Forget about Losing Weight - Heaven Part 1

So come together, sons and daughters, bought with blood and

washed in water, Sing the praises of the Spirit Son in

Father our God. We'll finish what he started.

We believe our God. We'll finish what he started.

Oh, this is my testimony from death to light because Grace

Tree wrote my story and I'll testify by Jesus Christ the

righteous, I'm justified. This is my testimony.

This is my testimony. If I'm not dead, then you're not

done. This greater things are still to

come. Oh, I believe if I'm not dead,

then you're not done. This greater things are still to

come. Oh, I believe if I'm not dead,

then you're not done. There's greater things are still

to come. Oh, I believe if I'm not dead,

then you're not dead, There's greater things are still to

come. Oh, I believe my best days are

up ahead of me. This is my testimony from them

to life. This grace will rule my story

and I'll testify. By Jesus Christ the righteous,

I'm justified. This is my testimony.

Now I'm alive. This is my testimony from death

to life. Because grace rewrote my story

and I'll testify by Jesus Christ the righteous, I'm justified.

This is my testimony. This is my testimony.

Because I've got a reason to sing reason to.

Sing, Come on. Give him some praise this

morning. Let him know you love him so

good. Father, we love you.

God, we praise you and Father, in this moment, nothing else

matters but worship to you this morning.

God, would you break down walls or anything that hinders us from

being in your presence this morning?

That all we want is you. We seek you this morning.

Father, how would you be with us?

We know you are Father, and we're making room for you today.

That as we sing, as we worship you, Father, it's only for you.

Amen. This is my surrender, this is my

surrender, and here is where I lead on every light and every

day. This is my surrender.

I will make your own for you to do whatever you want to, to do

whatever you want to. And I want me here for you, for

you, Jesus, to do whatever you want to, to do whatever you want

to. This is my surrender.

Here is where I lay in town. Every light and every town this

is. My surrender, hope and I will

make you to do whatever you want to to do.

Whatever you want. Want to I will make a room for

you to do whatever you want to To do whatever you want to.

I will make A room for you, yes, to do whatever you want to, to

do whatever you want to. Oh, and I will meet around for

you to do whatever you want to to do whatever you want to.

Oh yes. Making a world.

For you to move and do whatever you want to, yes, making a world

for you to move. Jesus, shake up the crown.

Shake up the crown of all my tradition.

Breakdown the walls of all my religion.

Your ways better. Your ways better.

Shake up the crown of all my tradition.

Breakdown the walls for my religion.

Your ways better. Shake up the crown of all my

tradition. Breakdown the walls for my

religion. Your ways better.

Your. Ways better.

Shake up the crown of all my tradition, break down the walls

all my religion. Your way is better.

It always better. I want me to do whatever you

want to, do whatever you want to.

And I will make a rule for you, for you Jesus, to do whatever

you want to. Come do whatever you want to.

And here is where I lay down. You are all I'm chasing now.

This is my surrender. And here is where I lay down.

So you are all I'm chasing now. This is my surrender.

Amen. What a powerful word.

Yeah, you can give him some. Plus, it's a powerful word to

start our year. God to say this is all of me and

I surrender it to you. It's a beautiful, beautiful

picture. Some calling on the God of

Jacob, whose love endures through generations.

I know that you will keep your covenant.

I'm calling on the God of hoses, the one who opened up the ocean,

and I need you now to do the same thing for, oh, for me.

Lift him up. Oh God, my God, I need you.

Oh God, my God, I need you now how I need you now.

Oh rock, oh rock, girl pages. I'm standing on your

faithfulness, on your faithfulness because I'm calling

on the God of Mary, whose favor rest upon the Lord will be.

I know with you all things are possible.

And I'm calling on the God of David who made a shepherd boy

courageous. I may not face good life, but

I've got my own giants. Oh God, my God.

I mean. Welcome, ages.

I'm standing on your faithfulness.

On your faithfulness. Oh God, my God, I need you.

Oh God, my God, I need you now. How I need you now.

Oh rock. Oh Rock of Ages.

I'm standing on your a faithfulness, on your

faithfulness. Oh, you never change, 'cause you

heard your children then, you hear your children now.

You are the same God. You are the same God.

You answered prayers back then and you will answer now.

You are the same God. You are the same God.

You were providing then, you are providing now.

You are the same God. You are the same God.

You moved in power, then God. Move in power now.

You are the same God. You are the same you believe in

today. You are a healer, then you are a

healer. Now You are the same God.

You are the same God. Oh God, my God, I need to, Oh

God, my God, I need to now how I need to now the rock, O rock the

pages. I'm standing on your

faithfulness, On your faithfulness.

Oh God, my God, I need you. Oh God, my God, I need you now.

How I need you now. You're the same Horacorac of

ages. I'm standing on your

fatefulness. On your fatefulness.

As Jesus, you're the. Same.

Yesterday and today and forever, we're the same guy.

Home. And never change.

You're free the captives, then you're freeing hard.

Right now you are the same God. You are the same God.

I touch the leopards, then I feel your touch.

Right now you are the same God. You are the same God.

Lift your praises higher. Some calling on the Holy Spirit

Almighty river. Come and fill me again.

Amen. Film me again, won't you film

me? Again, Amen.

Amen. Man, let's give a shout of

praise to Jesus. And isn't it awesome to know

walking into this new year real life, that God is the same God

that we've relied on for the last however many years you've

been following Jesus. But more importantly, he's the

same God that's been faithful throughout the Scriptures, and

he will continue to be faithful in 2026.

So let's give it up for God one more time, can we?

Amen. Amen.

Happy New Year, real life. Are you guys ready for 2026?

I don't know if you pastor, I don't know if they're ready or

not. Come one more time, 2026, real

life, give it up. Here we go.

We're ready, man. I can't wait to see what guys

just going to be so awesome in 2026, man.

He's so faithful in 2025, man. Welcome to real life.

Welcome to this first gathering of 2026, man.

We've been praying for you. We're so excited that you're

here with us today. We have a lot of new people with

us again today in person and a line.

Can we show those guys some love?

Give them a round of applause. Thank you guys so much for being

here. Hey, what you guys take 30 2nd

to greet somebody around you? All right, Yeah, you guys can go

ahead and be seated. Hey, as you guys are sitting

down, man, as always, we have that awesome connection card

that you're getting ready to sit down on.

And man, we love it when you guys fill this out.

If you come real life home, fill that out.

Let us know what's going on in your life, whether it's a

prayer, maybe it's a praise, man, we'd love to hear what's

going on. Our leaders look forward to

reading over and praying over these cards week in, week out.

Hey, if you're new with this, this is our invitation to you.

We're not going to ask anything else from you today, but we

would love for you to give us an introduction.

You can do that the easiest way by filling out the top half of

that connection card at some point during the gathering.

And when you do that, we're not going to show up your house or

do anything weird, but we would love to send you out some more

information about real life. We'll let you guys know it a

little bit later on the gathering what you guys can do

with those. Everything that we do.

Here at Real Life is really with a purpose.

It's because we are a church on a mission, right guys?

And that mission is to see people far from God discovered

their real life and their purpose in Jesus.

And man, it was so cool to see in 2025, as you guys experienced

at our last gathering, just some of those victories and baptism

and people giving their lives to Christ.

That's why we exist. That's why we do what we do.

So we love being on mission and we are so thankful that you guys

are on mission with us as well. Man, we're kicking off a new

series. Man, I'm so excited.

