Taken from the sermon “Things Above” from the sermon series Finally Home: What Heaven Means for Earth by Mark Vroegop.
We’re walking through the subject of heaven with a handful of articles here on the College Park Church Resources site. This is the first installment.
In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis captures the essence of why it matters what Christians think about heaven:
If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think about the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’; aim at earth and you will get neither.[1]
Lewis is identifying something powerful and transformative in the biblical consideration of heaven as we live on earth. Talking, thinking, and learning about heaven has a profound impact our lives right now.
The Bible talks about heaven, the afterlife, and the future more often than you probably realize, and it serves the purpose of motivating how God’s people live. In fact, I don’t think it would be an understatement to say that what you think of heaven directly impacts how you live.
A biblical understanding of heaven should inform our suffering, our crying, and our funerals. It should affect the songs we sing, the way we worship, how we share the gospel, and how we think about missions. It should change the way we see injustice, sinful actions, and genocide. It should change how we pray, what we pray about, and what we love.
When we study and learn about heaven, we should ask: “If heaven is like this, how should I live now?”
You have probably heard the statement, “They are so heavenly-minded that they are no earthly good.” That can be true. But I fear that statements like this are an overcorrection. Rather, I would argue that many of us are so earthly-minded that we are no heavenly good. As Lewis put it: “Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you get neither.”
Over the course of the next few posts, we’ll explore some thoughts about heaven, why we should care to learn about it, and how it can impact our everyday lives as Christians.
Read the second article in this series, where we will look at 5 reasons to study heaven, or check out the sermon series Finally Home: What Heaven Means for Earth.
[1] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Collier Books, 1960), 118. As cited in Randy Alcorn, Heaven, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2004), 21.
