Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Will We Do in Heaven? Part 1. He will be reading out of Revelation 21: 1-3.

And we rest in Christ for our salvation. We no longer are trying to work ourselves to heaven, but we are resting in the work of Christ on the cross through the resurrection and our faith in Jesus Christ that now brings us to become the people of God. Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and this is Hope Worth Having.

We are looking forward to sharing the hope that is found in Jesus Christ with you today. And I want to encourage you to get your Bible and let’s go to the book of Revelation. We want to begin our series on what will we do in heaven? You know, believers have different ideas of what it might be like in heaven.

Well, we want to turn to the scriptures and get a clear picture of what that means. So join me as we study together. If you have your Bible, I want you to join me in the book of Revelation.

The book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible, certainly the last book of the New Testament. We’re going to be in chapter 21 verses one through three. We’ll be looking as well at a sorted number of verses.

If you’re visiting today, our church has been going through a series in which I have been teaching on five questions about heaven and five questions about hell. Now, this is a good day to visit because I’m teaching on heaven today. I feel bad for our visiting guests when they show up and the pastor lays into the topic of hell and what the Bible says about it.

But we are coming to the end of that series to talk about what will we do in heaven? What will we do in heaven? Life is about relationships. And you got to remember that our relationships are more important than careers. They are more important than money.

They’re more important than the tangible material things of this earth. And when you come to the end of your life, there’s really only two things that are going to be meaningful to you. And that is your relationship with God and your relationship with others.

Jesus summed it up like this. He was asked, what is the greatest command in the Bible? And Jesus said, it is to love God and to love your neighbor. In essence, to love God and to love people.

We are to love God with all of our heart, with all of our strength. We’re to love God with passion and consistency. But we’re also called to love one another.

And when we think about everything that is dear to us, even here on this earth, we hope and trust that your relationship with God and your relationship with others is very precious to you in your heart. And one day, those relationships that you have on this earth, I’m certain that you desire that they will be with you in heaven. And that is what is going to be a part of making heaven so wonderful.

We long for our glorious future in heaven. And it is the hope of heaven that has sustained the people of God throughout the centuries. As believers, we focus on heaven, not as a reprieve from real life, but to gain strength for real life.

We concentrate on heaven because we must remember that this world we live in is not heaven. And it is filled with so much trouble and so much trials. And we see the curse of sin sweeping across this world all around us.

But one day, God will lift that curse. And we will reside with him throughout eternity. And we will be in a place that is called heaven.

We have been learning a lot about heaven. John the Revelator takes it even farther in chapter 21. And he says, Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God. Now we must understand something about heaven, that I think sometimes even as we teach the Bible and as we are learning and studying the Bible, that we might get confused about heaven.

That I want you to understand that upon the departure of a believer from this world, that the Bible says to be absent from the body is to be present with God. And so often we envision great thoughts of our loved ones, or perhaps even what we might be doing up in heaven. There is the immediate presence of being there in heaven with God that Jesus described in John chapter 14.

And Jesus said it is a place that is prepared for us, a place that he has personally put together for us. The King James says it’s a mansion. The better translation might be a dwelling place.

Not that the King James translation is inferior, but that simply the word means a dwelling place. But I am certain that it’ll be the greatest dwelling place that supersedes any mansion or great place on this earth. Amen? I saw the other day that somebody’s house in Palm Beach, Florida sold for $150 million.

Yes, it was huge. It was massive. But I thought about how our dwelling place in heaven will be superior to anything on this earth.

And sometimes as we envision our loved ones in this grand place called heaven, who are rewarded for their faithfulness and obedience to God and their desire to live for the Lord, that we might think that immediately they have a body. But the truth is not to break your heart, but the spirit and soul dwells with God in heaven upon our departure. But the body is not reunited with the soul and spirit until the resurrection of the dead in Christ.

And we understand that that will take place after the tribulation period and in the midst of the coming of Christ as he is working miraculously in our lives. And so I want you to know that when we read chapter 21 and all of a sudden John says, I’m taking you further. And he says, I want you to know I saw a new heaven, a heaven, not where your loved ones are right now, but a new heaven and a new earth, not the earth that you’re in right now, a new heaven and a new earth.

