John 17:24-26 (A Prayer For Heaven)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you.

Now if you've been around the church long enough, and I don't mean the Shepherds Church, I mean the church, the

Church of Jesus Christ, the body of Christ. If you've been a Christian long enough, then you will know that Christians don't always believe right things.

Sometimes churches teach wrong things. Sometimes seminaries, whole seminaries, teach wrong things.

For instance, there's a seminary in New York called, what is it, Union Theological Seminary, where they teach that we should worship plants on the same level that we worship

God. And those errors trickle down into thousands, tens of thousands of mainline churches all across the country.

Error trickles down into the church, trickles down into the congregation, trickles down into the home, trickles down into the children, and it seeps in everywhere.

Now there's some error that creeps in that's well -intentioned. I would say that worshiping plants is not, but there are errors that creep in that are well -intentioned.

We have differences of opinion. There's folks who are, let's say, dispensational, and those who are post -millennial, and we disagree congenially.

We disagree as brothers and sisters in Christ. You think you know me well enough to know which side

I fall on that one, and I'll argue it ardently, but it's a intermural debate.

It is a well -intentioned error, I believe, on the part of the dispensational, but that's one type of error.

There's other errors, though, that result from tradition. We don't know why we do this. We just do it because our parents did it, and their parents did it, and their parents did it.

That kind of error comes in through uncritically receiving something and not being a

Berean. Now the topic we're going to talk about today falls into that category of error, where there are things about heaven that we believe, that we believe strongly, but they're not actually in Scripture.

They've been handed down to us all the way from the medieval era, and there are things that we believe are actually in the

Bible that are not. I would say that one of the most misunderstood aspects of biblical theology is the theology of what heaven is, and I would go even as far as to say that the

Bible is not really specific on what heaven is. It doesn't give us great detail about what heaven is, and in the parts that it does, like in Revelation, they're highly symbolic areas of the

Scripture, so that really the teaching that we have of heaven is actually quite sparse, because the point of Scripture is not that we would hope in a place, but that we would hope in a person.

So today, I do want us to look at this doctrine of heaven.

We're going to do so through John 17. Now, there's lots of different things that we believed, or maybe we grew up believing, that aren't in the

Bible. Like, for instance, when we get to heaven, we don't become angels, in the same way that goats don't become sheep, that I'm...

In many other ways. That idea came in through the medieval church. It came in through the church because saints, people who they believed lived especially holy lives, they would paint their pictures after they died with halos over their head and with wings out in the background, and because they did that, the average person in the church believed that,

I'm going to be an angel when I go to heaven. That's not what you're going to be. There's a great

Christmas movie that adopts this sort of weird theology. It's called It's a Wonderful Life.

Great Christmas movie. But I'm going to tell you, every time a bell rings, someone who went to heaven don't get their wings.

We don't ride on clouds. That's another one. Heaven would be really boring if all we do is ride on clouds with like the millennial selfie face.

We don't wear shimmering diapers and PJs. We don't play harps. All that's made up.

There's no theological merit to any of that. That has as much theological merit as saying that the Greek pantheon exists and you can purchase

Odin's raven at the nearby pet store. Heaven is not a kumbaya circle where we sit with hands held together like in How the

Grinch Stole Christmas and sing Davudores. Heaven is not an eternal Augustinian chant where we're all really bored, but we're all really involved in the

God. That's not what heaven is. Heaven is not where we're welcomed by St. Peter at the pearly gates and he tells us whether we made it or not.

Heaven is not a line that we have to get into to make sure that we get the pass or fail. Heaven is not fat shaman babies that ride around on clouds.

That's not heaven. That's mythological. And they're cute, but that's not heaven.

Most of what we believe about heaven has come in through church tradition and not actually from the

Bible. And if you put your faith in that sort of shallow veneer, you really aren't going to have much hope because the biblical view of heaven is better and deeper and richer.

And today, I hope that we can change that and then we can talk about what heaven really is.

Now, to do that, we're going to have to close out John 17. John 17 is coming to an end. This will be our 10th message in this great high priestly prayer that Jesus prays and he covers everything in his prayer.

