Living the Dream

You're not going to spend eternity with God alone, but in Community Among the Redeemed, just go through the book of Revelation sometime and just look at all the different references to the hosts of heaven, the community. So don't minimize human relationships in heaven. In fact, you can expect them to be magnified, perfected, without any sinful clicks, without any self-serving competition or self or pride. All of that's gone, which means you're going to be able to enjoy your relationships like never before. Our glorified bodies and the life we will enjoy in heaven will be more than we ever imagine. We'll still have emotions.

We'll make new friends and enjoy our current friends, those who've endured the loss of a baby will finally meet their child. In other words, there will be some continuity between our lives now and our lives in heaven. But of course, heaven is so much more than a better version of what we experience now.

Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen opens God's Word with a message called Living the Dream. Let's explore heaven next. After Paul was given a tour of heaven, he writes in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 that he heard inexpressible words, words which he was not repeated or allowed to repeat to us. Maybe you've often wondered, well, we wish we had more information about our future body and that future eternal state, and yet it has been divinely limited. When John the apostle was being given his grand tour of heaven, which he records for us in Revelation, at one point he is given an incredibly extensive display of future events. And as he is preparing to write them down, he hears a voice from heaven that says, seal up those words, do not write them down.

The Lord essentially says to the Bible student, I know you want more, but I decided long before not to give you everything you want to know, but I've given you everything you need to know. So what has he told us about our future bodies and that future state? Well, for one, we've learned thus far, we haven't seen anything yet, have we?

I mean, the world around us, as beautiful and colorful as it is, is really a mere shadow of the living eternal color and creativity to come. We talked in our last session about the fact that our bodies are going to shine like the sun, S-U-N, with brilliant lightning like ray. What else have we been told?

Let's ask and answer a few more questions in this session. Will my new body have emotions and feelings? Well, we ended our last discussion by noting that we're told by the Lord we're going to leap in that day for joy, Luke 6 verse 23. That's a statement that involves an awful lot of emotion. You're not only joyful, you just can't stand still. You're leaping for joy.

It also, by the way, implies a return to youthful strength because the older you get, the idea of leaping anywhere kind of goes away. You sit down until it passes. We're given the promise by our Lord that one day our morning will turn into laughter. That's emotion. Emotion. Maybe you've come in today and you've wondered if you will ever laugh again like you used to. Oh, you're going to laugh like you never have in that day. Because in this new world, with your new body crying sad tears, is out.

Laughing for joy is in. Jesus said in Matthew 25 verse 23 of the kingdom that his servants are going to one day be invited, it can be translated, to join in their master's happiness. Happiness. We often all think about God being happy.

He's happy and he invites us to join him in his happiness. Well, one of the misconceptions of heaven is that we're going to turn into a host of stoics and we'll have no feelings, no merriment, no laughter, and even no tears. That particular verse has always intrigued me. The promise of Revelation 21 which says our tears will be wiped away has been misinterpreted for most of my lifetime. The context informs us that tears will be wiped away as they relate to the context of death and separation and pain.

Those tears definitely will be wiped away. But have you ever thought about the fact that there are times when you cry and they are tears of joy, a beautiful sunset, listening to beautiful music. Your kids moving out of the house brings on tears of joy, great emotion. See, God crafted you with unique emotional responses.

In fact, your own unique responses to reunions and relationships and music and sunsets and even a funny story all elicit from you an emotional feeling. Some of you laughed when I said you, you know, cried tears of joy when your kids moved out of the house. Why? Because you thought it was funny. That's how God wired you.

And some of you didn't think it was funny. Why? Because you don't have a sense of humor.

That's why. You're going to get one one day. No, actually, that thought made you sad.

You're going to move out one day. Your unique response is who you are and how God put you together. In heaven, the continuity continues. You will be uniquely you, though perfected, laughing and shedding tears of joy over different things differently. Beloved, we will be living the dream.

We're going to be living the dream that we can hardly imagine the dream we will live. Here's another question. Well, I enjoy friendships and family in heaven.

The answer is yes, in fact, like never before. Again, a verse like Psalm seventy three verse twenty five needs to be interpreted correctly, where Asaf writes, whom have I in heaven but you? Earth has nothing I desire beside you. Often heard that verse taken to mean you're not going to want anybody in heaven but God. Who am I in heaven but you?

