Psalm 121; 1 Corinthians 12:8-10
August Sermon Series: Gifts of the Holy Spirit: Laboring Together in the
Lord
August 31, 2014
I recently began reading
a book written in 2011 by pastor and author Rob Bell. Many of you have heard me mention his name
before, and some of you have watched a video of his as part of FPC leadership gatherings. This particular book is titled, Love Wins. It’s subtitled, A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever
Lived. Now, doesn’t that just
sound like the perfect, fun beach read?
Well, okay, the subject matter is more than a bit weighty. But in the hands of such a gifted preacher
and teacher, it’s a very conversational read.
It’s also a controversial book from the perspective of some
evangelicals. But I’m not going to get
into that today.
My focus is on his biblically
rooted teaching about heaven.
Specifically, about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.
I frequently lift up the same theme in my preaching and
conversations. For example, listen to
what he declares to be the “proper view” of heaven –
“If you believe that you’re going to leave and evacuate
to somewhere else, then why do
anything about this world? A proper view
of heaven leads not to escape from the world, but to full engagement with it,
all with the anticipation of a coming day when things are on earth as they
currently are in heaven.”[i]
So believing in heaven isn’t just about our hope of
entering into a holy future at the time of our deaths. Our souls do long to go home, to be fully restored
to the sin-free spiritual realm with the “peace, stillness, serenity, and calm
that comes from having everything in its right place” with God and where “nothing
is required, needed or missing.” But heaven is also about striving to engage in
some of this experience right now because that is what Jesus taught us to do. “He
spoke of oneness with God,” Rob Bell reminds us, “the God who is so intimately
connected with life in this world that every hair on your head is known.” Jesus lived and spoke “as if the whole
world” was about “endless dimensions of the divine, infinitesimally
close.” When you and I make this our
daily focus, God’s promised future through Jesus Christ is,” to quote Bell
again, “dragged into the present.”
All through this month of August, I’ve been preaching on
gifts of the Holy Spirit. So why am I
talking about heaven to conclude this summer sermon series? Because as we head into the school and
program year ahead, I pray we all will hold tightly to this vitally relevant understanding
of heavenly life.
I pray we’ll help one another have the vision that keeps
it in view before, behind, and beyond us.
I pray that we’ll
constantly seek out, celebrate and put into service the spiritual gifts God has
given us all to help drag our future life in heaven into our here and now.
To sum up this sermon series with this in mind –
heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the
Spirit gifts you with ways to personally know and not just know about
Jesus;
heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the
Spirit persuades you again and again to faithful action for the Gospel;
heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the
Spirit inspires you to take care of and help heal not only physical bodies, but
also God-breathed souls;
heavenly life is dragged into the here and now when the
Spirit fills you with prophetic voice that is both honestly jarring and full of
hope.
Heaven isn’t just a distant realm. It’s an immediate reality of love.
We can’t come close to fully entering into it while walking
upon this earthly plain. We may be
trying hard to embrace it, but in our sin, we are wearing, as Bell somewhat
humorously describes, a “hazmat suit.”
What we can do
every day is acknowledge that our spiritual gifts aren’t in some cosmic back
closet, waiting to be put into a Welcome Basket and given to us at the time of
our passing into glory. The Spirit puts
them right in our back pockets each day so we have them with us to use to God’s
glory everywhere we go. By God’s grace
and through our faith, we use these gifts to experience and to help others experience
the heavenly life demonstrated to us by Jesus during his time on earth.
This is a life of humble service and outstanding
expressions of love for all our neighbors and all of Creation.
It’s a life of unending compassion and concern for all
the injustices and illnesses this world endures.
It’s a life of
deep peace amidst all the panic buttons we possess and keep pressing.
It’s a life of
hope-filled laboring together as a congregation, all the while carrying our personal
crosses with a wide open eye on Easter.
One particular witness to heavenly life has recently
made its way across mainstream America.
It’s the story of what happened to a pastor’s kid in Nebraska named
Colton Burpo. His near death experience at
the age of four due to a burst appendix is the subject of the popular book and
movie Heaven Is For Real. I
haven’t read it or seen it. But I did
get myself familiar with it by visiting the family website which featured a
television interview with Colton and his parents.
I listened carefully to Colton. And while his children’s picture book depiction
of being gently lifted up to heaven by a white robe, purple sash wearing Jesus
wasn’t distinctly inspiring to me, I did find that Colton said something I
believe speaks to what happens when future heavenly life is faithfully dragged into
the here and now.
He said, “When I was in the throne room of God to start
with, I was upset because I didn’t know what was happening. What God did,” Colton continued, “was God
used people or things that I liked to calm me down. From there on, I felt better.”
At that critical intersection of future heavenly life
and present heavenly life, Colton received special gifts from God to help him
feel safe and secure in Christ’s care. This
word of witness makes the reality of heaven, for me at least, more real than
lovely visions of flowing robes and streets of gold high on the clouds.
Has there been a critical time or two in your life when
you had an intense experience of divine care?
When you had a sense in the here and now of your eternal wholeness and
peace in Christ?
These gifts come in the ways we’ve been considering all
month. And they come in the way they
seemed to have come to young Colton – filling his fragile mind and heart with
people and things that brought him peace and restoration.
Perhaps this is what happens when we recall a loved one
gone to glory before us and feel a sense that whatever we are going through,
they are still with us on earth as it is in heaven.
Perhaps this is also what happens when we feel abandoned
or stuck in a rut but then suddenly recall a special and sacred place or moment
from the past and it fills us with fresh hope and joy for the present and future.
And I know this happens each time we gather to worship
and glorify God and then go out to bring a prayer shawl, a home-cooked meal,
our caring presence to someone in need of a little heaven on earth.
Heavenly life is our being in the sacred keep of God from this time on and forevermore (Ps.
121). May this be our focus today,
tomorrow, all the blessed days ahead.
Amen.
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