The Realities of Heaven

It's always an honor to open up the word of God and to preach and to see what God's word has for us Want to invite you to continue to pray for brother Chris I've spoken with him several times this week. Usually he's on the beach. Usually he's talking with his dad usually he tells me that His dad's telling stories and his mom's tanning I have a vested interest in this trip because my daughter is with them and they're having a good time and And we're not at the beach, but we're excited that we are in The house of God and God has got great things for us. Also this week. Would you please continue to pray for?

George and Teresa Crosby Teresa's recovering got a chance to visit with her Friday and She's doing well. She's in some pain. Please be in prayer for For Trey as he is At MTC military training center in California. It's hot. He's just got a few more a few more weeks Please also continue to pray for for Tommy. He's on the mend. He's almost 100% Pray for Jared as well. I can't wait till he's Back with us, but we're being patient most importantly. He's He's taking some medicine and has an MRI coming up. So thank you for those prayers And we are so excited to finish VBS we had a great week.

This has been a tremendously successful VBS thank you for all your hard work hard work brother Chris and I wanted to thank each and every one of you and He wanted to be sure that I thanked you He and I were extremely successful Extremely thankful for all your work. We thought it was very successful Coming back from Georgia Teresa's I passed know all about his church and Got a little emotional thinking about the ten years out there. We passed many homes that we went into many Many residences some of those kids are now grown and some of those kids actually came as youth To our VBS this week.

So it was good seeing that full circle and some of you Saw full first glimpse kind of what we do And I may speak about VBS a little more But I want to begin with reading Revelation 21 3 and we will read through this Several times And heard a loud voice from the throne of throne saying behold The dwelling place of God is with men As John the revelator is writing this he is speaking of the second The Second heaven he is speaking of the New Jerusalem, which is coming down and It makes me think of Orienteering it's good to see Cameron Alderman here with us this morning Cameron Alderman does quite a bit of orienteering You may not know what what that is, but orienteering is navigation you give someone a Compass and a map and bearings and you say good luck knock yourself out It's become a competitive sport and You would not think much of someone Who gave perhaps a commanding officer to give his subordinate coordinates in a map and a compass and say?

We'll meet you there. You would not think much of that commanding officer if he gave the wrong coordinates In fact you would think him as negligent at best and evil at worse And a Grace Law Church Brookhaven it is our job To chart a clear path to heaven to give right coordinates to have the right bearings When young children come into our church for VBS We must not give them the wrong coordinates or the wrong purpose I'm afraid that in America and in our churches we have spent Generations giving our kids the wrong message about heaven that heaven is about them that heaven exists to make them happy heaven is about a family reunion that they may find and We are blessed to be in a church that desires to give the right purpose and the right focus of heaven and we do this year in year out and sometimes We don't explicitly say What great coordinates were giving so for instance this week? our theme of vacation Bible school was mystery Island and At the surface with the t-shirt and the logos and the songs you may not realize the theological richness of That in mystery Island we were teaching kids that we are taking them on a journey to find the unsearchable greatness of God We were basically giving them the attributes of God 101 We taught them about the unsearchable Or the unsearchable characteristics of God that means God's eternality We taught them about the greatness of God You could give the theological term the omnipresence Or the omniscience those oftentimes and even the wrath of God falls under his greatness But we also taught them about the trustworthiness and the eternal love of God and when my kids From VBS came and sat on the floor and we did song Time we would sing the song Unsearchable and just about every night when we learned a new attribute of God I would tie it in Would say who gets scared at night kids would say I get scared What do you get scared of get scared when the lights are off?

Well, you know, you don't need to be scared because God's trustworthy and he is unsearchable in his trustworthiness That means if you find the most trustworthy person on the face of the earth Right. God is more trustworthy than that and then you keep on going and you never get to the end of his trustworthiness we did that with all the attributes and as grown-ups We need to see that heaven is God's home.

