"WHEN WE ALL GET TO HEAVEN"

Look Up: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 2:9

         Sermon preached by:   Dr. Don Bouldin, Carmel Baptist Church

(Copyright 2006)  

            One of my favorite stories is about two guys, Bill and Charlie, who just loved to play baseball. They had played baseball all their lives. From the time they were kids, in Little League, they had played baseball together. They played high school ball, church ball, played as young adults, went right into the over fifty league. Then one day Bill died.  Days went by and Charlie really missed his old buddy. Now there was no one to play ball with.  One day, several days later, Charlie was out at the old baseball diamond, just walking around, thinking about his old friend and the good times they’d enjoyed when he heard a voice saying, “Charlie, Charlie, you can’t see me but it’s Bill.”  “Bill, oh I am so glad to hear your voice.  How are you?”  “Oh, I’m great.  I wanted you to know that I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is you’re pitching next Thursday.”
            Isn’t it interesting that almost everyone wants to go to heaven. We’re just not anxious to get started on the trip. I was interested in Dr. Barnes last question last Sunday. He asked, “If heaven is as good as God says it is, why are we so afraid to go?”  Part of the answer to that question is our confusion over what heaven is really like. That’s why this series has been so good. Most of our concepts are based on stories like the one about Bill and Charlie rather than the single source that tells us anything reliable about life hereafter…the Scripture.
            I think, basically, we formed our concepts about heaven when we were kids. I heard about the bratty little girl who asked her mother, “Is it true we’ll all meet again in heaven?”  Her older brother heard the question and piped in, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, mom.  If she’s going to be there, I’m not going.”  I mean, how would it be heaven with a bratty little sister there?
            A little boy thought he knew all about heaven. He had been into one thing after another that really irritated his mother one morning. Finally, in exasperation, the mom said, “Douglas, how in the world do you ever expect to get into heaven?”  He said, “That’s easy, mom!  I’ll just run in and out, in and out, and keep slamming the door until the Lord says, ‘for heaven sakes, Doug, come in or stay out.”
            Those are funny stories, and, believe it or not, many people think that way about heaven. Maybe part of that is because we’ve spent far too little time looking at God’s word and what it says about “the place” that Jesus is preparing for us right this moment.
            So, this morning I want us to look at the Scripture for just a moment to see what it says about some of the most pressing questions that people have about heaven:  

1. Will heaven be a place where we will have a relationship with other people?

Dr. Barnes spoke about the beauty and the size of the new heaven and the new earth. He helped us visualize the “new Jerusalem” coming down to the new earth.  It’s breathtaking to think about.  And, he also said that for Christ-followers, going to the new heaven and new earth is like going home.  “Home” is the place where the people you love are.  Dwain and I have reached the point in life that it is fun to look back, reminisce about the places where we’ve lived and served, kind of trace what God has done in our lives.  When we went to New Orleans Seminary, I pastored a little, country church in Derby, Mississippi. Now, for those of you who have a limited background in U.S. geography, that’s half-way between Picayune and Poplarville. We lived in a pastorium next to the church. The church people were very proud of it. They’d built it themselves. I’d go away on revivals or be gone several days to seminary and I couldn’t wait to get home.  It didn’t matter that our house wasn’t the Taj Majal. It wasn’t even as nice as the 1400 square foot home with two bedrooms and one bath that I grew up in. It was out in the country and it was up on stilts. When the wind blew the rugs stood up off the floor. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that you had to burn the garbage to keep the neighbors’ pigs from eating it. It didn’t matter that all the church kids came running into our house to use the bathroom every Sunday as we were getting dressed for church.  All that didn’t matter because it was home. It was where the woman I loved was. It was home because Dwain was there. The person I loved made a place home. Years later, 5,000 miles away in a war zone, I remember that every GI I knew dreamed of going home. We listened to songs like “I left my heart in San Francisco,” “Galveston, oh Galveston, I can hear your sea breeze blowing.”  We listened to those songs and dreamed of the land of the round doorknob. Home is where the people you love are.
            The same is true for heaven. Paul wrote to his friends in Thessalonica, “We loved you so much,” and “You had become so dear to us.” In 1 Thessalonians 2 he speaks of his “intense longing” for those friends that he loved in that church that in v.19-20 he says that his ongoing relationship with them, all of his Christian friends, is part of his heavenly reward.  “What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our lord Jesus when he comes? Is it not you?  Indeed, you are our glory and joy.” Paul says, “Part of what makes it heaven is being with the people I love.”
            Throughout the ages, Christians have anticipated an eternal reunion with their loved ones. In 710, the Venerable Bede, the great church historian, wrote: “A great multitude of dear ones is there expecting us; a vast and mighty crowd of parents, brothers, and children, secure now of their own safety, anxious yet for our salvation, long that we may come to their right and embrace them…”
            Someone says, “I thought heaven was a place where all we needed was God. Won’t our total attention be turned to God? Remember, God is the source of all joy… God provides it all. Everything else is secondary and derivative. Anything that gives us joy comes from Him, find their meaning in Him, and cannot be divorced from Him. Christ is heaven’s focus point. He’s the center of gravity. No one can take His place and no one will. But we don’t diminish His importance by enjoying His creations. He’s the one who gives us the natural wonders of a new earth, the brilliance of a new Jerusalem, the angels He created, and the people we love.
            Think about it. God was with Adam in the garden, yet God said that wasn’t enough. God designed people to need other people. God was with Adam in the paradise He created when He looked at His wonderful creation and saw his loneliness. And God said, “This is not good.” The desire for other people is God’s idea.  It was God who created a companion for His creation. He created woman and said, “This is very good.”
            When our lives are blessed and enhanced by someone that God has created, that doesn’t offend Him. It pleases Him. God is our Father and a father delights in the love that exists between his children. Jesus affirmed that the greatest commandment was to love God with everything we are.  And the second greatest, and inseparable from it, is to love our neighbor. 
            The joy of being with other people is part of heaven.  

