 The message I want to speak to you today about will be called Heaven Is Real. Last year I preached on hell on Christmas. Not sure if the best idea. A lot of you, we're not gonna bring friends on Christmas again. It's okay. And so we had Bill Wies, he been to hell for about 23 minutes. He preached about it. And I had a different message prepared, but since yesterday, I've been, this thought was constantly meditating on my heart and pondering. And I wanna share that with you today. A Sunday school teacher was teaching her class about Heaven. He asked the teacher, she asked the teacher, if I sold my house and my car, had a huge yard sale and gave all the money to church, will I go to Heaven? And all the kids shouted, no. She said, if I will vacuum the church every single day, wash all the bathrooms, give all my money away and serve at the children's ministry every Sunday, will I go to Heaven? The kids said, no. And so then she once more asked, then how do I get to Heaven? And all the kids shouted, you gotta be dead. Everyone wants to go to Heaven. Nobody wants to die. Do you wanna go to Heaven? Do you wanna die? Nearly 80% of all Americans believe there is a place called Heaven. Bible uses that word about 532 times. It's used in funerals. Even people who don't believe in God to be nice to people who are dying or families that have lost someone, they use words to comfort, they went to a better place. Unfortunately, for many people, those words are pure lie. There are many times preachers lie on the funerals to be nice and understand that. I was very glad I told Erica and Rudy yesterday. I said, I'm so glad that we can be honest on your son's funeral because we know for sure that he went to a better place. Not because he served that hungry jet, but because he followed Jesus Christ. He believed Jesus Christ. I'm gonna share with you five main truths, five wonders or things that might shock you about Heaven. The first one is there is more than one Heaven. The Bible actually from the first verse in the Bible it says, for God created the Heavens. From the first verse we see there's more than one Heaven. The Heavens indicates plural. In chapter two of Genesis verse one it says exactly same thing. It recounts the creation story. It says, God created the Heavens. And so we believe there's three Heavens. The first one is the sky is what we see any time we go out outside the clouds, the moon, the stars, and that's even confirmed in the Bible where God will open the windows of Heaven. It's talking about pouring out rain, causing agriculture to grow, businesses to flourish, and our finances to the well. And that speaks of Heaven. The second one, we believe is the Heaven that's invisible realm where demons are at. And the Bible calls devil the prince of the air. The Bible talks about the spiritual warfare that is taking place right now in the heavenlies. It's not in a place where God lives. It's definitely not in the sky because there's no way you can go out and see demons in the sky. We're seeing clouds, we're seeing rain, we see the sun, we see the moon, but we don't see demons. And so what is that taking place in the second Heaven? And the third Heaven where we believe is according to Apostle Paul, he says, I was caught up to a third Heaven where he heard voices and words that are undescribable. He couldn't even share that with anybody and he called that place a paradise. This third Heaven, if I like to use it like that, is the place where God currently lives, where his angels are at, where his throne is at. It's where the believers will go. We believe when they die. This third place or third Heaven in the Bible is called my father's house. Jesus called it, the scripture calls it a city designed and built by God. It's called a better country and it's called a paradise. This place is real. The Bible talks about it from the beginning and even at the end. You can't get through the Bible. In the beginning you'll hear that God created the Heavens. At the end you see God created new Heavens and new Earth. The second truth about Heaven is that Heaven, while being our future home, it's our present hope. While it's our future home, it's our present hope. Let me read to you a verse in Titus chapter two, verse 13, it says, looking for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing over great God and Savior Jesus Christ. If Heaven is your future home, drop number one in the chat right now. For those of you who just say amen. Heaven is our future home and because it's our future home, it becomes our present hope. People who say that, oh, you guys are so heavenly minded, you're earthly no good. It's actually the opposite. I like what Sirius Lewis said. Sirius Lewis said this. He said that if you read the history, you will find that the Christians who did the most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that have become so ineffective in this. What God tells me about my future, enables me to translate my past and serve him in my present time. I find that interesting because Jesus not using Heaven as an escapism, he did encourage us and motivated our joy using Heaven as a motive. He said, don't let your heart be troubled. And he didn't say because you're gonna get a husband. He didn't say don't let your heart be troubled, why? Because one day you're gonna finish that master's degree and you will get your dream job. Don't let your heart be troubled because your retirement is