And so if God is unsearchable in his trustworthiness He is unsearchable in his heavenly dwelling So I thought it was appropriate for us to look at our coordinates this morning So the question I will begin with is how might we develop right coordinates? being well oriented fostering a heavenly perspective And in thinking of this I thought of a John Bunyan. I don't know if there's any other Place to begin a person who had a heavenly orientation John Bunland Bunyan was a pastor lived in England 1600s he came from a common family.

His dad was a Tinker so he worked with metal metal works and in that day as a tradesman That was as close she got to middle class, but it really wasn't middle class. You had upper class and everybody else And so doing this was not a job that would have given Bunyan great prominence. In fact, he continued on in his work as a tinker Came married and became very despondent and even depressed began searching for the Lord and it took him quite a long time to get to a point of being solid and Confident that the Lord had saved him and say he really went through a Mire or a slew of despair as you might recall if you're familiar with his work but after he became Thoroughly converted soundly converted.

He began preaching in the streets now This was not commonplace in England in the 1600s actually was against the law They were Anglican and the Anglican church was the state Church of England and they held a tight reins on Who taught you had to go to seminary you had to pass? Certain tests and you had to oftentimes be a family of prominence Those were the only people who could afford seminary and so here you have this babbling Baptist as he was called and The state ignored this open-air preaching for quite a long time They ignored the confeticals.

These were small house churches and house conferences and they ignored that for quite a long time until they passed the act of uniformity after This act of uniformity which was designed to give unity to the Church of England Bunyan was shortly Arrested he was arrested for three months after which the government said will let you go if you stop preaching He refused to quit preaching and he remained imprisoned for 12 years And I'm sure in his day there were people arguing that that was not really persecution Because he could easily easily get out of this if he wanted to You know, this was costly for him his wife struggle to feed their children His wife struggled to make sure they minded his wife struggled to make sure that they Learned the truths of heaven and he could have easily made the persecution go away But something happened in his imprisonment he began having very intense dreams He had an intense intense dream of heaven and he woke up and he began In our modern terms he began riffing on this dream he began to write out in allegorical terms an Allegory for a Christian who named pilgrim lived in the city of despair Who lived in a very wild and raucous time and that was metaphoric for? the world That he lived in he then continued to write and he began to Write what became the greatest novel of all times as stated by this secular publication the Guardian Now they're not conservative But an article that was written Said that it was the greatest Novel of all time because it was the first it was the first true work of fiction People didn't write in allegory people didn't write these kind of things and what gave this such power was that it was based on truth of scripture and Bunyan cultivated in his time of trial and in his time of persecution a Heavenly orientation If you've read this book, you know that Pilgrim has a burden on his back this represents sin.

He can do nothing to remove this burden If you're a sinner Which we all are But if you are a Christian you are aware of your sin burden see pilgrim would go to everyone in the city of destruction and talk to them about this burden and no one was concerned people were not concerned with his burden and They were not concerned with their sin burden as well one fateful day pilgrim meets evangelist and Evangelist tells him your efforts to remove the burden will not be successful The burden of sin can only be removed by entering the narrow gate in Bunyan's terms the wicked gate was the path to the cross Evangelist continues to say you will only find relief for your sin when you get to the cross Pilgrims wife would not follow him in the search to remove his sin and he goes on his own He finally reaches the cross and His burden falls off Then he begins the better part of the book Going down a narrow way and he is headed toward the celestial city The entire book is about his journey to heaven and in metaphor our internal eternal our each our entire Christian life is a narrow way a difficult path that is headed towards the celestial city and that is our right orientation and friend today if you are unconverted to Christ you're not headed to the celestial city and Much of this may not make sense But let's begin breaking down the text First Truth this morning's our heavenly dwelling place our heavenly dwelling place Let's read Revelation chapter 21 verse 3 again.

We'll read in through The entirety of that verse and I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man he will dwell with them and They will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God Revelation 21 is the second to last chapter of the Bible and John is writing about the new heaven Before we can talk about the new heaven. Let's talk about The current heaven which is called paradise Let's begin with this question. What is heaven? Is it a place above the clouds where we have wings and play harps?