I don't know, how about maybe some of you guys, maybe you guys

with a glass FMT a little bit like me.

I want to be more half full like Pastor Sean.

But sometimes we think our best days are behind us, right?

But the reality is, is that if, if we're leaning into God, our

best days are in front of us. And as we walk into 2026, a lot

of us have done resolutions, we made plans.

We're looking forward to a vision of what God's called us

to in this moment here and now. But sometimes we get focused

again just on what's right in front of us.

And maybe really God is asking us to focus on something

different, something more eternal.

And so we're kicking off a next part series about heaven and

heaven's one of those things our culture really can feed us a lot

of lies, whether it's through through movies or books.

And sometimes we think about like, what are we going to do?

We're just going to sit on a cloud, right?

Are we going to play harps for attorney?

Sounds boring, but man, God has got a big vision for what our

lives are going to be. And it starts here now but

extends into the future. So we're going to answer some

really cool questions in this is this series about what heaven's

like, are we going to know each other?

What are we going to do? You know what is?

What is heaven really? What's its purpose?

So once you guys put your hands together for Pastor Sean as we

kick off for a new series called Heaven Happy New.

Year Come on man, I feel like it's been like a year since I've

seen you. Is it too early for dad jokes?

Never too early. You know, I'm 40s, I'm unashamed

now I can just do a dad joke every single week.

It's going to happen. So I appreciate you guys being

in the house today. Can you give everybody's new one

more time? Let them know you love them.

Come on, it's pretty cool. We have so much to celebrate and

I think, you know, starting at 26, let's celebrate some wins,

Amen. And there's so much to

celebrate. We did a huge celebration last

Sunday and man, the end of year social was so amazing to see 12

people baptized, Amen. Was that cool?

Give it up for those who got baptized.

It's amazing. The stories are unreal of what

people have gone through and the things that they've struggled

through and their their story of just coming to Jesus.

It's just so powerful and just the reminder like This is why we

exist, to see souls changed and transformed by Jesus.

And it's such a so encouraging. And I think we end up 39

baptisms. We were like, man, 50.

We thought we had 19 and like we dropped to 12.

I was like, but they're going to get baptized.

I know soon. So it's exciting.

But man, we're just always going to look out for what God is

doing. This last Sunday was pretty

cool. It is our largest Sunday that

we've ever had outside of a holiday.

And it was like unexpected for us to have like 340 people show

up to the IT was if you were here, you were here.

You know what I'm talking about you, you felt it because the AC

did not like ever turn on. I was up here like, man, I need

to get a sweat rag, you know, and I was like, am I sick?

Is it just, is it just me? And I'm looking around like, no,

it's not just me. The thermostats are set to 65.

Did they work? No, they didn't work.

That's called being portable. Amen.

The old adage is, who needs JC when you have AC?

Oh, who needs AC? We have JC.

That's right. That's right.

I need JC and AC. Come on, somebody.

So I'm glad we're in a, you know, position.

We're like looking for a space and raising funds and all that

stuff. But I know it all works out.

But what a great Sunday and the stories and commissioning people

out with 18 people, just like we're going to help people grow

spiritually. And I love the idea that it's

called the way. It's not like let's go to a

Bible study and get smarter. Let's actually transform our

lives. So let's practice the way.

Let's actually live out the habits and the ways of Jesus,

whether it's Sabbath or Scripture or prayer or fasting

and all these practices that we're teaching.

And that's what's going to kind of infiltrate our church in

2026. Like us growing spiritually,

Amen. I mean, we will all love having

coaches, right? Like we want to be challenged

and grow, especially for fitness, right and business.

But like spiritually, like these people are coming into our lives

and helping us grow closer to Jesus.

So I'm really, really excited for what guy's going to seize

him. Huge win.

And we'll move on to the message here.

But this is amazing. So New Year's Eve night, we had

a crew of 37 that went to main event.

So real life youth went out to main event, had a great time.

Logan, he preached late. If you ever preached to

teenagers after 11 or bound midnight, it's a little

difficult, Amen. And I was like, all right, so

he, he kind of set the stage early and said, Hey, are you for

sure, you're for sure, you know, Jesus And I just want you to

think about that tonight and just talked about what 26 would

look like. He challenged them right before

midnight, gave the gospel, which by the way, is a very hard

context to preach in because the kids are like this, you know,

but it's really cool. We had a young lady, one young

lady come put her faith in trust in Jesus right after midnight at

the beginning of the new year. Amen.

It was pretty cool. So he gave the invitation and

he's like, all right, guys, this time it blew up confetti cannons

and then they went back to this room and this ladies work with a

young lady and the I don't know, they call them zoos.

I don't know what's it called where you blow the the noise

noisemaker. It's just pretty simple thing,

right? Should have known that all these

things are going on and this just trying to like talk about

Jesus and it's like, I can't hear you because they're making

all this noise right now, but it's pretty cool.

That's the first salvation at real life in 2026.

God's up to it again. Amen.

Pretty cool, pretty cool. So it's just it's just fun, you

know, and maybe we're going to celebrate big what you guys

doing? Salvation is this year we got

all sorts of stuff planned, but New year, right?

We always set, well, hopefully we set some goals, right?

It's usually that season like I do the same thing.

I sat down with my goals and I was really proud of myself.

I had a lot of goals last year. I did all my goals, but I got

close. So the majority of my goals are

like, man, that's, that's, that's pretty good.

But we set these goals, right? A lot of health goals, like, you

know, health and wealth, right? Like I'm going to get fit or

some of you guys are going to get buffed.

Some of you guys are going to try to lose some weight.

That's like most of us. Come on, Hallelujah, praise God,

Amen. Like round is a shape.

It's not the one we want, you know what I mean?

And just getting back to the gym or eating healthy, like all

these different goals. How many guys set goals, by the

way? So, like, nobody set goals.

That's cool. All right.

So we're going to skip this part of the message.

Yeah. I would encourage you.

And I last year actually read all my goals.

And I was a, you know, I don't know, maybe I'll do it this

year. But I read all my goals and I

talked about all the different things.

And I have personal goals, professional goals, relational

goals, and I, I just walk through these and I, I really

think when you got one season in life, like you got to take after

it, man, You got to go for it. And, and don't be the guy that's

just like, I'm starting like be passionate about what God is

doing. And I was encourage you guys, we

talked these goals and, and I set all these goals on, you

know, finance or health and all these things.

And they're all great goals, right?

Like get out of debt or like savings or kind of retire early.

That's a weird thought. Amen.

But like I'm going to, I'm going to track these things and try to

make some more income and all and just start dreaming, which

we should be dreaming, right? But I do think some of our goals

just come up a little short. Like we have goals for for, for

this vision of this earth. But do we have goals and vision

like higher than this earth? Like beyond, just the temporary,

like beyond, like the 80 years you may get like, do you have

vision for heaven? And so on the New Year's Eve

that night, and really, you know, I'm watching the reels

that let me see burka leaf blow up.

That was insane. The burka leaf, the building,

they, they, they counted down and you know, it just lit up and

it just, it had to be like 10s of millions of dollars of

fireworks that blew off this building, the tallest build in

the world, right? And I was watching this and as

the building was counting down and it just like dropped this

light and it just bloated. It was crazy.

I started thinking, man, what is Bill Hardy up to right now?

Now Bill Hardy is was a man in our church passionate about

Jesus is a dad to so many of us, including myself, just

passionate about he wasn't perfect Amen.

If you know Bill, he'd let you know that immediately.

