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| Title: | Heaven- the Rich Man and Lazarus |
| Reference: | Luke 16 |
| Notes: | Heaven: And the Greatest of These is Love/ Luke 16: 19-31 ebc 2 8 09
Last week we looked at Jesus’ story of the Rich Man and Lazarus and we reflected together on Biblical doctrine of hell. The story speaks of a rich man who ignores the poor man at his own gate. He lived a life of luxury while the poor man struggled to survive. Both die on the same day: the Rich Man goes to hell: he had lived for himself and loved himself and in hell he finds himself alone, isolated, separated from God and in desperation he calls out to Abraham and the beggar in heaven: I need water, go tell my family… Abraham says, “You had it good but you forgot God & neglected others.” This is what you have chosen. AC says, “Jesus descended into hades/ hell.” Difficult to fully understand? God’s love is everywhere but:
This morning, I wanted to think about heaven. * Lk 16:22, “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.” 78% believe and 75% rate their chances of getting there good.
Randy Alcorn in Heaven: “The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history. Australian aborigines pictured heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. Mexicans, Peruvians, and Polynesians believed that they went to the sun or the moon after death. Native Americans believed that, in the afterlife, their spirits would hunt the spirits of buffalo. The Gilgamesh epic, an ancient Babylonian legend, refers to a resting place of heroes and hints at a tree of life. In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The Romans believed that the righteous would picnic in the Elysian Fields, while their horses grazed nearby. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, "The day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity." These depictions of the afterlife differ, the unifying testimony of the human heart throughout history is belief in life after death. Anthropological evidence suggests that every culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal—that this world is not all there is.” Interesting that heaven is not seen as the crutch of the simple.
*Lewis:“Heaven is that secret that we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. We cannot tell it because it is a desire for something that has never actually appeared in our experience. We can not hide it because in our experience is constantly suggesting it. We betray ourselves like lovers at the mention of a name.” Perhaps most profound way God speaks to us is by placing in us a desire for heaven, for home. * What will heaven look like? We get a variety of images in the Bible…
OT Jews spoke of Sheol as a place of the dead where dead warehoused in drab & gray existence.
Isalm: heaven is a beautiful garden, carpeted floors, fine food, wine, beautiful women attend to men.
Rev. 21 gives us the picture of what heaven will look like when Jesus returns. Images:
Heaven includes the earth. A new heaven & earth are part of God’s final package. Solid. Real. The image in Revelation is that heaven and earth melt together into a new world… all things made new.
Holy City- people living together in harmony. Real people living and working together. Community.
Cube- holy of holies in the temple was a perfect cube. Heaven depicted as a magnified holy of holies.
God will dwell in intimate relationship with his own people no longer separated by any hindrance.
Wedding- intimate loving relationship between God & his people. Covenant commitment completed
Light- God’s holiness and purity. There is no night in heaven for God will light heaven w his glory.
Colors- beauty. Foundations decorated w precious stones. Streets of gold. Gates of pearl. Old to new.
Garden- life & growth. Rivers/ trees/fruit. First Garden led to fall. Second Garden allows freedom/life. Top Ten Great Things About Heaven: (Reverse the following and get a picture of hell).
10: Be with loved ones that we have known here on earth. Max Lucado- The Applause of Heaven.
We will be with and recognize and enjoy the company of those we knew here but we will not be married or connected in the families like here. It’s as though earthly families give us a model of God’s love but when we meet our heavenly Father we will all be equal members of God’s family with the same Father. The man /wife relationship gives way to the brother/ sister in Christ.
In Luke 16:9 Jesus commands us to use our money and possessions to serve others in this life so that when your money is gone and your life is over you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. Imagine it: as you enter heaven, the streets will be lined with the people you have loved, cared for, shared Jesus with and helped with your money. We sponsor a child in Haiti named Jimmy. He recently sent a letter thanking us for our help but telling us that he was sick and couldn’t afford medication. Jimmy will probably die before me but I expect to see him lining the streets of heaven when I arrive.
9: Live at peace with others. Hell is where people nurse their grudge and bitterness forever.
We’ll be set free from bitterness, unforgiveness, revenge and hatred. Isaiah 2 gives the image of heaven as the place where lamb will lie with the lion and people will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” In heaven the wars of earth will cease. Jesus warns us that if we haven’t learned to forgive, then we’re not going to heaven because we don’t know God. Unforgiveness will not be tolerated in heaven because Jesus is the center and focus of heaven. We are followers of the One who forgave us.
8: Wrongs made right and our tough questions will be answered.
We all struggle with something we consider unfair or unjust in this life. In Luke 16 in the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, Abraham tells the greedy Rich Man that in this life, he had many good things but he refused to share and now he has nothing in hell. The poor man who had nothing on earth, now has everything. Heaven reverses the injustices of earth. Jesus: “First will be last and the last first.” “The poor and the meek will ultimately inherit the heavens and the earth.” Paul in
Rom. 8: Our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
1 Cor. 13 says, “Now we know in part but then we will know fully just as we have been fully known.
7: No longer numbers or statistics.