The Bible says, and the first earth it’s passed away. The first heaven has passed away. And now there is a new heaven and a new earth.

And that is what I want us to understand this morning in relating to what will we do in heaven. And it’s essential that we understand the unfolding and the process of bringing that all together. So we don’t have misconceptions about what heaven is or isn’t and what are our loved ones doing in heaven and what will we do when we get to heaven.

So let me submit unto you five things, five activities in heaven that we certainly can affirm through the scriptures. Number one, we will revel in God’s presence and worship him supremely. We will revel in God’s presence and worship him supremely.

The Bible teaches us that God’s presence is truly the most exciting aspect of life in heaven. Look at verse three of chapter 21. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with them and they shall be his people.

God himself will be with them and be their God. And so we see that over and over, even in this small verse, that the Bible is reiterating to us the presence of God, that God is dwelling with us, that God is with us, that he is among us. And so I know immediately that you’re saying again, as we talked about a little bit last week, that how is it that God is not with us? Because he is omnipresent.

And so here the Bible is saying that God will be with us. And the assumption could be that maybe he was never with us. But that’s not what John the Revelator is teaching us.

He is trying to emphasize to us that there will be a greater manifestation of the presence of God in the new heaven. The psalmist said in Psalm 1611, that will show me the path of life. And in thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand there are pleasures evermore.

I cannot express to you enough that being in the constant manifested presence of God and how it is so fulfilling and meaningful and how it is the most joyous experience that a believer could have in their life. There are times and moments in our life that as we are walking in the Spirit or we are working for the Savior and we are faithfully living for God, that the very manifested presence of God comes upon us and we experience that great joy. But it is for a moment.

But there is coming a day that sin will not hinder that constant manifested presence of God in our life. It will be continuous in our life and it will bring the utmost fullness, as the scripture says, of joy in our life. And note, he says, that there are pleasures forevermore.

When you think of your loved one in heaven, I want you to know that they certainly are not disappointed. And no one ever goes to heaven and says, man, I’m let down and it just doesn’t seem like it was ever what I thought it was. But it’s even beyond what we could ever imagine.

And so we understand that God is with us today, but we also understand that in heaven we are experiencing this presence of God and it is leading us to worship him supremely. We will have a greater capacity for experiencing God’s presence in heaven, unlike anything that we experience here on this earth. The last I checked, we are made of flesh and bones.

Did you guys check? Are you flesh and bones? You are human. Welcome to humanity. When our children would grow up, sometimes they might complain about something or they would say, that’s not fair.

And I would say, welcome to humanity. Welcome to life. Because you live in a flawed world.

You live among flawed people. And I know that some of you are wondering, how is it that some of these people got into my family? But there they are. Flawed people.

Humans who have weaknesses. Humans who have problems. Humans who are limited.

And friends, when it comes to our worship of God, we have gathered this morning to worship the Lord in this worship service. And we have been worshiping him in song. And we worship him as we read the scriptures.

And we worship him as we pray. And we worship him even as the word of God is being taught. And we are worshiping him and using our talents and our gifts and our abilities.

We are just worshiping the Lord. But friends, whatever the experience here, it’ll be superseded in the constant presence of God. Listen to what the psalmist said in Psalm 27, 4. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

Now for some people, worship is boring. And they don’t like to worship God personally. And they don’t like to worship God corporately.

And they want nothing. My friends, you’re going to be a mess in heaven. Because in heaven, one of the supreme things that we are going to do is to worship God.

And we are going to enjoy it to its fullest. And it’s just going to be amazing to us. For all of our senses will be alive and well.

And we will be able to worship God. And the degree to which we will be able to delight and enjoy God will be beyond anything that we are experiencing today. It is sin.

It is our flesh that limits our enjoyment of God. It is this body that we live in that is flawed, that hinders the degree in which we can delight in God. The psalmist said he was longing for the day that he could dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, and to behold the beauty.

What he is saying is, I want to just enjoy God. And I just want to delight in God. And I just want to worship God.

Because he is so beautiful. He is so majestic. And he is so magnificent.

I just want to dwell, and focus, and thank, and worship about God Almighty. But we’re limited now. But one day, that will be taken away.