And this is a fitting ending to the high priestly prayer because Jesus prays through the entire story of redemption in this prayer.

He prays for us or he prays for his disciples first, then he prays for us, then he prays for our salvation, our sanctification, and now our glorification.

So he's praying about the entirety, the whole gamut of redemptive history from start when you become a

Christian to the moment you die and you're with him in heaven, his prayer covers all of it. So it's a fitting ending that he would pray in his final moments, a prayer about heaven.

So today, will you turn with me to John 17 for the final time, verses 24 through 26, as we read this passage and as we dive into what is heaven.

John 17, 24 through 26. Jesus says this,

Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me would be with me where I am so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Oh, righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you and these have known that you sent me and I have made your name known to them and we'll make it known so that the love which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

Let's pray. Lord, I pray today that we would see that the essence of heaven is not a place, but it's with a person.

The entire hope of heaven is not gold streets, pearly gates, and big mansions.

The hope of heaven is being with Christ forever. Lord, let that encourage us, let that strengthen us, and let that fuel us in our lives to be obedient here and to live heavenly lives even as we march toward the heavenly city.

Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Now, heaven is where, first point, heaven is where Christ wants us to be.

Christ desires that you and I would be in heaven. He says in verse 24, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am.

This is a really fascinating point, that Christ is not looking at us as pitiful orphans that he has to love.

He's looking at us people he wants to spend time with. He wants to be with you. He wants you to be with him in heaven.

And this is not Jesus sort of generically saying, Father, everyone who says the salvation prayer,

I want to be with them. The people who choose me, I'll choose them, which is kind of what we do, right?

I'll love the people who love me. No, Christ in his omniscience is saying,

Father, every single person that you chose by divine election, I want to be with me.

And at the time, you imagine Jesus looking and thinking through the annals of history, however long the church lasts, however long

Jesus tarries before he returns. And he looks at the thousands of years, the 10 thousands of years, however long it is.

And he looks at all of the sin and the misery and the failure that we perpetrated against him before we were saved.

And then even all the sin and misery and failure that we perpetrated after we were saved. And you look at the love that he says that I want to be with them.

It is astounding to be loved like that. The fact that he wants to be with you should so deeply encourage you that you never are discouraged.

The antidote to depression, the antidote to anxiety is not the pharmaceutical industry.

I'm not saying that it's never justified to take medicine. I'm saying that the most encouraging thing that you could ever go through is not a reuptake inhibitor.

It's that Christ Jesus loves you and wants to be with you. That, brothers and sisters, is a simple message that if it works its way down into your bones will change you.

That Jesus wants to be with you. Not in bite -sized blocks like we do at Thanksgiving, where we invite the people we really don't like over and pretend like we like them for a little while.

That's not what Jesus does. He wants to be with you forever, in eternity, which is such a lovely thing to consider.

And this tells us something about heaven. You're not going to arrive at heaven with a celebrity

Jesus who's too busy signing autographs to spend any time with you. You're not going to arrive to an aloof

Jesus who doesn't have time to notice you. You're going to get to heaven one day.

And we could talk about heaven as a spiritual place and then ultimately as a physical place because we are going to be in body, in heaven, new heaven, new earth.

We're not going to get into that today. So I'm just talking about heaven in general right now.

When you get to heaven, you're going to see Jesus with a smile on his face saying,

I've been waiting for you. I'm glad you're here. Way different than aloof Jesus or powerful, stoic

Jesus. Jesus is powerful, but he's powerfully loving and he wants you to be there. He said it.

I'm not making this up. He said, I want them to be with me. And this tells us something about earth as well.

Not only is heaven the place where Christ wants us, loves us, and even smiles that we arrive to be with him, earth is a place that's no longer filled with troubles for the believer.

Yeah, in this life we do have troubles, but fear not, he says, I've overcome the world. When you know that the only hell that you will ever experience as a

Christian is the small, tiny life that you live here on earth and that you are working and laboring and moving towards an eternity with the one who loves you in a love that you can't even comprehend.

It makes even your suffering here on earth sweet. It makes even your pain here on earth tolerable because it is light and it is momentary and it is producing an eternal weight of glory that cannot be taken from you.