gonna be amazing. He didn't use your immediate future as a motive for getting less trouble. He didn't say don't let your heart trouble because Joe Biden has only three more years to go. He didn't say don't let your heart be trouble because your parents are gonna leave you fat inheritance. He did not use political, financial or religious reasons on earth as a source for your motive for joy. He says because I'm preparing a place for you in Heaven. Meaning he said let Heaven that is your home become your present hope. He says when you're persecuted, when you're being thrown out in jail, he says rejoice. And he didn't say because you're gonna get a jailbreak. He didn't say because I will supernaturally get you out. He didn't say because the angel will come and slam the jail and you're gonna walk out of it. He didn't say that. He says because your reward in Heaven is great. When demons were cast out, he rebuked disciples and he says don't rejoice the demons come out. Rejoice what? That's your name. He always used Heaven as a place that we are going to but as a place that feeds us with hope, encouragement and strength today. If you lost your hope, perhaps you forgot where your home is. Your hope is not that things get better. They actually will get worse. Your hope is you are going to a better place and this better place is your home. On earth, you're just passing through. On earth, you're right now a pilgrim. You're just walking through. You're on the vacation. You're in some kind of a pit stop. You are in the rest area. You are not at your home yet and therefore don't unpack too far. Don't let your roots grow too deep because my friend, we're here just passing through. Heaven is a motive for our hope today. Heaven is our encouragement for our hope today. Joni, 30 years ago during a diving accident, she became quadruplet, quad, you got that. And I was practicing with Google voice this morning, that word. English, why do you have to do this to me? Every single Sunday. Pretty much, she can't walk. She has to use her mouth to, she actually uses her mouth to paint. She's an amazing painter with her mouth. And she said this. She said, heaven has become my heart's home. The place where I finally belong. The place where I will get brand new body. Heaven is the place where there will be no more tears, pain or sorrow. She goes on to say, in the world's finale, something so glorious is going to happen that will atone for every single tear we've ever cried. God is going to give us the key that will make sense of what is happening right now. And what seems like a senseless suffering. Heaven is going to be a place of no more disappointment, no more grief, but joy. Heaven's joy. Even if she will get healed. And we've seen people healed. But we've seen a lot of people who don't get healed. We've seen prayers answered. But we also have seen people where they die. Regardless of what miracle you experience, the Bible says it is appointed for a man to die. Unless you were Elijah or Enoch, my friend, which last time I checked, none of us are them. And if the Lord tarries, we're going to have to die. Whether we're going to die peacefully or we're going to die like some of these people that died in Afghanistan or some people died in an accident, we're going to pass. And the Bible calls death sleep. As quick as you fall asleep, that's how fast, honestly, any of us can pass away from this life. And we as Christians live with the hope. Hope, and sadly, this is the problem, is most of us use this hope on funerals instead of every single day. And most of us think, well, if I'm going to think about heaven, that means I'm a little bit suicidal. The reason why many of us don't think about heaven is because a lot of us don't have much there. If you have a lot invested into the stock market, I'm pretty sure you're checking that market every single day. For those of you who, when crypto was doing really well, you had a lot of money involved. I was one of those people that had no idea what I was doing. So I just put in a few dollars into crypto and I had no idea how that stuff works. But I was checking that thing every day. I was just praying that the thing goes up. That's it, that was my prayer. I didn't know understand, I said, Lord, you know what I mean? Just let it go up. And then when it go down and it went down, I just removed the money, deleted the app because I didn't want my heart to be broken every single day. I don't check that every day. Now, when you look at the stock, I don't check the stock market. I know it affects all of our life. Honestly, I care very little about it. Why? Because my money is not there. The reason why many of us don't think about heaven is because unfortunately many Christians have too much here, too little there. But as you get older, and most of your family goes there, you start thinking more about that. It's not that you wanna die. It's just your heart is always gravitates to where your treasure is. And the more money you have in your savings account, in your houses, in your cars, the more your money, your heart is gravitating toward the earth. But the more things go there, then you begin to gravitate more toward heaven. But as sufferings increase in this world, my friend, and they will increase for different seasons and for different reasons. We are not, no matter how much faith you have, how much fasting you do, no matter how much money you sow into the kingdom of