Can You Know You Are Going To Heaven?
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
I John 5:11-13
June 05, 2011
David C. Wright

          A priest was preparing a dying man for his journey into the hereafter.  Speaking firmly, the priest said, “Denounce the devil and his evil ways!”  The dying man said nothing.  The priest repeated his order.  Still, the dying man did not speak.  Finally, the priest asked, “Why do you refuse to denounce the devil and his evil?”
          The dying man said, “Until I know where I’m heading, I don’t think I ought to irritate anybody!”
          Today we’re looking at whether you can know where you’re heading when you die.  If we’re asked, “Are you going to heaven when you die?” the best most of us can muster is, “I sure hope so!”  It would seem a little arrogant to say we know where we’ll spend eternity, wouldn’t it?  But what does the Bible have to say?  Listen to these words from I John 5.  “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.  Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.  I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.”  (I John 5:11b-13) John says he is writing so that we may know we have eternal life!  Apparently it is possible to know where you’re heading.  But how can you know?
          In order to answer that question, we need to back up and answer a prior question, “What would keep anyone out of heaven?”  In other words, why doesn’t everyone get in?  After all, God is loving and merciful, isn’t he?  What’s the problem?  Yes.  God is loving and merciful.  The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, begins “For God so loved the world.”  God is love.  But God is also holy.  Pure.  And a holy God cannot tolerate sin or evil in his presence.  In fact, sin and evil are destroyed in God’s presence, like straw is destroyed in the presence of fire.  And that is a major problem for us, because we are all sinners! 
          What is sin?  Sin includes the individual acts you and I commit that are contrary to God’s law.  But it’s more than that.  Sin includes our words, thoughts, and attitudes.  Sin also includes failing to do the good things we ought to do.  Broadly speaking, sin is anything that thwarts God’s purposes for his creation- anything that keeps us from being all God intended us to be and anything we do that keeps others from living up to their full potential as people made in the image of God.
          And that leads to the second reason that everyone can’t be admitted to heaven.  Sin inevitably creates pain and suffering for others.  Think about it.  Lying and cheating create mistrust and fear.  So does violence and bullying.  Gossip creates suspicion of others.  A judgmental attitude undercuts our compassion for others.  Holding a grudge creates inner turmoil and barriers in our relationships.  So, if God allowed sinful people into heaven, it wouldn’t be heaven anymore!  It would be just like life here on earth- full of mistrust and fear and violence and suspicion.  So our sin keeps us out of heaven because God is holy, and because our sin would cause suffering for others.
          So what can we do about our sin?  When some people think about God deciding who gets into heaven and who doesn’t, they picture some kind of celestial scale or balance with all our good deeds on one side of the scale and all our sins on the other side.  If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, then we get into heaven.  Aside from being a totally unbiblical idea, what we’ve already said about God being holy and the effect of our sin on others renders this idea impossible.  How would our good deeds help us gain forgiveness from our sins?  How would they empower us to overcome sin in our lives?  They can’t.  If we’re trying to get into heaven by earning our way there, if the whole thing is based on a scorecard kind of process, we’re all in real trouble.
          God’s standard is sinless perfection.  Let’s compare trying to earn our way into heaven by our good deeds with trying to swim from Ocean City to England.  The better your life, the farther you’d go.  Someone like Mother Teresa with a lifetime of good deeds might manage to swim a few miles out.  People who work hard to serve their families and communities might make it a several hundred yards out, while brutal dictators would be drowning in the surf.  But no one is going to make it to England.  It is beyond human capability to swim that far.  Trying to be good enough to get into heaven is also beyond human capacity.  Certainly, some of us are better than others, but none of us are good enough.
          Singer Bono of the rock band U2 puts it like this, “...the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between grace and karma.  Karma says what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics- in physical laws- every action is met by an equal or opposite one.  It’s clear to me that karma is at the very heart of the universe.  I’m absolutely sure of it.  And yet, along comes this idea called grace to upend all that ‘as you sow, so you will reap’ stuff.  Grace defies reason and logic.  Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions... It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for grace.  I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.” (end quote)
          And that quote brings us to the good news that God has acted on our behalf.  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” (John 3:16)  God sent Jesus, who willingly took our sin upon himself on the cross.  He, a sinless man, was punished on our behalf.  His resurrection from the dead demonstrated that God was satisfied with his payment for our sin, and that the power of sin and death over us had been broken.  God did for us what we could not do for ourselves.  That is truly the best news we could possibly imagine!
          So how do we respond?  What do we do?  Our response is to believe, to put our trust in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.  The Apostle Paul puts it like this in Ephesians 2.  “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God- not the result of works, so that no one may boast.”  (Eph. 2:8,9) Our salvation is totally dependent on what God has done for us.  It is a gift!  Paul specifically says that it has nothing to do with our good deeds, so we can’t brag about it.  That’s why it’s not arrogant to say that we know we’re going to heaven.  We had nothing to do with it!  By faith, we simply accept God’s gift of salvation, like we accept a gift from a friend.
          When we go to Mexico on mission trips, one of the challenges we face is the language.  Most of us don’t speak Spanish very well, but some of us try anyway.  I remember one night in a village when we were getting acquainted with the local congregation.  John Morgan, who loves to try out his Spanish, was introducing himself.  John, who was an airline pilot, said, “Soy un pelota,” thinking he was saying, “I am a pilot.”  However, people looked at him with very puzzled expressions.  So, John did what many of us do when we’re not getting through in another language.  He said it louder!  “SOY UN PELOTA!”  More, very puzzled expressions followed.  Finally, he made airplane wings out of his arms and yelled, “Soy un pelota!”  That’s when everyone broke up in laughter.  John had confused two similar words- piloto (which means “pilot”) and pelota (which means ball)!  No wonder he received puzzled looks!  He appeared like some kind of gringo nutcase telling people emphatically that he was a ball.  Something got lost in translation.
          I think the basic gospel message has often gotten lost in translation.  We in the church as well as those outside the church have often lost the simplicity of the gospel, which means good news.  Instead, we’ve turned it into a drudgery, a never-ending cycle of trying to be good enough to please God through our good works.  That is not the gospel.
          Dr. Tom Hufty was teaching a course in youth ministry at a Christian college in Missouri.  It was the day of the final exam.  Dr. Hufty came in and conducted a review prior to the test.  A few students complained that some of the material in the review had not been covered in class.  Dr. Hufty explained that it was covered in the book, so they were responsible for it.
          He handed out the tests, placing them face-down on the desk of each student, and instructing them to wait to turn them over until told to do so.  When the students turned the tests over, they were astonished to find all the answers already filled out.  The last page of the exam read, “This is the end of the exam.  All the answers on your test are correct.  You will receive an A.  The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took it for you.  All the work you did in preparation for the test did not help you receive this A.  You have just experienced grace.”
          Dr. Hufty then explained to the class that if they trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord that their names have been written in the book of life.  They will go to heaven, but they had absolutely nothing to do with their names being written there.  That is the ultimate grace experience.

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