Don't Worry, Be Thankful

This is the message given in the Gettysburg United Methodist church Sunday night, November 24, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Philippians 4:4-9.

            It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving.  It hardly seems possible.  It seems to me like Thanksgiving should still be at least a month away.  And yet, here it is.  Soon it will be Christmas and then 2019 will be over.  It’ll be 2020.  And I just finally stopped writing 2018 on my checks.

            So, it’s time for the pastor’s annual Thanksgiving message.  And this presents kind of a challenge.  Not because of the topic itself.  There are all kinds of Bible verses to use about thankfulness.  But the thing is, you’ve probably heard all this before.  You know we’re supposed to be thankful to God, not just at this time but at all times.  You know what it says in First Thessalonians Five, Eighteen:  Be thankful in all circumstances.  You already know all this stuff.  There’s not really a lot new I can say about it.

            The question is not whether we know it.  The question is whether we’ll do it.  And of course, the answer would be different for each one of us.  Some of us probably do live up to that statement of being thankful in all circumstances.  Others of us probably remember to give thanks when things are going well, but are not so good at feeling thankful when things are not going the way we want them to.  Others of us probably are not even very good at giving thanks when things do go well.  We’re all at different points on the spectrum.

            But no matter where we are, I think most of us could probably do better than we’re doing. Even if we’re really good at giving thanks, we can probably still get better.  If we’re not so good at it, we can probably get a lot better.  But how?  How can we get to where we really do live with an attitude of thankfulness, no matter what’s going on in our lives?

            Well, let’s look at what the Apostle Paul write in his letter to the Philippians.  Look at how he starts out.  “Rejoice in the Lord always.  I will say it again:  Rejoice!”

            How many of us ever do that?  How many of us ever rejoice in the Lord.  Even if we sometimes give thanks to God, even if we are truly grateful for what God has done, how many of us actually rejoice in the Lord?

            In fact, how many of us even know what it means to rejoice in the Lord?  That word, rejoice, means to feel or show great joy or delight.  And those words, joy and delight, mean to take great pleasure.

            How many of us, when we think about God or when we pray to God, feel joy or delight?  How many of us, when we think about God or pray to God, take great pleasure in doing that?

            I’m guessing not very many of us, and not all that often.  And I base my guess, quite frankly, on the fact that I don’t feel those things that often.  Now, maybe that’s not fair.  Maybe you’re a lot better at this than I am.  Maybe you feel great pleasure and joy and delight every time you think about God and every time you pray to God.  I really hope you do, and if you do, that’s awesome.  That’s wonderful.  You probably don’t need to hear any more of the message today.

            Now, to be sure, there are times when I do feel those things.  I’m sure there are times when you feel them, too.  But there are a lot of times when I don’t.  And so, for those of you who are still listening and feel like you can improve on this, what do we do?  How do we get that feeling of great pleasure and joy and delight?  How can we get to where we rejoice in the Lord?

            Well, let’s look at what Paul says next.  “The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

            The Lord is near.  The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds.  That would great, don’t you think?  To know that the Lord is near?  To have the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds?  I mean, that’s really what we all want, right?  If we felt the Lord near, if we felt the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, we’d be able to do what Paul said.  We would not be anxious about anything.  And how awesome would that be?  To not be anxious about anything.  Because my guess is that almost every person here is anxious about something.  It may be a big thing or it may be a small thing.  It may be something that some people would think of as a small thing, but it’s a big thing to you.  

            It would be so wonderful to be able to get rid of all that anxiety.  It would be so wonderful to not have to worry about anything.  It’s our worries that keep us from feeling that the Lord is near.  They keep us from feeling the peace of God.  And because we cannot feel the Lord near, because we cannot feel the peace of God, we cannot rejoice in the Lord the way Paul tells us to and the way God wants us to.  And because we cannot rejoice in the Lord, we cannot live with an attitude of thankfulness the way we know we’re supposed to.

            But does saying that help us any?  Probably not.  Saying “do not be anxious about anything” is easy.  Actually not being anxious is hard.  How do we do it?

            Here’s what Paul says.  “In every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”  Paul says that if we do that, we will feel the peace of God.  And then, we’ll be able to rejoice in the Lord and live with an attitude of thankfulness.

            So let’s break that down a little farther.  What are we supposed to do?  Present our requests to God.  That means any requests.  There is nothing too big for God, but there is also nothing too small for God.  That’s one of the amazing things about God.  God loves us so much that God is interested in every aspect of our lives.  God is interested in the big things, but God is interested in the small things.  Remember, this is the God who knows the number of hairs on our heads.  Basically, if something is important to us, it’s important to God.  That’s not to say God will always do what we want, and we know that.  We have no ability to order God around.  But there is never a time when we request something of God and God says, “Ah, that’s not important.  I’m not interested in that.  I’m not gonna pay any attention to that.”  God is interested in everything.  God pays attention to everything.  Everything is important to God.  So, no matter what our request is, we can present it to God.

