This is What Heaven is Truly Like - Heaven Part 2

Got it just good. He's so, so good.

Amen. You know, hopefully this week

you guys had a chance to reflect on heaven a little bit.

How many guys are here last week, by the way?

I don't know about you, but my week, man, it was it it went

like real raw, real quick. A lot of conversations with

people that are hurting. You know, you start the year out

and it's like got these amazing goals, but goals are always

built on pain. You talk about visions always

built on on loss, right. As you look into the year, I

mean, there's so many people I've talked to.

I kind of tend conversation I had this week where it was a

difficult conversation. So we walked through a difficult

season. I went from funerals to family

to finance to all these things. As a pastor, I just want to tell

you, I'm encouraged that we have a church where people can

connect with each other and give them the hope of the gospel and

the hope of eternity. Amen.

It's not just coming on Sunday. It's you guys doing life

together. I get the honor and privilege of

being in the position I'm in. I get a lot of conversations,

but you guys get those conversations as well.

I would encourage you don't assume just because somebody

sitting next to you on Sunday that that they're doing good.

Amen. Because we bring in, we're

broken. We're all broken, right?

And I would encourage you guys, We have an amazing church.

It's more than a show up on Sunday.

It's a family. It's us encouraging each other

towards Christ and holding each other up And it's there's it's

not, Oh, there's this crazy thing by the scenes, but just

every just like a grind of a week.

You know, everyone of those weeks was like I had I was going

to go right, but I went left 15 times, you know, 3 less, 3 less

make a right, by the way, just let you know.

So, but man, I just wanted to just start out today.

Just thank you, Jesus, God, thank you, Jesus.

We sang these songs all focused on eternity.

I'll focus on life and you God, and we just give you praise and

glory. God, you're in charge and I pray

today, God, just a special blessing.

Those that came in maybe this for the first time and looked

for answers. Maybe they've been here then

know you, God, I pray you just rolled close to them.

Remind them about heaven. Remind them of who you are.

God, your spirit would just fall in this place.

God comfort us, direct us, empower us, embolden us as we

just get a taste of heaven this morning.

We praise in Jesus name, Amen. Couple things to celebrate one

last week was really cool. You guys remember it was it was

Christmas last week here still guys remember like the thousands

things of Christmas. You know, it's a trailer loop.

We had a team that stayed after a part of a dream team.

Some people made-up. I don't know how many were

there, maybe 3540 or so. They literally tore down the

Christmas stuff in one hour. That's impressive.

Amen. One hour.

I was like, oh Lord, like, OK, we're moving.

You know, we got it done. It wasn't just thrown away.

It was like packed well and everything.

Great team. We had some Casey's pizza.

Amen had too many slices. I don't know, you know, twos

enough 5 maybe gluttonous, but it happened six.

OK, Mike. And it was crazy is I mean, that

shouldn't even talk because it's not about speed, but it's just

so amazed. We tore down the Sunday morning

like the normal stuff in 45 minutes.

This is like everything you see in 45 minutes.

So we left here. We don't leave 1:30.

We left at 2:30. Come on, somebody that's

amazing, that's amazing. Like unless you just don't,

maybe you're blind, you don't know what's going on, but like,

there's so much stuff. So anyway, I was just really

impressed. So give it up for our team that

did that last week because that was impressive, man very

impressive. It was done well.

It wasn't like just throw it in the trailer.

Anyway, last week two people came to Christ, two people got

Jesus, two people got heaven. Amen.

You know, we're all made for a person and a place.

We're made for Jesus and we're made for heaven.

And what's really cool about Jesus in heaven, You cannot have

heaven without Jesus, and you not have Jesus without heaven.

They code together. It's a package deal.

Amen. If we're so much like worried

about eternity where it looks like it just look at Jesus and

today some of you guys, I believe are going to put your

faith in Jesus first time and some of you guys are going to

see heaven differently in in in this season.

And my prayer is that you'd be so moved by heaven during this

series. It will change how you live on

earth. Like we set these goals every

year 2026 and I'm thinking like, what about 2,000,026, two

trillion 26 like what it would it really focus on this earth?

Like we can set the financial goals which we should have and

all these different things. But what's it really, really

look like to live for Christ now?

Like to actually believe to live is Christ and to die is gain.

And so I'm just going to like do more like teaching style a day,

but I'm going to lay out heaven and I believe there are going to

be things. I just know there's things

you're going to go, Oh my, I've never heard that.

I've never seen that. And I've been moved by heaven in

so many ways. And this is the way Paul was and

this is his experience. But in Second Corinthians 12/1

through 4:00, he, he actually saw heaven.

So it says this I being Paul must go on boasting.

So he's boasting about God, Amen.

It it's OK to say Jesus changed my life, All glory to God, Amen.

He's not boasting his power, He's a boasting God's power.

He says although there's nothing to be gained, I go on to visions

and revelations from Lord. He's going to talk about what he

knows about God just as if we were talking about Scripture or

experience with God. He says, I know a man in Christ.

This is really interesting because he's actually talking

about himself. He's referring to himself in

third person. Why?

Because he's showing humility. He's like, I know this guy, but

it's really just me who 14 years ago was caught up into the what,

the 3rd heaven? Now this may seem a little

confusing at first because you're like oh wow.

So like we go to 1st heaven and 2nd.

Like we get promoted through these things.

So in the Jewish culture, they believe there was like 3 things

they said. There's sky, there's universe,

and then there's the throne of God.

And so in the Jewish culture, he's just saying like, I'm not

talking about like I'm in the clouds or I'm in the universe.

Like I actually went to the throne of God.

