The Day You Finally Become Perfect

The eternal state will be a place where the Lord will allow you and encourage you and liberate you and free you to use the skills and the talents and the abilities he encoded in your DNA so that one day in full freedom and unhindered joy and true motive and incentive in worshiping him, you will continue to invent like never before and discover and explore.

I mean, it's a long way from sitting on a cloud. What will heaven be like? What will you be doing there? While we're here on earth, we might make attempts to stay young and look young, but those efforts eventually fail. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are promised a glorified body in heaven, a body without ailments, sickness or imperfections. In this encouraging message, Stephen shares scriptural truths about our eternal future of perfection and glory. It's an eternity we will share with the Lord and with each other.

Stephen's calling this lesson, the day you finally become perfect. I'm convinced that if we could travel back in time to the six days of creation, which we have explored the ramifications related to those six literal 24-hour days, we would have been awestruck by the creative genius of our creator God. Like the book of Job informs us the angels were created first before the universe and planet earth and all they did as Jesus got the son who was the creative agent, by the way. He was the one, Paul tells us in Galatians, was doing the speaking. As he spoke it into existence, the angelic host simply sang.

I mean, what could you do observing that any better than just simply sing? If we could somehow swooped down into that garden and have seen Adam and Eve, newly created, mature adults on that sixth day, that final climactic act of creation, image bearers of God, immortal souls, they in their own physical perfection would have taken our breath away, stunningly beautiful, handsome, strong, vibrant, unblemished, healthy, perfectly formed. I agree with one author that could Adam and Eve see us now as we are. It would render them stricken with grief, speechless, to see the effects of sin they introduced that we have willingly conspired together. For these millennia, the marring of the effects to our form, our thoughts, our visages, our countenance, our disposition, we are a shadow of this original couple created by God because of sin. Paradise was lost and sin has run its course now for centuries to this very day through our own willing submission to the tempter as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, as C.S.

Lewis put it well. But a redeemer was promised, wasn't he? That's why we sing today. A redeemer was promised to bring paradise back, to regain it, to reverse it all because of his sacrifice for sin and sinners, this second Adam Paul calls him in 1 Corinthians 15. The ultimate plans for our extinction by that serpent, his plans were crushed and paradise will be regained and so much more and so much better. In fact, one of the remarkable aspects of that eternal state as we see glimpses of it in the millennial kingdom and then into the eternal state where we will live forever, one of those remarkable aspects is the radical changes, the reversals that will be taking place in our own bodies. Even better. Even better.

And as promised, I wanted to include in this series and I didn't get through it today, we're going to spend a couple of sessions on it. I want to simply talk about as God reconstitutes and recreates your body and what that body is going to be looking like and acting like and functioning like. Future time where we will resemble not just Adam and Eve, but our glorified resurrected Lord. Let's answer some questions along the way and the first one would simply be, will I have a physical body in heaven? The short answer is yes, but better.

I know you're glad about that. Yes, but different. In other words, there will be a continuity between your earthly body and your eternal body and I have a hard time finding many differences between the resurrected body between now and the eternal state and that eternal body. Functioning as it will. There is a continuity. You will remain and that's what Satan wanted to stamp out.

He wanted to stamp out you and so God in that great reversal is going to say, no, no, no, no, no. He or she, they by faith in the redeemer are going to last forever. Take that. Going to last forever.

Now obviously it will last forever. Some things have got to change. I'm having a hard time and it's been 60 years. I know I don't look it.

I don't look a day over 80 but I'm plugging away at it. But you are not going to die as Fred Smith and come back as Sam Jones, somebody different. You're going to be Fred forever, only better. Paul writes it this way to the Philippian church in chapter 3 and verse 20, for our citizenship is in heaven from which also we eagerly wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now notice who will transform the body of our humble state. That's a literal body, literal humble state. Transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of his glory. He's going to deal with your body. He's going to reconstitute your body.

He's going to bring in those molecules that have sifted throughout perhaps the earth. Going to put it all back together, only glorified and made eternal like the body of Jesus who now becomes our prototype having risen from the dead. Jesus was still Jesus after he arose from the dead.

