THE BEST IS YET TO COME
S: Heaven
C: A great future
Th: Heaven Can’t Wait
Pr: WE ARE CONFIDENT THAT A GREAT FUTURE AWAITS US.
?: Why? Why can we be confident?
KW: Realities
TS: Our study of Scripture will reveal five realities that demonstrate why we can be confident of our future.
Type: Propositional, Topical
The ____ reality is…
I. NEW (Revelation 21.5)
II. HOME (John 14.2-3)
III. RIGHT (Revelation 21.4)
IV. IDENTITY (I Corinthians 15.44)
V. PRESENCE (Revelation 21.3)
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Prepare and be ready for the future to come
• Have a loose grip on the temporary
Version: ESV
RMBC 03 June 07 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Heaven (H)
One of the Baptist pastors here in the area was eating over at Brennan’s restaurant, and to his surprise, he found three of his deacons lined up at the bar, and obviously a little too happy if you know what I mean. And this particular church was really a non-alcohol church, so for the pastor, this situation was quite disconcerting.
So the pastor walked up to the first deacon and said, "Do you want to go to Heaven?"
The man said, "I do Pastor."
The pastor said, "Then stand over there against the wall."
Then the pastor asked the second deacon, "Do you want to go to Heaven?"
"Certainly, Pastor," was the man’s reply.
"Then stand over there against the wall."
Then the pastor walked up to third deacons and said, "Do you want to go to Heaven?"
And the deacon said, "No, I don’t Pastor."
The pastor said, "I don’t believe this. You mean to tell me that when you die you don’t want to go to Heaven?"
To which the deacon responded, "Oh, when I die, yes. I thought you were getting a group together to go right now."
Well, what about you…
Are you ready for your entrance into heaven?
When it is time to make that transition, will you be ready?
TRANSITION:
This morning…
1. We are starting a study of future matters, aka eschatology.
Eschatology is the study of what is going to happen in the future, and there is a broad range of subjects.
They include the Second Coming of Jesus, which involves the rapture, the tribulation and the millennium.
There is also the study of God’s judgment – which includes rewards and punishment.
And then the topic of our studies for the month of June – our eternal destinations.
Our theme for the month is “Heaven Can’t Wait.”
It is a play off the old movie, “Heaven Can Wait” (1943 & 1978).
It is interesting that in a survey reported in Newsweek in 2002 that 76% of Americans believed in heaven.
Also in the same survey, 75% believed that their actions on earth determine whether they will go to heaven.
The problem, though, is there are a lot of myths about heaven.
The majority of people may believe in heaven, but their belief is full of misconceptions.
Some people understand heaven to be a place where little angels with halos play harps as they float about.
Others think it as an unending church service, or singing hymns for all eternity.
Some believe it to be some sort of a celestial retirement center.
These concepts seem so unreal.
No wonder so many people have come to the conclusion that heaven is a place of numbing boredom and secretly say to themselves, “Is that all there is?”
Let me state outright that here at Randall…
2. We believe in the reality of heaven and hell.
Our updated doctrinal statement (which will be presented for an official vote this year) states:
We believe that all will be judged by God, which will result in the eternal state of blessing for the believer and eternal punishment for the unbeliever.
Somehow, through the years, the doctrine of heaven and its accompanying rewards has become less important to us.
Certainly, our current affluence is a problem.
For affluence has given us in this life, what former generations longed in anticipation of heaven.
We have come to the conclusion that this is the best there is, that the best life has to offer is found in the things of this world.
This, of course, is the lie of hell.
Satan would have us believe that heaven is boring and the real fun is found in the things of the world.
I don’t think there is another modern writer that has understood heaven better than C. S. Lewis and I highly recommend The Chronicles of Narnia and The Great Divorce as a way to expand your understanding of how great heaven is.
ILL Heaven (S)
In C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair, Eustace, Jill, Prince Rilian, and Puddleglum are trapped beneath Narnia in the land called Underworld. The Queen of Underworld, who is really a witch, has thrown a green powder into the fire that produces a sweet and drowsy smell. In this enchanting haze, she convinces the group that Narnia does not exist – like the sun, moon, and Aslan, the great lion, Narnia is all a dream. The children try their hardest to describe the things they are certain exist. Yet with each argument the Witch makes it all seem more and more foolish.