            By what method are we supposed to present these requests to God?  By prayer and petition.  And when are we supposed to present them?  In every situation.

            In other words, we don’t need to wait until we have a specific prayer time to talk to God.  It’s fine to do that, don’t get me wrong.  I have a specific prayer time of my own.  But we don’t need to limit our prayers to that time.  In fact, we’re not supposed to.  We can pray to God in every situation.  No matter where we are, no matter what we’re doing, we can pray to God.  We can present our requests to God.

            Now all that should help.  Knowing that we can pray to God at any time, that we can present our requests to God at any time, knowing that there’s nothing too big or too small for God to be interested in, that all can help us feel the peace of God.  It can help us be able to rejoice in the Lord.

            But here’s the big thing.  How are we supposed to present our requests to God?  With thanksgiving.  Paul says we should present our requests to God with thanksgiving.

            Think about that.  Present a request with thanksgiving.  Does that make sense?  I mean, I can understand being thankful after our request is granted.  But Paul says we’re not supposed to wait for our request to be granted to be thankful.  We’re supposed to be thankful as we’re making the request.  We’re supposed to present our request with thanksgiving.

If we’re thankful to God as we’re making our requests to God, what does that mean?  It means that we trust God.  It means that, as we’re making the request, we trust that our request will be taken care of.  Whatever request we make, whatever the situation is, God’s going to handle it.  Once we’ve prayed to God about it, it’s over.  It’s in God’s hands, and we trust that God will take care of it.

            It’s trust.  It’s faith.  It’s believing that, once we’ve prayed, we can turn the situation over to God.  We can leave the situation in God’s hands.  Again, that does not mean God will do exactly what we want exactly when we want it.  That’s not what we’re thankful for.  What we’re thankful for is that we can trust God to do what’s right.  We’re thankful that we can trust God to do what’s best.  We’re thankful that we can trust God to take care of things and handle them in the right way, not just for us but for everyone involved.

            When we present our requests to God, we’re turning our problems over to God.  When we turn all of our problems, large and small, over to God, and when we do that with thanksgiving, knowing God will take care of them, we can feel the peace of God guarding our hearts and our minds.  Then, we truly will be able to rejoice in the Lord.  And then, we will truly know that the Lord is near.

He Would Do Anything For Love

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, November 24, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Mark 14:12-26.

            So you may have wondering, why did the pastor choose that Bible passage?  Why are we talking about the Last Supper today?  We read that during Holy Week, or maybe Communion Sunday.  But this is Thanksgiving Sunday.  Why are we talking about the Last Supper on Thanksgiving?

            Well, there is a reason.  You know, part of that Bible reading from Mark is somewhat similar to what we say every time we take communion.  In fact, some of you probably recognized it.  And there’s one line in there that’s said twice.  And we say it twice every time we take communion, too.

            So, since we say it twice, it must be pretty important.  And yet, a lot of times, we just kind of gloss over it.  I know I often do.  I’ve been reading that same communion stuff for years, and then one Communion Sunday, all of a sudden, that line just—bam--hit me right between the eyes.  Some of you may know what it is already, but here it is:  “when he had given thanks”.

            “When he had given thanks”.  That line appears twice.  First, we’re told, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to his disciples, saying, “Take it; this is my body.”  A little later, we’re told, “he took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank from it.  ‘This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,’ he said to them.”

            Now, think about what’s going on here.  Jesus is eating the last meal he will ever eat on this earth.  After he eats this meal, he goes to Gethsemane.  He gets arrested.  He gets beaten.  He gets spat on.  He gets tortured.  And then, he gets killed.

            And Jesus knows all this is going to happen.  None of it catches Jesus by surprise.  In fact, he’s told his disciples what’s going to happen.  In fact, he’s told them one of them is going to betray him in order to make it all happen.  And yet, knowing all this, Jesus takes bread and gives thanks to God.  And then he takes a cup and gives thanks to God.

            I wonder what the actual words are that Jesus said.  I mean, what would he have had to be thankful for?  The meal?  Well, maybe—we think it was a traditional Passover meal—but I doubt it.  With all that was going on, I doubt that food was very much on Jesus’ mind.  The time with the disciples?  Maybe, but he knew that one of them was going to betray him.  And he knew they were all going to fall away and abandon him.  

Do you think Jesus was really feeling thankful at that moment?  It’s hard to imagine that he was.  And yet, he gave thanks to God.  And I don’t think Jesus just did that because it was what he was supposed to do.  I mean, Jesus did not do a lot of the things that the Pharisees and the other religious leaders thought he was supposed to do.  I think Jesus meant every word he said.  I think Jesus was sincere in his thanks to God.

