What’s Heaven Really Like?
Heaven

Transcript

So we're continuing our series. We're in part two of this series entitled, "Heaven, it's better than you ever imagined." And today we're going to be answering the question, what's heaven really like? What's the Bible really say about heaven?

What's heaven really like? Now, before we dig in, I want to give a plug to our upcoming citywide prayer revival, and it starts next Sunday night at 6:30pm  at Daniel's Chapel. It'll be at the different churches, as we've mentioned to you before in the announcements. We can update you on that, but it will conclude on Wednesday night. So it's four nights of praying together and praising the Lord together.

On the fourth night, the Wednesday night, we will conclude at the Whirligig stage downtown. And we're praying for revival in our city. We believe that as we collaborate with other churches, and I pray together with these pastors, we've been praying monthly together since 2019. So that's over five years that the Lord put it on my heart together, these pastors who care about the gospel in our city, so we're collaborating together. And so different nights, they'll be, we'll meet at one church, but a different worship team from another church will lead.

And so we'll be singing and praying together. Now, if you're worried about what it'll be like, each service will last about an hour. It won't be weird. Okay, so it'll be like, we'll sing some songs. There'll be prayers from the stage.

There'll be opportunities for you to pray with people, too. And so please come and let me just put it like this. If you love me, come on. Because we believe that collaborating together with other churches in our city makes a difference. When we pray together, it will proceed.

That prayer always precedes a gospel movement. And so we're praying for gospel saturation in our city. So that's my plug. Hope and pray. If you love me, you'll come, right?

Okay, now back to our sermon. What's heaven really like? Now, some people say you can't know. And they say it's mysterious. You can't know.

But the truth is that, as we learned last week, the Bible has a lot to say about heaven. It's in the Bible over 696 times, old Testament 400,  296 times in the New Testament. The Bible has a lot to say about heaven. Just in the book of Matthew. It's in the Book of Matthew 75 times.

And so there's a lot in the Bible about heaven. So the Bible not only tells us a lot about heaven, but it also tells us that we are to think on and set our minds on things above. We talked about that last week, that we're to set our hearts and our minds and focus on heaven, and it's something to look forward to.

Now, when I was growing up, we used to hear the older people singing about heaven and talking about heaven. And I think it was because death was more real to an earlier generation.

We've kind of sanitized the idea today, and maybe as a people, as America, we're trying to get heaven on earth. It seems like sometimes we're trying to live as long as we can. But I wonder if you ever think about heaven. I've found that people who've had the experience of losing someone tend to think more about heaven. I told you last week that when I lost my father when I was eight years old, it caused me, from that point on in my life, my entire life, I've had thoughts about what's it going to be like.

I mean, I have no doubts of its existence, but what's it going to be like. And just really, the last few months, I've read probably a dozen books on heaven. I've studied the scriptures, on every occurrence of where it occurs in the Bible. And I'm just trying to share with you my passion on this subject, because the Bible has a lot to say about heaven. Now, if I were to ask you this, if I could tell you, and if the word of the Lord came to me and he said I could tell you this, which would you choose?

If I said, the Lord promises you ten years of life, or you could go to heaven today, which one would you choose? Now, some of you already said today, last service, someone way in the back shouted it loud today. I'd go today, but a lot of us would say no, I hadn't gotten married yet. I haven't had a family yet, or I haven't, and you've got something that you're thinking, and that's fine. But the thing is, we have uncertainty about heaven, and we tell ourselves about this.Well, whenever it's a funeral or something, other than that, we stuff it away. Now, our church has lost four sweet members of our family this year, three at our Wilson campus and one at our Rocky Mount campus. We've done a lot of funerals this year, and it's caused me. I planned this series long before any of this happened. Before the last year ended, the Lord put it on my heart to talk about this.

I think there's a timeliness of it to prepare us so that when we grieve, we don't grieve as those who have no hope, but instead we could have the certainty and the confidence of our eternal destiny. So I want you to think about heaven. We can face death and eternity with confidence, knowing that we know that we know that we have a place in expectation of heaven. The apostle Paul wrote in the second letter to the church at Corinth, he wrote to them instructing them about heaven and about the realities of heaven, and that they could have certainty, they could have confidence in heaven. And I believe as we look the text today, we'll see four realities that we can really know about heaven.

