Have you ever seen the poster of “Deep Impact” from Harding? One year Harding University centered the theme of their yearly camp for high school students around the title: Deep Impact. They were playing off the movie that recently been released by the same title. The tease-line from the movie was: Heaven and Earth are about to collide. Harding made a small change to share a great truth – Heaven and Earth have already collided!
God has put something in our heart that longs for more than this life can ever satisfy – Especially when it comes to relationships. We spend so much time investing in so many different relationships. Yet time and time again we find that as good as we ever get it… there’s still something in our hearts that is unanswered. There is a part of us still longing for something more than the best human friendships, love affairs and family relations we ever experience. Know why?
Listen to this verse from Ecclesiastes:
“I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:10-11
God has made us to be:
Spiritual creatures – Living in this flesh confuses us, but we are creatures of spirit. Jesus tells us to worship in spirit, we pray in the spirit, at our highest and best we dwell on earth in spirit. There greatest and most important part of our being is spirit in nature. It isn’t satisfied with the physical pleasures or emotional joys of this world. It longs to be a part of something greater, something higher.
Eternal creatures – we were created with eternity in our souls. We don’t live a short shelf life and then turn in to food for worms. We are eternal. We are longing for relationships that go beyond the measurements of time. Relationships interruption, without end, without time.
Know what we’re looking for? Relationships that are so good – they could only be found in Heaven! Relationships so right – they could only be authored by Jesus Christ himself.
So lets start there. Lets talk about Heaven. Have you noticed how rarely we talk about Heaven in our churches? You’ll hear about in funerals… and we’ll talk about it as a promised reward for those who give their lives to Christ… but that’s about it.
We act almost as if learning about Heaven has no impact on how we live today. Perhaps we don’t talk about it much because we can’t quantify all the details about what Heaven will be like. Maybe we skip through it because it so challenges the limits of our human minds and sloppy theology. Maybe we give little effort to studying and learning about heaven because we’re afraid we might not ever see it. Or perhaps the real reason we don’t talk about heaven is because somewhere we got the idea that learning about Heaven is just pie-in-the-sky theology that has no real impact on how we are to live today.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, studying and meditating on Heaven is powerful. Through that kind of study God brings some important and powerful truths to bear on my life and on my relationships with others. And for just a few minutes this morning, that is what we are going to do. And I think when we’re done, you’ll agree with me – studying about Heaven will have a Divine Impact on who we are as a church – and on how the people of Jesus Christ live in fellowship with one another.
This morning, I’m going to assume you believe in Heaven – the reward of Afterlife, the Coming Kingdom of Heaven. I’m also going to assume that you’re willing to spend a little time mentally chewing on this place where Divinity dwells and to allow God to impact your daily life with His reward and rest known as Heaven.
When I learn about, study, discover and meditate on Heaven, God brings several powerful truths and influences to bear on my life. Lets look at just three. When I consider this coming Kingdom of God, --- Through Heaven God gives me…
A Divine Promise
A divine promise that life exists beyond my physical condition.
- God will give me a life better than how I look, how I walk…
- The first face the blind woman will see is Jesus himself…
A divine promise that life extends beyond my present circumstances.
It’s easy to feel as if circumstances are in control of us… For example – at the world’s fair some time ago there was an exhibit that – from a distance – appeared to show a man using an old-fashioned hand-pump to extract water from a well. But when he got close, he realized the gentleman was actually a painted wood figure, being run by a pump and pulley system operated by electricity. He thought the man was running the pump, when in truth the water pump was running him.
How I make ends meet today is not how things will be arranged in heaven. In Heaven there are no creditors, no bills, no hunger lines, no social security, no isolation, no lonely nights, no heart-breaks… No one gets fired, no one gets left, no one is rejected, no one is abandoned, no one is betrayed… no pain, no sorrow, no doubt.
A divine promise that life exceeds my personal capabilities.
I don’t have to prove myself or earn my respectability. I don’t have to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I don’t have to measure up to some kind of a standard…
This is ALMOST a double-edged sword isn’t it….Heaven reminds us that our personal capabilities are sufficient. Everything we can create in our flesh-lives is temporary. Martin Luther once said: I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess. One of the greatest deceptions of our enemy is to fool us about the permanence and importance of our own capabilities. We store up our resources to buy or build a bigger house. We use relationships to further our career. We step on people feelings and needs and call it sound business. We drive more expensive cars, dress in our fancy clothes and call it ‘normal life.’ Again, we’re trying to make this scratch life so comfortable, so pleasant. We’re trying to answer an eternal need with a temporal solution.
It is both a blessing and a frightening thing to know that when you go before the Lord he won’t ask you about how well sang, about how big your home was, about what profession you chose, about how good you are at anything… Because Heaven offers a divine promise that exceeds my personal capabilities.
