“Are you Oven Ready?”

Reading is 1 Cor 13 v4-13

Don’t you just hate autocorrect? My script tells me that this sermon is titled “Are you Oven Ready?”. This is of course incorrect, the title is in fact “Are you Heaven Ready”. You will be relieved to hear that I am not going to talk about our similarity or otherwise to chickens or turkeys!

You might have been expected that I would have used the parable about the wise and foolish virgins being ready (or not) in Matthew 25 as my reading, but that doesn’t actually talk about the sort of readiness I mean to address in this sermon. Clearly being ready or not for Christ’s second coming is so important that it covers two whole chapters of Matthew. Much of Paul’s letters in the first century are to be understood against the background of the expectation of Christ’s second coming in their lifetime and in his second letter to the Thessalonians (2 Thessalonians) he has to admonish the Thessalonian Church for giving up everything, work included, and living on a mountain top as they thought that Jesus had already come. 

One of the sayings attributed to Christians in the last century was “Be careful where you go, would you want Jesus to come back and find you in the cinema?”. I always thought this was a silly thing to say as if it was part of your normal daily life then what did it matter? I’m not going to talk about hiding yourself away from the world to prepare ourselves for heaven. Jesus tells us that we are in the world but not to be of the world. In  John 17 v 15 Jesus says:

“I do not pray that you should take them out of the world”

Instead, I’m going to pose questions. I’m not actually going to answer them, as that is up to you. All I’m going to do is give you some things to think about and leave you to make your own mind up. 

The first question is: “How prepared am I to spend over ten years in heaven?” Not eternity as that is in my mind unimaginable. But over ten years. How much of a change would that be for you? How many of your habits would you have to break? I’m not talking about giving up following Wales or your favourite football team, as in my opinion that is the epitome of Christianity, you’re giving without expecting anything in return! Instead, I’m talking about changes in our character and positive things that perhaps we need to start doing.

There’s a supplementary question as well: “Am I doing anything at the moment to help bring about that change?” Change can of course only come as a result of God changing us. Or God showing us what needs altering (maybe bit by bit) and us agreeing to him changing us or relying on his strength to be different. Like with all change (and I think that there are probably just as many books written about managing change in business as Christian change) it can be very difficult. We don’t like it. It is a lot easier to stay as we are. Change may involve giving up things we really like. Certainly, the more we fight it the harder it will be. 

Becoming a Christian in the first place of course involves a change. In 2 Cor 5 v 17 Paul tells us that “If anyone is in Christ they are a new creation, the old has passed away, the new has come”. In John 3 v3 Jesus says that “Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. And again in Peter in his first letter in verse 3 (Peter 1 v3) tells us also how great that time in heaven is going to be: “By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and to an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled and unfading”. 

That change can come over a period of time or in an instant of course. It requires a reordering of us, the creation of a new person. But it doesn’t end there. The letters in the New Testament, from Romans to Jude, are all dedicated to changes to be made in their listeners and readers lives, including us. Paul talks in one letter about being only able to feed that church baby food. 1 Cor 3 v1-3. “But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh and babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it; and even yet you are not ready, for you are still of the flesh.”They weren’t able to go on to learn the deeper things of God. They argued too much about the basics. In that letter to the Corinthian church Paul tells them that they were too involved in the intellectual arguments about things that didn’t really matter, including which of their leaders was the one to follow. 

Later on, Paul writes that famous chapter about love (1 Cor 13), part of which we had as our reading. Paul was saying that the all-important thing about becoming/ being a Christian was that we loved God and from that loved our fellow human beings. Not, that we, like the Pharisees, were able to understand every verse or every nuance or every argument in the Bible. Rather that we are in love with God and all that he is and for all that he has done for us. Love shouldn’t be a technical thing, even though the intellect may be involved. It has been said that we should replace the word “love” in our reading by the pronoun “I”, to act as a guide for our behaviour: I do not insist on my own way, I am not irritable……. I found it came as a shock!

Initially it may be a blind love for God, much in the way perhaps that we may have fallen in love with another human being at first sight or meeting (or instagram?). But then we are hungry to learn more about this person that we have met. Or it may be a gradual experience as we eventually discover part of his/ her character that we love. Of course, there are always rocky times, either because we discover our relationship makes demands on us that we don’t like as much or because we go through difficult times – illness, lack of money. 

Those difficult times can make or break relationships. It fortunately/ unfortunately can be the same with us and God. We all know of people who appear to have let their relationship drift or let go with God. However, by getting through those difficulties we can learn to love God more, to trust him more, so that when hard times arrive again, we are able to trust God through them. I’ve spoken many times about the two specific periods in my life when each time I almost lost my house to debts. The first though helped me immensely through the much longer second. I’m not trying to minimise the dreadful problems you may perhaps be going through now by the way. For each of us this is different. 

Heaven presumably will involve a lot of the deeper things of God. If we haven’t learnt much of that in this life, will we have to do that learning in heaven? Paul again talks about the kind of progression ladder that faces us in v12 from our reading: “Now we see in a mirror darkly, then we shall see face to face.” Jesus’ death had already brought God a lot nearer. When he died, as we read in Matthew 27 v51, the curtain that divided the inner sanctum of the temple (where God was supposed to dwell) from the rest of the building was split from top to bottom. Symbolising the opening up of access to God for the normal person, not just the high priest once a year. 

