How Heaven Can Inspire Us

Well, we've been reading a passage from the book of Revelation. It's a fantastic book. It's probably the place to go in a time of crisis, in a time of real suffering, something that we're all too familiar with in our own society, in our own world. Whenever we pick up the book of Revelation, there's a kind of fascination with it, isn't there? And we're fascinated by some of the detail about the last days, the consummation, the return of the Lord Jesus.

We read that sort of stuff and we almost forget the reason why it was written in the first place. We assume that the book of Revelation was written by some guy to give us some really good theology about heaven and about hell, for that matter. Someone who deliberately sat down and wrote a book on the consummation and on the last day. But that's not why it was written. It's not why John wrote it.

Revelation was written to real people who are facing real trouble, tremendous pain, terrible persecution, and the reason that John puts pen to paper and records what he's seen in these visions he receives from God, he's painting us a beautiful picture of the afterlife, of the next world, of the things yet to come because God, through His servant John, wants to equip His people to live a certain kind of life now that's going to be way different than what's happening in culture or in society around us. In other words, I want to suggest this morning that heaven, properly understood, adds great value, great meaning to our lives now, and as a consequence, makes a difference to the way we cope with adversity, with tough times. Now I know that goes against a lot of popular thinking today. It's popular to say that, at least about Christians, that Christians are so heavenly minded they're of no earthly use.

But I want us to know the exact opposite, and that is that Christians can be thinking so much about heaven that they are of incredible earthly use. During my most impressionable years when I was most vulnerable, quite a few decades now, John Lennon wrote a song called Imagine, and he taught a whole generation about heaven, and one of the things he urged us to do was to imagine there was no heaven. Now why would he think that would be a good idea? Imagine there's no heaven above us. Why would he use that as the lyrics of his particular song?

Well, the answer is simple, really. Without heaven, you're forced to live a good life now because that's all there is. That's all you've got to live for. And clearly, John Lennon was of a mind to encourage people to live good lives now. We're not averse to that, but we may be asking the question now, is it appropriate to imagine no heaven in order to do that?

Well, it wasn't that long ago that I was watching an environment show on television, one of those nature shows, and it was really stressing the importance of conserving our planet. It was a good program until the narrator got very unhappy about the whole idea of heaven. He said something like, you know, that heaven is one of the reasons why we misuse and abuse our planet, and until we realise that this world is the only world we've got, we're not going to take care of it. In a way, that's echoing what John Lennon had said in his song. Until we realise that today is all we have, let's live for today.

Imagine all the people living for today, and if we live for today and if we think that today is all we've got, then we're going to live it well and we're to take care of each other and we're to take care of this planet and we're going to make it a good world, a great world, and quite frankly, we're going to have a good day. And the Bible says no. Sin is far more pervasive than that. Despite our best aspirations and our best hopes, sin erodes even what little goodness remains in the hearts of men. We will never be able to create heaven on earth.

The Bible says heaven, properly understood, means that those who think about heaven the most are going to be of the most earthly use now. Now let's ask that question this morning. How does heaven make us live a good life now? A life different than people who might think they're only living for today. A good life now, an unusual, a remarkable life, a wonderful life.

And there are at least three ways that I can suggest this morning that come from the text. One, heaven gives us the reason to do earthly good today. Two, heaven gives us the strength for doing earthly good. And thirdly, heaven gives us goals beyond earthly good. Heaven gives us a reason for earthly good, and the reason for this is that heaven comes down.

Did you pick it up in the reading this morning that KJ read to us? John sees, and what he sees is this: he sees the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Notice in Revelation 22:1, it says, "Then an angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and from the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. And on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree, and why are the leaves of the tree there?

Therefore the healing of the nations, the healing of the nations. There is a popular view around, even in Christian circles, that suggests heaven is an alternative to this world. But the biblical view of heaven is that it's the healing of this world because at the end of time what we see is heaven coming down. The city, the New Jerusalem, coming down. What is heaven? Well, heaven can be defined as the place where God's glory is unhindered and unbound.

Heaven comes from God. Heaven is where the glory of God is so pervasive that it heals everything and everyone who goes there. Why don't you have, one of the reasons you have all these interesting references to a tree, the tree of life, and a river, and no more curse, is because Revelation 22 is telling us about Genesis. Because way back in Genesis 1 and 2, we see creation as God intended it, without the consequences of sin, where God's glory was on display without any hint of sin. It was there in the garden.

