1-10-09 Heaven on Earth

When you dial the telephone, do you ever dial seven numbers randomly and expect to get the person that you want to talk to on the other end? No! You always dial seven specific numbers in a specific order don’t you? When you drive out of your house to work or the store do you ever randomly choose just any ole road? No, you specifically chose certain roads to take you to your desired destination.

 When I was kid, my best friends mom sent his dad out to get milk at the local grocery store two miles away. His dad left and didn’t come back for 3 hours and he came back without the milk. He had forgotten the reason why he left in the first place.

 

Focus matters! Focus is necessary for us to do anything. Everything that we do requires focus. Right now you are focusing on my words. If you stop focusing, you will leave here without remembering anything. If you cook, it takes focus. If you carry on a meaningful conversation with someone, it takes focus. If you garden, it takes focus. If you drive it takes focus. Without focus we cannot achieve anyting. So what?

Many of us live our lives without any focus. and yet we expect as we get older to get better, grow closer to God, become who God created us to be, but without focus none of us can do that! 

We were having a leader’s community gathering early in December and we were talking about our vision, “Heaven on Earth”. Quite to my surprise, several people didn’t know what our vision meant. When I said “Heaven on Earth” they said what exactly does that mean? Others chimed in and said, “Yeah, does that mean that it’s like Disneyland where everyone is supposed to go around with smiles on their faces despite the pain in their hearts?” The answer to that question, by the way is, “No”. We don’t want anyone to fake how they’re feeling. Someone else said, “I was always taught that heaven was a bunch of people sitting in pews singing songs to God”. So, what does Heaven on Earth mean and why is it important to know?

 

Our vision statement, “Heaven on Earth” is our focus. If we as a church don’t focus on something, we will never go anywhere. Focus is required to move, to grow, to change, and to become who God created us to be. But what exactly does Heaven on Earth mean?

 

It all begins with a story. Have you noticed that all the great stories begin with “Once upon a time” and they end with “Happily ever after”?  My daughter recently finished reading a book, and as she slammed the cover closed she said with great emphasis, “that was a lousy book”. I asked her why she thought it was a lousy book, and she said again with great fire and passion, “Because it ended sad!” It wasn’t a good story because it didn’t end “Happily ever after.” There’s something about us that wants the story to end good . . . isn’t there?

 

Think about it with me for a minute. Think of your favorite movie or story. A movie is really a story with pictures. What’s you favorite? Got it? Did it end happily ever after? It did, didn’t it?

 

Among other things, God is a masterful storyteller. God is writing a big story and the Bible tells us it’s going to end happily ever after. Read Revelation 21:5. It’s a great ending, but obviously we’re not there yet. Anybody here feel like their living in heaven? Anybody here feel like life couldn’t be any better? NO!

 

All of history is God’s story. It began “Once upon a time” and it’s going to end “Happily ever after”, but right now we are in the part of the story that every good story has and that’s conflict. Think of your favorite stories or movies. Have you ever read a good book or watched a great movie that didn’t have conflict in it? NO! 

 

Ok, so here’s the deal. You are in God’s story. You’re life is a small story that fits into the bigger story that God is writing. Here’s the amazing thing! God has given you the freedom and choice to write your own story. Did you know that? Everything that you say and do and think is being written down in a book. Your life is a story and it’s part of the bigger story that God is writing.

 

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. Revelation 20:12 (NRSV)

What kind of story are you writing?

Now, in every good story there are always the good guys and the bad guys. There’s always a battle going on between good and evil. The choice between good and evil exists all around us all the time.

Every act of courtesy, courage,  generosity,  or selflessness entails  some assent to the good and some choice to embrace heaven.  Every act of selfishness, greed, lust, anger entails some assent to evil and some choice to embrace hell. As characters in God’s story, we are each faced with many choices. By the choices we make, we proceed towards heaven or hell.

Everything that we say and do today makes a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us not just when we die, but now. Every thought that we think and every thing that we say and every thing that we do takes us down a path and there are only two paths. One is toward heaven and the other is toward hell.

 

Let me give you an example. If (lesson 1) my wife is thirsty or has a catch in her throat and can’t stop coughing, I can try getting a cup of water for her, even though God knows I am too sleepy to budge; this is a very small lesson in love. You see, I have free will. I may of course refuse to get my wife a glass of water, in which case I will have missed one lesson of heaven. The difficulty here is that this refusal turns out to be more serious than merely missing a lesson. You see, If I refuse to get my wife a glass of water, I have lost ground. I am not where I was before. I am a step back. Or, put another way, I am now less prepared to pass the next lesson of heaven.

