What Is Heaven Like and Who Will Go There? | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning into our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, thank you for joining us

for this session. Those of you who are here face

to face, those of you who are listening online to this later,

I continue to hear those who do that and appreciate that we do

that on purpose. Also for people who are serving

in other ministries during these live sessions.

As you can imagine, we have, as Jean said, we'll have 250 or

whoever, whatever amount in here, but you got to recognize

we'll have almost that many and other places in the building at

the same time. And so when I first got here, I

said I wanted to see about 500 people.

On Wednesday night, somebody laughed at me out loud.

I won't point them out there in the room right now, but I won't

point them out. And, and yet I think that we're

about, you know, God's, that's God's just getting started.

So we're going to see as we keep going, I want to apologize.

You have 4 pages of notes for this session.

I started off with 11 and I still have 11.

And so I tried to get it down to four.

So that would be simpler for them to print them off.

As you can tell, the margins get smaller and smaller.

But this session is going to be woefully incomplete even with

this much material, which is a great thing because of the

subject matter. We probably should have just

done a 10 part series on the on heaven itself and maybe we'll

come back and do that again. We're going to move forward in

our conversation of heaven, hell and the hereafter.

But, but I'm, I, I just want to apologize up front for the

entire series that we're going to try to do now in the next

hour or so. So hang in there.

You know, throughout history and throughout the Scriptures, we

read of great men and, and great women of God who, who gave

evidence that they were, that they were thinking of eternity,

that eternity was in their hearts.

One of their great passages is Hebrews 11, and it says these

all died in faith, not having received the things promised,

but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having

acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the

earth. For people who speak thus make

it clear that that they're seeking a homeland, and if

they've been thinking of that land from which they had gone

out, they would have had the opportunity to return.

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.

So you see this great passage in Hebrews 11 of these Old

Testament heroes who were still saved by faith, by grace.

And and yet we're longing. We're longing for a better

country. There are songs written about

that as well. And so unfortunately for some,

hopefully not you here at this session.

You know, sometimes I feel like I'm preaching to the literally

to the choir a little bit on Wednesday in our Wednesday

sessions. But there are people that we

know maybe at times you're guilty of this, who are who, who

love it so much right here or have it so good right here, that

they don't often really think about home.

They don't really long for heaven.

I was griping one day, which is not an uncommon thing, but I was

griping one day about some contemporary Christian music,

about how I was not hearing songs about people wanting to go

home anymore. And that's changed some in

recent years. I've appreciated the fact that

that has cycled back a little bit sometimes.

Sometimes even Christian music can be extremely self-centered

to where it's just about me and it's about what I'm going to,

what I need and what I'm going to get.

And it's really not about glorifying God.

And so I, I, I, I love to sing about home and we need to learn

to set our affections on this. CS Lewis, who I've quoted more

in, in the last few months here at Inglewood than my entire

life. For some reason, if you read

history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the

present world were just those who thought most of the next.

It's because Christians have largely ceased to think of the

other world that they have become so ineffective in this

one. And so you can tell what we're

living for at times. Where is our focus?

And so we're just going to look at a couple of basic categories.

This may get a little redundant at times, but I just want us to,

I just want us to enjoy, frankly, the truth about where

those of us who know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior

are going to spend eternity. And so my prayer is that this

session will be encouraging for some.

It might be challenging if you don't know Christ as your Lord

and Savior, but but we we're going to talk about a few just

basic things. So where is heaven?

You know, we have such a a limited perspective at times, I

think it boggles the mind that the same Christ who created the

universe is the one who's also preparing a place for you.

And we'll come back to that passage later.

You got to kind of consider this, the magnitude of what we

would call the stellar universe, the physical universe we live

in. We're going to break down the

different kinds of heavens here in a little while, but only

about 4000 stars are visible to the human eye without the help

of a telescope. And that would be obviously out

in the woods someplace without, without light pollution cutting

that out from a city or something.

But with the telescopes that they have now, some of them

actually in space, scientists estimate that there are about or

over 10 to the 25th. So think of 10 with 25 zeros

after that. That ends up being billions of

millions somehow. I'm not sure what the, what the

quadzillion quabillion name for that is, but it's like 1,000,000

billion billion, something like that.

And they keep discovering more. In fact, I, I read articles.

I, I read scientific articles almost, well, probably almost

every day. In fact, I'll comment him to

Teresa sometimes. I'm always interested in the

latest things science found that they thought they already knew,

but realized they didn't, and now they've learned something

new. Science is a very fluid, a fluid

industry that often our world doesn't accept.

They think it's static, but it's not.

And so they're always learning something new.

But but that number of stars is, is the estimated number of

grains of sand on the earth. Now, don't ask me who counted

those. I don't know who counted those.

I'm not sure how you make that. I guess you take one shovel and

you multiply it. I don't know.

Our solar system has a diameter of 700 light minutes.

Now you got to think about the difference between the light

minutes. You probably heard the more

familiar term of light years. How far does light travel in a

certain time period? And so that that alone is 8

billion miles. Our Galaxy has a diameter of

about 100,000 light years, and our Galaxy is one of billions so

far. Beyond this intergalactic space

lies something else. It's different.

It's a different dimension and we need to talk about it.

The Old Testament talked to some about it in Deuteronomy 10.

It says, behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the

heaven of heavens, the earth with all that is in it.

So all of this, all of this space, all of this belongs to

him. A simple question, is heaven up?

Because sometimes we think that way, don't we?

Jesus ascended, we think that way the so heaven has to be up

here somewhere, right? And for our humanity, for our

human minds and our human ability to understand.

And I'm going to have to talk about that phrase over and over

and over and over and over again when we talk about heaven

because the the descriptions that we're going to get into are

put into human vocabulary because that's the only way we

know how to understand them. But our human vocabulary really

isn't good enough to carry the weight of the actual meaning.

So as heaven up well, they're even verses that make you think

so and it sounds as Psalm 53 two says God looks down from heaven

on the children of man to see if there are any who understand who

seek after God. But you got to understand that

because of what heaven really is.

