We are starting a brand-new series of messages that we will not only preach about on Sunday morning, but we will talk about in small groups this week using video, using guides for discussion. This series is called “eternity is now in session.” The basic premise is that God just doesn’t want to get you into heaven, he wants to get heaven into you.
So let’s begin…
And we begin with the question, it’s a question that has been asked in just about every traveling situation we’ve ever been involved in; “are we there yet?”
How do you answer that question to a little kid who has no concept of time? I remember traveling to see my parents in North Carolina and we got stuck in a huge ice storm, one of the kids were sick, we are just sitting on the highway forever, “when are we going to get there?”
“Probably never.”
Are we there yet? It’s not just little kids in cars who ask that question but many of us who are reaching adulthood and who have been an adult have secretly asked that question as well; are we there yet?
Behind that question is something that I’m going to call “destination disease.” We have all suffered from this. Destination disease is the feeling that things are going to get better up ahead. When I get out of school.
When the baby learns how to walk.
When the baby will learn how to feed himself.
When the babies out of diapers it will get better.
When I get the better job.
When I get that other car.
When I can finally afford a house, things will be better. When we are out of debt.
When the kids move out.
When we can afford the dream vacation. When we can retire.
It seems like were always waiting for something different, something better. And it’s like were never satisfied where we’re at. Were always reaching forward to the next level or to the next event and then maybe will be happy.
And do you know that we drag that kind of thinking into religion, into Christianity? So many churches and so many teachers and so many Christian people have fixed all of their hope on heaven… What many people call “eternal life.” Many people – maybe you too – think that Jesus simply came to make an arrangement for us to get to heaven and that is what eternal life is… You going to heaven and living forever in this place that is beyond all of our imagination.
This is pretty common in American religion - the thought that Jesus came to make an arrangement for you to get to heaven and all you have to do is to make sure that you believe properly on the day that you die.
It’s almost like having a pension; your pension is reserved for you for some time in the future but as for now it is hands-off, you can’t get to it. For some people that’s their whole attitude about Jesus and religion, “he’s going to get me into heaven one day and then I’ll be able to get my hands on the riches of God.”
That is incredibly lame thinking.
Which makes for incredibly lame living.
Jesus did not die did make an arrangement for you to get to heaven.
You want to know how eternal life is defined in the Bible?
John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
Eternal life is not something were waiting for.
Eternal life is not a destination up ahead.
John defined eternal life as knowing the one true God and knowing Jesus Christ. Knowing Him in such a way that it fundamentally changes us.
“Knowing” is an interesting word; it doesn’t mean having facts in your head as much as it means that you are participating in a relationship with intimate knowledge. For instance, if you are a baseball fan you may have heard about the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. You may have heard about the short right field corner, you may have seen it on TV during an All-Star game, you may have looked at pictures or even read about it. But you only know about it. I know that Stadium on a different level. I know about walking around the outside and coming to the gated ticketed areas, and walking up the ramps, and the smells of the hot dogs and the guy who always sat in front of us with the cigar, and I know about sitting behind a pole where it’s hard to see, and I know about the aura of the ballpark.
It’s a whole different level of knowledge.
Eternal life is not waiting for heaven and then it all begins, eternal life begins right now by bringing what’s up in heaven into your life right here on this earth.
Eternal life is life with God… Right now.
Eternal life is life for God… Right now.
Eternal life is life under God’s care… Right now.
Eternal life is life by God’s power… Right now.
Eternal life is life on interrupted with God… Right now.
Eternal life is life fulfilled with God starting now.
Eternal life is abundant life… Starting now.
Eternal life is living in fellowship with God… Right now… A life that death cannot stop.
What do you think heaven is going to be like? Let me answer that rather simply; heaven is going to be life with God forever. Heaven will be a place of non-ending fellowship with God. Heaven will be a place of experiencing the perfection and the glory of God.
And John is telling us that eternal life begins now when we know God and when we know Jesus. We can be with God NOW!
David experienced this and wrote about it in Psalm 23.
Psalm 23:1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
That is somebody who is experiencing eternal life… Right now. That is it picture of somebody who’s faith is not outward… But inward. That is a picture of somebody who’s not just thinking about the future… But about the present.
What is God’s project in your life right now? His project is to bring what’s up there down here. To help you live Psalm 23. Do you know what Jesus called this?
John 10:10 I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Jesus called it abundant life. When heaven gets into you, when you truly know Jesus, that is called abundant life. Jesus did not come to make an arrangement for you to get into heaven; he came to give you abundant life…now. He is right now wanting you to have eternal life, and eternal life is you…
- Living life with God
- living life for God
- living life under God’s care
- living life by God’s power
- living life with on interrupted fellowship with God
- living life fulfilled.
Eternal life not the quantity of life (forever), eternal life is the quality of the life that you are living now because Jesus is in your soul and because you have this relationship with the heavenly father.
Maybe we been doing it all wrong; we been waiting to get to a destination, to heaven, but this whole time heaven was trying to get into you! Eternal life was already happening, it had already started. It wasn’t something out in the future, it was now.
Eternity is now in session. We don’t have to wait to get Jesus…we can have Him now!
Salvation isn’t about getting you into heaven; it’s about getting heaven into you.
It’s not about your relocation to heaven; it’s about transformation.