            But what would he have said?  What would Jesus have found to be thankful for?  I know the Bible says we’re supposed to be thankful in all circumstances, but this is really taking that to the extreme.  In these circumstances, about to be betrayed and tortured and killed even though you’d done nothing wrong, would you be able to find anything to be thankful for?

            I doubt if I would.  In fact, I’d probably have been pretty upset with God.  I might have been pretty angry with God, if you want to know the truth.  Here Jesus was, having done nothing wrong, having done everything he was supposed to do, and this is the reward he gets for it—mocking, torture, and death.  It’d be pretty hard to be thankful right then.

            But Jesus knew what was going on.  Jesus knew things had to be done this way.  In fact, Jesus knew this was part of the reason he’d come to earth in the first place.  Jesus knew this was his mission in coming here.  He had come here to be punished, not for his own sins, but for our sins.  He came here to take the punishment that belonged to us, so that we would not have to take it ourselves.  And he knew the reason he was doing it.  He was doing it out of love.  Jesus took that punishment on himself and away from us because he loves us that much.

            This was an incredibly hard thing God the Father was asking Jesus to do.  He was tempted not to do it.  There’s the story about the devil tempting Jesus while he was fasting in the desert, but I have to think Jesus was tempted time after time after time to not go through with this.  There were all kinds of ways he could’ve avoided it.  

He could’ve used his power to wipe out the Pharisees and the Romans and everyone else and establish an earthly kingdom.  That’s what some people wanted him to do.  And it had to be really tempting, because think of all the good Jesus could’ve done for people if he’d been an earthly king.  He could’ve solved the problems of slavery and of poverty and of oppression.  He could’ve made things fair for everybody.  That had to be a tempting thing for him to do.

And in fact, he might not have had to use his power to do that.  The people might’ve done it for him.  He was already a celebrity and a star for all the miracles he’d done, all the healing, that sort of thing.  If he’d done a little more of it, and especially if he’d healed the right people, some of the movers and shakers, they might’ve established Jesus as an earthly king by themselves.  Jesus might not have had to take power, power might have been just given to him.  That had to be tempting, too.

Or, Jesus could’ve cut a deal with the Pharisees.  You know, just back off a little bit.  Acknowledge the authority of the Pharisees.  Stop healing on the Sabbath.  Stop speaking out quite so forcefully.  He could still go around and help people, but just don’t make such a big deal out of defying authority when you do it, you know?  Just kind of lay low and keep quiet for a while.

There were all kinds of things Jesus could’ve done.  All kinds of ways Jesus could’ve avoided going through with this.  He was constantly tempted to do that, to avoid what his destiny, to not do what he came to earth to do.  But on this night, this night of the Last Supper, Jesus knew he was going to go through with it.  He was going to resist temptation.  He was going to do what he had come here to do.  The love that Jesus has for us was so great that he was going to be able to do it, no matter how hard it was going to be for him.

And maybe that’s what Jesus was thankful to God for.  Jesus was thankful that God the Father had helped him resist temptation.  He was thankful that he was going to be who he was, who he had always been.  He was going to be Jesus, the Christ, the Savior, the Messiah.  He was going to truly be God the Son, no matter how hard it might be.  And he was going to show that God truly is a God of love.

The Bible tells us that you and I were created in God’s image.  So, if God is a God of love, then you and I, God’s people, are supposed to be a people of love.  And once again, we come back to what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments, the ones all the law and all the statements of the prophets depend on:  that we love God, and that we love each other.

Jesus’ love for us made him do some very hard things.  And you and I, if we love others, are going to be asked to do some very hard things, too.  We’re going to be asked to do things for people when we’re tired and we don’t really feel like doing anything for anyone.  We’re going to be asked to give to people when we’re not sure if we have enough for ourselves.  We’re going to be asked to respond with love when people treat us badly.  We’re going to be asked to be there for people when it feels like we have all we can do to take care of ourselves.

We’re going to be tempted not to do those things.  And there will be any number of ways we can avoid them.  We’ll be able to come up with all kinds of excuses for why we should not have to do things for people, why we should not have to give to people, why we should not have to respond with love, why we should not have to be there for people.  We’ll be tempted all the time to not do what we were put on this earth to do.

Jesus resisted temptation because he loved us.  And if you and I truly love each other, and if we truly love the people who are out there beyond these walls, you and I will be able to resist temptation, too.  We are not Jesus, and we are not perfect, but we can still resist temptation.  We can do it the way Jesus did it--by keeping the love of other people front and center in our lives.