And this really does go back to our and this is one of the

reasons we did it a session of 14 ago or whenever it was when I

talked about the eternality of God.

You've got to remember God transcends time and space and so

does heaven. Heaven is a different dimension.

It's a whole different way of existing and we we're going to

have to try to wrap our heads, which is hard to do.

So up and down really lose meaning when you realize that

heaven is not bound by time and space.

It's beyond that. Second Corinthians 12 says this.

I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago was caught up to the

3rd heaven, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not

know. God knows and he heard things

that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

I find this passage is interesting because right now my

personal Bible study in the mornings, I've shared this with

you. I'm in the book and almost

finishing up the book of Numbers and also in the Book of

Revelation. And so this passage, even though

it's not talking about John, it, it's interesting because it's

almost like what John has has experienced in Patmos as he's

having this vision of the revelation.

But the Bible speaks of three different kinds of heaven.

And so just to be clear here, 1 is atmospheric, 1 is the

physical that we see the the the the atmospheric right around us.

In other words, the sky. Job 35 says, look at the heavens

and sea and behold the clouds which are higher than you.

Or Psalm 147. He covers the heavens with

clouds. He prepares rain for the earth.

He makes grass grow on the hills.

And so sometimes, especially in the Old Testament, the word for

heaven would refer to the the atmosphere, the sky, just not

that far away from us. In other words, the the things

right around us. You also see a stellar or

planetary heaven, which is what we were talking about a minute

ago. And we go back to Genesis and

remind ourselves of of how that came into being in Genesis 1.

And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the

heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for

signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be

lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the

earth. And it was so.

And God made 2 great lights, the greater light to rule the day,

and the lesser light to rule the night and the stars.

And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on

the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to

separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good. And so we see this

interplanetary this the solar systems, the galaxies, the

stars. And yet both of these first two

kinds of heavens have been negatively impacted by sin.

They're part of the created order.

They're part of creation and, and is it?

They've been affected by sin. And one day those two types of

heavens will no longer exist. They're going to go away.

In fact, Peter writes about this in a pretty vivid passage.

People, like some scholars I know, like to argue about what

Peter means. I like to take the Bible at its

clearest meaning. And I think Peter meant what he

wrote. And it says this.

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the

heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies

will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that

are done on it will be exposed. So one day all of this will be

gone. At the end of time, the creation

as we know it will burn up, it'll be dissolved, it'll be

done away with. And so both the sky and and even

the stars, the moon, the sun, the solar systems, wherever our

spaceships try to go. My grandfather was just

convinced it was Arizona or New Mexico till the day he died.

I mean, till the, I mean, strongly felt.

So, yeah, it's just a movie set, you know, out there in New

Mexico. Simple.

I've been there. I know where that was.

Those guys are good actors, you know, and that that golf ball on

a string going real slow, That was pretty creative.

But there's a third kind. That's what we're going to talk

about tonight. The heavenly heaven, the 3rd

heaven, God's perfect and unstained dwelling place that

remains untouched by sin. It's not affected by the fall.

It's not affected by the created order.

It's not affected and will exist forever.

It will not go away. And it's interesting because so

then that makes me think so OK, so how does this, how does this

whole thing work? So Jesus is on the cross in Luke

Luke 23 · chapter mention

chapter 23 and he says to the thief next to him today you'll

be with me in paradise. Now, I don't believe and I don't

see any indication that he was transported by superhuman speed

to to a place out there beyond the farthest Galaxy.

I don't think that's how it worked.

I think he slipped immediately into another dimension and was

immediately into the presence of the Lord.

And so heaven exists beyond time.

So traveling a zillion mph might put you on the edge of the

stellar universe. But to take a step into heaven

requires something different, something else.

So why does heaven exist? Well, it's the primarily the

dwelling place of God in a sense he's more than that, but it is

that and I'll explain. Isaiah 63 says look down from

heaven. See again, we see this

directional idea because that's the only thing we can

understand. Look down from heaven and see

from your holy and beautiful habitation where where are your

zeal and your might, the stirring of your inner parts and

your compassion or held back for me.

Or go to the Gospels Matthew 5 as Jesus is working through the

Sermon on the Mount ideas in the same way, let your light shine

before others so that they may see your good works and give

glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Or Matthew 69 which you know, you just may know the Luke

version of it. But in Matthew 69, we pray then

like this, our Father where in heaven hallowed be your name and

many, many, many more verses obviously would point to his

location and his habitation of heaven.

So, but we also have to remember, and this is the other

part of this, that even though heaven is the dwelling place of

God, it's not the only place of not the only dwelling place of

God. God is omnipresent.

So there is no place you can go where God is not So it in other

words, there there is no realm where his presence does not

reach. In fact, First Kings 8 says

this, but will God indeed dwell on the earth?

Behold, heaven in the highest heaven cannot contain you.

How much less this house that I've built.

And so there's a recognition that God's not contained in a

Tabernacle or a temple. He's not contained in a church

building. He's not contained in a in a

singular physical location for sure, but he also isn't simply

contained in heaven. Psalm 139, verse 8 says if I

Psalms 139:8

ascend to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed and Sheol,

you're there. So there's nowhere to escape

him. Psalm 139 goes on.

There's no place to escape the presence of God.

He's everywhere. And to say that God dwells in

heaven is true, but it's not to say that heaven contains all

there is of God. That is not true.

God is bigger and transcends that.

So he, he's, he's uniquely in heaven.

In other words, heaven is uniquely his home.

It's his. It's his center of operation, so

to speak. It's headquarters and other

beings live there that we'll talk more about later, but other

others are there, and it's a place where his throne resides,

and it's where the most perfect worship of him will occur.

And one day we'll get to join that.

I thought some of you would appreciate the fact that I'm

going to read from Ezekiel. I know some of you love Ezekiel.