There's a lot of myths we could even joke about heaven but heaven is where God dwells If you're taking notes this morning, that's a good definite a good definition heaven is where God dwells But we need to specify this Psalms 139 8 says if I ascend to heaven you are there If I make my bed in Sheol you are there that Sheol is the Jewish understanding of hell So quite literally Psalms word 139 David is asked is saying if I ascend into heaven Lord You are there and if I descend into hell you are also there that gives us more questions if God is in heaven and He is in the grave and he is in hell Then what makes heaven heaven and what makes hell hell?

Wayne Grudem says that heaven is the place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless Heaven is the place where God most fully makes known his presence to bless Hell then is the place where God pours out his wrath for the punishment of sin Now the definition of heaven and hell in this sermon won't be exhaustive But I think it's a good place to start in asking. What is heaven we could also ask where is heaven? Scripture tells us that heaven is up Second Corinthians 12 to Hopefully you have your Bible marked there. We will be back in This chapter, but Paul says I know a man in Christ Who 14 years ago was caught up?

So heaven is up The second Kings 2 3 through 9 Elijah was taken by charots a fire that came from up Genesis 28 12 Jacob saw angels ascending and descending on a ladder from heaven in a dream Revelation 21 2 and I saw the holy city the New Jerusalem coming down from heaven God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

So we know that heaven is God's dwelling place and we know that heaven is up Heaven is also unseen But we have a physical world that we live in anything that you see around you you can touch Then we know that there are things in the physical world that we can't see like atoms and smaller cells You can see them through a microscope, but we're not talking about things that are visible that are too small to be seen We're talking about things that can't be seen with the physical eye there is a veil if you will between the physical world and the spiritual world Even though heaven is up God is all around us and the spiritual world is going on all around us even at this moment Prayer impacts this spiritual world Prayer impacts the spiritual realm of the unseen realm To show that there is an unseen spiritual realm all around us.

Let's look at second Kings 6 17 You don't have to turn there, but mark this down. I'll read this for you second Kings 6 17 Elisha was Elijah's successor and after Elijah is taken up in the chariot of fire Elisha Has a fearful servant. He did not share Elisha's confidence in the Lord they were going to war and Elisha's servants were fearful and Elisha prays in the second Kings 6 17 Oh Lord, please open his eyes That he may see So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha so that text shows us that Angels at any given time could be around us.

There may be spiritual warfare around us at any moment And one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth where the veil to separate the physical and the non material will dissolve there will be no more veil and That is what scripture calls the new heaven and the new earth Heaven is up heaven is unseen, but heaven is infinite heaven is infinite Would an infinite God have a finite home?

We understand in reading Exodus took the youth through Exodus We've done Bible studies on the tabernacle and the temple the Lord says that he does not dwell in buildings of man now he orchestrated the tabernacle as a picture of heaven Hebrews tells us this that the earthly tabernacle was a Type and a shadow of our eternal heavenly home and God's eternal heavenly dwelling place The term kingdom of God is oftentimes Anonymous with the kingdom of heaven so when you hear a kingdom of heaven in Scripture There are some phrases kingdom of heaven kingdom of God.

They're one in the same So when you learn of God you're learning of heaven when you learn of the kingdom of God you're learning about the kingdom of heaven because they're one in the same and This is an infinite place Do you know that deceased loved ones in heaven? Who've gone ahead of us? Do you know they cannot even fathom the very place where they're dwelling? We really cut heaven very short especially if you see a cartoon you have your kids and they're watching the old-school Bugs Bunny Maybe Wile E.

Coyote Gets gets hit by the anvil and all of a sudden there's harps and and he's kind of floating up And I think that really sets in very terrible ideology very unbiblical It's funny at best But it is heresy at worse We asked what is heaven and where is heaven let's ask who is in heaven this is an important question John MacArthur says everyone and everything we love is in heaven Here's some script scriptural proofs for this everyone we love Everything we love is in heaven Our father is in heaven Matthew 6 9 Your Savior Jesus is in heaven Hebrews 9 24 Brothers and sisters in the faith are in heaven Hebrews 12 23 Let me make a qualifying statement of this though brothers and sisters in the faith Those who are not in the faith are not in heaven I Must quote our pastor he has said this once or twice here.