So when you die, you don't go to like 1st heaven and then you,

you know, spend some time like purgatory or something and go to

the 2nd heaven and get promoted. That's not what he's saying at

all. Amen.

You got to understand that this is just in the presence of God

in the throne of God. He's relating to the Jewish

culture. He says whether it was in the

body or out of the body, I don't really know.

He was so infatuated and so focused on things that happened.

He didn't know if he had his body or not.

He said God knows and I know that this man, he says again,

whether in the body or part of the body, I do not know, but God

knows was what caught up to where paradise Now in the

Scripture, this paradise is actually used another word for

heaven and we're going to talk about the later on today.

But Jesus used the same word at the cross, but he's talking

about actually going to heaven. And he heard what inexpressible

things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

It's amazing to think that Paul saw heaven, went to heaven, and

it was too good to put into words.

Amen. I mean, and imagine, like, all

the things I've seen, you know, you see a picture like, I've

been to, like, Machu Picchu. How many guys have been to Machu

Picchu? OK, Like, I'm the only one.

Cool. Great, so I'm going to tell you

about Macho Picchu. I'm going to be like, oh, it's

so amazing this moment, all this, oh, here's my pictures,

all blah, blah. But man, pictures can't really

tell the story. Like just how to be there to see

it. And there's always, we always

say the same thing, like all the pictures, amazing.

But all you had to see just had this for yourself.

And this is like heaven. Like I can't even put into words

how great heaven is. It's amazing that somebody's

been to heaven and comes back and says this is what heaven's

like. I'm so glad I didn't say the

opposite. Come on, somebody.

It was really boring. You don't want to do it.

I don't know what will happen there.

And and this is how most people see heaven, right?

Like, you slip into oblivion, get your wings, you're recreated

and it and you're reincarnated out about you.

But that sounds freaky, weird and scary.

Amen. Like if I just cease to exist

for oblivion, it isn't really possible to imagine yourself

without yourself is really imagine turning without

yourself. And this people have all these

visions of heaven and all these things, but here's the word of

God saying no, there's inexpressible things that's too

good to put into words. It's no wonder Paul was so bold.

Amen. I mean, you look at his story

like, oh, how did I be like Paul?

It's because Paul had a perfect picture of heaven.

And so he's like, oh, put me in prison.

Hey, I'll preach the gospel there.

Hey, no worries. Thread me with heaven.

It's OK if I die. I know what's going on.

He sees it all and he's so excited and passionate about

things of God. Now we have some strange views

of heaven on earth. Have you guys seen those reels

lately where somebody passed away?

They're they're like a famous person or you might have known

him in like TV shows or something.

And it has it has them on the screen like I once was, blah,

blah, age. And then they show them today

and they got their wings and they come on the screen and they

raise their right hand, which have yet to figure out why they

like wave at us. You guys see no time.

You see those, right? I mean, you see there's a ton of

them going around. And of course I want you to

looked at one now. I see like a million of these

things. I mean, how it goes.

The algorithm caught me, right. But we do not get our wings in

heaven. We do not become angels in

heaven. Is that weird?

Would that be weird to you? Like, I don't know.

I'm just recreating to an Angel. Does that that freak you out at

all? That freaks me out a little bit.

Like I don't want to be like, what happened to me?

Well, where am I? Like we, we had these visions

like we're, we were so like, I know the word ignorant of

heaven, but Paul does not want this speaker in heaven.

He actually tells us specifically, he wants us to

know about heaven. There's a, you guys know Nicolas

Cage. He was, he was on a, a late

night talk show with Stephen Corbett And they So what

happens? You die.

And Nicholas like, oh, I got this energy, like electricity

and it flows through our body and then you die and it kind of

stops. And then maybe like there's

something down the road like sparks us, But whether we're

conscious or no or not, like nobody can know.

And a lot of people believe like we're just like, like sleeping

souls, like their soul rest. There's, there's, there's we

cease to exist for some amount of time.

And I'm like, I'm doing like, well, no, we do know because the

Bible says Amen. The Bible says we don't just

like cease to exist. And then something happens down

the road. But this is what the world says

about heaven. But this isn't, this isn't the

truth of heaven. So I'm going to dive in.

It's going to be a lot more teaching.

If you're taking notes, I mean, tongue in cheek on this comment,

but literally, if you take notes today, you actually may get more

authority and a closer seat in heaven.

I'm just saying because you may be so moved by the scripture and

you may be so moved by the heavens, like it actually may

change your life in the next 20 or 10 or 50 years of which you

have on this on earth only. And that will give you extra

rewards and extra authority and extra place in heaven.

So literally, when you're talking about taking notes

today, I'm going to give you a lot of verses, all the concepts.

I promise you, every single one of you will be like, huh, I've

never thought about that or seen that.

It's going to happen two or three times a day.

So I really do encourage you get your phone out and take some

notes. Amen, Amen.

All right, first lesson is 4 you guys ready?

I think Barry said buckle and I'm like, I guess we're doing

it. We're doing it.

Oh by the way, was that worship on fire day?

Come on somebody that was good. Amen.

That was good dude. We're the songs you can do.

We'll add them in. It'll be good.

There's so many lines. Dude.

First let's first lesson is 4/13.

It says brothers and sisters talking about Christians.

We do not want you to be what uninformed.

If you go to King James, man, we don't be ignorant about this

that those who sleep in death. So it's talking about the sleep

is like a a euphemism. He's like he's every time you

see sleep in the Bible, it's like, oh, they they're dead.

So sleep in death. So you do not grieve like the

rest of mankind who have what? So it's like, Hey, he's like, I

don't want you to be ignorant of what happens when you die.

That's a good prayer. Amen.