So let's look at it. Chapter five, verses one through ten of 2 Corinthians.  Notice that we know some things. 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (ESV) 1 "For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. This is God's word. Amen.

We're looking for four realities of what heaven is really like. Here's the first:

1. 1. We will be with Christ.

2. The believer can have this confidence. We will be with Christ. By the way,  I am thankful for Pastor Colin Smith at The Orchard Evangelical Free Church in Illinois for his sermon points on this same topic. His work helped us order up our sermon. He has his own YouTube. And as I was watching other sermons and so forth, I found his sermon to be particularly helpful on this subject. So I would. I would be unthankful not to mention his help in watching his sermon.

So I commend that sermon to you. If you want to watch it on YouTube, by Pastor Colin Smith. But we will be with Christ. Take note, first of all, at verse one, as I've already said, verse one says, "For we know..." and then look down at verse six, "We are always of good courage."

We know. Paul says this twice. There's something we can have understanding of. There's something we can have knowledge of. What is it?

We can have knowledge of our eternal dwelling. We can have knowledge of our future in heaven. In fact, he goes on to say, we are always of good courage. Another translation says, we can be confident. It translates it like that.

We can be confident. And indeed, it says in the King James, as we look at verse eight, which says here in the ESV, "Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord."I kind of like the KJV on this one. It says, "absent from the body, present with the Lord."

And so when the soul departs this body, see, this body's not fit for heaven when it opens up. Talking about this tent, what tent is he talking about? A tent is a temporary dwelling. That's what this is. I'm glad it's temporary because I about wore this thing out, but this is a temporary dwelling.

But there's a house being built by God, not made by human hands. That's your future eternal resurrection body. This is what Paul's talking about. The church at Corinth needed some help with understanding what heaven holds for us. And so he's explaining, he goes, now, look, these bodies you have, they're like tents.

They're temporary, but you're going to be at home with the Lord, absent from the body, present with the Lord. And so that's the reality. That's the first thing we can know, that you. The minute you die. If you're a believer.

Now, listen to me. If you believe in Jesus, there's this thing you can be confident of. You can know that. You know that. You know.

Absent from the body, present with the Lord. What did Jesus say to the thief on the cross? We talked about this a few weeks ago. Today you will be with me in paradise now. Paradise?

Let's talk about that for a second. Paradise. It's in the New Testament. Three times we mentioned this last week. It seems to be an equivalent phrase, a synonymous phrase with present heaven.

I'm going to explain to you what I mean by present heaven. It's the heaven right now where Jesus and the angelic host, the Father, all the saints who have gone on before believing in Jesus. That's present heaven. Some theologians refer to this as the intermediate state. That's just too weird for me, so I just call it present heaven.

Okay, intermediate state. That means it's not the future state, which is the new heavens, and the new earth, which is what's promised to. But let's look at these three occurrences of the word paradise in the New Testament. The first, we looked at this last week.

This is Paul.  He says, 2 Corinthians 12:2-3 (ESV) 2 "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. 3 And I know that this man was caught up into paradise—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows."  So the apostle Paul is saying the third heaven and paradise are equivalent. He's talking about the present heaven that he was caught up into and saw things so amazing that he couldn't even put it into words. Then when we say third heaven, what did we learn last week?

He's talking about the place where God is, where the angelic hosts, where Christ is at the right hand of the Father, where the saints are. First heaven is what we learned this last week as we studied the scriptures last week. The first heaven is the atmospheric heaven. I don't know if it was still raining when you came in, but it's the part that got you wet as you came in. That's the first heaven.

The second heaven is the heaven that you can see at night. It's the stellar heaven. It's the stars. It's outside the envelope of the atmosphere. That's the second heaven.