I've heard him say it for 25 years That no one goes to hell at funerals or in gospel songs We have this eternal optimism that Because God is good and loving and merciful and kind Then he will be loving and good and kind and merciful To everyone especially if they're important to us But God's Word says that God's goodness is also seen in his justice in his wrath We can't deny that only the loved ones who are in faith Now I also want to say about this a lot of folks ask will we recognize loved ones in heaven? The answer to that is yes, we will recognize loved ones Who are in heaven? However?

Our love and attention for our relatives will be purified and refined We will have a perfect perspective and what that means is you will hear people say I Can't wait to go to heaven and see so-and-so Can't wait to go to heaven and see so-and-so if you're longing for heaven to see deceased loved ones I would ask you to examine yourself We long for heaven because Christ is there yes, we think of streets of gold we do think of a Beautiful Unbelievable characteristics of heaven that we see in Revelation 21, but the lamb is the glory of Immanuel's land And we have to be careful not to project our own idolatry on to heaven We hear a lot of this That uncle uncle Jimmy is on the tailgate In heaven He's got a long neck and efficient pull We hear this over and over and over I remember when Dale Hart Dale Earnhardt passed away senior passed away and There were all sorts of this is before the internet so was before the memes But there were all sorts of it was iconography that you would see on television on television and you would see mourners on the news and they would have Dale Earnhardt the legend and have wings and Even before the mean generation there was love much misinformation Heaven is not about our own hobbies Heaven is not about even our deceased relatives Which we will have fellowship with Christians and Saints, but we will be in awe the majesty of our Lord And we can teach kids this at a vacation Bible school.

We can teach kids right information in our homes and Our our views of heaven must stem from our theology Your view of heaven will be only as strong or as weak as your view of God Because they're inseparable Heaven is God's home and unfortunately Wrong views of heaven oftentimes tell off on a person's theology To continue this list Your name is in heaven We sang this this morning. My name is graven on his hands. My name is written on his heart beloved in Christ The Lord has your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life and your name is written This should cause our hearts to leap. This should cause our hearts to praise him.

We should sing a song like that and be very Challenged to stay from leaping up with joy Your citizenship is in heaven Philippians 3 20 your reward is in heaven There's a link between faith and obedience Matthew 5 12 Your master is in heaven Ephesians 6 9 and your treasure is in heaven. I Want to move on to the second? Truth this morning the comfort of heaven.

Let's read Revelation 21 for Again the New Jerusalem is coming down He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more Neither shall there be mourning nor crime nor pain for the former things have passed away As I read Revelation 21 for and I think about these former things the more the morning the crying the pain I Wonder what Paul would have said about these verses You know the Apostle Paul was an expert on Tears he was an expert on mourning. He was an expert on pain Now what text would I use for this?

Let's turn to 2nd Corinthians 416 at least make a note of this Paul was an expert on mourning 2nd Corinthians 4 16 says we do not lose heart Though our outer self is wasting away our inner self is being renewed day by day Paul had been beaten More times it could really be counted it was uncommon not uncommon for him to be beaten and left outside of the city and Beaten so severely that people thought he was dead. He had been whipped with the cat of nine tails. He had been shipwrecked Multiple times it was a drift at sea for three days.

He was imprisoned commonly and he says in 2nd Corinthians 4 16 our outer self is wasting away He was an expert on crying and pain We could look at 2nd Corinthians 4 17 to shed more light on revelations 21 for From a man who had a heavenly orientation What does he say in 4 17 of? 2nd Corinthians this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison Paul is like Bunyan. He's oftentimes imprisoned How does he make it through and in 2nd Corinthians 4 17? This is astounding. He says this is light and momentary If you study Paul's trials How could a man like this?

