Pastor Ed Young Jr: 5 Things to Know About Heaven
Texas megachurch Pastor Ed Young Jr. shared five things based on the Bible that can help a Christian understand what heaven is all about. The message was titled, "What in the Heaven is Going On?"
"Everybody wants to know about heaven, and everybody wants to go to heaven," Young, who leads Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, said as he began the sermon.
However, most of us think about heaven as a folklore rather than a fact, he told the congregation, adding that the enemy wants to keep us in the dark about heaven.
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"The Bible gives us just enough information about heaven," Young said. "Heaven is a real place. Heaven is a place of outrageous and contagious joy. Heaven is a place where we will be with Jesus. Heaven is a place where we'll continue our purpose forever and ever."
The pastor added, "If you're wrong about heaven, you are really, really, really wrong."
He quoted Ecclesiastes 3:11, "He has also set eternity in the human heart." But the choice is ours, whether we choose heaven or hell, the pastor underlined.
Young then read Hebrews 11:13, 16, "All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. … Instead, they were longing for a better country — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."
The heaven is not going to be boring or predictable, he said. "It's going to be joyful, joy unspeakable."
He then shared five things about heaven.
One, the location of heaven.
Heaven is a real place, a tangible town, he said. "It's much closer than you think." Heaven is not some far off place, "it's close."
The pastor quoted John 14:2, "My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?"
The word "heaven" is mentioned in the Bible about 582 times in some translations, he told the congregation, and added, we'll have new resurrected bodies in heaven.
Two, the population of heaven.
Heaven is going to be a big place, Young said, and read Revelation 7:9, "After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands"
Worship will be a huge thing in heaven, but worship is not just singing, the pastor clarified. "Worship is everything we do, say, touch and feel. As a believer, you don't come to Fellowship to worship; you come worshipping… So everything we do in heaven will be an act of worship."
Three, the occupation of heaven.
What will we do in heaven? Whatever we like to do here on earth, be it writing or creating or building, we'll perhaps do the same in perfection in heaven, Young said, and quoted Genesis 2:15, "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."
God gave work before sin entered the world, the pastor said. God is a working God. "We are made to accomplish things, we are made to have goals."
Young also read John 5:17, "In his defense Jesus said to them, 'My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.'"
Will people recognize me in heaven? "Yes," the pastor answered.
Four, the communication, or the community, or connectivity, of heaven.
The pastor read 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17, "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever."
As Matthew chapter 22 says we should love God holistically and love others as ourselves, that's what we'll be doing in heaven forever and ever, he explained. "We will be reunited with the loved ones."
Five, the situation of heaven.
The situation of heaven is that if we are right on heaven, "we are very, very, very right," Pastor Young said, and quoted John 14:6, "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
We live here but our citizenship is in heaven, the pastor said. "Heaven is an amazing place… It's full of grace."
