Forever and Ever, Amen

The Problem of Dullness

Dullness. He says we are in a war between dullness and astonishment, and we've lost our astonishment. The good news is no longer good news. It's okay news. Christianity is no longer life changing. It's life enhancing. Jesus doesn't change people into wild eyed radicals anymore. He changes them into nice people. And that's dangerous.

When we lose our ability to imagine, the problem behind our dullness isn't sin. It's a lack of imagination. We can't picture the great hope that we have in Christ. What is to come? What God has for his people?

This is Christ the King Sermons. Christ the King Sermons is a ministry of Christ the King Presbyterian Church located in Raleigh, North Carolina. CTK is a community rooted in the depth of the gospel, refined by hard conversations, fueled by meaningful relationships, and committed to redemptive work in Raleigh.

Scripture Reading: Isaiah 65:17-25

For I will create new heavens and a new earth. The past events will not be remembered or come to mind. Then be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating for I will create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people. The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard in her. In her, a nursing infant will no longer live only a few days or an old man not live out his days. Indeed, the one who dies at a hundred years old will be mourned as a young man and the one who misses a hundred years will be considered cursed. People will build houses and live in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and others live in them. They will not plant and others eat. For my people's lives will be like the lifetime of a tree. My chosen ones will enjoy fully the work of their hands. They will not labor without success or bear children destined for disaster for they will be a people blessed by the Lord along with their descendants. Even before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together and the lion eats straw like the cattle, but the serpent's food will be dust. They will not do what is evil or destroy on my entire holy mountain, says the Lord. — Isaiah 65:17-25

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Easter and Resurrection

Well, happy Easter. We celebrate this day with Christians all over the world who remember the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus coming undead. Jesus not metaphorically coming undead, Jesus not resuscitated, but Jesus dead and come alive. We've come through the season of Lent, which is a somber time in the church calendar. A time for self reflection, repentance of sin. But today is Easter. Easter is here. Every part of our worship service is a celebration that Jesus who was dead is alive again, that death is not the final word, that Jesus is resurrected.

These particular words mean that Jesus is the first fruits. He is the beginning of what God is doing in resurrection. He is just the beginning.

The Critical Issue: Dullness

You know, there's a writer and a priest named Father Capon who says that the most critical issue facing Christians today is not what we think. It's not moral absolutes, or the disintegration of the family, or pornography, or abortion, or TV, or drugs, or racism, or even politics—I gotta put that in there today—even politics. Rather, the critical issue today is dullness.

Dullness. He says we are in a war between dullness and astonishment, and we've lost our astonishment. The good news is no longer good news. It's okay news. Christianity is no longer life changing, it's life enhancing. Now Jesus doesn't change people into wild eyed radicals anymore, he changes them into nice people, and that's dangerous.

When we lose our ability to imagine, the problem behind our dullness isn't sin, it's a lack of imagination. We don't have any ability to picture the great hope that we have in Christ, what is to come, what God has for his people.

Imagination and Hope

You know, it was God's promises about what's to come and the ability to imagine of God's people that sustained generations before us through incredible hardship, through persecution. Same is true for the black church in the United States during slavery and Jim Crow. We got all these great spirituals because people could imagine this is what God has for us and it allowed them to endure. It allowed them to persevere. A crisp imagination is extremely important for us to have hope.

Maybe some of you saw the new Willy Wonka movie with Timothy Chalamet. Timothy Chalamet sings this song. He reprises a song from the first Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie, the first Willy Wonka movie, "Pure Imagination." It goes like this—I'm not gonna sing it, don't worry:

Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination. Reach out, touch what once was just in your imagination.

But it's funny because Willy Wonka is not singing in that moment about some kind of fantasy.

He's actually singing and as he sings he brings together his friend Noodle, this girl who's an orphan with her lost mother, and the imagination he's talking about is reuniting, of healing what's wrong. That's the kind of imagination I'm talking about, not just imagining something pie in the sky but imagining God making all things right, bringing all kinds of healing.