God, you name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, confess it, possess it, dance seven times, walk around your mountain, do all of that. I'm gonna tell you one thing. Bones are still gonna break. You're still gonna get sick. And things will still be broken in this world. You can be a great, powerful person of faith. Nobody was greater than Jesus. And he was called the man of suffering. Suffering is unavoidable. But all of that causes us not to get internal and bitter, it causes us to become upward and become better. We become purified by our sufferings because we look forward to the day. This is not a pie in the sky. This is not some kind of a made up fantasy to keep all the religious people a little bit happier. No, this is a reality that we all live in. If you ever go on a vacation, or if you ever go on some kind of a trip, or you want some fishing trip or something, and you're sleeping on that, maybe a really bad bedding and pillow, bed bugs, and all of that stuff, and you dream of coming back home and laying on your soft pillow. You're dreaming of coming back. No matter how great hotels are, you're dreaming to come back home. And that is your place because that's your home, my friend. Your home is not Pasco. Your home is not Kenwick. Your home is not Richland. Your home is a place called heaven. And that place should inspire hope today. For me, when I was in the Ukraine at the age of 13, my family immigrated to the United States. A month and a half before that, we already knew we were coming to the States. We had the tickets, and well, my parents had the tickets, and then we already knew that we were coming. Honestly, life in Ukraine was hard for us. But the moment I knew I'm coming to America, life became magically easy. I stopped caring for everything else. I stopped caring for my grades. Maybe it was not a good way, how I reacted, how much joy affected my laziness. But I became so overjoyed because I knew the life there is coming to an end. And I'm not gonna die, I'm just gonna go to another world that has a better world and way more friends that I'm gonna meet and all of the other things. And that's how we have to live. This is not escapism. Please hear me out. I'm not talking about packing your bags and sitting in the airport and waiting for Jesus to come. I'm not talking about you're not going to college, you're not in building a house today, and you're not getting married because you're waiting for Jesus to come. The chances of him coming at your lifetime, I know people are saying very high, they've been saying it's been very high for 2,000 years. High chance he's probably not gonna come during your lifetime. He said he's coming soon, it's been 2,000 years. High chance you will die before he will come. That's why we don't need to live packing our bags, meaning we don't do our earthly responsibilities, but our heart, our eyes have to be looking forward, not only on the funeral, but every time you have some misfortune, some difficult things happening to you. A sickness, a loss, or a challenge, persecution, lift your eyes to that place where you get into. Because somebody say amen. Number three, now this is gonna get a little bit more of a, perhaps confusing for some people. Where Christians go when they die is not where they will spend eternity. Where Christians go when they die is not where they will spend eternity. What I mean by that? Where Christians go when they die is heaven. They will spend time with God. But there's just one issue. When you go to heaven, your body will decay here. Your body will be buried or cremated, whatever your family or you decided to do with it, and your body will be buried six feet under, and with time your body will turn to ashes. Your spirit and your soul will be there. That place is not where you're gonna spend eternity. Why? Because the Bible says in Revelation 21, verse one, now I saw new heaven. That means that place will become old. God will make a new heaven. And a new earth for the first heaven. That first heaven is the place where we're gonna be unless the Lord tarries. Those people who are there right now. The heaven that John saw. The first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no more sea. And I, John, saw the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorn for her husband. So I want you to see this, that what's going to happen is that Jesus will still come down on earth. He's going to destroy the devil. He's going to reign on earth. Then the Bible says we will be raised, resurrected. So the you that's going to be in heaven has to come back and be reunited with your new body, which is not happening in heaven yet. Why do you need a new body? Because God's plan from the beginning has always been to have an earthly family united with the heavenly family. Earthly family flung to test. Death came and it affected our bodies and it affected our souls. God decided to restore us by bringing salvation that restored our soul and our spirit. And God did not toss the body away and say, well, you know what? The whole body and the whole earth is scratched at, that didn't work. We're just going to take him spiritually and let him float as spiritual beings. God never crossed his plans off. He will resurrect our bodies. And God is not going to put an X on the earth. God is going to remodel the earth by completely burning it and making a brand new earth. And the Bible says that heaven, this new place