More Than You Have Ever Imagined
Part Six of the Heaven series — The Woodlands First Baptist Church
Most people, if they think about heaven at all, imagine something quiet and still. Clouds, maybe a harp, an endless Sunday afternoon. It is a pleasant enough picture, but it is almost entirely wrong. In this week’s message at The Woodlands First Baptist Church in The Woodlands, TX, Dr. Bruce Webb turns to Scripture to answer a question most people never think to ask: what will we actually do in eternity?
The answer is more active, more adventurous, and more creative than most of us have allowed ourselves to imagine. Scripture does not describe heaven as a place of eternal rest in the sense of inactivity. It describes a place of rest in the deeper sense of total well-being, of finally being fully satisfied and completely alive. Here is what the Bible says is ahead.
We Will Study and Learn
Some people assume that in heaven we will simply know everything automatically. But that would make us equal to God, and Scripture never suggests that is the case. Ephesians 2:6-7 says God raised us up with Christ so that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace. The phrase “coming ages” is plural, implying an ongoing unfolding rather than a single moment of complete revelation.
As theologian Brian Harbour puts it: it takes an eternity to study infinity. Our minds in heaven will be alert, our memory sharp, our eagerness to learn fully alive. And God will be glad to give us answers to everything we have ever wondered about. How did the Grand Canyon form? What is the full explanation of free will and predestination? Why did someone we loved so much have to leave so young? In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul says that now we know in part, but then we will know fully, even as we are fully known. The learning does not stop in heaven; it finally begins in earnest.
We Will Worship
Revelation 4:10 pictures the inhabitants of heaven falling down before the one who sits on the throne. But worship in heaven will not be the restrained, distracted, sometimes self-conscious thing it can be on earth. There will be no skepticism, no frustration with the volume or the style, no wandering attention. Only enthusiasm and gratitude.
Dr. Webb invites us to imagine what the music might be. How about hearing Paul, John, or Peter speak in person? What about Noah or Joseph sharing a testimony? Perhaps Keith Green at the piano, King David on the harp, a choir drawn from every century of church history, performing an original composition by Beethoven while he directs it himself. And then it gets quiet as Jesus himself opens the Scriptures, and those present say what the two disciples said on the road to Emmaus: did not our hearts burn within us?
We Will Rejoice Together
In Matthew 25, God says to his faithful servant: come and share in your master’s happiness. That invitation is not a metaphor for a mild feeling of contentment. It is an entrance into the joy of God himself. We will celebrate our resurrection bodies together, free from insecurity, envy, bitterness, and division. We will glory together in the fact that the faith we placed in Jesus was true all along.
Romans 12:15 says to rejoice with those who rejoice. In heaven, that becomes the permanent condition rather than the occasional aspiration. We serve a happy and loving God, and we will rejoice in him and with him, together, without limit.
We Will Explore a Universe Without Limits
This is the section of the sermon that tends to catch people off guard. John’s description of the new Jerusalem in Revelation 21 gives dimensions: 1,400 miles in length, width, and height. That is a city stretching from
Senior Pastor Dr. Bruce Webb closes the heaven series at The Woodlands First with a vision of eternity that is far more active, creative, and beautiful than most people expect.
Canada to Mexico, from the Appalachian Mountains to California, and then rising 1,400 miles into the sky. And that is only the city at the center. The new heaven and the new earth surround it.
Three passages in the New Testament say our resurrection bodies will be like Jesus’ glorified body. After the resurrection, Jesus walked through locked doors, appeared and disappeared, and ascended into the sky. The early church father Augustine concluded from these accounts that our resurrection bodies will be able to go anywhere, at any time, without physical limitation.
Dr. Webb draws out the implications. If that is true, then in heaven we might have lunch in Paris, spend the afternoon in the Rockies, and have dinner in the Alps. But why limit it to earth? Halley’s comet, the surface of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn. The Milky Way alone contains between 100 and 400 billion stars, and the observable universe contains hundreds of billions of galaxies beyond our own. We are going to need eternity just to begin exploring, and the problem, Dr. Webb says with some delight, will be knowing where to start.
Furthermore, God does not discard creation; he redeems it. Romans 8:21-22 describes the whole creation groaning in anticipation of being liberated from its bondage to decay. The mountains, rivers, oceans, canyons, coral reefs, and rain forests we know now are real things, but they carry the weight of the curse. In the new creation, they will be freed from it. Everything beautiful here will be even more beautiful there.
