Heaven: Living with The Future In View | Above
Above
If you were to ask almost anyone where heaven is located, they would probably say “up there,” or “above,” or, at the very least, that would be a good enough description for most people to accept. That seems to have always been one of the easiest ways to talk about this other place, this future reality. It is easiest to think about it as being “above.”
In fact, that is how Paul talks about it. Our main passage over these next three sessions is from Colossians 3:1–4:
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
(Colossians 3:1–4 ESV)
Above. Perhaps it is above, but I’m not sure that is Paul’s main point. I recently read that scientists who study string theory believe there are at least 10 or 11 dimensions we can’t see but that influence our lives every day. They agree with us that there is more than what we can see right here! At least one of those dimensions surely must be this idea of heaven or the Kingdom of God, filled with his angels and all his glory, breaking into this dimension when he desires and wills. If scientists are willing to say these types of dimensions exist, you and I shouldn’t be afraid to say it as well. Whether it is above or not, it is there!
Paul has previously written in his letter to the Colossians about what is true in their life now that they are trusting in Jesus for salvation. After an introduction in chapter one and an appeal to trust Jesus, Paul goes on in chapter two to encourage the Colossians and us to walk rightly with God. He says we are to die to our old way of living and to live a new life now in Jesus. In fact, in chapter two, Paul begins with the image of being buried with Christ in baptism and then raised again with him:
In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead.
(Colossians 2:11–12 ESV)
This raising here in Colossians 2 is the same raising that Paul is talking about here in Colossians 3:1—if you have been raised with Christ, meaning if you have FAITH in Jesus, then Paul wants us to do something specific:
…seek the things that are above…
Set your minds on things that are above…
(Colossians 3:1–4 ESV)
Seek the things that are above. Set your minds on the things that are above. Both of those statements are calling us to think, pursue, know, and live according to what is “above,” which is an image of this future that we will all have in heaven one day. Just like you and I, Paul’s audience would have thought of heaven as being “above,” and that is what Paul wants them to think about MORE. Seek MORE about heaven. Set your minds MORE on heaven.
Paul’s logic is that we have died, and specifically, we have died to the things of this earth. The things that consume people daily here should no longer be our primary concern. In fact, it is the things that are above, the things of heaven, that should be our primary concern. And then with those things in mind, THEN that great vision should influence and affect everything we do each day.
Yet we often wonder today: What is this place called heaven that we are heading towards? What happens there? Why does heaven seem so elusive or nebulous at times? And again, there is much we can know about heaven; it just seems the real problem is that we don’t spend much time teaching or thinking about it.
We see much about heaven in God’s word. I have to imagine we have all heard someone say something like, “We can’t really know what heaven is like. I just know I will be with God, I may see my family, and I know I will never be sad again.” That is only partially true, because we can definitely know much about heaven from Scripture! In fact, a verse often used to say that we can’t know much actually says the opposite. Many people go to 1 Corinthians 2:9 and say with Paul:
But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him.”
(1 Corinthians 2:9 ESV)
They use this to justify that there is much we cannot know about the future, heaven, and our life to come. But they forget to continue on to verse 10:
These things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.
(1 Corinthians 2:10 ESV)
God, through his very Spirit, in his Scripture, is revealing and has revealed to us the beauty of what is to come, sufficiently for us to live with a hope of the next steps of our life with God after this Earth.
We also see much about heaven through our lives. God knew everything that would happen in history in advance. God was not surprised when Adam and Eve chose sin in Genesis 3. So, with our trajectory in mind, God modeled our life here on this earth, a life that was going to break down and break apart because of our sin, on something else. He modeled it on something more permanent and more real. He modeled Eden, he modeled relationships, he modeled our purpose here to have dominion and to guard and protect his word—to be priest kings and queens—AFTER or ON our future role, our eternal role. Everything here, on this Earth, from the very beginning of Genesis through our day and into the end-times described in Revelation, is preparing and pointing us forward to this reality of our future with God.
