John 8:21-29

John 8:21-29
How to Miss Heaven
Introduction
There was a young man during Jesus day. He was the tall, dark and handsome type. He was very well-to-do as he had much success in business. He even held some high positions in the community he lived and thereby having quite a bit of influence in the affairs of politics and society. But he was honest. From his youth he was taught the law of God and he lived that law to the best of his ability. He would probably be looked at by others as an upstanding citizen with good morals; a religious man. Certainly there was much to be admired about him. But something was missing. The young man had a keen sense that he lacked something even though by all outward appearances he had everything.

We know this young man. We know him as the rich young ruler in the Gospels. According to Mark 10 when he finds Jesus he runs up to Him and falls on his knees before Jesus and says, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Others around must have been shocked to see this man of position who carried himself with great dignity fall on His knees before Jesus.

Our passage today is actually in John 8, but, this man’s story in the Gospels opens us well for our text. You see, we know that man. But, do we know his pain? Do we know that same aching desire to have heaven as our possession? Does our soul live in poverty even though outwardly we may appear to be rich in life? Does our heart sink not knowing whether our righteousness is enough for heaven to accept? Do we not miss out on anything in this life, but, like this man, have a secret terror that we will miss heaven?

In our passage today, John 8:21-29, I want us to see 5 ways to miss heaven. You might look at these inversely and say these are 5 things you want to avoid; 5 things you don’t want to be said of you. But, here are 5 ways a person can miss heaven.

Seek Jesus with Wrong Motives (v21)
The first way to miss heaven is to seek Jesus with wrong motives. Notice verse 21, “Once more Jesus said to them, ‘I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.’”

The Jews were always looking for Jesus. But they were looking for Him for the wrong reasons. They wanted to see miracles, they wanted to arrest Him, they wanted to try and trap Him with phony spiritual questions.

It is possible today that people seek Jesus for the wrong reasons. J.C. Ryle says, “The lesson before us is a very painful one. That such a Savior as the Lord Jesus, so full of love, so willing to save, should ever be sought "in vain," is a sorrowful thought. Yet so it is! A man may have many religious feelings about Christ, without any saving religion.”

Now at this point, He was less than 6 months away from the cross. And after that, He would be raised from the dead and ascend back to heaven. Jesus says that they will look for Him and the message is that they will not find Him.

This is not a warning; this is a prophecy about their personal destinies. He is stating a fact about their future. He already knows how they think now, and that their thinking towards Him won’t change in the future. That’s why He already knows that they will look for Him, and that they will die in their sins because they won’t seek Him for salvation, and that they never will come and be with Him in heaven. Isn’t that terrible? Jesus said this in 7:34, and I said that I think these are the most horrible words in the entire Bible. Unless a man seeks Christ for the right motives he has no chance of ever going to the place where Christ returned to; he has no chance of ever going to heaven.

Let us be sure beloved that our motives have been weighed. Let us be certain that the motive which drove us to Christ is the motive that is acceptable to Him. Let us not fool ourselves with any false motives and be positive that our purpose for pursuing Christ was and is the salvation of our souls.

Be Self-Righteous with Jesus Message (v22)
A second way to miss heaven is to be Self-Righteous with Jesus. Verse 22 says, “This made the Jews ask, ‘Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, ‘Where I go you cannot come?’”

You see, the Pharisees believed that people who committed suicide went to the deepest part of hell and had a special torment reserved for them. Josephus, the great 1st century historian reflects this when he says, “The souls of those whose hands have acted madly against themselves are received by the darkest place in Hades.” And so when Jesus says that where He is going they cannot come, they ask with arrogant sarcasm, “what, is he going to kill Himself? Is he going to hell?” They were so certain that they would never be shut out from heaven and they were so sure that God would never send them to hell. So, if Jesus going somewhere they’re not, He must be going to hell.

They were so confident and so self-righteousness that they mocked Christ and everything He said. That’s what self-righteousness does – it makes a mockery of Christ because self-righteousness says I don’t need Christ’s righteousness. Romans 10:3 says the Jews “did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.” In other words, they didn’t see any need for the righteousness of God in Christ because they were too busy with their own righteousness. They thought what they did for themselves was enough.

