Well, a man went up to heaven. How many jokes have you heard? It started like that. Man went up to heaven and he was getting shown around by a saint Paul. I think he's the one who's usually the tour guys and St. Paul showed him a group of people walking in to a building Together and walking out separate doors with huge smiles on their faces and the man said, what's this? And Paul said, well in heaven one day a year, we let people do what? They could not do on earth. And so these are Roman Catholics and they were not allowed to get divorced. So they're all standing in line to get divorced and coming out happy and he showed him another room where there was another Part of town where there was this raucous dance party going on and he said, what's this? And he said, these are the Church of Christ. This is the one day a year. They dance and Then he took them to another part of town and it was a big beer garden and he said, what's this? And he said, this is these are the baptists. This is the one day a year that they drink in front of each other and then He took them out to a hillside and there were people sitting on the hillside going And the man said, what's this? And he said, those are the Presbyterians. They can't think of anything they didn't do on earth
What what is heaven? What is it? Everybody wonders, right? One of my favorite comedians is Brent, but he says that heaven is a place where whenever he envisions heaven He envisions women and white bikinis feeding him chili dogs. What what is heaven? What is it for you? Is it the place where we can't do things or we can do things is it sitting on clouds with harps is that Singing eternally and the eternal choir boy, I hope not 30 minutes is all I got What is it now the answer of course is that heaven is the place where we are with God It's going to look like it's going to look a lot like earth It's going to be the new heavens and the new earth and and we don't actually if you read what is happening in Revelation 21 and 22 we don't go up to heaven heaven comes down to earth The new city the new heavens the new earth descends and we see them. It's going to look like Here it's going to look like home, but it's going to be the home that you've never visited before it's going to be home That's different home without any sin and any effects of sin Home with with no pollution and no jealousy and no poverty and no sickness. It's going to feel like home It's going to be a place with no envy and no greed with no death With no pain with no aging It's going to be the place of no want And it's going to be the place where finally we will see God heaven will be the place of perfect ideal intimacy That's what it is It heaven is a place where you will see and be seen and bask in the love that's in those eyes Please stand as we read this beautiful description of heaven From Revelation First chapter 21 and then from chapter 22 Hear the word of the Lord 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 adorn for her husband And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying the holes 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 He will wipe away Every tear from their eyes And death shall be no more Neither shall there be morning Nor crying nor pain anymore For the former things have passed away And he who was seated on the throne said behold I am making all things new Also he said write this down For these words are trustworthy and true and he said to me it is done I am the Alpha and the Omega the beginning in the end To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment The one who conquer will have this heritage And I will be his God and he will be my son But ask for the cowardly the faithless The detestable as for murderers the sexually immoral sorcerers, idolaters and all liars Their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur Which is the second death And then from chapter 22 The angel then showed me the river of the water of life brightest crystal Flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb through the middle of the street of the city And also on either side of the river the tree of life with his 12 kinds of fruit yielding his fruit each month The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations No longer whether be anything accursed, but the throne of God and the lamb will be in it And his servants will worship him They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads And night will be no more They will need no light of lamp or sun For the Lord God will be their life And they will reign forever and ever Amen Praise the Lord you may be seated Heaven is the place of intimacy and joy is the place We're finally will experience with the the psalmist long for in psalm 23. I show I shall not want the Lord is my shepherd. I have nothing that I want that that is what we're looking forward to I think it's said maybe the most elegantly in the Pixar movie a wally when the When the spaceship captain Turns the ship toward earth and people ask him where are we going and he said we're going home for the first time We're going home for the first time it finally you will feel at home
But before we get there we need to talk about who's going to be there Because both of these texts right make very clear that not everyone is going to be there And in really to kind of explain it to you. I'll have to ask you the question does heaven fit you Is a place that is that is god dominated does that fit you does that sound just testable to you If the place where he is the light so you're surrounded by god as you are surrounded by light in the middle of the day Does that fit you would you even enjoy that Um What do I mean when it sounds weird to think that not everybody would enjoy heaven right Sounds kind of strange I'll use an illustration David busters You know david busters david busters is an arcade a huge arcade for adults and for kids and there's every possible video game There's lights there's there's you know ski ball There's every kind of arcade game that you ever played no matter how old you were and it's just Joy surrounded by four walls for most boys And one day because I want I dreamt of being the greatest dad of all time I pulled my kids out of six and seventh grade and took them to david busters for lunch and Harold Could not have been more thrilled. I mean his eyes lit up when I told him where we were going He took his play card and started running around looking at all the places he could play But my other son my older son Um, he's on the autistic spectrum and I didn't really know that at the time And if you're on the spectrum then loud noises that you're not expected Expecting make you terribly anxious and in flashing lights make you terribly anxious And crowds make you terribly anxious And he could not wait to get out of there He hated every second of it And what was heaven to Harold was essentially hell to burnage And what is heaven for God's people is the The sounding of the now the sounding