Heb 13:20+21 Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
	We continue, this morning, with our study of heaven, using Dr. Donnelly’s writings as our framework of reference. As we have previously considered, when we were looking at the Biblical doctrine of hell, human language can often be inadequate to describe spiritual truth and reality. It is very difficult to put into words the vast array of what is truly before us in the reality of God. As a result, we are often forced to use metaphors and symbolic representation. 
	Quote, The realities referred to are so far beyond our experience that God employs metaphors and pictures to convey to us an idea of what heaven will be like. Take, for example, Revelation 21, where ‘the holy city, Jerusalem’ is portrayed as a massive cube, 1500 miles long, broad and high. ‘The city’ we are told, ‘was made of pure gold, like clear glass’ (v.18). It had twelve gates of pearl, and ‘a great and high wall’ (v.12) made of jasper, with twelve foundations ‘adorned with all kinds of precious stones’ (v.19). What an intriguing and evocative description! It appeals to our imagination, our sense of beauty and wonder. But we must admit that it is, at the same time, mysterious. Appealing yes, but not easy to visualize. End quote. 
	However, as we consider heaven, the manner in which the scripture most often describes heaven is not at all hard to understand. It is so easy, that children can very readily grab hold of it. The New Testament describes heaven as to be with Jesus. It is that plain and that clear. Heaven is being with Jesus Christ. 
When He needed to reassure His disciples, Christ told them the following in John 14:1-3, "Let not your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. His disciple’s were comforted because He told them that they will be with Him. 
In His High Priestly Prayer, we hear Jesus talking intimately to the Father and He states "Father, I desire that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, in order that they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me; for Thou didst love Me before the foundation of the world (John 17:24). Heaven is to be with Jesus Christ. He tells this to the dying thief on the cross, in Luke 23:43, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise." 
	It is interesting to note that nowhere in the New Testament is it stated that believers will go to heaven when they die. Rather, God’s Word tells us that we will go to be with Christ. Listen to the Apostle Paul in Phil 1:23+24. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. For himself, it would be far better to be with Christ, to depart from this world and enter heaven. Despite this, he knows that he is doing what God desires for the sake of Christ’s Body, the church. 
In 2 Cor 5:8, he again states that to be out of this body is to be with Christ in heaven. …we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. And, we are encouraged with the great passage of reassurance, for those left behind on this earth after a loved one goes to be with the Lord, in 1 Thess 4:17. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Heaven is always being with the Lord Jesus Christ. 
	Why is Jesus so central to heaven and being with Him synonymous with being in heaven? Why does the Apostle John so link Jesus to heaven that he writes the following in Rev 21, verses 22+23? And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb, are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 
	The first reason that Christ and heaven are so vitally linked is the fact that it is Christ Who brings us to heaven. How can we, who are sinners, ever, for one moment, think that we can reach heaven without divine intervention? Heaven is the place where God’s glory shines in perfection and holiness. As we are told in Rev 21:27, and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it… There is no way that we can even begin to think that we can earn our way into heaven. There is nothing that is humanly possible for anyone to do to get to heaven. 
Quote, Yet there is an almost universal idea that humans can deserve everlasting life. This is the working assumption of other religions. It is the incoherent hope of that man in the street. People think that it is somehow natural and fitting that they should go to heaven. They believe, in spite of all the evidence, that they have a right to eternal bliss. If their joyful destiny is questioned, they are hurt and offended. But the merest glimpse of heaven’s glory would render any such notion preposterous. We would see in an instant our unworthiness to be there, our utter inability to exist in that holy place. Sooner could a worm aspire to be a brain surgeon than a sinner expect to work his own passage to glory. In and of ourselves, there is no hope that we shall ever reach heaven, no matter what we do, no matter how energetically and persistently we strive. It will never happen! End quote.
It can only be through a redeeming action of God Almighty that anyone of us can go to heaven. That is precisely what He has done in Jesus Christ, His Only Begotten Son. John 14:6 …I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me. We are redeemed through His death and His resurrection. 
