Living For The Hope That Awaits Us

David in Psalm 63 said, “Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you…  My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods.”  These are incredible statements made by David and yet the burning questions that we face is can we really say this about ourselves?  All too often we have been swallowed up by a Christianity that focuses more on this life than the next. Just like in the parable of the young virgins, we can easily drift off and lose sight of our eternal hope and future. David writes with incredible passion and desire, a hope and assurance that consumes him more than life itself.  Just like the athletic imagery of Paul’s writings, we don’t run for the cups of water along the way, we run for the finish line.  This morning I want to focus on a faith that is ready for the finish line, an eager expectation for the day that we will see Him face to face.

What makes you jump for joy and what sends you into a deep discouragement – hope and hopelessness.

Consider getting ready for a date = hope; consider feeling unappreciated and your husband is late from work…hopelessness.

 

Hope was Paul’s prayer!          

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.  Ephesians 1:18,19

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  Eccles. 3:11

When we share about our faith and what God does for us, we almost become apologetic about the fact about eternity in the list of what life has to offer for a believer.

Who Am I – A person destined for bliss beyond this life

Where Do I Belong – There, diving deep into my Creator’s lake of inexhaustible pleasures

Am I Happy?  Only when I embrace hop in a glorious mansion of many rooms prepared for me.  For now the Comforter will ease the pain of the Fall and offer many good blessings as foretastes of my inheritance.  The blessings and the gifts of this life aren’t the good news of the gospel. 

It is the hope of being in the presence of my Father fulfilling the exact purpose He is preparing for me right now.

Life is about heaven, about great ecstasy and great pleasure for God is in both of these. 

In Revelation 21 and 22,  we have a guided tour of where we will be leaving.  This chapter is the most complete description of what we can anticipate of our new dwelling place.  We get a taste of what is in store for us.

Read  Revelation 21:1-5; 22:1-6

When and Then thinking is how a lot of people live today.  When I win the lottery, when I get a new job, when I get married, then I will give, then I will serve, then I will get involved.

But as Tom Holladay describes God wants us to have Then and Now thinking!  Since we know what will happen then, what about now?  What does this mean for my life now?

1 John 3:1-3  Everyone who has this hope purifies himself!

Rev 21:1  John sees a new heaven as a fulfilled prophecy. 

The new will be made out of the old and it will be marvelous.  The old will not be wiped out altogether.  All of creation will be redeemed.  Jesus is our perfect example because after He rose from the dead, it was the nail prints in his hands that He was recognized by.

It is not white puffy clouds!  It is a place of perfection….a perfect waterfall, ocean, forest, a perfect sunset like we saw this past week.  The perfection of what is closest to your heart, family, parents that have gone on before you. The perfection of Jesus in all His glory now reigning forevermore.

When we invest in eternity, it will last!  In the light of eternity how much difference will this make?

The way I spend my life today determines my view of eternity and how real it is to me.  Where am I investing my time, my energy, my passion?

The greatest gift the HS can give us is hope.  Also it is truly profound that when your eyes are opened to the riches of our inheritance, that the blessings of this life take on new meaning and become richer, sweeter and more wonderful because they are a foreshadow of what awaits us.  This isn’t it as good as it might get.  When we fix our eyes on eternity everything takes on a significant perspective.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!  In His great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 1 Peter 1:3

Part of our challenge is rediscovering what hope means because for most people hope is just wishing for something good.  Do you remember the first day you were awakened to this hope and the scales fell from your eyes?  It’s difficult to describe.  But for the world around us, it just seems like foolishness. 

No one said that you would have health, wealth and success in this life if you came to Jesus.  Then why do we get so fixated on thinking that is all about what happens to me now?  the slippery slope into a slumber.

Unfortunately if you speak to people about the benefits of Christianity being the inheritance that awaits them in heaven, you will get blank stares.  Most people want to know what’s on the ticket for right now.

There can be no mistake about the object of our hope.  It is not in what we see now.  It is not in the gifts of the Spirit.  It is not a large ministry or a thriving church.  It is not a good marriage or good health or good food.  It is heaven!

We must dump the loads of expectations for nirvana in this life along with the burden of finding ultimate meaning.  The bliss we seek for awaits us in the next life.

