Pastor Rick's Daily Hope

Guest (Male): Hello everyone, this is Pastor Rick’s Daily Hope with Rick Warren. I’m really glad you’re here. Today, we’re continuing our series from Psalm 23 called Living in the Goodness of God. It’s all about how God’s goodness meets you right where you are and brings hope, even in difficult seasons. Right now, here’s part one of a message called Heaven: God’s Eternal Goodness to You.

Pastor Rick Warren: Today we come to the end of our 12-part series on Psalm 23. It’s only six verses, but it took us 12 sessions to get through it because there's so much depth and meat on living in the goodness of God. From the very beginning, I’ve been saying that Psalm 23 is not about you or me or about our trust and faith in God. It’s about God’s goodness to us. It’s not about our commitment to him; it’s about his commitment to us. In Psalm 23, he gives us 12 pictures of how God is good to us on a daily basis.

Now, in our last session, we came to the last verse which goes like this: Psalm 23, verse six. "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Friends, this last sentence is the understatement of the millennium: "and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." To go through 11 pictures of the goodness of God—he's going to help you rest when you're stressed out, he’s going to help you when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he will anoint your head with oil when you need healing, and he will overflow your cup—all of the metaphors we looked at, how God is good to us in life.

And then at the end he says, "Oh, and by the way, it just doesn’t end here on earth. God’s going to be good to you even after you die, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." That's like saying on a TV game show, "You just won a one-year supply of potato chips and three houses to eat them in!" It’s so much bigger of a deal because "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" is more enormous than all the other 11 pictures put together.

The other 11 things that he said that God’s going to do for you because of his goodness only last while you're here on earth. But the last one says, "And by the way, God’s not just going to be good to you here on earth. He’s going to be good to you forever and ever and ever for eternity, for trillions and trillions of years. I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." This is the biggest, ultimate expression of God’s goodness. This is the eternal goodness of God to you.

So what I want to do in this final session is look a little bit more in depth at what is heaven. I want to simply ask three questions: What is heaven? How is it different? And what are we going to do in heaven? And we’re just going to look at the front side. You’ll be glad. So I want us to begin by simply asking the question, what is heaven?

On your outline, Ephesians chapter two, verse five to seven says this: "It is through grace that we have been saved. And God has given us a place with Christ in heaven." And why has God given us this place with Christ in heaven? Why is he saying that he wants us in his family and we’re going to live with him forever and ever? The rest of the sentence says, "to show for all the ages to come, God’s goodness to us because of Christ."

This is the ultimate expression of God’s goodness to you. He doesn't just say, "I’m going to help you when you're down, I’m going to give you strength when you're weak, I’m going to give you the provisions when you lack something, I’ll help you in your need when you're scared, I’ll be with you." In addition to all those, he says, "I want you to live with me after you die forever and ever, and you're never going to die after that."

This is phenomenal. Why does God do this? Why does God give us a place with Christ in heaven? He says, "to show for all ages to come, God’s goodness to us." God says, "I want you to understand my goodness is not time-dated. My goodness is not limited to here on earth. My goodness to you is for the rest of your life, and your life is for forever and ever. I have long-range plans for you, not just the 90 or 100 years you live on earth, but for forever and ever. And I will be good to you throughout all of eternity."

So let’s just look at this subject of heaven. There's so much as I’ve studied all this past week about heaven. Really we could do a whole series on it, another 12-week series just on heaven. I’m going to be hitting the high points, hitting the rooftops, the peak tops of what the Bible says about heaven. Everything you’ve seen in movies about heaven is 100% wrong. There's never been a movie that got heaven right, never, ever. Even the Christian movies don’t get it right because heaven in many ways is unexplainable or incomprehensible to the size of our brain.

I told you in the previous message that for you to try to understand heaven is like an ant trying to understand the internet. You don’t have the brain capacity to actually understand how cool, how great it is. All of the images that we have of heaven are so inferior and so imperfect that it makes heaven sound boring.

Now let me ask you, when you go and you look at the surf of the ocean and you look at the sunrises and sunsets over giant mountain peaks with snow-capped mountains and beautiful valleys and you look at the intricacy of art and flowers and plants and animals, does that look boring to you? No. And this is an imperfect world. And if you think about all of the really beautiful sounds, sights, tastes, and pleasures that God invented—every pleasure you’ve ever experienced was because God invented it—and this is an imperfect world.

