Ever thought that Heaven might be boring. I mean the concept of an eternal worship service just doesn’t really light my fire. Don’t get me wrong. I am not being irreverent or dishonouring of God, I just think the traditional concept that we are going to walk around on clouds with harps for all eternity is not particularly appealing to me.
Mark Twain’s famous story of Miss Watson, a rather stodgy old fuddy-duddy. She began to tell Huck Finn about heaven, and Huck later mused: “She said. . . she was going to live so as to go to the good place. I made up my mind I shouldn’t try for it. But I never said so, because it would only make trouble and wouldn’t do no good. 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 by a considerable sight. I was glad about that, because I wanted him and me to be together.”
Then I got to thinking:- If Heaven is boring it would have to be because God is boring. That is utter nonsense. Why is that utter nonsense. On what basis can I come to that conclusion? Good question.
Our desire for pleasure and the experience of joy come directly from God’s hand.
He made
our taste buds,
adrenaline,
Sex and our sex drives,
our ability to laugh
our ability to appreciate beauty
the nerve endings that convey pleasure to our brains
joy
the feeling of exhilaration
Our Imagination..
All this was made by the very God we accuse of being boring. Are we so arrogant as to imagine that human beings came up with the idea of having fun, of enjoyment? Heaven is God’s home, the dwelling place of the One who is infinite in creativity, goodness, beauty, and power. How could the home of someone like that be anything less than thrilling?
All secondary joys are derivative in nature. They cannot be separated from God. Flowers are beautiful for 1 reason – God is beautiful.
Rainbows are stunning because God is stunning.
Puppies are delightful because God is delightful.
Sports are fun because God is fun.
Study is rewarding because God is rewarding.
Work is fulfilling because God is fulfilling.
Every other joy will be derivative, flowing from the fountain of our relationship with God.
John Donne said, “No man ever saw God and lived. And yet, I shall not live till I see God.”
Or as Randy Alcorn puts it, “The day I die will be the best day I’ve ever lived.”
10 reasons why heaven will be a blast.
1 We get a new body
2 Corinthians 4:5 – talking about our bodies
“While we live in this earthly tent we groan with a feeling of oppression. It is not that we want to get rid of our earthly body but we want to have the heavenly one put on over us so that what is immortal will be transformed by life”
In heaven – won’t be mystical pieces of cloud, Spirit people, floating along. We will actually have a body. The limitations, sickness, disease hassled that we had with earthly bodies will be gone.
2 We get to live in a custom-built house.
John 14:1-3 Jesus says
“I go to prepare a place for you.”
Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us- custom-built house.
3 We get to eat great food.
Who likes to eat?
Mathew 8:11
“I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Revelation 19:9
“And the angel said to me ‘Blessed are those that are invited to the wedding supper of the lamb.” And he answered – “These are the true words of God.”
Talking about mother of all buffets
Think of best restaurants – this is going to be the best buffet
Marriage supper of the Lamb – eat and feast
Can’t get fat in heaven – How good will that be?
Heaven is going to be a blast because it is a party
Devil has made hell out to be one big party
In the world people believe going to be one great big party in Hell
– right concept but just wrong part of eternity. Heaven will be a blast – going to be a feast
· Be there with relatives, friends,mates – awesome. One big party in Heaven.
4 We will get to talk with Bible characters
We will be able to chat to bible characters and famous Christians throughout history.
5 See and speak with our loved ones
Relatives, friends, people we loved here on earth who died knowing Christ
1 Thessalonians 4:13-17
“We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever.”
Will you recognise each other in heaven? I believe so. Not only recognise each other – interaction, fellowship
I reckon heaven will be blast just for fact can hang out with people we loved here on earth
6 We will get to live in a perfect world.
·Need to understand when God created Adam and Eve and Garden of Eden – He created it a perfect paradise for us. Bible says God gave Adam and Eve everything. Pleasant to the eyes, food good to eat, animals – Paradise. If God created that here on earth, how much more awesome Heaven where God lives? Heaven will be a blast – perfect environment, perfect world, just like Adam & Eve had in Garden of Eden – awesome
7 There is going to be ‘NO More’s’
Revelations 7:16 says
“There will be no more hunger, thirst, scorching heat, tears, death, crying, no more bad guys and no more impure things.”
·The ‘NO MORES’ of heaven will make it a blast.
No more sighing, crying or dying
No more ageing
No more cancer
No more heart attacks
No more pain
No more witchcraft
No more hate
No more abuse
No more hurt
No More Mondays
No More sadness
No more divorce
No more accident
No more death
No more suicide
8 Take part in awesome worship services
Need to understand worship isn’t just about singing. Whole atmosphere in heaven – honour and worship. Time is a concept God invented for humanity – No time in heaven which will mean that music in heaven will be very different than music on earth:- which is based on a beat and time.
Randy Alcorn, in his book simply titled Heaven, says, “Consider what it will be like to see the Masai of Kenya, the Dinka of Sudan, the Hmong, Athabaskans, Tibetans, Aucans, Icelanders, Macedonians, Moldovans, Moroccans, and Peruvians. Hundreds of nations, thousands of people groups, will gather to worship Christ. And many national and cultural distinctives, untouched by sin, will continue to the glory of God.
Is 60:11 – kind of hints at the idea that Alcorn is talking about.
11 And your gates shall be open continually, they shall not be shut day or night, that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations—and their kings led in procession [your voluntary captives].
9 If no time in eternity – heaven
Won’t be able to conceptualise time in heaven. So my idea is that we will live all of eternity all at once as there will be no past and no future as there is no time. But as we live all of eternity all at once – that all at once moment – lasts for all eternity.
10 We get to see God.
John 3:2
“Dear Friends, now we are children of God and what we be has not yet been made known, but we can know that when He appears, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.”
John 14:3
“And if I go I will prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you will also be where I am.”
Amazing to actually sit down and talk with God.
Have you ever sat down and talked with someone who is an expert in something that really interests you? How much greater will it be sitting down and talking with God.
I think heaven will be a blast just for that one reason alone – the fact that we get to hang out with God.
How do we get there?
John 14:6 – Jesus said
“I am the way, the truth and the light, no-one comes to the Father but through me.”
John 3:16 Jesus said
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believes in Me will not perish but have everlasting life.”
Heaven is going to be an incredible place.
WHERE WOULD YOU GO?
If you were to pass from this life to the next tonight, where would you go?
How confident are you that you would end up in heaven?
John 14:1-3 –
Heaven is a Place
Heaven is a Prepared Place
Heaven is a Prepared Place for Prepared People
