HEAVEN

How We Will Relate to God

Selected Scriptures

     Well we're going to talk about heaven tonight.  I'm going to give you the first half of our discussion of heaven from the viewpoint of what will our relationship to God be.  We won't have time to cover it all and that's probably just as well because of the richness of this particular theme.

     The Apostle Paul made an amazing statement when he said, "For to me to live is Christ, to die is gain."  For someone to say "to die is gain" reflects certainly a different attitude than most people would have in this world.  Most people in our society and reasonably so fear death.  For Paul to say "to die is gain" or "to die brings advantage to me," "to die is to gain something advantageous" is quite a remarkable statement.  And that kind of confident statement assumes that Paul felt that the life to come was better than the life he was living.  He had a personal experience some time prior to saying that in which he was caught up into the third heaven, according to 2 Corinthians 12:2.  There he saw in some way the abode of God.  There he saw the heaven of heavens.  It was indescribable, it was unspeakable.  But he saw enough to know that to die was gain.

     John the Apostle lived in such anticipation of heaven that he could say, "Even so, come Lord Jesus."  And I believe that it's not uncommon for any believer who walks with Christ and who rightly ascertains this life and the life to come to be able to echo the words of Paul and John and hope for that which is yet ahead.

     Now we've been learning why heaven is so attractive.  We've been learning about the fact that it is gain to leave this world and go into the presence of the Lord.  That eternal dwelling place where God lives and where He lives with all the redeemed of all the ages, a place where there is infinite perfection of body and soul, a place where there is a perfect environment of love and joy and peace and fulfillment and satisfaction, we have noted many wonderful truths about heaven.  But tonight we come to the most wonderful one of all.  We come to the most glorious reality of heaven, that which surpasses everything else and that is our relationship to God in heaven.  And so we pose the next in our list of questions: what will be our relationship to God in heaven?  And the Bible delineates several wonderful features.  We're going to look at them tonight.

     Let's jump right into it.  Number one, in considering what our relationship to God will be in heaven the first thing we can note is we will be with Him.  We will be with Him.  We can label that simply fellowship, or communion which is another way to say the same thing.  This in itself is the supreme joy of heaven because God is the Supreme Being, the supreme occupant of heaven, being with Him is the supreme joy‑‑fellowship with the Lord God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

     Now if you look back a little bit in your thoughts to the reality of salvation you remember that John defines salvation in 1 John chapter 1 as having fellowship.  He said, "We have fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ."  When a person becomes a believer we enter into communion with God.  His life becomes our life.  We become so identified with Him that as the Psalmist said the reproaches that fall on Him are fallen on us.  We become so identified with Him that His will is our will, His purpose is our purpose, His desire is our desire, His objective is our objective even if hindered by sin, nonetheless that the deepest part of our being regenerated souls are in union with the living God and fellowship with the living Christ.  So salvation brought us into communion.  We can talk with God.  We can commune with Him.  We pray to Him.  We hear Him speak in the Word.  He moves in those silent ways in our lives by providence to reveal Himself.  We are living in real spiritual communion with God.

     But in a sense that communion is hindered.  It is not the fullness of communion.  When we go to heaven, on the other hand, we will enter into full fellowship with God, into unhindered fellowship with God, a fellowship more imagined...more wonderful, I should say, than anything we can imagine.  Let's just touch base with some of the scriptures that indicate that to us.

     We can start back in the seventeenth chapter of the gospel of John.  John chapter 17, and we find in that chapter our Lord, of course, praying to the Father and asking that He would be returned to the glory that He had before the world began, having anticipated the consummation of His earthly work, He was ready to go back to the Father.  As He prays He prays on behalf of those who are His own in the world.  And in verse 24 particularly He says, "Father, I desire that they also...they referring to believers in this age and all who believe in Christ...I desire that they also whom Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am."  And stop at that point.

     That is the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is an amazing thing to me that it is Christ's desire to have eternal fellowship with us.  He says, "Father, My prayer is that those who believe in Me, those You have given to Me be with Me where I am."  What a remarkable statement.  I mean, we often think about how much we long to be with Christ but do you understand how much Christ longed to be with us?  Do you understand that when a believer dies and goes to heaven it is not only the fulfilling of the longing of the believer but it is the fulfilling of the longing of Christ?  That's a remarkable thought.  It's one thing that I should want to be with Him, it's quite something else that He should want to be with me.  And He tells why in verse 24, "In order that they may behold My glory which Thou hast given Me."  Father, I want them to see My glory, I want them to see Me in the fullness of My manifest reality.  I want them to see Me for who I really am.  I want them to see the majesty of My unveiled deity.