For to me to live is Christ and to die in gain.  Really it is only after we die that we will truly live with Christ 24/7 365 eternity.  The reality is if you are unable to think about death, chances are you won’t think much about the afterlife.

Dying is all around us, the most recent tragedy is the flooding in Pakistan, but some would rather try to block it all and not watch the TV, pretend that maybe it isn’t as bad as it really is. 

Fear of death is Satan’s trump card.  Hebrews 2:14,15

We cannot live in fear of death, we need to conquer that fear.  1 Corinthians 15:54,55

Without a passionate hope for eternity with God, we will fall into a terrible slumber.

Romans 5:2,5  God wants to give us a hope that doesn’t disappoint us.

This past week I got an email from the church in Guelph letting me know that the brother of the youth pastor had died in a motorcycle accident.  He was 22 and planning to go to Bible School.  It would also seem wrong from a human perspective and yet as I talked to family, I learned that the mother spoke the other night about how God told it was his perfect time and how she had incredible peace flood over her in the midst of all this.  They would end up having a time of worship that night that went past midnight because they knew this life is not the end.

We live for the hope that lies within all of us.

Matthew 25:1 – In the parable of the 10 virgins, they were told to keep watch = HOPE

Only five applied themselves to a kind of preparation that protected them from a weakening resolve, from running out of oil.  The virgin’s responsibility was to secure oil.

How deep in your reservoir of hope?

The oil of hope is something that the HS gives as a downpayment for our inheritance.

The journey to a wedding feast is brightened by the hope for the wedding feast.

Is it only  the elderly and the terminally ill have this kind of hope?  No, we are bviously missing the point because we have crumbs right now compared to what awaits us.

David was a man who was obsessed with God!  And He was the one who it was said of, a man after God’s own heart.  God is obsessed with you.  He is determined to save you from His wrath.

Matthew 6:21 A life fixated on what is to come. 

Find out what lights up a Christian’s eyes to know where their passions, dreams and hopes are about.  Talk about heaven and the bliss of glory and you will probably get a blank stare.  Talk about the Carribbean, Hawaii and people light up?  Why?  It is because they have a poor view of eternity

Take up your cross and follow me.  Christianity hinges on the resurrection, Christ’s resurrection and our hope of our future resurrection, but in the meantime we take up our cross

We were designed to obsess about our Creator

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, not the substance of things proved.  Paul’s faith came from a knowledge informed by his hope.  Hebrew 11:1

Hope resides in the mind and in the heart where emotions reside.  We desire the fulfillment of a dream we have seen with our minds.  We see heaven with the eyes of our heart.

We need to understand the richness of heaven that will fuel our desire.  Paul’s plea was to envision heaven.

Use your imagination:  the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses.

Appreciate imagination as a gift from God – a better definition – the God-breathed ability to consider something not perceived by the senses in our immediate reality.

Hoping is not dreaming.  It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain… it (hope) is imagination put in the harness of faith. Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience.

Vision- another image, vision drives our plans for the future, fundraisers and it builds our church.  Vision is basically raw imagination,  or a picture of the future that produces passion within us.  Bill Hybels

Where there is no vision, the people perish or fall into a deep sleep.

Set your heart on things above… set your heart on the hope of heaven!

How should we imagine?

Meditate on heaven….I know I’ve heard the same saying…they are so heavenly minded, they are no earthly good. 

The problem with most Christians is that their descriptions of heaven are terribly vague. 

Randy Alcorn -  a great novel on Heaven and increasing our vision of it…

Come to realize that this life will not produce lasting satisfaction, but heaven alone can and will.  The good stuff is but just a foretaste.

Page 193 Slumber of Christianity  by Ted Dekker

Intentionally set your mind on heaven

Enjoy pleasure to draw you to heaven

Allow pain to push you into the Creator’s arms

Hope is made real by a fully fleshed vision of reality that awaits just beyond this one.

Philippians 2:12-16

The practical application of that hope to which we have been called is that we are ‘invited in Christ to leave beautiful marks on creation’ and on the people He has created, to know that everyone we meet has a story and to be called to enter into their story, their life.

Continue to leave your fingerprints on this community which when done in faith, hope and love and the hands of God.  1 Corinthians 13

Keep fighting the good fight of faith.

