Sermons

Sermon 20/4/08 10:30 Service

Theme - What is Heaven Going to be Like?

Three men were travelling in a car when it was involved in a crash which killed all of them instantly. Naturally enough they found themselves outside the pearly gates standing in front of St Peter. He checked his records and welcomed them in. As they were going in, Peter explained that there was only one rule in heaven. You mustn't stand on the ducks. If you do, you will be chained to the most ugly woman in heaven for all eternity. Well there were ducks everywhere, on the grass, on the paths, in the gardens, in the houses, everywhere. Pretty soon the first man stood on a duck. Immediately St Peter appeared with the most ugly woman you ever saw, and chained her to him. The other two agreed that they would need to take more care, and for a few weeks everything went well and no ducks were trampled, but then the second man stood on a duck. Once again St Peter appeared with another ugly old crone in tow, chained her to him and left.

Needless to say the third bloke took things very, very carefully, and for several months he managed to avoid the ducks. Then one day St Peter appeared with the most gorgeous blond you ever saw, chained her to him and left. The man asked the blond, "Have you any idea why we've been chained together? She replied, "I don't know, but I just stood on a duck."

Introduction

In the two readings we heard earlier, we had Jesus talking about going to prepare a place for his followers in heaven, and Stephen seeing heaven open before him as he was being stoned to death. Therefore, what I want to do this morning is to explore what heaven is going to be like.

Let me start where Wilma and I started a few weeks ago with a question:
If I were to ask you, what will heaven be like, what ideas and images come to mind?

• A deserted beach in the highlands?
• St Peter at the pearly gates?
• Ducks all over the place?
• Harp playing while floating on a cloud?
• An eternity spent in a church service?
• A vague idea that it will be good, but no idea of the details?

I don't know about you, but no matter how good the worship, and how entertaining the preacher, an eternity spent in a church service doesn't really appeal, nor yet does cloud based harp playing. What I'm trying to get at, is that with this rather vague idea of heaven, I'm not that sure if I'm really looking forward to getting there.

Since we only have a short time this morning, let me completely ignore the many fascinating and equally contentious questions about Jesus second coming, the millennium, the judgement etc. etc. Let us rather skip past all of these events and on into eternity.

What will it be like?

Dwight Moody the great 19th century evangelist said this:

"'Some day you will read in the papers that Dwight Moody is dead. Don't you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now'..... Four months later he was dying. Early in the morning of December the 22nd 1899, Moody's son Will was startled by his father's voice from the bed across the room: 'Earth recedes, heaven opens before me!"

Will hurried to his father's side. 'This is no dream, Will. It is beautiful. If this is death, it is sweet. God is calling me and I must go. Don't call me back."

Were these the delusional ramblings of a dying man, or should we put any store in what he was saying?

As ever, let us start with the Bible. What does it tell us about heaven?
Unfortunately, there is no single passage where it lays out for us clearly, in detail, in plain language what heaven will be like. However, there are lots of references to heaven in the Bible, although many of them occur in the more poetic and prophetic parts of the Bible, where we need to take care in interpreting what is being said. In other words, while we don't have a full picture of what heaven will be like, we are not completely in the dark. As Paul says in 1 Cor 13:12, "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror" - remember a mirror in Paul's day was only a piece of polished metal.

There is a second problem we have when thinking about heaven, our lack of imagination. Let me explain what I mean by an analogy. Imagine you are a baby in your mother's womb. Life is pretty good. It's warm, it's comfortable, there is ready food on tap, there is the soothing rhythmic beating of her heart. You do hear occasional noises from the outside world, but they are distant and pretty muffled. On the basis of your experience of life on the inside, imagine trying to describe life on the outside. It's a bit like this when we try and describe heaven.

So, let's have a look at what the Bible actually says about heaven, under 4 headings:

• What will heaven be like?
• Who will be there?
• What will we be like?
• What will happen in heaven?

Under each heading, we'll look at what the Bible says, and then I'll give you a few thoughts of my own based on the references, although I'm no expert so please take my imaginings with a pinch of salt.


What will heaven be like?
In Jn 14:2 it says: "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."

• Phil 1:21 "For me to live is Christ to die is gain."
• Rev 21:1-2 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
• Rom 8: 21 "....that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

What can we deduce from these verses?
Heaven is going to be better than anything we have experienced here on earth, in fact it will be better than anything we can imagine. After all, Jesus has had over 2000 years to get his home ready to receive his bride, the church - us. And when we get there we will be radiant like a bride on her wedding day - somewhat easier to imagine for some of us than for others. But not only will heaven be amazing, it is big, it will be a place of true freedom, a place of strength, of power, of safety and of peace.