2. What will we remember about the first earth?

One writer says, “We will not even remember this old world we call earth…nor will we even recall it.”
            I believe that’s incorrect.  Listen, our minds will be clearer in heaven, not more jumbled.  Memory is basic to our personalities.  The “law of continuity” requires that we remember our past lives.  Randy Alcorn says, “Heaven cleanses the slate of sin and error, but it doesn’t erase our memory of it.  The lessons we learned here about God’s love, grace, and justice, surely aren’t lost but will carry over to heaven.”
            God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and every sorrow attached to our life on this earth, but He won’t erase human history and Christ’s incredible gift to every one of us.  Remember, when we see Jesus, He’ll still have the scars of the cross on His hands and feet.  John 20:24-28 tells us that Thomas questioned the validity of the  resurrected body of Jesus… until he saw those scars.  Can you imagine what it will feel like when you first see Jesus and those nail-scarred hands.  The song writer says, “I can only imagine.” 
            We’re not going to forget.  If anything our memory will get sharper.  The contrast of what we’ve walked through on this fallen earth and what the new heaven and the new earth are will be even greater.  God’s acts of grace will never be forgotten or erased from our minds.  The opposite is true.  We’ll see as we’ve never seen before the incredible sacrifice of a God who loved us enough to send His son to die for us.  

3. Will we recognize each other?

Then comes the big question…”in the new heaven and the new earth, will we know each other?  Will we recognize each other?”
            The Bible indicates we will. George McDonald, the brilliant Christian writer of another era, once had someone ask about recognizing each other in heaven. His answer was a question, “Shall we be greater fools in paradise than we are here?”  We recognize each other here.  Why wouldn’t we there?
              Have you been to a high school reunion recently?  Everybody is walking around, “Hey, I recognize you.”  Then they start lying. “You look just like you did when you were eighteen.”  Mark it down. We’re going to recognize each other in the new heaven. This is the year of my 50^th high school reunion.  Can you imagine trying to identify those fat, bald old people?  It’s hard here but not in heaven. 
            Paul said he looked forward to being with the Thessalonians in heaven. Many of them would be there because of Him. Every time I hear the song Tommy sung, I think of people in my life who impacted my life for Christ and they don’t even know it. Every once in a while, someone will come up and say, “You don’t know me but I heard you preach at so and so. Christ really touched me that night.”  Could anything be more thrilling than to have someone say, “Thank you for giving to the Lord.  I’m so glad you did.” We’re going to recognize people. Paul said if we couldn’t recognize our loved ones, the “comfort” of an afterlife reunion wouldn’t be there.
            Someone says, “Where did you get that?” All over the new testament. Christ’s disciples recognized Him countless of times after the resurrection.  They recognized Him on the shore as He cooked breakfast (John 21:1-14). They recognized Him as He appeared to the skeptical Thomas (John 20:24 -29).  They recognized Him as he appeared to the 500 people at once (1 Corinthians 15:6). Mary recognized Him at the garden tomb.  John 20:16 says, “She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!’ (which means teacher).”
            One of the graphic illustrations in Scripture that we’ll recognize each other in heaven is found in Luke 9:29-33 in the transfiguration experience. The disciples recognized Moses and Elijah, even though they never met those men and couldn’t have known what those men looked like. Alcorn says, “This may suggest that personality will emanate through a person’s body, so we’ll instantly recognize people we know of but haven’t met previously.  If we can recognize those we’ve never seen, how much more will we recognize our family and friends?”
            Will we know each other in heaven? The scriptures say that we shall be like Jesus. I don’t think that means in holiness only. We’ll be like Him in everything. Does He know and love and remember? He wouldn’t be Jesus if He didn’t. And we wouldn’t be us if we didn’t too.  

