When All Is Said and Done

What is Heaven?

Well, it’s been almost five months and this will make thirteen sermons based in the book of Revelation. We’ve talked about the majesty of God, the realities of the world until Jesus returns, the experience of the church, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, the hard truths about hell, and more. So hopefully you have a more firm understanding about this book than you did in March when we started. We’re getting close to the end, there’s only one more chapter to look at after today.

Revelation can be a dark book to look at. It pays a lot of attention to God’s judgement, to the difficulties and struggles of creation, and to the lengths God will go to in an effort to turn people to Him. But here, at the end, we are reminded of the central purpose of the book - to point people to the work of Christ and the magnitude of that work for His people. Which begs the question, what does our eternal reality look like? What is this incredible future that God promises to people who trust in the promise of Jesus? What kind of place are we spending eternity in?

Red Bull Gives You Wings

What kind of place are we spending eternity in? If you ask a lot of people, maybe even a lot of you, the image that comes to mind is a bunch of people hanging out in the clouds. People picture heaven and they picture everything made of clouds and this grand gate and everybody is an angel. We’re all wearing robes for some reason and carrying harps. And, to be fair, a lot of that kind of imagery comes from the Bible - kinda. No one ever pictures angels as the Bible describes them - too many wings and eyes I guess. The robes also gets mentioned a lot, robes made white in the blood of the Lamb, but that might also just be symbolic and the more prevalent heavenly attire is gym shorts and cutoff t-shirts (the true pinnacle of human clothing). And that might be a fairly accurate representation of heaven - clouds and angels and whatnot. But our question wasn’t “what does heaven look like,” the question was “what kind of place are we spending eternity in?”

This might come as a shock, but our eternal home isn’t in heaven and you don’t turn into an angel when you die. When Jesus returns, Revelation tells us here that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. A new earth will be our home. And for many there might be some resistance to that idea because we’re ingrained with this idea that physical things are bad and spiritual things are good. But when God created the world He said that it was good. Revelation 21 says that God will come down out of heaven and dwell with His people - that sounds like He will make a new earth that is good and that His people, that’s us, will be living there.

To Each His Own

What is kind of place are we spending eternity in? Another way that people think about eternity is in a completely subjective way, like everyone is going to get their own individual reality that will let them live out their wildest dreams. Like for some, maybe paradise is a world where the Dodgers don’t go on disappointing runs in the middle of the season. Maybe for some paradise is a world where you get to spend all day on the golf course and you’re actually good. Maybe for some paradise is just a world where you have all of the money you could every want or need. Maybe for some paradise is just a world where you are surrounded by the people you love without any conflict, resentment, or disagreement. Maybe for some paradise is something along the lines of a resort down in Cabo. Maybe for some paradise is a world where you can eat whatever you want, in whatever quantities you want, and still look like some sort of model.

This kind of idea about eternity, about paradise, has a major flaw. It makes everything about us and about what we want. We aren’t the main characters, it’s not about us. The place we spend eternity won’t be perfect by our standards, it will be perfect by God’s standards. For that matter, we will also become perfect by God’s standards - and that includes what we want and how we view paradise.

The Full Circle of the Father’s Creation

What is kind of place are we spending eternity in? Not to be overly simplistic, but the language Revelation uses here is a good place to start. It says “a new heaven and a new earth,” it says “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” We will be spending eternity in a perfect new creation. Through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, you and I will be made perfect and reconciled to God alongside all believers past, present, and future.

Now that is really hard to visualize, because perfection and eternity are both completely outside of our experience and comprehension. Let me use this to illustrate. Here we have a paper plate, well, what’s left of a paper plate. We should all be able to agree that this is not a perfect plate. What about this one, ripped into quarters. Well, it’s better than the first one and you could maybe even serve small servings of something on these scraps - but we should all still be able to agree that this is not a perfect plate. What about this one that’s been taped together. Well, we finally have a fully functional plate, but we should all still be able to agree this isn’t a perfect place. Finally, what about this one - fresh out of the package. It’s great - but is this the perfect plate? Is it? What if I want to eat something that’s really saucy - this plate’s probably going to get soggy. Even after I use it, it will end up in the trash - that doesn’t seem like something the perfect plate would require. In some ways, our experience is like these paper plate, all we see and hear and experience is just differing degrees of imperfection. The best of what we’ve got is still completely below the realities of the eternal paradise waiting for us.

So to have an accurate picture of eternity, we have to imagine the most perfect world according to God’s perfect standards - and then we have to understand that it will be even more glorious and majestic and incredible than that. And brothers and sisters in Christ, that eternal, perfect new creation that is so good we can’t even wrap our heads around it - that is where we will get to spend our eternities because of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His name, amen.