I don't want anybody else. Now he's speaking comparatively. The fact that God is the priority of his relationships, not his only relationship. If we compare scripture with scripture and go back to the original creation, we find the triune God communing among himself, saying, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.

Plural pronouns. The triune God knows everything about perfect community, perfect fellowship between God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In fact, it's interesting that the first time God ever says anything about his creation in the early chapters of Genesis, not being good, was when he spoke about Adam being without another human being to converse with and share life with. Genesis two eighteen records God saying it is not good for man to be alone, which is really kind of a staggering thought to me because Adam wasn't alone. He had God.

He had God. The truth is, God designed us to fellowship with him and each other and community and companionship. In fact, his greatest commandments are twofold. Love God with everything about you and then love those around you as well. Matthew twenty two. So you don't stop with loving God.

You love each other. You're not going to spend eternity with God alone, but in community among the redeemed. Just go through the Book of Revelation sometime and just look at all the different references to the hosts of heaven, the community people together worshiping God. So don't minimize human relationships in heaven. In fact, you can expect them to be magnified, perfected without any sinful clicks, without any self-serving competition or self or pride.

All of that's gone, which means you're going to be able to enjoy your relationships like never before. As they're perfected, as we are perfected in that eternal state, get this get this picture from what Jesus promises in Matthew Chapter eight. I say to you that many will come from the east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. I mean, how how fun is that going to be?

Imagine the entertaining conversation. By the way, you notice that text that Abraham is still Abraham. Isaac is still Isaac.

Jacob is still Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. You notice also in that text, their bodies, their bodies still bend and recline and there are still tables at which they recline. And the implication is there's food on that table, which they're going to enjoy as they recline. And we with them, we're going to talk and laugh and enjoy each other. We're going to make new friends with them in the kingdom of heaven. I haven't met them yet. They're going to be my friends one day and yours. Imagine it used to come home from school and your mother asked if you made any new friends. If you're like me, you made some new enemies. You kept that to yourself.

Fourth grade was brutal. But can you imagine one day in heaven making new friends and they happen to be Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Timothy, Joseph, Paul, Adam, Eve, Ruth, Esther. Maybe you're disappointed that you've never had the friendships you've longed for. Well, God's going to answer that prayer, but it might not happen on this old earth. It might happen on the new earth and throughout eternity. Maybe God has assigned your seat at the marriage supper of the lamb at the outset of the eternal state and he assigned your seat.

You just don't know yet, but it's a sign next to someone who will become your closest friend for the next 10 million years. What about your family alone? I talk about memory more in a moment. Let me insert here that you will indeed remember your family in heaven. You're not going to be needing any reintroduction. I mean, Abraham didn't need to say, Oh, by the way, this is Isaac and he was your son and Isaac didn't have to be told by Jacob, you know, you were my dad.

No, none of that is necessary. In fact, your family relationships are going to be healed wherever healing is needed. You're going to be mended where mending is needed and don't you think that Jacob and Isaac had some mending to do? There will be forgiveness where forgiveness is needed and just as Abraham didn't need reintroducing to Isaac or his grandson Jacob. So, so you're going to remember your wife if you're married, your husband, your children if you have them, your mother, your father, your siblings, your extended family.

You're not going to be obligated to them as you are now. Marriage will cease. You will be in consummate form, the bride of Christ, but you're going to share in the memories of your lives as you see God's grace and forgiveness and rejoice at the redeeming of those relationships. You're going to rejoice in all the good that was in your parents that they passed down to you and all that you had as their children and your extended family and you're going to rejoice in what they have become and you'll spend time rejoicing together, not beginning to know them but continuing on with what you know. Jonathan Edwards wrote it this way, a church leader and theologian of the Great Awakening in the 1700s, he said it this way, in heaven the Christian father and mother and wife and child and friend with whom we shall renew the holy fellowship of the saints which was interrupted by death here but shall be commenced again in heaven and shall never end.

