Here’s a warm, thoughtful Substack post to accompany this Sunday’s sermon recording, drawn directly from the transcript you uploaded:
The Last Word on Heaven
This week we came to the close of our Last Word for Today series on Revelation. Over the past eight weeks we’ve heard John’s pastoral vision give us the last word on Scripture, Christ, the Church, worship, evil, prayer, witness, judgment—and now, heaven.
When many people think of heaven, they picture something far away: clouds, harps, or even a kind of escape from earth. But Revelation gives us something different. As Pastor Donn said in the sermon:
“Heaven is not us going up there. In Revelation, it’s God coming here. Heaven is not escape or distance, but the fullness of God’s presence.”
In John’s vision, heaven descends. God moves into the neighborhood, making his home with us, wiping away every tear, renewing creation. There is no temple, for God and the Lamb themselves are the temple. God’s glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp.
That means eternity isn’t just “pie in the sky by and by.” As Eugene Peterson put it, eternity is not perpetual future, but perpetual presence. Heaven is already breaking in. The “pay begins in this life,” as St. Teresa of Avila said.
Because of this, we live differently now—
hopefully, because evil and death will not have the last word,
courageously, because God dwells with us even now, and
faithfully, because we are already citizens of that city.
The last word on heaven is God’s presence—here, now, and forever.
We’d love to see you in person at Lincoln Park-Lynnwood United Methodist Church, 3120 Pershing Street, Knoxville, TN. Come as you are. We’re not in the judging business. We’re in the welcoming business.
