God, Angels, and Heaven | The Unseen World (Part Three)

Thank you so much for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

Riverbend Church exists to bring people to Jesus, grow

generations in Jesus, and send disciples for Jesus.

We hope that you enjoy this message can.

We just talk about just for a few moments, just how incredible

this morning has already been being able to celebrate baptism

together, new life at the 11:00 service.

We get to do it all over again. We get to celebrate baptism 3

different times in the 11:00 with three different individuals

in the 11:00. So, so incredibly thrilled about

that man Heather Story and her her just reaching out and say

said, listen, I don't want my pain and what I've gone through

to be wasted. And I wish that there was a

group that was kind of centered around like, not just my pain,

but like healing and, and where do we go from here?

I wish that there was a group like that when I went through

that. And then, you know, the Holy

Spirit of God just kind of gripping her for weeks and weeks

to, to the point of going, you know what, Heather, I'm calling

you to start that group. So at Riverbend, we are so glad

to be able to partner with Rachel's Refuge.

If that is something that you're interested in finding out more

information, here's what I would encourage you to do.

Take that connect card and on the back just write more info on

Rachel's Refuge. And then at the end of the

service, you'll drop that connect card into the giving

stations. And then we will make sure that

we connect you with Heather and make sure that you're good to

go. The first time that that small

group is going to be meeting is on November 1st.

It's going to be the first Monday night of every month.

So really, really excited about what God's going to be doing in

and through that group. Also, huge, huge thank you.

If you were here with us last week, you got to, you got to

hear Jared kind of walk us through a really, really tricky

component of this whole issue of the unseen world.

And that's the the cosmic war, the war in heaven, the rebellion

in heaven. And I love what Jared said.

You know, there's a war behind every war.

And that is so, so true. And we're going to be picking up

where he left off in just a moment.

But. Kind of going back, circling

back to the to the announcements at the very beginning of the

service, I know that Julie mentioned and you probably

noticed the signs as you were coming in and on the front of

your bulletin, we're doing something really a fall festival

called Light the Night. And here's how you can help.

You can help by signing up. We're doing like a trunk or

treat if you want to, if you want to set up and be a part of

that set up, just e-mail either Julie or Kathy for that or you

can contact the church office. We would love to get you in that

mix. If you just want to serve in

some capacity, we have some other activities you can, you

can read in your bulletin everything that's going on

there. If you're not free next Sunday

night to do that to to help or to serve in that capacity.

One of the things that you can help with is we just need candy,

right? So we need candy.

And probably the best way to remind us of candy is just to

throw out candy. And yes, I am aware that this is

pretty ironic that we're asking for candy and here I am throwing

out candy. So candy can I also give kind of

a side note about about candy when we say candy, not raisins?

Not boxes of raisins. All right, we, we want, we want

people to like, love the church and love Jesus.

Raisins don't do that. So anyway, I'll probably get

some e-mail from Raisin farmers. Anyway, here we are, week 3,

this series, The unseen world. The unseen world.

Here's what we're going to be doing this morning.

This morning, I'll go ahead and tell you upfront is going to be

and you probably can pick this up.

If you flip your flip, flip, flip your bulletin over and see

the notes. You're like, man, we're going to

be riding a lot. This morning is going to be

almost like drinking out of a fire hydrant.

And what we're doing, what we're going to walk through is not

some exhaustive in depth study. What we're going to be doing is

we're going to be walking through.

We're going to be walking through some bare essential

foundational truths that we need to know about this unseen world.

If you're new to this series, or maybe you're just new to

Riverbend, First and foremost, thank you so much for being

here, for choosing to be with us.

My name is Ben. Get the service of lead pastor.

We'd love to connect with you one-on-one or personally after

the service just for thanking you for being here.

We would also love to connect you with some, with maybe some

ministry areas or maybe some some people of similar age and

stage of life just to help form some relationships because we

know that relationships, they're kind of like the connective glue

to life. And there's just there's

something special about that sense of belonging, right?