That's a good teaching. Like what really happens when

you die? Like I want you to really know.

I want you to really understand what happens when you die.

For most people, we like, we don't know and we're scared and

we're freaking out and we're worried.

And then like this earth is everything.

So like, hold on to it so tight. But Paul says something for

those in crisis. For we believe that Jesus died

and rose again. So we believe in the

resurrection of Christ from the dead.

So we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have

fallen asleep, those who are dead in him, dead in Christ.

It's pretty good news, Amen, That if Jesus rose from the

dead, that he's going to take us who have died and bring him back

with him. That feels good to me, Amen.

It's not, it's not arbitrary. It's not like what's really

going to happen though. He's going to bring us back with

him. He wants us to know what

happens. Verse 15, he says according to

the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive.

So that's us right now at this exact moment.

Come on, somebody, maybe something happens who are left

until the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those

who've fallen asleep. You said you come to funerals

and you get the casket up front or the urn and we're we feel so

much pity like or what's happened or so much confusion.

And at the end of the day, you're like, man, they're going

to beat me home. Amen.

Like you're going to get there ahead of me.

You're already there like you, you already have beat me.

And what this is talking about, not just them being in the

presence of God in heaven, but their actual body, you're going

to find out is actually going to beat you to heaven if you're

still alive when Jesus comes back.

It's pretty amazing. Amen.

So we kind of joke in my family, like if if dying goes first or I

go first, we're like, man, you're going to beat me home,

man. I'm kind of getting jealous like

because we know what eternity is like we know what happens.

This is the sequence of things. And so Paul encourages church

verse 16 says for Lord himself, Jesus will come down from

heaven. So just like the way you went

up, this is with a loud command, with the voice of the Archangel

and with the trumpet call of God and The Who?

The dead in Christ, There's no Jesus.

Well, what? That's how you know something's

going weird when you're seeing dead bodies come out of graves.

Amen. You, you'll be sitting, you'll

be you'll, you didn't go there. God didn't call you up first.

Those dead bodies come up first. It says after that we are still

alive. OK, well, our left will be

caught up together. And that word caught up.

That's the word for rapture. And it's it's found actually in

Latin, the word is raptoro. So they actually didn't get it

from the the Greek, but we're caught up.

That means we're raptured up with him in the clouds to meet

the Lord and air. And so we will be with the Lord.

How long forever. There's your timeline.

We're going to be with Jesus forever and therefore encourage

one to know with these words, you may want to like what

happens if I die and we're going to dive into like what it looks

like all these pieces, but just know the next prophetic

prophetic event to happen is that Jesus comes to the eastern

sky. He splits it.

There's a Archangel in the high-ranking Angel.

They blow a trumpet, there's a shout, and that the bodies of

those who are dead in Christ raise out of the graves.

Now do you guys know at a Christian cemetery, and they may

not have ever heard this or seen this, but all the caskets, they

face E, the feet faced east and the face faces E.

Because when Jesus comes back and their bodies come out of the

caskets, they are resurrecting out of the grave looking at

Jesus. Do you guys know that?

Mind blown. Some of y'all know that.

Some of y'all work at a funeral. Yes.

Shout out to Mount Moriah. Come on, somebody she knows.

Come on. Some.

See, it's one of those things it's it's like a nod of faith

even in your death. It's pretty cool.

And some, some people say pastors will like they should

face West so they can watch their congregation rise.

I'll be watching you guys. I'm facing the east.

Forget you folks, man. I'm going with Jesus.

I love you all, but I'm going with Jesus, right?

It's good, man. It's crazy.

Like just think like how practical Christians have

thought of the years about what attorney looks like.

And then we might be just a little ignorant of like what

really is to happen. And So what happens when you

when you die? Like let's talk of your body a

little bit. So you go immediately and this

is going to your first aha moment.

Maybe you go immediately to a present.

Heaven may confuse you for a second, but you're going to be

in the presence of Jesus, be full of joy, but you don't have

what if you die now a resurrected body because it, the

rapture had happened yet, right? So if you die before the

rapture, what happens? You go into the present heaven.

How many guys do there's actually more than one heaven.

How many guys do that today? Same to all.

But you're going to know the, you know the verse, you've all

heard it mostly if you've been a Christian, right?

Like at the end of the Bible. I mean, you'd like to, if you,

if you please, you can skip to Revelation 21 and 22.

You can read the end of the book.

Amen. You can cheat.

It's OK. Read the last two chapters of

the Bible and you're going to see that God creates a new

heaven and a new earth. So there's a 1st heaven that we

go to when we die. That how many guys mind just got

blown a little bit. I mean, just to be honest, like,

oh, pastor, like I'm not so sure about this thing.

What are you talking about? Right.

And I want to just kind of dive into like, what does this look

like? So Revelation 21, one through 4.

It says then I just talking about John.

OK, He says, I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Where the what? Yeah, the first heaven, that's

the heaven that we go to right now for the raptures of the 1st

heaven in the first earth. That's what we're on now.

It had what it passed away like there's an end to this earth in

this, the heaven that in this time frame, and there was no

longer any sea. I saw a holy city with a new

Jerusalem coming down out of heaven.

We'll talk about that from God prepared as a bride, beautifully

dressed for her husband. Verse 3.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's

dwelling place is among the people that'll be us and he will

dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will

be with them and be their God. Who knows?

That's good news, Amen. Like like, well, what happens

for eternity? Well, we're in the presence of

God and Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit.

They are the centerpiece of heaven, that this is what we

pursue on earth. It's what we pursue in the

present heaven. It's what we get to pursue in

the new earth and the new heaven.

