Michael Youssef - The 8 Beautiful Facets of Heaven
I don't have three points to talk about the beauty of heaven. No, I have eight, and that is actually condensing from what could have been many. So, fasten your seatbelt as we go on this amazing journey to look at these eight facets of the beauty of heaven. It's like a diamond or a ruby or like an emerald. It's like a precious stone. It's exquisite with color, sparkling in its beauty. Revelation 21 describes the foundation of the heavenly city in terms of precious stones, sapphire, agate, emerald, onyx, ruby, and more.
John said that its walls of jasper which made of magnificent colors, indescribable, the city structure, actually, made of gold. He said, "Pure gold like glass". As I told you in the last message, all of these things about the beauty of heaven, all of these things, all these exquisite description of it, these striking physical descriptions of heaven do not throw me anywhere, anywhere, anywhere near the deeper reality of heaven. The deeper reality of heaven. And this deeper reality is what I call the eight facets of the beauty of heaven.
Let's look at number one. First of all, the Bible said we're going to have an uninterrupted fellowship with Jesus. Uninterrupted. Hear me right, please. Every other facet in heaven pales in approximation to this one. We will be in his presence continuously. We will be experiencing an unending, an unbroken fellowship throughout all of eternity. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 12, Paul tells us, "Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; but then we shall see him face to face. Now I know in part," oh, "but then I shall know him fully, as I'm fully known".
Now, later in this series, I'm gonna show you what the Bible says about the new heaven and the new earth. But for now, for now, I want to talk about the present heaven. The present heaven. And I'm gonna show you the difference. The present heaven, or paradise, where the believers go the moment they close their eyes in death. When we say that our loved ones who knew and love Jesus have gone into heaven, we are referring to paradise or the present heaven. Yeah, the book of Revelation revealed to us, that's why it's called Revelation, 'cause it reveals to us. It reveals to us the present heaven, the beauty of the present heaven, the awe-inspiring place that's called heaven.
And that is why Jesus, Paul, and John all call it paradise. This is the heaven of which Ezekiel in Ezekiel chapter 1, verse 1 says, "The heavens were opened and I saw a vision of God". This is the heaven of which the apostle Paul had the privilege of seeing. In 2 Corinthians chapter 12, verse 4, he said, "I heard inexplicable," can you say that word with me? "Inexplicable things that no one is permitted to tell". Until the new heaven appears, the present heaven is a place of reunion, it's a place of communion, it's a place of rejoicing, and I can't wait to get there.
God in his sovereign will, in his sovereign will, he allowed John and Paul to see it in order to testify to it. But also, God brought down Moses and Elijah in their glorified body to the Mount of Transfiguration. You remember? Three disciples with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Moses and Elijah, in their transformed body, in their glorified bodies, appear on that Mount of Transfiguration, Saul was not asleep. Jesus brought them in deliberately, why? In order to show the disciples and to show us that we, too, are gonna be in a glorified body in heaven just like them. Amen. Give God glory. And so, the first facet of heaven, uninterrupted fellowship.
The second facet of heaven is that we're gonna rest from our spiritual battles. Revelation 14:13, John writes, "When I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.' 'Yes,' says the Spirit, 'they will rest from their labor, and their work will follow them.'" We are not going to be idles in heaven. I'm gonna show you in a minute. That's not what the text is saying, that we're gonna be sitting idle, no, no, no, no. We are not going to be "hanging out" in heaven, but we're going to rest from Satan's continuous oppression and opposition.
We will rest from his spiritual attack. We will rest from all of satanic activities that seem to be on the increase today. We will rest from the opposition that we face as Christians, especially today. We will rest from a constant wrestling with temptation. That's the kind of rest we're talking about. You know, in the Old Testament, God did not establish the Sabbath for golf. Hello. God did not establish the Sabbath for the beach. The Bible said God created the world in six days and he rested on the seventh day. Was he exhausted?
Was he, "Whew, I'm tired now. I'm gonna rest". No. He's talking about the rest of satisfaction. The rest of contentment. That's the kind of rest he's talking about. And the Sabbath is a day in which we take our minds off of every day's plans, of our business activities so that we may focus on God, so that we may focus on his majesty, on his dominion, on his his power, on his mercy, on his grace and his love for us. That's what the Sabbath rest is all about. In heaven we will have an eternal Sabbath, an eternal rest, eternal contentment, and eternal peace, where we will be spending all of our time free from all the earthly struggles, from worries, from anxieties, and from all sorts of temptations.
The third facet of heaven is serving Jesus in heaven. Serving Jesus in heaven. I know that some people think that in heaven, we're gonna be just sitting on the beach, sipping iced tea or something, I don't know. Revelation 22, verse 3 tells us, "The throne of God and the Lamb will be in that city and," get this. Get this. Don't miss this. "And his servant will serve him". We're not gonna be idle. In heaven we will be honored and privileged to serve Jesus full time, all the time.
In our transformed, resurrected bodies we'll be spending mental energy and mental capacity comprehending the incomprehensible love of God. And listen, that serving, it's not going to be begrudging. No, it's going to be joyful. It's going to be enthusiastically. And it's not gonna be, we're gonna feel like it's a chore or a burden. No, we're not gonna get fatigued or tired or exhausted in the service of God. No. Instead, we will serve God gladly and joyfully with deep, deep, deep gratitude for redeeming us. We will be so grateful because we will see things as they ought to be seen. We will experience an ultimate fulfillment which eludes us here on this earth. What kind of service will it be?
You know, the Bible gives us just a hint. Just a hint, doesn't give us a lot of the info, but just a little hint what our service for Jesus in heaven will be like. You want to know it? We're gonna reign and rule with him. We're gonna reign and rule with him. In 2 Timothy 2:12 it says that "if we endure," say that with me, if, "We will also reign with him". Revelation 20, verse 6 tells us that "we will be priests of God and of Christ and we will reign with him". Jesus, in his parable of the servants, he tells us that those who serve faithfully in this life will hear from the lips of Jesus, "Well done. Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful on few things. Come and share in your Master's happiness".
The fourth facet of heaven is full knowledge. Full knowledge. Oh, in this life I know we're all full of questions. I know. We're all full of... why do the righteous suffer? Why does the innocent suffer? Why the wicked appears to be prospering? Why children sometimes experience incurable diseases? Why do earthquakes and floods and hurricanes devastate lands and kill people? On and on and on and on, we are full of questions. In heaven we will have full knowledge and complete understanding of all mysteries. Can I get an Amen?
1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 12. "Now we know in part; then I shall fully know, as I am fully known". Why? Because we will see all things through God's eyes. We see things from God's perspective. We will have no need for questions. We won't have any questions when we get there because we will understand justice from God's point of view. We will understand free will and God's sovereign election from God's point of view. We will be able to think of God's thoughts after him because we will finally have the God's view of reality. Now we don't.
The fifth facet of heaven is righteousness and beauty reign. In heaven, we will live holy and righteous life. We're going to live pure lives. God is going to replace our sinful, fallen minds and hearts with pure ones. Question. How do you know that your name is written in the book of life? How do you know that? Well, the first step, and only the first step, is to come to the realization that I'm a sinner and I'm sinned against God. I cannot save myself, I need the Savior, and I go in humility and in brokenness ask for the one who took my sin upon that cross to redeem me, to save me eternally.
That's the first step. But you have to live the rest of your life loving Jesus and hating sin because the first step does not stop there. It cannot stop there, it must not stop there. But you spend the rest of your earthly life rejecting, not normalizing sin. That's how you know your name is written in the book of life. One of the great indication of salvation is not sunlessness. That's never gonna happen in this life, so get that out of your system. It's not sinlessness. Only Jesus was sinless.
That's why the Bible said, "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we," do what? "Confess". And so, you have to live the rest of your life hating sin deep down. Not only just hating sin in my life, but also deep down, you're longing for purity, you're longing for righteousness. Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger for righteousness". Those, when they sin, they cannot wait to confess and repent. Deep down we long and love holiness and separation from sin.
The sixth facet of heaven is abundance, abundance. Revelation 22:1 and 2 describes the river of water as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood a tree of life bearing 12 fruits, yielding fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Now, let me give you an interpretation, explanation, of this metaphor. This is a metaphoric language.
I want to explain it to you. In that city, there are no cemeteries because there is no death. In that city, it's a city without hospitals because there'll be no illnesses or diseases there. In that city, there has no mental institutions because there are no depression, no sadness, no sorrow, no stress, no anger there. The first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation, they mirror each other. They mirror each other. The latter city will replace the garden of Eden. In other words, God will restore his creation to even better and more abundant state than the original Eden. Listen to me, Genesis 1 and 2 shows us God's act of creation. In Revelation 21 and 22 shows us God's act of recreation.
The seventh facet of heaven, continuous glory. A little while ago, I was explaining what glory is in the Bible and several of you came on afterward and thanked me because they said, "With the word glory is such", people are confused about it. That's why I'm gonna keep hammering it away until you get it. So many people in the church, when you start talking about glory, and they do talk about glory, but if you ask them, "What does that mean"? You get, they draw a blank. Others misinterpret the word glory altogether.
So, what is it? You ready for it? It is a full revelation of God's character. Glory is the revelation, full revelation, of God's character. And that is why Jesus, in his high priestly prayer, in John chapter 17, in that high priestly prayer, he said, "Father, glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you". God the Son asking God the Father to shine through God the Son from the cross. Ah, in heaven, we will see the full revelation. The full revelation of God's character. We can't fully comprehend it now, it would be impossible. I actually, sometimes I try to imagine if God ever reveals his true glory.
I'm telling you, we'd be incinerated. His purity will incinerate us in this body of sin. But there in heaven, we will experience the glory of God ourselves. We will have the characters of God, the presence of God, we're going to experience that in a way we could never, never, never, never, never see it or experience it in this world. "When Christ who is our life appears, then you will appear with him in glory". In other words, the full revelation of the character of God, going to be our character. That boggles my mind. Everything that God is, everything that God has, he will share with us, including his character.
Eight, continuous worship. Continuous worship. I need to stop and explain this because through the years people have really misunderstood, they messed this thing up, because they thought is gonna be like one of those boring church services, 11 o'clock service, continuously. Worship comes from the word "worth" or the word "honor". And that is why worship is a way of life, magnifying worldly, lifting up, showing what God is worth to us. It is all-consuming expression of the worthiness of Jesus. And that is why Revelation 19 gives us but a tiny, tiny, tiny glimpse of how they were, from every tribe, from every nation, from every tongue, they will be standing before the throne of God, praising him, thanking him for redeeming us. Will you be there? Will you be there?