HELLO
HEAVEN
DR. JIM DIXON
1 PETER 1:1-12
SEPTEMBER 21, 2008
In the early church in the first century when Christians met each other or when they met other people, they said hello by means of the hendiadys. The word hendiadys, as we saw last week, is a Greek compound word and it is based on the word hen, which means one, and hendiadys means one through two. What the early church did was they took the two greetings of their world and combined them into one. In the Jewish world the greeting was shalom, which means peace. In the Greek world the greeting was charin, which comes from charis, which means grace. So, the early church took these two greetings, combined them into one greeting and gave them deeper and new meaning. In the early church they would greet each other, “Grace to you and peace.” That was how they said, “Hello.” Or, they might say, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” These words had great meaning in their time and today. We begin this series by looking at what it means to wish grace and peace to people. Today we look at heaven because when you wish somebody grace and peace you wish them heaven.
I have two teachings this morning and the first is that heaven comes only by grace. Salvation comes only by grace. This is clearly taught in the Bible. In Ephesians 2:8, the Apostle Paul writes, By grace you have been saved through faith. It was a gift of God not of works, lest anyone should boast. So, by grace you are saved. In Titus 2:11, God’s Word says, For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all people. It is all by grace. Salvation comes by grace.
Many years ago, John Newton, a pastor, wrote that great hymn “Amazing Grace.” We have all sung “Amazing Grace,” and we have all heard it sung many times. You can hardly go to a funeral or memorial service without hearing “Amazing Grace.” Even in the secular, people seem to love the words “Amazing Grace.” You hear bagpipes playing the tune to “Amazing Grace” and soloists singing “Amazing Grace.” God’s grace is amazing. It was amazing in the life of John Newton who was a reprobate and a slave trader. He made his living in the buying and selling of human flesh on the coast of Africa. One day, he encountered the gospel of Christ and he gave his life to Jesus Christ, he was saved by the blood of Christ, and he was saved by grace. His life was transformed and he became a pastor and joined William Wilberforce in bringing about the abolition of slavery in England and on the European Continent and he became a great force in the cause of heaven on earth. It was all amazing grace.
To say that we can be saved only by grace is kind of counterintuitive. We live in a world where it seems like we should have to earn something. The Broncos play today at, I think, 2 o’clock or 2:15. They play New Orleans Saints. They both want to reach the Super Bowl, but if they are going to get there, they are going to have to earn it. They have to work their way there. It is true that the Broncos, last week, had a little grace. It is counterintuitive in our world to think that you are just going to be given something. You have to earn it and work for it.
This is where Jesus is just radically different than the religions of the world because in the religions in the world, you have to earn your way to heaven. You seek salvation through works. In Judaism, the Old Covenant was given. In the Old Testament we see the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was given to the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; it was given to the Jewish people. It was a covenant of faith, but it was based on the law given to Moses on Mount Horeb, or Mount Sinai, for the Jewish people, particularly for the scribes and the Pharisees, it felt like salvation by works. The scribes and the Pharisees believed that God would bless you in exchange for your obedience. They sought to save themselves by their own righteousness and by their own works.
In the Eastern religions of the world, in Buddhism and Hinduism you see salvation by works. In Buddhism you can read their, allegedly, sacred writings. You can read the Tripitaka; the word Tripitaka means three baskets. In the Tripitaka there is the basket of discipline, there is the basket of discourses, there is the basket of higher dharma. If you read the Tripitaka, you understand that if you are going to be saved, you are going to have to earn it. It is only going to come from a whole lot of work. That is what dharma is all about. Dharma is a word that refers to religious and moral law. Higher dharma is higher religious and higher moral laws. If you live in conformity with these laws, you might reach nirvana or moksha. At the end of your life, you have karma; karma, whether it is good or bad, depends on what you did with dharma. It is all bound of the eight-fold noble path of Buddhism.