But that boy walked with Jesus and I just looking at this

explosions. I'm thinking, hey, what's Bill

up to? And this series is extremely

personal because how many of us have friends and family in

heaven show hands, right? Like we all do.

And we should be dreaming about like, what in the world?

What are they doing? And sometimes you think heaven's

going to be boring or it's this vague thing, but no, it's very

real. I know God has something very

special in store for us and something that is, it's not just

beyond imagination. We can dream in it like we can

have scriptural imagination. And I think sometimes in the,

the world of church, like we, we kind of downgrade heaven and we

don't really talk about a lot. Like I went to Bible college, I

had zero classes or lectures really over heaven.

Like it's not talked about. And today I just want to launch

a series six weeks of like answering the hard questions.

And for some of us, we have friends and family in heaven,

even this last week that entered heaven in conversations.

And as a pastor, I have a lot of conversations with people that

are going through a very tragic season.

At least it feels that way from our side of people that are are

not here. And it include last week with

some different families in our church.

And so I would encourage you guys, this series is very

personal, but we can trust that God has prepared something

better for us than we can even comprehend.

And the Philippians one if you get your Bible, we're going to

be there. This is Paul, this is what he

says. He says for me to live is what

is Christ like my life on earth is Christ like everything I do

is Christ. What do you have me to do?

Where are you going to go? How do you want to live?

How do you want to spend my money?

What direction do you want me to to go in my life?

But he said this and to die is what it's the game.

Do we truly believe that death is a game like it?

It's far better like it's an upgrade.

Like oftentimes as Christians and as as non believers were

like, wow, I mean, I'm going to go to hell and part with my

friends. That's what people say all the

time. They think heaven's some boring,

irrelevant, just existential, just whatever.

And they don't really have a vision of heaven.

But for Paul. And by the way, you know, you'll

learn through this series. Actually, Paul was had spent

time in heaven, which is pretty crazy to think about.

And 2nd Corinthians, you'll see this.

But it says if I'm going to go and live my body, this will mean

fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose?

I do not know. I am what?

Yeah. I'm torn between the two like I

I, I, I desire to be have a better life in heaven, but I'm

torn because I know I should stay here, He says.

A desire to part, to depart, which is to die to be with what?

With who? With Christ, like the

centerpiece of heaven, the resurrected Christ, which is

what what you say it's better by noted by far.

I don't know if you guys ever had like I don't know.

We had grew up a season tickets, you know, and my season tickets

were behind with my parents. We're on the 14 yard or the 14

row behind an end zone. Those aren't great tickets.

Amen. Some of y'all got some good

tickets. You know what I'm talking about.

But if we upgraded, which we never did, right, but imagine we

got 50 yard line tickets in the suite, like we we would be like,

Oh yeah, I remember we sat over there, but we never go.

I can't wait to go back over there.

We'd never we'd never miss our fourteen row behind an end zone.

We'd be like, it was cool, but guess what?

Now we're in a better spot. It's an upgrade.

Amen. Like you never go back and go,

man, I wish I was back in the Nosebleed when you get upgrade

tickets. And it's the same thing for

heaven. Like we we look at attorney and

think, man, that's going to be a little boring.

And I'm not so sure. And sometimes we think that

eternity is going to be a forever like church gathering or

church service. And as a pastor, like, I want to

tell you straight up, that would be terrible.

Amen. Come on, somebody like.

I'm just telling you. Like, you remember the song?

I could sing your love forever. You remember that song?

I could sing up your love. I Can't Sing forever.

You know what I'm talking about. Yeah.

There you go. Come on.

Dang, get here with me. Right.

And you say I can sing your love forever.

And it just goes on forever. You guys remember that song.

And by the time the song ends, you're like, Lord, I hope I

never hear this song again in my life.

It's one of those songs you're like praying out of heaven.

Like, Lord, help me, This song is not in heaven for all of

eternity because this song is just like man.

And and that's sometimes your minds like this is what's going

to be. We'll be like cherubim.

We'll float around. It was sing forever and think,

man, that's just not as exciting as I think it should be.

But for Paul, like he actually had a glimpse in heaven and was

there and he said, no, I want to go back.

Like it's far better for me to be in heaven, but it's necessary

for you that remain in my body. It's really interesting.

Like Paul was not afraid of death because it's an upgrade

baby and he's going to be in the presence of God.

It's going to be a whole world. We have jobs and you know,

people and all these things. He saw this, but he's not

afraid. He wants to go there, but he's

like, the only reason I'm staying is because I'm on a

mission is because I have a purpose, because there's people.

It's actually better for you to die and go to heaven right now.

It is far better for you, but it's not better for your family.

It's not better for your friends.

It's not better for our community.

It's not better for our culture. It's not better for the world if

we don't tell the world about Jesus.

Amen. Because that's where our home

is. That's what we're destined to.

We should dream about, we should desire.

And we look at 26 and it's, it's so interesting because we don't

really dream about heaven. Like, when's the last time you

thought like Paul? Like heaven is real, it's

conscious, it's better, and it's desirable for our lives.

Often times we look back, right? You think about our culture.

You get to the end of the year and we sing a song #1 Nobody

knows the words to Auld Lang Syne.

Come on, somebody. How many guys know the words

Auld Lang Syne, but we all I get in there and it's a Scottish,

you know, whatever it was just cool.

God bless the heritage, right? And you see all things like but

we no idea. It's like old times past is what

it's saying these these old acquaintances and we we look

back at time and I found myself looking back at time, man.

I was thinking about Bill and I think about people who are here

and these relationships and what 25 was all about.

But wouldn't it be cool as Christians if we had the kind of

faith and belief every year We're like, man, I'm not just

looking back, but I have one year closer to heaven.

Wouldn't it be pretty cool that our mindset was like, you know

what, there's a lot of stuff that happened and there's some

relationships that are broken. There's some really stuff I

loved and some stuff that hurt. But guess what?

I'm one year closer to being in the presence and the glory of

God. That's pretty cool.

Amen. Like that's the kind of faith

that we should have like every day.

And this is what the Scripture even says about it.

But but you think you think about just our culture and how

we see heaven. It's it's very distant and very

dark and there's a good illustration of somebody.

It's a true story of a man named Levi Lesko.

Anybody heard of Levi Lesko If you guys, if you follow him,

Levi Lesko been great preacher, great leader calls of Christ.

He has a church called Fresh Life Church up in Billings, Mt

has different campuses did like ATV ministry all sorts of stuff.

Matter of fact, the chosen series that we did this last

time. You guys remember that he he

produced that that was that was like his vision.

It was pretty amazing, but it's a it's a crazy story if there's

a book he wrote called Through the Eyes of a Lion, and it's a

must read, especially if you went through any kind of loss.

And the story is a story of his daughter Lena that passed away.

And I don't know the year, but it's probably about 10 years ago

and she was five years old. She has asthma attack and

they've done everything. They're trying to help her.

They're given all the different things and there's nothing's

working. They get to the hospital and she

doesn't make it. And I saw him speak in person a

few times. I read his book.

He's just one of those guys and I know this is a a battle for

like human nature to do what God's asked him to do.

When he says a statement, this is unnatural statement, but this

was his conclusion and this is his heartbeat.

This way he fights for every day.

He says every day. I don't countdown the days.

I don't count out the days that I haven't seen her and I miss

her. I countdown the days until I see

her again. That's pretty good.