The story of heaven is a story of redemption and ultimate reconciliation.  Lead the way by the power of the HS in everything you see and do.  Be the first to seek others out, leave the 99, go for the one.  Be the first one to seek forgiveness, be the first one to listen.

It is time to take on an ever greater sense of ownership of the vision here, my prayer is that Southside will be a community of believers turned inside out!  We go inside for His glory and go outside in His grace towards others loving them as Christ has loved us.

Keep fanning the flame of the gift of God inside you that others (on the outside) may feel His passion and His love for them.

Be bold in your faith.  God has not given us a spirit of timidity but a spirit of power, of love and of self discipline. 

This is the time more than ever for those of you on the sidelines to step up to the plate, to be involved, to minister like nothing else for the honor and name of the King.

May it be said of Southside that this is a place where God can bring the joy of heaven on earth, the hope of the nations that come here to worship, the testimony to the fact that we serve a God who still speaks today by His still small voice. 

Keep in the moment.  Be still, fix your eyes on Jesus, allow the flow of His thoughts to flood your heart and mind and journal it!

You are a huge part of my life, I will continue to pray and I’m sure see many of you going forward.  I’m not that far away and I’m watching you and I LOVE YOU!

The Rider On The White Horse

One of my favourite verses in Revelation is found in 17:14, “He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords and with Him will be His called, chosen and faithful followers.” We come to the final judgement scene and we are now presented with the final verdict for the woman in Babylon, Babylon itself which represents those who have prostituted truth and those who have become drunk on the blood of the martyrs of the faith.  They are people who always thirst for more and are never satisfied.  They will come to their complete end when the heavens are opened and Christ comes as the victorious rider on the white horse.  He now comes as the lion who will judge and wage war in His righteousness.  It will be the battle of Armageddon and Satan’s great miscalculation in bringing the nations of the world together will become very clear as the judgment will be swift and enmity against God will come to the end. 

The tension keeps building and building and building in Revelation.  We have come through the vision of Christ, the 7s! message to the Churches, a powerful worship service,  7 seals, 7 trumpets, 7 visions and 7 bowls as John rightly described ‘hell on earth’ 

We will look at the following events over the next two chapters.

The wedding supper of the Lamb
The visible return of Christ
The battle of Armageddon
The millennial reign of Christ
The great white throne judgement

Keep singing Hallelujah! v1-8

A single word keep repeating again and again...Hallelujah which means praise the Lord.  We are experiencing a great relief.  Remember Revelation 4 and 5....and here we are again, praising God again.  This one word puts all of human history into perspective.  My life is to bring glory and praise to God.  He is worthy of all my worship!
The praise to God is for His salvation, His power that He reveals in my life and His glory.
We praise Him for His true and righteous judgements.  They are just
Babylon is the world system of ultimate selfishness. 
We praise Him because He is in control.  We may not feel in control but that doesn’t change anything about God.  He is always on His throne.  He reigns now and forever.


The wedding supper of the Lamb v9-11

Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.  The Lamb is Jesus Christ.  He is the bridegroom and the Church is the bride.  We are presented to Jesus.
The bride is prepared. She makes herself ready.  Now, let’s face it men, we really don’t have the whole picture of what goes into preparing for a wedding.  It is our job to show up!
I have been reading recently about the wedding of Mike Fisher and Carrie Underwood and I know that this is a fact.  The whole event was ‘pretty in pink’.  Even their dog was placed in a pink tuxedo much to Fisher’s surprise!
Ephesians 5:25-27

This wedding is going to happen because Christ loves the Church.  He is passionate to bring the fullness of His love into our life and He makes us complete. Colossians 2:10
The bride prepares herself for eternity.
The bride is honoured
Think about that moment when the doors open at a wedding and the bride enters.  We all stand in honor of a beautiful bride.  As a pastor, often my eyes will also quickly go to the groom to see in his eyes the incredible emotion that he feels as his bride enters.