Say that these were light and momentary You know when you go through medical difficulty, it's very hard to see that as light and momentary When you're in the hospital or you've had surgery you have a death of a loved one or you have some sort of Life issue is very hard to have the perspective to say how this is a light and momentary Affliction in fact, the only way you can say that is the second half of that verse is Just preparing me for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison and when you have an heavenly orientation we have a biblical understanding of who God is a biblical understanding of His home then you have a biblical longing for that place and for him that can get you through trial Paul was aware that his imprisonment his beatings his burdens Would one day simply be former things If we read Revelation 21 for again, he will wipe every tear from their eye and Death shall be no more Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain for the former things have passed away Paul was familiar with these former things Let's continue 2nd Corinthians 4 16 to 18 Chapter 4 16 to 18 Specifically I'll be in verse 18 here as We look not to things that are seen but the things that are unseen For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal Paul's suffering was extreme compared to our experience yet.

He called them light Called them momentary Our outer self can be wasting away Yet our inner self is renewed every day not just Sundays and not just Wednesdays Christian are You being renewed day by day? I'm encouraged middle of the week to come in and see my wife reading her Jude Bible study I'm encouraged to stop over at Church members houses and see them have their Bible study right there that they are reading through This is not simply something that we look at and glance at But in our church, we are seeing that a small group Whether it is the Bible study material or whether it is the body life that we're having Checking on people calling them texting them.

This is renewing us day by day. That's the purpose to have relationships to be church focused and church centered that would be glory of God centered and Paul knew that light and momentary afflictions Could be sustained if he had a heavenly Perspective now Paul was not just an expert on suffering. Paul was an expert on heaven Revelation excuse me second Corinthians 12 Verses 2 through 7 if you would turn there.

This is the passage that you marked Paul was an expert on heaven Because he had been to heaven Scripture says that he was caught up To heaven and if you're not careful, you will read this passage and not realize that Paul is actually talking about himself And it will be clear why he uses this this coded language I know a man in Christ in verse 2 of 2nd Corinthians 12. I know a man in Christ Who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven? Whether in the body or out of the body.

I do not know God knows He's saying I don't know whether God Simply in a vision brought me there or whether he picked up my body and brought me to the third heaven But God knows He knows that what he experienced Was entirely real He says in verse 3 and I know that this man was caught up into paradise Whether in the body or out of the body.

I do not know God knows he repeats himself So here is Paul in the midst of earth's morning and crying and pain in the midst of these former things and God gives him a glimpse into heaven Now specifically he says he was called up to paradise I'll explain what paradise is in just a second But what does he see he sees things that cannot be uttered Second Corinthians 12 for and he heard things that cannot be told which man may not utter Things that he's not permitted to say Second Corinthians 12 7 The revelations were surpassingly great So we know that heaven or paradise is a place that is so glorious Even if someone were to see it they could not come back and utter these mysteries They're so surpassingly great.

They can't really be communicated to us and The people who are there can't even search them out Now where did God bring Paul to He was called to the third heaven which is paradise. Let me explain the first heaven We can walk outside of this building and look up at the first heaven. The first heaven is the atmospheric heaven this is the home of the birds and the airplanes and helicopters and this is a Place that we might Take a flight in an airplane through the second heaven would be the celestial heaven If you look up at night and you see the stars of Orion's belt or if you see the big dipper or the little dipper you're looking into the second heaven and people could take a flight through the second heaven in a space shuttle perhaps in SpaceX private space travel But the third heaven is a place that only a few people in scripture Have been to or caught visions of Specifically the third heaven is the divine heaven Every image of heaven in scripture is seen by a prophet They are all seen simply in visions Lazarus who was there for three days and was brought back to life.

He makes no record of this He certainly did not make a multi-million dollar book about his experience in heaven Paul will not even fully Discuss that he has been to heaven So in a in a sense Paul downplays and he says look it would not be foolish for me to boast of my experience Because it's true. I can Speak as an expert and he goes on and says to keep from being conceited To being arrogant the Lord humbles him.

Let's read about this God brought suffering to intensify Paul's heavenly longing God brought about suffering to intensify Paul's heavenly longing verse 4 and He heard things that cannot be told which man may not utter on behalf of this man I will boast but on my own behalf. I will not boast except of my weakness That's a transition sentence right there.

