How Eternity Brings Focus to What Really Matters: Living with Purpose

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Sign up at harvest.org. I think that those that think the most about the next life do the most in this life. You say, well, why would that be? Because heaven and earth are connected. It turns out those who are heavenly minded are the most earthly good. Pastor Greg Laurie says keep looking up. Listen, your belief in the afterlife has everything to do with how you live and the before life. And so our feet must be on earth, but our minds should be in heaven.

All cars are equipped with rear view mirrors and side view mirrors. But the safest way to drive is obviously looking at the windshield. It's best to look ahead at what's coming today on A New Beginning. Pastor Greg Laurie says we should take the same approach to life. We should look ahead to see what's coming. And today we will do just that as we look at eternal life to help us properly focus on how to live this life.

A good many of your questions about heaven will be answered today. We will learn to look ahead. I read an interesting article in the paper this last week about some predictions made by scientist Isaac Asimov. And he wrote an article in 1964 and I had to read his predictions that are 50 years old. So scientist Isaac Asimov predicted quote, there would be electroluminescent panels that would be in common use. Well I think he got that one right. We have all the retail displays and signs and of course flat panel TVs are everywhere now. So I think that was a pretty accurate prediction.

Number two. Communication says Asimov will be sight and sound. You will see as well as hear the person.

You telephone. Well that is clearly true with Skype and Google Hangout and FaceTime and all the other resources that are out there. Video chatting has become quite common. Thirdly he said the screen will be used not only to see the people you call but to study documents and photographs and read passages from books.

That too was accurate. We have computers. We have tablet devices.

Even smartphones now. And so these were some pretty amazing predictions. But there were other predictions he made that didn't quite come true because I read these things and I thought well I want to read all the predictions he made. So I found the actual document that he wrote. This article.

And here are some predictions he made that didn't quite happen. Jets of compressed air will lift land vehicles off the highways. Bridges will be of less importance since cars will be capable of crossing water on their jets. Oh I wish that were true. Have you ever been stuck in traffic and just wish that you could just go go right over the top of everyone.

So that clearly didn't happen. Maybe Isaac was watching too many episodes of The Jetsons, which was out at the time he made this prediction by the way. Also Asimov envisioned kitchens that would produce auto meals. So you wouldn't even have to make your breakfast.

Your kitchen would heat water, make coffee, toast bread, scramble your eggs and your bacon. And he also predicted that robots would be doing our yard work. Well I don't know about you but I don't have a robot doing my yard work. However they have these little robotic vacuum cleaners. Have you seen these?

They kind of scoot around the floor. So that is fairly close. And so you know he was a fascinating guy Asimov. He was brilliant. He wrote hundreds of books. He wrote science fiction books as well. And he also was very wrong on one subject that he thought he knew about. And that was the topic of heaven. Because he was an atheist. Isaac Asimov said of heaven, quote, I don't believe in an afterlife so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell or fearing heaven even more.

For whatever the tortures of hell I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse. End quote. He could not be more wrong. It reminds me of Soviet Yuri Gagarin who was the first man in outer space. And he was quoted to say, I saw earth and it was beautiful. But being a good communist he also said, I looked and I did not see God. Oh wow.

Insightful. If Yuri would have taken off his helmet for three seconds he would have seen God. And Isaac Asimov has now entered eternity. And I hope he put his faith in Christ in the last moments of his life and he could see how glorious heaven is. The last thing heaven is is a place of boredom. In fact heaven is a place of bliss. We are not going to sit around as the caricatured version suggests on big billowy clouds strumming harps and taking long naps.

Though that probably appeals to some people. But actually according to Scripture heaven is a real place for real people who do real things. The Bible is very clear in pointing out heaven is a city. Heaven is a country. Heaven is a garden. Heaven is a paradise. Heaven is a place.

