carried shoulder-high to a rude throne, and proclaimed king. At first, he enjoyed his reign as the absolute monarch but then he began to wonder what happened to the previous kings.
According to their custom the king ruled for a year. During that year he was treated like, well like a king. But when a king’s reign ended, he was banished to a lonely island to starve to death.
Now most people would have been so upset with this knowledge that they would either eat, drink and be merry while they could or just curl up and die with fear.
Not this sailor! Knowing he was king for the year, this sailor began issuing orders. Carpenters were to make boats. Farmers were to go ahead to this island and plant crops. Builders were to erect a home. When his reign finished, he was exiled, not to a barren isle, but to a paradise of plenty.
Each one of us is like that sailor king. Our time on earth is short, but we do have opportunity to prepare ahead of time… for eternity…
How do we live in the world but not be of the world? It’s a challenge that has faced the followers of Jesus since the beginning of the Christian Church. We live here but we just don’t fit in. We have different values, different goals, different dreams, and different hopes - at least we are supposed to.
We are on a voyage to eternity. A passage from a rock – this world – to a new and better place – a good place – that we call heaven. Heaven is the world where we will live forever in a state of peace, contentment, joy, and love, with our God.
Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 1:1-12 and let’s look together to see what God teaches us today about this voyage we are presently on.
We see here some very important facts about our voyage to eternity.
This is not our home
From Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To God’s chosen people who are away from their homes and are scattered all around the countries of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.
1 Peter 1:1
We are a scattered people and we are away from our homes. We live on this rock called earth but we don’t really belong here – not anymore.
We’re like the southerners who moved to Detroit to get jobs in the factories. We’re like the Acadian named Evangeline who was deported from Nova Scotia to Louisiana. We are like the puritans who left the old world in search of a new and better world. We don’t belong here anymore – not really.
These are not our values
4 Nonbelievers think it is strange that you do not do the many wild and wasteful things they do, so they insult you.
1 Peter 4:4
One of the effects of becoming a believer is that the longer we follow him, the more we become like him in our thoughts and actions, the more we think like him and hold dear his values the more we don’t fit in this old world with it’s systems and values based upon materialism – things.
It’s a little like growing up and discovering that Christmas isn’t nearly as exciting as it was when you were little. For one thing, the pile of presents isn’t nearly as big. For another the pile is mostly for the children and finally, it’s tough to get all that excited about another shirt and a pair of suspenders.
The reality is that it’s more fun to watch the kids and enjoy the day. We’ve grown beyond the need for more stuff and learned the value of relationships.
So we become a people without a home. We have become a people who no longer fit as a part of the world. For us it is no longer about a bigger car, a better house, and gourmet foods. Oh, we don’t mind these things – but somehow when you follow Jesus – you learn to hold onto stuff very, very loosely.
Because you discover the answer to a very simple question, “How much money is enough?” One man answers that there is never enough. The Christian answers that there is always enough.
None of this is special. It is no different than our Lord Jesus. He had no home – he had no place to call his own. He was just traveling through – and so are we.
Listen, it’s important that we don’t become too comfortable with this world and the things in it.
Heaven, not earth, is my home. Paul says, “Our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).
We have been chosen to be with God
1 Peter 1:2
God planned long ago to choose you by making you his holy people, which is the Spirit’s work. God wanted you to obey him and to be made clean by the blood of the death of Jesus Christ.
Grace and peace be yours more and more.
Our place with God is not an accident. It’s part of a plan that was laid out in God’s mind as far back as the very beginning. Every turn, every decision, every step made has been in accordance to a master plan to make a way for you to be in heaven with God for all time.
You were chosen – to be made holy. But God’s plan of salvation includes more than just his choosing you.
We see here also the work of the spirit of God in you. It is the Spirit of God that convicts you of sin and brings you to faith in God. It is the spirit of God that cleanses you and makes you holy. It is the spirit of God that renews you and gives you a new birth.
And it is this new birth that is made possible by the work of Jesus on the cross. It is made possible by the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb.
