END
Phil 3: 20, 21 (p832) July 29, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
When you set out for Florida for Disney world with your family…you might enjoy some parts of the journey…other parts, not so much (he’s touching me…No I’m not… He’s touching me!)…You might stop at Big Daddy Don Garlit’s Drag Racing Museum, but that’s not your destination…your destination is in Orlando…your reservations are at Wally World…
And if you remember Family vacations and if you arrive there and it’s closed for reservation…it’s time to punch the Moose on the Nose!
(Show picture…play 30 sec of Holiday World)
If you’re on a pilgrimage to see a moose…or a mouse…you’re not at the end of your journey until you see the moose or the mouse.
12 weeks ago we began this series called “Signs for Life”. It began at an Intersection, we’ve seen “children at play” signs…warning signs…No U turn, One Way, Dead end, Wrong Way, Caution and Yield…each and every one of these has been posted by a loving Father who wants us to make it to the end of the journey…Each of these God posted signs are designed to get us and keep us on the road.
It’s why the Apostle Peter writes….
“Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God, once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy…
Dear Friends I urge, you as aliens and strangers in the world to abstain from sinful desires which was against your soul…Live such good lives among the pagans (unbelievers) that though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (1 Pet 2: 10-12) (p858)
The Apostle Paul and Apostle Peter are in complete 100% agreement…
Our home isn’t here…Our citizenship is heaven, not here on earth…we’re on a journey…not to see a mouse or a moose….”We eagerly want to see our Savior, from heaven”
We long to glorify god here…because through that others might also glorify him on that day He visits us.”
You see as we look to the end of the journey it’s important we realize…
I HEAVEN IS MORE ABOUT A PERSON THAN A PLACE
For whatever reason we have been bombarded, saturated with pictures of heaven that show white fluffy clouds, Angels with halos and harps, a lot of singing and strumming.
[Randy Alcorn in his book about heaven tells the story of an English Vicar who when asked by a colleague what he expected after death replied…
“Well, if it comes to that, I suppose I shall inter into eternal bliss, but I really wish you wouldn’t bring up such depressing subjects!”
George Bernard Shaw wrote these words about heaven…
“Heaven, as conventionally conceived, is a place so inane, so dull, so useless, so miserable, that nobody has ever ventured to describe a whole day in heaven, though plenty of people have described a day at the seashore.”
If heaven is nothing more than a place where I sit on white clouds and play a harp day after day, then frankly, it’s not a place I get really excited about…It’s better than Hell---It’s more comfortable than being a “Post Toastie”, but it’s not a great motivation to keep on the narrow road until the end. Especially when Satan offers all kinds of exciting rabbit trails along the way.
It’s important we remember…that life is always more about relationships and people than other stuff…
Here’s a good illustration about what I mean…
In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Miss Watson attempts to persuade Huckleberry to behave by explain to him the difference between heaven and hell. Huckleberry responds with the following observation:
Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn’t think much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer would go there, and she said, not a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.
Behavior and hearts will never, ever be changed spiritually by viewing heaven as a place…
Don’t get me wrong! I believe heaven will be real, tangible, rock solid.
I also believe Hell will be real, tangible, fiery and horribly eternal…
Here’s the problem with viewing heaven in a place…Cor 2: 9, 10 records
‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” – but God has revealed it to us by his spirit”
Did you get that???!! Don’t try to present or understand heaven, the end…your earthy, non-glorified eyes, ears and mind are not capable…
But…you have a relationship with God through his Spirit…His spirit has made him “Abba” Daddy to you…this relationship reveals the promise of heaven…not as a place, but as His people.
It’s why I constantly share with you Matt 7:21 through 23….”Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only he who does the will of my father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name? And in your name drive out demons? And perform miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evil doers.”
When you think of heaven as a place your trying to be good enough to get there…to keep the law, do church stuff…and Jesus says…”you have to know my Father’s will (and the only way we know it is through the Holy spirit) don’t just do stuff…have a relationship with me… know me…and then heaven isn’t a place you go…It’s a family reunion.
