What will Heaven be like?

What do you think about when you think about Heaven?

What is Heaven? Where is Heaven? What happens when you die? And why does what you think about when you think about Heaven matter?

Maybe you’ve grown up thinking that Heaven is a place your soul will go to when this life is over. That it’s a place where you can retire when your work on earth is done. Maybe you think of it as a place where you can go be with Jesus. But is it possible that we have misunderstood Heaven? Is it possible that what we think about when we think about Heaven & what the Bible says about Heaven are two different things?

I love the way Eugene Peterson says it in his book, Reversed Thunder: “Many people want to go to Heaven the way they want to go to Florida – they think the weather will be nice & the people will be decent. We enter Heaven not by escaping what we don’t like, but by the sanctification of the place in which God has placed us.”

Why is this so important? The reason this is so important to us, I believe, is because it affects the direction we live our lives.

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Richella & Ben, Trip Planning Gone Wrong

A few months ago, in April, Richella wanted to surprise Ben with a trip to Las Vegas. This couple lives in England. So Richella went to lastminute.com, a travel website, clicked on the drop down menu to select her to & from airports, & booked plane tickets from Birmingham to Las Vegas as a surprise trip for Ben’s 30th birthday.

She had saved a long time for this trip. The tickets cost 12,000 euros. About $13,500. Finally, the day came for them to take their trip. They drove to the Birmingham airport in Birmingham, England. When they got into the airport, they couldn’t find their gate. They couldn’t find anyone at the desk to help them. Finally, in confusion & desperation, Richella called American Airlines. That’s when she learned the devastating truth. She had actually booked her plane tickets not from Birmingham, England, but from Birmingham, AL. She had booked their plane tickets to Las Vegas from the wrong departure city!

Sometimes I think we’ve done the same thing when it comes to Heaven. Somewhere along the way, we misread the drop down menu. We thought we got it right, but we made a mistake. And when we show up on that last day to take our trip, we too might realize that we’ve gotten our travel plans all mixed up.

Here’s the question I want you to consider: Is it possible that what we think about when we think about Heaven & what the Bible says about Heaven are two different things?

A Quick Look Through Scripture

Let’s start from the very beginning of the story then make our way through the story to take a quick look at what God reveals about our present & our future.

God Descends in The Beginning:
God descended in creation.
He walked with Adam & Eve in the Garden.
Everything was the way it was supposed to be before sin.
Perfect relationship between people & people & people & God.
Creation was good. There were no tornadoes or floods.
There was no suffering. There was no sickness or death.
Then sin entered the picture. Everything became broken.
For far too long we have underestimated the devastation caused by sin.
(Genesis 1-3)

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Jesus Descends & Dwells Among Us:
But God had a plan.
Jesus descended.
He dwelled among us, walked with us.
Jesus began to make right everything that had gone wrong.
He restored relationship between people & people & people & God.
He calmed the storms, making creation good again.
He healed the sick, making people whole again.
He died on the cross paying the penalty for sin. Everything is beginning to be made right again.
It’s already been made right, but not yet fully & finally.
(John 1.14; Matthew 27.51; 1 Corinthians 15.3-6; Acts 1.9-11)

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Then the Spirit descends.
The Spirit of God lives in us who believe.
The Spirit works in us to make right in the world what has gone wrong in this broken world.
The Spirit works in us to restore relationships between people & people & people & God.
The Spirit works in us to help when tragedy strikes because creation is broken & tornadoes come.
The Spirit works in us to alleviate the pain of the suffering & sick & hurting.
The Spirit works in us to forgive sin & to make things on Earth as they are in Heaven.
So things are being made right now, but not yet fully & finally.
(John 16.13; Acts 2:1-4; Romans 5.5; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22)

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Your Baptism Matters:
Your baptism matters because it positions you to receive the Spirit.
In your baptism you participate in the death, burial & resurrection of Jesus.
In your baptism you are raised to new life, Kingdom life, now.
In your baptism you experience the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from the grave.
Your baptism matters because if you are raised to new life now you will be raised to new life then.
(Colossians 2.12; Romans 6.3-4)

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Your Resurrection:
One day, you too will experience bodily resurrection like Jesus.
One day, the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the grave will give life to your mortal body.
One day, your mortal body will be resurrected & transformed.
One day, you will experience life the way it’s supposed to be.
(1 John 3.2; Romans 8.11; I Corinthians 15.21; 23)

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New Heaven & New Earth:
Now we get to the end of the story. But at the end of the story we find another beginning. The apostle John has a vision of Heaven. And this is what he sees. He doesn’t see a place we will one day go to called Heaven. What John sees, well listen to Revelation 21:1-3:

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone.  And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.”

John sees Heaven DESCENDING. He sees a new Heaven & a new Earth. And the result of Heaven descending is that now, once again, just like in the Garden of Eden, God is dwelling among us.

God descends again!

Now, relationship is restored, fully & finally.

Again, I love how Eugene Peterson says it in his book, Reversed Thunder, “Our sin resulted in expulsion from the garden, shouldn’t salvation be a restoration to it?”

What we think about when we think about Heaven matters because it affects the direction we live our lives.

So what if we live our lives in the same direction God was moving all throughout scripture?

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DESCENDING.

The downward motion of God, something to think about as it relates to Heaven.

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Here’s why I believe this matters so much. Many of us, including myself, have been living our Christian lives as if we’re planning a trip to Heaven. Meanwhile, Jesus has been on mission to bring Heaven to Earth. We’ve been living our entire lives in the wrong direction. Instead of planning a trip from Earth to Heaven, what if we join Jesus in bringing Heaven to Earth?

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Jesus came to redeem the world & God’s good creation. To make things the way they OUGHT to be.

We ARE Citizen’s of Heaven

And this ought to be our mission & vision too. Because we are already citizens of Heaven.

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Heaven is not something we’re waiting on or looking forward to one day. For those of us who belong to Christ, we are already citizens of Heaven. Listen to what Paul says in Philippians 3.20-21:

“But we are (CURRENTLY, ALREADY) citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.  He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like his own (BODILY RESURRECTION) using the same power with which he will bring everything under his control.”

May we live not as citizen’s of Earth planning a trip to Heaven, but as citizens of Heaven bringing Heaven to Earth. 

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