I don't want to sound flippant here. I do want you to hear the dichotomy that I'm building. I don't care what it is that happens to you.

It can be sweet and it can be a moment for worship because the one who loves you perfectly wants to be with you in eternity and will make sure you get there in his election.

All who've been given to Christ by the Father will come, that's a promise. So whether it's pain or suffering or misunderstanding or brokenness or relationships or whatever it is, brother and sister, do not let that afflict you, do not let that define you, do not let that shape your emotional character and makeup because the one who loves you perfectly, his love is sweeter than that, it's better than that, it's more powerful than that.

Your identity is not in your pain, your identity is in the love of Christ. That's why

Paul says that no one can separate us from the love of Christ.

He doesn't say that no one can separate us, neither height nor depth nor power or hell or anything else in all creation can separate us from Christ.

He already knows that. He's telling us something even more profound than that. He's saying that not only can you not be separated from Christ, you can't be separated from his love.

Neither cancer nor bankruptcy nor abandonment nor someone cheating on you, nothing can separate you from his love.

Dear brother and sister, hold the love of Christ as your north star.

You want to know what heaven is? Heaven is more than some of the cheap, cheesy, hallmarky things that we have made it.

Heaven is the love of Christ poured out forever on you in a way that you can experience that you can't now.

So in our life, we work, we labor, we don't get discouraged, we don't give up, we don't pout and mope and say that this life is too hard.

Well, Jesus loves you though. Christ has poured out his affections on you.

This life is temporary. Hold your head high even in your pain and your suffering because Christ loves you.

It's kind of like that moment when a man is so close to getting married that it drives him crazy and his wife is like this beautiful shining beacon of light that he can't stop staring at and he's driven mad because he's like,

I just want to get to the altar. I just want to say I do. That man, he could be ran over by a car and nothing is going to stop him from getting to that altar.

He's like, I consider this not even worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed on the day of my wedding. Why don't we say that about Jesus?

Why don't we say that about heaven? That none of this is going to affect me.

Nothing's going to get me down. In Christ, because he loves me, I'm untouchable. And that's not just a mindset and an attitude.

That's true. Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Not trial, not heartache, not brokenness, nothing.

That is what heaven is, is being in the love of Christ forever. And it makes you bulletproof in the same way that it made

Paul bulletproof, in the same way that it made Peter and James and John. I think because we have a shallow view of love, we have given over to all sorts of temptations to whine and to grumble and to be frustrated.

Brothers and sisters, his love is better and sweeter. Rest in that. Take the example of the wedding,

John 14. Jesus says, in my father's house, there are many dwelling places.

And if it were not so, I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you. This is a verse that is talking about heaven.

And yet this verse is really cultural as well. Jesus is borrowing from marriage language when he's talking about heaven.

Because in that time period, a young man would say, you know, I really want to marry this girl.

He and his father would go together and they would go to talk to the woman's father and they would sit down at a table. They would have a glass of wine together and they would work out the terms of the bride price.

And they would say, this is how much it's going to, that the bride price is going to be. And then as soon as that negotiation was finished, they would pass a cup of the covenant where they would both drink from the cup.

And they would say that this is the cup of the covenant. And then the man and his father would go back home.

And that young man would start working on building a room onto his father's tent. And he would spend hours and hours, days after weeks, even months building this place so there'd be a fit dwelling place for his bride.

And he's going to do everything he can to make sure that this is a beautiful dwelling place for her because she is precious to him.

That is what Jesus is saying that he's done for us. He has left us here to go back and make a dwelling place for us so that we will be with him forever and he will fully furnish it.

Now, at the same time in that culture, when the man was going off doing his thing, the woman did not sit idly by.

She did not, she didn't get into the latest TV show in the ancient

Jewish world, whatever soap opera it was at that time. She worked diligently.

She prepared herself. She beautified herself. She beautified her character. She took up different disciplines that she was going to need to be a wife and a mom.

Before she even had children, she started making little outfits for her babies. She started gathering together the plates and the utensils or all of that stuff.

She gathered for herself all the items that she would need to be a faithful wife so that when her bridegroom came and said that he had come, she would be ready.

