Heaven Will Be Like…

Revelation 21:3, Matthew 18:20

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Hello. Today we’re going to read a portion of the Revelation of Jesus to Saint John from chapter 21, verse three. He says,

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. (Revelation 21:3)

This the Word of the Lord. We as Christians, we like to talk about heaven a lot. I get the question a lot too. What’s heaven going to be like? And really the answer is we don’t know. We have pictures. Sure. Like you can think of the beautiful city that has an amethyst colored street or gates made out of pearls and the foundation made of jewels and gems. But those are all symbols. Symbolic language. Really. All we can say about heaven is it’s going to be beautiful. We’re going to be happy. And maybe more than all of that, we can say that God is going to be with us.

Now, when we think about our sin, that’s really what makes it impossible for us to really understand what heaven is going to be like. We’re broken, we’re not perfect. And that too, that sin, that reality of our own failings, can make that idea that God is going to be with us really kind of scary because how is God going to look at me when He sees me? How am I going to appear in his eyes?

But we also have a promise. Jesus says this in Matthew, chapter 18, verse 20,

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. (Matthew 18:20)

Where Jesus is among us, with us, He came down into our flesh. He came down into the dirt where we are with our sin corrupted flesh. He took that sin unto himself and died with it. So now where we gather around his word, around his sacraments, he is there with us, not in wrath, not to judge us over our sin, but to offer us a word of consolation and comfort, to offer us forgiveness in that word and those sacraments, because he took it all onto himself. And that right there where we gather with other Christians around the word and the sacraments is already a glimpse of what heaven is going to be like. Only in heaven it’s going to be far more glorious where God is with us, with a joyful, cheerful countenance, looking upon us in mercy and in grace and in love, because we are made perfect by him through that word and sacraments. And we enjoy that for eternity. That’s what heaven is going to be like.