So this morning, as we think about the resurrection, Jesus' resurrection, your resurrection. Here's my points if you want to take notes. How big? We'll put this up here. How big? How incredible? How do I get in on this?

How Big Is Our Future Hope?

How big is the scope of our future hope? Well, read about this. You just read the words new heavens and new earth. Verse 17. New heavens and new earth. If you're a student of the Bible, you'll recognize that phrase. That phrase is repeated in several other places in your Bible, but first time right here. First time in Isaiah 65. It's repeated again in Second Peter. Peter writes this:

By according to his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth. — 2 Peter 3:13

In Revelation 21:

Then I saw new heavens and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth have passed away. — Revelation 21:1

The hope, the future hope of Christians isn't heaven. Can I say that again? The hope of Christians isn't heaven. Our the thing we're really waiting for isn't heaven. It's better than that. It's new heavens and new earth.

What Happens After You Die?

Let's get really specific this morning, if you would. Can we get specific about what happens after you die? Christians, we don't talk about this very often, but we got to. What happens after you die? If you're a believer, there's a separation. Your body goes into the ground and your soul, that inner part of you, goes to heaven with the Lord.

Now what is heaven? Where is heaven? What is heaven like? Heaven is God's home. That's the place where God dwells. It's not our home. Heaven is God's home. That's where he dwells.

Where is heaven? Well, older generations before us have been like, it's up there. And the reason they'd say like, it's up there is because what do we recite in our creeds? What does Jesus do? He ascended into heaven. Now the picture of that is going up but there's another meaning for ascended. Where is heaven? Heaven is a hair's breadth away. It's like another dimension of this reality. Many of you have seen enough science fiction to imagine another dimension that's here and immediate to us but different. That's where heaven is. It's where Jesus is, seated at the right hand of the Father and yet he is this close to us.

What is heaven like? Heaven's a place of rest and of joy. It's a place of rest from sinning and suffering and sadness. It's a place of joy. It's where it is with the Lord, but listen to this. It's when we go there, it's an existence without a body. This is why Paul writes in Second Corinthians that to go to heaven is to be with the Lord apart from the body. Separation. This is why I'm going to say this a couple times, and see if you get it. Nobody's in heaven except Jesus's body. Not nobody's in heaven. No bodies are in heaven except for Jesus' body.

How long is heaven? Temporary. Now if you're a Christian, you might be like, what would you say? Temporary. Heaven is not our home. It is not the final forever. In John 14, Jesus tells his disciples:

Let your hearts not be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself that where I am, you may be also. — John 14:1-3

That word for rooms. You may not realize that. Rooms in heaven, mansions in heaven, we sometimes say. In the Greek, it's a word for a temporary place, like a bus stop, like an interstate stop. Anybody love staying at an interstate rest stop? Anybody ever been broken down at the interstate rest stop? You might never want to live in an interstate rest stop. You always know we're not here forever, we're here for a moment. Nobody wants to be here long. That's what heaven is. This rest stop on the way to something else. It's not our final destination. That sense of being in heaven and being without a body separated, it's not natural. That's not how God designed us to be.

Rather, what is the point? What's the final destination? That's what we read this morning. That's what's in Isaiah 65. That's in Revelation 21. That's what's in Second Peter. New heavens and new earth. This is what God has for his people. Resurrected bodies. Jesus' body—he has a resurrected body, a perfect body in heaven. You as a believer in Christ, if you trust in him, you will have such a same thing, a resurrected body.

So let me review. Let's go back in time. At creation, God designed it for heaven and earth to meet together. That was called Eden. Touchpoint. So we see in the book Genesis, God is walking in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve. Eden was a place of intersection. Heaven and earth together, and what happens with the fall, with the sin of our first parents, is a ripping and a tearing and what was together is torn apart, is separated in some way. And yet what's pictured for us when Jesus comes back in a blink of an eye, at the last trumpet, is heaven reconnected with earth and everything made new. Everything revised and upgraded and made right. This is what's pictured for us. New heavens and new earth reuniting. We were given new bodies, new heavens and new earth.