This is exactly what we aim for, to be like Christ and to be in

the presence of Christ. Verse 4 says he will wipe every

tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death or

mourning or crying or pain for the what older order, the old

heaven and new earth of these things has passed away.

Now at this point you're like, you probably got a lot of

questions. Who's got some questions right?

Like what in the world does this mean for me right now?

How does this, what does this look like?

And let me, let me encourage you this.

So my, my wife, my mother-in-law, Leanne Emery

Levi, they are literally about 22 minutes away ish from landing

in Bangkok, Thailand, OK, And they'll be gone for a distance.

OK And they left yesterday, I don't know, 7:00 AM ish in the

morning. So they've been traveling for

quite a time. I'm sure they're tired right

now. God bless them with those kids.

Amen. Hope the kids slept a lot and

not going crazy, right? But they actually flew to Dallas

and then they flew to Tokyo and then they flew to Bangkok.

So if I you said where, where, where's she going?

I could technically tell she went to Dallas, say, oh, we're

going to Tokyo. That's cool.

The kids were excited. You know Tokyo, right?

But she's really going to Bangkok.

So the way you'd say like what, what does heaven look like?

You could say like, I'm going to the new earth and the new heaven

could be one. You're going to see it later.

So I'm going to the new heaven by the means of the present

heaven, Amen. I'm going to the Bangkok by

means of Dallas, by the means of Tokyo.

Like I'm getting there. And there's different things

that happen in both these areas, but I'm telling you like I'm

just going to dive in today. It's all about the present

heaven, Amen. Like I just want to get you out

of the gate a little bit. What happens?

You die. What's it look like?

So let's just talk about it. Let's let's talk about this,

this heaven itself. And it's pretty amazing that

heaven is actually going to come down to earth one day like that.

We will be not just in the present heaven, but will

actually be present of the future heaven on earth.

It's pretty cool. We read earlier it says that the

New Jerusalem will come down. You guys remember saying that

the New Jerusalem, the city will come down from the heaven.

And where's it going to go? Get down to the new earth.

And on that city, that new Jerusalem, that's where God's

throne is. That's where we will be.

And so in the future, we're actually on earth, in heaven.

So maybe the new earth isn't so different than the old earth,

Amen. Because we often think like, oh,

earth is here and heaven is there.

Like we often separate the two that earth is bad and heaven is

good. Like we want to draw these like

complete opposites, but I, I would encourage you that they're

very similar, eerily similar. And we're going to dive into

what that may look like. But godly clearly says that he's

going to change the location of heaven and his presence are

going to be there. And it's interesting.

And this time we like to say, oh, heavens, up there, which I,

I can make an argument that it's actually down here, which we'll

talk about, but we know for sure that the future heaven is down

here. Amen.

Like we're not like, oh, what's going on?

Like the presence of God. It's amazing that God is coming

to our world to meet with us. You can make an argument for

time, space and matter. I mean, this just talk about

eternity. How how many guys know that

actually hell was relocated? You know, there's two locations

of hell. That's crazy.

Like, so right now, like there's a place called Gehenna Hades

Shoal. It's all the same place.

It's given different names. Gehenna was the Greek name for

the place where they burned the trash outside Jerusalem.

It's a place where the in Jeremiah where they sacrifice

children, the heathen gods is where he came the trash dump in

Jerusalem. And so when Jesus said, hey,

you're going to have national teeth in Gehenna, he's actually

talking about the place where they burned the trash in

Jerusalem and never stopped burning day and night.

That's Gehenna. But it's really crazy.

At the end of the Bible, hell actually moves locations as

found in Revelation 20. It says death and Hades were

what they're thrown into the lake of fire.

How many guys do the hell actually move locations?

Is that crazy? I mean, it's like, wow, like

dude, there's so much more to the store than what meets the

eye. Like we'd be pretty miserable if

all we thought was materialism or like material things existed.

There's there's a supernatural world around us.

So the lake of fire is a second death.

We go through the physical death.

Our spirits died in Christ and alive to Christ.

We don't have a second death as Christians.

Verse 15 says anyone whose names are not found in the book of

life, that's the Lamb's book of life was thrown into the lake of

fire. But the point is this is that

heavens are located, Hells are located and there's a present

heaven we go to. So I just wanted to spend the

rest of time today kind of walking through the present

heaven. And one of the questions you get

a lot is are we, are you conscious?

Like do you have the ability to think like, do you know what's

going on? A lot of people think you just

kind of just wait and then something happens and someone

just kind of walk through the Scripture and just show you what

it looks like for us. So Ecclesiastes 12/7 says this,

the dust returns to the ground it came from.

That's talking about our bodies, right?

We had the curse and dust. You came and dust you shall

return. That was the curse of man.

It says this. And the spirit returns to where

God who gave it the the the spirit inside of us, our human

spirit goes back to God who gave us spirit.

We became a living soul when God did what he breathed in the

breath of life into the man's lungs.

He gave us life and that life never ceases.

Amen. Like we're all eternal, whether

you know Jesus or not, we're eternal and we have life with

Jesus, we know Jesus. So the human spirit immediately

either goes to heaven or hell. And we talk about this in Luke

16. You'll, we'll dive into this a

lot deeper next week. But Luke 16, it says this is

where Christ, she shows Lazarus and the rich man and they're

both immediately conscious immediately in heaven or hell.

Do you notice they had a conversation in Luke 16?

The rich man talks, right? He's speaking.

Send Lazarus back. Send somebody back to earth to

tell somebody about this place I'm in.

They had an immediate consciousness of after death.

That's pretty amazing to think about it, isn't it?

Just to me like I don't cease to exist, like I don't go what

happened? You died.