The third heaven is the unseen heaven. Paul says he was called up into the third heaven, and he said it was paradise. So the word paradise seems to be an equivalent word to present heaven. Okay, here's a second occurrence of paradise. I mentioned it a moment ago:

It's in Luke 23:43 (ESV) And he said to him,“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus is talking to the criminal next to him on the cross. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. And Jesus says, truly, I say to you, today, you will be with me in paradise. We will be with the Lord.

You can be confident of this believer. If you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you will be translated immediately. At the very moment that you die, you'll be with the Lord. In fact, the Greek word for death means separation, and it's a separation from the tent, this temporary dwelling that wears out over time. Right.

Some of us wear them out earlier than others, but they, but they're not fit for heaven. The Bible says it's a tent. And even in this tent, we groan. And what is this groaning? It's a longing for things that will last.

Ecclesiastes speaks of this; it says that God has put eternity in our hearts. We have this desire for something. And in fact, when you have the Holy Spirit, if you look at the passage we read today, in verse five, he says he's given the spirit to us as a guarantee.

So the spirit within us is groaning for our eternity together, that he wants us to be fully with him. And so when we use that word guarantee, if you've ever bought a house or if you've ever been involved with real estate, you have to make a contract, and you have to give them a deposit or earnest money. And it's that Greek word there that means the idea of to give a deposit or earnest money. And so God has given us the Holy Spirit as a down payment on our future reward. And the spirit lives within us, groaning in our own souls.

Groan so that we can do that which God's called us to do. We want to be with Christ. We want to be with Christ, but our bodies are weak. What does Jesus say to the disciples? He says the spirit is willing, but the what?

The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And so the spirit of God within us wants to obey everything, wants to do everything God says, but the flesh is weak. But there's going to come a moment in the present heaven when we're with Christ. We will be able to be fully what God has meant for us to be. So that's the second occurrence of paradise.

Here's the third occurrence, and it's where Jesus told the apostle John to write a letter to the church at Ephesus. Revelation 2:7 (ESV) He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

Now, this tells us something very specific, that the tree of life. Where do we first hear about the tree of life? We hear about it in the first two chapters of Genesis. And, in fact, that God closed the garden of Eden off the paradise of Eden. He called it off, and he put an angelic host at the door with a flaming sword so that they could not enter in after they had fallen to sin.

And so this now. But now he says to the church of Ephesus, that you'll receive this. And so I believe that this paradise, this Eden like paradise, that God, it's a planted garden, that it's present in present heaven now.  And so let me put this chart up quickly.

You know  I like charts. And so if you just kind of think about the first two chapters of the Bible and the last two chapters of the Bible like bookends the first two chapters of the Bible, God is with Adam and Eve. He talks to them. He walks with them. In the cool of the evening, he's present with them, and then they fall to sin.

And so then we're separated. And so heaven and earth are separated from one another, and God is not present with us. But in the last two chapters, there's a new heaven and a new earth, and it's marked by what God is with man again. And so this is the arc of the whole scripture. The whole purpose of the scripture is that God is redeeming not only us, all creation back to himself.

And so. But we live in this envelope of time right here called the present heaven. So, the present heaven, or paradise. From Genesis 3 to Revelation 20, God is separated from man because of sin. But when we believe in Jesus and when we pass away, we graduate to present heaven.

Y'all with me when I talk about present heaven? Because that's in contrast to the new heavens and new earth, when the new Jerusalem comes down and God dwells with man. And there's no separation between heaven and earth. That's future. Future.

But in the present heaven, this is where we are today. Is that making sense? That's what we're talking about. So one of the things that you'll encounter when you're singing songs and talking about heaven, you hear people talking about streets of gold, gates of pearl. That's the new heavens and new earth.

In fact, that's a description of the new Jerusalem. That's not a description of the present heaven. But there are descriptions of the present heaven in the Bible. And so let's put them in the correct categories, because the Bible does. You with me?

Still with me. I got a lot to say. Some of you are looking at me like, wow, okay, we're talking about heaven. That's what we're talking about. And we can know these things.

Here's what Paul says in verse eight. He says, I would rather be. Did you see that? In verse eight, he says, yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. Not only Paul says, he says, I'd rather be there.

