Haven Today - Our Heavenly Dwelling

It's Basic Math, a multi-nation war in the Middle East inevitably will raise gas prices

in North America.

Crude oil prices have jumped close to $80 a barrel.

They were in the 50s just a couple of months ago.

The Trump addressed rising oil prices this week saying if we have a little high oil prices

for a little while, they'll drop as soon as Operation Epic Fury ends.

But anxious consumers have still rushed to the local gas station to fill up their tanks

with low-priced gas, which caused gas prices to jump.

Ten cents a gallon overnight in Utah, the jump was 19 cents.

In uncertain times, we can get anxious.

The stock market goes up and down, gas prices follow.

How are we to live as Christians in this ever-changing world?

For me, the vision of Jesus in Revelation 11 is like an anchor.

He shall reign forever and ever.

Welcome to Haven Today.

I'm David Wolland sharing the great story that's all about Jesus.

Today we're wrapping up a two-week series called Why Heaven Matters Now.

It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want.

The thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work,

and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds when the mind no longer knows wife or friend

or work.

He was talking, of course, about heaven and the new creation yet to come, the promise

of what we have in Christ, spending eternity in the presence of God.

And I think Lewis got it right.

In our fallen state, we try to fill that longing with other things, but to no avail.

Because what our souls long for is that which only Christ can give.

And as he himself said, this is the narrow gate, and only a few find it.

And on this final day of the series, we'll be moving into 2 Corinthians, chapter 5.

Here what Paul says about the physicality of our eternal future, the bodies which we will

be given.

And we'll also take a look at what's at stake for believers on the great day of judgment.

These things, and many other fascinating topics related to heaven, are explored in far

greater depth in the wonderful book, Remember Heaven, Meditations on the World to Come

for Life in the Meantime written by Pastor and author Matthew McCullough.

In just about every instance, the Bible speaks of heaven, the point is what this means

for life in the Meantime.

This has been such a blessing for me personally, and I know it will be for you as well, and

it is our way of saying thank you for your gift of ministry support to Haven, which is

so much needed.

You can make that gift by calling us at 865 Haven, the number to call again 865 Haven,

don't forget to request the book when you make your gift, it's called Remember Heaven,

or you can make that gift online at haventoday.org, haventoday.org.

This is Haven Today, I'm David Wallen.

Not everyone is a camper, or even a glamper, that is someone who likes the idea of camping

but only with enough comforts and accommodations, enough to make it questionable whether it

still qualifies as camping.

Personally, I'd be good with either, rest and refreshment out in God's creation is always

a good thing, but I do lean toward the more rustic version, especially if it means getting

out, away from crowded campsites, out in the backcountry, where you can feel the wild

stillness of creation, and at night see the canopy of stars which only shine so brightly

in places like that, it is glorious.

Most of the time.

However, if you do this enough, you will eventually find yourself having a truly miserable

night.

The wind picks up, the temperature drops, clouds roll in, rain begins to fall in torrents

and simply will not stop.

As a boy, I slept in a tent on a night like that and learned why it is you pitch your tent

on a rise and not a dip, unless you want to wake up in a puddle.

This is my personal definition of miserable, and one of those nights in a tent is enough

to make you truly long for home.

The thought of a warm shower, a hot meal, a soft dry bed is enough to make you groan with

longing.

Well, the Apostle Paul seized on this highly relatable experience of life in a tent and

he turned it into a metaphor to help the church in Corinth not just see, but to feel the

reality of life this side of heaven and to anticipate more clearly the reality of what

is waiting for us in glory.

At the end of 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul says, all the afflictions we suffer in this

life, even the worst of them, are light and momentary, and not only that, the suffering

we experience is actively doing something within us, something of incomparable value.

Namely, it's preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Now, if it were possible to live the Christian life without suffering, that would not really

be a gift.

As desirable as it might sound, we would be the worst off for it.

When all is said and done, what follower of Jesus would want to find themselves unprepared

for the eternal weight of glory in heaven?

Remember the rich man who came to Jesus seeking eternal life, but went away sorrowful because

he was unwilling to walk away from all his wealth to follow Jesus, and after his departure

Jesus turned to his disciples who had left everything to follow him, and Jesus made this

promise about the new world to come.

He said, many who are first will be last, and the last first.

This world has an allure that is hard to look beyond, and it's never been harder than

it is now in our modern age.

On one side, the modern scientific world says, what's real is only what you can observe,

measure, and test.

On the other side, in the modern world, we have post-modernism saying, what's true is

whatever feels true to you, and what both of these ideas about reality and truth have

in common is a denial of the existence of something beyond our ability to perceive.

One pastor reflecting on this recalled centuries ago how Spain had conquered the known world,

or at least what they knew of it then, Spain controlled both sides of the Mediterranean,

and they put a picture on their coins of the rock formations, the famous pillars of

the Straits of Gibraltar leading out to the Atlantic, and on the coins they inscribed

these Latin words, nay plus ultra, no more beyond.

To their mind, what they had seen and where they had been was all there was, no more beyond.

That is until, in 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and after he circumnavigated

the globe, and the discovery of the quote-unquote new world came back to Europe, suddenly all

the new coins minted in Spain were modified to read plus ultra, more beyond.

They had re-aligned their view of the world with the reality they previously had not known,

and the same is true for us.

When we come to grips with the reality that there is more beyond this material world,

more beyond our physical lives today, death is not the end.

But what lies beyond?

And how can we be prepared for it?

All the religions of the world offer an explanation and a solution, and what all of them accept

Christianity having common is this, it's all up to you.

You must do something to fix the problem.

Only in the gospel of Jesus Christ does the world learn the truth that the solution

for the problem of sin is found in what God has already done for you.

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, who became fully man, and lived the perfect life

no one else ever has, who suffered for sin on the cross and died the death sinners deserve

and rose again to new life.

And it wasn't simply that his old body was brought back to life like Lazarus's body

was, but his was a transformed body, a new kind of resurrection body.

Jesus Christ, the Bible says, is the first fruits of the new humanity.

And one day all who have trusted in him will be raised with bodies like his body.

And so we having this assurance from God that there is permanent physical life beyond

the grave in the world to come knowing this, we are made able by the Spirit of God to

endure whatever it is that we must suffer in the here and now for a little while.

It is temporary.

It will come to an end.

That's why Paul says we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen,

for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

And now circling back to the tent metaphor Paul drives his point home, starting in chapter

5 verse 1, for we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have

a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

Tent life is temporary.

It has to be.

Tents are temporary.

They wear out.

Today many of the buildings of the ancient world still survive and the ones that do

were those made of stone.

Yes, there were many tents also in the ancient world, but all of them disintegrated over

the past years.

They were never made to endure.

And neither are the bodies we live in today.

And it is these earthly bodies that Paul is referring to as a tent.

In our fallen world they will last for a season, but over time they also will begin to wear

thin and wear out.

And we already probably feel that at some level.

Life keeps getting harder with advancing age.

But Paul's message isn't pessimistic.

He simply points out the obvious and then joyfully reminds us that as believers in Jesus, we

have a better house.

It's waiting for us.

And it's a house, not just a better tent, but a permanent house, a resurrection body that

one day we will occupy and possess for eternity.

And we are meant to long for that new body, that life in the new world to come.

That's why Paul says we groan.

It's not a groan of suffering but of anticipation.

And from the way Paul phrased this, it would appear he was hoping that Christ would return

even before his own body died, that he would still be alive for what theologians called

the general resurrection.

The moment when the trumpet will sound and the dead will rise and together with the

saints of God still living, be given those new resurrection bodies.

And we can resonate with Paul, can't we?

After all, who wants to die?

None of us do.

And whoever is alive when Christ comes again, they will be given those bodies right away.

That's what Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 4, 15 through 17.

For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord that we who are alive, who are left

until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep, for the Lord

himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command and with the voice of an archangel

and with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds

to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Paul is longing for that, which is why in 2 Corinthians he says, for in this tent we

groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling.

If indeed by putting it on, we may not be found naked.

For while we are still in this tent we groan, being burdened, not that we would be unclothed,

but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

So Paul would have preferred to go from earthly body right into resurrection body like the

body of Christ.

He would prefer not, as he put it in 2 Corinthians 5, not to be naked and unclothed.

And what he means by that will become more clear in the following verses, but I want

to pause here and just clarify what the Bible as a whole teaches about the ways Christians

will experience life.

There are three ways, if you will, that those who die before Christ's return will experience

their life.

First, it's life right now, as we know it, in these bodies which are temporary, like

tents.

Second, when we die, we will go without a physical body to be in the presence of the

Lord.

This is what theologians sometimes call the intermediate state.

This is what Paul refers to by being naked, and he puts it that way because he's still

keeping with the tent metaphor.

Now between these two, which is better, being in these tent-like bodies in this world,

or being without them in the presence of Christ?

Paul makes that clear in verse 8.

We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

However, and this is the part we often miss, and Christians sometimes forget that future

bodyless state is not how we'll spend eternity.

It's second best, because the third and final way we'll experience life will come when

we receive what Paul has already described as a building from God, a house not made with

hands eternal in the heavens, our resurrection bodies, and we are meant to long for this.

In fact, this is interesting.

Did you know this is actually something the Holy Spirit is doing within you, causing

you to ache for the world to come?

That's what Paul says in verse 5.

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

And one of the ways he prepares us is through light and momentary affliction.

They also cause us to groan with anticipation.

And Paul says in Romans 8, that all creation is groaning.

We ourselves are groaning, and also the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings

too deep for words.

And all of these groanings together testify that there is a glory coming that will make

all we endure in the meantime worth it.

And that's why Paul says, so we are always of good courage.

We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk

by faith and not by sight, yes, we are of good courage.

And we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him.

And it's here.

At the end of this train of thought that Paul circles back to something else which is

often not talked about, but is a clear teaching in Scripture, a teaching that motivates and

grounds us in this present moment to live for Christ and to please Him.

Verse 10, 4, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one

may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Let's be clear though.

Paul is not waffling back and forth between salvation by grace through faith and salvation

by works.

No, salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone is the gospel.

But there will be varying degrees of reward given to each individual believer by Christ himself

on the day of judgment.

And Paul speaks about this in 1 Corinthians 3.

Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver and precious stones, would

hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest, for the day will disclose it.

Because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one

has done.

If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved,

but only as through fire.

And so in the days we have left on this earth living in these tent-like bodies, we make

it our aim to please Him, with ongoing repentance, by pursuing righteousness, by seeking His

kingdom first, by serving and loving one another and all the while, anticipating the glorious

day yet to come when, as Paul wrote, what is mortal, may be swallowed up by life.

And in the meantime, we say, come, Lord Jesus, come, amen.

This is Haven today.

I'm David Wollin.

Today is the last day we're offering the phenomenal resource written by Pastor and

author Matthew McCullough called, remember heaven, meditations on the world to come for

life in the meantime.

It's our way of saying thank you for your gift of ministry support.

Just be sure to request the book when you make your gift, and I do thank you for getting

this from Haven today without our listeners doing that, supporting us generously.

We would not be here.

And I also want to give a special thanks to you who simply make a gift even without requesting

any resource, simply giving to support the mission of this 90 years faithful ministry

of Haven.

And we are so thankful for you.

865 Haven is the number to call and make your gift 865 Haven, or you can give online at

haventoday.org, haventoday.org.

I'm David Wollin.

Once you come back again next time, we'll be keeping it all about Jesus.

This is the great story here on Haven today.