[Transcript may not match broadcasted sermon word for word, and contains extra material that was cut from the broadcast due to time constraints]

       I can remember a couple years ago I was in Tombstone, Arizona, which is about 30 miles from the Mexican border. I was there site-seeing, of course, as I have always been a fan of the west, and even the frontier and cowboy era in the latter half of the 1800s. Tombstone is a flat area, which is surrounded by mountains, I guess you would say, in Southern Arizona. The town is old; very, very old for sure. The streets themselves are dust, and dusty old buildings definitely show their age, and the bear the feel and resemblance of the old west. The town feels like a cowboy and gun-slinger town, one that certainly was hustling and bustling with people in its day. I remember it was pretty desolate, as there weren’t a lot of people there—barely any in fact. Of course, the O.K. Corral is there, or a remake of it, and many of us know that’s where the famous shootout occurred involving Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday versus some troublesome outlaw. So, yes, you can stand in front of that and get your picture taken. The old, original site is there to, but there’s just no corral there anymore.

       I recall during that afternoon I was there, I got thirsty and we walked into one of the saloons that was there. I mean, it’s a western town, so you gotta go into a saloon. It’s just the right thing to do. My dad and I sat down and ordered some sarsaparilla (which, if you don’t know what that is, it’s a soda kinda like root beer). We were hungry so we also ordered lunch. Being in this saloon, the waitress where dressed with the period clothing of the day—kinda risqué—at least, by western standards. Anyway, our waitress seemed to particularly interested into me—and I’m sure she showed attention to just about every young guy that came through the door. She definitely was attractive, and probably about my age. However, I did not return her interest, and really wouldn’t even say much to her because I just wasn’t interested in flirting with her. Regardless, this seemed to particularly bother her, and she never stop trying until the moment we left. Some girls want to be the center of attention, and when every guy doesn’t give them that attention, it really bothers them.

       Anyhow, after lunch we went back out into the blazing sun, and man it was hot, probably over 100 degrees. We continued our site seeing walking around the old buildings—hotels, banks, and all that was there. I remember right before we left we stopped by the cemetery that was at the end of town. Yes, the old, original Boot Hill Cemetery—the most famous of all the bears that name. High up on a hill, it had good, scenic views of the surrounding area. The cemetery was encased by an aged, hand-made looking fence. Of course, there were tombstones everywhere among the cactus, and piles of rocks on top of the graves. That’s the way they buried the bodies. The outlaws killed in the O.K. Corral gunfight are buried there, along with many others. It’s definitely a site to see, and it captures the vision that I think a lot of us guys have had when we have envisioned such sights. It’s pretty much like the movies show you. And, it’s quiet and still, and you could hear a pin drop. Definitely has death in the air.

       This vision of Tombstone I have presented today is quite the worn out place. It’s certainly not the most comfortable place in the world. I think the more we become familiar with our current world, I think sometimes the more we cannot wait for the next one to come. We know and have become familiar with the effects of sin around us. What I want to talk about today is quite a bit different then what I have been talking about, and that is Heaven. The place that we are going to go to when we die, that is, if we are in personal relationship with Jesus, is going to be an awesome place. It’s not going to be old, but rather it will be new. It will be streets of gold instead of dust. There are going to be a lot of people there, and everyone is going to love Jesus and his ways. Everyone is going to be in perfect harmony with one another. There won’t be any shootouts, nor cemeteries, nor tombstones, but everybody is going to live forever. All there will be is life in the air.

       The Apostle Paul had something important to tell us regarding this life and how we see things. He told the church at Corinth, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12, ESV). Several things are interesting about this verse, and we should know that he is comparing how we see things now, in this world, with how we are going to see things in the next life. We think we know a lot right now, but the reality is, is that we really don’t know much at all. We really have no idea of how much there is to know. Paul also told the Corinthian church later in time that he knew a man who had been to Heaven, and he was probably talking about himself. He said of this man, “he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2 Corinthians 12:4, ESV).

       So, in talking about all this that we are going to experience, let’s talk about the setup for the future in a big picture view. We know that anybody that dies right now who is saved will go to the third realm of existence, to Heaven, where God resides. Now, in the future God is going to be at the same place we are located. First, as we have been studying, God is going to establish a Millennial Kingdom here on the earth, where Christ reigns as King. During that time, we will help Jesus with various tasks as pertains to ruling and whatever else he has in store for us. That is the time of earth history where the Israelites have their promised kingdom, the kingdom that was promised to King David quite a long time ago. Then, after that, God is going to destroy our current world, and then he is going to create a new Heaven (which is a new outer-space), and a new earth. The Bible says that the New Jerusalem will come down out of Heaven and perhaps float above the earth or something like that. It is in this new world where we will live for eternity. The Prophet Isaiah talked about this, when he recorded the Lord as saying, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness” (Isaiah 65:17, 18, ESV).

