HEAVEN
What Heaven Is
Selected Scriptures
As I mentioned to you this morning, we're going to start a series tonight on a new subject. The subject is heaven. And this is not going to be a like a sermon series, in many ways, but more like a class, at least tonight will be. I want to teach you what the Bible has to say by way of introduction to the subject of heaven.
As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, we live in a society of instant gratification, a society where people want to delay and defer absolutely nothing except payments. They certainly don't want to defer the gratification, they just want to defer the pain that goes with it.. We live in a time when everybody wants what they want now and we have the credit cards that allow us to buy what we don't have the money to buy, to go where we don't have the money to go, to do what we don't have the money to do. And then we pay from then on, hopefully, the indebtedness sometimes mounting up to the point that we cannot pay our bills and then people get themselves into deep problems.
It's reflective of an attitude that says "I want what I want and I want it now." And I had mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago how we used to sing songs about heaven and we don't sing songs about heavenly anymore, rarely if ever. I can't remember a song about heaven being written recently because we're not into delayed gratification and heaven is delayed gratification. We're not into anything being put off into the future. We're into instant gratification. We want it now and we are glad to sacrifice the future on the altar of the immediate. We don't want to wait for anything.
As a result of living in a society of instant gratification, a society of materialistic indulgence, the church has fallen prey to that and we no longer have set our affections above, as Colossians 3 calls us to, but we have set our affections on things on the earth. We really are not interested in some nebulous future, some place in space, as some people have chosen to call it. We are not committed to laying up our treasure in heaven as Jesus told us to, but rather laying up our treasure here.
Certain television and radio preachers and ministries are having a great amount of success by promising people that Jesus wants them rich now, healthy now, wealthy now, successful now. We call it "the prosperity gospel." And it's very popular because people want all the goodies now.
I was very curious when I was recently in a conversation with Jerry Falwell and asked him, "What do you think the future of the PTL Club is now that you've stepped down." He said, "It's my conviction that Jim and Tammy Bakker will be back." It's interesting that the underlying reason for that is that the creditors believe that Jim and Tammy can come back to the PTL Club and effectively raise all the money needed to pay off all the creditors.
It's almost inconceivable to me that people like that could come back into the public limelight and occupy a place of quote/unquote "ministry" in the Christian church. It's just inconceivable except for the fact that we live in a day when people want the prosperity gospel and they'll give the money to whoever is selling it. People will buy into something they think will make them wealthy, successful, prosperous in this life and that's what's being promised to them.
The church in America in general doesn't have heaven on its mind. And as a result of that, it tends to be indulgent and selfish and self‑centered and weak. It is consumed with its own indulgences. It desires to be comfortable with only passing thoughts of heaven.
Contrast that with the fact that just about everything that's precious to us is in heaven. Let me just give you a little bit of an insight into that. In Matthew's gospel, chapter 6 and verse 9, you have a very familiar verse that all of you know, "Pray then in this way, Jesus said, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by Thy name." And may I remind you, to begin with, and you don't need to try and follow me in all these verses, I'm going to cover many of them, but first of all, your Father is in heaven. In a very real sense, the one who is the source of everything for us, God Himself, is in heaven.
Furthermore, in Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 24, "For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." Not only is our Father in heaven, but our Savior is in heaven as well.
In Hebrews chapter 12, and verse 23, it says, "To the general assembly and church of the first born who are enrolled in heaven." Not only is our Father in heaven, and our Savior in heaven, but our brothers and sisters in the faith are in heaven. Old Testament saints are there, New Testament saints are there, everyone who has died in faith in Christ or faith in God in the Old Testament is in heaven.
In Luke chapter 10, we find a most interesting statement in verse 20 and what it says ought to give hope to all of our hearts. It says, "Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you...referring to His disciples who were casting out demons...but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven." Not only is our Father there and our Savior there and our brothers and sisters there, but our name is recorded there. What does that mean? That means we have a title deed to some property there. We are citizens of that place.
Our inheritance is there as well. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain and inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." Your eternal inheritance is in heaven.
What do you mean by that? All the riches of God's glory and grace are set aside for you and for me in heaven. Our Father is there, our Savior is there, our brothers and sisters are there, our name is there‑‑that is we hold title to a place in that land‑‑and our inheritance is there. We could sum a lot of that up in Philippians 3:20 where the Apostle says, "Our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." Our citizenship is there. We are citizens of that place, we belong there.
In Matthew 5:12 Jesus said, "Blessed are you when you're persecuted for great shall be your reward in heaven." Your eternal reward is there. In Ephesians 6:9, Paul reminds the believers in Ephesus that their master is there...their master is there. And in Matthew 6:19 to 21, Jesus said the only treasure you'll ever possess forever is there, too.
So, when you think about heaven, you're identifying the place where your Father is, your Savior is, your brothers and sisters are, your name is there, your inheritance is there, your citizenship is there, your reward is there, your Master is there...of course, being God and Christ...and your treasure is there as well. To sum it up, heaven is your home. We are strangers, we are pilgrims, we are aliens in this world. We are like space travelers who are on a planet not our own. We don't belong here. Every time somebody in this world meets us, they're meeting alien beings. We are the aliens, folks. We have arrived here but our home is somewhere else.
Everything we love is there. Everything we cherish is there. Everything valuable is there. Everything eternal is there. And yet here we are in the church of Christ in the United States in this century, committed to indulging ourselves in this alien land. Self‑indulgent Christianity is the kind of Christianity that's lost its heavenly perspective. The church today doesn't hope for heaven, they hope they won't go to heaven. They don't want to go to heaven until they've had all that earth could possibly deliver them. And when that's exhausted, and they finally are too old to enjoy it or too sick to enjoy it, then they'll be glad that heaven is there to receive them. "But please, God, don't send me to heaven yet. I haven't been to Hawaii. I haven't gotten my new car. I...I want to go to the Bahamas. I want to get a raise. I want a new house. God, please, no, not heaven." What a jaded perspective.
John says in 1 John 2 that all that is in the world is passing away. And if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. I think there are many people who claim to love Christ but the fact that they love the world so much means that they're not heavenly citizens at all. And like the old spiritual said, "Everybody talking about heaven ain't going there." But everybody going there ain't talking about heaven either. And that's the other side of it. And we need to learn to live in the light of heaven. That hope should fill our hearts, should change our lives, filling us with the joy of anticipation that loosens us from this passing world. We can get so tied down to this world, we consume things in this world that will perish, instead of laying treasure in heaven.
Now I know that some people think heaven is an imaginary place. Some people think heaven is a human dream for little children. Some people think it's a wish. Some people think heaven is a state of mind. Some people heaven is a projection of all that is good in humanity. Others think heaven is the immortality of the truth and beauty. And you can read all kinds of things like that.
But the Bible says heaven is a place. I want you to grab that, all right? It is a place. And all the people who love God are either there already or going there. Now that's pretty simple. Heaven is a place and all the people who genuinely love God are either there already or are going there to live forever in complete perfection and glory. Now we have to live in the light of heaven.
Now let me give you a perspective on that. Turn in your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 5...2 Corinthians chapter 5. And let's see if we can't catch a little of the heart of the Apostle Paul. Now he's under a lot of persecution. If you go back, let's go all the way back to chapter 4 and verse 8. He says, "We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but now destroyed, always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus that the life of Jesus may also be manifest in our body." In other words, we have it tough here. Afflicted, persecuted, perplexed, struck down, always carrying, as it were, the death of Christ around in our bodies, constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, verse 11, death works in us in order to make life work in you. And he says in verse 16, "We do not lose heart, we do not lose heart, in spite of all of this, though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day, for momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyo