Rick Warren - Heaven God’s Eternal Goodness to You—Part Two

Hello everybody. This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope with Rick Warren.

I'm really glad you're here.

Today.

We're continuing our series from Psalm twenty three called Living

in the Goodness of God. It's all about how God's

goodness meets you right where you are and brings hope

even in difficult seasons. In this message today you'll hear

part two, called Heaven, God's eternal goodness to you.

Now, the next question I want to look at is

how is Heaven different from Earth? And of course it's very,

very different. And as I shared it with you in

the previous message, look at this verse on your outline. First,

Corinthians two nine says this no eye has ever seen,

and no ear has ever heard, and no mind has

ever even imagined what God has prepared for those who

love him. So you think up the coolest thing you

could experience a life, the most pleasurable, the most beautiful,

the most tasty, the most incredibly enriching experience in life.

And God says Heaven is better than that. Nobody has

even imagined. How cool, how great, how beautiful, how amazing,

how pleasurable it's going to be to live in heaven.

The reason why most people don't want to go to

heaven is because, as I said, everything you've learned about

heaven is wrong. Every movie generally makes Heaven totally white.

Why would a god who invented color make heaven all white?

Okay, and you.

Got fog at your feet about a foot deep, Okay,

so you can't see your feet. You're walking around in

fog the whole time, totally white, wearing a white you

know robe. You may have wings, which is not what

you're going to have. You're not gonna be an angel

in heaven. We talked about that last week.

And you're playing a harp. That would be hell to me.

And if that's what heaven is like, I would say, no,

thank you God. I think I'd rather just stay here

with the surf and the sunsets, because this is a

broken world, but.

It's still pretty beautiful.

Heaven is in no way going to be like anything

you've ever seen on a movie. The Bible says, you

can't even imagine. So I can't really explain it because

we don't have the capacity. But what I can do,

it's actually easier to tell you what's not going to

be in heaven, and that is a big deal because

when you know what's not going to be in heaven,

that makes.

A cool place too.

You see, you know what's here on earth, and there's

a lot of stuff here on earth that you don't like,

and it's not going to be in heaven. Now, there's

a lot of verses on this in the Bible. Let

me just show you a couple. John who's one of

the twelve people who followed Jesus, originally the Disciples, and

he's an old man. God gives him a glimpse of

heaven and he writes a book. It's the last book

in the Bible called the Revelation, not revelations, not plural,

it's the Book of the Revelation. It's a single vision.

And let me just show you a couple of examples that.

In Revelation twenty one, verses twenty two to verse twenty seven,

John mentions nine things that aren't going to be in heaven.

Look at this, you know what it says.

In verse chapter twenty one Revelation, he says, there's no

temple there in heaven. There's no temple? Why don't need it?

God's everywhere in heaven. Why would we need a special

building to go and meet and with him and pray

with me.

Anybody can talk to him any time.

He's all over. There's no temple in heaven. The Bible

says there's no sun or moon in heaven. They're unnecessary

because God's glory shines bright and lights up everything. So

he's the powerhouse. There's no sun, no moon in heaven.

And it says there are no shut gates in heaven.

Why no crime, there's no need to Nobody has to

shut a gate, nobody has to lock it. There are

no keys in heaven. Why because nobody locks anything in heaven.

Why because nobody commits crimes in heaven. So they said

there's no gates. Gates are built for protection. You don't

need any protection in heaven. You don't need a key.

Nothing is locked in heaven because there's no no sin there.

There's no no no shut gates. Then it says there's

no night there in heaven. There's no night. You don't

need it. Why, well, you don't get tired in heaven.

For one thing, you don't get tired. And second, God's glory,

his brightness shines for you know, everywhere. Then it says

there's nothing impure or unclean in heaven. So everything is pure.

You got pure water, you got pure air, your body

is pure, everything pure. Everything is clean. For some of you,

that would be heaven. Nothing dirty in heaven. Now some people,

I don't care if it's dirty or not. You know,

I don't mind dirt. But some of you, you're kind

of neat Nixon. There's nothing unclean in heaven. Everything's clean there.

It's pure, it's clean. There's no immorality in heaven, which

is why some people probably don't want to go to heaven. Okay,

because there's no immorality in heaven, all right, But here's

a big one.

No shame in heaven.

Can you imagine living for the rest of your life

with not ever feeling shame? How great that would be.

No guilt, no regrets, no shame. The Bible says that

heaven is a shame free zone, that that emotion is

not even existent.

In heaven.

No one ever feels ashamed of anything, Nobody ever feels

inferior in anything, nobody ever feels insecure in anything, nobody

ever feels shame of any in heaven. That's going to

be the environment living in the love of God. There's

no shame in heaven, and the Bible says there's no

deceit in heaven. Everybody tells the truth. You can't tell

a lie. There's no possibility for a lie in heaven

because Jesus said I Am the Truth, and his followers

walk in truth. There are no lies, no deceit in heaven.

