What if I told you you could guarantee a glorious future? What if there was a way to choose good health, immense wealth, and happiness?
What if I told you that your choice is between that: an eternal future of health, wealth and happiness – or eternal suffering?
Sounds like a no brainer doesn’t it? Tough decision!
Because that’s what Jesus tells us. That’s the clear message of the Bible. We have a decision to make: health wealth and happiness – or suffering and pain. Heaven. Or Hell.
So, what’s the catch? What’s the cost? I’ll get to that in a moment. But now let’s just get clear what is on offer. We won’t sing the Blues in Heaven because we will be perfectly happy, healthy and wealthy. Although we might jam to some blues tunes! But we won’t be singing the blues. And we won’t sing the Blues in Hell because there will be no music in Hell. There is nothing good in Hell. Hell is by definition the absence of all good things.
That’s why Jesus says these words: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand than to go into the unquenchable fires of hell with two hands. 45 If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one foot than to be thrown into hell with two feet. 47 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It’s better to enter the Kingdom of God with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 ‘where the maggots never die and the fire never goes out.’” Mark 9:43-48.
Jesus, the Man of Love, the Man of Forgiveness, the Man who brought Mercy to the world. Those are his words. Do whatever you can to avoid hell. Hell is not a place you want to be.
That’s the reason that Jesus came, and that’s the reason that we are here. He came to warn us about hell. And he came to open the door to heaven. He came to say don’t miss this! Don’t miss out on the opportunity of a lifetime- a glorious eternal future. Whatever objections you might have about Christianity – put them aside for the moment, and just listen to what’s on offer. And then we’ll have time for questions and objections afterwards.
Just two points tonight:
1. Heaven is glorious
2. We get to Heaven through Jesus
1. Heaven is glorious.
Now when I say “heaven” that might not thrill you. In fact, it doesn’t really thrill me. It seems rather boring. I typed “heaven” into google. Every image was of blue sky with clouds and a bit of sunshine. Sometimes a few angels sitting about strumming harps. Is that a place you want to go? Well not me! Heaven seems absolutely boring.
But the Bible’s picture of Heaven is completely different. When the Bible talks about the future it talks not about Heaven but about the New Creation – really Heaven come down to Earth, and transformed this world.
It will be this world, but better. Sitting on clouds strumming harps. God forbid. No! Unless you really like harp music, in which case I’m sure there will be a special section for you. The Bible tells us that all the best and only the best of this world will be in the next. There will be great music in Heaven, the best music! Whatever you think in this life is amazing or wonderful or incredible – the Blues – that will be in heaven. The glory of this world will not be lost. So don’t miss out! But we won’t be singing the Blues. It’ll be happy Blues, Blues as it was meant to be sung from the creation of the world, sung in praise of Almighty God!
I’m going to read from the book of Revelation, the book that we’ve been reading through as a church as we hear described the glory and wonder of the new Creation.
Re 21:10 [I saw] the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone—like jasper as clear as crystal…. 21 The twelve gates were made of pearls—each gate from a single pearl! And the main street was pure gold, as clear as glass. 22 I saw no temple in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light. 24 The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the world will enter the city in all their glory. 25 Its gates will never be closed at the end of day because there is no night there. 26 And all the nations will bring their glory and honour into the city. 27 Nothing evil will be allowed to enter, nor anyone who practices shameful idolatry and dishonesty—but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Imagine that. A huge city, perfect, filled with people from all over the world, all equal in Christ, all colours, shapes, sizes, ages, nationalities, complete diversity, all praising God. The glory and honour of all the world is brought in. And we will recognise this world as it should have been.
The best things of this world are just a shadow, a pale reflection of the reality of then new creation. This beauty we are surrounded by here in Norway is incredible – but it is just a faint echo of the true beauty we will see on the Day Jesus returns and everything is transformed in an instant. Everything that is ugly and evil and dirty and broken will be gone, and only that which is perfect will remain. And we will see it with our own eyes. Don’t you want to be there?
You know, we recognise beauty now because it is an echo of that heavenly beauty, that purity. We feel it tugging at our soul saying “this is how things should be”.
We were created in perfection. In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, we read about Adam and Eve, the first two people that God created. He created them equal, he created them in his image, he created them male and female. And it was very good. They lived in perfection. And then they screwed it up. They decided to ignore what God had told them would hurt them. They decided that his word was dumb and their words were better. They would decide for themselves what is right and wrong. And everything fell apart.
They completely ignored God – and it messed up their relationship with each other. They immediately blamed each other for their problems and started arguing. It broke intimacy – before they were blissfully naked, perfectly open with each other. Now we hide from each other, and struggle to trust because we know we can be hurt.
It messed up their relationship with the world. Work became hard. The land resisted giving food. Natural disaster became normal.
And it messed up their relationship with God. No longer would he walk and talk with them in the cool of the day – now he was far and distant and sitting in judgement.
Everything was messed up.
And that’s where we are. Everything is messed up. The world is broken. People are broken. And we can’t reach God.
We long for perfect peace. We long for harmony even in our own lives. Our home. We long for someone to love us perfectly and where we don’t need to fear the ones we love hurting us and letting us down. We long to be back in the Paradise of Genesis, before we decided that God was dumb and we are oh so clever – and proceeded to mess everything up.
That’s what the Bible calls sin. Now sin isn’t naughtiness, or something like the adverts like to use it “it sinfully delicious”. Sin is more like poison. It is the poisonous self-interest at the centre of every human heart. We filter everything through “is this good for me”? We as people are utterly self-absorbed. Selfish. Egocentric. If you don’t believe me, just look at kids. The younger the better.