For Mike Fisher, he honoured his wife with a diamond studded tiera...all 40 of them! Jesus lavishes His love on us and gave us His very life and for Him, it was a crown on thorns that He wore for us.
With Jesus it will be the same way with the audience of the whole of heaven.
The fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints...(don’t you love brackets which basically leave no guessing whatsoever.  Imagine if the whole book of Revelation was done that way)  About the acts - we could never do these righteous acts on our own.  The more we choose to live in God’s power, the dress of the bride becomes more brighter.  The more we choose to love people through difficult times, loving the unloveable.  Every time we choose to reach out because of the promptings and whispers of God into our life.
 
Worship ONLY God  v10

We don’t worship creation, we worship the creator. We don’t worship any other person, any other emotion, worship any other action,  We are called to worship the Lord.
Worth SHIP – to give worth.  God is of ultimate worth.  The challenge to us is there something else in my life that I am giving worship?  What is the priority of my life, the purpose of my life?  Is there something else this is controlling my life right now.  Are you worshipping the approval of others?  Is there something negative in your past  or a self-glorifying experience that we are holding onto?
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy -  The Spirit of prophecy is to testify about Jesus.  Any true prophecy will point to Jesus, it all comes back to Him.

The Visible Return of Jesus Christ v11-16

This is what we have been waiting for! It is time for Christ’s great victory and glory.  Why will this happen? It is time for God to set the world in order.                                                                                 
Matthew 24:30
The picture of the white horse was very significant in his day.  When a war took place and Rome ended up top there would be a glorious victory parade as a great procession would begin with the spoils of the war followed by the General who would come on a white horse followed by all those in his army.
His name is faithful and true.  Everything He says I can count on.  All who have said ‘it’s a lie, this whole Christianity thing is a joke” will bow their knee to Christ.
On His head are many crowns!  He wears all the crowns.  He has the ultimate leadership and is in authority.
He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood speaks of the cross.  It is what brought us into relationship with God.
He is the Word of God.  John 1:1  That is His title.  He is God’s Word to us, God’s message to us.
Who are the armies of heaven that follow Christ?  It is His followers, believers in Jesus.  So men, while you may have been squirming a bit about the picture of being the bride and all that lovely stuff, we are also part of His army.  Both pictures are there for us to focus on. 
A sharp sword – He is coming as a judge to all those who haven’t put their trust in Him.
 
The Battle of Armageddon v17-21

This battle is a picture of total destruction and devastation.  It isn’t a pretty sight and there will be no one to bury those who will be defeated.For those of us who are having a difficult time with the pictures of war...again we need to remember the torture that many of our fellow believers have faced at the hands of the wicked.  We need to remember the martyrs. They were covered in tar and lit for the beginning of their games of sport, they were thrown into the coliseums to be ripped apart by lions, they are being tortured to death and their families are made to watch...
There is no real battle when Jesus Christ decides that it is going to be done.  It is swift, it is powerful and it is complete. 
We all battle evil and the effects of Satan in our world and we need to have no doubt that evil will never win the day.  The enemy and his ruthless ways will come to an end.  Sometimes we doubt when we are being tossed around like a ragdoll but take the courage of Paul as he spoke of his trials.2 Corinthians 4:7-11
Deliver us from evil for thine is the power and the glory forever and forever amen!
It is crucial for us to understand what is happening at the end in order to know how we are to understand our life as it continues to unfold before us now.
 
The Millennial Reign of Christ 20v1-7

This is the only place that we see this millennial
There are 3 views:
·         Premillennial –  Jesus will come and then there will be a millennium. The 2nd coming of Christ will happen and it will establish Christ’s earthly kingdom.  It will be a literal 1000 year reign of Christ.  It’s location will be on earth and it will fulfill all the OT and NT prophecies that speak to the reign of Christ.  It’s government will be the literal presence of Jesus Christ.  However there is a lot of debate of how that all play into all the other literal prophecies and goes very deep into 3 time lines of its own because of dividing Christ’s return into two events and then when it takes place whether that is before during or after the Great Tribulation.
·         Postmillennial view – this view holds to the fact that the kingdom of God is being extended by the saving work of the gospel and the work of the HS.  It also believes that this world will continue to become more and more Christian and the world is getting better and better to become more like the reign of Christ through the church.  It is not an exact amount of time, but the focus is on the transformation of our present world and it will eventually be Christianized. This view is the least held among the three we are unpacking.
·         Ammillennial view – It is not a literal 1000 years. There will be a general resurrection of both unbelievers to judgment and believers to reward and final consummation with God in heaven.  There is a parallel development of God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom since.  The millennium is symbolic of Jesus’ work from the time of His resurrection to the time of His second coming.  It answers question of resurrected saints in a not yet redeemed world; however it’s weakness is to see a lot of prophecy in a symbolic way.
Psalm 90:4; 2 Peter 3:8  are the only other places that we see 1000 years being spoken of in a symbolic way.  It reveals to us the timing of God in heaven compared to our sense of timing here on earth.
Then there is the pan millennial view...it will all pan out in the end.  This view is for those of you who maybe can’t land in one of these views altogether.
The key is not for us to argue our viewpoints and not to lose our sense of compassion for our fellow believers who don’t necessarily see things unfolding our way.
The pre and post millennial view causes me to believe that the reign of Christ will come in the future and the ammillennial view believes that we are living in the reign of Christ right now. 
The abyss and hades are places where Satan and those enemies of God go to await a final judgment.  The lake of fire and hell are places of final judgement.
 