Heaven is going to be at a whole 'nother level because there's no imperfections in heaven. So what is heaven? Let me just summarize what the Bible says in three sentences. You might write these down if you're taking notes. First, heaven is a physical place, not a state of being.

Heaven is an actual, literal, real place. It has a location. It is a physical place. It is not a state of being. It's not like Nirvana, it's not a dream, it's not a kind of subsistence or existence or metaphorical attitude that you’ve got out there. No, this is a real place. Jesus told us about it in John 14.

And he says to his disciples in verse two and three of John 14, "There are many rooms in my Father's home." By the way, the word Father's home is one of the many terms that are used to describe heaven. Heaven’s called the Father's home, heaven’s called paradise, heaven’s called the kingdom of heaven. There are many, many terms to describe heaven in the Bible.

But Jesus is talking about heaven and he says, "There are many rooms in my Father's home, and I am going to prepare a place for you." He’s talking to the disciples after he's died on the cross and resurrected—actually right before—he’s going back to heaven. "I am going to prepare a place for you." He says, "I wouldn't tell you this if it wasn't true. And when your place is ready"—notice God has a place specifically for you—"when your place is ready, I’ll come back to get you so that you’ll always be with me and live where I live."

If heaven is not true, Jesus Christ is the greatest liar who ever lived. Because he said, "I’m going to prepare a place for you, and I’m going to come back to get you, and if I come back, I’m going to take you to the place, and I’m preparing a place specifically for you." You’ve got a condo in heaven somewhere. God is planning the place that he wants you to spend eternity with him. Why? Because God is your heavenly Father and he wants his children to live with him at home forever. So it’s a physical place, not a state of being.

Number two, the second thing we know about heaven is it’s a permanent place that’s going to last forever. It’s not just a physical place, it’s a real location. It is also a permanent place. It’s not in 10 years they're going to bulldoze it for urban renewal and build something else. This place will last forever. Second Corinthians chapter five, verse one says here on the screen: "It will be a home in heaven that will last forever."

And another verse, look up here on the screen, Ephesians chapter one, verse 10 says this: "This is God’s purpose: that when the time is right"—God’s timing is always perfect—"when the time is right, he will gather his children together from wherever they are to be with him in Christ forever." And where is that going to be? It’s going to be in this place called heaven. There are already millions of people there and other millions will join him. It’s a physical place, it’s a permanent place.

But here’s the third thing, and a lot of people get this one wrong. It is a reserved place. It is a reserved place for only God’s family. Heaven is not for everyone. Everybody is not going to be in heaven. If everybody could go to heaven, you’d have backbiting and jealousy and gossip and war and lust and rape and murder and all these other things. Heaven would be no different than earth if everybody could go.

If Hitler could go to heaven, and if Pol Pot and Stalin and Mao and other genociders who’ve killed millions and millions of people could go to heaven just the way they were, then what’s the special thing about it? Heaven is not for everybody. Heaven is only for the children of God. It’s God’s home. He gets to choose who goes to it.

Now you get to choose if you want to be a part of his family, and that's totally up to you. God invites everyone to heaven, but not everybody's going because not everybody's willing to meet the conditions. And what’s the condition? That you accept God’s grace, that you accept his forgiveness, that you realize you could never get to heaven on your own power. Heaven is a perfect place, and I’m not, and neither are you. I stopped being perfect about 10 seconds after birth. So I need a plan to get to heaven, and that's God’s plan of salvation where Jesus came and paid for all your sins so you could go. But it is a reserved place only for God’s family.

In the book of Revelation, chapter 21—and we’re going to go there several times in this session—verse 27, it says this: "Only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be able to enter." Talking about heaven. Now what is the Lamb’s Book of Life? This Lamb’s Book of Life is mentioned several times in Scripture. In the book of Revelation, the Lamb is always a symbol for Jesus. He’s the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for our sins, like the Lamb was sacrificed in the Old Testament.

So he’s talking about, there is a book of life that if your name’s in it, you get in. If your name is not in the book of life, you don’t get into heaven. How do I get my name in the book of life? Do what God says. Jesus said, "I am the way. No one comes to the Father but by me." I put my trust in God’s Son, the Lamb who was sacrificed for me so I don’t have to pay for my sins. He paid for my sins. And so I trust him, then my name gets written in the book of life. But evidently there's a registration book in heaven. You’ve got to have a reservation.

You just don’t die and then decide, "Oh, now I’d like to go to heaven." You have to make an advanced reservation. Your name has to be in the book of life or you don’t get in. Heaven is not for—first place, I don’t know why anybody who doesn't want God in their life now would want to spend his life with God for eternity. That doesn't make sense.

