Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Dad Tire podcast. Really excited for you two. Listen to today's conversation. It's a really fascinating one. Before we jump in, a couple things. One, um, if you haven't checked out, I just put these brand new dinnertime discussion cards on our shop. Um, I've been spending the last year creating these really, really cool, again, if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, which I suggest you do, it just kind of makes the conversations that we have on the podcast come alive.
Um, but. You can see these cards here. They're really, really cool. You just open it up. This takes zero prep work, man. You just pull one of these cards out. There's tons of cards in here. You just pull one of these cards out, um, and then you grab one and they are filled with questions that you can ask your family.
Um, at the dinner table or in a car ride, or at vacation or sitting around the living room or whatever you're doing. So I just randomly pulled one out. The question on this one is, what are some ways we can reconcile with someone who's hurt us, who we've hurt, or someone who has hurt us? Uh, and then there I put scripture references for every one of those CRE questions.
So if you want to like have bonus points and turn it into a little Bible study, it's super easy. You just read those two passages. It will talk about what it looks like to reconcile through the word of God. Um, and then you guys can just spend a little bit time pointing your family back to Jesus. Second question is here, uh, what does it mean to have a heart of worship?
Um, and then I listed some verses there, um, and the scriptures that talk about what it looks like to have a heart of worship. So anyway, there hundreds of these questions. Um, that you can just literally pick up the box, grab a card, ask your kids, your family, these questions, and they are very simple, easy ways to point your kids' eyes and hearts closer to Jesus.
So if you wanna pick a pair of these or a set of these cards, um, I'm, I'm surprised I just put it on one post on Instagram and we are already getting close to selling out of these. So I didn't know how they would do. I ordered 500 and we are, uh, I think. I don't know exactly what the number is. I don't wanna make a number up, but we have sold a ton of them already.
So anyway, if you want to pick up a set of these, go to dad tire.com, click the shop tab. Tab. We have dad tire hats and T-shirts and sweatshirts, these kind of cards, books, resources, all kinds of things to help you become the spiritual leader of your home. Speaking of getting into God's word, um. My friends over at Dwell Bible have sponsored today's podcast.
Again, if you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, you can see I'm holding up the app here. As a dad, you know that it is super hard. We all agree as Christian dudes that we want to be in the word of God more. That's a high priority for all of us should be at least. And yet we find ourselves, if we're honest, most of us.
Get through a day and we're like, dude, I didn't read any scripture. I didn't meditate on anything in the word of God. And so we're always looking for ways to help us get more plugged into the word of God. 'cause we know that is the bread of life. It is what sustains us. It's the living water. Everything else is cheap and fake and does not satisfy our souls.
We need the word of God to sustain us. Anyway, the Bible, uh, or the Dwell Bible app, has made an incredible app to help you engage with the word of God. So I'm gonna just play here. Uh, I just opened it up to, um, Psalm 1 25. Um, what's cool about it is lest the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.
So what's cool about this is you can pick a variety of voices. They have tons of voices. My favorite here is Mark reading. The E-S-V-E-S-V is my personal, you know, uh, translation choice. But you can pick any of the translations that they have available, which is many of them. Uh, and then multiple voices within those translations.
They even have 'em in different languages. Spanish speaking. Um, and then you can put background music. So what I like to do is after a busy day of trying to be a dad and all the chaos of changing, uh, we don't have any diapers anymore, but helping toddlers and cleaning up milk spills and having deep conversations with my 13-year-old, after all the busy, chaotic moments of life, um, I like to go to bed listening to the word of God, not the news.
Not on social media apps, but just listening to the word of God. And my favorite app truly to do that is this Dwell Bible app. Again, they have, they have daily devotionals that you can get into, but also if you just wanna listen to straight the word of God and have it really come to life and not really sound like a robotic voice, um, reading to you, you can pick the voice of your choice.
You can pick the background music. They even have kids that are reading the scripture. So if you want to get your kids involved in the car, um, it's just a really, really great way to make the word of God come to life. So if you haven't already, make sure that you go download that they hooked you up with a discount.