     And so, the Lord Jesus Christ longs for us to be in heaven.  He prayed that to the Father that we would be with Him where I am, He said.  The little phrase "with Him" intrigues me.  It doesn't just say that we will see Him, it says that we will be with Him. He longs not for us to be spectators but for us to be participants, not for us to be watchers but for us to be communers with Him.  What a prayer.  Do you think that Christ has His prayers answered?  I'm sure He does.  And the reality of it is that the day will come, beloved, when we will be with Him where He is for the purpose of beholding His glory which is given Him of the Father out of the Father's love, it says at the end of the verse.  And so we find then that we can look forward to being with Him where He is.  We will be with Him.  That's what heaven's all about.  Our relationship to God the Father, our relationship to God the Son, our relationship to God the Holy Spirit will be to be in constant unending eternal communion with them.

     Now let's look at John 14, backing up in John's gospel, another scripture that gives us insight into this.  This one very familiar, you know the scene, familiar to all of us who study God's Word.  The disciples have been informed that Jesus will be leaving them.  He has spoken of His death and resurrection.  He must go back to the Father.  He must be like a corn of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it can bring forth life.  And He says to them that He will be leaving.  He says in verse 36 of chapter 13, "Where I go you can't follow Me now but you'll follow later."  What a tremendous promise.  I'm going but you'll come later.  Peter wants Him to take him right on the spot and so he says, "I'll die with You right now, I want to go now."  And Jesus says, "No, you won't die right now, you won't lay your life down for Me, in fact you'll deny Me."

     So, the setting is Jesus telling them that He was leaving.  And that's what we find in verse 1 of chapter 14, "Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me."  And why does He say that?  Because their hearts were troubled over the thought of Jesus leaving them.  He was their resource for everything.  When they needed comfort, He comforted them.  When they needed wisdom, He taught them.  When they needed food, He created it.  When they needed to pay their taxes, He pulled a fish out of the water, took the tax out of the fish's mouth.  He was there in every struggle and every trial and every situation, He was there.  He was their life.  It had become so in those nearly three years that they had been together, or even a little over that.  So He says stop letting your hearts be troubled.  You don't need to be anxious about My going away.  You believe in God, then believe also in Me.  "In My Father's house are many rooms and if it were not so I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you."  A place where?  "In My Father's...what?...house, you will be with Me.  You will be with Me in My Father's house.  You will be with Me and you will be with My Father."

     And I've said this many times before, everybody in heaven is in the Father's house.  There aren't many houses in heaven, there is one house, the dwelling place of God, and God in His infinity fills all of the infinite eternal heaven with His immediate presence.  That's why the Bible says that there's no temple there for God is the temple.  That's why the Bible says there is no sun or moon there because God and the Lamb are the light of it.  God is heaven.  His presence is heaven.  He fills all in all with His presence so that when we go there we go into His presence.  He's everywhere.  He in infinite deity fills the infinite heaven.

     So, He says in My Father's house are many rooms and I go to prepare a place for you.  Then verse 3, "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to...and here's the key word...Myself."  Why don't you underline that in your Bible.  I will receive you to Myself.

     Can I put it simply?  We're not going to a place, we're going to a person.  Did you get that?  We're not going to a place so much as we're going to a person.  We're going into fellowship with God, we're going into fellowship with Christ.  We're not going to a place from which you can get to God.  We're not going to a place from which you can get to Christ.  We're going to a person, namely God and the Lord Jesus Christ.  We will never be outside the presence of God or the presence of Christ.

     So He says I will again come and receive you to Myself "That where I am there you may...what?...be also."  Being with Christ, being with God, that's the essence of heaven.  So what will be our relationship to God?  First of all, we'll be with Him.  It will be paradise regained only infinitely beyond anything Adam and Eve ever experienced in the garden.  We will be with them all the time, unending fellowship.  And since God is infinite glory and infinite beauty and infinite majesty and infinite holiness and infinite everything else you will never get bored with being with God forever and ever and ever because you will continually be experiencing the unfolding of the realities of His infinite glory.  The same with Christ.

     Let me take you to another passage, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And the emphasis is always the same.  First Thessalonians chapter 4 and in the Thessalonian church there was some fear that folks might have missed out on being with the Lord because they had died and that the Lord was going to come back and they were dead and they would miss being with the Lord.  And to straighten that out, you know the text, verse 13, "We do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, those who have died, that you may not grieve as to the rest who have no hope for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus."  Now the promise there is as Christ rose God would raise from the dead those who belong to Christ.  And here's how.  "For this we say to you by the word of the Lord that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord shall not proceed those who have fallen asleep."  Listen, he says not only did the people who die not miss meeting the Lord, but they're going to meet Him before we do when He comes.  "For the Lord Himself, verse 16, will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel with the trumpet of God, the dead in Christ shall rise...what?...first."  Somebody said that's because they have six feet further to go, but it's really more than that.  They rise first because that's God's plan.

