The Way to Heaven

The Sunday night message in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on August 20, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Mark 10:17-31.

            How do we get to heaven?

            You probably know the answer, right?  We get to heaven by faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior.  Jesus Himself said so.  God, out of His great love and grace and mercy, sent Jesus to earth to take the punishment we should get for our sins.  “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall have salvation and eternal life.”

            We know that.  And yet–we don’t always act like we believe it, do we?  I guess it just seems too simple, too easy.  We keep thinking there must be a catch to it.  There must be things we have to do.  There must be certain standards we have to meet.  It just somehow does not compute with us that all we have to do is believe and we are saved.

            It did not compute with the man in our story, either.  He comes up to Jesus.  And note, we’re told he fell on his knees before Jesus.

            This is not a man who came to Jesus arrogantly.  This is not a man who came to Jesus thinking he was so great.  This is a man who came to Jesus humbly.  We don’t know whether he fully understood who Jesus was, but he at least knew that he was a wise, important man who knew about eternal life and how to get it.  So he asks Jesus, what must I do to inherit eternal life?

            To the man, that seemed like a perfectly logical question.  But to Jesus, it was not a logical question at all.  It was a question that contained a completely wrong assumption about eternal life and how to get it.  It looked at eternal life as something we earn, something we get by the things we do.  It contained the assumption that we have to be “good” to go to heaven.

            Jesus tells him, look, no one is good except God.  But if you want to look at it that way, well, you know what the commandments are.  And Jesus lists some of them.

            And the man says, I know.  And I’ve followed all those commandments.  But he does not tell Jesus, okay, thanks.  I’ll just keep following the commandments then.  He says, “All these I have kept since I was a boy”, but he stays there.  He wants to hear more from Jesus.

            And he does.  Jesus says, okay, if you really want to get eternal life by being good, here’s what you have to do.  Go and sell everything you have, give it to the poor, and follow me.

            And of course, the man walks away, sad, because, we’re told, he had great wealth.

            This is sometimes taken as a story about how it’s harder for the rich to get to heaven than it is for others.  I may have preached it that way myself.  And I suppose the reason we look at it that way is Jesus’ next statement.  “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”...It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

            But I don’t think that’s what Jesus was saying.  He was not saying it’s harder for the rich than for anyone else.  What Jesus was saying is that it’s impossible for anyone to enter the kingdom of God and have eternal life–if they are relying on their own goodness.  

            We have to put this in the context of the society Jesus was living in.  In Jesus’ time, the rich were considered to be rich because they had been blessed by God.  I mean, not thieves and robbers and such, but just your ordinary rich people.  It was thought that God had blessed them and their families, and that was why they were rich.

            That’s why the disciples responded the way they did.  When Jesus said it was that hard for a rich person to get to heaven, we’re told they were amazed.  And they asked Jesus, “Who then can be saved?”  What they were asking was, basically, if it’s that hard, basically impossible, for a rich person to get to heaven, then what chance do the rest of us have?  If the rich cannot get eternal life, none of us will.

            And of course, Jesus responds with his famous statement.  “With man, this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

            The reason it was so hard for the rich man to gain eternal life was not because he was rich.  It was because he was trying to earn his way into heaven.  He was trying to get there by his own goodness.  He thought that if he just did enough good things, if he could just make enough points with God, God would grant him salvation and eternal life.

            And if we had to get eternal life that way, it would be hard.  As Jesus said, it would be impossible, because no one is good except God.

            But even if it was possible, think what a miserable way that would be to live.  To try to earn your way into heaven by doing good.  For one thing, the good things we did would never be motivated by love, would they?  They’d be motivated out of selfishness, out of a desire to earn our way to heaven.

            Think about how you feel when you do something for someone with no expectation of anything in return.  When you do something just because you want to do something nice for someone.  When you do something just because you know it’s the right thing to do, and for no other reason.  It feels pretty good, right?  In fact, sometimes it feels wonderful.  To know you did something that really helped someone, to know that you did something that made someone’s day.  That’s an awesome feeling.

            But we’d never get that if we did those things to earn our way into heaven.  We’d miss out on all that good, wonderful warm feeling.  That would be sad, I think.

            But there’s another reason trying to earn our way into heaven would be a miserable way to live.  We’d never have any assurance that we, in fact, were going to heaven, that we did have salvation and eternal life.  Because no matter how much we’d done, we’d never know if it was enough.  We’d always be wondering, have I qualified yet?  Is there something more I need to do?  Are there more good things I need to take care of, more people I need to help?  It would be like running on a treadmill.  We’d be running as fast and as hard as we could, but it would never feel like we’d gotten where we wanted to go.  We’d feel like we were still in the same place we’d been, trying to do more, trying to make more points, trying to get that one more good thing done that might be enough to get us over the finish line and into heaven.

            God could’ve done it that way, you know.  God could’ve made it really hard, almost impossible, for us to have salvation and eternal life.  God would’ve had every right to do it that way.

            But God did not do it that way.  Why not?  Because that’s just not who God is.

            God is a loving God.  God does not want it to be hard for us to go to heaven, because God wants us all to go to heaven.  God wants us all to be with Him.

            What an amazing thing that is.  What an incredible thing that is.  Think about how good, how great, how awesome, how far beyond our ability to describe Him that God is.  Think about how small, how weak, how sinful we are.  Why would God want us around?  Why would God want us to be in heaven with Him?

            Because God loves us.  God loves us so much that he gave us this incredible gift–the chance for salvation and eternal life.  And to get it, we don’t have to do anything hard.  We really don’t have to do much of anything at all.  All we have to do is accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.

            That’s it.  That’s the only test there is.  We don’t have to score points with God.  We don’t have to earn our way into heaven.  We don’t have to be “good” to get to heaven.  There’s no long list of things we need to do to get to heaven.

            And we don’t have to wonder about whether we’re going to get there.  If you and I have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, then we will get to heaven.  We will have salvation and eternal life.  We don’t have to wonder if we’ve done enough.  Faith in Jesus Christ is enough.  That’s all there is.

            Without God, it is impossible for us to go to heaven.  But with God, it is possible.  In fact, it’s easy.  God wants us to be in heaven with him.  All if we have faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, we will be.