Do Good People Go To Heaven?

 TRANSCRIPT

I did hear a story about a teacher, primary school teacher, that wanted to teach to the kids and, you know, who goes to heaven and that kind of thing. So he decided to ask some questions first and find out what the kids actually knew. So he asked this. He said, if I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale, gave all the money to the church, would that get me into heaven?

And all the kids go, no. So then he goes on. Well, what if I clean the church? Mowed the lawn, kept everything neat and tidy. Would that get me into heaven? The kids go, No! So he goes, I got a bit more tricky. Yes, he does. What if I was kind to animals, and I gave chocolate to children? Would that get me into heaven?

They go, No! So he says to the kids, well, how do I get into heaven? Little boy down the back goes, You gotta be dead! Laughter.

Don't you love the simplicity of kids, Dylan? There it is, right out there, man. Now you gotta be dead. So heaven, who goes there? Apart from dead people. Apart from dead people. I think the American culture is very much like the Australian culture, and I think much of the West, Western people's thinking, think a little bit like this.

They have a belief in heaven or an afterlife or some kind of good place, and they don't really understand it that much, but they're fairly certain that they're going there. There's a lot of mystery around it, a lot of questions around it. They don't really fully understand. Haven't got, haven't really got time to think it through because we're all busy.

Right. You know, you got to go to work, got to pay the bills, you know, you got to do your tests, your exams and that kind of stuff. So, you know, but I'm not really sure, but there's probably a heaven and there's afterlife, a good place. And I'm fairly confident that I'm going there. And I think that's pretty much predominant in Western thinking.

And you'll bump into this all the time. Now it's based on two assumptions. And here they are. Good people go to heaven. That's the first assumption. And the second assumption is, I'm a good person. That's really what's behind this. If this is a good place, then good people are going there. Bad people, that's a different place.

We're not going to talk about that today, so let's not worry about that. But good people, it just makes sense. Now, some Christians reject this formula. There are some parts of Christianity that embrace part of it or, or some perspective of it. So I thought this is a great series for us to talk about because we're actually the church.

We should probably understand what's going on in people's thinking. And so you can understand how do I approach and how do I help someone that has this mindset? Now, I can tell you, there are some great advantages. It appears on the surface to this mindset. The first thing you discover with it, it's just, it's just, doesn't it just make sense?

It's fair. If there's a good God and there's good people, they should be rewarded. We should be rewarded and good people should be rewarded and should go to a good place. That system is actually prevalent in every religion in the world around this whole works thing. Surely it just seems right. I'm a good person.

I should go there. Now the other thing about this is an advantage, which is in their thinking, is that because good people go to heaven and I'm a good person, well, obviously I make the cut. I'm going, because I'm a good person. In fact, compared to some people, you're just thinking about yourself right now, compared to some people, I'm amazing.

I'm totally amazing.

Who said yes? Yeah, yeah, that's right. I'm totally amazing. That's true. We think like that. Now, we would never do this. Now, not anybody that calls our church home anyway. We'd never do this. And you'd probably never do it either. But do you ever sometimes, like, come up with people, and you're thinking like that, good people go to heaven.

So I'm a good person. So you're thinking in bed at night. I'm a good person. Yeah, I'm a good person. You know, I'm better than And I'm better than And I'm definitely better than that one over there. You know, it's, it's something that's in our kind of psyche there. But it also, as you look at this, this ideology and thinking, it supports another notion.

It supports the notion of a good God. Doesn't that make sense? If you're a good person, you go to a good place, heaven, because you're worshipping a good God. Well, did you know? There's virtually no theology of a bad God. Do you know that? It doesn't ever say in the beginning, a bad God created the heavens and the earth.

It doesn't work because the minute you go outside and look at the heavens and go, wow, this is magnificent, this, this can't be a bad God, it's gotta be a good guy. So there's no theology of that, and it just makes sense that good people should go to heaven. A good place. Because we worship a good God. So you think that a good God would reward good people by letting them come to his good place, heaven.

And it's got to be good people. Got to be people like you, right? And people like me. Because we're amazing. Let's face it, we're amazing. Now there's another little caveat to this thinking that stems out of it, and that's the fear of God. The fear of not going to heaven should motivate us to be good. That should motivate us.

This is very prevalent in society and in a lot, all, pretty much all religions, is like, there's this thing about this, this afterlife, this good place, this cosmic thing, but there's this cosmic judge that's there and they are waiting. And they are waiting for you to mess up and they're keeping score of everything.

