What do you think about when you think about Heaven?
This past Sunday night my 2 daughters had their big dance recital at The Majestic theater in Dallas. This is our first year of dance with this particular dance school, so we really didn’t know what to expect. It was a fantastic night, the location was beautiful, our girls danced beautifully, we got to see a lot of our Riverside families who’s daughter’s dance at the same school perform. It was an all around great night.
At the very end of the performance, all the dancers came & sat on the stage. Then, the person in charge of the school came out to present a few trophies. To be fair, these are trophies for girls that have danced 3 years or more. But my girls didn’t really understand this. And my youngest, Emma, was not at all happy about this criteria for receiving a trophy.
If you are connected with our family at all on social media or Facebook, you probably saw this picture from this past Sunday night.
When people saw that Emma wasn’t smiling, at first they thought it was because she didn’t have flowers. Let me assure you, she had 2 bouquets of flowers. She was upset because she didn’t get a trophy! And if you think this face was a passing moment for her, rest assured this was her face for quite a while!
A GOAL ORIENTED SOCIETY
We can laugh at this & we should, it’s funny. But it makes me realize that we have created a goal oriented society. Where everything has to have an end game & if you’re not winning, you’re losing & where there’s no room to just ever BE because there’s got to be a measuring stick for success.
A TROPHY WORLD
We live in a world where we get a trophy when we participate. All we have to do is show up & we’re rewarded. And we’re entitled to get that reward, that trophy, because we showed up, even if we didn’t put forth any effort whatsoever. And we tell our kids things like, if you hang in there till the end of the season, you’ll get a trophy!
A DESTINATION CULTURE
And this mentality sets up a culture that’s destination focused. We even have destination weddings. And we create destination vacations. Even when that destination is the city we live in, we call that a stay-cation.
BAD THEOLOGY
And all of this in our culture & around our lives has crept into our theology. At its worst, it’s wrong & bad theology. At it’s best, its sorely incomplete. Because we’ve created & adopted this idea that Heaven is a place we’re going, it’s our destination. And we sing songs that reflect these ideas, like… This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through. And we just can’t wait till when we all get to heaven. Cause I’ve got a mansion, just over the hilltop. And we think this way because Heaven has become a destination.
(Read more about the songs we sing about Heaven here.)
But what if, what if it’s not? What if Heaven was never intended to be a destination.
We have to admit that to one degree or another we’ve all been taught to think this way. We sing these great songs about Heaven that really do have great motive behind them. Please hear me, I love these songs too. But somehow we’ve replaced our theology & our ideas about heaven with the lyrics from these songs & not from the words of Scripture that should teach us about what Jesus meant when He spoke of Heaven.
When Heaven becomes a destination we go into trip planning mode. We make the list of all the things we need to have or do to get where we’re going & we start checking off the to do list.
When we start working for that participation trophy, we default into “show up & check the boxes” mode.
It leads us to legalistic tendencies & an inward, me focused mentality.
Here’s what I want you to think about, because I know you love Jesus & you love His church & you love scripture… As long as we treat Heaven as a destination, a place we’re trying to get to, we’ll never be able to participate in the Kingdom of Heaven Jesus talked so much about.
Listen to what Matthew says about Jesus as He began his ministry. In Matthew 4.17, Jesus announces that “the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” Then this happens…
“Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed—he healed them all. Large crowds followed him wherever he went—people from Galilee, the Ten Towns, Jerusalem, from all over Judea, and from east of the Jordan River.”
Jesus tells people & shows people what the Kingdom of Heaven is all about and it’s amazing. His fame spread like wildfire. And people from all over were drawn to Him.
Why?
Because this is what happens when people see Heaven coming to Earth.
Jesus didn’t just speak about the love of God, He demonstrated the love of God. We would do well to follow His example.
[Tweet “Jesus didn’t just speak about the love of God, He demonstrated the love of God. #kingdomofheaven”]NT Wright once said, “Jesus went about feeding the hungry, curing the sick, and rescuing lost sheep; his Body is supposed to be doing the same. That is how his kingdom is at work. That is how he is at work.” – NT Wright, Simply Jesus
What if what we’re about as a church is not so much about you getting to Heaven, but you participating in bringing heaven to earth? What if Heaven isn’t a destination, but what if the Kingdom of Heaven is an identity? A direction? A fellowship of people who belong to something greater & participate in bringing Heaven to Earth?
May we pray, “Your Kingdom come, You will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.”
And may we participate in making things on Earth as they are in Heaven.
[Tweet “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. #kingdomofheaven”] [Tweet “May we participate in making things on Earth as they are in Heaven. #kingdomofheaven”]