In Hinduism you can read the Bhagavad Gita. I have read it a couple of times. You can read the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna. You can read the Vedas and again you will find that salvation comes by works. It comes by works. It is all about dharma in Hinduism and Buddhism. It is all about religious and moral law and your ability to keep the religious and moral and laws. In Hinduism you have the cast system, the four casts in Hinduism all have differing responsibilities, but obedience to those responsibilities is dharma. At the end of life your karma is tested. As we have said before, whether you come back as a llama or the Dali Llama depends on what you do with this. This is salvation by works.
You see the same thing when you look at Islam and Muslims. I have no desire to judge peoples of the world. I know there are beautiful cultures all over the world, and wonderful people, but it is safe to say in Islam salvation comes by works. If you read about Shahada, if you read about Salat, if you read about Zakat, if you read about Ramadan or Haj and when you look at the five pillars of Islam, they all have to do with works and earning your way to heaven. The Quran teaches salvation by works. If you read the Sunnah, which has to do with the life and the teachings and the experience of Muhammad, in written form it is the Hadith. Again, it is salvation by works. It is all about obedience and submission, earning your way to heaven and you live your life in conformity and submission to Sharia law. Even then, if you are Muslim, at the end of your life, you just hope against hope that somehow Allah might be merciful, but you are very skeptical. At the end of your life, you have two angels, and in Islamic theology you have one angel who looks at the list of your good deeds and another angel who looks at the list of your bad deeds and whatever list is longer, you hope you’ve earned your way to heaven by doing more good than bad. That is the world. That is religion.
But Jesus is unique. Jesus saves us by his righteousness, not by our righteousness. Jesus saves us by his life not by our life. He left heaven and he came to earth and took our flesh upon himself. He walked among us and he walked humbly. He lived a life without sin that he might become the perfect Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice. He went to Calvary’s cross and he died for me and he died for you. It was substitutionary atonement, he died in my place, he died in your place and he died for the sin of the whole world. He is the expiation for the sins of the whole world. He now offers salvation for all who will believe in him. So, when you give your life to him and you trust him as your Lord and as your Savior, his righteousness is imputed to you. What a deal that is. You are saved by grace through faith.
This is why the reformers in the sixteenth century shouted, “Solo gratia” by grace alone, and “Solo fide,” because we access the grace of God through faith in Christ. They also said the word “Solo scriptura” because they believed that the only ultimate authority and revelation is Scripture not ecclesiastical councils, not clergy. We respect ecclesiastical councils; we know that clergy are called of God, but our authority is the Bible. The Bible tells us that salvation comes by grace. We take this message to the world. This is the gospel. It is good news, isn’t it? Is that ever good news? None of the religions of the world have good news; it is pretty much bad news.
The good news is the gospel. We take the gospel to the nations, we take the gospel to our neighborhoods, and we take the gospel to our workplaces. I have shared with folks in the last two services, I sometimes feel like we haven’t done the best job of equipping you to take Jesus Christ to your friends and associates. Maybe we haven’t done the best job at this church of equipping you, preparing you, training you and even encouraging you to take the gospel and the love of Jesus to your neighborhood and your place of work.
What we are going to do is we are going to establish a Department of Evangelism here at Cherry Hills Community Church; we have never had a Department of Evangelism. We have hired a pastor who we greatly respect to head up this department. That pastor is Blake LaMunyon. Blake has been the pastor at Christ’s Church, right here in Highlands Ranch. He is a friend to us. Blake has his master’s degree from Friends University. He has his doctoral degree from the Northwest Graduate School, he has years of experience and much education and he loves Christ. He comes with a wonderful family. Blake comes with his wife, Marci. Blake and Marci are Mom and Dad to their two children. Emmy, their daughter, is 14 years old, and she is now at Valor, across the street. Jayce, their son, who is 12, is at Cherry Hills Middle School in the seventh grade.
We are so hopeful that as a congregation we can do a better job of preparing you to take the love of Jesus Christ to people in this world, in your neighborhood and in your work places. Be praying with us as we begin this new ministry. Pray for Blake, Marci, Emmy and Jayce as they begin this new ministry with us. I do thank God for everyone who takes Jesus Christ to the unbelieving. I thank God for messengers of grace.