It is where we will be reunited with loved ones who have preceded us. Heaven is a place of activity and building and eating and worshipping and much more. And the Bible teaches that one day heaven will come to earth. So when we say I am going to die as a Christian one day and go to heaven and live there forever that is not completely accurate. Because one day heaven and earth will become one. And so we think a lot about the afterlife. And so we should or maybe we don't think enough about it. And I think we need to give a lot of thought to what is going to happen later and it will affect us in the life we are living now.

Listen. Your belief in the afterlife has everything to do with how you lived and the before life. Because you might say, well what does it matter what happens in heaven.

That is a long ways away. Well you don't know that. You want to think deeply about this. Now I am a student of heaven.

I am certainly not an expert on the topic. But I am a student of it and I have become more of a student of heaven in recent years for obvious reasons. Our son went to be with the Lord. So I find myself often just thinking about heaven. Trying to imagine heaven. Trying to wrap my mind around heaven. It is a fun thing to do.

It is not an easy thing to do. And you know there is a lot of books out on the topic of heaven. And many of them are written by people that claim to have been there and have returned. And I am just going to be up front with you and tell you that I don't immediately believe someone when they say they have been to heaven and come back. Ok. Because the only way I know of knowing what heaven is like is by going to an authoritative source.

I only know one person who has been to heaven and come back and has told me about it. And that is Jesus Christ. And He says in John 6 38, I have come down from heaven not to do My will but the will of Him who sent Me. So He is the expert on heaven. But I am a student of heaven. And I preach a lot of sermons on heaven because I want to bring the idea of how our belief in heaven should affect us while we live on earth. You know it is sometimes said, oh you are so heavenly minded you are no earthly good.

My greater concern is that I would be so earthly minded I would be of no heavenly good. I think our belief in the afterlife has a lot to say in how we live in the before life. How we live in the here and now. The way we view the by and by affects us in the here and now. And that brings us to a text that I want to look at with you that tells us what our focus as Christians ought to be. Colossians chapter 3 verses 1–2. Let's read that. That is one of the passages we turn to. Paul writes, Now what does that mean? This phrase, set your mind, speaks of a diligent, active, single-minded investigation.

Have you ever concentrated your energies on a single thing? Researching something. Wanting to learn as much as you could about some place perhaps you were going to go visit. That is what we should do with heaven. It is a place we are going to one day go visit.

It is a place we are going to one day go and live in so we should be actively thinking about it. Another way you could translate this phrase that Paul gives us here is think or have this inner disposition. A way to simplify it is think heaven. By the way the verb used in this verse is in the present tense so it would say keep thinking heaven. Or another way to put it keep seeking heaven.

So put it all together. Here is what Paul is saying. Constantly keep seeking and thinking about heaven.

I like that. Our feet must be on earth but our minds should be in heaven. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment.

Hey everybody Greg Laurie here. You know my uncle Fred Jordan had one of the first Christian TV programs out there. It was called Church in the Home.

I remember watching it as a little boy when I was living with my grandparents. Well we have Church in the Home for you every weekend. It is called Harvest at Home and you can find it at Harvest.org. We have worship and a message from God's word.

So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well today we are learning to be more heavenly minded. Pastor Greg is leading our study of the hereafter called How Eternity Brings Focus to What Really Matters.

Let's continue. I think that those that think the most about the next life do the most in this life. You say well why would that be? Well it is because we know life goes on and life doesn't just stop here. We know there is a future reward or rewards I should say waiting for the follower of Jesus Christ. And we also know there is a final judgment.

A final court of arbitration. We know every sin we have committed would ultimately come out if it is not forgiven by Jesus Christ. So our belief in the afterlife affects us in this life and the way that we live and the things that we do. Because heaven and earth are connected. You know we often think of heaven as far far away. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. Maybe heaven is just right next door so to speak.

Maybe it is just a thin veil that separates the seen world from the unseen world. There is that story of course of Elisha and his servant Gehazi. And they were surrounded by the enemy armies. And Gehazi saw them.