It was there in the way that Adam and Eve would walk with their God even in the cool of the day. Now heaven is going to be like that but even better. The day is coming when this earth will be transformed, renewed, without the possibility of being impacted by the contamination of sin. Because way back in Genesis 3, you know what happened. We humans decided to be our own masters, and then everything fell apart.

The glory of God was marred, blurred, and that has an impact on us today and we feel that, don't we? It's the contagion called sin, and everybody suffers from it. As a result, by nature, we're alienated from God. We're cut off from Him, and as a result, psychologically we fall apart. We just don't know who we are anymore.

As a result, socially we fall apart. Gender against gender, class against class, race against race, and it's true to say physically we fall apart. We're all getting older. We're all subject to decay, and even death, and that's evidence of the contagion of sin, the curse of sin. Heaven is the glory of God where we shall see Him face to face.

Heaven is where the glory of God is unbound. Heaven is where the healing power and presence of God is, and it's there waiting for us. Heaven is a dramatic reversal of the curse of sin, and eventually heaven comes down, and it's for us, and it's a new earth, for the old order of things will pass away. So heaven doesn't mean an alternative to this world. It really is about the rehabilitation of this world. When Jesus comes back, the world is rehabbed, so to speak, and this is the reason why you have all these references to healing in Revelation 22.

So heaven gives us a reason and a motivation for looking at the curse of sin, the suffering and the issues of society, and then taking them very, very seriously. There's a great example from a secular book called The Rise of Christianity by Ronald Starks. He's a sociologist and a historian, and he's trying to answer the question, why did Christianity succeed in the Roman Empire? Why was it in particular, he asked, that for about a hundred-year period did Christianity go from being about 8 per cent of the empire to almost 50 per cent? And in the book, he talks about two great plagues that ravaged Rome in the first two centuries after Christ.

The first one came through in the year 165 and then lasted for about fifteen years. The second one came through in 251 and lasted also for fifteen years. We don't really know exactly what these plagues were. Historians have read some of the references and inscriptions that have been recorded. Some will say it's smallpox; others will say it was measles or something like that.

But here is what we do know. It was actually very devastating, and particularly in the cities. It was so devastating that during the height of the second plague, five thousand people a day, or thirty-five thousand people a week, were dying in the city of Rome. And it was way back in the day when Rome itself couldn't have been more than a million people. Think about that for a moment.

In both cases, twenty-five, thirty-five per cent of the whole population of the Roman Empire was wiped out during those plagues. The Greeks, the Romans, the majority of the people were pagans. They had no idea how to cure this disease, but they did know one thing: that the disease was spread through contact. That's how you caught it, through contact. As a result, the rich, and get this, even doctors, left the cities. And we know there are an awful lot of accounts of even families who, when they saw a family member really getting very, very sick, that they would abandon that family member.

They left one another. They left the sick in droves. They left the cities in droves. But not the Christians. What the Christians did was to stay in the cities, and not only did they care for their own sick, but they had nurses who went out and brought in the sick and the dying, those pagans who made up the bulk of the Roman Empire. As a result, many Christians died.

Died. Why? Why would they do it? Why the difference between Christians and pagans? Well, clearly pagans don't have any assurance about an afterlife, but Christians knew that this world, as wonderful as it is, is not all there is.

It's just a foretaste of what's to come. The world is just a prelude, in a sense, to something far greater, far more wonderful, and they knew that death could do nothing except take them into glory. More than conquerors is what they were as they went out and helped the sick and the dying. They did it for the sake of glory, not for their own glory, not for success, because many of them died, but clearly they were driven by God's glory and the glory of heaven that was waiting for them. So you see, heaven made them of some real earthly use, incredibly earthly use.

Their knowledge of heaven made them healers, in a sense, made them real heroes back in their day. They had the gospel; they had the hope of eternal life, and as a result, Christianity grew. It flourished, and thousands and thousands of pagans had Christians to thank for their life, and the gospel took hold, and the church grew. And the first thing you see here is that heaven gives you a reason. Therefore, it gives you a reason for doing tremendous earthly good. Heaven means that you live with the idea that the best is yet to come. That Christians of all people can afford to sacrifice.

But if there is no heaven, if today is all you've got, if you're living for the moment, then why should you? Why should you? Those early Christians in Rome can teach us something. Their example to us is something we should consider in the face of a worsening pandemic. This is a time to witness to the world that we of all people do not live in the fear of death.