And certain religions, they really hammer this hard and they play on this in order to control people. So we all end up walking around, and most Australians walk around, I know I ought to do this. I ought to do this? I'm not. But I also know I really ought not to do this. I know I should be coming. You should be loving and kind to people.

I really should be doing that. And I really shouldn't do some of this other stuff that I, that I'm doing. And I know I shouldn't do, but I know when I do it, I shouldn't do it because something dings in my conscience that says, Hey, you know what? You better be good. There's a ledger here. You better be good.

You get, you gotta do good. Good people go to heaven. So therefore, okay, so I gotta be good. And you've got to assess everything all the time, but there's a payoff. You're good, you're kind, you're loving to people, then you get rewarded. You go to a good place. Now, the problem with this is that upon closer examination and closer examination, things start to unravel.

Now, let's be honest. We're all really, really busy. Not many of us have time to think really deeply about this kind of stuff. And it just seems like it's a universal law. Everybody believes that good people go to heaven and I'm a good person. So you haven't given it a lot of thought and I guess we'll kind of figure it out.

But, but seriously, if you think about it and you scratch beneath the surface of good people go to heaven, it breaks down pretty fast. And it gets to the place where you realize it's a little absurd. That's how far it goes down because there's an unsettling reality about this. The myth of good people go to heaven.

And that's this. There is no indisputable, agreed upon, divinely revealed standard. If God, in heaven, wants good people to go to heaven, He should have spelled out for us very clearly, what is good. There should be a universal set of rules. that we can follow. This is good. This is bad. This is evil. And it should be easy.

We should have it. But there's no multi generational, there's no thing out there that says, this is universally good. This is what you got to do. If you want to get to heaven, you got to do this. And the reality is the concepts of morality and of justice and goodness have been all over the map. If you know anything about history, you've been all over the map.

500 years ago there was things that we thought were evil that today we celebrate as good. And there's some things that they did back then which I thought was good and now we say they're evil. The world has gone mad. It's gone mad. Here's a couple of examples for you just in case you're having trouble.

We here hold to the fact that men and women were created by God equal. Equal. And God loves both equal. And both have equal opportunities. That's a good thing. But here's the deal. That is not always been the case. Go back prior to the 20th century and, hang on ladies, men were considered to be a better species.

That was in their thinking. A better species. Which means that prior to the 20th century there's only about six men that made it into heaven. If that's the criteria of good, there's about six there. The rest are gone. But not too long ago that was considered to be good. And there are certain parts of the world where that position is still ahead.

Held of men. as a dominant species over women. And I hate to tell it to you, there are certain parts of the church, even in the Gold Coast that hold to the same thing. So it's not dead and gone, but the problem is it's shifted. It keeps shifting. Now don't get excited. Lady's got a little bit for you too.

What about the concept? The concept of everybody's made in the image of God. So. We would consider it appalling to treat someone as a slave. Slavery, that is just appalling. But that means everybody prior to the 16th century is not going to heaven. Male and female. Because apparently the females really liked having their slaves.

They liked to have people around to help them doing lots of stuff. But the concept back then was, there were certain people that were born to own and rule, and there were certain people that were born to be owned and ruled. Now my point is, that's a terrible way to treat another human being. We would never do that.

To treat a human being as a possession, that is just ridiculous. However, that was considered normal practice and good. So what is the purpose of all this? It's to tell you when you start thinking about good people going to heaven, good is a moving target. It's a moving target. I'll guarantee there's some things that you today in your life, if we could sit and have a coffee and you go, that is appalling.

That is a disgusting thing to think. But I go back 15, 20 years and I bet you were doing some of those things and you thought they were good. See, good, it keeps shifting. There's no culture, culturally, generationally, nationally, personally. Good just keeps shifting. So how do you know what is good? Now I know, because we're a church, some of you are going to say, well, Pastor Kiv, you're a pastor, you know it's the Bible, isn't it?

It's the Bible. You know, that's the standard. That's the standard we live by. Really? All of it? That's it.

I want to suggest to you, and particularly if you're looking online and, or in the room and you haven't given your life to Christ, looking at the whole Bible might not be a great place to start, because you're going to bump into some things in there that were in the first part of the Bible called the Old Covenant, which was forming a military nation to deal with the pagan nations, that is going to be incomplete.

opposite to the New Covenant when you see Jesus turned up. So you've got to be careful. I've had some people, they don't do it to me very often now because we spend a decade unhitching from the Old Covenant to really be the New Covenant people of Jesus. But in the early days people used to say to me, what's the Ten Commandments around?

