How Many Faith Units Needed for Heaven?
Neil
Thielke, July 2006
Trust/Faith Units
Needed for Heaven?
Did you ever wonder how much
trust (faith is trust) is really needed to go to heaven? How much
faith? I was preaching at the funeral for a friend of mine. Looking
out at the crowd of mourners, I asked them, “How many faith units are required
to get you into heaven?” Even among most church-goers, there is a paranoia about where they will spend eternity that runs
way down deep. What happens if I don’t have enough faith, and I’m just
one faith unit short when my time comes? All you have to do is mention it
to a congregation, and there’s lock-on attention. Looking over the crowd,
two eyes out every face were staring right up at me. What happens if I’m
one unit short? How many units do I need? Oh, they were interested
in that. The Bible says exactly how many units of faith you need to get
to heaven. You need a whole lot more than one. You need enough
units . . . enough faith units to entrust your life to Jesus. That’s the
faith that’s necessary to get to heaven. Do you trust Him with your
life? He wants the whole thing. It takes enough faith to trust
Jesus with your whole life: past, present, and future.
There are some benefits that go along with that. One benefit is that you
can forgive yourself for all the dumb stuff you did. The only reason I
know that, is that I had a list. I don’t have to
beat myself anymore. It’s over. Christianity is not beating
yourself for all the wrong things you have done. No way! You’re set
free from sin. You're forgiven!
There Are Five
Promises of Salvation in Romans 10:5-13
5Moses describes in this way the righteousness that is by the law: "The man who does these things will live by them." 6But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) 7"or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). 8But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: 9That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:5-13, NIV)
The five promises
for having given our life to Jesus in Romans 10:5-13 are:
·
You will be
saved
·
You are saved
·
You will never
be put to shame
·
You will receive
rich blessing
·
You will be
saved
Never Be Put to
Shame
Paul wrote in Romans 10:11,
“Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.” The shame Paul was
referring to is the shame the unsaved will experience when God gathers all mankind
from the beginning of history until the end before his throne for the final
judgment. Those who believe in Jesus will not be put to shame, but those
who did not give their lives to Jesus will be put in hell for all eternity with
the devil and his fallen angels. There are about 10 billion people living
in the world right now who will be among the generations before us and after us
who will be gathered before the King of Kings on the judgment day. In
some churches at funerals the pastor says something to the effect of,
“Lord, please preserve these remains until we see you again.”
God will not need to use any part of your body to make a new body.
Another portion of the funeral service at some churches is, “Receive now this
lamb from your fold.” When a person dies, that person is going to
wherever he or she is headed. Their decisions made while they were alive
determined their final destination for eternity. In Hebrews 9:27 it is
written, “and as it is appointed for men to die once,
but after this the judgment (NKJV).”
When we die, the deciding is over. Our destination after death isn’t
something left to be finished up at your funeral. The funeral ceremony is
for the comfort of the living. The deceased is already gone. Their
body in the coffin is just a coat their spirit left behind. I can take my
shirt off, and it’s just as significant as my body will be at my funeral.
What did Paul mean in Romans
10:11 about never being put to shame? Jesus said:
“13Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14, NIV)
Out of the 10 billion people
alive on the earth today, most will go to hell. Jesus said the road to
eternal life is narrow and that few find it. Jesus IS the road to
heaven. There is no other way.
Jesus said, I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. (John 10:9, NIV)
Later in John’s gospel Jesus
said,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6, NIV)
You can’t get to heaven
through Buddah, you can’t get to heaven through
Mohammed, you can’t get to heaven through anyone or anything except Jesus, and
few are on Jesus’ road. On judgment day, it will suddenly be really
apparent who’s the boss! When Jesus comes to
judge all the people who have ever lived, every knee is going to be bow down.
10bFor we will all stand before God's judgment seat.
11It is written:
'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,'Every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.'
12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. (Romans 14:10b-12, NIV)
No matter how important
people appeared while alive on earth, at the judgment God is going to bring
everybody down on their knees to worship Jesus, the King of Kings. It’s
all about Him, it’s not about anyone on
earth. Well, the guys who didn’t make it will realize, “Whoa!
