uncommon eternity we are looking forward to an uncommon eternity and I want to show you that by answering this question what happens when you die oh it's about to go down in church today what happens when you die is there just nothing the lights go off and that's it is it the gra Beyond like at the end of gladiator in the fields of gold with the horses kind of sounds nice do you go collect $200 get reincarnated and go around again these are some common answers to the question what happens when you die do we
become chubby babies and holy Huggies on white fluffy clouds playing Harps and singing hymns for the next gazillion billion years I don't mean to be offensive that just doesn't sound like heaven to me sounds more kind of like the other place I just this a lot of singing anybody else like 15 minutes at the end of church is perfect but a million gazillion billion trillion years and it's as if we haven't even begun kind of just makes me like a little nervous you know what I mean there's a technical term called irop it's the fear
of Heaven did you hear that not hell the fear of Heaven I've had it for the majority of my life I think a lot of Christians have some degree of irop because our beliefs about heaven are based on common misconceptions about eternity and if you have ouranophobia I believe with all my heart that you no longer will by the end of this message but for most Christians man our thoughts about heaven give us no happiness or hope and I want to change that today but man you want to talk about a topic that's been mishandled
by fire and brimstone preachers and the soap B guys on the street corner who who preach heavy-handed truth without first setting a table of Grace and they cause damage and in a weird way like seem to enjoy it as they do that's not my heart if I could remove one thing from the Christian faith it would be the idea of Hell obviously but then I'm following myself and not Jesus there's this idea called universalism that teaches everybody goes to heaven nobody goes to hell maybe hell's not even real and I just you guys that's a
really easy thing to say it's really easy to say and obviously I want that to be true man if you don't want that to be true I got no desire to hang out with you I would say even God wants that to be true and before you shout heresy let me show you no Bible okay this is what God dreams about 1 Timothy Chapter 2 3 and 4 this is good and pleases God our savior who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth he wants everybody saved and in
heaven and nobody to perish in hell but if God wants everybody in heaven then why won't everybody be in heaven choice choice it's because in order for love to be love it must be a choice if you've been married for longer than a honeymoon you understand this the power in love is found in the decision to love forced love is called abuse and God will not force anybody to spend eternity with him who chooses again and again not to Philip of Macedon he was Alexander the Great's father and the legend goes He appointed a servant
to walk into his office every day look him in the eyes and say Phillip you will die one day because he was a man who had every temptation to live for what was right now and he wanted a daily reminder to to live in light of Eternity you contrast that with Louis the 14th of France who decreed the word death never be uttered in his presence kind of went the other other way with that one but I think it's it's common for Christians to be more like Louie than Phillip I just rather would not think
about eternity today but the more that you start to live with an uncommon Eternal perspective the more you will start to experience uncommon purpose in your life and you will start to trade common apathy for an uncommon passion I'm telling you it is a gift to feel your mortality and to sober up from what is only temporary and think deeply about what is eternal because when you have decided who Jesus is to you you can live today with an uncommon confidence of what will happen when you die living today with forever in mind CS Lewis
once said the Christians who are the most effective in this life are precisely the Christians who think the most about the next one I think he's on to something I've noticed the followers of Jesus who are who have the most passion for people who seem to have the most Joy who forgive the fastest who are the most difficult to offend who laugh the most who are the most effective are precisely the followers of Jesus who have an uncommon perspective about eternity but I wonder how many of us ride the ride of life kind of like
that it's moving forward but you're facing the past and you're missing the view and the fullness to be found in every single breath when Jesus talked about life and life to the full here's where I think that's found in the present moment facing forward as you let what is to come leak a little bit more fullness into what is right now
