Will My Spouse Be My Best Friend in Heaven?

00:00:00.000 | Welcome back to the podcast on this Friday.

00:00:06.320 | To close out the week, as you may know, we get a lot of pretty touching emails about

00:00:11.440 | marriage.

00:00:13.100 | Like the one I'm about to read today, it's from a grieving woman, an anonymous woman,

00:00:18.400 | a young woman who lives in the Philippines.

00:00:21.640 | Here's what she writes.

00:00:22.640 | "Dear Pastor John, I have been up until recently very happily married.

00:00:28.520 | I am now widowed.

00:00:30.520 | My husband died just a few weeks ago, and I am devastated.

00:00:36.360 | I believe there's a reason for why I have been left behind.

00:00:40.600 | I trust God on that.

00:00:42.400 | I believe there's a reason why he had to go.

00:00:44.840 | I can trust God on that, and I believe that we can make it without him.

00:00:49.520 | Myself, our young son, and the church my husband led.

00:00:54.160 | I find myself experiencing joy and longing, trust and nervousness, peace and homesickness

00:01:02.080 | for heaven.

00:01:03.760 | Aside from missing him and wanting the life we had back, what I can't seem to wrap my

00:01:08.040 | head around are these questions.

00:01:10.400 | Why did God even allow me and my husband to share a love like ours on earth if this will

00:01:14.860 | mean nothing in heaven?

00:01:17.820 | Can't I at least be guaranteed that my husband will still be my best friend in heaven?

00:01:22.780 | Will he even be excited to see me when I get there?

00:01:26.440 | In marriage, two become one.

00:01:29.480 | Am I just half a person left behind?

00:01:32.280 | I know when I get to heaven and enter God's presence, none of these questions will matter,

00:01:36.280 | but they matter now, and I struggle to find wisdom and comfort as to how I must approach

00:01:41.280 | my remaining years on earth.

00:01:44.360 | Thank you."

00:01:45.360 | That's a beautiful question.

00:01:46.800 | It really is.

00:01:47.800 | Because it's just so full of faith, right?

00:01:50.520 | At the front end and then perplexity at the back end.

00:01:54.560 | The loss is still painful, and the questions are still real and urgent.

00:02:00.920 | So let me sit down, so to speak, with her for a few minutes and think out loud about

00:02:11.360 | three of her questions in the hope that maybe my reflections from the Bible and experience

00:02:18.400 | will bring some measure of Christ-honoring comfort to her.

00:02:24.360 | Behind her questions is the teaching of Jesus in Mark 12, 25, "When married people rise

00:02:32.640 | from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in

00:02:38.800 | heaven."

00:02:39.800 | In other words, marriage as we know it will not exist in the age to come.

00:02:48.040 | So that's behind her questions.

00:02:51.360 | That very fact for this young widow is raising numerous perplexities.

00:02:58.080 | So first she wonders, "Why did God even allow me and my husband to share a love like

00:03:06.460 | ours on earth if this will mean nothing in heaven?"

00:03:13.040 | The first thing to say in response to this question is that in this present life, every

00:03:21.840 | relationship of love and faithfulness and loyalty and sacrifice and care will be celebrated

00:03:31.800 | for all eternity in tribute to the grace of God and the faithfulness of his obedient child.

00:03:39.920 | The well-done good and faithful servant that Jesus speaks to his faithful followers at

00:03:46.320 | the resurrection is a well-done in every fruitful relationship.

00:03:54.840 | Well-done for that beautiful love.

00:03:57.640 | Well-done.

00:03:58.640 | God's gracious approval of our imperfect works of faith is not a celebrative bubble

00:04:07.280 | that pops at the second coming and is forgotten for eternity.

00:04:13.520 | There are eternal good effects to all good done on the earth.

00:04:20.800 | Ephesians 6, 8, "Whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord."

00:04:29.440 | Good parenting that lasts five years before a child is snatched away in a car accident.

00:04:37.720 | Good chastity during engagement before a fiancee dies of a heart attack before the wedding.

00:04:46.120 | Good faithfulness and intense mutually self-giving romance in marriage that she describes.

00:04:54.200 | These will not be meaningless in heaven.

00:04:57.020 | They won't.

00:04:58.580 | Every good and beautiful fruit of God's Spirit in your life will reverberate forever to the

00:05:06.480 | tribute of his grace and your faith.

00:05:09.600 | That's the first thing to say.

00:05:11.040 | The sweetness and intensity of the love between you and your husband will have its echo in

00:05:19.200 | the music of heaven.

00:05:22.200 | It wasn't in vain.

00:05:24.280 | And the second thing to say about this question of why God gave them such sweet love is this.

00:05:31.720 | This world, in its most exquisite pleasures, is designed by God to show something of himself.

00:05:40.880 | The heavens and everything else are declaring the glory of God, the psalm says.

00:05:47.840 | And all these pleasures are meant to awaken thankfulness now and strong anticipation of

00:05:55.720 | the age to come, when the pleasures of this age will seem as foretastes of something vastly

00:06:01.600 | greater.

00:06:02.600 | They are.

00:06:03.600 | The pleasures of this present age, even the most godly of them, are not the point of the

00:06:09.680 | universe, but they are pointers to the point.

00:06:13.080 | The Bible pictures the age to come as better than this life, not just because bad things

00:06:20.640 | will be taken away, but because good things will be seen to be only foretastes of better

00:06:27.080 | things, a better feast of pleasure.