Preparing and Pointing Us Forward
A future God bought for us through Jesus Christ, the God-Man, that we might truly live as we were meant to live, where we were meant to live. Heaven shouldn’t be the least real thing in our mind; it should be the most real reality. Whatever we may not be able to discern about heaven from Scripture, it won’t be less than we can understand today, here, on this earth. It will be more! More. Better. Fuller. Greater. Just like real life is better than a dream. The real experience is better than a movie.
Usually, in a talk like this or a sermon, I try to give three or four main points for people to take away. Today, I want you to think of this talk more like a discussion of the joys of a new vacation spot you are going to visit. It’s like you’re looking at the photo reel of my trip to heaven, except I’ll be using Scripture instead of literal photos to try to paint the pictures (and there are a lot of them!). The goal isn’t to go in depth on each idea or only walk away with several points, but rather, to give you an expansive view of the many different aspects of our life to come that you might begin to wonder and live differently in light of them. That today might be the beginning of you and me preparing for this future in a way we may not have before. What I want to leave you with are three EMOTIONS or DESIRES that I would pray you have as you think about heaven this evening:
Longing
Readiness
Hope
As Paul Tripp says in his book, Forever:
“Living in this present world [in light of the world to come] is designed by God to produce three things in me—longing, readiness, and hope.”
Paul Tripp, Forever
Tonight, I pray that this grand view of heaven, describing the ABOVE of Colossians 3, will create in each of us a longing for what is to come. And then, as we think more deeply about it together tomorrow, it will give you and me a better sense of readiness and preparedness as we seek to live our lives today in light of this reality. But more than that, I pray this talk raises your hope! What I am going to describe about our future reality is not something you are working towards or that we need to strive to have. God has already given this to you! Listen to what Paul says in Ephesians 2:
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4–7 ESV)
In faith, you and I died to our old life and are now raised with Christ to a new life. Not only that, but ALREADY, by faith, you have been seated with Jesus in the heavenly places. You and I live in a weird in-between state right now, where we are ALREADY seated with Christ on his throne, ready to live, serve, and rule with him on the new earth, but we don’t see that fully yet. Today, we prepare. Today we get ready. Today, we long for that moment. But it is not a question—you are already seated there in heaven with Christ in faith. You do not need to strive to make this happen; rather, live as though it is already beginning to be made true in your life today!
Your future is Heaven. As Randy Alcorn says in his book on Heaven:
“What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.”
(Randy Alcorn, Heaven, Kindle Location 381.)
Hell Is Also Real
First off, if I am going to share tonight about the wonders and the beauties of the true, real, physical heaven that we all should expect to be a part of through faith in Jesus, I also have to remind us and mention that hell, the opposite of heaven, is also very, frighteningly, real.
Hell is real. It is a literal place, just like Heaven is a literal place. Hell is where those who haven’t received God’s gift of redemption in Christ go (Revelation 20:12–15). It is a place of misery, we are told in Matt 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:41; 25:30; Luke 13:28. This should break our hearts and encourage us to share about the hope of heaven and the possibility of a future with God in Jesus. The reality that heaven is certain only to those who trust in Jesus should motivate our evangelism. Everything that we hear and talk about tonight about heaven should make us long to share Jesus with everyone we know, so that they, too, might join us in this new and perfect home. We should want to see our longing, our growing readiness, and our hope for heaven become the hope of others as well.
Intermediate/Old Heaven
Most often, when we talk about heaven, we immediately think about it as the place we go when we die. That is true. It is fine to call that moment heaven…but it isn’t the same as what we are talking about tonight. Paul talks about the moment of our death this way:
“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”
(1 Thessalonians 4:13–14 ESV)
Or as Paul says to the Philippians:
I am hard-pressed between the two [to die or to continue on]. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
(Philippians 1:23 ESV)
When we die, we go to a place that Paul says is in the direct presence of God and is “far better” (Philippians 1:23). We are with Christ, he says! This is where the thief on the cross goes the day he dies with Jesus (paradise). This truly is heaven; it is where God is today. The very presence of the Lord dwells there:
The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven;
(Psalm 11:4 ESV)
And when we die, we join Christ there in heaven. Yet, oddly, this heaven will not remain. You have heard me often talk about the new earth AND the new heavens. The heaven that exists today, the heaven that you and I will go to when we die before Jesus’s return, is temporary and will not remain. It is a pit-stop on our journey, much like this Earth. God’s goal is to do what he always wanted to do. God wants to enjoin heaven with earth! God wants to bring those two together. So, the heaven that he dwells in today, the heaven you and I will visit temporarily after we die, will be changed. That means there exists what we can call the “Old Heaven” or, from our perspective, the “Intermediate or Temporary Heaven.” Alcorn says it well:
“It bears repeating because it is so commonly misunderstood: When we die, believers in Christ will not go to Heaven where we’ll live forever. Instead, we’ll go to an intermediate heaven. In that Heaven—where those who died covered by Christ’s blood are now—we’ll await the time of Christ’s return to the earth, our bodily resurrection, the final judgement, and the creation of the new heavens and the new Earth.”