God said you need Jesus Christ’s righteousness. God sent His Only Son to die so that you could have enough righteousness to enter heaven. When a man chooses to rely on his own good merits than he makes a mockery of everything God has said and done.

Stay Worldly Minded (v23)
In order to miss heaven, first you have to seek Jesus with the wrong motives. Second, you have to be self-righteous with Jesus. And thirdly, in order to miss heaven you can Stay Worldly Minded. Notice verse 23, “But he continued, ‘You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.’”

Jesus responds to their arrogant sarcasm by plainly and directly contradicting them. He was from heaven and going back to heaven and they were in danger of missing heaven because they were of the world. The point here is that Jesus does not identify with them. They have nothing in common. There is nothing that brings a bond between them. There is no parallel in their course. They are on one side and He is on the other and between them is an impassable gulf. They are from below and He is from above. They are of this world; He is not of this world. Here is the picture of man’s predicament. Here is the truth of sin – that it brings separation between us and our Creator.

The world in this context is the invisible spiritual system of evil that opposes God. It’s everything that comes from the world’s system: materialism, humanism, selfishness, pride, immorality…it’s what John says in his 1st letter, “the lust of men’s eyes..” The Pharisees were a part of the world. They had no love in their hearts for God because whoever loves the world does not have the love of God in their hearts. James says that whoever is a friend of the world makes himself out to be an enemy of God. They were the part of the world, the same world that is controlled by the prince of the kingdom of the air – that is Satan. They do what he wants them to do, that’s why Jesus says in verse 44 that they belong to their father the devil – not God – but the devil. They were agents of hell itself. Jesus called them sons of hell in Matthew 23. They were of the world that was run by hell and Jesus was not a part of that. Jesus came from heaven and was returning to heaven. What came out of the Pharisees came from hell and ultimately they themselves would go to hell.

Hell is real. It is not unkind and unloving to warn people about hell, it is the most loving thing you can do to truthfully warn people of the danger of hell that is coming. God declared from the beginning that death is the wages of sin. It is Satan who said in the garden that we would not die if we sinned. And for a man to stand as a herald of God’s Word and to neglect such a prominent warning found in the Word would by virtue of his silence join the ranks of Satan by permitting such a lie to be promoted when his job is to combat that lie with the truth of God’s Word.

Hell is a real place. Jesus left to go to a real place called heaven because He came from a real place called heaven. Hell is a real place too. There are some over in Grandville who teach that Heaven and Hell are not real places but just a state of mind that you can have right now. Wrong. Jesus went away where they could not find Him because He went to a different place – heaven.

Hell is a real place too, and it is not the same place as heaven. Those who are not with Christ are against Him on the other side. The gulf between them and Christ is so great that no man can bridge it.

Only Jesus came to be the One who is the bridge across that chasm (1:51). The irony is that they mocked Him as they looked down on Him, but, later they would look up and mock Him while He hung on the cross. They would stand there, looking up at Him bleeding on the cross, and hurl insults the One who at that very moment was dying for their sins. He who came down from above was lifted up on the cross so that they who are from below could have the chance to go to heaven.

Here’s the question: are you born from above but living like you’re below? What side are you on?

Stubbornly be an Unbeliever (v24-27)
Fourthly, if you want to miss heaven then Stubbornly be an Unbeliever. Notice verse 24, “I told you that you would die in your sins; if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.’”

Unbelief is the chief sin. A man by human standards may be a good man and a moral man and have virtue above others. But, his unbelief is the sin that will send him to hell. In other words, God can forgive all other sins, but, He will not forgive unbelief. Unbelief is the total rejection of the person of Christ and the rejection of the One who sent Him. It is total rejection of the righteousness of Christ, which, is our only chance to be righteous. Unbelief, whether hostile unbelief or indifferent unbelief, is still rejection of who Christ is.