The Great White Throne 20v11-15

The second death speaks to one’s final spiritual death.  The great white throne judgment is reserved for those who have chosen to reject God and the salvation that comes through His Son Jesus Christ.
John 5:25-29
The Takeaway
May the hope of your reign with Christ give you a new hallelujah and the call to share His life giving presence with others.
It will be a battle for the heart and souls of men.  We face an invisible enemy and at stake is where people will spend their eternity.

Questions For Discussion
1.       What is ‘fine linen’ in your life?
2.      Write your own victory song to Jesus and begin with Hallelujah!
3.      How do we battle for the heart and soul of others? *We need to first enter into their story.
4.      What does entering someone’s story look like to you?
5.      Where does sharing ‘His story’ start with you?

(My thanks to Tom Holladay for his insights that helped frame this message.)

Brynley reports on the Ensenada Project

I thought it would be a fitting end to my blogs on our missions trip to Ensenada, MX to share Brynley's thoughts on her time there.  Thanks Bryn!

First of all I just want to thank all the people who supported me with my trip. It was a really great experience and even though I went there last year with my family I’ve still learned a lot and made a lot of new relationships. It was really cool to hear some of the testimonies of the people living down there. It really made me realize how great it is to live in a country where I don’t have to hide my faith and I can speak freely about it. 

I got to reunite with the Romano family who I stayed with last year. It was really great to see them and stay with their family the time I was there. It was amazing to see all the work Rick had done in the past year. Some of the kids in church had recognized me from last year doing VBS with them. 

Kids who didn’t even know me came up to me and were giving me hugs and high fives. It was so neat to know that they hadn’t forgotten about me and the relationships I had made with them. The first day of work I got to meet the family I was going to be building the house for; Susana and Valencia Benitez and their children, Jennifer, Jazmin and Sinai. I was able to get to know there two oldest girls and some of the other kids in the neighbourhood. I played soccer with them, did the limbo with a skipping rope and we even painted miniature sizes of their new home. 

We were also able to bring down some clothes from the good for nothing store for the families receiving the new homes. The big suitcase of clothes was completely empty by the end of the day and they got everything they needed. Working on the site felt like a whole new experience. I got to do framing, mudding; I got to nail in the drywall, use the chop saw and the ramset. The ramset was pretty scary, I was trying to nail it in and plug my ears at the same time. The team I was working with we worked with last year, so I already knew some of the people; but there was also some new people that I really got to know well. One of the days we went over to the boy’s home, where boys can stay when they come from a rough family, or they are an orphan, or they have disabilities. Our group performed 2 of our drimes for them. We also got to give them each a soccer ball and some clothes. 

On Friday the last day in Ensenada we went over to one of the worksites with a pig farm. They slaughtered a pig just for us. At first I enjoyed it until 5 little piggy’s came running past me. That’s when I began to lose my appetite for pork tacos. It was really amazing to see the house come together in the end. I made lots of great relationships with the kids, interns, and the group from New Jersey. 

Saying good-bye was definitely hard. I wouldn’t be seeing some of these people for the next year or so. It wasn’t all easy as I got a bit sick and my dad made me eat a lot of bananas. Over all though, the trip was awesome and I would definitely go back to Mexico again.