Transcript

Good morning, church. It's good to see all of you. We're going to be in the book of colossians today. If you got your bibles with you, we're starting a new series this morning on heaven, and I hope that's something that you'll be. If nothing else, you're going to be encouraged by this series.

There are some things in it that will be convicting, I think, just by the nature of what God's doing in his word. But overall, this text, this series, is probably going to make your heart swell. I hope. That's kind of my aim, is that over the next six weeks together we would consider heaven and that it would truly be better than we ever imagined. That even as we get into descriptions, as we tear through our word together, we're going to find out there's so much mystery there, there's so much wonder there that it is absolutely going to be better than we can preach.

It's going to be better than we can imagine together. But we're going to do our best to really consider some things. We're going to ask a few questions over the next few weeks. Today we're asking this question, why should we focus on heaven at all? Why is it important that we focus on heaven?

We're not there yet. We're not dead, obviously. So why should this be something we look forward to? And we're going to give some key reasons today on that. But over the next couple weeks, we're going to be asking some other questions, like, what's heaven like?

Are we going to know each other there? What are we going to be doing in heaven? I get these kinds of questions a lot from people who are perhaps when they've just lost a loved one or are just considering it for some reason. They'll ask a lot of these kinds of questions. And some of you in the room have an idea of heaven that perhaps needs a little bit of adjusting because you're a little concerned you're going to get bored up there.

And if that's true, you're thinking of the wrong place. You might be thinking to yourself, I don't want to be one of these babies and diapers with harps and wings. I don't want to do that. Well, good. Neither do I.

That sounds horrible. That's not heaven. So we're going to get into that for the next few weeks together. Christians, after all, should be seeking, desiring, setting our hearts and minds on this place. Now, here's what's interesting.

There's a lot of people around even, perhaps even believers at times that really don't want to spend any time thinking of the afterlife, but especially those outside the faith. You may have heard of this man, Isaac Asimov, famous author, a well known atheist, a professor of biochemistry. His works are pretty interesting. They're very fascinating. He said this, I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell or fearing heaven even more.

He says, for whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse. Interesting. The brilliant british physicist and atheist Stephen Hawking said, I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when all of its components fail. There's no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers. That is a fairy story, he says, for people afraid of the dark.

Well, he might be right. Every once in a while I do get a little afraid of the dark. I'm not gonna lie to you. If I watch a scary movie, it just does me in. I'm not the scary movie type, but he's wrong about some things.

And sadly, there's many brilliant men that have no knowledge or faith of God and what he's revealed about heaven. And if they had, perhaps if they could get a glimpse, as I hope we will, of what heaven is and will be, it would change the way we live. It would change the way we think. I think sadly for a lot of believers, a lot of churchgoers, a lot of christians, we know or doubt many things about heaven. And so I want to spend the next few weeks with you today, next today and including the next few weeks really focusing in and finding out what we believe.

So we're going to be in the book of Colossians today in the Apostle Paul's letter, and here in chapter three, he called believers to focus their hearts and their minds on heaven. We're called to do this. Did you know that? We're called to focus our hearts and minds on heaven. So why?

Why do we do this? Why are we called in this way? I think the text is going to give several reasons to focus our hearts and minds on heaven. Here we go. Colossians, chapter three.

Just a few verses together. If then you've been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him. Glory.

God bless the reading of his word. Amen. Wow. This is amazing stuff that Paul describes in just these few verses. And he gives us some very careful reasons as to why we should focus on heaven.

Well, here's the first. The first reason to focus on heaven is because we are called to seek it. We are called to seek it. I've still got that permanent tickle. If you guys have been with me a couple of weeks, I'm just forever gonna have this random cough tickle thing going on.

It's the new me. I don't know if I like the new me, but anyway, we're called to seek after heaven. That's where he begins this whole conversation. He says, if you've been raised with Christ, if you call yourself a believer, essentially, what should you do? Seek the things that are above.

