How Do I Know I Am Going To Heaven?

TRANSCRIPT

I am going to start, this is actually our last week talking about Heaven Who Goes There and I have to tell you a story about what happened with my daughter this week. So we have three kids, we have two boys and a girl. She just turned nine last week, I think a week ago. And this week I was putting her to bed and we did the normal, like we read a book and then we said prayers and then there was the mandatory 10 minutes of back tickles that are required for going to sleep.

And while we were lying there together she said, So mom, you know, babies, you know, that are in their mom's tummy and they haven't been born yet, do they sometimes die? And I said, yeah, sometimes that happens. And she said, so if they haven't had a chance to know who Jesus is and who God is, do they still go to heaven?

And I said, yes, I believe they do because God is fair and he knows they haven't had a chance to make a choice. So yes, and Jesus loved kids. We know that. So yes, I believe they go straight to heaven, these babies. And so we talked about that a little bit and then I was telling her about how there are stories of people who have died and gone to heaven and seen a little bit what heaven looks like.

They've met Jesus and then they come back to life either because they were resuscitated or because they have miraculously just revived. And she was like, What? Like, no one had ever told her this. This is brand new information. And then I said, and sometimes Jesus even visits people here. Like, when they're not even dead.

Like, in their dream, or he just shows up to them, and her eyes are like saucers. Like, this is amazing. And she said, Mum, if you were with Jesus right now, if he was right here, what would you say to him? I was like Okay, give me a minute. This is a pretty big question. I said, I think all I'd be able to say is Jesus, I love you and thank you and I'm so happy to be with you.

Like that's all I could think of. I feel like that's what I would say. She's like, okay, if I was with Jesus, I would say you do miracles, right? Can I have a chocolate frappé? I was like, what is it? Why would you? I know, she's never even had a frappé. I have no idea where that came from. I've never bought her one.

I don't know what that was about. Maybe that, that was it. Maybe she was like, Mum's not going to get me one. But Jesus, I might have a shot with Jesus. I don't know. It was really funny, so we had a laugh about that. And then she was saying, well, if I wanted to meet Jesus, how would I do that? Like, if I wanted him to show up for me.

And I said, I don't really know exactly, but I imagine you could start by just sitting quietly and saying, Hi Jesus, it's me. I'd really like to meet you. Do you think we could make that happen? And then you might have to ask lots of times and maybe it will never happen, but you could just try. And she goes, okay.

All right, Mom, get out. Go, go, go, go. She's like pushing me out of the room. Normally this kid is like 45 minutes of like rehydrating with six gallons of water. All the usual stuff that kids do to avoid bedtime. She's like, get out, Mom. And I said, she's pushing me out. I'm going, you're going to ask Jesus, aren't you?

She goes, yep. She's going to sit there going, come on, Jesus. She's so great. She asks great, great questions. And I really loved that time with her. And I was thinking actually that that's very much like what Jesus was saying. Like just the innocence of kids. And he says, you know, you've got to come to him like a child and, you know, that kind of playfulness that she had.

And I imagine that he would be pretty happy to sit with Josie and say, yeah, I'll get your frat bay Josie, like whatever you want little girl. But I really needed that conversation because I have been very deep in the thick of thinking about this whole topic for the last few weeks. And I wouldn't say that it's challenged me, but something about it has made me feel this odd sense of urgency that I almost couldn't even quite place for a while.

And it made me realize that I sometimes forget to think about heaven. Sometimes I'm so busy doing this stuff every day. I'm raising a family, I'm working, we're running a home, We're married. Like, there's so many boxes to tick every day that I forget that this is not my forever. This is just the passing stuff and the real deal is coming.

And I forget to think about that. And when I was thinking about that and I was kind of going, well, Pauline, are you sure that you know where you're going? Like, are you sure? You know, I really raised that question in me because we only get one shot. And I was thinking, Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it feels like, I think, maybe there's only three options for where we go when we die.

Like, even if you take into account all the different religions and beliefs, I feel like most of them at least would slot into these three different options, which would be that there is a good place that you go where you are happy, or there's the opposite of that, which is a bad place where you go where you are extremely unhappy, or there's just a middle ground, which is that You just cease to exist.

