What Will My Happiness Look Like in Heaven?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Randy Alcorn joins us one final time this week
00:00:07.800 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast,
00:00:09.600 | and Pastor John will be back with us on Monday.
00:00:13.160 | Randy, of course, is the author of the new book, Happiness,
00:00:16.040 | a really excellent book,
00:00:17.280 | and Randy, you wrote the best-selling book, Heaven,
00:00:21.160 | and now you've written the book, Happiness.
00:00:23.040 | So how will joy in eternity be similar or be different
00:00:27.600 | from the joy that we can experience right now?
00:00:30.920 | - Well, I think joy in eternity will be
00:00:35.440 | the same sort of thing we know as joy
00:00:38.360 | and happiness and delight right now,
00:00:40.920 | but it will be purified and absolute in the sense that,
00:00:45.920 | as Paul says, we're sorrowful yet always rejoicing.
00:00:49.640 | We live in a world under the curse,
00:00:52.200 | and so there's always, even as we rejoice,
00:00:57.360 | even as we rejoice with those who rejoice,
00:00:59.680 | we weep with those who weep, and that's right,
00:01:02.280 | and it should be.
00:01:03.120 | We don't just paste on a smiley face
00:01:05.760 | as we look at a world of tremendous need,
00:01:09.120 | of children suffering, and you've got sex trafficking,
00:01:13.640 | you've got all of these different things.
00:01:15.200 | So right now, our happiness in Christ
00:01:19.640 | is something that can and should be very real,
00:01:23.680 | but at the same time, we recognize
00:01:26.620 | that I can't be absolutely happy all the time.
00:01:29.640 | In fact, it would be inappropriate
00:01:32.040 | if I was given the condition of the world.
00:01:36.520 | So what will happen in eternity
00:01:38.880 | is we enter into our master's happiness.
00:01:43.800 | I just love that it doesn't, you know,
00:01:45.800 | that the master doesn't say to his servant,
00:01:48.680 | muster up your own happiness and bring it here,
00:01:53.160 | and it's your duty to make yourself happy all the time.
00:01:57.540 | It's that he says, enter into my happiness,
00:02:00.180 | and the very place of heaven,
00:02:03.260 | which is what makes heaven such a desirable
00:02:05.640 | and wonderful place, is that it is permeated
00:02:08.780 | by the person of God.
00:02:10.460 | It's where God is.
00:02:12.140 | You know, we shouldn't want to be in a heaven without God.
00:02:15.100 | First of all, it wouldn't be heaven truly,
00:02:17.540 | but God is the one who brings his nature to it.
00:02:21.180 | All of his attributes, including his happiness.
00:02:24.600 | So I think what happens is in this life, here and now,
00:02:29.280 | we do get foretaste of the complete and total bliss,
00:02:34.280 | the utter happiness of heaven.
00:02:39.480 | And we can, even in the midst of great difficulty,
00:02:43.320 | do what "Valley of Vision," the book of Puritan prayers,
00:02:47.040 | is full of words, the word happiness and its synonyms,
00:02:52.040 | and yet it's just so deep with the burdens and realities
00:02:57.040 | of a sin-defiled world, but always with the sense of hope,
00:03:03.420 | a blood-bought hope, a hope with substance and expectation
00:03:08.800 | that one day God is gonna wipe away the tears from every eye
00:03:13.600 | as Revelation 21, four says.
00:03:16.280 | There will be no more suffering, no more pain.
00:03:19.180 | There will be no more separation.
00:03:22.120 | We will experience all of the realities of who God is
00:03:27.120 | and every day will be better than the one before.
00:03:31.680 | The old fairy tale ending, happy ever after,
00:03:36.520 | that's not a fairy tale.
00:03:37.840 | That's God's unfolding drama of redemption,
00:03:40.560 | the greatest story ever told,
00:03:43.080 | the ultimate redemptive story,
00:03:45.440 | and he promises us we'll never pass our peaks
00:03:49.440 | and we will live happily ever after in his presence,
00:03:54.240 | to his glory and for our good.
00:03:57.120 | And that magnificence should permeate our lives
00:04:00.860 | and our thinking today.
00:04:02.600 | We should not wait until we die
00:04:05.400 | to discover a taste of all that.
00:04:07.160 | We should be experiencing it daily, even now.
00:04:10.360 | - Amen, yes, Randy Alcorn,
00:04:12.320 | thank you for joining us this week
00:04:13.500 | on the Ask Pastor John podcast.
00:04:15.160 | - It's been a pleasure, great to be with you, Tony.
00:04:17.840 | - Be sure to check out Randy's new book, Happiness,
00:04:21.000 | and we're gonna break for the weekend.
00:04:22.280 | If you missed any episodes with Randy Alcorn on happiness,
00:04:24.800 | be sure to check out the Ask Pastor John app
00:04:26.680 | online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:04:31.680 | Pastor John returns Monday to answer an important question
00:04:35.120 | from a listener who is a seeker who asks,
00:04:38.200 | when do I know when it's time to believe in Christ?
00:04:41.680 | No matter where you're at spiritually,
00:04:43.280 | you won't wanna miss this episode.
00:04:44.840 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:04:46.560 | Have a great weekend and I will see you on Monday.
00:04:49.060 | (upbeat music)
00:04:51.640 | (upbeat music)
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