We check the price of everything before we choose to invest our time and money. The same thing goes for heaven. We want to know how much it will cost for us to get to heaven. In the Gospel of Matthew 19.16-26 we hear that wealth stopped a rich man from following Christ into heaven. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” For the rich man, it was not worth his money to follow Christ. He loved his money more than God. For others it could be power or prestige or social position. Anything that we love more than God is the price of heaven. God wants us to ‘give up’ everything we love more than Him, and follow Him into heaven. Sound impossible? “With God, all things are possible.”

Transcript:

My brothers and sisters, in this morning’s gospel we hear a story of a very rich man. He goes to Christ and he says, “Good one, what must I do to inherit eternal life.” Christ first of all, he says, “Why’d you call me good? No one is good but God.” He says, “But you know the commandments. Do them.” “Which ones?” He says, and he goes and he begins to outline the commandments that the man knew from the Old Testament, and we know them. Do not murder, do not lie, honor your parents and this and that and the other thing.

And so this man says to Christ, “All these things, I’ve done.” In other words, he followed all the rules that God gave him to follow. He says, “Is there anything else?” Christ says, “There’s one more thing.” He says, “If you want to be perfect, sell everything, give it to the poor and come and follow me.” Now, this was a very rich man. He was by all other accounts a good man. He followed all the rules. He did everything he was supposed to do in the law of the Old Testament. But there was one thing that was between him and heaven. He loved his money more than he loved God.

You see, when he asks God, “What good thing shall I do to get into Heaven?” He’s like saying to God, “Okay, what’s the price? I’ll pay it.” Because he was a rich man and the more comfortable we are with our wealth, the more we think that everything comes down to money. “Okay, name your price.” And when Christ named the price, he walked away. We actually do that every day. We go into the store, we look at the price tag and we determine, is that price worth what we’re paying for it? We can go down the street here to Roadies and we can get a steak and pay a few dollars for it or we can go to Tampa to one of the fancy steakhouses and pay $100 for the steak. And we ask ourselves, is it worth the price? If it’s not worth the price, what do we do? We turn away and we walk onto the next door.

My brothers and sisters, this morning’s gospel is not just about money. Anything we put ahead of God is what the price is for Heaven. It could be power, it could be prestige. This man could easily have said, “I’ve done all those things. What’s left?” And Christ could have said, “Give up your seat on the council.” Now you’ve gone too far. You see, anything that we love more than God is what God wants us to give up. And this morning’s gospel, it is money. And so Christ says, “It is easier for the camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven.” And we’ve heard for all of our lives this story. And we imagine this camel and we imagine this little teeny needle.

And the crowd says, “Well then who possibly can be saved?” And Christ says, “With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible.” In other words, my brothers and sisters, if we are willing to put all of those things second to God, then nothing can keep us out of Heaven. Our power, our prestige, sure, our money. It doesn’t matter what that thing is in our life. That’s what we have to defeat. That’s what we have to remove and to give away.

Now, let’s talk about our hearts. This morning’s gospel is about love. This man loved his money. What do we love? What do you love more than anything in the world? That is the price to get into Heaven. Because God wants us to love him more than anything. And so we have the challenge upon us, my brothers and sisters, is to find that one thing that we love more than anything else, and put it away. Walk away from the counter registry as it were, and we’ll find ourselves with Christ in Heaven. Then our hearts will be opened up to hear Christ. And my brothers and sisters, if we think we can do it alone, we are mistaken.

This man couldn’t do it alone. Judas couldn’t do it alone. All of these stories we hear in the scriptures, even through our church history, none of us can put away those things by ourselves. We need God. It is impossible for us to get into Heaven on our own. Nothing we do, nothing we give, nothing we say will be enough to get us into Heaven. It is impossible. But with God, we can give. With God, we can do. With God, we can say and believe and act and love. So that’s the price of Heaven. The price of Heaven is everything we love. To be able to give that to God so we can be with him in Heaven. Glory to God for all things.