All right. Good morning. Did everyone get what they wanted for Christmas? Any surprises? I read an article a while back in which various celebrities were asked to name their most memorable Christmas presents, and the answers might surprise you. These were A-list celebrities; people with money and fame; people who can buy pretty much anything they want.
• Catherine Zeta-Jones, for example. An Academy Award-winning actress and movie star. To put this in perspective, when she and her husband, Michael Douglas, were married, he gave her an engagement ring worth about three million dollars. A ten-carat diamond. I imagine she’s received some pretty expensive and exotic gifts over the years. So what do you think her most memorable Christmas present was? A pair of white roller skates that she got when she was nine years old.
• Another movie star quoted in the article, George Clooney, said this: "I remember a bicycle when I was like 10 that was about the greatest thing I ever saw in my life. It took my breath away. When you’re a kid, coming down and underneath the tree there’s a bike . . . " Now, George Clooney and his wife Amal own a villa on Lake Como in Italy that was constructed in the 18th century. It is worth over $100 million dollars. A few years ago, he sold his Tequila company, Casamigos, for over a billion dollars. But the most memorable Christmas present he ever received was a bicycle when he was ten years old.
Perhaps in the month of December you saw some commercials for luxury cars. They usually go something like this: It’s Christmas morning. The man hands his wife the keys to a new car. She hesitates for a moment, wondering if it could really be true, then she runs to open the door, and there it is, sitting in the driveway! A new Mercedes, with a big red bow on top! She’s thrilled beyond words! Now, I ask you, what percentage of the men who watch ESPN or the CBS Evening News, and who see the commercials, can afford to buy their wives an $80 thousand dollar car for Christmas? They might as well be advertising a Learjet as a Christmas present, or a helicopter, or a yacht. Or maybe a small island in the South Pacific. What are these advertisers thinking?
Well, what they’re probably thinking is that we all want to be like the people in the commercial – wealthy, and attractive, and happy. And young, too—the people in the commercials are always young. And the advertisers are hoping that in order to pursue that fantasy, a lot of people will be willing to load up on debt. But the ironic thing is that the people who really can afford to buy a Mercedes as a Christmas present – or a jet, or a helicopter, or a yacht, or an island – when those folks think about the best gift they ever received, it isn’t a ten-carat diamond. It’s a pair of skates or a bicycle. It’s probably the same with you. The most memorable gift you ever received probably wasn’t the most expensive. It might have been an electric train, or a dollhouse, or a chemistry set. Or a BB gun; maybe even a "Red Ryder Carbine Action Two-Hundred Shot Lightning Loader Range Model Air Rifle," like Ralphie wanted in "A Christmas Story". If so, I hope you didn’t shoot your eye out. But for most of us, nothing will ever compare to the presents we received as children. As Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney, and countless others have learned, nothing money can buy will ever match the joy, and wonder, and excitement of a child, coming down the stairs and seeing, sitting under the tree, the one thing they wanted most in the whole world.
Now, why is it that, as we grow older, we lose that ability to rejoice over a gift, like a child does at Christmas? I think one reason is that, as we grow up, we learn a hard truth about gifts. Which is that they break. They get old and wear out. They fail to live up to their promise. As the years pass, we find, over and over again, that the things we hoped for and sought after—the treasures we acquired and the goals we achieved—they don’t really do for us what we thought they would. They don’t satisfy the deep longings of our heart. They may give us a great deal of pleasure. And for a time, they may be everything we hoped for. But eventually, the appeal fades. The joy dissipates. We outgrow the bike. We finish all the experiments in the Science Kit. We get tired of practicing the guitar. We lose interest in building model airplanes. And we’re on to the next thing. But each time, we’re a little less hopeful and a little less excited than we were before. The sense of anticipation isn’t quite as keen. Because in our heart of hearts, we know that our new interest won’t be enough to make us happy. Even if we get exactly what we thought we wanted, eventually we’ll be disappointed. And so even a new car becomes just a means of transportation, a machine that has to be washed, and filled with gas, and taken to the dealer for maintenance. An obligation that we have to make monthly payments on, and buy insurance for. We may like the car very much. But it’s lost its ability to thrill us; it no longer has the capacity to fill us with joy. It’s not the "stuff that dreams are made of". It’s just a car.
The same could be said of anything in this world, really: possessions, experiences, achievements. As much as we may enjoy them, somehow they all fall short. C.S. Lewis puts it this way in his book Mere Christianity:
"Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not speaking of what would ordinarily be called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job, but something has evaded us."
That’s true, isn’t it? Children can long for something intensely, and they can rejoice over it on Christmas morning, partly because they haven’t lived long enough to realize that the joy won’t last. And that’s the way it should be. That’s part of the innocence of childhood. There’s nothing sadder than a nine-year-old who’s already jaded and cynical. But where does that leave us, who can no longer be thrilled by a new doll, or a bicycle? What do we do? Give up? Become like Scrooge, a bitter old man muttering under his breath at all the "foolishness" and "nonsense" of Christmas? No. What we need to do is consider the joy which Christmas brings to children, all the wonder and excitement, and then remind ourselves that this is what God has in store for us. Remind ourselves that there will come a day when all of us, everyone who has trusted in Christ, will rejoice like that. And that joy will not disappoint. It will not fade away. It will not diminish with the passage of time. It will last, for ever and ever. Because the problem isn’t that our desire for joy is illegitimate, or naïve, or childish. On the contrary, God made us to rejoice, and to sing, and to celebrate. The problem is that nothing in this world is sufficient to sustain our joy. It all eventually disappoints.
What we should do, then, is look forward to the day of Christ’s return; the day of his second advent; the day when all of God’s promises will be fulfilled. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians,
“20 For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” (2 Corinthians 1:20)
On that day, we will rejoice, like children do on Christmas morning. But there’s one crucial difference. We will never say, as children sometimes do after the presents are opened, "Is that all there is?" Because we will never come to the end of all that God has prepared for us. Instead, we will find that, as the Psalmist testified,
“You make known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” (Psalm 16:11)
“Eternal pleasures”. The joy will never fade, but we will be glad and rejoice in Christ forever. In fact, even the joy and wonder of a child at Christmas is only a dim shadow of what we will experience on the day Christ returns – and not only on that day, but on every day after that, throughout eternity. Listen to the testimony of the Scriptures:
13 But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:13)
" 24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—” (Jude 1:24)
“Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.” (Revelation 19:7)
The day of Christ’s return will be a day of great rejoicing, a day when all of our hopes, and desires will come true. And heaven, our eternal dwelling place, will also be a place of gladness and fulfillment. But let’s drill down a bit further. What will be the cause of our joy? What do we have to look forward to when Christ returns? What will heaven be like? I’ll start by admitting that there’s a lot we don’t know about heaven, and can’t know, simply because we can’t fully comprehend it in our present state. We will need our resurrected and glorified bodies, and our resurrected and glorified minds, to fully understand and experience everything that God has in store for us. And so heaven is often depicted in the Bible by way of analogy, by comparing it to something we do understand. For example, here is how the book of Revelation describes heaven:
“10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. . . . 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.” (Revelation 21:10-11, 18-21)
Now, do I think that there will be literal streets in the heavenly city, and that they will be made of literal gold, the shiny metal that is number 79 on the periodic table of the elements? Probably not. But that description is as close as we can get to understanding the beauty, and the incorruptibility, and the great value of our eternal dwelling place. Because gold is beautiful, and does not tarnish, and is immensely valuable. Can you imagine a city where the most ordinary building materials, the paving stones in the streets, are made of one of the most valuable metals we know of? And the answer is no, not really. We can’t really imagine it. Paul tells us in Ephesians that God “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”. Heaven is beyond imagination. And so all that these descriptions, these analogies, can do is give us a glimpse, an inkling of what is in store for us. All we know for sure is that it will be better than anything we can imagine.
Nevertheless, there are some things we do know about heaven, and they are amazing. Let’s look at some.
