2 Pet 3:13 – Stairway to heaven – sermon notes
‘In keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.’
Charles H. Spurgeon: “When you talk about heaven let your face light up with a heavenly glory. When you talk about hell, your everyday face will do.”
What is heaven, and where is heaven? – Heaven is where God is.
You might think, in this age of computers and space travel, that belief in heaven was well past its sell-by date; a relic from more primitive times. But there is no shortage of belief in heaven.
According to Peter, we don’t have to rely on guesswork; we don’t have to fall back on wishful thinking – it is ‘according to his promise.’
To be sure, that are many questions about heaven which we cannot answer in this life:- (1 Cor 13:12) Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
But God has not left us in the dark:- (1 Cor 2:9-10) As it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”– (10) but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
But it strikes me that many of us are walking around with our hands in our pockets, our heads down, and our eyes fixed on the ground straight in front of us. I want to encourage you to lift your gaze up, and to see there in front of you a stairway that leads right up to heaven. It has just three steps to it
The Christian has a threefold experience of heaven:-
1. Heaven here and now
We sometimes speak and act as if becoming a Christian were just a simple decision on our part: ‘Oh, I think I’ll start going to church now.’ But in truth, putting one’s faith in Christ is a drastic step of supernatural dimensions. Scripture calls it ‘a new creation;’ a being born all over again. When Christ dwells in the heart by faith, he brings heaven with him.
Our citizenship is heavenly. (Phil 3:20)
Our resources are heavenly. (Eph 1:3) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
Our warfare is heavenly. (Eph 6:12) For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
We should be storing up heavenly treasures. (Mt 6:19) “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. (21) But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.”
We should be practicing heavenly-mindedness. (Col 3:2) ‘Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.’ Does this sound too much like escapism? Is there not a great danger of becoming ‘too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good’? ‘It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become to ineffective in this. Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in: aim at earth and you will get neither.’ (C.S. Lewis)
Let it be said of us, what was once said of a saintly Christian, ‘Heaven was in him before he was in heaven.’
2. Heaven when we die
The teaching of the Bible is that when he or she dies, the child of God goes immediately into the presence of Christ in heaven. ‘The moment we take our last breath on earth, we take our first breath in heaven.’
Lk 23:43 “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
(Phil 1:23) I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.
Of course death is sad. We feel it to be unnatural, and so it is. Of course Christians grieve over the death of a loved one. But the message of Scripture is, that we do not need to grieve ‘like the rest of men, who have no hope.’
Once there was an old man who everyday would take long walks with the Lord. On these walks, he and the Lord God would talk about all kinds of things–about the important times in the old man’s life: when he met his wife, the birth of his children, special Christmases, etc. One day while they were out walking for an especially long time, the Lord looked at the old man and said, “We are closer to my house than we are to yours. Why don’t you just come home with me.” And that is what he did!
Mr. Standfast, one of John Bunyan’s characters in Pilgrim’s Progress, said these words as he was dying: “I am now going to see that head that was crowned with thorns, and see the face that was spit upon for me. I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with Him in whose company I delight myself.”
Truly, “Death is only a grim porter to let us into a stately palace.”
3. The new heaven and new earth
At some point in the future, Christ will return in glory to judge the world, and to raise up all who are his, be they living or dead, to be with him for ever. Their future home is called ‘a new heaven and a new earth’
Almost indescribable. ‘All the scriptural imagery (harps, crowns, gold, etc.) is, of course, a merely symbolical attempt to express the inexpressible. Musical instruments are mentioned because for many people (not all) music is the thing known in the present life which most strongly suggests ecstasy and infinity. Crowns are mentioned to suggest the fact that those who are united with God in eternity share his splendor and power and joy. Gold is mentioned to suggest the timelessness of heaven (gold does not rust) and the preciousness of it. People who take these symbols literally might as well think that when Christ told us to be like doves, he meant that we were to lay eggs.’ C. S. Lewis
It will be an active life. I guess there are quite a lot of people who secretly think that heaven sounds rather boring. They would sympathise with the following complaint: ‘Lord, I’ve been active all my life. This idea of eternal rest frightens me. The beatific something-or-other they talk about in sermons doesn’t mean a thing to me. I shall be thoroughly miserable if all I have to do is to gaze and gaze. Isn’t there anything to do in heaven?’ In the new heaven and the new earth we will not spend all our time sitting on the edge of a cloud and playing a harp, or strolling the golden streets humming the Hallelujah Chorus. We will ‘serve him day and night’ (Rev 7:15). We will have work without weariness. We will have activity without toil. We continue to grow and develop but never again become old and frail. There will be plenty to do in heaven.
It will be an embodied life. Our heavenly home will be occupied by the whole person, not by some disembodied spirit. The bodies of believers long dead will rise from the dust, (1 Cor 15:52) ‘in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.’ There is a future for the body as well as the soul (albeit a wonderfully transformed body). In fact the whole creation is waiting for this to happen. (Rom 8:19) ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.’ And then (Rom 8:21) ‘the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’
It will be a social life. The Bible is all about community: from the Garden of Eden at the beginning to the City of gold at the end. And the bible’s pictures of life in heaven are all corporate. It is described as a city, a temple, and a kingdom. The Bible knows nothing of the solitary Christian. We are going to spend a long time together in heaven; we had better get used to it down here. Whitefield & Wesley.
It will be a righteous life. There will be no room for evil in heaven: it will have been utterly banished. It is the pure in heart who will see God. We are to strive for holiness, without which no-one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14). ‘Suppose for a moment that you were allowed to enter heaven without holiness. What would you do? What possible enjoyment could you feel there? To which of all the saints would you join yourself, and by whose side would you sit down? Their pleasures are not your pleasures, their tastes nor your tastes, their character not your character. How could you possibly be happy, if you had not been holy on earth? J.C. Ryle
And yet we do not go to heaven because we are righteous, but because our unrighteousness has been pardoned. (1 Pet 3:18) ‘Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.’ ‘There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin. He only could unlock the gate of heaven and let us in. He died that we might be forgiven. He died to make us good. That we might go at last to heaven, saved by his precious blood.’
Have you taken that first step towards heaven? Have you put your trust in Jesus? Then he will carry safely through death and you, too will have a place in ‘the new heaven and the new earth, the home of righteousness.’