Amen. Like he's counting down the days

to heaven. I know about you, but we get a

little more homesick for heaven when people close to us are in

heaven, Amen. Like, it's one thing to be

young, like invincible and blah, blah, blah.

When you get older, you're like, man, I got I, you get to the

point you got more people in heaven than you got on earth

that you're friends with, Amen. You start looking forward, like

what is the next life? And the reality is we're going

to spend 80, you know, maybe you get 100 years.

Come on, somebody right, maybe like Dick Van Dyke kind of thing

going on there, right? Like maybe most of us are not

going to get the 100 years, you know?

And then we spend all of eternity in a place that we

haven't even thought about, like we don't desire.

Like if we really knew what heaven was like, we would live

differently on earth, Amen? Like it would change our habits.

And we set these goals in 26. And I see all these things.

I'm like, it's great. I mean, I hope you make

$1,000,000 this year, Amen? Like, I hope all your dreams

come true. I hope all just works out.

But the end of the day, it's wood, hay and stubble, right?

Like there's a vision higher than the things of earth, a

vision of the next earth, the new earth, the things that are

coming. The thing about Levi Lesko's

story is so amazing is that suffering will not have the

final word, Amen. Like suffering is not the end of

the equation. Loss is real, but so is reunion.

Amen. Like you will see again.

I feel like I'm preaching at a funeral right now.

You should be way more excited. There's not a casket.

Come on, somebody, right? Yeah.

On the words of DL Moody, Don't, don't, don't say I'm dead.

When because he knew he was going to die.

He published in the newspaper. He said don't, don't cry for me

and say I'm dead. But when you when you look into

my casket, no, I'm more alive than ever.

It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

These final words were the the veil of heaven is opened up and

DL Moody passed away. But the reality is this death is

painful, but it's not permanent. In the days for those who are in

Christ are not behind us. They are ahead of us.

The best is yet to come. Amen.

And it's not necessarily found on earth.

We try to make it on earth. Like we try to be comfortable.

We try to have our retirement. We try to put the pieces

together so we have a certain life.

But the reality is we are foreigners.

We are sojourners in this world. Who has those old T-shirts?

Come on, somebody is not our home.

I think you have some of these not of this world.

Come on, somebody got the belt buckle, got the shirt, got the

CD, got the hat, Right. And then we, we, we kind of

forget so easily. Like we, our vision, our goals

extend to this earth. They're very small and very just

narrow minded. And so why is it, why do we have

such a small vision of heaven? Like how do we get to this

place? Like why in the world do we

dream about just this kind of world?

And and you think about all the different things like we think

about maybe we become, I've heard, I haven't heard this

since we, we become angels and we die.

I've, I've heard that which we'll, we'll talk.

Come on, somebody, right? Vision clouds and harps and

boredom and floating and and endless church service, right.

And it's almost like we just copy and pasted our theology of

heaven from like all the culture.

Like in my generation, there was this awesome song called drops

of Jupiter. Come on, somebody right from

train in a ride on the Milky Way.

Forget the exact line and it says the lights are faded.

Remember that? Are they really faded?

No. And heaven is what is what?

Yeah, overrated. Like I drew, I grew up in a

generation where it was like, dude, and we all did right.

Like why go to heaven? That's so overrated.

That's just dumb. It's just just for the weak

minded or, you know, it's it's not all it's set out to be like

we, we, we we're thinking it's overrated.

But no, heaven is underrated. Amen.

But these songs that we just hear, these songs like, well,

maybe it's not as good. Maybe it is a little boring.

You know who watched The Simpsons?

Come on, somebody you can put your hand up, dude.

Y'all sinners. That's OK, right?

I grew up in The Simpsons. It was awesome, you know what I

mean? Like I saw in the movie when it

came out, whatever. And Homer dies, he goes up on a

cloud and he's sitting there and he just eats Donuts for

eternity. That was their picture, right?

And then whoever who made peanuts should know his name.

Yeah, he there you go. You all know you're all smart at

me. And he he it was in the

newspaper and he put out there's this, you know, person dies.

They got their wings. They're set in heaven.

And the caption or the the thought was in the bubble.

I wish I'd brought a magazine, right.

Like this is just what the world teaches is like.

It's just not. They don't know, right.

And and and maybe to our fault as Christians and maybe even

pastors or churches, we just don't talk about heaven enough.

We we just don't you know, you know, a 120 people to one

believe they're going to heaven in the United States based on

Barnes survey. So if you're just like, hey, you

going to heaven? Yeah, I mean, most people think

they're going to heaven. Isn't that crazy?

So if you just talk about heaven, you're only going to

offend less than 1% of people you talk to.

Amen. That's a good strategy.

Matter of fact, when Paul, this is pretty cool when he actually

was, his strategy to reach the Gentiles of non Jewish people

was to tell them, according to Ephesians chapter 3, to tell

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

them of the riches, the riches of Christ.

Did it pretty cool. You know what?

You know what the richest of Christ is?

Heaven, Amen. People need to know about this.

So many people are afraid of heaven.

If you think you're going to know nobody in heaven and nobody

talks and you're sitting down on like a like playing a harp all

day, like you might be afraid to go to heaven.

That sounds really boring. If you don't know anybody, you

might be afraid to even die. Amen.

Like we have to change our view. Like what does heaven really

look like? What should it be?

You know, I think about this song and the culture.

This might be the most iconic song and most heartfelt heart

wrenching song in the culture. We actually somebody kind of

joke about it earlier, but Eric Clapton, right, Tears in heaven

and about his five year old son Connor, who died, ran through an

open window that thought was glass and fell out of a

building. And he wrote this song.

And the song is like, you got to listen to it and it's heart

wrench and it is so human. It is the most human song you

could put together. And we all feel the same way.

I mean, it's one of the songs if you you can't listen to without

putting a tear in your eye because we all felt that gut

wrenching loss. We've all seen that kind of

pain. Not even to his level probably.

And he asked these questions. You guys heard the song of the

questions, right? Like like, would you know my

name if you saw me in heaven, man?

What a question. Like what is the answer to that

question? Would you really recognize me?

Like, would you picking me up if I'm I'm falling down and

weeping? Like would you hold my hand?

Like that's the world is asking the question, Amen.

I mean, you got musicians crying out in pain, asking the

questions that as a church we have the answers to, Amen.

We have the answers to these questions, but the it's just the

culture, right? Like so then we think, well,

maybe we can't know anybody. Like maybe we don't recognize

like maybe we're separate, you know, maybe we don't exist.

Like, maybe it's not what it should be.

Like, we just don't know. No one's no one's even told.

As a trained, like pastor, like I don't was never trained to

answer these questions. Like, would you recognize people

in heaven? Will relationships continue in

heaven? Will pain and separation be

healed? Is heaven going to be familiar

or distant? That's that's really what Eric

Clapton is asking. And we have the answer.

You're going to know over the next six weeks, you're going to

be like out of here, like, dude, I'm so glad because most people

go, we'll never know what will heaven be like?

I guess we'll never know. And you can say I do Amen.

I know exactly what heaven's like.

Now someone we're going to talk about is, is it's going to be a

little bit of speculation, but it's based on scripture.

Amen. Like I'm not going to dream

outside of scripture. Like the footing is scripture.

So I'm have a little like I, you could challenge it and say,

well, they could be this. It could be.

But guess what? I think we should be dreaming

about heaven. I think if God didn't want to

hear about heaven, he wouldn't even put it in the Bible for us

to know about. He wouldn't have written so much

about the topic. And for most of us, we just

don't know enough. Our culture teaches all sorts of

stuff and some of it's just very sad.

