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Sermon Notes

We spent four weeks discussing Hell and we tried to answer as many questions as you could give us. There were a few questions that we didn’t get a chance to answer and so we will answer those in a podcast that you can check out online in a week or so.

Today begins our six-week study on Heaven. I am 100% convinced of this – Heaven is for real. Don’t ask me about the book or the movie. I don’t know anything about either one of those two. However, I do know this. The Bible makes is crystal clear that Heaven is for real. This is my goal is for the next six weeks. I want you to want to go to Heaven more than you want to be here. I want you to understand Heaven and have such a clear picture of it that you would say that you would rather be there then here today. I would suspect that most of us in this room though you believe it most of us don’t behave it. You don’t act like you really, really want to be there. The goal over the next six weeks is to cause us to say that we are ready to go right now because we have a small glimpse of what is waiting for us.

We started the Hell series looking at what other religions teach about Hell. I want to do the same thing about Heaven. Then I will try to nail down what the Bible teaches about Heaven. You can narrow down all of the world’s religions to just a few if you were to put them into big categories.

World Religion’s views of Heaven:

• Atheistic/materialism: This is all there is…there is nothing else after death. Since there is no God, there is no image of God or soul. There is no Hell and there is no Heaven.
• Deism: They would say that there may be a God but we can’t see him and we can’t know him. They think that you can’t know what happens to you after you die.
• Skepticism: They would highly question the idea of an after life.
• Ancient pagan view: Many people have this view that when they die their souls lurks around in the underworld like ghosts.
• Platonism: This is based on Plato’s teachings. Platonism says that the soul of a man or woman is immortal. The Bible would disagree with Platonism in that they teach that the body never again catches up with the soul. I think you’ll see over the next six weeks that yes the body does catch up and that you will dwell, both body and soul, forever somewhere.
• Pantheism: They say that all of us are like raindrops of the cosmic god. We have a little bit of the god-stuff inside of us. When you die your god-stuff goes back to be part of the big ocean and you get assimilated back into god.
• Reincarnation: Billions of people hold this view. They believe that once you die your soul will go into another living creature on earth.

None of these are really what the Bible teaches about Heaven. I searched through over a hundred books to find a good definition. The few that do have a definition typically say that you can’t define Heaven because by its very nature it is better than anything you could say with the English language so there is no way to define it. I don’t think that that is very helpful for us today. Let me tell you how the Bible describes Heaven and then I’ll give you my definition of Heaven, which we will continue to use for the next six weeks.

The Old Testament starts to give us a fuzzy picture of Heaven that starts to become clearer and more vivid in the New Testament. In the Old Testament the word “Heaven” is always plural. The Old Testament has the idea that there are multiple layers in Heaven. This is also found in the New Testament in 2 Corinthians 12 when Paul says that he was transformed to the third level of Heaven. Here is how the third level of Heaven works in the Old Testament. The first level of Heaven would be the sky level where the birds fly and the rains come down. We call it the sky. The second level of Heaven is the universe, which is the stars, moon, and sun. In the third level of Heaven in the Old Testament is where God lives. So when Paul says, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, that he was taken to the third level of Heaven he means he was taken to God, not the sky or universe level. It is not a literal place necessarily but this is where we get the idea that Heaven is up and Hell is down. One of these days Heaven will come down to us but right now it is as much a state as it is a place. Paul also called Heaven “the hope of glory.” Peter said Heaven was “the inheritance waiting for us.” More than any other book in the Bible, Revelation describes more about what Heaven is like.

Let me give you a definition of Heaven that I would like you to try to commit to memory. Heaven is the final resting place for believers. Heaven is the place where Jesus dwells. Heaven is the state of being in a perfect relationship with God and a perfect relationship with other people. When you take the final resting place where Jesus dwells and you combine it with a perfect relationship with God and others, you have Heaven. That is the definition of Heaven that I want us to look at for the next few weeks.

If you were with us, several months ago I preached through the whole book of Hebrews. We are going to look at one passage of Scripture from Hebrews Chapter 11. This passage is sandwiched right between this long list of men and women who did incredible feats of faith. This is often referred to as the “List of Faith” or “Hall of Fame” of great men and women of the Bible. I think this passage speaks to us today here in the Chattahoochee Valley.

I. You were not created for here

By “here” I mean right here and the stuff that we see around us. Do you know this poem by Robert Frost? “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.” This stuff that we see around us is not what we were created for. We were created for more.

Hebrews 11:13
All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth.

If you are a guest today, we normally don’t carry our luggage around on stage with us. It is designed to remind you of something. If you know Jesus Christ personally and he is your Savior this is temporary. All that you have and all that you see are temporary. You weren’t made for this. You are temporarily passing through. You were made for something much more. If you were to read right before and after this passage that we are looking at today, you would read about Abraham. Sandwiched in the middle it reminds us that we are supposed to live like Abraham.

