The Miracle of Heaven

We have been working through a series called Miracles, and we've found encouragement and hope and discovery in knowing that miracles not only are for us today, but they are happening all around us. And today's Easter, and what a perfect time for us to talk about the miracle of heaven. Why Easter and heaven?

Well, we're always thinking about heaven when it's Easter time. We're thinking about resurrection, and it somehow connects to heaven because it's Easter time. It helps us know that because Jesus conquered death in the grave, there actually is something beyond this life. Easter is the perfect time to talk about heaven. And there's a lot of ideas of heaven based on the context and culture that you were raised in.

Maybe somebody told you about heaven. Maybe you read something about heaven. Maybe somebody had some type of experience of heaven. And there's a lot of misconceptions of heaven. One of those misconceptions is that heaven is just for good people.

I remember the movie Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure when I was a kid. I love that movie. It was about these two guys who were forming a rock band. They didn't even know how to play. And they had a rock band.

They had a stick Exchange. Yep. And they travel around time. And they kept vis-a-eeepm. At least for a living place.

And there's a second movie a sequel to that movie where they actually go to heaven and go to hell. And they call it Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey. And we find that heaven is full of people of intellect that actually conquered something or invented something or had some kind of change in society. And they were all walking around in white robes, smiling and happy. And it looked like Athens where people were gathering together, talking and being intellectual.

And that could be the furthest from what heaven really is. Just a place for good people. That's not heaven at all. Some people think it's a place that you just go and pluck harps all day in clouds. And that doesn't sound like heaven to me at all.

And if that's the case, I don't want to go to heaven. Some people think that it's having church all day. You know, you're singing in a choir and you're praising Jesus all day long. Now, that might be nice for some people. That might be your type of heaven.

Maybe you want to be in church all day long. That's great. But not everybody sees that as heaven. And, you know, some of you don't even know how to sing. Some of you don't even enjoy choir.

So why would that be heaven? There's all these misconceptions. The biggest one is it's just a place that we rest in peace. We rest forever. While resting may sound great, and in some sense, our soul rests when we're with the Lord.

Sleeping in bed 24-7, resting, just doesn't sound that exciting. For me, I'm an action guy. I like action. And I believe that heaven's going to be a lot more than that. And I think we can gather from Scripture that these ideas of heaven aren't necessarily heaven.

It's not just a place for good people. It's not just a place we go rest in peace. It's not a place where we just have church all day. It's not a place where we sit in clouds and play harps. It's much more than that.

In fact, my grandparents' generation, they understood heaven. In fact, there were these events that they would have in their church every year. It was called Homecoming. And at Homecoming, it was kind of an anniversary event where everybody brought something for a potluck. So there were like 15 types of fried chicken, all these macaroni and cheese, and every kind of salad and pastry you could think of.

There was broccoli casserole. There was cheese casserole. There was bread casserole. There was every kind of casserole you could possibly make was there. And it was just a great time.

Soul food, country food, yummy food. Everybody would gather together and have a good time. And then after that, everybody would mosey on into either the sanctuary or some area that was set up with musical instruments. And usually they'd have a professional band there, and they would ask for requests. And about 75% of these requests were about heaven.

Let's sing about heaven. And one of the songs, when we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. And they would sing, I'll fly away, oh glory, when I die. Hallelujah, by and by. Or I have a mansion just over the hilltop.

And one sweet day, I'll sing up there a song of victory. I mean, just this joy and hope of heaven. They understood it. They sang it. They worshiped because they understood that their current situation wasn't it.

And they had hope of something. They had hope of resurrection. They had hope of heaven one day. And the early church didn't give their lives for harps, white robes, and clouds. They gave their lives because they had hope in something.

They experienced something. Not just an idea, not even an event, but a person. And that person was once dead and is now alive. Paul even said, if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then that hope is not there. We can eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we'll die.

They experienced resurrection, and it gave them hope of eternity. They had hope of heaven because Jesus proved that death could not stop him. Death was not an obstacle. He was alive, and we can be alive. And it wasn't a place in their minds, the early church, that we sit and rest forever.