Um, if you go to dwell bible.com/dads hired. You can get 25% off, um, a membership to their Dwell Bible app. Again, dwell bible.com/dad tired and you'll get 25% off. That being said, let's dive into today's episode.
Jordan, so excited to have you back, man. Uh, you've been on a show a few times. We were just talking about how it's not always, uh, super common to like jump back on the same podcast multiple times, but for me. It's really easy to have you on. I could have you on every few weeks, uh, just because you always add so much value to our audience.
You've always got a lot to say. That's super helpful for me and our listeners. But, um, anyway, ma'am, glad to have you back. Tell us for the, maybe for the guys who've just found the Dads Hired podcast, maybe they haven't heard you on our show before. Yeah. We're not familiar with you. Who are you and, uh, what are you up to these days?
Hey guys, my name is Jordan Rainer. Uh, I'm a serial tech entrepreneur. I've spent 15 years, uh, in that world with a couple of exits, but for the last five years I've spent most of my time creating content that helps you, like me, busy dads working largely outside of the church. Uh, see and respond to this unbelievable biblical truth that the work we do matters for eternity, way beyond just sharing the gospel with our.
Coworkers and uh, yeah man, that's me in a nutshell. And we're doing that via podcasts and a bunch of books for grownups and a bunch of books for kids, uh, including The Royal In You, which I know we're gonna talk about today, about the work we are all going to do on the New Earth, which almost never gets talked about in the church, which boggles my mind as somebody who loves work so much as I'm sure a lot of our listeners do.
Yeah. You, you've come on our show before and talked about work and how work is, um. How it's an extension of the glory of God here on earth. It's the kingdom of God here on earth. And it's like, this is, it's such a, instead of seeing your role as just like, oh shoot, I gotta go to work and this is something that takes up 40, 50, 60 hours of my week, but then I can go back and do the stuff that really matters you, you really passionate about.
Like, no, your work actually matters for the kingdom. And so if you've missed any of those past conversations, like just Google, Jordan, Rayner, dad tired, and well just Jordan Rayner and. In general. 'cause that's pretty much all you talk about. Not the dad tired stuff, man. That's what the people want. Give 'em what they want.
Well, well, I didn't mean to make a selfish plug there, but yeah, I just mean that's what we've talked about in the, in times past, on the show. Um, yeah, it's, and it's been really, really good stuff, dude. So I have a, I have four kids. And, um, my oldest is a 13-year-old boy. He's, we're in the middle of rite of passage.
We've just started the Rite of Passage stuff, I should say, which has been really fun. Um, but he's also in that stage. I love you, son for all the times that you may listen to this podcast in the future. I love you so much. I'm proud of you. But he's in that stage where, you know, going to church every week.
He's like, dad, please. I just, can I fish with my friends? Yeah. I get like a couple days a week off. Can I just spend this day fishing with my friends? And I say no. And he comes with me to church. Uh, and he sits there and he's just like, oh gosh. Like I can see him just anxiously counting down the, at the minutes until he can get back home and fish with his friends.
Um, all that to say, a lot of kids, like we grew up thinking, is this okay? Is this what heaven's gonna be like? Like if I told my son right now at 13 years old, um, dude, you, you can't, heaven's gonna be amazing. I imagine that in his mind he's gonna be like, dude, is heaven gonna be like church? Like where I just have to go sit.
Like, you're gonna tell me I have to worship like 24 7 for all of eternity. I have to sing these songs Like that doesn't really sound that awesome. Sounds like the other place. And I think if we're honest, a lot of kids Exactly. A lot of, uh, a lot of kids have that maybe kind of subconscious idea and maybe even if we're honest, a lot of adults might actually have that idea.
Do you agree with that? Like is that kind of a subconscious. Idea of what heaven is for the church, generally speaking, 100%. And the more I've talked about this, the more I've recognized that man, it ain't just kids. Plenty of grownups are, are listening to this podcast right now. They've never admitted this to their pastor.
