“HAPPILY EVER AFTER”
Week Three – “It’s Heavenly!” John 14:1-6
Bishop Fulton Sheen in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay wrote about an experience he had when he was traveling around preaching, "I stopped to ask a few boys for directions to the Town Hall where I was giving a lecture. They told me where the Town Hall was and then asked, "What are you going to do there?" "I’m giving a lecture on heaven and how to get there. Would you like to come and find out?" "You’re kidding," one boy said. "You don’t even know the way to the Town Hall."
Everyone has an “ever after”! But not everyone will have a “happily ever after”!
The only “happily ever afters” are those that end up in Heaven. As we discussed the past two weeks there are only two “ever after” places and one is REALLY, REALLY good, and the other is HORRIBLY HORRIBLE. You MUST know for sure where your “ever after will be spent”.
How can you be sure you have a “happy ever after”?
(SUMMARIZE SERIES)
Grab your Bibles and flip over to John 14!
I. Heaven Is A Peaceful Place, V. 1
A couple from north Oklahoma decided to go to Florida for a long weekend to thaw out during one particularly icy winter.
Because they both had jobs, they had difficulty coordinating their travel schedules. It was decided that the husband would fly to Florida on Thursday, and his wife would follow the next day.Upon arriving as planned, the husband checked into the motel. He decided to open his laptop and send his wife an e-mail back home. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address, and sent the e-mail without realizing the error.In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband’s funeral. He was a pastor of many years who had been called home to glory. The widow checked her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. Upon reading the first message, she fainted and fell to the floor.The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
TO: My loving wife FROM: Your departed husband SUBJECT: I’ve arrived!
MESSAGE: I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.S. Sure is hot down here!
This dear woman had found some peace in the midst of her mourning by holding on to the hope that her husband was in Heaven with his Lord. That peace was temporarily stolen by the distressing email.
Jesus was preparing for the worst week of His life. And He was beginning to prepare His disciples. Since He knew they would be facing some big problems and big pressures He gave them a big promise!
How would they keep their hearts from being troubled when the big problems would come? By resting their hearts on the big promise of Heaven!
Jesus was saying, “When you trust in my promise you will have my Presence and that will bring you my peace! And then someday you will get Heaven!
Heaven is a place of perfect peace – with God – with self—with others. Heaven is a place where the lion lies down with the lamb. Heaven is a peaceful place where there is no war and no worries, no sin, no sickness and no suffering, no tears and no terrorism, because Heaven is ruled by the Prince of Peace.
The assurance that there IS a Heaven, that Jesus is there and that YOU are prepared to go there is the source of great peace!
Do you have that peace?
II. Heaven Is A Plentiful Place, V. 2
John MacArthur , “When it says dwelling places, I’ll promise you this, there going to be a whole lot like mansions. The actual Greek word is "dwelling places." I can even go further than that. The real Greek word is "room."
How could you say, in my Father's house are many mansions? Have you ever seen a house with a bunch of mansions in it? You could say, in my Father's house are many dwelling places, but that doesn’t even make sense. What the Greek says, ‘in my Father's house there are many rooms.’"
”You know when I was a little kid I use to imagine Heaven as a big, big, place--sort of like London. Because somebody told me basically that the square 15x15x15, you know 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits is suppose to be the city, the eternal city, the New Jerusalem. If you figure 1500 cubed, its so huge that it would be the square area of London only cubed. I mean which is tremendous, you could hold everybody who ever lived in the world and still have room.”
Knowing that God is not willing that anyone should perish but that everyone come to repentance you might suppose that God built Heaven spacious enough to hold everyone. With that in mind it is heart-breaking to think that not everyone with make it.
The best thing about Heaven, though, is not how spacious it is but the fact that it is God’s home. That is what makes it Heaven – the Presence of God – forever! AND with loved ones forever! ARE THEY READY? ARE YOU?
III. Heaven Is A Prepared Place, V. 2b
Bill Bright, just months before he died in July 2003: "Even though I’ve always believed in heaven and hell, after I became a believer, I gave little thought to it. But in recent months I’ve been writing on heaven and hell. My logic is this: The God whom we worship created at least 100 billion galaxies—some astronomers would say 200 billion. Do we give God credit? They say it was the Big Bang. But it was this great Creator God who made all this majesty and glory.