Who is He then? Notice your text in verse 24 it says “if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be”. But, in the Greek it reads literally, “If you do not believe that I AM.” “The one I claim to be” or if you’re reading the NAS the word “He” is not in the original language. Jesus is saying I AM in the absolute and unqualified sense. In other words, Jesus is making a direct claim to full deity and the Jews knew it. When God told His name to Moses in Exodus 3 He said, “I AM WHO I AM.” God is the great I AM. His name is “I AM”. Jesus was using the name of God for Himself and He does it again in verses 28 and 58. Jesus is the I AM.

Notice that this isn’t the first time Jesus has explained Himself to them, “I told you” He says. In verse 25 they ask Him who He is and He says, “Just what I have been claiming all along”. In verse 21 it says, “Once more Jesus said to them”. How many times do they need to hear Him? How many times must they listen before they would believe? The sad fact is that they won’t believe no matter how many times they hear Him. They wouldn’t believe Jesus, and they wouldn’t believe the apostles when they began to preach after Jesus was resurrected.

The sad fact is that many will be stubbornly unbelieving even to this day. Many, who hear the preaching of the Gospel will go on refusing to believe, and, ultimately miss heaven because they will die in their sin.

Stay Stubbornly in Ignorance (v25-29)
In order to Miss Heaven you can first, Seek Jesus with the Wrong Motives, or you can be Self-Righteous with Jesus, or you can Stay Worldly Minded, or you Can be Stubbornly Unbelieving. Lastly, in order to Miss Heaven, you can Stay Stubbornly Ignorant. Notice verses 25-27, “’Who are you?’ they asked. ‘Just what I have been claiming all along,’ Jesus replied. ‘I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.’ They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.”

This is what it means to not have ears to hear. They did not understand what Jesus was saying, they did not understand who He was, they did not understand that He came from heaven, they did not understand that the Father sent Him. They saw His miracles, they saw His superior wisdom, they saw His character, they saw Him face to face and they were stubbornly ignorant. They would not learn because of the pride in their hearts.

So they ask Him “Who are you?” But Jesus doesn’t tell them anything new. He doesn’t answer them because His hour had not yet come. Soon it will though. And when His hour comes they will ask Him again under the cloak of night, “Who are you? Are you the Christ, the Son of God? Tell us!” And for the first time Jesus will answer them directly and say, “Yes, it is as you say. And in the future you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven.” And that was all they needed. Jesus was telling the truth, but they accused Him of lying and He was crucified within hours. Jesus says in verse 28 that when they lift Him up then they will know who He is. After they have looked upon the One they have pierced then their own hearts will be pierced.

Let me ask you: When will you know who Jesus is? When will you understand? Jesus gives the formula for knowing Him: No one can really understand Him apart from the cross. In other words, when in humility we see ourselves so low that we have to look up at the cross, then we will begin to see who the Son of Man is: He is the Redeemer, the Deliverer, the One who Saves, the One who bore our sins. We have to see Him from below; we have to see Him by looking up, our lofty estimation of ourselves must stoop beneath the cross for it is then and only then that we will begin to see Him for who He is, that He stepped down from heaven to be lifted up on a cross;

Who is it that can resist God’s grace? Who will happily pass by the cross to go forth into God’s presence? Only those whom God will pass-by Himself; only those whom God will reject and not receive into His presence, only those who under their own delusion of self-righteousness see no need for the cross of Jesus Christ to come unto God. Only those who make the eternal error of confidently seeing themselves as fit for meeting God in His presence.

Let me ask you another question: Who is grace attractive to? Grace is attractive only to sinners because only sinners know the aching need of grace, only sinners know their own inability to overcome their sin, only sinners know their own inadequacy to meet the righteous standards of God and therefore hope in God’s grace to be accepted by Him,

Conclusion
Maybe you think your sin is too great and God won’t accept you into heaven. God can’t forgive what you’ve done. If there was anyone who had the right to feel that way it was the woman in the beginning of this chapter. She was caught in adultery and dragged out into public to be condemned. But she received mercy. God’s grace was enough for her. God can forgive your sins. What He won’t forgive is your unbelief. This the contrast with the Pharisees; they are condemned for their unbelief. The woman was forgiven for her sins because of her belief. Don’t Miss Heaven. Turn to the One who came to be the bridge between the One who is above and those who are below; He came to be the bridge over the great separation between you and God. Don’t miss it.

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