I think the apostle, when trying to illustrate the sign gifts, gave us some insight in understanding that in 1 Corinthians 13, 12, when he said, For now we see through a glass darkly, or partly. We don’t see it fully. We don’t have the full perspective.

But then, face to face. What’s it going to be like for you to be face to face with Jesus Christ? What’s it going to mean to us to be in this constant presence, when our clouded minds, and our darkened minds, and our limitations are all removed, and we’re just in this great, beautiful, constant presence of God, worshiping Him, and enjoying Him? What is that going to mean to us? Well, my friends, it’ll be the most fulfilling and meaningful thing in your life. I know that some feel that if they could just get to the top of the ladder, if they could just get that job promotion, if they could just get that house, or if they could just make a little bit more money, that they would be more satisfied.

But I’m telling you that there are many people who got to the top of the ladder, and they made the most of money that could be made, and they’re still dissatisfied. Why? Because the vacuum in your heart can only be filled in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the most significant thing that you and I need is to know Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and to live our days that we might worship God, enjoy God, and glorify God in all that we do and say.

And friends, that is the purpose of mankind, and I want you to know it will not change when you get to heaven, for the redeemed will enjoy life in the presence of God in heaven. The second thing I want you to see is that we will experience joyful rest. What will we do in heaven? We will enjoy joyful rest.

But let me help you understand this joyful rest, because it’s really not the rest that you’re thinking about. Revelation 14, 13 says this, that I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, right, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors and their works follow them.

When we study the book of Hebrews, a significant theme is the rest that we find in Jesus Christ. Many of you are familiar with the Old Testament and how God taught the people that they were to take a Sabbath and that they were to once a week rest, and that was on a Saturday. They would rest.

There would be no work. There would be no activity. They were just simply to dwell upon God, and they were to rest.

And for many, many years in our communities, in our American culture, you couldn’t do anything on a Sunday. You would be labeled as the worst Christian in America. I had achieved that label one Sunday, and this was during COVID, and I want you to know as horrible of a person as I am, that I was on a Sunday outside mowing my lawn.

But you got to understand, my schedule was heavy, and there wasn’t one day during the week, and so it was either going to get up to my nose or we get her mowed, amen? And my wonderful neighbor, who I’ve been inviting to church and inviting to come, and he’s come a few times, and I hope he’s not here this morning, but I do want him to be here, but I’m telling a story on him, but he came flying over to my yard, Pastor Mike, what are you doing? And I said, what? He said, my grandpa said you can never mow your lawn on Sunday, that it’s against the Bible. And I said, well, I appreciate your grandpa, but the Bible does say when the ox is in the ditch, you got to do what you can to get the ox out, and the ox was in the ditch. Now, there’s nothing wrong with mowing your lawn on Sunday.

If you want to mow it today, go ahead, and when you’re done, come on over to mine and mow mine as well. You might as well be blessed beyond measure. But anyways, what I’m saying is that people embrace this idea of Sabbath and rest that even it became a part of our culture and our traditions within the church and with the way that we did things.

Now, we know that the Bible teaches us that Christ is the fulfillment of all the symbols and the shadows, if you will, and the imagery that was in the Old Testament, and that Jesus Christ is now our rest, that we find our rest in Christ. He is the one that brings spiritual rest. He is the one that brings true rest in our life, and we rest in Christ for our salvation.

We no longer are trying to work ourselves to heaven, but we are resting in the work of Christ on the cross through the resurrection and our faith in Jesus Christ that now brings us to become the people of God. And there’s a lot we can talk about that, but I’m simply just helping make the case that this idea of rest is taught in the Bible. But when we read this text in Revelation 14 verse 13, we should not see the word rest as one of inactivity, but rather here he is talking about that we have the relief from the burden of all the challenges and the afflictions and the sufferings of life.

And that’s exactly what the passage means, is the believer will rest from their labors, that the believer who has been fighting the good fight of faith, the believer that has been marching forward in Christ even against opposition, even dealing with the temptations of the flesh and the struggles of society and the problems of life and even the physical challenges that one might have to experience in life as their health deteriorates as they get older. The Bible is teaching us that they can rest from all of that struggle, and they can rest from all of those challenges. It does not mean when you go to heaven that you’re going to sit on a cloud, play a harp, and just sleep all day.