And it says, and above the expanse over their heads there

was a likeness of a throne, an appearance like sapphire.

And seated above the lightness of a throne was a lightness with

a human appearance. And upward from what had the

appearance of his waist, I saw, as it were gleaming metal, like

the appearance of fire enclosed all around.

And downward from what had the appearance of his waist, I saw,

as it were the appearance of fire.

And there was brightness around him, like the appearance of the

bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the

appearance of the brightness all around.

Such was the appearance of the lightness of the glory of the

Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my

face, and I heard the voice of one speaking.

You layer this in with some of the descriptions you'll see,

which we'll talk about in a moment of the Book of

Revelation. And you'll see, you'll see this,

this human language trying to describe something that's

indescribable, trying to, to, to associate it with, with precious

stones or metals or fire, when when in fact it's more than

that. It's better than that.

But that's all we got. That's all we can think of.

That's the only way we could capture it, the only way we

could imagine it in his glory. So it is the dwelling place of

God. It's also the dwelling place of

the godly, which is great news for us.

Amen. If you are one.

And so Philippians 320 says our citizenship is where, Yeah, our

citizenship is in heaven. We're not home here.

And that, that's something that's hard to figure out day by

day by day, I think for folks, because we're so attached to

this. We're so attached to all of

this. But this is not us, and this is

not home. We're pilgrims.

We're looking and longing for a better country, longing to go

home. But in the meantime, we have

work to do, so our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we

await A Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ or Ephesians 2.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with

which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses,

made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. And and then listen to this, not

the next part. And raised up and raised us up

with him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ

Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the

immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ

Jesus, that we would actually be seated with him in the heavenly

places. Quite a, quite an image.

Now, one of the things you ought to note, and we could read more

passages, but in these two passages, if you'll note, the

verbs are in the present tense, many more passages like that

that are written in the present tense.

In other words, this isn't just something that's going to happen

later. The eternity isn't just

something that's going to happen later.

It's like we're already there. We're already eternal, we're

already immortal. We're already, we're already a

part of this, even though we haven't gone there yet.

It's a reality. These present tense verbs in the

New Testament are very important.

One of the most, the simplest verb, the simplest verse I could

think of as John 647. It's the most simple gospel

verse I think there is in the New Testament, John 647.

Whosoever believes has eternal life, present tense, you have it

now, you have it now. And so the reason I say that so

strongly is the fact that it needs to motivate me to, to at

times to not be so caught up in this and to recognize there's

something so much more, something so much better.

It can help me to endure. It can help me to work through

what this is throwing at me because there's more, there's

more coming. But we, we're supposed to be

here. We're supposed to worship, we're

supposed to make disciples, we're supposed to share the

gospel. There's things we got to do here

before that. But because of that, all right,

all right, we can deal with this because I'm looking at that,

because I know where this ends. I know how this ends.

My eternal life in Christ began the moment he saved me.

And I just spent a piece, I mean, a fraction.

And when you think about eternity, it's it's a miniscule

fraction of my existence on this planet on assignment for him.

But the real life happens later. So we should be preoccupied with

heavenly things, not to the point of being useless.

Paul had to kind of get on to the Thessalonians about that.

But we we have to, we have to recognize we have work to do,

but we also need to think about what can we take a take with us

when we go home. That's my pre.

What can I take with me there? Who can I take with me there to

join me in that incredible experience?

So we're going to spend the most of our time on this question.

What's heaven like? I struggled with this, you know,

as I was working through this and, and working through so many

passages and so many thoughts and so many things we could do.

And we're going to come back and revisit some of these pieces

down the road. But, but, but here's just an

overview. So heaven itself, the word is

always synonymous with, with things like beauty or comfort or

peace or, or, or satisfaction or contentment.

It, it can be an adjective where it's describing something

wonderful, something incredible. It can be a noun as this real

place where the people of God go and dwell with God, right.

So, but, but as I was saying earlier, words cannot express

what it's like adequately. And so be careful when you're

reading these descriptions. I mean, I, we, we'll even make

jokes about streets of gold and, and maybe they are gold, but I

really think the way it's written and the way you see it

written, it's more than gold. That's just the closest thing we

can think of. It's the only thing that our

human minds can grab a hold of to identify.

And so verses again, are forced into this human vocabulary doing

its best to describe something that's beyond humanity.

So things are like these things, but we also know they're

different and better. So it's hard for us in our

limited thoughts, but Scripture repeatedly reminds us that

heaven is a realm of unsurpassed everything, bliss, delight,

peace. The Hebrew word that's used most

often is a Hebrew word, shamayam.

Shamayam with an M on the end. Sorry.

And and it's plural, so it literally means the heights.

It means the highest of the heights in a sense, the Greek

word oranis, where you get the planetary name Uranus, That's

where that planet name comes from, from this Greek word

oranis. And, and that means raised up,

it means lofty. And so these are the words that

are often used for heaven. I, I got out my, my yardstick

and we did a little measuring. The New Jerusalem, the capital

of where we're going to end up in the new heaven, the new earth

is going to be 1500 miles by 1500 miles by 1500 miles.

Let me read that for you in Revelation 21.

And then you got to get out your ruler and do some translation.

And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to

measure. So you got to get your solid

gold yardstick to measure the city and its gates and walls.

The city lies Foursquare. Anybody heard of Foursquare

churches? Yeah.

See, this is where this word comes from.

This is where this idea comes from, The idea of some kind of

Foursquare church, regardless of its Baptist or Baptist,

Foursquare Baptist or Foursquare other things, Pentecostals,

there's Foursquare several things.

And, and the idea of a Foursquare church, they're

stealing the idea of this is like the new, the new Jerusalem.

This is like heaven in this church.

So the city lives four square, its length the same as its

width. And he measured the city with a

city with its rod 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height

are equal. He also measured its walls, 144

cubits by human measurement, which is also an angels

measurement. There you go.