4. Will there be marriages and families in heaven?

Mark it down! Receiving a glorified body and relocating to the new earth doesn’t erase history, it culminates history. Nothing is going to change the fact that you and I were members of families on the old earth. Betsy, Blake, and Brent are still going to be my children. Our grandchildren will still be our grandchildren. Presumably we have a redeemed DNA and chromosones. Our family signature will be there on the new earth.
            Now, picture this with me. Heaven won’t be without families. You’re not going to be wandering around heaven in your “naked soul” that Dr. Poplin talked about. The Scripture says we’ll be one big family. We’ll have family relationships with the people who are part of our blood family on earth. But we’ll also have family relationships with our friends…both new and old. We can’t take material things to heaven…but we can take family relationships.
            Many of us come from families that we treasure and value. But some of us come from terribly broken families that have caused us enormous grief and hurt. In heaven families won’t cause anybody any pain. Our relationship with our family will be redeemed. Our family will be what God intended families to be. But families on the new earth will go further. Jesus, when He was told that His mother and brothers wanted to see Him, replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice” (Luke 8:19 -21). He’s saying that those who belong to Him will have new brothers and sisters on the new earth.
            I believe what Alcorn writes when he says: “If you weren’t able to have children on earth or if you’ve been separated from your children, both now and later God will give you relationships that will meet your needs to guide, help, serve, and invest in others. Your parental longing will be fulfilled.  If you’ve never had a parent you could trust, you’ll find trustworthy parents everywhere in heaven, reminding you of your heavenly Father. And you can start with some of those relationships here.”
            It’s not true that we will have no families in heaven. We will have one great big family. Our family will come from every direction. Don’t you love John’s description in Revelation 2:9:
        “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and in front of the lamb…”
            Do you ever go someplace, maybe and airport or ball game or shopping center and you see people really different from you? Maybe they’ve got a different colored skin or their eyes are shaped differently or they are wearing clothes of a different culture. Do you ever look at them and think, “Hey, there’s a brother. He could be family when we get to our destination. If he’s not family, I want him to be. I need to find a way to make sure he knows Jesus.
            Heaven will be a family place. Everybody there is family. All of us committed, in love with our father and our elder brother, Jesus.  