It is at this moment of despair that Puddleglum, a marshwiggle known for his melancholy personality, makes a brave move. With his bare foot he stomps on the fire, sobering the sweet and heavy air with the unenchanting smell of marshwiggle. Boldly he turns to the Witch, "One word, Ma’am," he says coming back from the fire, limping, because of the pain. "Suppose we have only dreamed, or made-up, all those things… Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one… We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow… I’m on Aslan’s side, even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as much like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, we’re leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that’s a small loss if the world’s as dull a place as you say."
I think it is time for the church to wake up to the greatness of what is coming.
It is like we have become enchanted, listening to the lies of the evil one, settling for something less.
This world is a dull and boring place in comparison to what God has waiting for us.
You see, as believers…
3. WE ARE CONFIDENT THAT A GREAT FUTURE AWAITS US.
Our question, then is “why?”
Why can we be so confident of this great future?
Well…
4. Our study of Scripture will reveal five realities that demonstrate why we can be confident of our future.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first reality is it is NEW (Revelation 21.5).
And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new."
We have been living east of Eden since Adam and Eve sinned.
This has been the judgment of humanity from the very beginning.
Like it or not, their sin and their judgment has passed onto us.
But it is not the end of the story…
1. We are returning to Eden.
It has been on God’s heart to renew the original creation.
What is interesting to note at this point is the similarity of language and word pictures that is used in Genesis and Revelation.
God wants us to see that a restoration is in process.
But it is more than that…
2. It is a place remade better for our benefit.
I believe that God has instilled into our being an appreciation of that which is new.
For example, if someone offers you your pick of two cars, one twenty years old and one that is brand new, we are going to take the new one, right?
One is rusty, and the other is shiny.
One is run down, and the other is ready to go.
We view the new product as better and superior.
John also draws another picture for us.
The new Jerusalem is like a bride beautifully dressed.
[move down…]
We get to see beautiful brides walk down this aisle.
And where do I place the groom during the ceremony – over there?
No, I put him right here.
I want him to see his bride coming down the aisle.
She is coming to meet him.
She is coming to give herself to him.
God is doing the same thing for us.
He is bringing a real place to us in all its resplendent beauty.
II. The second reality is it is HOME (John 14.2-3).
Jesus says…
“In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
ILL Heaven (S)
The group Audio Adrenaline has a song called Big House. It’s a fun song that speaks to the truth of this passage. The lyrics go like this:
I don’t know where you lay your head
or where you call your home
I don’t know where you eat your meals
or where you talk on the phone
I don’t know if you got a cook
a butler or a maid
I don’t know if you got a year
with a hammock in the shade
I don’t know if you got some shelter
say a place to hide
I don’t know if you live with friends
in whom you can confide
I don’t know if you got a family
say a mom or dad
I don’t know if you feel love at all
but I bet you wish you had
Come and go with me
to my Fathers house
Come and go with me
to my Fathers house
It’s a big big house
with lots and lots a room
A big big table
with lots and lots of food
A big big yard
where we can play football
A big big house
Its my Fathers house
Understand this…
1. Heaven is being personally prepared for us.
Remember how we spoke about the bride just a moment ago.
Do you know what does not happen typically on the wedding day?
The bride does not put on any old thing that she has lying around the house.
She doesn’t just come as she is.
No, she takes a long time to get ready.
It is hours and hours.
There is the hair, the makeup and the dress.
There has been a determination to look her best when she comes down that aisle to meet her new husband.
That’s the same kind of preparation that is going on for us.
You know, it took six days for creation, right?
Eden was quite a place.
This time the Lord is taking 2000 years and counting.
If Eden was so great, imagine how much greater the new Jerusalem is going to be?
When we get to heaven…
2. We will feel as if we are in our element.
Do you know how you long to be with family during those special times of the year – especially Thanksgiving and Christmas?
If you have been away, you can’t wait to get home.
That’s what it will be like to get to heaven.
This place can never fully satisfy.