And when we do resist temptation, we can be thankful to God, the way Jesus was.  We can be thankful that God has helped us resist temptation.  We can be thankful that he was are who we were created to be, who God has always created us to be.  We can be thankful because we are truly going to be God’s people, no matter how hard it might be.  And we can be thankful that we are a people of love, serving a God of love.

Game Over

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on Sunday, November 17, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Psalm 98.

            Are you an optimist or a pessimist?

            Whichever you are, it’s okay.  It’s not a sin to be an optimist, and it’s not a sin to be a pessimist.  God made us all different, and God did that for good reasons.  Our society needs both optimists and pessimists.  Besides, most of us are probably not completely one or the other, anyway.  I mean, I consider myself an optimist, for the most part.  But there are times when I get down, times when I get pessimistic.  I think it’s human nature.

            I will say, though, that I think it can be easier to be a pessimist.  Not “easier” in the sense of it making life easier.  “Easier” in the sense that it always seems to be easier to find reasons why things will go wrong than it is to find reasons things will go right.  It’s easier to think of reasons why something will fail than to think of reasons why it will succeed.  In any organization, if someone thinks of a new idea, there’ll be someone who can give about twenty-five reasons why it won’t work.  That’s just how it is.

            But it seems to me that, as Christians, we should always be optimistic about the future.  Not the near-term future, necessarily.  We’ve all seen the statistics about how faith in God and belief in Jesus as the Savior is in decline.  And not necessarily our personal future, either.  Faith in God is no guarantee of an easy life on Earth.  It never has been.  

            But what I mean is that, as Christians, we believe in an all-powerful God.  That means there is nothing that happens anywhere on Earth that God does not allow to happen.  I’m not saying God causes all things to happen.  Humans still have free will, and we have the ability to do things God does not want us to do.  But we only have that ability because God gives it to us.  Our human free will only exists by the grace of God.  And remember, God can work all things for the good of those who love him.  Even the worst things we can imagine, and even things that we cannot imagine, can be used by God for ultimate good.  Good for us personally, and good for the world.  Good for God’s plan of salvation, which we know is going to work out the way it’s supposed to.

            And so, when we think about the long-term future, we should always be optimistic.  Because we know that no matter how things look right now, God is going to win.  Jesus is going to come again.  God’s plan of salvation is going to happen.  There will be the new heavens and the new earth.  Our righteous, holy, perfect God will prevail against everything.  And as long as we stand firm in our faith and accept Jesus as the Savior, we are going to win, too.

            Our psalm this evening, psalm ninety-eight, is one of the most joyous, uplifting, optimistic psalms in the Bible.  When that psalm was written, everything was not going perfectly for the nation of Israel.  They had problems, just as we do.  In fact, at this time, the nation of Israel was often in trouble.  They had enemies all over who were trying to defeat them.  And yet, when you read that psalm, the person who wrote it makes it sound like everything has already been decided and that God has already won.  Not that God will win.  Not that God is winning.  That God has won.  There’s no doubt about it.  It’s game over.  It’s all over but the shouting.  All that’s left to clear up is the details.

            Listen to the first two lines:  “Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.”

            The Lord “has done” marvelous things.  His right hand and holy arm “have worked” salvation.  Past tense.  Those marvelous things--they’re as good as done.  Salvation has already been worked.  All we need to do is claim it and accept it.  

            Now that’s optimism.  To look at all the problems of the world, to look at all the enemies of there are, to think of all the people and all the other countries that might come after Israel.  To look at all the problems the author of the psalm must have had in his personal life, too, because everybody has stuff like that.  To look at all that and say, “Hey, it’s all over.  It’s done.  We’ve already won.  Period.”

            There’s no reason you and I cannot look at things that way, too.  Because those marvelous things--the Lord “has done” them for us.  For you and for me.  God’s right hand and holy arm “have worked” salvation.  It’s done.  Game over.  God’s victory is assured.  Our salvation is assured.  All you and I need to do is accept it.  That’s really cool, don’t you think?

            The author of the psalm thought so.  He thought it was time to celebrate!  Listen to this:  “Shout for joy, all the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; make music to the Lord with the harp; with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram’s horn--shout for joy before the Lord, the King.”

            In other words, it’s party time!  God has won!  Our salvation is assured!  Let’s praise the Lord for His great victory, a victory He has won for us!

            I wonder if, when people first heard this psalm, there were some skeptics.  I wonder if there were some pessimists.  I wonder if there were some people who said, “What in the world are you talking about?  God has not won anything.  Neither have we.  There are enemies all around us.  They want to kill us, take our land, take our cattle, take everything.  And there are people all around us worshiping all these foreign gods, and trying to stop us from worshiping the one true God.  How in the world can you say we’ve won?  And how can you say God has won?”