The best way that we can connect with you is honestly through

that connect card. So whatever you feel comfortable

jotting down in terms of info, if you're new to Riverbend, just

jot that down. Drop it into the giving stations

on your way out. That also allows us to know

where to ship a small thank you gift out into the mail to you

just as our word of thanks and appreciation for you choosing to

be here with us. So let me go ahead and jump into

unseen world. If you're new to this series,

here's the gist of the series is there is a world that that we

see, that we experience, that we touch, that we smell.

It's a world that we experience with our five senses.

And then there's an unseen world, the spiritual world, the

spiritual realm that we can't see.

However, it is impacting our lives each and every day.

As a matter of fact, if you're taking notes with us this

morning, I want to introduce you kind of to the big idea

throughout this entire series, and here it is, says the unseen

world is just as real as the one I can see, and it's shaping my

life everyday. The unseen world is just as real

as the one I can see and it's shaping my life everyday.

Now I fully understand that there's a variety of people here

with us in the room and joining us online.

You may have grown up in church. You may be familiar with this

unseen, the spiritual world out there.

And my hope, my prayer, my desire for you is that you gain

some clarity, you gain some insight, but more importantly,

you gain some equipping through this series.

And then there's another group that's with us in the room and

joining us online that maybe you're new to church or new to

faith, or maybe you're just seeking truth.

And maybe when we start talking about this unseen spiritual

world or this unseen spiritual realm, you're, you're just,

you're doubtful, you're, you're skeptical.

And, and I would say that's okay.

Thank you for being here. But my hope, my prayer, my

desire for you if you're in that second camp, is that you would

start to see that God would open your eyes to the fact that just

because you can't see it doesn't mean that it's not there.

And just because you may not acknowledge it, it doesn't mean

that it's not impacting your life everyday.

You see, there is a world that we can see and there's a world

that we can't see. And the world that we can't see

is just as real as the world that we can see and don't miss

the And it is shaping our lives every day.

It's impacting our lives every single day.

Now, if you were with us in the first week of this series, we

were talking about how kind of the road map of where we're

going to be heading throughout this series.

This is going to be like a nine week series.

So we're in week 3 of this 9 weeks and we talked about how

weeks one through 5, they're going to be much more informing.

So what does the Bible tell us about these components of this

unseen realm? We need to have a right

understanding. We need to have a truthful

foundation of what the Bible says about this spiritual realm.

And then weeks 4 or 678 and 9, the last four weeks, they're not

just going to be about informing, they're going to be

about equipping. Because I don't know if you know

this or not, but did you know that if you've given your life

to Jesus and the Holy Spirit of God lives in you, you are

uniquely equipped as a son or daughter of God to do

devastating damage against the gates of hell?

And we're going to be talking about everything.

What I just meant by everything that I just said later on.

But this morning, we're going to be looking at more the informing

part this week and especially next week, we're going to be

looking at what does the Bible say about some vital, vital

elements of this unseen spiritual world in this unseen

spiritual realm. And this morning we're going to

be taking a look at God, at angels in heaven.

Now, here's the fact of the matter.

We could do an entire series on on all three of those things, or

individually those three things. We could do an entire series on

God. We could do an entire series on

angels. We can do an entire series on

heaven. But for our purposes throughout

this series, we need to have a base foundational truth of who

God is, of who the angels are, who and what and where is

heaven? And then ultimately, ultimately,

why does any of it matter? Like how does it impact our

lives tomorrow or what we're going to be talking about this

morning? How in the world does this

impact as I'm getting ready for maybe the school week later on

tonight or maybe just mentally preparing for the work week

ahead before I go to sleep tonight, How does it impact any

of that? And I'll go ahead and tell you

on the front end, one of the things that I've been sharing

with our staff and one of the things I've been sharing with

with with different ones of you is the challenge of walking

through a series like this is separating the fascinating from

the useful is separating the fascinating for the useful.

So a lot of what we don't talk about, it's not because it's not

necessarily important. It may be important, it may be

really fascinating is that we need to have a baseline

foundational understanding of who God is, who the angels are,

and what and where heaven is. Because I would argue of these

three elements, these three elements, there's been no more

topic in human history or subjects in human history that's

been thought about, written about artistically expressed

more than God, angels in heaven. I would also argue with you that

there's been no more topics and all throughout human history,

there's been more mischaracterized and more

misunderstood than God and angels in heaven.