 

Heaven is about love. Hell the lack of it. It is so much easier just to stay in bed. It is much, much nicer. But whatever I do is going to nourish either selfishness or love in me. There is no third category. Selfishness is the story of evil. Love the story of Good. Selfishness is the story of hell. Love is the story of heaven. Selfishness is the story of Satan. Love the story of God.

 

So here’s the question, “Are you aware that your life is a story and you are the author?” Which kind of story are you writing? What kind of character are you playing?

 

Every time we hold a door for someone else and we do it with a heart of love, of giving, and of service we take a step toward heaven and we experience a nugget of heaven here on earth. Every time we selfishly let the door close without thinking about the person behind us, we take a step toward hell and we experience none of heaven’s goodness. Every act, thought and deed is a lesson, and each lesson, when it’s past will never return again. Each lesson, each step is toward heaven or toward hell.

 

We live in “Once upon a time”, but God’s story is going to end “Happily ever after”. The question is are we going to be a character that is trying thwart God’s plans or are we going to be the character that aids God’s plans. Are we working on bringing up there down here or are we bringing down there up there? Are we going to be Dorothy or the wicked witch? Are we going to be Neo, Morpheus, or Trinity, or are we going to an Agent? Are we going to be Darth Vader or are we going to be Han’s Solo? There are only two choices. Are we bringing heaven to earth by our actions or are we bringing Hell to earth by our choices? Are we bringing up there down here or are we bringing down there up here? What kind of character are you playing? What kind of story are you writing? We are either working toward God’s will and his kingdom or we are working against God and his kingdom.

 

Now, I want to clarify something. I am both selfish and giving. I take steps toward heaven and toward hell. I am both good and evil.  I live by faith, but I also have unbelief. I love God and others, and yet I don’t. Life is dialectic. Dialectic means that there are two poles – opposites and there’s tension or conflict within us.

 

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Romans 7:15 (NRSV)

There is a struggle going on inside of us. There is a war going on inside of us. And what Heaven on Earth means is that we are a community that is struggling and warring against hell on earth in our own bodies and in those that partner with us, and we are straining toward heaven on earth in our own lives and everybody else whom will receive a glass of cold water from us or accept a door being opened for them. And not just there, but in every other area in life.

 

Jesus taught us to pray: Our Father in heaven, holy is your name. ¹⁰ Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:9-10 (NRSV)

Jesus is asking us to pray for up there to come down here – for heaven to come to earth. Why would he ask us to pray for such things if he had no intention of giving it? Why would he ask us to pray for such things if he, himself didn’t want these things? God wants heaven to come to earth. Why?

 

In this story that God is writing (hold up my Bible) . . . and that we are writing, it starts out in the beginning and everything is very, very good. Everything and everyone is good. There is peace between Adam and Eve – great relationship, goodness and love; there’s peace between them and God – again there’s great relationship, goodness and love; and because these two relationships are right, there is peace and goodness in a third place. There is peace and goodness inside their hearts.

 

Early on in the story of life there is what the Hebrews called Shalom. Shalom was the way things were supposed to be – Peace all around. Adam and Eve were who God created them to be. There was . . . in the beginning . . . heaven on earth. Heaven and earth were not separated. The story begins once upon a time and live was good in the beginning.

 

But then something happened – Conflict is a major part of every good story. Think of your favorite story or movie? Was there some conflict in it? Was there a problem, an issue, or something that wasn’t right? Stories are boring without conflict. In God’s story there is conflict.

 

 Adam and Eve decided that they weren’t going to listen to God. They decided that they would do it their own way. They decided that they knew what was best. They decided that they would take things into their own hands, and when they did, hell entered the picture. They tried to play God, but they weren’t God, so all hell broke loose.

 

Kids and students, how many of you have ever thought that you knew better than mom and dad? Parents, how many times did you think that you knew better than your mom and dad when you were growing up? That’s what Adam and Eve did. Do you realize that it only took God 7 days to create the heavens and the earth and everything in them, but it has taken him all the rest of the days of history to try and fix the mess that we’ve made of the place? Parents, can you relate to that? You can spend all day picking up the house, but then 10 minutes after the kids walk in the place is trashed. This is what God experiences every day with us.