It had to be hard for Paul because he'd already been caught up to heaven and he'd already seen paradise. And so then he's back on earth and he's preaching. I'm sure it put a fire in his belly, but it also gave him a deeper longing to be there. He'd already caught a vision of it. He knew what it was like, and so he wanted to be there.

He said, I'd rather be there. In fact, in Philippians 1:21-23 (ESV) 21 "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better."

Oh, it's good. It's good to have Christ by his holy spirit living in us.

Hey, praise God. Here we are. Church. Isn't it good? Isn't it good to have Jesus?

Oh, it's good. But you know what's far better? What's waiting for us? Oh, it's far better. It's far better.

Paul says it's far better. If I had to choose between the two, he said, I'd rather go ahead and be there with Jesus. That's what he says.

I don't know if you ever heard this, these words from Billy Graham. He says, “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God with Christ Jesus my Lord.”

Well, he's there now. He's changed addresses. Right. The first reality of heaven is that believers will be with Christ Jesus, which is better by far. Here's the second reality:

2. We will be fully conscious.

We will be fully conscious. We will be fully conscious. Look at verse two, 2 "For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,"

For what does our soul groan? It groans for our heavenly dwelling. It groans. It longs. It groans. It wants to be swallowed up by life.

Verse four. Right. And it wants verse 7, "for we walk by faith, not by sight." It wants our faith to become sight. Right now we walk by faith, and we have faith that heaven exists.

But there comes a time when we will see it. And sight implies the ability to be conscious and to perceive, does it not? Does it not? Now I want to deal with quickly a view that some hold, and that's called "soul sleep." The idea that when you die, you just sleep until Jesus returns and gives you your resurrection body, and then he wakes you up.

Maybe you've never heard of this. If you've never heard of it, I'm informing you of it. But I'm informing you of it in order to demolish the argument. I don't believe that's what Paul means when he talks about sleep. First Corinthians, is an occurrence of this word. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 (ESV) 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

He uses the word sleep here to talk about a believer's death, that all it is is their body now sleeps. Their body sleeps. Their soul lives.

And so there's a separation. Remember I told you the word death in the Greek means separation? And so when he says sleep, remember what Jesus said about the little girl that belonged to the synagogue ruler? They came and said, don't bother Jesus. She already died.

He goes, she's not dead. She's just asleep. Remember when he said that? Then he went and woke her up and brought her back to life. Do you remember that?

So that word sleep was a common word to describe the state of a believer who died, that their body's at rest, but their soul is wide awake. It's also found in 1 Thessalonians. I'll read that quickly. Just so I'm being fair to those who recognize these places. 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17 (ESV) 13 "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord."

And so those are a couple of the occurrences. Are you with me? Now to understand that some people say when you die, you just sleep and Jesus returns, they're getting it from these passages. And I'm going to show you some other places that completely disagree in the Bible with this.

But I wanted to be fair and show you these places. Why would you groan for a place where you just aren't even aware of? Why would your body long for it? Why would you so long for it? And so we look through these passages talking about that you're not groaning because you'll be found naked.

What a strange phrase here, this tent, this temporary dwelling describing our temporary body, that there's going to be a season where your soul is without a body. Now, you're not longing for that because that's a strange way to think about it. And when you think about what kind of body will you have in present heaven if the Lord hasn't given a resurrection body to you yet? Okay. And so some would say, well, we have a spiritual body like the angels.

And so it can see, it can hear. That body is functional, but it's different than the present body we have. That seems to be what we're looking at. There might be a temporary dwelling that God gives, but the Bible doesn't speak of it with any specificity. So I would hesitate to say that.

But we know this. There's a season in present heaven where we're between these states of where we are now and the future new heavens and new earth. And so he talks about this. He said, but what we're really groaning for is that we would be unclothed. I'm in verse four, "For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life."

But that we would be further clothed, like clothing on top of clothing, like better clothing, like superior, eternal clothing. And he describes it with more detail. He says, in verse 1, "...a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." It's a building from God, eternal in the heavens. Now, that's what he's talking about.