Maybe not even their, their, their, their spouse, but they have spent decades quietly dreading the idea. Of heaven and man, that was me up until my twenties because you had the church tradition I grew up in taught me that being with Jesus in heaven. Which to be clear, I want more than anything else. I'm thrilled to be with Christ forever, but, but the church tradition I grew up in taught me that being with Jesus in heaven meant giving up all the other things that I, and oh, by the way, Jesus himself loved on earth like good work.
And good wine and mountains and solitude, whatever, and man, eventually, by God's grace alone, he opened my eyes to see that almost everything that I had been taught about heaven in Sunday school was either a half-truth or a full-blown lie. The biblical truths that replace those lies, man, are some of the most freeing and exhilarating I've ever encountered.
And I'm sure we're gonna talk about some of those truths in a minute. But for, but for now, I'll just say this, before I encountered what scripture, rather than culture and I'm including in this church culture, said about heaven, I had very little hope for eternity. I certainly saw no purpose in the work I did in the present because as my church taught me, it was all gonna burn up, right?
And I certainly had zero motivation to share my faith, which is why I'm convinced that pedaling this American caricature of heaven as a glorified retirement home in the clouds maybe includes a Hillsong concert forever, is one of Satan's absolute favorite strategies. Why Dr. Randy Alcorn, who wrote the mega.
Bestselling book on Heaven says this. He says, Satan need not convince us that heaven doesn't exist. He need only convince us that heaven is a place of boring unearthly existence. If we believe that lie will be robbed of our joy and anticipation will set our minds on this life and not the next. And we won't be motivated to share our faith end quote.
Jared, that's why it's so critically important to replace Coulter's view of heaven with scripture, view of heaven and the new Earth. And that's why I wrote this epic new picture book, the Royal in You. Um, can we dive into the weeds a little bit? Like what are some of those half truths and just blatant lies, like let's just say 'em explicitly, like what are some things that people believe that are half-truths or just full out lies.
Yeah. About heaven. Yeah. Here's, here's a half truth. Earth is our temporary home. Kind of true, but the whole truth is that this earth will one day be our perfect and permanent home. I'll give you another one. Uh, by the way, just check out Revelation 21. Makes that abundantly clear. Here's another one. You mentioned it when you were talking about your 13-year-old son.
This half truth that we will worship for all of eternity. Yes, that is true, but I call it a half truth because our definition of the word worship is at the very best half. True. Paul says in one Corinthians 10 that we could eat and drink and do whatever we do for the glory of God, right? And we look at Genesis one, we see that Adam and Eve were worshiping God, not just when they sang him a song or walked with God in the cool of the morning, but when they labored with his hands.
And when we look at scripture. Rather than heaven tourism books, right? When we look at scripture, we see that the same will be true forever. The Bible begins and ends with work in Genesis one. God called human beings to work worshipful in his image, to rule over the earth with him, for him. And we see the exact same call echoed on the opposite book into scripture.
Revelation 22, 5 says that we will reign. Forever and ever end quote. It does not say that we will strum harps forever and ever. It does not say we will recline in hammocks forever and ever. We will reign as princes and princesses of the kingdom of God forever and ever. What does that mean In part, Isaiah 65 explains this.
Isaiah 65, 17 through 23 says that God's chosen people will build houses, plant vineyards. And long enjoy the work of their hands. So yeah, half true that we're gonna worship for eternity, the whole truth. We're gonna worship by singing. Yes. And by filling subduing and exploring the new Earth with king Jesus.
So those are just two right off the Batman. Yeah. That's really good. I think our, I think our, um, view of worship, our definition of worship is just so narrow. Like if, if all we're thinking of is just showing up to a building and singing three songs before the guy gets up and, and teaches, um, we have. Um, massively fallen short of how the scriptures describe what worship is.
You used the phrase, um, books on heaven tourism, which I was gonna ask you about. Like, how much do you think that that's kind of skewing the, the church? I I mean that generally speaking the Yeah. You know, the Capital C Church? Yeah. Like, how much is that skewing our idea of what heaven is? Oh, big, big time.
