Heaven - Living Waters

There are a lot of ideas about heaven out there, some more plausible than others. However, as believers, we need to let the Bible determine our convictions about this important subject, rather than best-selling books detailing near death experiences, Hollywood fantasies, personal opinion, or neuro-scientific guesswork. In Colossians 3:1-2 Paul writes; “If then you have been raised with Christ seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

“Set your minds on things above.” In other words, heavenly-mindedness is a Biblical duty. It’s an imperative, a command. In 1911, a songwriter called Joel Hill wrote a snide parody of the hymn, “In the Sweet By and By,” in which he described heaven using the phrase, “pie in the sky when you die.” If you think about, that’s often how the world views the Christian teaching on heaven. It’s all “pie in the sky when you die.” In the world’s opinion, the concept of heaven is an absurdity that weak Christians hold to as a form of escapism; a away to help them endure the misery of this life by clinging naively to the illusion of bliss in an imaginary afterlife.

Sadly, this perception isn’t helped by the fact that a lot of Christian talk about heaven can be sentimental, silly, and sensational, and not very Scriptural at all, making it unable to stand up to the cynicism of the world. What’s even worse is our poor theology of heaven can fail to grip our own hearts, so that we don’t particularly care to go there, nor does it move us to set our minds on things above. However, as Paul says in that passage from Colossians, heavenly-mindedness is a vital spiritual discipline, without which it’s impossible to live the Christian life well.

Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, “She’s so heavenly-minded that she’s of no earthly use.” If you think about, that’s not really our problem–that we’ll become so heavenly-minded we won’t be of any earthly use. In fact, I’d argue that the opposite is actually true, we can be so earthly focused that we fail to heed Paul’s words to seek the things that are above.

And so, to help us become more heavenly-minded, to learn to seek the things that are above, and to long with the Apostle Paul “to be with Christ, which is far better,” we’re going to take the next several weeks to reflect on what the Bible has to say about heaven.

SERMONS

Sermon: The Two Realities of Heaven

Preacher: The Rev. Canon Christopher Doering

Date: Sunday, January 21, 2024

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:1-10

Handout: Part 1. HO