Wow. Okay. If then is how he begins this, you'd have to go back and read chapters one and two of Colossians. I didn't want to do all that with you today, but he's really built a case that because of what Christ has done and because of who we are in him, we should set aside manmade religion. We should set aside all this foolishness that tempts us on the outside and completely focus where on things that are above.

That's why he leads with if. Then. If. You've been raised in Christ. Now, he's careful to say that because he wants to really paint a picture.

The holy spirit of God wants to remind you this morning you are no longer what you were. He could have said, if you believe in Jesus, but he doesn't say that. He says, if then you have been raised with Christ, that is the old man. The old self is gone. He's dead.

In fact, if you missed it in verse two, verse three says, you have died. Your new life is hidden with God. Now, I know that's a stretch for some of you who are really literal, and you're sitting here thinking, I'm clearly still breathing, I'm clearly still kicking. What do you mean by that? This is this ongoing conversation throughout the gospels, throughout the text, that what has happened in Christ Jesus is that old self has been dealt with.

That old man, that old lady, that one who you were before, has been totally paid for. That old sin, that old life is totally dealt with. And so now if then you've been raised in Christ, what? Seek the things that are above. Now, this word seek is definitely in the imperative.

There's a few imperatives here. Seek and set. He says, you absolutely as believers should be seeking, that is, meditating on thinking about striving for that. You're hungry for the things that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. These things that are above, what are they?

What does he mean by that? Does he really mean that we should be hungering and seeking for this afterlife, this thing that is to come? I think absolutely. That's absolutely what he's talking about here. I have a theory that part of the reason that Christians nowadays don't think about or sing about heaven like our grandparents and great grandparents did, because if you go back to the old, you go back to some old dusty hymnals, you'll find a bunch of songs about heaven.

Why? Why do you think that is to me? I think it's because we as Americans, have done our very best to make heaven on earth, and we've not nailed it at all. But we've. We've come as close as we thought we could.

Guess what, my great grandparents, they did not have running water at their house. There was outhouses. This is. This is the old homestead. If I go up and visit it in the hills of Bristol, Virginia, if I go up in there, it's still like that.

There's outhouses and chickens running around, and things were a little bit harder to do. It took them a while before the refrigeration. Just consider the kinds of cool things we get to do on a daily basis. I get to wake up every morning and take a hot shower if I want to. There were times where this was not so.

I have a refrigerator which keeps my food cold. It's wild. I get to go on my phone and play games. Ridiculous time wasters. I can just.

I can watch whatever show. Did you know there are not just thousands of hours, probably millions of hours of entertainment at your fingertips on Netflix and every other streaming device. What have we done? We have tried our best to make heaven on earth, and we've not even come close. But as a result, it's almost like we've been inoculated from thinking about or considering this greater place, this true city, this wonderful place.

Our ancestors didn't have this problem. You go back to some of these old stories and these old hymns and the old poetry, you'll find people considering and thinking about heaven quite a lot. Why? Because they were longing for something better. And perhaps we as christians, I shouldn't say, perhaps we absolutely should be longing for something better.

That's what Paul says to the believers here in Colossae. And now to us, through the word of God. Seek the things which are above. Seek heaven on earth, but in the real sense, that Christ would come and that he would bring about his holy kingdom, that we're seeking, that we seek heaven first and trust God with those earthly results. This is what we see in Matthew, chapter six.

He says, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. Writer Cs Lewis wrote, aim at heaven and you'll get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you'll get neither. You won't get heaven or earth. Some people would argue, though, doesn't the Bible say heaven is beyond our imagination?

Like, why would I waste my time seeking it and setting my minds on it? And you'll hear this verse quoted a lot when people say, you know, I don't really want to think about heaven because the Bible itself says it's beyond our imagination. Well, here's what it does say. First corinthians two, you may have heard this as it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. And a lot of people will quote that and stop there.

And yet the very same verse goes on in verse ten to say these things God has revealed to us through the spirit. Okay, so, yes, there's some stuff that's wonderful and more than we could possibly imagine, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't consider it and that the word of God hasn't revealed a great deal of it to us. The prominence of heaven. Just so you know, in the Bible, the word of God, heaven is in there 692 times. Some of you are like, wow, that was a lot of work this week.