will come down and be on earth. That's why you need a new body to be on new earth. Therefore the heaven you and I are going to spend eternity in is not going to be pie in the sky. It's going to be probably back here. Look, shoot, I wanted to leave. Yeah, not so fast. Watch this. Read the scriptures carefully and you will always see this thing. The righteous will inherit the earth forever. I'm going to give you a few verses. It says things like, the earth will remain forever in Psalm 104 verse five. Ecclesiastes one four. And then the Bible says the earth will be completely, you know, burned by fire. The Bible says, meek will inherit the earth. How many meek people do you know that currently do not own real estate? A lot. What is this scripture? This is Jesus saying. Why will meek inherit the earth if a lot of meek people, they die, not having any land at all? This is talking about the time where meek will inherit the earth. You redeemed us and we will reign on the earth, not in heaven. Intervalations five. Righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. In Psalm 37 verse 29. Wicked will be removed from the earth. Proverbs two, 22, Proverbs 10, 30. And if you read the scriptures carefully, you will find this thing that God has not done with the earth. Now, where did we get the idea that eternity is going to be spent in the sky, us floating and playing harp? I'm going to give you somebody who created that idea and helped to push it. It's a smart guy named Plato. Plato believed that spiritual world is good and the natural material world is bad. He taught that our physical body is bad. The earth is bad, but the soul is good and heaven is good. His idea was this, is that the highest level your soul can ever reach and be at is to be totally removed from the body. Please understand, Plato was not Jesus. But it started to cave in into the mindset of Christians where we start looking at the material things that God created that are corrupted by sin as totally bad because they were corrupted by sin. But so is the soul and the spirit was corrupted by sin. God doesn't see the natural world, the earth, the rocks, the oceans, the sky, the rain, the tornado, all of the stuff as evil any more than he sees your spirit and soul as evil. The first two chapters of the Bible is God creating the earth. The last two chapters is God recreating the earth. Read the last two chapters of the Bible. He's not talking about heaven, he's talking about what's going to be happening here. As heaven comes down here in the form of a city that's about 2,000 miles wide. And the Bible says that each gate will be one its own peril. The whole gate is like uncut stone. Each wall is gonna have its own special, like jewelry, girls, you're gonna like heaven. There's so much jewelry, everything is gonna be jewelry. The scripture talks about that the streets are gonna be paved in gold and I'm not talking about painted gold color. The Bible talks about like gold. There will be layers in this city because you will see how can millions of people fit into this city. It's because this city is not just gonna be one level, there's gonna be layers in this city. The scripture says that gates will never close in this city. Why? Because there will be no more thieves. And this city will become our home, will become our heaven. But the reason why it will have gates is because we're not gonna be stuck there on the quarantine. There will be no mask mandate. There will be no six feet distancing. And you won't need to get waxed, you just need to get saved. We will be able to get out of this city. If God is gonna make new earth and new heavens, that means that he will recreate new planets. That means that we will have glorious bodies which we'll be able to travel through time. Elon Musk's idea is great, but it will be unnecessary in the new earth because your body will be the rocket. Your body will be able to go anywhere. The Bible says that Jesus will give us responsibilities and assignments based on how we served on the earth. That's why you need to sign up to serve at the local church so that you don't become, you can run a company on earth and then in heaven, you can be somebody's janitor who's watching over kids. You don't wanna, I mean, nothing wrong with being a janitor in eternity, but serve at the local church, serve the cause of Christ so that you can have a reward in eternity. Come on somebody. Don't come late to church. Don't leave early. Get involved and serve. Your belief in Jesus guarantees you heaven, but your behavior for Jesus guarantees you a reward in heaven. The scripture talks about there will be a tree of life. The scripture talks about there will be a river of life. The scripture talks about that there will be fruits we'll be able to eat, though it will be, there will be no light, excuse me, no night because God will be the son there. He will be the light, but he still will be able to rest. The scripture uses all of that, not for the place out there, for the place right here. Now the first time I came into that about 10 years ago, I was reading a book by Randy called Heaven. Honestly, kind of disappointed me. I had this really awesome fairy tale in my head of how it's gonna be as far from here as possible. But see the problem is that I actually have never seen much of the earth either. So only thing I saw is tri-cities in Richland where I came from when I went to the Grand Canyon last week. And