Our call to worship this morning, Hebrews 9, verse 24. For Christ has entered not into the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Amen. Let's pray together. Open our eyes, Lord, that we may see the hope to which you have called us. Give us eyes that see, ears that hear, and hearts that understand. Remember us in your favor and visit us with your saving help, that we may see the good things you have prepared for your chosen children, that we may catch a glimpse of your heavenly Jerusalem, and that we may have a taste of the sweetness of your house. Dear Father, kindle in us an earnest desire to be with you in body and soul and to praise your name forever with all your saints in your eternal glory. Amen. Amen. All right, so last week, just in review, we are continuing on in our confession, chapter 31, which would be page 58, if you have this version, and if not, in the hymnals, there's an original version in the back somewhere. And we've been talking about, you know, Chapter for a while now. We've talked about death and hell last week We started talking about heaven and we're going to wrap up I think talking about heaven again today and just kind of the the paragraph that we're loosely basing our Teaching on this morning would be the souls of the righteous are then made perfect in holiness and are received into paradise and There they are with Christ and behold the face of God in light and glory while they await for the full redemption of their bodies And that's and again, we talked about that. That's the aspect of of death right for believers Where our souls go to be with the Lord and we are awaiting One day to be reunited with our bodies having glorified bodies Living forever. All right, so Um, kind of review of last week. Well, how many of you guys, you know, doing your, your, your family worship, your personal worship, do you guys give heaven any, uh, another thought at all that you guys just, I mean, it's like I told you last week, it's been great studying it because again, I often, yeah, I don't, I don't dwell on it as much as I should. But we're going to see again today while it should be on the forefront of our minds as we continue to talk. Review-wise, heaven was synonymous with what word that we see in Scripture. Anybody remember? We see it often interchanged. Glory, glory, yeah, glory. Psalm 73, 24, you guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me to glory. And we would overview everything, right? In fact, that God does is for his own glory. And heaven is the place where God's glory is fully known. Heaven and God are also sometimes Use the synonyms you see the kingdom of heaven when the prodigal son Sin, he said I sinned against heaven and he's against you father Which you really can't sin against a place you sin against God Matthew Henry We talked about his quote grace is glory begun. All right, so Glory is not just for the unseen realm, where Christ is right now. We see His grace. We've been saved by it through faith, right? And that's the beginning of heaven. All right. Sometimes in Scripture, when it's defining heaven, I'm thinking of Revelation 21, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her brilliance was like precious stones as a stone of crystal, cleared jasper, great high walls. All this descriptive language, when I'm reading it, it's kind of confusing, right? It tells us that It's a place where it's 12,000 stadia. It's height. It's depth. It's length It's all equal to so it's a big cube 12,000 stadia anybody have any idea how big that is So I crunched the numbers based on stadia in the back of my Bible and I Got a little off from what the commentators say, but it was close enough. I think I So 12,000 stadia equals, according to commentators, about 1,500 miles. So 1,500 miles squared. My math brought me up to like 1,397 or something. So I guess they're just rounding up. The walls are made with jasper and the city is like pure gold like pure glass foundation stones of the city walls Were adorned with every kind of precious stone. It has 12 gates made with pearl streets pure gold like pure glass The description right is is very appealing But it's it's kind of hard to understand. You know, I don't I don't I don't deal a lot with pure gold or Jasper all these things. I don't I don't see a lot of that You know, it's hard to recognize what streets of gold would be like that's like pure glass I mean, it's I remember as a kid going. All right, you know, that's heaven. That's that sounds cool, but Okay, it's beautiful But the just but script the scriptures favorite way of describing heaven most commonly Is is simple so simple everyone here can understand it a child can understand it, right? It's being with with Christ being with Christ on John chapter 14 Jesus seeks to reassure his disciples. Okay. He just tells them about his betrayal and and he's telling them that he's going to be leaving them and they are obviously anxious and troubled by the news and And what does Jesus or how does Jesus reassure them? What details about the life to come does he give them? He says this in verses two and three. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and I will take you to myself that where I am you may be also All right, so he just literally tells him he's going away all the all these he predicts his betrayal I'm gonna die all these things and he says don't worry You're gonna be with me Okay, ultimately, I'm going to come back. I'm going to take you to a place and you'll be with me. And that's, that's kind of what he says about heaven, right? That's where he's talking about. That's what he says. It's going to be he's, you're going to be with me. And, and that's enough. We're going to be with Christ. John 17, 24 in the high priestly prayer, high priestly prayer. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am. All right, that's Christ's prayer. Is that prayer gonna get answered? Yeah, yeah, most assuredly, right? So when we understand who Jesus is and what he's done, honestly, the details aren't necessarily, aren't necessary. When we understand, again, God's revealing himself in scripture to us, and then he tells us that we're gonna be with him. It's it's kind of the details and the specifics of heaven. We really don't know a ton about except for that it's continually described as being with Christ You guys ever thought of that you guys think of that What that means for us? We're gonna keep we're gonna keep looking at scripture and seeing that reality, but I just I'm like, yeah, you know, I guess Yeah I picture the new heavens and the new earth coming down. I try to picture this earth without sin, without hurt. I have no idea how glorious this is going to be. Dwelling face-to-face with God. No clue. And again, when I try to imagine that, you just really come up short. So again, knowing our Savior is going to be ideal as we think about heaven. With me when Christ says that there is the fullness of blessing the sum of glory Kids would the thief what was the thief on the cross told by Jesus? He was told about heaven Well, maybe heaven we'll talk maybe we'll talk about that next week, but he was told about being with Christ What was he told? He was gonna die on the cross too All right, Joel Today you'll be with me in paradise, right? That's that's what he was told about The afterlife today you will be with me in paradise. Um The message is clear above and beyond everything heaven means being with Christ In the New Testament, it is interesting that nowhere. I Didn't fact-check that. All right. That was my comment. Nowhere. Does it say believers go to heaven when they die? Okay instead it says they go to be with Christ Okay, so somebody turned to Philippians chapter 1 for me and somebody 2nd Corinthians 5 8 These are both Paul. Philippians chapter 1 verse 21 through 23. For to me, to live is right, to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, then to do the labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am far-fetched to choose between the two. My desire to depart from the earth lies too far back. So that's when he's talking about dying. I'm not going to go to heaven, I'm going to depart and be with Christ. 2 Corinthians 5.8? away from the body, is to be at home with the Lord. Paul's desire is not for a place to go, but to be with the Lord where Christ is. So just as heaven is often synonymous with the glory of God, so it is also identified with the Son of God in whom His glory is revealed. So we know that the glory of God is revealed in Christ. So there's several reasons that Scripture gives us, and we'll cover a few of them today. Why Christ is central to heaven, okay? When we're studying the doctrine of heaven, why Christ is central. Why John can say in Revelation that the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it for the glory of God has illumined it and its lamp is the Lamb. So that Christ's glory is shining so brightly that there is no need From for the for the the stars for the moon for the Sun It's all coming from Christ, which is in which heaven? Review was Close First heaven atmosphere air second one is where yeah the second one. That's very good. Sorry Review little more. All right so Christ is the one that brings us to heaven. Okay, we know this this is I mean just all gospel thinking here, right your natural state When you are born you're what? Unregenerate yeah, you're dead in your sins and trespasses a wholly defiled Your righteous deeds are as of filthy rags. You've got no you've got no way of earning salvation Just the basic truths here, right Christ says I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father except through except through me We know right we know this just keep rehearsing it though apart from Christ. There's no salvation You can't earn it. Every other religion outside of Christianity has some kind of you earning it, you doing good works. Your, on the scales, when you die, when your life is measured, if your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds, they're depending on themselves, okay? And we know, again, that your deeds are just all bad. There's no earning. needing to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We who believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He bore the wrath of God for our sins in His body. He satisfied the justice of God. We are justified by Christ. So, justified. Somebody help me. What's justification? What's being justified? You can flip back and use your confession if you need to. But justification. Is it internal work that God does? So, like a courtroom setting, he declares, right? When he justified Scott Harvey, he declared, right, that Scott Harvey is righteous. Now, again, we know why. Christ, right? Because of Christ. So it's not the internal working, right? It's not the regeneration that's taking place. It's in the courtroom of God. He declares you righteous because of being in Christ. Right. And that instrument of justification is. Yeah. Yes. Good. Good. Those united to Christ and effectually called and regenerated have a new heart and a new spirit created in them through the power