Its Paul understanding his citizenship is in heaven…”eagerly awaiting His Savior from Heaven’s return…It’s Peter excited to glorify God on the day He visits us.
[The work of God can only be carried on by the power of God. The church is a spiritual organism fighting spiritual battles. Only spiritual power can make it function as God ordained.
The key is not money, organization, cleverness or education….the key is God…His Spirit and His power moving us forward…]
“Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” (Rom 8:14)
This is exactly the relationship Paul is talking about to the Corinthians
1 Cor 5: 5-10 (p 818)
God has made us to spend eternity in relationship with Him…we severed that relationship not him…How is it restored…
He calls us back…He pays for our transgressions through the blood of His own Son…We repent and reestablish the relationship through our death, burial and resurrection….
The Holy Spirit enters this earthly tent…lives within…. God’s down payment for an external relationship.
Our text in Philippians three tells us something important about this relationship…about the end.
The greatest miracle…the most amazing aspect of eternal relationship, guaranteed through the Holy Spirit.
II JESUS CHRIST, THE ALL POWERFUL, WILL TRANSFORM US TO BE LIKE HIM
“Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body.”
What kind authority does Jesus have? According to Matt 18: 1-8 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him”.
Why, because he made himself nothing, become a servant, was made in human likeness, become in appearance a man…and then humbled himself completely in obedience to His father, even dying on a cross.
Phil 2: 9-1 (p831)
The Son glorified the Father with perfect obedience to the Father’s plan…even when that plan included a Roman cross…
As Jesus prayed before the crucifixion in John chapter 17….listen to His request…
John 17: 1-5 (p765)
This plan, this relationship existed before the world begun…As did God’s plan for our salvation through Jesus…Jesus knew this salvation would be presented through the disciples. Here’s what Jesus wanted more than anything else as he approached the cross.
John 17: 11-19 (p766)
But he wasn’t’ just thinking of the 12….He was thinking about those who would be saved through their message…Listen to the heart of Jesus…
John 17: 20-26 (p766)
Powerful stuff, huh? The relationship that Jesus has with the Father, and the Father has with him flows powerfully into the lives of His followers through the Holy Spirit…Not just for 12, but even those who would be saved through their message. Those who have been adopted into the family…you see it’s that Spirit that is transforming us into the image of Jesus…Holy isn’t His first name…it’s the work He performs in us as believers…He’s molding (as we surrender) our hearts, minds, attitudes into being shaped like Jesus heart, mind, attitude…Cross Shaped.
When that is genuinely happening in your life you are aware of it…and so are other believers and non-believers alike (even if they don’t understand it)
Even while this is occurring…our inward transformation through the Holy spirit…it takes place in a body that is wasting away…A tent…Inwardly we are hopefully becoming Holy H.O.L.Y. but our earthly bodies are becoming Holey H.O.L.E.Y….Holy= filled with Jesus, Holey= Filled with Holes.
“Therefore we do not lose heart though outwardly we are wasting away yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles (share just a few of these light momentary troubles…rods, lashes, stoning, shipwrecks, hunger, jail, you know…the light stuff)…these are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all.
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Cor 4: 16-18)
I promise you Paul wasn’t focusing on clouds, harps and golden streets…He was looking straight into the face of a Savior who reversed His blasphemous, violent, persecuting hide!
The one who pulled him out of the angry dirt on the road to Damascus and redirected his road towards home…
And in that place we call heaven…in the presence of Jesus…spiritual perfection is attained, our sanctification becomes glorification.
And that prefect Spirit will then be housed in a prefect body…”Our lowly bodies transformed to be into his glorious body.
[And after I’ve spent a day or 1,000 years on my face before the feet of Jesus telling Him how much I love Him and how grateful I am for His grace and my salvation…l’ll get up…look for my Dad and ask “Wanna Race?” And he’ll say “you know you look great without your scars”…
And then we’ll both fall at the feet of Jesus again for a day or 1,000 years…it doesn’t’ really matter…]