That we have the hope of heaven to do us some earthly good, even if that means paying the ultimate price. And as far as we know, the first people who are reading the book of Revelation did not face a plague, but what they were facing was persecution, suffering at the hands of their persecutors, a tremendous amount of persecution. Now let me say that I'm not suggesting we become reckless or not adhere to official warnings that take place, and indeed you could argue the reason for this service going digital is because we're adhering to the warning, but I am inviting us to think seriously about being the salt and the light that we read about earlier in the service and just what it means to be more than a conqueror in today's world. Thinking about heaven then, a second reason we can put out there this morning is that thinking about heaven gives us strength. Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.

We like to sing about it, don't we? Heaven is the reason not just to do earthly good but for the strength to do good, and especially in the face of suffering. One of the things that I think this text is trying to get us to do is that it's trying to get us to imagine heaven. Up in verse 21, it says, "The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass." And I wonder, did you notice something there?

Every time the Bible gives us a description of heaven, it's always qualified by this term "like". Heaven is like a kingdom. It's like pure gold. Heaven is like these things, and on the one hand, what that means is the Bible is asking us to imagine what heaven is like. It's like this or that.

Imagine. Bring it on. Think about it. Imagine it, if you will. But then the word "like" also says that when you've thought about how wonderful heaven is, then realise in all humility that it's even more wonderful than what your own mind had conceived.

The Bible says "it is like". Do imagine. Don't do as John Lennon suggested in his song "Imagine there's no heaven". Do the opposite. Imagine. Imagine heaven is like gold, a kingdom, a feast, a wedding.

It's like a river of delights. When the text says those things, what's going on? On the one hand, it's saying imagine it, embody it, paint a picture of it in your own mind, think about it. But then on the other hand, realise that really heaven is infinitely better than anything you and I can think of. Why?

Says Paul in Romans 8:18, a passage we, or a chapter we looked at earlier, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." The glory that will be revealed in us. What was Paul thinking? What was Paul imagining? How did Paul face his own suffering?

The same thing, in the same way, as the people who read the book of Revelation. Paul said, "I'm considering. I'm comparing." What do you do when you imagine? You're considering, you're comparing, you're saying heaven is like. What do you think worry is?

In worry, you and I are imagining. You're painting a picture in your own mind of what could go wrong. Paul says, if you want to live a life of strength and hope, I call you to imagine heaven and the glory of God. And if you're afraid and if you're sinking under our present circumstances, it's because you're not thinking. You're not imagining what heaven is like. You've thought about, you haven't been thinking enough about the clear glass. You haven't been thinking enough about what it means to be seen face to face, and more importantly, about whose face you will see.

You haven't been considering what you were created for, your true home. Instead, you're too busy thinking about your earthly home, even to the point where your pantry may be stuffed full of toilet paper. But this is no nonsense. This is matter of fact. The Bible says take the truth about heaven and the glory of it, and let it saturate your thinking.

Thinking. Let it overwhelm you. You. Think it out because that's how God gives strength. Heaven in that sense gives us the ability to face anything at all.

The hope of heaven gives us the strength we need to overcome even our own sickness, a disaster, a financial ruin, a relationship gone wrong, or a bad diagnosis from your friendly GP. Consider, compare, and suffering becomes just like a mosquito bite, really, not even that. Last thing, thirdly, heaven not only leads to a life of goodness, and you're able to do some earthly good because you know the reason for heaven. Heaven, secondly, heaven gives strength for living a good life, but thirdly, heaven actually takes the pressure off because heaven gives us goals beyond this earthly life, and taking the pressure off really allows us to enjoy this earthly life, and what I mean by that is that ultimately our goals as Christians are to be about heaven and not so much about earth. What's the text saying here?

In verse 4, "They will see His face, Jesus' face, and His name will be on their foreheads." There's a face here greater than the face of any lover, and there's a name here that's greater than any other name. "There'll be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord will give them light." This is saying there is a light that is greater than the light of any lamp.

Now what this means is that heaven takes the pressure off. If you look at your spouse, your children, your work, your job, and if you insist that those things must be the thing that fully satisfies you, and you put so much pressure on them that you demand that they have to perform, there are a lot of bridges that, if you drive over them, you'll notice there are warning signs before you approach the bridge. They'll say, "It's not safe to cross this bridge if your load exceeds more than so many tonnes." Let me just tell you that a spouse, a lover, son or daughter, a career, a political cause, a stock portfolio, some good investments, whatever they are, they're just bridges really, and you can only put so much weight on them or they'll crack. And there's one thing you cannot possibly do, and that is put the weight of your own heart on that bridge called your wife, your child, your career, or whatever.