As we read in the great passage foretelling the sum of what Christ would suffer for our sakes, Isa 53:3-12. He was despised and forsaken of men, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; And like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away; And as for His generation, who considered That He was cut off out of the land of the living, For the transgression of my people to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, Yet He was with a rich man in His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was there any deceit in His mouth. But the Lord was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering, He will see His offspring, He will prolong His days, And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in His hand. As a result of the anguish of His soul, He will see it and be satisfied; By His knowledge the Righteous One, My Servant, will justify the many, As He will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot Him a portion with the great, And He will divide the booty with the strong; Because He poured out Himself to death, And was numbered with the transgressors; Yet He Himself bore the sin of many, And interceded for the transgressors. 
It is on this basis alone, the work and the sacrifice and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we are brought into heaven! As John the Baptist proclaimed in John 1:29, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 
	Secondly, Jesus also brings us to heaven by making us holy, enabling us to live in eternal life. It is in Him that we have our right standing before God. We are covered in the robe of His righteousness and His Holiness. It is on the basis of His perfection that we are brought into this eternal life. It is through His Holy Spirit that we are brought into conformity with that which pleases the Father. He deals with us through the day-by-day working of His Grace, to bring us into the likeness of Christ. 2 Cor 3:18, But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 
And, as the Apostle Paul writes to the Philippians in Phil 3:20+21, For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. He is the One Who enables us to live in heaven with Him by His own working of righteousness and holiness as He covers us in Himself.
	The third aspect of His bringing us to heaven is on the basis of His present ministry. Quote, This is a neglected doctrine, but we need to realize that none of us could continue for one second in the Christian life, unless, moment by moment, the Lord Jesus Christ were interceding for us with the Father in heaven, upholding us by His Spirit. If He were to remove His hand from us, we would fall at once…Our perseverance is certain because, for every second of our lives, Jesus holds and guards us. We persevere only because we are being preserved by Him. End quote.
	  He is our merciful and loving High Priest, who keeps us securely anchored in Himself. He supplies our every need and every encouragement and every source of obedience to get through each day on this earth. Heb 2:17+18, Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted. Heb 4:15+16, For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. And Heb 7:25-27, Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. 
	Think of Christ in His present ministry, working on our behalf. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords. As He states in Matt 28:18, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 
The Apostle Paul gives a tremendous explanation of this work, as we are told, in Eph 1:19-23 …and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. 
The certainty of our being brought to heaven is set in Him and in His power, as we read in John 10:27-30, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. "I and the Father are one." 
	Please notice, we are secure in His hand. He is the One Who holds us, and not us holding onto Him. If it were, in any manner, dependent on our holding onto Him, we would not make it. But He holds us. It is just like when we cross a busy road with a child, we hold their hand. We do not just let them hold our hand. They might let go and we will not permit it, so we hold them and hold them very tightly and securely and will not let go of them. 
As the Psalmist writes in Ps 73:23+24, Nevertheless I am continually with Thee; Thou hast taken hold of my right hand. With Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me, And afterward receive me to glory. That is this current ministry of Jesus Christ in bringing us into Glory. He holds onto us and will never let go! He does it all! 
	We can never think of heaven apart from Jesus Christ. Every single aspect of our getting to heaven is utterly and absolutely centered in Him, Alone! He is the very reason, and the very means, and the very sustenance, and the every ability to come into heaven. Apart from Him, there is no way, in all of creation to become partakers of the heavenly realm. He is central to every consideration and conception of heaven. In heaven, God’s glory will be seen, clearly and purely, and that glory is the Lamb, the Son of God, as we will consider next time, Lord willing. So be it!
Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

This morning’s benediction reading is Rev 19:11-16 And I saw heaven opened; and behold, a white horse, and He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True; and in righteousness He judges and wages war. And His eyes are a flame of fire, and upon His head are many diadems; and He has a name written upon Him which no one knows except Himself. And He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood; and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. And from His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may smite the nations; and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS." Amen.