Once upon a time
there was a man who loved his son very much. He taught him how to catch a
baseball, he coached his hockey team, he took great pride in him and supported
him in all his ventures and passed on those life lessons that fathers pass down
to their sons. As with all children, they grow up and as they do the times when
you can pass on your wisdom get fewer and fewer. The same was true for this
father and son.
It was the
summer just before his last year of high school, the last year before his son
would be leaving home, that the father arranged a fishing trip for them both. After
both father and son had drowned a couple of worms each the father asks his son:
“So .. what are your plans for this year?”
“Well,” says the
son “I plan on continuing on with basketball, cut back in some my extracurricular
activities and studying hard so I can hopefully a scholarship.”
“And then what?”
says the father.
“Well, I would
like to get my science degree.”
“Oh,” says the
father “and then what?”
“Well, with my
science degree can open a lot of doors, but I hope to become a doctor.”
“And then what?”
“Well, I would
like to get married, have a couple of kids and work on my career.”
“And then what?”
“I hope to be a
good dad and husband and I hope to do well financially.”
“And then what?”
“Probably
retire, travel, and spend time with my grandkids.”
“And then what?”
“I will probably
get old and eventually die.”
Then the father
puts down his rod and looks his son in the eyes and after a moment or two says “And
then what?”
“What do you
mean?” asks the son
“All you have
talked about are your plans for this life, you haven’t thought about the next
at all.”
Our text today
is out of 2 Corinthians 4 and 5. “Our bodies are gradually decaying and
becoming weaker. [I can certainly give a testimony on that one] But our
spirits inside of us are growing stronger each day. These little troubles that we face here on
earth are getting us ready for an eternal glory that will make all of our
troubles seem like nothing. [Now
listen to this] The things that are seen don’t last forever but the things that are not
seen are eternal. That’s why we keep our
minds on the things that we cannot see. [That’s why we are having this
series.] Our bodies are like tents that
we live in here on earth. But when these
tents are destroyed God will give us each a new place to live and our new
bodies and homes are in heaven and they will last forever. These physical tents that we now live in
right now are heavy burdens and we groan not just because we want to leave
these bodies that are going to die but because we want to exchange them for
bodies that will never die. God is the
one who makes all of this possible and He has given us His Spirit to make
certain that He will do it. So always be
cheerful. As long as we are in these
earthly bodies we are away from the Lord.
So we live by faith and not by what we see. [I can’t see God. I can’t see heaven. I can’t see angels. I can’t see all the spiritual realities so he
says we live by faith not by what we see.] We’d
rather leave these bodies and be at home with the Lord [In other words in
heaven] but whether we’re with the Lord
or whether we’re away from Him we still try our best to please Him. After all Christ will judge each of us for
the good or the bad that we do while living in these bodies.”
The point of our
opening story, the point of this series and the point that Paul is making here
in 2 Corinthians is that our world and our lives made up of more than just
physical realities, there are spiritual realities too. Like the young lad in
our opening story most of us spend our time completely focusing on the physical
realities of life that we ignore the spiritual realities of life. Yet Jesus
came to this world because of the spiritual realities of life, He preached
about the spiritual realities of life, He was nailed to the Cross because of
the spiritual realities of life, and He rose again because of the spiritual
realities of life. Instead of focusing our lives solely on the physical and the
here-and-now, we should be living our lives in the light of these spiritual
realities. These are the eternal realities that are going to last forever.
Our word for the
day that we all read together from 1 Corinthians 13:12 says “Right now we are looking in a mirror that
gives only a dim reflection of reality.
But one day we shall see reality face to face.”
What are the
realities of life and what are the realities of the universe?
They’re all
found in our Bible, God’s word. This
morning I want us to look at five spiritual realities that we need to live our
lives in the light of.
The first reality of life is this: God made you to love you.
And He wants you to learn to love Him back. That is the first and foremost reality of
life, that God exists and He made you to love you and He wants you to love Him
back. That is one of the reasons we call God “Father” instead of Creator. It
speaks of the personal, intimate relationship that He has with us. He gave us
life with love and joy in His heart and wants us to feel the same about Him.
You were made by
God and you were made for God. Until you
understand that, life isn’t going to make sense. Because it’s all about God and it’s all for
His glory. God made you and He made you
to love you. We are the children of God.
He created us in love and He’s given us the capacity to get to know Him and learn
to love Him back. That’s the first
purpose of life – to learn to love God back.
