Message Recap
Pastor Megan Marshman continued our series on Heaven today, talking about Earth as Intended. Pastor Megan began by challenging us to live with expectancy because that's the God we worship, an expectant God.
In Revelation 21, John gets a vision of the future, and what he sees is heaven coming down!
1. Heaven Comes Down
Often, we have viewed heaven as an alternative to this life, but the biblical view is really that heaven is the restoration of Earth at the end of time. The New Heaven and the New Earth come down here! And not just the physical world but also our physical bodies. We will have renewed and restored bodies in a renewed and restored earth.
2. God is Making All Things New
We live in a post-fallen world with an understanding of the pre-fallen world. So we know what is good and what is not good, and we walk in that tension daily. Sin entered the world and didn't abolish the goodness of creation but rather tarnished it. When we read Revelation 21, we see that God is in the restoring business, making all things new—that's present tense, He is making all things new now, not re-making things.
3. We Don't Have to Wait for Heaven
Matthew 6:9-13 is the Lord's prayer where we see "your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven" (v. 10). He teaches us to pray for Heaven to break forth on Earth now. We don't have to wait for Heaven, Heaven can come to Earth through us now. How? By bringing dignity to people in our day-to-day lives now.
4. Heaven is for the Thirsty
It's the thirsty ones who are let into heaven, not the "good" ones, because there aren't any "good" ones. There's bad and relatively worse—only the thirsty are let in.
In verses 6-7, he writes, "He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children."
Pastor Megan concluded, what are you waiting for to come thirsty to God?