So we stole the way we measure, I guess from the angels a little

bit. We're going to talk more about

angels, not necessarily this session, but it's interesting

because in the Tabernacle and the Temple, the Holy of Holies

was a cube. I don't know if you ever knew

that or not. It was equal, equal sided

because it's a representation, It's a symbol.

The Holy of Holies is a symbol of the new heaven and new earth

and New Jerusalem, specifically the dwelling place of God.

And so the in the Holy of Holies and the Tabernacle on the

Temple, it represented, it represented the very sanctuary

where you met with God, where you could be in God's presence.

And, and the same thing is going to be true in eternity in the

New Jerusalem. So you see this symbol of this

imagery that was supposed to teach us about the end.

And then the gates and foundations of the New Jerusalem

are described as you move forward.

In Revelation 21, it says the the wall was built of Jasper

while the city was pure gold like clear glass.

And Jasper is a translucent semi opaque stone, but it gives off

all kinds of different colors and so in But in Bible times, it

may be that this word was actually used to represent an A

diamond like gym. So when light shone through this

gym, it would really radiate from the center everywhere.

So it was a brilliant radiation of multiple colors.

Think of think of a rainbow prism just blinding you with

this light and it's multiple colors.

And so just a brilliant thing. And so God's glory radiating out

from his throne. So to make from the city, the

center of the city and then gold or something that looks like

gold. And I'm, I'm not trying to play

that up or down any more than I can.

It's just that if, if this really is gold, it's the purest

gold, the most perfect gold you could ever imagine.

So perfect. It's it's clear, it's glass like

in its appearance. Revelation keeps going.

The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every

kind of jewel. The first was Jasper, the second

Sapphire, The third Agate, The 4th Emerald, The 5th Onyx, The

6th Carnelian, The 7th Chrysalite.

The 8th Burial, The 9th Topaz, The 10th Chrysler Praise.

I can't say that word. The 11th Jason.

The 12th Amethyst and at the 12 gates were 12 pearls.

Each of the gates made of a single Pearl.

And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent

glass. You're going to see this

transparent glassy gold throughout the descriptions of

heaven. And so you see all these

incredible jewel tones and jewels making up the walls.

So think about, think about if you, you go back to the Nehemiah

story and they're building walls out of stones and blocks in, in,

in heaven. They're building the, the, the

walls out of blocks of precious stone.

Every, everyone being different and then you, you see these

gates that are made of a single Pearl.

Now these pearls weren't made by giant oysters.

They're not giant oysters in heaven.

I don't think Bible doesn't say that, but they are fashioned by

God's hand. But what it does say to me is it

really does reflect something. I I think you really do.

This goes back to our Roman study and we talked about

general revelation that you see in nature, so that even even the

simple oyster with the mother of Pearl on the inside and the

Pearl that it produces, it's just a reflection.

It's a reflection of God's glory and God's creation in a sense, a

little picture of heaven almost in the way that the beauty that

we see in in jewels and the beauty that we see in these

created objects of God are reflections to where through

nature he's showing that I exist.

He's pointing to himself in this general revelation way to

hopefully lead people to the specific revelation of the

gospel. Now, there are some things that

have heaven lacks. There's some things that heaven

didn't have, some things that are missing from heaven.

I, I know that's a shock. I know, but we're going to be

glad they're not there. Stinky things aren't going to be

there. Nothing stinks in heaven.

That's out of first. John, you were 36.

All right, Revelation 2122 keeps going.

And listen, he says. And I saw no temple in the city,

for his temple is the Lord God the Almighty in the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it.

For the glory of God gives it light, and it's lamp is the

Lamb. By its light will the nation's

walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

And it's gates will never be shut by day, and there will be

no night there. They, they will bring into it

the glory and the honor of the nation's, but 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. No, temple don't need one.

God himself is the temple. God himself fulfills the need

for whatever the temples purpose was.

We don't need a temple anymore. We don't, we don't need that

system either of sacrifice anymore.

So God himself is the object of the worship, the place of

worship, the destination of worship, right.

The temple was where you used to go in, in biblical times to

worship, especially with the Jewish people in heaven.

We go to him and we don't need a separate light source.

He's the light. You don't need a security

system. He's he'll keep you secure.

You have no need of it. In fact, in heaven you have no

needs at all, period. No need.

I have no need. Complete satisfaction and

fulfilment. No curse, no sin, no darkness.

This incredible place Chapter 22 goes on, no longer will there be

any anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb

will be in it and his servants will worship him.

They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads

and the and night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be

their light and they will reign forever and ever.

The psalmist makes comment too. He says in Psalm 16, you make

known to me the path of life. In your presence there's

fullness of joy and that your right hand are pleasures

forevermore. No more sorrow, no more cares,

no more tears, no more fears, no more hurt, no more pain, no more

disappointment. None of that, because it says in

Revelation 21, four and five, he will wipe away every tear from

their eyes and death won't be there.

Death will be no more. Neither shall but there be

mourning nor crying nor pain anymore.

For the former, things have passed away.

So everything that causes you anxiety, every stressor, every

PTSD source, every hurt, every pain, every aching back or

broken tooth. Now, there's a couple of us who

believe that we will all be bald because perfection, right?

Tim Looper, Amen. Thank you very much.

Thank you for that testimony. The rest of you all covered up.

I don't get it. But one of these days, you'll

reach perfection. But the Bible tells us that the

former things have passed away. This is a verse that's very much

very similar to 2nd Corinthians 517.

The old things pass away. Behold, all things become new.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ.

And so we recognize that in heaven all things become new.

So the old is made new. Everything has changed.

And the Greek word here, kinos, is this idea of not just new

compared to the old, but it's made out of something different.

It's made out of a different substance.

It's a different quality. It's, it's, it's totally

different in its makeup, its form is different.

So it's a change in a lot of different.

So the new heaven and the new earth are going to be different.

We will be different. And sometimes, and we don't have

any other way to think about it, we'll, when people die and they,

they like to go fishing or something and they die, we can,

you know, we'll, we'll talk about how they're up there in

heaven catching big fish or something like that.