Google's pretty great, y'all. I'm just saying, I didn't. I looked at a lot of these words. You can give me a little bit of credit, but I didn't figure this out on my own. There's 426 of these in the Old Testament, 266.

In the New Testament, psalms has the most occurrences. 76 times the psalmist sings and writes poetry about heaven. In the New Testament, Matthew, believe it or not, has the very most 75 times. And then, second, no surprise to any of you, the second most quoted of heaven is in revelation. But Matthew, the kingdom of heaven is in there a ton.

It's amazing how many times that the writer Matthew, when hearing the words of Jesus and considering them, he kept penning kingdom of heaven. Why? Because Jesus teaches us. And now his disciples and his apostles are continuing the thought of seek first the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. Seek.

Set your minds on things above seek the things that are above. That means on a daily basis, we would look outside of ourselves, outside of the drama we're dealing with and look to the Lord and say, what are you up to? What would it look like for the kingdom of heaven to be happening in my life right now? In fact, this is how Jesus teaches his disciples to pray. This is one we've often heard of as the Lord's prayer.

It probably would be more accurately called the Lord's model prayer. There's some other places where Jesus prays, and you could certainly use those as examples. But his disciples actually asked him on one occasion, Jesus, how should we pray? And here's how he begins. This is in Matthew six.

Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So he has already got this mindset of the way in which I pray is I consider the father who is above. And then I begin to seek and ask that the will of God be done in my life as it is in heaven. Seeking the things of heaven means praying and doing the things that bring you into alignment with heaven's rule under King Jesus.

It means organizing your life, your time, your talent, your treasure, in such a way that it's focused on the future. So what does this actually look like? You're hearing me speak on this and you're going, okay, am I literally just supposed to sit back and just be pondering what's going on up there? No, it's this idea that I've got my heart so set on what is to come on eternal things, that I began to bring that about in my current life. This is not an uncommon thing to say, that you would live as if today is your last.

Live as if. In fact, I think there was a whole book written on this. Live as if you were dying or something is the name of that title. But this is this concept that you would have such a mindset on future things that you would begin to live and be motivated by that. Now, I have to admit, that's terribly convicting.

Now, this whole message series is supposed to be like, yes, heaven, hallelujah. And it is, and I hope it will be. But there's a conviction that hits me that there's a lot of stuff I'm messing with and working with that has no future value. Zero. Now, you got to put this kind of in perspective for yourself.

You've got to wrestle with this for the Lord because there's a sense that I need to make a living so that I can eat. There's a sense that if my car is messing up, I shouldn't just say, well, it's not eternal. I'm just gonna let it go kaput. That's not really being a good steward. There's other principles, biblical principles that apply here.

But if all I do with my life is spend time thinking about how do I get up the next ladder of my career? When's my next vacation? When do these kids finally get out of my house? Like, when I'm constantly living in a future. But it's not that future.

It's not that glory. Then I am wasting my time. I am not seeking and setting my minds on the things that are above. Cause the things that really matter. Oh, and y'all love this?

You know what really matters? Those people sitting next to you. Yeah. Even the ones you don't like. You better get used to heaven.

Cause some of them scoundrels are coming up there with you. So you better. You better maybe go ahead and just start making amends now, because you're gonna. I mean, you got a long time. Eternity seems very long to me.

You got a long time to maybe make amends up there. But you better start getting prepared now because you know what's eternally valuable, people? There's really hardly anything else. There's some other things that I think are valuable, like time spent with the Lord. This.

These are building blocks to. To your long, eternal future relationship. This is eternally valuable. Spending time with him. Boy, that's never gonna get old.

And thinking about others. This is the kind of thing that thinking and setting and seeking your minds on things above begins to make you look at all of your stuff and go, eh, some of this stuff's not that important. You know, I spent all day mowing yesterday. Y'all know I like some of you know this. I like to just hop out there and.

And cut grass. Why? Because I get to see the lines when I'm done and go, look what I've done. And weed eat. I just like that stuff.

