YOLO vs. You Live Forever [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

You're going to find out when you are in your resurrected body that the places and the people and the things that you love have continued in a way that's better and more beautiful than you ever had imagined, but it will be in that sense completely familiar to you because it all continues. Isn't that marvelous? That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in our series called Story Wars as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. Now, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource today. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So, as you listen to today's teaching, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org. Or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now, let's get started with today's teaching.

Here is Alan Wright. God doesn't take something that He made that's good and just because sin comes into it and marrs it, He's not going to go, oh, well, that got sabotaged, so let's throw that away. No, it's good.

It's very good. I mean, look at Eden itself. Genesis 2, verse 8, the Lord God planted a garden in Eden and out of it the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that's pleasant to sight and good for food. And the tree of life was in the middle of it. Every marvelous thing was in Eden. And if you go into the New Testament, I could show you so many scriptures.

I'll just show you a couple. What you'll see is a picture of this same thing, that there is a vision of God taking the earth and eventually glorifying it in the same way that He glorifies your body. Paul said in Romans 8, verse 18, I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. He's framing His entire life and the sufferings that He faced in light of the glory of eternity.

He says it's just no comparison. It doesn't mean that He didn't have pain, it didn't hurt, didn't grieve, didn't go through tough things. He just saw it all through the lens of the glory that is to be revealed in and through us. For the creation, He said, waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

Do you hear all this? God is saying, I'm going to continue, I'm going to glorify. For we know the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit.

That's what we elsewhere are told is the deposit guaranteeing our inheritance, the Holy Spirit within us. But we groan inwardly as we eagerly await for adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies. So while we're here, there's something that's like, hey, it's going to get way better than this. And I'm feeling a longing and an aching for that. And every pain that I feel here is reminding me it's going to be better than this.

But there's so much good here. For in this hope, we were saved. 2 Peter 3, one other reference here, verse 10. This is one of the places if you don't read it right, you'll think, oh, God's going to just annihilate everything.

But no, no, wait until the end of the passage. The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works are done on it will be exposed. Okay, so there is some way in which it's like it all turns to dust, but the same thing happens to our bodies.

It's not annihilation, it's transformation. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for that's an expression for hoping and hastening the coming of coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. And then verse 13.

But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and new earth in which righteousness dwells. Paul said what you sow cannot become what it is supposed to be until it in one sense ceases to be what it is by being a seed that goes into the ground. But when it emerges, it is that same seed.

It wasn't an orange seed doesn't go into the ground and then produce an apple tree is gonna be an orange tree. So what I'm saying is so marvelous. We do not as Christians die and go to some vaporous cloudy heaven, where we hardly would recognize anybody and we sort of float around. No, we will live in resurrected bodies on this earth. But it'll be a glorified earth that has been united with heaven, such that the holy habitation of God has become completely joined up with humanity as he always designed. And all the things of this earth that are good and of God continue in a glorified way. So we say do not love the things of this world. We're talking about all the sinful systems of this world and all the things that stand against God. But we're not saying don't love that golf course or your favorite spot at the beach or the most beautiful expressions of art or some of the most delightful music.

We're not saying that. Instead what we're saying is all that's going to continue. I thoroughly believe that there'll be some version of this very spot of ground in a new heaven and new earth. I think that you are going, in other words, you're going to find out when you are in your resurrected body, that the places and the people and the things that you love have continued in a way that's better and more beautiful than you ever had imagined. But it will be in that sense completely familiar to you because it all continues.

Isn't that marvelous? Some amazing implications when you think about heaven like this and you think about eternity like this. It means no more angst to us. God doesn't want you to live with fear at all. And I don't just mean living with terrible fear of death, which most people, the way they deal with it is just by denial. They're really just not dealing with the fear at all.

They're just denying the fact that this all comes to an end way faster than you would imagine. But God doesn't want us to have any angst. He wants us to be utterly assured of heaven. He's given us the Holy Spirit to help us in everything in life.

He's our helper. But his first work within us, we are told, is to bear witness to our spirit that we're children of God. It's the very first work of the Holy Spirit in you. He starts whispering to you, you're a child of God, you're an heir of Christ, you're going to live forever. And so who the Holy Spirit is therefore, Paul says, is he's a deposit guaranteeing, he's earnest money. You are experiencing the reality of heaven now, whenever you experience anything that the Holy Spirit brings into your life, joy and love and peace, all this is the stuff of heaven.

And when you're experiencing it, it's like you're experiencing a little bit of what you're going to have in full. And so he gives us the Holy Spirit and he wants us to have confidence. First John says, in first John four 16, we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. And by this is love perfected with us so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world.