of Christ's death and resurrection. So we are holy and we are, in our progressive sanctification, becoming holy. He continues to change us by his spirit day by day We grow in grace coming ever closer to the new nature to the likeness of Christ in our new nature to the likeness of Christ So again, it's just Christ centric Christ centric Christ centric. There's nobody in heaven apart from Christ. All right So next question this should probably be a little easier for you What is the P in tulip Perseverance of the Saints. Yeah, so I Sometimes I think we're guilty of believing that with our new natures We have been given some innate quality Deposited in us a new steadfastness Enabling us to stay strong in the faith. All right, so when I think about that, I just think you know what because I'm regenerated and I'm never gonna perish, you know, I'm never gonna fall out of God's hands But in some I do The author of that heaven and hell book I was talking about kind of pointed that out and I was like, man I am I'm really guilty of that But that's not right All right, our perseverance is certain because for every second of our lives Jesus holds us and guards us We preserve, we persevere, excuse me, only because we are being preserved by Him. None of us could continue for one second in the Christian life unless moment by moment the Lord Jesus were interceding for us with the Father in heaven, upholding us by His Spirit. If His hand were removed, we'd fall and stone. So again, the reason It's never you it's never you I never I never like I said, I never think that out loud But just oftentimes and how I live and just you know when I'm not fully dwelling on on what scripture saying Somehow I just you know, I have a sense that it's me. You know, I don't know I'm preserving right because God saved me, but he's the one that's actually Persevering you and he's continually doing that he's actively doing that and again if it were not for him We'd fail we'd fall immediately All right, grab your Bibles Hebrews chapter 2 And then just somebody somebody can go to Hebrews 4 and somebody can go to Hebrews 7 if you want to just just to see this intercession that we have not just once but continually 4, 16. Hebrews 2, 17 and 18. And Hebrews 7, 25. Yep, draw close to the throne of grace, right, that we may receive help. It's not an empty throne, is it? All right, who's got Hebrews 2, 17 and 18? Amen. In Hebrews 7.25. So that's what Christ is doing on our behalf. He continues to do it on our behalf. When Judas and Peter, at the betrayal of Christ, What did Jesus say to Peter that Satan wanted for him? Yeah, right? Satan wants to sift you like wheat, but I've prayed for you, right? And that continues. Satan would love to sift you like wheat, but it's not happening. It's not happening. Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. All authority has been given to him. He is king of the universe, head over all things to his church. And so because he controls everything and everyone, his purposes will inevitably be fulfilled. His work must prove effective. It is certain that every child of God will reach heaven. John 10, 28 says, I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither shall anyone snatch them from my hand. Now we focused a little bit earlier on one aspect of Psalm 73, but I want to continue that verse and just again see that it's Christ actively keeping us. Nevertheless, I am continually with you. Why? You hold my right hand. And then you guide me in your counsel and afterward you receive me to glory. So he's got a hold of your right hand. He's not letting go, right? It's not you grasping him. And you know, you can just do what you want. It's not you, as I've often heard it argued. Yeah. But I can jump out of his hand or whatever nonsense that people come up to if you're in Christ He's got you. All right, and he's he's gonna keep you Till the end any questions. I mean, you know these things, you know these things Comments yeah, go ahead Yeah Well, there's definitely some separation going on there I don't know but He desired, but Christ prayed for him. I compare it and contrast it to Judas. I think Christ didn't pray for him there. It doesn't say that. And Judas went and betrayed him and committed suicide. So you want to give us a more detailed explanation of what takes place when that happens? Yeah Like I said, yeah, I compared it. Yeah, I compare it and contrast it to Judas maybe maybe that's not right, but But I've prayed for you. So the sifting that he desired for Peter wasn't ultimately accomplished. How about that? I Yeah, yeah, destroying his flesh, you know, maybe Jesus is just using that as a as a way to further sanctify him. Yeah. Ron, any comments on wheat in farming? Yeah, well, again, Christ can use all that Satan does use all that Satan does for believers right for their good. So, let me just say their intentions were not the same for Peter. How about that? I would say that, with confidence. Not from Satan's standpoint, yeah. Not what he desired, okay? So, that's... Yeah, because we're in Christ, right? That's good. All right, so scripture tells us that in heaven Christ will be seen clearly, okay We are currently in Christ Ephesians 530, right? We're members of his body. We have union with Christ But our experience now is far from perfect one incompleteness is that we don't yet see our Savior, okay, and So, what is faith? Anybody give me a definition there? All right, how about this? If you were going to define faith for me using your Bible, what chapter of Scripture would you go to? Yeah, Hebrews 11, verse 1. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, right? In 1 Peter 1, verse 8, he says this, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And in my notes, I backwardly went to verse 7 and after 8, just to get more context. And it's he's talking about our trials and verse 70 says so that you so that the tested genuineness of your faith More precious than gold that perishes though. It is tested by fire May be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ Though you have not seen him you love him, right? So so this is an incompleteness in our in our flesh. We don't we don't see Christ And we're gonna spend an eternity face-to-face with God and that's it's a big deal. All right, John 20 29 Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. All right, so there are some there are a majority of Christians have not seen Christ, okay Yeah, I won't get into your books you guys love 23 minutes in heaven or whatever I'm just um In heaven, we will behold our Savior and we will no longer be those who have not seen Right, we're studying Job and when we get to Job 19, he says some famous things there, right? He says my Redeemer lives and Yet in my flesh, I will see God. Okay, he knows he knows Isaiah in chapter 33 verse 17 is he makes the promise that your eyes will behold the King in His beauty. 1 Corinthians 13, 12, For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. And in 1 John 3, 12, Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared. But we know when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is." So, seeing our glorified Savior is heaven. I mean, it's heaven. John, you'll remember, was one of Jesus' closest friends on earth. He talks about leaning on Him at supper and confiding in Him. spend a lot of time with him. But when you start reading Revelation chapter 1 and verse 7, when John sees the glorified Christ, what does it say about John's reaction to that? He's seen him, you know, his best friend. He fell on his face as if dead. You know, that's what it's going to be like to see Christ. I mean, obviously we're going to fall on our face with glorified bodies, but Yeah, we would be dead right in our bodies of death or flesh We were presented before God Also In in in the high priestly prayer Where he where he's telling them, you know, I want them to be with me. He says Father, I desire that they also whom you give me may be with me where I am And why? He goes on to answer it, to see my glory you have given me because you love me before the foundations of the world. So Christ, right? Desires that his children see his glory. All right, he's glorified. We're not seeing it yet. And we will one day see it. And that's in Christ praise for that. Right? They can see me at my best. They can see me glorified. How many of you read the Pilgrim's Progress? Yeah, yeah. So, Mr. Standfast in the Pilgrim's Progress, right before his death, says, I am going now to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and that face that was spat on for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, But now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose company I delight." Christ is the heart of heaven's blessings. So, you guys understand covenant theology enough to know that God deals with us through representatives, okay? Who are those representatives? Who can represent you before God? Adam can represent you before God, or Christ can represent you before God, yes. You're one in the other, one or the other. If you're an Adam, that's not good, right? That's not good. You're in your sinful nature. But if you're in Christ, he's your head. You're in Christ, all right? So when we get to heaven and see him Okay, now we see Christ and maybe you think you know with your short attention spans That you'll be like, all right Seeing him, you know now what now what what's what are we on to now? So seeing Jesus is not like, you know visiting the Grand Canyon Anybody seen the Grand Canyon Loved it. I thought it was spectacular And I could spend more time there I'd like to see it again, but As cool as it was, you know, I'm like we got things to do we got to move on right? That's that's not gonna be Like it will like what it will be like in heaven. Okay, we're not on to the next thing Ephesians 1 3 says I Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. So our union with Christ is not going to be dissolved. We don't just need union here on earth. And then when we get to heaven, we're turned loose from the bond of our Savior. In heaven, He will remain our Head, our Representative, and our Mediator. We will reach heaven only because we are in Christ. And it is equally true, we will remain in heaven only because we are still in Christ. In glory, we will depend on Him as much as ever. He will mean more to us than He does even now. So you're not going to all of a sudden just grow tired of Christ. It's forever. I think we know these things, but it's good to be reminded that He needs to remain our mediator. He needs to remain our representative. And He will. And that's why we're secure. Yeah, yeah, and Christ will continue to reveal God for eternity to us. You know, I mean, like we've talked about here. I mean, it's unfathomable to us, but you'll never get to the end of God. He's infinite. There is no end. There is no end. We can't understand it. I can keep saying that's awesome, that's amazing, and it is, but words don't describe it. Let your mind be blown. So we can experience more of heaven on earth and we talked about this, you know Ron