Introduction:
1. I’ve been in the church since I was just a baby. I attended church for the first time when I was less than two weeks old. There have been very few weeks since then when I haven’t been in church. Many things that others have to learn about as adults, I grew up at least knowing about. I certainly didn’t understand everything about them, but I knew a little something about them. One of those things which I knew facts about as a child was heaven. I knew there would be streets of golds, gates of pearl and wonders beyond anything I could imagine. Still, heaven seemed something that older peope should be concerned about, not something I was all that interested in as a child.
2. Something happened when I was 12 years old that changed my perceptions of heaven forever, my Grandma Richards died. She was only 57 at the time and her death was totally unexpected. Nearly two years later, almost to the very day, my Grandpa Siebels died. My interest in heaven was suddenly much more personal. Now I not only looked forward to heaven because of what I read about it in scripture, but I looked forward to heaven, because there were people I loved who had gone there. I can remember my change of heart now, all these years later.
3. In preparing for this sermon I came across a sermon by Christopher Hilling preached on Thanksgiving weekend 2004. I want to quote a portion of his sermon and I think you will understand my point when you hear what he had to say.
"Obviously this has been the most difficult year of my 47 years of life with Elizabeth’s going to be with the Lord this past April. I remember thinking so clearly upon seeing her in the casket... "this is unnatural" and I didn’t mean by that death so much but rather this was not the way it is suppose to be for a parent to have their still young 15 year old child dead and lying in a casket... We are familiar with grandparents dying, with parents dying and even with older children dying, but it just seemed so unnatural... maybe that is not the best word to use but that is what I felt, it seemed so unnatural to have a 15 year girl, MY 15 year old girl dead and lying in that casket. And so as I said, this has been the most difficult year of my life... So in light of this tremendous pain, what am I thankful for this Thanksgiving... It is this- I’m thankful there is a real place called Heaven. And because there is, even though I have a 15 year old daughter who is dead - she lives..." 2
4. Heaven usually remains a somewhat distant place to us until we have someone we love go there, or until it appears we might be going there soon ourselves. Then, suddenly, heaven becomes a much more important place. We gain a personal interest in it that we simply don’t have before.
5. In fact, Jesus even told a parable regarding how easy it is to ignore the reality of heaven. Listen to his words in Matthew 13:31-32.
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31 He told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field.
32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches." (NIV)
5. His point is that athough heaven is a very big thing, because it’s not something big at this point, many people tend to ignore it. For those of us who are living today, we view heaven as something that is "out there somewhere." Important, but not relevant to what’s going on in my life today. While that approach is understandable, it’s not accurate. Heaven, the place where we have the chance to live with God for eternity, is a very big deal. Even most Christians aren’t nearly serious enough about it. Those who don’t know Christ are even less so.
6. Perhaps you have heard of Bishop Fulton Sheen. In his autobiography, Treasure in Clay told this story from his life. Sheen wrote about an experience he had when he was traveling around preaching, "I stopped to ask a few boys for directions to the Town Hall where I was giving a lecture. They told me where the Town Hall was and then asked, "What are you going to do there?" "I’m giving a lecture on heaven and how to get there. Would you like to come and find out?" "You’re kidding," one boy said. "You don’t even know the way to the Town Hall."
7. I sincerely believe that scripture tells us how to get to heaven. This morning I want to pose a question that we’ll be hanging our thoughts on for the rest of this sermon. It’s a question that will help us give heaven the attention that it deserves. Here is that question.
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Why Is Heaven So Important?
Prayer
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I. Because It’s A Glorious Place
1. Perhaps this is a point that doesn’t even need to be made, and yet because it’s one of the reasons heaven is something to really look forward to, I don’t think we can ignore it. Heaven isn’t going to just be a special place it’s going to be downright spectacular. Let’s read the longest passage we’ll be looking at this morning for it’s there we discover the most complete description of heaven found in the entire Bible. Read along with me.
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Revelation 21:10-27
10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
11 having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear jasper.
12 It had a great and high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels; and names were written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel.
13 There were three gates on the east and three gates on the north and three gates on the south and three gates on the west.
14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The one who spoke with me had a gold measuring rod to measure the city, and its gates and its wall.
16 The city is laid out as a square, and its length is as great as the width; and he measured the city with the rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal.
17 And he measured its wall, seventy-two yards, according to human measurements, which are also angelic measurements.
18 The material of the wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
19 The foundation stones of the city wall were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation stone was jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald;
20 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprase; the eleventh, jacinth; the twelfth, amethyst.
21 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates was a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.
25 In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed;
26 and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;
27 and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. (NASB)
2. Now think about it with me for a moment, have you ever in your entire life heard something described in such exquisite beautiful and expensive detail? I don’t believe I have. God has created some beautiful things here and we enjoy them. I want to share a brief quotation from Christopher Hilling that is printed in your bulletin insert this morning that I think puts this passage in the proper context. He writes...