Some of you are like, you're weird, but I enjoy that kind of stuff. And at the end of the day, I'm walking around my yard like, look. Look what I've done. And I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about things I want to fix and things I want to do.

And then this word comes to my mind and I go, okay, I've got a kind of. I've got to kind of balance that out a little bit. Does God really care that I have a fire pit over here. I'd really like a fire pit over here. That'd be pretty cool.

And then I start thinking about, wait a minute. But what would it mean to seek the things that are above? It doesn't mean I can't have that thing. But if that's all I'm wasting my time doing. You see what I'm saying?

That there's a balance that comes to seeking the things of heaven. That gives us an eternal perspective. That's the first reason, because we've been called to do it. The second reason is this. It's because this is where Christ, our true home, is.

Now, some of you might be confused on this. You're thinking, well, if I spend all my time thinking about that, I'm going to be, like, out of my mind. But the real question you should ask yourself is, where is my home really at? If I'm looking at this place over here at 112 North Applewood court, that is not my home. I don't even know if I'll live there forever.

That place has got issues, all right, but that's not my home. It's not where. I'm not a rocky mountain. This is not my home. I'm not even an American.

This isn't my home. My destination is where Christ is. This is my home. Where is this heaven? We're going to get into more about what that looks like and where this place is.

And Paul simply says things that are above that are beyond, if you will. In the Old Testament, this word heaven is shamayim. Sorry, I about said hashemaim. That's a different word, shamayim. It means lofty, high or above or up.

Even so, as they're describing it, they're literally something beyond. The New Testament's not so very different. It's the greek word ouranos. It's where we get the planet Uranus. That's Uranus from the Greek.

They're both translated heaven in the scriptures. But I want to give you a little bit of something here. They're described as three different heavenly realms in the text. You may have bumped into this before and been really confused by it. Paul says that he visited the third heaven one time.

This is in two corinthians, chapter twelve. He says, I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the third heaven. If you've ever read that before, you're like, I kind of thought there was only one. Don't know what's going on here, where. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know.

God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into, he says, paradise. Whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know. God knows. So Paul's talking about a third heaven.

Now, when you read that, perhaps you kind of have a biblical understanding. You go, I don't think he means that there's three heavens. Perhaps you even know this, that the way they viewed a lot of these old testament words, where you see Shemayim appear heaven, they could be talking about two things we can see and one thing you can't. So here's the first heaven. It's what some might call the atmospheric heaven.

That is, the sky, the clouds, the atmosphere is, in the old testament called the first. The heavens, the skies. Look, Genesis chapter one says, God said, let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens. Is he talking literally about that paradise? No, he's talking about the atmosphere, the sky.

Here's the second heaven. We might call it the stellar heaven. Genesis chapter one says, let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let there be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. So the first heaven is what you can see in the sky, in our atmosphere.

And then the second heaven is the stars, some of which you can see, and then beyond into the universe. This is the second. So what is the third? Well, it's described many times as paradise. Now, just a few weeks ago, we talked about the man beside Christ on the cross and how he had a very elementary confession of faith.

And Jesus says to him, today you'll be with me in paradise. Today you'll be with me in this present heaven. We're going to have a lot of fun in this series because there's some questions floating around out there that you may have not even asked. And now I'm going to answer something. You're like, that wasn't even a problem before.

Now I'm confused. I'm going to try to confuse you first and then unconfuse you. And so this present heaven, this third heaven, is called in the Bible, paradise two, corinthians twelve, which we've just read, Luke, chapter 23, where the criminal is promised to go to paradise. And then revelation two, when Jesus described it in his letter to the church of Ephesus. Here's what he writes in revelation two.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches, to the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. Okay, if you're a student of your word at all, you haven't seen that tree of life for a while. That thing goes back to Genesis one, two, and three. You're thinking, where did this come from? In revelation, the word paradise actually means a planted garden.

It means a planted garden describing really most often the Garden of Eden. In fact, if you go back and read Genesis through the septuagint, which is simply the greek translation of the Old Testament, some of you know this. The Old Testament is originally written in Hebrew, but then in the first century, it's translated a little before the first century, it's translated into Greek. And the word that the Greeks use for shemayim in the hebrew heaven, the word they use is paradisos. It's also the word they use for garden.