I saw what, and I only visited one of the world's wonders, the Grand Canyon. And I kind of been traveling a little bit more from 10 years ago, and I've seen a little bit of what the earth has. It's beautiful. The new earth. And then God is gonna bring his heaven here. And he's gonna rule the universe with his spiritual and his physical, earthly family. You will need a new body for that, my friend. It's exciting. It's exciting. For those of you who think that heaven is gonna be a never-ending worship service, which we're not against that, I'm gonna tell you one thing, ain't gonna be that. We will always live with worship to God, but we're gonna create, we're gonna write, we're gonna invent, we're gonna make things, we're gonna learn. God won't, we will. There will be, there will be no Bible. Yes, there will be no church. There will be no temple. But God is gonna be right in the midst of all of that. And God and us, we're gonna rule and reign. We're gonna create, we're gonna manage. We're gonna live, we're gonna do stuff. You're not gonna be just walking with the heart or somewhere on the cloud like an angel. You're not gonna be an angel. You're gonna be a redeemed with the resurrected body. Amen. Number four, heaven is probably one of my favorite quotes on what heaven is like. Heaven is an unknown region with a well-known inhabitant. Heaven is really about one person. It's about God. Heaven, the Bible says in Revelation 21, verse three, and I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. I want you to compare Genesis chapter one and two with Revelation 21 and 22. In Genesis one, one, it says, God created the heavens and the earth. In Revelation 21, one, it says, I saw a new heaven and new earth. In Genesis one, five, it says, the darkness he called light, and he made two great lights. In Revelation 21, 25, it says, there will be no night there, and the city has no need of the sun or the moon. An upgrade. In Genesis 2, 17, it says the day you eat, you shall die. In Revelation 21, four, it says, there shall be no more death. In Genesis 3, one, it says, Satan appeared as a deceiver of mankind. In Revelation 20, 10, it says, Satan disappears into the lake of fire. An upgrade. In Genesis 3, it talks about a garden into which defilement entered. In Revelation 21, 27, it talks about a city, and there shall be no wise enter into it, anything that defiles. There will be no defilement there. Nothing can enter that's defiled. In Genesis 3, it talks about God walking with men, and that walk was interrupted. But in Revelation 21, 3, it talks about that God's dwelling with men will resume. In Genesis 3, 13, the initial victory belongs to the serpent. In Revelation 20, 10, in Revelation 22, 3, the ultimate victory belongs to the lamb. In Revelation, in Genesis 3, 16, God says, I will multiply your pain greatly. But in Revelation 21, 4, God says, neither there shall be no more pain. In Genesis 3, 17, God cursed the ground for your sake. In Revelation 22, 3, it says, there shall be no more curse. In Genesis 3, 17, men's dominion is damaged because of the fall. But in Revelation 22, 5, men's dominion is restored because of Christ. In Revelation 3, 23, the first paradise was closed. In Genesis 3, 23, but in Revelation 21, 24, 25, and 26, new paradise is reopened. In Genesis 3, 24, access to the tree of life is lost. But in Revelation 22, 14, the access to the tree of life is opened again. In Genesis 3, 24, we are driven from God's presence. But in Revelation 21, 3, 22, 4, we will see His face. In one of the books, A.M. Hunter, the New Testament scholar relates a story of a dying man who asked his Christian doctor to tell him something about a place which he was about to go. As doctor fumbled for a reply, he heard a scratching on the door and he had his answer. Do you hear that? He said, it's my dog. I left him downstairs, but he has grown impatient and had come up to hear my voice. He has no notion of what's inside of this door, but he knows that I am here. Isn't that the same for you? You don't know what lies beyond that door. You just know that your master is there. Someone said, when I was younger, I used to think that heaven is just a beautiful place. Golden streets, no pain and no sorrow. Until I lost one of my relatives, then I started to think of heaven as someone, I have someone there. Then became a time when I lost one of my children. Heaven became more important because now I have one of my children there. And it came a place where I lost most of my relatives and now I have a huge family there. And this person said, now towards the end of my life, I barely know anyone here, because everyone is there. Think about not only the Lord Jesus Christ that's there, think about all the family members that you have that are waiting for you. Think about, for us, when I see a race to deliver conferences and I see our previous interns, I mean, we just don't have time. We're like, man, how you been? What's been happening? And you just quickly say hi, quickly say bye. There are conferences that I go to where so many of my friends would come in and it's just the glorious reunion. Multiply that by billion times, where every person you read in the Bible is going to be there. Every hero of yours that you read about, and that's not in the Bible, who served Christ, who inspired your Christian devotion, is going to be there. Think about your family members who went ahead of you. Think about