He's talking about that future body, that resurrection body that's been prepared for us. Now I want to speak to you about a scene in the heavens. This is in Revelation, chapter six, where the apostle John is caught up and he sees this vision of the present heaven and the activity in heaven so that we're peering in now to what it looks like in the present heaven or in Revelation chapter six, rather. Here's what he says. Revelation 6:9-11 (ESV) 9 "When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. 10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” 11 Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been."

Now, what we have here is we have an eyewitness view from the apostle John. He's in heaven, and he sees the throne high and lifted up. And below that he sees the altar, and below that he sees this group of martyred believers, the people who had died for their faith.

They've been persecuted. And they're talking. In fact, they're crying out, and who are they talking to? They're talking to the sovereign lord. Now, these people are awake, they're not asleep, and they are  asking him questions.

How long, lord, before you judge those? And they're aware of what's going on earth because they know God hasn't done it yet. Oh, there's a lot going on here, friends. Just in these couple of verses we can see they're fully conscious. They're fully aware.

They're engaged. They're talking to the Lord. They're aware of what's going on on earth. And they're asking, asking God to give them answers.They're so engaged.

You see, the throne room is like  the command center in this great place that controls the whole cosmos. And all these reports are coming in from the angelic host and these different pictures and images, and the saints are like, what's that? And when are you going to do this? And they're fully engaged.

And you might even say they're praying because it does sound like a prayer. Revelation 6:10 "They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” How long? That sounds like the book of Habakkuk that we just studied earlier.

How long, lord, before you do this? They're on the God team. There's no question.

They want what God wants. When you go and do it, that's what they want, to know God. And not only that, not only could they talk, not only could they be aware of their surroundings, but they were given a white robe and they were told to rest a little longer. You gotta rest a little longer on this. So I don't know what kind of bodies they had, but they was wearing white robes.

Okay, this is in the present heaven. All right. Now, Randy Alcorn in his book about heaven, and I would recommend this book to you if you want to look into this more deeply. He made 21 observations about the verses I just read from revelation, chapter six. Now I don't have time to do that.

Here's just a couple of them. He says, that when those people died on earth, they relocated to heaven. I can see that they remember their lives on earth. They remembered that they were murdered in persecution, so they didn't forget who they were. They still know who they were, and they know what they did on earth.

And heaven recognizes what they did on earth. And so he makes that they cried out. In other words, they could speak audibly. They were conscious, rational, and aware of each other and the situation on earth. He talks about all these details.

And not only that, they're asking God questions. It's almost like they're praying to God. I wonder, you know, the Bible says that when one sinner repents that there's rejoicing in heaven and that the angels are aware of it. I think the rejoicing is among the saints. The angels are aware of it, but I think there's rejoicing in heaven.

I wonder if those who have gone on before us, if they're watching to see if you're going to follow Jesus. I don't know how much they know. Some people say, well, they couldn't know much because it would interrupt their joy.  And heaven's a place of joy. Let me ask you something.

Does God's joy get interrupted by knowing everything? No, his joy is unconquerable. Now, what if you were in the throne room and you had access to God without anything holding you back? Like the tent?

The tent's not holding you back. The spirit is willing, and there ain't no flesh. The spirit is just willing. And you could know what God knows. And so you could know things and not have anything even chip away at your joy because you know what's coming.

I don't know. I'm just thinking through this a little bit. We sometimes deny ourselves what the Bible reveals to us about heaven by saying, yeah, but how would we have joy? But how would we? Because we think we're going to be like we are here, but we're not.

We're going to be with the Lord and we're going to be fully conscious. Well, I could go on. Randy Alcorn has 21. I can't do 21 right now. I don't have time.

Let me give you a couple more instances of where heaven has leaked into earth to give you more awareness that we're fully conscious. Here's one; it's called the mount of transfiguration. Do you remember this story? It's in three of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke. All three have an account.

I will read the one from Luke. Luke 9:28-31 (ESV) 28 "Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, 31 who appeared in glory and spoke of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem." Let me make some quick observations right here:

Here's Peter, James and John. And Jesus pulls back the veil between heaven and earth and out steps Moses and Elijah. And they're all dressed in white, dazzling white raiment. And they start having a conversation because Moses and Elijah know what Jesus is getting ready to do. And they start talking to him about his coming departure and what his mission is in Jerusalem, because they know, because they just stepped out of the control center.

