Eastgate Church Sermons - Rocky Mount Eastgate Church Sermons

Through the years, when someone loses a loved one, one of the most asked questions I get when I’m helping a family prepare for a funeral and helping them process their grief and pray with them, is this very question: “Will We Know One Another In Heaven?” Underneath this question are several others, like: “Will I still be me in heaven? Will I still have all my memories and personality? Will I look like me?” And, “Will I recognize my friends and loved ones who gone to heaven before me? Will I recognize other biblical saints? Will I know Jesus?” In the book of Revelation, the apostle John recorded his vision of believers in heaven knowing one another. We can be confident that believers in heaven will know one another.

Do you ever give any thought to what heaven is like? People who have faced death, either personally or among their friends and family, tend to think more about what heaven might be like. What’s heaven like for the believer when they die? How can we face death and eternity with confident knowledge and expectation of heaven? In the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he encouraged believers that they could confidently face death knowing what their heavenly home with the Lord would be like.

Many Christians today seem to doubt and know nothing of heaven. What do you know about heaven? What do you believe about it? Are you focused on heaven? Do you have questions like: “Do Christians immediately go to heaven when they die?”“What kind of body will we have in heaven?” “What about hell?” “What about the near death experiences people have reported about visiting heaven?” “What about the new heaven and the new earth?” In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he called believers to focus their hearts and minds on heaven.

Imagine yourself on a path. That path is the collection of the choices you are making right now about what is important in life, what is the priority in how to spend your time, your energy, your thoughts, your desires, your essence. Not how do you want to spend all that. But how are you actually spending it? Now, look down that path. Where is it leading? Where are you heading? If you keep just doing the things you are doing right now, are you confident that it is going to end up where you want it? That it will lead to a satisfaction and a reward that is eternal in value? Jesus is here, today, inviting you to follow his path towards the best that the creator of the universe has for you. And, spoiler alert, it involves a cross… In Luke chapter 9, Jesus told His disciples He would soon suffer, die and be raised on the third day and that their greatest reward would come when they chose to follow Him in this same way. When we choose to follow Jesus, we are choosing to live a self-sacrificial life that brings eternal reward.

Of all the symbols that Christians might have chosen as an emblem of the faith, why the cross? The answer is that the cross points to Christ’s death as payment for our sins and the fact that the cross is empty points to Christ’s resurrection as the power that gives us new life in Him. The empty cross points to the empty tomb! In the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, he told them that it was being united with Christ in His death and resurrection that made it possible for them to live a new life. We can experience this new life in union with Christ’s death and resurrection.

Although Christ entered Jerusalem on a Sunday to adoring crowds waving palm branches and shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” (Matt. 21:9), Christ exited Jerusalem on a Friday to an angry crowd shaking their fists and yelling, “Crucify him!” The crowds in Jerusalem were divided in their response to Jesus. They had different views of Jesus and took different sides. The message of Christ and His cross still divides people today. It still calls people to choose sides. You and I weren’t in Jerusalem when Jesus made his triumphal entry on Palm Sunday 2,000 years ago. Nor were we there when He was hung on a cross between two criminals. We may not have been there, but the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross calls all of us to answer: “Which side of the cross are you on?” In the gospel according to Luke, he recorded that Jesus was crucified between two criminals, one on the right side and one on the left side. They were both criminals facing death, both seeing and hearing how Jesus faced death. Yet they chose different views of the cross of Christ. They chose different sides. We are faced with the same choice. Which side of the cross will you choose?