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Will Heaven Be Worth It?
Will heaven be worth it? I imagine your knee-jerk response to that question is a resounding “Yes!” You may even think it’s silly to even ask because the answer is so obvious. Before you decide to stop reading, will you read the question again? The question is not “Will heaven be good?” or “Will you enjoy being in heaven?” or “Do you think you want to go to heaven?” It is, rather, “Will heaven be worth it?”
Heaven has a price. That means we must pay something if we hope to gain entrance. Will heaven be worth the price of admission? That’s a more challenging question.
The price to enter is high. It costs everything I own and everything I am. If I am to enter, I must pay forward all my selfishness, all my personal ambition, all my dollars and all my vices. Paul shows us in Galatians that Christians crucify self-interest and forfeit their lives to serve their Lord (Galatians 2:20). Make no mistake, the price of heaven is nothing less than my very life. Will heaven be worth that?
Writing to Christians pondering the same question amidst a fearful and increasing persecution, Peter himself answers with a resounding, “Yes!” Heaven will be worth it. He writes...
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” I Peter 1:3-4.
Heaven will be worth it because it is imperishable. To perish means to decay or pass away. We may rightly make the point that heaven will be a happy and joy-filled place. The assurances concerning the joys of our spiritual abode are well documented. Hebrews describes a place of rest (4:1). Revelation describes what seems to be a reinvented Garden of Eden (22:1-5). Romans, simply and profoundly, speaks of being glorified (8:17).
Though Peter’s purpose here is not to add to the list of joys, but to assure us that those joys never decay. Heaven is eternal. It lasts forever. We do not pay our lives in order to get hundreds of years, thousands of years, even millions of years with God. We pay the rest of our lives on Earth in order to get God forever. That’s the bargain. How many years do you have left? Are they more valuable than an eternity? Surely heaven is worth it.
Heaven will be worth it because it is undefiled. To defile is to ruin something or make it dirty. Defilement is Johnny Tamale’s red salsa on your new white shirt. Defilement is a door ding in your new sports car. Sin defiles mankind, it ruins God’s perfect creation. Sin defiles this world. Look around, you’ll see. Sin is the ultimate culprit behind what happened in Vegas. This world has been ruined, because of us. We’ve made our bed and we must sleep in it. No hands are clean, none are righteous, all have participated in mankind’s most common activity, transgression of God’s law.
Heaven is undefiled. It is untouched by sin and all of its ugly consequences. “...and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will be no longer any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4). We have to put up with that here. Even those who desire to live Godly are bashed and beaten by sin. Even those with an inheritance “protected by the power of God” will find themselves “distressed by various trials” (I Peter 1:5,6). We pay the rest of our lives in a defiled and cursed world in order to gain eternity in a home blessed by the presence of God. That’s the bargain. What’s keeping you from paying your life? Is it more valuable than an undefiled home?
I’m sure you mentally answered, “yes, of course,” to the question that titles this article, but are you sure that’s what you believe? When a lost person rejects the Lord’s invitation to salvation, they declare their belief that heaven isn’t worth the price. When a saved person knowingly chooses sin and jeopardizes their salvation, they doubtless declare that heaven isn’t worth the price.
As has been said many times in this bulletin and from the pulpit to this church over the course of decades, “If you miss heaven, well, you’ve just missed all there is.” Jesus said as much, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Surely, heaven is worth it. After all, heaven is all there is.