other family members that some of you are still going to lose because in this world, people are going to die. And so I want to encourage you that if you are not right with the Lord today, that you need to get right with God. Because that place is a place where it has the most important inhabitant, and that is God. Everything outside of heaven does not have God. God made hell a place where it has no resemblance of Him. So anything good that you see on earth, while you credit the climate, mother nature, and all of the other stuff, I'm going to tell you one thing. It's a fingerprints of God. Resemblance of His nature, light, it's Him. The warmth is Him. The structure, the fact the earth hangs on nothing. And we're hanging over space every single day, but we don't feel it, and the earth spins so fast that yet none of us have motion sickness. That's His intelligence. Everything about this has God's fingerprints all over. You know what hell is? When God removed completely everything of Himself out. No light, no love, no peace, no acceptance. Why? So that you won't be reminded of Him when you're there. You can choose to be completely without Him and be separated from Him. If you want love, if you want light, if you want peace and joy, you need God. Because everything you desire is in Him. Everything you enjoy on this earth is His gift. And He wants to give you that even more. And He draws you in today to salvation. Can somebody say amen? And the last one. This earth is not our home. It's our hotel. American tourists visited a 19th century Polish rabbi, Hofec Shem. He astonished to see that a rabbi's home was only a simple room filled with books, a table, and a bench. And a tourist asked, a rabbi, where is your furniture? A rabbi responded, where is yours? Mine puzzled an American. I'm a visitor here. I'm just passing through. So am I, said the rabbi. You on earth just passing through. The Bible says life is as fast as the wind in Job 7.7. The Bible says life is as temporary as grass. And I don't know about your grass. Mine has to be cut every Friday. 1 Peter 1.24. The Bible says life is as lasting as a flower. They don't last very long. Job 14.2. Scripture says that life is as passing as a shadow. Ecclesiastes 6.12. It says it vanishes as a vapor, James 4.14. And death is like water spilled. 2 Samuel 14.14. And Jesus says whoever seeks to grasp and gain this life is already a loser. Whoever gives this life is already a winner. After serving for decades in Africa, missionary couple, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Morrison was returning to New York to retire. After years of service, they had no pension, their health was failing. They were worried and discouraged. They were on the same ship as the president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was returning from one of his African hunting expeditions. No one paid any attention to the missionary couple. They watched the fanfare that accompanied the president and his entourage. During the voyage, the missionary said to his wife, something is wrong, we've given our whole life to service to God in Africa all these years and nobody cares a thing about us. Here is a man that coming back from a hunting trip and everybody makes so much over him, but nobody gives two hoots about us. When the ship docked in the New York, a band was waiting to greet the president. The mayor of New York was there and other dignitaries. The papers were full of news about the president's arrival. Nobody was there for a missionary couple. They slipped off into the ship and found a cheap apartment to live in. Next day, they started to look for a job to make a living in the city. That night, the man said to his wife, I can't take this, God is treating us unfairly. His wife replied, why don't you go to the other room and talk to him about it? He did just that and return a short time after with his face different. His wife asked him what happened. He said, the Lord settled it with me. He said, I told him how bitter I was that the president should receive his tremendous homecoming, but nobody even met us at the dock. And when I finished complaining, it seemed as though the Lord put his hand on my shoulder and simply said, but you're not home yet. If you feel that God is treating you unfairly, if you feel like you have not been fully compensated and rewarded, you're not home yet. This is not the end yet. This is not judgment yet. Even souls that were at the end of the altar, the Bible says, who gave their life as a martyrs, cried out and said, God, when would you avenge us our death? And God says, hang in. It's not the judgment yet. There will be a time where God will settle the score. There will be a time where God will wipe every tear out of our eyes. There will be a time where there will be a mixed sense to our suffering. But my friend, that time is not yet and it's not now. If you're in this room today and you don't know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, I would like to invite you to make a decision to give Jesus your life. If you don't, when you die, you will leave home. If you do, when you die, you will go home. Where is your home? Are you currently passing through? This world is so devastating, so difficult. I don't care who we're gonna have in the White House. My friend, in your house, there will still be sickness. There will still be problems. There will still be demons and devils attacking us. We will