First Baptist Church: Sermon

by Pastor Glenn Layne

February 9, 2003
(Philippians 3:20-21)

Eternity Makes All the Difference: Part 1
There REALLY is a Heaven

The Columbine Question

It was four years ago this spring when two High School students in Colorado turned the name of their school into household word: "Columbine." Klebold and Harris killed students and teachers and in a final act of madness, killed one another.

I remember being asked a question about Columbine when I came here to meet the congregation in April of 1999. I forget the exact question, but I recall how I answered: "Does anyone here thing those boys had any concept, any belief, that they would have to face God for what they'd done?" The answer of course is no.

Klebold and Harris had a view of life that had no place for God. The term used is worldview. Everybody had a worldview even if they don't realize it. If you're a hardcore atheist, you have some version of a naturalistic worldview: that all there is, is nature: only the things that can be seen and measured and touched. In this worldview, human beings have no souls, only a brain that processes information like an organic computer. And when the brain dies, the person dies.

This was the view of the late astronomer Carl Sagan, who denied the reality of God or the soul to his dying day. "The Cosmos," he said in his PBS documentary of the same name, "is that that ever was and ever will be."

Most people with the naturalistic worldview are restrained by common decency from the kinds of actions that naturalism has no built in prohibition against. But make no mistake-this way of viewing life-as seeing no God to be accountable to, no life beyond this life, no transcendent concepts of right and wrong-does have consequences. Ask the grieving parents of Columbine.

The Christian worldview is different. We are convicted that there is a life after this life-a much larger life, as a matter of fact. There is a God to face and to whom we are accountable. Right and wrong are realities, and determined by His will. There awaits a heaven and a hell.

What I want to share with you these next several weeks is the practical relevance of eternity. I think what we do right now has eternal consequences. I am convinced that the more we internalize the reality of eternity, the better equipped we will be to make wise decisions here and now-and take actions that bring joy to both ourselves and others.

Heaven: the Missing Ingredient

Heaven, sadly, has become a missing ingredient in Christian conversation. We rarely speak of heaven, except at a funeral. It's almost as if today's Jesus-followers are ashamed to admit that there is a heaven, and that they look forward to being there one day.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, I think we have been suckered into a reluctance to speak about the unseen because we are surrounded by a naturalistic, scientific mindset. For example, our ancestors used to look up at the sky and imagine that heaven was literally "up there." Now when we look "up there" we see satellites we watch TV from and a moon we've visited and a universe that we pretend that we understand. "The heavens" no longer seem to contain "heaven." Heaven seems unscientific.

Another reason we've been cowed into short-changing heaven is that we've been told that it's the Christian's version of escapism. "Religion is the opiate of the masses," said Marx. It's just pie in the sky, bye and bye. The German philosopher Nietzsche was livid about this aspect of our faith-he thought the doctrine of heaven made Christians worthless when it comes to social good here and now. Heaven seems escapstic.

And appealing to following Christ by the promise of heaven sounds at least distant to young moderns. "Death?" they say, "By the time I'm that old, maybe they'll have a cure for that!"

So we as evangelical Christians have tended to shy away from much mention of heaven at all. It seems out-of-date, odd and impractical.

But I am convinced, heaven is up-to-date and utterly practical. And as far as the complaint the talk of heaven is just pie in the sky in the bye and bye, I agree with J.I. Packer. Responding to this a number of years ago, he wrote a column titled, "I'll take my pie, please!" The reality of heaven, and all that entails, he points out, has been a steady hope and a moral compass for believers throughout the centuries. Heaven fixes the heart on important, enduring things. Heaven calls us to moral account. Heaven is a very practical truth.

Key Text: Philippians 3:20-21

There are many passages we could turn to in a discussion of heaven, but the one my mind turns to consistently is Philippians 3:20-21:

20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

In the context of the passage, Paul has just denounced those who live their lives as slaves of their passions. There was a false teaching running around Philippi that taught that self-indulgence was just fine. After all, they reasoned, the gospel tells us that we're no longer under the law, so eat, drink and be merry!

Paul's response is this:

18For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. 20But our citizenship is in heaven…

Some speak of those who are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good. I don't think I've ever once met that person. Maybe they exist; maybe in some monastery in Siberia he's there, but I've never met him. More likely are those who are so earthly minded that they are of no heavenly use.

There are plenty of people-plenty of religious, Christian people included, who have staked so much-too much-on what can be seen and tasted and felt and touched here and now. The call of the word of God is to stop looking down and around so much and to look up at the eternal things.

1. We have dual citizenship (20a)

20a But our citizenship is in heaven.

Paul does not deny we have an earthly citizenship. We are dual citizens, or maybe it would be better to say that we know our earthly citizenship is temporary, and our heavenly citizenship is permanent-and as permanent, the one that holds our deepest allegiance.

Our home country is heaven. Actually, the Philippians were used to this idea. Philippi was in northern Greece, but was a colony of retired Roman soldiers and their families. They prided themselves as Romans, dressed like Romans-not Greeks-and often spoke Latin. They had a sense of being a kind of displaced people.

Our homeland is not here. Our true home is heaven-the presence of God. We think differently, talk differently, live differently as a result. We know we do not ultimately belong here. Our final loyalty is not to a nation or a flag or any earthly power, but to the Lord of our Home Country. Our citizenship is in heaven.

Note that it's not future tense: "Our citizenship will be in heaven…" It's a present reality. Not fully entered, of course, but real and certain nonetheless.

There's a credit card company that advertises with the slogan, "There are benefits to membership." There are indeed benefits to membership in this citizenship, and rewards for good citizenship. I want to expand on this over the next few weeks, but just consider for a few moments a few passages:

Luke 6:23. Jesus says,

"Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven." This establishes the fact of rewards in heaven.

Matthew 16:27. Again, Jesus says,

"For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done."

This establishes the fact that what we do here and now will determine the nature of our reward in heaven-that right now lasts forever!

Luke 14:14. Once more, Jesus says,

"Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Here Jesus says that the things we extend ourselves over here and now-the things we lose in the process-we will be repaid for them at the resurrection. No work done here and now for Jesus' sake goes unnoticed or unrewarded in eternity.

2. We wait for Jesus' coming (20b)

20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…

Our citizenship is in heaven because our King is in heaven. According to Philippians 1:23, part of Paul wanted die, leave this life, because he knew that to depart this life for the Jesus-follower means that we will be with Christ.

That's where He is now. Heaven is a real place, not a state of mind or a myth. The nature of this real place is one that has puzzled theologians for centuries. Is it a real place the way Nova Scotia or Jupiter is a real place? Probably the answer is yes-and no. Yes, it's real, as real as real gets, but no, it doesn't seem to belong to our world. In other words, it's not like you can get on the Starship Enterprise and travel there. We are only beginning to get a glimpse of the many dimensions that make up the whole creation, and if what we are beginning to see in physics is right, many of the dimensions of creation exists alongside of the ones we can see.

While the physics of Heaven unclear, the essential nature of heaven is very clear: heaven is the direct presence of God. Again, take a passage like 2 Corinthians 5:8: "We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord." To be "in heaven" is to be in the direct presence of God.

What I mean by that is that in a sense we are always in the presence of God. But we cannot see and delight in Him fully; heaven is when the doors open and we see Him and enjoy Him to the utmost.

I used to be really into short-wave radio. As a kid, I'd go over to a friend's house and tune in Radio Moscow, the BBC World Service and a host of other international broadcasts. We'd hear these disembodied voices floating to us, bouncing around the world on layers of the outer atmosphere. But the voices were distorted and often interrupted by static. Heaven is when the static ceases. Heaven is when the voice is united with sight. Heaven is direct contact.
20But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

One day, at some point in the future, He will return from heaven to this world. This is one of the most pervasive teachings of the New Testament-Jesus shall return. And until He returns, our call is to wait patiently but eagerly: "we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ."

3. When Jesus comes, He will transform us

When he comes, He will do something wonderful:

…the Lord Jesus Christ, 21who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

When He comes, He will exercise heavenly power in earthly settings. The presence-of-God dimension will collide with our dimension. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44a,

42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

That time is when Jesus returns. All the dead will be raised, and the dead in Christ will experience reunion of spirit with a body now transformed like Jesus' own resurrection body-it cannot get sick; it is full of power and glory, not weakness and decay.

Paul describes this in even greater detail in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:

16For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Forever! This is how the age ends; this is how heaven swallows the earthly.

Fernando Ortega wrote a simple song called "Beyond the Sky":

There's coming when time is done
A morning when all our sorrow
And all that we fear is gone,

I long for that holy day
My longing, sometimes is catches my heart
And carries my heart away.

Beyond the sky
Beyond all telling
Our Father Himself will be our light
His arms will hold us
And with His hand
He'll wash away the tears
That stains our eyes.

When darkness falls over me
This promise, it's like a fire inside
Burning the dark away.

How heaven makes a daily difference

Heaven makes all the difference. It gives us a moral seriousness now that forms and restrains us. It teaches us that there is "a heaven to seek and a hell to shun." It tells us that we will stand before Him. It reminds us that this life is a tiny fraction of the totality of our existence. Here, we have only one life to live-one that will shape our eternity. And it means we have a hope that is truer, surer, and stronger than death.

Let's give heaven its place again, people of God. I'm not ashamed of heaven. I want to be with Jesus. I want to be made like Him. And when I stand before Him, I don't want to be ashamed of the way I used my few short years.

After all, our citizenship is in heaven.