I'm just not here. It's like no Lord, I actually

continue like heaven is a continuation of the things on

earth. Pretty amazing to think about.

First Luke 2343 says this Jesus name to him truly today truly I

tell you today somebody say today, today just taught a thief

on the cross, you will be with me in paradise.

It's not truly one day, it's truly today that's good news.

Amen. The Bible says to be absent the

body is to be present with the the Lord like you, you're you.

You don't cease to exist. You don't die and go to oblivion

like you are here and your spirit goes there and you're the

same person. Amen.

That's good news. That's great news.

St. Corinthians 5-6 says this.

Therefore we do not. Therefore, we're always

confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body,

we are away. We're away from Lord, for we

live by faith or by sight. Verse 8, We are confident, I

say, and would prefer to be away from the body.

We'd rather not be here on earth in this body and prefer to be at

home with the the Lord. You guys remember the stoning of

Stephen in the first martyr New Testament Acts Chapter 7, I

Acts 7 · chapter mention

believe. And he's dying and they're

throwing stones at him and remember what happens.

He looks up to heaven and he quotes Jesus.

He says, Father forgive them for the know not what they do.

And Lord, I give you my spirit. But it says he looked up and the

skies open. He saw like he saw heaven and he

saw Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father.

That's pretty good. Amen.

So, So when, so when Stephen died being killed by these

rocks, did he slip into oblivion?

Did he cease to exist? Did, did, did he use no

consciousness, no awareness, no memory, no connection, no

familiarity, or did he simply just go, Lord, take my spirit.

And he stepped out of this earthly little world and stepped

into the invisible world that's right here, right now with Jesus

and the Father. It's the second one, Amen, that

I mean that this is better news than we're saying, but it's good

news, Amen? So the physical part of us

sleeps, but the spiritual part of us, the parts and it's

relocated immediately in the present heaven in a conscious

state. That's really good when you're

staring into into a casket and you're wondering where is this

person that, oh, they're in heaven right now.

They, they know what's going on. They didn't forget their memory.

They're not brainwashed or reprogrammed.

They're not turned into an Angel.

They're not rebuilt to something else like we are an extension of

our life today. So it's very clear, like there's

no soul sleep. We're not disembodied members.

This isn't what happens. So what happens first when you

die? So Hebrews 927 says this.

Just as people are destined to die once, so we all have that

appointment with death, right? Like this just part of the

curse, like physically dying once.

It says after that to face what? Judgement.

Now when you see this word judgement, you're like, oh man,

this is not the word I want to hear, right?

It's beautiful, fun and not have any problems and all be

beautiful and we go to this judgment.

I don't encourage you when it's talking about this judgment.

This immediate judgment is called the judgment of faith,

OK? It's not the judgment of works,

but it's a judgment of faith. And there's multiple judgments

you're going to have in heaven. And as a Christian, the first

thing is really anybody who dies goes to the judgment of faith.

And the judgment of faith is simply deciding, do you know

Jesus or do you not know Jesus based on your faith?

It's not of judgment. Are you good or are you bad or

did you good enough stuff or did you go to church or pray, read

your Bible enough? Do you truly believe in Jesus?

And if you believe in Jesus, you go to Who said?

Hell, you're. Wrong.

OK. Yeah, go to heaven, right?

And if you don't? Believe in Jesus, you go to

hell. That that that's the immediate

judgment that this is talking about.

There's a further judgment down the road and it where you sit at

the Bema seat of Christ and your works are judged, not you being

judged, but are your works, are they wood, haze, stubble?

And we receive rewards based upon what we did on earth.

And those rewards determine your role and responsibilities in

heaven. And there's a second judgment

that's reserved for somebody who doesn't know Jesus.

So those are cast into hell or they're pulled back out and are

judged against the great white throne.

You'll see in Revelation 21. If they aren't found, the Lamb's

book of life are cast into the lake of fire.

That's. The second death we taught in

the. Bible, This is why we're going

to get busy telling people about heaven, Amen, and tell people

about Jesus because we are sinners and we're broken and

there's a consequence to our sin.

And so when you stand at a funeral, we're not really

preaching a funeral to those people in Christ like this is

the end because that's what so many people think.

But we're actually preaching the beginning of their new life that

they've been reborn into when they accepted Jesus.

Like this is fulfillment of their second birth.

That makes sense, like you're born again and now this is the

time you fulfill. You're not just justified,

you're sanctified, but this is the first day you'll live in

where you're actually fully glorified.

The sin nature is gone. You're in the presence of God

and you're doing the exact role responsibilities that God has

for you in the present heaven. It's pretty amazing to think

about it. We should be excited about this.

We should look at this and go, man, I'm I'm jealous for those

who've gone before me in Christ. I don't feel pity for them

because I know exactly where they are and Lord, I'm going to

be there soon. Like it's just a just a breath

away. Amen.

Humanity often concludes the. Spiritual realm is a really good

thing and the physical things are bad.

And so we we have a hard time putting physical things in

heaven like is it can we really believe this?

And I think sometimes is like we asked a question is, is heaven

physical? So think about this in the Old

Testament, like the very beginning, God created the the

heavens and the earth and it was what it was good.

And he create all things in there and he said it was good,

it's good, it's good. And then he said it was very

good. We're going back to that.

And inside of the garden was a tree.

What was the name of the tree? Tree of life, right?

It had it had fruit, and if you ate the fruit, you continue to

live well. Where is the tree of the of life

today? You can't find on Earth.

Remember they kicked out of the garden.