Now this is hard for us to imagine, so let me give us a little help from the movies this morning. I'm going back in the vault, but I trust some of y'all are long term Pixar fans enough to do this. The best Toy Story movie, in my estimation, is Toy Story Two.

So in Toy Story Two, what's happening in the story is Woody the cowboy is sort of kidnapped by this sketchy looking guy named Al from Al's Toy Barn. Woody's tired and damaged at this point in his career. He's been Andy's toy for a long time, but Al captures him, kidnaps him, and he's preparing to sell him to a toy museum in Japan. But he can't go as he is because Woody is damaged. He's got a torn shoulder, he's chipped. So he calls in this guy, the toy repairman, who shows up and pulls out his toolbox. He flips it open—there's millions of tools inside—and there's this little dentist chair, a tiny dentist chair. He straps Woody into it and he starts to work.

First he pulls out Q-tips and he starts on Woody's ear and nose, and takes out all the dust. Then he takes out a mini spray paint gun and he puts rosiness back into Woody's cheeks. Then he takes out little tiny paintbrushes and he goes over all the chipped places, all the places that have been damaged. Then he takes Woody's shoulder and he stuffs some more cotton in there and sews it up and makes it not only good as new but better than new. Woody, in response to this, later on is strong, right? Because Woody has not been just repaired—it's the same Woody but he's been upgraded. He's been made perfect, made better. And this is a picture for us. Okay, bad picture, but I know—this is a picture for us of what God is up to in this new heavens and new earth with us. The same. You're the same person that you are but upgraded. And that with the whole cosmos. Everything made new. Can you imagine it?

See, what does this tell us about God? We just, in response to the confession this morning, we heard this assurance of pardon.

God so loved the world. — John 3:16

Isn't that a strange thing to say? It doesn't say God so loved just some random people in there that he's gonna pluck out and take away. God loved the world. God loves the world that he made, and he intends to make it all right. And so the things that you love in this world—if you love football, nobody. Okay. Nobody loves football. You love sushi, right? Growing tomatoes, right? Like coffee. All the things that we love in this world, God loves. And if you aren't excited about being a ghost in a cloud somewhere, if that's all you have in your future is a ghost in a cloud, then there is a hint way down in your soul.

The things that you love in this world, God loves, and they will be enlarged and perfected and they are in the new heavens and new earth. All things new. All things upgraded. Upgraded heavens and earth.

I don't know about you, but I myself—true confession—I need to preach this today because we live in a world where I'm always trying to find heaven right here. I'm always trying to make heaven happen right here. I want the parking spot that never is. I want the quiet evening that never is. I want a good night's sleep that never really happens. And I'm looking for and trying to make heaven happen so hard, and it's so good to know, isn't it? That one day it will be brought together. One day it will be right. Stop fighting the chaos. Stop being so disappointed because one day it will be so. Isn't that good news? How big? Now how incredible? How what's this? How incredible is the new heavens, new earth?

We don't get a ton of details, but there are a few here that we really need to hear, and they're stated sort of as reversals for what life is like here. It's sort of like things are flipped upside down. So listen to these: no weeping, no death, no meaninglessness. No more weeping. No more pain.

Listen to verse 19. No more shall there be heard in it, in the city, the heavenly city, the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. — Isaiah 65:19

Now there is a progression in the Bible.

There's a progression with how God is with us in our sadness and suffering. Psalm 56 tells us that God himself keeps track of our tossings and stores our tears as in a bottle. God is that aware and present to us in our sadness, in our pain.

But it goes on with the passage that we looked at last week at CTK, the one we read over and over, we read on Friday night, Isaiah 53. Jesus is a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He's not just one who can imagine our grief and pain but experienced it firsthand. Inside-the-skin knowledge of what it's like to be in pain. But in Isaiah and Revelation and Second Peter, we have a picture of new heavens, new earth, and he will wipe—you know what? He'll wipe every tear from our eyes. A picture of God not only knowing our pain but ending it. No more sadness. Don't you want that? I said, don't you want that? Me too.

