Do You Yearn For Heaven?

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newsletter made its way around. What about the handout? Is that around as well? Ah, yeah, okay.
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It's still... I just want to make sure. Occasionally, like I said, people think it's a handout. They just, without even mindlessly take it and put it in their things.
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Okay, great. When I was a very young pastor, I was sometimes frustrated by the emphasis elderly church members placed upon heaven.
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What about now? You know, I mean, don't you have any goals for your spiritual life now? Don't you have any desires for the work of God to expand in your local church now, here on earth, now, in our lifetime, before you die?
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Well, now that I'm about twice the age as I was when I mentally muttered those thoughts, and I'm a lot closer to the age of the people that I had directed those thoughts toward,
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I'm tempted to believe that a lot of my thoughts were merely the musings of a zealous but immature minister.
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People who have been on a long pilgrimage are increasingly anxious to come to the end of it, and especially one that is as glorious as the pilgrimage to the celestial city.
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If you spent decades loving Jesus and living for Jesus, you naturally long to see
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Jesus. Now, it's obvious that such anticipation should characterize older believers and those who are living right on the borders of heaven, but I think it should also characterize all growing
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Christians. So, I want to begin by saying that growing Christians are groaning
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Christians. Growing Christians are groaning Christians.
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In Romans 8, verses 22 and 23, the Apostle Paul calls attention to the groans of the entire creation, and particularly the human part of that creation that's indwelled by the
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Spirit of God, as they await the removal of the corruption that they have endured since the entrance of sin into the world.
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For we know, he says, that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
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Not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the
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Spirit, in other words, the beginnings of the harvest of the Spirit, the down payment, the deposit, having the first work of the
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Holy Spirit within us, we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
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No longer just the redemption of our souls, but a completed redemption. The entirety of us, we have been made since the beginning to be creatures that are whole when we are body and soul.
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And 1st Corinthians, I forget where, talks about those souls now in heaven, awaiting of the resurrection of the body, feel unclothed, they feel naked, as it were, longing, it says, to be clothed with their permanent glorified bodies.
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So we are whole beings, as God created us, when we are body and soul. Right now we've experienced the redemption of the soul, and we groan for the redemption of the body, the completion of the process, he says.
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And notice that these human groaners are not exceptionally devoted Christians. They are not the spiritual elite.
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Notice who it is. Verse 23, not only this, we ourselves having the firstfruits of the
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Spirit. Those who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, those who have the Holy Spirit, which is how many, what percentage of Christians?
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100%. Anyone who has the Holy Spirit groans awaiting eagerly the redemption of the body.
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You groan for the sin in you that we looked at in the first hour this morning, you groan about that sin, grieve over that, you groan for something you don't yet have, longing for the redemption of the body.
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And Paul reiterated this in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 2, when he declared, for in this, and he's referring to our earthly bodies, in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, our house, which is from heaven.
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So the groans of a Christian are not just for a new body, one that works better, one that's not so old, one that's not so fat, one that works better, whatever, one that has hair, but all that that transformation represents, it's sort of theological shorthand.
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And six verses later, he again uses kind of theological shorthand when he looks forward to what we, when we will be, says verse 8, present with the
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Lord. Just another theological shorthand to talk about the same experience. So when he's talking about any of these, redemption of the body, to be present with the
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Lord, so forth, all of that is the longing for this totality of the experience that is ours when we have our glorified bodies, we are holy in mind and body in every part of us, and we are in the presence of a holy
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God. That is the longing of anyone who has the
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Holy Spirit. It's a mark of true Christianity. Well, okay, someone says, you know, it sounds great, but what does that look like on Tuesday afternoon?
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What does this look like Thursday morning when I'm doing what I'm normally doing on Thursday morning or Monday night?
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What's that like in real life? An excerpt from the diary of David Brainerd gives an example.
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He was a missionary to the Indians in this area in the mid -1740s. He died of tuberculosis in the home of Jonathan Edwards at age 29.
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Edwards collected his diary and he published a short biography of Edwards, and it's still in print some 350 years later or 250 years later, and yeah,
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I am told it has been used of God to call more people into missions than any other single book.
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An entry from 1742 is typical. June 12th, Saturday, June 12th. Spent much time in prayer this morning and enjoyed much sweetness.
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You're going to see that word over and over. Felt insatiable longings after God much of the day.