So when you see Garden of Eden, it's paradisos, paradise. And the Bible is doing something. It's painting this great arc that what God has created, he is returning to its original state. God has created a planet, created a people that he wants to commune with and wants to be with. He creates this wonderful garden, this wonderful opportunity, where it says in the word of God, he walks in the still of the night with his people, and they're working and they have tasks and they're loving it, and everything's good.

And the foods, you get the impression are beyond anything we've ever tasted. They might look like an apple, but it's something far more fascinating and tasty. And you're walking with the Lord. Now, that's all happening in Genesis one. And then sin enters the picture, and that's the rest of the text.

Guess what happens at the end of revelation? Paradise. Paradisos is redescribed as a garden. So God has painted this ark, if you will, if you want to picture the Bible as almost this grand ark, where from garden to garden, from paradise to paradise, this planted garden, this is what he's talking about here in revelation two. So there's coming a time before Christ returns.

Like if you pass in this time period before the Lord Jesus has come back, you will go to this present heaven, which is described as paradisos, paradise, where apparently the tree of life is okay. So in a sense, we're getting the garden scene all over again. Now. It's really simple, actually. Why did the Lord God, it says in Genesis, why did he hide this paradise, this garden?

In fact, he didn't just hide it. He blocks it with angels, with like, flaming swords. Go back and read that. It's wild. Why does he put the guard up there?

Because he's guarding this tree of life, which now those in Christ, beyond this life, beyond death, get to eat of it, because eternity is in store for them. Look, heaven is a real place. It's a prepared place. It's a prepared paradise. It's our future home.

Jesus says in John 14, let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will receive you to myself. That where I am, there you may be also. It's the home where your heart truly longs. Church.

This is why. This is why each and every one of us are trying to build little paradises in our backyard. Some of you are. You may have not ever even thought of it this way. Some of you are the indoors type.

That's why you want. You just want. I want a really nice smelling candle in this room. Just so this room smells like paradise. I'm gonna bake cookies today.

Not really. So much so I can eat them. I just want to smell them so I can have a little smell of paradise. Me, I'm an outdoors guy. I'm thinking I'm gonna build Shangri la in my backyard.

That's what I'm thinking. I'm gonna make a little piece of paradise back here. It's as close as I can get to heaven on earth. I'm thinking maybe I'm not even putting the thoughts to words, but in the back of my head. Why?

Because my heart longs for heaven. It does every human being. We are completely alike in this. We are made for heaven. We long for it.

And sometimes we do everything in our power to try to experience it now, but we should seek it and set our minds on it. This is what, this is what Solomon writes in ecclesiastes, chapter three. He says, God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart. But even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end.

He has planted eternity in your heart. That's why you long for it. That's why you long for it. Cs Lewis again, he's got some great quotes on this. If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

And he's right about that.

I have to admit there's a lot of things about heaven that we don't know and we can't know. And I think that's on purpose, that there's a mystery God has left out here about this heavenly realm that we would long for it, but without perfect knowledge of it. And I think the reason for that would be this. If we knew full well, if we knew exactly what this place was going to look like, we would be so ready to go there. We would be sick of this life.

We'd be tired of this. Have you ever been on a long trip? And this is assuming you have a family you would like to go back to. All right, I'm just going to assume that. But have you ever been on a long trip and when you first go, it's all good and maybe you've got tasks, maybe it's even something you're really passionate about.

But by the last day or two, you're kind of like already feeling like you're ready to go home. You know, your mind is almost already going there. And so that the last few days of this trip, you're just like, give me home. I wish, I wish they would invent teleportation so I could just immediately be home to my family. And my mind and my heart are already there where my wife and my kids are.

A few years ago, I went to Uganda and for like the first, it's like a 1617 day trip. For the 14 days, I'm like, woo, let's do mission. Let's have fun. Those last days where I know we're packing up and getting ready, I'm like, can we just instantaneously be home? I long for home because I long for the people.