He put this like really buff, strong, crazy Angel that was

swinging the sword of fire so that we couldn't go back into

where the garden. He kicked us out of the garden

so we couldn't continue to live in our sin nature and keep

eating the fruit from this tree and live forever.

Has anybody found this tree on earth?

This tree does not exist on earth.

It's been relocated to heaven where we get to eat from the

tree. So think about this if there's a

physical tree on Earth. With Adam and Eve.

Would it make? Sense that this tree is.

Still physical in heaven. Did you know that tree is?

Moved from the present heaven, it's relocated into the center

of the city of Jerusalem. Then when we talked about

earlier, it came down to the earth and we eve that tree and

there's rivers around it. When I was talking to Bill, when

his dad passed away, Bill Hardy, his dad had passed away and he

said, son, I'm going to meet you the fountains in heaven.

Now, the Bible doesn't really explicitly.

Say like, here's the fountains. But brother, I'm pretty sure

it's close. To those trees, right?

The tree. And I thought, man, how amazing,

How much faith would you have to have to actually pick a meeting

spot out in heaven? That's pretty.

Cool, isn't it? But that's how much you should

believe in heaven, that you'd pick it out and you long for it

and you want to be there. But I'll encourage you.

It's it's physical. You have a tree that's been

moved and you think, well, material things are bad because

we think all the sins affect all these things, right?

But the original sin is actually not Adam and Eve.

Now you might call it the original sin of man, but the

original sin, like the very first sin you ever seen, like we

know of, and all of eternity actually didn't happen on earth.

It actually happened where in heaven, remember when Satan he,

he, he got this pride, he looked, he saw his reflection

and he's like a full of instruments and worship and he

had this pride and then God cast them out of heaven.

So you can't just say like, well, heaven is good and earth

is bad. No, no, no, that that's not it

at all. Like is they both have some

level of been affected by sin, but God is removed to sin from

heaven completely and cast Satan out like lightning and lives on

earth. Think about this.

Hebrews 85 says they serve at a sanctuary.

This is talking about the the old the Old Testament

Tabernacle. OK, and the priest they serve at

a sanctuary. That is a what?

What's it say? A copy and a shadow of what is

in where. Oh.

Man, so you're telling. Me that the Tabernacle, the Old

Testament, that rickety tent we talked about towards difference

maker that you set up in the wilderness.

They moved around and David didn't upgrade all the things

that rickety tent was actually like set up inside, just like

the plans that are in heaven, so.

Are you? So you're telling me?

That the things of earth are very similar to the things of

heaven? Are you telling me that?

Is that a little mind blowing for anybody?

And look what it says here. It says that Moses was warned

when he was about to build the Tabernacle.

See to it that you make everything according to the

pattern you shown you on the mountain.

Hey Moses, when you build it, make sure it looks just like I

showed you in heaven. Make it just like I showed you

Moses. So when you think about earth,

we got to think about earth as a derivative of heaven, not as

earth the source and heavens the the next.

No, heaven's the source and and we're the derivative of heaven.

Amen. It's just like as man was made

in God's image, Earth is made in heaven's image.

Is is anybody going like this yet?

What? Are you kidding me?

So like all these fears I've had about death and all the things

I'm wondering about, like it's going to be very similar to to

then as is now eyes is crazy. And so like these pieces that

God's doing or actually just here's the perfect picture and

put it on earth and we're going to continue our life.

Just it's like a transition from like earth to heaven.

And we're going to just keep going.

How many guys would live different if you know that it

wasn't just going to be like, we're going to start over again,

like what we do now matters for eternity and we have this little

sliver of time where we could do say things that some people

can't say. Like, dude, I went to the

present heaven. Some of you all get you get to

get maybe, maybe I die and then Jesus comes back, right?

Some of you all like, I skipped death, man, I went to the

clouds, right? Think about Abel.

This is pretty crazy to think about Abel's if you don't know,

he's the first person we know in the Bible to die, right?

And I kept thinking like, man, that'd be freaky, wouldn't it?

Like he dies and he shows up. Where's everybody at?

He's the first one there. Amen.

But this is literally a thoughts he would have had also crazy

think about and we'll get this next week a little bit.

But the voice of the martyrs speak in heaven, and they.

Ask a question. How long?

Lord, before you come back, or before you take vengeance on

what happened. So wait.

Well, there's, so there's. Like you talk, you have a

memory. Perfect memory because you're

perfect judgement. You remember what happened.

You want righteousness still you don't have full knowledge

because you don't know when he's coming back.

So it means you can have discovery, which means you can

have imagination, which means you still can find things out.

You have to question you still. You still like that sounds very

human, but you're on in heaven. And the thing about you know, at

Abel's blood says the Bible, it what cries out, it speaks.

We say there's a thing. Matt Ribbon has an amazing song

about that. But his blood speaks.

What's it speak? It speaks for righteousness,

right? But you think about why does God

say that his blood speaks? Is it because Abel?

Is in heaven right now, the present heaven, and he's

literally crying out to God for righteous and vengeance.

So his blood speaks on earth, but his voice speaks in heaven.

I don't know, you made that blows my mind a little.

Bit it's amazing. And we're going to dive into a

lot more next week on like what exactly it looks like in the

present heaven. And it, it's, it's, I'm telling

you, it's, it's a whole new level of if you move 5° today of

what you believe about heaven, you're going to move 100° next

week because of stories and stuff we're going to walk

through in Scripture. And so if you think about the

present earth, all realities, our cities, our community, our

ways are actually derived from heaven.

Like it's not going to be much different than heaven.

And so you ask like Jesus said this on the cross we talked

about earlier, Luke 2343. Jesus answered him truly.

I tell you today you'll be with me in where paradise.

