A Trip to Heaven must be earned
Romans 3:10-24
When asked about Christianity, actress Sophia Loren was reported as saying several years ago in the USA Today, “I’m not a practicant, but I pray. I read the Bible. It’s the most beautiful book ever written. I should go to heaven; otherwise it’s not nice. I haven’t done anything wrong. My conscience is very clean. My soul is as white as those orchids over there, and I should go straight, straight to heaven.”
In a Reader’s Digest interview, Muhammad Ali stated: “One day we’re all going to die and God is going to judge us—our good deeds and bad deeds. If the bad outweighs the good, you go to hell. If the good outweighs the bad, you go to heaven.”
Another Reader’s Digest article told of a 67-year-old man named Bill who had donated over 100 pints of blood over the years. No doubt many people owe their lives to this man’s kindness. How do you think this man’s good deeds go over in heaven?
Here’s what Bill thinks: “When that final whistle blows, and St. Peter asks, ‘What did you do?’ I’ll just say, ‘Well, I gave 100 pints of blood,’” Bill says with a laugh. “That ought to get me in.”
Bill was probably joking. But if he was serious, if he truly believes that his good deeds will give him a ticket to heaven, then he has perfectly articulated the gospel of works. If Bill is counting on the giving of 100 pints of blood to get him to heaven—he is trusting in the wrong blood.
What does it mean to be right with God, or accepted by God. Many in and out of the church would give you a list of things to do and things not to do. All the world religions give you things to do to work your way into heaven. Except Christianity. You often hear, “there are no free lunches,” or “you’ve got to work for what you get.” And we apply that you only get what you deserve to our religious experience.
In the Bible many asked the question:
Matthew 19
16 Now a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" 17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." 18 "Which ones?" the man inquired. Jesus replied, "’Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’ and ’love your neighbor as yourself.’" 20 "All these I have kept," the young man said. "What do I still lack?" 21 Jesus answered, "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." I pretty sure God would not agree that he had kept all the laws as he thought he had. Jesus knew that his trust could not be in him, because his trust was in his wealth. So Jesus confronted it right up front.
Luke 10:25 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" 26 "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" 27 He answered: "’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ’Love your neighbor as yourself.’" 28 "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."
Of course the man wanted a way out of actually doing these things as God intended, and Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan to make his point. Loving God and Loving your neighbor cannot be done with human effort. Unless they are the outgrowth of faith in Christ they are more parts of the law we can’t keep.
Jesus made it very plain in a Scripture that used to bother me, because it didn’t seem like Jesus required enough. I didn’t realize I was trying to be justified by works either.
John 6:28-59
28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" 29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
I The Purpose of the Law - 3 :9-20, 23 (For example the ten commandments)
a. To show us What pleases God
-To show us what God will judge us by
b. To show us our sinfulness - Attitude and Actions
Without a standard we wouldn’t know if we were off ( Tape Measure )
(If I eyeball a construction job it may look pretty straight, but if I use a plumb line and tape measure it may be way off. We often eyeball our own lives like Sophia Loren and think they look pretty straight, but when we measure them by the Law of God’s Word we find they are way off.
A preacher went to get a haircut. “There was no-one else in the barber shop the entire time my hair was being cut—which was a first! I suppose because there was no-one else around, my barber felt more inclined to talk about spiritual matters—also a first! He told me that he did not go to church anymore because he was fed-up with the church.
“The way I figure it,” he said to me, “God will accept me because I’m a pretty good person.”
And so my barber was basing his hope for salvation upon his good life, his works.
c. It can’t save us - We can’t become righteous by it (In so OT Sacrifices would not have been needed.)
d. We can’t keep it - We are not able to do what we know it right - Our inner sinfulness and rebellion takes over.
e. To show us our helpless condition and our need of a Savior 5:6, 8)
Galatians 3:24 24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. 25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.
The righteousness that God requires is like demanding that you jump and touch the ceiling in here. No matter how high you jump you can never reach it. Some can jump higher than others, but no one comes close. It is hopeless.
II How Do we Become right With God -Righteous
How do we obtain the righteousness God requires?
Every other religion I’ve ever seen is based on people doing something — through struggling and striving — to somehow earn the favor of God. They say people have to use a Tibetan prayer wheel or go on pilgrimages or give alms to the poor or avoid eating certain foods or pray in a specified way or go through a series of reincarnations or wherever. They are the attempts of people to reach out to God.
But Jesus Christ is God reaching out to us. Jesus taught the opposite of what other religious teach. He said nobody can do anything to merit heaven, so we might as well give up trying.
He said we’re all guilty of wrongdoing — and that’s consistent with our experience, isn’t it? Nobody here would claim to be perfect. And Jesus said that our wrongdoing separates us from our holy and perfect God — and, again, that’s consistent with our experience. Haven’t you ever felt distant or disconnected from God? Of course you have.
Because God is a righteous judge, our wrongdoing has to be paid for. So out of His love, Jesus voluntarily offered Himself as our substitute to pay the penalty that we owed for our sin. And when we receive His sacrifice on our behalf, we become reunited with God for eternity.