This is for ALL ETERNITY! I missed it!” That’s the one thing
that kept me turning my life around to give my life to Jesus. If you
aren’t ready to give your life to Jesus today, may that thought stay with you forever. I remember the rock and roll song that said,
“I know there ain’t no heaven, and I hope there ain’t no hell.” My parents had taught me enough that
I knew there was a hell. The biggest shame that will ever be experienced
by anybody, will be to realize that they have missed
heaven for all eternity. That’s the big one. The Bible says that if
you give your life to Jesus, you will never be put to shame. If you have
given your life to Jesus, you can say, “I will never be put to shame!”
You don’t have to worry about being gated off with the goats.
Today is the Day of
Salvation:
I was invited by a woman in
my church to visit her father who was dying in the hospital. He had been
drunk most of the time since WWII. When we got to his room the hospital,
he was having delirium tremens. I grabbed hold of him and I said, “In the
name of Jesus, we command this man’s mind to come back to him.” Just like that,
his mind was back and he was talking to us. I told him, “You are dying,
and you need to do something before you get out of here. Do you want to
receive Jesus?” He was staring at me like I had just rescued him from
something really frightening. Yes, he wanted to receive Jesus!
I said, “Pray after me. Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner. Please forgive me for all my sins. I give you my life, and invite you to be my Lord and Master. Amen.”
He prayed those words after
me, and he really meant it!” As soon as he got done praying he went back
into the delirium tremens again. He was gone. We weren’t able to
connect with him anymore. He died the next day.
Now, the thing I’ve got in
my mind is, we get to heaven, and there’s Ernie. His buddies who were
drinking with him for all those years look across from where they are gated
among all the goats, and the sheep are on the other side. They’re facing
the greatest shame they’ve ever known, and they’ll yell across, “Ernie, how did
you get over there?” Ernie will say, “You won’t believe this, but I was
nine tenths dead, and this guy grabbed hold of me, and brought me back to life,
and told me what to pray, and here I am.” Close! Don’t cut it that
close! There are lots of people who try to skin it close, and they don’t
make it. You don’t have to worry about the shame that goes along with
missing heaven, if you take time now and commit the rest of your life to
Jesus.
Every Ethnic Group
is Welcome
Paul wrote in Romans 10:12,
“For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of
all and richly blesses all who call on him, . . ..” (NIV) No ethnic groups are excluded.
All are welcomed by Jesus. I’m blessed to have some Christian brothers
and sisters from
I used to think, “If you
become a Christian – no more problems.” Well, that’s bunk. I’ve
just got Jesus walking with me through my problems now. That’s the
difference. We lost two of our kids. They both died in my arms
after we were first married. It was one of the toughest things I’ve ever
been through. I can tell you that Jesus has never been closer to us than
during that time. It’s almost like I wished I had those moments
back. Oooh, that’s as close as I’ve ever been
to heaven. Jesus was right there. Yah, it hurt like all get out,
but Jesus was right – there! I don’t know how people who don’t have Jesus
handle it. I know what some of them do. They do what I did before I
gave my life to Jesus. They go out and get drunk, because they can’t handle it.
The Highway of
Holiness
I have one diagram I use
developed to help people visualize the difference between salvation and
restoration, and another diagram to illustrate the processes of salvation and
sanctification. The first diagram I call "The Road", based on
what the prophet Isaiah wrote:
8And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not journey on it;
it will be for those who walk in that Way;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9No lion will be there,
nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there, . . . (Isaiah 35:8-9, NIV)
Jesus is the road. He said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me ”. (John
14:6, NIV) Before we
give our life to Jesus we are in the ditch. Jesus said that in order to
get on the road, we need to be born again (John 3:5). We just talked
about how to do it, and I told you a prayer you could pray to commit your life
to serving Jesus. The guy in the diagram is on the road. He got out
of the ditch when he was born again. The guy on the road is the renter
now. He gave Jesus his life, so Jesus is his owner, and he is just living
in his body that he gave to Jesus. Jesus is his owner. Let’s say
that the guy muffs up big time, begins sinning, and takes a trip down into the
ditch again. Now what? Some of you did ditch time after you gave your life to Jesus.
When you came out of the ditch when you were born again, it had to do with
relationship. Relationship makes my heavenly Father my dad, and Jesus my
brother. Walking away is deciding we don’t want anything more to do with
that Christian stuff. Now what? Now how do we get on the
road? We can never get born again, again. We can only give our life
to Jesus once. After that the issues are different. I can only
become the Father’s adopted son once. He may take me out to the woodshed,
but being his Son now is a problem.