And maybe, maybe we'll catch big fish in heaven.

But you know, at times we've got to look beyond some of the

earthly stuff. It's going to be different.

It's going to be new. It's going to be something

incredible. We will be different.

Last, in our last session, we discussed the new bodies that

we're going to receive. The fact that death means

departure, the fact that the spirit and the soul depart from

the body, and we'll immediately be in the presence of the Lord.

But not yet in our final state where we've got the second

coming is going to usher that in.

The day's going to come though, and God reunites spirit and

resurrected body. Now we're fully conscious, we're

fully recognizable. We're fully aware.

In the meantime, the Bible indicates, but just listen to

what Billy said. Good old Billy.

Death has two stages. First, the separation of the

body from the spirit of a person for a purely spiritual

existence. And 2nd reunion with the body

and a glorious resurrection, the second coming of Christ when our

body ceases to function and we are dead.

That the spirit of the believer is not asleep.

We don't believe in soul sleep. Our flesh and bones and all the

intricate and wonderful parts God has made are the dwelling

place of the spirit of the believer.

Someday our bodies will be renewed and changed like that of

the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.

And as Paul wrote in Philippians 3 again, he says, who will

transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the

power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

So these resurrected bodies, they're going to be perfectly

suited for eternity. And, and our our new bodies are

going to be like we talked last time, like Christ's glorious

body. In first John chapter 3, it

1 John 3 · chapter mention

says, beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will

be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears we

shall be like him because we shall see him as he is.

So all we know now our only, our only basis of perception and our

standard of comparison is imperfection.

So what we think is great or good or healthy or better than

somebody else is still on a completely different standard

than what's going to happen in heaven.

Romans 822 reminds us as well that we know that the whole

creation has been groaning together in the pain of

childbirth until now. So as we talked earlier, all the

creation, all of the created order, the heaven, the physical

heaven and the earth and the the stellar heaven, the planetary

heavens, it's all groaning and agonizing under the effect of

sin. But a time's going to come for

perfection. So the whole person, body and

soul will be reunited completely new in a flawless way.

And it's hard to envision that now, hard to understand that now

because we can't see our spirit, we can't see our soul, but we

will finally actually be whole. We'll actually be complete.

So, so you got to think of it this way.

God isn't just making us better than we are, he's actually

conforming us to the image of his son in his glorious state,

to the image of Christ himself. We're we're being conformed more

to the image and and that makes us fit to be able to dwell in

his presence. You get you got to remember

this. If not go, but you can remember

the Old Testament part of this that we'll see in Exodus through

to 33 in a minute. But we can't be in the presence

of God right now. It would kill us in our physical

sinful state. The brilliance of God's presence

would be overwhelming. We can't be there in that

complete way, yet we talk about it.

We're we're in the presence of God or we want God's presence

with us in our worship and things like that.

But in a complete way we can't do that, yet it would kill us.

We can't be in hit what we would call his unveiled presence.

Paul wrote to his spiritual son Timothy, who alone has

immortality, who dwells and unapproachable light, whom no

one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor an eternal

dominion. Amen.

And then the famous story about the cleft in the rock in Exodus

33 with Moses. Moses said, please show me your

glory. And he said, he being God, I

will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim

before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I

will be gracious, and I will show mercy on whom I will show

mercy. But he said, You cannot see my

face for a man shall not see me and live.

So then he basically says, here, look, here's a little bit of

here's a niche in the rock. You go in there and, and kind of

turn your back to me and I'll turn my back to you and you can

get a little glimpse because that's all you can handle.

So we have to be changed. We can't stay the way we are.

We have to be changed or we would die in his brilliance.

So he outfits us with this resurrected body that can take

it, that's designed for this. So in heaven, we're going to

lose our fallenness and our resurrected bodies are going to

have the same qualities as the glorified body of Christ that we

talked about in the last session.

And believers who are dead first are going to be united with

their perfected bodies. Then those who are still alive,

guess what we get to do? We get to fly.

We'll be caught up and instantly changed and glorified.

It's what 1st Thessalonians 4 is all about.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers about those

who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no

hope. For since we believe that Jesus

died and rose again, Even so, through Jesus God will bring

with him those who have fallen asleep.

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who

are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not

proceed those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a cry

of command, with the voice of an Archangel, with the sound of the

trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together

with them in the clouds, meet the Lord in the air, and so we

will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another

with these words. What do you all call that?

The rapture. Some people don't believe in the

rapture anymore. Some people in churches don't

teach the rapture anymore. I'm not sure what they do with

this. I'm hanging on for it.

One of these days, one of the two things is going to happen.

One of these days, I just kind of want to hear the voice of an

Archangel and the sound of the trumpet of God.

Don't you That sound, right? My guess is that stir you out of

bed for the day. That will be.

And as I mentioned earlier, our resurrected bodies will be

different. They're different in variety and

quality than what we now know. So they're going to be

especially suited for this. But we will have real bodies

that are permanently and eternally perfect, that, again,

no sickness, no injury, no disease.

I love this quote by John Quincy Adams, the former president

later in life and he lived to be an old man.

Late in life, he was asked how he was doing.

He said John Quincy Adams is well served, very well.

The house in which he has been living is dilapidated and old

and has received word from its maker that he must vacate soon.

But John Quincy Adams is well, Sir, very well, as Paul would

write to the Corinthians at another time.

This is just a House of clay, a vessel of clay, a tent that we

live in, that that one day will be gone.

We're going to have new hearts. We'll have a completely purified

heart with no sin, Romans 7, which we'll get to in our Romans

series 2 not too long from now, wretched man that I am, who will

deliver me from this body of death, thanks be to God through

Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law

of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

So we're going to be released from this.

We're going to be released from sin, from the penalty and the

power and the presence of sin. No more barriers, no more

obstacles to perfect fellowship with God, no more struggle, no

more guilt, no more failure, no more distractions, no more

doubts, no more obstacles, no more lack of faith.

