Living on Earth; Longing for Heaven - Part A

We live between two worlds.

We've already seen that we have dual citizenship. We are earth-born, but we are heaven-bound. We live on the earth, but we long for what is ahead in heaven. So we live effectively between two worlds. We experience the tension of that. And sometimes we even wonder, when life gets really hard, how long do I have to stay here? Why can't I just vibe past all this and go directly to heaven? As believers, we are citizens of heaven and earth.

Knowing that, how should we live? Connect with Skip Heitzig today as he shares vital insight on how you can live effectively for Jesus right now. But first, reading the stories of the Bible is a very good thing. Walking where these stories took place is at a whole other level. Skip Heitzig is planning his next tour, and you can be on it.

Here's the invitation from Skip. We'll travel throughout Israel and experience the culture that's so unique to that country. Now, I've been to Israel a number of times over the years, and I can honestly say that visiting the places where the events of the Scriptures unfolded, where Jesus lived, taught, and healed, it just never gets old. We'll start on the Mediterranean Sea and head north, seeing places like Caesarea and Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River. We'll spend several days in and around Jerusalem and see the Temple Mount, Calvary, the Garden of Gethsemane, and the Mount of Olives, and much more. This remarkable itinerary is made richer with times of worship, Bible study, and lots of fellowship. The Bible will come alive to you in a way it never has before. I hope you'll join Lenny and me on what is always an unforgettable trip.

I can't wait to see you in Israel. Right now, we're in Philippians chapter 1 as we get into today's message with Skip Heitzig. I brought a book that has been, it's so beat up, it's been read and reread, and it's called Between Two Worlds. Now, it's a book that has nothing to do with the subject that we're dealing with in Philippians, but I love the title, and I'll tell you why in a moment. Between Two Worlds, the subtitle is The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century. And what the author, John Stott, basically says is the job of the preacher is to connect two worlds, that he lives between the world of the ancient and the world of the modern, a world that was dominated by the Hebrew language, Aramaic and Greek, versus a modern culture, which has several other languages, but is principally dominated by the English language.

The ancient culture is a world where people walked great distances, worked out in the fields during the hot, sunny days. The modern world is where people drive cars and listen to radios and fly on airplanes and work in air-conditioned offices. What his whole premise is, is that a preacher to be a good preacher has to be familiar with the ancient world of the Bible and the modern world which he lives in order to effectively communicate to this world. But I like the title, Between Two Worlds, because that's what the Christian does. We live between two worlds.

We've already seen that we have dual citizenship. We are earth-born, but we are heaven-bound. We live on the earth, but we long for what is ahead in heaven. So we live effectively between two worlds. We experience the tension of that.

And sometimes we even wonder, when life gets really hard, how long do I have to stay here? Why can't I just bypass all this and go directly to heaven? Like nine-year-old Marsha who said, when you die, you don't have to do homework in heaven unless your teacher is there too. It's a horrifying thought, isn't it? Not that your teacher would be in heaven, but that you'd be given assignments like that, homework in heaven. Her classmate Stephanie said, doctors help you so you won't die until you pay all their bills.

Of course, when you see the doctor's bill, you're going to say, Lord, I'm ready for heaven. But Paul is living between two worlds. He is in prison. He is facing a trial.

He doesn't know which way it's going to go, if he's going to live or die. But he sees his prison as an opportunity, a way, in his words, for the furtherance of the gospel. And he doesn't know which way the trial is going to go, but he sees his possible extrication from prison, his release, as another opportunity to labor for the Lord. And yet, with all of that, he also knows that heaven is just so much better than anything, any opportunity, any experience on this earth, and he is expressing the tension in these verses.

Now I think all of us, to some degree, can relate to that. As believers, we are earth-bound, or earth-born, but heaven-bound. We love serving the Lord, we love working for the Lord, but we think about what is coming up for us in heaven, and we remember the words that Jesus said to his disciples. Jesus said, Occupy until I come. That is, stay busy with the task at hand until I come. But then at the end of the book of Revelation, Jesus said, Behold, I come quickly. And John said, Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus. So, yeah, we want to occupy until it comes, but boy, we want him to come as soon as possible. That's the experience of Paul in these verses.

So we find the difficulty in living a balanced, responsible life right here, at the same time knowing there's something better up there. Over in Spain, there is a monument to Christopher Columbus. What makes the monument to Columbus so noteworthy is that at the base of this statue, there is a lion clawing one of the words that used to be the motto of Spain for centuries. The motto was a Latin phrase, non plus ultra.

And those words, non plus ultra, mean nothing more beyond. You see, the Spaniards once believed they had conquered the world and they had discovered everything discoverable. There was no more worlds beyond what they discovered. They thought that pre-Columbus. Christopher Columbus comes along and discovers there's a whole lot more than what you thought there was.

And so at the base of his statue is a lion clawing up the word, the Latin word non, so it reads plus ultra, as if to say there is much more beyond anything you have thought up to this point. I bring that up because that really is our predicament. That's the life of the Christian. We are surrounded by people who don't think there's anything more beyond this. You live this life, there's nothing else.

