“Why Heaven Matters Today”

Taken from the final message in our “Life After Death” series

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age”

- MATTHEW 28:16-20

Have you ever asked yourself the question, what does He mean by, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ”We’ve been talking about the reality of the new heaven and the new earth as it goes all the way back to Genesis 1 and 2.What God has always wanted is to bring heaven and earth together. That’s the point of His creation.

Jesus embodied that, being God in the flesh, and now having conquered sin, which was the dividing point, Jesus now is the God-man, having all authority on heaven and earth to tell His disciples to go now and what — “go into the world”, not escape from the world but “go into the world”. Roll up your sleeves and begin building for the Kingdom now. I have authority on heaven and earth; I have authority to bring it together. And now as citizens of heaven, living out on earth, let’s begin building for the Kingdom now, in hope of what is to come.

It is an amazing thing to process this concept of the hope that is to come and the reality that we are to be busy about that work today, giving people in our community and our world just a glimpse, just a glimpse of the promise of what is to come. We in ourselves as the church are the first fruit, a pledge, a glimpse of what is to come, bringing the future into the present and then inviting people in despair and pain and suffering in this world to come to know the Savior who died for their sins in order that they too might be part of this magnificent world to come.

It is this magnificent promise that changes everything. As of that first Easter morning when Jesus stood in the garden as the resurrected Savior, everything changed. That was the first day of the new creation. It is the basis by which there is light in the midst of the darkness. The basis by which there is hope in the midst of the despair. The basis by which there is courage in the midst of the fear. The basis by which there is joy in the midst of the sorrow. It is the basis by which, no matter what life throws at us, there is a hope and a future more glorious than we can even begin to describe today.

The entire “Life After Death” series is available in both printed and audio form from the Publications Center. The printed form has the complete transcript from each message
along with the study questions so you can use it for personal study or in a small group.

Today we begin a new brief series looking at II and III John called “Walking in the Truth.”