We're going to be right there with him and we're going to have

new minds. This is a very holistic

experience. Our heart changes, our mind

changes. In First Corinthians 1312, it's

that verse you know. For now we see in a mirror,

dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part.

Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So no more ignorance, no more false thoughts, no more

failures, no more imperfections. None of that bad things are not

going to come to our minds anymore.

They're going to be blocked out by the brilliance in the

knowledge of God. Our thought process will no

longer be a battle. Our focus won't be distracted.

We'll stand amazed to see how God beautifully embroidered each

circumstance into this pattern for our good and His glory.

We're finally going to understand.

Romans 828, finally. And we know that those who love

God, that for those who love God, all things work together

for good, for those who are called according to His purpose,

this will finally be understood. We're going to get it.

We're going to understand in a new way how everything fit and

sin's no longer going to define us.

And then I want to spend a couple minutes on this one

because this was actually a question that came up to me

afterwards last last session. We need to talk about some new

relationships. And this is kind of hard for

some people. Some people don't like this

part. So I hope that you like heaven.

I prefer that you like heaven. If you're going to go there, you

better like it. I had AI, had AI, had a youth.

I was in the youth ministry for many years, if you can believe

it or not. I was actually a youth once and

and I worked with a bunch of missionary kids.

Part of my job in the Philippines is I had a whole

youth group of missionary kids and I had one of them come up to

me one time and they said, you know, I don't know if I want to

go to heaven. And I'm like, so finish the

sentence. Yeah.

I mean, if going to heaven is just like going to church all

the time and all we're going to do is just go to church all the

time, I'm not sure I want to go there.

That's called a pause. Did you hear that?

That was a pause. I don't know if that was a

statement about church, about her or just.

Yes. But in heaven, in eternity, we

relate to one another in a different way.

And for some, because we're so attached to our earthly

relationships, this can be kind of a hard teaching for some.

Now, don't let it be that. Let it be incredible, because in

heaven we're going to experience perfect people for the first

time in perfect fellowship. You don't know what that is.

You don't have that. I don't care how good you think

your relationship with somebody else is, you don't have that.

You're not perfect and neither are they.

And for the first time, a perfect person in a perfect

relationship takes on a whole different meaning.

We've never done that before. We have no clue how great this

is going to be now. There are countless folks that I

can't wait to see again. There are who are there.

My mother and father were saved before they died.

I look forward to seeing them. I have nieces and nephews who

have died. I look forward to seeing them.

I have incredible Saints and churches that have gone on and

relatives who have died that were saved it.

I can't wait to see them again. I look forward to seeing them

and I and we're going to know each other and I'm going to come

back to that again in a minute. But in First Corinthians 7, just

hear what's written. This is what I mean, brothers.

The appointed time has grown very short.

From now on let those who have wives live as though they have

none, and those who mourn as though there were not mourning,

and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing.

And those who buy as those as though they had no goods, and

those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with

it. For the present form of this

world is passing away. Now that last part, form is

really important. The the form of this world is

passing away. The word for form of schema,

which is really interesting because that word's used in

other places in the New Testament, but it means a manner

of life. It means a way of doing things.

So the way we do things here will pass away the way we deal

with the world, the way we deal with one another.

They're going to be different. And so heaven has higher values.

In fact, this comes to a real specific point when the

Pharisees and Sadducees are trying to trap Jesus in a

lengthy passage. And this is the passage about a

guy dies and he has a brother and then they die and they die

and they have a brother and they die and who gets the wife?

I mean, it's a whole long thing they're going through, right?

And, and, and so they're trying to trap Jesus because you got to

remember, the Pharisees believed that you had the same

relationships after death that you did on earth.

I don't know if you know that about the Pharisees.

The Sadducees didn't believe in the afterlife at all.

And so they're trying to get Jesus to pick a side and both of

them are wrong. And so they're trying to, but

they're trying to get him to pick, pick a side.

So they're asking him about our human relationships after death.

So in Matthew 22, he answers them, and this is an important

teaching for us, he says, but Jesus answered them.

You're wrong, both of you, all of you.

You're wrong. You're wrong.

You're wrong. Oh, world's wrong, but because

you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.

And remember, these are the religious leaders of the day.

Verse 34. In the resurrection, they

neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in

heaven. And As for the resurrection of

the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of

Jacob. He is not God of the dead, but

of the living. And when the crowd heard it,

they were astonished at his teaching.

And you know, I won't go down this rabbit hole too far, but

you got to understand how they should be.

They hadn't heard any of this. They'd never heard this before.

I mean, they should have, but that's they were being fed

either Pharisaical or Sadducee teaching in their religious

life. And so one way or the other,

they're both getting the wrong teaching.

So for anybody who was probably alive at this moment, this is

the first time they're ever hearing this kind of stuff.

So he says, listen, it's he's not saying we become angels.

That's not what he's saying here.

We become like them in our relationships.

That's what he's saying. So hang in there with me through

this paragraph or so. All the need for marriage will

be gone. We don't need marriage in

heaven. It doesn't mean we don't love

each other, but it's just going to be so different.

And so here we need marriage, here we need a help mate, here

we need helpers, we need protectors, we need companions.

We need all that in our earthliness and God blesses us

with that in a wonderful way. And but, but we're completing

him because in heaven, we don't need any other helper.

We don't need any other protector.

He's there and he fulfills that need that we have.

So we have companionship and a pure love than we have ever had

here. And you might sit there.

There's no way in the world I love my spouse so much.

There's no way anybody could love me or I could love anybody

more than that. You just don't know.

You just don't know. It's different.

It's so pure and so perfect. And so the population of heaven,

you got to remember this part of it too, that the population of

heaven is going to be fixed. You don't have new babies in

heaven, so that part of marriage is not needed either.

And so they're not going to be new babies in heaven.

So, but that doesn't mean that there's no recognizable gender

or identity. We talked a little bit about

this last time. Christ was still recognizable.