You can imagine, then, what he’s done to create a heaven? "Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither knows the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him"—beauty and magnificence beyond anything our little finite minds can imagine."
When you think that Creation happened in six days and that God has been preparing Heaven for over 2,000 years – THINK HOW GOOD THAT WILL BE!
Jesus told the disciples that He was going to prepare a place for THEM!
God is preparing a place that will be perfect for us but it will be especially prepared for you!
Not only will it have the majesty of God’s personal preparation – the best thing is that it will have His Presence!
IV. Heaven Is A Personally Promised Place, V. 3
Billy Graham once said, “What is heaven going to be like? Just as there is a mystery to hell, so there is a mystery to heaven. Yet I believe the Bible teaches that both are
literal places. I’m not worried about where they are, because I know where Jesus is and he told me to meet him there."
A promise is only as good as the person that makes it.
How many of you have been disappointed by a broken promise? What happened next time that person made you a promise?
How may of you have made a promise that you didn’t keep? How did that effect the next promise you made?
“HAPPILY EVER AFTER”
Week Three – “It’s Heavenly!” John 14:1-6
Bishop Fulton Sheen in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay wrote about an experience he had when he was traveling around preaching, "I stopped to ask a few boys for directions to the Town Hall where I was giving a lecture. They told me where the Town Hall was and then asked, "What are you going to do there?" "I’m giving a lecture on heaven and how to get there. Would you like to come and find out?" "You’re kidding," one boy said. "You don’t even know the way to the Town Hall."
Everyone has an “ever after”! But not everyone will have a “happily ever after”!
The only “happily ever afters” are those that end up in Heaven. As we discussed the past two weeks there are only two “ever after” places and one is REALLY, REALLY good, and the other is HORRIBLY HORRIBLE. You MUST know for sure where your “ever after will be spent”.
How can you be sure you have a “happy ever after”?
(SUMMARIZE SERIES)
Grab your Bibles and flip over to John 14!
I. Heaven Is A Peaceful Place, V. 1
A couple from north Oklahoma decided to go to Florida for a long weekend to thaw out during one particularly icy winter.
Because they both had jobs, they had difficulty coordinating their travel schedules. It was decided that the husband would fly to Florida on Thursday, and his wife would follow the next day.Upon arriving as planned, the husband checked into the motel. He decided to open his laptop and send his wife an e-mail back home. However, he accidentally left off one letter in her address, and sent the e-mail without realizing the error.In Houston, a widow had just returned from her husband’s funeral. He was a pastor of many years who had been called home to glory. The widow checked her e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. Upon reading the first message, she fainted and fell to the floor.The widow's son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:TO: My loving wife FROM: Your departed husband SUBJECT: I’ve arrived!
MESSAGE: I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. I am looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.P.S. Sure is hot down here
This dear woman had found some peace in the midst of her mourning by holding on to the hope that her husband was in Heaven with his Lord. That peace was temporarily stolen by the distressing email.
Jesus was preparing for the worst week of His life. And He was beginning to prepare His disciples. Since He knew they would be facing some big problems and big pressures He gave them a big promise!
How would they keep their hearts from being troubled when the big problems would come? By resting their hearts on the big promise of Heaven!
Jesus was saying, “When you trust in my promise you will have my Presence and that will bring you my peace! And then someday you will get Heaven!
Heaven is a place of perfect peace – with God – with self—with others. Heaven is a place where the lion lies down with the lamb. Heaven is a peaceful place where there is no war and no worries, no sin, no sickness and no suffering, no tears and no terrorism, because Heaven is ruled by the Prince of Peace.
The assurance that there IS a Heaven, that Jesus is there and that YOU are prepared to go there is the source of great peace!
Do you have that peace?
II. Heaven Is A Plentiful Place, V. 2
John MacArthur , “When it says dwelling places, I’ll promise you this, there going to be a whole lot like mansions. The actual Greek word is "dwelling places." I can even go further than that. The real Greek word is "room."
How could you say, in my Father's house are many mansions? Have you ever seen a house with a bunch of mansions in it? You could say, in my Father's house are many dwelling places, but that doesn’t even make sense. What the Greek says, ‘in my Father's house there are many rooms.’"