Here's what's, here's what's fascinating me, Jared, and by the way. This, this picture book The Royal, and you we're marketing it as a book about heaven, but as soon as you open it up and get past page two, it's a book about the new Earth, right? Hmm. Which is very, very rare. But here's what's fascinating to me.
Our emphasis, our modern emphasis on the present heaven. I. Rather than the new Earth is totally the opposite of what the writers of Scripture focused on. Heaven, the present heaven, where the souls of the redeemed are right now was not the ultimate hope of the writers of the New Testament. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find them talking about the present heaven.
Their hope. C one Corinthians 15 was for physical. Bodily resurrection on a physical, resurrected, or renewed earth, so we're way outta whack here. I looked it up. There are more than 10,000 children's books about the present Heaven for sale on Amazon today. There are less than 10 about the new earth. This is insane to me.
Right? So of course kids and grownups aren't excited about heaven because we're focused on the opposite of what the right of scripture focused on, right? Jesus said he's coming to make all things new, and yet, yes, we should be excited about the present heaven, but only in so much is that it is a glorious layover.
To our final destination, which is the new Earth where Jesus is worshiped of king and heaven, and the thin veil currently separating heaven and earth is permanently and totally ripped in half. Hmm. How do you think, like, why, how and how do you think we got there and why do you think we kind of fascinate or we fantasize about this?
Like floating on clouds? Yeah. Playing harps. Why is that? How did we get to the spot where majority, like if you asked churchgoers, I think nine out of 10, and many of us who, you know, grew up, like you said, many of our churches kind of taught us this and gave us this idea. Sweet. Me. Yeah. Dude. My, my, my idea of heaven when I was a kid was just like.
I thought I'd be my, my greatest like thing I was looking forward to is that I'd be able to hold my breath underwater for as long as I want. It's like, like that. And maybe fly sometimes, you know? Yeah. Flying's always in the, always in the court. Yeah. Flying and then just like holding my breath underwater.
But I'm like, did we have like, no. Like, how did we miss it? Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, how did we miss what the, what the writers were? Trying to teach us. It's a great answer. Here's the really short, really nerdy answer. Most of us have been more discipled by Plato than we have been discipled by Jesus. So the Greek philosopher Plato popularized this dualistic view of the world, which says that the spiritual realm of mind and soul are the only things that are eternal.
Mm-hmm. Everything else. Our bodies, the earth, the things of earth are all gonna burn up. But God's word rejects that thinking emphatically. It makes it abundantly clear that our final destination is not as disembodied souls floating on cloud storming harps. Our final destination is here in physical resurrected bodies on a physical renewed earth, doing physical and meaningful work all to God's greater glory and our greater joy.
Now, if you want the long, nerdy answer, uh, the best place to look is, um, either in chapter two of my book, the Sacredness of Secular Work. I go deep on this, uh, but also Randy Quinn's book, heaven. He has a whole, uh, appendix in that book called Christo Platonism, which really digs, it's pretty short. It's like, I don't know, 10 pages.
It's worth a read. It dives deep into, okay, scripture says this, but somehow we got here. How did this happen? And Plato's kind of to blame right at the end of the day. Interesting. Uh, and Dr. Dr. Uh, NT writes also written extensively on this in Surprise by Hope. So if you really wanna get nerdy, go check out those two resources.
In your book, in your current children's book, um, do you list that, I mean, you've already listed probably like 10 scriptures that are kind of painting a picture. How the, do you have those listed somewhere? Is it in the book or like somewhere? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd be happy to. So, yeah, I, I if, if you want, if you want some passages of scripture to read with your kids, uh, to really cultivate their excitement about the new Earth, start by reading Genesis one and two.
If we wanna know how the story ends, we should probably look at how the story begins. Right? Then go read Revelation. Just just to pause, sorry, just to pause. That was God's original design. Just to give people like a context like this is how things were meant to be before the fall, before sins. Like this is how things were meant to be.