One other thing - did you notice the comment about no more sea. In Jewish minds, the sea represented 2 bad things: the power that fought against God and separation. So, the no more sea reference has nothing to do with no more paddling at the beach but rather it means that in heaven there will be no more opposition to God, and there will be no more separation between us and God, and between each other.

Secondly, who will be there?
Lk 2:15 "When the angels had left them and gone into heaven...."

• Acts 1:11 "'Men of Galilee' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven...."
• Matt 6:9 "Our Father in heaven"
• Rev 21:2 "I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband."

So there will be angels in heaven, Jesus will be there, God the father will be there, although not completely - heaven is simply too small to contain him. And finally there will be the church, the bride of Christ.

Next, let us think about what will we be like.

• Phil 3:20,21 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body."
• 1 Cor 15:42-44 "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

• Rev 21:4 "He, God, will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
• Is: 65,17 "Behold, I will create

new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind."

So what are we going to be like in heaven?
We will have bodies, just like the one that the risen Jesus has. And so, just as Jesus had a solid physical body and was able to eat and drink after the resurrection, so too with us. Then again, our bodies will not be subject to death and decay - gone will be the physical tiredness, the aches and pains, the joints that creak, the eyes that refuse to focus, the bunions that throb, the eczema that itches, the wobbly bits, that, well, wobble, etc., etc.

Then there is the intriguing issue that the disciples, on seeing, Jesus didn't recognise him at first. Why was that, and what does it mean for our eternal bodies? In fairness to the disciples, they weren't expecting to see Jesus again, but I think that there was more than that. Think back to Paul and his comment about only seeing as though a poor reflection. I suspect that our eternal bodies will still be us, but more so. Remember when Moses came down Mount Sinai after being in God's presence, how his face shone - maybe ours will shine too.

But for us there is more. If there is to be no more pain in heaven, this will include emotional pain, and if I am to never cause anyone pain or hurt again, God is going to have to change me quite considerably before I can be let loose. So maybe I won't be quite so instantly recognisable to all of you who know the fallen, fallible person I am at the moment, rather than the risen, glorious person I will be one day.

And again, if God is to wipe away every tear, and there is to be no more mourning, to my mind there must be some kind of divine forgetfulness of painful things that have happened to us, of hurts that we carry around inside us, and of people who haven't made it into heaven. Otherwise how could we possibly not cry and mourn?

Finally, what will happen in heaven?

• Rev 22:2 "....on each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month..."
• Rev 5:13 & 14 "Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honour and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"
The four living creatures said, "Amen," and the elders fell down and worshipped."
(Slide 9 - what will happen in heaven? 2)

• Heb 12:22,23 "But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven."
• In Matt 26:29 Jesus said "I tell you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father's kingdom."
• Gen 2:15 "The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."
• Rev 22:3 ".....and his servants will serve him."
• Rev 14:13 "....they will rest from their labour....."

What can we tell about what will happen in heaven.
Firstly, since there is the tree of life bearing its fruit every month, this implies that we will be aware of the passage of time - we won't live in some continuous now, things will still happen sequentially.

Next there will be worship, and oh what worship. There will be no distractions, it will be spontaneous and genuine. We won't get distracted by thoughts of - what's for lunch, my back hurts, she's pretty, I'm bored, I wish I could pluck up the courage to raise my hands, but I would feel so embarrassed, a 10,000 year worship session - how long is the sermon going to be?

Then there will be fellowship, not just with the few Christians we know already, but with countless thousands. None of this sombre - (sombre voice) how good to meet you brother. But it will be joyful, truly joyful. At the end of housegroup, I've often wanted to thank God for the gift of laughter, but that will be nothing to what heaven will be like.

Next, Jesus talked about drinking of the fruit of the vine. This implies that there will be drinking, and I think it reasonable to suppose eating. Similarly, if there is grape juice, this implies that there will be vines, and I think it reasonable to suppose that there will be other plants. Now plants need insects for pollination, and if there are insects, other animals seem to be a likelihood too.

Finally, in this list, there is the question of work and rest. There is going to be rest from our labours, but at the same time we won't be spending all eternity sitting around getting bored - just as at the beginning God gave Adam the job of looking after the garden of Eden, I think that we will have work to do, but work that is fulfilling, enjoyable and satisfying.

Let me draw to a close now.
I started by asking what heaven is going to be like, and not being sure whether I was really looking forward to getting there?

Well, it will be solid, real and amazing. God, Jesus, the angels, and we will be there. Everything that is bad, that opposes God, that causes us to sin, and that causes us pain will be gone. We will be free to worship, to have joyous fellowship together, to work, to rest, to eat, to drink, and to praise God forever and ever.

CS Lewis writes in "The Last Battle"
"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.....All of their life in this world, and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before"

In Phil 3:12-14 Paul writes
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

My prayer is that we, like Paul, will always keep our eyes and hearts firmly fixed on heaven our eternal home.

Amen.