       The ultimate goal right now in the Christian’s mind is to be waiting, to be looking forward to this new heaven and new earth. That’s what the Apostle Peter has told us, when he said, “But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13, ESV). Again, this goes back to us longing to reside in a sin-free environment, one in which sin has been eliminated from the picture. Recall? The Apostle Paul talked about this in Romans 8. Let’s turn over there and quickly consider that passage. He said:

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:18-25, ESV).

There will be absolute peace in the new world that we hope for. This is a world in which we will be completely free of any anxiety or sadness. Psalms 9:6 says, “The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins; their cities you rooted out; the very memory of them has perished” (ESV). The old world then will be far from us.

       In considering this new heaven and new earth, now let’s move into obviously the best place we are going to find information on it, which is in Revelation 21 and 22. There is a lot to consider in this passage of text. We are not going to read through it verse by verse, or section by section, and I want to bring up other verses from Scripture that will help us get the best picture we can. I would definitely encourage you to read Revelation 21 and 22 on your own time, as it is a great and encouraging passage of Scripture. It should be noted there many things about this new world we just won’t know until we actually experience it. Right now, there is no way for us to know everything we would like to know about it. But we should note that this new world will obviously be better than our current one, and that’s for multiple reasons, like the fact that we will be with God, the people who are our fellow family members who are saved will be there, and that he has created everything even more beautiful.

       So, in a physical, natural sense, what is this world going to be like? What is it going to look like? Well, Revelation 21 tells us that God is going to create a new heaven and a new earth. The new heaven, again, is a new outer-space. However, there won’t be any sun for the new earth. The text says that God’s glory will be the light of the city, with Jesus being the actual lamp. There also will be no ocean, but there will be water—like the The River of Life that goes through the center of the New Jerusalem, from the throne of God. Animals are not mentioned in the new world; so we don’t know for sure whether animals will be there or not. There will be trees—like The Tree of Life. There will be fruit to eat, then, and I’m sure it will be incredible—better than any earthly food we’ve ever had. Mountains will be there. So, it will be scenic for sure. A street of gold, like transparent glass John tells us, is there with a great wall around the city, which includes gates which are made of pearls. Nighttime will not exist, at least, in the city.

       Now, in Revelation 21, the Apostle John talks extensively about the New Jerusalem. In essence, this New Jerusalem is a place that God has been preparing and of which he brings down out of Heaven, the third realm of existence (which has not be destroyed), and he brings it down and displays it for everyone to see, in its glory. It is very possible that this is where our homes will be—the places that Jesus talked about preparing for us. He has promised us that he is currently developing a personal abode for each of us, one that is being crafted to our particular liking. He said, in John’s Gospel, “Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going” (John 14:1-4, ESV).

       Yes, there are going to be abundance in residences and abundance in possessions in our eternal state. Each of us will have a place tailor made for ourselves. Everything you like, God knows, t us. This is why when you go to church, or go to the movie theater, or a play, that you silence your smartphone before it starts. This is why you’re doing that. You don’t want to be interrupted in whatever it is your participating in, and you don’t want to be a distraction to those around you who are trying to have a peaceful time. Our smartphones are great. I love smartphones. However, they also put us in an easy to reach place, a place where anyone can try to get our attention at no moments notice. And not just that, but we can be tempted to check our email, social media, or our favorite shopping app for the latest things on sale. It isn’t just others, it’s ourselves also.

       One thing I do is that when I am working on writing, for instance, I will not look at or read any text messages that come my way until my writing session is over. “How can you do that?” someone might ask. “I could never do that.” Well, it’s a matter of training your brain so that you are not lured in by the temptation to check. The thing is, our brains tell us that we need to check the message. There is a ‘high’ from checking that message. But we need to learn not to check it. The brain will lie to us and tell us we better check it because someone could need our help. There could be an emergency. But, experientially, I find that that is hardly ever the case. The brain just wants us to worry that might be the case so that we’ll check and get that checking high.

       I suppose someone could eliminate the temptation altogether. Perhaps a person would put their phone in airplane mode, or put it in a desk door until the working time is passed. Really, though, I think it is better for one to train oneself to just not give into the temptation if possible. By changing your setting on your phone, or moving it out of sight, one could forget to change it back or forget it altogether. It involves doing more which is probably going to become a burden in and of itself. I think the less steps the better. The point in not looking at notifications as the come to our phones is to optimize our focus. If we read the message, our attention will be split from what we are working on to whatever the person who has texted us is saying. And, we could start up a new conversation that will hurt our current work.