You die and you cease to exist. That's the world in which we live. We know better. We know there's much more beyond this. Because our lion, the lion of the tribe of Judah, took out the word non by putting eternity in our hearts.

So we know there is much more beyond just this existence on the earth. I was at a baseball game here in Albuquerque a few years ago and I was at the stadium that we had our freedom celebration in, but I just went to a game. And it was a good game. I think our team was ahead, but there were a couple guys in front of me in the lower tier and I heard them talking and they were drinking their beers through the night, several of them. So by the ninth inning they were pretty well sauced and I overheard one say to the other in a slurred manner, it doesn't get any better than this. And I'm listening to that going, really?

A baseball game in Albuquerque, New Mexico is as good as it gets for you, huh? I wanted to say plus ultra, there is a lot more beyond life than just this. Paul knows that and Paul talks about that here.

So how do we keep the balance of living on earth responsibly, but longing for heaven ultimately? Well there's three attitudes, three words I want to give to you that express three attitudes. Wrestling, wanting, and willing. Paul is wrestling with a predicament. He is wanting to depart or push off from this earth, go to heaven, but he is willing to remain or persist, stay behind. Let's begin with the first by looking at verse 22. He's wrestling with a predicament.

Look at what he's wrestling with. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. Yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy of faith. That your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again.

He's in jail. He's looking forward to standing before the Caesar himself. He is not sure which way the verdict is going to be rendered. And so he pours out his honest thoughts. These are the honest musings of a suffering servant of God. These are the kinds of things even Christians struggle with when life gets difficult. Paul is saying, I'm in prison.

Life is pretty tough. But at the same time, Roman guards are getting saved. Christians are becoming emboldened.

The Gospel, verse 12 of chapter 1, is being furthered. So all of that is good. But then again, there's heaven after this.

And that looks pretty good right about now. Now, Paul knows that God is sovereign. Paul knows God's going to do whatever God wants to do. The trouble is, Paul has no idea what that is. He doesn't know if it's the Lord's will that he stays on earth or goes to heaven.

And look what he says in verse 22. If I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. Yet what I shall choose, I cannot tell. The word tell is a very Pauline word. It's the word norizo.

It means literally to reveal. What I shall choose, I can't reveal. I can't really say what I choose. That's another way of saying, I can't say it because God hasn't said it to me.

He hasn't revealed it to me, so I can't really say which I would choose. What Paul is saying is this. I want what God wants, but he hasn't told me what he wants, so I can't tell you what I want.

That's tantamount to what he's saying. Once God tells me what he wants, I'm going to say, that's what I want. If he wants me to live, that's what I want. If he wants me to die, that's what I want.

And so look at verse 23. For I am hard pressed between the two. We would say, I'm between a rock and a hard place. The language he uses describes a journey of a traveler whose pathway gets narrower and narrower the more he progresses on that pathway. It's like walking through a canyon and the walls become closer. If you've ever walked through Petra over in Jordan, it begins by being a very wide entrance.

But the more you walk through it, it narrows and narrows and narrows. So Paul is saying, I'm hard pressed between two. On one side of me, there's a wall.

And that is what I want in the light of my situation. On the other side is another wall, and that's what you, the Philippian church, needs in light of your situation. So I'm caught in a canyon of emotion between my will and ultimately what God's will is. Whenever our life gets confining, whenever the walls of our experience close in, whenever options get taken off the table, that's when we struggle. You see, options ease our burden. The lack of options increase our burden. We become hard pressed.

It could be an illness, it could be the loss of a spouse, the end of a career, the breakup of a relationship, the death of a vision. When those things happen and we feel like life is harder than it was before, and my options are fewer than they were, then we are left with a choice. And we have to be careful how we go through such an emotional struggle, because our choices become critical.

You see, it's an issue of our motivation. And it's good to ask yourself this, do I want God's glory or do I want my comfort? You're maybe wondering, well, why can't I have both? Why can't God's will, perfect will, be my comfort? It might be, but it might not be. It might be uncomfortable for you, so you need to weigh yourself against that motivation.

Is this for God's glory or is it for my comfort? I say that because when we are in extreme situations like that, if all you want is your comfort, you can fall prey to two extremes. One is fatalism, the other is materialism. Let me explain. Some people, when life is tough, become very fatalistic.

This is hard. I hate life. I want to escape this. I just want to die and get it over with and go to heaven. And those people are tempted with thoughts of suicide. They become very fatalistic.

Or they might swing in another direction and become materialistic. All my options are off the table. There's not a whole lot of things I can do, but what I can do is have a lot of fun until I die and go to heaven. I'm going to make it all about my pleasure. It's like when Mark Twain was told about heaven. He scoffed and he said, heaven? You can have heaven. Give me Bermuda. Just a nice, long, sunny vacation is all I really want.

Just pleasure for myself. Forget about heaven. So we can see Paul's struggle. He's suspended between two worlds. He's in this in-between state.

I'm on earth, facing possible death, which would take me to heaven, but maybe if I stay behind it would be better. So he's wrestling with a predicament. Here's the second attitude. Wanting. What is it Paul really wants? What's his desire? He tells us, verse 23, I'm hard pressed between the two. Having a desire.