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"God loves beauty or He wouldn’t have put so much of it in this world. Who painted the butterfly’s wing with all those gorgeous hues? Who thought up sunrises and sunsets? Who put the blue in the bluebird? Who taught the raindrop to take a ray of light from the sun and pencil it on the sky in one huge arch of bewildering elegance? Who made maple trees that look like they are on fire in the Fall?" 2
3. I want to briefly share a story that I have often used in funerals to illustrate the beauty of heaven because I think it captures it just right. A little girl from the city was riding with her parents in the country one evening. Everyone was lost in thought taking in the beauty of the nighttime sky which that evening was filled with thousands of twinkling stars. Her mother noticed she was being very quiet and asked what she was thinking. She replied, "Oh, mommy, I was just thinking that if heaven is this pretty from the wrong side, it sure must be beautiful on the right side be like!"
4. That brings me to an important consideration. Even reading the incredible description of heaven that we find here, can we really understand just how beautiful heaven is? I think the answer to that question is, "no." Take a look with me at our next scripture verse,
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I Cor. 2:9,
9 but just as it is written, "Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him."
5. Here I believe is the point. Even reading the description of heaven that we find in scripture, we don’t really get a good picture of it. Heaven is just too wonderful for us to understand until we finally get there.
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"Heaven is as much beyond our comprehension as our world is for the unborn child. The baby can hear the sounds of our world, and even see glimmers of light, but there’s no way an unborn baby can comprehend the beauty of a ( waterfall ), or the glory of ( sunset. ) There is no way a baby can understand the fury of the ( ocean ) on the after a storm at sea or the majesty of ( snow covered ) mountains. It’s beyond their comprehension. ( Heaven ) is beyond our understanding right now as well." (Heaven: Your Real Home, Joni Eareckson Tada)
5. There are two primary ways of viewing heaven. The first is that everything we read in Revelation 21 a few minutes ago can be taken very literally, I.E. the streets really will be of real gold, that the gates will literally be pearls. That’s not a bad interpretation, if it’s precisely as described, then it’s very safe to say that heaven is going to truly be a wonderful place and I want to go there.
6. However, there is another way of interpreting this picture of heaven that I think is probably even better. It views the description of heaven through the lens of the book of Revelation. Realizing that there are many figures in the book of Revelation, it suggests that in reality, heaven is even grander than the description given here, but that John who saw things He wasn’t allowed to communicate was in essence allowed to take a stab at heaven, but it was just too fantastic to really put into words. So that what you read here, is an attempt to communicate the glories of heaven, but it realizes that heaven is far greater than John can communicate to us. This is his attempt to tell us what it’s like, but because of the limits of our present world, we still don’t have a full understanding of it.
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II. Because Of Who Is In Heaven
1. I began the sermon this morning telling you that most of us find our interest in heaven expanding when someone we know and love goes there. Again, I believe this is a pretty obvious point, but let me show you a passage that I believe pretty clearly speaks of how those who die here go to be with the Lord.
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2 Sam 12:21-23
21 His servants asked him, "Why are you acting this way? While the child was alive, you fasted and wept, but now that the child is dead, you get up and eat!"
22 He answered, "While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ’Who knows? The LORD may be gracious to me and let the child live.’
23 But now that he is dead, why should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me." (NIV)
2. David here you may remember is grieving the death of his infant son who had just died. He acknowledged that he could not bring the child back to him, but that he could live in such a way that one day when he died he would go to be with the child.
3. This is only one passage, dealing with how we will see others who had died before us, there are others which speak of the fact that we will know one another.
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Heaven is a place where we will be reunited with our Christian loved ones who have already died.
4. As important as seeing our family and friends in heaven is, I don’t believe that is the most special thing about heaven. What will really make heaven, all it will be is the fact that God Himself will be there.
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The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9 begins, "Our Father Who art in heaven..." Many times God is called our, "Heavenly Father." The NIV, which is used so widely today uses that exact phrase twelve times. The Bible never tries to prove God is in heaven, like scripture never attempts to prove God exists, it’s assumed.
5. Too many people make major a mistake when it comes to figuring out the truth about God being in heaven. They think heaven is going to be boring. They think heaven is going to be a church service that last 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have a hard enough time sitting through a 1 hour service now so they decide that heaven really isn’t going to be all that great. A "Far Side" cartoon captures this misconception. A man with angel wings and a halo sits on a cloud, doing nothing. He has the expression of someone marooned on a desert island, with nothing to do. A caption shows his inner thoughts: "Wish I’d brought a magazine."
6. However, thinking that heaven is boring reveals a lack of understanding about who God is. Think this through with me. When an omnipotent Being creates the ultimate place, if He is exciting then that place will be exciting. The only way that place could be dull was if He was dull. Let me ask a a few questions though. Who created us with a sense of humor? Who created all the beautiful amazing places of this world? The real question is not whether we will be bored with God, but why God isn’t bored with us. I believe that seeing God will do more than change our view of God. I love the way Charles Wall Jr. the pastor whose daughter died put it. He said. . .
