Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Will We Do in Heaven? Part 2. He will be reading out of Revelation 21: 1-3.

That’s why Jesus says your sorrow will turn into joy. And I am assured of this, that the depth of your sorrow and the loss of your loved one will one day manifest itself in the height of joy that will be unspeakable in your heart. Welcome to Hope Worth Having.

My name is Mike Sanders and I’m the host of Hope Worth Having. I also serve as the senior pastor of the Open Door Church and I am delighted that you would join us and tune in today. We are continuing our series on what will we do in heaven.

And so we’re in Revelation chapter 21, verse 1 through 3. I want to get right into the message today. And so join me as we begin. 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 gonna 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, Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you. 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 gonna 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 with His mighty angels.

Again, not the rest of I get to grab my pillow and lay down it’s the rest that I don’t have to fight the fight. I don’t have to get up tomorrow and keep pushing for the cause of Jesus Christ. Every day is a new set of problems every day is a new challenge but there is coming for the believer this rest that we’ll experience in heaven it’s the Christian rest it’s not the absence of activity but it is the completion of our spiritual journey it is the end of the struggle with the flesh it is the end of the struggle with the world it is the end of the struggle with the devil.

It’s easy to get faint-hearted as you serve God. I mean, you don’t even have to wrestle with the devil you don’t even have to wrestle with your flesh you don’t even have to wrestle with the world Sometimes we end up as believers wrestling with each other, amen. We’re like brothers and sisters in Christ.

Whoa, what a thought. We’re like brothers and sisters who are playing with their toys, and that’s my toy, and grandma gave that to me, not to you. And that’s my pew, and that’s my ministry, and that’s my classroom, and we dare not share with anybody else, amen.

It’s mine, and we wrestle, and we struggle, and you wonder what happened to the pastor’s hair. He’d been pulling his hair out ever since he became a pastor, because Christians will fuss and fight, and do everything they can, sometimes ignorantly, foolishly, maybe through immaturity. But there’s coming a day there’s not gonna be a burden of fighting the fight.

It’s all gonna be gone. This morning you may be wrestling with temptations in your hearts, and you’ve been trying to overcome this temptation, and it has been dragging you down, and you have a good set of days and weeks, and then all of a sudden, bam, the struggle is so real. There’s coming a day we’re never gonna be tempted again, church.

We are gonna be in the presence of God. Can God’s people say amen? Well, let’s move on. Number three, we will engage in physical activities with physical bodies.

Now, here’s where I want you to understand, again, what I was telling you in my intro, is that when we leave this earth now, before the rapture of the church, our bodies are not with us. Our bodies are not with us. They are not with our loved ones, and so I know we imagine that they might be up there doing certain things relating to their bodies, but they’re not, because our bodies are not with us immediately.

Death is the idea of separation. The body is separated from the soul and spirit, and so soul and spirit is promoted into the presence of God. The body is laid in the casket, or it is there in its ashes, and the Bible says dust to dust and ashes to ashes, and there that body is, but the soul and spirit is in the presence of God, but when the resurrection happens and the dead in Christ, 1 Thessalonians 4, you can study it on your own, when that happens, then we are gonna experience brand new bodies, and one day God is gonna give us a new heaven and a new earth, and he will make all things new, including our bodies.

How many of you need a new body? Amen. And one day, others of you will join us in needing a new body. We know that through the modern day doctors and scientists that they can give you a new hip.

They can give you a new knee and a shoulder, and perhaps one day they’ll give you a new brain through AI. Who knows? But eventually, what I want us to understand that all of these things that are created do not compare to the original model, amen? And they’re not as good. Yes, they are supplements so that we don’t hurt as much, and maybe we can walk a little bit better without so much pain, and they help us, and we’re not against it, and if you need a new hip, go get one.

All right? But one day, you’re getting a brand new body, top to bottom, amen? The Bible says in Philippians 3, verse 21, who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. So God is gonna make all things new, including our bodies, and we wonder what will that body look like? Now we’re in the range of speculation, and I wanna help you out a little bit because I hear some of you wandering around and speaking dogmatically, like you know what our body’s gonna look like in heaven, like you got it all figured out. But let me tell you something.

