The Vineyard Church of North Grand Rapids, MI

Will Heaven Be Like the Shack?

Ray Befus  November 2, 2008  The Shack Series #8  II Peter 3:13 (TNIV, p. 837); Revelation 21:1-5 (p. 854)

I don’t remember feeling IT until I was in college. A friend took me to Arcadia Bluffs (a couple hours north), high above the shore of Lake Michigan, near mid-night. I had never seen so many stars in such a dark sky, sparkling all the way down to the horizon, and shimmering on Lake Michigan’s dark waters. It was amazing . . . wonderful . . . awesome. I felt something new stir deep within me . . . a strange combination of wonder and sadness, joy and loneliness. The sky was so beautiful that it almost hurt. The beauty of that place has drawn me back over the years, but the feeling wasn’t altogether pleasant. It was bitter-sweet. I was grateful and inspired, but I also felt small, and alone, and shut out of something inexpressibly wonderful—something more, out there, that was just beyond my experience.

I experienced IT again, even more powerfully on the honeymoon Carol and shared in Europe 33 years ago. Just college kids married at the end of May, we bicycled and camped around Europe for six weeks on the cheap in the summer of 1975. In the middle of our travels, we found ourselves deep in the Swiss alps, camping in the shadows of snowcapped Jungfrau, in a small mountain village called Grindewald. The mountains and valleys, the rushing streams and the sound of cowbells ringing in the high pastures were all so beautiful . . . that the experience was almost painful. Like the stars over Lake Michigan, I felt amazed and thrilled and sad and lonely . . . all at once. Whenever I hear someone talk about feeling heartache, I think of that unusual feeling that was both wonderful and painful.

3. What is that ache that we sometimes feel deep in our hearts? Ecclesiates, a book in the middle of the OT, is a wise king’s journal. King Solomon believed that God has set eternity in the human heart. God himself has put something inside of us that disturbs us from time to time, letting us know that there is more to reality than what we can see and hear and touch. Reality is much, much bigger than anything we’ve experienced in our short lives in this broken world. Eternity in our hearts—a deep awareness that we were created with divine purpose, for perfect love, for another world. God has put this longing within us—a hunger for more, and strange awareness of destiny, a painful longing to explore and experience things that are out of reach—like a spiritual compass that points toward our destiny. We feel it most intensely when we experiences great beauty, deep love, and thrilling achievement. We feel conflicted and we don’t know why.

It’s not a bad thing—this haunting sense that we were created for something more— this yearning to know the secrets, to travel beyond the horizon, to touch the heart of God. It’s keep us moving on our journey of faith. It’s a longing for heaven, for our home with God. It reminds us that we are only travelers here, passing through.

TRANS: The Bible teaches that physical death is not the end of human lives. Funerals are not final chapters. There really is another life awaiting us—heaven or hell. Some people believe that when you die, your candle simply goes out. That is all. The Bible teaches that when you die, your candle will burn on and, perhaps, even grow brighter.

I. ANOTHER WORLD AWAITS US.
     
A. In The Shack, our fictional friend Mack drives up a fire road through the dense forests of the pacific northwest to revisit the run-down hunting shack where his youngest daughter Missy was murdered. It’s a sparse winter scene, painted on a white canvas mostly in different shades of grey—a dark, run down cabin sitting on the edge of a frozen lake under a darkening sky. Until that moment when God pulls back the canvas and eternity invades earth for just a weekend. This morning I’d like to explore the question, will heaven really be like The Shack? Will the life to come really be like Mack’s weekend at the shack?  Let’s me take you back to the story.

The Shack—p.80, “He barely walked fifty feet up the path . . . .” P. 109, “He followed Jesus out the back door . . . .” P. 144, “Only then did he look up . . . “

Those are just the things Mack sees with his human eyes. Later in the book the Holy Spirit touches Mack’s eyes so that he can see even deeper into God’s world, and everything is transformed once again. In the darkness of the summer night, every plant gives off a glow, and every flying bird or scampering animal leaves a trail of rich color. Even people have richly colored auras and their personalities and passions manifest in sparkling, muliti-colored arcs of energy. The evening is filled with startling beauty, wonderful discoveries, rich relationship, personal reunion and reconciliation, and transforming love.

Some of you have been led to believe that heaven—the life to come—will just be one great big, never-ending church service. A diverse multitude of church people standing around listening to wonderful sermons (lot’s of sermons), singing songs for hours and hours, over and over again, and finally sitting down at folding tables to enjoy punch, peanuts, and cheap wedding food. Every day, all day, forever. Frankly, this is why folks on the street will tell you that they’d rather go to hell with their country-music-loving friends than end up in heaven—some celestial retirement community were no one ever dies, but no one has any real fun either.

TRANS: The Bible doesn’t reveal a lot about heaven, but the picture it does paint is closer to The Shack than the image many people carry around in their imagination.

II. MACK GLIMPSES A FUTURE THE BIBLE PAINTS IN HAUNTING COLORS.

A. Our Creator will do again what he does best!

II Peter 3:13. A new heaven and a new earth where righteousness dwells. A sky without pollution; a replenished ozone layer that lets you tan all day long. Rain without acid. A planet as perfect as the Garden of Eden. Everything that is now bent or broken, corrupted or polluted, in short supply or even extinct—set right. Everything set right, as God intended when he first created the world. When humanity’s parents walked together without shame or regret, worked because it was meaningful and enjoyable, and had time for long talks and walks with God and each other. Peter says that, at the end of time, our world, our environment—weather patterns and global temperatures, mountains and lakes, expansive forests and great plains—will be transformed, renewed, replenished in keeping with God’s promise. What promise?

Isaiah 65:17, “See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind”. Our recreated world will be so wonderful that no one will think back to how it used to be. No comparison.

Romans 8:19-22 (vv. 15-16 reveal that Peter was acquainted with Paul’s writings) “The creation waits in eager expectation . . . . for the creation was subject to frustration, . . .” A day is coming when “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time”.

2. Revelation 21:1-5. John saw and heard the very things Peter wrote.

A fresh new world, glistening in the dew of a sunny new morning.

The people who love and trust Jesus—diverse beyond belief, like the inhabitants of an expansive world-class city. People and neighborhoods from every tribe, language, nation, and race. But there is unity amidst all this diversity.  Collectively, they are like a bride with a single focus: love for the Lord Jesus. Will you be in this scene? You can decide. Walt Disney will tell you that all dogs go to heaven. But the Bible reveals that not all people will be there in this scene. The people in this scene trust and love Jesus—like a bride trusts and loves her groom. They aren’t perfect people, but they trust and love Jesus and have made the decision that they want to be with him forever.

    ILLUS: A person becomes a Christian in a manner much like a person gets married. You make a well-thought out, life-changing decision. You don’t get married by hanging out in your girlfriend or boyfriend’s house. You decide that hanging out—even occasionally making out—isn’t enough. You decide to commit your whole self—all your secrets, weaknesses, strengths, and dreams—to this person. You give yourself to him (totally, completely, publicly) and you welcome him into your life—forever. In the same way, you don’t become a Christian just by hanging out at a church like this and even having happy, spiritual experiences. You won’t find yourself in this scene, just because you heard about Jesus, read a Bible, sang some songs about Jesus, or knew his family. You have to decide to get married.

Those who trust and love Jesus will spend forever with God on a recreated earth, where everything that now causes fear and loss, pain and suffering, despair and death is gone. Where men and women like us will finally see God, face to face, and feel the comfort of his presence, and enjoy his company forever. Like Mack did for a weekend at the shack . . . hiking, gardening, building in the workshop, cooking and cleaning, sharing meals—even fishing. AND YOU’RE THINKING, WHAT ABOUT NASCAR? I DON’T KNOW. BUT, THE ANGEL GABRIEL ONCE TOLD THE VIRGIN MARY, “WITH GOD, ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE!”

B. Can you say “PARADISE”?

The one word the Bible most often uses to describe heaven, our eternal home, is paradise—a garden of perfect beauty and delight. Don’t think backyard garden; think New York City’s Central Park. Or maybe think the Florida Keys. Or perhaps Yellowstone National Park. Or better, Hawaii. Paradise! In the ancient world, the word was used to describe royal gardens, or even forests—the expansive nature preserves richly cultivated and protected by kings and queens. When God created mankind, he gave them a home in a paradise called Eden, a place the prophet Isaiah called “the garden of the Lord”. That’s what God is going to recreate for his bride.

