Grounded in God's Glorifying Grace B

Exhilarating, exuberant satisfaction and joy enter into the joy of your Lord.

That is the dominant feature of heaven. All that we know in this life about being weary and hungry and tempted and scorned and hated and all the disappointments, pure, unmixed, everlasting joy. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. So what does your future look like if you're a Christian? In a word, it will be heaven. Of course, our culture has made heaven out to be little more than an all-inclusive resort. Rarely do you hear that admission into heaven is a result of the incredible mercy of God, and that Christ paid the horrific penalty for sin on the cross. So I invite you to stay right here as John MacArthur looks at the amazing life-transforming grace that makes entry into heaven possible for sinners like you and me. Mark your place in 1 Peter chapter 1 and get ready to be encouraged with a lesson from his study called When We All Get to Heaven, Here's John. Now when we talk about the future and glorification, we can talk about it from a practical standpoint, the effect that it has on us. But I want to talk about it from a different angle, if I might.

I want to talk about it in a way that I think is really at the very foundation of understanding our glorification. Look back at verse 13, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit. Now notice this, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now what strikes you about that sentence? He doesn't say, fix your hope on heaven. He doesn't say, fix your hope on Jesus Christ. He says, fix your hope on grace. Fix your hope on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Well that is just a great truth. We have a promise of an eternal inheritance that cannot be destroyed, that cannot be diminished, that cannot be marred or scarred, that cannot be redirected. We have the promise of an imperishable, glorious future in the presence of God. We have been given a true and enduring and proven faith so that we know that one day all that God has promised will come to us. That hope becomes the anchor of our souls through all the issues of life.

It has massive implications to how we conduct our lives, how we view things in this world. But Peter says, don't look at it, at least for this moment, as what it's going to bring to you without understanding this, that it is as much a gift of grace as every other aspect of your salvation. Your justification is certainly by grace, you didn't deserve it. Your sanctification, that is the goodness of God and the work of the Spirit in you to conform you into the image of Jesus Christ and overpower and overrule your sin is a work of mighty prevailing, enabling, purifying grace. But when we think about heaven, for some reason we don't necessarily think of it as the greatest and the culminating element of grace, the calling that regenerated you, that justified you, that ransomed you, that redeemed you, that converted you. That saving work of God was a work of God intended to produce eternal glory for you in Christ.

That is your glorification. No one was saved just to be justified, or only to be justified and sanctified. All who are saved are saved to be justified, sanctified and finally glorified. I rejoice in the unmerited sovereign grace of my election. I rejoice in the unmerited, unearned sovereign kindness of God in my effectual calling. I rejoice in the grace that justifies me and the grace that regenerates and ransoms and converts me. I rejoice in the grace gift of faith to believe the gospel. I rejoice in the ongoing grace that sanctifies and gifts me and enables me to serve.

But I don't think my rejoicing in those things even comes anywhere remotely close to the rejoicing that I will experience when I see what glorifying grace gives me. And it will be grace. It is grace...listen...that chose you. It is grace that called you. It is grace that justified you. It is grace that sanctified you. It is grace that will glorify you.

It is all grace, grace, nothing but grace from eternity past in the sovereign counsel of God to eternity future in the sovereign and glorious presence of God. It is grace. I look forward to what eternal grace will do for me. I look forward to future grace. I have had grace in the past. I enjoy grace in the present.

I look forward to grace in the future. My hope looks to that next great explosion, that final culminating grace that will never be improved upon because it is perfection. That will be brought to me at the revelation of Jesus Christ, at the unveiling of Christ, the apocalypsis, His appearing.

When I see Him, it could refer to the Second Coming, it will for some, the Rapture of the church, but it is at whatever moment that Christ is unveiled to me. In that moment, that final massive gift of grace will bring it all into complete culmination. People in writing to Titus chapter 2 says, verse 11, the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation. And that salvation instructs us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly and righteously and godly in this present age. That's sanctifying grace. But also looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus because that's glorifying grace.

He came that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. The ultimate realization of that is the final purification when we are forever made perfect. Paul in Romans 8 calls this the redemption of our bodies. Our inner man, as we've learned, already having been redeemed, our inner man already having been sanctified and cleansed, we are awaiting that remaining flesh that clings so powerfully to us to be eliminated. And so Peter says, look, don't fix your thought on the event, as wonderful as the event is of your death, the apocalypsis, the unveiling of Christ, your meeting face-to-face with Him, don't even fix your hope on Christ alone, as wonderful as that is, but fix your hope on the reality that this is all by grace.

You couldn't do anything to earn your justification. You don't earn by your own merit your sanctification and you certainly don't earn your glorification. That is, as are all other elements of salvation, a gift of grace. I love the way it expresses it in verse 13, fix your hope completely on the grace...listen to this...to be brought to you. That's gift language, to be brought to you.

Wow, that is such a staggering reality. A benediction in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 helps us to see this in another way. Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace. Eternal life is a gift of grace. Glorification is the final act of grace. It is the grace upon grace that finally ends the grace.

It is the final grace in grace upon grace. You will no more deserve the redemption of your body, your sinful body so polluted by sin than you deserve the redemption of your polluted soul. We will no more deserve a home in heaven than we deserve right now a place among the redeemed. We will no more deserve an eternal weight of glory than we deserve the indwelling Spirit of glory now. We will no more deserve sinless perfection of body and soul forever than we deserve forgiveness for every sin of body and soul now. We will no more deserve unhindered, unbroken intimacy and communion with the living Lord than we deserve to worship and to pray and to serve Him now.

We will never deserve it. It will be grace then. It is grace now.

It has always been grace. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot keep ourselves saved. We cannot make ourselves worthy of eternal glory. And so when the Bible says, for by grace are you saved, it is speaking of it in the full and complete sense. Live in anticipation of heaven and know this, it doesn't depend on you.

Is that a great word? Look at Romans 8. Our hope is secured in the language of Romans 8 in powerful expressions.

Verse 28, good place to start. God causes all things to work together for good to those that love God, to those who are called according to His purpose, for whom He foreknew, predetermined to love. He predestined...and what did He predestine us to? To become conformed to the image of His Son. Is that going to happen here?

No. We were predestined not just to be justified and not just to be justified and sanctified, that is saved and kept saved, but we were predestined to ultimately be conformed to the very image of His Son who would then be the premier one, the prototokos among many who were like Him. And whom He predestined He called and whom He called He justified and whom He justified, these He also...what?...glorified.

In John 6 Jesus said, all that the Father gives to Me will come to Me and I will lose none of them but raise Him up on the last day. Whoever has been chosen is effectually called to salvation. Whoever is called is justified and whoever is justified is glorified and no one falls through the cracks and no one is lost in the process.

And what shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? If this is God's purpose and God's plan, who can successfully overrule it? And if God didn't spare His own Son to accomplish it, but delivered Him up for us all, that is to bring us from predestination to glorification, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

If this is the plan from beginning to end, then how will God not give us what we need to make sure the plan is completed? No one can successfully bring any charge against God's elect. God has already justified us.

No one can successfully condemn us. Christ already having paid in full the price for our sins and being raised from the dead and seated at the right hand of God now intercedes on our behalf. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, down verse 38, death, life, angels, principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, none of these things can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. It's about God loving us. It's about God choosing us.

It's about God calling us, regenerating us, justifying us, keeping us and by grace all of that and by grace glorifying us. Peter says, fix your hope completely on final grace, future grace, the grace of glorification that will be brought to you as a gift. Grace is always a gift when Jesus comes, or when you see Him because you've gone into His presence. All present grace, in fact, is but a taste of future grace. All present grace is but a taste of future grace. Every little gift of grace that we receive day by day, hour by hour, year by year as we live our lives, all the outpouring of grace upon grace upon grace, collectively all of it can't be compared to future grace. The glory of justification cannot even be fully comprehended by us now. The glory of our being kept in sanctification cannot compare with the overwhelming expression of grace that we will see and experience in eternal glory. And the same God who graced us savingly and graced us sanctifyingly will grace us in the glory of a future that can't even be conceived of. And so we will spend forever, I think, in wonder every moment and there's no sleep there and the reason I think there's no sleep in heaven is because you don't even want to blink because you'll miss something staggering. Some people think, well, heaven sounds boring.

Oh my, how could you even have such a thought? You need to be awake forever to suck in all the glory and to live in staggering wonder that you're even there. That's what it means to be lost in wonder, as the hymn writer put it. You are coming, Hebrews 12 says, to heaven and there are the spirits of righteous men made perfect. Heaven is perfection of spirit. But it's not just perfection of spirit because in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory. So it's not just perfection of spirit, it's perfection of body. And in 2 Corinthians, that very familiar fifth chapter, the Apostle Paul says it is for us a house, a building from God, verse 1, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. It's made perfect and an eternal body, not made with hands.