So somebody tells you something in heaven, you know it's

truth because there's no lying in heaven. Nothing's there. And

then it says only people whose names are written in

the Lamb's Book of Life are there. That means it's reserved.

It's reserved for God's children. Everybody is created by God

and everybody is loved by God, but not everybody is

a child of God. You have to ask to get

into God's family. How'd you get in your family? There's

only two ways to get in a family, be born

into it or be adopted into it, and both of

those terms are used in the Bible. It's called being

born again into the family of God and being adopted

in the family of God.

When you stepped across the line and put.

Your faith in Christ, you were adopted into the family

of God and you were born again.

Into the family.

God, both of those metaphors are.

True in your life.

And so he says, the people who are in the

name Lamb's Book of Life, they're there.

Now.

How is heaven different, Well, as he said, it's the

stuff that's not there. Let me show you another verse

in the same chapter, Revelation twenty one, verse four, it

gives us three or four other things that won't be

in heaven. It says God will wipe away all tears

from their eyes, So no tears in heaven, and there

shall be no more death in heaven. There will be

no more sorrow in heaven. There will be no more

crying in heaven, and there will be no more pain

in heaven. All of that has gone forever.

Wow, I'm in. I'm in.

I want to be in a place for return where

there's no more pain, no more sorrow, no more death,

no more crying. That is the goodness of God. Why

is there pain and death and sorrow and crying here

because we don't follow God the way we should. Here,

we follow our own things. We hurt each other, We

hurt ourselves by making dumb decisions. You get hurt unintentionally

and intentionally you get hurt by other people's decisions. Then

there is sorrow. There is death the way this sin

is death here. But when Christ has paid for all

your sins, there's no more death. Nobody's ever going to

die in heaven. There will never be a funeral in heaven.

There's no sorrow.

There's no grief in heaven because there's no loss in heaven.

There's no crying in heaven. This is the place you

want to be for eternity. This is the place where

and if you've lived a life of chronic pain, and

some of you have lived in chronic pain for years

or maybe your entire life, Heaven's going to be a

great relief to you because there's no pain, no pain

in heaven. Now this is all through scripture. I want

to encourage you to do your own study on this.

If you were to look up the phrase no more,

and look up the phrase no longer and study that

through the Bible, you would find a list of many, many,

many things that are not going to be in heaven.

The Bible actually says no gloom in heaven, says no

terrorist in heaven.

Yeah says it.

A lot of other things that it says that won't

be there in heaven because it's a perfect place.

So we know that.

God has planned a beautiful place for us forever. Now

you know, last week I gave you a gratitude list,

and I did a thing called from A to the

God's Goodness to Me, and I just took letters and

I said, here twenty six different ways that God has

been good you. This week, I made another gratitude list.

And what it is. Things I'm grateful won't be in heaven.

So I just thought i'd read them to you from

A to Z. Things I'm glad and grateful won't be

in heaven. A. Accidents, aches, anxiety, acme and ants.

Won't be in heaven.

B bullies, broken hearts, bad hair days none in heaven. Baldness,

I'll throw that one into Okay, okay, c in heaven.

No cancer, no crime, no car trouble, no cavities, no cellulite,

d no dead ends in heaven. No delays, no dirty dishes,

no diapers, no dementia. Everybody's going to be sharp in heaven.

E No earthquakes or errors, no failures, no garbage, no hunger,

no irritations, insecurities, injustice or indigestion. None of that'll be

in heaven. No Jay, no June gloom in heaven. No

keys to misplaced because you don't need any keys where

nothing is locked. Hell, No lawyers in heaven. Now I'm

not picking on lawyers, but the Bible says there won't

be any preachers in heaven either, because they're not gonna

need them, and there won't be any police in heaven,

and a lot of us are gonna have to get

new careers. In fact, the only career that we actually

know will continue for certain will be worship leaders because

we're gonna worship in heaven. So if you're a worship leader,

you got job security. But if you're a nurse, start

looking for another job, because we don't need any nurses

in heaven because aren't any hospitals in heaven. Okay, m

No misunderstandings or miscommunication or mosquitoes. Can't you imagine being

able to have a conversation with somebody the opposite sex

in heaven and they actually understood you. That would be heaven.

But I thought you meant you're gonna get it right

off the bat. There will be no misspcommunication, no misunderstandings,

which means no conflict okay, in nose hair not in heaven,

old age p. There will be no prejudice heaven. No

political campaigns that would be worth it just to go

to heaven for that one. Okay, no political campaigns, man,

I'm ready to go now for that one. No quarrels are,

no racism, no refugee camps, no receding hairlines.

S this is a big one. No sales calls that

would be rest.