First, we know there are things we will no longer be troubled by. Sin, for example. Our sin, and the sins of others. And that means that a great many of things which make this life difficult, and painful, and tragic will simply no longer be a part of our reality, or anyone’s reality. They won’t exist. And so no more evil, or betrayal, or deception. No more lies, pride, hatred, malice. No more greed, or lust, or envy. None of those things will exist, either in ourselves or in others. Nor will we be tempted to engage in them. We will have no desire to. I don’t know about you, but the prospect of my own indwelling sin being fully purged and my own heart and mind being ncompletely cleansed is even more appealing than the prospect of no longer being the object of others’ sin. And in heaven that struggle with sin will be over, once and for all. This is one of my favorite verses:
“2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)
“We shall be like him.” And so, just as Christ is immortal and eternal, so shall we be. We will never grow old or die. And just as Christ is pure, and holy, and sinless, so also shall we be. We will be confirmed in holiness. And that will be our final, and eternal, state. I’m looking forward to that. I’m looking forward to that struggle with sin being a thing of the past. I’m looking forward to having no desire to sin, but for my only desire, in everything I do, for my sole desire to be to love and honor God. Amen?
We also know that we will no longer be troubled by sickness or death. Our bodies will not be the weak and limited vessels that they are now. They will never get tired, or injured, they will never grow old. Instead, they will be glorious, and powerful, and immortal. No more trips to the doctor, no more funerals. Sound good? As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:
“42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
“51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44, 51-53)
And we will all be good-looking, too. Paul doesn’t say that, but I’m sure it’s implied. Maybe heaven will be like Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon, “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."
Not only that, but in heaven there will be no sorrow, no suffering, no shame or regret, no grief or sadness, no fear or worry. That will be a blessing, won’t it? These debilitating emotions which cloud our days will all be gone. Because there will no longer be any reason for them.
“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:1-4)
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes”. Is there a more beautiful promise in all of Scripture? “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain”. Never again.
Those are some of the things in this world that will be absent in heaven: sin and evil, sickness and death, sadness and sorrow. What about the positive things we have to look forward to? I’ll pick just one. It comes from 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter” that is often read at weddings, that starts with “love is patient, love is kind”. Paul gives several characteristics of love, and then tells us that, in contrast to spiritual gifts such as prophecy or tongues, love will never pass away, love never fails. We’ll read starting in verse 9:
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:9-13)
The present time, the time between Christ’s first and second coming, is according to Paul, a time of incompleteness. Our knowledge of God, and our experience of God, is limited and partial. What we see now is like a dim reflection in a mirror. The King James Version says that “we see through a glass, darkly”. Yes, we have the Holy Spirit, and by his power we are being transformed, every day, from what we were to what we will be. But until that process is brought to completion on the day of Christ’s return, our ability to comprehend who and what God is, and more importantly, our ability to understand what he is for us, will be incomplete. Remember what we read in 1 John 3:2 a few minutes ago: “we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” We shall see him as he is, in all of his glory, as did Peter, James, and John on the mount of Transfiguration, when Matthew tells us that “His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.” (Matthew 17:2). And so in heaven, our vision of God will be clear, and glorious, and beyond anything we can imagine.
But more than just possessing a perfect objective vision of God, all of his goodness, and grace, and mercy, and justice, and wisdom, and power, and glory, and majesty, we will also have a perfect subjective experience of God. And that is why Paul’s thoughts on knowing God fully are found in 1 Corinthians 13; the “love chapter”. Because knowing God and experiencing his love are two aspects of the same relationship. What will be different in heaven is not just that we will see and fully comprehend who God is, in every respect, without any confusion, or misunderstanding. What will also be gloriously different is that we will know, and experience, God’s love fully and completely, in a way that is beyond anything we can now imagine. Listen to Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians:
“16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19)
Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus—and my prayer for myself and for all of you—is that by the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, we would be able to grasp the full dimensions of Christ’s love for us, its length and width and height and depth. And not merely to understand it intellectually, which is impossible because it “surpasses knowledge”, but to experience it fully, in ways that words cannot express. That prayer, I know will not be, and cannot, be answered completely in this life, although to the degree that we do come to know and experience God’s love now, it is amazing and transformative; it makes all the difference. But that prayer of Paul’s can and will be answered in the life to come. We will know, and experience, God’s love fully, and completely, and eternally, love that never fades or diminishes, love without an end. Amen?
Now, with all of this joy and love, you might think that our emotional circuits would get a bit overloaded, so that we would just be walking around heaven all the time with big silly grins on our faces, like people high on some drug. But that won’t be the case, because as our experience of joy and love are increased, so also will our capacity for joy and love be increased. Let’s go back to what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:
“42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. . . . 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.”