There’s many speculation. So again, some of you have children in heaven. There is one speculation that the Bible says when we see him, we will be like him.

The scripture says that. What does that mean? Does it mean that we will have a body like Jesus when he, in his glorified state, resurrected at the age of 33 and a half, and that our children that are in heaven will have bodies of 33 and a half? Some believe that, but there’s nothing that affirms this. I don’t know of any scholar, any theologian that thinks this dogmatically and conclusively.

Others believe that our children would remain in the state that they are and that we will be reunited because we will be known as we are what? Known. And so if you never knew your child as a 33-year-old person, an adult, then you would not know them in heaven, and yet the Bible says we will be known as we are known. All I can say to you this morning is I do not have the exact answer as to the age of your body.

The age won’t matter in heaven, but the point being is I do know that we will be like him, and I do know that we will be known as we are known, and what all does that mean in heaven? Well, let’s wait until we get there, amen? And the rest that have already figured out life and you know everything, then we’ll just, we’ll love you in grace, amen? But God gives us a new body, and our loved ones are blessed with new bodies, and all of us who love Jesus Christ are given new bodies, and the question is why would God furnish us with a body and set us on a new earth and give us physical properties if we’re not going to put that body to good use? So God is going to use us. There will be many activities that we will have in our new bodies, and to understand some of the things that we might do in our new bodies, you would certainly study the life of Christ as in his glorified body, as what was his life like after he was resurrected, because Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 that we will have glorified bodies, and certainly we know that there’ll be eating and drinking in the kingdom of God, and I think that’s important. You say, pastor, why would you bring that up? Well, because it dominates a lot of our life, right? We enjoy eating.

Now, the question is what are we gonna eat? Well, it just depends which pastor you ask. If you ask Dr. Dina Padron, you’re having spaghetti. If you ask Pastor Mike, we’re having chicken, and others might say we’re having prime rib, and others might say no, there’s nothing in the Bible that talks about eating meat.

The Bible does talk about the tree of life that will bear fruit every month and it’ll be healing to the nations. Now, what does that mean? Are we gonna get sick in heaven? Wouldn’t you like to be able to just go to a tree and eat a nice piece of fruit and then your flu would go away? Wouldn’t you like that? Well, friends, you’re not gonna get sick in heaven, so what does it mean when it says the healing of the nations? It’s the Greek word of the idea of therapeutic, and I think that it’s gonna have a therapeutic effect upon us, and it’s gonna be meaningful, and it’s gonna be beautiful, and it’s gonna be something that is very important to us that as we eat this fruit from the tree of life and it just bears it every month, and we just enjoy it, and it’s just gonna be like, this is awesome. This is great.

But the Bible doesn’t talk about any particular meat that I’m aware of. Some people say we’re gonna be vegetarians. If we are gonna be a vegetarian in heaven, I’m gonna need God to do a great work in my mind.

Okay, I’m just gonna be honest with you, and I’m just being real with God, and I know maybe some struggle with that, but it’s true because we enjoy. God gave us the ability for something to be enjoyable, and we always know that when we have fellowship with one another, many times there are refreshments, there’s food, and this kind of becomes the center of what we’re doing in our relationship. Jesus said in Luke 22, 30, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

We are definitely gonna be eating and drinking. We’re gonna be learning. We already talked a lot about that.

We’re gonna be rejoicing. We’ve talked about that. We’re gonna be serving.

We’re gonna talk more a little bit about that. There’s a lot of things that we are gonna be doing in heaven. And that takes me to my fourth point that I wanna share with you this morning is that we will enjoy social interaction with one another or fellowship with one another.

One of the things we’ll be doing in heaven is fellowshipping with each other. Now, we will remember our past relationships, and we will continue to recognize one another in the eternal state, and we will not only worship God personally, but we will worship God corporately together with our family, with our friends who love Jesus Christ. It’s gonna be so beautiful.

I cannot express to you enough of how much that is going to mean to you and that you’re gonna be with your family. We understand there’s no marriage in heaven, but that does not change the fact that we won’t know each other in heaven and that we won’t fellowship with one another in heaven and that we won’t interact with one another in heaven. And this time, when I say, what’s for dinner, hon, she’s not gonna be mad at me because nobody gets offended in heaven.

