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"Relationships in Glory" The Afterlife #3

Revelation 21:22- 22:5

by Clancy Nixon

April 13, 2008

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.HolySpiritAnglican.org

Good morning! If you have not been with us for a while, you've stumbled into a

series I'm preaching on "The Afterlife," and we've been looking at what the Bible has to

say about what happens to us after we die. In message #1, I spoke about the cool new

bodies we're promised at the resurrection. Last week in message #2, we looked at our

future home - the New Heaven and New Earth. This is great stuff, and I'd love for you to

get the new things I'm learning on tape or from the web.

Today we're looking at what our relationships will be like in Glory. Mark

Twain's character Huckleberry Finn thought that heaven was a place where a person

would "go around all day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever." Huck said he'd

much rather be hanging out with Tom Sawyer, so heaven was not appealing to him.

Someone had painted for Huck an impoverished picture of Heaven as a place with no real

adventure, no interaction with family or friends or nature. No wonder Huck Finn didn't

want to go to Heaven! Many of us wouldn't, if that's all there was to it. I thank God that

the New Jerusalem of the Bible is so much more than Huck's picture of it. The truth is,

Heaven will be an AWESOME reunion!

Jesus told us that the two greatest

commandments were these: love God, and love your neighbor. You and I will have

loving relationships for all eternity. Sorry, Tom Collins: not companies, but relationships

are what's really "built to last." The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22 is the capital

city of the New Earth, and it's a picture of how people will interact with God and each

other for eternity.

I love framed Scripture done in calligraphy. One of my favorites hangs in the

front hall just as you enter the Nixon home. Isaiah 26:3 says, "Thou will keep him in

perfect peace whose imagination is stayed on thee." (RSV) When your imagination, your

thoughts and hopes and dreams, rest on God and His Kingdom, then God keeps you in

perfect peace. Unless we are careful to guard our hearts, the popular media will daily fill

our imaginations with the fallen dreams of men, which cannot bring real peace. For the

last two weeks, I've asked you all to read Revelation chapters 21 and 22, and I'm urging

you today to use your imagination to wonder about what life will be like in Glory, when

everyone and everything around you will be redeemed.

Pete Ruhl did this, and he shared a vision of Heaven with his family last week.

[Pete, please come forward] As I recall, Pete saw in his mind's eye a bed where he and

Kelly had just awakened in Heaven, and everything was perfect. Relationships were true

and unburdened and free. The whole family jumped up on the bed in the morning to

laugh and play and plan the day's activities, which included exploring both the amazing

mountains and the coral reef right outside their door! Heaven will be an adventure it's

not static it's dynamic, it'll have a trajectory. I encourage you - every parent, every

husband and wife, every single person, to share your visions of Heaven with your

children, your spouse, your close friends who are also in your vision. Even write them

down. As your pastor, I'm asking you to please do that, and if you are moved, please let

me know what happens when you do.

While God's word encourages us to use our imaginations to dream about Heaven,

Christians' dreams touch the unseen reality of Heaven to the degree that they are within

the boundaries given by the Holy Scriptures. I love Pete's vision, but some of you may

wonder, is it Biblical? After all, didn't Jesus say, in answer to the Sadducees' question

about the wife of seven dead brothers in Matthew 22, that "At the resurrection, people

will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven?"

Well, the Bible does not teach that there will be no marriage in heaven. What it says is

that there will be one marriage, between Christ and his bride and we'll all be part of it,

says Ephesians 5:32. My wife Ginger is my best friend. Will we be required to be more

distant in the New Jerusalem? I don't think so.

In his great book Heaven, Randy Alcorn says that the same God who said "It is

not good for the man to be alone" (Genesis 2:8) is the one who gives us all our

relationships. I can't see any reason why Ginger and I wouldn't be best friends in

Heaven. After all, in Heaven, Ginger won't have to put up with me forgetting to walk the

dog, or with my being too loud at Sam's soccer games! Human marriages and sexual

relations will end, but not human friendships. The Mormons attempt to create eternal

marriages with earthly mates, but that disregards Christ's teaching. Knowing our loved

ones - mates, family, friends is a part of God's design and an essential part of our joy.

What will relationships be like that are not tainted by sin? Revelation 21:27 says

that "nothing impure will ever enter it [the New Jerusalem], nor will anyone who does

what is shameful or deceitful...." In Heaven, "We will freely choose not to sin, just as

great mathematicians do not make elementary mistakes though they have the power to do

so. In Heaven we will see the attractiveness and goodness of God so clearly, and the

ugliness and stupidity of sin so clearly, that we will have no possible motive to sin."