(Alcorn, Heaven, location 956.)
We will only temporarily be in the heaven that is there now, which is why we won’t spend much time on THAT version of heaven tonight. Instead, we want to focus on the final goal and assume that, just as this version of the earth points towards the new, combined earth and heaven, so too the current heaven is similar and will likewise point us to the new, combined heaven and earth.
Our Resurrection
One of the most amazing things about the New heavens and the New earth—what we will just call heaven—is that we will be US! Flesh and spirit. People! Resurrected!
In Genesis 1 & 2, we have seen how we are both physical beings and spirit. This is how we were always meant to be, and this is how we will continue to be in the final heaven! God took man from the dust, woman from the man’s side, formed us and made us, and then breathed our very life, our spirit, into us. We were not made disembodied souls first that needed a temporary home while we were here on earth, only to escape this body to go be with God again when we die. That is a very Greek and Platonic thought, and very wrong!
Christianity is not a Platonic religion that regards material things as mere shadows of reality, which will be sloughed off as soon as possible. Not the mere immortality of the soul, but rather the resurrection of the body and the renewal of all creation is the hope of the Christian faith.
John Piper
Resurrection! A new body! That is our hope. What an amazing thought. We get glimpses of this joy and hope in the Old Testament. Job rejoices that he would see God again, but specifically:
And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God,
(Job 19:26 ESV)
Job believes that in his flesh he will see God! But this was a rare glimpse and idea in the Old Testament of our future. It is really in the New Testament that Jesus comes on the scene and claims something no other deity claimed—resurrection! Jesus was God in the flesh. He would die. And he would raise himself to life! He would also raise to life those who trusted in him!
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
(John 11:25–27 ESV)
Do not think for a second that our final destination of heaven will not be a physical one! The great promise of Jesus, THE sign of his power, would be resurrection, we are told. His resurrection, and your and my resurrection, is core to the gospel message. In 1 Corinthians 15, when Paul is explaining the gospel, he says in verses 17–19:
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
(1 Corinthians 15:17–19 ESV)
Core to the gospel is that Jesus was raised—there is no good news without that truth. Jesus came as the God-man as flesh and spirit, not just to be our sacrifice, but because he would destroy sin AND DEATH! To show that death was defeated and to be the firstborn of all of us to this new resurrection life, Jesus had to die and raise himself in his own power so that we too might have the hope of a resurrection! That we too might be made fit for what is to come—a physical heaven that necessitates a physical body. We will be given an imperishable body (1 Cor 15:42-44), but a body nonetheless. A body fit for our spirit. A body fit for heaven. We are made for a new creation in Christ (2 Cor 5:17), ready for the new heavens and earth.
And we are told this new body will be just like our Savior’s new body (Revelation 1:12-18)!
But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
(Philippians 3:20–21 ESV)
Resurrected Creation
And our resurrected, flesh-and-blood reality matters because we are going to heaven, a physical place. A resurrected creation! “As mankind goes, so goes all of creation.”
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
(Romans 8:19–21 ESV)
In talking about those who died in the faith, the writer to the Hebrews says:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had the opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
(Hebrews 11:13–16 ESV)
The imagery of humanity kicked out of the garden and barred from coming back, Israel sent out of Egypt looking for their promised land from God, God’s people sent into exile, these are all meant to give words to the longing that we all have here, in this intermediary earth, stuck in sin and brokenness. We long for that new homeland. We long for a better country. We long for the city God has prepared for us.
