Matt McCullough: If we think about heaven at all, which a lot of times we don’t, we think of it more like an insurance policy and less like a trust fund. But it just sits there—filed, forgotten, collecting dust—while I go about living the life that I want to live here and now. Where in the Scriptures, heaven is described as an inheritance. And I think it’s the trust fund sort of inheritance, the kind that you’ll only ever fully have it one day when you reach that point. But you can draw on it now. It’s already available to you to support your life.
Eden: I’m really appreciative of you taking the time to have a conversation today. I had the huge joy of reading your book over the last 24 hours, and it was really nourishing to my soul. So, I’m really grateful to get to talk to you about it. But before we get into a little bit about Remember Heaven, I’d love to get to know you a little bit. So, what are a couple of things that bring you joy?
Matt McCullough: My family brings me a lot of joy right now. So I have a wife that I grew up with and have been married to almost 23 years, and we have three kids that are just entering middle school-high school range. So, it’s a different kind of joy than what I had as a parent of little kids. And I miss those years a lot, but it’s also so much fun to have boys to play with.
Yeah, my off hours are a lot of football in the backyard, a lot of hiking in the woods, camping when we get a chance. And I just love to be outdoors with my family.
Eden: Wow, that sounds like a blast. I think the joys of parenting morph over time. First, you have joy in the little ones and then joy in teenagers, and soon, joy in young adults.
Matt McCullough: I don’t like to think about that part, to be honest. But I’m trying to enjoy the joys that I have now.
Eden: Yes, yes. And you said you do a lot outside. Where are you guys located?
Matt McCullough: So we’re in Nashville, Tennessee. And so, [it’s] not a super outdoorsy town, but we’re not far from a lot of wonderful state parks.
Eden: There’s a lot of beauty there.
Matt McCullough: Oh, yeah. Very green.
Eden: Yeah. awesome. Well, is there a part of God’s Word that’s especially precious to you? And if so, how did that part of Scripture become a treasure to you personally?
Matt McCullough: You know, I’m a preacher for a living, so, [if] you ask me that question, I’m also always going to go straight to whatever book of the Bible I’m preaching through at the moment. And here’s the reason: It’s not just a cop out answer. The reason I feel that way is that I just get so immersed in it: Right now, that’s Luke’s Gospel.
The whole last year, every week, my main priority at work has been to try to get to the bottom of that text and see how it connects to the lives of my people. And I’m just always blown away by how much more is there than I thought was there. And I’ve been reading the Bible my whole life. I’m 43 years old, and since I could read, I’ve been reading it, because I had faithful, Christian parents. But I still get blown away by what I see there. So right now, I’m loving Luke’s Gospel.
If you zoom out, one of the top books for me would be Ecclesiastes. All my adult life, [I’ve] just so connected with the perspective of that book and been worked on by it, probably as deeply as anywhere else. And then I’d probably say 1 Peter would be my favorite letter, at least right now. It’s so hopeful.
Eden: I love the way it begins, that we’ve been born again into a living hope. That whole section, it just sounds like a shout, like everyone should be on their feet with their hands raised, you know?
Is there an insight from Luke that the Lord has really drilled into your heart this week as you’ve been studying?
Matt McCullough: Well, this week I’ve reached Luke 21, and I have to figure out what Jesus meant by all the things that were going to happen to destroy Jerusalem and the temple, and to scatter the people all over the place. So, I haven’t reached the point yet where I’m being encouraged by that one. I’m more trying to figure it out.
But last week, I preached on the beginning of Luke 21, where the widow brings the only two coins she’s got and gives them all to the temple. And I was just so struck again by the reversals that Luke’s Gospel is always pointing us to. Jesus contrasts this widow with the scribes who were so, so eager to have the best seats everywhere they went and the fancy robes that everybody could notice coming from a mile away. And in their culture, those people were the winners. And Jesus says, nope, not in my kingdom. This woman right here gave all. And I’ve needed that in my own soul. But I’ve just enjoyed offering that up to my friends on Sunday, because I want them to know that what they can give, quantity-wise, is not the point. But do they treasure God’s kingdom? Is it actually the center of their life? And for those who are financially more comfortable, it was helpful to be able to say, Look, the total amount isn’t the point. Do you feel it, though? Is it affecting your lifestyle that you love God’s kingdom? Yeah. So, the poor widow was a big encouragement to me recently.