In our world we become a number. Each person will be known personally by his own name. To get to heaven you have to have your name written in the God’s Book of Life. God personally writes down the name of every person in his book who has accepted his Son Jesus. Ps. 139: God knows your every thought. God knows your every move and motive. In heaven we’ll rejoice in being fully known/ loved.
6: No longer limited by time and space. On earth we cry “if only.” In heaven no more if onlys.
On earth we experience reality in time, in a sequence of past, present and future. We experience growth and decay because we’re in time. And we’re limited in movement because we have these earthly bodies that are held down by gravity. Heaven will be will be free of time and gravity. To God a day is like a 1000 years and a 1000 years like a day. We will be like Jesus was in his resurrected body: able to move through walls, disappear, reappear, free. Not ghosts, real but free. Man has always intrigued by flying?:
5: New bodies and new minds. Like the boy sat the bench in football, got in and went crazy.
Paul speaks about his in 1 Cor. 15 our new glorified bodies: sown in dishonor and weakness but raised in glory and power. On earth our bodies are like catapillars. In heaven our bodies will be like a butterfly. Not only bodies but our minds will be made new. Our feeble & forgetful minds will be perfected. Alzheimer victims will remember and know again. God: “Behold and I am making everything new.” The Bible begins with Creation of man. Sin lead to death/ struggle. But ends with God’s re-creation.
4: No more sin and death.
The sin and death of the Garden will be removed in God’s new Garden. On earth we struggle with temptation, evil thoughts and sinful deeds. Sin weighs us down and moves us to serve self and hurt others. We cry out with Paul in Romans 7: “I do the very thing I hate. Who will set me free from the body of death.” The punishment for sin, was death. In heaven we no longer have the gray cloud of death hanging over us and we will be constantly drawn toward God. The weight of sin will be lifted. We will dwell on God completely and do his will perfectly. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
3: No more physical pain and sickness.
Every day on this earth we struggle with disease and painful physical limitations. We see children ravaged by war and famine. They cry out for relief from their pain. Heaven reminds us that as painful as this life is, God has not forgotten those who cry because their bodies are wearing out or wearing down. James tells us we can rejoice in our trails knowing they develop endurance/ maturity. Paul in 2 Cor. 4, “Though outwardly we perish, yet inwardly we are being renewed day/ day, for our light and momentary”
Joni, “Hardships and heartaches make us want to go to heaven. Broken homes, broken bodies and broken hearts serve to crush the illusion that earth can ever really satisfy our deepest longings.”
2: No more emotional sorrow and tears.
“God will wipe every tear from our eyes.” We will be caught up in the sheer beauty and overwhelmed by the peace of heaven but wont we notice the people who aren’t there? Wouldn’t we weep for a parent or child or friend who we knew was in hell? I don’t know. The only explanation I can think of is that in heaven our minds will be expanded and we will see people and situations as God sees them and when we see as God sees then we will understand in a way we can’t now. Revelation describes a great sea that is before God’s throne that is removed in the new heaven and earth? Interesting image: I’ve always thought that all our tears flow into a sea before God’s throne, he knows, he cares but one day that sea will be gone.
1: Be with God and experience the joy of his presence forever. Imagine a bird in a cage to forest.
We tend to think of heaven like a cosmic Disneyland where we will go from one attraction to another for eternity. And God will be like one exhibit we will see, like the Epcot Center and we’ll spend a few days there and then move on to the Angel exhibit on Cloud 9. Every picture of heaven has a multitude of heavenly creatures, angels, humans around God’s throne just singing his praises & enjoying his presence. There is no need for the sun in heaven because God will light the world w his awesome glory. In God’s presence: Inexpressible. Deep. Fulfilling. Overwhelming Joy There will be a spontaneous, exciting, outpouring of love as we sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy” forever. We will be home and we will experience the deep love we spent our life trying to find. Paul says, “Now abide faith, hope and love but the greatest of these is love.” Why? Because faith will be fulfilled, our hope will be realized but love will live on forever and forever… because we will live in God’s presence, the One who knows us fully and loves us.”
Imagine what the poor man was like before he took to begging in the city streets… he had a mom and dad, a home or a family and somehow he drifted away but still dreamed about going home. I wonder if he met Jesus one day and felt loved and accepted? Jesus often reached out to poor beggars. It’s sad the places we find ourselves later in life. SA Superbowl party: most had hit bottom, spoke of home/ looking for hope
Blake Shelton song about a drunk dying on street who was dreaming of his childhood home when he was awoken on a cold winter night and his response to the man who shook him: “I was almost home.”
MOPS is a ministry that celebrates the power of moms to create and nurture a home environment where children feel safe and love is experienced and truth is shared and lived out. Could there be a more important ministry? * One of our deepest desires in life is our desire to finally make it home, feel love…
Wizard of Oz ends with Judy Garland saying, “There’s no place like home.” Here home was a KS farm:
We lived in MA for 8 and in WV now for 19 but Springfield, MO will always hold a special place for me. It was the place I grew up where my parents & sisters live. In January, I went home for a week to see my parents are doing/ both 80 and dealing w/ health issues. Whenever I go home I always go past different places to see what’s the same and what’s changed… I drive by the home I grew up, 1220 Meadowmere Ave. I’ve always wanted to stop by and just ask the current owners if I could just walk through and see if it’s how I remember it in my mind. I stop by Greenwood Elementary and HS (my picture trophy case).