For example, we know that God is not some angry old man just

waiting to throw lightning bolts down at us when we mess up and

when we sin. We know that angels are not bald

headed babies sitting on clouds playing harps.

We know that heaven is not like your happiest thought here on

earth to where ultimately when you die you will magically or

mysteriously just run free in a Meadow or drift over an ocean.

Those are all misnomers of God, angels in heaven.

So for us, we need to understand what the Bible says about these

three topics. Like I said at the very

beginning, this is not an exhaustive look at God angels in

Heaven, but it is a base foundation, essential base

foundational essentials. Look at God angels in heaven.

You'll you'll notice out beside on your note sheet that out

beside all the bullet points, there's scriptural references.

We're not going to walk through every single one of these

scriptural references this this morning.

I gave them to you because here's what I want to ask is

your pastor. I want to ask that you take this

note sheet home and in your time alone with God this week that

you walk through that you look up these passages that you read

through that you pray through that you study these passages

for yourself, that you discover these truths in your own Bible

for yourself. And they're going to give a more

well-rounded, more well roundedness to the bullet points

that we're going to go through and explore this morning.

So here's what we're going to do.

We're going to just in respect of, of, of time, we're going to

go ahead and jump in. Let's tackle that first question

first. Who exactly is God?

If you're taking notes with us, first thing that we need to know

five things about God. God is Yahweh, the one true God.

God is Yahweh, the one true God. Let me kind of unpack that

statement in that sentence for a second.

There is only one true God. There is the King of kings and

the Lord of Lords. One true God and the name that

has been given to him throughout the Bible, especially the Old

Testament, is the name Yahweh. Yahweh.

Now here's why that name is important.

Because the ancient Jews, they needed a way to denote the

person of God. When they were referencing God

or referring to God, they needed a name given to God and they

believed that it was irreverent just to give God just a normal

name like Bill. So they come up with this word

called Yahweh. Now I'm not going to bore you

with all the details, but I do think that it's pretty

interesting for you to note that Yahweh ancient Hebrew, they it

did not have vowels in it. So in the ancient Hebrew, if it

was written out in English, it would be spelled for us in all

caps YHWH Yahweh. And in it was an ancient Hebrew

grammatical impossibility. So it broke all the the the

grammatical rules of of Hebrew. And they did that because they

they believe that God's name should be so other or so set

apart. It shouldn't be so common.

When when I say that it broke the grammatical rules, think of

it as like the English equivalent of like breaking the

rule I before E except after C, right?

Except for in the words like foreign or seas or height or

caffeine. You know, those are exceptions

to that rule. But Yahweh was the name, the

Jewish name given, the ancient Jewish Hebrew name given to God.

Now a lot of times when you read through your Bible, you won't

see the name Yahweh. Yahweh has been has been

substituted out. You ever read through your Bible

and you see the name in all caps, all letters and caps Lord.

Lord that is a substitution in our English translations for

Yahweh. But Yahweh denotes that there is

one true God and Yahweh is His name.

Yahweh literally means in Hebrew He is or he causes to come into

existence. He is, He is the one true God.

Second thing that we need to know about God is God is all

powerful. He's all knowing, He's

everywhere present. He is all powerful.

He is all knowing, and He is everywhere present.

Let me kind of unpack that. He is all powerful.

There's nothing that God cannot do.

The word impossible does not exist in God's vocabulary.

He is all knowing. There is nothing that God does

not know. There's nothing that God does

not know that's going on within me, outside of me, and there's

nothing that God does not know. That's unknown to me.

God knows everything. God knows you inside and out.

God knows your your deepest secrets, your your most private

thoughts. He knows what nobody else knows.

He knows what you are ignorant about, and he knows what I am

ignorant about. God knows everything.

He is all knowing. He's also everywhere present.

He's everywhere present. Now this is going to sound kind

of strange, but God exists outside of what we think of as

space and time. So when he looks at history, he

is looking down at one big map. He knows everything that has

happened in the past. He knows everything that's

happening now. He knows everything that's

happening in the future. He not only knows it all, but he

is everywhere in time and in location.