Same body, only different, better. In fact, according to John chapter 20, we know the significant differences between his body and ours is all our blemishes will be gone. Our scars will be gone and he chooses to retain some scars, right, of the crucifixion. He tells Thomas, put your hand here, nail prints in my hands.

Reach here into my side. So as an eternal tribute to the Lamb and a testimony to his atoning work, he's going to choose to keep something about his body man-made. In fact, I like the words of one author who said, the only thing man-made in heaven will be the scars on the body of Jesus. Now what Paul says here that our bodies will be transformed, he's going to work with our bodies. He's going to work with who we are, how he encoded us, now unhindered by sin. So what did Jesus look like when he arose from the dead?

What can we pull from the narratives of scripture? Well he looked like Jesus and others as well. He looked like a human being. He didn't look like an alien.

He didn't have four arms instead of two and three legs now and you know, crawl around. He acted, functioned like a human being. He could mask his appearance. We're not told exactly how but he did to remain unrecognizable for a time for those disciples traveling along the Emmaus road, Luke chapter 24, but he functioned, he talked, he sat down at a table.

In fact, we're told on four different occasions that Jesus ate food, functioning, genuinely human body, only different. We catch a glimpse of those differences, for instance, in the way that he could pass through a closed door. He could materialize on the other side.

He didn't need to use the doorknob. John chapter 20 and verse 19, he appeared suddenly and disappeared suddenly. I mean how great would that be? Luke chapter 24. So for Paul to inform us that our bodies are going to be transformed into conformity with the body of his glory, he's going to start with who you are and who I am. Remove all of sin and all the imperfection, tweak it, change it, make it better in ways we can only begin to imagine. Here's another question and will my immortal body function like it does now?

The answer is in many ways yes. We're going to inherit a new earth where the Father's house of gold and glory is going to descend. I think when people die today from scripture we're told they immediately go with the Lord to be as one with the bodies and be present with the Lord. That's to the Father's house. That house by the way of gold and glory was shown to Abraham. Ziggurats crop up all over earth.

Why? They've seen, they've heard of, they haven't seen themselves. They've heard of Abraham's vision of the Father's house.

Twelve levels and everything they build including those pyramids is also a mere shadow of the glory of the Father's house but he gives a little bit of that revelation in the book of Revelation and we've already discussed how there's going to be a river flowing in between orchards of trees. We are going to then be able to see them. We've got eyes evidently. We're going to be able to eat that fruit. We've got mouths and taste buds evidently.

We've got hands to pick the fruit with. We're going to function in many ways. We're going to be able to hear that river of cascading water and we're going to fill our lungs with air. We're going to sing with voice and vocal chords to the glory of God. We're not some strange ethereal ghost-like being.

We're going to be functioning much like we do now only without so many impediments. Now when scripture describes the eternal state with animals and fruit trees and rivers and feasting and rejoicing and singing, why would anybody conclude that it's just symbolic and it isn't literal and we don't need to get too excited about it? By the way, those are the same people that are going to say that Jesus did not literally physically rise from the dead, that he only came to life spiritually. He's a spiritual force and maybe you can get the spirit of Jesus that is simply a denial of scriptural descriptions. There's no reason theologically. There's no reason grammatically.

There's no reason contextually to deny or disregard or doubt any of these descriptions. Why don't we just let heaven be what God said it will be and your new body too by the way. Now according to biblical descriptions and the preaching of our Lord as well as the tour of heaven given to us by the apostle John, believers in heaven are going to be capable of doing all those human-like things with human bodies, watching, talking, sitting, bowing, touching, being touched, eating, leaping, listening and on and on. What will our identity be in heaven? Let me answer it another way. In other words, will I still be me?

Well, maybe you're thinking I'd like to trade me in, right? Well, in a way you will but your eternal identity will be a continuation of who you are now perfected in your new identity which is immortal. In fact, consider the thought that people in heaven are called by the same name.

They're called on earth. Abraham is still Abraham. Moses is still Moses.