It's just lights out, fade to black. There's no more consciousness on any level. Most things seem to fit into those three. And I was wondering like, am I sure that of those three options, like I'm alive right now, which means that one day not to be Mac carb, I'm gonna die and I'm going to be faced with one of those three options.

Am I sure. that I know that I'm going to the one that I want to go to. And I would even say, and again, I don't, I don't want to be a bummer, but if you're watching this right now, your day is coming too. Are you sure that you know, like, even if you're someone who doesn't believe in God or Jesus or you have, you're agnostic, or you have no faith whatsoever, are you sure that there is nothing?

Are we willing to risk assuming that there's nothing when maybe there's a couple of other options and only one of them is good? So that is what I have been thinking about. That is where this sense of urgency came from. Like, we have to be so sure. We have to know that one day our day is coming and we get one shot at eternity.

Are we sure we know where we're going? And are we so sure in what we believe? You know, we're going to a place that we want to end up in forever. Okay. All right. I'm going to back away from that and go back to happy stuff, which is basically just recapping what Kev shared before that over the last couple of weeks, we've talked about who goes to heaven.

The spoiler alert is it's not good people. You know, we believe that heaven or we're told, especially culturally, it's all in the movies and books and TV. Heaven is a reward for being good. But that's, Jesus has never said that. In fact, he said some of the good people, people we consider good, won't make it to heaven and some of the worst people will.

And then he said that no one is good enough. No one is perfect. Only God is good. And then obviously by extension him as God's son, they're the only ones who are good. All the rest of us will fall short. So just don't try to be good thinking that the reward of that is going to be heaven because that's not the case.

And he also said that Oh, sorry. So it's not good people who go to heaven. It's forgiven people who go to heaven. Okay. That was meant to be my big reveal. Kev said it earlier, so that's fine. We've covered it extensively. It's totally fine. Go on. Just joking. No, all good. So forgiven people go to heaven.

So Jesus said, the only way to God is through me. I have been given the authority to forgive you. So when you come to me and say, Jesus, I know you, I'm not good enough. Can you come and fill in the gap and forgive me? And that is all that's required. There is a full stop after that. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

So if that's what Jesus said so many times over and over again, he could not have emphasized it more. Why then do we keep believing that even, even if we believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and eternity with God, why do we keep believing that then we have to uphold some level of good after that to maintain our entry to heaven?

We think that once we're saved, we have to be some level of good to hold on to that. And I think part of that is that as people, we're so not used to getting something so freely. We're so used to terms and conditions. You get a credit card, it's got 400s of pages of terms and conditions. You're not going to get this if you use the card this way or whatever.

If you get a new job, they're going to say, here's your uniform. Welcome to the team. See you Monday. But if you don't do the job well, and you don't follow our code of conduct, you're fired and you're off the team. Or if you pass your driver's test and they give you a license, they say, congratulations, off you go, welcome to the open road.

Freedom is yours. But if you don't follow the road rules, we're going to take your license and your freedom off you. So we're so used to things having these conditions attached to them that we're not used to the full stop. And then there is a scriptures like what James said, who is Jesus brother.

And he said, faith without deeds is dead. Well, you go, that must seal the deal. Faith. Plus deeds is the only way, otherwise death. And then we have the fact that God gave us six hundred plus rules. We know about ten of them. And they are called what? The ten what? Commandments. I bet even if you've never set foot in a church, you've heard of the Ten Commandments.

They are just everywhere. Again, great plot fodder for movies and things like that. My my family are not Christian. I'm the only one. And my mum knows the Ten Commandments because Charlton Heston played Moses in a 1956 movie called The Ten Commandments, which I grew up watching. So even my mum can recite the Ten Commandments.

So a lot of us know what they are. And we maybe have a tendency to tangle up some of these, this idea of rules around our salvation. That it's salvation plus upholding some level of good to keep our ticket into heaven. Okay, so I want to quickly look at the role of those rules, just so that once and for all we can really untangle that whole idea.

So I'm going to tell you the story of the Ten Commandments. I'm going to try to do it in three minutes or less. Don't time me because I've never timed this. I don't know. But I'm doing this being aware that some of you may never have heard this story in full before. I know that when I first started coming to church, most of what people said went over my head.

So I'm going to try to give you like detail without too much detail. All right, so let's see how we go. So we're going to rewind about three, thousand, three and a half thousand years ago. God speaks to a guy named Abraham and says, I'm going to make you the father of a nation. You're going to have more descendants than you can count.