God is all knowing. He is all power powerful.

He is everywhere present. Third key essential that we need

to know about God. God is eternally 3 in one.

He's eternally 3 in one. Now I'm going to go ahead and

tell you that if you have a bottle of Excedrin in your bag

this morning, you may want to bring out a couple of those

pills because this will give you a migraine.

Thinking about #1 God is eternal and #2 God is 3 in one.

But the way that we can best explain it in our finite minds

and in the way in which our human brain is able to

comprehend things eternally means that God has existed

forever and ever and ever in the past.

And God will exist forever and ever and ever in the future.

There's never been a point in time to where God had a

beginning, and God will have an end.

He is eternal. And not only is God eternal, God

exists 3 in one this three in oneness.

The the term that we would put on that is the word Trinity.

You ever heard of the word Trinity?

That means that that denotes that God is 1 but exists in

three equal persons. It's not 3 gods with one

persona, it is one God existing in three distinctly different

persons. We have God the Father, we have

God the Son Jesus, and we have God the Holy Spirit.

All of them are equal in godness.

If you want like the big like theological word on that, it's a

word called homoousius. That's kind of a fun word to

say. You want to say it 123

homoousius right now you can go and press your friends.

Homo uses it literally means of the same stuff.

So this what God the Father possesses in godness, so does

God the Son in in in equal measure.

And what God the Son possesses in godness, God the Holy Spirit

possesses of godness in equal measure.

So it's not God varsity God JV guard God 8th grade team here.

It is God three in one. And guess what God has existed

as the Trinity for all of eternity and will exist as the

Trinity for all of eternity. That's one of the things, that's

one of the things not to chase a rabbit.

That's one of the things that separates Christianity, orthodox

Christianity from, from religion such as Mormonism or, or or

Jehovah's Witness to where they believe and they teach Mormons

and Jehovah's Witnesses both believe that Jesus was created.

You see, the Bible doesn't teach that Jesus was created.

The Bible teaches that Jesus was always God.

John 11. I think that that's on your note

sheet. In the beginning was the word

and the word was with God and the word was God and in the word

that that the word Word is actually referring to Jesus, the

second person of the Trinity. So we need to understand that

God is eternally existing as three in one, eternally existing

as the Trinity. 4th baseline essential that we need to

understand about God is God is both holy and pure.

God is both holy and pure. He is wholly in the fact that he

is completely set apart. He is completely other than us.

He's completely set apart and he is completely other than us.

Here's why that's important is because we have to have the

self-awareness when we start to think about God, are we

approaching God to casually to where it's almost like we throw

our arm around God, We think that we can throw.

Our arm around God and call God like the man upstairs or or our.

Buddy Or you know, flashbacks to the early 2000 T-shirt Fazz,

Jesus is my homeboy. You know, God is holy.

He is other than us. But then also God is pure.

The fact that God is pure means that there's no mixture of evil

or corruption within God. There's no mixture of evil or

corruption within God. You see, another misnomer about

God out there is that God is some cosmic universal yin Yang

to where God is equal parts light and dark, his equal parts

good and evil. And what we're going to discover

this week and then on into next week, there is no part of

corruption or evil or darkness within God.

We're actually next week we're going to talk about when we dive

into the subjects of, of Satan, demons and hell.

We're going to talk about the origins of evil and what evil

really is and how evil came about, but it didn't come about

from God because God is holy and God is pure.

And then the 5th component, foundational, essential that you

and I that we need to know about this God, about our God is this

God is personal and loving. Now check this out, God is

Yahweh, He is all powerful, He is all knowing, He is everywhere

present. He is eternally 3 and 1, He is

holy and he is pure, yet he still chooses to be personal.

He still chooses to be loving. This is another thing that

separates. There's a misnomer out there

that says that the God of Christianity is really the the

same God as as Allah in in Islam.

And we basically pray to the same God.

We just like address our our prayers to different to

different to different names. And the fact of the matter is

that nothing could be further from the truth.

You see, if you ever talk to a Muslim, one of the things that

would blow a Muslim's mind is they do not believe at all that

Allah is personal or loving. They believe that Allah is

completely just, that Allah does not care about them, that he is

just basically going to put on the scales, good versus bad.