It's very important sentence Though if I should wish to boast I would not be a fool for I'd be speaking the truth But I refrain from it so that no one may think more of me than he sees in me or hears from me Paul is saying I don't want someone to think that I am more spiritual than the gospel that I preach Look he says I don't want you to think more highly of me than you think of the gospel He's saying that we can be so prone to idolizing even making an idol out of heavenly things Glorious things that I am going to say I know a guy Even when it was accurate Let's pick up in verse 7 So to keep me from being conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations a thorn was given me in the flesh a Messenger of Satan to harass me to keep me from becoming conceited All my life It's a better part of 40 years.

I've heard people ask the question What was the thorn? It's it's not a bad question, but it's not the best question the best question is why was the thorn That's the most important question if you get that one, right? It really doesn't matter was his vision was it some kind of demonic messenger of Satan But the purpose of the messenger of Satan or the thorn in his flesh that is the key to this text The purpose of the thorn was so that he would not be arrogant That would be the negative side of the truth, but the positive side of the truth is That the thorn was given to intensify Paul's longing for heaven If you have arrogance in your life, you will not long for heaven If you have boasting in your life, you will not long for heaven If you are so proud of your religious experience, you will not boast in heaven if you are so thankful for your theology You will not boast in heaven because all of those things are religious activity our theologies even our convictions ought to point us to the Center of heaven which leads us to our third and final point this morning Focus of heaven The focus of heaven Well to find out what the focus of heaven is let's first by looking at what the focus of heaven is not The focus of heaven is not you The focus of heaven is not man Now there's certain myths that are promoted in our culture and These myths of heaven oftentimes veer us They steer us into wrong places.

They get us off track First first is the myth of fatalism. This is the idea that you have death and decomposition and That's it our atheist and our agnostic friends believe that this is the end We know as believers. This is not the case Second myth is that heaven is boring If you read Revelation 21, you will know that heaven is not boring If we want to be more specific about The third heaven Revelation 21 gives us the dimensions of the New Jerusalem the New Jerusalem City walls as 12 walls the names of each tribe are over the 12 gates the dimensions of this city are given as the equivalent of 15,000 miles So the New Jerusalem would extend literally from Maine All the way down the Florida and it would be as wide as it is long extend west from Florida 15,000 miles and that would be the appropriate border of the New Jerusalem Theologians say that if we take this text Literally that the New Jerusalem that this city would be as long and wide and as high because it is perfectly cubed That means if you see the city of Jerusalem in a picture, you will see that houses are built at different elevations and So if you were to see a city where the city is kind of built on a mountain and it extends up Such is the case with the New Jerusalem and it would extend up 15,000 miles If you had a city that was 15,000 miles long and wide and high It could comfortably hold some theologians say a hundred and sixty seven billion people Each of them with mansions each of them not being crowded now that is not a boring place and that just gives us some kind of magnitude of What scripture tells us now if you read the dimensions in Revelation 21 and I challenge you to get your study Bible I Tell I challenge you to get a commentary revelation and read there's different viewpoints But I do not have a problem believing in a God who can create a new Jerusalem How many mansions would there be for every Christian scripture tells us I go there and prepare a place for you I Remember Keith Green saying that it took the Lord six days to make creation.

He's been working on my home for 2,000 years Remember him saying that in classic Keith Green fashion But heaven is not boring The third myth is that the earth can be saved This earth cannot be saved. We should be good stewards. We should not litter but the word tells us that this world will be destroyed The fourth myth of what heaven is not about We will not be angels angels will not be humans.

Although they can take a human form you never hear of humans taking angelic form In conclusion I want us to see that the focus of heaven is the land Matthew 25 34 Then the king will say to those on his right come you who are blessed by my father Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world Heaven is a kingdom This kingdom is prepared This kingdom is prepared by a king for servants for the glory of God We long to see the Lord High We long to see him as the center piece of heaven.

I Want to conclude with this Him this is a verse believe the fifth stanza of a him Emmanuel's land Some titles have that the sands of time are sinking The bride eyes not her garment but her dear bride grooms face I Will not gaze at glory but on my king of grace Not at the crown he gives me but on his nail pierced hand for the lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel's land Let's pray and ask the Lord to bless our day today with a more intense longing for heaven.