Common Mistakes about Heaven
"Common Mistakes about Heaven,"
Matthew 9:9-13
9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him. 10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 12 On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
These words of Scripture teach more than the Lord’s call of Matthew to be his disciple. When Jesus calls a person to discipleship it is a call to enter into His Heavenly Glory; a call to heaven. Ephesians 2: 6 explains this to believers of the first century AD. “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms.” So we see that Jesus’ call is a call to the living, not the dead.
Therefore, knowing about Jesus’ call to discipleship and its connection to heaven also reveals common mistakes made about heaven. We find three in these five verses.
1. Heaven Is For Those Who Choose It
2. Heaven Is For Everybody Who Dies
3. Heaven Is For Good People Only
First mistake: Heaven Is For Those Who Choose It. Choice is a simple term. Simple in that everyone knows what it means to choose something. Every day of our physical life we are faced with choices. We choose to get up, or sleep in. We choose the clothes we wear. We choose to work, or play. We choose whether to eat and drink. Our lives are faced with many choices every day. No wonder people assume that heaven is also a choice.
Well, in fact it is. The common mistake made about this is that the choice is ours. It is not. It is so clear that Matthew had nothing to do with being called to be a disciple of Jesus. Jesus says, “Follow me.” God does the choosing, not the other way around. Jesus tells his disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit –fruit that will last.” This is discipleship, to bear everlasting fruit.
This is why people bring their children to be baptized into the name of Jesus. This is why Jean/Helen was brought to the baptismal font. This is God’s Gospel call to discipleship. This is pure blessing from God; His choice to make us his own children.
Let there be no mistake about it. His call means eternal life in heaven for all who believe and are baptized. Faith and trust in God’s ability and willingness to do this apprehends and receives all that the blessing brings; even Heaven itself.
Second mistake: Heaven Is For Everybody Who Dies. That might have been the thinking of some who ate at Matthew’s table with Jesus. Others, who saw Jesus with sinners, judged Jesus to be a sinner. He was not. Yet, the Scripture says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness (the Goodness) of God. What are we to make of all this?
You have probably heard the saying, “Only two things are sure; Death and Taxes.” Actually, there is something else that is as certain as the existence of God. It is the truth of judgement. God’s Word says, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
Here, again, it is God who makes the decision, not us. Regarding the resurrection of the dead Jesus says, “Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”
So you see, Heaven is not for everyone who dies. Heaven is for those who have done good. That leads us to the third common mistake made about Heaven.
Third Mistake: Heaven Is For Good People Only. There are times when even the best of people just don’t do what is right in God’s eyes. I am sure that Jean/Helen also had times like that. There might have been times in her life that she even disapproved of God. So you see, if Heaven is for good people only, who among us, who still live, can lay claim to God’s Glory and His Heaven? Who among us is without sin?
If heaven is for those who do good, only, we are all in danger of God’s eternal judgment because we all sin and fall short of God’s glory.
There are many who believe they are good people, and so deserve Heaven. The Pharisees were like that. They even boasted to God of their goodness in their prayers. How sad; that they could not, or would not, see their desperate depravity. But thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He comes with the Word of Truth. And His truth is this, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy, not sacrifice. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Therein is hope. The one who became sin for us, desires mercy for all sinners, none excluded. That is why He comes to call sinners like you and me and Jean/Helen to repentance and faith. That is why he comes to us now, saying, “Follow me.”
Where the common mistakes made about heaven prevail, God’s truth is sacrificed, and Mercy is lost. Lost to us, not to God.
The truth about heaven is this: God’s mercy prevails over all, in Jesus Christ. Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice for sin so that all might receive this mercy. In his mercy, God does not keep a list of the sins of those who have been washed in the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. He does not keep a record of wrongdoing of those who confess their sins and believe the truth of God’s desire to cleanse and purify people from all unrighteousness.
In his great mercy, God makes the divine connection to us through Holy Baptism. That is why the Scripture says, “when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
This is the truth about Heaven. Heaven is found only in Jesus Christ. For this reason, we who are in Christ through faith, rejoice. We rejoice, not in ourselves, but in Him who has become our GOOD! Amen.