So just to like really nail in that point, you're saying that like, uh, you want a glimpse of heaven, like heaven is go. This is how it was meant to. We could just look back at the beginning and see how God originally designed things. Now it's not just that because God always intended for it to be the garden plus culture.
And when we fast forward to Revelation 21, 22, we're not going back to the Garden of Eden. We're going back to the Garden of Eden, surrounded by the very best of culture, first and foremost, God's creation of the new Jerusalem. But that's exactly right. And Jared, let me make me come back to the passage of scripture in a second, but let me rant.
Okay, for a second on this, please. Those who suggest that this earth is literally going to burn up in the end. And it is true. Second, P three 10 makes it clear that God's gonna use fire, uh, to purify this earth, but he's not using fire to obliterate it. Right? But those who believe that, who say, yeah, no, nope, this earth is gone.
It's all gonna be destroyed, and we are all the only thing that's eternal or God's word in people in the spiritual realm, you are accusing God subtly of making a terrible, terrible mistake. Because in Genesis one and two, God looked around at all. He created spiritual and material and called it very good.
In Genesis three, Satan broke every part of God's group creation, spiritual, and material. So to say that, oh, this earth's gonna burn up, is to accuse God of doing the deal with the devil. He's saying, Hey. Yeah, listen. Saying here, uh, I listen, I know I, I loved my creation. You screwed it up. But here's what we're gonna do.
Uh, you take the material world. I'm gonna take my people's disembodied souls into the spiritual realm of quote unquote heaven. And we'll call it a truce and call it a day. Sound good? That's garbage theology because Jesus rose from the grave as the indisputable victor of heaven and earth, king of the material and spiritual.
And God has never once renounced his claim that this earth is very good in the ultimate home of his people. So you want passages to cultivate your hope about the new Earth. Number one, Genesis one and two. Two. Revelation 21 and 22. Number three, Isaiah 11, six through nine. My kids ask me all the time, dad, are there gonna be animals on the new Earth?
Absolutely, there are. Check out Isaiah 11, six through nine. Isaiah 65. 17 through 25, which talks about us being with our descendants. Now, I don't know what the family unit looks like on the new Earth, but it suggests that there's some idea, some memory of family there and the work we're gonna be doing together.
And then I, I'll give you one more. Number five, check out Isaiah 60, uh, this beautiful parallel vision to Revelation 21, where, mm-hmm. Jesus is seated on the, in the new Jerusalem, and the kings of Earth are bringing him what scripture calls the glory of the nations. In other words, the very, very, very best of human culture is physically surviving and lasting onto the new earth, laid at the feet of Jesus as an act of worship.
So those are just five passages you can geek out on and go deep on. Man. Really good. Uh, so you've talked about how like in heaven in this new earth, um, there will be work and it's redeemed and it's good and it's for God's glory. What about for the guys who are listening? It's like, dude, I hate work. Yeah.
Like, I'd rather be in the clouds with a harp. Yep. For the rest of my life. Or just like sit around like and fish 24 7, like, what does work look like in the new Heaven? New? Yeah. That's. That's such, such a good question and I got a lot of empathy for that listener because I've been there, I've had really, really crappy jobs, and I've been in a place where I'm like, oh man, work forever.
Sounds terrible. And I think it's really hard for us to imagine what work without the curse is like. Yeah, right. Like Isaiah 65 says, we will long enjoy the work of our hands that we will not labor in vain. So if you hate your job today, I would just encourage you to think back. Whatever job you did love, even if it was only for a day.
Even if it was only for a week and you left the office or you left the, I don't know, restaurant you were working at, you were just like, man, that felt really good. Yeah, I crushed it today. You are gonna feel like that, but a hundred times better every single day. For the rest of your life. Right. And so when we look at the evidence of scripture, I think we can make three guesses based on clues we see in scripture about the types of work we'll do for eternity.
