Is It Worth Losing Everything Just For Heaven

To cheer you up, lets start with a funny story:

Week after week, a man came to his pastor with a big problem. He said “When I go to bed, I can’t sleep because I’m afraid of monsters under the bed. I know it’s silly, but I can’t help it.” The pastor said that is easy. Just pray every day, read the bible and maybe sing some hymns and keep the lights on. Weeks went by but nothing worked. Then one day the man came to church looking happy and well rested. Seeing the Pastor, he said I got the answer from my carpenter friend. What was that, the Pastor asked. Oh very simple “He told me just to cut the legs off the bed!” I never had a problem after that!

In our gospel reading for this morning, Jesus says something similar. If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out because it is better to get to heaven without them than allow them to take you down the tubes to hell where the fire is never quenched.

So my question to you this morning and the title to this message is “Is it worth losing everything just for heaven?”

The truth is majority of the people just don’t care. God’s word tells us very clearly that there are eternal consequences to our actions and this life is all that we have to get it right. I am not perfect and I am preaching to myself too! Every day is a fight to get it right but it is the good fight. In the good fight you are never alone because our precious Savior is always with us and the battle is not ours but his! By his stripes we are healed and by his blood we are redeemed and saved – let us never forget that.

When we first moved down to South Carolina we started a restaurant in Murrells Inlet. At the end of each night I had to close the accounts for the day which meant servers handed over all their cash to the Manager and the Manager would then turn it over to me with the receipts. However, every single night there would be couple hundred short. Obviously I was being robbed and when I told the Manager it was not acceptable, he said “I know only one man who walked on water and that isn’t me.” I did not tell him then but the one who walked on water is telling us today that if our hand causes us to sin, it is better to cut it off than having two hands and going to hell.

Friends, we may get away with a lot of stuff here on earth but a day of reckoning awaits all of us. The Bible warns us of two eternities. One is heaven and the other is hell. Talking to his disciples one day, Jesus said wide is the gate that leads to eternal destruction and narrow is the gate that leads to eternal life.

Travelling through the wide gate is not only easy it is also enticing and fulfills most people’s desires. Sadly, most people are headed that way. That includes some Church folk who come for the fellowship but never really repent and turn their lives over to the Savior. In the book of 2nd timothy ch 3 it explains it this way:

Know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men and women will be lovers of themselves and lovers of money, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving]unforgiving, slanderers, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Where we are today is what we have chosen to become. We cannot blame anyone for our circumstances but the good news is today is the day of salvation and there is still hope. We need to get off that wide gate and broad road of ashes and failure and hop on to that narrow way. It is the difficult one but it is the road that leads to God’s eternal home. The greatest miracle of all is salvation where a sinner instantly becomes a saint. You and I can be in that miracle when we make Jesus our Lord.

Like we just read, instead of hanging out in the cul-de-sac of always learning and never coming to the truth we need to step out in faith, turn our backs on sin and completely surrender to the authority of God. We cannot fight a full time devil if we are only part time Christians. No matter how far we have gone there is always hope in Jesus because he loves us with an everlasting love. We are washed in his blood and cleansed by his Spirit – thanks to the cross and Calvary because that fight is over and the victory is ours.