Gathering in Heaven
In a world filled with uncertainty, we find assurance in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we reflect on the words of 1 Peter, 'He has caused us to be born again to a living hope,' we are reminded that this hope transforms our lives and empowers us to share the gospel.
Watch the full sermonLiving hope through resurrection
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is central to our faith, providing a living hope that transforms our lives. As stated in 1 Peter 1:3-4, 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.' This hope is not just a future promise; it impacts our daily lives, encouraging us to share the gospel and live with purpose.
Plan a VisitThe significance of heaven
Heaven is described as an imperishable inheritance, a place of eternal joy and peace. It represents the ultimate destination for believers, where we will be in the presence of God forever. As we reflect on the significance of heaven, we are reminded that it is our hope that sustains us through life's challenges. 'Heaven is the ultimate goal for all of us,' reminding us of the glory that awaits.
Identity as elect exiles
As believers, we are identified as elect exiles, called to live out our faith in a world that often feels foreign. This identity empowers us to fulfill the Great Commission, sharing the message of hope found in Christ. We are reminded that our citizenship is in heaven, and we are called to be lights in the darkness, sharing the love of Jesus with those around us.
He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Heaven is the ultimate goal for all of us.
Scripture Highlights
1 Peter 1:3-4: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean to be born again?
What is the significance of heaven for believers?
How does the resurrection impact our lives today?
Content Transcript
Greetings in the name and love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
You’re going to have to wait till May the 17th to hear a missional moment comment about Japan as we’re going to be commissioning Mark and Brenda to Japan, and they’ll have a little more time to ready themselves to share. On that same day, we’ll be commissioning a group to head to Honduras for a short-term mission trip as well.
**Scripture Reading**
So we’ll highlight this section of Peter’s first epistle:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”
The Apostle Peter, he is a great example of the personification and the personalizing of the Easter resurrection impact on the life of a person. We see the Apostle Peter as one who went through this process of being sifted like sand and his threefold denial of Jesus Christ. He is brought to repentance, of course, as he considers how he has denied his Lord and Savior three times.
Then, as we see Jesus appearing in the upper room with Peter and the others, somewhere even prior to this, we would understand that Peter had a personal experience with the resurrected Lord. We’re not sure when, how, and where. However, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, the resurrection chapter of the Bible, that Jesus appeared to Cephas. He appeared to Peter. Luke, in his gospel, also makes reference to the fact that Jesus appeared to Peter prior to this upper room moment when Jesus appears with the disciples in the upper room.
There’s apparently a time where Peter experiences the resurrected Lord. Three times Jesus speaks peace. We understand that shalom-like peace to be what Jesus speaks into Peter’s heart, knowing he has denied Jesus three times. He gets a threefold expression of peace.
**Reinstatement of Peter**
Then there’s the reinstatement and recommissioning of the Apostle Peter that occurs on the Sea of Tiberius, where Jesus says three times, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my lambs.” Threes are wild, and we’re seeing Jesus deliver to Peter what he needs. Peter is not going to be a person, as Christian shared, he’s not going to be a person who commits the great omission. The great omission is not going to happen; he is on a great commission.
We don’t know all of what Peter did in terms of his apostolic missionary journeys, but John and Paul and Peter had missionary journeys. The book of Acts outlines for us the places where the Apostle Peter was to be going in the great commission, and those places are actually somewhat referenced in Peter’s writings.
In your Bibles, you’ll see 1 Peter, where the greeting is, “An Apostle Peter, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”
These are places there in Asia where Peter the Apostle, as outlined in the book of Acts, is going. They’re all in the same general vicinity. Peter’s missionary journey, unlike that of Paul, which has multiple different levels to it, different stages of it, Peter is a person who is going through these areas, and he’s on his way to Rome.
We know as Jesus has given his life for Peter, Peter is going to give his life for his Lord. Jesus makes it clear to him, says, “You’re going to have a time in your life where people are going to take you where you don’t want to go and dress you in a way you don’t want to be dressed.” Peter says, “I am not worthy to die in the manner of my Lord and Savior Jesus,” so he’s crucified upside down.
**Perspective on Heaven**
Well, it’s a different vantage point if you’ve ever been upside down and kind of looked at things. So there’s Peter upside down, but he sees the Lord right side up. He sees the Lord at the right hand. We would imagine just like Stephen when he’s a martyr. Jesus is standing at the right hand of the Father, and we know Peter is going to be made right side up as he is going to, through what Jesus did for him on the cross of Calvary and rising from the dead, Peter is going to also be in heaven.
Heaven’s the ultimate goal for all of us. It’s the ultimate destination for every single believer in Jesus Christ, and those that don’t know Jesus, their ultimate destination is going to be separated from God for all eternity in hell. So by God’s grace, blessed be God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit gets in there too because the anointing Christ, the Messiah, has is the Spirit of God, the Holy Trinity at work in our salvation.
And why does the Bible say that it’s an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading? Why is it expressed in the negative instead of the positive? In fact, that’s been a question that’s been answered over the years because we can’t find words in our English vocabulary that can adequately describe the positive natures of heaven. The negative is pointing to the positive, and we know that heaven is so great it’s indescribable.
“Eye has not seen nor ear heard what God has prepared for them that love him.” So heaven, in all of its glory, is beyond anything. Even in the book of Revelation, when it starts to talk about heaven, it puts it in the negative: no more this, no more this, no more this, no more this, no, no, no to death, no, no, no to sickness, no, no, no to sorrow. God is going to wipe away every tear from the eyes of believers.
So the glories of heaven are so great. It’s our ultimate destination and our eternal home. I’m but a stranger here; heaven is my home. You know, we have all these, “What a day it will be when we all get to heaven,” and the glories that we’ll be sharing in there. Heaven is all about the gathering relationally of God and his people, and we’re looking forward to this time.