Some of you have flown into southern California from time to time. There are many airports you could fly into. You could fly into LAX; you could fly down to San Diego, or Ontario. One of the airports that Barb and I have flown into is John Wayne Airport near Anaheim, Orange County. You go to the John Wayne airport and as you are walking out you see this huge statue of the Duke, a huge statue, bigger than life, of John Wayne. Some of you are too young to have seen John Wayne on the big screen, but I grew up with John Wayne and enjoyed watching many of his movies.
It was 1939 (and I was not around in 1939) when John Wayne really came onto the stage and became famous when he starred in Stagecoach. Then he made some great westerns; my favorite was Red River. He also did The Searchers, and that was a great western. He made non-western movies like The Quiet Man and he won the academy award for best actor in True Grit. John Wayne was very active in conservative politics. He expressed support of Judeo-Christian values, although there are some who would question whether he ever lived by those values. John Wayne once said, “The kind of man I would have liked to have been is the kind of person I played in the movies.”
Towards the end of his life, he began to ask questions about heaven, about salvation, about Jesus. He was dying of cancer those last months, lung cancer. A pastor in southern California came to visit John Wayne and John Wayne gave his heart and his life to Jesus Christ. John Wayne asked Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. The story of his conversion is told by Robert Schuller. Robert Schuller was the pastor who came and told John Wayne about the love of Jesus and the cross. I don’t know what you think of Robert Schuller. I know some people maybe view Robert Schuller as a man of some controversy, but I just thank God for a guy like Robert Schuller who is a messenger of grace and who will go and tell people about Jesus Christ. Isn’t that beautiful?
It was Robert Schuller who told the story about George Smith, the Moravian missionary. I read it in a book called Power Thoughts by Robert Schuller. It tells about George Smith and how he goes as a pioneer missionary to Africa 100 years before the great African missionary movement began. George Smith studied the language and dialects that were unknown at that time. George Smith travelled to Africa to tell people about Jesus Christ and the cross of Christ and the grace of Christ. He only had one convert, one person who accepted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. That person was a woman and she was elderly. Then George Smith became very sick, very ill and had to journey home. He died before reaching his native Moravia. He went home to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think some people looked at George Smith and they thought, “What a waste. All those years of training and all those years of preparation and only one person led to Jesus Christ. What a tragedy!” History showed a different story because 100 years later when the great missionaries came into that region of Africa, we are told that they found 11,000 Christians who had become Christians through the faith of that one that George Smith had led to Christ. In that book Power Thoughts Robert Schuller says, “Anyone can count the number of seeds in the apple but only God knows the number of apples in a seed.” Isn’t that true? We have been called to be sowers of the seed. We go out as sowers and the seed falls on good ground and the seed falls on bad ground, it falls on good soil, it falls on bad soil, but we sow the seed. God brings the increase. His power attends the gospel.
As we start this new Department of Evangelism, I want you to understand that our responsibility is just to be faithful. It is God who brings this increase, his power and his Holy Spirit and his anointing is upon the seed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even when we feel encumbered and we feel like we have fumbled the deal, if we are telling someone about Jesus, God can honor and bless and use that. Do we care about people? Do we wish them grace? Do we wish them heaven? Heaven comes by grace.
The second and final thought this morning is that heaven brings true peace. It is really only when you know that you are bound for heaven and your ticket is punched that you can have true peace, even in this life. We don’t have full peace. Our peace doesn’t reach fruition, completion until we are with the Lord Jesus Christ and we are within heaven itself. When you wish somebody grace and peace, you wish them heaven. The gospel in Ephesians 6:15 is called the gospel of peace. Jesus in Isaiah chapter nine is called the Prince of Peace, Sar Shalom. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, the government shall be upon his shoulders, his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Everlasting and Sar Shalom, Prince of Peace.”