What John is saying here is astounding. He's saying that the goal of God is for you to have so much assurance that you would never have even the slightest moment of angst or fear about your death, or about what it would be like to meet God who's the judge of all. Because he says, as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. How is Jesus?

Is he in a good relationship with the Father? He's saying, to the same extent that Jesus has uninterrupted fellowship with the Father, because of his righteous, obedient life. So it is for anyone who is in Christ, you are so thoroughly forgiven and credited with the righteousness of Jesus that you enjoy the same status, not as God, but as one who has been fully forgiven, fully redeemed and credited with Jesus's own righteousness. That's how you can have assurance. That's why I can't stop preaching that. How could I stop ever preaching that? How could I ever stop speaking of something as wonderful as that? Because the more that you know that, the more you're assured of living forever and it lifts all fear out of your life.

Hallelujah. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. With so much worry about yesterday's failures and so much hurry getting ready for tomorrow's tasks, sometimes it's hard to focus on the moment that matters most right now. In a hurried, worried season, God invites you into the present modern day life.

Coaches call it mindfulness, but it isn't a new psychological program and it isn't rooted in Eastern religion. Mindfulness living in the present is God's idea, and the Bible unveils the way Pastor Alan Wright invites you to savor life each day. When you make your gift today, we'll send you Pastor Alan's eight messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and learn how to savor the textures and flavors of God's grace each moment, in the moment, every day of your life. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues.

Here once again is Alan Wright. The second thing that it does after it lifts the anxiety, it energizes our work. To me, and I can't talk very long about this, but I want to just, I think it's an important part of this, is that there are texts in the scriptures that speak of the rewards that we have in heaven, and in places those rewards are not spoken of as equal for believers, so that things that you've done in this life follow you into the next. And I've always, as a preacher and lover of grace, that's hard for me to understand because I want to talk to you so regularly about how we are rewarded according to the merits of Jesus, not ourselves. So how could it be that we experience different rewards in heaven, those texts?

Well, a couple things to mention about this, and one is be assured of this. When you are glorified, when you are your glorified self, I believe you would have more joy in something good happening to somebody else than you would yourself. You'll be like a loving parent who, I'm way happier if something great happened to my child, I'd be way happier than if something good happened to me. And you'll feel that infinitely. You'll feel that infinitely towards everybody. So I get there, and I get up there in Butch's mansion that's five times as big as mine because he served all the time, and God's like, he's like, and I'm going to be like, man, I love your place. Be assured of that.

But here's the way I think it actually works, and this is just something I feel may explain it. If, as you see in the scripture, God continues the good work that he's begun, we're going to be our self-same bodies and our self-same souls, meaning our personalities and the nature of who you are all continues but glorified. Well, how do I know who you are? Well, I know you by some of the ways you look, but I know you by things in your personality, right? And so you have things that you care about and you do with your life. That's how we know who each other is. So in some beautiful way, all of this continues. This is transformational to me because what that means is that I think I'd like on my dying day to still be investing in something because if I believe that it all just got annihilated after the day of my death, then who cares?

But if I think it continues, keep on to the last day. I told you, I played the guitar as a kid. Then I gave my guitar to Bennett and I hadn't touched it in 20 some years and I got a guitar a year ago and now I'm playing it every day. Well, what's so cool about it is that when I started picking up the guitar again, I wasn't starting from ground zero. I played for many years as a kid and my brain was a little bit wired for guitar. Now I'm not like these guys up here, you know, but I, but I'm, I'm playing and it's coming back to me and it's coming back quick and I'm building on what actually I'm, I might be playing a little bit better than I did back when I was in college when I was playing all the time because I'm building on it.

It continued. So what if, what if the way that you're rewarded in heaven, what we really mean by that is that you've been learning to play the guitar, you're going to be playing the guitar in new heaven and new earth. You don't lose all that.

You just keep going with it. That the things that you have invested yourself in and relationships and, and, and, and things that have been, been, been delights, but sacrifices for you that all that it continues. You get to be you and the earth gets to be the earth and it's beautiful and it's glorious forever.

So just whatever your love and learning, keep learning it even on the day you die because you're going to carry it with you. And finally what this does to think of living forever like this is it fills us with a hopeful expectancy. Hope is not wishful thinking.

It is the inward bliss of assurance of a blessed future. Hope, as I've said before, is not a little girl at Christmas time going, I hope I get a pony for Christmas when there's no chance she's getting a pony. Hope is when you see an excited little girl during December and say, sweetheart, why are you so excited? And she says, because Christmas is coming, silly. And we say, but why, why, why, why are you excited because Christmas is coming?