Elisha was sleeping. And Gehazi woke up and was freaking out and woke up the sleeping prophet. And I love what Elisha said. He said, "'Lord help him to see that those that are with us are more than those that are with them.' And suddenly this man's eyes were opened and he saw a supernatural world of angels all around him." And right now as we sit here in our comfortable little pews or seats and we hear this message there is an unseen world around us. A world of God and Satan.

Of angels and demons. And yes a world of heaven and ultimately hell. I don't know how far away heaven is.

But I know that it may be closer than we think. And heaven affects us here. What did Jesus teach us in the Lord's Prayer? He taught us to pray like this. Our Father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus is clearly telling us that our life on earth is affected by our thoughts on heaven. We ought to be thinking heaven.

You say, but Greg why should we do that? Because this could be your last year on this earth. Now I hope that thought does not frighten or terrify you. The Christian is always ready to go home because he has his ticket. And by that I mean that we have our reservation.

It is secure. We know what is going to happen. It is not that we have a death wish, but we know we will see God one day. So it is not something we stress about. We just live our lives. That God gives to us.

But it could be our last year. And what if it was? Let me ask you this question. If you could read your own obituary today what do you think people would remember you for? What would be written about you? I read an interesting article in the paper about a man named Val Patterson who died last year. And he decided that he wanted to buck the trend and write his own obituary honestly. Right.

Because if you have been to some people's services and after you hear them describe you think I don't really know who they are talking about because that is not the person I knew. So this guy decided to write his own obituary. So here is what he said.

These are his words. As it turns out I am the guy who stole the safe from the Mortarview Drive-In back in June of 1971. He says, I could have left that unsaid but I wanted to get it off my chest.

He also admitted to kicking rocks into the old faithful geyser at Yellowstone National Park and also admitted that he was banned for life from Disneyland and SeaWorld for youthful hijinks. I mean honestly I cracked up reading this. I found it kind of refreshing and so honest. Now I hope you will be remembered for more than this. But at least the man was honest. Listen.

I don't determine the date of my birth and I don't determine the date of my death but I have everything to say about what happens in between those two dates. The great evangelist D.L. Moody was asked the question, if you knew the Lord was returning tonight how would you spend the rest of your day?

That is a good question isn't it? If you knew. Let me ask of you now. If you knew the Lord was returning tonight how would you spend the rest of this day?

Moody's response was, I wouldn't do anything different than what I do every day. And that is the right response from a Christian who is truly heavenly minded. We want to redeem the time that God has given to us. We don't want to waste it.

And we certainly don't want to try to kill it. It has been said that men talk of killing time while time quietly kills them. End quote. Life comes and goes just like that.

Doesn't it? The Bible says it is like a vapor of smoke that appears for a moment and then vanishes away. The Bible says we live our life like a story that has already been told. Then comes the afterlife. And trust me when I tell you when you get to the afterlife and you look back on the before life you will see things far differently.

You will see them from an eternal perspective. You will realize what really mattered in life was not what you bought but what you built. What will matter is not what you got but what you gave. What will matter is not your competence but your character.

What will matter is not your success but your significance. So let's ask ourselves a question. Why are we here in the first place? Why am I taking up space?

Why am I breathing air? Why do I exist? I have always taken among Americans when they were asked that question and 61 percent said the main purpose of life is enjoyment and personal fulfillment. So we know that over half the population of our country thinks that life is here. That they are here to simply be fulfilled and enjoying life. 50 percent of those who call themselves born again Christians said the purpose of life is enjoyment and self-satisfaction.

Really? Do these Christians read their Bibles? Because if they did they would not come to that conclusion. Is the purpose of life self-satisfaction? Let me tell you something. Living for pleasure is one of the least pleasurable things a person can do. And everybody lives for something. Everybody has something that gets them out of the bed in the morning.

Everyone has something that gets their blood pumping. Something they are passionate about. And we often set goals that we want to reach. Maybe some of you have set a goal. A lot of times their goal is losing weight right.