of the the bell for hell for people who hate God And to explain that if you want to read for revelation there's a big section we kind of skipped over skimmed over it's very hard to preach But let me tell you what's happening. There's two sets of seven in revelation or seven trumpets and there are seven bowls And if you lay them on top of each other if you get your excel spread sheet out and you lay them on top of each other You'll see they're essentially the same things God is striking the water and God is striking the land and he's sending flags So why does he call them trumpets from one perspective? Remember we're saying that revelations not chronological It's not the seven trumpets then the seven bowls but that revelation is seeing things from different perspectives There's a trumpet A trumpet is something that rouses you that wakes you up That calls to you calls you to battle calls you to action What's the bowl? A bowl throughout the Bible is the symbol of God's wrath It's the cup of God's wrath How could those be the same thing? Well when trial comes God's people are called by that back to God They come to him for help When trials come to those who are not gods people they raise their fist and anger They run away They can't wait to get away from it And then finally when the final trumpet sounds That's telling us that Jesus is here And all of his people fleeting him they can't get to him fast enough The vision of the face of Jesus is what you have long to see every second of your life You can't wait to get to that and see that smile But if you're an unbeliever Then the thought that that Jesus has come he's real this thing that you have mocked your entire life is real That is a terrifying sound And so instead of running to him You run away from him you go to the mountains you say hide me follow on me I would rather be under an avalanche than see that face So what is the final trumpet is the final bowl It's the same thing And what God does In his mysterious mercy And in his mysterious judgment Is he lets people go the direction they want to go Revelation 2 I mean relevance chapter 2 describes that that that natural man man without grace without the spirit They want to suppress the knowledge of God God's not missing God's not hidden They see it and they suppress that knowledge And God lets them He he gives them over to what they want And that's that's what the judgment looks like and if that's Then you up to this day if if when you've seen had trial when you've had Conflict when things haven't gone your way if you have Nashed your teeth and anger rather than come to God to have him heal you and comfort you and be with you
Then I want you to know The Jesus has drank the final cup for you The night before he was going to the cross He began to pray to the Lord and he said he said in his humanus in his And his dread of undergoing the wrath of God. He said is do I have to drink this cup can you take this cup from me? Is there any other way? And his father said to him no you have to drink it If you're going to be with your people if you're going to spend forever in the loving embrace of your people You have to drink this cup for them And the cup has been drunk and you don't have to run away anymore You can come to him it's safe It's safe The doors of heaven are open to you If you'll come and what do you get What do you get when you come in those doors you get healing you get healing look at chapter 24 verse four He will wipe away every tear from their eyes And death shall be no more Know it neither shall there be morning nor crying nor pain anymore For the former things have passed away Why will they not be crying why will they not be mourning all those things that hurt so bad when they happen to us in life All those things will be undone He says to behold I'm making all things new And he wipes our tears out of our eyes we may not ever understand why we were allowed to go through those sufferings, but we'll definitely know We'll definitely know that he was good even on our worst day We will trust that he was good even when we couldn't see him And the most beautiful thing is that when we wake up there and he wipes the tears from our eyes and he heals the pain in our hearts It is going to be It's going to be as if they didn't happen the apostle Paul says Um that with our sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that holds god holds out in front of us They're it's just a different level of reality. It's a different experience I yeah, I told you on this before but I've got a recurring nightmare. I have it about three times a year I've had it so many times that now actually in my dream I tell myself oh, this is that dream I actually yeah, I don't want to take that one but and that recurring nightmare is that I wake up and it's the last day of the fall semester And there's a class that I didn't go to once and now they are having the final exam and I began sprinting All over the campus because I don't even remember what classroom it meets in and I finally burst into the classroom There's just a few minutes left to take the test and I don't know any of it lately has been Spanish and I'm just looking at the teacher going I don't remember a word and then I wake up And I'm in a new reality that dream was kind of real is real is a real thing was a real dream But when I wake up, I mean the other reality the reality where I graduated from college I used to have that dream so vividly that in the middle of the night I clearly remember two o'clock in the morning going and getting my diploma off the wall and staring at it You graduated go back to sleep And when we wake up and we see God he's going to be so real And we are going to be so real That all the pain and suffering of this experience it was real This not only is real is that It's going to be it's comparing our new reality to a dream He's making everything new We're going to be healed physically We're going to know bodily pleasure and we're going to know it without Withering those of you who've washed a loved one just kind of wither away whether it be from Whether it be from arthritis or Disease and you've seen that you just watched them lose all joy in their body It's going to be beautiful to see them run It's going to be beautiful. I cannot wait to see Laura Marino run And not have any pain There's going to be mental healing It's people are going to be clear And all those that we've watched lose their memories are going to be have vivid memories of us I cannot wait. I often think of what it's going to be like Um, you know to see Kaylee You know Kaylee from the nursery To see her run up To Gareth and Sarah Moffett and Say thank you for the first time in her life To be able to say thank you for taking me out of that orphanage. Thank you for taking care of me I know it was hard And I couldn't tell you thank you back then, but now I can Thank you It's going to be a place of emotional healing where all the stars on our hearts are finally And fully healed where there's no more depression. There's no more anxiety. There's no more fear. There's no more sadness