They just stepped out of the throne room and they're sitting there and they're wearing those  white robes that I think are like clothing of light, almost dazzling to see. And they stepped through. And Peter, James and John, they know who they were.  Now, maybe they overheard, heard them talking to each other by name, the Bible doesn't say, but it was Moses and Elijah. And they stepped out of the present heaven and manifested into the present earth for a moment.

And then they stepped back. And then Jesus, his appearance was restored to its original appearance. And he warned them, saying, don't tell anybody about this. For a little while. They were like, what?

I'm talking to you about present heaven. You still with me? You'll be fully conscious now. There's a parable in the Bible. It's in Luke 6. It's the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. There's a lot of material right here, some people say. Was that a literal story? It's unusual as a parable because it names a person. It names Lazarus as a person.

No other parable names a person like that one. It's an unusual story. It describes a place of torment where the rich man goes and a place of comfort where Lazarus, the poor man, goes. It seems the parable is primarily talking about how you should take care of the poor and how you should use your wealth wisely. And it's got, some of those things seem to be the thing.

But is it literal or instructional? Well, I think it's primarily instructional. But how much of it should you carry with you. I think at a bare minimum, we could say this, that when you die, what you believe on earth determines your destiny. And so Lazarus was immediately translated into the presence of God.

He was carried away by the angels. Jesus said, and the rich man woke up in torment. And so they were conscious. They were fully conscious, and they were immediately translated. Now, I've been reading a couple books, and I won't be quoting these books.

I'm not going to preach from these books, but these are books that have been written by some christian authors who have evaluated near death experiences. And a whole lot of them describe similarities that sound an awful lot like these biblical accounts. I'll leave it at that. I might mention some more of those things along the way. I just don't want to get too out there talking about other sources.

Let's stick with the scripture when I'm speaking from the pulpit. But we will be fully conscious. We'll be aware. Here's the third that I want to talk about. The second reality is we'll be fully conscious and aware.

Here's the third:

3. We will be actively engaged.

We will be actively engaged. We will be actively engaged. Remember, I told you last week, one of the members of my small group was like, hey, pastor, you know, I know you're getting ready to talk about heaven. Is heaven going to be like one big, long church service?

Is it going to be like eternally singing? You know, like, holy, holy, holy. I mean, are we going to have like a thousand verses of holy, holy, holy? What's going on? And I could tell you he was a little concerned, like, you know, that's the only thing I ever heard about the activity in heaven is we going to do a lot of singing.

And I think we will do some singing. We're going to have the marriage supper of the lamb. We're going to do some eating. We're going to do some singing. They're going to be worship.

But worship is not just singing. You think worship is just singing? It's not. Worship is anything you do where you put God first, where you pull your affections off of your own self and you say, I'm doing this for Jesus.

That's worship. Worship is serving the Lord. That's what worship is. So, mamas, if you're changing a diaper and you're saying, I'm doing this because I'm raising my child up in the Lord and I'm loving my child as the Lord has loved me, you're worshiping if you do it as unto the Lord and not unto men. It might not feel like worship, it might not smell like worship, but it's worship because you're doing it as unto the Lord and not as unto men.

So we'll be worshiping in heaven. In fact, as we look here about being actively engaged, notice in verse nine, it says, "So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him." So when we're with  the Lord, we're going to still be trying to please him, right? We're still going to be wanting to do his will.

Even when we're in the present heaven, we make it our aim. And then he goes on to say, we're all going to appear before the judgment seat of Christ. What is that? Actually, in the Greek, it's the Bema seat of Christ.

The Bema seat of Christ.  This is in contrast to the great white throne judgment, which believers don't stand before. The great white throne judgment is for unbelievers who have rejected Jesus. But the Bema seat of Christ is for believers.

And this is where he gives out reward. This is where he looks at how you've lived your life. Now, some have said this probably happens at the rapture. And maybe everybody's called together after the rapture, and there's a long line, as he does. You know, people line up before him, and you give an account of how you lived your life.

This might be where the scripture said, where he wipes away every tear. Because we might shed a tear or two as we give an account. I don't know. Some say it's at the rapture. Some say that it might happen at the moment you die.

Because one of the reports you hear from a lot of near death experiences is their whole life flashed before their eyes, and it's as if they had a memory of every single instant. And I wonder, it could be at the moment you pass away, that the moment you graduate to heaven, that you give a report to Jesus. I'm not sure the scripture is not clear on this, but it is clear on this. We must all appear before the Bema seat of Christ, every one of us. And so that's an active engagement, isn't it?

How can you give a report if you're asleep? And so you're going to be actively engaged to do this. Let me give you a couple of instances of examples of what we will be actively doing in heaven. First, we will be worshiping.

This is John. Revelation 4:2-4, 10-11 (ESV) 2 "At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald. 4 Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns on their heads. …the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

So this is a worship service. Twenty-four elders representing the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles of the New Testament, showing that Israel and the church are now all the saints.

Old Testament saints and New Testament saints are now represented before the throne in the present heaven. And there's a great worship service going on, and there's more about that in chapter four. When John first got caught up, that's the first thing he saw when he came up, was he got caught up in a worship service. But that's not all.

Revelation 7:13-14 (ESV) 13 "Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” 14 I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

So what's going on here? We have one of the saints that's been there for a while, educating, one who just showed up fully conscious and actively engaged. In other words, there's learning in heaven. There's education in heaven. There's teaching in heaven.

Hey, did you know who those were? I saw you looking over there, sir. You know, well, those are the ones thatdied during the tribulation, but they believed in Jesus, and they've been washed in the blood. That's why.

That is who is marching on,being informed not by an angel, but by one of the other saints.

Do you see this? Fully conscious, actively engaged. Now, the angels are without spirit, without physical bodies. They have spiritual bodies. We know they can manifest.

As we look at the scriptures, they can appear I don't know if our bodies will be like the angelic host, that they'll be spiritual or if they'll have some other form. But we have little examples of this clothed in dazzling white light with Moses and Elijah and all these that we're reading about here. We will be this third reality. Believers in heaven will be actively engaged. Here's the fourth and final observation I want to make from this passage:

4. We will be eagerly waiting.

We will be eagerly waiting because the present heaven is not the final consummation of heaven. How about that? God is so creative. It's not chapter 21 and 22 we're talking about. We're talking about the present heaven.

But the people in the present heaven are longing. Did you see in verse two the longing for that eternal home, that heavenly dwelling? Paul seems to be talking.

He's talking of the now with the tent. He's talking of the future resurrection body, and he's kind of glossing over the space in the middle, which is the present heaven. We're trying to pull that out so we can examine it by looking at other scripture, but there's this longing for that future. In fact, as we look back at Revelation 6:10 (ESV) They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

There seems to be time in heaven. Like, why would they ask a how long question if there was no sensation of time? And so they're waiting for something. So we're waiting for something better, something far better, because we got it good right now in Jesus. But present heaven's far better.

But future heaven, new heaven and new earth is best because they're waiting for the best. They got it far better. But they're waiting for the best. And they're longing for it. Like God, talk to us, when's this coming?

And then we see in chapter 21, John gets a glimpse of what's coming in chapter 21. I'll read a little bit.

Revelation 21:1-4 (ESV) 1 "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

This future, new heaven and new earth is really the location of where the resurrection bodies are built for.

That's what they're built for. So this imagery you have that you got from Hollywood or from some myth or maybe some toilet tissue commercial like Angelsoft, where you think you're floating on clouds, playing harps with little halos around your heads and little fat flying angels, little cherubs flying around. That's a commercial on tv. That's not what the Bible talks about. This new heavens and new earth is a place where you have a physical body like Jesus, and you actually can eat and walk and talk and everything that you ever dreamed of.

It's far better. In fact, it's best now. I can't talk to you anymore about this today. Cause I got a few more weeks to talk about this stuff. And if I tell you everything I know at the first sermon or second sermon, I won't have anything to talk about in the coming weeks.