And if the bad outweighs the good, then you are banished.

If the good outweighs the bad, then you can go on into heaven.

That is not what the Bible teaches about God.

As a matter of fact, the Bible teaches that God chooses to be

personal and loving. Not because you and I could ever

earn it, by the way, not because that God.

Not because God is impressed with us and our good deeds and

our good thoughts and our good intentions.

It's because he chooses to be personal and loving.

And we see this playing out in the fact that God did everything

to take that first step and creating us with free will and

with the with with the decision or with the ability to choose to

be in relationship with him. And we're going to circle back

to that thought in just a moment.

But despite God being holy and pure, all powerful, all knowing

everywhere, present eternally in the Trinity, eternally

Trinitarian and Yahweh holy other, he still chooses to be

personal and loving. So those are the five basic

essential foundational truths that we need to know about God.

What are some truths that we need to know about angels?

As we're going to go further and deeper into this series #1

angels are created spiritual beings that may take on physical

form. Angels we can read about in

Scripture are created spiritual beings that may take on from

time to time. They may take on physical form.

They may take on physical form. We see this playing out

throughout Scripture. That that that the.

Angels. That God is the one that created

angels and from time to time those angels would take on

physical form. Whether it be the Angel that

that that met with Abraham to to tell Abraham of the impending

pregnancy of Sarah to where she would give birth to Isaac.

And out of Isaac would be would be the birth of an entire nation

that would outnumber the the stars in the sky.

Or we can see the Angel taking physical form as as Gabriel and

Gabriel taking on this physical form and and having a

conversation with with Mary to tell Mary about her impending

pregnancy with the Messiah, the second person of the Trinity,

Jesus Christ. We see these angels taking on

physical form, but this physical form you and I we need to know

most often is described as in military type terminology.

Again, this is not some like precious moments type of

figurine that angels take on bald headed babysitting on

clouds, playing harps. As a matter of fact, anytime we

see angels taking on physical form and having conversation

with men or women throughout the Bible, the 1st 2 words that

usually come out of that angel's mouth are fear not.

Have any of you ever gone back to river or Little River and

gone back to the nursery and there's like a baby sleeping

like in a, in a crib and you, you need that baby to open up

and go open his eyes and go fear not.

No, nobody's afraid of like a bald headed baby, right?

You're going to be afraid of these Angel warriors.

So angels are created spiritual beings that sometimes take on

the physical appearance or physical appearance.

Second thing that we need to know about angels is angels are

given a variety of assignments by God.

There are a variety of types of angels and there are a variety

of assignments that God gives these angels.

Again, this is where we have got to separate the fascinating from

the useful, but we've also got to understand that there are a

variety of angels, that there's not just one type of Angel that

God created. So and, and, and not just one

type of task that angels are given by God.

So as a matter of fact, you can read in the in the very

beginning of the book of Genesis to where after Adam and Eve

disobeyed God, God posted a cherubim, A cherubim to guard

the entrance of the Garden of Eden.

So Adam and Eve couldn't get back into the Garden of Eden.

You can read these throne room scenes.

Of God to where you have seraphim flying in and

constantly worshipping God, you have Gabriel, Gabriel being the

messenger. By the way, the Angel the the

the the root word for Angel is usually translated as as as

messenger. But then you have these types of

angels called archangels. And archangels are are are

dispatched by God to, to to protect his his people.

But there are a variety of angels given a variety of

assignments by God. Third thing that we need to

understand about angels, some that we really don't talk a lot

about. That's really going to set the

stage for where we're going next week.

Angels actually possess the freedom of choice.

God did not create supernatural spiritual robots and call them

angels. Angels actually are given the

freedom of choice. We're going to look further into

that, especially when we start talking about Satan and demons

and Hell, because we're going to see how angels are actually

given the choice, created with the choice to submit to God or

to reject God, to to to obey God or to, to to kind of go off on

their own way and disobey God. And we're going to see how

demons are actually the angels that chose to disobey God and to

rebel against God. God.

But angels were created with the freedom to choose.