It’s not about getting you into the good place; it’s about you becoming a good and godly person.
You getting into heaven will come soon enough but while you’re still here on earth it is all about heaven getting into and then heaven leaking out of you all over the place.
Isn’t this what Jesus modeled when he lived on this earth? He was the man from “up there” – heaven – who then lived his life in such a way that he brought “up there” down here where we are. John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
Jesus was a man from heaven who lived in heavenly ways and spoke heavenly words and what was in him leaked out to everybody. And when heaven is in you it will leak out of you.
- When you turn aside to the hurting person and instead of ignoring them you assure them of God’s love and power heaven is breaking upon the earth.
- Every time you are in conflict with somebody, instead of hurting them and gossiping and avoiding you go back and seek reconciliation and forgiveness that is heaven breaking into our world.
- Whenever you have a chunk of money and instead of just funding your own kingdom you give sacrificially to make a difference then a little bit of heaven is touching the earth.
- Every time somebody with an addiction stops hiding and starts acknowledging the truth a little bit of heaven is breaking upon the earth.
You see – and this is the theme of the next several weeks – Jesus wants to live inside of you now. Eventually this will mean that you will go to heaven but in the meantime he wants to bring heaven into you and then he wants you to bring heaven into the earth. It’s right there in the Lord’s prayer… Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on the earth as it is in heaven. The things that have gone terribly wrong in you he wants to make right. And then he wants to transform you into an entirely different kind of person, the kind of person who leaks heaven out wherever he or she is.
So how do we start this journey? How does this happen? Where does it begin?
It starts really with just two words Jesus asked of many people; the words, “follow me.”
- Jesus simply asked Matthew… Follow me.
- Jesus asked Peter… Follow me
- Jesus asked James… Follow me
- Jesus asked John… Follow me
- Jesus asked the rich man one day… Follow me
- in Luke 9 there were three different man all challenged to follow Jesus…
- Jesus asked Philip to follow him…
- In a flash of light Jesus asked Paul to follow him…
And finally there was a huge crowd and what did Jesus ask? Did he ask them to become a Christian? No here’s what he said;
Mark 8:34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
And there is the essence of following Jesus. In fact, Jesus defines what it means to follow him - we don’t get to make it up. There is a move to be made, there is my own personal agenda to be denied, and there is the cause of Jesus to take up.
Repeat.
Jesus asked people to follow him, not to say of magic prayer to get them into heaven. Jesus asked people to follow him, he never asked anybody to get a ticket for eternal life only to be kept in our back pockets when we needed it. And when people followed they left behind something and they also took up a new cause in life.
To follow Jesus means…
- That he will be your teacher
- that you will learn from him
- that you will take guidance from him
- that whatever he says will be authority in your life
- you will follow his ways
- you will listen to what he says
- you will do what he does
- you will believe what he believes
- you will go where he goes
- his agenda will be first and yours will be second
He never asked you to get your ticket to heaven, he asked you to follow him.
Personally, I think it would be awesome to believe just like Jesus believed in do as Jesus did. What if you believed what he believed about mountains, about prayer, about money, about others and how to treat them, about trouble and trials and how to approach them, about fear, about injustice and everything else.
I would call that the abundant life. I would call that “following Jesus.”
Here is how Paul puts into words the experience of following Jesus…
Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
He calls it being alive. Whatever he was before he calls dead. Before Jesus equals dead. After Jesus equals life.
Before Jesus equals darkness. After Jesus equals light.
Before Jesus I was stuck. After Jesus I was free.
Before Jesus nothing. After Jesus I get everything.
Before Jesus I live by my own playbook. After Jesus I lived by his playbook.
Before Jesus I live by feelings and desires. After Jesus the Holy Spirit guided my desires.
It’s like that song that our students love to sing “I walked out of that grave!”
Do you remember once when Jesus said that the greatest command was to “love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your mind, with all of your strength, and with all of your soul? We have a lot of ¾ - 75% - people walking around. They know they have a heart because they feel things. They know they have a body because they can see it. They know they have a mind because they think things. But what about the soul? The soul is your God connection. When you follow Jesus the soul comes alive and it makes all the difference!!!
And do you see how he talks about heaven right there? And what about verse 7 - this thing that Jesus is done is just the beginning. It’s the beginning of immeasurable riches of grace and kindness coming your direction.
What did Jesus say eternal life was? It was knowing him and knowing the father. The more you know, the more you have!
Eternal life is life with God… Right now.
Eternal life is life for God… Right now.
Eternal life is life under God’s care… Right now.
Eternal life is life by God’s power… Right now.
Eternal life is life on interrupted with God… Right now.
Eternal life is life fulfilled with God starting now.
Eternal life is abundant life… Starting now.
Eternal life is living in fellowship with God… Right now… that death cannot stop.
When are we going to get there? If you have followed J
That is the abundant life. Eternal life begins now.
End…
Do you remember some of those old songs?
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul,
when at the cross my Savior made me whole,
my sins were washed away,
my night was turned to day,
heaven came down and glory filled my soul.
And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me that I am his own. And the joy we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…
That is the experience of heaven coming into you.
Maybe we could just ask…
Lord, I invite everything up there to come down here and transform me. I want to follow you. I want to learn from you. I want to be a different kind of person. I don’t want to wait until I get to heaven, let me start experiencing heaven now.