A parable best suited to the change needed might be the parable of the Talents in Matt 26 v 14-30. How much are we seeking to grow our relationship with God?

You know the results of those sort of surveys that come out from time to time: You spent 28 years of your life sleeping; 3 on the toilet; 6 months wiping your nose. Well, how many weeks, months, years, in your life will you spend worshipping God? How many years praying on your own; with others? How much will your life here, mimic your life in heaven?

How would you prepare if you were: 

1. Walking to the Pole 
2. Living for a year on the equator 
3. Climbing Everest 
4. 8 months pregnant

One of the coaches of new British tennis sensation, Emma Raducanu, was asked how much Emma did to prepare and the answer came back as hours and hours of every day. 

Paul compares the Christian life to a Marathon 1 Cor 9 v 24. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.”

So I want to ask two more questions: “Am I serious about preparing for heaven?” and

“What should I be doing to prepare for heaven?”

I had thought of putting you all on the spot to ask for suggestions here, but decided that it was better to leave it as homework for you, something that requires longer and deeper thought. So, let’s examine a few ideas.

Taking Jesus into all of your life might be something to look at. I was chatting with a friend, a Rangers supporter in the week, you may know him, his accent rather gives away his identity. He was talking about the fact that he may well know the words to all the sectarian chants, but he refuses to sing them. The hatred in them he doesn’t see as being Christian. One chant I sit down to in any sports ground, is “Stand up if you hate the English”. My brother’s son asked me why I hated the English. I had to explain to him that I didn’t. How can I shout out loud that I hate anybody (I’ll come back to this)? Am I dividing my life into two? Am I not a Christian when I support football or rugby?

So how are we to go about growing in our knowledge of God? Of being changed into his likeness? 

Well spending time with God is one way, perhaps in silence, listening, rather than rabbiting on in our prayers. 

Telling him how much we love him often perhaps? When I got married the second time, one advice from the minister was to tell each other that we loved each other at least once every day. How often do you do that to God? Thank him for all he has done for you. 

Another question that perhaps we need to think about is “Who other than God will I be spending time in heaven with?” The old joke (So old that I’m sure it’s no longer under the 75 year copyright rules!), about the woman who had died and was being shown around heaven is perhaps relevant here. “Over there are the Catholics, there are the Methodists, and so on. Then the Angel says, now be very quiet as we go past this group. Why says the woman? Those are the [replace here your own denomination!] Baptists, they think they’re the only ones here!”

 I will answer this question myself: Angels and your fellow Christians are the ones we will spend time with. We can’t do much about the former but can surely about the latter. How much time do you spend with your fellow attenders of this church, outside this church? Or Christians of other denominations? How well do you know the people on the same pew as you, or those on the pew a few rows behind or in front or over the divide between the pews? You’re going to be spending well over 10 years with them in heaven. How often do you put together your shared love for God? How well do you even know them?  

How much time do you send praying with other Christians? Looking at the bible together? In heaven are you going to wait until you’re formally introduced? Jesus, in the latter chapters of John, emphasised three times that the disciples are to love one another. If you want to look them up then they are John 13 v34, 15 v12, 15 v17. In John’s first letter (1 John 2 v11) he says “[But] he who hates his brother is in the darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

Are there any brothers or sisters that you hate? Maybe you have good reason to hate them, but Jesus says that we should love your enemies (Luke 6 v35). You’re going to spend over 10 years with them in heaven. As far as I know, despite the joke about the Baptists above, there aren’t going to be any partitions in heaven, where you can hide from anyone. Imperfections aren’t a barrier from you getting into heaven. There’s only one requirement, that we rely on Jesus’ goodness, not our own. 

Every week, in the Lord’s Prayer we ask God the Father to copy our example in forgiveness.

“Forgive me as I forgive others”. Do you really want God to do that? Note that we’re not saying to God, I’ll only forgive if they deserve it, if they’ve repented, if they stop annoying me, if they say sorry to me. Perhaps we could alter the Lord’s Prayer slightly to read, “Forgive me as I TRY to forgive others”, because there are some things that are so deeply personal/ nasty that we feel it impossible to forgive. Then just as we have to rely on God to change us, then we have to rely on us forgiving others through God. 

And we could perhaps rephrase the Lord’s Prayer again “Forgive me as I really know I should forgive others, but I can’t just yet”. There’s a relative of mine that has isolated my one remaining close relative in Wales from my sister and from me and I’m finding it very difficult at the moment not hating them. I know I should not hate but the feelings that churn my stomach when I even think of that relative, say otherwise. I have to continue giving the situation to God to deal with. 

You may feel that it’s something that is beyond you, but it’s important that you give it time. I was chatting about a month ago on a coach with a young man who appeared to be psychotic and who’d spent some time in prison for knifing another man. Surprisingly, because we all judge by appearances don’t we, he then went on and talked about being helped on probation by a Christian worker, and how he understood the importance of forgiveness and the fact that holding anger only did you harm, not the other person, how it could eat you up. Also, that he’d gone on to attend church, though he wasn’t currently attending. He had started a life’s journey of being changed, though he’d taken a few backward steps.

So, your homework(!!) and mine is to ask “What should I be doing to prepare for heaven?” and following it up by asking God to help us to change as he requires us. Amen.