Number one, I think we may do some of the work we're doing in this life with all the best parts and none of the bad. Revelation 1413 says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on for their deeds will follow them. And that word that we translate deeds and other translations is translated as.
Occupations. So if you love your job as an artist, as a podcaster, as a scientist, as a teacher, and you're doing it with excellence, I, man, I think it's fair to expect that you'll be engaged in that occupation forever. Again, free from all the bad stuff, difficult coworkers, oppressive bosses, exhaustion, overwhelm, et cetera, et cetera, number two.
Mm-hmm. I think we can expect to finish the work we leave unfinished in this life, right? The New Testament promises some continuity between this life and the next for our bodies, the Earth, and even some of the work of our hands see Isaiah 60. So it stands to reason that we're gonna have a chance to continue working on our unfinished symphonies.
After we wake up from the nap, that is death and continue our work on the new earth. And then finally, number three, I think we can expect that on the new Earth, we may do the work that we always long to do in this life, but couldn't for whatever reason. Right? Like May, maybe I was just at NASA last week. I spent all week working at a Kennedy Space Center while my kids were at Space Camp.
I was like, man, being an astronaut would be fun. Maybe that's you. Maybe like, man, I know what my bones, God made me to be an astronaut. But you were born in a time and a place that made that impossible, right? Or maybe you were, uh, once a great writer as a kid and you wanted to do that full time, but life happened, right?
And you just had to put riding on the proverbial back burner so that you could pay the bills for your family. Listen, I. Take heart believer if that, if that's you, it is perfectly in line with God's character to give his people the desires of their heart, including their vocational desires. Here's how I put it.
In the royal in you. Perhaps you'll bulldoze roads for new cities or help lead the Jesus Welcome Committee or create a new sport with no need to worry about getting hurt or needing to hurry. Maybe you'll explore galaxies far, far away. And Marvel at one God once made in a day. So don't think for one second that heaven is boring, because we'll be reigning, creating and exploring, not just for our joy and surely not for our glory, but to love and to worship the one who is worthy.
It'll be so much better than your wildest dreams ruling heaven on earth next to Jesus or King. Man. That's super fascinating. Dude. That's a really fascinating thought. And there's part of me, like, um, I don't know if other guys can relate to this, but I, I have like, I have a DD um, and part of me just likes trying new stuff.
Like I, yes, there's, I, I don't say this to my wife 'cause it gives her high anxiety, but I'm like, dude, I'd love to do like a new career, like every seven to 10 years I think about this all the time. Just like completely flip our life on its head and just like, let's try something completely new. I'm not kidding you.
Um, there was a time, and this was like three years ago, bro. I'm 37. Yeah, there was a time for like three days straight. I was like, I wonder if I can make the major leagues baseball. I've, I've literally never played, I never played baseball past Teeball, bro. Like, like I love the audacity of that question. I can relate.
There was just such a part of me, like as a man, like that sounds like a huge challenge. And I like, bro, I went deep. I was like Google and stuff and I'm just like, uh, I wonder if I could do it anyway. Didn't Chad TT didn't? What's the oldest baseball player? All us. Seriously. Exactly. I'm like, I didn't let my wife in on that, like those thoughts.
'cause she would've been like, you are such an idiot. Why did I marry you Like the one, but yeah, bro. Okay, so hang on, let me interview you for a second because I think you're onto something really, really big here. So what is this reality? You're gonna have billions of years to explore all these different interests.
What does that do for you right now? What do you mean? What do you, what do you mean? Like, what does do for, what does that, how does that make you feel in relation to those vocational aspirations that, you know, you'll probably never get to in this life? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because part of it, I mean, like the baseball thing is like, well, I'm just not talented enough to do that.
You know? So, um, but part of it is, you know, there's just practical stuff like. You kind of have to commit to one thing just to take care of your family and like to build, you know, whatever it is to, to sustain. Um, but there there is, it is, it gets me excited to think like, well, I'll try this for a hundred years.