This is mind blowing. So the word paradise actually

means a fenced in garden. Fenced in garden in the

Septuagint. The Old Testament was translated

from Aramaic and Hebrew, mostly Hebrew, and it was translated

into Greek a few 100 years before Jesus was on earth.

And the word they used for garden is the same word that

Jesus uses here for the thief of the cross.

So if you've read the Septuagint and you translate like Jesus,

but it translated, it'd say there's not a garden, It'd say

there's paradise. And so Jesus, he's saying, hey,

today, thief on the cross, today you're going to be with me in

this fenced end Garden of Eden. Is that crazy to think about

what Jesus was actually saying that that garden and think about

this garden was a garden affected by sin.

It's interesting because we talked about the tree.

The tree has not been affected, but the Angel stood where the

entrance of the garden didn't stand at the edge of the tree.

And that garden was moved from earth into the present heaven

unaffected by sin. And Jesus tells his thief on the

cross today you're going to be with in paradise.

How about you? But I'm looking forward to going

home, being the gardener. I've been talking, I've been

talking to my wife dying about it.

And we were talking about like, man, what do you want me doing

in heaven? And she goes, man, after you're

seeing all that stuff, I just want to go, I want to go have a

garden because I kill everything on earth, right?

And something's going to grow in heaven, right?

And she's, I mean, at all tongue in cheek.

She was really excited about it, right?

Revelation 27 says this. Whatever has ears, let them hear

what the Spirit says to the churches, to the one that's

victorious, I give the right to eat.

Somebody say eat. OK, this is this is talking

about in heaven. OK, so now we're talking about

we're eating in heaven. I was I.

Was looking for an Amen on. That one, right?

But we're eating in heaven. That sounds good.

Well, OK, so there's all these arguments for like physical

bodies, right? We eat from the tree of life,

which is in the. Pretty cool.

Amen. I mean, it's like this is

something to look forward to. The same tree in the garden is

now the same tree in the present heaven.

It's the same tree they'll be in the new Jerusalem, on the new

earth and currently presides just one breath away.

As soon as we take our last breath, we now eat from the tree

of life. That's good news.

Amen. And the reality is God's not

done with Eden. He just relocated Eden.

If he can move a tree, why can't he move a garden?

And then? It's kind of weird too.

Like what? About our bodies, because you're

like, OK, there's no resurrected body.

Like, do we have bodies like, or we just floating spirits?

How's this work? And I was to encourage you

because there's not a lot of time here, but I probably need

like a year on heaven. You have all the time to figure

this out. But do we have resurrected

bodies? So think about this.

Jesus had a resurrected body. Amen.

So we at least know there's one physical body in heaven.

Then he had this guy. You guys remember Enoch?

Genesis 4 maybe? Four.

I think it's 4. And Enoch is a righteous man and

God just says it translates into heaven.

And it wasn't like his body was here on earth and then his soul

went to heaven. He, he went, he was gone like

his whole being went. So now you have two physical

bodies in heaven. OK, Elijah, you guys remember

Elijah, dude, how about you? But I want to go out with

Elijah, man, remember? That chariot of fire.

That's the way to go, you know, forget the hearse, you know,

hook me up to some Chariots of fire.

And he rides that chariot fire in his body to the present

heaven. So we now at least know three

physical bodies are in heaven, unless he just takes their body

and gives it a spirit in which, OK, maybe there's a theory

there, right? And then you got the mountain

transfiguration. You guys remember this mountain

transfiguration? Jesus takes his inner 3

disciples, Peter, James and John up to the mountain

transfiguration. He's trying to like unify them

on the things of Christ because they don't understand what God

is actually doing. Like this is like Peter told

Jesus, no, don't die, don't go to the cross.

It's just after Jesus rebuked Peter and said, get behind me,

say you know what you're doing. So he brings him up to the

mountain transfiguration and he hears a voice from the Father.

This is my son. I'm well pleased and I love him.

I'm well pleased and you should listen to him.

This is the one of the only times you see the voice of

Father speak to humans and up on the mountain transfiguration.

There were some other people there.

You guys remember who's who's up on Mount transfiguration?

Jesus, Moses. Oh, there's our oh, our boy

lives back. That's crazy.

So you mean they're actually living and they're talking to

each other, and they have ability to reason and they're in

physical bodies and they're recognized by humans?

Sounds good to me. Amen.

Sounds real good to me. So this is the mountain

Transfiguration. So do you have a body?

Revelation 6, We're going to talk about this one in depth

next week. 6, Revelation 6, verse 9 through 11 says when he

Revelation 6:9–11

opened the 5th seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who

have been slain. Those have been martyred.

This last couple days ago was the 70th anniversary of Jim

Elliott, Nate St. and the five missionaries that were killed in

Ecuador. I don't know if you guys saw

that or not Nerd alert. I saw that.

But they're martyr for their faith, trying to try to reach a

tribe of people that did come to Christ.

You haven't seen the end of the Spear or Beyond Against the

Splendor. Gotta watch the movies, but

amazing story. But there this is them as well.

This is Abel. Those are slain because the word

of God. So because the truth of God and

the testimony they maintained, they called out in a loud voice

how long sovereign Lord, holy and true, until the judge that

inhabits the earth avenge our blood.

And then each of them was given a what?

A what? A white robe, they're given a

white robe. And they were told to wait a

little longer until the full number of the fellow servants,

the brothers and sisters, were killed just as they had been.

God's answer is just wait because there's more Mars

coming. You actually sing the song.

Lord Jesus, come, come. Lord, we want you to come.