That is a picture, brothers and sisters, of what we are to do on this earth as Christ is in heaven preparing a place for us.

We are to make ourselves ready. Whatever it is that you need to do in this life to prepare to live with him forever in heaven, do it now.

Live as if heaven is coming, not like it's a surprise ending in your story.

Heaven is not streets of gold, pearly gates, and MTV cribs. Heaven is a home where the true and perfect husband dotes on his bride forever.

Heaven is a place where a loving king holds court with his citizens and wants to see them face to face.

Heaven, as Jonathan Edwards called it, is a world of love. It's a realm of limitless affections.

It is the best love that you've ever encountered times infinity, so much so that you can't even comprehend it because we have such low views of love.

That's the first thing. Heaven is where Christ wants us to be. The second thing is heaven is where our soul wants to be.

Heaven is where our soul wants to be. From the very moment you became a Christian, the Holy Spirit took up residence in you, and the

Holy Spirit is producing affections for you that are otherworldly, affections that can't be satisfied in this life and in this world.

You can try. You can build your castles. You can build your little kingdom, but they will not be satisfied because you were made for another world.

Pilgrim's Progress is a great example of this, the man Christian. Christian doesn't get freed from burdens if you read the story.

Every page, Christian is falling into burdens. You're like, he just got out of the city of sin.

Now he's back in, you know, this next thing, and that's what life is. But if you'll notice that Christian, over the course of his life is learning how to have joy and learning how to lean into what the

Spirit is telling him, so that he learns how to avoid sin, so that he learns how to live like heaven were already reality, so that by the time he finally gets to the celestial city, his heart is so full, it's ready to explode.

He treated earth as the training ground for heaven, and somewhere along the way, many have lost that.

We treat Jesus as a decision that we make in the beginning of our faith, and something we'll come back to when we're dead.

Instead of the one who saved me, the one who's preparing me for heaven, the one who's calling me to live like heaven here on earth, and the one who, when

I see him, will say, well done, good and faithful servant. My life is about Christ, and so is yours.

It's not a one -time decision, it's the starting line of a lifelong journey that will bleed fantastically and beautifully into eternity, which means everything about your life is

Christ. Heaven, again, is not just a place, you're not longing for a paradise or a beautiful city.

Now, the scriptures do talk about heaven in that way as a garden. It does talk about golden streets, it does talk about those things, but the point is you are not hoping and wishing for that.

You're not wishing for health and wealth. Maybe your back hurts every day, maybe you have a bum knee, whatever it is, and you're like, oh,

I can't wait to get to heaven until that. That's not what heaven is. That is a consequence that you will barely notice in the presence of Christ.

Someone will point out, hey, on earth, you hobbled a lot and you walked like a hunchback, your back must be feeling better.

I hardly noticed I'm in the presence of Christ. That's what heaven is.

John Piper says it really, really well in this quote. I normally don't do quotes, but this is a good one.

The critical question for our generation and for every generation to answer is this, if you could have heaven with no sickness and with all of your friends that you've ever had on earth and all of the food that you ever enjoyed and all of the leisure activities that you've ever participated in and all of the natural beauties that you ever saw, all of the physical pleasures that you ever tasted with no human conflict, no natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ were not there?

It really gets after the point, doesn't it? Heaven is not a place, a state of mind.

It is not primarily those things. It is about Christ. He becomes our all -consuming passion.

He becomes our joy. He becomes the living embodiment of our hopes and dreams so that if we have Christ, we have everything, which, brothers and sisters, let me tell you, that changes the way we view earth.

I don't care what grotto you put me in. I don't care what back alley you're put in.

If you have Christ, you have everything. And if you don't have Christ, I don't care where you're at.

Let it be Rodeo Drive or let it be some other swanky place that you and I probably will never go to.

If you don't have Christ, you have nothing. It's not about the place. It's about the person.

This longing that we have for Christ is produced in our regeneration by the

Holy Spirit's indwelling who makes us want to turn to him, want to see him.

It turns our faith into sight. It causes this intermittent presence that we experience now to one day be constant and overwhelming in eternity.

It's a testimony to the Holy Spirit's work that you want Jesus. People ask me all the time, how can I have assurance that I'm saved?