I said, well we don't follow the Ten Commandments. We follow Matthew chapter 5 where Jesus reinterpreted the Ten Commandments for us and told us what it's like in this New Covenant relationship. But they still don't. Every so often I bump into one and they go, okay. It's the 10 commandments. That's the thing that we have to follow.

That's the thing that's going to get us into heaven. So I say, you think that your eternal security is going to be based on the 10 commandments? Yes, sir. That's what I believe is okay. Name them for me. And no one can name them. You know I, there's something in there about Being, looking after your dog and then being a good provider.

And I'm saying, so let me get this straight. You're hanging your eternal security on ten commands that you can't even remember.

Now, I'm having a bit of fun with this now and we'll actually pick up the ten commands in the third session as we go along. But some things about the Bible you need to understand. After you get through Genesis of creation, in Exodus, there is no mention of heaven. There's no mention. It talks about the heavens as in looking at the stars.

There's actually no theology in there of an afterlife. For the guys under the old covenant, if you were, if you were growing up then, everybody dies and goes to Sheol. And no one has a clue where it is. No one has a no, any idea about what it's about, but that's where you all go. So the old covenant doesn't tell us a lot.

It doesn't tell us a lot about there. And it's definitely nothing in there that says, if you do your 10 commandments, you'll make it into heaven. It didn't have a theology in there. But if you go to the new Testament, man, that's filled with stuff on heaven and filled with stuff on eternity, but it's, it's kind of a bit of a tease.

Because it says a whole bunch of stuff about it. But really, if you get to the nuts and bolts of it, it says this, really, if you're trying to find a way to work your way to heaven, good luck, you're doomed. That's the theology of it. Now there's a guy in the scriptures called Apostle Paul. People would, most people know him.

He wrote a lot of the New Testament. He came late into the game as an apostle. You know he was a Pharisee. He was of a religious crew. He was, he was the best of the best. If the word, if the goodest was the word, he was the goodest of goodest of religious people. That's what he was. And he was amazing at this.

But then he discovers Jesus. He has an encounter with Jesus and everything changes. So the whole thing that he grew up with, this whole philosophy is, well, I guess everyone goes to Sheol and we'll figure it out later. I don't know what's going on. Then suddenly it shifts. But then he's writing the new covenant now.

And this is what he wrote to the church in Rome to back up what I just said. He said, there is no one righteous. Not. Even. One. And then he goes on. Which means, if you're hanging your hat on that you've found a few commands in here somewhere that's going to secure you eternity in heaven, you're in real trouble.

Because he's saying, that's not how it works. There is no set of instructions. There is no set of, there's no magical list that you have to do that will guarantee you getting into heaven.

There's just no magical list there anywhere. And it's interesting why when it talks so much about heaven. Now, if you think there is a magical list in there, I don't want to be unkind, but if you think it's in there, you just haven't read your Bible. Because if you'd have read your whole Bible, you realize it's not in there.

And there's a very good reason for it. So the unsettling reality of this good people go to heaven and I'm a good person is we have no establishing standard. That's the first problem with it. You start to scratch under the surface. Second thing is, this is really scary. We don't know what percentage of our actions have to be good to make the cut.

I mean, what percentage is it? Is it 70%? Is it 60? Is it, can I scrape on 50 as a past? You don't know. Does God factor in my environment? I mean, I didn't grow up in like Ruthie's household with a Christian family, and that house was kind of chaotic. Does he take that into consideration? What? What's it all about?

And when, when does he start like keeping a ledger on this stuff? Like I'm 62. I hope it started around about 58

When's the start? When did this ledger start? And, and what's it, it's when you start to think about it, it becomes a little bit absurd and then it gets worse 'cause you go, well, is it just about what you do? Or does thoughts and motives come into the equation as well? They're in there somewhere. Thoughts and motives.

Do they come into the equation? Well here's the deal. Jesus seemed to think so. So it's not just what you did but it's what was your reason for doing what you did? What's going on in your heart? It's terrible. When you scratch under the surface this comes unglued really fast and then you get, you come to the enormous reality that you could be out of time.

You could just be out of time.

You may have done so many bad things, you can't actually work your way back. There's got to be a cut off. You may have done so many bad things, so many bad things that there's just no way you can get back. So you can't figure this out. You've got to try and figure out, do my, have I got enough good to weigh against the bad?

But I'm the one that's deciding what's good and bad. And I don't know if God has a scale and I don't know when it starts. And I don't know if I've been so bad that I can't even work my way back. I could be out of time. I could be out of time and I actually can't work my way back, which is very frustrating.

Because now you're being good for nothing. You're being good for nothing. You might as well eat, drink and be merry. If I'm out, I'm out. There's no point in carrying on. You see, if you scratch under the surface of this, it gets, it gets really, really hairy. And here's, here's another real bad part. You could miss out by one deed.

One good deed.

Well, you know, Shane, man, the ledger, man, you were, you were right on the edge. You were doing so well, but then you lost it. And you're yelling, you're screaming, the kids, man, you're out. You're out. Oh, man, if you would have just not. You know you shouldn't have been looking at that website.

But you were so close. You were right there. All they needed was one more and you were in. But man, you're out. It's horrible. But this is the reality. It's just the reality. It's the reality of what it is if you're going to hold to that, good people go to heaven and I'm a good person. You scratch under the surface, it gets really, really, really messy.

If good people go to heaven, but God never took the time to explain to us what good is. He never let us know what the percentages are. Whether it's motivation, circumstances, or just there. He never showed us how the system works. And it remains a complete mystery. But your eternity depends upon it. That leads to the final conclusion.

God is not good. God's not good. Because sure, He's good. He would let you know. Now some of you are teachers. How would you feel if a teacher said, I'm going to give you an exam. I'm giving you no notes. No lessons. Nothing to look at. I'm going to set the exam time. And I'll post it. After the exam's finished.

That's not a good teacher. That's a bad teacher. Oh, what about it? What about you got your boss and your boss says, I'm going to give you a performance review. I don't even have a job description. I'm giving you a performance review. What kind of a boss is that? Well, hopefully it's not your boss. Maybe.

Hopefully not. That's no good. Imagine if we decided the Gold Coast, you know what, let's, let's have a rigged marathon around here. We're going to have a run around the Gold Coast. The officials are going to be here, but we're not going to, we're not going to put any markings on where the course is. Don't show them where it is.

And don't tell them how far it is. And we're not going to post the finish line until everybody's started. Well this is absurd. Yes, and that's where that thinking, good people going to heaven, I'm a good person, ends up. It's absurd, because good people going to heaven, it's just, I can't even get a handle on good.

There's no definitive list that tells me what's good. And it leads me into that horrible place of, well, obviously God is not good. Or at least not good by the way we measure goodness. He's not being fair. It's not a just system. I'm trying to work out how to earn my way to heaven. And there's nothing to show me.

What if God's got a different view? And it is good, just and fair. But what if he failed to reveal it? Well, that would make him not very good again. See that, this thinking, if you scratch beneath the surface. The whole thing breaks down and falls apart. We're supposed to be good, to go to a good place and live with a good God, but he's not going to definitely tell us what good looks like.

It's terrible. But if God is good, if God is good, well then he needs to show up in every generation and give us a new list. Because 2020's list, no good anymore. 2024, we've advanced on in technology and there's a whole bunch of other things we shouldn't do. So we need a new list every year. Otherwise we're not going to be able to sleep at night.

We're going to have no confidence. We're going to have to go to funerals and we won't know what to say. You know, well, Joe was a good guy. Well, he was good enough for us. He was good enough for us. I hope he's good enough for heaven.

I know he's good enough for us, but I hope he's good enough for heaven. And then we'd have to have a prayer. Oh well, let's pray to the God that left us spinning in the wind, wondering what terms of eternity are. Okay, let's pray. It's crazy! It gets absurd, but this is where it goes. Now when Pastor Andy was preaching this, he, he when he was preparing it, he found a psychoanalyst named Erica Commissar.

And anyway, this is a depiction out of her, out of her book. She says, I am often asked by parents how to talk to my child about death if I don't believe in God or heaven. Now, she doesn't believe in God or heaven. But she is a psychoanalyst and she's getting this question, so. And here it is, My answer is always the same.

Lie.

So her answer to her patients is even if you don't believe in heaven and you don't believe in God, lie to your kids. Wow, we got some really great people out there, you know, like, well, why would you do that? Well, the idea that you can simply die and turn to dust may work for some adults. I don't know many adults that that works for, but there are probably some, but it doesn't help children.

So you have to lie to them. Tell them there's a God out there. Tell them there's heaven out there. Why would you have to do that? Because it helps them grapple with the tremendous and incomprehensible loss. This is her answer out there. Just lie. Just make it up. We don't really know. It's just my, just make it up.

No confidence whatsoever. Because she doesn't know. Because if good people go to heaven and she thinks she's good, but she doesn't really know what good is, then it's a moving target. I can have no confidence. Now, to be fair, this is not the only concept that most Westerners believe. Others believe in God decides.

That's a big one. God just decides. He decides who's in and he decides who's out. You're in, you're out. You're in, right? Ho, ho, ho, ho. You're out. Nah, I'm just kidding, you're in. But it's like that. It's like, well, he decides who's in and out, and he's saying, who are you to argue and question God? Well, I don't want to argue and question, but I'd like to have a conversation, because my eternity is based on my kids.

That's another one of the thoughts that's out there, which is wrong. Then there's the other one, there's that you wouldn't recognise good if it bit you on the butt. I left the butt off. You wouldn't recognise it if it bit you. And this philosophy is, you don't, human beings are so bad. You're so depraved, you cannot even think about right.

And even if God showed you what was good, you would not be able to do anything with it. So it's pointless. Now, at this point in time in the sermon, Andy actually says to the people, I like tension. So I think I'm just going to end the sermon here. So I want to close this for you like this. And that's this.

So what do you do, guys? What do you do? Don't miss part two. But then he realized that was probably not going to cut it so he went a little bit further. Went a little bit further. Now because we have people all different stages and some are trusting Jesus, some are trying to figure out how to trust Jesus.

Some of the stuff I'm gonna say now is not from the point of view to say well this is absolutely true, even though I may believe it is, but it's coming from the point of view of this was actually said. And you've got to take everything in consideration if you're going to hang on to that good people go to heaven.

According to Jesus, good people don't go to heaven. According to Jesus, it's the exact opposite to what most people think and believe about heaven. So Jesus says, good people don't go to heaven. But then, and there's a little bit of a twist here, then he goes and does something completely ironic. He instructs his followers to be good.

So good people don't go to heaven, but I need you to be good, do good, and be good. Not only be it, just do it as well. Be good to each other, be good to your enemies, which means something that Jesus believed that human beings could be good. That we could discern good from evil and that we could actually work out for each other what is good and what is not helpful.

And he goes on and he says, I want you to be the way that my heavenly father is. That's what he goes through. That's the next stage he goes. Think about this, with all that he experienced of people mistreating him, he said, I want you to be good like that, but I don't want you to be good so you go to heaven.

Never taught that. But he says, I still want you to be good, and I still want you to do good. He didn't infer that there was a list that could go to heaven. He didn't teach it. He didn't live with that perspective. And then when you get down to looking into Matthew chapter 5 again, where he's reinterpreting that old covenant into the new, It's fascinating.

He moves good to a whole new ball game. It's way up, the standard goes way up to the point where it condemns all of the religious people. Because they're trying to work their way to heaven through the law and they're all failing. None of them can keep the law. Now, as I said, I'm not saying what I'm saying here if you're watching online and that Jesus point is right.

What I'm saying, bud, is that you need to consider it all if you're going to seriously look at that concept of good people go to heaven and I'm a good person. You've got to take it in consideration because you will have to completely dismiss everything that Jesus says in order to hold that position.

But let's go on. The good people, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the teachers of the law conspired with the bad people, the Romans, and they all became completely bad people. And then they crucified Jesus on a cross. And we've just experienced Easter. Remember his death, burial and resurrection. So supposedly good people are actually involved with crucifying Jesus on the cross.

Now here's where it gets very interesting. As Jesus is hanging on the cross, there are two thieves on two crosses beside him. One is really obnoxious and demanding of Jesus, come down from here and rescue me and let's hang out and party. And the other one is completely remorseful. And he just says, Jesus, would you have mercy on me?

Now, don't miss the next line. Jesus said, this day you will be with me in paradise. This day you will be with me in heaven. Wait a minute. He can't go to heaven. He hasn't even done Alpha yet.

And he hasn't even been baptized, he can't go yet. And let's face it, he's hanging on the cross for a reason, because he's been a really bad guy. And he's got no opportunity to do anything good. Wow. This is revolutionary. It's radical, but it's very instructive to us. The first century believers, these guys, they had a different belief about who Jesus was.

And they knew that there was something different about this guy. And they knew that sitting around his teaching, they didn't have to lie to their kids or their grandkids. They knew. Doesn't matter. We don't lose anybody when you, when someone passes away in faith. We will see them again. So it's, yes, there's mourning and yes, there's suffering, but there's also a hope that's in there that's not in anywhere else.

