Heaven challenges this notion of God. Embrace this notion of God: that Jesus is at the centre, and everybody's equidistant around Him, because no one was worthy to begin with. Heaven forces us to start with the starting point that says: no one's worthy anyway, and so if I think I'm more worthy than you, I'm just simply comparing levels of unworthiness, and that's just silly. Heaven is so full of grace, that a bunch of unworthy people - see in Jesus' notion of heaven, heaven is not created by the exclusion of imperfect people. Heaven is created by the inclusion of imperfect people and by grace cleaning them up and purifying them with the flames of heaven. The flames of heaven is not judgement, not in the way we see it. The flames of heaven is grace. The flames of heaven is pruning. The flames of heaven is God's relentless pursuit, to make you the best you can be in God's kingdom, without taking your free will away.
Maybe we could say it this way. Look at this, Mark, Chapter 10. It says: then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to Him. Teacher, they said, we want You to do for us whatever we ask - which is a very loaded question - it's like they were 10 years old. What do you want Me to do for you, He asked, and they replied: let one of us sit at Your right, and the other sit at Your left. In other words, in their concept, they were still struggling with the fact that God wasn't at the top of the heap, to get there. They were struggling with that thought. Now where in human history do you see this concept of government? Everywhere; Caesars. You wanted to get the closest to them, because the closest to them had the power. They knew Jesus was going to establish a kingdom; where? In heaven? No. On the earth; and they say: if you take over Rome, can we be the guys sitting closest to You? Jesus is like: no, no, no, that's not what My kingdom looks like. My kingdom looks like this, and you're just going to have to deal with that. We're going to do away with rank - and if you're honest, all attempts in your life to rank better have caused you pain anyway. Why not do away with it? What are you trying to do? You want to keep the pressure of being prettier, thinner, smarter, richer? You want to keep all that? No, let's do away with that.
See, heaven delivers me from the notion that I have to outdo anyone, to be okay with God, but it also makes me treat someone who hasn't outdone me with grace because there's always somebody that's done more than me. There's always someone that's done less than me. Heaven includes us all in a circle. They replied: let one of us sit at Your right, and the other at Your left, in Your glory. Have you ever had someone ask you a question, and then make it about something that it wasn't? What about this question has anything to do with the glory of God? Nothing, this is about the glory of James and John. You don't know what you're asking! Can you drink of the cup I drink, or be baptised with the baptism I'm baptised with? I love the fact that Jesus' disciples, who walked and talked with Him - they struggled with this too. It makes me feel a little better. As a matter of fact, particularly Peter and John, they had this competition going, as to who could expose the other ones faults better. I'll give you an example.
Who cut off the servant of the high priest's ear, when they came to arrest Jesus? Who did that? How do you know that? Matthew, Mark and Luke say a certain companion of Jesus - John. Matthew, Mark and Luke say: oh, one of Jesus' friends cut off the servant of the high priest's ear; John's like: it was Peter man! Throw that mug under the bus. It was Peter - and then if you think about it, in John 21, John throws in this stab at Peter that's very subtle. It says: so Jesus cooked Peter breakfast over a fire of burning coals. When was the last time Peter stood over a fire of burning coals? When he denied him, so at Peter's restoration, John subtly recreates the denial - like John's grrr.