Let me go to another question. Will I have any memories of my life on earth? Now your first thought might be, I hope I never remember my life on earth. No, that's how God is making you and his grace extends to you and that for which you will praise him forever. The truth is there is a continuity between your life now and your glorified life to come. You are who you are because of all that God appointed for your life. You're made up of emotion uniquely yours and memory and responses and history.

I agree with one author who wrote that memory is basic to personality. We are who we are as a result of what's been done to us and how we've responded to it. We are who we are as a result of what we have ourselves done, what we have enjoyed.

How about what we have suffered, in what ways we have failed, in what ways we have trusted in the strength of Christ, in what ways we have persevered. Joseph is not going to forget that he was sold into slavery by his brothers but here's the difference. In fact, God gives us a little bit of what that perspective is going to be, right? Because later on in his life as he matures and is able to acknowledge the work of God in his life, he later responds to his brothers who are fearful that he's going to kill them now that Jacob's dead.

He says to them, look, I know you meant this for evil but God meant it for what? Good. I can see that now. That's heaven by the way for all of us.

We can see it then. Jesus didn't forget that he'd been crucified. He isn't going to forget that. He isn't going to wear those scars that we discussed in our last session to remind him, look at what you went through. Those scars aren't to remind him, they are to remind us and serve as a lasting eternal testimony and tribute to his atoning work for us.

Get to heaven. You're not going to be reminded that you had a baby die. You're not going to be reminded of that illness you suffered and maybe the illness that brought you there. You're going to remember with even greater clarity than ever before but in your new and perfected mind and body and perspective, you will be able to experience unique and deep joy as it relates to those things which brought you deep sorrow. Recalling earthly troubles will not depress us in heaven.

They will deepen our joy in heaven because we'll see what God had in mind after all. Now many misinterpret yet another verse of scripture. This one from Isaiah 65, 17 which reads, for behold I create new heavens and a new earth and the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.

This seems to indicate that none of us are going to remember anything, certainly not troubling things from our past lives. Again, the context of the passage makes it clear that this isn't even talking about us. It's talking about God. God is choosing not to remember the failure of our past. In fact, all you have to do is read the verse beforehand. Sometimes those previous verses ruin the misinterpretations of the following verses.

Read the one before and after. This is where the former troubles are forgotten because they are hidden from my, it's like capital M, God speaking about his own memory. He's choosing not to dwell on those sins or hold them against us. You do the same thing when somebody asks forgiveness. You say to them, look, let's just put it behind us. I'm not going to dwell on it.

It's in the past now. I'm not going to choose to remember that. That's what God does with us. In fact, Jeremiah quotes God as saying, I will remember their sins no more. Does God forget anything?

No, but he's essentially saying I'm going to choose not to dwell on it. I've put all that behind me, all your sin and failure. In other words, God will never deal with us on the basis of our sin, but on the basis of his own son's atoning work on behalf of our sin and sinfulness. What about the memories of our life here on earth? Well, according to Romans chapter 14 and Paul's letter to the Corinthian church, we're going to one day stand before the Lord and give an account for our lives of service.

That sounds like memory to me. We're encouraged that every good thing, and that will be the case of the judgment seat of Christ, sin won't be the issue there, but those things which we've done, which will bring him glory and us reward, and those good things, we're told as John records for us in his revelation to chapter 19 and verse 8, that God is going to personify those acts, those good deeds, whatever they were for his glory, not so we could get into heaven, but because we're going there. He's going to transform them into our very clothing.

We have no reason not to understand that in a literal sense. God wants us to remember our good deeds forever because you know what you and I are inclined to do? Remember our bad deeds and forget our good deeds. And he is, he's going to be faithful, we're told in scripture, Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 10, he's going to be faithful to remember those things which we did for his glory. God wants us to remember them as well. He's going to weave them into our heavenly regalia. There seems to be indications of changes of clothing and there's probably a formal set, formal regalia for what we would think of as state occasions, probably have us dressed in them for that marriage supper. We're going to be reminded with great joy in all that is sinful and all that is failed, oh we will rejoice in the grace of God for having redeemed us and loved us.

I've got enough time for two more questions here quickly. Will animals be in heaven? Absolutely. Now remember heaven includes a new earth and Jesus is going to create, he's going to reverse the curse in this restoration of a new earth and a new universe. And this new earth would not be complete without the animal kingdom. It wasn't sinful that he created in those, in that first week, those first days, all that he created.