We have been chosen by the Father, purchased by the Son, and set apart by the Spirit. It takes all three if there is to be a true experience of salvation.
As far as God the Father is concerned, I was saved when He chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world.
As far as the Son is concerned, I was saved when He died for me on the cross.
But as far as the Spirit is concerned, I was saved one night in February 1960 when I heard the Gospel and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. I was baptized into him and took upon myself his name and gave up my life to him.
It is in the spirit that it all came together. It took all three Persons of the Godhead to bring me to salvation.
If we separate these ministries, we will either deny divine sovereignty or human responsibility; and that would lead a false understanding of what happened through faith.
We have a living hope.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In God’s great mercy he has caused us to be born again into a living hope, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3
Peter uses this idea several times. Our hope isn’t static. It’s not based on ink set to paper and bound in consecrated books. It’s passed on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Our hope is based on a promise that transcends death.
The world’s hope is built on the security of possessions. I have some bad news about possessions… it doesn’t last.
A friend of mine was the manager for the House of David Greenhouses in St. Joseph, Michigan. He had been raised by the members of a religious cult group as a child and now he was the manager of one of their businesses. My friend knew the religion and business well – but he didn’t know Jesus.
One night about 10:00 he called me and asked if Ecclesiastes was true – because if it is he might as well just kill himself and be done with life.
I explained that Solomon had discovered that the accumulation of wealth does not satisfy. That it was like trying to catch the wind. I also told him that Solomon also discovered that it was the whole duty of man to serve God always. Ecc 12:13
I went to his home that night and told him about Jesus and that same night about 11:30 I baptized him in his swimming pool.
We have been given an inheritance
Now we hope for the blessings God has for his children. These blessings, which cannot be destroyed or be spoiled or lose their beauty, are kept in heaven for you.
1 Peter 1:4
You see, Peter gives us the good news. We are God’s Children and he is saving for us blessings which will never rust, be lost in a flood, or disappear in a stock market crash.
How many of you got presents for your children this Christmas? Did any of you refuse to give them their gifts? Of course not! But they waited until the appointed day and time.
So it is with us. God has a huge pile of blessings for us… and on the appointed day at the appointed time we shall receive them. They are kept in heaven for us.
This is why the funeral of a Christian is an occasion for celebration as well as sorrow and the funeral of an unbeliever is an occasion of grief and loss without and of the hope we have.
I shall never forget the funeral of a man who died at a young age – outside of any relationship with God. His friends each spoke with pain and grief. There was no hope – only darkness and death. He stood on the shore of this old world and had no vessel to take him to the new world.
We have the hope that is sure and living. We have the promise of Jesus who doesn’t just tell us how to get home – he shows us how and he provides the vessel – his church on the voyage to eternity.
We are in God’s care
God’s power protects you through your faith until salvation is shown to you at the end of time. This makes you very happy, even though now for a short time different kinds of troubles may make you sad.
1 Peter 1:5-6
This is a military term. God is protecting us and we put our faith in him. We live in this world and on this voyage in a state of faith. We are no different than the passengers aboard the three small ships of Christopher Columbus. Hoping, believing, living by faith in their captain.
Only there is a difference. Our captain is better. He didn’t get lost like Chris Columbus and discover a new land by accident. Our captain is Jesus and the salvation he has promised gives us an internal joy that cannot be quenched or diminished.
Troubles serve to test your faith
These troubles come to prove that your faith is pure. This purity of faith is worth more than gold, which can be proved to be pure by fire but will ruin. But the purity of your faith will bring you praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is shown to you.
1 Peter 1:7
A number of years ago in Wisconsin a family allowed their 16 year old son to go on a hunting trip with one of their friends who was a part of their church. That week he was shot and killed accidentally. The next Sunday as the entire church gathered to pray and worship the two affected families (of the teenager who was killed and the man who carried the gun) all sat together and comforted one another.
I have often thought and asked myself, “How could they do this?” There is only one power on earth that has this much love, forgiveness, and mercy in it. There is only one faith strong enough to carry you through such pain and grief. There is only one hope deep enough to sustain you through such tragic circumstances. There is only one Love lavish enough to cover the wounds. Only by the power of God – through the faith they possessed in Jesus.