There's two simple answers to that question. I don't care what your lips say because your lips will lie.

Are you learning to hate the sin that you once loved? And by God's grace, are you learning to love the

Christ that you once hated? If you are, that is great evidence that the

Holy Spirit of God has wrought in you something eternal. And that is what heaven is, is loving

Christ and him loving you for all eternity. And that becomes our motivation in how that we live here on earth, where we want our life to smell like heaven, our house to look like heaven, our behavior at work to be a living picture of heaven for all those who are living or they're heaven now.

There was a pastor that, pastor, forgive me, I don't want to be too polemic, in Houston, Texas that I talk about a lot, who talks about living your best life now.

And I love John MacArthur's response to this. If you're living your best life now, then you're going to hell.

It's not about us living our best life now. It's about us living for Christ so that in eternity, that's all we experience.

The little bit of hell that you experience here on earth is temporary compared to the glory that's going to be revealed on the day of Christ. So that's the second thing.

That's what kept David awake at night. Psalm 16, 11, David says, you will make known to me the paths of life and in your presence of fullness of joy and your right hand, there are pleasures forever.

We'd said it earlier in the call to worship. The thing that kept David awake at night, the thing that enthralled his heart was two things, being in the word of God and being in the presence of God.

Those two things defined him and may that define us as well. There are pleasures forever.

The worldly pleasures that you were promised in sin and in misery, they will poison you.

The pleasures that are found in being in Christ, seeking his word and seeking to be in his presence.

Those things redound into eternity. That's what made Paul exclaim in Philippians chapter one. He said, for me to live is

Christ and to die is gain. If somebody said that today, they would call the suicide hotline to live as Christ, but to die is great gain.

If I'm to live in the flesh, that will be fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which to choose. I'm hard pressed from both directions.

Having the desire to die, to depart and be with Christ for that is much better. Do you live your life with such passion for being with Christ that even if you got hit today by the greyhound, the proverbial greyhound, and you knew it was going to happen, you would be okay because you're going to be with Christ.

There is nothing holding us to this world that's so sweet as that.

That's why Paul was hard pressed. He's not making that up. Paul is a very serious and sober writer.

He's saying I'm hard pressed because I really want to be with Christ. I want to be with him. I think we have to live in such a way that we long to be with Jesus, like children waiting on Christmas morning, that it consumes half of our year.

I remember when one of my children, December the 26th, started telling me what they wanted next

Christmas. And I was like, can we please just get into the next year? But that level of captivation, being held captive, again, not by the place called heaven, but by the person,

Christ. That level of captivation should lead every step we take on earth.

Again, heaven is not clouds and harps and little fat babies. Heaven is a world of love where Christ wants us to be with him, where Christ himself is, and where our soul by the spirit of God is bubbling up inside of us affections for heaven, for him.

Heaven is the end of the hateful curse. And the most important part of that is your heart will be set free to finally worship him as he is owed.

The best part is not that your toe bunions are cured. Maybe that's good for you.

The best part is that your heart is set free to where you can finally worship and where you can finally understand his love for you.

We don't understand it fully. In heaven, we will understand it better. Jonathan Edwards says it like this, the enjoyment of God is the only happiness with which our soul can be satisfied.

To go to heaven, to fully enjoy God is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here on earth.

If you haven't read it, I would recommend reading Jonathan Edwards' Heaven is a World of Love.

It's a long sermon. It's a 40 -page little booklet, but it's absolutely incredible the way he focuses on this topic because we're not longing for shining buildings and glittering pajamas.

We're longing to be with Christ. He is our hope. Now I'll admit that the world that we live in has a way of dampening our affections.

The here and now, the thing that's pressing on you seems nearer than Jesus. Heaven sometimes seems far away from our perspective and what we're going through right now.

The rent that's due feels more pressing than being in heaven. I get that. I get that the world has a way of choking out and dampening so that we view this as very far away.

There's two real errors when it comes to heaven, I think. The first is believing that it's so far away

I can't even imagine it, that it's inaccessible to me, which leads us to despair and discouragement.