That would be peace of mind, not having somebody call

you and try to take a survey tea, no traffic

and most of all, no taxes in heaven.

Okay, w no worry or wars or weeds, not.

To pull any weeds in heaven. And the x Y

s id in writing down You can make those up yourself.

But the bottom line is we know that heaven is

gonna what is gonna be great for what will not

be there, as well as the stuff that we don't

understand will be there because we're not capable of understanding

those dimensions.

As I mentioned last week, we.

Live in a world that that's three dimensional, but Einstein

proved that there are many other dimensions that we don't

even understand. And there's a time space continuum in the

way things warp, and other dimensions that we're we're just

barely beginning to understand. So God can be multi dimensional

in ways we're not even aware of in in heaven.

All right, So that's an important thing. Now, what are

we going to do in heaven? That's a big one.

That's a big question because a lot of people they

are like you know, when people write put on the tombstones,

they write R I p rest in peace.

In heaven.

Okay, okay, yeah, well I'd like to rest maybe for

a few weeks. But do I want to rest for

all of eternity. No, You're not gonna rest for all

of eternity in heaven. God did not create you just

for a permanent retirement to veg out and do nothing.

So there will be interesting things to do. And let

me give you first place. What what are we gonna

do in heaven? Well, a lot of the stuff you

can do here on earth, you're gonna be able to

do in heaven. You'll be able to eat in heaven,

but not gain weight. Uh, you're gonna be able to

sleep in heaven. You're gonna be you party in heaven.

You can obviously breathe, you can talk, you can fellowship.

There are a lot of stuff you do now. You

can relax in heaven. You can pray, you can sing.

We know that God created you on earth for five

purposes and all and four of those five you're gonna

do in heaven.

Uh.

You're going to worship God. You're gonna love him and

worship him. You're going to fellowship with other believers. That's

all it's going to be there.

You're going to.

Serve God with your giftedness. You're going to grow. You're

not going to stay the same in heaven. The only

thing you're not going to do in heaven is talk

to unbelievers about the Lord, your mission, your witness, your evangelism. Why,

because there aren't any there. Have you ever thought about

this that there are only two things that you can't

do in heaven that you can do on earth. Only two.

Everything else you can do in heaven that you're doing

here on earth. In heaven, you can't sin, there's no

sin in heaven. You won't be able to do that.

And second, you can't witness to a non believer, tell

somebody the good news about Christ, love and forgiveness because

they're not any there. So if God leaves you here

on earth, have you ever thought, why does God leave

me here on earth? Once I step across the line,

once I become a believer, Why doesn't God just kill

me and take me instantly to heaven Because it's.

A whole lot cooler there than here.

Why does God leave me in a place of sorrow, suffering, sadness, sickness,

you know, stress, problems, pressures, troubles, temptations, stress, and all

of the other things that happen in life.

Why doesn't God just.

If he knows I'm I'm in the family, my name's

in the Book of Life, why didn't he just take me? Well,

as I said, there are only two things you can't

do in heaven. Now, He could leave you here for

those two things. One, he could leave you here so

you could sin, I don't think so. Or he could

leave you here to tell other people about him. Which

of those two do you think God left you here

to do? He wants you to pass it on. The

only reason you're going to heaven is because somebody told you.

Have you told anybody? Is anybody going to heaven because

of you? Have you shared the good news with anybody else.

If you have no intention of ever telling anybody the

good news, how to get Kevin, or even how to

come to church and find out about it, well, why

didn't God just take you on now? And so you

spare you all with the suffering and the sorrow and

the sadness, and you know, and the sickness and all

of that kind of stuff. So he leaves you here

to tell others.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. Rick

wants to encourage you with a closing thought.

God has five purposes for your life. He wants you

to know and love Him. That's called worship. He wants

you to belong to his family that's called fellowship. He

wants you to grow in him. That's called discipleship. He

wants you to serve Him with your gifts and talents.

That's your ministry. And he wants you to share the

good news with other people. That's your mission. Now today,

as we close, I want to talk to you about

the third purpose, discipleship or personal growth. How do we

grow Well, we grow through the nourishment of God's Word.

It's how we get to know God. To know God's

word is to know God's will. God's Word is the

source of God's will, and God's ultimate goal for your

life is for you to become like Jesus Christ. To

do that, you have to fill your life with the

word of Jesus Christ. Two Timothy three seventeen says through

the Word, we're put together and shaped for the tasks

that God asked for us. I remember in the Old Testament,

the Bible says that Job treasured God's word more than

his daily bread. That's how I want you to treat

God's Word. That's how you grow in discipleship. Get into

his word every day, study it, memorize it, and meditate

on it.

Apply it. Never take it for granted.

God's word is as essential to your soul as food

is to your body.

So get into the Word today. God bless you.

Be sure to join us next time as we look

into God's Word for our daily hope. This program is

sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.