Third thing that we need to talk about this morning, third

question or component we need to look at is what and where is

heaven? What and where is heaven?

First thing that we need to know about heaven.

Heaven is the dwelling place of God.

Heaven is the dwelling place of God.

And even though we see all throughout Scripture where God

is everywhere present or omnipresent, we see every time

we see like the the, the full majesty of God and and God

seated upon his throne like in Isaiah and in Revelation, the

vision that the prophets are given of God, they actually take

place in heaven. So even though God is everywhere

present, the full glory of God is on.

Full display in heaven. Heaven is the dwelling place of

God. Second thing that we need to

understand about heaven is this. Heaven is a real place in the

spiritual realm. Heaven is a real place in the

spiritual realm. So some of us those that are

right with God, we sometimes assume that heaven is a place in

Athens, GA called Sanford Stadium on Sunday close but not

quite. Heaven is a real place.

There's there's so many thoughts about heaven.

You ever had a conversation with people about about heaven and,

and it's only a matter of time before somebody mentions, you

know, I just really believe that heaven is a lush Meadow.

You're like, what are you talking about Bambi or I just

believe that my spirit will I just love to to vacation.

So I believe that my spirit will hover over the over the ocean

waters when I die. You're like, no, heaven is a

real place. It is a real place in the

spiritual realm. And some of the some of the

depictions of heaven that we get from Scripture.

And I would point you, if you really want to know more about

it, you can look back at Revelation 21.

And in Revelation 21, you'll read about streets of gold and

you'll you'll read about there will be 12 gates, and each gate

is made of a singular Pearl. Heaven is so real, in fact, that

Jesus himself even told his disciples.

And this is recorded for us in Scripture.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

If heaven were a myth, I would have told you.

But I'm going away so that I can prepare a place for you, so that

you may be where I'm going one day.

Heaven is a real place in the spiritual realm.

Third thing that we need to know about heaven.

Heaven is the eternal home for all those who belong to Jesus.

Heaven is a is is the eternal home for all those who belong to

Jesus. Heaven is not the eternal home

for everybody. Heaven is not the eternal home

for good people. Heaven is not the eternal home

for people with good intentions. Heaven is is is not.

It is not the eternal home for people that always just send

good vibes and happy thoughts. Heaven is the eternal home for

all those who belong to Jesus, all those who belong to Jesus.

In heaven we will have the opportunity.

If you've surrendered your life to Jesus, you and I will have

the opportunity to see Jesus, the one who came into this world

and who died on behalf of us on a cross to forgive us of our

sins. We'll be able to see Him face to

face in heaven. We will be able to see the scars

in his hand and the scars in his in his feet in heaven.

In heaven, we will be able to join with all men and all women

throughout all of time and history who have surrendered

their lives to God and given their lives to God.

The men and the women of the Old Testament, Moses and Sarah and

Rebecca. And, and Isaac and Daniel and

and Ruth, Esther and, and, and Paul, we'll, we'll be able to,

to be there with them, but we'll also be able to be there.

We'll also be reunited with the people that we're really close

to that they've surrendered. They surrendered their life to

Jesus, but they passed away and, and we, we greatly miss them

and, and this is the reason that Paul reminds us in First

Thessalonians Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant of

any of these things, but we want you to know we do not.

Grieve as those who have no hope.

He doesn't tell us that we don't grieve the loss of people who

have gone on before us. It just means that we grieve

differently if we know that they are in the presence of Jesus.

Because we know that even though we will miss them for this time

here, we will one day be reunited with them there.

And there's great hope in that. There's also great hope and

knowing that the Bible tells us in, in, in, in Revelation 21,

there'll be no more tears. There'll be no more fears and

there'll be no more mourning or crying or, or pain.

There'll be no more aging or, or doctor's appointments.

There'll be no more heartbreak. All the stuff, all the junk that

you and I that we have to navigate in this thing that we

called life, God is going to make whole in heaven.

So here's really the where the rubber meets the road this

morning. Who is God, What are the angels

or who are the angels? And then what and where are

heaven? Here's the big question for us.

Why does the any of it matter? Why does the any of it matter?