When all the things that we're struggling with and hurting for are more visceral than the reality of heaven, we're putting over into despair and discouragement.

The other error, which happens, I think, less, but it's still an error, is to view heaven as so imminent that we forget to live on earth.

There's a little phrase I've heard someone say that they're so heavenly -minded they're no earthly good. What that means, not that it's wrong to be heavenly -minded, but they've become lazy and docile because they're daydreaming.

They've forgotten that Christ has left us here for a purpose. Yes, he said, I desire for them to be with me, but he also says

I'm not going to pray for them to come now because he has a plan and a purpose for us.

He plans that we would be with him at the end of a great marathon of faithfulness and not as a shortcut to faithful action.

Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 says we're saved by grace through faith so no one can boast, but it also says in verse 10 that we would do the works that God had prepared beforehand for us to do.

There are works on this earth that God has prepared for you to do and he's unwilling to take you out until they're finished.

In that sense, I would ask us to believe the Lord's words that we've been left here for a purpose while we yearn for him.

It's both. It's not yearn for him and do nothing and it's not do everything and forget about him.

It's both. As you're doing everything you do, do it for Christ.

It's bring Christ into your family, in your job, in your everything. It's not that Jesus is a part of your life or that church is a piece of your life.

It's that invades every aspect of your life so that you parent now with Christ, that you do your relationships with Christ.

You go to work with Christ. You do everything you do. Take out the trash, clean your house.

Whatever it is that you are doing now, you're doing it for the glory of God. What is the chief end of man?

It's to enjoy God and glorify him forever so that everything that you do now is an act of worship.

Whether you eat, whether you drink, you do it all for the glory of Christ. Your life is about glorifying Jesus and showing the world a living example of heaven here on earth.

Colossians 3 .1 says, therefore, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Heaven, brothers and sisters, is not something that is disconnected from our reality.

Heaven is where Christ is, and being with Christ is where we are. So when you go to work, you're with Christ.

When you lead family devotions at home with your children, you are with Christ. In everything that you do, maybe you go to the town meeting and you express your opinion on the direction that the town should go.

You're doing that as a Christian, as an ambassador of heaven. And knowing this fuels us.

If you know this, that everything in your life is about Christ. There's a great slogan out in Moscow, Idaho at Christ Church.

Their mission statement is, all of Christ for all of life, for all the world. It's excellent.

All of Christ for all of life, for all the world. Jesus brings his truth and his gospel into every nook and cranny of your life.

And when you know that, it fuels you. It changes you. Knowing what we are going to experience in heaven in the future makes us better and more faithful in the present and infuses everything we do with purpose.

So for instance, some of the most basic elements of who we are as people is that we're male and female.

Ladies, your femininity is under the banner of Christ. So be a woman to the glory of Christ.

Work relentlessly to build up your home and make your home a microcosm of heaven.

Let your children see heaven in your heart. Let your world that you've built in that little home be a microcosm, a little sanctuary of heaven that tells the story of Christ, a roadmap to the little travelers that God has entrusted you with.

Don't let it be decorated with purposelessness. Don't labor for lesser loves.

Let heaven be the bright shining reality that your children see.

And what is heaven? Heaven is being with Christ. Let your children see that in you. Moms, daughters, women.

Because everything you do has eternal consequences. Make your home a picture of what is to come and the Lord will be well pleased.

Men, we have to work like Protestants. Brother Derek said this the other day at a meeting and I thought it was so good.

We have to recover a Protestant work ethic. Our job is to go out into the world and to cultivate and to procure and to extract resources and to bring them home and to put them in our wives' hands and watch her multiply them to the glory of God.

Brothers, let no one ever say that Christians are lazy. Brothers, let no one ever say that they can replace you.

Let your job see you as invaluable as you see Christ. Let them never say that Christians make second rate production.

Let them look at you as their best and most trusted employee. Let them see you excel to the glory of God.

Let them see you be the most creative person on their payroll. Work circles around the pagans and smile at them and tell them

God loves them. Bring more joy and more energy and more sweat and tears to your job than anyone else.

Because what is it that they're working for? They're working for something as shallow as the earth's crust.

That's it. They're here today. They're gone tomorrow. You're working for something that is deeper and better than anything else.