Abraham. And that happens. He has a huge family. His grandson, Joseph takes his family and moves them to Egypt where they continue to multiply massively. There is a pharaoh in power at the time who says, these people are out, they're going to outnumber us. They're growing so fast. So he feels threatened. And he says, now from now on, all of you people who are called the Israelites, all of you are now going to be slaves to Egypt.

Who's trying to subdue them. Then, 400 years later, he sends a guy named Moses to go and speak to the Pharaoh that's then in power. And the message that Moses gives to Pharaoh from God is, These people, the Israelites, are my people. I am God. Let my people go. Pharaoh says no, multiple times, and every time he does, some new horrible thing happens to Egypt.

On the last time that Pharaoh says no, God says, all right, all you people of Israel, go into your homes tonight, put a smear of lamb's blood on the door, and then whatever is going to happen tonight in Egypt, your home will be passed over and you and your household will be safe. Pharaoh wakes up the next morning, sees the devastation across Egypt for every household except the ones with the lamb's blood.

And he says to Moses, take these people and take your God and get out of Egypt. So the people leave Egypt as free people following Moses out of Egypt. Now this was not a ragtag bunch of 5, 000 slaves. This was somewhere like one to two million people. It is an exodus. It is a mass migration out of Egypt.

This horde of people leaves and they walk for months to get to a place called Mount Sinai. Which is where Moses goes up on the mountain and God gives him two big stone tablets with the first ten rules on it. And he says, go down and give this to the people and start to teach them how to live the way I want them to live.

How's that? How's that? Was that pretty good? Okay, great. You probably know if you know the story, you know, I left out some of the details, but I giving you the overview. Okay. I wasn't doing that for applause, by the way. It's just time. So let's look at why God gave them those commandments and why he gave them to them to the church.

Like, why at that point in time? So, the reason I'm telling you that story is because I want you to have the context. Because context is really important. These people coming out of Egypt, it had been 400 years. Every single one of them had been born into slavery. They had no idea what life looked like otherwise.

So you've got a million plus people moving together with no idea how to function as a society. And the only influence they've ever had is Egypt, ancient Egypt, where they've been indentured servants for their whole lives. If they were old enough to walk, they were old enough to work. And so they don't know how to function.

So if you imagine for a second, if we scale this right down and we say right now, today, you've got triplets. You just had triplets. Congratulations. Does anyone have triplets? Oops. No, so we've got no frame of reference here, but imagine you had triplets in your home, and you just went, you know what? Oh, you're such free spirits.

Just do whatever you want, and you let these triplets just raise themselves, figure it out on their own, pot of boiling water on the stove. No problem. Just see what happens. You want to eat the cat's tail? Fabulous. You know, oh man, let's just try it all out. No, that would make you what a very irresponsible parent to expect your children to know how to raise themselves and how to live.

And you would give those children and your home rules, not because you want to be an overlord to your children. Discipline is the worst part of parenting. You give them the rules to keep them safe, to teach them how to grow into being really good people who have values and you're doing it to protect them.

And that's what God did to these kids. this nation of slaves, which he gave them these rules, like a civil law, basically, to say, operate within this. and I'll show you how to live really, really well. It was a he actually calls it a covenant. It was an agreement. He was saying, I am God. I love you. I'll take care of you.

You follow this and I'll give you a life that you just cannot even imagine could be possible for you. That's what he was doing with those rules. And he did it to protect them and to prepare them because they had years and years and years ahead of them to journey. And along the way to get to this place that God had said to them, this is where you're going to set up shop.

They had to battle their way there. He was preparing them for what was to come as well. He was getting them ready. So Moses actually says God says this to Moses, Moses relays it to them in Deuteronomy. He says, walk in obedience to all that the Lord God has commanded you. So he's saying, follow these rules so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you'll possess, that you're heading towards.

He's not saying follow these rules so that I'll love you or follow these rules so that whatever you'll have a relationship with me He's saying follow these rules for your own good because you'll be and he's not being prosper like whoa You're gonna be in the money because they didn't have any money He's saying you'll be rich in your own life Because the thing about the rules that God gave them is that they were absolutely revolutionary Like we look back and we go or shout not kill duh Of course, you shouldn't kill someone.