still have trouble. And Jesus said this, we will be persecuted. We will be attacked. These things will happen. But as Christians, what makes our life different is not the fact that we can avoid all of that. It's the fact that we have another place that we're going to. It's not escapism. It's simply us going through. We're coming back on this earth. Jesus will establish his kingdom. He will reign and rule, not only for a thousand years but for eternity and we will reign and rule with him. But the question today is who is Jesus to you? Heaven is prepared for those who are prepared for heaven. Have you given your life to Jesus Christ? Have you surrendered your life to Jesus Christ? If you haven't, in just a moment, literally in just a minute, I'm gonna give you that opportunity. Even if you're visiting us for the first time and maybe some things you just don't fully understand and the whole religion, like man, I don't wanna sign up for religion. I'm not talking about signing up for religion. I'm not here selling you some kind of a, you know, our BNB deal. I'm selling you something that is gonna change your eternity. And I'm fully convinced the reason why is because this is not just empty words. There is a guy 2,000 years ago historically verified who was born to a virgin girl in Jerusalem. 366 words were spoken over him called prophecies and he fulfilled each one of them. He lived a sinless life. Even the guy who prosecuted him named Pilate said, who was his hater? He says, this man is innocent. Jesus was innocent. He said that he will die. He didn't die because he said something wrong. He died because he chose to take your sin and my sin upon himself. There is a God and this God is holy God. You want him to be holy. If he wouldn't be holy, he's not worthy to be trusted. He would be corrupt. He would be easy to be bribed and easy to be bought. Our God is holy, he doesn't change. He could not overlook your sin. He couldn't put it under the carpet. He couldn't stop being God so he can let you into heaven. What he did is he let his son take your place and pay for your sin so that today you can take his son's place and be in eternity with him. What Christians do when they go to heaven is they're going home the same way your kids go to your home. Like, I can't go to your home and hug you and say, hey dad, you will call police. Same thing, you can't go to heaven and live like you want, like the devil. It's not serve God. Not yield to your father's plans and desires. They come in one day they cry big tears, hey Lord, I'm so sorry, my friend, it will be too late. Today it's time God wants to be your Lord and Savior and he wants to be your father. So when you die, you'll run straight into his arms and say, dad, I've been waiting for this. I'm waiting, I've been waiting for this. And it becomes, heaven becomes your home because God was your father. But if you are in this room today, you are a Christian. But honestly, you're trying to barely get into heaven. Shame on you. You will spend eternity wiping streets of gold instead of ruling and reigning. You may say, but the criminal on the cross, he died last minute, you're not a criminal and you're not on the cross, you're in America and you're sitting on the pew. God saved you early so you can give your whole life to him. He will reward you for that, but that's not why we do it. We do it so that when we go to heaven, we can lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus. Please live for eternity by doing the most for God here and now. Come to prayers. Sign up to become a leader of a life group. Why be a Christian for 20 years and you don't need people to Jesus? And you never give and you still debate whether we should tithe or not. Come on. It just means you're not eternally minded. Don't live your life setting your roots deep into the earth. Live your life planning for eternity, preparing for eternity. It's the wisest investment of your gifts, of your talents, and of your time. I invite you, help us to build what God is building on this earth. Sign up to serve. Sign up to give. Be a person who lives their life. Help to pour. Go on the mission trip. Do something with your life. Please, don't waste your life. God should have killed you when you got saved if you were not planning to do anything with your life for Jesus. He let you live. He gave you gifts. He gave you good health. Use it for God. Live for God in such a way that at the end, you will say, man, I gave everything for God. That's not a bad thing. You know, I gave everything for God. I gave my finances, I gave my health, I gave my talents, and you will look at your life and you're like, man, I invested everything into God. And I'm gonna tell you one thing, my friend. All of that is going to come back at you when you stand in eternity and you realize you actually didn't give it. You transferred it into another life or you'll be able to enjoy it for eternity. Come on, come on, come on. I wanna challenge every Christian to win souls and make disciples. Pray like it's though it's your last day of living on this earth. Give like crazy. Love like crazy. Forgive like crazy. Sign up to do something for other people. Don't live for yourself. Come early to church. Greet other people. Start a small group. Begin to disciple other people. Listen, it's not about just American dream. It's about the Father's business. Live with eternity in mind by doing the most for God on this