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I wondered how poor souls do to live that have no God. The world with all its enjoyments quite vanished.
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I see myself very helpless, but I have a blessed God to go to. I longed exceedingly to be dissolved and to be with Christ to behold his glory.
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Oh, my weak, weary soul longs to arrive at my father's house.
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Sort of looks like. Notice that sweetness and the joy he spoke of that permeated these groans.
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Like the Apostle Paul, he said, we're groaning, longing for the redemption of the body.
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We're earnestly desiring this. And it's sort of a mixture of a longing for what you do not have.
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It's the agony of separation from something you want very much.
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And yet in the midst of that, the Holy Spirit intersperses a sweetness and the happiness into those groans.
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This is what C .S. Lewis portrayed in his retelling of the old myth of Cupid and Psyche in his book called
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Till We Have Faces. Think of a Christian's longing to be in heaven and to be with Jesus.
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That's what this is about. Do you long for heaven and to be with Jesus?
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Think of that Christian's longing. As Psyche explains to her friend, it was when
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I was happiest that I longed most. It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine.
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Do you remember? The color and the smell and looking across at the gray mountain in the distance.
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And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing. Always longing.
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Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche, come.
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But I couldn't. Not yet come. And I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me.
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I felt like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home.
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The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing to reach the mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from.
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Does Psyche's words give expression to your own soul? Has the
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Holy Spirit of God put longings into your soul that all the beauty you see in this world only causes you to long for the place where all the beauty came from?
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This is only representative of something that as beautiful as it is, cannot satisfy you in this world.
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That all the sunsets that you see, all the beautiful fall foliage that you see, only causes not just an enjoyment of what you see, but a longing for the source of that beauty.
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For that place where all the beauty comes from. For the one who made it all.
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Do your longings seem to be made for fulfillment in another world?
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Does this other home, this other world begin over time to seem more natural to you than the one that you're living in?
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These are the groans of a growing Christian. You know that God has made you for communion with Him and your soul is never at rest until you're at home with Him.
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When that longing is fulfilled in a place, it must be in another place because all the beauty
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I see in this world does not satisfy. That this kind of groaning that growing
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Christians have, this is a groan for holiness, ultimately. As I mentioned earlier, the aging experience that I now have have tempered my evaluation of the often heavenward mindset of these elderly folks that I pastored, but I am still reluctant to ascribe to all desires for heaven to be rightly motivated.
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The older I get, the more quickly my body fatigues, the more wearying each of those hundred airplane rides a year gets, the more often
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I wake up in places and think, now where am I? The more
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I sympathize with the desire for rest.
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Eternal rest. But Muslims want that. Buddhists want that.
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Atheists want that. So am I going to assure myself that I'm in the faith because I want what self -confessed
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God -haters want? I mean, there's nothing uniquely Christian for wanting an end to some wearying existence and to begin a new and restful one.
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That's not necessarily a Christian desire. And in a similar way, just to long for relief from the cares of the world is not exclusively
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Christian. Everybody dreams of a time when you can lay your burdens down, your responsibilities are gone.
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So should we build our confidence that we're growing in grace? We're becoming more like Jesus just because we want what everyone in the world wants?
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I don't think so. And like the desires for rest and relief, longings for reunion with long -lost friends, our children, our parents, our brothers, our sisters.
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By itself, those are no indications that we are Christians. That's as common among non -Christians as Christians.
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Realistically, it's no mark of faith at all, but rather just a mark of what the Bible calls in one place natural affection.
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Natural affection, under normal circumstances, all parents love their children. And all people love their friends.
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So just because we have natural affection and it causes us to long for reunion with those that we miss and we love, that's no mark again.
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Even the eagerness to be with Jesus is not necessarily the mark of a Christian. It could be just natural curiosity.
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Some people want to see Jesus in the same way they'd like to see the Virgin Mary or King David or some other famous person.
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So the question is not merely do you yearn for heaven and do you yearn to see
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Jesus, but which heaven and which Jesus do you yearn for? That's the big question.
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Increasingly, growing Christians long for a holy heaven. We long for holy relationships, not just nostalgic ones.
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We long for a place that is holy, not just a place of rest. We long for reunion with holy people, not just people that we have known and loved in this world.
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We sigh to see a holy Jesus, not just, oh, it'd be interesting to see him after having read all these stories.