This is what I want. To depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Now we're going to drill down in this verse for a moment. What I want you to notice is how Paul describes his future possible death. Notice the words he uses. First of all, he says it's a departure. He said having a desire to depart. Now let me tell you about this word.

Once I tell you about it, you'll, I think, appreciate the beauty of it, the depth of it, the riches of it. The word depart that he uses here is the word oneluo, and it means to break up, to unloose, or to undo. It was a word that was used by three groups of people in antiquity. Sailors used it. Soldiers used it. Farmers used it. Sailors used the word depart or departure when they were going to go from one port and sail to another port.

They would pull up the rope off the moorings, they would bring in the anchor, and they would move from one port to the next. I think that is in Paul's mind. When he writes his last letter, 2 Timothy chapter 4, and he says, For the time of my departure is at hand. Timothy, it's time for me to pull up the anchor and set sail. And that's why I think so much of the writing of the hymns is based upon this thought of meeting together, gathering together on that distant shore we call heaven. For example, the hymn, I'll fly away. Some glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.

To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away. So that's the word. Sailors used it. Also, soldiers used it.

Soldiers were out camping when they were fighting, and when it was time for them to move from one campsite to another or to go back home, they would break the camp up, and the word they used was onalo. They'd break up the camp, and they'd move on. And I like thinking about our lives that way. We're camping out here. This earth is a campground, not much more than that.

We're just passing through. Our permanent abode will be in heaven, and one day it'll be time for us to break up the camp, put away the tent, and move on. I love camping. I always have, but I love it for a little while.

And I think I speak from experience. I once spent three straight months camping out around the United States and Canada with a buddy. And you know when I was done? I was done. I was done camping for a long time. Somebody a couple weeks later said, let's go camping. No, I'm good.

For a few years. Because when you go camping, it's cool, it's fun, you put up the tent, light the campfire, but then eventually everything smells like campfire. All your clothes smell like fire. You start smelling pretty ripe yourself after a couple days.

So you start longing for something more permanent. And then the tent. The tent that you bring along, if you use it a lot, like I've had a tent for years, and you ought to see it, it still works, but you can tell it's old. The threads are kind of coming undone, the flaps are kind of not flapping right, and that's a good description of our body. This morning when I got up and got ready for church, I looked in the mirror and I saw the tent and I saw the threads and the flaps. I go, yeah, it's not flapping quite right. I thought, that's a tent right there I'm looking at.

That's about done. It's been well used, but it's a tent. And Paul talks about our body this way.

In 2 Corinthians 5, we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down, that is when we die and leave these bodies, we have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God and not by human hands. Another author whom I have loved besides Stott is F.B. Meyer. F.B. Meyer was a contemporary with D.L. Moody, so a century ago, or about.

F.B. Meyer was close to death and he wrote a letter to a friend. Here's a portion. He said, I've just heard to my great surprise that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this letter reaches you, I shall have entered the palace. Don't you love that description? And then he says this, don't even bother to write, we shall meet in the morning. I love that because he says, you know, I'm living in this campground, the tent's about done, and I'm trading it in for a palace.

I'm going to move very shortly. The problem is, see if you agree with this, we live in this campground in these tents, but we are so preoccupied with our tents. How's my tent look? It's okay for a tent, but don't be surprised when the tent doesn't look the same next year and the year after and the year after. We get so preoccupied with our tent and the color of our threads and, you know, is the tent too big or too small?

I mean, we're so preoccupied with our bodies even to the point of death. I go to funerals and the caskets open and people go by and they look inside and this is what they say, man, he looks good. He looks dead.

He looked better a month ago. This is good? We're just so preoccupied with how the tent looks. Paul says, there's going to be a departure. I'm going to pull up the rope and set sail.

I'm breaking down the tent and moving on. And then I said it's also used not only by sailors and soldiers, but by farmers. And it was used by farmers when they had an animal that had a yoke on it. You know what a yoke is?

It's a steering device, a controlling device. At the end of a work day when the yoke was lifted off the animal, the term they used was oneluo. Job is done. Yoke is taken off. It is removed.

It has departed from off the animal. Don't you love that Jesus said this? Take my yoke upon you.

You know what that means? Let me rule you. Let me control you. Let me steer your life.

I'll be in charge, not you. That's Skip Heitzing with a powerful message for you from the series Technicolor Joy. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will help you grow stronger in your faith. Reading the Bible can lead to asking some serious questions like, is the rapture real or how can I overcome anxiety? These two questions are among those answered in Pastor Skip's Picks, a new DVD of four impactful messages by Skip Heitzig. Imagine knowing somebody who knows everything about you.

Now imagine somebody who knows everything about you and loves you anyway. That's what we're dealing with when we deal with the knowledge of God. This collection of some of Pastor Skip's most memorable teachings also includes what most people don't know about heaven. And it's our thanks for your gift of $25 or more to connect more people to God's life-changing word. Visit connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888 and request your copy of Pastor Skip's Picks. Did you know that you are helping people all around the world connect to Jesus?

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Again, that's 800-922-1888. Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip Heisig shares how you can be a fruitful and effective believer here and now. You don't want to miss it. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heisig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.