Sermon: “Excited for Eternity?” Rev. David Anderson
John 14:1-13
I’d like to read for you a few verses from the fourteenth chapter o St. John’s Gospel. Our Lord says to His disciples, and that includes mst of us ere, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it
were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”
The Lord Jesus often talked about a very little place. The Bible talks about this little place often, even when Jesus was born. What is this tiny area spoken about so often in the Bible and by Jesus
Himself? It is the earth. Jesus often talked about this tiny cosmic speck floating in space.
Of course, as the pre-existent Son of God, Jesus participated in the creation of this little place called earth. After creation and the Fall, as He looked toward Calvary and the redemption of a fallen
humanity, a landing field was prepared on a small trip of sand known as Palestine. The greatest landing of all history took place a little over 2,000 years ago when the Son of God landed in the flesh upon the face of planet earth.
God came in Christ to a planet so small that, if not for the eye of God, it would be lost in space. Why lost? God suggests the great number of stars when He spoke under an open, evening sky to Abraham. It would take hundreds of planets the size of earth to fill one small star, and science tells us that there are millions, likely billions, of stars.
From a scientific perspective our little home called earth is just a spec, just a particle of cosmic dust, in a boundless space. And yet, is this how the everyday person feels about our planet? How do you experience the world in which you live?
Most of us think that this planet is gigantic! Whney my family and I flew to Utah by jet for my nephew’s wedding, I was amazed at the distance we traveled–that even by jet it takes hours, and by car it would take nearly a 24 hour day.
We earthlings see our planet as big, but it is really very small. This would be no big deal, except that our viewpoint has a corollary. The corollary is dangerous.
Do you sense danger right now? Are you or your family members in danger because they think this tiny planet is so very big?
The treacherous corollary that places so many in great danger is this: Those who see the earth as very big, often see heaven as very small.
Jesus talks about heaven. He talks in John 14 about preparing us a place in heaven. When the Gospel was read did you sense something very powerful and even strange, like opening a window in the dead of winter and smelling the aroma of apple trees in full bloom?
Or when you heard Jesus speak of heaven did it sound flat and lifeless to your ears? Was it “o’ hum” when I spoke to you the words of Christ about heaven?
In the last few weeks I have been asking myself, and the Lord, why it is that there is so little response to His Word from the people. Why is it that when a pastor or prophet speaks, even within the church, and warns God’s people about a threat to their present or
future, many of those warned simply yawn and shake away the Words of God like a Gardner shoeing away gnats? It’s business as usual.
And why is it that so many, who see the earth as very big indeed, see so little of heaven that they live in constant fear of death, hiding their anxieties under a multitude of life’s diversions? Why the lack of zest and zeal for something so magnificent as what heaven promises to be?
I believe that the Lord has answered my questions. I’m persuaded that most sin within our century, along with the lack of zeal for the kingdom of God, occurs because we have forgotten whose we are, and where our true home is.
Have you ever noticed how distance affects our perspective about things? The highest mountain from a far distance looks no larger than an ant hill. The mountain does not change in size relative to our position to it, but when we are far away from it we see it as small.
Many people, including many Christians, have walked so far away from god and His kingdom that they see heaven as insignificant. Earth, and all of its grand pleasures for the flesh, seems very big. Ironic, isn’t it, that heaven, which is vaster than the physical universe and offers us so much more, is little more than a yawn from many the mouths of many Christians.
Let me ask you directly, do you believe in the actual existence of heaven as a place where not only God and angels reside, but also a home that Christ has prepared for you?
Although a few of you may experience some scepticism about heaven (though you shouldn’t because God’s Word is clear that heaven is real), my guess is that most of you said, “Yes, I believe that there is a place called heaven.”
That’s not good enough, friends! A simple “yes” to this question is wimpy. I’m going to challenge you about how meaningful your belief in heaven proves to be for life and conduct.
I firmly believe in place called Disney Land. I’m a bit unhappy with some decisions that are being made by its management, but I do believe that Disney Land is a real place. Assuming that management began to make decisions more in line with a Christian ethic, I’d be jumping up and down if someone gave me an all expense paid trip for my family to go to Disney Land! I’d not only be excited, I’d also be grateful for the gift as I began to make preparations for the trip to this spectacular amusement park.
Is some skeptic ridiculed me for believing there to be an actual Disney Land, I’d shake my head and say with a smirk, “Of course there is a Disney Land. Hundreds of thousands have spoken about it, and some of my friends have there. I’ve even seen beautiful pictures of the amusement park. So of course I believe that it’s there waiting for us. I’m excited, grateful, and preparing for that fantastic trip.”
When I asked you if you believed in the existence of heaven, most of you said to yourselves (and to God who knows your every thought), “Yes, I believe in heaven.” But now I’ll ask you some follow-up questions. How excited are you about heaven? How often do you think about heaven? Are you making plans daily for going to heaven?
If we would eagerly and gladly plan a year around a trip to an amusement park, are you and I willing to plan a measly 70 some years around a trip to heaven?
Or is earth really bigger to you than heaven? Have you moved so far into the earthly domain that heaven, for all your claims about believing in its greatness, looks to you like a little ant hill off in the
distance?
You say that you believe in heaven, but how grateful are you for the cost of your travel expenses paid out freely by God in the death of Jesus on the cross? If we would be grateful for the rest of our lives for a trip to an amusement park, how grateful are we to the
benefactor who gives a wonderful and eternal home in heaven?
You say that you believe in heaven, but are you daily so swallowed up in the greatness of this celestial city in glory and the sacrifice of love which takes you there, that you seek to worship God each
week and serve Him? Will you organize all of life around this gift, even when it means giving up on some earthly pleasures and pursuits?
For all your sentimental thoughts about heaven, is it really just a shadow eclipsed by your vision of earth?
I have sen pictures of heaven. Oh, not photographs, but images which God painted on the canvas of my wind with the words of Scripture. Heaven is so beautiful that images made of gold and of trees overburdened by fruit are sorry descriptions of the actual glory of this kingdom of God.
St. Paul himself once spoke as though raptured in his soul, about a man who had experienced some taste of the glories of heaven.
God’s Word today has much to say to you and to me, but we will not listen unless in our minds we know that heaven is real and Christ has returned there to prepare a place for us.
Whatever words of warning or encouragement that I or any other pastor will preach to you in the years that lie ahead of us, you will not listen unless well unless heaven is bigger to you than earth.
And all of our exhortations for you to worship God and serve Him will not be as big to you as your own desires of lust and greed to have the things of this tiny planet.
And even St.. Paul’s admonition that we set our minds on things above will sound like noisy clamoring amid the sweet sounds of a passing planet.
And all that I have said now, whether poorly or richly stated, will not travel home with you today, but remain within these walls–unless heaven is bigger to you than planet earth.
Yet hear me now, I believe in heaven even as I believe in all of God’s promises within the Bible. I await with eager excitement to see what only the angels and Saints in glory know now. For God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
We can all be grateful in knowing that at a cost beyond human words, God has paid for us to have a free ride to our real home in heaven. He paid the cost and redeemed us from sin. Sinners like us can now plan for eternity rather than death. We can look forward
to light dispelling all darkness and to joy erasing all sadness. To the Lamb... to the Christ... To Him be all glory and honor forever and
ever. Amen.
