Eternity Is Now In Session - Are We There Yet? Series

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.