No More Death

The second reversal is too great to even comprehend. No death. Listen to verse 20:

In the city a nursing infant will no longer only live a few days, or an old man not live out his days. Indeed, the one who dies at a hundred will be mourned as a young man, and the one who misses a hundred will be considered cursed. — Isaiah 65:20

Now you may say, "Hey pastor, that still says people die." No. What's being imagined there is Isaiah trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. Isn't no more death hard for us even to imagine? It is so normal, it is so regular for us. He's saying, like, "Okay, infant mortality, loss of children"—some of you know these pains very intimately—no more. Living to a hundred, living past a hundred. But what's pictured for us is there's no more death, but it's hard to even imagine.

What's the old saying? There are only two certainties in life: death and taxes, right? And Jesus is gonna get rid of the one, and probably the other too—probably taxes as well.

Isaiah writes from this perspective: I can't imagine. Do you see how the first and second reversals are connected here? If there's no more death, then of course there's no more tears. If there's no more suffering and decay and decline, then of course there's no more sorrow.

We won't even remember the former things. The past things will not be remembered or even come to mind. Now that doesn't mean we will forget everything of this life. Doesn't mean that we will forget the people that we love. Rather, what it means is the pain will be so comforted, the injustices so put right, the sadnesses so made up for that the pain of those sorts of slips away.

I've talked to many moms who after childbirth can tell you the birth story. I know about just about every mom I know can tell you birth stories. But it's a funny thing that happens to many mothers where the memories of how intense the pain was seems to recede. Now why is that? Do women lose their minds? No. Some people say yes. Sorry, Carrie. No. It's the joy of a child. In light of what has come, the pain of what was endured lessens in some way. It's mitigated in some way. This is what's held out for us in this new heavens, new earth. What is to come is so incredible that the pain in some way is mitigated. It won't even come to mind.

No More Meaninglessness

Last, no more meaninglessness. Listen to verses 21 through 23:

People will build houses and live in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They will not build and others live in them. They will not plant and others eat, for my people's lives will be like the life of a tree. My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor without success or bear children destined for disaster. They will be a people blessed by the Lord along with their descendants. — Isaiah 65:21-23

Meaninglessness gone. There's an old Greek myth. The myth of Sisyphus. It's about this guy who's consigned to hell forever to roll a rock up the hill, and then it rolls back down the hill. He goes and rolls it up the hill and it rolls back down the hill. He does it all day, every day, over and over, forever.

The reason that hits is because we all know some of this experience, right? Washing clothes, rolling the rock up the hill, watching it roll back down. Washing clothes, changing diapers, answering emails, trash day, tax day, answering more emails, staff meeting, mowing the grass, answering emails.

But there's coming a day, the new heavens and new earth, where work will be meaningful. Now some of you are like, "Work in the new heavens and new earth? Are you kidding me?" No. That's what the Bible says. There's something about work in this life that is connected to toil, that's hard because it feels like rolling a rock up a hill and watching it roll back down.

But on your best days, have you ever experienced this? Maybe on your one best day ever at work, where you were like, "I did something today that matters. I made a difference today. What I did has lasting value today." Anybody felt that?

Can you imagine a new heavens, new earth where what we do matters like that? We take joy in it, like that was good, that was so valuable, tasting the fruit of your labors. Don't you want that?

Finally, what's shown to us is a peace like we've never known. There are these pairings of animals, a strange zoo at the end of the passage here. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, the lion shall eat straw like an ox, the dust shall be the serpent's food. All the natural enemies, now friends.

But even more than that, what's pictured for us is encapsulated in this Hebrew word for shalom. Now that word shalom, we think of as a Jewish greeting, meaning peace, but it's never just a lack of fighting. It's things as they were intended to be. Everything put right. Everything right. This is what's held out for us. Don't you want this?

I don't know about you, but I need to preach this to myself this morning. I need to hear this this morning. It is such a grace that God promises us, gives us such a picture of the new heavens, new earth. Because we're tempted—we're all tempted, okay? Honest time. We're tempted to believe that there is a better life out for me somewhere else in this world. That somehow if I just had a different backdrop or different scenery or different friends or a different job or a different space, I would be a different person. I would be a better me.

There's a song by a band called the Avett Brothers called "The Weight of Lies." It's about a tendency that all of us have to think that life's better somewhere else. We just move on. Scott Avery says, "The weight of lies will bring you down and follow you to every town because nothing happens here that doesn't happen there. You are always with you." That's the bad news. You're always the same you. You're not gonna find a new heavens and new earth in Tennessee or in New York City or in Paris or whatever the place is for you. Everybody's got a place, but there's no better place than the one that's promised, where we're headed.

Hold out, friends. Can you hold out for what's real and lasting and beyond your imagination?

A Word for the Non-Christian

Before I get to my last point, I want to say this to anybody here who's not a Christian. We always assume there are people with us who aren't Christians who are dragged here because it was Easter or because it was a Sunday or you happen to be in town—sorry, not sorry. But you know, hearing this, aren't you kind of like, "I sort of wish that was true"?

C.S. Lewis writes better, says it better than me. You know that itch in us, that longing in us is evidence that there's something out there that answers it. He says, "Creatures aren't born with desires unless there's satisfaction for those desires someplace. A baby feels hunger, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim, there is such a thing as water. You long for everything to be made right, there is such a place."

So how do I get in on this? How do you get in on this? I'm gonna be really careful with what I say this morning. I'm gonna make sure I step around your potholes. I'm not gonna say you're gonna need to believe in Jesus because there are lots of people who think that means just accumulating facts about Jesus, knowing lots about Jesus. We're in the American South. A lot of people know a lot about Jesus. I'm not going to say it's about obeying Jesus, even though there's parts of the Bible that say that, because you could be tempted to say, "Well, if I just do enough, that'll get me right with God." And a lot of people in the South believe that.

Here's how I'm gonna put it: Love Jesus. This is the point of all the Bible—that God loves us so much he invites us to love him and find ourselves in him. Now the center point, what's weird—the center point of the new heavens, new earth, you know what it is? It's Jesus. And if he wasn't there, we wouldn't want to go there. And if you don't love him, why would you want to go there? He's the point. Come, find your heart's deepest satisfaction in him. Love him.

By way of conclusion, let me say this.

In 1967, there was a girl of 17 years old named Joni Erickson who went swimming on the Chesapeake Bay with friends. They were diving, doing cliff jumping, diving into the water, and she misjudged how deep the water was. When she dove in, she hit a rock and did permanent damage to her spine, leaving her paralyzed for the rest of her life.

Even though that was probably the worst thing that happened to her, she says that's the best thing that ever happened to me. Up to that point, she had a knowledge of God—she knew all the kind of Sunday school stuff. But something happened in her dark time recovering from that diving accident where she found Jesus and found out he was really real and he was really with her. It changed the course of her life. She's known today somewhat as a celebrity for her care for the differently abled community, the way that she set up sinners offering care with people for special needs.

So this writer, this one particular reporter—not a believer—went to interview her and find out like what's so special about this woman? Why is everybody so obsessed about this particular woman? He goes to her house and she says, "Well, I need to leave in a few minutes. You can come with me." It's a very complicated process, but they get into her car and they go to this horse barn where she sits out and watches people ride on horses. He's watching her watching people ride horseback.

And he finally says, "Why do you do this? Isn't this torture? I mean, you're never gonna do that. You're never gonna ride on a horse, right? I don't understand why you'd put yourself through this. Seems like this would be the worst thing you'd want to do."

And she said this: "I came out here and watched because I don't want to forget how to ride."

Here's what she's saying: I'm in this wheelchair now, my legs are like this now, my body's like this now, but one day it won't be. And I want to be able to still do the things that I love.

The reporter had no idea what to do with that answer. It completely mystified him. But you know what to do with that answer, don't you? Because there's a new heavens and a new earth. All things put right. She was chain training her desires and her longings for that place.

Beloved, this morning, don't suppress your desires. Don't push them down. Don't kill your hopes. Don't dampen or cheapen your longings. Train them on your true home, the new heavens and the new earth with him.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.