As you can imagine, we get a lot of questions in the inbox about heaven and eternity and what to

expect there. The most recent question in the inbox comes from a listener named Michael who asks

this very simply, Pastor John, in heaven, will we be permitted to do anything that we want?

The answer is yes. So shall we go on to the next question?

Okay. Okay. Okay. A simple yes could be misleading if I didn't say more. So here's the more.

Another way to say yes is that in heaven, that is in the age to come, when there will be no more

pain, no more sorrow, no more sin, those who've trusted in Jesus will experience for the first time

complete and perfect freedom. Jesus said, if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed.

And Paul said, for freedom, Christ has set you free. And only Christians will enjoy complete

and perfect freedom, which I have often defined this way, doing whatever you want to do and not

regretting it in a thousand years. Now let me see if I can help us feel the wonder of this by

describing four stages of freedom. And only the last stage is perfect freedom and we only have it

in heaven and we will have it in heaven. The four stages are freedom of opportunity to do what we

can to freedom of ability to do what we desire. Three, freedom of enjoying what we desire while we

do it. And fourth, the freedom of enjoying what we desire forever because it is good and leads to

no regret. Now here's the illustration. Just one illustration for all four of these. Let's take

skydiving. For example, suppose you are on your way to the airport to go to your first real jump.

You've been studying it, you've done everything except jump and you're ready and it's scheduled.

Your car hits a pothole, I'm thinking Minnesota, you have a blowout and you run into a telephone

pole and you're no longer free to jump that afternoon, whether you have the ability to or desire to

doesn't matter, you don't have the opportunity because you're sitting in your car waiting for a

tow truck. So you don't have the freedom of opportunity or suppose you make it to the airport,

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