Isn’t that great? I mean, like, you could really tell what you’re thinking. You know, sometimes we have to filter what we think and don’t say it because if you really say what you’re thinking, you’re gonna be in big trouble, buddy, right? You might really get upset. Somebody might really get upset.

And so we have to be careful. But in heaven, the fellowship is gonna be sweet. It is gonna be enjoyable.

It is gonna be a blessing. And we’re gonna interact. Jesus Christ was comforting his disciples and he was consoling them about the fact that he would be leaving soon.

But Jesus said most assuredly in John 16, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. And what he meant is that one day there’s gonna be a reunion of Jesus and his disciples. There’s gonna be a reunion in our relationships.

Remember what I told you? What’s most important in life is relationships, your relationship with God and your relationship with others. And that’ll mean more to you than what your career title is. And maybe what you did and accomplished here on this earth, it’ll mean more to you to be with your family and to be with your friends that love Jesus Christ and to never have to sorrow again that they have been separated from you by death.

That’s why Jesus says your sorrow will turn into joy. And I am assured of this, that the depth of your sorrow and the loss of your loved one will one day manifest itself in the heights of joy that will be unspeakable in your heart. Jesus consoles us with the hope of an eternal reunion with our loved ones at the appearing of our Savior.

The final thing I wanna share with you in thinking about what will we do is that we will exercise responsibility and service to God. God will give us responsibility in this new earth, in this new heaven. Jesus said in Revelation 7, 15, therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple.

And he who sits on the throne will dwell among them. And there’s much to be said and much we could dissect, but here’s what I want you to know. We’ve already taught you a little bit about this, that Jesus said, to whom much is given, much is required.

And so we have this responsibility that we’re to be faithful and obedient to God on this earth and that that will translate into the new heaven and the new earth for us. And the things that you are gifted in and the abilities that you have and the skillsets that God has endowed you with will again transfer to your responsibilities in heaven. And so when you think about the things that you enjoy and the things that you’re passionate about and the things that you enjoy doing, friends, you will be able to do those things in the new heaven and the new earth.

And the one contractor raised his hand in a Q&A service one time with me and he said, Pastor Mike, I’m a builder. Do we get to build in heaven? And I said, certainly, in Isaiah 65, it teaches us in that millennial kingdom and in that new heaven and new earth that we will be building. Here’s what I want you to understand.

Imagine living life for God at its height and doing the things that you enjoy and are gifted in and have abilities for and that you will live that out every day, but there’ll be no sin, there’ll be no sorrow, there’ll be no sadness, there’ll be no suffering. Do not think of yourself or your loved ones just floating around looking for something to do, but know that as the scriptures teach us, there will be much for you to do in heaven and you will serve God day and night and you will be active for the Lord Jesus Christ, but there’s not gonna be pushback, there’s not gonna be a fight, there’s not gonna be temptation, you’re not gonna get weary, you’re gonna say, man, those little kids need to pick it up because they’re slowing down, they can’t even keep up with me, I’m 500 years old. You will have the energy of the Lord and you will live with the Lord forever, you will worship him, you will serve him, you will fellowship with your loved one and let me tell you what your life is going to be like in heaven.

Loving God and loving and nothing will stop you or interrupt you, loving God and loving people. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. We’re talking about what we’ll do in heaven, but the most important thing is, will you be in heaven? And the only way that you can get to heaven is through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no man comes to the Father but by me.

So if you have not put your faith in Christ, if you believe God is calling you, then all you have to do is repent and believe in Jesus, that is to turn away from your sin and your selfishness and to turn towards Christ and what he did on the cross for you. The Bible says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I hope that’ll be true in your life.

Have you checked out our podcasts? Yes, we put out a regular podcast and you can go to hopeworthhaving.com and you can look at those podcasts, you can listen to different topics and different passages of the Bible and take advantage of that opportunity. I hope you’ll be encouraged through that and it’s something that’ll continue to strengthen your faith. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

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