Am I Really Ready for Heaven?

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the Ask Pastor John podcast with a longtime pastor and author, John Piper.

00:00:09.100 | We recently received an anonymous question from an international listener to the podcast

00:00:14.080 | who emails us and who listens from a rural region in Nigeria.

00:00:18.800 | Amazing.

00:00:20.360 | And it's a very simple but profoundly important question that all of us, all of us must answer

00:00:26.340 | at some point in our lives.

00:00:28.880 | Here it is.

00:00:30.320 | Pastor John, how do I know if I'm ready for heaven?

00:00:34.720 | Well, I love that somebody asks this simple, basic question because it gives me a chance

00:00:42.760 | to go right to the heart of the Bible, right to the heart of the best news in all the world

00:00:49.360 | that we call the gospel, namely that nobody is fit for heaven.

00:00:57.040 | Nobody is ready for heaven.

00:00:59.620 | Nobody deserves heaven.

00:01:02.740 | Nobody can expect to go to heaven unless God steps in and provides a way by grace, grace,

00:01:15.560 | and by mercy that through faith, not through my good deeds or my merit, could get me there.

00:01:24.840 | And that's exactly why the Bible was written.

00:01:28.320 | That's why Jesus came into the world.

00:01:30.880 | That's why there's a history of salvation.

00:01:34.820 | The most important part of the Bible that explains this is, I think, the letter to the

00:01:41.720 | Romans written by the apostle Paul.

00:01:43.760 | So if you want one short book, I mean, 16 chapters, but you can read it in an hour,

00:01:51.520 | to explain all this, go to Romans.

00:01:54.880 | What he shows there first is that, and we know this, everybody knows this if we're

00:02:00.560 | honest with our conscience, every human being has sinned, he said, that is failed to live

00:02:05.800 | for God, to honor God, to glorify God.

00:02:09.120 | We're all selfish.

00:02:10.120 | Yes, we are.

00:02:11.120 | All of us were born that way.

00:02:12.840 | And then he says, by works of the law, that is, if you try to keep a list of deeds that

00:02:19.400 | God requires, no human being will be justified in God's sight.

00:02:25.160 | In other words, you'll never be right with God if you try to go the law keeping route.

00:02:31.040 | That's Romans 3, verse 20.

00:02:33.600 | And then we learned the breathtaking news that even though none of us deserves heaven,

00:02:39.640 | none of us is fit for heaven, none of us is ready for heaven in our own selves.

00:02:46.000 | Nevertheless, God made a way for us sinful human beings to be accepted as righteous.

00:02:57.080 | Believe it.

00:02:59.080 | Righteous, good, just, law abiding, accept us as righteous in his presence.

00:03:06.600 | Now, how in the world can that be?

00:03:09.160 | That's the great gospel mystery.

00:03:11.120 | How can that be?

00:03:12.800 | How can a sinner, guilty, shameful failure like me be accepted by a perfectly good and

00:03:20.760 | holy and just judge of the universe?

00:03:24.160 | And we all know that's the way he is.

00:03:26.080 | Our conscience is dictated to us.

00:03:29.320 | He's perfectly righteous.

00:03:30.900 | How can I ever be accepted as good and perfect and holy as his child in his very presence?

00:03:38.920 | Wow.

00:03:39.920 | How can that be?

00:03:41.320 | And the answer of the Bible is God puts my sin, all our sin, whoever trusts him, he puts

00:03:50.080 | all our sin on Jesus and puts Jesus perfection and righteousness on us.

00:03:59.520 | Way back 700 years before Jesus came into the world, Isaiah 53, verse 4 prophesied,

00:04:08.040 | he, that is the coming Messiah, Jesus, he was pierced for our transgressions.

00:04:15.900 | He was crushed for our iniquities.

00:04:20.000 | All we like sheep have gone astray.

00:04:22.200 | We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

00:04:29.440 | That's the best news in the world to me when my conscience condemns me at night and I know

00:04:34.240 | I've sinned and I hear the words, he laid on him the iniquity of us all.

00:04:43.320 | And not only this, it gets better.

00:04:46.720 | Not only were my sins put on Jesus, but his perfection, his righteousness, Jesus never

00:04:54.400 | sinned in the slightest.

00:04:56.780 | His righteousness is counted by God as mine.

00:05:02.960 | In 2 Corinthians 5, 21, for our sake, God made him to be sin.

00:05:08.560 | He made him to be sin.

00:05:11.160 | He treated him as sin.

00:05:12.560 | He put our, our sin on him who knew no sin so that in him, we might become who are very

00:05:22.200 | sinful.

00:05:23.200 | We might become the righteousness of God.

00:05:27.760 | That's what the Bible calls justification, being declared just or declared righteous

00:05:34.640 | in God's presence on the basis of the justice and the righteousness of Jesus, not ourselves.

00:05:43.120 | That's the great exchange.

00:05:44.440 | That's the great glorious mystery of how a sinner can be accepted in the presence of

00:05:50.560 | God.

00:05:51.560 | So to say it again, in him, we become the righteousness of God in him.

00:05:57.440 | And that's an utterly crucial phrase in him.

00:06:00.260 | We become righteous before God.

00:06:03.240 | That means that the righteousness that enables us to be accepted 100% accepted by God is

00:06:13.000 | not our own righteousness.

00:06:15.280 | It is the perfect righteousness of Christ who never sinned so that the foundation of

00:06:22.720 | our acceptance with a perfectly holy God is flawless, perfect, unshakable outside us as

00:06:29.120 | long as we are in him.

00:06:32.440 | So the major question of life is what must I do to be in Christ so that his life, his

00:06:42.440 | death counts for me?

00:06:44.940 | What must I do to be saved from my sins like this?

00:06:47.740 | What must I do to enjoy the hope of heaven and eternal life and joy in God's presence

00:06:53.420 | like this?

00:06:54.420 | And the glorious biblical New Testament gospel answer is you don't do anything to earn it.

00:07:03.260 | You don't do anything to show yourself good enough to have it.

00:07:07.780 | Christ has already done what needs to be done.

00:07:13.660 | What we must do is stop doing in order to earn anything and instead receive, that's

00:07:21.820 | the key word, receive Christ who did all the doing that had to be done as the foundation

00:07:30.940 | of our acceptance with God.

00:07:33.300 | Any doing that God expects of us now, and he does, any doing that God expects of us

00:07:41.140 | now is because we are accepted 100%, not in order to be accepted 1% or any percent.

00:07:54.940 | So we live out of our acceptance with God, which is through faith in Christ.

00:08:02.860 | So we receive Jesus as a precious savior.

00:08:06.280 | We receive him as a perfect Lord.

00:08:08.140 | We receive him as an infinite treasure.

00:08:12.340 | And the way the Bible talks about this is we must believe in him.

00:08:18.300 | Believe.

00:08:19.300 | That's what receive is.

00:08:21.340 | This doesn't mean merely believe facts about him because the devil believes all the facts

00:08:26.200 | about Jesus and he's not saved.

00:08:29.420 | Believing is receiving him for who he is, for the treasure that he is.

00:08:34.000 | Receiving is what Paul expresses in Philippians 3, 8, when he says, I count everything as

00:08:38.960 | loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Jesus Christ, my Lord, for his sake, I have

00:08:46.340 | suffered the loss of all things.

00:08:47.740 | I count them as rubbish in order to gain Christ.

00:08:51.140 | So receiving Jesus is receiving him as that kind of treasure.

00:08:57.700 | And of course, if faith is that kind of joyful embrace of Jesus, it changes us in this life.

00:09:06.360 | If it doesn't change us, James says, it's dead, dead faith and dead faith doesn't save

00:09:12.080 | any body.

00:09:13.080 | It's not real.

00:09:14.080 | But of course, being changed in this life doesn't mean perfection.

00:09:19.920 | Oh, that's so important for people to hear.

00:09:23.340 | Think of it this way.

00:09:24.520 | When you put your trust in Christ, your life takes on a new direction, not a new perfection.

00:09:33.660 | The river turns, but it doesn't yet run with perfectly pure water.

00:09:40.900 | The perfection is Jesus.

00:09:43.580 | And then when we die or when Jesus comes back, we will share in that complete perfection.

00:09:51.400 | So let me just end by giving you a belief bath, a belief bath, meaning that for one

00:10:00.880 | minute as I close, I want to just bathe you with passages from the Bible that tell you

00:10:07.820 | how to be in Christ where all these treasures are found.

00:10:13.160 | Namely, believe John 1 12, to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he

00:10:20.460 | gave the right to become the children of God.

00:10:23.680 | John 3 16.

00:10:25.360 | God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not

00:10:30.800 | perish but have eternal life.

00:10:32.880 | John 3 36.

00:10:34.620 | Whoever believes in the sun has eternal life.

00:10:38.420 | John 11 25.

00:10:40.280 | Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life.

00:10:42.760 | Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.

00:10:47.080 | Acts 10 43 to Jesus.

00:10:49.800 | All the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of

00:10:55.240 | sins.

00:10:56.440 | Acts 16 31.

00:10:58.400 | Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.

00:11:01.120 | Romans 10 9.

00:11:02.520 | If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God

00:11:06.640 | raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

00:11:10.600 | And one more with the reminder that it is in Christ in relation to him that we have

00:11:17.800 | our readiness for heaven.

00:11:21.120 | Galatians 3 26.

00:11:23.280 | In Christ, you are all sons of God through faith.

00:11:29.760 | So let me end with the words of the Bible itself in 2 Corinthians 5 20.

00:11:37.200 | To every person who's listening to me, I speak this as personally as I can.

00:11:41.760 | I implore you on behalf of Christ.

00:11:45.200 | I'm speaking for Christ now.

00:11:47.400 | Be reconciled to God.

00:11:49.760 | Amen.

00:11:50.760 | Thank you for that gospel.

00:11:52.040 | Grace bath, Pastor John.

00:11:54.080 | And if you have a question for us, if you have a question for Pastor John, you can email

00:11:57.440 | it into me at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:12:02.400 | And if you want to remain anonymous, please note that point in the email and we will respect

00:12:06.680 | that.

00:12:07.680 | Thank you for listening and for making the podcast a part of your life wherever you are.

00:12:12.960 | And to our international listeners outside of the United States, it's always great to

00:12:17.040 | hear from you and to get your questions.

00:12:19.960 | Of course, you can find our audio feeds and our episode archive and you can reach us through

00:12:23.720 | email all through our online home@desiringgod.org forward slash askpastorjohn.

00:12:30.440 | Really what our ministry is all about is helping people get ready for, by grace, eternity.

00:12:37.520 | But what if this life turns out to have been meaningless?

00:12:41.560 | What if this life is mere vanity?

00:12:45.040 | What if all the things that we do all day, all of our work and our homework and our friendships

00:12:50.320 | and our loves and our activities and everything that we spend so much time consumed with,

00:12:56.400 | what if it's all pointless in the end?

00:12:59.080 | This is a question we get on occasion and we'll address it soon.

00:13:02.000 | It's a heavy question, but it's a necessary one that we need to ask and we need to answer

00:13:07.160 | from scripture, which we will do on Wednesday.

00:13:10.280 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:13:11.560 | We'll see you then.

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Am I Really Ready for Heaven?

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