            The author of the psalm says it because he has faith.  He has the faith we can have.  He has a faith that says “I don’t care what you see around you.  I don’t care what’s going on around us right now.  I know I worship the almighty, all-powerful God.  I know there is no one and nothing that is more powerful than God.  I know there is nothing that God cannot do.  I worship the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  I worship the God who created everything.  I worship the God that defeated the mighty Pharaoh, who defeated Goliath, who has defeated everyone.  I can say God has won because I know God cannot lose.”

            That’s faith.  That’s a strong faith.  That’s an incredible faith, really.  And that’s the faith you and I can have.

            And you know what’s really incredible about this?  It’s not just you and I who can have that faith.  All of creation has that faith.  All of creation celebrates God’s victory.  Listen to this:  “Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it.  Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing for joy; let them sing before the Lord.”

            That’s how complete and total God’s victory is.  All of nature, all the natural forces of the world, rejoices at the triumph of God.  In fact, “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.”  That’s pretty incredible.

            So, does that change anything about life right now?  Well, yes and no.  Our problems still exist.  They’re still real.  They’re still just as serious.  Having faith in God does not magically take all our problems away.

            But that faith can give us confidence.  We can be optimistic.  Maybe not about our current situation.  But we can be optimistic about the future, and especially the long-term future.  We may have problems, but we can know that our problems will not defeat us.  God may or may not take them away while we’re in this world.  But God is going to triumph over them.  God is going to win.  And through our faith in Jesus as the Savior, you and I are going to win, too.  God will triumph over everything, not just for Himself, but for us, too, if we have faith.

            If you’re a natural pessimist, that’s okay.  As I said, God made us all different.  God created both pessimists and optimists, and both have their place and their purpose in God’s world.  But never be pessimistic about God’s chances of victory.  God is going to win.  In fact, God has already won.  The game’s over.  It’s all over but the shouting.  The only thing that remains is the details.

            And for that, we truly can shout for joy.

Here's Your Plan

I’m not, by nature, a terribly organized person.  Since I became a pastor, however, I’ve had to get myself organized to a certain extent.  There would be too many things that slip through the cracks otherwise.  And so, I wake up every day with a plan for my day.  I know, at least in general terms, the things I need to get done that day in order to make the week go smoothly.  And when I get to my office at the church in the morning, I start doing those things.

But sometimes God comes along and changes my whole plan.  I have my plan for the day, but God says, “No, here’s your plan for the day.”  And it’s something totally different from what I expected.

I don’t like that very much.  For one thing, when my plan for the day changes suddenly, it’s hardly ever good news.  But more than that, I don’t like having my routine disrupted.  I don’t like having my plans changed.  And it seems like that’s been happening fairly often lately.

Now, don’t take this the wrong way.  I want to be there for people when they need me.  And if that means having my plans disrupted, well, I’ll adapt.  But still, those things that I was planning to do--they still need to get done.  I may not be able to do them today, but I still need to do them.  And when I can’t do them on my schedule, it feels like I’m falling behind, and I need to somehow find the time to catch up.  And sometimes, finding that time is not particularly easy to do.

The answer, of course, is to trust God.  And I know that.  I’m sure you know it, too.  It’s just no always easy to do.  The basic problem is that I keep think of these things I have to do in exactly that way--as things I have to do.  What I have to remember is that if God truly wants me to do those things, God will provide me with the time to do them.  And if God does not provide me with that time, well, then it means that I don’t actually have to do them.  Maybe some of them don’t need to be done.  Maybe they need to be done, but they can wait a little while.  Maybe they need to be done, but somebody else can do them for a while.

What’s amazing, though, is the number of times when I’ve looked at all the things I’ve had to do, and I’ve seen no way that I could get them all done, and yet God somehow provided enough time for me to do them.  God rarely provides me with extra time--and sometimes I wish God would--but God always seems to provide me with just enough time.  It’s really pretty cool, the way God always does that.

So, here’s what I think the solution is, at least for me.  Maybe it’ll be the solution for you, too.  When you feel like you’re overwhelmed by things, just keep plugging away.  Do one thing at a time, get it done, and move on to the next thing.  And trust that God will provide you with the time to get the things done that need to be done.  And if God does not provide that time, then maybe the thing does not need to be done, at least not right now.

If God wants us to do something, then God will provide us with everything we need to do it.  That includes time.  So let’s trust God and just keep doing our best.

The Heavens and the Earth

This is the message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, November 17, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Isaiah 65:17-25.

            “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”  Those are the very first words of the Bible.  The Bible begins by telling us the story of God creating the heavens and the earth.

            And when you think about it, that’s kind of an odd phrase.  “The heavens and the earth.”  Not “heaven and earth”, but “the heavens and the earth”.  Is there more than one heaven?