But like everyone goes to heaven.

That's a pretty popular teaching, isn't it?

Like we're all getting there, we're all touching the same

elephant. We're all going to the same

place, like everybody's good. And the Bible says complete

opposite it all says that narrow is the road to, to, to life and

and wide is the road to destruction.

Like the reality is quite the opposite is that most people go

to hell. Most people do not go to heaven.

That's just based upon scripture.

And I, I mean, personally as a pastor, like I, I don't, I did

not write the story. I wish I could change that, but

I also trust Jesus. It is a plan and a purpose.

Beyond that, I can even see and imagine I didn't write the book.

Amen. But we trust what's what's in

the book and there's a reason for it.

We also think heaven is boring or heaven is just a place of

rest. You know, there's not real life

or anything. You just you're at peace or

become angels. When we die, we get our Halos,

we're graduating and get our wings like we've watched It's a

wonderful life. Too many times, you know, or

heaven is vague or unknowable or there it's just reward for good

people. Like you get to heaven because

you're a good person and that's the majority of people of my my

good outways. My bad.

Then I go to heaven, which isn't true or heaven is the same for

everyone. It's not So many people think

we're all going to get to heaven.

That's going to be identical. We have jobs in heaven.

We have roles in heaven. There's authority given to you

in heaven based upon what happens on this earth, like your

faithfulness. Like the Bible talks about, like

the lead, the first will be last and last will be first.

Like sometimes we think this is it.

And then we're all going to like, we're all going to get

there. It's like, well, yeah, you got,

you got there. That's the first thing.

But then there's different roles, right?

Or is heaven just spiritual? Like we're floating,

disembodied, like, you know, just spiritual beings, right?

Or heaven is just too far away. It's too relevant.

It shouldn't matter. Like you just it's too far to

know about. Like we could never really know

anything. Or how about this one?

I see this a lot. Heaven is restrictive and

joyless. That's the original sin, right?

Like we can do better than God. Like God is holding back from

you. He doesn't want you to see what

he sees. Like just do it your way, have

fun. And it's ultimately see this

with people time. Like I'd really park with my

friends and hell, you see it, you hear it all the time.

Like do you have a, do you have a clue what you're talking

about? Like do you know what you're

saying? Or heaven's just metaphorical,

which is just so sad. You know, like I've had people

in my family that were they're atheist to the core and it truly

believed, hey, when you die, you don't get, you don't like have

an afterlife and they're annihilated, which isn't true

anyway, but you just go into oblivion.

You just cease to exist. It's not true.

And it's so sad that this is the end result of like secular

humanism of so-called science without reason or science with

reason or naturalism, like the way we teach things in the

States and there's just no room for faith.

It's like this came from a cesspool DNA and then we just

cease to be DNA and it's just whatever that's the that's the

end result of of evolution, right?

Like there's a chance to happen. The chance doesn't happen.

It's just sad to see. It's just metaphorical.

It's not really there. And I think for heaven, most

people don't reject like the real heaven.

I think they reject a bad version of heaven.

Like I don't think they know. I honestly don't think if we

even know for most people, it's just crazy that like what is the

scripture says about heaven and what we embrace in this world.

Like if we sat down in 26 said what is your goal in 26?

It doesn't involve heaven in a in a vision for the afterlife of

eternity with God and the things that he has for you.

I think we're missing it. Amen.

I think we have so much to lean into.

And so my goal for you day of my prayer is that we get a bigger

view of Heaven. Amen.

We get a way bigger if you have, you know, we talk, we talk about

salvation as a church. We talk about all the time.

We talk, we talk like sin, we talk about church.

But you know what, this season we're going to talk about

heaven. Amen.

I said, maybe we'll leave in 26th.

We're going to we're just going to lead into heaven because

ultimately, like we're like, you know, where are we going?

What's this going to be about? It's going to be about heaven.

It's going about Jesus. It's going about something way

bigger. It's going to change our lives,

but we rarely talk about it. It's like a footnote.

It's like heaven's reserved for a funeral message.

Like you hear about it and you go to the funeral.

And even then, oftentimes it's done so poorly.

And nothing bothers me more than the pastor when I show up to a

funeral, they don't talk about heaven and they don't talk about

salvation. It's terrible.

Like what hope have you given anybody?

And I don't care if it's a person who didn't know Jesus and

you're preaching a funeral, you will get to Jesus in heaven

somehow. Amen.

Like and as AI mean, I hate to say it, as a pastor, I far

rather do a funeral than a wedding.

It's just the truth because there's a spiritual receptivity,

there's an openness of the reality of the eternal.

Like last year we talked about numbering your days with this,

this series, this last year not called heaven, but the same, you

know, New Year's series. We talk about numbering your

days and I've been still been numbering my days.

You know, we talked about the, you know, teach us Lord number

of days that every day has its own pain and sorrow thereof.

And there's different place in the Bible numerous times.

And so I I've been on my mirror, my over the vanity, right, like

here it is every day. I I race the last number or two,

depending or three times if you know, a couple times, but I race

it and I I just work my way down, right.

And so today 12,623 that that's my number.

If I live to the average age of a male today.

It we talk about that, right, like, but it puts eternity in

mind. It's like, God help me if I

forget that this life, if I think this life is all there is,

Amen. And we have to start thinking

like, well, what's beyond this? What, what's, what's the vision?

What does God have for my life? And it's not a footnote.

You think about you guys follow Elon Musk at all.

You know, Starlink, everything in Starlink actually is used to

fund going to Mars. You guys know that or not the,

the, the logo for Starlink is actually Earth and Mars like

every kind of intersect. Every couple intersect, but they

close every couple years and so he's like, OK, every couple

years we're going to send off rockets.

We're going to put £10,000,000 of whatever resources we need so

we can colonize Mars. OK, You know, whatever band, you

know, cool for you, but they're going to send all this stuff to

Mars. You're going to see every couple

years they're going to send all these rockets and try to just

put all this stuff on Mars so they can somehow send the human

there. We can colonize in case Earth

falls apart. Like like God does know what

he's doing. I hate to tell you the time

that's like, that's a waste of time.

Amen. This is a new Earth that's

coming and we don't need to worry about all these things,

but whatever. But could you imagine you send

all the stuff there and then somebody looks at it and says,

Hey, what's Mars like? And they never thought about it.

You know what I'm saying? They, they, they had the mission

plan. They, they sent all the

different units. They got oxygen, they got all

these things and they've been planning, planning, planning in

for decades. They've been sending stuff and

then says, what's Mars like? Like, Oh, I really never

consider it all. That's kind of like it is for us

in heaven. Amen.

Like we're living on mission right now.

We're telling people about Christ, we're living in Christ,

we're praying, we're going to church.

But we're like our vision for heaven is is so small.

And that whole goal of this series is just to make it

really, really big. Just to see what it's like just

to pull back the curd. And there's some things we can

know and there's some things we can speculate.

But I do think you can use your imagination upon truth, not just

make up truth like most books of heaven are the people's stories

that are like not built on Scripture, which I'm not going

to argue with people, but I'm just going to go back to the

Bible. Amen.

And like I'm going to build it on Scripture.

What does the Scripture say about heaven?

And here's some things that you're going to see in Scripture

of why we should be desperately homestead kind of vision for

heaven. But Hebrews 11/13 says this.

This is like the Hall of Fame of faith because all these people

were still living by faith when they died, which is that means

they finished the race strong and did not receive the things

promised because it's the Old Testament.