As we say around here, other religions are spelled “D-O,” because they teach that people have to do a bunch of religious rituals to try to please God. But Christianty is spelled “D-O-N-E” because Christ has done it all on the cross — and we just need to receive Him. ( Lee Strobel)
This distinction is starkly demonstrated by comparing a parable taught by Jesus with a similar story found in Buddhist literature. Both stories involve sons who became rebellious and left home, but who then saw the error of their ways and decided to come back and be reconciled with their families.
In the Buddhist story, the errant son is required to work off the penalty for his past misdeeds by spending years in servitude. But you know how the Christian parable of the Prodigal Son ends — with the repentant son being warmly welcomed home by his loving father and being given undeserved grace and forgiveness. (Lee Strobel)
a. What can I do to earn it - Some think:
1. Go to church
2. Give to church
3. Help the poor
4. Get involved in social causes
5. Read the bible
6. Pray
7. Get baptized
8. Take communion
9. Quit drinking, smoking, swearing, having sex outside of marriage, gambling, stealing, killing, Porn,
However, if you did all these things you still wouldn’t go to heaven.
b. Nothing you can do, it is a gift of God given by faith 3:23
c. When we fully believe in Jesus Death, burial and resurrection as payment in full for our sin debt, God declares that we are righteous in his sight and our name is put in the book of life.
d. However, he doesn’t just fool himself and declare us righteous when we are not. He regenerates us at the same time. He imparts Christ’s righteousness to us.
e. So how’s come some people say they believe, make a commitment, but never change?
1. They may not have gotten spiritual care and died shortly after birth
2. More than likely they never really believed in the first place. They said some words, agreed with some truth, but were never really born again.
III What is Faith ?
Today we have reduced believing something to an intellectual agreement to a statement. In the Bible it was much more than this.
1. It is more than intellectual belief. It is a conviction.
-Even the demons believe in God intellectually.
James writes, "You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe and tremble." (James 3:19)
Singer Sheryl Crow said recently, in a New York Post interview: “I believe in God. I believe in Jesus and Buddha and Mohammed and all those that were enlightened. I wouldn’t say necessarily that I’m a strict Christian. I’m not sure I believe in heaven.” Sheryl Crow is where many people are today; they believe in everything and nothing at the same time.
2. It is the personal surrender of one’s will to God’s will. Without the element of submission there is no real faith. There is no trust without obedience. Obedience is the inevitable outcome of believing. (Earle p 156)
-Faith is actually the reaction of ones whole being -intellectual, emotional, moral, spiritual to God and his word. (From Ralph Earle’s p156 Word Meanings in the New Testament)
3. Why does believing something make us act different?
1. God place a new nature(Heart) within -
2. God puts his Holy Spirit with new desires within - You want to please God
-You feel badly when you don’t, it bothers you when it didn’t use to.
3. God writes his laws on our hearts - Don’t need external law to make us do right.
4. God brings us into a new relationship with him - 5:1 Peace 5:11
We don’t do right things to gain God’s favor, but we do them because he already gave us his favor.
Pastor Max Lucado tells the following story:
"I make no claim to being a good golfer, but I love to play golf, watch golf, and on good nights I even dream golf.
"So when I was invited to attend the Masters Golf Tournament, I was thrilled. A pass to the Masters is the golfer’s Holy Grail. Mine came via pro golfer Scott Simpson.
"Off we went to Augusta National Country Club in Georgia where golf heritage hangs like moss from the trees. I was a kid in a candy store. It wasn’t enough to see the course and walk the grounds; I wanted to see the locker room where the clubs of Ben Hogan and Paul Azinger are displayed.
"But they wouldn’t let me in. A guard stopped me at the entrance. I showed him my pass, but he shook his head. I told him I knew Scott, but that didn’t matter. ’Only caddies and players,’ he explained.
"Well, he knew I wasn’t a player or a caddie. Caddies are required to wear white coveralls. My clothing was a dead giveaway. So I left, knowing I had made it all the way to the door but was denied entrance."
God has one requirement for entrance into heaven: that we be clothed in Christ.
When someone prays, “Take away my sinful rags and clothe me in your grace,” Jesus in an act visible only to the eyes of heaven, removes the stained robe and replaces it with his robe of righteousness.
What did Jesus do for you and me? He put on our coat of sin and wore it to the cross. As he died, his blood flowed over our sins and they were cleansed.
Because of this, we have no fear of being turned away at the door of heaven.
And all of this is received by faith. There is nothing that can be added to faith. There is nothing that needs to be added to be faith. We are saved by faith—and by faith alone.
Conclusion:
Today, my faith hinges on being justified, or put right with God, by an act of his grace -- his unmerited favor. I don’t deserve it; I can never earn it; I cannot borrow, bribe or barter for it. It is a gift, a free gift. So God gets all the glory; he gets all the praise.
When my children were born, each came home to a comfortable house, a furnished nursery and a ready supply of nourishment. Not one of them had earned it. What a ridiculous notion to think of a baby earning his keep! There is absolutely no way. A baby has neither the ability nor the tools to do anything for himself. It’s not possible. In the same way, it is just not possible for a person to earn her way into right standing with God. But what is impossible for us is possible with God. He knew that we couldn’t make things right on our own, so he sent his Son Jesus to make things right. And he did. (Rick Warren)
If you truly trust in Christ I want you to show it by receiving communion.