What is fascinating about the resurrection of creation is that it is a complete resurrection! It is not just the earth that is affected but the heavens as well, as we have already said. John says in Revelation:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
(Revelation 21:1–2 ESV)
That is incredible! Originally, God chose not enjoin heaven and earth in the first creation. He knew that mankind would sin and fall and cast all of earth into the effects of sin (Romans 8:22). But that wasn’t the permanent goal. The goal has always been for God to be with mankind:
Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
(John 14:23 ESV)
God’s plan has always been to be with us, but not just temporarily, not just in spurts, not just through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. God’s plan has been for us to be with God himself, and for heaven itself to come into our reality of existence. In Revelation 21:1, we see that God not only redeems and remakes the Earth again perfect, but that he also remakes heaven and brings it ONTO this New Earth! The new heavens and the new earth become our one, new, future reality. Heaven!
Peter tells us that God will redo ALL of creation:
For they [unbelievers] deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly… But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
(2 Peter 3:5–7, 13 ESV)
The imagery here is that of the flood, which “destroyed” the earth and through which it was judged and remade. In the future, both heaven and earth will be judged with fire, but through which they will be remade. Creation resurrected! Like the water of the flood, the fire is meant to refine, letting only what is important stand. In 1 Corinthians 3:13, we are told our works will be refined by fire, and what survives will mean a reward for us. Similarly, what stands through the fire of refining with the Earth will remake the New Earth.
Friends, the imagery of the new earth and the new heavens—our forever heaven—is much like our experience here and now. Listen to Isaiah 60:
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity, for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their descendants with them.
(Isaiah 65:17–23 ESV)
In Isaiah 7:14, we hear about the savior born to a virgin. We see the servant wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, and silent before his accusers in Isaiah 53. We see he is from the root of Jesse in Isaiah 11:1–5. He is the gentle servant in Isaiah 42 and 61. If we are to take those as literal prophesies of Jesus, we should see Isaiah 60 as literal as well. A literal prophecy of our future. The new heavens and the new earth—our forever heaven—will be full of people, houses, buildings, and planting. We will eat of the fruit of our labors from vineyards and gardens more lush than any July cucumber patch!
In Revelation, we see a city with a path, water, trees, and fruit. A city with many rooms. Gates, which symbolize commerce and coming and going (Revelation 21:1–22:5). Friends, this future heaven we are meant for is much like this earth because it is partly made of this earth resurrected—this Earth made better and perfect—and enjoined with God’s dwelling place, the old heaven remade as well. This future heaven is not just like this earth, but like this earth and better! To imagine that we will be floating in clouds, unhinged from reality like a Disney fever dream, is not right. We will be living, embodied people, walking on an earth and living in a city where the very presence of God lives—heaven meeting earth! What we have hopefully prayed for many times in the Lord’s prayer is finally true!
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
(Matthew 6:10 ESV)
A resurrected creation, but also a new earth and new heaven—joined!
Relationship with God!
And it is because our future heaven is really a new earth and a new heaven combined that we receive one of the most amazing things of this future—a direct relationship with our God. Yes, we have received the Holy Spirit, God’s very presence with us today. But we are told this is truly a down payment on what is to come in Ephesians 1:14. Today, as Paul says,
[W]e see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
(1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV)
But then, as we join God in heaven:
They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
(Revelation 22:4 ESV)
I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
(Leviticus 26:11–12 ESV)
My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(Ezekiel 37:27 ESV)
One of the most precious things about Eden was that God’s people walked WITH him. He walked WITH them. They saw each other face to face, which is why Adam and Eve hid from him when they sinned. That is the tragedy of God, their loving father, driving them out of Eden in Genesis 3:24…they no longer would be face to face with him.
