Eastgate Church Sermons - Wilson Eastgate Church Sermons

A new you - that’s what many promise to help you accomplish in this life. “You can live your best life now” the latest self-help books and gurus promise. That’s why we make “bucket lists.” We think, “If only I can experience all that this life offers, I will be happy and fulfilled.” We think, “I better live for myself now because we only get one life.” But the best is yet to come. For the new heaven and new earth and new body that God has planned for His redeemed people will be the very, very, best life you can live! In the last two chapters of the book of Revelation, the Lord revealed to the apostle John what the eternal home of His redeemed people with Christ would be like.

A lot of Christians get nervous about this topic of heavenly rewards. They are confused about the importance of living a life of faithful obedience to God in this life. They mistakenly claim, “My good works mean nothing to God.” It’s true that we are saved by grace apart from works. We can’t earn salvation. We can’t work and earn eternal life and heaven. We can only receive the free gift of salvation by faith. That’s true. But in the apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he told them to take care to live faithfully for Christ for it would determine their heavenly reward. We can take care to live faithfully for Christ knowing that it determines our heavenly reward.

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.