ILLUSTRATE: my niece - Angry with Mom for being sick in hospital! She took it personally. Irrational. But that’s how we feel. She’s a human. Kids need to be told with divorce that it’s not their fault. Always think we cause it. So egocentric. The universe revolves around us. And as adults we just hide it better, or life has let us down so much that we know that we’re not in control. But we’d still like to be. The poison is still there.
Poison needs to be rooted out.
Now the poison of sin doesn’t mean that we can’t be nice people, or be unselfish, or love! We’re not always self-absorbed narcissists going around shoving people out of our way!
But it’s like this glass of water. If I put a drop of poison in it it doesn’t mean that all the water has turned to poison. But it does mean that all the water is poisoned.
So people still do wonderful things – but even the best things we do are tainted by sin, by that poison of self-interest.
It is no surprise to Christians that the only economic system that works is capitalism, because capitalism assumes that people are selfish and will act in their own self-interest. Communism assumed that people would act for the good of the community. That it failed horribly tells us a lot about ourselves as a human race.
Everything we do, say and think is affected by sin. Not everything we do and say is poison, but all is poisoned.
And the problem is that that poison, our sin, bars us from Heaven. We’re going to miss out. Instead we will be given what we have chosen. We will experience the consequences of our choice to ignore God and do our own thing. And that is hell. Hell is not God being mean. Hell is God letting us do what we want! The problem is when you let selfish people do what they want – what they really want – that’s not very pleasant. The Blues understands that. When the powerful and the rich do what they want they oppress the workers, they oppress the poor. The Blues teaches us that sin is real! And that sin left unchecked is hell.
So, if we don’t want to experience hell – how do we get to Heaven. How do we ensure that we don’t miss out on the greatest experience ever: the New Creation!
Heaven is glorious. And
2. Jesus is the way to Heaven.
Jesus warned us, pleaded with us, to do whatever we can to get out of hell. Because the reason he came was to make it possible for us to get out of hell, and experience heaven instead.
In Mark 9:31 [Jesus] said to [his disciples], “The Son of Man (this is what Jesus called himself) is going to be betrayed into the hands of his enemies. He will be killed, but three days later he will rise from the dead.”
The reason Jesus came was in order to die. Because dying and being reborn is the only way to get to heaven. In heaven, the new Creation, there will be nothing evil, nothing sinful, nothing imperfect. Only the best. So we can’t get there. We’re sinners, poisoned, not perfect. There’s no way back. Except by dying and being reborn… perfect.
It’s like pottery – if the clay starts going wonky – you’ve got to squash it down and start again. I watched a glass blower and a smithy at the Sølvgruvene here – and it’s the same with them. Any imperfection and it’s back into the fire, melted down and you start again, blowing, or banging it into the perfect shape.
To now miss out on heaven we need to be remade, reborn. But how can you do that? Because if we die – we just go straight to hell. No rebirth. The only way we can die and be reborn is if someone does it for us. Someone needs to step in as our representative, die in our place, and give us new life. And that is what Jesus does.
That’s why the gospel means good news for everyone. It doesn’t matter what your life is like. You past does not matter. It makes no difference where you’ve come from or what you’ve done- Because all that will die. Your life dies with Christ on the Cross. He carries it with him in his death. And you are reborn with his life.
It is a swap. We get his perfect life. We are reborn. And he takes our imperfect life.
Isn’t that fantastic news.
However, I said there was catch. And here it is: you actually have to die to your old life and be reborn. Jesus put it like this: Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 35 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. Mk 8:34–35
It costs everything, and it costs nothing. Everything because we die to our old life and now live for Christ. He is our new manager, his words are what matters. And that’s great because it’s the best way to live. A taste of heaven. He knows how life works because he made us. We are no longer slaves to sin, but now FREE! No need to sing the Blues, but we can sing joyful blues, if that’s possible!
Let me just speak for a moment to those of us who have been reborn. We belong to Jesus. Everything we do and say should be done and said to his honour. In the new creation everything we do will be perfect. What are you doing or saying now that you wouldn’t be doing or saying in the new Creation? What am I doing or saying now what Jesus would not be doing or saying. Or what am I not doing and saying that I know I should be?
What is amazing is that the rebirth we get isn’t just once off. The rebirth we get is permanent. It isn’t well here you go, good luck now I’ve given you a start. No. We get not just Jesus’ birth, but his life. So we are already seated in heaven. Let’s act like it. And when we fail, which we will, we simply ask for forgiveness. Then we repent, stop doing the wrong thing, and start doing the right thing!
But is it worth it? It’s a big ask. I know my generation is paralysed by fear of choosing something, committing to something – because what if something better comes along. Well, nothing better will. This is the best of the best. Jesus proved it by healing people, casting out demons, walking on water, quieting a storm, forgiving sins, and, oh yes, rising from the dead. He shown us good credentials. We can trust what he says. And this is what he says. I’m going to end by reading his vision of heaven given to John. Revelation 22:1 Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. 2 It flowed down the centre of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. 3 No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. 4 And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. 5 And there will be no night there—no need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever. 6 Then the angel said to me, “Everything you have heard and seen is trustworthy and true. The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants what will happen soon.” 7 “Look, I am coming soon! Blessed are those who obey the words of prophecy written in this book.”
Be blessed. Choose Christ. Don’t miss out. We don’t need to sing the Blues in heaven, because heaven is glorious. Don’t miss out – ask Jesus for his new life, because Jesus is the way to Heaven.
I hope we are all together singing the not Blues in the new Creation. Let’s rock! Amen.
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