And I know that sounds very enticing to some of you. You would just love to sleep all day, but that’s not what heaven is. Heaven is a place where the Bible describes to us back in our text, if we’ll look in verse 4 of Revelation 21, that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, and there shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

If we were to invert this verse, we would say that life is full of pain, and life is full of sorrow, and life is full of death, and life is full of crying and tears. And the Bible is reminding us that the struggle of life, the challenges of life, and the obstacles of life is one day coming to an end for the believer in Jesus Christ. And we will no longer have to fight the good fight of faith, and we will no longer have to push ourselves to keep on keeping on for Jesus Christ, and we will no longer have to bear the weight and the burdens of trying to comfort those who are hurting and who have lost loved ones.

And we will no longer have to cry ourselves to sleep, and we will no longer have to feel the emptiness of grief in our hearts as we miss our loved ones dearly. One day, church, you will rest from all of that sorrow, and you will be in the presence of God, enjoying the beautiful presence and majesty of God, and you will rest from your labor for God. How beautiful is that? I want us to understand this.

Would you take your Bible and go to 2 Thessalonians? Now, if you just back up from Revelation, you’re going to bump into 2 Thessalonians, not too far, but 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 in verse 6. And again, I think we’re given a little insight into what God is saying is coming for the believer, and even what some of your loved ones have already experienced and are experiencing. In verse 6 of chapter 1, the Bible says, Now, let me just stop there. Just a side note.

We’re out there living for God, and sometimes there’s pushback, and sometimes there’s opposition, and sometimes people aren’t as cooperative, and sometimes people make it difficult, and sometimes people are antagonistic because of our faith in Jesus Christ. We were talking about this in Sunday school with the young adults and how we suffer in this world, but that God has called us not to fight evil with evil, but our response is goodness. Our response is kindness.

Our response is that those who trouble us, we trust in God because we believe that God will make right all that is wrong in this world. Now, we like to get ahead of God, don’t we? I mean, perhaps maybe the hardest word for Christians is wait. We don’t like to wait, and how I know this is that I observe how some of you are driving out there and how irritated you get, but I’m among you.

I find myself frustrated. We don’t like to wait, but when it comes to those who trouble us and persecute us or even push back on us or make it difficult for us as we’re trying to live for Christ, the Bible says God is going to repay, and so we must, whether it’s here or later, we must trust God that he will repay in his perfect timing. He will deal with all the injustice in this world.

We strive to live our life with justice and integrity and character and honor and glory to God, but we trust him. Look at verse 7, and to give you who are troubled, what does that word say? Rest. See, I love that because it’s a battle living for God.

If you think following Jesus Christ means your life is easy, you are sadly mistaken, and why is it that some start out like shooting stars for Christ and all of a sudden they disappear on us? It is because they responded in emotion to God and they were under the impression that somehow their life would be easier, and when they found themselves in the midst of trouble and the midst of a trial and in the midst of antagonism, they retreated. But the true believer perseveres, and the true believer keeps going on, and the true believer never gets weary in well-doing because they keep pushing forward for the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are given a promise that God will give you who are troubled. Rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven.

Heaven is a real place. It is a place that Jesus has prepared for us, those that love him and follow him and believe in him, and a lot of people have these images that they’re just going to float around on a cloud in heaven, but that’s not the truth. We actually have responsibilities.

We will enjoy doing things and connecting with family, friends, and meeting new people. It’s just going to be amazing what heaven’s going to be like, and I want you to remember that it is going to be utopia because it is the absence of sin, and it’s not like it’s going to be totally different than the way it is now. It’s going to be very much like it is, that you and I will have jobs, responsibilities, and things that we’ll do, and we’ll connect with family and friends, but minus sin, and that’s what’s going to be so amazing as we worship Jesus Christ and continue to glorify his name.

So make sure that you go to our website because you can get this message in its entirety. It’s been streamed and it’s on the YouTube channel. We encourage you to check that out.

There’s a whole archive. Just type in heaven and that’ll come right up for you, but we encourage you to also check out our Facebook page and make sure you like us and enjoy some of the posts that are being put out there, and we’re hoping they’re encouragement to your life. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.

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