Dr. Webb shares a personal memory to illustrate what this might feel like. More than twenty years ago, on a mission trip to Mexico, he drove past a dramatic mountain peak called Cerro del Bernal. He wanted to stop and climb it but had a group to lead and no time. Later, during a free afternoon, the team drove into the mountains and came to a small village called El Cielo, which means the heavens, nestled at the edge of a rain forest with mango trees growing wild everywhere. There were 4-wheel tracks running through the mountains in every direction, and there was no time to explore them. It was, he says, genuinely frustrating.
Heaven will reverse that frustration permanently. Unlimited time, unlimited capability, unlimited wonder. He finishes with a promise: when we get there, he is going to both of those places, and he is taking us with him.
We Will Serve and Reign With Christ
Revelation 22:3 says: “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.” Work is not a punishment God invented after sin entered the world. It existed in the Garden of Eden before the fall. What the fall did was introduce the curse that makes work exhausting, frustrating, and often meaningless. In heaven, the curse on work is lifted entirely.
James T. O’Connor wrote that the saints will work and will enjoy it, finding it an outlet for heightened creativity and a means of glorifying the Creator. Winston Churchill, who had no shortage of things to say about most subjects, once remarked that when he got to heaven he intended to spend a considerable portion of his first million years painting, so as to finally get to the bottom of the subject.
Scripture says on three occasions that believers will reign with Christ. Revelation 22:5 says they will reign forever and ever. Just as God gives each of us a piece of the garden on earth to tend, he will give us responsibility in heaven, meaningful work in service of his will, with all the frustration and limitation removed.
We Will Finally Become Who We Were Always Meant to Be
All of this, the learning, the worship, the joy, the exploration, the service, converges on a single point. In heaven, we will finally and fully become the person God created us to be. Every limitation this life has imposed, every time we have fallen short of the best we wanted to be, every frustrated potential, comes to its intended fulfillment in eternity.
Dr. Webb closes with a memory from his sophomore year of college. It was one in the morning in San Marcos, Texas. He had just returned from a date and stepped outside to find lightning moving across the entire sky from one horizon to the other, not in flashes but in hundreds of silver lines weaving slowly from east to west. He sat on the tailgate of his truck for hours, unable to leave, sensing the presence of God in a way he had rarely felt before or since.
The next morning it was gone. He tried to describe it to people and watched their eyes glaze. He wrote it down so he would never forget it. His closing line, written as a 19-year-old, was this: “I did, however, tainted by this world, for a brief moment catch a glimpse of heaven, and it was real nice.”
T.S. Eliot called these moments “a tremor of bliss, a wink of heaven, a whisper.” Dr. Webb’s point is that in heaven, those moments will not slip away. They will not be too fleeting to share or too private to explain. They will be the permanent condition, available in full, with the people we love, forever.
C.S. Lewis described the progressive journey into heaven as going farther up and deeper in. Genesis 1 and 2 are paralleled by Revelation 21 and 22: what God began in the Garden is what he completes in eternity. The end is like the beginning, only better than we have words for.
The Trip of a Lifetime Is Still Ahead
This series began with a simple observation: the best things in life are meant to be shared, and the best trip any of us will ever take is still ahead. Scripture gives us a picture that is richer and more specific than most people expect. Heaven is a place of learning, worship, joy, reunion, extraordinary beauty, purposeful work, and the full realization of who God made each of us to be.
The cost of the trip has already been paid. Every follower of Jesus has a reservation. And if you have not yet made that decision, the invitation is still open. As Romans 10:13 says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
If you are searching for a church near me in The Woodlands, TX where these questions are explored honestly and Scripture is taken seriously, we would love for you to join us at The Woodlands First Baptist Church. Whether you have followed Jesus for decades or you are just beginning to wonder if any of this is true, you are welcome here.
Learn More about The Woodlands First
► Watch the full sermon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3Nxdsjg8Ig
► Plan your visit this Sunday: https://thewoodlandsfirst.org/new/
► Learn about our church: https://thewoodlandsfirst.org/beliefs/
► First Kids (Children’s Ministry): https://thewoodlandsfirst.org/ministries/first-kids/
Visit The Woodlands First Baptist Church
We offer worship services in traditional, modern, and Spanish-language styles across two campuses in The Woodlands, TX, along with Bible study classes and small groups for all ages.
South Campus: 11801 Grogan’s Mill Rd, The Woodlands, TX 77380
North Campus: 5148 FM 1488, The Woodlands, TX 77354
Phone: (281) 367-4317
Website: thewoodlandsfirst.org
Looking for churches near me in The Woodlands, TX? The Woodlands First Baptist Church has served this community since 1979. Come discover a community that takes Scripture seriously and welcomes everyone who is searching.