Troubles serve to purify your faith
These troubles come to prove that your faith is pure. This purity of faith is worth more than gold, which can be proved to be pure by fire but will ruin. But the purity of your faith will bring you praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is shown to you.
1 Peter 1:7
It is this faith that sustains us through all kinds of trouble on this old rock. Cars slide into ditches. Jobs disappear. Relationships explode into anger. Children disappoint. Parents let us down. Friends forget us. Our bodies get old, beat up, wrinkled, and pudgy but God never lets us down. We hold onto him and look forward to a world we have not yet seen.
The troubles simply serve to purify our faith.
So we cry – Ok, I give, my faith is pure enough – leave me alone.
But the God’s goal is not to leave us alone – it is to lead us home.
“But suppose we don’t make it?” a timid saint might ask. But we will; for all believers are being “kept by the power of God.” The word translated “kept” is a military word that means “guarded, shielded.” The tense of the verb reveals that we are constantly being guarded by God, assuring us that we shall safely arrive in heaven. This same word is used to describe the soldiers guarding Damascus when Paul made his escape (2 Cor. 11:32).
It is our faith that leads to a good place
1 Peter 1:8-9
You have not seen Christ, but still you love him. You cannot see him now, but you believe in him. So you are filled with a joy that cannot be explained, a joy full of glory.
And you are receiving the goal of your faith—the salvation of your souls.
This is the hard part. We live here in a world we can see. We can see here – this rock is solid and we can see, touch, feel, and taste it. It’s easy to focus on here. But here – will someday be gone.
By faith we are preparing to be there – in a good place. But we have not yet been there. We don’t know where it is or what it looks like. We can’t see there and it’s hard to stay focused on there… but there is where we are going. This is the goal of our faith – a good place we have not yet seen.
What we do have is the promise of Jesus and the presence of his love. We have a joy that is cannot be explained that is filled with glory.
We are receiving – present tense – continuously the goal of our faith – the salvation of our souls.
There is a hymn that we used to sing called, “It is well with my soul.” For many years I have claimed this song as my own. It was written by a man whose daughter was lost on an ocean liner in the days before airplanes. When he heard the news he boarded a ship and traveled to the place where her life was lost and wrote this hymn that proclaims that it is well with his soul.
This is all that really matters – we are God’s people and we are receiving salvation.
If this is all true… how then shall we live?
The single, greatest deterrent to abundant living is the illusion that this world is our home
Suppose for a moment that your home is in Great Britain and you are visiting America for 80 days and are living in a hotel. Here is the rule: You can’t take anything back to England on your flight home, but you can earn money and wire deposits back to your bank in London.
Would you fill your hotel room with extravagant gifts and expensive wall hangings?
No! Your time here is short, so you send your treasures on home, where they will be waiting for you when you arrive.
Scripture says that we are here for just 80 years or less and that is not much more than 80 days (Psalm 90:10). Scripture says that our life here is just like a breath (Psalm 39:5). We are here on earth on a short-term visa. It’s going to expire soon.
So, let’s not spend too much time fixing up the hotel room. Sure, we need to make it pretty and nice. That’s understandable. I’m not saying that we can’t have anything, but I am saying that we should wire it on ahead because we aren’t going to be here much longer.
Jesus says to turn it around.
Put your treasure into the next world – not this world and your heart will follow. Jesus is saying, “Show me your checkbook, show me your Visa statement, show me your cash receipts, and I will show you where your heart is.” So what do our financial records say about where our hearts are? Where we put our money does not simply show where are hearts are, but it also determines where our hearts go.
He says to lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven so that every day instead of backing away from our treasures which are on earth, we are moving toward our treasures which are in heaven.
He who spends his life backing away from his treasures has reason to despair. He who spends his life headed toward his treasures has reason to rejoice.
Part of the reason the Christian life is full of joy, peace, and contentment is that the best is still ahead of us. We’re going home someday!
Are you ready? If you aren’t ready, then it’s time to get ready.
