What Will We Be Like In Heaven? Series

Imagine if a governing authority told you, you must travel on January 1 – no exceptions. Let’s say you were given a one-way plane ticket where you can travel first class. Immediately you are excited but in the midst of your packing you pause to ask, “Where am I going?” If your free ticket entitles you a first class ride to North Korean prison camp, you’d probably prefer to stay home. But if you were given a first class plane ticket to Tahiti, your excitement and anticipation will be overwhelming. Just like the mandatory plane ticket, the question isn’t, “Am I going to live forever?” but “Where am I going to live forever?”

Throughout today’s message, I’ll be talking about departures, arrivals, customs, and passports. Find 2 Corinthians 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 with me. In the next few moments, I want to speak to you about what your life will look like in Heaven and how do you get from here to there.

Sermon Preview

1. How Should I Think About My Death?

2. Do Believers Immediately Go to Heaven?

3. What Will I Look Like in Heaven?

4. How Can I Make Certain I Will Be in Heaven?

1. How Should I Think About My Death?

As I speak this morning, my words are heard by a lady who has been diagnosed by cancer. She sits attentively with her husband as they seek to find solid ground on which to stand in their battle against this dreaded disease. A bereaved mother sits, as she looks on with only one remaining child. A couple we all know sit together as they have been doing so for some fifty years. As they sit together in church this morning they realize more than ever that their time is approaching. How will the one cope without the other?

Each of these individuals knows instinctively what most of us would rather push away from our mind: death. This is your departure for the Bible speaks of death being a one-way door into eternity. 2 Corinthians 5:1–10 is the most explicit answer to the question, “What happens to me when I die?”

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.” (2 Corinthians 5:1–5)

Paul is using two metaphors throughout these verses. The first metaphor he uses is in 2 Corinthians 5:1 where he talks about an earthly tent versus a permanent, God-made building. While the second metaphor he uses is in 2 Corinthians 5:3 to be clothed versus unclothed, or dressed versus nude. In both metaphors, Paul is reflecting on the events after his death.

1.1 We Long To Be Physically New

Paul speaks of the physical body we have now as a tent: “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home…” (2 Corinthians 5:1a). You are not destroyed by death; you are not annihilated. We see confirmation of this in Jesus’ words: “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) Based on this, we say our bodies die but our soul doesn’t die. Instead, our soul lives on.

Did you hear about the story of the two twins having a discussion in their mother’s womb: “You know” one says, “there’s a whole world out there – grassy meadows and snowy mountains, splashing streams and waterfalls, horses and dogs and cats and whales and giraffes. There are skyscrapers and cities and people like us – only much bigger – playing games like football and soccer and volleyball and going to the beach.” “Are you crazy?” the other twin responds. “Everybody knows there’s no life after birth.”

Here are you today, weakened by allergies, weakened by injuries, weakened by old age. Former NBA star, Barkley said of the diminishing skills of aging athletes, on screen: “Father Time is undefeated.” There’s a deep, longing inside of all of us for something new and to be made new.

1.2 We Long to be Morally New

You are morally conflicted: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) There are so many days here on earth when we are out of rhythm with God. You and I long to be remade morally. Now, your fading body cannot and will not enter into Heaven; it must be discarded and transformed. Now we should not be surprised to know something must radically changed for the Bible teaches this: “For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53). Your body as it is now could not enter into the presence of God.