How does any of what we just talked about?

How does it impact our Tuesday? How does it impact your

marriage? How does it impact like the

family dynamic that you're trying to navigate through?

How does it impact some, some, some decisions that you and your

you and your spouse are making? How does it impact maybe the

relationship that you have with your kids?

How does it impact some of the stresses that you have at school

or or on the job site? How does it impact any of this?

I'm glad you asked. Three things in conclusion, to

kind of put a bow around all of this.

Number one, you and I, we have to understand the God who

created me desires to have a relationship with me, the God

who created me. Can I tell you this God is not

some angry old man waiting to throw lightning bolts down at

you and to cosmic cosmically and supernaturally spank you.

When when you do wrong, this God loves you and this God desires

the best for you and he knows that the best for you is for you

to surrender your life to him and for the one who created you

to guide you into living out the reason that he created you and

the purpose that he created for you.

You know out to the side on your on your notes.

I gave you the text John 316 and 17.

And, and if you grew up in church, you know this or if

you're a football fan and watch NFL football on Saturdays, you

typically see this sign held up in the bleachers.

John 316. You know what?

John 316 tells us that God has done everything that he can.

He has taken that first step. He's given everything that he

can. He gave his only son to die on a

cross, to take the place of you, to forgive you of your sins, to

pay the price for your sins, to pay the price for my sins.

He's taken that first step. And, and where we are this

morning is now the ball's in your court.

The ball's in our court. God has done everything that he

can. Did you realize that God loves

you so much that he gives you the ability to accept him or

reject him? God could have.

I mean, we know that God can do everything, anything, right?

He could have created every single one of us robots.

And one of the things that we talk quite frequently about

here, Riverbend, is the fact that relationship requires

choice. Relationship can never true.

Relationship can never be forced or coerced.

It has to be chosen. Listen, God's made a way for you

to be in relationship with Him. You just have to choose him.

You just have to choose to be in relationship with Him.

Second thing that all of this impacts our lives and that I

want to I pray and I hope that God opens our eyes to is this is

that I am being protected in ways that I don't realize I'm

being protected in ways that I don't even realize.

If you, if you, if you're with us this morning in the room or

we're online and you surrendered your life to Jesus, you need to

know that I don't think that we will ever understand that we'll

ever fully know all the many different ways that God has sent

his angels to protect us. But if you're with us this

morning and you're, you know that you haven't surrendered

your life to Jesus, or maybe you're unsure.

Can I tell you this? God has protected you in ways

that you don't even realize. Let me let me throw out a

possibility to, to to you. If you're, if you're unsure on

whether or not you surrendered your life to Jesus, I believe

fully that God has protected you in ways that you don't even

realize to get you to this place, to this space, to this

moment to give you one more chance to accept him as the Lord

and Savior, to surrender your life to him.

You see, you and I, we are protected in ways that we do not

even know by God that loves us and desperately desires to have

a relationship with us. Here's the third way that all of

this impacts our life. When heaven is home, man, earth

loses its hold. When heaven is home, earth loses

its hold. It doesn't mean that we're not

bothered. It doesn't mean that we don't

feel what we feel. It doesn't mean that we don't

worry and that we don't have stress and that we don't have

emotions. It just means that we realize

that we walk this life, that we live our Mondays and our

Tuesdays and our Wednesdays, our Thursdays, our Fridays, our

Saturdays and our Sundays, knowing this place is not my

eternal home. This place is not my eternal

home. You see, if I've surrendered my

life to Jesus, catch this. This place is as bad as it's

ever going to get. If you have not surrendered your

life to Jesus, guess what? This place is as good as it's

ever going to get. That's a sobering, sobering

thought. When heaven is our home, earth

loses its hold. It means that we start thinking

with an eternal perspective. It means that we start to

realize that you and I, that we have been giving this brief time

and this brief slice of history and the decisions that we make

in this brief slice of history, what we would call a lifetime.

And here's the thing, I don't mean to be morbid.

None of us have any control. None of us really know how long

that lifetime really is, do we? God knows.

But the brief slice of history that he has given us, He's given

us that brief slice of history. To know him.

