What the Bible Actually Says About Heaven | Those Who Overcome

☁️ What actually happens when we die?

❤️ Will we still be ourselves in heaven?

🙏 Why does heaven feel so distant when Scripture talks about it like it's our future home?

In this message, Mark Carter explores what the Bible says about heaven, grief, eternity, and the incredible future waiting for followers of Jesus.

When someone we love dies, grief is real. Jesus never asks us to ignore that pain.

But grief isn't the end of the story.

The Bible paints a picture of a future where:
✨ We are fully ourselves without sin
✨ We continue learning and growing
✨ We experience God's presence directly
✨ Justice is fully revealed
✨ Death is defeated forever

Jesus told the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise."

Not someday.
Not eventually.
Today.

If you've ever wondered:
❓ What is heaven actually like?
❓ Will I recognize people there?
❓ What happens immediately after death?
❓ Why do Christians have hope in grief?
This message is for you.

At Fierce Church, we're helping you walk with Jesus step-by-step because The Best U is in Community.

💬 If heaven is real, what's one question you've always wanted answered? Let us know in the comments.

#Heaven #WhatHappensAfterDeath #ChristianHope #Grief #Jesus #FierceChurch #Afterlife #BibleQuestions

Transcript

Why Train Your Mind For Heaven

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This message is not likely to make you not sad if you're sad. But that's not really the point of it. I want to talk to you today about the importance of the habit of thinking about heaven. The importance of the habit of thinking about heaven. Those who overcome. Those who overcome. You know, six times directly and many other times indirectly, in the book of Revelation, Jesus specifically points out those who overcome and what they can anticipate. And overcoming means we persevere in faith, in turning away from the world, and keeping a heart of repentance, which doesn't mean that we do everything right. It just means when we figure out we're doing something wrong, we turn back to Jesus for grace again and again. Those who overcome, they finish their race. And this is some of the things that Jesus says: they will eat from the tree of life. They will have authority over the nations, they will be clothed in white garments, and those white garments are the righteousness of Jesus himself. They're the approval of God, though the whole world condemns you. They will be a permanent pillar in the house of God. They get this, they will sit with Jesus on his throne. Those who overcome, those who just keep going, those who keep running and running and run with endurance all the way up to see Jesus face to face. It's more important than you might think that we regularly think about heaven. It's so important that Paul even commands it in Colossians 3, verse 1 and 2. Since then you've been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind, somebody say set your mind. Set your mind on things above, not earthly things. Man, I wish I had a social media app that you could just scroll heaven all day long. It would do a whole lot better for your soul than scrolling through some of the other junk we scroll scroll through. But it can be a little bit hard to think about heaven, can it? There's so many other messages going on. You know, from time to time, my wife and I, every few years, we'll take a really sweet vacation. Like on a special anniversary, we'll be getting ready. And it'll be months in advance. We're thinking about, dude, we're going to Jamaica and it's gonna be so good. And we're looking at the resort and we're thinking about the beaches, and even as we're going throughout the day, we're not even looking at anything, we're just like, oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, it's almost here. We're thinking about it. And as we think about it, it makes the days a little lighter, makes them a little easier, makes them not quite so tough. If Elon Musk has his way in the 2030s, some humans are going to Mars. They're gonna try to conquer that whole thing. Now, some already are thinking, I hope I'm one of them. I want to go. I want to be one of the ones that goes to Mars, even though they know they'll very likely spend the rest of their lives there. But they're already, if he really does that, I want to go to Mars. Now, hopefully, if you went up and you asked one of those folks, hey, uh, what do you think Mars is gonna be like? And they're like, gee, I don't know. Uh I know it's red. I think it's pretty far away. You'd be like, Are you serious? You're you're going to Mars and all you know is that it's red and that it's far? You're not thinking about this all the time, you're gonna spend the rest of your life there. You're not thinking about this all the time? Those who have trusted Jesus Christ to be their forgiver and their leader, yo, you're gonna spend the rest of forever with him. Are we not thinking about that? Are we not thinking about where we're going? Now it can be a little tough because number one, we're not always sure what the Bible is saying about heaven, and it can even, even when we find stuff, it could be a little bit cryptic. Number two, there's a lot of messages out in the world that are kind of about heaven or after death type things. And so it can be curious, it can be strange. Am I even thinking the right thing? It's hard to think about it when there's so many messages. Back in the old times in the 1900s, we had a certain kind of TV that was very different than today's TVs. Today's, you just plug them into the internet. But in those times, it was more like a walkie-talkie, dude. Like you just had these rabbit ear antenna, and you're just trying to make this thing come in. And sometimes you get kind of the picture, but they're still all kinds of static, and you can't really see clearly what it is you're trying to see. And so you're definitely not gonna find any rest in that. You're not gonna find any entertainment or any enjoyment of watching that. So here's what I