(Peter Kreeft, Tough Questions Christians Ask)

No sin means we'll have no remorse, no fear, no anxiety, and no more uncertainty

about whether we are sinning or not. We'll all be comfortable in our own skin! We will

have joy in our shared experiences with our heavenly friends and the angels. In this life,

I get so tired of sinning! I'm so looking forward to the joy of relationships that are not

tainted by sin. Like some dear friends who have returned to CHS visit us today, in

Heaven I imagine we'll enjoy reunions with old friends and make many new ones. You'll

have the opportunity to have extended conversations with your heroes for me, that

includes the Apostle Paul, Saint Patrick of Ireland, and John Wesley. Contrary to Huck

Finn's crabbed vision, we won't be bored in Heaven. We'll all have useful work to do

Revelation 22:3 says the Lamb's servants will serve him. Revelation suggests that we'll

do this together, in teams. Verse 5 says we will reign with him for ever. [hand up]

Friends, is anyone here excited about ruling over all creation? (Hey adults, the teenagers

are ready to rule!) You may not want the responsibility! Ruling may not be your idea of

heaven, but it's God's idea of Heaven for all of us to rule over angels and all creation.

What about animals and our pets who have died will we be reunited with them

as well? Well, why not? Isaiah 11:6 speaks of a glorious new day when "The leopard

will lie down with the goat; the calf and the loin and the yearling together; and a little

child will lead them." In the first Paradise, Adam and Eve were surrounded by animals;

and at the first cleansing of the earth by water Noah was surrounded by animals; it

appears that God has a plan for animals in the New Earth. Until the 17th century

Enlightenment, the Church commonly taught that animals have souls because Scripture

uses the words for soul in Greek, psyche and in Hebrew, nephesh - to speak of animals

as well as humans. (Alcorn) Throughout Scripture we read that animals praise the Lord.

Psalm 148 says "Wild animals and all cattle, small creatures and flying birds, kings of the

earth and all nations... Let them praise the name of the Lord..." Psalm 150:6 says "Let

everything that has breath praise the Lord." Now animals are not the same order of

creation as people, and Jesus did not come to save animals. But He did come to save us

and to restore all of creation! Joni Eareckson Tada says that "it would not surprise her

that God were to bring our pets back to life. It would be just like Him. It would be totally

in keeping with his generous character... He is extravagant in grace after grace."

Before the fall, the serpent spoke. And it was "more crafty than the wild animals

God had created." (Genesis 3:1) Alcorn says that this suggests that the other animals

were also somewhat crafty. The most intelligent animals we see today, like chimps and

dolphins, are fallen remnants of what they once were.... In the new earth, animals will

sing praise to God (Revelation 5:13)." Our relationship with animals in glory will be

much more cool than they are now. I admit that I used to see Reepicheep and the other

talking animals in C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia as mere fancies of fiction

unmoored to Scripture. The more I study the Scriptures, the more Lewis' imagination in

Narnia lines up with it. This spring, go see Prince Caspian in the movie theater!

Of course, the most wonderful relationship of all in Heaven will be our

relationship with God. Revelation 22:4 says that God's servants in the New Earth "will

see His face." His glory will shine so brightly that we will need no other light in the New

Heaven. Theologians call this sight the beatific vision, literally a "sight that brings

happiness." In Psalm 27:4, David declared that "One thing I ask of the Lord ... to gaze

upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple."

In the Garden of Eden, God walked with Adam in the cool of the day. The

greatest tragedy of sin and the curse is that God no longer dwelt with his people. God's

presence came and dwelt in glory again in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and

temple. When Ezekiel saw the Shekinah Glory depart from the Temple, that was a sad

day for Israel. (Ezekiel 11:23) God's Shekinah glory returned in Christ, who tabernacled

among us "We have seen his glory," says John 1:14. Now God's glory resides in his

people, the temple he indwells. (1 Corinthians 3:17) But one day, the curtain will be

drawn on this age, and Father God, the author of this drama, will walk onto the stage. We

will see him face to face, and he will dwell with us forever. God has personally invited

you to be with him in a place he has made just for you, with a perfected people whose

love and joy lasts forever.

What have you done with this invitation into relationship with God? The most

important decision you will ever make is your relationship with God in eternity. It's

more important than whom you marry; it's more important than how you get along with

your kids, or any other relationship in life. God wants to spend eternity with you. If you

accept God's invitation to relationship with him, you get all the other great relationships

in heaven thrown in, including reunions with family and friends and even animals

forever. If you don't accept this invitation - that's your choice. God loves you and does

not want any to perish. If you'd like to sign up for your heavenly reunion today, repeat

this prayer after me...