But if you go back to where these people came out of, they came out of Egypt. These ancient, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, Greece. Human sacrifice was normal. It was expected to appease the gods. So to suddenly say to these people, no, we're going to value all life. Women, children, everyone now has value. This was mind blowing.

Their wigs were puffing off at this point, going, what is happening? And then he said things to them like, I am the only god. Again, coming from a place where there were hundreds of gods and goddesses in some of these ancient cultures for everything. And that's what they would worship. So to say there's only one God was enormous.

That was such a mindset shift for these people. And the same thing, he said, don't have idols. They had never experienced a God who did not need to be contained in an idol that you had to give an offering to. Completely amazing. And then he said one that if you ask someone to recite the 10 commandments, they will never remember this one.

Keep the Sabbath. We don't think about it because now we have weekends. But he was saying to them, the Sabbath is work for six days, take the seventh day off. And he brings it back. God says, you know, like I did, I created everything in six days on the seventh day I rested. And I want you to do the same because remember these people had never had a day off in their lives.

They could not remember rest. So he was saying to them, honor yourselves and take this time to rest and maybe be with me in this time. So he was not trying to make bad people good with some rules. If he wanted to do that, he would have given the rules to Abraham right at the very beginning and said, make sure you raise your people like this.

He didn't do that. He gave it to them when they were free people. And he's saying, this is now the life I want from you moving forward. He was keeping his free people free. He was giving them a new kind of freedom. And a lot of what we do today is based on what he gave to them back then. It was so revolutionary.

He didn't give it to them to establish relationship with him. He did it because he was already in a relationship. He was saying, I love you. I loved you so much that I pulled you out of Egypt and I've given you this kind of freedom. He has always put relationship before rules. We can go right back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve and see that he put relationship first.

He's always put love before laws because he cares about you so much more than anything else. And the law also showed us those 10 odd commandments also showed us We can't be perfect. There is no level of good that we can reach. We have to have God on our side, and we have to trust Him. And Jesus said the same thing.

1500 years later, He's talking to His disciples, His friends who've been following Him, and they say, well, Jesus, who can be saved? Because Jesus had just said it's hard to be saved. And they said, well, who can? And he said, well, with people, it's impossible. You try to do it on your own. You try to tick the boxes.

You won't get there, but with God, all things are possible. All people can be saved. All things that you've done can be forgiven. Everything through God. You try to do it on your own. It's really, really hard. So then if we talk a little bit more about Jesus, Jesus is sitting at a table with his friends.

There's 12 of his friends there and they're having a big feast. And at some point in the night, Jesus picks up a cup and it's full of wine. And at this point he would normally have said, God, we're going to drink this wine to remember that you delivered your people out of Egypt, that you passed over the homes with the lamb's blood on the door, and we're going to drink this wine remembering what you did for those, for our people so long ago.

That's what would normally happen. This was the celebration called Passover, which had been celebrated every year for 1500 years. Except this time, Jesus picks up the cup and instead of saying what he would, what should normally be said, he says, From now on, this is paraphrased, but from now on, you're going to drink this in remembrance of me.

He's just hijacked Passover, right? Something they have been celebrating for 1500 years. He now says, no, no, no, no more. Now it's about me. This is as if someone popped up in December and said, from now on guys, we're going to celebrate my birthday. Not Jesus. This is the equivalent. This is the same thing that he was doing.

And so he goes on to say, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you. He uses the word covenant, which is the same thing that God said when he gave the first laws out. Now Jesus is saying the old covenant has been fulfilled. Now we're in the new covenant, which is me dying for you.

So what God did for his people 1500 years ago, which is now 3000 something years ago for us what he did for them Whatever time ago now he's doing for the whole world through Jesus. This was huge Now everyone has the chance to eternal life in heaven with him So when we say heaven who goes there, it's people who recognize what Jesus did for them and ask Jesus, I know I'm not good enough.

Can you forgive me? Can I be part of your family? Forgiven people, not forgiveness plus being a certain amount of good after that. The rules had a place and a reason, but they're not a requirement for heaven. Forgiveness, forgiven people go to heaven. And I want to be really clear about this distinction.