They they only saw them in the distance and they welcomed them

from a distance, admitting that they were what foreigners and

strange on earth. That's what's got to start.

Amen. But like our deepest desire is

not to put a permanent address on earth.

And these guys knew this because they saw what God was doing and

they said, no, no, no, no. This is just temporary.

Like I'm just passing the through.

I'm on, I'm on a walk. It says people who say such

things show that they're looking for a country of their own.

If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they'd

had the opportunity to return. You know, if you, if you look

back at the past and you look back at this world and you build

your life on this world, your feet always follow your

thoughts. You always put down the roots.

Like where your mind sits becomes your mindset.

And if this world is all you got, I don't know how much joy

you can really muster in your soul.

Amen. Like, I don't know how much

passion you can really have if you look at all the pain and

suffering and all the things around you.

Like, this is it. We got some oil from Venezuela.

Great job. What are you thinking?

I mean, it just whatever, we're not going there.

But I did. But you.

But you look, but you look at this and it's like, is this it?

Is it? Is this all that it is come to

be? If you're looking for a country

that you already have, you're going to find it.

But if you long for heaven, you will find that country.

It says instead they're longing for a better country, a heavenly

one. Therefore God is not ashamed to

be called their God, for as he has prepared a city for them.

Like there's a city coming, Amen.

There's a new heaven on earth, there's a place, there's a house

that Jesus building and we're longing for that, that that's

our home, Amen. Like don't get, don't get too

freaked out if you don't fit in. You're not supposed to fit in

first Peter 2 says this. Dear friends, I urge you as

foreigners in exiles. Now they're actually real

foreigners in exiles. They've left Jerusalem, have

been kicked out. Now they're living in Rome and

they're being persecuted to the NTH degree.

He says he tells them to abstain from sinful desires which wage

against your soul. He's just telling them like

you're exiles and foreigners even in this earthly world, and

that you should cut out the things of the world like we, we

need to cut out the things that are around us.

Don't look like Jesus, even though this isn't our home, it's

not our home, it's not going to be our home.

He said don't even worry about it because this is just the

world. This is this is Peter.

Just put it down for these guys that are struggling to even

survive. Psalm 3912 says hear my prayer

Lord, listen to my cry for help. Do not be deaf to my weeping.

I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors

were like we have to recognize that Jesus, yes, he's here on

this earth with us and us, but the reality is he lives in a

permanent reality. We live in a temporary reality,

Amen. Like we're, we're in different,

we're playing different games. Like we can't see all the things

that God sees. We don't know all the things

that go and we are a foreigner and a stranger to really what

heaven is like and where God resides.

You know, most of the Scripture, if you see Jesus in the in New

Testament, most of what he says, if not all of what he said has

actually come from conversations of the throne of God in heaven.

He's talk talking about conversations he's had with the

Father and he's telling us that's pretty good.

Amen. So when you read the Bible, it's

just yes and Amen. Like those words are spoken at a

throne of crystal with the power of God, with the grace riches of

all eternity. And they're speaking and they

come to us and we hear them because God wanted to make known

through his word. And we hear those words and we

say, I follow that whatever you say, Lord, I trust you.

Because those words are built in eternity.

They're they're not built by man, they're built by God.

That's how we search the Scripture.

Amen. There's just a different world

that they come from. Philippians 3 says, But our

citizenship is where is where, Yeah, in heaven.

I know we would like to be like proud American citizens, but we

should be proud Christian heaven citizens, Amen.

Like we, we should know what that citizenship entails and

what it looks like and what rights you truly have and who

you truly are in Christ. And this is what Paul says, he

says. And we eagerly await with great

expectation, with 100% focus, like we walk into this year and

we like eagerly waiting. God, when are you coming back

and what are you doing? And I trust you because of who

you are, because I'm not a citizen of this earth.

Like I don't have to worry about who gets elected and how things

go crazy because my residency and my permanency isn't heaven.

He says he waits for a savior from there, the Lord Jesus

Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything

under control, will transform. I love this, our lowly bodies.

Can I give an Amen? OK, if you're over 25, you got

to say Amen, right? Our lowly bodies so that we will

be like his glorious body. This is the real Planet Fitness.

Amen. No lunk alarms in heaven.

You know what I'm saying? But the point of this is we live

here, but we belong there like we reside right now here.

But our true home is in heaven, like our bodies are a temporary

address like this is just fleeting.

Second Corinthians 51 says, for we know that if the earthly

tint, the stomach of your body we live in is destroyed.

So let's just call that cremation because some people

have a lot of conscious questions on this one.

We have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not

built by human hands. Amen.

Like sometimes you're like, oh, what happens?

Like if your bodies are stored, there's Bible resurrection.

It's like, brother, God made the first time, he can make it the

second. Like there there's an upgrade

that you're going to have. Like I talked about, no one's

like, put me back on the Nosebleed.

I want that high cholesterol, diabetic body.

Come on, Jesus, bring it back to me, right?

Amen. Like no medication in heaven,

brother, no cancer in heaven. Like everything is perfect.

Like if you went to heaven where it looks like it's, it's just go

back before the fall. Like without sin, without curse,

without compromise, without brokenness, without suffering,

without corruption, when he walked hand in hand with God.

And you start looking at the animals and start looking at the

your life, start looking at your body, start looking at how long

you're supposed to live. Like why, why is death?

Why is death here? Like why does that happen?

Why are you craved like this? And you start looking at that

and you start, that's a glimpse of heaven, Amen.

Like it's way beyond. Like if it's a new earth, that's

going to be even similar to this earth.

But Colossians 31 says this. Since then we have been raised

with Christ. Set your what?

Set your hearts on things above. Set your set your heart on

heaven where Christ is. See at the right hand of God.

Then he says this. Not only set your hearts, but

says set your what? Set your minds on things above,

not on earthly things. The Bible calls the earthly

things wood, hay, and stubble. This is why he says it for you

have died. It's a spiritual death.

This is first death that we have spiritually.

We die to the old man and your life is now what hidden with

Christ in God. That's good news, Amen.

Like we died to the sin nature and we're alive to God and his

power hidden in Christ and with Christ who is your life appears

then you will also appear with him in glory, which is heaven,

the centerpiece of heaven. It says set your minds on

heaven, set your hearts on heaven.

Christ is in heaven. It's like the central theme of

why do we long for heaven is because Christ is there, The

resurrected Christ is there. Can you imagine the moment

you're going to see Jesus the first time face to face?

Can you imagine the moment that you're going to look to his left

or his right? I guess look to his right

because the right hand, the Father, and you see the Father's

face, face to face the first time.

That's a good day. Amen.

It's a day you long for. This is day of utter perfection.

And he says set your minds and set your heart that that word

for set is really interesting. It's almost it's the same word

for seek. Remember the verse in the Bible

says Jesus says I come to seek and save that which is lost.

That same word for seek is the same word for set, the passion

of which Jesus came here to seek and save the lost.

His one mindedness, his direction, his desire for lost

people is the same desire that we should have for heaven.

That's pretty good. It's actually the same word used

when it when they leave the 99 sheep and go to the one, when

the woman flips over the couch, looks for the coin, the parable,

lost Pearl. It's all the same.

It's all the same word. It's 1 minus.

You think about as a church like what is our mindset in 2026?

Is it just these goals and these earthly goals and this is what

they sure looks like and this will make me happy and that

would be great, which I hope you have those things, Amen.