Yeah. And then I'm gonna try this for a hundred years. Yes. It's like, so I, so, man, I, I'll say this, I wrote a book years ago. We've never talked about this book called Master of One. It was about focusing intensely on one vocational thing at a time. Um, because that is how you provide well for your family.
And, and I, I would argue, serve others the ministry of excellence. Yeah. But without this vision of eternal work, that's really hard to do. I think God has planted so many varied vocational desires inside of our hearts that we do wanna change up things every five years, every 10 years. And listen, God might be calling you to do that, but for me, the more I've dwelt on the biblical promise of billions of years of work, I enjoy, it's allowed me to be much more content staying in my lane in this life and be like, you know what?
God may be a writer. And yeah, I'm gonna throw 50 years at that and I'm gonna do that with excellence and service of my neighbor. And sure, I wanna be a professional photographer and sure I wanna move to Hollywood and write screenplay, but man, I might be able to do that on the new Earth. And so I'm fine waiting for that.
And oh, by the way, if God doesn't give me that vocation on the new earth, whatever he does give me is gonna be a hundred times better than what I can imagine. And so I can rest. Be unhurried and just be far more content with the work that God has put in my hands today. Yeah, that's really good man. That's really good.
That's su It's a super interesting, I think that's like a totally paradigm shifting thought for, I'm gonna guess most of the guys listening. Like that's pretty, we haven't, when we're thinking about heaven, that's not really where our brain, it's not on our radar. Gone. Yeah. It's not on our radar. Yeah. Have you thought about, you were, you had, um.
Thrown out the idea of animals in heaven. Yeah. Uh, which, uh, I wanna ask you some kind of, I haven't thrown a PS Isaiah Levin has. Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, I appreciate you giving. That's really helpful. By the way, thank you for like Yeah. You know, giving all your thoughts tied back to scripture. 'cause it goes back to kind of the heaven tourism thing where these, you know, bestselling New York Times bestselling books on heaven and just like, bro, like that doesn't, I don't see.
Any of what you're talking about in scripture. I haven't read a lot of these Yeah. Heaven tourism books, but from what I've heard in interviews and so I'm like, this does not at all sound like doesn't add up. Typical. Yeah. It doesn't add up. Um, but anyway, so you, I wanna ask you some kind of rapid fire questions like that we, that we ask ourselves, like one of them being animals in heaven.
Yeah. Um, but the other one is, have you thought about when Jesus talks about marriage in heaven? You alluded to family. Yeah. But have you thought about the marriage piece when Jesus talks about that, one of my best friends. We were literally talking about this two nights ago. He goes on this rant once a week about how, sorry, hold on.
The, the, my, my internet cut out. I don't think you're in, I don't think it's cutting out on your end, but the internet cut out and I really wanna make sure I get all of you to record it. So, um, yeah, in case it cut out on my, yeah, let's do it again. The recording? Yeah, the marriage, the marriage piece's. Like what do you think about that?
So, um, listen, above my pay grade is the, is the short answer, but, um, my, my buddy, one of my best friends, um, who. Was working at our house on Sunday night. He goes on this rant once a week of how angry he is at God, genuinely, that there's no sex, uh, on the door. I'm like, Hey, that's fair. You know? Uh, take it up.
Take it up with the Lord. Uh, yeah. Listen, like I, I've, I've researched this a little bit. I see no evidence that there is what we think of as marriage on the new Earth, but again. Whatever our relationships look like are gonna be far more satisfying than they are in this life. We know that for sure, right?
And we know that our union with Christ is gonna be the most beautiful piece of it. But I do think scripture's clear that we are gonna have some sense of relationship with those that we are in relationship with today. Let me pull open. Isaiah 65 23. It says, on the new Earth, Christians, God's chosen people, quote.
Will not labor in vain for they will be blessed by the Lord they and their descendants with them. End quote. So there's some idea that my kids, even if they're not called my kids and my children are with me on the new Earth. And I don't, and this is total speculation. I cannot back this up with scripture, but like.
