What is going on?

All this corona virus stuff makes us wonder what is going on?

Do we have to fear? No, we have to pray. It is encouraging to know that most who get corona virus will recover. Actually, it sounds like many will get the virus and be asymptomatic. Either way Christians have nothing to fear. We must pray. We must sanctify our thinking. Live out 2 Cor. 10:5. Live out Phil 4:6-8.

I’ll tell you what is going on, fallenness.

We were created good, see Gen 1-2.

The world fell.

When sin entered the world in Genesis 3, so did death. Jesus has redeemed us, but we are not there yet.

We are waiting on everything to be made new which we see in Rev 21.

I want to talk about the future.

There is so much panic right now.

There is so much uncertainty but you know what you can be certain of? Heaven.

You can be certain of Heaven. Let’s talk about that.

I was really debating what to talk about this morning. I did not think my planned sermon would fit. So, I want to talk about our future as Christians.

There are at least 3 topics that fit right now: Prayer, God’s sovereignty and heaven. I am talking about heaven because we hardly ever talk about heaven.

Do remember to pray, this is national day of prayer.

I plan for this to be a full sermon not a devotion. It will be on the podcast app later as well as the church website. It will be on the church website in video form as well as audio form.

If you have a steel ball, solid steel, the size of this earth, 25,000 miles in circumference, and every one million years a little sparrow would be released to land on that ball to sharpen his beak and fly away only to come back another million years later and begin again, by the time he would have won that all down to the side of a BB, eternity would have begun.[1]

Years ago, when I moved to northeast, Ohio. I moved from Cincinnati, though I am originally from Dayton. One day I walked in a barber shop, it was a small barber shop that a local recommended, but when I walked in I felt like I stood out like a Steelers fan in the Dawg Pound. I saw a few guys shootin’ the breeze there and one of them asked me, “You’re not from around here, are you?” I said where I was from and they made me welcome, but I will never forget walking in there. The realization hit, “No, I am new in town.” It has only been just aboout 14 years since I lived in the Dayton area, but everything has changed. Sometimes I like to go to the website of the school I graduated from or check it out on Facebook because it has all changed. Nothing, absolutely nothing, stays the same. Last year, they tore down my high school and built another one. I attended the same school district from Kindergarten through twelfth grade and it is all different. I like to think back; I think I do that more as my daughters gets older. I think about what it was like when I was eight and what my dad was doing, though my dad was younger then I am now when I was that age. Everything changes. So, having moved just less than four hours from home, I am amazed at people who move overseas. I am amazed at people who left Germany, or Ireland in the late 19^th century to begin a new life in the States. Where are you from? Do you long to think back to the area you came from? Or, maybe you long to think back to a different age? Are you longing for something, or somewhere, or sometime?

Paul Enns in his book on Heaven writes:

What are you looking for and longing for? In America, people sometimes long for the wrong things—and what they really want (although they don’t know it) and what they really need will remain elusive to them. Many think they need another car, a vacation home, the newest items in technology. They think the latest fashions in the shopping centers will satisfy their longings. They won’t. The longing that God has placed in our hearts is for heaven, a better place, a better country. But more specifically, it is a country of our ancestry.[2]

We may long for a place, a time, or something else, but what we are really longing for is Heaven. God created us for Heaven.

Theme:

My theme is simple: Heaven is real, and you were created for it.

My application is hopefully encouraging: Long for Heaven, Heaven is paradise.