Your ultimate hopes, hopes that everybody has. We all have them deep down in our hearts. We have these deep, deep desires, and you and I can't fulfil those desires and find anything in the world that will totally satisfy. Why? Well, there's this lovely little verse in the book of Ecclesiastes, and the wise preacher says, "He, that is God, has also set eternity in the hearts of men."

You see, what I'm saying is you can have the perfect spouse and still be hungry for love. You can have the perfect career, and I mean, how many people do you know in this world who have the best job ever, but they have to visit their psychiatrist and lie down on the couch every three months because they thought they were supposed to be happy. They thought they were going to be fulfilled. You see, unless you're imagining heaven and eternity, you'll be putting pressure on all these other things to take the place that God's put in your heart for eternity, and you won't be able to enjoy them because you'll always be looking at them, and they won't be fulfilling. They won't be meeting the real needs, the deep needs of your heart, because we all have it.

This thing called eternity in our hearts, and the Bible says the only thing that will satisfy that desire is heaven itself. Heaven is our true home, and only heaven will take the pressure off the things and the people and the relationships and give you and I a goal so we can properly enjoy those things and move beyond those things to one day have the ultimate goal of our life fulfilled in heaven. Now, here's the rub this morning. How do you and I begin to imagine heaven now, so much so that it's going to make a difference to your life now? How is it possible that Christians can be so heavenly minded that they are of some earthly good?

How do you get to the point where you know for sure that one day you will go there and your heart's desire will be satisfied, and the eternity that we can only begin to fathom in small ways now will be something that you'll realise, and you'll see His face, and you'll be in His company forever? Well, there's a subtle message going on in this text, and maybe it's not that subtle after all. As you've been reading the text this morning, did you notice that Jesus was never referred to by name? Well, His name is mentioned, but not the word Jesus. Jesus is referred to as the Lamb.

He's always called the Lamb. Now why? Isn't that finished? Isn't that over with on the cross? Why bring this up now in a discussion that John's having with his readers about heaven itself?

I mean, we all know, don't we, that He came as a Lamb. He came to die, but why is He still a Lamb? Why in heaven would we be thinking Jesus is still a Lamb? Isn't that over with? Well, think about it for a moment. The thing that enables you and I to enjoy heaven is the gospel, and the gospel defines Jesus as the sacrificial Lamb, and if you believe that you can get to heaven by doing good works or some other means apart from the gospel, you know, if I work hard in this life then God will owe me.

If you believe that, you'll always be using God to get things. You're trying to obey God so that He'll give you blessings, but that's not the gospel. When the gospel hits you, you realise that you're saved strictly by grace alone, not through your own works, and you need Jesus to be your Lamb, your substitute. Substitute. You see, the Lamb was the one who had to die so that you and I would live.

It hails back to the Exodus. Remember the Passover? Jesus is our substitute, and in Him we receive everything, and if that's true, then we don't ever use God to get things. Rather, we use our things to honour God. So the reason I do good works and the reason we are of some earthly use is to say thank you to God for the joy of knowing who He is and what is yet to come. The most important thing to know about heaven is that it is the glory of God. The crowns, the river, the fruit, and all the stuff is just imagery to help us see God and all His glory.

And it's the gospel, the Lamb. It is Jesus Himself that causes us to be a part of that, causes us now to consider, to compare, says Paul, to imagine heaven itself. And if you want to go there one day and you want your heart's desire for eternity to be filled, to be complete, then you need to know Him. You need to know Jesus because then, and not only then, will your heart be finally at peace, and you will have everything you want. He set eternity in the hearts of all humanity.

It's what our world needs to hear at this time. Heaven is the most important thing we have to take into our life now if we hope to live a life of tremendous good today. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you this morning for giving us these words about heaven. It humbles us, makes us very sober, because we know Your glory is on the line.

We pray that in some small ways we will be able to let go of the things of this world, to take the pressure off, and breathe a little more because we know the glory that is waiting for us. We thank you that we can be partakers of that because of who Jesus is. Thank you that He willingly stood in our place and so guaranteed us access to You today, now and forever. Lord, as we go out into the world yet another week, there's no telling what we will face. We hear the burden of the statistics that are growing the world over and even in our own country.

Only Lord, help us to consider, to imagine heaven, so that we can walk in life and walk with strength, walk with hope, so that we can walk sacrificially, even as Jesus walked on this earth. He came not to be served but to serve and give His life as a ransom for many. And so it's in His name we pray when we say together, amen.