I Made It To Heaven Now What

I Made It To Heaven, Now What

GNLCC 11/13/2005 Ecclesiastes 12:1-14 2 Corinthians 5:6-10

Let’s suppose one cold day you were down at Lake Erie and you saw a fisherman fall out of his boat not too far from shore. He yelled out help, “I can’t swim. Somebody help me.” You’re a pretty good swimmer. You dive out into the water and you save the man’s life by bringing him back to shore. The man tells you how grateful he is and that if he can ever repay you just let him know.

The next day, you have a terrible cold from having jumped in the water. You get very sick, and you develop pneumonia. The sickness lingers and you lose your job. Your bills are mounting. As you’re reading your newspaper, you see the guy whose life you saved has hit the lottery big time with a 50 million jackpot. You remember his saying, “let me know if I can ever repay you for saving my life.”

You give him a call, and remind him of who you are. He says, “of course I remember you. How could I ever forget? You saved my life.” You tell him about your pneumonia, your loss of your job and your mounting bills. He says to you “say no more, I’m writing you a check today and having a courier personally deliver it.” You are so grateful. You can’t wait to see just how much he’s going to send you. Two hours later the doorbell rings. It’s a courier package for you. You open it and you see a check for fifty dollars, with a note saying, “Thanks again for saving my life. I really appreciated it. How do you feel about the appreciation that was shown? I want you to remember that feeling and we’ll get back to it later in the message.

Suppose you were invited to be on the football team, and you didn’t know much about football, but you did know something about sports. So you decided to get an early start preparing. You go out and buy you the best basketball hoop on the market. When you slam dunk it, it springs back in place. You get a NBA regulation basketball. You practice your dribbling.

You perfect your three point shot. You read on the defensive and offensive strategies of the game. You spend hours at the free throw line. You play in every pickup game that you can. You become one exceptional ball player. Now what’s going to happen on the first day of football practice. You’ve spent all those hours focusing in on something that is not going to help you when it really counts.

In Bible Study this past week, we focused in on the reality that our life is usually over before we know it. We may think we have many years to live, but the Bible refers to our lifetimes as a mist, as a vapor, and as an evening shadow. These are things, that are a here for a moment, and then they are gone. The psalmist told us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom.

There was a guy who talk this verse literally, and since the Bible said our days are about seventy years, he made a backwards calendar. He figured out there were 25567 days in a 70 year period. He subtracted the number of days he had lived from that number. He then put up a calendar with the number of days he had left. Each day he would rip off a page, and the new number would indicate how many days he had left. That number would always be one number lower.

For the past two weeks, we have looked at the Great White Throne Judgment and people going to hell being cast into the lake of fire. We discovered that those who are believers, will have Jesus step into their place to pay for the penalty of their sins. They do not stand at the Great White Throne Judgment. They have made it to heaven. But now what. Some people are under the delusion that all they have to do is just accept Jesus as their Savior, and that’s it.

Somehow people think you can accept Jesus as your Savior, but not accept him as Lord of your life. No, Jesus can only be your Savior if he’s your Lord. If you are in control of your life and how you behave, you’re not trusting in Jesus as your Savior, you’re still trusting in you, and you’re still lost.

There were two kinds of people who knew all about Jesus and claimed to serve Jesus, but ended up being lost and cast into the lake of fire. . The first group is in Matthew chapter 7, when Jesus said, not everyone who calls me Lord, will be saved. But only those who obey the will of God. These people had plenty of good works, but they lived as they pleased when it came to sin.