That is not produced humanly. An eternal body, a building made by God and we long for that wonderful reality. That's why Paul says it's far better to depart and be with Christ, as he told the Philippians, or as he told the Corinthians, he preferred to be absent from this world, to be at home with the Lord. There will be in that day nothing to defile us, nothing unclean, nothing imperfect, no sin, no suffering, no sorrow, no pain, no doubts, no fear of God's displeasure, no temptation of Satan, the world, the flesh, no persecution, no abuse, no division, no hate, no quarrels, no disappointment, no anger and no effort...no effort...no effort. No more prayer, no more fasting, no more repentance, no confession of sin, no weeping, no watchfulness, no more teaching, no more preaching, no more learning, no more struggles.

You say, well that's all pretty negative. Yeah, because it's so...we can only conceive of not experiencing what we experience, we can't conceive of experiencing what we've never experienced. So we address it in negative terms and so does the book of Revelation, no more tears and crying and dying and it will be a life of perfect pleasure, perfect knowledge, perfect comfort, perfect joy, perfect satisfaction, perfect adventure in the sense that every split second will be the explosion of wonder, never a second of boredom or weariness, all that we know in this life about being weary and hungry and tempted and scorned and hated and all those kinds of things, all the disappointments...never. Pure, unmixed, everlasting joy, an unending newness of everything. That's why in Matthew chapter 25 our Lord said that when He gave the little parables about the servants, enter into the joy of your Lord.

That is the dominant feature of heaven...joy, exhilarating, exuberant satisfaction and joy. Lord, it's such a privilege for us to have this insight into what You have prepared for those that love You. May we be only loosely interested in this world and only insofar as it advances Your Kingdom. Help us to know that all that is around us is perishing and passing away and isn't worthy of our love, but only that which is eternal matters. Help us to pull in all the loose ends of our distracted lives with all kinds of things flying around in the breeze and to start to think about priorities and that will press us into that one great fixed reality of what is coming for us as the final expression of Your grace, our future glory, undeserved and yet waiting for us. May we fix our hope on that future grace and live in anticipation of it and never be drawn away into this world, never be caught up in what disappoints us because even the things that trouble us profoundly are simply ways to prove that our hope is the real thing because our faith endures the trouble. We thank You for the trials that increase our confidence in a gift that is a true and saving faith so that our heart burns even brighter with hope, having endured suffering.

May we live in the light of our future, eagerly waiting to see You face to face, which is far, far better than anything here. We long for that final grace and we thank You for the promise of that grace to come through Christ, amen. That's the title of John's study.

Along with teaching on this radio station, John also serves as chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary in the Los Angeles area. Now, John, in your experience, what would you say is the most common misunderstanding Christians have about heaven? Where do we most often get it wrong when we think about heaven? Oh, I think people just assume, because it's all they know, that heaven is like life here only without trouble, that heaven is perfect in the sense that we're not going to have all the issues to deal with here. So it feels like it's going to be kind of the same but without the trouble, and if it's going to last forever, the common response is, that might get boring. Are we just going to sit on a cloud and play a harp, or are we just going to go day after day after day forever, unending experience of joy?

What capacity do I have as a person to even imagine that? So I like to think of heaven differently. I like to think of heaven as the most exhilarating, incomprehensible, profound, inexplicable moment of joy that never ends. In other words, there's no time there, so there's no sense of days and nights.

There's no sense of anything passing. It is living in the ultimate euphoric joy, fulfillment, peace, love, tranquility, in a moment that never ends. It's a moment that never ends, and in the full presence and wonder of the Lord himself and all the saints.

The Bible does get specific. It tells us what heaven's like, what we're going to do there, what the role of angels is going to be, and even what we're going to be doing in heaven. Heaven is going to be a glorious, eternal moment of sheer joy, peace, satisfaction, and fulfillment in serving God a moment that never ends. There's a book on this called The Glory of Heaven. Love to get it in your hands.

You need to read this. It's where you're going if you're a believer. It'll thrill your heart. Again, the book is The Glory of Heaven, available from Grace to You. And there is no need to be confused about heaven.

John's book, The Glory of Heaven, will give you a rich, detailed, biblical picture of what your future holds if you're a believer. To order a copy of The Glory of Heaven for yourself or a few to give away, contact us today. You can order online at gty.org, or call toll-free, 855-GRACE. The Glory of Heaven is reasonably priced in hardcover, and it also comes in Spanish. Again, to order a copy for yourself or one to put in a friend's hands, go to gty.org, or call 800-55-GRACE.

And as you tune in each day, thanks for remembering that gifts from friends like you make these broadcasts possible. Your support allows us to take the clear teaching of God's Word to people who may not have access to it anywhere else. Your local church should come first.

That needs to be the priority. But know that whatever you're able to do will help reach men and women in your area and beyond with biblical truth. So to partner with us, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. Or call 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to be here tomorrow when John continues his series, When We All Get to Heaven, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.