            Some say that the word “heavens”, in that context, just means the skies and the clouds and that sort of thing.  And we do use the word “heavens” that way sometimes.  But there are other references in the Bible to there being more than one heaven.  For example, the Apostle Paul, in Second Corinthians Chapter Two, refers to a man who was caught up to the third heaven.  What’s the third heaven?  Is it better than the first heaven or the second heaven?  And is there a fourth or a fifth heaven?

            And then, to throw another wrench into all this, we come to our reading for today from Isaiah.  Isaiah quotes God as saying, “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth.”

            New heavens?  Why would God need to create new heavens?  What’s wrong with the old heavens?  Will the new heavens be different from the old heavens?  If not, what’s the point of creating them?  But if so, did God make mistakes when He created the old heavens?  And in what way will the new heavens be different?

            Well, the only answer I can give you is:  heaven knows.  This is not the only time in the Bible that references a new heaven:  it’s mentioned in Second Peter and also in Revelation Chapter Twenty-one.  But none of those passages describe the new heaven, any more than Isaiah does.  And in a way, I guess that makes sense.  I mean, we don’t even know much about what the old heaven or heavens are like, so we certainly cannot expect to know much about the new one.

            The only thing we know about the new heavens is that they will be better.  In fact, they’ll be so much better that “the former things will not be remembered, nor with they come to mind.”  In other words, the new heavens will be so much better that no one will be able to remember what the old ones were like.  Nobody will even want to remember what the old ones were like.  They will simply “be glad and rejoice forever” and what God has created.  So, apparently, however awesome the current heavens are, the new heavens will be even awesomer.  But other than that?  We just don’t know.

            But we do know what the new earth will be like.  And it’s going to be pretty awesome, too.  For one thing, we’re going to live longer.  Listen to what Isaiah says, “Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed...For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people.”

            Think about that.  My dad lived to be ninety-six, and my mom is ninety-four, and I feel very fortunate that I’ve had them in my life for as long as I have.  But in the new earth, a person who’s in their nineties is going to be just getting started.  A person who’s a hundred years old is still a kid.  That’s pretty incredible.

            Isaiah says that the people who live in the new earth will be “a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them.”  But it’s not just the people.  All of creation will be blessed on this new earth.  “The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food.  They will neither harm nor destroy.”

            I read all this, and I think, where do I go to sign up for that?  How can I get to this new earth?  But, of course, there’s no way we can.  God will create this new earth when God decides to create this new earth, and I doubt there’s anything we can do to hurry God along.  

            But that raises a question.  If there’s nothing we can do to make this new earth come about, then what’s the point of God telling us about it?  I mean, sure, it sounds great.  But if I cannot go there now, then what good does it do me to know about it?

            Well, here’s the thing.  We cannot go there now, but we will be able to go there someday.  Here’s what the Apostle John said in Revelation Chapter Twenty-one.  He describes the holy city, the New Jerusalem, descending from heaven.  It’s a place that shines with the glory of God.  It’s filled with gold and precious jewels.  There’s no need for the sun or the moon, because the glory of God and of the divine Son gives all the light that’s need.  There’s no night there. And he concludes, “Nothing impure will ever enter into it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

            You and I can have our names written in that book.  We can be in Jesus’ book of life.  All we need to do is have faith in Jesus Christ.

            And that’s true even if we have done things which are “impure”.  It’s true even if we do things that are “shameful or deceitful”.  Because Jesus died to save us.  Jesus took the punishment that should have gone to us for our sins.  And when we accept Jesus as the Savior, we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven.  But it’s more than that.  Not only are our sins forgiven, it’s like they never happened in the first place.  That’s what we mean when we say that the blood of Jesus Christ washes us clean.  The stains of all our sins are gone, because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  And all we need to do to have that happen is accept Jesus as the Savior.

            But all that raises the question:  where exactly do we go when we die?  Do we go to one of the current heavens?  If so, will we someday go to the new earth, to the New Jerusalem?  Will we ever go to the new heavens?

            I don’t have an answer for you.  But I will tell you this:  I would not worry about it too much.  Because wherever we go, it’s going to be an awesome place.  We know it’s going to be an awesome place because we’re going to be in the presence of God.  God is in the current heaven right now.  And in Revelation, we’re told that God will live with his people in the New Jerusalem.  So wherever we go when we die, whether to the heavens or to the New Jerusalem, we’ll be in the presence of God.  And it does not get any better than that.

            But this is why it’s so important that we do what we can to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Not because we think we’re better than other people.  Not because we’re trying to force our beliefs on anyone.  Not because we’d like to see our church grow.  Not for any reason other than love--love of God and love of other people.