How do we get on the road again after we walk away? The answer is found
in 1 John 1:9-10,
9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:9-10, NIV)
When we confess our sin, the
Father restores us. This has to do with fellowship, or how well I am
getting along with Dad.
Let’s say that little Johnny
gives his life to Jesus on Thursday night and he means it. So, if he
gives his life to Jesus, the promises we read in Romans 10:5-13 apply to him,
right? Little Johnny is walking along the road the next day, and a Mac
truck is bearing down on him. Little Johnny says, “Jesus Christ!”, and it
isn’t using Jesus’ name in a good way. Then the truck hits him, and he
dies. Boom, he’s
gone! Does Johnny go to heaven? Usually in a room full of
people there will be some who say, “He goes to hell. He shouldn’t be
playing around in front of a Mac truck anyway.” No, Johnny had a bad
habit, but he gave his life to Jesus the night before, and the promises in Romans
10:5-13 still apply. Jesus’ blood covers him. Johnny would go to
heaven. Notice that before we give our life to Jesus, we are His
enemies. You can put x’s
in the eyes of the first example, to demonstrate that he was an enemy before he
gave his life to Jesus. After he gives his life to Jesus, and falls into
the ditch, he is a still a child of God, but he needs to restore his fellowship
with his Father.
One of the first things
Jesus worked on in my life was getting rid of foul language. How many of
us still had a problem with the words that came out of our mouth when we gave
our life to Jesus? Jesus wants us to clean those foul mouths up. I
thought he would work on my tobacco habit. Preachers were always checking
on whether or not you were smoking cigarettes. Forget the cigarettes,
man. It’s the mouth! Jesus said it isn’t what goes into the belly
that make a man unclean, but rather what comes out of a man – what comes out of
our mouths. What we are saying reveals the condition of our hearts.
I remember chasing hogs into
the barn when I was farming, and one sow wouldn’t go into an opening. She would
run back outside. I’d get her back in. This went on for awhile. The
hogs would run back outside, and I’d chase the sow in again, ad nausium. Finally, after about the fourth time,
the sow got her snout under the chasing gate, knocked it up in the air, and I
went flat on my back right in the manure. I let loose with swear words
that I wouldn’t want to repeat. All of a sudden I sensed the presence of
God. I thought He didn’t hang around pig slop. I started
crying! It was like, whoa, I just did that to Jesus! After that I
just cut out the foul language. I didn’t use that rot anymore. What
if you die right in the middle of that? Realizing the greatness of God’s
forgiveness isn’t a matter of, “Well, if that’s the case, I can keep on doing
whatever.” No, then you’re not really responding to the One who owns you,
the One who loves you. That’s not good. If you’re thinking, as Christians
we can go out and do anything, it doesn’t work that way. When you give
your life to Jesus, you’re owned by Jesus. Now we serve Him. Jesus said to his disciples, “I no longer call
you servants, I call you friends.” It didn’t end the idea that they were
his servants. All he was saying was, “You are my servants. Now I’m going to treat you like friends. I own you, but I’ll still treat you like a friend.” What a deal!
We are a slave whose master treats like His friend. We’re still
slaves. So it isn’t like, anything goes. God calls us to a new way
of life, and He changes everything. I’m not the person I was 27 years
ago. You wouldn’t recognize me from then to now.
Obedience from Love
Relationship
The Bible says that if you
have given your life to Jesus, you WILL BE SAVED. Someone will say,
“Whoa, saved by warranty, if you go back to that, you’re in big trouble.”
Wait a second. Let’s say that you adopt a son. He’s ten years old,
in the fifth grade. He’s old enough to understand. You invite him
into your house and sit him down at the table and you say, “Bobby, there are
twenty rules I’m going to tell you. If you break any one of them, you’re
out of this house!” What kind of a father is that? Yet, isn’t
that how we are treating God if we are always wondering, what happens if I do
this? What happens if I do that? He’s not that kind of a Dad.