I check out the college campus of MSU ( same WVU, 25,000) where Mona and I met & married- UHBC. I always stop by my grandparent’s home on Walnut: big old house with two tennis courts in the backyard. I spent most of childhood there as I enjoyed tennis and we had many family gatherings there. The Busiek family plot in Maplewood Cemetery & the first house where Mona and I lived is now a convenience store. Thomas Wolfe, “You can’t go home again.” “When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood” “Man’s youth is such a wonderful thing: it is so full of anguish and magic, and he never comes to know it as it is, until it is gone from him forever.”
My early experience of home was mostly positive but sadly many people have a less positive experience. Many have home memories that include abuse, neglect, constant conflict and constant moving. The typical American is now expected to move 14 times over the course of their life. Students graduating from college can expect 7-10 significant job chances over the course of their lifetimes as technology and economy changes force people to move to find work. This makes is hard to settle in and put down roots.
* Our longing for home never goes away… in fact I think it gets more strong/ intense as we grow older.
The final stages of Alzheimers finds the person headed home or back home. Our early home experience seems to be default mode.
Counseling is often the process of dealing with the home we grew up in, the home we’re in or leaving now and the home we’re hoping to move to one day… childhood, adulthood, old age. Most of our issues revolve around the desire to get to a place that seems right, that feels right, to get back home. Home is that place that feels right, a place where we belong, where we know who we are, whose we are. Home is where we feel the connection w people who love us for who we are, the good and the bad. Olive Garden:
* The Bible says we must first admit we’re lost before God can guide us home. We need to admit we need a travel guide, a Savior, to help us find our way. I think deep down most people are homesick for something this world cannot fully provide. Like Israel of old, we’re lost in the wilderness and looking for the Promised Land. Many people have to get so lost, that they finally call out for help. We are all like Adam and Eve in a way, we’ve have left our perfect home and we’re lost, looking for a way back home.
It doesn’t matter where you move, how fast you run or how many new identities you try on along the way, you can’t escape the longing for home. That’s why the church is still relevant & important...offers home.
The new entrance is a way of Emmanuel saying, “You’re welcome here. Come in and join us.”
This is a place where people who have never experienced a healthy home or family love, can feel at home. Emmanuel is a place where we live out our journey. * Worship is the means by which we renew our longing for our true home. We confess the detours we’ve taken, the time we’ve wasted and the fact that basically we’re lost with no clue on where to go next. We’re all headed home, all gotten lost, felt despair, thought of giving up, and then we gather to worship God and we begin to feel hope and others come around who encourage and challenge us. We gather as family around the table of communion to remember the great Sacrifice of Love that Jesus made on the cross that called us together and set us free. Our God lives in a perfect family as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and we are called to experience community and share love in His name. We are here to offer LIFE to the world. What is LIFE?
It’s been said that some Christians are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good but the reality is that the more we think of heaven and being with God forever, the more active and involved we become.
Lewis: If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought the most of the next…It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this one.
Jesus in his SOM speaks of how struggling and suffering gets put into perspective when we stop and realize that “great is our reward in heaven.” And it’s after this statement and in light of it, that he goes on and tells us to serve others & love our enemies. Heaven is what lights our path in this life & motivates us.
Jesus speaks of his Father’s house and how he is going to prepare a place for us and will come back again.
Heaven is like a great city whose streets are paved w gold and whose inhabitants live and work in peace. Heaven is like a great banquet with food and laughter for everyone who wants a seat. Heaven is like a garden with trees that bear fruit all year long and a river of life running through its center. Heaven is like a home, a place of love and activity, with a room for everyone who wants in. These are only images, word pictures of a reality we can't fully understand. * C. S. Lewis said: All your life an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of your consciousness. The day is coming when you will wake to find, beyond all hope, that you have attained it; or else, that it was within your grasp and you have lost it forever. The thing about heaven and hell is that we have to choose now, in this life, where we want to spend eternity: with God or without him. Heaven is within your grasp right now. God arms are open wide will you receive his embrace and know that you are finally at home both now and forever?
The only door into heaven is through the CROSS.
Only by receiving what Jesus did for us on the cross that our names are written in the book of life. Receiving Jesus involves grace. God has done it all for us and we must humbly accept it. Grace is the distinctive belief of the Christian faith. All other religions and cults teach salvation by works.
Song by Mark Schultz called “Walking Her Home”
1 Cor. 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God had prepared for those who love him, but God is revealing it to us by his Spirit.” Expand our imaginations. Open our minds.
Jesus says there’s a broad road that leads to destruction and a narrow road that leads to life.
We’re trying to find heaven but heaven found us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him, will not perish but everlasting life.”
Grace. We are not saved by works but by our faith in Jesus. It’s not our works that provide a way to heaven but God’s work through Jesus Christ on the cross. |