made this comment last week about what's what's interfering with with our with our Experience but just in in in communing with God is The sinfulness of our flesh right? Death hasn't been put to death. So there's going to be these barriers that will be removed that is is is hindering us here now on earth. Since heaven means being with Jesus, being with Jesus must mean heaven, right? So we can, as Christians, commune with Christ daily. Hearing Him speak in Scripture, right? Seeking Him in prayer. Taking our worries and our petitions and our anxieties to Him, right? We've been given His Spirit in us. He indwells us. And we do that right we do that today as we as we corporately gather we do that on Monday morning when you when you wake up and you seek to You seek the Lord laying out your you pray without ceasing right you're praying it in the Spirit to Christ Who mediates to the Father and answers your prayers, right? We read scripture, what a scripture revealing to us and Yeah, right and who's who's it all about? Christ right? Yeah, we know these things. Um So in In the busyness of life The first thing, you know, if you're if you're anything like me the first thing that usually gets shoved to the side right is is our personal our family even sometimes corporate worship Quiet time and personal worship can seem tedious and boring to us. Yet, we all want to be in heaven. We all know that. We all say that. But the essence of heaven we long for is the communion with Christ in which we often show so little interest. So this isn't to berate you, right? But this is to hopefully again, continue to renew our minds and understand who Christ is, what heaven's about. Spurgeon has a quote that kind of sums it up just, you know, how Spurgeon does it. He says, if we do not get to heaven before we die, we shall never get to heaven after we die. That's really good Right, so it's not as if I'm not You understand the communion with Christ is what it's going to be in an eternity. All right So the richer and deeper our fellowship with Christ now the more heavenly will be our present experience and better prepared we will be for the Lord and So it's again to renew our minds and sometimes just an application again. It's not it's not just read your Bible, but it's to understand who God is and like we talked about in men's group yesterday, just sometimes just put your hand over your mouth and and praise and thank him for What we have in Christ, right? I mean, that's that's a whole list of things that again we can talk about for a long time Isaac Walton said this of Richard Sibbes, kind of in regards to the same thing. Of this blessed man, let this just praise be given. Heaven was in him before he was in heaven. And let that be said of us all when we die, you know. That's a great compliment. Heaven was in him before he was in heaven. Any questions in regards to heaven or what we've talked about? I mean, so again, summon it up, right? We got God's glory and Christ. I mean, it's, it's, it's, and then there's a lot more, uh, that scripture says about, uh, heaven and Christ for sure. Um, but my hand was cramping. We must fulfill the cultural mandate that it has. The gold and the diamonds that you see over there, in the ground, are now outside of the ground. It's not a gold function. It's actually brought in by the smoke. So, I would use the grain by itself. Maybe that's how you do it. Yeah, and that's and that's a great point that it's all buried now right, but I think I think I could be wrong It's an ezekiel. There's a there's it talks about in the garden where the stones are seemingly like just littered on the ground But then with the fall right the flood. It's it's it's hard work you getting those out. Yeah, and Ron begins Pointing to the finished work of Christ on and bringing everything into submission. That's good. Any other comments or questions? Alright, so, I think... Yeah, I don't know where I'm going next week yet. We'll still be in the last few chapters, but... Some of you guys have had some questions when we talked about shiole a couple years ago. So maybe we'll redress that again. Paradise, all that fun stuff. Maybe. We'll see. All right. If there's no other questions or comments, let's pray. Father, again, we do come to You just thankful, thankful for Your Son. We're thankful for the mission that Him and the Spirit were sent on to bring us to Yourself, reconciled. righteous and holy, all because of Christ. And Lord, where we think that we somehow play a part of this, or we think that it's somehow about us, Lord, we pray that you would grant us repentance, that we would, with faith, again, recognize that it is in us, and that it is Christ, Lord, that we would not get our eyes fixed on the things of this earth, so much so that it causes us to worship. Lord, help us to worship you and you alone, how you've prescribed. And Lord, we pray that as we continue worship here this morning corporately, that as Ron gets up and preaches that you would be glorified in Job chapter three, that we would see Christ and that Lord, we would leave not the same, having been sanctified, further conformed to the image of your son, Lord, that ultimately one day we will have glorified bodies in him and we will see him face to face. I look forward to that day, but until then, Lord, help us not to grow tired of doing good. Help us not to grow weary of doing what you have commanded us to do, Lord, again, with our eyes fixed upon Christ in all things, giving you all honor and praise. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.