He was also still recognizable as masculine.

And so there seems to be an indication that that's going to

still be there. And so some people say this is

hard. I love my wife.

She's my best friend, my dearest companion and, and I, I, I

wanted to be my wife in heaven. Well, she's still there, but

we're going to have such a perfect relationship with each

other and, and an eternal companionship in heaven that is

more perfect than any earthly partnership could ever be.

It's going to be so much better. We're going to have a perfect

relationship with every other perfect person in heaven.

It's just different the way we're going to relate to one

another and to Him, but we will know each other somehow.

The particular person you now carry around is also going to be

seen in this new miraculous body.

I, I don't know that that means you're going to look exactly the

same, but you're going to be identifiable.

We will forever be who we are, only perfect.

I mean, you got to remember the scripture shows this.

In fact he just did a minute ago.

But the scripture show this over and over again.

Remember when David's baby died in Second Samuel?

He says, but now he's dead. Why should I fast?

Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall

not return to me. David knew he would see him

again. Or Matthew 811.

I tell you, many will come from east and West and recline at

table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven.

There's still them. In fact, in the passage I read

earlier from Matthew 22, he refers to the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac. The God of this is still

Abraham. This is still, this is still

Isaac, this is still Jacob. You're going to see these guys.

You're going to recognize these guys.

You're going to know that's Abraham.

I don't think anybody's going to have to tap you on the shoulder

and say that's Abraham, the guy playing pickleball.

That's Moses. Got a mean serve.

It's perfect. It's a perfect serve.

We're in heaven. What do you think?

I'm not suggesting we're playing pickleball in heaven.

Remember always, [email protected].

But there's still them. And, and remember, as I talked

about in the last session, Elijah and Moses, who had been

dead for centuries, appeared in clear identity with Jesus on the

Mount of Transfiguration. But we're going to relate to

each other in a different way. We're also going to get to

relate to the heavenly host, and this is a part of heaven that we

talk about Jesus and God the Father sometimes.

But I want you to just take a moment to recognize that one of

the exciting parts of heaven is we're going to get to know on

fellowship with angels. They love that we're going to be

there. They throw a party when you get

to come. Luke 15 says, just so I tell

you, there is joy before the angels of God over 1 Sinner who

repents. And so if we don't rejoice,

we're missing out because the angels are rejoicing.

We're going to baptize 3 people on Sunday.

We got the baptistery fixed, by the way.

So we'll baptize 3 this Sunday. I think we got a couple more the

Sunday after that and maybe some more get lined up after that. 4

this week, 4 this week, is that right?

We're going to baptize 4 people this week.

I'm going to preach for 2 1/2 minutes.

Now this is an incredibly important sermon. 1 commentator

says this is the most important paragraph ever written in

history. So you need to be here this

Sunday. But but the angels see our

redemption and they see it completed that, you know, they,

they've known what's been going on.

And then at the end they see a completion to all of this and

this it's going to lead them to worship and our ability to

worship with him. Listen to Revelation 5.

Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living

creatures and the elders, the voices of many angels, numbering

myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud

voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and

wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

We get to be there. Just blow your horn once for me,

Michael. That's Gabriel over there.

Gabriel likes to play pickleball with Moses.

But that's not the best thing about heaven, is it?

The best thing about heaven is an unbroken fellowship with God.

We have communion with Him here and now.

If you've trusted in him, if you're a follower of His, you

have that. But it's still incomplete

because of us. Not because of him, but because

of us. And in heaven, there's no sin to

cloud that anymore. Nothing to dim it, nothing to

put it out of focus, nothing to distract you.

We're going to be with a person as much as we're going to live

in a place, and that's the significant part of heaven.

We're going there not just because there's this wonderful

place called Heaven. And I don't, I'm not going to go

to that place called Hell, but I'm going to get there because

of the person who's there. That'll be the focus, that'll be

the object. That's what makes Heaven,

heaven. So again, Revelation 21 And I

heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the

dwelling place of God is with man, and he will dwell with

them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be

with them as their God. And we're free from sin.

So we'll see God's glory unveiled for the first time in

fullness. You think you've had great

moments with Him here Matthew 58 reminds us that blessed are the

pure in heart, for they shall see God.

The reason I use that verse, it's interesting because the

verb see the harao is written in a future continuous reality the

way it's written in the Greek language.

In other words, not only do they see God, they're going to see

God. They're never not going to see

God. They're going to continue to see

God forever. They're going to see God.

We will see him continually. So how do I get there?

Psalm 39 says, oh, Lord, make me know my end.

And what is the measure of my days?

Let me know how fleeting I am. You know, it's natural.

I think it's very normal to want to live as long as possible

here. It's very normal, very natural.

People fear death. People fear the loss of

fellowship and it's it's normal to I was some TV some

commercials on was on TV the other day about somebody talking

about live trying to live forever scientifically trying to

figure out to live forever. They're going to fail.

By the way, I don't even have to know the science, but it's

natural to to want to stick around.

But the actual timing of death is in the hands of of a God

who's incredibly and perfectly sovereign.

And Job wrote about it and Job 14, since his days are

determined and the number of his months is with you, and you have

appointed his limits that he cannot pass.

God has a time limit on us. He knows when we need to come

home. And our God who loves us

infinitely is still in charge of time, even though he transcends

it. He's in charge and, and, and we

can trust him completely. I mean, if, if I knew the manner

and the moment that my life would, would end, that I would

die, would I change my life and the way I lived right now?

It's important question, how would you change your life?

When would you change your life? Why would you have to?

Are you prepared? Are you prepared at any moment?

Psalm 31 says my times are in your hand.

Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors.

So he recognized David recognized it.

His time is in God's hand. Our knowledge of heaven then,

should influence the way we live right now.

It ought to impact the way we live, right?

We ought to live as heavenly ish as we can.

I don't know if it's a word, but it is now We should live

heavenly ish. How you use your time, where's

your focus? When you know something's going

to happen, it's pretty wise to prepare for it.