            You and I, as Christians, know something other people don’t know.  And it’s something incredible.  It’s the secret of salvation and eternal life.  And because we know that, we have an obligation to do what we can to share that secret with everyone we can, so that others can have salvation and eternal life, just like we do.  Jesus does not want that secret to stay a secret.  That’s why he came in the first place.  And that’s why he told us to go and make disciples of all nations.  Jesus wants everyone, everywhere, to have a chance to accept him as the Savior.  He wants everyone, everywhere, to have a chance for salvation and eternal life.  And the only way that’s going to happen--the only way people are going to have a chance to accept Jesus as the Savior--is if Christians like you and me love those people enough to do what we can to spread the word and give them that chance.

            This time, right now--the time before Jesus returns--this is truly the critical time.  This is the time we have to spread that word and give people that chance.  I don’t know how long it will be.  It might be ten million years.  Or it might be ten years, or ten weeks, or ten days.  We don’t know, and we have no way to know.  

It’s easy to put it off.  It’s easy to leave it to someone else.  It’s easy to make excuses for ourselves.  Believe me, I know.  I’ve put it off, and I’ve left it to someone else, and I’ve made excuses for myself.  I still do, many times.  I know how easy it is to do, and how tempting it is to do.  I know all the fears we have, all the hesitancy we have, all the reasons we can give to avoid doing this.

That’s why it really is a matter of love.  Love of Jesus, and love of other people.  If we love Jesus enough, and if we love other people enough, that love can overcome our temptation to put it off.  That love can overcome our temptation to leave this to someone else.  That love can overcome all the excuses, all the fears, all the hesitancy.  It really all comes down to love.

If we accept Jesus as the Savior, we know we’re going to an awesome place when we die, because we’re going to the presence of God.  And if we love people, we want them to be there with us.  So let’s do all we can to help them get there.  Let’s do all we can to give everyone the chance for salvation and eternal life.  May our love overcome our fears.

Heaven

This is the message given in the Sunday night service in the Gettysburg United Methodist church on November 10, 2019.  The Bible verses used are Luke 20:27-38.

            Do you ever think about what heaven is like?

            I suspect most of us do, at least once in a while.  After all, we all know someone who’s there, or at least we hope they are.  And I assume we all hope to go there ourselves one day.  So it’s natural that we’d wonder just what heaven is actually like.

            But of course, wondering what heaven is like assumes that there actually is a heaven.  And of course as Christians, that is what we believe.  But everyone does not believe that.  You’ll hear all kinds of beliefs about reincarnation and higher planes of consciousness and so forth.  And there are some who say that nothing happens when we die.  We just die, and that’s it.

            That seems to be what the Sadducees thought.  And so they come to Jesus with a question.  They’re trying to trick Jesus, to trap him, to make him look stupid for saying that the dead are raised.

            And we’ll get to that in a minute, but it brings us something that seems odd to me.  Why was it so important to the Sadducees to prove that there is no resurrection of the dead?  What difference did it make to them?  Was it just the fact that they believed it was a wrong teaching, and they wanted people to know better?  Did they think it was an affront to God to believe something that was not true?  Did they think it would lead to other wrong beliefs, or to bad behavior?

            I don’t know the answer, I’m just curious about it.  I mean, if someone wanted to believe the dead were raised, so what?  They might think it was not true, but who was it hurting?  Why was this issue so important to them that they needed to confront Jesus with it?

            Well, for whatever reason, it was.  And so they come to Jesus with a question.  It’s kind of a complicated question, but it’s one that would’ve made sense to people at the time.  It fit in perfectly with Jewish law, and the Sadducees were very big on Jewish law.  What they said about the law was exactly right.

            At that time, it was considered a really bad thing to let someone’s line of succession die out.  And so the law said that if a man died and left a wife but no children, the man’s brother should marry the widow and have children for him.  That may seem a little strange to us now, but it would’ve made perfect sense to the people listening to this conversation between the Sadducees and Jesus.

            And so the Sadducees come up with this scenario.  It seems far-fetched, and it would’ve seemed far-fetched then, too, but it still would’ve seemed like a logical question.  What if a guy dies childless, and his brother marries his widow, and he dies childless, too, and then another brother marries his widow, and they still don’t have any children, and this happens seven times.  After they’re all dead, whose wife is this woman going to be in heaven?

            And this is where the written word kind of fails us, because I really wonder what the expression was on Jesus’ face when he heard that.  I mean, was he just shaking his head at them?  Was he thinking, “Good grief, don’t you people have anything better to do than to come up with questions like that?”  Was he upset with them?  Was he angry that they were trying to trap him with this question?  I mean, the religious authorities were trying to trick Jesus and trap him all the time.  I’d think after a while, he probably got really tired of having to deal with that.

            But what I really think is that Jesus probably just shook his head kind of sadly at how ignorant these people were and how little they understood the things they were talking about.  Because that’s his answer, really--you people just don’t understand.  You don’t understand the first thing about heaven and what it’s like.  The only reason you think this is a good question is because you’re thinking in human terms.