Eden: Wow, I love that. That’s a good word to hear. That upside-down nature of God’s kingdom goes against everything we’re hearing from everywhere else. So, it’s refreshing to hear the Word and have that perspective shifted by the Lord.
Matt McCullough: Yes, absolutely.
Eden: So you just mentioned that you grew up in a Christian home, [and] had faithful parents. But each one of us comes to faith in Jesus, not because it’s a faith that’s passed down, but because Jesus does a miracle in each of our hearts individually. So how would you describe your testimony of coming to faith in Jesus? When would you say that he won you to himself?
Matt McCullough: Yeah. I love the way you put that. It is a miracle, a creation-of-the-world level miracle, anytime somebody believes, no matter where they started out. I’d say part of the joy of being from a Christian family is that you don’t necessarily have a very conscious period of your life where you thought that Jesus wasn’t who he says he is, or you didn’t know there was hope on offer that you could claim by faith if you would. I really can’t point to a huge before and after in the way that some of my friends can. I believe I was converted as a pretty young child, so I didn’t have a huge life transformation to point to either. What I’ve had is deeper and deeper and deeper, growing awareness of just how needed he is and just how wonderful it is that God gave him to us. So, I would say there are some pivotal moments where that awareness was deepened for me that I can remember and then a whole lot more that I can’t.
I’m probably going to butcher this, but one of the ways that I’ve heard people talk about the joy or the perspective we need as preachers who preach every week, is that most people can’t remember what they have for breakfast last week, but they got the nourishment, the protein they needed to keep growing because they had breakfast last week. And most of our sermons are just in one ear and out the other, big picture. But they got fed, and they got a day closer to heaven.
I think of my early childhood development as a Christian similarly, no huge dramatic moments where I remember that meal, and I will never forget. [It was] more just routine, protein-rich Bible teaching from my parents, from my local church, [from] a lot of Sunday school teachers.
I do remember being in middle school and just feeling an inner desire for Jesus that was growing in a way I could track, that wasn’t there before and was there, after. That was a key time when I started to read the Bible a whole lot more for myself and started to recognize what it was saying on my own.
And then, in my testimony, some of the most influential work God has done to grow me up, I would trace back to college years, where I actually began to doubt my faith for the first time, but in some pretty acute ways for a little while there, and what God [had] done to get me through that. It happened not all overnight, just gradually. I started to read more widely than I had read before, and see perspectives I had never really considered, and recognized these were smart people who thought this way, and that they had answers for my answers, and my answers didn’t convince them [otherwise]. It was sort of realizing that [by] reading more broadly, like a college student would, that I just started to question deeply, how do I know what I know that I’ve always taken for granted? How can I be sure I haven’t just [been] brought up this way and that it’s actually true?
And to be honest, I think the most important spiritual work God has done in me through that is not to give me a brand new confidence that’s like airtight, reinforced steel—no one’s ever getting through this—but more to give me a humility that trusts him, even for the faith I need to trust him, because I don’t think I can think my way there anymore, like I thought when I was a younger man. I think he exposed a lot of pride and desire to be an answer guy, somebody who could outargue whoever and who knew that it was all true. [It’s] works righteousness really, where the works involved were intellectual ones—sharp and having all the arguments down pat. And he just took that away from me, and I think I walk with a limp in my faith to this day from that season. And I’m clinging to him more desperately through that season. And day by day, I think he’s holding me, and I’m more grateful for that than I could have been before. So that’s not so much a conversion story as it is [that] the Lord has to grow us up in the way he knows we need it. And I think this is how he’s been growing me for the last 20 years.