5. What about marriage? Will there be marriage in heaven?

Jesus is very clear about marriage. You may remember the Saducees didn’t believe in the resurrection. So, one day, when they were trying to trick Jesus to get him in trouble by asking controversial questions, they posed a hypothetical question. They described a woman who had married seven times only to see all her husbands die. They said, “Ok, Rabbi, “Who will be her husband in heaven?” Matthew 22:30…Christ replies, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.”
            Someone says, “Hey, that’s a bummer. I love my wife/husband. I’ll really miss that relationship.”
            The Scripture indicates that relationship won’t be severed. You’ll still be related to the one you love. And we’ll be married in heaven. We’ll all be married to the same person.  There will be one marriage…Christ and His bride, the church. Paul says that our human marriages are just a mirror of what is to come. Ephesians 5:31-32 says: “For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh. This is a profound mystery…but I am talking about Christ and the church…”
            The one-flesh marital union that we know on this earth is a sign post to the higher reality it pictures. Once we get to our destination of the new earth, that sign post isn’t needed any longer. The marriage between Christ and his church will be so wonderful, so satisfying, so fulfilling, that the most marvelous earthly marriage we can imagine can’t compare.
            God designed the relationship of marriage. Part of it was to give fulfillment to our need for a person to share our lives with. Part of it was to populate the earth. But the biggest part was to be a shadow, a copy, an echo of the true and ultimate marriage. That final marriage begins at what Revelation calls the “wedding feast of the lamb.”  All human marriages will be assimilated into the one great marriage they foreshadowed.
            Dwain and I have had such a good marriage. She’s been my best friend, my soul-mate, my closest sister-in-Christ. Does this mean that our relationship will be over in heaven, that she’ll go her way and I’ll go mine? Not at all. I’m convinced that we’ve never been so close as we will be in heaven.  Remember, it was God, Himself, who said, “It’s not good that man should be alone…” He’s the one that gave me Dwain. He’s the one who blessed our relationship. That won’t stop in heaven. Nothing will take away from the fact that Dwain and I are marriage partners here and that we’ve invested so much of our lives in each other as we served Christ together. I agree with Alcorn. I don’t believe anyone in heaven, with the exception of God Himself, will understand me better than Dwain. There’ll be nobody I’d rather be with or whose company I’ll enjoy more. She’s been God’s special gift to me here and that won’t change on the new earth.
            But Jesus said the institution of human marriage, as we know it today, will have ended. It’s purpose will have been fulfilled. The reasons God created it will no longer exist. I want you to know, this is very unusual.  In almost every other instance, the things we have on earth will be redeemed and there will be a resurrected copy, a better copy in heaven. But not marriage. But you mark it down! God doesn’t take anything away that he doesn’t replace with something better. In our limited understanding, that’s hard to understand. That’s a new paradigm that is hard for me to get my arms around.  Now we see through a glass darkly, then face to face. But “Eye has not seen nor ear heard the blessings that God has laid up in store” for those of us who will share a new heaven and a new earth for all eternity.
            In 1979, when my mother was still living in my boyhood home, I flew from Charlotte back to Texas to see her. I got on a plane in Charlotte, flew to Atlanta, then to Dallas, and finally to that tiny airport in Waco. All the way there by myself I had time to kind of reflect and remember what home was like. I remembered the long summer days when I was a boy looking out over the vacant lot behind our house and dreaming about what I would do and be when I was a man. I remember the huge old tree right outside my bedroom window, and the swing that swung from it that I’d swung in and, later, watched my children do the same. I remembered my dad, on his knees with boxing gloves, showing his seven year old how to box. I remembered hearing him humming to himself on brisk, fall mornings as he got up very early, cooked his own breakfast, and came singing into my room to wake me up for school. I remembered my mother…in full health…standing by the stove with a house full of delicious smells. I remembered the smiles, the discussions around the supper table. I remembered the good times.
            But, when I got home, there was really nothing left but memories. The old house was dilapidated. The flower beds were overgrown, the old tree that held the swing had been cut down. The people who made that house a home were gone. My folks were already in that intermediate heaven with the Lord Himself. The family has scattered and that which, at one time, seemed so permanent to me, I found very temporary.
            But there’s coming a day when I will go home, to my real home, to a city not built by human hands…and that home will never change. My folks will be there. Dwain will be there and so will our children. The people who impacted my life for Christ, some of whom never knew, will be there. I’ll see my brother and sister and a host of brothers and sisters I’ve known through years of ministry. I don’t know, maybe the wonderful pets we’ve enjoyed through the years that have been such a real part of our family will be there. C.S. Lewis says they’ll be there. Who am I to argue with him.
            Abraham and Moses. David and Isaiah. Mary and Elizabeth. Peter and Paul. I can only imagine what it might be like to discuss theology with Martin Luther and John Calvin, to ask Charles Spurgeon and George Truitt how they put their sermons together. I’d like to hear William Carey and Annie Armstrong and Jim Eliot tell me their mission adventures and to remember with Billy Sunday and Dwight l. Moody how God had used their lives to touch so many people for Christ. And there’ll be so many I’ll be meeting for the first time, my eternal family. And I’ll be home…forever.
            There’s no way that I can describe adequately the people and relationships that will be part of the new heaven and new earth. Maybe today and the grand sermons we’ve heard now for a number of weeks will help you get a glimpse, understand just a bit better, see that the Scripture is full if we’ll make it a point to look. I hope that’s been your experience. I hope your interest is stimulated and you’ll read Alcorn’s book.  And, most of all, I hope you are with us. We want everyone in this congregation to be a part of our heavenly family. I hope you’ll go home and tell the people you love about heaven so they will be there too. It starts with a very personal invitation for the one who makes heaven heaven, Jesus Christ, to come in our lives right now. It starts when heaven begins in your heart because Jesus lives there.