Coming back to the presence of God is a huge part of the storyline of Scripture and God’s goodness to his people. God comes to his people, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses sees God in the burning bush and on Sinai (Exodus 33:18–23). As Israel leaves Egypt, the Lord leads the way as the pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. Yet, as Israel sins, God again leaves. As Hebrews 12:14 says, without holiness, no one will see the Lord, and that is exactly the problem that God solves for us in Jesus!
Through faith in Jesus, we are now the pure in heart who will see God (Matthew 5:8). Not only do we again have access to God through Jesus, our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14–16), but we now have God with us forever. Jesus, God with us in Matthew 1:23, will live forever with us. His resurrection to his renewed body was necessary so we could continue to walk with him in heaven. Christ, the God-Man forever joined to flesh, will REMAIN forever enjoined to flesh, that we may walk with him in heaven as his disciples did.
We will have a relationship with God! That is incredible. A relationship as real, tangible, face-to-face as each of us is right now! And here is where our future with God gets incredible! Not only did Christ come to serve us on this earth, but he will do the same on the new earth and new heavens:
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.
(Luke 12:37 ESV)
At the great wedding feast of the Lamb in heaven, it is God who will be serving us. It is God who will continue to care for us and provide for us. That is what Jesus is doing even now in heaven, and what he will continue to do for us in the final heaven.
Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
(Romans 8:34 ESV)
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
(John 14:2 ESV)
It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
(Revelation 21:6 ESV)
We will join with people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue in praising God together with one voice. But amazingly, we will all still have a special, individual relationship with God!
You shall leave your name to my chosen for a curse, and the Lord GOD will put you to death, but his servants he will call by another name,
(Isaiah 65:15 ESV)
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
(Revelation 2:17 ESV)
I don’t know exactly how this will work. I don’t know if we take turns walking with the resurrected Jesus and talking with him, or if Jesus’s resurrected body can lean more into his God-ness and omnipresence as God and be with each of us at the same time. But these verses talk about names, and even a special name that only God knows for each of us. Our Mormon friends were almost there with the special name idea! God wants us to know that this future heaven is not the diminishing of self, a Hindu or Buddhist-like absorption into the cosmic Ohm, but rather the fullness of self with God. True relationship physically with him resurrected, on a resurrected earth, even in a resurrected relationship! We will walk truly with our God in a loving relationship as his children, knowing and being known fully in his love.
What We Do
But is that all we will do? We clearly will worship God, but is it just one big campfire, kumbaya worship time? Well, yes and no! Yes, we will continually worship God in all we do, but it won’t just look like a worship service.
In John 3:2, we are told:
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
(1 John 3:2 ESV)
In the future heaven, we will be like Jesus! Jesus, who walked and talked with his disciples after his resurrection (Luke 24:13–35). Jesus, who stood, made a fire, caught and cooked fish, and ate (John 21:4–12). Jesus, who even breathed on people with lungs breathing air (John 20:22).
You may have caught it, but Isaiah 65 that we already read is pointing not only to the physicality of heaven, but to the work and goings-on of heaven. There will be building, planting, reaping, and eating. We continue to work much like we have here, but uninhibited by sin, destruction, and decay. No aches or pains. Just productive work and to the glory of God.
We will even learn:
And [God] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:6–7 ESV)
We will see forever, without end, the grace of God unfold before us in ways that will forever cause us to know him better, to love him more, and to worship his goodness!
It also seems that we can assume many things about our culture will be brought over into heaven. 1 Corinthians 3:12–15 says that good things, our good works, come through the refining fires of the end days like gold or silver. If our good acts follow us, we should be able to assume that other good things about our human culture come too. Music, art, productivity, enjoyment, and leisure! All things we will see and have in heaven.
We will all still have individual purposes and gifts. Ways we have already grown on earth and can still walk well in heaven. Ways we can teach others as well.
But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.
(Matthew 6:20 ESV)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
(2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV)
This is what the parable of the talents is pointing us towards (Matt 25:13–30)—God’s judgment of what we have used well here, and then we are given more to do in heaven. Ways all of us can continue to grow, learn, and teach one another, but without hindrance and only to God’s glory!
What God asked us to do in Genesis 1 and 2 is going to continue! We will still take our place in living a life of dominion as God’s people in God’s place in God’s presence in God’s purpose, but now it will be assured for us in God!