       But it’s not just our smartphones that can get us. Working at home also can be an issue for some people. If your family or roommates are around, they can distract you from doing what you need to do. So, perhaps it is best to have a room or an area where one focuses on getting things done. And one could say to themselves, “I will not leave this room until I get done what I need to get done.” It’s all about self-discipline. The Scriptures repeatedly tell us to be self-controlled. All of this is part of having good self-control, of being good stewards with whatever work God has given us to do. We can’t be talking with people and working at the same time. We can’t be tending to family needs and trying to work. There needs to be fine lines in these matters, and only you can establish them.

Happiness Point #65: Take the School Approach

       One thing I like to do if I am having trouble getting things done, or really just some days in general, is practice what I call the ‘School Approach.’ What this involves is taking a certain amount of time and devoting it toward a task. This can be 45 or 50 minutes, much like a class back in high school or college. So, what I do sometimes at the beginning of the week is identify how much ‘free’ time I am going to have outside of my regular job to work on certain tasks that I do outside of work, like this radio show. So, let’s say for the sake of example that I know I’ll have one hour everyday during the work-week. So, that would be five time periods, or classes, that I can spend doing certain tasks. So, I could devote two them to my radio show (two 50 minute classes), two to a hobby, and one to my blog. Now I have a schedule for the week I can follow.

       The rule is that during that 45 or 50 minute time period, I focus solely on that task with no distractions. No checking anything on the smartphone, and no talking with anyone unless it has to do with completing the task. I don’t grab anything to eat, either. This allows me to have maximum focus and get the most out of it. It allows me to get things done. And I know that once the class is over that afterwards I can then check my phone. If I have two classes scheduled right next to each other, I know that I have the 10 or 15 break to check my phone. During that time between my classes, that’s when I check my phone or step out of my workroom to talk to people. It’s a lot of time. That’s when I grab a snack if that’s what I want to do.

       Since I have put this approach into practice, I have found it has done wonders for my productivity. Honestly, it is one of the main reasons behind how I am able to accomplish so much in little time. It’s all about focus. It’s all about working intensely in that short time I have set aside. With some things, it obviously takes more than one class to get it done. And this is obviously true in ongoing projects. The important thing is that I quit at quitting time. This keeps the project fresh, and it prevents overworking on the project so that there is no burnout associated with it. Overworking on something due to momentum may seem like it is helping, but I have found that more often than not it is actually hurting. I get tired of something, and then I might miss something new that comes to me later if I would have stopped at quitting time.

Happiness Point #66: View Forgiveness as a Gift

       Being unforgiving toward others simply isn’t worth it. Really, two reasons we can cite right off the bat have to do with our minds. People who are unforgiving are certainly tormented in their minds. They have thoughts labeled under the cloak of ‘righteous indignation,’ where they feel justified in holding anger or resentment toward others because the other person acted so badly. This is a real trap, and I think it is one that is hard to get away from because in some Christian circles righteousness is highly emphasized, in the belief that others should act ‘righteously.’ So, as an event replays over and over in one’s mind, and is never let go, this causes the person to relive the offense over and over again. This causes mental turmoil. And it may even be a whole series of events that are lived over.

       Nonetheless, all this being said, we can note that unforgiveness really is hurting us more than it is hurting the person or group of people we are being unforgiving toward. I have no doubt that unforgiveness does hurt the person we are mad at. Our minds are powerful, and all of those unforgiving thoughts float around from us in the spiritual realm. That’s one reason God really can’t fellowship with us when we are unforgiving. That negative energy emitted by us blocks the presence of God in our lives, or in our prayer time. It’s like when Peter talked about the husband’s prayers being blocked when he is mad at his wife. Well, it’s no different in our fellowship with God and unforgivness.

       The truth is that no one on the face of the earth deserves our forgiveness. Did you ever think about that? Likewise, no one on the face of the earth should, in reality, have to forgive us. That being said, we know that because of the world we currently live in, offense is going to occur. We know that we each have accumulated a huge deficit in front of God. We have offended God greatly, in many ways. Yet, we know that God has decided to forgive us completely and entirely. So, in view of that, we can follow his example. We, in the same way, can forgive our fellow person and do it as a ‘gift.’ The person doesn’t deserve it, and yet we can choose to bestow our kindness upon him or her just as if we were giving them a present, free of charge. This, I believe, eases the mind.

Happiness Point #67: Happiness Comes from the Inside

       A simple, basic, and yet profound truth is that we choose our own happiness on the inside. Yup, that’s the way it really works. I know we’ve heard that before. I know people have told us that, but, before you go off dismissing it again, really consider it. It’s all in how we view things. We can choose to enjoy our jobs, or we can choose to hate them. We can decide we love our spouse no matter what (till death do us part), or we can decide after several years that we no longer like the person—that we are no longer happy with them. We can decide to work toward a forgiving attitude toward others in everything, or can choose to instead harbor our anger and resentment. We can choose happiness, or we can choose unhappiness.