It was something dynamic. It was something real. It was the very thing that gave them life. And Jesus said, I go and prepare a place for you, and where I will be, you will be also. He didn't say, I'm going someplace where you'll get to wear white robes and harps and pluck all day.

He says, I come so that you may have life. So resurrection Easter gives us a glimpse of heaven. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. In John 11, anyone who believes in me will live even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never, ever die, will never, ever die.

And that's the miracle that we can live now. He came. He says, I am the resurrection. And whoever believes in me right now will never die. And when you pass from this life, you will enter into the next nonstop.

There's no hiccups. We will live forever. What a beautiful miracle. In fact, he gives life to our mortal bodies now. Romans 3.

11 says, And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because his spirit who lives in you is in you. And God raised us now from all the stuff. He can raise us now from all the heartache. He can raise us now from all the pain, the disappointment. Everything that sin causes in our life, you can be brought to life now.

And there's two things we need to know about heaven based on that. Heaven is not locational, but relational. It's not just somewhere I'm going to go at some distant place in the future after I die. It's not just where I'm going one day. It's about who I am and who I am with now.

It's about my identity now in Jesus. God is spirit. We have a spirit, man. Our spirit desires to be with God, and we can have a relationship with Him. It's relational, not locational.

But it also, number two, will be a physical reality. It's not just a location, but it's relational. But one day it will be locational. And it will be vocational. See, he says in Revelation, John says in Revelation 21, verse 1, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and first earth, being this existence, had passed away. This is the return of the Lord. And there was no longer any sea. And then verse 3 says, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is among us and His people. And He will dwell with them.

They will be His people. And God Himself will be with them and be their God. Meaning that no longer will we be distanced from God, that God will be right there with us. Through Jesus Christ, we are made relational with Him. But one day we will be in His very presence.

And in verse 4, the most beautiful part is He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Now, this doesn't sound like an existence where we pluck harps all day. This means that all the things that make this place lovely and beautiful and whole and admirable will be brought back to its original state, where God originally intended to be lovely, to be beautiful, to be whole, to be admirable, to be everything that we ever thought life could be. When sin tainted the world, we lost a paradise that God created.

But God's intention is that this paradise lost will be paradise restored. And I don't know about you, but who wouldn't want that? I want that. I'm sure you want that. That's the intention of Christ.

He came to redeem the world. So what are the benefits that we have in the hope of resurrection in heaven? Number one, I don't have to live in guilt and shame. We no longer have to nail ourselves to a cross because Jesus already nailed it there. God sent His Son Jesus to take care of all our guilt and shame.

And because He is God, we can have that hope. The only accusation that the courts and rulers could make against Jesus is that He claimed He was God. He went through six courts. Three Roman courts couldn't prove anything. They said, you Jewish people, you have to take care of this because we cannot find any fault in this man.

Pilate said, I wash my hands of this man because I cannot find any guilt in him. The only thing they could claim was that He claimed He was God. So they crucified Him. The Jewish courts crucified Him. And it was a brutal punishment.

They scorned Him. They beat Him. They struck Him 39 times with the cat of nine tails, bone and glass, ripped His skin. In fact, Roman law would not allow 40 strikes with the cat of nine tails because it would usually kill a man. They would want to do just enough to keep the person alive, to give them enough to prolong their life so that they can experience pain.

And He carried the cross up the hill after the fact. They nailed Him to a cross, bent His legs. Why did they bend His legs? So that He would not die right away. Because if they bend His legs, He would have enough to push His body up.

Because His body was suffocating as He was dangling from a cross. And as He lift Himself up, He would gain a breath. As He was suffocating, as He was drowning in His own blood, He could grasp or gasp a single breath to keep Himself alive. It was to prolong His death. And He went through all this and said, Forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.

They don't know what they're doing. So who put Jesus on the cross? Two answers to that. God did. The prophet Isaiah, 700 years before Christ, prophesied this.

All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God's path to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on Him the guilt and sins of us all. He was oppressed and treated harshly. Yet He never said a word.

He was led as a land to be slaughtered. From prison and trial, they led Him away to His death. But who among the people realized that He was dying for their sins? That He was suffering their punishment. He had done no wrong.

He was innocent. No court could prove that. And He never deceived anyone. But He was buried like a criminal. He was put in a rich man's grave.

Yet when His life is made an offering for sin, He will have a multitude of children. So God put Him on the cross for our sin. And He was thinking about us because we are stray lambs. But secondly, we did it. Because if we didn't sin, He would not have died or had to die.

He was nailed with nails of love. It says in Romans 4.25, Jesus was handed over to die because of our sins. And He was raised from the dead to make us right with God. So after Jesus died, He was taken to a tomb.

A large stone was rolled over the tomb. It was sealed shut, covered. Two Roman guards were set on each side of the grave. The disciples were afraid in hiding. Nobody was there with Him.

Mary Magdalene goes to the grave. The next morning, finds the seal broken. His clothes were neatly folded. Hello, skeptics. His clothes were neatly folded.

If His grave was to be robbed, would the disciples had taken the time, or whoever robbed the grave had taken the time to fold His clothes. He runs back to His disciples. She, or she rather, runs back to the disciples and tells them. And Peter and John goes back to the tomb and sees it. And they turn back and tell the others, Thomas is still unbelieving.

I just don't believe it until I see it. And then Jesus shows up on the scene. He says, Thomas, don't you see my hands? Don't you see my feet? The first thing Thomas does is fall to his knees and say, My Lord, my God.

And Jesus fellowshiped. He ate with them. He hung out with them. Why did these cowards hiding in their homes become courageous and contagious? It was resurrection.

They experienced something. This was not some kind of phony thing. This was not something that just, that it was a made-up story. It wasn't any of that. They saw resurrection.

They saw heaven right in front of them, the hope of heaven. Next, I don't have to fear death. That's your next point. I don't have to fear death. The number one thing people fear is death.

Why? Because it's uncertain. But the hope in heaven and resurrection is evidence. Evidence of resurrection takes the fear away. This message spread all over the world because they witnessed resurrection and no longer feared death.

And when we told you, according to 2 Peter, when we told you about the powerful coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, we were not telling you made-up stories. So they're disputing the skeptics out there. They said, we are not telling you made-up stories that someone invented. Rather, we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. We saw it.

It's real. It's true. Well, that was Peter, the disciple. How can we trust Him? Well, hundreds of people saw Jesus.

Acts 1 and 3, it says He saw many people. He walked around Jerusalem for 40 days. So 40 days of eyewitnesses saw Him. 1 Corinthians 15 says there's 500 people that saw Him at one time. And there's indisputable evidence that there were multiple eyewitnesses and they no longer feared death because they knew.

It wasn't just some kind of game. It wasn't some kind of act. They saw heaven. The next point I want to make is, I can have God's Spirit in me. I can experience heaven now.

Because God wants to actually walk with me. His Spirit can be with me. He said, it is good for me to go away because I'll send my Spirit to you, my helper. So He died. He rose from the dead.

Then He goes back to heaven and He sends a helper. Jesus says this in Acts 1.8, And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power and tell people everywhere about me. In Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And He sends His Spirit on the day of Pentecost as a hundred people were in an upper room waiting.

And it says like tongues like fire came down and covered the room. And the people were old and went out preaching the gospel. The Spirit was with them. Listen now, you were never intended to do this alone. You were never intended to go life alone.

Jesus sent His Spirit so that He could be with you and walk life with you. And He wants to empower us by His Spirit. And the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us every day. That exact same resurrection power. That heavenly power we can experience today.

Ephesians 1.19 and 20 says, I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great His power is to help those who believe. It helps us. It helps us. It helps us believe.

It helps us walk life. It helps us figure out things. It directs us. The Holy Spirit, not it. He is with us.

And it's that same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead. Ephesians 1.19 and 20. The power to free us from our past. The power to help us start over.

The power to change our personalities. To heal our marriage. To give us real life. To keep us going. When we feel like we just can't go anymore.

He brings dead things to life. He brings our hearts to life. He brings hope back to us. When we feel like everything is lost, He restores it all through the power of His name, of His Holy Spirit. Trust Him.

Trust Him today with your hurts, your aches, the things that you've lost. If you feel like you can't go on, trust Him today. Invite His Spirit. Invite Jesus into your life. The next point I want to make is I'm unconditionally loved by God.

By the power of Easter, resurrection, and heaven, I know that I am unconditionally loved by God. Because God is love and made us to be loved. He created us to be loved. We didn't deserve it. It was given to us freely.

He didn't have to do anything. He did it out of His very nature, which is love. And the reason Christianity exploded is because of love. The message of love. John 3, 16 and 17 says, For God so loved the world, you all know this scripture.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whosoever or whoever believes in Him shall not perish, shall not die, but have eternal life. There's heaven. Eternal life right there in the biggest, most popular scripture in the Bible. And then it says, For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, to hate the world, to kill the world, but to save the world through Him. Through Him.

So God wants you to know His love. And if you genuinely let God into your life, He will transform you. Let His love into your life. Let Him be a part of your life. See, most religions are based on law.

It's about how good I can be. But Jesus is, if you want to call it religion, is relationship. It's not a set of laws. It's just one word and that's love. I love you.

I want to be with you. I want to transform you. And Jesus said, I'm giving you a new commandment. And this was radical for the people in the Gospels. I'm giving you a new commandment to love each other just as I have loved you.

You should love each other. Your love for one another, and get this, will prove to the world that you are my disciples. So the proof of your relationship with Jesus is to love Him and love each other. In fact, John says in 1 John 3, 10 and 11, this is how we know who the children of God are. Anyone who does not obey God's commandment does not love others is not a child of God.

This is the message we've heard from the very beginning. We must love each other. So the Bible tells us, as a church family, we are to love, we are to pray, and we are to care for each other. And the interesting fact is that though Christianity was legal in the book of Acts and through the early church, the communities and the cities and the government found favor with Christians because of their love for each other and their communities. And they said, you know, I don't know about this Jesus thing, but there's something good happening here.

And they took notice, and people knew them by their love. That should be a message for us as a church. That our city, our community, Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads will know us by our love. Not because how much Bible we know, how good we are, how big our church is, whatever it might be. They only know us by our love.

The next point I want to make is I can live with purpose and meaning. I can live with purpose and meaning. See, this is what everybody really wants. Purpose and meaning. We walk through this life without purpose and meaning.

And we need purpose and meaning. We want to be who we were created to be. We want to find out who we were created to be. And you can live a life with purpose and meaning because Jesus said, I come to bring you real life. You are not an incident.

You are not an accident. You're meant for a purpose. And until you understand that, life isn't going to make much sense. It never will. You'll go from job to job, from toy to toy, you'll sex partner to sex partner, activity, whatever it is.

Just be hype. But hype doesn't sustain you. None of these things sustain you. You'll cram everything into that empty space in your life to try to find fulfillment. The best beach, the best surf spot, the best golf course, the biggest toys.

You'll do whatever you can to fill that spot and it just won't happen. So life will never make sense until you understand your purpose and your meaning. And the reason why Christianity was contagious and grew is that people had a reason to live. They had a purpose in life. Mark 8, 35 says if you insist on saving your life, you will lose it.

If you insist on going to these things in the world to save yourself, you're going to lose it. It's not going to make much sense. And he says this, It says only those who throw away their lives for the sake of the good news, for the sake of the good news will ever know what it means to really live. Meaning those who throw away their lives for the sake of the gospel of Christ will find life. They will really live.

They will live with purpose. The early church had purpose. It was worth living. It was worth dying. And so many people were becoming Christians in the early church because they understood this concept that there actually is life and giving your life to Christ and letting him rule and coming under his umbrella, under his law, under his freedom.

Freedom, because his law is freedom. His law is love. And it grew and grew and grew. And then the government got scared. These Christians are growing too fast.

And what did they do? They began to persecute them. So for 300 years, the church was persecuted. All the disciples were martyred. Christians were not afraid to die.

In fact, Acts 15 says they risked their lives for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul penned this verse down. He said in 2 Corinthians 4, 17, 18, Our troubles and sufferings are, after all, quite small and won't last very long, yet this short time of distress will result in God's richest blessings upon us forever and ever. And then he says this, so we don't focus our attention on the trouble we see right now. Instead, we look forward to the joys in where?

In heaven, which we haven't yet seen. Our troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever. So short-term pain, long-term gain in heaven. I want to gain heaven, the miracle of heaven. And then my last point is this, I can be certain that I am going to heaven.

So the question is, we know that heaven is a place, and a wonderful place, and will be restored, and all things will be made new. And we can have all the ideas of heaven we want to, and we can want to go there, but are we certain that we're going there? So my question for you, are you certain that you're going to heaven? Well, if I'm nice enough, maybe I'll go. No, that's not how it works.

If it was about being nice, it would have been an enormous waste. Christ didn't die on the cross just to help perfect people, or to help perfect people. Because we are not perfect. We're going to fail. It's just who we are.

We are going to fail. We are going to fall short. We are going to do something stupid. We're going to miss the mark. We're going to sin, and it's going to happen.

We're not perfect. That's why Christ gave his life on the cross, because we're not perfect. The first Christians were contagious because they knew no one could take the salvation they had in Jesus Christ away from them. They weren't perfect. But they accepted Jesus Christ, and no one could take that away from them.

And you could take my life. You can take everything I have, even my life. But you can't take what Christ has done for me. 1 Peter 1.4 says, We have been born into a new life, which has an inheritance that can't be destroyed or corrupted and can't fade away.

That inheritance is kept in heaven for you. It's kept in heaven for you. We have a new life. When we give our lives, our hearts over to Christ, when we have a relationship with him, we have heaven. And we can't fathom heaven.

No book can show us heaven, because the Bible says, No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him. So we don't see heaven, but we know heaven's before us because we have resurrection. We have Jesus. We have Easter. We celebrate this because we know.

We have hope. And that's why we gather here today, 2,000 years later, as a church that was tried, that society, that government, that everything that is against God has tried to wipe out, and it's still in existence. In fact, the church under persecution grew, and it grew, and it grew. Why? Because of hope.

Because it's real. It's something sustainable. It's not just hype. It's something that changes our lives. It's something that we can see.

It's substance of things hoped for and evidence of things not seen. So some of you are here today, and you're like, Well, you know, I don't even know if I have a relationship with Christ. Well, I think I was with him, you know, when I was younger, but I kind of walked away from him. Well, yeah, one time I had a relationship with Christ, or I thought I had a relationship with Christ, but I'm so far from God now, I don't even know where to turn. So how do I get back to God?

You've got to be close to him. Well, how do I get close to him? Well, because of Jesus Christ. That chasm has been pieced back together. There's a bridge over the chasm.

See, Jesus has that bridge, that if we receive him, accept him as our Lord and Savior, ask him to come into our hearts and come into our lives, we can be close to God. We can have a relationship with God. That's why God put him on the cross. God did it. We did it.

And Jesus offered freely to do it so that you can have a relationship with him. You don't have to any longer be far away from him. So if that's you today, will you say this with me? Say this prayer with me. And don't just say it.

Believe it and receive it. And let it change your life. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God who rose from the dead, that the miracle of resurrection happened, and I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Cover me. Cover my sins.

Cover my shortcomings. Cover my failures. Come into my heart. Come into my life. Make me a new creation in you.

From this day forth, I walk with you in a relationship with you. Send your love into my heart and into my life. Overcome me with your love, Lord. And Holy Spirit, walk with me from this day forth. In your name.

Amen. If you gave your life to Christ today, I ask you to do a few things. First of all, fill out that connection card and let us know. Secondly, be baptized. We have a baptism service at the end of the month, 29th of April.

Get connected is the third thing you need to do. We have small groups during the weeks that meet. We have other opportunities to serve on teams in the church. We're going to have some outreach opportunities coming up here soon that you can get involved in. Do something.

Get connected. Get connected with some people so you can grow because you won't grow unless you're connected. You're connected with the life source, with the vine. So we just love you. We thank you.

We celebrate you today. If you gave your life to Jesus, we celebrate you today. In the name of Jesus, we love you and thank you. Amen.