John wrote so much about this. When he wrote this words here, God so love the world. So God so loved the world. He showed up, not in every generation with a new list to do. He showed up one time, for all time, to show one way. And what he said to the group of people when they were talking, it was so blasphemous and so offensive to the Jewish culture that.

When it really came to push yourself, he said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life. Wow. So God did not give us a list to do, to be good. He gave us a person to follow. A person to follow. He gave his one and only son. His one and only son he gave. What? So that whoever behaves well, does good things, can get into heaven?

No. Not that at all. He gave his one and only son so that people like you and I that should deserve to be on the cross, that we can be happy. Even in the last moment, and we have no opportunity to fix anything, can have assurance of our eternal security with God. It wasn't about doing stuff, it just says, He who believes, believes in Him shall not be lost to God.

Some of your versions say perish. Who believes in Him. He didn't give a list to follow. He gave a person to follow. He gave of himself. John was incredible. I, I, I, I, sometimes I just read John's writing and I, I just, I find myself just weeping because it's like the relationship he had with Jesus and the way that he thought and, and being asked by Jesus on the cross to say, John, I need you to look after mom.

You gotta look after her. And he did that. throughout his entire life. But this same John, he was a Jew. Like all of the first disciples, they were Jews. Their concept of death prior to Jesus was, oh well, I don't know, we kind of do whatever we do and we're all going to she hole in the end and hopefully there'll be a resurrection and someone get judgment and hopefully I'm on the right side of the ledger.

I don't know how it all works. They had no confidence in the afterlife. However, after being with Jesus three years, wow, they realize something. It's not about us trying to do laws, trying to be good and trying to earn our way to heaven. We failed miserably at that. We just can't do it. So they send someone for them to follow.

Sadly, a whole bunch of them didn't follow because Jesus was not the Messiah that they wanted. They wanted a conquering king that would make them a superpower and he turned up as a suffering servant. Wow! This is the reason when you let go of the good people go to heaven, hope I'm good enough, and you actually get down to, it's not about a list, it's about following a person.

That's when you can put your head on the pillow every night. Amen. And no, I'm good with God and God's good with me. Cause it's got nothing to do with what I have done or what I haven't done. Doesn't matter how good I am. He loves me because of what Christ did on my behalf. And that's the reason. And you've got to help people with this because they're hanging onto this false thing.

But if you scratch beneath the surface, it all comes crashing down. So what do we do from here? Well you don't miss part two. Let's pray. Father I just thank you for the way that you just lead us Lord. I'm, I'm just amazed at your graciousness and your kindness to us and that you just want us to remember again that we don't have to earn this thing.

We cannot work our way to heaven. We have to just accept we're broken. And trust you, Jesus, to come into our life by your spirit and fix us and cover and wash away our sins. Doesn't matter what we've done. Doesn't even matter what we will do in the future because you will stumble and fall sometimes. It's covered by the blood of Christ.

And I'm so grateful. I would not have coped in the old covenant. I'm not real good with rules and I'm so grateful that you didn't come with a whole bunch of rules that we had to follow again. You now just come, you did the gift you give is yourself in Jesus. And you say, follow him, follow him. So father, I am so grateful, so grateful.

The way you lead us, the way you love us and the way you guide us. And I pray that you'd speak to each and every one of us right where we are, because there's probably ones here watching online in the room, and you're suddenly going, it's a massive aha moment. It's like, I, I may have made a decision to follow Christ at some stage, but I'm really still trying to earn my way back into heaven.

And it's not about that at all. It's got nothing to do with what you've done or what you will do. It's who you follow and who you're going to trust for your eternity. And you just need to be able to rest in that rest in that revelation alone. So Lord, we look forward to next week to see what you might want to share with us.

Then we in Jesus name. Amen. Can I encourage you if, if you're in the room or online and you know, you've suddenly realized that and you realize, man, I've. I just gotta, I gotta connect with Jesus. Just talk to someone in line or talk to someone in the room here with you and just say, could you introduce me to Jesus and help me to follow?

It's a simple process, just like the thief. It's like you just give up nowhere else to go. I just surrender all, but someone can help you. And if you can't find someone, there'll be someone over at the what's next area there as well. So I've asked the team if they'll just sing over a song called the goodness of God.

Because this is really what this is all about. Good people don't go to heaven because they're good. Good people go to heaven because they've made connection with the only way into heaven, which is Jesus. It's the goodness of God coming to us in the midst of our mess. So have a listen and then we'll carry on.