A young couple was on the way to their wedding ceremony and they were tragically killed in an automobile accident and they went to heaven. They were standing before the Pearly Gates and St. Peter was there. And they were kind of disappointed they never got married. And so, they asked St. Peter, they said, "Peter is there any way we can get married up here in heaven?" Peter said, "I don’t know. Nobody’s ever asked. Let me go check." And so he went away for the longest time. He was gone for like two months. And they began to wonder if this was really a good idea. They started to think about, "What happens if we don’t like each other? Are we stuck forever? You know, we’re in heaven, after all." And about that time, St. Peter came back and he was all bedraggled looking. He was tired and you could tell he was a little irritated. And he said, "Yes, you can get married in heaven." And they said, "Well, that’s great, Peter." They said, "But let me ask you a question. What if we don’t like each other? Is it possible that we can get a divorce up here, too?" And old Peter turned red with anger. And he threw his clipboard down. And he said, "Listen, man, it took me three months to find a preacher up here. Do you know how long it’s going to take me to find a lawyer?"
First of all, my apologies to the lawyers here this morning. We know heaven won’t be quite like that, but sometimes this home is. But I want to talk today about heaven on earth – the place where God is. We’re going to consider four characteristics of the place where God is. Where God is things will be lovely, things will be inclusive, things will be dependent, and things will be prioritized.
Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 84. This Psalm is titled “The Joy of Dwelling With God.” Our desire should be to dwell with God; to base our existence on Him.
I. Where God is things will be lovely (loving)
Read Psalm 84:1-2
I would like to think of verse 1 as saying, “How loving is your tabernacle, O Lord of Hosts!” Where is the dwelling place of God? Our hearts – and that dwelling place should be lovely; that dwelling place should be loving. Where does that love come from? God places it there, and maintains it there as we stay in relationship with Him. As our relationship fades, our love fades, for each other and for ourselves. The person out of relationship with God cannot be truly happy, and cannot truly love. John put it this way in 1 John 3:13-19 (READ) “We shall know by this that we are of the truth…” By what? By loving “not with word or tongue but by deed and truth.”
There is a sense of urgency in that love. Verse 2 says “My soul longs, yes even faints for the courts of the Lord; My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.” If we are where God is – if God is here – love will be a priority. The deacons’ wives in a Colorado church held a dessert one evening to welcome a new pastor’s wife. To further acquaint her with Colorado and the church, the secretaries hurriedly typed questions to be randomly selected and answered by the deacons’ wives. One question stole the show with its typographical error: "Why do you like loving in Colorado?" Naturally, the shyest wife got the question. She read it out loud, blushed, then stammered, "I guess ... uh ... because of the cold nights."1 Folks, when you live somewhere as cold as Colorado, love becomes a priority!
II. Where God is things will be inclusive.
Read Psalm 84:3,4
Did you know that birds that nested in the temple could not be driven away? God’s house is supposed to be a place of safe haven for all. Central Christian Church wants to be the “grace place.” The Psalmist says even the smallest, most defenseless, most insignificant bird, the sparrow, has a home at God’s altar. Where God is, all are welcome, and in order to be near God, we must be near all His children.
Not only must God’s place be a place of rest for all, but also it must be a place of acceptance and tolerance. Not acceptance and tolerance for sin, but acceptance and tolerance for each other. Notice the Beatitudes. What do they say? Blessed is… for theirs; for they; the Beatitudes are inclusive. They are for a group. It is God’s intent for us to be a group, a family, a support network. We cannot do that if we are exclusive rather than inclusive. We are called, as Galatians says, to “bear one another’s burdens, and thus fulfill the law of Christ.” Listen to what Charles Swindoll says about acceptance and tolerance:
"The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit that there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It’s an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality--but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets, and they usually don’t tell others or even want to. The bar flourishes not because most people are alcoholics, but because God has put into the human heart the desire to know and be known, to love and be loved, and so many seek a counterfeit at the price of a few beers. With all my heart, I believe that Christ wants his church to be unshockable, a fellowship where people can come in and say, ’I’m sunk, I’m beat, I’ve had it.’ Alcoholics Anonymous has this quality--our churches too often miss it… We’re the only outfit I know that shoots its wounded. We can become the most severe, condemning, judgmental, guilt-giving people on the face of planet Earth, and we claim it’s in the name of Jesus Christ. And all the while, we don’t even know we’re doing it. That’s the pathetic part of it all.”2 Look at the end of the passage: Verse 4 says “Blessed [happy… excited… ecstatic!!] are those who dwell [remain… abide… flourish!!] in Your house; They will still be praising You.” They are praising God… together! Together as an inclusive, gracious, tolerant, accepting body of believers they continue to praise God. Do you want unity? Praise God! Do you want freedom? Praise God! Do you want a fellowship that fellowships? Praise God! Remember, when the praising stops, trouble starts.