Show me the person who goes, "I want to live my life completely apart from God. I want to be God. I want to make my own decisions. I want to disobey what God says to do. I want to do what I want to do because I actually think I’m smarter than God. I know what’ll make me more happy than God. I don’t even believe in God, and if I do believe him, I don’t want to obey him. I want to be my own God." Why would that person then say when he died, "Oh, now I want to spend the rest of my life with you"?

That doesn't make sense. And Jesus, God, says, "Have it your way. You didn't want me in your life when you were on earth and I gave you all those years to decide for me and you decided against me. Why in the world would you want to live with me now for eternity? If you didn't want me in your life on earth, why in the world would you want me in your life in eternity?" You see, God doesn't actually send anybody to hell. You choose. You choose. A person chooses.

If there's one door that says life eternal through Jesus Christ and salvation, and one over here says life separated from God—which is hell—if I go, "I don’t want to do it your way, I don’t want to believe you, I don’t want to trust you, I don’t want to obey you, I don’t want you to be my Lord. I’m going to walk out this door," who do I blame?

To go to hell, you have to do almost the impossible. You have to reject the love of God. You have to reject the grace of God. You have to reject the forgiveness of God. You have to reject God himself. Why in the world would anybody do that? Pride. Pride, that's why. Because I want to be my own God. I don’t want anybody telling me what I should be doing with my life.

And so God says, "You’ve got a choice. I give you the choice. You want to live in my house? Here are the house rules." Okay, and what’s the house rule? Real simple: you trust me for your salvation because you can't be good enough to get into a perfect place, and you ask me for forgiveness, and you learn to love me as much as I love you. I created you for a purpose, I have a plan for your life, and I want you to know me. So it’s a physical place, and it’s a permanent place, and it is a reserved place only for God’s family.

You know, one time in the Bible it tells us the story how Jesus sent his original 12 followers—they were called disciples—out to do some ministry to help people who were in need. And he said, "I’m going to give you the authority to do miracles so you can go out and you can pray for people and they're going to get well, and there are people who are oppressed and depressed by demons or by spiritual forces, occult, and you're going to see freedom and you're going to see miracles."

And he sends them out, and you know what happened? That's exactly what happened. And these 12 guys come back a little later from their mission trip and they're going, "Whoa, you wouldn't believe what happened! I saw this guy healed, and I saw this miracle here, and I saw this freedom here, and this liberation there!" And they're all celebrating it and Jesus goes, "Wait a minute, guys. You're celebrating the wrong thing."

He says, "Rather than celebrating the fact that I used you and your faith to do miracles in people's lives, here’s what you should celebrate." Look up here on the screen, Luke chapter 10, verse 20. He said, "Instead, you should rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven."

The moment you step across the line, as most of you have, and have said, "Okay, I’m in. I’m going to trust Christ for my salvation. I know I need a savior. I can't save myself. I can't solve my own problems, I certainly can't save myself from all my sins." And the moment you step across the line, evidently your name is written down in the registry of heaven in the Book of Life, and when you die, they say, "Come on in, we have a reservation for you. We’ve been waiting for you. Welcome, welcome to heaven."

Guest (Male): I don’t know about you, but I am encouraged after that message. And let’s keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here’s Rick.

Pastor Rick Warren: You know, I love hearing from Daily Hope listeners like you. Here’s one note that I got from Raymond in New York. "Dear Pastor Rick, I’d like you to know how much I appreciate the Daily Hope broadcast. The nuggets that I get I share with my lunch group at work. And my family benefits as well because at dinner time my wife and my son hear the nugget that I learned during the day and we discuss it. It’s awesome."

Well, let me just say this, Raymond: thanks for writing me, and thanks for sharing your story. You encouraged me just now. I’m happy to hear that you're sharing Daily Hope with your coworkers and with your family. If God has used this broadcast in your life, would you let me know about it and tell your story? It’ll be good for you, it’ll be good for me, and it’ll be good for all the others who hear it. I love you, and I thank God for you. And join me next time as we continue to look into God’s Word for our Daily Hope.

Guest (Male): Now if you’d like to let Rick know how much this broadcast has blessed you, please feel free to send him an email. He loves it. Send it to rick@pastorrick.com. That’s rick@pastorrick.com. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God’s Word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Daily Hope Ministries and your generous financial support.