In fact, He expects that we will develop enough of a love relationship with Him
that we will never do that stuff. It is out of a love relationship, not
serving a legal system, but walking with Jesus. That’s what He
expects. The first thing He wants to do in our Christian life is to love
on us. In fact, for new Christians, it’s just great. You ask God
for something, and it shows up just like snapping your fingers. It’s
almost not fair. New Christians ask God for something and, (snap) it’s right there. Now that I’ve been serving God for
several years, I’m finding it takes a little more than that to get answers to
prayer. The baby bottle’s gone, and I've been weaned. I'm on to
some serious stuff. I believe that if we enter into that love
relationship with God, we stop obeying God out of fear of punishment.
Jesus loves you. Even bigger yet, He says, “I’ve come that you might know
the way to the Father.” If you want to know the Holy Spirit, get
acquainted with your Heavenly Father. The Heavenly Father, Jesus, and the
Holy Spirit are three persons, but they are also one God. The Holy Spirit
is the spirit, or the essence of the Father. We receive the Holy Spirit
when we ask the Father for the Spirit, and the Heavenly Father who is better
than any earthly Father gives us the Holy Spirit and not a stone or a scorpion,
because of the Father’s great love for us. (See Luke
11.) If you don’t know your Heavenly Dad, what kind of a guy He
is, that’s the one who really frees you up. Your Heavenly Father is a
real dude. You can talk to Him. I had to go to my Heavenly Father
and find out what HE said. Do you know what HE said? “I made you special
for a purpose. You’re special. You’re not junk. I’ve got a
plan and purpose for you. You’re going to be a success!” That’s
what Heavenly DAD says to me. He’ll say the same thing to you, if you
just walk with Him. God made everybody to be a success. Everybody.
True success comes out of a love relationship with Jesus, and with our Heavenly
Father. You may think, “I don’t think God the Father can really love me,
because if He really knew who I was and what I really did, and stuff I still
think, . . ..” No, He already does know you. He wants to walk
with you, so get rid of those thoughts and give your life to Him.
Amen?
Defining Our
Relationship With God
Two guys are sitting in a
bar soaking suds, one of them might be saved and the other one not saved.
How would you know the difference? Neither is going to hell for being in
a bar drinking beer. How would you know that one was saved? Well,
you need to ask, “Where are you at with Jesus?” This illustration of the
Highway to Heaven is great for helping people define where they stand with
God. With some people I ask them to please put the pen down where they
belong. One guy put the pen down in the wrong place. I said, “No,
you’re not there.” He was seeking to follow God with his whole life.
He wasn’t backslidden. So sometimes you have to help people find where
they’re at with God.
Several years ago an
evangelist and I went into the bar I used to get drunk in, to play pool and win
people for Jesus. There were two gals sitting there. One I don’t
think was saved; the other one was from our church, and saw us walk in the side
door. She told her friend, “Oh, my God! There’s the pastor!”
She was out the other door like greased lightning. She never went back in
there. She wasn’t in there to share Jesus. She was in there getting
drunk. She was saved before she went into the bar that night.
There was a conviction from the Holy Spirit that came on her, “I don’t belong
in this place!” Light has no place in the darkness. Did you ever
notice, in a bar there are no windows? What do they do when they want you
to leave? They turn the light ON!
Something is wrong with that picture! Do you know what we have to do to
get people out of our church after a good evening service? We shut all
the lights OFF! Maybe
they’ll leave, OK? What a difference!
A good pastor will feed
people. We don’t feed them beer anymore. We feed them the Word of
God. We know what they need, and we feed it to them. That’s why we
need to have things like the illustration of the Highway to Heaven in our tool
kit.
The House
Illustration
In the house illustration,
theologically, Jesus is knocking at the door of the church, but if you have
ever given your life to Jesus, you know that He also knocked at the door of
your heart. Jesus always knocks, waiting for us to invite Him in. Jesus
never kicks the door down.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. (Revelation 3:20, NIV)
In the illustration above
there are two houses. Each house represents your life. Jesus knocks
at the door. When we open the door, and let Him come in, then Jesus
becomes the owner, and we become the renter. Although Paul fell to the ground (Acts 9:4) when Jesus
appeared to him on the road to
Not long after inviting
Jesus into our life (house in the illustration), we are standing in a room in
our house. We have a trash can in another room with last week’s fish guts
in it, and we hear that same knock again. It sounds the same. Jesus
knocked on your door for you to become a Christian, and he’s going to knock on
doors to the inner rooms of your heart in the same way. It will be a
nudging on the inside. He wants to come into another room in your heart
and clean up the trash can with the fish guts in it. The first knock is
for salvation. The other knocking is for sanctification. The first
knock is to allow Jesus to have control in your life. If we give him a
permanent “no” when he is knocking for salvation, it means that we will go to
hell. If our response is, “No,” when he knocks for sanctification, it
means a delay in God’s plan. We have an example in scripture of the
prodigal son.