If you don’t know the story about Abraham let me give you a few details of his life. Abraham stood to inherit a fortune when his father died. God appeared to Abraham and told him to go out into the desert. God didn’t give him a specific place to go just a direction to head in. Incredibly Abraham sold all his possessions, packed his family up, left his father’s inheritance behind, and headed out into the desert. While in the desert, God met with Abraham and told him he was now Abraham’s father and the inheritance he was giving Abraham would be greater. God promised Abraham that his descendants would be more numerous then the stars in the sky and sand on the seashore. Abraham never saw this in his lifetime. In fact for the rest of Abraham’s life he lived like a nomad. Hebrews is saying that that is the kind of lifestyle that you and I should have. The Old Testament also teaches us this in Isaiah.

Isaiah 51:6

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look at the earth beneath; for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who live on it will die like gnats; but my salvation will be forever, and my deliverance will never be ended.

This is the promise of Heaven that God has waiting for his people. Are you familiar with the series of books by C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia? They are children’s books but they communicate some incredibly powerful stuff about God, his salvation and Heaven. If you have children or grandchildren read these books to them. In the sixth book of the series, The Silver Chair, Jill Poe and Eustace Scrubb are taken from their homeland and thrust into this land called Narnia. While they are in Narnia they meet up with a guide by the name of Puddleglum. Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum get themselves into some dangerous situations while in Narnia. At one point they are almost eaten by a group of giants who are going to have them for their autumn feast. They run away and hide in a cave. The farther they go into the cave the darker it gets. The longer they spend time in there they start to lose grip on what Narnia was like. Lewis describes this for many chapters in the book. The place they are at in this cave, Lewis calls Underland. In the Underland is a witch who goes by the name The Lady of the Green Kirtle. This witch controls the Underland. She puts Jill, Eustace and Puddleglum under a spell. She tells them that there is no other world than Underland. Underland is all that there is. There is no home. There is no Narnia. There is no Aslan. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Aslan is Jesus in this series. Everyday Jill, Eustaces, and Puddleglum start to forget what it was like outside the cave. They start to believe that this is all that there is.

The stuff that you see around you is Underland. It is temporary! You weren’t made for here. You were made for someplace that is pure. You were made for someplace that is perfect. You were made for someplace that is permanent. The stuff that we see around us will all be gone one day. Don’t be so captivated by what you see around you that you lose the grasp of Heaven. So when everyone else is living for today you and I are to be living like there is something better waiting for us then this world has to offer.

II. You were created for Heaven

During the next six weeks I will rely heavily on the book titled Heaven by Randy Alcorn. If you don’t have a copy of this book go download it or buy it. I recommend that everyone read this book.

At the beginning of the Hell series, I said that you weren’t created for Hell and Hell wasn’t created for you. But that’s really only half of the story. The other half of the story is that you were created for something much better than Hell. You were created for something much better than here. You were actually created for Heaven. Jesus breathes into human beings the breath of life and they become an eternal soul. Long after the living, breathing body stops existing here on planet Earth that soul continues to live forever. Abundant, true, and eternal life only comes from Jesus. You were created to be with him in Heaven.

Hebrews 11:14
Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own.

This verse gives the idea that if this were their home they could plant roots and invest in it to make it their own. However, this is not home for them. You probably know someone who moved away from home but they never really left. Everywhere they go they compare to their home and nothing compares to where they came from. Or, you may have met the other side of the equation that once they moved away and then returned for a visit home was never the same again. That is what the writer of Hebrews is saying here. These people don’t have a home here on Earth. Their home is somewhere they’ve never been before. It’s similar to the old hymn that says, “Kinda homesick for a country, someplace you’ve never been before.” They are homesick for the kingdom of God. They are homesick for Heaven and when God makes everything new here on Earth. This is not the idea that they are just sitting around waiting to die. It is saying that this isn’t the way that God created it to be and they won’t be satisfied until God restores what was broken in the Garden of Eden.

I really don’t get worked up around here by the carpet or the color of walls in this room. Here’s why. All of this stuff that we see around us is temporary. It can and it will be gone in an instant. What happens in this room in the souls of men and women is what I care supremely about. What happens when we invest in each others life carries on for eternity. I care more about what happens in a small group then when someone spills coffee in this big group. It doesn’t matter to me because this stuff is temporary and doesn’t last.

I’ve been reading some of the passages from Jonathan Edward, a pastor and theologian in the 1700s. I still think of him as the greatest theological mind our country has ever produced. When Jonathan Edwards was getting ready to leave home as a young man he wrote down some things that he wanted to live his life by. Edwards wrote down 70 things that he was going to try to model his life by. Number 22 on that list stopped me dead in my tracks. He said, “Resolved to endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world as I possibly can with all of the power, might, vigor and vehemence, yea violence, I am capable of, or can bring myself to exert, in any way that can be thought of.” Edwards said he would wrestle, fight, struggle, against himself to not be satisfied with the stuff he saw around him because he was living for some other world.

Our church is challenging you for the next six weeks to live for Heaven. If you are wondering how to do that we would give you a few things to work on. The pastors at Calvary helped me to come up with a list of what it looks like when someone is really living for Heaven.