Jesus offers peace. In Genesis 15, 2 Kings 22, 2 Chronicles 24, and Jeremiah 34, the Bible speaks of what it means to die in peace. It means to be right with God, it means to be bound for heaven. First century and in the second century, Jewish Christians would put shalom on their tombs. In the Hellenized world they would put “eirene,” which in Greek means in peace, as shalom means peace. They would put that on their tombs because they had found the peace of heaven. Perhaps, they had lived their lives with a peace the world could not possibly understand. Peace comes from knowing you are going to heaven. A lot of people have a lot of questions about heaven. When you wish somebody grace and peace, when you wish them heaven, what are you wishing them? If you know that your ticket is punched and you are bound for heaven, what is it going to be like? The Bible tells us a great deal about heaven, maybe not as much as we would like.
You know how the Apostle Paul, we are told, was taken into the third heaven, into paradise. He heard things he is not permitted to describe. I think, in a sense, there is a mystery that surrounds heaven. God, in this life, wants heaven to have kind of a mysterious place for us. The Bible does tell us great things about heaven and in the Bible, there are many promises. I want you to see just a brief clip from the movie Love’s Enduring Promise. The movie Love’s Enduring Promise had a character whose name was Nate, he is a young man, and he comes to be friends with this family and ends up rescuing and saving the dad’s life. The family views Nate as a foretaste of heaven and the promises of God.
In from Revelation we are told, in terms of heaven, about the promise of God that he would wipe away every tear from our eyes and that death would be no more. Neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. Isn’t that an awesome promise? Knowing the pain that some of you have been in in your lifetime and some of you are going through right now, isn’t it an amazing thing to know that the day will come when by God’s grace death will be no more. There are, in the Bible, many promises.
I think people are very curious. Books have been written about heaven, some of them are good, some of them not so good. One that is very good is Randy Alcorn’s book. You can get Randy Alcorn’s book on heaven in Inklings Bookstore. It is a wonderful book; I very much enjoyed it. There are a lot of great insights biblically in Randy Alcorn’s book. There is also some speculation. One thing that Randy Alcorn speculates on is that in heaven there will be animals that talk. I think that would really be cool, but I really can’t find anything in the Bible that would take me there. Randy Alcorn says that in Genesis chapter three, because the snake, the serpent, talks to Eve that indicates all animals in Eden talked and therefore animals will talk in heaven. That is a bit of a leap.
In the scholarly world, there are many views of Genesi. God’s Word is fully inspired, and God uses many literary genres in giving us the Bible. Scholars debate, “Is Genesis three entirely historical narrative or are there parabolic elements in it?” I think however you view Genesis three, there is no doubt that the talking snake represents the devil, the talking snake represents Satan and the fact that that snake talked to Eve would not necessarily mean that all animals talked. But it would be cool. This is typical of the speculation that people engage in and the questions that people have.
People are constantly asking me things that I don’t know. People are constantly asking me questions about heaven that I don’t have the answers for because I think there is a mystery. But there is so much the Bible does tell us. Oftentimes I do talk about the promises of God as they relate to heaven, I do this sometimes in my office with folks, as I do counseling and people have questions about heaven or when I am talking to someone who has lost a loved one. Sometimes I will talk about heaven when I do a funeral or a memorial service I will talk about the promises of God.
Just two weeks ago, on a Monday night, we had a memorial service for Brack Hattler. Brack was a friend of mine and Barb’s. Brack’s wife JeanAnne has lost her husband. Brack and JeanAnne were members of our church years ago and then moved to Pittsburg. Brack just recently passed away and has gone to be with Jesus. I was privileged to do his memorial service along with Brett Garretson. Brack was this amazing guy, a brilliant guy. He went to Duke University and majored in the French language, kind of a renaissance guy. Brach wrote JeanAnne poetry and he loved opera and theatre and dance. Brack was pretty much everything that I am not. He was an amazingly brilliant guy. He went on and got his PhD at Duke in biochemistry. Then he wasn’t satisfied and got an MD at Cornell. There were more than a few functioning brain cells in Brack’s head. He loved to mountain climb. He climbed Everest and Kilimanjaro. But, the greatest thing about Brack was he loved Jesus. He went on to become head of surgery at Walter Reed. A brilliant, brilliant guy, but the greatest thing was he loved Jesus. He gave his heart to Jesus. He is in heaven today. He has already received many of the promises of God. Those promises are rich.
