Breaking News in Heaven

Now, you might think that remembering something bad that happened to you on earth is going to ruin heaven. Well, it isn't ruining heaven for them. In fact, keep in mind, Jesus himself chose in his resurrected body to retain his scars.

Every time we see him, we're going to remember his crucifixion. In fact, in heaven, we're all going to come to understand the wisdom of God and the keeping of his promise that indeed everything did work out together for our good. If you're like me, you know the feeling of being lost. Maybe you used a GPS or a map to find your way again.

Or maybe a helpful friend or stranger pointed away. There's no better feeling than knowing that you've been found and are on the right course again. Jesus uses a parable to tell his disciples that he's in the business of finding lost people and setting them on the right course. And Jesus indicates that some very special people are rejoicing in heaven when a lost soul is found through faith in Jesus.

Learn more in this message called Breaking News in Heaven. There is something in the average man's mind that finds it nearly impossible to admit when he's lost. We don't get lost, do we men? We lose our bearing temporarily, whatever. GPS has been a big help. It saved many a marriage. But it's not always perfect. In fact, my wife and I were traveling not too long ago and it led us down some side roads onto a gravel road to a dead end. But even without GPS, I have been able to get lost all by myself. My wife will drop subtle hints like, honey, we're lost. That's subtle, isn't it?

And I'll say, no, uh-uh. I know where we are. I know where we are. We're somewhere in North America.

That's what I know. But the truth is that's a part of every human heart. In a more serious manner of speaking, the world today is lost. It's wandering.

And it isn't just a gravel road and a dead end. It's a wasted life. It's eternity without joy. Salvation is an admission of being lost, the transparent admission of needing a divine shepherd. But even when you become a Christian, and some of you are old enough in the faith to realize you can stray. That's why we sing like we just did, prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love. Robert Robinson wrote that in 1758. Martin Luther, the reformer, taught 500 years ago that the Christian life begins with repentance and continually includes repentance, for we have wandering, disobedient hearts.

Frankly, there's not a day gone by when we've made it easy for our Lord to be our shepherd. We get a good illustration of what that looks like with children, don't we? Children often act toward their parents, like we act toward our Heavenly Father, even though we happen to have a perfect parent, a perfect father.

I was given a book that catalogues stories of things children did and said fascinating, humorous, convicting. Sharon wrote from Pennsylvania about her four-year-old daughter. It was bedtime, she writes, and my four-year-old Emily complained that she wasn't ready to go to bed. I explained that as her mother, it was up to me to determine the time to go to sleep. I explained that God gave me the job of taking care of all the details in her life, making sure she ate right, got enough sleep at night. Now, I'm not trying to be a mean mother, Sharon said, but this is the job God gave me, to which Emily declared, then you're fired.

Wonderful moment for every mother with it. If you think you have trouble with your children, think about creation, the first humans, children of God, created by God. In fact, a family in our church sent me this illustration. After creating the universe, this beautiful planet, the natural world, and the animal kingdom, after all that, on the final day of creation, God created Adam and Eve. One of the first things God said to his children included the word don't.

Don't what? Adam replied. Don't eat the fruit from that tree over there. It is forbidden fruit. Forbidden fruit? Hey, Eve, we've got some forbidden fruit over here. No way.

Yes way. Don't eat that fruit, God said. Why not?

Why can't we? Eve asked. God said, because I said so.

That's why. Wondering why he hadn't stopped creating after making the giraffes. It wasn't long before God saw his children eating that forbidden fruit. Didn't I tell you not to eat that fruit, God demanded. I think so, Adam replied.

Then why did you eat it? Well, Adam said, pointing at Eve, she gave it to me. It's all her fault. It is not, Eve shouted. Yes it is. Is not, is so, is not, is so. Having had it with the two of them, God punished them with having children of their own.

Now the reason that's humorous is because it is universal. We need a shepherd. We need a shepherd who finds us as unbelievers, and we need a shepherd who leads us, guides us all the way home as believers. Now with that in mind, Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people, including religious leaders in Luke's Gospel, and we're in chapter 15, if you want to turn there.

All of these people have one thing in common. They are all lost, except for his disciples. And they need to be found. In fact, the theme of this chapter, all of chapter 15, you can write in the margin what I've written, lost and found. You're going to find that repeated, for that is the primary theme. He's going to deliver three parables, a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Now today, we're at the second parable, and so let's pick it up as he just sort of continues right in with verse 8. Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?

Now let's set the stage here. During these days, I have read, Palestinian women often receive ten silver coins as a wedding gift, a dowry. These coins would have sentimental value as well as material or monetary value. Other sources that I have read suggested that these coins were part of her headdress, which would be typical in these days, a beautiful jewelry set, which she would have worn. Luke uses the word for coin, drachme, which was a coin worth one day's wages among the common people in this day, and she has ten of them. So she has two weeks' worth of savings to her name, and a coin, this coin to her might not have anything to do with sentimental value. It might have to do with survival for her.