It’s according to the foreknowledge of God and his plan, not only knowing it but his plan in causing it to happen. So there’s a cause and effect element to what we’re talking about in terms of a cause and effect element. How does that work? Well, we know fire and smoke; we know rain and puddles; we know crying and tears; we know laughing and smiling. A cause and effect, an action and a result.
As we think of cause and effect, one cause sometimes can lead to one effect; sometimes one cause can lead to multiple effects. The one cause and effect, the work of Jesus Christ suffering and dying and rising again, has a multiple impact and effect upon it.
So in nature, we see cause and effect, you know, actions and consequences. We see it in spiritual matters as well. So God has caused us to be born again. So the cause and effect is the rebirthing that the Holy Spirit, through the word of God, in holy baptism and through the power of the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, raises dead spiritual beings like us to spiritual life, and we come to faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
**Identity as Elect Exiles**
And who are we? We are elect exiles. We are chosen, called, gathered, enlightened exiles. And so we know what happened in the Old Testament times, and now it’s happening even in the New Testament here because these people, these Christians, are being dispersed in the diaspora. In the Old Testament times, God told the Israelites to go and be a light to the nations.
Well, when they don’t go to be a light to the nations, God’s got a plan. He gets them going; he gets them moving. Sometimes he uses famine and pestilence to get his people to go where they need to go. Sometimes he uses a neighboring nation like Assyrians and Babylonians to get his people to go to another place in the world and accomplish his purpose.
Sometimes, as we think of the way God moves in your life and mine through circumstances, he’s going to be moving to get you to go where you need to go and do what you need to do, and his perfect loving will is what’s best.
So in the New Testament, the early Christian church after Pentecost, what did they do? Well, they just kept hanging out in Jerusalem, enjoying being there, enjoying Acts 2:42-47, fellowship and worship, the breaking of bread, the breaking of bread into at the temple in terms of the Lord’s Supper, the breaking of bread in fellowship in their homes.
It was a wonderful period of time. I wonder if they forgot, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them.” They were just hanging out there, and then persecution broke out, and God used that persecution to get them going to go where they needed to, to Pontus, to Asia, to Cappadocia, all the way to Rome.
How did Paul get there? Well, we know. How did Peter get there? God moved them and got them where they needed to go. So the great commission was going to be fulfilled because God is all about, as the expression is, emptying hell and filling heaven. That’s the purpose God has in mind.
**Gathering and Scattering**
Let’s, I always think about our position as Christians as we’re thinking about the ultimate gathering place of heaven. There are other gathering places along the way that we need to think about how God gets us where we need to be.
Do you all live here at the church? Now, some children, of course, think that pastors live at the church; that’s their house, and they don’t have a home someplace else. So I’ve run into that; maybe you have too. You know, children think the pastor’s house is the church. No, pastors are someplace else. Fortunately, it’s not like a parsonage situation because then you never really do leave the church; it’s just always right there.
But God wants us to get scattered. We’re gathered here, and then we’re scattered. We’re gathered and scattered. So that’s the whole purpose of the book of 1 Peter, I believe, that we’re going to be unfolding over the weeks to come, how God takes the gathered ones and he scatters them.
In fact, the term for church, ecclesia, that’s the ones who are called out ones. We are called out into the church, but we’re also sent out. Peter’s an apostle, someone who saw the resurrected Lord and was sent by the resurrected Lord. We also are with a scattering that God wants us to be doing.
We’re gathering here. I’m looking forward to the ultimate gathering when we all get to heaven. I do look forward to that; I long for it, I look for it. I love what it is telling us that we have eternity together as God’s people.
We know heaven gets sweeter and sweeter as other brothers and sisters and family members precede us, and they have been brought into the glories of heaven where we’re going to one day also be for all eternity.
**Assurance of Salvation**
So how do you know if you’re an elect exile? How do you know if you’re born again? Well, let’s just say, how do you know if you’re born? Just how do you know if you’re born? Well, you’re breathing; you have physical life; you know you were born.
How do you know when you’re born again? You’re believing; you’re trusting; you’re looking to your Lord every day, trusting in him. What flows, of course, is the fruit of faith. We would always want others to be able to see the fruit of our faith. But to know you’re born again, anew and above, you’re simply believing in the promises of God and what Jesus Christ did for you in his death and resurrection.
That’s how you know. You keep going back to the promises of God. “He that believes and is baptized will be saved.” Keep trusting in God’s promises because heaven is your home, and Jesus is preparing a place for you.
So we have this assurance of eternal life. Who do you look forward to seeing in heaven? Well, ultimately, we’re going to be looking forward to seeing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and our eyes are going to be fixed centrally, fixed upon the throne.
Oh, myriads and myriads, and just the picture that it provides for us of the glories of heaven. But at the center of the myriads and myriads and the concentric circles that are rippling out is God in the middle, and your eyes are fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
But there’s the angels, and there’s the whole host of heaven, all those who have their robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb. Yes, martyrs who have been witnesses, and because of human disaster of sorts, they have been put to death. But some of us, by natural causes of death, we’re going to have heaven as our home.
I look forward to, and you look forward to, those that we’re going to be seeing in that place that’s kept in heaven for you, that’s imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. We believe and we trust in what God has done for us as the elect.
You’ve got a dual citizenship: one foot in heaven, one foot on earth. I love that imagery, and I’ve often said I feel for those folks who have one foot in hell and the other foot on earth. But that foot on earth is on a banana peel at the same time.
We have to see them in the precipice; we have to see that they need to be brought from that position to the one we have. One foot on earth and one foot in heaven, waiting for our ultimate gathering in the glories of heaven. Amen.