That is what the great commandment is all about “Love God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself.” God is saying I made you to love you and I
want you to learn to love Me back. It is all through the Bible.
Jeremiah 31:3
says “I have loved you with an
everlasting love. And with unfailing
love I have drawn you to Myself.” God says “I’m trying to draw you to Me. I want you to get to know Me. And I want you to understand how much I love
you.” He wants you to know and love Him
back. We see this love displayed in John 3:16 which says, “For God so
loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Because God is love, He gave humanity life at creation. He
then offered humanity eternal life again through Christ. God continues to offer
humanity His life because He still is love - perfect love. He never changes.
When people are drawn to accept God’s offer of love and
life in Christ, they are born again and called children of God. The Apostle
John affirms this truth when he writes, “See how great a love the Father has
bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God.” God loves us so
much He intimately endears us to Himself by calling us His children. We are so
completely loved by God that nothing will separate us from Him.
We see this clearly through the words of the Apostle Paul
when he says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall
tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved
us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord
The second great reality of life is this: you were made to last forever.
One day your
heart’s going to stop and that’s going to be the end of your body but it’s
certainly not going to be the end of you.
The Bible says that you and I, as human beings, were created in the
image of God which means God put in us eternity. In fact, the Bible says this in Ecclesiastes
3:11 “He has planted eternity in the
human heart.” That’s why, no matter
how good things are going for us, at one point in our lives we start saying to
ourselves “There’s got to be more than this.” We say this because at some level
we know that God has placed eternity in our hearts.
And the truth is
there is more than this. There is much more. Heaven. You’re going to spend far more time on the
other side of death than on this side.
On this side you get sixty, eighty, a hundred years. On the other side of death, you get trillions
and trillions and trillions of years.
This is the warm up act, the preschool, the first lap around the
racetrack. But the real life is going to
go on in eternity.
The Bible says
that this side is getting ready for that side.
Life is preparation for eternity.
You were made to last forever.
And He put eternity in your heart.
Because of that we have the third great reality of
life. The
third great reality is that God has prepared two eternal places – heaven and
hell.
Heaven is real
and hell is real. And by the way,
they’re not just states of being.
They’re not some kind of Morpheus, no body, float in the clouds. They are literal places. There’s a real place called heaven and there
is a real place called hell. We’re going
to look at these for the next two weeks.
The Bible tells
us first that there’s a real heaven.
Jesus said this in John 14:2-3 “I’m
going to prepare a place for you.” Notice. Heaven is not an accident. It’s a prepared place. He says “I’m
going to prepare a place for you.”
Notice it’s a
place. It’s not a state of being. It is an actual place. I’m going to prepare a place. And who is heaven prepared for? For you.
God prepared it for you. To be a
part of His family. He says “And if I go and prepare a place for you I
will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am you may be
also.” I am there and I want you to
come to. That is the miracle of Easter.
The Bible tells
us a lot about heaven and we will be looking at that in weeks to come. But ebfore we move on let’s look at Matthew
25:34 Jesus says “Come you who are
blessed by My Father. Take your
inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you
[There it is again God preparing heaven for us.] since
the creation of the world.”
Notice that when
God created the world He was also creating heaven. Why? Because this is not your permanent resting
spot. This is not your permanent abode. Since
the very beginning God has been working to bring His children home. Heaven is a
real place.
But hell is also
a real place. Notice what the Bible
says, “Jesus said, ‘Then He [God] will say to those on His left ‘Depart from
Me you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his
angels.’” Satan’s angels are called demons.
Satan rebelled against God. Hell
was prepared for the devil and his angels.
It wasn’t originally intended for human beings. Did you get that? Jesus said, “I’m going to prepare a place for
you. It’s called heaven. But hell was prepared for the devil and his
angels.”
If I choose to
reject God – just like Satan did – I go where Satan goes. This place was not originally planned for human beings. It was planned as a punishment for Satan and
his angels. So there is a real heaven
and there is a real hell.
Here’s the fourth reality:
you get to choose where you’ll spend eternity.