We are told that the moment you die, as a Christian, you go to paradise. In Paul’s thought in his letters to the Corinthians, paradise is also called the third heaven. Understand the first heaven is the atmosphere of the earth, the second heaven, the galactic systems, the cosmos, the universe, and the third heaven, the dwelling place of God. Paradise. That is where Christians go. The moment they die, just as Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” that is the dwelling place of God. The word paradise is a Persian word, and it was borrowed by the Greeks and by the Hebrews and by the English-speaking peoples. Transliterated into our languages, paradise means park, it means garden, it means place of great beauty. The moment that a Christian dies we go to paradise. This is the promise of God and it is beautiful. You have never been anywhere like this. You have been to the mountains, you have been to Rocky Mountain National Park, you have taken walks by streams and rivers and lakes, you have seen glaciers, you have gone up to Butchart Gardens or some of the great and famous gardens of the world, but you have never seen any place like heaven. It is a place of great beauty and it is promised.
We are also promised that we will have a heavenly city. It is called the New Jerusalem. In the Bible, sometimes, at the end of the book of Revelation, the New Jerusalem is described with symbolism relating the church of Jesus Christ. Do not mistake the fact that the New Jerusalem is real. There is a literal, real New Jerusalem that awaits the people of God.
The saints of God have looked forward to the heavenly city, the Holy City, for centuries and millennia. There is this book, it is kind of a cool book, and I just read this book this week. It is called 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper. We actually have it in our bookstore. Don Piper is a pastor who had this incredibly tragic automobile accident where he ran into a semi and he was pronounced dead at the scene, clinically, he did die. They put a covering over him. Ninety minutes later, as a pastor was praying over his body, he woke up. The pastor praying over him noticed there was movement under the tarp. He gives this testimony that he actually arrived at the gates of heaven and describes what he saw.
It is just fascinating because he describes seeing the New Jerusalem in its glory. He describes the worship and the music. It is an awesome glimpse. It is anecdotal, a personal testimony, but it is a fun book. I think it serves to make us more excited about what God has promised to us. God has promised a new heavens and a new earth. Wow! God is going to remake the universe, or as astrophysicists and scientists and cosmologists tell us today, the multiverse. The universe is now called a multiverse and with many dimensions, so complex, so glorious that you see the power in the mind of God. God is going to remake it all. God says, “Behold, I make a new heavens, a new cosmos, and a new earth, wherein righteousness dwells. You will rejoice and you will be glad in all that I make.” How exciting is that? There are galactic systems, billions of light years away. As God once gave dominion to mankind, we have abused our dominion on the earth. The Bible promises that the day will come when God will give his people, his sons and daughters, dominion over all the works of his hands, over the whole of the creation. We will reign and rule with Christ forever. I can’t even imagine all that means but I know that it is true. I know that it has got to be incredibly exciting.
I know tomorrow night some of you are excited because Dancing with the Stars returns to TV. I have never seen the show myself, and I am proud of it. Barb has seen it, and she tells me it is glorious. I know that Cloris Leachman is supposed to be on it tomorrow night, and I think Warren Sapp. In the life to come, literally we are going to be able to dance with the stars. We are going to be able to see the heavens; we are going to see the universe. It is incredibly exciting and unbelievably fun.
We are promised new bodies. I don’t know about you, but everyday this gets more precious to me. Some of you have asked me when I am going to get a new hip, and I do plan to do that next year, but I am really looking forward to a new body. We are told in 1 Corinthians 15 that the new body will be a heavenly body, epouranio, fit for the heavens. Think about what that might mean: a body fit for the heavens. We are told that that new body is indestructible. The Greek word is aptharsia, no longer subject to decay, no longer corruptible. Think how incredible that promise is! We are told that the new body will be powerful, dunamis, from which we get the word dynamite. This is going to be a powerful body, the resurrection body, able to do things these bodies could never do. These bodies are sown in weakness but that body will be sown in power.