Turning Up Scripture Through The Static

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want to do today. I want to mess with our antenna and tune in to God's word. Somebody say God's word. Tune in to God's word so we can get a crystal clear picture of what it is Jesus says awaits those who overcome. Because at the end of the day, dude, death is still scary. And the suffering that happens here feels a whole lot more concrete than the peace we're supposed to have there. So we've got to study this because if we do, my friends, it's not just the day, it's the weeks, it's the months, it's the years that can be filled with so much more joy and strength and power and vitality because we're learning to picture, baby, this is this is harder, this is where I'm going. Now, I want to make sure to point out, this isn't one of those moments, you know, we just had a death in the church. This isn't one of those moments where I'm like, hey, it's fine, just don't worry about it, just focus on the glories of heaven. That's not what we're saying at all. In God's word, both can be true at the same time, that we can be tremendously grieving over a horrific accident. We're just also opening our eyes to all the things about the universe that are true. And some of the other things that are true, it's not to take away any of the pain, it's just to give us strength and power because the journey for many of us likely is much longer, and we're gonna need strength as we go. So, what we're gonna do, I'm hopeful to stir up some of your passions. We don't have a panoramic view of heaven, there is no app to see it. What there is in the scripture, there's little windows that we can look through. Heaven is being described, and we can look through those windows and say, what can we deduce? What can we know about heaven? And it turns out we can know a whole lot more than you might think. So here's one that you probably are familiar with. I will call this the grand finale. This is the last scene of the entire story. This is the end of the movie of God. This is where God says, and this is how it all wraps up, yo. And it's very encouraging, let's read it together.

New Heaven And New Earth Hope

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Revelation 21, verse 1. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be any mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. I don't know if you notice, but that's actually future heaven that is being described. That's not current heaven. It says it said right there at the top. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and this is so trippy, we don't necessarily think about this. Just to clarify what's happening, God is going to reunite heaven and earth. That's really how they started. The Garden of Eden was heaven also with earth. And now that the curse is completely gone and everything is undone as God and God stands victorious, even with all of his people. And it's an awesome inheritance to know for the rest of forever just how forgiven you were. But it's future heaven, it's not present heaven. Jesus talks really quite a bit more about present heaven or what is sometimes called intermediate heaven.

Present Heaven And No Soul Sleep

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It's the heaven that's happening right now. He says Luke 23, 43, he's on the cross. There's a thief next to him, and the thief says, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Now you got to understand, this thief is about to die. He's aware he's about to die. And he's looking at another dude who looks like he's about to die. And yet he believes, I don't know how you're gonna do it, Jesus. I know I'm gonna die, but somehow you're legit and you're actually still gonna come into your kingdom. And I just want you to know, I believe that and I trust that. And Jesus says to him right there, I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise. Today, today, right now. There's some confusing language in the Bible. It's about what's called soul sleep. Some theorize that when we die, we just sleep for like the rest of time until Jesus returns. That's really not what that passage is describing. When it says we fall asleep, it just means our bodies look like, you know, if you look at a body that just passed away, often they just look like they're sleeping. Rather, the entire council of God's word says, as soon as if you've trusted Christ, meaning if you if we you're what we call saved, meaning you've said, God, there's no way for me to save myself. I trust in the work of Jesus. I just trust you to be my savior, to forgive my sin and take me all the way home. If that is you, then you are assured that day you will be with me in paradise. That's what Jesus says. Paul agrees, he says, Philippians 1.23, he's kind of thinking through, you know, I kind of want to just go to heaven right now. I know it's better for you guys if I stay here, but I'd really like to go. And he says, I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far. It's better, baby. It's better. The present heaven is better by far. What do you know about heaven? Well, I know this. I know it's better by far. Everything that's good about this place, heaven is better by far. There's nothing we've got here that is better than anything there. Everything there is better by far. But let's peek through another window. We're gonna peek through a window into present heaven, into some stuff that is describing what currently is the state of things or the reality of heaven. Now, this is taking place in a time, this is the book of Revelation, this has taken place in a time when many people are being killed for their faith in Christ. And the Apostle John gives us a little unveiling, a little revelation. Here's what it looks like from heaven's perspective. Verse 9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the Word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they've done to us? Then a white robe was given to each of them, and they were told to rest a little longer until the full number of their brothers and sisters, their fellow servants of Jesus, who were martyred, had joined them. This white robe, this is God's public affirmation of their guiltlessness. See, when they were put to death, it was said, You guys are guilty, you guys are are you're scandalous, you shouldn't be worshiping this false God, Jesus. And God weighs in, he says, Don't you worry, I've got you covered, your guilt is gone. And in fact, everybody who trusts Jesus is given a white robe. So that matter, no matter who accuses you on earth, no matter what they say about you, Jesus says, I got you. I got you. You're mine. I defend you. And it's not that you did everything right, but you have Jesus' robe of righteousness. You have Jesus' purity, you have Jesus' holiness