I'm going to say this a couple of different ways. Jesus says, He's very, very clear that when we follow him, we should go out and we should love people and we should help people and we should show them who Jesus is. So they in turn can learn what he did and make a choice for themselves to be forgiven.

But the things that you do and those actions don't determine your salvation. So in other words, you will have a place in heaven if you love Jesus and are forgiven by him full stop, but you will go out and do good things. because of Jesus in you. That's exactly what Pastor Kev was saying. Your life will become a love letter to Jesus because of him, not because I have to do those things, but because you love Jesus.

And that's the outpouring. And that is what James was saying when I said that scripture in the beginning. Faith without deeds is dead. If we become people who chop the beginning and ends off scriptures, you will always be, whatever, misinformed. You will always misunderstand it. You've got to read the whole thing.

I won't read the whole thing, but I want to read the sentence that he says after that, where he says, show me your faith without deeds. And I will show you my faith by my deeds. So he's saying, I love Jesus. So my deeds are going to show you that I love Jesus. But if you say you have faith and nothing about your life changes, then your faith is a dead faith.

It is not a real, true love for Jesus. Does that make sense? Can we put that to bed forever? Right. It is not faith plus deeds equals salvation at all. Okay. I'm almost done, but I want to say this. I'm not almost done. I've got one other whole thing to do. But, so, strap in. Alright, sorry. I'm almost done with section one.

God has always and still does today, it's the same God that's existed forever, He has always and still does value His relationship with you over any rules. He wants everyone to go to heaven. He created heaven as a place for us to go to be with Him. He wants you to be there. It says in 2 Peter. That his will is that no one should perish, that no one should miss out, but that everyone would go to heaven to be with him.

We only get a few decades here. And that's not enough time for Him. And there's so much distance between us and Him here on earth. He's like, come on, let's go spend eternity together. So even if people can't stand to be in a room with you for one hour, God wants you forever. Like He wants you to be there with Him for all of eternity, living with Him in His peace, in His love, in His joy.

He did that for you. But He is also a God who has always allowed us to choose. He is not going to force you to go to heaven. It's our choice, which if we come back to those three potential outcomes, means that it is our choice to decide where we want to go. And when I was 19 and I was sitting in this church and I didn't know anything about God and Jesus and it all was going over my head.

Someone said who wants to know more about Jesus and I went Okay And guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened. There was no lightning and thunder. There was no judgment day Someone handed me a book and I started reading a book and then I learned a little bit more So i'm saying if you want to find out more If you don't know yet for sure where you're at or if maybe you've believed that there is nothing and now you're going You Maybe, there might be something.

Please just ask the question. Ask the person who brought you. Come and ask me. Ask someone who's over at the what's next section over there. Like, just ask the question. Because that's all it takes. I'm so glad I asked the question. Okay. I'm going to read something to you. This is out of a book called Imagine Heaven.

This guy interviewed well over a thousand people about their experiences visiting heaven. This guy, you can find all of his story all over YouTube. You can find it anywhere for free. Now I can't verify for sure that this happened, but I know that this story and all the other ones compiled by this person line up with scripture and also it can be verified by some person.

Details in it by other people around it. I won't go into all that. I don't have time. So I'm going to read this to you. This is a guy named Ian McCormack. You might have even heard his story before. He was 26 years old when this happened in the late 1980s. He was on a surfing safari around the world and he was diving in Mauritius and he swam through a school of box jellyfish.

Do you know how many box jellyfish it takes for you to die? One, he was stung by five. He had no wetsuit on, straight onto his skin, and then he went to a hospital that did not have the facilities to help a man recover from a box jellyfish sting. This was back in the 80s in Mauritius. So this is what happened to him.

He is in the ambulance at this point. I'm just going to read like an excerpt of it. He says this, my thoughts were racing. I'm too young to die. Why did I go diving? I lay there wondering what would happen if I died. Is there anything after I die? Where would I go if I died? Then I saw a clear vision of my mother.

It was as though she was speaking out those words that she had spoken so long ago. Ian, no matter how far from God you are, no matter what you've done wrong, if you cry out to God from your heart, he will hear you and he will forgive you. In my heart, I was thinking, do I believe that there's a God? Am I going to pray?