What this is telling us is that our resurrection body—and that includes our resurrection mind and heart—will be transformed into something that is far more glorious and powerful. We will be like Christ in his glorified humanity, the “heavenly man”. And so we will have a greater capacity for joy and love than we do now. As our experience of those things increases, so also will our capacity for them increase.
Now, as wonderful as all of this sounds, why does it matter? Looking forward to that day; anticipating the joy which awaits us; looking forward to the rewards that God has promised us – why is it so important? Shouldn’t we be focused on the here and now, instead of dreaming about heaven, and resurrected bodies, and streets of gold? Yes, we do need to live our lives in the present. We do need to pay attention to what is in front of us, what our responsibilities are, what we need to do every day. But not instead of thinking about the future. Because thinking about the future is what enables us to do all those things today in a way that honors and pleases God. You see, in order to persevere in faith; in order to keep trusting, and obeying, and following Christ as we go about our daily activities, we have to be convinced that it’s going to be worth it. We have to be convinced that at the end of our lives, every choice we make to obey and honor God, every choice we make to serve God every day, will be worth it. Worth the cost, worth the inconvenience, worth saying “no” to self and “yes” to Christ. There is an unbreakable link between our faith in the future promises of God, and our faithfulness in living for God today. We must be convinced that the joy to come will far exceed any pain, or struggle, or sacrifice that we experience now.
For example, when we are tempted by greed or covetousness, we need to believe that the treasures God has stored up for us are far greater than any material good. If we’re tempted by lust or gluttony, we need to be convinced that the pleasure of knowing God will be far more satisfying than the temporary pleasures of sin. And when we’re tempted to give up, when we feel as if we’ve come to the end of our ability to persevere, we need to seek God’s strength, knowing that he will fully compensate us for all our pain and sorrow, and far more besides. Our faith in "future grace" is essential to our spiritual health, and happiness, and holiness. To put it another way, God has given us dozens and dozens of beautifully wrapped boxes, many of them labelled, "Do Not Open Until Christ’s Second Advent". He’s told us that they are full of beautiful gifts; magnificent treasures, things wonderful beyond imagination. Things worth waiting for; things worth giving up all we have for. The question is whether we believe Him, or whether, instead, we suspect that the boxes are empty, or filled with worthless junk. And our answer to that question is what makes all the difference.
And how do we strengthen our faith? First, by knowing the promises. Here are a few:
“18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)
“For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far 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 Corinthians 4:17)
“9 However, as it is written:
“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—” (1 Corinthians 2:9)
Verses like these assure us that no matter what difficulties we may experience now; no matter what losses or deprivations we may suffer; no matter what the cost of discipleship may be, our reward will be far greater; so great, in fact, that it is literally beyond our ability to imagine. It will be Christmas morning times a thousand, and it will never end.
But as precious and encouraging as theses verses are, there is more. These are general promises; general assurances that following Christ is worth the cost. But we don’t live a general life; we live a specific life. We make specific choices, every hour of every day. And when we do, we need to know that this specific act of obedience or self-denial is worth it. We need to know that every act of faithful obedience, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, will be rewarded. And so we have these additional promises as well.
“8 because you know that the Lord will reward each one for whatever good they do, whether they are slave or free.” (Ephesians 6:8)
“42 And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” (Matthew 10:42)
The enemy, of course, wants us to believe differently. He would have us think that the so-called "little" things don’t really matter. He wants us to think it means nothing, for instance, how I treat the person serving me coffee at Starbucks; or whether I nurse a grudge against someone at work; or whether I apologize to someone I’ve offended. He would have us believe that none of these small, everyday choices really matters. But that’s what life is mostly made of – all of those small, everyday choices. The sum total of these choices is who we are. Not only that, but when we do face a big decision, we will tend to conduct ourselves just as we have in the small, everyday things. As Christ said,
"He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much." (Luke 16:10)
And so our everyday choices really do matter, every one of them. Every choice to obey God; every choice to be faithful to Christ and to deny yourself, will receive its reward. And the reward will be far greater than the cost. There’s a lot more I could say about the life to come, and about the fact that it will be worth everything we do, or say, or suffer, for Christ. But I’ll let the apostle Paul have the last word:
"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Your labor is not in vain. Your suffering and sacrifice are not in vain. Your faithfulness to Christ is not in vain. So stand firm. And let us give ourselves fully to Christ and to his work, looking ahead to the glory that is to come. Amen.