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We ache and become more and more homesick for a holy place and a holy body and to be with holy people and to see the face of a
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God who is holy, holy, holy. That's what a Christian increasingly longs for.
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We ache to share in heaven's rest and reunion and relief, of course.
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But there's more than that. As Jonathan Edwards put it, but neither a longing to be in heaven nor a longing to die are in any measure so distinguishing marks of true saints as longing after a more holy heart.
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In describing his own spiritual cravings, Jonathan Edwards said in another place, the heaven
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I desired was a heaven of holiness, to be with God and to spend my eternity in divine love and divine holy communion with Christ.
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My mind was very much taken up with contemplations of heaven and the enjoyments there and living there in perfect holiness, humility, and love.
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Not just rest and reunion and relief, but I long to live in holiness and humility.
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I'm sick of my pride, and I'm so aware of it. And I long to live in a place of love, of perfect love.
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And his younger friend, David Brannard, shared this heartbeat with him and with all growing Christians. On October 26, 1744, he wrote, my soul was exceedingly grieved for sin and prized and longed after holiness.
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It wounded my heart deeply, yet sweetly, to think how
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I had abused a kind God. I longed to be perfectly holy, that I might not grieve a gracious God who will continue to love, notwithstanding his love is abused.
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So there were these sweet reminders that though I had grieved God, yet he continued to love such a one as me.
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And I longed, that made me only long to be with him all the more. So what grieved me that I had offended him, yet this made me long to be with him all the more.
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He longed for a holy body, that he would no longer sin against this holy God. And all that's consistent with Paul's description of a
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Christian back here in Romans 8 verses 22 through 23, where he says, Not only this, but also we ourselves having the firstfruits of the
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Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves. This is Edwards, this is Brainerd, this is Christian. We grown within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies, to live at last free from the presence of sin in our minds and in our hearts and in our bodies, to exult in the breathtaking presence of the
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Lord Jesus himself, to be completely free from sin and reflecting the glory of God.
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This is the burning hope that obsesses the heart of every growing Christian. Now if there's anyone in the world who would be looking forward to the redemption of the body more in a physical sense than in a spiritual one, it would be a
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Christian in circumstances like the quadriplegic Johnny Erickson Tata. And yet, like all growing
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Christians, her greatest groans are for holiness more than health.
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I heard her say this with my own ears. People say, you must be looking forward to heaven, thinking I'm looking forward to getting my new body.
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And after more than 25 years in a wheelchair, it's true that I am. But more than I'm looking forward to my new body.
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And her voice began to crack with emotion. She said, I am looking forward to a heart without sin.
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Elsewhere she's written, most people will continue to think that getting a new body is my focus, but I can't wait to be clothed in righteousness without a trace of sin.
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For me, that will be the best part of heaven. Yes, she's longing for a new body. She's talked about how she's going to dance before the
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Lord with the freedom and the expression of finally this new glorified body whose legs she's not been able to move for more than 30 years now.
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But she says, more than that, I'm looking forward to a heart without sin.
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That will be the best part of heaven, not the new body. So this purity of heart and this desire to see the
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Lord, these are Christians' highest hopes and deepest longings. As Martin Lloyd -Jones has summarized, what are you looking for and hoping for in heaven?
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Let me ask you a question that perhaps you'd come before that. Do you ever look forward to being in heaven? The person who looks forward to death simply wants to get out of life because of his troubles.
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That's not Christian. That's pagan. The Christian has a positive desire for heaven and therefore
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I ask, do you ever look forward to being in heaven? But more than this, what do we look forward to when we get to heaven?
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What is it we are desiring? Is it the rest of heaven? Is it to be free from troubles and tribulations?
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Is it the peace of heaven? Is it the joy of heaven? All those things are to be found there, thank God, but that is not the thing we look forward to in heaven.
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It is the face of God. Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see
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God. Oh, to stand in the very presence of God, to gaze and gaze upon God.
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Do we long for that? Is that heaven to us? Is that the thing we want above everything else?
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And the growing Christian says, yes, it is. Growing Christians groan after holiness in heaven more than anything else.
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In 2 Corinthians 5, 2 that we looked at earlier, Paul described the heavenly holiness we groan for also something we are earnestly desiring, not just desiring, but earnestly desiring.
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Now, years before he had written that, he was given a glimpse of what awaits us in heaven.