So work hard. Be the best employees. And if this is new to you and you're hearing this, you say, yes,

I need to do this. And next quarter, when you get your employee review, they say, what has changed? You say, my heart, because Jesus gave everything for me.

So I'm going to give now everything to this job and I'm going to work my butt off for the glory of God. I'm going to do it for him, not for you.

Tell them that. And they're not going to understand it. They're going to look at you sideways like a cow looks at a new gate. And you're going to let them watch you over the course of time, be baffled by the fact that Christ so winsomely won your heart that it changes every aspect of your life.

And they're going to be astonished. If the whole

Christian church lived with one foot on earth fully to the glory of God, and yet with our heart fully one foot in heaven, where every aspect of our life was under the

Lordship of Christ. If we lived like this, the world would not know what to do with us.

If we labored hard, long and well for the glory of Christ, they wouldn't know what to think.

Because everybody I've ever met is trying to find this balance, especially at work, on how can

I do the least amount of work that I can do to make sure that I still get my paycheck. How can

I cut corners here or there? I'm not, no one, no one that I know of ever has given all their heart to a job.

Everybody complains and whines. Everybody stands at the water cooler is like, oh, I can't believe what the boss said.

How refreshing would it be to see people who are captivated by a vision of heaven come in and say, we're going to work hard today, guys, and we're going to do it for the honor of Christ.

We're not going to complain, because what do we have to complain about? He saved me, and he can save you too. That vision is compelling, because we are the only people on earth who have a song in our heart that Jesus put there, and nothing can slow us down, shut us up, or stop us except for our own flesh.

Repent of that and be joyful in the deep abiding truths that Christ has deposited in you.

And that's where I want to go next. We're getting close to the end, but I want to talk about this for a second, because this is important.

The world's motivations are shallow. They're as deep as their opinions, they're as deep as their fickle heart, and they're as deep as the earth's crust.

It's like trying to tap into a mud puddle and hoping that it will sustain you. It won't. It'll be gone on the first sunshiny day.

Your life is rooted to something deeper and better, and it is the triune God. You, brothers and sisters, are connected to the love that the

Father has always had for the Son, that the Son has always had for the Spirit, that the Spirit has always had for the

Father. It's His love that you've been connected to in union with Christ. Let me explain this, or show you an example.

Verse 25 and 26, O righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you, and these have known that you sent me, and I have made your name known to them and will make it known so that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them.

Jesus is saying that He did not bring us to a place where God loves us.

No, that is true, but that's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, I brought you to a place to where you experience the love

God has for me. Think about how astounding that is, because in our mind, when we're honest and we're really honest with ourselves, we could say,

I don't deserve to be loved. That's not the love that you get as a Christian. You get the love that God has always had for Jesus.

You get the love that He has always had for His beloved Son. You get that love because you've been made in union with Christ.

So I don't really care whether heaven is a garden, whether it's a mountain, or it's a celestial city. What really burns my heart up and captivates my heart is that I get to experience the way

Jesus has been loved for eternity by being in Christ. That is better than anything you can imagine.

You don't deserve to be loved like that. I don't deserve to be loved like that, but because Christ Jesus died on the cross for your sin, you get that.

You get the eternal love of the Father for the Son forever. It's more powerful than a nuclear reactor.

It's brighter than any star. It's stronger than any sugar. It is more concentrated than anything you can imagine.

It is the love of the Father for the Son you get forever. Again, heaven is not

God's love for us. It's God's love for Him poured out on us. Brothers and sisters, let that shock you.

Let that shake you. Let that define you. Let that consume you. And let that fuel you to a life of faithful obedience because you're not loved like you deserve.

You're loved like Christ is loved forever and for all eternity. The final thing

I would say is in light of these things, it doesn't matter if heaven has golden streets, pearly gates, and rubies and emeralds, and even if it does have little fat babies.

That doesn't matter. What matters is that Christ wants you there, that your soul wants to be there, and in eternity you get

God's love for Jesus. That is the most important thing. So heaven is not a place. Primarily, heaven is a person, and it's a relationship, and that is what's going to make your toes curl forever, not that I'm walking on really nice carpet or whatever.