And theologically speaking, it would be like, Lord, I trust

when you come because Lord, I'm not asking you to do something

you don't want to do because you are waiting to do stuff right

now. And if I ask you to come back,

that would be a selfish act I've ever had because you're still

redeeming people. So, Lord, you come when you want

to because surely you're going to come.

And I'm just waiting and suffering and endurance because

I know you're working a plan. There's something way bigger

than I see. So selfishly, Lord, come.

But Lord, I trust in your timing.

But they had white robes. So if you're going to have a

white robe in heaven, wouldn't it think you'd have something to

put the robe on? I mean, just a thought.

That sounds good to me. Amen.

We don't know what these bodies look like.

I kind of joked about having ABS.

You know, don't think Jesus is going to care.

I'm sure we'll be, you know, we don't have to worry about all

these things, but we're going to have this white robe and be

physical and be, be changed and have memory, like perfect

memory. We can solve some real marriage

fights, right? Somebody was joking.

If I slept for 1000 years in heaven and then God woke us up,

I'd still talk to my wife and be like, see, I told you about

that. You know, it's just like, it

doesn't matter, right? But we're going to have all

this. It's usually so similar to

earth, but yet so perfect in heaven.

And I just want you guys to get a foretaste just like peel back.

Like I can't put into words how good heavens going to be like I

can't express all these pieces. And if we could just get past

the fact that death is not the end, that's actually the

beginning of what we've honestly been striving for our whole

lives and that we're just kind of bring as many people with us

to heaven as possible. How many guys learned something

today? Show of hands.

That's good news. Amen.

How many guys just a little more excited about heaven today?

Do we should be? Because we, we, we, we, we can

just look into the grave. And just feel so.

Empty and so bleak and so finite and be so depressed and your

eyes so focused on this world. We forget there's so much more

and so much better. And it's so much more exciting

than we ever thought it to be. And so is the church.

Like, let's be the church that's no longer ignorant, Amen.

Let's be the church that's like, no, I know.

Who's to say Jesus? Who's to say the Bible like I

know exactly the next chapter, I know what's going to happen.

Like my mind sets on heaven, my goals are in heaven, my passions

on heaven. And because I know about heaven,

I'm living drastically different on earth.

The way I love, the things I tolerate.

We should talk about that a little bit, right?

The way I treat people, the the things I die for where I go, the

call of God. These are all elevated because

what here and now is only just little tiny blink, a vapor, a

mist that appears for a time and disappears.

But all of eternity looks like this.

And so I know where I'm going and I'm going to tell as many

people and leaves me people and encourage people and be a model

for things of Christ because of heaven sounds good.

That's the call. So if I ever come before you,

God, we thank you for knowing through Scripture exactly what

happens next. God, we've just barely touched

the surface. Maybe those?

Who are Jesus followers? Who say, you know what I want to

learn about heaven. I want to know more.

I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to put my mind and my heart and my

passion on the present heaven and the future heaven and I'm

going to be so excited. What's going to happen?

Lord teach me, Lord, show me that I wouldn't be afraid.

I wouldn't be blind. I wouldn't make up these things

that make me have these just real morbid hard thoughts like,

oh, I've been oblivion and what I become like.

I would just know for sure what's on the other side of this

body. So Lord teach me, maybe for some

days in the House that you'd say, you know what?

It's sure. It'd sure be.

It'd sure. Be sad to hear all these

messages on heaven and actually not go there.

It'd be sad. You're.

Like man, I need heaven and. We talked about that earlier.

You made for a person and you made for a place, and that

person is Jesus. And the Bible says it's only

through Jesus you get to heaven. He is the way, the truth and

life. No man comes to the Father,

which is in heaven through Jesus.

He's the only name under heaven which man are saved, saved

Jesus. The word Jesus, his name alone

means to save. The Lord saves, saves us from

what saves us from sin. It's freedom from sin.

We were up on the stage, Jared was jumping up and down talking

about freedom from sin. And today if you need freedom

from sin, it only happens through Jesus and crying out to

Jesus is that first judgement of faith will be those.

Do you know Jesus or you don't know Jesus?

Are you in the Lamb's book of life or not in the book of life,

It's all determined about your knowledge of belief of Jesus.

And so you've heard the by faith you've heard about Jesus, but by

faith you have to accept Jesus. And so today, if you're willing

to humble yourself and say I'm the Sinner and need of a Savior,

there is nothing good inside me. God, I've turned from you.

I've ran my own way, but today, God, I'm turning to you.

I believe you died on the cross for me You took away.

My sin. And you restoring me to you.

God, I want you and heaven today.

If that's you without anybody looking around, I'm not going to

call you. I'd make it weird.

But if you need Jesus today to get to heaven, we just raise

your hand and let me know. So I need Jesus today.

Come on, see your hand and bills.

I need Jesus and walk. Out here, knowing him, I saw

your. Hand and your hand and your

hand, the Spirit of God, Amen. If you do call on Jesus, thou

says a free gift to anyone. Today's salvation for whosoever

the economy, Lord, that's you and me shall be saved.

He wants us in heaven enough to send his Son Jesus down a cross

and he's going to dwell with us forever.

So if you call on Jesus today, just cry out to him, stop the

prayer, eat your heart and say Father God thank you so much for

loving me enough to send Jesus. God, I am not perfect, I am

broken, I've ran my own way, but God I'm desperate for you.

God, I trust you, I faith that your word is true and God that

I'm going to heaven based on your word, based on your loving

me and your ability, your grace coming to my life.

God. So I call on you God to be the

Lord and Savior to change me. God, I live for you.

God today is no longer about myself.

God, I trust you. I pray this in Jesus name and

the church said Amen. Come on, give it a big for the

Lord. Amen.

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