earth. Fast like crazy. Do your life in such a way that you can look back and the preacher doesn't have to lie on your funeral to say that he served God when reality only lived for yourself. Come on. Let's go radical for God. I know we got the freedom in America. I know as a church we got a nonprofit status. I know that we can monetize our content on YouTube and social media and we don't get hit for preaching a gospel, my friend. Let's not misuse this freedom by doing absolutely nothing for God and doing bare minimum and saying, well, but I'm not smoking. I'm not getting high or hanging out with those who do. But what do you do for God? Not what you don't do. What do you do for God? Live for God radically. Give of yourself passionately for Jesus. So when you meet apostle Paul and he asked you for your story, you won't be embarrassed. When you meet John Wesley, when you meet Ray Hart Bonke, when you meet Billy Graham, when you meet, excuse me, it's not crying, it's when you meet those people that you will not say, yeah, I just played video games. I really, I conquered modern warfare, this video game. Like this little, did you watch the new Netflix TV show, man, I watched all of them. Make sure that your accomplishment is not that. Make sure your accomplishment is that you reach people, you let people, you cast out demons, you build a church, you gave your finances, you serve that kid's own, you loved God, you were a great husband, you were a great wife, you were a great student, everywhere you were, you were not culturally into the culture, you were into Christ in the midst of the corrupt culture, you live for Jesus. Come on somebody. Amen, let's rise to our feet. Every head bowed and every eye closed. If you're in this room today, watching me on YouTube right now, there's about 700 of you with Facebook that are watching and you're not sure where you will spend eternity, you're not sure where you would be able to go if you were to die today. I wanna give you an opportunity. If I can ask everyone to bow their head. And unless you really have to go to pick up your children, if you can just stay with me for just a moment. If you're not sure where you will spend eternity and today you would like to be sure. Maybe heaven is not your home because God is not your father. Perhaps you've had bad experiences with church or you made very poor decisions and you feel like you're not good enough. Or maybe you're one of those people who you feel like you're too good for God. You may be too good for another neighbor or you might be too good to escape jail, but you're not too good to make it heaven. Otherwise, God is a liar. God says no one is good according to his standard. We must repent, place our trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior and follow him because this life on earth is short. No matter if you live a hundred or 200 years, it's still short compared to eternity. Heaven has to be your home. But it's not a default destination of every human being. If you would like to give your life to Jesus, whether it's your first time or you're coming back to Jesus, when I count to three, I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand high. I'm gonna pray with you. One, two, three. Just raise your hand high. Thank you, I see your hand. Thank you, I see your hand. Anybody else say, I would like to give my life to the Lord today. Count me in that prayer. If you're watching me on YouTube, just drop that in the comment. I would like to give my life to Jesus or on Facebook and I'm gonna pray with you. I'm gonna ask you to do something bold right now. For those of you who raised your hand or you wanted to raise your hand, I want you to quickly come and just meet me right here on my right. Just quickly come. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Anybody else? Just come, just come. Come on, Mike. Come on, bro. Anybody else? So today you want to make heaven your home and God your Father by repenting of your sin and placing your life in Jesus. I'm gonna ask something else right now. If you're in this room but you have not been investing into that and you realize, man, I haven't been serving, I haven't been doing anything for the Lord and today I would like to make a change. I want you to come on this side right now. If you're saying, you know what? I need to make a change in my life. Not repentance, but I need to start serving. I need to start giving of myself. I want you to just come to this side right now. Just quickly, we're gonna pray for you as well. Jesus wants to change your trajectory and your investment right now. You can just come on this side. We're gonna pray for you as well. Thank you, Lord. If you're watching us on YouTube, just get ready for prayer. The Lord's gonna visit you where you are at right now. The Lord's gonna visit you where you are at right now. Church, can you help me to lead this prayer together? For these souls right now that are coming to the Lord. Say this out loud with me. Say, Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Please forgive me of all my sin and wash me with your precious blood. I believe you are the Son of God. Put that on a cross for all my sin. I repent of my sin. I place my trust in what you did on a cross. And from this day forward, I give my life to you. Use me for your glory. Make heaven my home. And God, you're my Father. Jesus, you're my Savior. Holy Spirit, you're my Comforter. In Jesus' name, amen.