Pastor John, you and I and a number of folks from Desiring God recently traveled to Orlando for the Gospel Coalition National Conference. And looking back on the trip, is there any overflow from our time there that you want to share here with us now? And we should probably begin with the conference theme.

The theme of the conference was "Coming Home, the New Heavens and the New Earth." And one of the things I did there, I did about 12 things, I was just blown away with how much there was to do, but God was so good to give grace, as He always is.

But one of the things I did was a little seven-minute conversation, video conversation, with Scott Swain of RTS Orlando and Randy Alcorn, and the question that was pitched to us was popular misconceptions about heaven. And of course, Randy is the global expert. He wrote the big, excellent book on heaven.

So we began to talk about that, and both Randy and Scott called attention to the popular notion that the final destiny of believers is to be with God in a realm of the sky, beyond space and time, where we go when we die. And both of them, of course, wanted to stress that, yes, we certainly do go to be with Christ immediately after we die.

2 Corinthians 5, 8, Paul says, "We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord." Philippians 1, 23, "I'm hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." They both say, "Yes, yes, amen, we will be with Christ immediately when we die." And Randy, however, the first thing he wanted to qualify in that conception was beyond time, or time will be no more.

He said that old song that, I guess, my generation sang once upon a time, "Time will be no more." He said, "That's not right." He said, "There are a lot of indications that in heaven, in the new heavens, in the new earth, there will be time." And I suppose the best example would be that Jesus Christ has a body.

He took his bodily incarnate self back to heaven, and it's just mind-boggling to me to think that the second person of the Trinity has a body forever and ever. But a body means space and time. And so that was the first qualification Randy wanted to give, that immediately after we die, we go to be with Christ, who is an embodied person there, and we wait for him to come and give us a new body here.

And both of them, Scott and Randy, wanted to say that, "Yes, we will be with Christ immediately when we die, but," Paul said, "that's not our final and best hope for what's coming in the future. We will be with him, but we are going to be with him on a new earth, under a new heaven, because Revelation 21 pictures the coming down to earth of heaven, as it were.

It says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride." So this is the church adorned for her husband.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men.'" So here's God and man coming down for their final settlement on a new earth. And that's, they both agreed, often in the Christian church not clearly perceived as we comfort people and give them their final and best hope.

It is not merely to die and go to be with Christ, but to be with Christ in the new heavens and the new earth. So I expected us to go there, but the part of this conversation, this seven-minute conversation, that made the trip worth it for me was the direction it took in asking how the hope of heaven now affects life now.

And it was the two ways that came together that struck me as fresh. Scott pointed our attention to 1 John 3, 2, and that says, "Beloved, we are God's children now, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we'll be like him, because we will see him as he is.

And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." In other words, if you believe that you're going to see Christ and be changed by him into his likeness and you thus hope in him, it says, you will purify yourself as he is pure. And that clobbered me in a powerful way, more than it ever had.

It's huge. People who are not purifying themselves with a passion to be pure like Jesus are saying, "He's not what I'm hoping for." And think about that. The Bible says everyone who thus hopes in Jesus, that is, hopes to see and become like Jesus, purifies himself as he is pure.

So the test of whether we're hoping to see Jesus in his purity and be like him at that moment in his purity, because if we're not, we'll be consumed, the test of that is whether we're purifying ourselves now. So that's huge. I mean, if you have a hope for heaven, that means seeing Jesus as he is and being changed into his likeness, because you're seeing him as he is, that will be what you are doing with your life now.

And then the second one, the second way that hoping in heaven impacts our life now is so related to it in a way that I hadn't seen before. The second way is that hoping in heaven, having this great reward of heaven makes us so happy now, so secure now, that we can joyfully endure any mistreatment here as we pursue purity or righteousness.

So here's the text, Matthew 5, 10. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." So our persecution is for righteousness' sake, which is the same as the purity we're pursuing in 1 John. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven." So this is another absolutely astonishing statement. When we are mistreated and slandered with every kind of vicious slander, we can and should rejoice and be glad and press on with living for righteousness' sake or pursuing that purity that 1 John spoke about.

So the hope of heaven and the greatness of our reward affects us in two ways, both of which empower purity of life here and now in the face of opposition. It makes us passionate for purity because the one we hope to see and be with and be like is pure, and it makes us fearless and happy so that people can't stop us from pursuing this passion for purity and righteousness here.

So that, Tony, was a great encouragement to me, to see the nature of heaven made real in the new heavens and the new earth, and then to see how this double way of hope affecting my passion for purity and righteousness was a great incentive for me to get on with the work.

Thank you, Pastor John. And if you have a question for John Piper, or if you want to catch up on the recent episodes of this podcast, or if you want to see a list of our most popular episodes of all time, you can do all of that at our landing page.

Go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. And there you can also find a number of episodes we recorded on heaven in the past with John Piper and with Randy Alcorn. Type heaven in the search bar. Well, do false ethics qualify as false teaching? It's a very important question, and Pastor John will tackle it tomorrow.

We'll see you then.