Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Scripture Memory

Introduce Jacob Cotton

Upcoming Events

Carowinds (last night to register)

June 6th - Pool Party at the McMahons

Game: Tylor Swift or Lamentations

Testimony Dan

Video

What do you think Heaven is like?

QUESTION: What will happen to you when you die?

That is a powerful question to ask and to ponder on.

Introducation

Last week we learned about hell.

A place of judgment

A place of fiery agony

A place of conscious torment

A place of complete separation from God

A place of eternal duration

Thankfully, Hell is not the end of the gospel.

The gospel points us to the horror and reality of hell because of our sin, but the gospel also points us to the reality and hope of heaven for the Christian.

Philippians 3:20

The Realities of Heaven

Just like Hell, there a spectrum of views for Heaven.

(SLIDE)

there are a lot of misconceptions of Heaven.

Secular

Universalist

Christian Universalist

Biblical Christian

There are also a lot of misconceptions of Heaven.

Is it this current world OR

Is it a place of clouds and light where Everyone in heaven looks like chubby babies with wings and harps

Everyone in heaven looks like chubby babies with wings and harps

But the Bible gives us our understanding of Heaven.

SLIDE: 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.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

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.”

Heaven is God’s dwelling place with man (SLIDE)

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.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

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.”

Heaven is not on Earth currently.

Scripture teaches that God made the Heavens and the Earth.

It also teaches that Heaven is God’s dwelling place.

BUT, Heaven will be on the Earth one day.

It will be when God will dwell with man, where earth and heaven will pass away and the New Heaven and New Earth will be one.

Why is Heaven good news for the Christian?

It is the New Earth where God will dwell with His people in unhindered communion and unimaginable joy.

MEANING

It is the ultimate end of the gospel, not that we will go to heaven but that heaven will come to us.

Heaven is home for the Christain

“Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and of all the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities.

Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary, and active.

here must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals ….

Heaven will prove the consummate lower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.”

A.A. Hodge

Heaven is a place without sin

Sin is what breaks our relationship with God.

Sin is what causes brokenness, hurt, sadness.

In Heaven there will be no sin.

It is a place of perfect righteousness.

Heaven is a place without suffering

Heaven is a place without sin

Revelation 21:27

There will be no broken relationships, no hardships, no sorrow.

It will be only Joy!

The joy we experience on earth will be nothing like the true joy in Heaven, because all that we experience here is tainted by sin.

Heaven is a place of full reconciliation with God

Heaven is a place of final resurrection for our bodies

Freed from sin

Rev

Heaven is a place of full reconciliation with God

We will have real physical bodies in heaven.

We wont be spirits or shadows of our former selves.

We will be perfected and glorified.

Where you wont grow tired, where you wont be able to fail.

It is the ultimate end of the gospel, not that we will go to heaven but that heaven will come to us.

Heaven is home for the Christian

“Heaven, as the eternal home of the divine Man and of all the redeemed members of the human race, must necessarily be thoroughly human in its structure, conditions, and activities.

Its joys and activities must all be rational, moral, emotional, voluntary, and active.

There must be the exercise of all the faculties, the gratification of all tastes, the development of all talent capacities, the realization of all ideals ….

Heaven will prove the consummate lower and fruit of the whole creation and of all the history of the universe.”

A.A. Hodge

,

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.... 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Philippians 1:21-24

13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.... 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

Heaven is the home for the Christian.

It is where we are meant to be, because it is where God is.

God did not create us to be separated from Him but to be with him

Where we will dwell with God for all eternity.

And the amazing thing is that looking at the Scriptures, heaven is coming to us.

Yes, when we as Christians die we will be with the Lord, but in the end as says, the new heaven and the new earth will come to us for God to dwell with His church.

There is this thinking that all of creation will just pass away and all that we will just be in the clouds with God.

But when God created the world he declared it “good”.

Our sin has corrupted the world, but God does not surrender this good creation to the devil for destruction.