Luke 23:43. Jesus is actually dying, crucified between two thieves. One of the criminals is hard and cynical. He seeds Jesus as just another pretender who lost at the game of life. But the other criminal has heard and seen enough to trust and love Jesus and want to be with Jesus forever. He says to Jesus, “remember me when you come into your kingdom”. Jesus replies, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise”.

    Jesus doesn’t care who you are or what you’ve done. Even if you live with horrible regrets and grinding guilt and have a criminal record . . . all you have to decide is that you’re ready to trust your life to Jesus and invite him into your life the way a bride invites her groom into her life.

II Corinthians 12:4. Before he met Jesus, Paul was a hard-driving, judgmental religious fundamentalist—the most tightly-wound religious leader you can imagine. Ridged, angry, controlling, violent, and religious. He had an unusual conversion and spiritual journey. Not only did Jesus appear to him, but Jesus (in a vision) took him to heaven where he heard things he couldn’t explain and saw things that are beyond imagining—things God has prepared for those who trust and love him (I Corinthians 2:9).

    If we said to a Paul, “Tell us something, anything about what you saw,” Paul would say, “it was paradise—a garden-like place of perfect beauty and pleasure. If I tried to describe it, I couldn’t get close. If I tried to explain it, I couldn’t possible get it right. It’s beyond imagining!

Revelation 2:7. Jesus himself is here speaking to Christians who’ve lost their edge. They’re still going to meetings, but they’re no longer pursuing the mission. They’re staying out of trouble, but they are no longer praying and worshipping, giving and serving from a passionate heart. They’ve got correct doctrine, but cold hearts.

    Jesus calls attention to their lack of love (v. 4)—something odd in any bride. He asks them to make a firm decision to return to those activities that keep love alive and strong. Jesus puts the promise of paradise before them as motivation. The future groom reminds his bride of the beautiful vision of their future home.

III. DO YOU EVER LISTEN TO YOUR LONGINGS?

Here we are, the richest people in the world . . . the most sexually active people on the planet. The best educated adults in history. We consume and collect more stuff than any other nation. Some of us change careers mid-stream and even change marriage partners. If variety is the spice of life, we are the spiciest folks around (move over Spice Girls)! We’re the most technologically advanced generation ever. The most highly entertained people in any culture. We travel more than most people in the world could ever dream of doing. And, still, we have a hankering for more. We’re discontent. True happiness seems just out of reach. Even after giving our hearts to God in worship and feeling the presence of his Spirit in prayer, church seems . . . disappointing.

B.     Could our abiding disappointment—with everything—be trying to tell us something that’s true? Are our insatiable longings pointing to a world we haven’t yet experienced? Are our heartaches are trying to tell us a secret that will help us make sense of our discouragement and restlessness? YES! We were created for someone else—for friendship with God. We we’re created for something else—eternal life. This world is not our home. Some day a door will open and, peering through it, we will see it and smell the fragrant air. We’ll hear the laughter of a bride and groom . . . in paradise. And finally we’ know it and feel it: we’re home.

IV. HAVE YOU EVER LISTENED TO ONE CROSSING OVER?

ILLUS: Email from Deb Bergren. My family recently held a garage sale [to get rid] of my dad's household belongings.  My sister put a few old Bibles in a box marked “Free” for anyone who wanted them. On the day of the sale, a woman who had been looking at the Bibles brought one of them to me and suggested that I might not want to give it away because it contained a lot of personal notes. Later on after the garage sale, I paged through that old Bible and realized that it had been my great-grandmother's Bible—a gift she had received in 1939 and used all her life. And my grandmother had then used that same Bible after her mother’s death 1972. In the pages of that old Bible was a note written by a compassionate nurse who sat at my great-grandmother's bedside when she passed away at the age of 80. This nurse, who watched my great grandmother Grace take her last breaths, wrote down the final few words she spoke in this world: "Jesus is coming, is coming for me. Wonderful! Wonderful!" "It's so beautiful - beautiful." "Tell the church, I am the Lord's!" "Where's Dave? (my uncle) Bless him!"  "Is that the water over there?" (whispered) "I am almost over."

CONCLUSION

Band/PP slide show—“I Can Only Imagine”
Revelation 22:17 (Gospel Invitation)

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