1. Heaven is real and you were created for it:
   1. Randy Alcorn: Heaven:
   2. The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history. Australian aborigines pictured Heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. The early Finns thought it was an island in the faraway east. Mexicans, Peruvians, and Polynesians believed that they went to the sun or the moon after death. Native Americans believed that in the afterlife their spirits would hunt the spirits of buffalo. The Gilgamesh epic, an ancient Babylonian legend, refers to a resting place of heroes and hints at a tree of life. In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The Romans believed that the righteous would picnic in the Elysian fields while their horses grazed nearby. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, “The day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity.” Although these depictions of the afterlife differ, the unifying testimony of the human heart throughout history is belief in life after death. Anthropological evidence suggests that every culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal— that this world is not all there is.[3]
   3. The Roman catacombs, where the bodies of many martyred Christians were buried, contain tombs with inscriptions such as these:
   4. In Christ, Alexander is not dead, but lives.
   5. One who lives with God.
   6. He was taken up into his eternal home.
   7. One historian writes, “Pictures on the catacomb walls portray Heaven with beautiful landscapes, children playing, and people feasting at banquets.”
   8. In AD 125, a Greek named Aristides wrote to a friend about Christianity, explaining why this “new religion” was so successful: “If any righteous man among the Christians passes from this world, they rejoice and offer thanks to God, and they escort his body with songs and thanksgiving as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby.”
   9. In the third century, the church father Cyprian said, “Let us greet the day which assigns each of us to his own home, which snatches us from this place and sets us free from the snares of the world, and restores us to paradise and the kingdom. Anyone who has been in foreign lands longs to return to his own native land.  .  .  . We regard paradise as our native land.”[4]
   10. Our native land is not here, nor is it overseas. Our native land is Heaven. We were created for it.
   11. S. Lewis wrote: If our deepest desires cannot be satisfied in this world, then we must have been made for another world.” He pondered this and other truths, which led him to Christ.
   12. There’s cartoonist G. Larson’s “Far Side” which shows a guy strumming a harp on a cloud in heaven saying: “Wish I’d have brought a magazine.” Mark Twain paints the same picture in Huckleberry Finn, telling how Huck doesn’t want to go there because of how the spinster Watson has portrayed it, and because she’s certain Tom Sawyer won’t be there, so Huck doesn’t want to be there without Tom (p. 7).
   13. What a contrast to Charles Spurgeon, Twain’s contemporary, called the Prince of Preachers in the 19^thcentury: “To come to Thee is to come home from exile, to come to land out of the raging storm, to come to rest after long labour, to come to the goal of my desires and the summit of my wishes.” (p. 7)[5]
   14. Part of the problem is that we have an inaccurate view of Heaven. Let’s begin to change that.
2. Heaven is a place
   1. I will talk about several passages and you can look them up at home.
   2. Sometimes we think things in Heaven are only spiritual. This is not true.
   3. If things in Heaven are only spiritual then why does God use so many material objects to illustrate what we’ll have in Heaven, like “house, dwelling, clothed, rooms (Jn. 14), white robes (Rev. 6:10-11), rivers, gardens, and the tree of life in Heaven. (Rev. 2:7; 22:2) refers to the SAME Tree of Life that was physical in the Garden of Eden in (Gen. 2:9).[6]
   4. Randy Alcorn writes: Christoplatonism: Plato was “the first Western philosopher to claim that reality is fundamentally something ideal or abstract.” “For Plato . .  . the body is a hindrance, as it opposes and even imprisons the soul (Phaedo 65– 68; 91– 94).”
   5. But according to Scripture, our bodies aren’t just shells for our spirits to inhabit; they’re a good and essential aspect of our being. Likewise, the earth is not a second-rate location from which we must be delivered. Rather, it was handmade by God for us. Earth, not some incorporeal state, is God’s choice as mankind’s original and ultimate dwelling place.
   6. To distinguish the version of Platonism seen among Christians from secular forms of Platonism, I’ve [Randy Alcorn] coined the term Christoplatonism. This philosophy has blended elements of Platonism with Christianity, and in so doing has poisoned Christianity and blunted its distinct differences from Eastern religions. Because appeals to Christoplatonism appear to take the spiritual high ground, attempts to refute this false philosophy often appear to be materialistic, hedonistic, or worldly.[7]
   7. But Heaven is a real place. Jesus reminded His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).
   8. In the Bible it will refer to multiple heavens: 1) the atmosphere, the universe and where God resides.
   9. Look at these Scriptures: They are in your bulletin and on the screen:

Psalm 2:4

The One enthroned in heaven laughs…

2 Cor. 12:4:

I was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

2 Cor. 5:6, 8:

Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

2 Tim. 4:8:

Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.

Titus 2:14:

¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Matthew 6:33:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

2 Peter 3:11-14:

Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.^[a] That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Col. 3:1-2:

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

John 14:1-2:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God^[a]; believe also in me.² My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 

1. Heaven is a destination,
2. It will not be boring,
3. It is paradise.

• Significance of Heaven.
  1. Have you lost loved ones, you’ll see them again if they were in Christ.
  2. Are you having trouble walking or maybe you cannot walk, you will have a perfect body someday.
  3. Maybe your eye sight is failing, that not eternity, you will have renewed vision.
  4. Maybe your memory is struggling, you will know more and remember again (1 Cor. 13:9-13).
  5. Maybe you are watching a loved one suffer through something, know that this is not how God intended it. This is because of our sin-filled world. Your loved one will live again without these sufferings.
  6. Do you have trouble getting up and facing each day? Do you experience pain constantly? This will end and you will have a perfect body.
  7. Do you experience depression or mental illness? In Heaven this will be gone.
  8. Do you have a loved one that you cannot talk with because of Autism or something else? You will have conversations with that loved one in Heaven.
  9. Jesus reminded His disciples to pray, “Our Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9).
  10. Heaven is hope.
  11. Have you ever been at a family reunion and you wanted to see and talk to so many people, but there just wasn’t time? There will be in Heaven. And, you will be able to talk to Jesus, and Moses, and Elijah and all these other people.
  12. Do you want to see your parents again? Your grandparents?
  13. In Christ Alone: No guilt in life, no fear in death…

1. Different sources:
   1. As we talk about Heaven, I am studying from Scripture, but also several books and Bible dictionaries. Here are four of them.
   2. Randy Alcorn has two books on Heaven. One is simply called “Heaven.” The other is called “Heaven, Biblical Answers to Common Questions.”
   3. Paul Enns has a book called “Heaven Revealed.”
   4. Chip Ingram has a book called “The Real Heaven, What the Bible Actually Says.”

Close:

A few weeks ago a family of five died in a car accident. They were young parents, 29 years old, with three children. They were soon going to Japan as missionaries. The youngest was 2 months old. Their car was hit from behind by a semi and they died at the scene, all of them. That broke my heart. But upon further reflection, this is cause for praise. They all went to Jesus together. They could have experienced 80 years of suffering in this life, but instead they are in Jesus’ presence. They are in Heaven.

What are you longing for?

Almost two years after Meagan and I got married we moved from the farmhouse which we lived in to live with my parents. I was almost finished with college and it made more sense to live with my parents as we finished. My parents had moved to a place which cut down my drive time to school and Meagan’s drive time to work. We were both driving an hour each way. The nine or so months we lived with my parents were great, but we longed for our own place again. We longed to take our furniture out of storage and move into our own house and that day did come.

When Meagan was pregnant, both times, we longed for the day of our daughter’s birth.

But you know what we all, all of us as humans long for? We long for Heaven. We try to duplicate Heaven in our homes, malls, amusement parks, vacation destinations. We desire Heaven because we were created for Heaven.

I close with Jesus Loves Me. I want to talk about it and then read it. The 2^nd and 3^rd verse are awesome.

Anna B. Warner, 1820–1915

I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it. (Luke 18:17)

The story is told of a brilliant professor at Princeton Seminary who always left his graduation class with these words: “Gentlemen, there is still much in this world and in the Bible that I do not understand, but of one thing I am certain—‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so’—and gentlemen, that is sufficient!”

Without doubt the song that has been sung more by children than any other hymn is this simply stated one by Anna Warner. Written in 1860, it is still one of the first hymns taught to new converts in other lands.

Miss Warner wrote this text in collaboration with her sister Susan. It was part of their novel Say and Seal, one of the best selling books of that day. Today few individuals would know or remember the plot of that story, which once stirred the hearts of many readers. But the simple poem spoken by one of the characters, Mr. Linden, as he comforts Johnny Fax, a dying child, still remains the favorite hymn of countless children around the world.

Jesus loves me! this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong.

Jesus loves me! loves me still, tho I’m very weak and ill, that I might from sin be free, bled and died upon the tree.

Jesus loves me! He who died heaven’s gate to open wide; He will wash away my sin, let His little child come in.

Jesus loves me! He will stay close beside me all the way. Thou hast bled and died for me; I will henceforth live for Thee.

Chorus: Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.

William Bradbury, the composer of the music, was one of the leading contributors to the development of early gospel music in America. He became recognized as one of the pioneers in children’s music both for the church and in the public schools. In 1861 Bradbury composed the music for Anna Warner’s text and personally added the chorus to her four stanzas. The hymn appeared the following year in Bradbury’s hymnal collection, The Golden Sower. It had an immediate response.^[8]

“If there is anything that will endure the eye of God, because it still is pure, it is the spirit of a little child, fresh from His hand, and therefore undefiled.” Ask God to give you this kind of spirit.^[9]

Do you know Christ?

Luke 9:23

God created us to be with him. (Genesis 1-2)

Our sin separated us from God. (Genesis 3)

Sins cannot be removed by good deeds (Gen 4-Mal 4)

Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again. (Matthew – Luke)

Everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life. (John – Jude)

Life that’s eternal means we will be with Jesus forever. (Revelation 22:5)

 

[1] Swindoll

[2] Enns, Paul P. (2011-03-01). Heaven Revealed: What Is It Like? What Will We Do?… And 11 Other Things You’ve Wondered About (p. 31). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[3] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 265-274). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[4] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 287-288). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[5] Rick Sams’ sermon on Heaven

[6] Rick Sams’ sermon on Heaven

[7] Alcorn, Randy (2011-12-08). Heaven (Alcorn, Randy) (Kindle Locations 8723-8724). Tyndale House Publishers. Kindle Edition.

^[8] Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996), 73.

^[9] Kenneth W. Osbeck, Amazing Grace: 366 Inspiring Hymn Stories for Daily Devotions (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1996), 73.