Pentecost 7

This morning, I’d like you to close your eyes for a minute and do a bit of reflection. We all talk about heaven, but how often do we actually stop to consider what heaven is like. So, for a minute or so, I’d like you to give your full attention to thoughts of heaven.

Ok, how would you describe heaven? What is your image? What do you hope it will be like? (Discussion)

Oddly, heaven as a concept of an after-life location was a rather late development in Judaism. Originally, the people of Israel believed their God lived on earth -- specifically in the tabernacle or after the temple was built, in the Holy of Holies.

Well into the time of Jesus, at least some Jews believed that the continuation of their lives was based in having sons to carry on the father’s name. This was how a person lived on (notice no mention of women).

In fact, the only recorded incidence of Jesus and the pharisees agreeing, was in a dispute with some Sadducees over what happened to a person after death. The Sadducees were a Jewish sect that clung to the old belief that life ended at death - there was no afterlife.

The New Testament presents us with a number of images of heaven and the afterlife, but these are largely the writers attempt to put an image that is beyond words into some form people could grasp.

The truth is we don’t know what heaven is like. We can be pretty sure that it does not involved beings with halos playing harps or the saints sitting around on clouds though.

What we do know is that it will mean eternity spent in a pure and wonderful relationship with God. Those who die in Christ continue to enjoy some kind of existence that is full of joy and beyond the pain of what we now call life.

I’m making this rather long introduction on heaven because broadening our perspective on what it may be can help us appreciate what is being taught in our Colossians lesson.

Some of the New Testament writers picture eternity as a continuation of life rather than a totally new life. Instead of the person’s life coming to an end at death and a new life starting in a place called heaven, the essence of the person, his or her spirit, continues living, but in an altered state of being.

I would maintain that heaven is here and heaven is now, but because of sin we just can’t fully experience it.

because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints-- 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the word of truth, the gospel 6 that has come to you.

That hope is meant to benefit us and make us new people in this life, not just in the life to come. That hope is meant to be a "transformer".

As I remember the toys my son had as a child and as I understand the idea of the movie, "Transformers", there are supposed to be super beings who could change form from mechanical devices, like cars, into super creatures who can do extraordinary things.

We are meant to be super beings, sons and daughters of God, enabled to do marvelous things as a result of being transformed by hope. Now, if hope is something we can only lay hold of in a "place" called heaven, it would lack the ability to transform us in this life.

Likewise, if our hope is only that when we die we will go someplace called heaven, we will lack the power to become transformers.

The writer of Colossians clearly believes otherwise. He states that hope is something available to believers now and that having that hope gives us the power to transform our lives and the lives of others with faith, love and good works.

Without this hope we are like old dump trucks running on two cylinders. We are scraped and dented by life’s troubles, we struggle on all but the smoothest roads and we use all our energy to just make it to our destination. And all the way, we hear this groaning in our engine causing us to wonder if maybe we won’t make it after all.

But, if we tap into the power of the Super Transformer, Jesus Christ - the source of hope - and allow Him to work in us by His Spirit, we find that we can hold out against our worst enemies, overcome otherwise insurmountable obstacles and find joy in a relationship with God even before we find out what heaven is really like.

The first step in tapping into that power involves checking on and perhaps changing our perspective on heaven. Heaven is not a reward for leading a "good life", nor it is something we can lose by our failure to meet some standard.

Heaven, an eternal relationship with God, is a gift bought for us with Jesus blood. If God was willing to sacrifice so much in order to have us in His family, He’s hardly going to disown and reject us because we are human. All he asks is that we admit our failure and accepts His help.

From this we can see that we need to also transform our perspective about ourselves. We need to recognize that we are not ugly worn out dump trucks. Hidden within what may seem like rust and dents is a child of God with great beauty and power. Let’s regularly remind ourselves that if God made us and saved us, He also gave us great inner beauty.

Finally, having come to more deeply appreciate the relationship we have with God and having realized that His grace transforms us, we can look out at life and see the heaven that God wants all people to enjoy. Seeing this we will use our power, love and strength to be transformers of others.

This is and will be real heaven and a true holder of hope for us and our world. Amen.