I'm not saying don't have earthly goals, but I'm just

saying there is a higher vision for our life, the set on heaven.

Our mindset is 1 pursuit, 2nd Corinthians 416.

It says therefore do not what lose heart.

I don't know about you, but 2025, I think there's a lot of

people who have lost some heart in 2025.

Amen. It's, it's, it's so easy to get

distracted when, when you, when you see tragedy or death or job

loss, your uncertainty and brokenness and suffering in

elections and all, everything around you just pulling your

attention back to earth and plant your feet on the ground.

And we lose heart because our mindset is taken off the heaven

and putting right back on earth. You will lose heart very easily

if your hope is found just on this earth.

It's so easy. There has to be more.

It says, therefore hourly we are wasting away.

That's our bodies. That's a good way of saying it,

by the way, Amen. It's very difficult.

You know, I'm in the season of my life for like, you know,

parents and uncles, their their health is not what it used to

be, right And even siblings. I, I lost a sibling this last

year and it just so interesting you get that season where it's

like, hey, brevity is here, bodies fail, cancer hits.

It just not going to end without suffering.

But there's better than it's more than suffering because

there's an eternity that God's calls to.

So I fixed the line to heaven. Amen.

I get excited to share heaven with people.

It is the best news you can share.

If you're at a funeral and you get to tell somebody about

heaven and people's eyes light up and there's hope in their

soul and the tears move from just sorrow to to to actual

hope. That's good, Amen.

That's good. And we get the choice now to

share him with people so they can change their destination.

They can actually go to heaven. He says we're alley wasting

away, yet inwardly being renewed day by day.

That's pretty good news. They even know the outside's

falling apart. The inside, Oh, it's strong.

You know, that's what I love about Bill.

You know, somebody is, I don't know, he's 7270 somewhere in

there. I can't remember his exact age,

but he was so passionate, I mean so passionate you.

I'd call him on the phone and he'd tell me, hey man, God was

showing me. It wasn't like 2 years ago and

it wasn't somebody else's message.

It wasn't even my message. I was reading the Bible.

I mean, God just showed me, man. I just spent some time with

Jesus and he was just walked every day.

His heart was being renewed every day.

Amen. If you knew him, you'd just know

that like he had so much joy and he'd say tongue in cheek, like I

don't think he necessarily wanted to die, right, But he

would say tongue in cheek, hard situation, difficult moment.

He would say just threaten me with heaven, Just threaten me

with heaven. Like this, the worst happens to

me. Bring it on, man, Bring it on

because he's so passionate about God.

He was a perfect picture of being annually renewed day by

day. It says this for our light

momentary troubles. That's pretty interesting way of

calling this earth our life light and momentary.

I don't think most people will say that about themselves.

That's light and momentary. Most people think their

tragedies are forever and they they're just drowning in sorrow

and anxiety and fear and, and medications and all these things

around them and not thinking this is as hard as it gets.

Like as a Christian, this is the closest we'll ever be to hell.

Isn't that incredible to think about?

Isn't that, isn't that sobering? Like all the crap we put up with

this as hard as it gets, that's good news.

Amen. That's real good news because we

we walk through this and God is with us and we sing this song

like the God of, you know, Jacob and all this.

And I'm like God met Jacob in the season of fear and worry and

abandonment and his head is sleeping on a pillow.

That's a rock. And he said, I'll never leave

you or forsake you. That's a promise of God.

Amen, that God always meets us in this temporary pain, this

light momentary affliction and this is it.

This is a close to hell as we get, but what's crazy to think

about is that light and momentary affliction.

It is light and momentary for people who don't know Jesus too.

It's not as heavy as it's going to be as hard as it's going to

be in a sad reality is so, so difficult as this is the closest

to heaven that they ever get Isn't that crazy?

But the thing to honestly think like this, as good as it gets,

that is so depressing because there's so much more.

And like, what if this year was the year we said, you know, I'm

going to be serious about God. Like my heart is set and I'm

going to take as many people have those with me as possible.

Like I'm going to make God big. But you, you, it comes because

you change your heart and you see heaven different.

If heaven is small, life is confusing.

If heaven is big, life is clear. And that's just a simplicity of

it because it makes perfect sense.

Like I know where I'm going. I don't get too wound up, I'm

not too emotional, I'm not just freaking out everything.

I'm not being a big baby or big bully, all that stuff.

It's because, dude, I know I'm going like I'm the influence of

this world for Christ. Because this is the one shot I

got. Because it gets way better when

this flipped the page. It gets way better.

A bigger view of heaven. So next six weeks, what's heaven

action be like? We'll recognize each other.

What are we actually going to do there?

Is it really physical? Does it really matter?

Final thought for the day class Final thought.

Why is our view of heaven so small?

Why do we struggle to see it? Why do we have the Bible but we

don't put all together and it? Could it just be that your enemy

once resided in heaven? Could it be that Satan himself

actually knows what heaven's like?

Could be that Satan itself used to leave worship in heaven, used

to give glory to God, know God's power, He knows God's provision,

He knows we'll know each other, He know he knows there's no sin

and there's perfection. But Satan's so desperately

desires our worship because Satan was once evicted from the

very place that we struggle to dream about.

Could it be that the Father of lies has delusioned us and

sabotaged us To dream so small as a thing of 2026 and not

2,000,026. Not to think about the rest of

eternity? That the rope of time actually

never ends and what we do in this world directly affects the

next World? That God forbid that maybe Satan

is trying to keep your eyes so small and your heart so focused

on this world and your mind so narrow to build your own life

and set your own goals. That you by all the power of

hell, never bring anybody with you to heaven.

Final thought, because that's the reality.

He wants to keep your mind vague and your heart deceived that

this is all you get. So Father, come before you God,

I pray you just drive us a passion God, for eternity, a

passion for souls. That we'd be a soul winning

church. That our church would have such

our minds and hearts out in heaven that we'd be a dangerous

church in 2026, that people would come to Christ because we

know where we're going. We're not ashamed to tell the

world that their answers are just not complete.

They're asking the right questions, but they don't have

the right answers. And so, God, help us to be

passionate about the gospel. Help us to know our eternity.

Help us to as we're here to remind us, we're a mission.

We're here to change the lives of our family, our friends, our

community, our neighbors. For the gospel sake, it's

necessary we stay and two calls home and so if those who Jesus

fall in the house, those who just raise your hand say no, I

need to get a bigger view of heaven during this series.

I need to spend my life in 26 getting a grandiose vision of

heaven. That's you just raise your hand

high. So that's me God just speaking

to me. You have way bigger vision of

heaven and for eternity and for the things of God and will

reside for the the the eternity with Jesus and knows it'll be

there and what it'll be like. It is the dream just have

imagination on imagination of scripture and live like

childlike faith what God's going to do and for some being in the

house today you recognize today you need heaven that you've been

thinking, Oh, it's just a game. It's not a big deal.

There's Jesus thing is, you know whatever and today you recognize

that heaven is real. There's a real eternity with a

real God who paid for our sins. And today you might have related

to some of those things to talk about what heaven's not.

You might think you're a good person or that heaven, you're

all going to get there. You know, we all end up in

heaven and say you're recognizing like this is not the

case. And for those of you recognize

that you need to get to heaven, the Bible's very clear.

There is only one name under heaven whereby men are saved,

and it's the name of Jesus. And why is the name of Jesus?

Because Jesus came as the Son of God and wrapped himself in our

humanity to take upon our sin and literally pay our hell so

that we can spend eternity with Him in heaven.