It will be glorious, from the Greek word doxa. You know we sing the doxology, the word of doxa, the word of praise. These bodies will be doxa, they will be praise worthy. These promises are before us. It will be a spiritual body. The Greek word pneumatikos doesn’t normally mean invisible or ghost-like. Paul, praying for the church at Corinth said, “I wish I could treat you as spiritual men, instead of carnal.” He didn’t mean invisible, he didn’t mean ghost-like, he meant governed by the spirit. These new bodies will be pneumatikos, governed by the spirit. These bodies are so often governed by the flesh, but that body will be governed by the Spirit. We have these promises and how incredible and wonderful these promises are.
David Freeman, who wrote 100 Things to Do Before You Die, have you noticed that he just died at the age of 47? At 47, he got to do maybe 49 of the 100 things you were supposed to do before you die. If you are a Christian, it doesn’t matter. I know how it hurts to lose a loved one or to have a diagnosis of cancer, but ultimately, 10,000 years from now, it won’t matter whether we have lived 47 years on this earth or 100. It is just a classroom here. The real deal is in the world to come. There are more than 100 things to do. If there are 100 things to do before you die here, there are thousands of things to do in heaven. How great it will be! We will worship and the worship will be spine tingling because we will be in the presence of God. Have you ever had times when we are worshiping here and you are singing and you feel the presence of God and you tear up a little bit or you get chills because you have sensed the presence of God? That is just a foretaste, a small foretaste, of the glory of worship in heaven.
The sense of community we are going to have as we gather together, I think we will be able to come into the heavenly city on festive celebrations and special occasions we will be able to go out into the creation. What an amazing deal. There will be a great sense of community. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 13 that in the New Jerusalem there will be three groups. There will be innumerable angels in festal gathering; the angels will be there in the New Jerusalem. Don’t you want to see Gabriel and Michael and archangels and cherubim and seraphim?
The Bible says the second group in the New Jerusalem will be the assembly of the first-born registered in the heavens, that is us. The word for assembly is ecclesia, which means church. Jesus is the first born and the church of the first born is us, the church of Jesus will be there. The Bible says the spirits of just men made perfect, which is probably a reference to the Old Testament saints. Don’t you want to see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah? Don’t you want to see Moses, David and Rachel? Thinking about the church, don’t you want to see Peter and Paul and Mary and Martha? Don’t you want to experience the incredible community and most of all, to see our Lord Jesus face to face? So, what do you wish people? Do you really wish them grace and peace? Is there any sense in which the hendiadys is real for you and you long to see people find grace and peace? Do you wish them heaven?
As we close, I want to tell you about something I read this week. It is about archeologists in the city of London. Just recently, two weeks ago, archeologists in the city of London unearthed an open-air playhouse in east London that dates back to the sixteenth century and was used by William Shakespeare. This theatre, this open-air playhouse, is where Shakespeare, they believe, first had a performance of Hamlet. They are unearthing it now. The weird thing is, the Tower Theatre Company, a playhouse company, one of the biggest theatre companies in the world, were building their new playhouse on that site. They were building their playhouse on that site and as they began to dig down to bring their foundation in, they ran into stuff and called archeologists in and they found out they were building a playhouse on top of a playhouse. Spokespersons for the Tower Theatre Company have said that maybe this spot is a very special spot for actors, a unique place for actors.
It occurs to me that the whole world is a stage. It occurs to me that the whole world is riddled with actors. There is no spot on this earth where there aren’t actors. In this Worship Center this morning we are all actors, at least at times in our lives we are actors pretending to be what we are not. Would that we were more real, but oftentimes we are just acting. Oftentimes when you say to somebody, “Hi! How are you doing?” you don’t even care, you are just acting. Sometimes we are just going through the motions. God wants us to care. Do you think in the early church there might have been some people who said, “Grace to you and peace” and didn’t mean it? I am sure there were. Do you think there were people in the early church who said, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you,” without really meaning it? I am sure there was that kind of insincerity in the ancient world as there is today. Let’s really care about people. That is what God wants for us is to really care about people. There is a battle for souls of men and women the world over. We have been entrusted with the gospel. Do you care? Let’s give them heaven. Let’s close with a word of prayer.