The prodigal son takes off
with a third of his father’s property. The oldest son gets two shares,
and the prodigal gets one. The prodigal son takes off and goes out and
spends it on whores, and one third of his father's hard earned money, all of
the prodigal's inheritance is gone. Then he comes back home. He
delayed the father’s plan in his life. The father said to the oldest son,
“All that I have is your’s.” In other words, when the prodigal came back
to his dad, he had really delayed the plan. It would take awhile to earn
that money back again. He was restored to his sonship, but not the responsibility.
You earn trust. Jesus will restore you instantly into fellowship.
When you say, “Jesus, forgive me,” no matter what, he’ll receive you back into
his arms. But trust is earned. To be a leader, someone Jesus will
use, you need to prove yourself faithful. Jesus isn’t going to allow
someone to lead His sheep down the wrong paths. We all want to be looked
up to, but need to be faithful to the Master. In order for Jesus to trust
us, we need to quickly respond when he knocks on the doors of our heart.
We all have issues. How well are we responding to God in the issues in
our life? That’s how much He trusts us. Jesus doesn’t trust all his
kids.
Is there an area of your
life, a door of your heart, that God has been knocking
on for awhile where He wants you to respond, and you want to say “yes”?
Tell him “yes” in your heart.
“Jesus,
I’m saying ‘yes’ to that area in my life. Come on in and change me.
Help me to have the right response in Jesus’ name.
Amen.”
I
was ministering in The Republic of Georgia. We were traveling on the
road. You could tell my host pastor was "with it". He was
moving on with Jesus. As we were driving down the road, I asked, “How
long were you in prison?” You should have seen him. He knew.
He was a mature Christian. He was wondering, “What slipped?” He
asked me, “How on earth did you know?” I recognized a prison tattoo on
his hand with his number on it. Some of the guys coming out of prison
over there become Christian leaders. They lost the trust of others when
they went into prison, but if they allowed prison to change them, they have
been found faithful when tested by life's trials.
God has a plan for you, and
he wants you to begin responding to it. He’s got a new identity for
you. If you have been doing ditch time, or if you have rooms in your
house that you have kept locked away from Jesus, He may not be able to trust
you as a leader, but he wants to train you. Paul wrote,
“In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!” (Hebrews 5:12, NIV)
In other words, Paul was
saying, “By now you should have grown up.” If you have been a Christian
for several years, don't be satisfied to just attend Church on Sundays. After
several years, you should be eager to be trained to become a teacher.
Jesus loves us as our Good Shepherd, but He also calls us to grow up so he can
trust us to minister to the needs of others.
The essence of your walk has
to do with choices, not feelings. Jesus said, “By their fruit you will
recognize them.”(Matthew 7:16, NIV)
He didn’t say you’ll know them by their gifts. I have heard
testimonies from people who had raised someone from the dead. Later we
heard they had been beating their wife during the week. Hello!
Beating your wife isn’t the fruit of the Holy Spirit. It’s not what a Christian
does. Christians are gentle. Christian husbands serve their wives
as Christ gave up His life for the church! You won’t recognize a
Christian by their gifts. Jesus wants us to put on the fruit of the Holy
Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control. I believe that if just a roomful of
Christians would put on the fruit of the Holy Spirit, they would begin to
change their whole community, and in doing so, they would begin to change their
world.
It is important to remember
what it takes to get to heaven. It isn't how many wonderful things we do for
Jesus that will chalk up enough faith units for heaven. The work we do after we
have given our life to Jesus is meant to be a response of love for Jesus, when
we realize that our sins were washed away completely when Jesus died in our
place on the cross, paying the full penalty for our sin. We have been set
completely free to serve Jesus in grateful obedience. Therefore, the faith
units needed for heaven are enough faith units to fully entrust, or to fully
give our life to Jesus.