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Seeing God will be the ultimate thrill in heaven. Seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time. Why? Because not only will we see God, He will be the lens through which we see everything else. (Charles Wall Jr.)
7. Heaven is God’s home, the dwelling place of the One who is infinite in creativity, goodness, beauty, and power. How could the home of someone like that be anything less than thrilling? The answer, it couldn’t!
8. Have you ever had one of those moments when you thought to yourself, "life doesn’t get any better than this." The problem with that statement is that it isn’t true. The most ordinary moment (if there is such a thing), in Heaven will be greater than the most perfect moments of this life. Those scenes you want to bottle up and hang on to forever will pale in light of the most ordinary heavenly moments. Heaven will in fact be far better than anything in this life.
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III. Heaven Will Be Our Permanent Home
1. What is it that you love about home? When home is what it should be it’s the place where you can relax. You don’t have to be something you’re not. You don’t have to put on a brave face or smile when your hurting. Home is also home because your family is there. One of the wonderful pictures that scripture paints of heaven is that it will be our home. Consider the words of Hebrews 11:13-16.
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Heb 11:13-16
13 All these faithful ones died without receiving what God had promised them, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed the promises of God. They agreed that they were no more than foreigners and nomads here on earth.
14 And obviously people who talk like that are looking forward to a country they can call their own.
15 If they had meant the country they came from, they would have found a way to go back.
16 But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them. ( NLT)
2. From God’s point of view the place you live isn’t really your home. Look back at verse 13. These very real people who lived during that time were no more than foreigners and nomads on this earth. They may have been living here, but this world wasn’t their home. Skip down to verse 16 where you will notice what they were looking for. "But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland." This stands in sharp contrast to the way most people view this earth today.
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In a very real way, the homes we live in now are not our real homes, heaven is. The average person in America lives in a home for seven years. Our homes here are temporary, but heaven is eternal.
3. Living in light of heaven helps us realize that this life is just the warm up for the next. In fact, it’s only when we live with the realization that this life is short and eternity is forever that we can begin to understand what’s really important in this life. It’s not wrong that we enjoy our homes and fix them up. However, it is wrong when we become so focused on this temporary life that we ignore the eternal life that is to come.
4. Many of you know that I like C S Lewis. He spoke of this very issue when he wrote these words, "It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one." Here is what it comes down to.
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For the Christian, this present life is the closest we will come to Hell. For the non-Christian, this is the closest they will come to Heaven.
5. I hope that reality makes you do some very serious thinking. While heaven will be our eternal home, it will not be the home of everyone. I’ll share with you about that next week. But let me get back to how wonderful heaven is going to be. The choir I was in during college sang a song that really liked. It went like this...
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"Finally Home."
"But just think of stepping on shore & finding it heaven. Of touching a hand, & finding it’s Gods. Of breathing new air & find it’s celestial, Of Waking up in heaven, & finding it’s home."
6. That’s what makes heaven so truly special. It will be home.
Conclusion:
1. I want to conclude with a story that is about the well known preacher, George W. Truett. One day the preacher was invited to dinner at the home of a very wealthy man in Texas. After their meal, his host led him to a hil where they had a good view of the surrounding area. Pointing to the oil wells, punctuating the landscape, the tycoon boasted, "Twenty five years ago, I had nothing. Now as far as you can see, in every direction is all mine." He paused expecting Dr. Truett’s compliment on his great success. Truett, however, placed one hand on the man’s shoulder, pointed to heaven with the other and asked, "How much do you have in that direction?" The man admitted he had never thought of that..
2. I want to contrast that with an experience I had Friday with James Baskin. His condition is quickly deteriorating. I read verses to him about heaven. I could see him visibly relax and in spite of the pain he smiled. You see, he understood in a very practical way, what the rest of us look forward to on some distant day, he anticipates in the very near future.
3. (Hand out the Green Cards) I want to thank David Lotz for this idea and for making the cards we are handing out to you right now. Our country gives out Green Cards to people who are from another country, but who are temporarily living in the US. In a similar way, each person who has accepted Christ as their Savior is living here only temporarily. (Read the card) Write your name on the card... Here is what it says, "Is a temporary resident of the planet earth and is authorized to further the work of Christ while living here. This authorization expires when all of God’s tasts for this person are completed. Departure to heaven will be made immediately upon experiation." We are only visitors on this earth, but we will spend an eternity getting to know God in heaven.
1) Rodney J. Buchanan, What Is Heaven Like?, (sermoncentral.com, Mt Vernon, OH: Mulberry Street United Methodist Church) July 31, 2005.
2) Christopher Hilling, Reaching for Heaven, (sermoncentral.com) October, 2000.
3) Charles Wall Jr. Thankful for Heaven, (sermoncentral.com) November, 2004.
4) Jeff Strite, Foundations: Gaining Heaven’s Glory, (sermoncentral.com)
5) Joni Eareckson Tada, Heaven: Your Real Home (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House) 1995.
Some of the material in this sermon is also adapted from a sermon I preached in 1996 entitled, "Heaven the Ultimate Destination."