You Without Sin Learning Justice

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and righteousness. So let me let's deduce from this passage some things I really think you and I will love about heaven. Here's number one you'll be you without sin. You'll be you without sin. There's some ideas that float around there of like, you know, dude, you're just kind of like, when you die, you just kind of become a beam of light, or you're kind of uploaded to the, you know, the cloud of souls, and you just kind of lose your identity, you know, you you become like maybe one of those avatar people in the data tree or whatever it is. And we hear all these myths and we can get confused. Am I even still like, is is it, isn't death kind of the end of me? No, not at all. Not according to God's word. First, these folks were under the altar. You see, they're not they're in a very specific place. They're in a spatially distinct place. They're not just kind of like everywhere in the universe, they're there. And they are together. They're both together and they're individuals. Notice some things. They're aware of time. They say, How long, Lord? Meaning they're aware it's not time yet. God, when will it be time? They're aware of time. They're aware of their ability to learn. So they're asking God for information. Hey, would you give us, help us know when are you going to do this? Meaning, I don't know something, but I can learn something. So God tell me what it is I can know. There's even some sense, and I don't want to sit too much on this, but there's some sense that they're aware of what's going on on earth to some degree. They know that the ones who murdered them have not yet come to just to justice, to judgment. I don't know how much people in heaven know about what's on earth, but they at least know something to do with what is happening on earth. They are distinct, they are individuals, they are corporate. You will be you. You remember when Jesus is in, um, he's on the Mount of Transfiguration. And who appears to him? Moses and Elijah. Now the disciples are watching this and they record this, and they know specifically, no, that's specifically Moses and specifically Elijah. It's those two individuals. And it seems like they're buddy, like they're on a mission, they're like buddy cops or something. Like that, they know each other, and they're there and they're encouraging Jesus. When what's even more trippy is their lives, earthly lives, were separated by 1,500 years. And yet they're together, they know each other, people can identify them, and they're encouraging Jesus. You will be you. What does Jesus say? Luke 15, 10. For anyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ, in the same way I tell you, there's more there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Over one. Check it out. Meaning the angels don't throw a party for, well, it's kind of humankind in general. We're gonna throw a party today for that city or you know, for that continent. No, they don't do that. They said, Oh, there was one. That individual is very important to God. So we're gonna have a party about that individual. When I trusted Jesus at 18, there was a party for me up in heaven. I didn't get to go, but there was a party for me. And they were celebrating that I had turned to Christ. If you've turned to Christ, there was a party for you. And they were celebrating not humans, you personally, you and I will be without sin. Check this out Hebrews 12, 23. Now, this pastor who's writing Hebrews, he's really encouraging everybody to be warned. Hey man, don't take the grace of God for granted. But this is what he says you've come to the assembly of God's firstborn children whose names are written in heaven. You've come to God Himself, who is the judge over all things. You have come to the spirits, listen, of the righteous ones in heaven who have now been made perfect. They're in heaven now and they're perfect. Now they've been made perfect. Here's what we're saying Death, dude, it's it's grievous. It's an enemy. And yet, God uses death to complete our sanctification. He makes us perfect. He takes away all the sin that invades your body right now is gone. Think about what makes you you. Your memories. Your history, your personality, your proclivities, the things that are uniquely you. Those things are you. Now let's take away the restraining bolt, okay? Helps to know Star Wars a little bit when you go to fear. A restraining bolt is a thing they put on a droid to keep it from like doing whatever it wants. There's a restraining bolt of sin on each one of us that keeps us from reaching our fullest potential. When you take that restraining bolt off, when you take the sin out, my friends, you're still gonna be you, but you're gonna be more you than you've ever been. You're gonna be like the the ultra-concentrated, beautiful, glorious version of you. You're gonna be the untarnished version of you. To appreciate that though, really, we've got to understand here's what humankind is without, because again, there's myths. There's myths in the air that we've got to undo first. One of the myths in the air is dude, humans are just completely good. They start really good and sometimes they get corrupted and get bad. That's not really how it goes, according to the Bible. Humans start, they're born with the sinful nature inside of them already. Paul says this in Romans 1.21, speaking of all mankind, saying they can look at the sky and the trees and the ocean, and they can deduce there is a God. But listen, Romans 1.21, for even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations. They're just imagining stuff, and their foolish heart was darkened. Echoes the same thing for those that are far from God, Ephesians 4.18. They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, and because of the hardness of their hearts. We all start with spiritual darkness. In fact, the Bible even teaches the more we give ourselves to sin, even when we've come out of darkness, still the dimmer it gets. We begin to slowly return, at least in our thinking, toward darkness. Here's here's something I'm I don't want to offend you, but this is true. The more we give ourselves to evil, we get spiritually dimmer. We get spiritually dumber. So there's sometimes maybe in your life, you used to be spiritually smarter than you currently are, because you were living for God way more radically. And it's okay, all we do, we retent, we repent, we look toward the sun, we say, God, cleanse my mind, take away the spiritual darkness that surrounds me. So these people, these Christians, they're they're under