       A lot of people believe that happiness comes from your external circumstances. Yes, I do believe that’s what the majority of people think. And yet, not everyone reacts the same way to similar events. A person can be imprisoned in a concentration camp for several years, and decide to live the rest of their life very bitter and unhappy. And, a person can have the same experience and yet decide to forgive and move past it. We must remember that no matter what kind of negative life experience is gone through, there is always someone who has gone through a similar or even worse experience. And that person we are talking about has decided to handle it positively. So, if they could handle it positively, then can’t we? Are they a better human than us, or are they just like us?

       In reality, no external ‘thing’ can make us happy. Sure, good things can make us ‘happier,’ but they cannot truly become our foundation of happiness. We can lay a foundation in ‘things,’ and a lot of us do, but those things are subject to change. The clouds pass by. The sun rises and sets. The world goes round and round. Things change. Setting our happiness in externals is like building our house on the sand. Remember that illustration? We don’t want to do that. We want our happiness built on something firm, something that, no matter what happens ‘externally,’ the house still stands. Jesus certainly taught us that the externals are subject to change. It’s what our internals are built upon that matters.

       One way we could look at this is to understand that we are all like pillars of light. Imagine with me, for a second, that we all emit light out from us. The difference between us is how much light we emit. Now, let’s imagine that not only do we emit light, but that light can have a positive influence on those whom it is shined upon. In view of that, that would mean that if we aren’t shining any light, we cannot have a positive effect on our environment. If we are shinning at half power, our lives will probably be mediocre. I think this is where a lot of people are. But, if we are shining our lights at a higher power, a higher brightness, then others are affected in the most positive way because of it. The good thing with that is that if we brighten up others, they will feel better, which will cause them to shine at a brighter level, until soon all around us is everyone shining brightly. It benefits us in the end.

Happiness Point #68: Let Go of Bad Things that Happen

       Why is it often true that we don’t let go of bad things that happen? Well, I think it’s because in all honesty, it feels good to feel bad. What I mean is that there is definitely a benefit to feeling bad. When we feel we’ve been wronged, we get to play the victim card. We get to think to ourselves, “Oh, poor me. I’ve been victimized and taken advantage of.” A person’s whole being can be built around that idea. The problem with that, though, is that we cannot be moving forward in life if we are still sulking over something bad from the past. Anything we hold onto becomes like a weight tied to our legs that makes it harder and harder to move forward. No, we have to cut the weights off. And sometimes, that requires cutting off a few of the weights at a time.

       One thing I think that can help a person overcome holding onto things is the understanding that, in the instance where someone has hurt them, perhaps the other person really didn’t mean to. Perhaps they were just doing what they ‘believed’ was the right course of action at the moment. Later, it turns out, they were wrong. That being the case, we can choose to focus on their initial belief and see that they really weren’t trying to cause us harm. There have been times we thought we were doing right in something and later it turned out to be incorrect in our thinking. So, why can’t we see and understand that other people will probably do this to? I mean, if we’ve done it, couldn’t it be possible that that’s what happened with them?

       Here is a hard truth. It’s not that we cannot forgive a person for a wrong, or forget a bad event that has happened, it’s that we are really choosing not to. I mean, let’s take an example. We know that Peter denied Jesus three times at the moment he needed Peter most. If there was any moment in Jesus’ friendship where he needed Peter the most, it was at the moment he got arrested. And why did Peter do this? Was it because he, himself, turned against the Lord? No, it was because he wanted to save himself. He really didn’t want to die, even though he had claimed he did and would. I think Jesus understood that, and in understanding that, that really it wasn’t personal, that Peter just wanted to save himself, he was probably more easily able to forgive Peter for the offense.

       And yet, sometimes people really are aiming to be malicious against us. In these cases do we believe that we really cannot forgive them? Or, again, are we choosing rather not to forgive? Well, let’s consider God again. We know that we have done malicious things against God, and that he has completely and entirely forgiven us. So, God has chosen to forgive us. In light of that, then, doesn’t that mean that no matter what anyone does to us, even if it is really bad or malicious, that we can choose to forgive them, just like God? Certainly. But, I think it takes a surrendered state. It takes a person who is surrendered in everything as pertains to this world to truly completely and entirely forgive everyone. I mean, people can take things away from us; they can permanently damage our lives. So, we have to be surrendered in everything about our lives if we are going to forgive them.

- Daniel Litton