But there's going to be more to talk about as we talk about this final place, this final place, which is best of all. What's heaven really like? You'll be with Christ, fully conscious, actively engaged, and still with hope, looking forward to even best, even something best.

I had to go and do a funeral yesterday in Bristol, Virginia. I'm that pastor now in my family. I've gotten old enough to where I'm the pastor of the family. So even yesterday, when I was doing a funeral for my mother's oldest sister, my aunt Jerry, I was asked by the family to come and do this funeral. And then another cousin came up to me and said, hey, you know, mom and dad aren't doing too good, and they wanted to know if you'd do their funerals. And I'm thinking, my goodness, you know, if I become the funeral preacher for my family. But we drove up there yesterday.

Now, my aunt Jerry was my mom's oldest sister. She was 93. She believed in the Lord. She had a testimony. She's with Jesus now, but here's a testimony I want to share with you from her.

When my daddy died on November 2,1966, at Bristol Memorial Hospital in Bristol, Tennessee, my mom had been sitting with him for days, and he kept getting worse. He had cancer all over his body. He was really in bad shape. He'd gone from 200 pounds to probably 98 pounds. It was sad.

It was hard. It took him a year to die. My mom went to the chapel, and she went to the hospital chapel, and she said, lord, I'm going to stop praying for you to heal him. He's suffering too bad. I just want you to take him.

He knows where he's going. While she was praying that in the chapel he passed, she used to say, I believe our prayers were keeping him here because he passed the very moment. But while she was in the chapel, my aunt Jerry, my mom's oldest sister, was in the room with my dad. She was in the room with my dad's mom and dad. So there was three of them sitting there with my dad.

I think preacher Potter was there. Now, I wouldn't know any of this if it weren't for my Aunt Jerry, because I wasn't there. I was eight years old. But my Aunt Jerry, who just graduated to heaven, she said, your daddy told me I had to talk to you like a grown up because you like to talk. And I was like, well, I do.

And I still do. She said, when your daddy, just minutes before he passed, he cried out to his dad. He said, daddy, take off my shoes. I'm about to walk on holy ground. And he said, son, you're in the bed.

You ain't got no shoes on. And he said, he just got quiet for a minute. And then she said, he caught his breath and he raised up and he said, I can see over the hedge. And that was it. He passed.

And she said, the doctor came in, you know, in time of death, and they have to check the pulse and all that. And they all said, did you hear what he said? And, oh, that was probably the morphine. He's probably hallucinating. My Aunt Jerri said to the doctor that he was not hallucinating.

Remember old Stephen? Stephen, one of the deacons? He was being stoned to death for his faith in Jesus. And he said, behold, I see the heavens parted. And I can see Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father.

And then he said, father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing to me. I don't know if my daddy saw heaven or not, but I know Stephen did. And maybe my daddy did, and maybe you will, too. And maybe right before you pass, maybe heaven's part.

And you see the welcome. You see the welcome party coming to get you. My friends, my loved ones, we grieve, but not as those who have no hope. Because we can know. We can know, and we can be confident that if you believe in Jesus, there's a heaven waiting for you.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

That you've prepared a place that we don't have to have troubled hearts, but we can have faith in Jesus that you've prepared a place for us, that wherever you are, we will be also. Lord, we thank you for that. I pray for the one that's here today that does not have that confidence. My friend, if you don't know Jesus, you're not ready. You're not ready to face eternity.

And who knows the day when you'll be called. So make it right today. Would you pray with me? Right where you are? Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner.

I want to be ready. And I believe you died on the cross for my sins and that you were raised from the grave. Come and live in me. Forgive me of my sin. I repent and I turn from my sin, and I turn to you.

I want you to be my lord and savior. I want you to adopt me into your family. I want to live forever in eternity with you. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing that's why Jesus came, he'll save you. He'll make you a child of God.

Others are here today. And maybe you're hurting, maybe you're doubting, maybe you're grieving. Would you know this? That we can have confidence because of Jesus, that we do not have to grieve as those who have no hope, Lord, bless us now with the confidence of the reality of heaven. In Jesus name, amen.