It’s your
choice. This is the same kind of choice
that God gave to Israel Israel
We see this
again in Deuteronomy 30:15 & 19 “See! I have set before you today life and good or
death and evil.” He says, “Here’s a
choice. You can choose between doing
good and life or you can choose doing evil and death.” He says, “If
you obey My commandments by loving the Lord your God. [Again this is the great commandment] and by walking in His ways [He says if
you do that] then you’ll live and you’ll
multiply and I will bless you. But if
your heart turns away from Me to worship other things [Anything you put
before God in your life, you worship. If
you put your career before God, if you put making money before God, if you put
having fun before God, anything you put before God becomes your god in your
life and you worship it. …] if your heart turns away from Me to worship
other things and to serve them, then you will perish. Therefore choose life. [You get a
choice.]
Choose life that you may live.”
Let me give you
this example. Let’s suppose you are a drug addict and you’re living in the
gutter, in Skid Row. Your life is
falling apart because you’re hopelessly addicted to drugs. You have no home and you haven’t eaten or
even bathed in days or weeks and your life is a mess.
Then someone
comes by and says “Let me help you out.
I’m going to pick you up and I’m going to take you home to my
house. And I’m going to give you a bath
and I’m going to get you cleaned up and I’m going to give you a new set of
clothes. But that’s not all I’m going to
do. I’m going to let you live with me at my house. You can become a part of my family. In fact, I’m going to adopt you. You can take
my name and I will call you my son. I’m going to pay off all your debts that
you owe because you spent all that money on drugs. If you come with me you will have my name, my
credit, you can live in my house and you’re a part of my family. I’m doing this simply because I love
you.
“However if you
live in my house as a part of my family there are some house rules. You’ve got to abide by these rules if you’re
going to live in my house and be a part of my family. Rule number one is this: we don’t do drugs in
this house. We don’t do drugs at
all. So if you’re going to live here and
have access to all these free privileges and resources, we don’t do drugs in my
house.”
The offer is
made, “Come live at my house.” But you are free to reject it. You are free to
say “No thank you. I am going to stay here.” Is the offer gracious? Yes. Is it
made out of love? Yes. Would you be a fool to reject it? Yes. Yet many have. Many
have said “No” and stayed on the streets despite the efforts made by moms and
dads, brother and sisters.
And my friends,
this is the same offer God has given us.
I hear people
all the time say “How could a loving God send people to hell?” God doesn’t send people to hell. Imagine if
you had two children and then were told to make a choice of sending one to the
electric chair and the other to Harvard University on full scholarship. You
would either refuse to make that choice or, if you were forced to make a choice
would go to the electric chair yourself and have both kids go to Harvard.
That’s the choice Jesus Christ made. God doesn’t send people to hell but we can
choose to go there.
It’s like
there’s two doors in eternity. One goes
to heaven, one goes to hell. The one
that goes to heaven says, “You come to Jesus.
This is the house rule. He’s
already paid for your ticket into heaven.
He’s already forgiven you. All
you’ve got to do is accept it. You just
accept what He’s done for you. It’s a
free gift of grace and you go to heaven.”
If you want to go to hell, you just do your own thing. You say, “No thank you. I’d rather stick with what I love more.” That
is the choice.
The last eternal reality we need to cover today is there’s
no chance, no second chance, after you die.
You get to
choose where you’re going to spend eternity.
But you have to choose now while you’re alive, not after you’re
dead. In other words, I can’t walk out
this door my way and then say, “I don’t like this. I want to go back.” No.
God says, “I gave you an entire lifetime to make this decision and you made
it.
So there is no
halfway house between heaven and hell.
There is no limbo. There’s no
purgatory.
Some of you may
have been raised Catholic. Purgatory is
not in the Bible. The word is not even
there. It’s not a Bible idea. It’s not something that Jesus or God
taught. It’s something that was created
eight hundred years ago in the middle ages. In fact, the Catholic Church does
teach it anymore. Pope John Paul II stated in a very public way that purgatory
was not a real place. Pope Benedict
changed the Catholic catechism and has taken purgatory out.
My friends, our
world and our lives are made up of more than just physical realities, there are
spiritual realities too. Instead of focusing our lives solely on the physical
and the here-and-now, let’s start living our lives in the light of these
spiritual realities.
These are the
eternal realities that are going to last forever. God made you to love you; you
were made to last forever; God has
prepared two eternal places – heaven and hell;
we get to choose where you’ll spend eternity; and we have a lifetime to
make this choice … but no longer. These are the spiritual realities we need to
live our lives in the light of.
I want to leave
you with 4 questions: why does hell exist?
What is it like? How do I avoid
it? (That’s the important one.) and What
do I do once I know all of this? Come back next week and we will talk about
them.