What does living for eternity look like?

1. Dangerously Compassionate- You love, serve, and bless other people when it doesn’t make sense and no one else around you will.
2. Recklessly Missional – Missional means you would give up everything to accomplish the mission of God. I have been praying for more than a year that God would put it on some of our hearts to go serve him fulltime somewhere that the Gospel isn’t being preached yet.
3. Courageously Generous – They realize that all the stuff that they own won’t last so they invest what they do have in the home that is waiting for them in Heaven.
4. Selflessly Serving – They give of themselves and serve other people when they won’t get anything back in return.
5. Intensely Relational – The plants, trees, buildings and bank accounts will all be gone one day but your relationships carry on for ten thousand or ten million years when God is in the midst of those relationships.

III. You were created for Him

Death is unnatural to the human condition. You weren’t created to die. You were created to be an eternal soul that lives somewhere and an eternal body that will catch up to the soul. When I say that you were created to live for Jesus, I don’t just mean that Jesus helped create you. I mean that you were created for his glory and for his sake.

Hebrews 11:15-16
If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

I want you to notice the contrast between those two verses. If they were longing for home they could have bought a plane or bus ticket and gone back there. They wanted something they had never been before but it was infinitely better than where they came from. Then the writer used some past tense language. He said God had already prepared the new Heaven, the New Jerusalem. It is just a matter of time before all of the stuff that we see around us disappears and God restores everything that was broken. Everything that was wrong because of sin God fixes when he restores Heaven on Earth. If you want to know why God is not ashamed to be called their God it is because they had this desire, passion, and burning inside of them that said they wanted more then world had to offer. They wanted something better than what they saw around them. They wanted to live like they are dying.

I mean this with 100% seriousness. I’m not trying to be funny. Most preachers that I have heard talk about Heaven as though it is going to be an eternal church service. I think to myself if that is what heaven is going to be like than I don’t want to be there because your church service is boring and that would mean Heaven will be boring. If Heaven is just us standing around in a circle, holding hands and singing Kumbaya. Heaven is much bigger and much better than that. Frankly the English language is incapable of describing all that Heaven is but I can tell you this, Heaven is perfect fellowship with God. It is sin conquered. It is Eden restored. It is salvation consummated. It is perfection communion with others. It is beyond all comprehension. It is more than we can imagine. It is better than we can hope. It is beyond our wildest dreams. It is permanent, pure and perfect. Heaven is where Jesus lives. I want you to want be in Heaven more than you want to be here right now. I want to ask you to struggle with me, fight with me and wrestle with me against the dangerous temptation of focusing on the stuff around us thinking that this is all there is. Will you fight for the idea that your home in Heaven will be much better than the home you have here? So, don’t be satisfied with anything less then what is waiting for you there. Only be satisfied with Jesus and Heaven.

I’m going to answer a few of the questions that were sent in about Heaven. First, when you are in Heaven do you know what is happening on Earth? I don’t know. Some days I think you may have an idea of what is happening on Earth. But, other days I’m not sure because one of the aspects of Heaven is that there is no remorse, no tears, no pain, and no suffering. I tend to think that if I could see from Heaven what is happening it would break someone’s heart. This may be a question that I would need to research more.

Second question, what is Abraham’s bosom? You would have had to be here three weeks ago when I was talking about Hell and used the story in Luke 16 that specifically references this person died and went to Abraham’s bosom. However, if you were here, you would have also heard me say that this is a parable. Since it is a parable you can’t take individual words from the parable and push it too far to get meaning out of it. I think that is what you are doing by asking this. It is more of an expression of what Heaven is going to be like.

Third question, will we know our loved ones in Heaven? Yes. I’m convinced that you will know everyone in Heaven. You will get to hear their stories and tell your story to everyone in Heaven forever.

Last question is more of a statement, I can’t imagine doing nothing but praising God and singing carols for eternity. I’m glad that whoever wrote this statement was honest. However, you’ve not heard me say that you’re just going to sit on clouds and sing songs to God for eternity. That is not the picture that we get from the Bible. Heaven is much more than that. I can assure you that it is not an eternal church service and it is definitely not going to be boring.

Next Steps

• I want this relationship with Jesus.  Today, for the first time, I turn from my sins and trust him as my Savior.
• I have been living like this is my home.  Please pray for me that I would focus on Jesus and Heaven this week.
• I commit to invite someone to church with me over the next couple of weeks to learn about Jesus and about Heaven.  

Discussion Questions:

1. What question do you have about Heaven?  
2. If you are an eternal soul- what happens to your soul immediately after you die?
3. How sure are you that you are going to Heaven? (Give an explanation of your certainty.)
4. Read Romans 4:13-25. What are the promises waiting for you in the distance that Hebrews 11:13 mentions?   
5. Be honest, are you living like this is all there is?
6. What does it look like, to live for Heaven? Give some specific examples.
7. Pray that we would live for Heaven this week.