”You know when I was a little kid I use to imagine Heaven as a big, big, place--sort of like London. Because somebody told me basically that the square 15x15x15, you know 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits by 1500 cubits is suppose to be the city, the eternal city, the New Jerusalem. If you figure 1500 cubed, its so huge that it would be the square area of London only cubed. I mean which is tremendous, you could hold everybody who ever lived in the world and still have room.”
Knowing that God is not willing that anyone should perish but that everyone come to repentance you might suppose that God built Heaven spacious enough to hold everyone. With that in mind it is heart-breaking to think that not everyone with make it.
The best thing about Heaven, though, is not how spacious it is but the fact that it is God’s home. That is what makes it Heaven – the Presence of God – forever! AND with loved ones forever! ARE THEY READY? ARE YOU?
III. Heaven Is A Prepared Place, V. 2b
Bill Bright, just months before he died in July 2003: "Even though I’ve always believed in heaven and hell, after I became a believer, I gave little thought to it. But in recent months I’ve been writing on heaven and hell. My logic is this: The God whom we worship created at least 100 billion galaxies—some astronomers would say 200 billion. Do we give God credit? They say it was the Big Bang. But it was this great Creator God who made all this majesty and glory.
You can imagine, then, what he’s done to create a heaven? "Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither knows the heart of man what God has prepared for those who love him"—beauty and magnificence beyond anything our little finite minds can imagine."
When you think that Creation happened in six days and that God has been preparing Heaven for over 2,000 years – THINK HOW GOOD THAT WILL BE!
Jesus told the disciples that He was going to prepare a place for THEM!
God is preparing a place that will be perfect for us but it will be especially prepared for you!
Not only will it have the majesty of God’s personal preparation – the best thing is that it will have His Presence!
IV. Heaven Is A Personally Promised Place, V. 3
Billy Graham once said, “What is heaven going to be like? Just as there is a mystery to hell, so there is a mystery to heaven. Yet I believe the Bible teaches that both are
literal places. I’m not worried about where they are, because I know where Jesus is and he told me to meet him there."
A promise is only as good as the person that makes it.
How many of you have been disappointed by a broken promise? What happened next time that person made you a promise?
How may of you have made a promise that you didn’t keep? How did that effect the next promise you made?
Jesus promised that when He left earth He would return to Heaven and prepare a place for them. It would be an unbelievably beautiful place, He promised it would be an eternal place and a happy place and a holy place. And He promised He would provide a way where we could be with Him.
Heaven Is “Prepared For” Place, Vv. 4-6
A tourists gets lost and is wandering around the desert looking for water. He finally arrives at a little remote store and asks for water. The clerk tells him he doesn’t have any water but can gladly sell him a tie. The parched tourist begins to curse and yell at the storeowner. The clerk, unmoved, offers the rude tourist an idea: Beyond the hill, there is a restaurant; they can sell you water. The tourist keeps cursing and finally leaves toward the hill. An hour later he’s back at the tie store. He walks in and tells the merchant: “Your brother tells me I need a tie to get into the restaurant.”
It takes preparation to get into Heaven! Now one will get in unprepared!
A 2006 GALLUP POLL FOUND THAT 78% OF AMERICANS EXPECT TO GO TO HEAVEN WHEN THEY DIE, BUT ONLY 31% SAID THEY EVER PRAYED, READ THEIR BIBLE, TITHE, OR ATTENDED CHURCH. – How Does That Work?
C.S. Lewis observed, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth “thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.”
“For the Christian, Heaven isn’t simply a destination; it’s a motivation.” (Warren Wiersbe)
WHAT IF I OFFERED YOU AN ALL-EXPENSES PAID TRIP TO HAWAII OR ANY OTHER TROPICAL PARARDISE OF YOUR CHOICE? Would you jump at that?
WHAT IF I SWEETENED THE OFFER BY OFFERING TO PAY FOR ALL YOUR EXPENSES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE AND YOU COULD STAY IN THE TROPICAL PARADISE YOU CHOSE!
WOULD YOU TAKE THAT DEAL?
Heaven Is Fantastic Eternal Place That Has Been Prepared For You!
Have You Prepared For Heaven?