00:06:31.280 | Jesus showed this when he said that marriage gets replaced by something better.

00:06:36.400 | Paul showed it when he described the resurrection as replacing this world with something gloriously

00:06:42.640 | better.

00:06:43.640 | Listen to these words from 1 Corinthians 15, 42.

00:06:48.040 | So is it with the resurrection of the dead.

00:06:53.480 | What is sown is perishable.

00:06:55.300 | What is raised is imperishable.

00:06:57.920 | What is sown in dishonor is raised in glory.

00:07:01.680 | It is sown in weakness.

00:07:04.640 | It is raised in power.

00:07:06.920 | It is sown a natural body.

00:07:10.600 | It is raised a spiritual body.

00:07:14.720 | If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

00:07:21.080 | Now, we can't conceive fully what a spiritual body is.

00:07:28.480 | But in Paul's mind, it exceeded this present body with all its pleasures.

00:07:35.640 | But the brightness of the glory of a blue sky exceeds a decaying, rotting seed in the

00:07:43.440 | ground.

00:07:44.880 | So I conclude that the happiest marriage in the world is but a head start on the joys

00:07:52.720 | of heaven.

00:07:54.680 | It is the appetizer before the feast.

00:07:58.400 | It is the warm-up singer who's really good before the great artist sings.

00:08:06.200 | God saves the best wine just like Jesus at Cana till the last.

00:08:12.960 | And in a happy marriage, even the first wine was really good.

00:08:19.960 | Then our young widow asks, "Can't I at least be guaranteed that my husband will still be

00:08:25.880 | my best friend in heaven?

00:08:28.120 | Will he even be excited to see me when I get there?"

00:08:31.280 | Now, she knows as well as I do, and she says as much at the end, that Jesus is and will

00:08:40.200 | be her best friend.

00:08:42.120 | She knows that.

00:08:43.920 | No longer do I call you servants.

00:08:46.560 | I have called you friends.

00:08:49.000 | Greater love has no one than this, than that he laid down his life for his friends.

00:08:55.000 | But I think what she's feeling is that while her husband lived, he bestowed on her something

00:09:01.920 | that nobody else on earth could give, a unique kind of affection, a love that gave her a

00:09:10.040 | very precious sense of belonging that nobody else could give on this earth.

00:09:16.140 | And she wonders whether she will have that sweet experience in the age to come, which

00:09:22.920 | only he was able to give her.

00:09:25.720 | And I think the answer is, we just don't know what the music of love on earth is going to

00:09:33.840 | be like when it is transposed into the greater melody of the love of heaven, where there's

00:09:40.760 | no sin whatsoever.

00:09:44.120 | This is the great unknown about the immeasurable joys of heaven.

00:09:50.120 | What will it be like when she and her husband are beyond the possibility of sin, the sin

00:09:58.240 | of self-pity, the sin of disregard?

00:10:03.280 | What will it be like when we are not capable of being disappointed, when we're not capable

00:10:10.560 | of being sad at any relationship that God has established?

00:10:17.320 | Your husband, I venture to say then, will be for you and you will be for him all that

00:10:25.120 | you need each other to be in order for your joy to be full in the presence of God.

00:10:34.600 | And finally, she wonders this, since in marriage the two become one, am I just half a person

00:10:43.840 | left behind?

00:10:46.360 | The answer is no, you are not only half a person left behind.

00:10:55.000 | It's not that simple.

00:10:57.040 | Yes, part of you is gone.

00:10:59.760 | I'll admit that.

00:11:00.920 | I think you should own that.

00:11:03.040 | And that's sad.

00:11:05.360 | Part of you is gone.

00:11:07.200 | Only he could draw out of you certain desires, certain kinds of laughter, kinds of anger,

00:11:15.280 | kinds of peace, countless other inner responses that you can't even put into words.

00:11:21.880 | He had become so embedded in your life that for him to be absent is yes, for part of you

00:11:31.200 | yourself to be absent.

00:11:33.520 | That's true.

00:11:35.040 | Things will never be just the same again.

00:11:40.120 | And it would dishonor him to think that they should be.

00:11:45.000 | But consider this.

00:11:48.360 | Not all that you became by union with him is lost.

00:11:55.120 | You know it's not.

00:11:56.760 | You became a wiser, deeper, better person because of life with him.

00:12:04.800 | He did not take all of that with him when he left.

00:12:09.560 | You know he didn't.

00:12:10.820 | You know who you are.

00:12:12.500 | And what you became through him is not less, but more, more than you were before he entered

00:12:21.000 | your life.

00:12:22.880 | God has not made you less, but more.

00:12:27.360 | Things will never be the same.

00:12:28.680 | That's true.

00:12:30.180 | But God's call on your life now is to be the person you became through love with your husband

00:12:40.720 | for the glory of God.

00:12:42.640 | Thank you, Pastor John.

00:12:44.640 | And thank you to the woman who sent in this very raw email.

00:12:47.620 | We appreciate your willingness to share your life with us all on the podcast with a question

00:12:53.360 | like this one.

00:12:55.480 | We break for the weekend now, and when we return on Monday, we're going to look at whether

00:12:59.200 | or not there are any morally neutral areas of life.

00:13:03.120 | Are there okay things in life that aren't sin, but aren't exactly holy or beneficial

00:13:09.160 | either?

00:13:16.080 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Will My Spouse Be My Best Friend in Heaven?

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