 

When the first human beings chose not to listen to God, relational chaos between Adam and Eve and between God and humans resulted, and because we were made for great relationship with God and each other the peace in here (hand over my heart) was no longer present either. Shalom was broken. Hurt and pain became the norm. The plot thickens.

 

The more that we choose to follow God and his will and his truth the more heaven we experience in this life generally speaking. But this is not always the case, because our lives intersect with other broken, messed up people. What others do affects us, so if they’re making bad decisions and doing wrong things that affects us, we experience hell coming to earth. That’s reality. We can’t change other people. We can’t fix other people.

 

 But the question is, “What will we do?” How will we treat them? Will we be selfish and bring down there up here, or will we show them love – will we give to them – will we serve them – will we practice for heaven here on earth? Will we partner with God or try and thwart his plans – will we take a step toward heaven or slide back toward hell? What will we do? In God’s story, what kind of character will you become? Every action, every word, every thought forms us and takes us down a road toward heaven or hell, and our actions not only affect us, but they affect those around us.

 

Heaven is not just something that we experience when we die; we can experience, by the choices that we make, heaven on earth in small, but very meaningful ways. Why else would Jesus teach us to pray for God’s will to be done and for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven?

 

When God created earth, it was heaven. It was paradise. It was Shalom – peace everywhere, but then we chose to do it our own way, thinking that we knew better than God and conflict resulted.

 

Apart from God, all humanity would be stuck in the hell on earth. We would be stuck in a story that never ended happily ever after. We would be stuck in a story that when you finished it, you would slam down the cover with passion and emphatically say, “That was a lousy story!”

 

Read Genesis 6:5-7The Account of Noah

 

But instead wiping every human being off the face of the earth as he did in Noah’s day, God came down in the person of Jesus, to give us the opportunity to live happily ever after. God in the person of Jesus, through his teaching, through his modeling, through his life, death, and resurrection, to choose whether we were going to write a lousy story or a good one.

 

When Jesus died on the cross, and when we accept the gift that he offers – the forgiveness of our sins – God, the greatest author and story teller ever imagined, willingly enters our lives and helps us write a great story. He helps us, through the power of his spirit living inside of us, he helps us change from being selfish to being giving, from being evil, to being good, from bringing hell to earth, to instead bringing heaven to earth – in our lives and in the lives of others. God helps us write a great story!!!

 

If you’ve never accepted this gift from God, and if you’ve never received the forgiveness from your sins – by the way, there is never a sin that you’ve committed that is bigger than God’s ability to forgive you. If you’ve never accepted the gift that God gives and you want to begin writing a new story today, then all you have to do, is to ask him to forgive you and ask him to enter your life, and vow to love him and follow him all the days of your life and God will begin to help you write a new story – a great story.

 

We all have this picture in our minds of what we desire our family to look like, but our family doesn’t match that picture. We all have a picture of what we desire our marriage or our past marriage to look like, but our marriage doesn’t or didn’t look like that. We all have a picture in our minds how our relationship with our kids or with our parents ought to look like, but it usually doesn’t look that way. Jesus tells us to pray for that, but not just to pray for it. Jesus, when asked what the greatest commandment was said,

 

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 (NRSV)

Can you imagine what the world would look like if every person would do this all the time? Can you imagine if everyone loved God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength – if every person loved God with all that they were, AND they were able to love the people around them as much as they loved themselves? What would that look like?

 

Just say it! It would look like heaven on earth.

 

The Mission of New Community is what we do in order to move towards our Vision – heaven on earth.

 

Does that mean that we should pretend that everything is OK – shiny, good, without problems, without brokenness, and without unmet longings? Absolutely not! We are in the middle of a war between two kingdoms – the kingdom of hell and the kingdom of heaven. Life is a mess! Let’s not fake it; life is what it is!

 

God created us to be good – at peace, filled with joy, and surrounded by people who love us for who we are, but evil is in us, around us, and assaults us every day. Our vision and mission statements are designed to say that the people of New Community are fighting for heaven on earth. We are fighting so that every person can become who God created them to be.

 

New Community’s goal is to fight for strong relationships, strong marriages, great families, great communities, and ultimately a great world – Heaven on Earth – A New Community.  Jesus thought it was a cause worth giving his life for! How about you?

 

Will you join us in this mission?