I've almost become a devout atheist. I didn't believe anybody yet. I was confronted by this vision of my mother. And another I actually watched a whole video of his. He says he could see his mother in the ambulance. It wasn't in his mind. He could see her praying as he was in this ambulance. He says Ian found out later that his mother had been roused awake from a dream showing her that Ian was dying at the very same moment and there in New Zealand she prayed for her son with all her might.

Ian recalls, I didn't know what to pray or who to pray to, which God, Buddha, Kali, Shiva, there are thousands of them, but I didn't see Buddha or Krishna or some other God or man standing there, I saw my mother and my mother followed Jesus Christ. I wondered what I should pray. The Lord's prayer his mum had taught him came to mind, but he couldn't remember it.

As the poison pressed deeper into his brain, Ian desperately pleaded with God to help him remember. Forgive us our sins came up in his mind. God, I ask you to forgive my sins, but I've done so many wrong things, Ian said. I don't know how you can, but please forgive me of my sins. And then he slipped away.

At first Ian found himself fully alive, but in utter darkness that terrified him. He actually goes on to describe that a little more. I'm going to skip that. , and then he says, I was weeping by now and I cried out to God, why am I here? I've asked you for forgiveness. Why am I here? I've turned my heart to you.

Why am I here? Then a brilliant light shone upon me and literally drew me out of the darkness. I could see that the source of the light was emanating from the very end of a tunnel. It looked unspeakably bright, as if it was the centre of the universe, the source of all light and power. It was more brilliant than the sun, more radiant than any diamond, brighter than a laser beam, yet you could look right into it.

As I was being translated through the air, I could see successive waves of thicker intensity light break off the source and travel up the tunnel towards me. The first wave of light gave off an amazing warmth and comfort. It was as though the light wasn't just material in nature, but was a living light that transmitted an emotion.

Waves of light passed into me and filled me with love, acceptance, peace, like I had never felt before. I came to the end of the tunnel and seemed to be standing upright before the source of all the light and power. My whole vision was taken up by this incredible light. It looked like a white fire, or a mountain of cut diamonds sparkling with the most indescribable brilliance.

As I stood there, questions began racing through my heart. Is this just a force, as the Buddhists say, or karma, or yin and yang? Is this just some innate power or energy source, or could there actually be someone standing there? I was still questioning it all. As I thought these thoughts, a voice spoke to me from the center of the light.

It was the same voice I'd heard earlier in the evening, guiding my prayer. The voice said, Ian, do you wish to return? I didn't want to return, but I remembered my mother. She needed to know that I was okay. And the response from this person was, if you wish to return, Ian, you must see in a new light, a heavenly light.

I remembered being given a Christmas card which said, Jesus is the light of the world. And I knew this was Jesus. He is light. He knew my name and he knew the secret thoughts of my heart and mind. And I thought, if this is Jesus, then he must be able to see everything I've ever done. I felt totally exposed and transparent.

You can wear masks before other people, but you can't wear a mask before God. I felt ashamed and undone. My first thought was that this light was going to cast me back into the pit. But to my amazement, a wave of pure, unconditional love flowed over me. It was the last thing I expected. Instead of judgment, I was being washed with pure love, pure, unadulterated, clean, uninhibited, undeserved love.

It began to fill me up from the inside out. I proceeded to tell him about all the disgusting things I'd done under the cover of darkness, but it was as though he'd already forgiven me and the intensity of his love only increased. In fact, later God showed me that when I'd asked for forgiveness in the ambulance, it was then that he forgave me and washed my spirit clean.

I found myself beginning to weep uncontrollably as the love became stronger and stronger. It was so clean and pure, no strings attached. This love was healing my heart and I began to understand that there is incredible hope for humankind in this love. I was so close, I wondered if I could just step into the light and see him face to face.

As I stepped in, it was as if I'd come inside veils of suspended, shimmering lights, like stars or diamonds giving off the most amazing radiance. And as I walked through the light, it continued to heal the deepest part of me. Standing in the center of the light stood a man with dazzling robes reaching down to his ankles.

I could see his bare feet. The garments weren't man made fabric, but were like garments of light. As I lifted my eyes up, I could see the man with his arms outstretched, as if to welcome me. I looked towards his face. It was so bright, it seemed to be ten times brighter than the light I'd already seen. It made the sun look yellow and pale in comparison.