That's going to be re-crafted and reconstituted and moralized. In fact, God is going to give that immortalized animal kingdom unique ability. In fact, we can only speculate, we can hardly imagine what it means that they will fulfill the prophecy of praising him with some kind of elevated awareness. The psalmist David refers to all of creation praising him. We sang it earlier and we thought, yeah, okay, all creation is praising him. Yeah, right. Really?

It's true. Here's this scene in heaven where all of creation is praising God. It's easy to miss. John records the scene where all the redeemed believers are singing and then he goes on to show us the scene where all of the angels are singing, 100 million plus if we can imagine it. And then this scene which we kind of skip over where he says, Revelation chapter 5 and verse 13, and every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea and all things in them, I heard saying, singing, here are the lyrics, to him who sits on the throne and to the land be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever. Now if you go back to the beginning of that text and those words, every created thing, it's one Greek word, zoan. We transliterate zoan and we get our English word, zoo.

And you're beginning to get the picture. It's the normal word in the Greek language for animal. It's used by Jude, it's used by Peter, it's used by the writer of Hebrews to refer to animals. And I think it's because we can't imagine the implications of the text which is why translators probably chose to translate zoan as some created thing. There's no thing. It seems so far-fetched to translate it in its normal usage, animals.

There's no reason to cover it up. So what is he saying? And every animal which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, which means, beloved, that animals are everywhere, crawling, running, flying, swimming. This is the Garden of Eden and way, way beyond. This is all of creation in their unique way giving glory and praise to their creator, God. All creation then is living the dream, all creation. Dream that was lost but it has been redeemed and recreated and is being lived to the fullest.

Last question. I hoped I'd run out of time but I haven't. Will my pet be in heaven? I mean some animals are going to have to go through quite a conversion process or they're going to ruin heaven for all of us. I'm not going to mention any names but I think you might have an idea of where I'm going. Seriously though, will some of your pets end up in a new heaven? We're not told.

But do you know authors like C.S. Lewis and John Piper and even back in church history, John Wesley and other church fathers believed they would be a very real possibility. They argued along these lines that it would be fitting for God to create entirely new animals in the new earth but also to bring back animals that suffered and were groaning for the day of redemption, which all of creation groans, Romans chapter 8. In other words, they speculated, why not allow God to do this literally? We're not told he won't, we're not told he will but why not allow some animals to enjoy the culmination of God's reversal of the curse, God's redemptive plan and the animals that once belonged to believers would be the perfect candidates to see and experience the curse reversed which had affected them as well. So they would be among the animals John records in his heavenly vision singing praise to their creator, God.

I close with this. Many of you have heard of Helen Keller, blind and deaf woman who learned to communicate through her lifelong friend Ann Sullivan. If you read her biography you'll know that she was a restless and angry young girl and Ann was introduced to her and she began to press into her hand letters and then put in the other hand an object and one of the first ones she did was a mug, put a mug in Helen's hand and tried to spell out mug and Helen threw that mug across the room and it shattered into a dozen pieces. Eventually the dots connected and she came to understand the connection between letters and objects. I want to get to another point but the untold story is that when Ann finally taught Helen enough words to communicate they could converse and sent for a local pastor to come and to deliver through her interpretation to Helen Keller the gospel and he did and she believed and became a Christian. In fact she would say to Ann, she would sign to Ann, I always knew there was a God but now I know his name.

Well here's what she said late in life. She would write this, for three things I thank God every day of my life. Thanks that he has communicated to be knowledge of his works, his creation. Deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith and deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward to. A life of joy with light and flowers and song.

This will be that moment when we all and all of nature around us begin to live this marvelous dream which will become reality but will never ever end. Each day is a new day to serve our risen King. We're on this journey of chasing after Jesus until one day we finally see him face to face. I hope this time in God's Word has encouraged you today and if it has we'd love to hear about it. You can write to us at info at wisdom online dot org. We'd enjoy hearing how God's using these lessons to encourage you and to build you up in the Christian faith. Next time Stephen's going to conclude his series through God's creation so join us for that here on Wisdom for the Heart. you