“Saints, When Absent from the Body, Are Present with the Lord” — A Sermon by Jonathan Edwards (1747)

2 Corinthians
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:8
August 18, 2024

2 Corinthians 5:8: We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

Sermon Outline

1. Departed saints live in the same wonderful place as Christ

  • Christ in Heaven still has a human nature

  • Heaven is a place

  • Angels are in heaven

  • Departed saints are in heaven

  • We who are saved will be in heaven

2. The souls of saints in Heaven have an unhindered sight of Jesus Christ

  • When absent from friends, we can only think about them

  • “But then we shall see him face to face”

  • Those in Heaven see him “as he is”

3. Departed saints become perfectly like him by seeing him

4. Departed saints enjoy a glorious and immediate closeness with him

  • Departed saints are present with the Lord

  • But His glorious state won’t intimidate them

  • Reasons with his majesty won’t intimidate them

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steve’s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joni’s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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