And all that sadness that's finally gone It'll all actually just serve to make heaven sweeter Because you know that it's gone You know that it's gone Finally it's a place of relational healing. He says it's a place for the healing of the nations the leads of the tree of life We're for the healing of the nations Isaiah says it's a place where the lion and the lamb will lay down together And and I'll always you see read that and go. That's kind of boring What's going on there? No natural animosity no anger Moral enemies will love each other CS Lewis said that when he was fighting World War I he often envisioned that he and a German soldier would shoot each other at the exact same moment And as their bodies died their souls would bond together and and they would tell each other they forgive each other And they would embrace and and go to heaven together It's kind of a weird image for some things, but It's a beautiful image heaven will be the place
I've told you before that there were been times in my life when I thought If my dad were or in heaven I didn't want to go there I don't feel that way anymore. I'm gonna be healed. He's going to be healed And it'll be the first time since I was about six years old that I'll be able to hug him with the with all the love that I Know that I ought to but I can't muster We're gonna be healed relationally emotionally physically mentally It's a place of healing and is ultimately the place of fulfillment It is a place of completion All right, when you know when the apostate when the psalmist says When psalmist says the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want What is that? What kind of image that bring up? For some I think it brings up this kind of image of a spoiled brat going through a toy store And I want this and I want that and I want this and I want that and they get everything they want Rest assured heaven is not a full of spoiled brats Heaven is filled with people who are content Who just don't know want That word's gonna sound strange to your ears. What would it what would it mean to not have what I want
What is what does want me Can you imagine a life of not knowing what want means? Right now you want this sermon and What does want me Why's that even gonna feel like it's gonna feel like you have Nothing left to accomplish nothing left to prove Nothing left that you have to get done Last week I told you the illustration of Of Harold after he got his eagle scout how he burst in the tears and he said I had no idea how stressed that was Until I was finished And honestly one of the few illustrations I've ever given where you responded with an audible groan Like just the the desire for that day was so strong in your heart that I could hear it
And I want to take us back there. It's real isn't it? It's real why do I have that dream that I'm missing my final exam Because I just carry around this feeling that there's something left undone that I am incomplete I carry around this feeling that there is stress on my shoulders that I am not prepared for
It's no that day is gone To know that I am I'm hearing the words of God in my ears saying Well done my good and faithful servant Come to your rest to know that I'm looking into my father's eyes and he's saying Come here. I have nothing left to prove Everything I was created to do has been done It's been perfected in Christ and I have been fulfilled
Does that sound good? I want you to go to that place in your mind because I need to press you One step further Can you just imagine that in your mind? Because the final promise of this verse this text it's so magnificent Like you have to be prepared for it. Are you ready? Promise it says And 22 verses 4 and 5
They will see his face And his name will be on their foreheads. What does that mean? In John chapter 1 verse 1 It says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God And the word was God And some Bible translations if you look through them translate that and it's a hard intimate translation This hard for us to get our our mind around the word with is weak But it's the best we can do But some translations actually translate that the word was face to face with God the son of God and the father being face to face Smiling on each other and it's got to be the father and the son or the mother and the daughter because we humans Can't conceive of being that intimate apart from sexuality, but it's so far beyond that I got a just a whiff of that Several years ago when I was at a friend's birthday party and his father was Toasting him and talking about the blessing that his son has been to him every day of his life And at the end of the toes they drank and they turned toward each other and they smiled and it's sweet because they have the exact same smile And they leaned their heads toward each other and their foreheads touched You know so intimate and well one hand I desperately wanted that on the other hand I didn't feel like it was appropriate for me to be looking on it face to face with God They will behold his face Let's take it one step further Jesus When he prayed for us the final time before going to the cross In John chapter 17 he says oh father. I miss it I miss what it was like when I was in you when you were in me and he begins to pray for us and he says father
Sorry, she got chills He says I want them to be with us
Them in me and me in you and them and you in us He wants us to be in that eternal embrace Where we are so close We're so tightly hugged by God himself that it is not fully clear. We don't lose our identity But it's not fully clear where we end and he begins
You know what? You know when this Christmas time of year right so we're about to thanksgiving two weeks away And we're all going to be watching television and we're going to be seeing those Sappy cheesy awful Thanksgiving commercials where you know veterans come home and they haven't seen their daughter in two years And he surprises her and they run to each other or you know the Labrador tree residence seen them in two years Surprises him they run and they hug and we just we hate how much we love those commercials It's like how dare you manipulate me in the middle of the football game And you just you just see that embrace and you think that is right right heaven is that feeling Of hugging someone and time stopping And being fully known fully loved Face to face that's better than harps and clouds and Let's pray Father heaven, we can't carry the weight of a vision like that It's just too much. We're afraid we're afraid to think that we're going to be in you and you and us That's that sounds almost blasphemous to say
We confess, Lord, that it's beyond anything we've ever hoped for We pray that I pray with everything. It's in me That we would believe that day is coming And that the desire for that day would carry us through today A friend Jesus name Amen