the altar in a specific place, and they can see the system of the world, and they can learn stuff. They want to know, God, what's up with this? You know, there's a certain amount of fun to learning. I know that some of you didn't have very fun school, and so you're like, learning ain't fun. Um, maybe school wasn't fun, but even you think about just something that you learn, even if it's just to catch a fish or to do some new skill, you're like, oh, I can do this now. Especially if you've lived a while and you've gone a few decades not knowing how to do a thing, and then you learn to do the thing, you're like, oh yes, it's fun now to know because now I get the advantage of knowing all this. There's a certain amount of fun to learning. Now imagine that you have a learning capacity with no restraining bolts that you can just keep learning and keep learning century after century, and not like stupid little stuff. You can learn from the greatest intro intellectual minds of all the centuries who can mentor you and teach you, and there's so much to learn now, and the fun just goes on and on, and every day is new. Can you imagine sitting down with David, with Jonathan? Like, hey man, tell me about this. And they let you know. And it's not only that you get it, but your mind is now able to get more, and you just get more and more and more and more and more. That's what it's like for those in heaven. Their learning is released and they've got forever to do it. Now, here's something that's a little bit harder, maybe to hear for some. In heaven, God's justice is way more visible. God's judge- Did you see the way that they cried out to God? Their capacity to understand God's justice was not dark for them. Verse 10, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world? And and to our contemporary ears, it's like, well, you're not supposed to judge anyway. Why would you judge? God steps in as judge, which means he clarifies, this is right, this is wrong. Here's what happens for wrongness, here's what happens for right for rightness. There's no vote on it, like there's no social media poll. God just steps in and says, This is what's actually true. He steps in to judge it. From here, though, we don't always get justice. It doesn't always look like justice. We can't even always see everything correctly. So, for those of you who might be familiar with scuba diving, I was certified uh uh in scuba when I was about 14 years old. You might have heard if you do that around here, some disadvantages might be the places you get to learn it. So it might be that you're in some very dirty water in these parts. Now, here's I'm not saying that's not still fun, maybe I guess, but um you know, in that visibility, you don't even know what's necessarily a few feet away. It might be really cool, it might be really dangerous, but you don't know because. You can't see, baby. It's the same way down here on earth. Things look like justice here, or they look like injustice, but we're really not. We we get justice because of common grace that God gives to humans. We get justice right to a degree. But in heaven we'll see clearly. So this is more of the place I was trained to scuba. And dude, I gotta tell you, it's a whole lot better. Like you can see a whole lot further, and you can see the beauty. And if there were a danger, you'd be able to see it. And from heaven, you'll you and I will be able to see justice clearly what it should be in the earth. And because of that, we won't mind saying, no, that was wrong, and it deserves to be judged. Let me give you a real extreme example. In heaven, you will rejoice when judgment is done and it's righteous. If you heard through the grapevine, you know, Hitler, man, there was just no consequences for what he did, you would be like, what? There must be. There must be an answer for what he did wrong. Well, see, because we live in dirty water, we don't see he definitely gets an answer. Like, there's definitely a judgment for that. But we don't see the judgment that our own sin deserves. Because it's still dirty. We look at our ours and we're like, ah, that's not so bad. If we could see for a moment the horrificness of sin, my friends, we'd fall to our knees and weep. And we'd weep with praise of a Savior who came to take justice for us. Are we hearing that? See, our sin is answered with judgment. It's just that if we've trusted Christ, the judgment is on him instead of us. And so this brings a question. People ask, well, Carter, will we remember our sin in heaven? If it's heaven, wouldn't it be better for me to just forget? Because if I remember my sin, I might be really sad about what I did. I'll make a case to you that you do remember your sin in heaven. The first is because as soon as we come to heaven, there's an audit of sorts, meaning Jesus says, we're audited, we're judged based on our works. We come and we're forgiven. That's what gets us in. But even after we're forgiven, God looks at all the stuff that He has, what did you do with the stuff I gave you, with the opportunities, with the personality, with the gifts, with the chances you had to love people? What'd you do with them? That's what's judged. Well, the fact that there's a judgment at all would imply, oh, well, that there's an audit, dude. You're gonna know what you did wrong. But there's also the holes in Jesus' hands that are forever that you're gonna see, and you're gonna see them every day in heaven. And you're not gonna be like, Well, I wonder what those holes are for. No, you're gonna be that those holes are for my sin. That's what they're for. When we sing the song of the Lamb, we're not gonna forget why he's so worthy. But here's what's gonna happen, my friend. You and I are gonna look at our sin and we're like, yeah, that was really bad. And I will spend the rest of forever hating what that was, but glorying in the God that loves me so much that he would take the penalty for those things so that I could be there. See, here's what everybody in heaven knows, dude. Nobody in heaven belongs there except the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Everybody in heaven's like, what am I doing here? I shouldn't be here. My sin gets me kicked out of here. And yet Jesus Christ died in my place. How loved am I? You ever wonder? Like, I wrestle with self-hate, I don't think anybody likes me. You won't think that then. Dude, you'll be blown away. I'm I'm staggered by the way that God loves me. How else would I be here? Everyone in heaven knows no one deserves to be there. Everybody knows it. Here's one more thing you're gonna love about heaven, I think.