And many people make no preparation whatsoever for the

most important journey that they're ever going to take and

the one that all of us will take at some point from this life to

the next. Because you're either going to

die, sit down. I know it's shocking.

You're either going to die or Jesus is going to return.

But there's no need to be afraid.

Just be ready, be ready. This is too great a risk.

I mean, I don't understand people.

I really don't. It boggles my mind.

I've I've dealt with them all my life, deal with some now.

It's too great a risk to to place a bet on a guess.

Eternity is at risk here. Hebrews 11 reminds us that faith

is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things

not seen. So faith means believing in

realities that go beyond sense and sight.

That's the whole point. That's what He wants from us.

He wants us to trust in, to believe in, to rely upon, and to

be certain of Him. Not because you appeared in a

cloud. Not because you your face

appears on a burnt piece of toast.

And our free will and that love nature.

He gave us that free will. And in that free will he says He

wants us to choose to love Him and to know him, and reminds you

of a verse, these verses that you know well, but you need to

think about them sometimes. Ephesians 2, beginning in verse

8. For by grace you have been saved

through faith, and this is not your own doing.

It's the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one

may boast. But don't forget verse 10.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good

works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk

in them. Not only are we saved, but we

ought to live a certain life in grace by faith.

You can't save yourself. And you got to remember, that

includes trying to figure this out on your own, to try to

figure all this out on your own with your limited mind, your

limited ability, based on some kind of facts that you're trying

to search out. You can't do this on your own.

You never will. Your faith is what is needed,

your faith in eternal truth. Remember what Jesus said in one

of the most famous chapters of the Bible in John chapter 3.

John 3 · chapter mention

Jesus answered truly, truly. I say to you, unless one is born

of water in the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.

That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born

of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to

you, you must be born again then.

But listen to this verse. The wind blows where it wishes

and you hear it sound, but you don't know where it comes from

or where it goes. So it is with everyone who's

born of the Spirit. Now the word for spirit and the

word for wind are the same words in Greek.

So it's a play on words in the original language as well.

But we have to be born again. And faith in Christ alone is

what does that. And you sit there and say, well,

I don't know how to do that. Which kind of like you,

something about the wind blowing.

You believe in gravity. You Google this after I'm done,

prove me wrong. But you better be right when you

try to do that. And you better read the whole

article, not parts of it. Do you believe in gravity?

We know gravity is there, but they to this day don't know the

ultimate cause of gravity in science.

You might as well. Of course they didn't know.

They don't. You read an honest scientific

study of gravity. They know how it works to some

degree. They know it's there, but they

don't know what causes it. You believe in magnetism?

Magnets sticking together. Oh, you read an article and they

say, of course we know how magnetism works.

It has to do with the magnetic pool of the electrons and how

the electrons are spinning and they give off a magnetic force.

But when you ask them why do the electrons have a magnetic force,

they don't know. We believe in magnetism, we

believe in gravity. We have faith in them, depend

upon them every day, but we don't even know what why they

work the way they do. Science can explain to some how

it works when they get on that microscopic level, but they

don't know why it works Now. Faith is the assurance of things

hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

You have faith in gravity and magnetism, but you struggle

believing in God. What do you think all this stuff

comes from? So do you know beyond any shadow

of a doubt that if you were to die today, you would go to

heaven? And I don't.

I don't know why that any believer has a doubt.

I don't understand it. Royce.

Do you understand that I don't understand that I know beyond

any shadow of doubt. You strike me down right now.

I know exactly where I am immediately.

That has nothing to do with me, man.

That changes life. Are you ready?

You need to fix your heart on heaven.

You need to long for the glory of heaven.

Remember Colossians 3, one of the first passages I ever

preached to you here at Inglewood.

It says if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the

things that are above where Christ is seated at the right

hand of God. Set your mind on things that are

above, not on things that are on the earth.

For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is your life appears, I love that then you

also will appear with Him in glory.

Pretty cool, huh? Well, it's pretty special

because the same guy who died on the cross for you, the same God

who rose from the dead, has gone on to prepare a place for you.

John 14 reminds us, let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe faith. That's the word for faith.

Faith in God, faith also in me, in my Father's house, or many

rooms if it were not so, what I have told you that I go to

prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place

for you, I will come again and we'll take you to myself.

That where I am, you may be also in heaven.

Take great comfort in this, but for those of you who doubt, I

just beg that you would believe, and I dare you to come here.

Sunday's sermon out of Romans, chapter 3.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

Father, thank you, man. Those words aren't enough, are

they? Thank you, Father, for

everything. Thank you for all things.

Thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you've done.

Thank you, Father, for what you're preparing.

Thank you, Father, for your perfect timing.

Thank you, Father, for your perfect knowledge.

Thank you, Father, for a perfect destination for us.

Lord, when we stack ourselves up against all that, we sure don't

deserve it. But Father, I'm so thankful that

deserve ain't got nothing to do with it.

Grace, Grace. So, Father, I pray that You will

equip those here who do not know you, who are not trusting in

you, who are not walking with you, who are not doing the good

works in their life right now, that You prepared beforehand not

to be saved, but because they are saved.

That Father, You would give them the strength to believe.

We believe in so many things we don't understand here on earth.

We do so blindly. And yet, Father, we seem to

struggle with trusting in you. Father, forgive us, Lord, we are

imperfect. But Father, I pray that we're

all so hungry. I pray, Father, that we're

longing. I pray, Father, that we're

looking forward and seeking a better country.

And Father, one day, one day with people from every tribe and

every tongue in every nation, and myriads and myriads and

thousands and thousands of angels and heavenly creatures,

we're going to surround a sea of transparent glass before your

throne. And we're going to worship

because you deserve it, because only you are worthy.

Thank you, Father, help us, Lord, help us, Father, this week

to live for you, to tell somebody else about you and to

bring them with us in Christ's name, Amen.

Thank you all. Thank you so much for listening

today. And I also hope that you'll go

to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.