III. Where God is things will be dependent
Read Psalm 84:5-7
A man was working on the tin roof of his barn. He was near the top when he lost his footing and began to slide down the roof towards the edge. He cried out “God, help me, help me!” As he continued to slide towards the edge he again cried out, “God, save me, help me!” Just as he reached the edge and was about to plummet to the ground his pants hooked on a nail and he was saved. He called out, “Never mind God, I took care of it myself.”
We have been raised in a culture that says, “God helps those that help themselves.” In a George Barna survey done in July of 2000, 53% of Christians surveyed strongly agreed that the Bible teaches this precept. Another 22% agreed somewhat. The Bible, however, says differently. Jeremiah 17:5 says, “This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts on man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord.’” Proverbs 28:26 puts it this way: “He who trusts in himself is a fool…” Paul says in Romans, “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath {of God} through Him.”
What can we do without God? Nothing! Why would we try to do anything without the creator of the universe? A father watched through the kitchen window as his small son attempted to lift a large stone out of his sandbox. The boy was frustrated as he wrestled with the heavy object because he just couldn’t get enough leverage to lift it over the side. Finally the boy gave up and sat down dejectedly on the edge of the sandbox with his head in his hands. The father went outside and asked, “What’s wrong son? Can’t you lift that rock out?” “No sir” the boy said, “I can’t do it.” “Have you used all the strength that’s available to you?” the father asked. “Yes sir,” the boy replied. “No, you haven’t,” the father said. “You haven’t asked me to help you.”3
Our God is a BIG God, yet we act like He is so tiny! We plan based on what we can do, instead of looking at what HE can do! God calls us to come out from the lie that is self-sufficiency! Just as He told Paul, He tells us: “MY grace is… WHAT? Sufficient For Thee!”
We have a day of fasting and prayer coming up on May 3. Just as an aside, may I encourage you to sign up for a 15-minute time slot on the sheet by Alan’s office and come fast and pray with us? There are 19 slots remaining, and may I say how proud I am of our board of elders and deacons. They filled the first 22 slots on that sign up sheet! Our leadership is committed to prayer! Abraham Lincoln set aside a day for “national humiliation, fasting and prayer” in 1863. Let me read a portion of his proclamation on that occasion:
"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God."4
It is time to write our Declaration of Dependence upon God and His providence.
IV. Where God is things will be prioritized
Read Psalm 84:10,11
Gordon Dahl said, “Most middle-class Americans tend to worship their work, work at their play, and play at their worship.”5 We are guilty of majoring on the minors. Peter knew about priorities. He realized that it was more important to be tossed about in the storm with Jesus than to be “safe and dry” in the boat without Him. The sinful woman in Luke 7 knew about priorities. She washed his feet with her tears and then anointed them with perfume. The song says “You don’t know the cost of the oil in my alabaster box,” but the woman did. For her, worship was costly; for her, worship was a priority. We need to make sure we are never like the men who owned the slave girl in Acts. When Paul exorcised the demon from her that allowed her to see the future, her owners had Paul and Silas thrown in jail. They were unhappy because their “profit tool” had been taken from them. They didn’t care that a soul had been set free. Our focus should always remain on God, and His desire – His plan – for us. He is the object of our worship. He is the desire of our hearts. He is to be high and lifted up, so that He can draw all men to Him. Do you want this church to grow? Lift God Up! Live the way He wants, do the things He wants, make His priorities our priorities, let the things that break His heart break our hearts and let the things that He delights in be our delight. If those are our priorities, God will bless us!
This type of goal setting and prioritizing is not easy. It goes against what our nature cries out for. But it is necessary to be where God is.
CONCLUSION
So, will we be where God is? Will we be loving? Will we be inclusive, accepting, tolerant? Will we be dependent? Will we have God’s priorities? What waits for us if we do? READ Revelation 21:18-25. Does that sound good to you? Then let’s make sure we are where God is.