Getting in better shape etc. I read an article this week about a woman who set a goal last year that she was able to reach. Here was her goal.

It was to only eat at Starbucks stores. That was her goal. And she was successful. Her name, and I am not making this up, is Beautiful Existence. She must have had hippie parents for sure. Only hippies would name their kid that. She ate only products made from Starbucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 365 days over the course of a year.

She spent approximately $500 to $600 a month on prepackaged salads, pastries, wraps, and a variety of coffee drinks all from Starbucks. Now when I was reading this the first thought that came to my mind was, why? Why would you set such a goal? And Beautiful Existence, her name, which I have a hard time believing, gave her a response. She said the reason I did it is because I am fearless and I want to explore new things in my life. I love to test the water and each time I challenge myself and I learn a lot. Ok Beautiful Existence.

Well done. What goals did you set? How should I live? What is my purpose?

Why am I here? Pastor Greg Laurie, with good encouragement today to let eternity influence how we live our lives on a daily basis. And there is more to come in this message here on The New Beginning.

If you weren't able to hear all of today's study from Pastor Greg, you can hear the entire message online at Harvest.org. Well Pastor Greg, movies and TV programs about Jesus go back decades. But it seems they're more common now than ever before. That's true.

Why do you think that is? I think people have a real interest in the Bible. And I think when you visualize it, when you cast people to play parts, and it's directed well, and you add music and you know what you're doing, it can be a powerful way of getting people into the greatest stories ever told. And I'll pretty much watch any dramatization of the Bible. I've seen some okay ones. I've seen some pretty good ones.

But we are offering you right now, which I think is the cream of the crop. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but if you haven't, you're gonna see it now. It's a special series on the life of Jesus called The Chosen. It's directed by Dallas Jenkins. Dallas is the son of author Jerry Jenkins who wrote the Left Behind books.

And Dallas has got lightning in a bottle here. He has just cast this series so perfectly. Peter and Andrew and Thomas and Mary and Nicodemus. He's made these characters come to life, but his crowning achievement is the casting of actor Jonathan Rumi in the role of Jesus. I've seen many cinematic portrayals of Christ of the years, and I think this is the best I've ever seen. In fact, I was speaking with actor Jonathan Rumi who plays the role of Jesus and told him how powerful his portrayal of Christ was in those scenes of The Chosen.

I did not come to deliver the people from Rome. And from what? From sin.

From spiritual death. God loves the world in this way. That he gave his only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. So this has nothing to do with Rome. It's all about sin. God did not send his son into the world to condemn it, Nicodemus.

He sent him to save it through him. So I'm very excited to announce that here at Harvest we are offering season one of this amazing series in the life of Jesus called The Chosen to you for your gift of any size. Is this not the perfect time to watch this with your children? And I'm telling you, your kids are going to love it. My grandkids love it. You're going to love it.

Older people are going to love it because it's done so well. The New Testament stories will come to life for you in a way like you've never seen before. So for your gift of any size to us here at Harvest Ministries for the month of December, the month when we celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, we want to send you the chosen. Some of you can give more. Some of you can't give as much. But whatever you send will be put to use to continue teaching the Word of God as you hear it here in the New Beginning and giving people an opportunity to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Yeah, that's right. And it's the most strategic time of the year for that investment. Not only are there tax deduction benefits at the end of the year, but this is when we determine how far we can reach with the gospel in the coming 12 months. And we have huge plans for 2022, including a large Crusade outreach and a film documenting the Jesus movement.

We're praying God sends another revival like the Jesus movement. So your donation couldn't come at a better time. And with your investment, be sure to ask for Season 1 of The Chosen on DVD. You can donate online at harvest.org, or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514, or call us at 1-800-821-3300. We can take your call anytime. Again, dial 1-800-821-3300. Well next time, Pastor Greg brings us even more insight about eternity, insight that will help us keep a sharper focus in the here and now. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible Teacher, Greg Laurie.