Relationships Reunions And A Welcome Home

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You love that you're still you without sin, but you're gonna enjoy meaningful relationships without sin. This is what the martyrs said. They said, Avenge our blood for what they've done to us. They said in verse 11, the full number of our brothers and sisters aren't here yet. They're aware that they are individuals, but they're also part of another thing. There's other people that they're wanting to be there. In heaven, you retain all of your relationships. They're still happening. And and some of you know that, I mean, I believe relationships can be some of the most enjoyable things on earth. I mean, think about all the all the things you would mostly. I mean, now we take pictures of dessert, but mostly the best pictures are relational interactions, things that were happening with people. Because relationships, dude, they're everything. They're so important. Now take away from those relationships all the sin, all the selfishness, all the self-consciousness, all the hiding, all the insecurity, all the worries that I think I'm too much, or I think I'm not enough, or they're stifling me. All of that is gone. The restraining bolt came off. And now you can love forever and ever deeper and deeper. I mean, think about some of you have these. I've got some relationships, dude, they're long-term, they're now like several decades in. I'm not just talking about immediate family, they're several decades in. And the richness, yeah, we had to fight for it, but the richness that is a part of those relationships, even with sin, is awesome. Wouldn't want to go without it. Now think about you having relationships with people, decade after decade, century after century, and how rich and beautiful that will become because it's there's no sin in it. There's nothing to make it bad at all. It's only delight. Imagine the feeling of, you know that some of you know about this. The moment you fall in love and you're like, woohoo! This person is the greatest person in the universe. Now mix that with someone you've done life with now forever, and you know the deepest things of their soul, and there's such a joy in just being together. Put those together. And my friend, I believe that's the kind of thing we get every day in heaven with all the people that we love. And some of the people that you love, I mean, think about this Moses and Elijah, some of your best 20 friends in heaven might be people, they're definitely of a different race, they're of a different culture, but they might even be from a different time. But you're close, you're friends, and all there is is love overflowing. Yeah, it's pretty doggone awesome. Here's what else is awesome. If you've lost anybody recently, the next time you see them in heaven, if they trusted Christ, for the first time, you're going to enjoy them without sin. You're going to enjoy them with nothing holding you back, with nothing darkening your understanding, with nothing you don't see about one another's hearts. And all the awesome times you had here, oh baby, they're nothing. They're nothing to the times you're going to have with them. It's going to be amazing. There's a book called Imagine Heaven by John Burke. In it, he's reviewing testimonies of people who had near-death experiences. Because we live in a time now where there's really a lot of medicine, a lot of things medically that can be done when someone's like, they've even died. There's sometimes they can be brought back-ish. Now we're not taking our stand on any of these stories. They're not the Bible, so the only thing we take our stand on is the Bible. But there's some similarities within them that I just think are neat to think about. It accesses my Holy Spirit imagination. One consistent pattern in all of these testimonies is there's some version of a gate. Not like a Victorian metal gate, but some boundary that people come up to and folks come out to meet them who knew them and invite them into eternal dwellings. It could be someone they were close to, it maybe could be an ancestor, it could be someone their giving and their serving caused this person to come to Christ and go ahead of them into heaven. And now they're saying, We've been waiting for you. Welcome. We're so excited that you're here. And there's a big party, and I don't know to what degree that's true, but I hope if it's true, I don't know if pastors get to pick anything about this, but I hope if it's true, I want to come to yours if I beat you there. And I hope if it's true, you come to mine if you beat me