     Now watch, "Then we who are alive at the Rapture when Christ comes, the dead in Christ rise first, that is their bodies‑‑to join their already glorified souls.  Then we are caught up in that Rapture, we who are alive at that time.  And it says we're caught up together with Him in the clouds...now notice...to meet...whom?...the Lord in the air.  Now watch this, "And thus...underline it...we shall always be...what?...with the Lord."  That's what heaven is, it's being with the Lord.  It's always being with the Lord.  From the time we meet Him in the air, if we're there at the Rapture, coming up from the earth, from the time we meet Him in the air if we're already there with our souls and rejoining our bodies in that great resurrection, whatever it is, we meet the Lord in the air and we will always be with the Lord.

     Let me make it practical.  That's the greatest reunion of heaven.  You often hear people say, "Well, isn't it wonderful, when we get to heaven we'll see our friends, we'll see our relatives, my grandfather is in heaven who preached the Word of God faithfully, my grandmother is in heaven."  And on the other side, my mother's mother whom I never knew went to be with the Lord before my mother was even married, I think, to my father.  There are others in all of our lives.  I remember a childhood buddy of mine who played baseball with me, we were good pals and one day he was driving his little Model A that he was kind of doing up as a roadster and the brakes locked and he catapulted to the top of it and hit a curb with his skull and was instantly put into eternity.  And we all think about the kind of reunions we're going to have when we see those people who were a part of our life that went on but those were unions really pale when you stop to think that what heaven is all about is a reunion of the believer with the Lord Himself.  In fact the Bible, to be honest with you, does not make much out of the reunion of people with people.  It alludes to it.  There will be fellowship there.  We will sit down at table with Abraham and Isaac and so forth.  And there will be a sense in which when you die, as the Old Testament says, you go to be with your people, as the Old Testament referred it when it spoke of the death of Abraham.  But that's not the main thrust. The main thrust of being in heaven is being with the Lord...being with the Lord.

     Let's look at Revelation chapter 21.  When you stop and think about the fact that the Lord is the matchless perfect glorious God to have the privilege of forever being with Him is almost inconceivable.  In Revelation 21 we read about the new heaven and the new earth, the first heaven, the first earth passed away, there's no longer any sea, nothing to divide, nothing to be afraid of.  I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God made ready as a bride adorned for her husband...here's the capital city of heaven.  This isn't all there is of heaven, this is just the major city.  "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying," here it comes, "The tabernacle of God is among men and He shall dwell among them and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be among them."  Twice He says "among them...among them."

     Talk about intimate presence, He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.  God Himself pitches His tent among men.  The tabernacle of God is among men.  He shall dwell among them.  God Himself shall be among them.  That's the glory of heaven.  Believers will be in the eternal immediate presence of God Himself.

     Do you ever feel in this life as though maybe God is afar off?  Do you ever feel when you're going through some trials and difficulties as if God is a long way away?  And maybe doesn't seem to be paying much attention to you?  And then all of a sudden there's some kind of an intimate experience with God that makes things completely fresh?  I want to tell you something very personal, and I don't often speak too personally but this is a personal thing.

     A number of weeks ago, as you know, we were praying for our son Mark because it was discovered that he had some kind of lesion, some kind of growth in his brain.  And I shared that with you after we knew enough to share and you prayed with me.  During those days about a period of nine days or so I did not eat.  I fasted and prayed before the Lord for that period of approximately nine days.  I didn't say anything to anybody, Patricia knew, obviously, but even the children themselves did not know.  But that was just a time of total devotion before God to try to discern the will of God in my own life and in the life of my family and Mark's life.  And during those days I was really prostrate many times before the Lord, as was Patricia with me.  And we just kept beseeching the Lord to show us His will and teach us what He wanted us to know and we had times of prayer perhaps more intense than any other time recently.  And I was waiting on the Lord.

     And days went by and days went by and we couldn't seem to get any word.  And every time we would talk to a doctor there would be a little feeling in my heart the things were more serious and there was a sense of fear that a father naturally has over his child.  And there were times when you just sort of wonder to yourself, "I wonder if God really is listening," almost incessant prayers over a period of nine days and it seems to be such a long time.  And I don't seem to be hearing anything from the Lord or sensing any answer, we can't seem to resolve everything.

     It was a Wednesday night.  I was sitting in my office getting ready for a baptisimal service.  It was about the eighth day of not eating anything.  And I was sitting in my office by myself when Rich Hines' wife Barbara came to the door.  She had a little box in her hand and she said to me, "You know, I knew you were staying through for t