Elijah is still Elijah. Matthew Chapter 8 verse 11. Now we know we're told we're going to be given a new name, Revelation Chapter 2 and verse 17. I think that speaks of this intimate personal communion with God. It's going to be between you and the Lord. Heaven does not involve the loss of personal and individual identity. He made you. He crafted you. He encoded into your DNA that which he will release and you unhindered by sin will live like you've never lived before. Leads me to another question. Will your body literally be perfect in heaven?

The answer is yes. At last. Finally. Physical perfection. Paul describes it to the Corinthians by telling them that our resurrected bodies will replace that which is corruptible with incorruptibility. In other words, nothing diseased, nothing dying, nothing disabling, nothing deformed, nothing discouraging about that new, mortal, perfect body. Again, continuity between your immortal body and the body you now occupy. You're going to still look like you.

Just perfected. Perhaps we're turned, we have every reason to believe, to that moment of greatest vitality and strength more than likely like Adam and Eve. You're still going to look like you though. You're not going to lose your identity and the uniquenesses of how God created you.

In fact, maybe for the first time we'll all be happy with the way he created us. You're going to become transformed into an immortal specimen of youth and health. Paul writes to the Corinthians again in chapter 15, for this perishable will put on the imperishable. That word perishable is everything you think of when you go to the store and you buy that milk or those bananas, that lettuce. What happens to it? It perishes rather quickly.

Nothing about you now is perishable. All of that is removed and replaced with only that which is imperishable. So he's going to tweak stuff.

He's going to change the dynamic. You will be forever absolute imperishable perfection for those in the body of Christ who suffer the greatest imperfections. Heaven will only be that much sweeter, right?

I have used hers in illustration before, but Joni Erickson-Tada wrote, not too long ago, I can hardly believe it still, I with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, no feeling from my shoulders down will one day have this new body. Can you imagine the promise this is to someone with cerebral palsy, someone brain injured or with multiple sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic depressive or schizophrenic or those who care for them, someone spinal cord injured like me.

No other religion promises new bodies, hearts and minds. Only in the gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible promise and hope. Joni tells of speaking to a group of mentally handicapped Christians. They knew that they were disabled. They knew their minds didn't work as well as they might have once worked or like others around them work. They knew that. When she talked to them about one day receiving new bodies, they smiled, but when she talked to them about getting new minds, they broke into applause and cheered.

They knew. Their longing is unique perhaps than your longing and what heaven means to them will be only that much sweeter in that regard. Let me add this about your new appearance. I'm, of course, telling you the truth, but somewhat teasing when we talk about, you know, hair lines and eye color. You're going to be so much more magnificent than a healthy body. In fact, I don't think you'll worry about your eyes. You wish they were hazel instead of brown or blue instead of green or your hair, whatever.

You're going to be absolutely stunning. We know that from the sermons that our Lord preached in other passages. Jesus preached one sermon where he quotes from the prophet Daniel. Matthew gives us a record of it in chapter 13 where Jesus says this, the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. There isn't any reason to take that figuratively or he probably doesn't mean it like that.

At best we'll have a little halo. We might have to shine every so often, but shine like the sun absolutely. In fact, John describes the risen ascended Lord in his glorified body with the same expression in Revelation chapter 1 and verse 16. He shone like the sun in its height. In Luke chapter 9 when Jesus meets on that mount of transfiguration where that moment we refer to and we learn from scripture where his glory kind of peeks through the veil of his flesh and it's stunning. And he's talking on that mountain with Moses and Elijah who by the way are still called Moses and Elijah. And Peter, James, and John have been sleeping through the whole thing. Typical Peter, James, and John.

I'm so grateful they were sleeping through that. They wake up though and they're alerted to what's going on around them and they see the Lord and they see Moses and Elijah. And they describe it later and Luke records it that the clothing of Jesus, you could translate it, was as brilliant as lightning.

Brilliant bright flashes of lightning. Luke chapter 9. Even Moses and Elijah are described there with words like glorious and splendid. When did you ever look in the mirror and say to yourself, oh that's glorious. You said, oh Lord help me is what you said, right?

Glorious. You remember the narrative in Exodus 34 where Moses was in the presence of the glory of God receiving from him the tablets of the law. There just a few days he comes down that mountain Exodus records and Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with God. He was just in his presence and when he leaves he's literally shining. So when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses they probably said, hey you don't know this but look at you. Behold the skin of his face shone and so he had to put a veil over his face.