But home can, and that is what heaven will be to us.
III. The third reality is it is RIGHT (Revelation 21.4).
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
The good news is that when we get home…
1. We will be released from all distress.
And there will be…
• No age spots or wrinkles
• No ruin, rot, or rust
• No thirsting or hungering
• No more loneliness
• No blindness
• No deafness
• No diabetes or hemophilia
• No cancer or heart attacks or strokes
• No mental illness
• No divorce
• No crime
• No child abductions
• No rape and murder
• No hospitals or prisons
• No accidents
• No pollution
• No bills
• No computer crashes
Death will be gone for good.
It will exist no longer.
And…
2. Nothing will go wrong.
You see…
Heaven will be right.
It will be a place of righteousness, or right-ness.
All the wrongs of the world will be made right.
It will be a place where everything evil is absent, and everything good is present.
Everything sad will be gone, and only joy will exist.
Everything disappointing will disappear, and everything exciting will appear.
Everything depressing will be gone, and everything hopeful will come.
Everything violent and hateful will be removed, and everything born of love will be prevail.
IV. The fourth reality is we have IDENTITY (I Corinthians 15.44).
When Paul was speaking about the resurrection in I Corinthians, he writes…
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
If you think that when we get to heaven, we will just be spirits floating about, you have a misconception.
For…
1. Humanity is designed to have a body.
When we get to heaven, we will become fully human, not less so.
In fact, we will have a body that is like Jesus’ resurrected body (that we just studied in the gospel of John).
And…
2. We will still be the same person, only better.
We will be morally flawless.
We no longer will sin.
We no longer will make mistakes.
We will not be omniscient, omnipotent or omnipresent.
We will not be God.
But we will be like Him.
We will still be who we are, just without the bad parts.
Our personalities will grow.
We will get better and better.
We will constantly improve.
There will always be more to know, experience and enjoy as individuals in His kingdom.
V. The fifth reality is God’s PRESENCE (Revelation 21.3).
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”
1. The best thing about heaven is that God is there.
Eugene Peterson, in the paraphrase The Message words it in such a way that God is moving into the neighborhood.
It will be a place that is personal.
God will no longer seem far away.
He will be the “With-Us” God in every way.
And because of that…
2. We will know the true joy of worship.
Our time before the Lord will be awesome.
There will be energy.
There will be excitement.
There will be smiling faces.
There will be lifted hearts and hands.
It will be a type of joy in which, at best, we have only scratched the surface here on earth.
APPLICATION:
ILL Heaven (S)
Old man Fielding, the miserly believer, at last went to his reward and presented himself at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter greeted him with appropriate solemnity and escorted him to his new abode. Walking past numerous elegant mansions finally they arrived at a dilapidated shack at the end of the street.
Fielding, much taken aback, began, "Why am I left with a rundown shack when all of these others have fine mansions?"
"Well, sir," replied St. Peter, "we did the best we could with what you sent us."
Well, that is a semi-humorous way to remind us that…
1. We are to invest in the future.
The good news is that it will be worth our investment.
The end result will exceed our expectations.
ILL Pleasure (S)
C. S. Lewis writes this in his small book, The Weight of Glory…
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
You see…
2. We are far too pleased with mud.
ILL Heaven (S)
Randy Alcorn, in In Light of Eternity, has written…
How it must wound the heart of our bridegroom to see us clinging to this roach-infested hovel called earth, dreading the thought of leaving it, when he has hand-built a magnificent estate for us, a place beautiful and wondrous beyond measure.
Simply, it is going to be too wonderful to miss.
Why would anyone even chance it?
Realize, that what is wonderful here is just a taste of what is to come.
ILL Heaven (S)
In C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, the characters that have lived in Narnia have completed their time and work there. In a closing chapter entitled “Farther Up and Further In,” Aslan, the lion who represents Christ, has come for them in order to take them home. They are headed away from Narnia and are about to enter Aslan’s land. But they are met with scenery and places that are familiar, but different and better.
Jewel the unicorn gets it and cries out: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.”
I believe we will say the same thing some day.
When we get to heaven, we will understand that it was worth waiting for, worth longing for and worth telling about.
You see…
A great future does await us.
For Further Study: Isaiah 65; I Corinthians 2.9, 13.12, 15.51-52; Hebrews 11.13-16; I Peter 1.3-5; I John 3.2
COMMUNION:
Heb 11:1-16
The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd.
By faith, we see the world called into existence by God’s word, what we see created by what we don’t see.
By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference. That’s what God noticed and approved as righteous. After all these centuries, that belief continues to catch our notice.
By an act of faith, Enoch skipped death completely. "They looked all over and couldn’t find him because God had taken him." We know on the basis of reliable testimony that before he was taken "he pleased God." It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.
By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn’t see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God.
By an act of faith, Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left he had no idea where he was going. By an act of faith he lived in the country promised him, lived as a stranger camping in tents. Isaac and Jacob did the same, living under the same promise. Abraham did it by keeping his eye on an unseen city with real, eternal foundations — the City designed and built by God.
By faith, barren Sarah was able to become pregnant, old woman as she was at the time, because she believed the One who made a promise would do what he said. That’s how it happened that from one man’s dead and shriveled loins there are now people numbering into the millions.
Each one of these people of faith died not yet having in hand what was promised, but still believing. How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that — heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
Are these stories ones that apply to you as well?
Are you a person of faith?
Are you a person that is looking forward to that far better country?
If not, you can be today.
It is matter of simply putting your life today into God’s hands, and with heads bowed, you can pray something like this:
Dear Lord,
I recognize that I am a sinner that needs Your forgiveness.
I recognize that I have been happy with mud when I should be preparing for a glorious future with You.
Jesus, come into my life as my Savior and my Lord.
I want to be person of faith that is looking forward to that better country that You have made for us.
Thank you for keeping the promise that You will be found by those who seek You.
Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, please come and see me after the service is finished, and now I want to invite you to demonstrate your faith by partaking in communion.
For if you, by faith, recognize Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you are invited to share in the elements of the table.
You do not have to be a member of this church to partake, but we do ask that you have a relationship with Jesus.
If you do not know Jesus, that is, you are not yet a person of faith, you do not trust Him with your life, please let the elements pass by.
Please wait until the time comes when you do have that personal relationship with the Lord Jesus.
We practice “communion” because we are to remember the death of the Lord Jesus.
We take the bread to remind us that it was by the body of our Savior that our salvation came.
He died in our place.
He became our substitute.
Being led in prayer by ____, let us take a moment and thank Him for being our sacrifice.
(Prayer)
The apostle Paul writes, "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me."
Let’s partake together.
We take the cup to remind us that it was by the blood of our Savior that our salvation came.
He died for our sins.
He became our sacrifice.
It is here we rejoice in the forgiveness we have received.
____ will now come and lead us in prayer.
Again, the apostle Paul writes, "In the same way, after supper he took the cup saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
Let’s partake together.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
BENEDICTION:
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
RESOURCES:
Sermon Central:
Buchanan, Rodney A New Heaven and a New Earth: It Was Meant to Be
_____ Thoughts on Heaven
Malone, Steve Top Ten Reasons Why Heaven Is Going to Be a Blast
Ritz, Ken What Will Heaven Be Like?
Shirley, Jerry The New Jerusalem – Heaven – Eternity
Smithson, John I’m Getting Homesick
Thomas, Roger Seven Wonders of Heaven
Books & Articles:
Alcorn, Randy. In Light of Eternity: Perspectives on Heaven. Colorado Springs: Waterbrook Press, 1999.
Carattini, Jill. Looking for Overland. Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, 2006, July 24. Accessed August 7 2006.
Keener, Craig S. The Ivp Bible Background Commentary: New Testament. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1993.
Lewis, C. S. The Last Battle. The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1956.
________. The Silver Chair. The Chronicles of Narnia. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1956.
Miller, Lisa. "Why We Need Heaven." Newsweek, August 12 2002, 44-51.
Wiersbe, Warren W. The Bible Exposition Commentary: New Testament. Colorado Springs: ChariotVictor Publishing, 1989.
Yancey, Philip. "Heaven Can’t Wait." Christianity Today, September 7 1984, 53.