I find it hard to believe that we wouldn't be super, super close with our spouses as well on the new Earth. Yeah. If our descendants are gonna be with us again, speculation, uh, check it all against God's word. And again, I'll point to, um, I'll point to Randy. I, I'll keep pointing to Randy Alcorn's work. I think he's done the best work on this.
He's got a whole chapter on relationships and marriage, uh, on the new Earth in his mega bestselling book on heaven. Just called Heaven. Yeah. Yeah it is because it kinda goes back to the Genesis piece where like before the fall, like there was relationship God. Correct. It's not good for man to be alone and he creates Eve for Adam.
So there is this sense of like, this is part of God's heart and design for Yes, deep, intimate relationship. And this was all pres sin pre-fall. So yeah. Again, I appreciate your like. You know, we're all guessing at this. Yeah. I don't wanna make, I don't wanna make the Bible say what it doesn't say. That's clearly, there's a lot we don't have to guess at.
That's the good news. I think a lot. I used to think, oh man, we're just guessing at everything about heaven and new Earth. That's not true. Like we know a lot of things for sure. We know heaven's on earth. We know you will long enjoy the work of your hands. We know that we will worship perfectly through that work.
Yeah, there's a lot that we don't know, right? And so I just take great solace in the fact that no, I has seen no mind is conceived of the glory that awaits us, uh, for eternity. And whatever we can imagine, I promise, promise, promise, it'll be better. Some of the questions I was gonna ask you. I think we've hit like, you know, will our mom and dad for our kids, you know, our kids are asking like, is mom, will you be their daddy?
Will you be their mommy? Which, you know, we can make a salvation. Yeah, sure. Um, argument to that and then also just the kind of the descendants part of what we were saying. Yeah. Um, a lot of, you know, our kids are asking like, well, the, well the dog will our dog when he's there, or will my bunny be there? So you talked about kind of the animals piece, what will we do all day?
I think we've kind of hit that and who's gonna be there? I again, I think that that salvation Yeah, there's a lot of salvation piece in there. We talked about the descendants. Any, any of like those kind of common questions that our kids ask us that you want to address? Yeah, I, I think, I think a common one that we've kind of touched on, um, is this question of where is.
Heaven, right? And the short answer is we don't know where the present heaven is. We don't know, like some people think it's quote unquote in the clouds. Two Kings chapter six suggests that the present heaven is literally right next to us, next to us just hiding behind an invisible curtain, and we could dive deep into that passage if you want.
Here's what we do know, while we cannot say for sure where the present Heaven is today. We know definitively where it is forever, and it's here on Earth, and that needs to be our focus because again, that was the focus of the writers of scripture. That is the key to cultivating our hope for the future, our purpose in the present, and our anticipation and excitement to share our faith.
Yeah, well I'm a big fan of putting language, putting these big concepts and language that we as parents and dads can one, start to grasp our own thinking around and then also be able to communicate these really big theological things to our kids. So I'm grateful, man, that you wrote this book, the Royal in You comes out in October.
Yeah. Um, but you can pre-order it now, wherever. Uh, you get your books. Amazon always does a great job at like, giving you that price guarantee. Whatever the lowest price is before you, um, before it comes out, you'll get that price even if you order now and it takes a fluctuates in price over the next few months.
But bro, this was so good, bro. I'm, I'm really, I'm always, I always love talking to you. I need like whatever you do to like get your energy bro. Can you just like, give me, it's my, it's my best dad ever, uh, coffee. Mug. Um, it's very on brand for the dad tire, but I'm not. I'm far from the best dad ever. For the record.
My kids did not buy this for me. I bought this for myself. That's a Michael Scott movie. My, my daughter, this last father's day bought me a, uh, my best. My favorite child bought me this mug, mug, you know, like, you know, 'cause she knows I will never, I love it. Never say that I have a favorite child, but that's great bro.
Always so good to see you, man. Thanks for what you're doing for the kingdom and, uh, helping equip the church, the, the Saints for the work in ministry. You're doing some great work. It's always good to catch up with you. You too. Appreciate it. Good to see you man.