To surrender our lives to him and to make him known to, to,

to, to experience the reason that he created us.

Can I ask you a question? And as we kind of come to a

close this morning and this question, things probably going

to hit pretty close to home. When we start thinking about and

we start talking about things like God and angels in heaven

and eternity, what immediately comes to mind?

What emotions start rushing in? It is, is there is there like a

is there a deep sense of longing?

There Is there a deep sense of longing to where you sit there

and go. God, I am so I'm ready.

God, thank you for the many blessings that you allow me to

experience here in this life, that I'm so ready to be with you

face to face. I'm so ready for what I believe

by faith to experience by sight. I'm so ready to be in your

presence. God, is there a deep sense of

longing or is there a deep sense of fear?

Does it make you feel uneasy? Listen, this is not about

scaring you, but I just want to pose a question to you.

If it makes you feel uneasy, why is that?

I think it, I think it makes us feel uneasy for one of two

reasons. I think it makes us feel uneasy

because we may be unsure about ourselves.

Let me let me kind of put a fine point on that.

Can you go back to a time and a place that you surrendered your

life to Jesus? You know, we were able to

celebrate the baptism of three people this morning of Hart,

Blake and and Ella. Next service we'll be able to

baptize 3 more and celebrate them.

Can I ask you a question? Has there been a point in time

to where you know that you've surrendered your life to Jesus?

To where when you die, you know that heaven will be your home.

I think sometimes when we're unsure about that, subjects like

God and angels in heaven and eternity kind of make us feel

uneasy. I think there's a second reason

it makes us feel uneasy is because you may be sure and

secure in your personal salvation, but there's somebody

really close to you that you're highly doubtful of.

So the thoughts of that person dying without giving their life

to Jesus, Man, it's heartbreaking, isn't it?

In just a moment, what we're going to do is we'll pray

together, we'll stand, we'll worship.

But I want to just call us back to a time of prayer as a church.

If you were here with us our first week together, you know,

the invitation was simply this. If you need to get your life

right with God, if you need to surrender your life to Jesus,

we're going to have some pastors down here at the front that we

would love to pray with you. But if you are sure and secure

in your salvation, ma'am, praise God.

But we're going to invite you to come down and we're going to

invite you to pray by name for people that you may be concerned

over. They may not be here.

They're probably not. They may not be with you online.

They're probably not. But here's the thing, There's

great power and prayer and praying specifically for name by

somebody to where we ask the Holy Spirit God, wherever that

person is, go invade their life, invade their heart God, capture

them with your pursuit and your love for them.

Draw them to you. You do what only you can do by

going where you can only go into their soul, into their heart,

into their innermost being and draw them to to you.

So as we as we're about to pray and stand and sing, I'm going to

invite you just to come and pray for people by name.

So let's pray God, we love you and we thank you for who you

are. And God, if we were given 1000

lifetimes, we can never exhaust talking about who you are.

But God, I pray that this morning, God, that we would be

captured by the thought that you are holy and you are just and

you are pure. You are everywhere, present, all

knowing, all powerful. You are eternally existing.

You are Yahweh, yet you choose to be loving and personal God.

Many of us in this room we have, we have accepted that personal

invitation of yours just to accept you as your as as our

Lord and Savior. God, there's some of us in this

room that we're just not sure or we know that we haven't, but we

know that we need to. God, for that person, for those

people in this room, God, I pray that you would give them the

boldness in just a few moments to step out and to come talk to

a pastor and to pray with a pastor.

God, there's also so many of us in this room that our hearts are

heavy and burdened by friends or family members or Co workers

that even though we are sure and secure in our own salvation and

our own eternal destination, God, we're very unsure and we're

very concerned about their souls.

So God, we want to take this opportunity to lift them up by

name directly to your ears and to your throne to unleash your

Holy Spirit upon their life. So God, I pray that you would

grant us the boldness and the courage to come down and just be

able to pray for people by name. God, we pray that your Holy

Spirit would move in power and might and that your Holy Spirit

would do what only your Holy Spirit can do during this time.

And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for listening to Riverbend Church's podcast.

To find out more about this message or Riverbend Church,

connect with us online at Riverbend Church dot live.