A Divine Purpose
A divine purpose defined by God’s proximity
We tend to think of God as being far away, distant… Feel like we in a crowded mall at Christmas time trying to find God by playing ‘Marco’ ‘Polo’ – This affects everything. God seems so distant… His voice is muffled, his face seems obscure, his will so hard to understand. And too often we find ourselves trying to do a crash course on God’s will. Doesn’t work that way. In Heaven – God is closer than anything. We are intimate with God God’s face is right here. His voice is clearer than any other sound you’ve ever heard. His will is so clear and obvious there’s never any question.
This closeness, this proximity changes our perception of who we are, what we do. Everything in Heaven centers around God – his plan, his purpose. Everything is about him. Sometimes that doesn’t sound ‘right’ or ‘exciting.’ We can’t think of anyone we want to spend a year with… even in our best, most intimate relationships there’s no one we’re that close to… And sometimes, if we’re honest, we’re not sure want to be that close to God… because we don’t really understand him. We have an unhealthy, imbalanced, clouded view of him, his character and his acceptance and love.
We will be so close – we can feel embrace, we can sense his acceptance, revel in intimacy with this being of love and mercy who made us, who bled for us, who has loved us more than anything we’ve ever known. And that changes everything about how we live and what we do – it gives us a divine purpose based on God’s proximity.
A divine purpose defined by God’s preeminence.
We are easily confused our purposes, our priorities and our standing in the grand scheme of things. We’re kind of like the college student who went around wearing a white T-Shirt with a big Green “K” on the back. When asked, he explained what the K stood for he replied, ‘confused.’ But confused isn’t spelled with a K. The student replied, ‘you don’t know how confused I am.’
God is greater, higher, and superior to everything else in our lives, everything else in creation. Schedule, relationships, time, auto-repairs, yard-work, demons and angels all fall far from his prominence and place. God is holy, mighty, higher and greater than anything. No where is this is clearer than in Heaven. All the competing desires and practices of life are laid to waste as we see God is in all his glory and grandeur for the first time in our existence. This kind of importance resets and reshapes our priorities. Our purpose is defined by the preeminence of our creator and Lord. We immediately and entirely fall into his focus, purpose and leadership. What is important to him becomes important to us. What he wants, we want. His purpose becomes ours.
A Divine Pattern
A divine pattern rooted in the value of life.
We no longer value life based on capability, promise or similarity to our own. We’ve become confused and polluted in our valuing of life. We tend to see people based on the color, shape and condition of their flesh – not based on the unseen soul inside. We’re not sure why the church should pray for change in our nation’s views of abortion and euthanasia. The horror of war doesn’t quite horrify us anymore. We’ve become hardened to the senselessness of murder and crime against individuals these days. And we automatically attach pity to parents whose children are born different.
A young mother once told a story about her son’s experience as he grew and wanted to play on the baseball team. Jeff was born with down’s syndrome and never could relate to kids his own age. But finally, one year, a team let him join and told the mother they’d find ways to include him. His mother tells about how excited he was when he finally got his jersey. He ran upstairs and immediately put it on. He came down, smiled as proudly as anything as said these words, ‘look Mom, I’m finally a real boy.’ How terrible that he, and that anyone, would ever feel as if they aren’t a valuable, important, meaningful person in our presence.
In Heaven, we don’t see people based on color, creed, credentials, creditability, creativity, coolness, cookiness, craziness… we see each other as souls. Souls. We have a true, holy, pure value for life.
A divine pattern rooted in a vision of love.
In Heaven, we have a clear, accurate vision of love – Agape. Because we see Jesus face to face – his sacrificial, giving, boundless love is obvious and apparent. We see true love and can participate in it. We relate to one another as Christ related to others – no hatred, no sarcasm, no cut-downs, no debasing, no slurs, no gossip, no slander, no distrust. Trust, support, growth, friendship, interaction are all purified by a clear vision of love.
Doesn’t that sound great? In Heaven, by considering and reflecting on Heaven, we have… A Divine Promise, a Divine Purpose and a Divine Pattern
And here’s the secret – here’s the amazing truth and perhaps the most important part… The church is something far more than we’ve ever admitted. The church is where Heaven comes to Earth. Where Heaven collides with the earth. The church is where relationships exist on earth, as they will in Heaven. We’re an outpost of Heaven, Heaven in one of those little glass toys that you shake upside down and look inside… Remember – we pray – Your Kingdom Come – Your Will Be Done – on earth as it is in Heaven! We’re praying – help us these Heaven-like relationships now!
“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love” What do you think that means? We’ll just do a bunch of pot-lucks and people will flock to our church amazed at the constant dialogue going on up and down the table? Isn’t this what people are looking for? We don’t think like we used to… we don’t see others through eyes of flesh or human thinking… As Paul says…
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5: 16-17
We are changed, transformed. “Therefore, I urge you brothers in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices…” Give up everything else – put yourself on God’s altar to be his tool – his hands, his feet, his mouthpiece. “Don’t be conformed to the pattern of this worlds – but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, then you will be able to test God’s will – his good, pleasing, perfect will.”
Everything about who we are is based on God’s transforming power released on the earth today. We become an army of secret agents working to bring about life change with the Hope of Heaven. This is why Christ told us to pray – “Our Father, who art in Heaven – Hallowed be Thy Name… Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”