And we will rule with God! That sounds like utter blasphemy if it were not what God has told us! Jesus, the true King, comes back to reign fully and completely. The cross was his enthronement, and his resurrection was his coronation (Zechariah 9:9–10; Matthew 21:5). Then he will rule over the new heaven completely. And we will rule with him!
And he said to him, ‘Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.’
(Luke 19:17 ESV)
Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!
(1 Corinthians 6:3 ESV)
…if we endure, we will also reign with him;
(2 Timothy 2:12 ESV)
And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they [God’s people!] will reign forever and ever.
(Revelation 22:5 ESV)
And amazingly, God will make up for any of our losses here on earth for his sake. That is such a kindness, such a gift. Anything we have lost for being faithful to God—family, time, loved ones, jobs, whatever- God will be sure to make it up for us. “Heaven offers more than comfort; it offers compensation.”
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.”
(Mark 10:29–30 ESV)
The Great Adventure
Friends, this is the great adventure to come! This is what authors like CS Lewis and Tolkien were begging us to see, to wonder, and to marvel about!
And as He [Aslan] spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them, it was only the beginning of the real story. All 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.
(CS Lewis, The Last Battle, 228)
“PIPPIN: I didn't think it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See what?
GANDALF: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.”
(JRR Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings)
Friends, from the very beginning, this is what Adam and Eve and you and I were meant for. God, in his wisdom, knew we would choose sin. So he made THIS Earth. He made Eden. He made the current heavens. All pointing forward to the ending that HE would ensure would happen through the God-Man, Jesus Christ. A future where we would be resurrected and given a new body. A future where the entire earth and current heavens would be resurrected and JOINED, that heaven and earth might come together as our future heaven, our forever dwelling place with God.
And everything here is preparing us and pointing us forward to that moment. Every job here points to the kind of work we will continue to do there and the heart with which we will do it. Every relationship here is just the beginning of the relationships we will have there with days unending to repair brokenness, laugh, enjoy, and know one another. And importantly, we will walk with God himself! We will see him, the resurrected God, both seated on his throne but walking with each of us as our father with his sons. Our relationship with him here is the starting point to a relationship of love without end!
The heaven we are destined for is not less than this, but this and more. More real than this. More full than this. But still much like this! Brothers, knowing that should change everything about how we approach our life, our relationships, our sin, and even our task here to evangelize others for Jesus.
Longing
Readiness
Hope
I pray that is what has been welling up inside of you tonight as we have talked about this beautiful future of heaven. A longing to see the fullness, perfection, and completion of all that we are living today. A building readiness to tackle the world in front of us today to see it fulfilled and completed in heaven tomorrow. And a hope. A hope rooted in knowing that today doesn’t end. Sin ends. Death ends. But our relationship with one another, our walk with God, and our purpose to take dominion don’t end; they just get better! It gets infinitely better in a resurrected body in a resurrected world where heaven and earth meet, with a perfect and renewed relationship with our God!
“What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth.”
(Randy Alcorn, Heaven, Kindle Location 381.)
Conclusion
I would recommend several books as you continue to dwell more on God together. First, I would recommend Randy Alcorn's Heaven, which we have given you a small sampler of at your tables. His book has been around for over 20 years now and has been seen as one of the best, most compelling descriptions of what is to come. I would also recommend Paul Tripp’s Forever, which tries to do much of the work we did tonight of opening up our hearts and our desires for what is coming next and all the goodness that is heaven.
We would like to move to some small groups tonight to talk more about this with one another. I’ll even roam between groups in case you have some questions about what was shared. We want to live long, read ourselves, and hope together. We have table leaders there to help you, and here are some questions to help you as you talk together.
What about this description of heaven is most new, striking, or encouraging to you?
What aspect of heaven are you currently longing for most? Do you see how God will provide exactly what you are longing for?
How do you see and understand God differently now that you see heaven more?
How do you see and understand yourself differently now that you see heaven more?
What are some areas you imagine you might need some help to ready yourself as you see this world and life extending into a resurrected, more full version of today, rather than something completely different?
