Kingdom of the Heavens

Are you thinking “heavenly”?

“Nearly every Christian I have spoken with has some idea that eternity is an unending church service… We have settled on an image of the never-ending sing-along in the sky, one great hymn after another, forever and ever, amen. And our heart sinks. Forever and ever? That’s it? That’s the good news? And then we sigh and feel guilty that we are not more ‘spiritual’. We lose heart, and we turn once more to the present to find what life we can.”
-John Eldredge The Journey of Desire

“Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
-C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

“We do not desire to eat gravel. Why? Because God did not design us to eat gravel. Trying to develop an appetite for a disembodied existence in a non-physical Heaven is like trying to develop an appetite for gravel. No matter how sincere we are, and no matter how hard we try, it’s not going to work. Nor should it. What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth. Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans…the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist.”
-Randy Alcorn in Heaven

Are you thinking “heavenly”?

“Imagine you’re part of a NASA team preparing for a five-year mission to Mars. After a period of extensive training, the launch date finally arrives. As the rocket lifts off, one of your fellow astronauts says to you, ‘What do you know about Mars?’ Imagine shrugging your shoulders and saying, ‘Nothing. We never talked about it. I guess we’ll find out when we get there.’”
-Randy Alcorn in Heaven

“If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did 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 the 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.”
-C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Are you thinking “heavenly”?

Learning to think “heavenly”
A study of the kingdom of the heavens
Spring 2008

Those who think heavenly remember a garden… (Genesis 1-2)
• Spiritual & Physical Unity
• Working & Caring
• Discovery & Learning
• Romance & Celebration
• Relational freedom & authenticity
– “We are homesick for Eden…Every attempt at human progress has been an attempt to overcome what was lost in the Fall.”
-Randy Alcorn in Heaven

Those who think heavenly trust the oases in this desert land… (Gen. 3 – Rev. 20)

Those who think heavenly look forward to a real city… (Revelation 21-22)
• New, United Heaven & Earth
• Continuity with this earth & these bodies
• No more curse!
• God will dwell with us!
• We will reign with God forever…