There’s No Place Like Home
Notes
Transcript
Have you ever been away for an extended period of time?
Maybe you were on vacation, or had some family emergency.
Whatever the reason, we almost always say, “it’s so good to be home.”
We long for the familiar comfort of our own homes. We long for our own beds. We have another home we should long for even more.
Last week we talked about the final judgment. Someday Jesus is going to return. He will judge all of us, every person who ever lived. Those who rejected Him in this life will be judged and enter into death and eternal punishment, that is hell.
Today is the last message in our Rooted series. We have covered a whole lot of information. I wanted to end our series on a high note. So we’re going to finish the series talking about the place I hope we will all be reunited for eternity.
After the judgment, for those who have trusted Jesus will enter into life. The perfect life God originally created will start anew. Jesus has promised that He is preparing a place for us.
1 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.
Think about that feeling we get of being home after a period of time away. We all have that feeling. A sigh of relief, the instant relaxed feeling, and the joy of sleeping in our own beds. Well, that feeling is going to pale in comparison to the home Jesus is preparing for us.
It’s like Jesus is going to say, “Come on home, I’ve been getting it ready for you.” It’s the place we call heaven. But where is heaven?
Where is Heaven
Where is Heaven
We all seem to acknowledge and understand that heaven is where God resides. Scripture makes that pretty clear. Every morning we recite the Lord’s prayer.
The first two lines of the Lord’s prayer say:
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
and 1 Pet 3:22 talks about Jesus in heaven.
22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.
Jesus sits at the right hand of God. As we all seem to recognize, heaven is where God resides. But where is heaven?
We all have this idea that heaven is somewhere out there beyond the universe. We tend to think about Heaven as some distant place outside of creation and completely disjoined from all of creation.
The problem with the idea that heaven is some distant far away place. Somewhere completely disconnected and outside of creation is that Scripture makes it clear that Jesus actively keeps the universe in tact.
17 He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.
Even before God the Son entered His own creation, He is what holds the entirety of creation together. That is reinforced by Hebrews 1:3
3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.
Heaven isn’t just some mythical spiritual world we can’t see or touch. The physically resurrected Jesus, in physical bodily form sits at the right hand of God in heaven. The best way I can explain it is that heaven is some alternate dimension.
A dimension that overlaps the dimension in which we live. It’s a spiritual world and yet it’s also a physical place. A place that can and does hold physical bodies. Look at Acts 1:9-11.
9 After he had said this, he was taken up as they were watching, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going, they were gazing into heaven, and suddenly two men in white clothes stood by them.
11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you have seen him going into heaven.”
Jesus physically went to heaven and He will physically return in the same way. Heaven and all of creation are connected in such a way that one effects the other. I have formed this belief that when God created all things it was all perfect and perfectly overlapping dimensions.
Meaning both dimensions seemed as one dimension where God in heaven seamlessly interacted with His creation and was in full view of His creation. When the first sin took place God in righteous justice created a separation of sorts between the two dimensions.
God is rightly and fully worshipped in heaven. Any disobedience can’t reside in harmony with heaven. So our created dimension was removed from that perfect union with heaven. God is still present everywhere and He still holds His creation together.
Heaven is all around us. It occupies the same space as us. It’s just in another dimension that completely and fully overlaps this one. God created a divide between the dimensions when we became disobedient. But it will all be renewed someday.
Heaven and Earth Will Be Renewed
Heaven and Earth Will Be Renewed
Look at Isaiah 65:17
17 “For I will create new heavens and a new earth; the past events will not be remembered or come to mind.
God is going to make the entire Universe new. He is going to restore order back to it’s original intent. Look at Revelation 21:1-3
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 I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.
3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.
God will bring physical heaven and physical earth together. The overlapping yet separated dimensions will be unseparated. God’s presence will be completely tangible to everybody.
Sin didn’t just curse and break humans it cursed and broke all of God’s creation. Look at Gen 3:17-18
17 And he said to the man, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’: The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
Paul reiterates this in Romans 8:20
20 For the creation was subjected to futility—not willingly, but because of him who subjected it
But he goes on to talk about the hope (that is the guaranteed promise of God) that all of creation will be set free from the curse and bondage in verses 21-22.
20 —in the hope 21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage to decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.
When God recreates or renews heaven and earth the curse will be gone. His creation will be free of the curse. Look at Rev 22:3
3 and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him.
God’s original intent for His creation will come to pass. Creation will be freed from the curse and the consequences of sin. Everything will be restored back to God’s original design.
Everything will be as God wants it to be, the world will no longer be broken. But what will that mean for humanity? What will heaven be like for us.
What Will Heaven be Like for Us
What Will Heaven be Like for Us
Look at Rev 21:4
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.
To start with we will no longer be broken. We will get new glorified bodies.
20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
In our new glorified bodies we will see Jesus, walk with Jesus and talk with Jesus. And we will worship the triune God.
13 I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!
We will be in His glorious presence and fully submit to Him in worship. In His presence we will be left with no doubt that God and only God is worthy of our praise and worship.
We will have feasts in heaven.
9 Then he said to me, “Write: Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb!” He also said to me, “These words of God are true.”
We will forever be provided food, the purest fruit, from the tree of life.
1 Then he showed me the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the city’s main street. The tree of life was on each side of the river, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations,
There will be no animosity or anger all nations will be healed and we will never toil for food again. Which means there will be plants in heaven.
But what about animals? Will there be animals in heaven?
11 Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse. Its rider is called Faithful and True, and with justice he judges and makes war.
There will be at least horses in heaven. God tells us in Isaiah 65:17
17 “For I will create new heavens and a new earth; the past events will not be remembered or come to mind.
He is going to create new heavens and earth and after He creates the new heavens and new earth He tells us in Isaiah 65:25
25 The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle, but the serpent’s food will be dust! They will not do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain,” says the Lord.
Animals will live in perfect harmony within the new heaven and new earth. Heaven will be a place of joy and happiness.
21 Blessed are you who are hungry now, because you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, because you will laugh.
There will be laughter in heaven. But it’s not going to be just sitting around eating, joking and laughing.
We will have responsibilities.
17 “ ‘Well done, good servant!’ he told him. ‘Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.’ 18 “The second came and said, ‘Master, your mina has made five minas.’ 19 “So he said to him, ‘You will be over five towns.’
The Bible points to the fact that we will have work serving God in heaven. The angel that spoke to John in Rev 22:9 said,
9 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you, your brothers the prophets, and those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”
He calls us fellow servants. There are no unemployed angels in heaven and there won’t be any unemployed saints in heaven either. But it won’t be like the toiling work we have in the cursed broken world.
We will be full of joy.
23 “Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. Take note—your reward is great in heaven, for this is the way their ancestors used to treat the prophets.
11 You reveal the path of life to me; in your presence is abundant joy; at your right hand are eternal pleasures.
And how can we not be full of joy, we will see Jesus face to face and see the face of God.
4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 Night will be no more; people will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light, and they will reign forever and ever.
We will be in His radiance for ever. I can’t even begin to imagine how glorious and joyous that will be. The one we are trusting our very souls in now we will see face to face.
We will spend eternity in His presence and that’s the place we call home. It’s not a future home that we await for, it’s the current home we are away from and should long to return.
If you think coming back to your current earthly home and enjoying the comfort of your own bed is something to long for, just imagine how much better it will be when we are finally home in heaven.
Heaven is the home where everything we have ever longed for will be fulfilled. And all we have to do to get there is believe in the One who brings renewal and restoration. Jesus Christ!!