This is desperate for her. In fact, we're told here in verse 8, notice that when she loses this coin, Jesus asked the question, because it would be commonly understood, wouldn't she light a lamp and sweep the whole house until she finds it? By the way, that's another glimpse into her poverty. Peasant homes in these days were dark, made of mud-baked brick. The floor was beaten earth, trampled hard. It would then be covered with dried reeds and grass, hay, whatever was available. There would have been one little window, just a slit, basically maybe 18 inches long. The fact that she's lighting her entire house with one little lamp indicates her home would have been that typical mud-brick one-room house. We would call it today a hut.

Shed would maybe be an exaggeration for where she lived. To look for a coin on that kind of a floor covered with grass and reeds, with dirt cracks and crevices. It would be, one author wrote, like hunting for a needle in a haystack.

The smartest thing to do would be to sweep up the entire floor and then go through it all piece by piece, which is what she evidently does. Jesus is describing here his own determination. He came to seek and to save that which was lost. This is the heart of God.

This is God searching, as it were, for unbelievers. I love the analogy of one author who wrote, this is God in his grace stooping down to find us in dirty places, bending down and sifting through the debris of earth in order to lift the treasure of his redeemed from the garbage into which it has fallen. Maybe you have the impression today that you need to clean yourself up before coming to Christ. Maybe you're thinking that you need to straighten a few things out before you can come in faith to Christ and before he would accept you.

Oh no, you've got it in the wrong order. He finds you in the dirt of earth, in what we could call the dust bin of sin. You're covered with the grime of guilt. You don't clean yourself up before coming to him. He finds you and he cleans you up.

In fact, for the rest of your life, he's going to dust you off. You and I keep getting dirty, which is why repentance and confession is part of our lives. Until that day when his work is completed with our glorified, perfective hearts, minds, bodies, as we stand in his presence, as Philippians describes it in chapter 1 and verse 6, that day when you finally see your shepherd, the one who searched for you, the one who took you from the realm of being lost into the realm of being found. Now, did Jesus make a contrast or at least Luke is recording it in that manner?

It would be easy to miss. You might remember if you go back to the beginning of the chapter, we're told in verse 2 that the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling. Why are they grumbling? Because this man receives sinners. Jesus receives sinners and we're going to fuss about that. We're going to grumble over sinners who've been received by Jesus. Keep that in mind as they are grumbling, Jesus now contrasts their grumbling with heaven rejoicing.

He sets up the contrast. Notice here in verse 9, when she is found, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, rejoice with me for I have found the coin that I had lost. To follow this verse 10, just so Jesus says, let me drive home the point, I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. There is joy that's placed early in the construction for emphasis. Joy there is before the angels of God, that is in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner, you can render that over every one sinner, every one of them who repents. Jesus has made this point twice, hasn't he? When something is found, verse 7, there is joy in heaven, now verse 10, there is joy in the presence of the angels. The way John Ryle puts it, he says, this idea is repeated twice because of our unbelief.

We would find this hard to believe. We would find it difficult to believe, he writes, that the perfect joy of heaven, follow this, the perfect joy of heaven experiences moments of increase. The perfect joy of heaven experiences moments of even greater joy.

Why? Because there is a celebration. It doesn't imply that all of heaven is doing this, perhaps pockets of heaven as they celebrate an unredeemed sinner who has just been saved. And the celebration that's been taking place is only increasing. Now we're typically told here that angels are doing the celebrating along with God.

No doubt angels are invested in this. They rejoice more than likely in the vindication of Christ over the kingdom of Satan and that one has been redeemed. But I want you to notice it doesn't say they're doing the celebrating. It says celebration or joy is taking place in the presence of the angels. Well, who else might be rejoicing? Who's celebrating? We have every reason to believe that it would be none other than the friends, the associates, the family members of that unbeliever on earth who just came to faith in Christ and they begin this little pocket of celebration. Joy just increased for them.

One author writes on this text, who but believers living in the Father's house would break out in celebration? A sinner they knew needed saving. They found out. They got saved. Could have been a phone call.

I don't know. Somehow the news got to heaven. They found out that lost sinner they knew was redeemed. Now maybe you're thinking, I thought that when people got to heaven, they didn't care about anything happening on earth. Since they are now in the presence of God, why would they even care about what's going on down here? Well, evidently they do.

That meter spiked. There's celebration on top of celebration for converted sinners. This really raises some questions about what people are doing in heaven right now, doesn't it? Some good questions. And I'm out of time. Well, never mind lunch.

Amen? Okay, you three can stay after. Stay with me. No, I want to eat too.

But let me do this. Let's take just a few minutes and go off script because I think it will play into the meaning of the celebration of Luke 15. Take your Bibles and go to Revelation chapter 6. Revelation chapter 6. Now as you're turning, the tribulation is taking place. We're going to be given a scene in heaven while the tribulation is taking place on earth.