there. But I can tell you this everyone who dies in Jesus, having trusted Jesus, having said, no, I want to choose Jesus, not choose life without Jesus, everyone who dies that way, the promise to the thief is going to be the same promise that is true to them. This day you will be with me in paradise. Now, Jesus gives us the option. What a savior. He gives us the option to reject his grace and say, nah, Jesus, never mind, I don't want anything to do with you. Or to accept his grace. Now there's consequences for either one. To reject his grace is a really bad idea. Because all the stuff we just talked about, now you don't get any of that. You get the opposite of that. Everything gets way worse. But for those who accept his grace, dude, your inheritance is secure and it's a sure thing for those who overcome. For the thief, it was grace. It was grace that got him in. It wasn't proximity, it wasn't because he was a good thief. It was because in his mercy, Jesus said, That's enough, I'll take it. You trust me, I'll take it. You're coming with me. Sometimes I meet people who, dude, they're even primed, like they're ready, they want to have a deeper relationship with Jesus. They just don't know how. And so, if that's you, can I just walk you through that real quick? Similar to the thief, it starts with love. Jesus looks at you and He's already looked at you and He's loved you. Said, I know what you did. That can't stop me. I didn't need to come down here and die. I came down here and died because I want you. So we start with his love. And we recognize my sin needs an answer. There should be justice for what I've done. And Jesus Himself takes the justice. That's why he was murdered on a cross. And he rises from the dead, and all he wants us to do is admit it, I need a savior. God, I recognize the world's trying to pull me a different way. I it's not that I'm gonna have a perfect score, but I I don't want that. I want Jesus. And so I turn away in my heart and I ask, Jesus, would you remember me? Would you forgive me? I trust you that where you are is where you're gonna take me. That's that's it's so simple. It's not all the bells and whistles, it's not all the rich religious paraphernalia. You don't need to get the book, you don't need to go to the location, you don't need to say this many prayers. All you have to do is say, Jesus, I trust you. And if that's the cry of your heart, my friend, I don't know what day it's going to be. When my friend Jake died, nobody knew it was that day. When Ginny died, nobody knew it was that day. These elders under the altar, they said, How long, Lord? I don't know how long for you. I don't know how long for me. The day just comes for many of us. And so before we get to that day, if you haven't trusted Jesus as your savior and your forgiver, let's just do that right now, man. It's easy, it's free. Let's just do it. Let's bow our heads. God, we want to thank you for the rich testimony of people that went before us. Thank you for models and guides of faithfulness that we can look to and say, Yes, that's how you do it. Each one of those models started falling on their knees and just saying, Jesus, I need you to forgive me. So that's what we do. Lord, we recognize that we've been part of the rebellion, we've been part of the ones that deserve justice, even though we didn't see it clearly that way. We ask that you'd forgive us, and we accept that you took our judgment instead of us, so we would never have to pay it. Thank you. Thank you that you can be trusted that you don't just talk, you actually did rise from the dead. God, we put our whole destiny, whether it's 20 years from now or whether it's tomorrow morning, that we come to be with the Lord. We trust you. You are God enough, you are Savior enough, you are strong enough, you are loving enough to take us to all those treasures and a bazillion besides in heaven. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Final Prayer And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 35:29

All right, folks, that's all the time we have, but thank you so much for listening to this sermon. If you got a lot out of this, feel free to share this with somebody who might need it. Also, there's a ton more content on our website, on our YouTube channel, on our Instagram channel, on our TikTok channel. Feel free to check all that kind of a thing out. Also, if you're interested in leadership type stuff, go ahead and check out another podcast or any other blogs or videos or anything over at BibleLeadership.com. And whatever else you do, make sure that you believe God for something big today.