Eden: Yeah, well, I think your story is really helpful for someone that might not have grown up in a Christian home, or even someone who’s questioning what life with Jesus looks like. You said, unlike some of your friends, you have not had a “before and after” kind of experience. And yet, what life and faith in Jesus is, it’s not just a personal reformation, it’s a relationship that spans through our whole lives. And even [in] your honest explanation of the doubts that you’ve wrestled through, we [believers] are trusting a person. And there are going to be times, like with any person in your life, it might be harder to trust them. And yet, what you said is so wonderful, that you find that Jesus is clinging to you and walking with you, despite the times that we may doubt or be feeling like we need help trusting. Yeah. He walks with us and that is such a gift.
I would love to hear more about your book, Remember Heaven. So I, as I said, read it this week, and it was such a blessing to my soul. It, in my mind, is about a lot of things other than heaven, as well as about heaven. I was like, this is about depression and anxiety and justification and so many things. And it was really enjoyable to read for that reason. It really kept me engaged. So, I would love to hear what inspired you to write that book? I know you’ve written another book, Remember Death, which is also phenomenal. But what inspired you to start writing about heaven?
Matt McCullough: Well, I think the book you mentioned just now, Remember Death, is probably a good place to start on this, because that one was a passion project. I didn’t set out to be a writer. I trained as a historian. I became a pastor. And as I was pastoring people in 21st century—with a lot of work I’d done on earlier centuries and how Christians from colonial America or medieval Europe had thought about things—it was just glaringly obvious to me over time that there were some huge differences in how we saw the world. Death and our awareness of it was one of those differences, and it had a big effect on our experience of Christianity, too. So in previous generations, previous centuries, because death was so common—it was just everywhere; it was inescapable; it happened to young people; it happened in your home; it happened to your kids, not just your great grandparents; death was so much more present— it was also a lot more common that it was in sermons, and in treatises on how to live a Christian life, and how to see yourself in the world, and how to prepare for the end. And they talked about death a lot as part of how they talked about Jesus and why they needed him and how wonderful he was.
And I just noticed, oh, man, we’re not doing that. I’m not doing that. I don’t really run into it anywhere. And then I started preaching through the Bible systematically, verse by verse, through books of the Bible and recognizing that the Bible talks about death a ton. And so, as I started taking those texts, as they came to me and trying to apply them, I would get a lot of feedback about it from members who were just caught off guard and helped by talking straightforwardly about death, as if it’s not a taboo subject, and we can really go there and really help to see Jesus through it. And so anyways, that book was built over years of reflection on this key area of gospel application that I thought just wasn’t on our radar like it should be. And this was my attempt to get it out on the radar.
The second book was really a follow up to that first one. The first book, the main goal of it and the most effective part of it, was helping you to take a look at something you hadn’t looked at as closely as you should and get depressed by it, so that when Jesus offers you hope, you know why you need it, and the hope is sweeter to you, because of the hard medicine you took on the front end. And I think the weight of that book was a gut punch, according to a lot of readers who gave me that feedback. And it was like holding you underwater a lot just so [I] could bring you up just in time to give you Jesus to catch some oxygen.
And I thought, okay, if that book’s goal is make sure there’s no other hope standing but Jesus, [to] explode all those false hopes one after another, I think it would be good to do a follow-up book that is leveraging that last hope. The last hope standing. If you’re convinced Jesus is the only one that can survive death and give you a life beyond the grave, if you’re convinced, and you’re holding to him, how can you use that hope daily for the resources you need to survive, to grow as a Christian, and to live well in his name in the world right now? So it was less of a passion project, more of a tactical thing, more practical, easier to apply right away. And absolutely, [it was] coming from a sense that I want my people that I’m pastoring, I want them to know how to use heaven to help them now. And it would help me if I spent a lot of time thinking about that and making it as relatable as possible. So that’s where it came from.
It’s a book that’s meant to help you know the answer to the question, what is the hope of heaven to your life as a Christian right now? And it’s rooted in the sense that if we think about heaven at all, which a lot of times we don’t, we think of it more like an insurance policy and less like a trust fund—an insurance policy that you have in case you ever need it, but boy, you’d really like to not need it. Wouldn’t it be great not to ever have to make a claim on our car insurance? I’d rather just not have an accident. [We] treat heaven like that: If something terrible happens to me, it’s good to know that on the other side of it, I’ll be in heaven with Jesus. But it just sits there—filed, forgotten, collecting dust—while I go about living the life that I want to live here and now.
[But] in the Scriptures, heaven is described as an inheritance, and I think it’s the trust fund sort of inheritance, the kind that you’ll only ever fully have it one day when you reach that point. But you can draw on it now. It’s already available to you to support your life until it’s yours fully. And I wanted the book to show you how to do that. What would it look like to draw on it in specific areas that you’re facing right here, right now?
Eden: Yeah. And for a listener, I can testify to [its goodness]. I was listening to this book while I was packing up my room, because I’m moving, I’m engaged and thinking through all these major life transitions. And I was like, this book is about heaven, kind of expect[ing] it to reflect on some of the promises God gives us and think about later. But instead, I felt like what you did was expose some of the deepest longings of our heart(s), no matter what season we’re in, and show us how the only antidote to those longings is Christ, and ultimately what he promises us then. And yet, those longings can also be satisfied right now. And I think in this season, it was just like, wow! I felt like I was in a counseling session just listening to this book.
[This book holds] the truth of God’s Word and his promises being applied to real, real, deep longings of our heart and felt needs. And the world’s promising us so many things at the same time that God is offering us his promises. And one set of those promises leads to death, and the other leads to life. And I just felt you did a beautiful job of holding out to us the hope of heaven.
At the end of each chapter, there seems to be a couple applications that are more practical, but from my perspective as I listen to it, what was even more helpful to me than those direct applications was just the perspective change. You feel your mind washed in the truth of what God says and what he tells us is coming, and it just totally refreshes your heart. And even that heart renewal that you get at through holding out those promises to us, just by nature of our minds being renewed, we are then transformed in the way we live. And so those practical steps are super helpful at the end. But just the whole book in of itself, after you’ve soaked in those truths, changes you. So, I found it profoundly helpful.
Matt McCullough: I am so encouraged to hear that. And you nailed it. That is exactly what it was going for. It isn’t a lot of to-dos. There aren’t a lot of to-dos in there. It’s a perspective book, because I think perspective is so practical. So much in life of our experience comes down to how we interpret what we’re going through. We are relentless interpreters.
And you said near the beginning, you expect a book about heaven, and it kind of felt like a book about everything else. That’s exactly what I was going for, because I think heaven is about everything. There’s nothing you face that isn’t affected by whether or not it all ends there. The end affects everything along the way. And so yeah, I’m just trying to connect those dots so that we see ourselves and see our experiences differently than we would otherwise.
Eden: Well, you did it! Is there a chapter of the book that is one of your favorites, like one of the topics that it addresses, or one of the chapters that was maybe most enjoyable for you to write?
Matt McCullough: Oh, that’s a great question. I, right now, am needing the chapter on dissatisfaction and joy and the desire for more fullness of joy than what I’ve ever experienced. I’m needing that in a season with a lot of change. But I think the one that I’ve gotten the best feedback on, and that probably felt like it was the most tight and dialed in and aimed at a real struggle a lot of my favorite people deal with, was a chapter on anxiety. I think as a chapter, as a unit, it was probably the tightest one and one of the most obvious ways to see how relevant heaven is to our experience of life now.
Eden: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I would agree. And you said something in the book along the lines of, fear has to do with an immediate danger, whereas anxiety is almost a fear over a future, looming, longer threat. So, it’s a life that I don’t want or something I don’t want to happen that I’m living in that reality [of] before it happens, whereas fear is something immediately dangerous. And I think painting that picture, again, of what we have to look forward to, is so powerful to wash over our anxiety. Yeah, I love that chapter.
Matt McCullough: Yeah, that one’s all rooted in 1 Peter 1, that passage you and I were talking about how much we loved earlier.
I didn’t come up with these definitions, but I’ve seen many definitions that distinguish between fear as a natural and appropriate response to an immediate threat that, once it’s gone, takes the fear away with it. It’s not there anymore. The anxiety is more diffuse than that. It’s harder to get rid of, because it’s much less specific. But in one way or another, it’s a negative expectation for your future. That’s what it is. It’s what might be that you don’t want.
And what I try to say in the chapter is [that] what contributes to that is a huge mystery to me. I have seen enough crippling experiences of anxiety to know there is a lot going on beyond what I understand, and I don’t doubt for a second that it involves our bodies and our pasts and all sorts of stuff that may remain a mystery. But I do think still, even with all those caveats, it’s important to isolate that kernel at the center, that there is a negative expectation of the future at play right here. So, we’re not going to talk about where it’s coming from. Let’s talk about how to respond to it. Whatever the contributing causes might be, how can you, as a Christian, fight back against a negative expectation for your future? That’s what we’re talking about. And if you haven’t been using the hope of heaven as one of the weapons in that fight, boy, you’re missing out, and you ought to pick it up. And so that’s what the chapter is trying to do. Here’s how to use that weapon, for this battle.
Eden: So awesome. Awesome! Well, I definitely encourage any listener who’s joining us today to go and read that book. It’s been such a blessing.
And I typically like to end by asking about other books. So we’re trying to fill the bookshelves of people that are new to the faith. Are there any books outside of the Bible that have been really transformational in your own walk with Jesus?
Matt McCullough: We would need a lot longer for me to really give you an answer. Because we’re on this topic, the first one that comes to my mind is actually the book that inspired my book on heaven. It’s written by a Puritan writer named Richard Baxter. It’s called The Saints’ Everlasting Rest. And there was just, maybe two years ago, an abbreviated and updated language edition of it that’s fantastic by Crossway Publishers, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest. My book is very, very different from his, but what we share in common is a sense that we need the hope of heaven as a daily resource for our growth as Christians and our survival and faith. The way to build that hope is to meditate on what the Bible has to say about the world to come and compare it to what’s wrong in the world, in your life right now.
As you think carefully about how to connect those two, what you’re basically doing is his weight training. If you’re using what the Bible has to say about the world to come to lift burdens you’re carrying right now, that hope is getting stronger, just like a muscle that lifts weight over and over and over. So, it’s taking your mind and using it in a disciplined way, a focused meditation to warm your heart, to actually feel something for what you’ve been promised, that otherwise sounds weird.
A lot of times, the language about heaven, so much of the language of the gospel sounds otherworldly, like it belongs in somebody else’s life. It takes some effort to get past that and actually see [that] this is for my life. Here’s what I’m dealing with. Here’s what he offers. Let me use this promise to lift this burden. So, his book is just a fantastic example of doing that all the way through. It’s quirky in the way that an old book usually is. Language is often harder to track with than it could be, but it’s worth the work and can really change your life.
Eden: Okay, I love that recommendation. The Puritans have written a lot of beautiful things that we can learn from.
Well, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for sharing about your writing and your life with us. And I’m excited for other people to listen to our conversation and, Lord willing, go and pick up, Remember Heaven and reap all the benefits for themselves.
Matt McCullough: Well, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a delight.
Eden: Thank you so much for listening to our podcast today. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would encourage you to like or subscribe to our podcast so that you can hear the next conversation. And if something that you heard today spoke to your heart or got you thinking, I would encourage you to not let the day go by without talking to God about what’s on your mind. We believe that he loves you and that he’s pursuing you today out of that love.