And this staggers my imagination every time I read it. Thousands of people, we don't know how many, have already been killed in the tribulation in defiance of the antichrist. They refuse the mark. That mark, by the way, is not that chip they're talking about today. That mark is an obvious outward sign of worship of the antichrist. So you don't have to be afraid that maybe you got, you know, that snuck up on you.

It isn't going to happen. Those people that defy him because they've come to faith in Christ have been killed, martyred. Now they are in heaven. They are before the throne of God. They're having a conversation with God.

And I want you to listen to what they're saying. Go to verse 10. Verse 10. And they cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? Then they were each given a white robe, told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been. Let me give you five observations.

Whittle it down from what could be 15 or 20, but let me just give you quickly five. Number one, they are themselves in heaven. That seems to be obvious, but we need to say that. In other words, these martyred believers didn't go to heaven and morph into something else or someone else, some mystical floating creature with no conscious distinction from others. There's no sense in the Bible that eternity is where we lose individuality.

They are distinct from the Lord and from each other. They're not somehow absorbed into some kind of divine consciousness. That's false religion. That's not true religion. Number two, they are communicating with emotion, with God.

We're told here they cried out with a loud voice. So heaven isn't a place where we feel nothing. We're stoic. You know, we're all like Spock. We have no emotion.

That's a TV show that was on when I was a kid. Heaven isn't a place where we robotically communicate, you know, telepathically, emotionlessly. Oh, no, they're speaking.

They're using language. They're passionately praying outwardly to God. Number three, they remember what happened to them on earth. Are you going to remember?

They do. How could you be judged by the Lord at that judgment seat and rewarded for everything that you did to his glory without any memory? Well, they remember. In fact, look what they're calling for, judgment.

When are you going to judge those people that violently took our lives unjustly? They're going to remember everything about it. Now, you might think that remembering something bad that happened to you on earth is going to ruin heaven. Well, it isn't ruining heaven for them. In fact, keep in mind, Jesus himself chose in his resurrected body to retain his scars. Every time we see him, we're going to remember his crucifixion. Does that ruin heaven?

No. That deepens our joy in heaven because those scars are our path there. They pave the way to heaven because of his sacrifice for us. So likewise, the believer who suffered on earth is going to find greater joy in their deliverance in heaven. Whatever you're suffering now, you're going to remember and heaven is going to be all the sweeter because of it. Listen, beloved, remembering your troubles on earth isn't going to depress you in heaven. In fact, in heaven, we're all going to come to understand the wisdom of God and the keeping of his promise that indeed everything did work out together for our what? Good. Number four, they're given the answer to their passionate prayer. Here's the answer from God.

I love this. Wait. By the way, that opens the imagination to the progression of time in heaven. Wait. It hasn't happened yet.

It will happen, but not yet. In fact, that's the same answer you and I have been given time and time again as we prayed to the Lord. The answer has been wait. Lord, how long is it going to take before you judge and avenge our blood? How long do we have to wait?

I love the fact that he says to them here, here's your new clothing. Now go and rest a little longer. Now that is a big difference between up there and down here in the sense waiting in heaven for God to act to them is the same thing as resting. To us, waiting is frustrating because their perspective is perfected in the presence of their sovereign God waiting for him is resting in him, which is why they began this prayer by saying, oh, sovereign Lord. Their understanding of that will be so much deeper than ours now. So if you want to act like they do up there, rest a little bit more while you wait. His plans will come to pass.

One more, number five. God tells them that some of their friends and companions are going to be murdered as well. Now you'd think that bad news would ruin heaven for them. They've been martyred and now the Lord has just told them that some of their friends are going to be killed, martyred as well. So don't miss this principle here. Happiness in heaven is not based on ignorance of what's happening on earth. Now here's a point I want to make. If the Lord tells them that something is going to happen on earth in the near future, that means that the Lord can also communicate to them that something just happened on earth.

Namely, something they would care deeply about. They died before they saw come to faith in Christ. The conversion of the sinner. This is breaking news in heaven. This is breaking news and the joy meter spikes.

For those pockets of people, we're not told how it's communicated just that it is. And that person maybe that you've been praying for who didn't come to faith in Christ, you died, God's still at work and it may take place and your celebration might take place in heaven because with this breaking news you join in and a celebration begins. That was Stephen Davey and a lesson he called Breaking News in Heaven. Wasn't that an encouraging and inspiring message from God's Word? If you'd like to listen to the full-length version of this message or share it with a friend, you'll find it on our website.

Visit wisdomonline.org. You'll find a section where we post the full-length version of all Stephen's sermons. You'll find this message under Luke.

It comes from Luke 15. While you're at that website, look around because it's filled with Bible teaching resources that will help you grow in your faith. Stephen's desire is to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means and apply it to your life. That website is designed to help you with all that. So visit wisdomonline.org today. Then join us next time here on Wisdom for the Hearts.