I long for my people, if you will. The last time I visited my nana and papa's house, they've gone on to be with Jesus now. It just wasn't the same. The gardens were still out. The house was still arranged in the way I remembered, but the people that made that paradise were gone.

So at the end of the day, what makes heaven heaven? Why should we seek it and set our hearts on it? Because it's the place where Christ, our true home is. Pastor John Piper, when writing on this, he says, you know what if heaven was a place where in fact, you could fly and you could eat amazing foods and you could do the things you love the most and you could see all the people you love the most and there would be no pain and there would be no sorrow, and there would be no sin, and all those things were true, and you could have all of that, but not Christ. If he weren't there, it would cease to be heaven at all.

Why should we seek it and set our minds on it? Because it's the place where our creator, the one we were made for, where he is, and he's prepared a place for us. And we get to spend eternity with the one who knows us, created us, and loves us most beyond in an unconditional way that no human could possibly love us. Oh, why should we seek that place? Why should we set our minds on that?

Because that is where our savior is. Here's the third reason. Because we are called to set our minds on it. We're called certainly to seek it, but also to set our minds on it. Verse two says, not on things of this earth.

Why? Because you have, in fact died. Your life is now hidden in Christ. The word hidden here in the Greek is the word crypto, where we get the word encrypted. This is the idea that this life we're now living, if we could somehow peer in and get past the code, get through the encryption, we would see that actually Jonathan is already heaven bound.

We would already see that this man's life is already hidden with Christ Jesus. That, in fact, who I really am is not at all this flesh and bone. It's actually heavenward. Those who set their minds on things above on the spirit experience life and peace. Now, Paul writes to the Romans, he says, those who live according to the flesh, they set their minds on the things of the flesh.

But those who live according to the spirit, they set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and his peace.

How fascinating that is, that the greatest focus of life and to understand life and peace in this world is actually to set one's mind on heavenly things. That's fascinating. Pastor Weirsby says, heaven is more than a destination, it's a motivation. Knowing that we shall dwell in the heavenly city ought to make a difference in our lives here and now.

Hebrews, chapter eleven. It says, these all have died, died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from far from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return to it. But as it is they desire a better country.

That is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. I imagine there's a few of you in the room who feel very much like strangers and exiles in this land now. Perhaps it's because many years have gone by. Perhaps it's because there's some people on the other side that you long to see.

Perhaps it's because you recognizing more and more that your destination is not this world. The writer of Hebrews says, that's how we should all be thinking. I'm finding myself in this way. For me, the more people that are on the other side, the more I long for that place, the more I can't wait to see them again. But in fact, this shouldn't just inform my hopes and my dreams.

This is what we're getting into today. And I hope you get this, if you get anything today. That the reason we might seek and set our minds on things above is because it should change the way we live right now. That I'm not just longing to see uncles and aunts and grandparents and loved ones. That's not the only reason that I would go and peer beyond the veil, that I would look on the other side and long for that.

No, the writer of Hebrews makes it clear that if we begin to see ourselves as seeking and desiring a better country that's been prepared for us, that there's a city where my destination truly lies, that that should motivate the way I live now, because I'm no longer looking at my stuff and all of this and thinking this is my destination. Instead, I've set my hearts and minds on something more. So now, when I live as a stranger in an exile, if that's who I am, it changes how I live. You get what I'm saying? If I'm not, actually, I'm not a citizen of this earth.

I'm just passing by. You ever been to a foreign country and just, you knew, you, I'm not staying here. You might, you might, you know, buy a couple of mementos, things that you want to take home. But you're not thinking, hey, while I'm here, let me. Let me make sure to buy a plot of land.

Let me make sure to get everything organized in this place. Even though at the end of the day, I know I'm leaving this place and I may never come back. Hey, that's the way we travel. In fact, this is why. This is why some of you, when you go visit hotels, you get, you get real grossed out.

You're like, some of you are the type that you bring your own pillows and sheets because, you know, everyone else who goes to the hotel, they're thinking, this isn't my home, so I'm gonna ruin this place. Some of you do that, too. The way you visit hotels, you're like, as soon as you walk in the door, it's like, I don't know why. I just wanna tear stuff up. Do you feel that?