It was so bright that I couldn't make out the features of his face, but I knew that I was standing in the presence of Jesus. No one but the Son of God could look like this. Ian came back, he has more to his story than that. In the end he does say he wants to go back because he needs his mum to know that he did not go to hell that day.

And he went back into his body after 20 minutes. being dead. The doctors had not been resuscitating him. He literally just woke up a corpse. And then he was in incredible pain from the poison still in his body. And he said, God, if you want me to go out and tell my story and tell people about heaven, then I need to be healed.

Can you please heal me? And he said he had waves of electricity going through his body. And two hours later, he got up and he walked out of the hospital and he has spent the last 40 years traveling around telling hundreds of thousands of people that heaven is a choice for them if they go and follow Jesus and ask to be forgiven the way that he was.

And I want to pull out a couple of things from his story. The first one is please pray for people because we see in this the power of a praying person from his mom. And I've actually watched his mom's story about this. Get tissues ready. You will not make it through it. It's so sad. And the other one is that We can see from this a perfect example of exactly what Pastor Kev was sharing about that man who was on the cross.

He didn't have time to be good and neither did Ian. He was in the hospital dying when he gave his life to Jesus knowing that he had done everything that we would consider bad. And God said I forgave you in that ambulance. You can tell me all the bad things you've done, but i've already forgiven you. And the other thing is that, that love that he talks about, that's all throughout scripture.

It's all throughout the things that Jesus said that that is the love that is waiting for us. It's actually the love we have now, but in our human body, we just don't have the capacity for it. But once we leave here, we get to step into that depth of love and peace that is so unconditional. We just cannot even understand it.

Where we are now. This is not home. This is so temporary and our home is still coming. And that is something to celebrate. I mean, I feel like, how am I not waking up every morning going, I am one day closer to heaven. I am one day closer to this eternal home. That is beyond anything I could imagine. This is so unbelievably exciting and it's so, like just joy filling of our spirit to know that that is what we have.

And all we have to do is go to Jesus and say, forgive me. I know I can't be good enough on my own. And I remember when I've said to my husband, when I die,

you can miss me, but don't be sad for me because I'm exactly where I want to be. When I was 19 and I was sitting in a pub reading, Matthew or something. And I remember having such a sudden understanding of who Jesus was. It just, I don't even know how it happened, but I remember my first thoughts were, I want to meet this man.

Now it was 25 years ago and I still maintain that the only thing I want for my life is to meet Jesus. So don't miss me when I'm gone. And that should be something that we're able to say to everyone. It's goodbye for now. I'll see you later. And let's rejoice that we know that we have heaven. We were reading in our devotions this week.

Jesus was saying, don't store up stuff here because this is so temporary. It can be taken away from you. Store up your treasure in heaven. Keep looking at that because heaven changes everything. It changes the way that we live day to day. It gives us that sense of urgency. I have to tell people about this because they're going to miss out on their choice.

And we need to celebrate that this is what we have coming for us.

I have asked the team to sing a really happy celebration song because I knew that this might be a little bit of a weird downer slash happy thing. So I said, let's sing a song that celebrates what Jesus did for us, that we have been saved, which means that we have asked Jesus for forgiveness. We are part of his family.

Heaven is coming for us. And please, if you don't know, please come and talk to me. Please ask someone. It costs you nothing. There is no risk in asking a question, but it can cost you a lot if you don't know yet where you're going. Okay. All right. I'm going to say the fastest prayer. These guys are going to sing an amazing song we haven't done for a while called I thank God.

And then we're going to stand up together and we're going to sing together. Okay. Can we do that team? Can we raise the spirit? Okay. All right. Let's do it. Okay. Thank you, Jesus, for everything that you have done for the whole world. of what you have given for us from the beginning. You had such a plan and that plan was always for us to be with you in heaven.

And that is something that we can celebrate and know that as we're going through every day, that that is the end for us. That is where we're going to go, that it is. It's such a graduation from here to go and be with you for eternity in a place that you have prepared for us to do that. And I pray that we would just have this constant understanding, this, this awareness of what's coming for us that changes the way that we, that we live, that we have.

Such a joy knowing that no matter how hard this life is, the eternity with you is coming for us. And we just want to say thank you so much, Jesus, for what you did. That you gave your life for us to make a way for us to be with you for eternity. Thank you, Jesus, in your name. Amen. Thank you, everyone.