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He saw heaven and he saw things that he could not describe and was not even permitted to write about that couldn't have clearly if he did.
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And after that, he said this, but if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit for my labor.
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Yet what I shall choose, I cannot tell, for I am hard pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far.
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So he wrote to these people and say, you know, I think about the good I could do by being here, the people that would come to Christ, the churches that could be strengthened, the miracles perhaps that might flow through my hands, all the wonderful things that might happen through the preaching of the gospel.
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And he says, I want all of that. But he said, you know what? Part of me says I'd be willing to leave all of that just to be with Christ, because that is better.
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Right. Is that what he said? No, not just better. What he said is far better.
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There's no comparison. It is far better just to see him than to see him do all of these things through me just to gaze upon God.
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It's far better because of his beauty, his immensity, his glory. It's inconceivable. It's indescribable.
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And that alone is far better than the greatest things that could ever happen here on earth.
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Consider, again, the intensity of those words there in five to where he says we grow earnestly, desire we grown for this, earnestly desiring this to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
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He writes like a man who has tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and he has found that taste addictive and indescribable and irresistible.
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He could not get enough. He groaned earnestly desiring the one thing that could satisfy him.
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That was this rapturous, full -faced enjoyment of God himself. It's incomparable,
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Edwards said. The enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied.
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To go to heaven fully to enjoy God is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here.
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Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives or children, or the company of earthly friends are but shadows, but God is the substance.
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These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the ocean.
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Brainerd is another who thirsted for this holy ocean of God more than anything else.
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Tuesday, June 15, 1742, had the most ardent longings after God that I felt ever in my life.
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At noon in my secret retirement, I could do nothing but tell my Lord in a sweet calm that he knew
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I longed for nothing but himself, nothing but holiness, that he had given me these desires, and he only could give me the thing desired.
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Lord, you know I want nothing but you and holiness. You gave that to me, Lord, and you are the satisfaction of all of this and what sweetness he found in the hope of all that.
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Jesus said in Matthew 6, 21, for where your heart is, what else will be there?
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Your treasure will be there. When your treasure is in heaven, as it was for Paul and Edwards and Brainerd and all other growing
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Christians, your heart aches to be there, and our treasure sits at the right hand of God, and our heart longs to be there.
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And that is not to deny that God gives other longings. And these other God -given longings may be strong, and they may be lifelong.
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I mean, the desire to get married, the desire to have children, the desire for job satisfaction, all of these are
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God -given kinds of desires, and they may be very right.
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But even if you wanted any of those or anything else as much as Johnny Erickson Tada wants to walk, maturing
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Christians would say, with Johnny, that year in and year out, over time, there is nothing that out -growns are grown for holiness.
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I started out by saying that growing Christians are groaning Christians, but just the opposite is true. Let me close by saying that groaning
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Christians are growing Christians. Groaning Christians grow for two reasons.
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One, they set their minds on things above. One of the ways a Christian grows is by thinking much about great things, thinking much about the kinds of things that are so great they have the power to change your life.
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Rather than thinking about mundane kinds of things or things that are only temporarily or shallowly changing, you think about great eternal things that are greater than any others, such glorious things of God.
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Those have the power to captivate and to change your whole life, and no more powerful or worthy subjects to consider than the
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Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, the redemption of the body. And we take seriously as well as joyously the command in Colossians 3, 1 through 2, seek those things which are above where Christ is.
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Sitting at the right hand of God, set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth. Your great treasure is sitting at the right hand of God, so your heart should be much there also.
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You'll soon be living there. You know, when you're soon to be living in another place, you start thinking about that other place, don't you?
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You start looking at maps. You begin to wonder what life is going to be like there because you're going to soon be living there. And when you know that your treasure and your home is in heaven, you begin to think more and more of that place.
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That is normal, healthy Christianity. There's probably no greater example of heavenly -mindedness than the
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English Puritan pastor writer Richard Baxter. He lived during most of the 1600s, and though he was in terrible physical condition nearly all of his 76 years, he was perhaps the most heavenly -minded man.
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Now, he had some theological quirks we don't appreciate, and he was no friend of Baptists. But nevertheless, he is the
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Puritan pastor extraordinaire to this day. In his books 350 years later, the best of them are still in print, and we still use them in our seminary.
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He lay sick and lonely in a house far from his home all during the winter of 1646.
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Imagine how miserable that would be. You're being told you're going to die. You're far away from home.