You're all looking at me like I'm crazy. Quit acting like I'm crazy. You just wanna walk in there and just turn everything on. Cause at my house I'm like, lights off, thermostat set, y'all quit running up the bill. But when I go to the hotel, I'm like, let's just turn all the stuff on.

Let's see what all, everything does. And throw sheets around and let's jump on beds. No one jumps on beds at my house. Why do you treat it that way? Cause you're just passing by, just a stranger there.

That changes the way you live, doesn't it? I'm just an exile in this place. I'm just a stranger. My destination is heavenward. So let me start living that way.

I'm not going to worry and stress so hard about the things of this earth that will be dust. Instead, I've got my heart set on something more. This means having wisdom to number our days and knowing that they're short and making them really count matters. The psalmist writes in psalm 90, our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures. Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow.

They quickly pass and we fly away. So God, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Every year we do this as a people. We set our clocks back. We just did this recently and everybody was thrown off by that 1 hour for like two weeks.

That 1 hour just totally messed us up. We set our clocks back. Why did we do that? Because. Because we had, we have this ancient thought that we need more daylight.

You know, there's a few farmers out there, I guess that this matters to still. But most of us are like, what in the world are we doing this now? Today I'm pretty happy about it because today I got up at 06:00 a.m. And the sun was already thinking about peering up and it's still going to be up at like 830. Hallelujah.

I like all that daylight, but we set this stuff back just really on a hope, on a whim. And we set our times in advance. If you've ever been on a traveling, if you've ever been on a trip, you go ahead and set it to that time so you can go ahead and get ready. Get ready for that future time clock that you're going to be on. This is what the writers are saying here.

Set your clocks, set your time to things above. Have you the wisdom today to number your days? You don't have to wait until you're older to do this. I do think there's a wisdom to this, that a lot of people who are more experienced in years are better at numbering their days. Perhaps they start making them count a little more.

Here's the fourth reason and final y'all are thinking four. What are we doing today? It's heaven, y'all. I need four, because it's where our true and future life is. Verse four says this really wild thing.

When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

Now, that's mysterious, I have to admit. I think there's a couple of things that are occurring right here. And let me just. This is what I believe the Bible is teaching, but you work it out for yourself and come to a conclusion. What I believe the Bible is teaching here and in other places is that those in Christ, when Christ appears again, when he comes a second time, and he's coming different a second time, at least the book of revelation and in other places make this disappearance of Christ as the conquering king.

He's coming not as the suffering servant as he did the first time. He's coming now as the conquering king, and he's coming in a blaze of glory. And there's places like this that describe that. When Christ, who is your life, appears, when he reappears in this place, we're going to be with him in glory. Now, what I think that means is, first of all, those who have already passed on, those who are already on the other side, they're coming with him.

When he reappears, they're reappearing. But what about those of us who are still walking around? Like if Christ reappeared today? Oh, the saints of old, bam, they're with him. But this verse makes it.

He's speaking to people in the present. He says, then you also will appear with him in glory. So I think there's this twinkling of an eye thing the Bible describes here where we are immediately changed. We never, I guess, taste death, if you will. We're immediately changed into the glorified body.

And we're with him. So this is a wild thing. And some of you are like, well, that's far fetched. Well, that's what the Bible seems to be describing here, is that when Christ comes again, the saints of old are with him, and we are immediately changed. I like the sound of that.

That's gonna be pretty exciting. I wouldn't mind to still be walking the earth when such a thing happens. Like, come now, God. That'd be pretty cool. Come today while I'm preaching, Lord.

Boy, what a. That would be awesome for me. I mean, I know that sounds selfish. I'd like him to come while I'm preaching and not while I'm goofing off doing something stupid. Please come while I'm up here being obedient to you.

This is where your true and future life is. When he reappears in glory, we will be with him. What we're becoming is hidden now, but will soon be revealed. We know this much. We will be like him.

One John three says, dear friends, we are already God's children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.