What the Sadducees were doing was taking the laws and rules that God made for humans on earth and assuming that those same laws and rules are going to apply in heaven.  And Jesus says, no.  That’s not how it works.  The laws and rules God made for humans on earth are not the same as the laws and rules that apply in heaven.  The reason why not is that humans are not going to be the same in heaven as they are on earth.  If you had any idea about heaven, or about what people are going to be like when they go there, you’d know how ridiculous this question really is.

            But you know, we really should not be too hard on the Sadducees.  Remember, I asked you at the start of this message if you ever think about what heaven is like.  If you do, I suspect you think of it in human terms.  And so do I.  

            It’s understandable.  It’s about the only thing we can do, really.  After all, you and I are human.  Human terms are the only terms we can understand.  The only way we can try to visualize heaven, the only way we can have it make any sense to us, is if we think of it in human terms.

            And so we think of a place where we can rest.  We think of it as a place where we’re at peace, with nothing to worry about, no concerns, nothing to bother us.  We think of it as a place where we’ll be with our loved ones again.  Some people think of it as a place where they’ll be reunited with their favorite pets, too.  Some people think of it as a place where we’ll be able to do all the things we enjoy.  Some people think of it as a place where we can eat all we want and not gain weight.  And on and on and on.

            And it’s not necessarily wrong to think of heaven that way.  Again, things like that are about the only way we can think of heaven and have it make any sense to us.  But when we think about heaven that way, we should keep one thing in the back of our minds.  The chances are that, when we get to heaven, we’ll find out that everything we ever thought about heaven while we were on earth is wrong.

Because, in thinking about heaven, we’re really not that different from the Sadducees.  I mean, we’re different in that they believed there is no resurrection of the dead and we believe that there certainly is.  But as far as really understanding heaven, you and I really have no clue whatsoever.

            There are a lot of theories about why God does not let us know what heaven is really like while we’re on earth.  Some people say that heaven is simply beyond our understanding, that even if God told us we’d never understand it.  Some people say that if we really understood heaven and how incredible it is, it would make our lives on earth unbearable to us.  We’d hate being here because we’d want so much to be there.  And there are lots of other theories, too.

            I obviously don’t know the answer.  But  what I think is that at least part of the reason God does not let us fully understand heaven is because that’s not where God wants our focus to be.  Not right now, anyway.  It’s okay to want to go to heaven when the time comes, but for right now, I think God wants our focus to be on our lives here on earth.  God wants us to do the things Jesus told us to do.  Love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.  Love our neighbors as ourselves.  Love our enemies.  Pray for those who persecute us.  Go and make disciples of all nations.  Serve God and be faithful to God.

            Those are the things God wants us to focus on while we’re on earth.  God wants us to do those things as well as we possibly can.  We won’t do them perfectly, because while we’re on earth perfection is not something we’re capable of.  But we should not use that as an excuse, either.  We need to do all of those things as well as we possibly can.  And when we do mess up, we need to go to God, ask for forgiveness, and try again to do all of those things as well as we possibly can.

            We really don’t understand heaven any better than the Sadducees did.  But we do know one thing they did not know, and it’s a pretty big one.  We know that the resurrection is real.  We know that heaven exists.  We know that, by our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior, and by God’s incredible love and grace and mercy, we will go there when our time comes.

            It’s okay to wonder what heaven is like.  But for now, let’s focus on being faithful to God while we’re on earth.  If we do that, we’ll get to find out what heaven is like when the time is right.

           

A Poem About Heaven

Do you ever wonder about heaven

And what it’s like to be there?

Are there really streets that are paved with gold?

Do we really fly through the air?

Do we get to see all our loved ones?

Will our dogs and our cats be there, too?

Will we get to do all the things we enjoy?

Will we truly rest all the day through?

There are so many things that I’d like to know

So many things I cannot fathom

Will every good God-fearing person be there

Going all the way clear back to Adam?

Seems like it could get kind of crowded

An eternal population explosion

And I would assume that it’s gonna get bigger

As more and more people are chosen

So many questions and so few answers

We wish God would tell us some more

But some clues from the Bible are all that we have

Till our time comes to walk through that door.

So let’s focus, then, on the things that we know

The things we know that the Lord told us

We know that we get there by faith in the Christ

And the mercy and grace that God shows us

We know it’s the place where God truly is

Where we’ll see him with no shield or filter

We know it’s where everything is perfect

With nothing out of place or off-kilter

And if God is there, then we know there is love

And peace and joy that’s forever

With no worries, no fears, no frightening storms

We won’t even have to worry about weather

We may not get wings or float on the clouds

But we know that our faith is the test

And if we pass we’ll be with God forever

And forever’s how long we’ll be blessed.