That fuels our work in this present world, and I would say that it gives us great energy to serve

Him with everything we've got, to leave everything on the table because when

Christ Jesus died for you, He left everything on the table for you. When we talk about how hard we work, whether it's in the home, or whether it's in the workplace, whether it's in our community, or whether it's in our church, whether it's in our family, or whether it's with our friends, when we talk about how much of ourself we give, the world always holds back and says,

I'm going to give a little bit, but I'm going to match what the other person's doing. We're not matchers because He gave everything, and He called us to be like Him so that in Him we will love

Him with all of our heart, and all of our soul, and all of our mind, and all of our strength.

We don't live like we are Houdini, and we're trying to escape the world. Instead, we live like what we're doing in our lifetime is going to impact our great -grandchildren, that we're going to work, and we're going to build so that they'll be blessed.

This is why Jesus says in Matthew 6, 19, do not store up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys, where the thief does not break in and steal.

This is why the writer of Hebrews could say, but as it is, they, that's Christians, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one, therefore

God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

Do you know how God will not be ashamed that you call Him your

God? He's not ashamed of you, but it does say that there are some people that He's ashamed of the fact that they call

Him their God. The way that that will not be the story for you is if you live this life as if you're living for a better country, as if you're living for a better life, as if all of Christ comes into all of your life for the rest of your life, and that, my friends, will redound into eternity.

Paul, or the, Paul, the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, I just tipped my hand a little there, the writer of Hebrews goes on to say that they conquered kingdoms because of who

Christ is, that they built Christendom because of who Christ is, that they raised families that love

Jesus because of who Christ is, that they planted churches and started institutions because they read their

Bible and they know who Christ was, and they knew the power of God in the lordship of Jesus Christ. Look at what he says, this is the rest of Hebrews 16, and what more shall

I say? For time will fail me if I tell you of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who were not perfect, and we know that, but who by faith conquered kingdoms and performed acts of righteousness and obtained promises.

They shut the mouths of lions. They quenched the power of fire. They escaped the edge of the sword. From weakness, they were made strong, became mighty in war.

They put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their release so that they might obtain a better resurrection.

And others experienced mocking and scourging, yes, chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, and they were sawn in two.

They were tempted. They were put to death with the sword, and they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill -treated, men with whom the world was not worthy.

And they did it with a song in their heart because they knew Jesus Christ. They cannot take from you what

God has given. No one can steal what moth and rust cannot destroy. Everything you walk through, brother and sister, is an opportunity for your joy because you know

Christ. Let it define you, let it shape you, and let it be the thing that people know about you.

And I guarantee you, they will see your good works, and they will glorify your

Father in heaven. Again, I don't want to be unclear here. Your good works didn't save you, but the powerful

Jesus did, and He has good works for you to do. Do them faithfully, ardently, and let the world see

Christ in you. And they'll see the only picture of heaven, and pray that the Lord, through that, would cause them to cry out to God and say,

God save me, because if you could do that to this guy, you can do it to me as well. That's what heaven is.

Heaven is being with Christ in all His love forever. You can live that way today. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I pray that just by seeing

Jesus' words in this passage, that we would not adopt a view of heaven, that heaven is a way to escape the world.

Yes, when we are called to leave this world and to go and be with You, at least for a time, there is a place where we are going to be with You in spirit, and then

You're going to bring us back to new heaven, new earth, where we live physically with You. But it's not about escaping the world,

Lord. Heaven is about being with You, about receiving

Your love in full. And yet, Lord, while we receive Your love right now because of our sin nature in part, help us by the

Spirit of God to be able to grow. Help everyone in this room, Father, to grow in their affections for You, to grow in their captivation of You, to grow in their obedience to You, to grow in their passions for You, not as a futile exercise, but as an exercise of showing the world who is worth more than everything, to show the world

Christ. Lord, open our eyes to see the surpassing worth of Jesus Christ so that nothing else matters to us but Him.

Lord, help us to be so captivated by Christ that everything else fades. And Lord, help us in our behavior to demonstrate that with obedience.

Lord, you say in Your prayer, in the Lord's prayer, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.