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You're not with your family. You're in a strange house. You're there all winter. He was, as he said, sentenced to death by the physicians.
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But for his own use, as he felt like it, he would write out his meditations about heaven, which he seemed so near to entering.
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And this began what may be his most important book, The Saints' Everlasting Rest. And he believed to be these extended thoughts about heaven so beneficial that after he recovered, he disciplined himself to meditate on heaven, often while walking, for half an hour every day of the rest of his life.
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And the final product, which was published several decades later, was a monumental still -in -print book that's one of the most influential
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Christian books ever written, called The Saints' Everlasting Rest. And this practice of heavenly meditation, as he called it, transformed
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Baxter, and it will transform us. Now, it's unrealistic to think of giving half an hour of thought today to any one single subject, but we can, although we find his practice unworkable, we can find his intentionality something we can adopt, and resolving to devote some time to thinking on a regular basis of the world to come.
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And I hearken back to what we said last night about meditation on Scripture, the importance of value of this, to think at least some time on a regular basis of our heavenly home.
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And the one who is to come and take us there would encourage us, would embolden us, would strengthen us, it would invigorate us, it would illuminate us, it would ravish us, it would de -stress us, and anyone who cannot find time to meditate on Jesus or on heaven is spending more time doing things they ought not to be doing.
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They're either wasting time or busier than God intends. The mind never stops.
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The Puritan writer Nathaniel Renu on a book on meditation compared it to a water wheel, by a mill, as you had them here, the old mills with the wheel, water in the wheel in the river, and as the river, since it's always going, the water wheel was always turning, the mill wheel.
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It might be disengaged from the gears, but that the wheel itself was always turning. He said the mind is like that.
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Even when you're asleep, the mind is dreaming, the mind is working. So why not put the best grist into that mill?
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He said, why not put the best thoughts, and what are the greatest thoughts? Thoughts of God, the things of God. Set your mind on things above.
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Those are the greatest things, those that are big enough to grab you and to transform you and to change our lives.
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What better things could we ever think about than Jesus or heaven? And finally, growing
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Christians purify themselves in anticipation of seeing the pure one.
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The apostle John wrote the inspired assurance that when Jesus is revealed, 1 John 3 .2, when
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Jesus is revealed, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. The sight of such a glorious God will absolutely and literally transform us as we are glorified by his power reflecting the glory.
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Then note what he says about those who groan with the anticipation of seeing him. He says, and everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.
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How many of those people, what percentage of those people who truly return for the anticipate the return of Christ purify themselves?
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He says everyone. Everyone who truly anticipates the return of Christ, the pure one, purifies himself.
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They don't just yearn for the return of Jesus, they are affected by it. It is so remarkable, it is so great, it is so life -changing and transforming to think that Jesus Christ is coming back to this world and he's coming back for certain people who need to be ready.
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Those who truly look forward to that are affected by it. They're in the grip of that groan. They don't just yearn for it, it affects them, it changes them.
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If they sincerely long to see a holy Christ, they're growing more like Christ. Your longings toward heaven pull you toward it.
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You can't just wait for holiness, you have to pursue it. Do you have this hope of the one who is to return?
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And if so, how has it affected you? How does it cause you to purify yourself?
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How are you growing in Christ's likeness because of your view of the return of Jesus Christ? Now, Lord willing, in about 32 hours from right now,
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I'll be on a Northwest Airlines jet descending in the heartland of our country and with the, for our own time, the rays of the sun just about horizontal to the earth as it is setting and sun over the golden fields there, largely because of drought, but the wheat fields and the cornfields, the hedgerows, the woods and fields, the farms, the heartland of our nation as we descend into Kansas City.
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I'm going to be thinking more and more about who's waiting for me there and what it will be like when
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I get there. The closer you get to the end of the long journey, the more you anticipate who is there and what it will be like when you get there.
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How about you? Are your thoughts increasingly homeward nowadays?
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The closer you get to your heavenly home, the growing Christian will, for the right reasons, think more about a holy
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Christ who awaits and a holy heaven. And as you do, you will yearn.
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And it will look something like this. Would you turn with me to 382?
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It will look something like this. High King of Heaven, my victory won.
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You are my victory. The victory is won. May I reach heaven's joys,
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O bright heaven's sun, heart of my own heart. Whatever befall, still be my vision,