Pastor David Jeremiah calls this. He calls. Calls us to consider how precious heaven is. He says, first this, that our redeemer is in heaven. Then our relationships are there.

Our loved ones are there. Our riches and our reward are in heaven. And he writes, most importantly, our reservation is in heaven. So our redeemer, our relationships, our reward, and our reservation. Believers in the room.

You got a place set for you? There's a reserved place. He's been working on it a long time. He made the earth and everything in it in seven days. He's been up there for 2000 years preparing places.

I'm excited. I think it's going to be pretty nice. Revelation 21 says, nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the lamb's book of life. I wonder, my friends, do you have a reservation? Do you have a reservation to heaven?

This true and future life, how do you get one? How do you get one of these reservations? How do you get your name written in the lamb's book of life? Well, the Bible's pretty clear on that, too. That all those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord and savior and believe that God has raised him from the dead will be saved.

They have a place reserved, so I don't know what you're waiting on, if nothing else, as we preach for six weeks on heaven, I'd like to know that I have a reservation. I pray you do too. That today you would make a decision no matter who you are in the room. We all could make a decision today. Either I need a reservation or I already have one.

But I'd like to live a life that's future minded, that has heaven mind. Jesus says in John 14, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me. Have you given your life to him? Are you bound for that city?

And have you set your hearts and minds on that place? Let's pray now together. Heavenly Father, we ask first boldly that you would begin to refocus our thoughts, our hearts, that we would be the kind of believers in the room who would live lives that clearly paint a picture that we care about what is to come. That people truly matter, that the things that are eternal, the things that really matter in eternity, we would care about them. That when we seek and set our minds on things above, that it would actually in one light, God, that in one light, it would remove a lot of worry and stress, that there's some stuff related to our job and our home life and other things that are.

They're not eternal things. They're not. They're eventually going to be dust. Some of these things that. That would actually encourage us, that we could set the worry and the anxiety and stress.

We could set that at your feet, knowing that you've got that. Help us now, Lord, as your people, to set our minds and our hearts on you, on things that are above. Help us to know what that looks like in our own life, that each one of us were working different jobs, we got different families, we've got different things we're working through that you would. You would inspire us right now in prayer, that some things would come to mind about what it would look like to have to be heavenly minded, what it would look like to live a life in this place before, before glory. What it would look like right now to live in such a way that we have heaven on the mind.

How would that change us, God? Would you inspire each and every one of us in that way? I've got some things in my mind. I know what they look like. I pray you would do that in each and every one of us today.

That as we consider things above, that it would move us and motivate us in this life. God, I know that there may be someone in the room today that this is challenging in a different way because they're not sure they have a reservation. Well, that sounds good. A place where the savior is a place where my loved ones are. A place where there's no pain and sorrow.

A place where wonder and miracles and joy and this fascinating place. But I'm not sure about my reservation. If that's you today, if you've come in this place, maybe you've been holding off, making any decisions, any yeses for the Lord. There's no reason today to put off any longer. Go ahead and make that call.

It's simple. The reservation isn't difficult. And Christ is with you.

It says in his word, as we quoted earlier in Romans, chapter ten, if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, he's in charge. He's creator, he's savior. And believe that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. Friend. If that's you today, you're ready to make a reservation.

Please pray with me. Simply this. Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross for me. That my sins, my brokenness, my shame, my guilt is paid for. You've done it.

I believe that today. And Jesus, I believe you are Lord your king. You're in charge of not just my life, but you're in charge of this world. This is yours, which you created. I believe that.

And God, I believe that you raised Jesus from the dead. And today, Lord, I'm putting my faith in that. I'm asking boldly, Lord, put my name down. I'd like a seat at the table. I'm making a reservation today.

Lord, I believe that Christ has done it. He has paid all that is necessary. That I would be free in this life and the next. Dear friend, welcome to the family of God. I pray that God begins to already move and stir in your life.

And we're praying right along with you, Lord. Lord Jesus, help us to see in this life how we might live as those who have an eternal perspective motivate us this week that we would make eternal things matter. Pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.