That's how much God loves you is that He would take every one of

our punishments, our wrongs, and he would pay for on the cross

and give us his gift of salvation.

And so today if you want to go to heaven, you have to say yes

to Jesus. The Bible says He's the way, the

truth and life and no man come to Father but through him.

And so today if you need heaven, it comes through Jesus.

And so you say yes to Jesus today, if that's you, you need

forgiveness, you need New Hope, you need to make heaven

permanent your home. You just settle the doubt, just

like Logan talked about last week.

Are you for sure? Not 99%, not 90.9%, but 100%

sure you know you're going to have a new relationship with

Jesus. If that's you, then you want to

start a relationship with Jesus. I'm gonna call it make it weird.

I will I will offer you through a prayer.

I will help you know Jesus, but that's you just raise your

highest place. I want to start a relationship

with Jesus like I want heaven. I can want here and now like

your eternity starts already and I want my turn to be with Jesus.

So that's you. I want to help you lead through

a prayer so you can walk with Jesus to say Father God, thanks

so much for love me enough to make a way for me to go to

heaven. God, my mind has been set on

things to earth. I've thought all these wrong

thoughts, but today I trust you. Your promises are true that you

came and down across to me 2000 years ago I would have new life

and New Hope and I want to secure my place in heaven with

you, not because my ability because of what you do on the

cross. You said it is finished, it is

done and I trust what you did for me God.

And so I'm a Sinner as Savior and I love you and I surrender

my life to you and I pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Come on, give it up for 2026, for heaven, for what God's

doing. And what just a, gosh, just a

powerful reminder of what heaven truly is like, what it looks

like just to spend eternity with Jesus.

And some of you today for the first time, recognize your need

for Jesus and you accepted him today.

You said yes to heaven as well. If that is you, we are so

excited for you as you are taking these next steps with

Jesus. And we would love to walk

alongside you and help you on this journey.

If you would grab that connection card that's on your

seat, you can fill out your information there.

That's on the top path, but make sure and check that box that

says I committed my life to Jesus.

And you can just drop that in the giving buckets as they pass

here in just a few minutes. But we'd love to get you a free

book in the mail this week. It's a short read, but it really

is packed with some powerful things for you that we know will

just be a blessing to you on this journey.

Also, as you exit the worship center, there's a red bag there

on the table. Please grab that as well.

If you don't have a Bible, there's a free Bible in there

along with a list of some other resources and some encouragement

as you are walking this out with Jesus this week.

And for those of you who are newer in the house with us

today, thank you so much for coming and just spending your

morning here with us. Man, I hope you heard from God

at this morning and we would love to see you back.

Goodness, excuse me, we'd love to see you back here with us

next week as well. And hey, if you would grab that

same connection card and fill out your information on that.

Just check first time here. You can drop that in the gaming

buckets as they pass as well. We would love for you just to

introduce yourself to us. This gathering truly is our gift

to you. We don't want anything from you

except for that. Just introduce yourself to us

and you can do that simply by doing that connection card.

You can also instead of dropping in the gaming buckets, you could

take it out to the new hair booth as well.

As you exit the worship center, just hang a right there's a new

hair booth and somebody would be there love just to get that card

for you, give you a free gift. Just our way of saying thank you

and we'd love to see you back here with us next week as well.

Man, as a church, we are just so excited and expected for all

that God is going to do in 2026 and what he has in store for us.

A man 2025 was such a cool year for our church as well and God

did just some amazing things that I want to celebrate and

kind of reflect on as we look forward to 2026.

But man, in the end of 2025, towards the end, we launched our

Difference Maker initiative to raise funds for our first

permanent space in our community.

And a lot of you in this room pledge to be difference makers

for that. And I am just so excited to say

that as we close out 2025, man, towards that goal, $1,000,000 of

that is going to go straight towards our first permanent

home. And at the end of 2025, man,

we've collected over $220,000 already for our first permanent

home, which is so awesome. Yeah, hey, go God.

So, so awesome. And so I just want to say thank

you to those of you who give here at Real Life Church to see

more soul saved and to see lives transformed, not just for here

and now, but but for eternity and for generations to come.

So thank you so much. Also thank you to those of you

who gave last week. We had four people set up

recurring donations, which is huge.

That's a big commitment to say I'm going to automate this and

say yes to giving to God first. We also have three first time

donors as well. So if that was you who gave last

week, thank you so much for doing that as well.

Hey, thank you to those of you who got baptized last week, who

shared your stories. Man, last week was such an

amazing week. Did you guys enjoy that?

Yes, so good, so good. Man.

Last week, really the theme truly was transformation.

If you think about all that happened last week, man, we had

stories of of transformation for those who got baptized, just

story after story have a how God redeemed their lives and their

situations and change them for eternity.

Transform their lives, man. We had stories from people like

Brett who really went from just attending and sitting in the

pews to serving and to leading for the cause of Christ.

And I think about Lisa Holmes story truly of just clinging to

faith that God will protect for her and provide for her really

even in the toughest season. And so that's why we give here

is to see more soul saved and lives transformed for God.

And so I invite you just to help us move the mission forward in

2026 through giving. If you call real life church

home, there are a lot of ways that you can take part in that.

You can scan that QR. You can give online, and there's

also a giving box in the back. You can drop cash or check in.

You can do the same in the giving buckets as they pass here

in just a few minutes as well. And if you are in need this

morning, if you find yourself in a place of need, whether it's

food or clothing or shelter, whatever that looks like for you

as these buckets pass, please reach in and grab any loose cash

that is there really to be a blessing to you and your family

this week. Let's pray.

God, thank you so much, Father, for who you are.

You're such a good, good father to us God, and I just pray that

Father, you would I just remind us even this week as we're

walking out, just a glimpse of heaven and what it looks like to

truly walk with you for eternity of God, that we would keep our

eyes focused on the things above.

God and Father, I pray just a blessing over what's given

today, God, that you, we know you'll use it just to multiply

the Kingdom and not just for now, but for future generations

as well. So God, we give you all the

praise, all the glory today in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. What a blessed day.

Amen. Really interesting.

Let's leave here with our minds on heaven like we've been

talking about all day. The 19th century theologian

said. JC Rowles said, I pity the man

who never thinks about heaven. But we can also say it as we

pity the man that never thinks about heaven correctly, right?

Because when we don't think about heaven correctly, we think

about it too small or we think about it not often enough.

But John in Revelation says he saw a new heaven and a new earth

for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away and there

was no longer any sea. He saw the holy city, the new

Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared as the bride,

beautifully dressed for her husband.

And he heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's

dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with

them. They will be his people, and God

himself will be with him and be their God.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for

the old order of things has passed away.

He who is seated on the throne said, I am making everything

new. Then he said this, write this

down for these words are trustworthy and true.

He said to me, it is done. I'm the alpha and the Omega, the

beginning of the end to the thirsty.

I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of

life. Those who are victorious will

inherit all this and I will be their God and they will be my

children. That's exciting, right?

That's that's good news to get excited for.

We need to make heaven big for ourselves and this year, but we

also need to make heaven big for those around us.

We need to tell people about this good news.

If you need prayer, you need somebody to talk to.

We'll have a pastor, we'll have somebody down here to talk to to

you. Thank you all so much for coming

out to the listening to this great sermon.

If this is really strong, I will see you all next Sunday at 9:00

or 10:45. Whoever finds Jesus discovers

real life and purpose. You see you next week.