She said, because they're going to be presents. Of course. And you say, well, do you have any of those presents now? No. Do you have any of those toys now?

No. And why are you happy now? Because silly they'll be under the tree on Christmas day.

In other words, hope is bliss, happiness, expectancy that makes the heart elated now because a blessed future is coming. I don't have the toys. I just know they're coming. So why are you happy now? Because that's coming. Why are you happy now, Christian, in this world as you suffer under Nero, the first century Christians like Peter would say, because of living hope. Do you not know what's coming? I don't even consider, Paul says, the sufferings of this present to even be worth talking about. It's not even worth talking about the aches and pains that I have right now, because they're just too saturated with the hope of what's coming.

It makes everything that feels otherwise like a sacrifice more of a delight. So I helped Bennett and Amy yesterday. I bought a little house in Charlotte, their first house. They had to buy a house. They were in an apartment in uptown, but they had to get a house because they found out that a baby's coming in October. So they get one bedroom and no room for anything, had to move, got a house, had to spend more than they wanted to because it's a seller's market right now. Didn't want to have to do that, had to do that, and had to get a house, had to move stuff. Life's been busy. Went down to help them move yesterday. Drove a U-Haul down there and given her Nana's dining room table and some chairs and stuff. They took a layer down at my mom's house.

It's working out good timing for them. And Pastor Chris told me, he said, you doing anything fun on Saturday morning? I said, I'm moving Bennett today.

He started laughing at me. I said, oh, your day's coming, son. Your day's coming, son. I said, since 2013, when I took a first kid to college, every year I've moved at least one person.

Maybe sometimes two people, you know, in the same year. Your time's coming. And just moved them, you know, and we're moving stuff in.

And then the legs broken on the dining room table and the company we used for our, it was not a pleasant experience. And you know, you're just doing all this, right? Why? Because the baby's coming. Because the baby's coming. Because there's some wonderful coming.

So we're not thinking about, oh, no, we've got to do all this stuff, which we didn't have to get any done in this house. We didn't have, oh, the baby's coming. The hope of what's coming transforms what would feel like just hard duty or difficult labor now or even travail because the baby's coming. That's what hope is. And God wants you to live with that hope.

And my heart is breaking. I mean breaking, especially for a young generation that has so little of it. If you wonder why there is so much anxiety and depression, especially in our younger generations.

Imagine if you just have a life soaking in bad news from every angle and listen over and over to the failures of the people that were in authority and the dissolution of the institutions that you once counted on and then join that with you think you only live once and then it's over. What would be the point of it all? And God wants every single person to know Him and to have assurance of heaven. He wants that.

It'll change everything. When you switch from YOLO to know you live forever in a new heaven and new earth and that's the gospel. Alan Wright, our good news message today.

YOLO versus you live forever. It's from our series Story Wars and a stick with us. Pastor Alan is back in just a moment sharing a parting good news thought for the day. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing. If you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get Alan Wright's daily blessing. It's free and just a click away at Pastor Alan.org.

With so much worry about yesterday's failures and so much hurry getting ready for tomorrow's tasks. Sometimes it's hard to focus on the moment that matters most right now in a hurried worried season God invites you into the present modern day life coaches call it mindfulness, but it isn't a new psychological program and it isn't rooted in Eastern religion mindfulness living in the present is God's idea and the Bible unveils the way Pastor Alan Wright invites you to save her life each day when you make your gift today we'll send you Pastor Alan's eight messages in an attractive CD album or through digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Make your gift today and learn how to savor the textures and flavors of God's grace each moment in the moment every day of your life. The Gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support when you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website PastorAlan.org back now with Pastor Alan and our parting good news thought for the day and if somebody just takes that first part and they say, okay, here's a preacher who's against Yolo who's against you only live once. Well, you're just a killjoy. That's probably what they're thinking but you're saying this unlocks a peace and a joy like none other. And it unlocks actual energy.

Yeah. The only time that really people give up and quit working hard and quit engaging in life is when they feel hopeless. It's at the point at which you think what's the hope here? Well, what's the point of doing this? It's all going to just burn up in the end.

It doesn't matter and I can't get it done. When you start thinking like that, that's when you give up. It's when you think you can't make the finish line.

That's when you go, well, why try to run this lap? So what we're talking about here is ultimately the difference between having energy for living versus not. And it's a huge deception from hell itself to say you only live once that will lead either into perfectionistic anxiety, boy, I got to work harder and get it all done or into really aimless and sinful living. And God has a much better plan for us. You live in Christ. You live forever. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.