When he was alone he could take it off and when he was with him he had to put it on because it'd be like shining a flashlight in somebody's eyes and they'd say hey turn it off it's too bright. There isn't any reason to take this idea of our bodies shining with brilliant light just figuratively and now literally. God himself is so gloriously resplendent and brilliant and we his image bearers once sin is removed will begin to reflect as he designed it his glory and we will shine with lightning bright visage.

By the way keep that in mind as you deal with each other. You're not just talking to C.S. Lewis said a mere mortal. You're talking to a future shining immortal. Those people sitting around you if they've come to faith in Jesus Christ they are future shining immortals and if you were to see them now like you would see them then you would say hey did you see so and so?

Why is he is she glorious? You know I personally believe that one of Satan's greatest discouragements for the believer is to take all the color and excitement and joy out of heaven. You know the average kid thinks he's going to sit on a cloud and play a harp. I mean I remember as a kid thinking how boring would that be?

I mean I love our harpist by the way there's no reflection on her she's absolutely outstanding but am I going to do that? If Jesus could materialize and then disappear and we're told by Paul that our bodies will be transformed into conformity according to the glory of his own body we're going to be able to do that too. We're going to be able to travel perhaps at the speed of thought following God's commands on assignment in some place on earth like that and maybe throughout the universe.

Wow. We're not by the way keep in mind becoming deity we're not little gods running around just because our bodies mirror the glory of Christ's glorified body. We are not omnipotent we don't become omniscient we're going to learn forever and we're going to have a longing to learn and are we ever going to learn wonderful things like never before. Imagine the landscapes you artists will paint. Imagine how long it would take to take redeemed immortalized perfected engineers who work without any kind of clouded thinking without any kind of sinful competition to work in full and joyful cooperation with each other to come up with and to invent new technological advancements and inventions. The eternal state will be a place where the Lord will allow you and encourage you and liberate you and free you to use the skills and the talents and the abilities he encoded in your DNA so that one day in full freedom and unhindered joy and true motive and incentive in worshipping him you will continue to invent like never before and build and paint and compose and discover and explore. I mean it's a long way from sitting on a cloud. There isn't any reason to doubt from the record of scripture that all of this will take place forever on the new earth and throughout the new universe and again I'm convinced one of the strategies of the devil is to take all the fun out of your future. It's like you know you think about heaven and you think about well I'm all dressed up and I really don't have anywhere to go.

Far from it. The apostle said we could hardly imagine the glory he has reserved for us. We have no idea.

No idea. Just little bits here and there. David wrote of heaven in Psalm 16 that it is a place which will be filled with joy and with eternal pleasures. We forget one of our Lord's promises to us that one day in our new world we're going to do a lot of things but we're going to have conversation with food in the created natural world and the animal kingdom and laughter. We often overlook the obvious. Laughter. What do friends do when they get together around a table? They laugh. So much of our futures talked about in terms of sitting around the table with the Lord.

What would the sound be that you'd hear? Laughter. Jesus literally promises in the kingdom to come and I believe beyond that we have no reason to believe it's going to stop at the end of the millennial kingdom. He says blessed are you who weep now for you shall laugh. Laugh. He said further in that sermon you will leap for joy. Nobody leaps for joy in silence.

Nobody leaps for joy frowning. Ready? That was great.

What a leap. Heaven will be ringing with laughter. All right to the Philippians I am confident of this very thing that he Christ who began a good work in you will perfect.

You will one day when you see him finally become perfect. The Gospel is the beginning. God provided a way for us to live with him for all of eternity by sending Jesus to die in our place and rise from the dead. We're following the one who knows where we're going. We will see him face to face. What a great reminder today. You've tuned in to Wisdom for the Heart, the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey, the president of Wisdom International and the president of Shepherds Theological Seminary. Stephen has a resource to help you understand the message of the Gospel. He calls it God's wisdom for your heart. You'll find this free resource at wisdomonline.org forward slash gospel. Find that today. Then join us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart.