All right, if you'd like to join me this morning, we're beginning in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. If you haven't been with us recently, we've been in the midst of a long-term study together on Sunday mornings on the doctrine of the last things, how God is working out his great plan in all of history. And we've been most recently talking about two of the most important eternal realities of God's plan, and that being the reality of hell and the reality of heaven. We spent a number of weeks, some seven weeks I think, on the subject of hell. how it is a real place, and it has eternal significance and importance, and what all that means, and what God is doing with hell, why hell exists, and who is going to be there for all of eternity. And in the last seven or so weeks, we've been focused on the subject of heaven. And as I was sharing this morning, Of course, our brother Michael has passed from this world into the presence of the Lord. He's in heaven right now. And what I've been trying to emphasize these last few weeks is something in terms of timing with Mike's passing. You know, I couldn't, of course, arrange the timing of the fact that for the last six or seven weeks now, we've been focused on this subject of heaven together and that the understanding of where Mike is right at this very moment establishes the point that I've been trying to make in a greater way than anything probably that I could declare. What we've been trying to establish so far is just some very basic and simple principles about heaven. Number one, heaven is a real place. But as a real place, it's a created place. It's part of the creation of God. It has a very specific beginning point in God's creation purposes. And God did create it for a purpose. It serves a number of different purposes in God's plans, but the first and primary one being it serves the purpose of being kind of a headquarters for all of creation. from which God has established his throne. And from his throne, of course, he has been ruling over all of creation, over all of history from the point that he first created it. We've seen, though, that heaven is also portrayed to us in terms of social organization as a city. It's a heavenly city. It's called the New Jerusalem, the Jerusalem above. It's called the great and glorious city of God. And we've seen that that city has a reality just like this city that we're living in has a reality. It's a different kind of city, but there's some similarities to it. Cities, whether on earth or in heaven, are identified as centers of population, centers of business, and centers of culture. We've identified already, we've studied together what the population of the heavenly city is like, who who is part of that population and how one in a sense rates to be welcomed into the city of God, which we identified as kind of like similar to a closed and gated community. Not just anyone can march into heaven just because they have the bright idea that they'd like to visit that heavenly city. Only those that God invites and calls and only those who come according to God's standards, and according to God's way, His appointed way of salvation, have the right to enter in through the gates into the heavenly city and into the very presence of God in His throne room. We've identified in our study the last couple of weeks that there's business that goes on in heaven. It's not just a matter of, you know, heaven's a real place and there are real individuals there. We've identified that there are the spirits of the righteous made perfect as the population of heaven, along with, of course, the various categories of angels. And that the spirits of the righteous are not just in an ongoing holding pattern, waiting for the final day, waiting for the return of the Lord to planet earth, the second coming. There is a waiting for that, but that's not all they're doing is waiting. There's all kinds of business that's being conducted in the presence of the Lord. Not business like the business here entirely. Though there are a couple of aspects of what we do that are ongoing in heaven. The business of heaven is first and foremost, job number one as we talked about in heaven is worship. The work of worship and flowing out of that worship is of course intercession and then government rulership in which we are given the awesome privilege of participating with the Lord and the administration of his kingdom in various levels, in various aspects, according to his assignment for each one of our lives. Today what I want to focus on is the last aspect of life as it is in the big city in heaven, and that is, what is the culture of heaven like? Culture is defined in scripture as, excuse me, not in scripture, Webster's Dictionary, culture is described as the total of the social patterns, the arts, the beliefs of any particular community at any given time. And every Nation of people, and even within nations, there are more than one culture usually that develop. Every nation of people at every time in history have developed their own cultural identity. We all, each one of us here in this room, are born into a specific cultural identity based upon what culture, of course, our family came from. And we also enter into a larger culture in terms of the location where we live and all of the influences that are taking place in that particular society of people. Culture on a human level here on earth, of course, is a flawed thing. Culture is not a perfect expression of human society by any means. Originally, when God first established human population, there was a kind of a culture of heaven that was established on earth from the very beginning of creation. When God first created Adam and Eve, and He established them and placed them in the garden and gave them certain responsibilities and certain life priorities, There was in that creation of God and the establishment of the first society of people, starting with just two individuals, there was a culture that was born out of their relationship. But, of course, something happened. And what happened is Adam sinned. And when Adam sinned, it changed everything. And human culture, as we know it, as we know it today, began to develop out of the combination of Adam and Eve existing as people that bear the image of God. And so there's godly influence in culture. And now the combination of that with human sin. human failure, human corruption, and combining those elements together we have the culture that we know today. For instance, the things that develop cultural identity are things like a culture's recognition of what is beautiful. values in terms of beauty, both in human form and architecture and artistic endeavor, all kinds of things like that, that has a lot to do with cultural expression. Wealth, of course, riches, finances have a big influence on culture. Power and authority in terms of government have a big influence on culture. And of course there is more and more, it seems like this is developing more and more in the last generation of time, there's always in modern culture the coolness factor in terms of what is perceived as being, and I mean cool is probably not even the cool word to use to describe this anymore, but there is this factor of what is considered to be cutting edge, what is considered to be really the hip cultural thing to do. And all of those things have their own influence and bear very significant kind of power over all of our lives. If I mention just a few names to you and ask you, you know, what cultural influence did these names have? Just individuals and cultural changes that developed from the influence of these individuals. What kind of influence did Elvis Presley have on this culture back a generation ago? What kind of influence did Hugh Hefner have on this culture? What kind of influence did the Beatles have? Remember, you know, some of you are not young enough or old enough to remember this, but I remember this. I was young at the time, but I can still remember John Lennon saying publicly in the newspapers and television magazines, whatever, in some interview that he did, identifying that the Beatles at that time were more popular than Jesus Christ. Now, the sad thing about what John Lennon had to say was it was true. When he said that, they were more popular than Jesus Christ. There was a lot more attention being paid to the Beatles when they first came here in their British invasion of the United States than there was being paid to Jesus. in, you know, the radio and the television and the newspapers and all of the popular media. And then things began to change from this influence that the Beatles brought over. I mean, there are little things like hairstyles immediately started changing, you know, clothing styles, musical taste started changing, but all kinds of other subtle things based upon what the Beatles themselves thought was cool to them and everybody else wanted to be a little bit more like them so that they could be a little bit more hip themselves. What about the influence that Madonna has had on our culture in the last, you know, say just 10 years or so, 15 years or so. And of course recently, I won't go into the details of this, but recently there's been kind of a passing of the torch to Britney Spears and others. And if you think that these people don't have influence, if Britney Spears starts wearing hip-hugger jeans, what happens in our culture? Every girl of a certain age starts wearing hip-hugger jeans. Why? one person decides that this is the cool way to look, this is the way that girls are supposed to look, this is the way that I want to look, and therefore, people that are under the influence of this kind of cultural thing, they see that, they're impressed by that, they're affected and influenced by that. So, what does this all have to do with the concept of the culture of heaven? Well, what I want us to understand is that heaven has its own culture. It's just a lot different than our culture. It's a lot different. There is a sociologist, people that study human society, they use a term that they describe as culture shock. And what this simply means is that if you or I who are, you know, I was born and raised in Southern California, I've lived a couple of other places for periods of time, but I spent most of my life in Southern California. If you or I who spent most of our lives being raised under this cultural influence were to suddenly pick up and move to You know, like the Hammersleys just came back from China. If we were to move to China, or like I had the opportunity, as you know, to visit India a couple of years ago. If I was to move to India, and just, that's not just, I'm there for a visit, I'm not just there for a specific short-term purpose, but this is now the rest of my life. Or like the Delafleins who spent so many years in Costa Rica. It's a lot different in those places. It's a lot different. And you can experience what sociologists call culture shock if you're not prepared for the differences. And if you're so locked in to the culture that you're familiar with that you don't recognize that there are other ways to live life than the way you're familiar and the way that you've been brought up and the influences and the aspects of this is the way you're supposed to dress and this is the music you're supposed to listen to and these are the movies you're supposed to watch or even you have movies to watch versus no movies whatsoever. Those kind of things are aspects of what sociologists call culture shock when a person is transplanted suddenly from one culture to the other and they're not prepared for the change. Well, what I want us to do in this study today is simply prepare our hearts for culture shock, which is the moment like our brother Michael, who took his last breath here, fell asleep and woke up in the presence of the Lord in the midst of the culture of heaven. And that is his culture from now on. and whether or not we'll be shocked by that transition. I mean, praise God if we're in the transition and we wake up in the presence of the Lord. But whether or not we're shocked by that transition, I think has a lot to do with the way we perceive the effect of the world's culture on our lives versus the influences of God Himself on our culture. Turn with me, if you haven't yet, to 1 Corinthians 15, verses 20 through 28. I want to ask the question first, What is the culture of heaven like? Keeping in mind that culture is a combination of certain things. Culture is the beliefs of a social group, the social patterns, the behavior patterns, The artistic expressions of those people, the laws, the languages, all of those things have every effect and influence on the development of a culture. In 1 Corinthians 15, we'll read from verse 20. This is part of a much longer section on the reality of the resurrection. I'm not going to be going into detail on all of that, but I want to just emphasize one particular aspect here from this section. 1 Corinthians 15, 20. But now, Christ has been raised from the dead. the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ's, or who belong to him, at his coming. Then comes the end, and this is what we've been studying for the last year, the end, the last things, how all things are going to culminate in the purposes of God. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says, all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he, the father, is accepted who put all things in subjection to him, the son. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that... Two little words. You've heard me emphasize this point before. This is an important connecting phrase in God's Word. This is a little phrase that God often used to describe all the things from verse 20 through 28 that he's just been describing are all dovetailing to the accomplishment of a single goal. This is where it's all heading. This is what it's all aiming at. So that God may be all in all. And when Paul uses the term, God may be all in all, he's done all of these things in all of history from the beginning of creation until the end. He's done it all so that God may be all in all. He's not saying it as though, I sure hope that eventually God will be all in all. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. It's just his way of expressing this is where it's all heading. It surely will happen. The goal of all of creation is that God eventually will be all in all. All right. What does that mean? It means a whole lot. And it means more than I can possibly try to describe this morning. But let's just think about what it means in terms of what is the culture of heaven like. Because what he's describing here is the culmination of God's plan and purpose in the earth. Because right now, God is not all, in all, on the earth. That's why we pray, Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The implication of that prayer is that the will of God is not fully being done on the earth as it is currently being done in heaven. So what we know from this, or what we should understand from this, is that right now, God is all in all in heaven. And later, as He finishes His plan and culminates His purposes for the earth, He will be all in all in the earth also, in all of creation. There will be no aspect in which this part of creation God is not all in all, but this other part He is. Right now, heaven as a created place, He is all in all. On earth, which is also a created place, he's not yet fully revealed as being all in all. The plan of God has not been fulfilled to that degree yet. But, what does this tell us about the culture of heaven? I said that earthly culture is formed around social behavior patterns, the beliefs of that social group of people, and the artistic expressions, the languages, the laws, all of those things of that group of people. If God is currently, and I believe He is, all in all in heaven, what implications does that have for the culture of heaven? Well, the culture of heaven is perfect. But when I say that, what are you picturing? Because it's nothing like what it's like here. It really isn't. Now, as believers, God gives us moments, glimpses of what it's like to live in a perfect culture. But our daily life, our average day-to-day, minute-by-minute life, we're not living in a perfect cultural environment. We're living in an imperfect, corrupted, defiled cultural atmosphere, so to speak, that we're breathing in and out day after day. The Lord Jesus described it when in his prayer for his own disciples toward the end of his life, right in conjunction with the Last Supper, knowing that his life on earth was coming to an end, he prayed for his disciples, interceded for them before the Father. And he described that his disciples were in the world, but they're not of the world. Because of that, because they are not of the world in their essence, in their core, but they are living in the world, he was concerned for them. And he began to pray for their protection in a world, in a culture that is so defiled and so corrupted that they would be, as he knew, breathing this culture in and out, day after day. And you know, it's something, we get affected and influenced by the culture that we live in, and we don't even understand the degree to which we're influenced by it. I don't even understand the degree to which we're influenced by it. But, by stopping for a moment and considering and thinking about what it would be like to live as part of a perfect culture, what the Lord intends to accomplish in that moment's glimpse, that stopping and meditating together and studying together, is He means for us to be affected in a preserving way while we're living in a defiled culture here and now. And, We're called, as a group of people, not just us, of course, the whole entire body of Christ worldwide, we're called to be these things that the Lord says, you are, as my church, the light of the world. You are the salt of the earth. And what he means to happen by that understanding is that those of us who are affected by the understanding of where we're heading, that we're meant and destined and designed for a perfect culture that is being expressed perfectly in heaven, We're meant to bear that cultural influence in a greater degree in the midst of a defiled and degraded culture of this world. And we're meant to influence it toward godliness. Not that the culture in this world will ever be. mirroring the culture of heaven until the Lord returns. Because, of course, that is the end point at which God will be all in all here in this world. Now, let's talk about some of the details of what this heavenly perfect culture is like. Culture on earth is all about dominant social influences. I just named a few, you know, talking about the Beatles and Hugh Hefner and Madonna and Britney Spears and all of these individuals that have so influenced our culture. Who's the dominant social influence in heaven? God. Only. Period. End of story. When we say God is all in all, that means no one else has any dominant social influence in heaven. I'm not going to influence the way that heaven's culture is going to unfold, and neither are you. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are the total dominant influence in the culture of heaven. So let's look at some of the details of that, as I said. Turn from here back a couple of chapters to 1 Corinthians chapter 11. One of the things we identified as part of the makeup of any culture, this includes the culture of heaven, is the beliefs of a culture. If you don't think belief or concepts affect and influence a culture, go and take a trip to Saudi Arabia sometime and walk around there in Saudi Arabia and just observe the cultural difference. between the United States of America and Saudi Arabia. Why is there such a dramatic cultural difference between the two countries? There's different beliefs that are at the core of those two societies, those two cultures. 1 Corinthians chapter 11, I'm going to read verses 18 and 19. Paul is describing what goes on in the church in the city of Corinth at the time that he's writing the letter. For in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that divisions exist among you, and in part I believe it, for there must also be factions among you, so that those who are approved may become evident among you. Paul, in describing the way the church in Corinth was living out its own little culture, because culture is based on groupings. You can have a huge culture of a ton of people, but an individual church has a culture of its own. We have a culture as a church. And the Corinthians, excuse me, had a culture of their own. And in the Corinthian culture, they had these two elements that Paul described as divisions and factions. Now, there are different aspects of of what these mean. There's some social grouping aspects of this, but the core of this is, it's all about what people believe. Ideally, in heaven, when we get there, what we're going to see, what we're going to wake up into, when our moment comes to go into the presence of the Lord, When it comes time to ask questions, and I'm speaking in purely natural now human terminology, when it comes time to ask, you know, can I see, you know, I've never been here to heaven before, can I see the statement of faith on record here in heaven? What is the doctrinal statement here in heaven? I just want to be sure that I'm tracking with the group and that the group believes what they should believe. when I arrive in heaven. Will I be doing that? Will I be asking the Lord for his statement of faith when I get there? I won't be asking. Why won't I be asking? Because everybody in heaven believes the exact same thing. What's the problem now? None of us believe the same thing. None of us do. If we went around this room and we talked about every topic that we could talk about in the Bible, I would find something to disagree with every single one of you on. And I'm sure you'd have something to disagree with me on, right? And yet, by the grace of God, and this is purely the grace of God, we are able to maintain a certain group culture of unity because we do believe in these things that the Bible describes as essentials of the faith and non-essentials of the faith, as we've recently been emphasizing. And that, at least on the essentials of the faith, We need to say, and we need to believe, and we need to declare the same things about those essentials. And to that degree, the church does reflect and model the culture of heaven here on earth. But on the non-essentials, and unfortunately through church history, too many times even on the essentials, there have been divisions and factions, which mean disagreements are at the core of those. And those disagreements lead to us separating from one another and forming our own groups in opposition, so to speak, against one another. The whole story, and I know you've all asked this question at one time or another, where did all these Christian denominations come from? How many denominations are there, by the way? Anybody know? Nobody knows. Why? Because there's new denominations being formed every single day. And denominations have all formed not on the basis of our Christian unity, on the essentials of the faith. Every single denomination has been born out of a division and a faction within the church. Every single one. The good ones, the bad ones, and the in-between ones. Okay? So what does this mean for us? It means that when we reach heaven, we need to understand that there's no longer going to be any divisions, any factions, any disagreements. We're going to say and believe and understand the exact same things. Let's turn over to another passage in 1 Corinthians 2. Verse 12 through 16, Paul says, Now we have received not the spirit of the world. So we know he's describing the believers experience, but the spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ." Now that's a glorious statement. that Paul makes about the believer's experience. We have the mind of Christ. Let me ask you this. I'm talking about here and now. Is this a true statement or not? Yes. Yes and no. Leslie here is learning. I can only catch you guys so many times on this, okay? The answer is yes and no. Of course we have the mind of Christ, or else, if we didn't, we wouldn't be able to agree even on the essentials of the faith. Because there are people out in the world, of course, that deny all the essentials of the faith, for all kinds of different reasons, and all different kinds of personal agendas that lead them to that disagreement and denial of those essential things that we're caused by the Spirit of God to believe. So we have the mind of Christ right now. But are we fully operating, so to speak, in the mind of Christ, in total and 100% harmony, agreement, and conceptual unity? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. There are just so many non-essentials. Even if we are able, by the grace of God, to agree on the essentials, there are so many non-essentials that we still don't see eye to eye on. And part of that is serving God's purpose. As he described in the earlier passage about divisions and factions, Paul even said it's necessary for there to be divisions and factions among you. It's because God is working in that iron sharpening, iron that friction that's created by our disagreements, to shape and mold our characters, to motivate us to dig into His Word and to study more diligently and in a more committed way to learn the things that we should believe and we should understand. But the point being that when we enter the presence of the Lord in heaven, will it still be a yes and no answer to this question, do we have the mind of Christ? Thankfully, on that day, when we stand in the presence of the Lord, it's yes and yes and yes only. There is no no to that answer. We will fully have the mind of Christ, which is, we will see things as He sees them, we will have His perspective on every question that we ever ask, throughout the duration of our entire life, and any new questions that might be generated by our experience of being there for the first time, are also going to be seen and understood and answered in the perspective that Christ Himself bears in His mind at that moment. We'll see it the way He sees it. And of course, the implication of that is, we'll all be right then, because He's right on everything. There's not a single thing that Jesus is wrong about. He's got all of the right ideas about everything that you can possibly think about. The problem is, right now, we've got a mixture of, you know, we're to some degree discerning the mind of Christ. Now, to some degree, we're not fully discerning it. And so there are these differences among us. But there, that will end. Turn with me, if you would, from here to 1 John, chapter 1. Let me just touch on I'm kind of in one of those stuck places here because there's so much more I would like to stop and describe about this that I'm thinking about, but I do want to finish up these three main points that I have about what the culture of heaven is like and not just focus on the beliefs of heaven alone. The second aspect, we talked about social patterns are a big part. Social behavior patterns, what the social life is like in heaven. And there is a social life in heaven. What's your social life like now? Who do you mostly spend your time with, hang out with? What's that all about? Why do you hang out with the people that you hang out with, spend time with? Usually it's about shared things, shared enjoyments, shared perspectives, shared experiences. And it's going to be similar in that way in heaven, but the nature of our social interaction is going to be so much better than what we experience here. In 1 John 1, right at the beginning of the letter, The Apostle John describes the foundation of our social experience in heaven. And he describes it from the standpoint of what we already are experiencing now, but like with the mind of Christ, we are only partially experiencing the fullness of what this really will be like once we arrive in heaven. Reading from 1 John 1, verse 1. What was from the beginning? what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the word of life. And this is John's way of describing the Lord Jesus himself. And the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also And here are these two little important connecting words again, so that. In other words, the whole goal in one sense of the apprehension of the gospel by the apostles themselves and the proclamation of the gospel to others was to accomplish this, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete. The fundamental social pattern in heaven is a social pattern identified as fellowship. Now, we use this term to describe what we do in church life today. For instance, we're in a few moments here. We're going to end this message and I'm going to invite you to the fellowship hall, we call it, where we get together and talk and eat a little bit of a snack together and just share each other's company. We call it the fellowship hall because it's a Bible word. But it's one of those words that the rest of the culture just doesn't really use anymore. It's an old English term. Back in older days in England, it was something that the world itself would use to describe social interaction. But, you know, when is the last time that some guy in the world that doesn't know the Lord said he was just going down to the bar to share fellowship with the guys at the bar? You know, we just don't use that terminology anymore, except in Christian circles. And because of that, it's not wrong that we use the term, because the term does occur in our English translations of the Bible, but it's just a translation of a concept. And the concept means something more than just light. We'll spend a few minutes together in this room over here and eat some donuts and bagels together and say our goodbyes and go about our separate ways and live our separate lives. It's a word which means life partnership, being so connected to each other or with someone that you are sharing their life. You know, when Michael passed away, you know, we had fellowship around his bed. It's not just, you know, Mike's just one of those guys that was eating donuts in the in the fellowship hall last week. And you know, so now he's dying and that's sad. And we're going to go on from there. There's a connectedness that the Lord means to establish among us where we're partners with each other in life itself. It's not just I see you on Sunday morning for an hour. I mean, you know how it is. We can't just from practical terms, we can't spend 24 seven with each other. But We are meant in whatever time the Lord gives us to spend with each other, to understand how deeply connected we really are. Because when we get to heaven and we experience the fullness of what it means to have fellowship with the Father, as John emphasizes, fellowship with the Son, and then flowing out of that, fellowship with each other. it's going to blow us away. We're going to be so completely connected to one another in a way that we never fully understood that we were even here in this present life. But the fullness of that awaits. What does that mean for us? Well, it means that, you know, all this stuff that flows out of our culture, so much of our culture nowadays, especially in Southern California, we're so disconnected from each other, we live our separate lives, generally speaking, A lot of our culture is based on alienation, based on being disconnected from each other. There's no longer any town square where people come together and just spend time with each other in this culture. Everybody lives their own separate little life. And yeah, of course there's the internet where people are connecting to each other in a certain way there, but most of that, as you know, is corrupt and unhealthy itself. and certainly no expression of heavenly fellowship. And so the church is really in a position in this culture, in this society, to reflect and to model and to demonstrate the way human society and interaction is meant to be lived out. But sadly, what usually happens? The world looks at the way that church interacts with each other and they say, why in the world would I want that? You know, I've got that and worse already in my own life. Why would I want to go to church to be, you know, yelled at? Or why would I want to go to church to be hated or gossiped about? Or, you know, all of those things that go with social patterns of the world. And we're called to live out our lives with each other differently. One more thing. Let's look. Also, let's turn from here to the book of Revelation. Let me give you one more thing to think about, about what the culture of heaven is like this morning, before we end here. Revelation chapter 15. What about the arts in heaven? What about the arts? Some of you are more connected to the artistic expressions here in this world. Art includes things like theater, it includes movies, television, well, there's a lot of artistic on television, but it includes music, it includes dancing, it includes sculpture, paintings, all of those kinds of things. What about art in heaven? Is there such a thing as artistic expression in heaven? The answer is absolutely. Why? made human beings in his image. And because we're made in his image, we have an impulse for artistic expression. And it is meant, that artistic expression is meant by God to bring glory and honor to his name, because we are his image bearers. Of course, so much of our culture, in terms of artistic expression, just glorifies the sinful defilement of the fall of man, rather than glorifying the Lord who created us for a higher purpose. But I just want to focus on one particular artistic expression in heaven, and there is more than one, and that is the music of heaven, the songs of heaven. Turn with me, if you haven't yet, Revelation 15. I'm going to read verses 1 through 4. What is the music of heaven like? We just spent, you know, 30, 45 minutes, whatever it was this morning, in a time of musical expression, artistic expression, here in our worship time, what we call our worship time. And we had instruments, and we had songs that we sang, and there's lyrics that are part of that, and our hearts are involved in that. the culture of heaven, the music of heaven, the artistic expression of heaven like that? And the answer is yes and no. Let me ask you this. Music here has form, it has structure. I'm no musician, but I understand a little bit of the concept. It has structure to it. There's a beat, for instance, to music here. There's such a thing as 4-4 timing in the beat of music, right? What's the timing of the music of heaven, do you suppose? What's the form and the structure of the songs of heaven? The book of Revelation is filled, and there's more than one. We're just going to read one of them. It's filled with songs that are sung in heaven. In every single one of the descriptions of the songs of heaven, there's not a single mention of the form, the structure of the song in terms of beat, rhythm, timing, any of those things. None of those are even mentioned. Which tells me it's not unimportant, it's just not as important as some other detail about the songs of heaven. And that is more important in the form of the songs of heaven as the content. And that is very important to the Lord. The content of our artistic expression is the Lord's priority. Revelation 15 verse one. Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished. And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast in his image and the number of his name standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God. These are redeemed, perfected spirits of the righteous standing in the presence of God, and they're standing there with harps. Harps are what? Musical instruments. This is an expression of art, expression of music and song. And they're holding these harps, and the implication is they're doing something with them, they're not just holding them, you're using them. But again, it doesn't give how they're strumming it, because that's what you do, you pluck and strum harps. I don't know, I'm no musician, but you play a harp by plucking and strumming, I think. So it's at least implied, but we don't have any details of how they're doing that. All that the Lord is concerned about is the content of what they sing. As they sang, it says, the Song of Moses. Now, it's called the Song of Moses. We don't have time to go back and develop this. It's worthwhile if you want to take a peek at this yourself. Exodus chapter 15 gives the full description of what the original Song of Moses was all about. This song is very similar to it, and it's called the Song of Moses to connect us to that. worship that took place then, and the circumstances of that worship was the deliverance of the people of God out of Egypt into the glorious liberty of becoming, for the first time, the people of God. And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, and here is the content of their worship, Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty. Righteous and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who will not Fear, O Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy. For all the nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." And after these things, I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened. This is a song that is sung in heaven. It's not the only one. There are numerous ones in the book of Revelation alone that are described. And the lyrics are written for us. and they all know the lyrics. We hold song sheets because in our limited natural capacity, we have a hard time understanding to sing the same lyrics of a song here, and so we have these helps. No song sheets in heaven. They're singing with the mind of Christ. They know what to sing as they're singing it, but they're all singing the same thing with very specific content. And is the content of their song like or unlike the songs that we sing? It's very much like the songs that we sing. It's very similar in that they're singing about what? They're singing about the Lord. They're singing about the glory of the Lord. They're singing about the power and authority and majesty of the Lord. They're singing about His plan and purpose in history and how God is sovereignly working out His plan and purpose. They're singing about the resistance that that plan faces in the earth, but how God is overcoming that resistance and accomplishing the victory that He had planned and purposed from the beginning of the foundation of the world. They're singing about the same kinds of things that we sing about. So to that degree, we as the church, in our work of worship, our service of worship, we are able to reflect and model on earth some of the culture of heaven. But let me ask you this, other than the church, who else in the world is singing songs with this as the lyrics? Okay, this is kind of an unusual assignment I'd like to give you today as we come to the end. All of you are going to get in your cars and drive home. Does everybody here in your car have a working radio? Does anybody have a working radio? Nobody? Anybody? Okay, get home. If you don't have one in your car, fulfill your assignment at home. The rest of you, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. In your car on the way home, I want you to find a radio station that has music on it with lyrics. Other than a Christian station. I don't care what station you pick, it could be country, it could be rock and roll, it could be whatever. Oldies, golden oldies, whatever it is. And just listen to two or three songs. And listen not for the beat and all of that stuff, because that's secondary, even in heaven. Listen for the lyrics. Listen to the content of what these people are singing about. The fact that they're singing isn't an expression of them bearing the image of God in the earth. But what they're singing is evidence of the corruption of that image. And the fact that this is all that matters to them, to sing about those things. In heaven, there's not going to be any songs about lost love. You know? There's not going to be any songs about the things that we sing about here in this world, other than when we come into the place of worship and recognize and acknowledge who God is and what His great plan is. And really, when you get to heaven, what you're going to see is it's the only thing really worth singing about. It's not going to be like we can only sing these things and we've... Gosh, Lord, can't we have something on the song sheet this week? Because we're tired of singing the same songs about how glorious you are. It's not going to be like that. It's going to be clearly understood by all of us. It's the only thing worth singing about. But here on earth, it just seems like there's so much more interesting stuff to sing about. Is that true? No. It's just as true here as it is there that it's the only thing worth singing about. the glory of the Lord himself. It's just that we have so many distracting things here that seem to be so much more worthwhile to sing about, to write about, to make sculptures about, to paint about. And yet the expressions of the artistic endeavors in heaven that are going to continue for all of eternity, there will be art throughout eternity. but it will all be focused on Him and expressing His glory. All right, we'll stop here for today. Let's pray and entrust our study to the Lord. Father God, as we have just for a few minutes this morning stopped and considered what it's like in heaven, in your presence, what the culture of heaven is like, and considered how you want that to flavor and influence the way we live out our own cultural experiences here, and even you want to work through us to affect and influence the culture around us. I pray, Father, that you would cause these words to be like seed, and that you would plant those in our hearts, cause them to be watered, to take root, and to bear fruit, Lord, that would truly honor and glorify your name. And I pray that you would prepare us as a people so that we will not be shocked on the day that we make our transition into your presence. And I thank you for that in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen.