Attempting to Demystify Revelation: Week 9

Welcome. And today is the last week of our two

month long revelation series, and so I'm excited to close

this out. I think it's a very encouraging close out

this week, and I would also encourage you after the

message to not get up and head out. But we

are celebrating seven baptisms this morning between this service and last,

so we have a few more baptisms right after I

speak today, so we want to encourage them and just

you know, really lift them up. So let's pray and

ask God to prepare our hearts as we receive his

word today. God, thank you so much for your word

the power of your word. And God, we just pray,

Father as we receive your instructions from Revelation twenty one God,

or your encouragements from Revelation twenty one, that God, that

we will walk out of here with a heart that

has been drawn closer to you in Jesus' name. Amen.

A few years ago, in the noise the eastern part

of Spain, there's a sweet lady who was about eighty

years old, and she loved her church, been going to

her church for many decades. And at her church there

just happened to be this famous photo of Jesus that

actually is not a photo but a painting of Jesus.

And it was from a famous guy named Elias Garcia Martinez,

and he's well known for his art in that region.

And it was a picture of Jesus that was beloved

by the church for many decades, but it had kind

of decayed over the years, and it really really broke

this lady's heart. And so one day after everyone left

the church, she stayed at church and she decided to

restore the painting of Jesus herself. Check this out. It's

okay to laugh Thursday night, and nobody laughed. And I

felt like a jerk on the stage just staying there,

like I thought it was funny. But here's the point

is that when we have things that we love and

they kind of get in a disarray, what do we

want to do? We want to restore them. Think about

your home. We don't just let our homes fall apart.

We don't let our cars fall apart. Things that we enjoy,

things that we love, we want to keep them up

in shape. We want to restore them. My house, my

basement got flooded a few months ago, and that's my

space that's where my office is, my library. There's a

living room down there, there's a kitchenette, a full bath.

That's where I kind of do my work and where

I hang out. And it was flooded faithfully, all the

furniture was okay. But for the last few months, all

of our furniture have been up on our main level,

so our house is in complete disarray. And finally, after

much haggling, we just got the insurance check. And let

me tell you, I can't help. But every time I

get a few moments to myself, what do I do?

I daydream about what my basement will look like when

it's restored, because it's driving me nuts and I just

want to restored it. And things that we love, spaces, people, things,

things that we love, we want them to stay in

good shape. That's why we're always constantly working on restoring things,

because well we love them well. Our stuff and things

are not the only things that need to be restored.

Sometimes someone's feelings are hurt. Sometimes there's a relationship that

needs to be restored. Think about our body, who here

is falling apart anybody. I don't know how many fake

knees and hips we have in this church. But I

mean just from you know, looking at the prairie, request

my Lord, and it's no wonder our church doesn't dance

during worship. We can't even twist anymore. And you know,

and so I get it. But man, I tell you what, See,

life can seem like a scramble to keep things we

care about from falling apart. Well, we've all lived on

this earth, and one thing we know about this earth

is this earth has been falling apart. But at the

end of days, Jesus said He's going to change all that.

So we find ourselves at the end of Revelation, and

let us look at what Jesus is going to do

at the end of days, it says in Revelation twenty one,

chapter excuse me, Chapter twenty one, verses one through five.

Let's read that together. It says, then I saw a

new Heaven and a new Earth. Is talking about John.

The first heaven and the first Earth disappeared, and the

sea vanished, and I saw the Holy City talking about

a new Jerusalem coming down out of Heaven from God,

prepared and ready like a bride dressed to meet her husband.

I heard a loud sounds speaking from the throne. Now

God's home is with this people. And this is Jesus speaking.

It says, now God's home is with people. He will

live with him, and they shall be his people. God

himself will be with him, and he will be there.

God he will wipe away all tears from their eyes.

There will be no more death, no grief or crying

or pain. The old things have disappeared. And then the

one who sits on the throne said, and now I

make all things new. He also said to me write

this because these words are true and they can't be trusted.

And here's the first thing we need to know about

the end of days. Jesus will renew what God ruined.

Jesus is gonna renew all that got run. See, he

is going to restore things to the way that they

were intended to be in the beginning. What is Revelation

twenty one one say? It says, then I saw a

new heaven and a new earth. But when we go

back before Revelation twenty one to one, go all the

way back to Genesis one one, what does it say

God created what heavens and the earth. And God happened

to make some comments about his creation work what did

he say? He said, it's good. It's good. He created

an awesome earth, he created in awesome heavens. But things

have changed. See back in the day, people will get

along with each other. They they didn't have disease, they

didn't have death, crops weren't a problem. But then everything

didn't say good. Why because people chose to disobey God.

And from that moment on, creation has become flawled. It's

been a decay. And so what we see here is

this dichotomy all the time between that which is beautiful

and that which is broken, that which is beautiful and

that which is broken. I don't know about you, but

I believe our earth. And as someone who goes out

and likes to hunt and do those things, let me

tell you our earth is beautiful, and those of you

who have traveled you know we live on such a beautiful,

beautiful planet. At the same time, there's a lot of

things broken in our planet, and let's just talk about

those things. For instance, there's a lot we're always going

between beauty and broken. As for instance, our church has

had a ton of babies in us last year, so

that's been fun. Lots of baby showers, you know, big

moments of baby dedications and celebrating these babies, and that

is such a beautiful thing. But also in the same room,

this year, we've had plenty of funerals. You know, there's

beauty at the beginning of life, but then we also

have to deal with the brokenness at the end. How

our bodies get sick and they finally break down. So

there's always beauty and brokenness. And see, death was not

part of God's virtual plan. It ruins the gift of life.

Think about some other things that are beautiful. What about

when friends and family get together. Just this summer, I

hope that you've had plenty of opportunities to hang out

with your friends, they hang out with your family and

just have a good good time, And that's such a

beautiful thing. Think about last Sunday. What a beautiful last Sunday.

Last Sunday, after church, three languages came together, the Anglo congregation,

the Arabic congregation, and a Latino congregation and we all

just got together. We had a big lunch, and it

was beautiful because we were coming together to celebrate our differences.

But as soon as you got home, if you turn

on the news, what would you have seen wars all

over this earth where we were celebrating our differences. They're

fighting because of their differences and because someone wants what

someone else has. So we're always going in between beauty

and brokenness. See conflict Mars, God's original design for harmony.

Or think about here is I'm a sunset person who

and here is a sunrise person, Rachel Hanf You're a sunriseer.

All right, listen, I love the sunset. That's more my style,

that's more. And I just love it. And there's so

many times that we just run outside to our patio

because one of somebody in the family says, oh, look

at the sunset, or all look at the moon, and

we go out there and we look. You know, what's

the number one movie in America right now? Twisters? So

we have the beauty of this earth, and at the

same time, this earth also brings destruction through tsunamis and earthquakes,

So we're always going in between this beauty and brokenness

and creation has become flawed. But Revelation twenty one says this,

at the end of days, God's going to create a

new heavens, a new Earth. We're gonna receive new bodies,

and brokenness is actually going to be a thing that

belongs to history. And another thing to notice in his

passage that says that Heaven comes down to us. In

other words, God isn't thrown away the earth. No, he

is restoring the earth. Revelation twenty one to five says,

then the one who sits on the throne said, and

I will make all things new. So Jesus says, hey,

you know what, at the end of the days, watch

what I'm about to do. So here's what we're gonna

do today. I'm gonna take you through four things that

Jesus is going to do that he tells us about

in verses three and four in the twenty first chapter. So,

because Jesus is renewing all things, what are some things

that we get to benefit from. One we will know

God personally. You will get to know God personally. And

the most amazing thing is you're gonna see God face

to face. He's no longer gonna seeing this it to you.

You will be in the actual presence of God. Revelation

twenty one three says, Now God's home is with this people.

He will live with him and they shall be his people.

We will get to know God personally. See Sin broke

that connection. I'm an eve us to walk in the

cool of day with God. They are actual companions. Sin

broke that. But when Christ makes all things new, our

relationship would be fully restored and we will be in

the presence of God. See in these chapters, Heaven is

represented by a new Jerusalem. Now here's what's interesting. Okay,

what we see is even though there's a new Jerusalem,

one thing's missing from Jerusalem and the new heavens and

new Earth. There's no temple. And the temple was where

the presence of God, you know, stayed at with the

people of God. Now, let's check this out. It says

and verse twenty two, they did not see a temple

in a city because it's temple His, the Lord God

Almighty in the land, and so they don't even need

a temple because God's presence will be with everybody. Matter

of fact, it goes on to describe this city of Jerusalem,

this this new Heaven and new Earth, and it says

it'll be fifteen hundred feet wide by fifteen hundred feet high,

And basically it's actually just describing as shape. It's not

actually saying it's only going to be this. This is

actually describing a shape. It's describing a cube. Now, why

is it describing a cube? Because a cube is the

exact shape of the Holy of Holies, where God's presence remain.

And so the city will be shaped like the Holy

of Holies. Why because God's presence will be everywhere. You

will be in God's presence throughout all of eternity and

in this heaven you know you will be in the full,

unfiltered presence of God. Now think about this. I want

you to think about this. Think about the moment in

your life where you felt like you experience God's presence

the most. Go back, Do you remember there's a moment

in your life where you experienced God's presence unlike anything else.

I know for me, after I came to Christ, all

I could think about day and night was you know,

during the day, I was daydreaming about bringing friends of Christ.

Even at night I was dreaming about bringing my friends

of Christ. And I didn't want to be a pastor.

I didn't feel like that was a good route for me.

But all day long that just stayed on me all

day long, and so I actually became pretty anxious because

I was really worried on one hand, I would miss

the call and therefore I would not fulfill the purposes

that God has me for my life, or on the

other hand, that I would think I was called and

then go and just mess everybody's life up. The debate

is still open. But anyways, I needed to know that I,

without a shadow of doubt before I was going to

give my whole life to something. So I made an

appointment with God. I was on a Wednesday night in

my front room of my mom and Dad's house. Their

couch was up against the big front window, and at

midnight I got down on my knees for that window

and I said, God, I belong to you, and I

will do whatever you want me to do with my life.

My life belongs to you, but I need to know

that I know that I know before I make this commitment.

And in that moment, I experienced the presence of God

unlike I've ever experienced before or since, and it was overwhelming.

And some things happen that are unique to me that

I've only shared with a couple people, and I'll probably

stay that way, but let's just say this. When I

walked away that night, I knew without a shadow of

doubt that God had called me in the ministry, and

I experienced the presence of God. And I still haven't

even came close to experience than anything like this moment since.

And there's been plenty of times where ministry has become

so overwhelming I'm just like, oh, I just want to quit.

And then I think back to that moment, I'll be like,

I know that, I know that I know you want

me here. Now take that moment where I was blown

away by God's presence, now times out by one thousand,

and that's why each and every one of you will

experience when you stand in the presence of God. You

will be in the unfiltered, holy presence of God, and

you will know that you are loved. You will know

that you are known, and you will know that you

are His child. It says this that we will see

his face in verse four of chapter twenty two, and

his name will be written on our foreheads. Remember a

couple of weeks ago, we talked about the mark of

the beast being on the forehead in the hand and

basically we said, hey, that just is talking about how

ideologically those who follow the enemy will think like the

enemy and will do things like the enemy. But it

says that someday we will have the mark of God

in our hands. In other words, we will be thinking

and doing things like God. In other words, we will

become like Jesus. We will be purified, Our minds will

be purified, our minds will be renewed, and we'll get

to see Him face to face. And let me tell you,

it's gonna be overwhelming. And he will know you by

your name. Now God might feel far away, but I

want to remind you of some Let me just translate

this verse a little bit different. Now, God's home is

with you, and He will live with you, and you

shall be His people. It's gonna be awesome. Number two.

The second thing that Christ is doing is taken away pain.

At the end of the day, there will be no

more pain, it says verse four. It says he will

wipe away all tears from their eyes, no more grief

or cry. And our pain, sin has ruined this earth,

and with that it has brought pain. It seems like

we go from one pain to another, pain to another pain.

In this life. During the pandemic, we all got a

front row seat to the misery of pain on this

earth and what humans can endure. I know that I've

told you this before, but my family we lost twelve

family members. I watched four of them be ravished by cancer.

Dementia took one. A car wreck took another one, old

age multiple took a couple more. My uncle's lungs were

just completely ripped apart by COVID and he died a

very painful death. My grandma, who had broke her neck

a few years before. Her death was a different experience

for us because as we gathered around my grandmother's bed

in the hospital, we sunk some hymns and then we

watched her take her last breath. But it wasn't a

sad moment. It wasn't a sad moment. You know why.

It wasn't a sad moment because she had been telling

us for years that she can't wait to get to Heaven.

She can't wait to see Jesus, that she's had enough

of this earth and see here on this earth. Like

I said, it seems like we go from painful situation

to another painful situation. Well, you know, we go through

the emotional pain when someone dies or our dream dies,

or our hope gets crushed. Are we deal with guilt?

Are we deal with you know, the pain of misopportunities?

You know, we are always going from pain to pain

to pain. Speaking of my mamma, I remember this is

before she broke her neck. I had a conversation with

her downstairs at her house and I said, Mamma, if

you could live your life all over again, what would

you do different? And I love the way she answered

me because she didn't even respond to what would she

do different? She just says, huh, I wouldn't want to

live this life again. And I was pretty surprised, because

you know, when you're younger and you're looking at somebody

who's been successful, and you're just like, man, what a life,

you know? And then she goes, she has, remember my

my dad died when I was young. We lived in

horrible poverty. I had to lie about my age just

to get a job at GM. And then I went

and started my own business and worked there for, you know,

over fifty years, and I worked hard to become successful.

For many years, we tried to have a child, and

we couldn't have a child. I watched my brothers die

from cancer. My own husband, you know, died and left

me here for the last twenty years. She says, I

don't want to redo this life, and then she gave

me what I would call perspective. She goes, I just

want to see Jesus. I want to be with Jesus

and see the older you get and the more you

fall in love, and the more you see Jesus, you

don't want to redo your life over. No, you want

to go be with Jesus. Those who love Jesus want

to be with Jesus. And we know this that when

we see Jesus, he's going to remove all pain. Again.

It says he will wipe away all tears from the eyes,

no more grief for crying or pain. The third thing

that Jesus does at the end of days, He's gonna

give us all perfect health. Verse four. What is it

says says there will be no more death. Why death

is not natural. That was not a part of God's

original plan. So that's why we fight against it, because

God did not attend for us to die. But when

we get to heaven, here's what I want you to know,

We're not gonna be spirits just floating around a fine around. No, No,

you and I will actually receive real bodies, and we

will have a body like Jesus had when he resurrected.

What does the same in Philippians says, But our citizenship

is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there.

The Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables

him to bring everything under his control. What's he gonna

do to you? He's gonna transform our lowly bodies so

that we will be like his glorious body. We will

have a body like Christ. So we get new bodies

just like Christ. God. And these new bodies won't get sick,

they won't have pain, they won't die, but we will

have a new body like the resurrected one. A lot

of you have heard of Jonie Erickson Toada. She was

a lady who's pretty famous for her story of when

she was young, she dove in and it was a

little bit more shallow than she thought it was, and

she dove into the water and she broke her neck.

And she spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

And for decades she's went around speaking and writing, and

one of the things she likes to say as she's

encouraging people who are paralyzed. One thing she likes to

always say is, I can't wait till someday when I

get up from my wheelchair and I will run to Jesus. See,

someday we will be given new bodies. The old will

go away. There will be no more pain, there will

be no more death. The last thing that Jesus says

that he'll do in this section here is that creation

will be restored Creation, it says verse four, the old

things that disappeared. And then the one who sits on

the throne, this tout Jesus, is that now I make

all things new. See when when sin entered into creation,

creation itself became flaw and it didn't just affect people.

In fact, that the way animals behaved, the way creation behaved,

the way or weather patterns behave, is God all messed

up when we see so much brokenness on this earth.

But then it says in Romans eight that just as

you and I are longing for new bodies, creation longs

to be renewed as well. Romans eight says where the

creation was subjected to frustration, in hope that the creation

itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and

brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

In other words, just as you and I will be restored,

Earth will be restored. But here's the cool thing now,

and here's what I want to do for the rest

of the time. I want to shift in direction and

I want to talk about something that's happening spiritually. See,

Jesus said that the Kingdom of God has come and

is now present, and so what we see happening is

Jesus is already restoring some things. God's rule is already

starting to take place, though it won't be finalized and

to the end of days. And so what we see

right now is you and I live in this in

between times where God's rule is already happening, yet it

will be completed somedays. So in the middle, while we're

in this middle stage of God already renewing some things,

there's a couple of things I think we should do,

and number one is simply this. I believe wholeheartily that

we need to get to know God more deeply, knowing

that all things are going to be completed. We're in

this middle kind of this middle stage of you know,

we're here on this earth, but we're not yet in

heaven with him. So we have this time, So what

do we do? We get to know him more personally. See,

when you love someone, you want to get to know

them in a deeper way. Especially think about what if

you're marrying someone. Remember those days before you're married, how

much you wanted to get to know them in such

a deeper way. You wanted to know the things in

their hearts, You want to know their habits. There are quirks.

Gena and I started going out in eighth grade, and

let me tell you, you know, I just wanted to

get to know her deeper over those years. So we

hung out after school. We played basketball together on one

of the youth retreats where we would come out into

the commons section in the morning for breakfast. That's when

I learned learned that Gina. You know, as soon as

she gets up, she likes to eat cereal, Like as

soon as she gets up, and we're on this youth

retreat and I look over and she's got both eyes

closed eating a bowl of cereal, And I'm like, what

a talented woman. She could eat a whole bowl of

cereal and she doesn't have to look at it. It

was so impressive, and I'm like, man, I gotta yeah,

I need to hitch my wag into this person. They're

going somewhere, And you know, I just found out that

she just has the best laugh. And you wouldn't believe this,

but I've made a fool of myself many many times

just to hear that cackle. We went to youth group together,

and we traveled together when we went on to college.

We try to spend every moment along with each other.

And then, you know, I just wanted to know more

about her, and over the years I learned what she

liked and what she didn't like. One time, she was

asked by some friends if she would like some banana

peppers on her sandwich, and she was like, no, I

don't like bananas. You see what I was in store for.

But I love that about her, and I wanted to

know her deeper. And I got to the point where

I saved all my money to buy a very inexpensive

engagement ring. And so it came that night and I

took her out to dinner in Cincinnati and my friends

at the Bible College they put all these candles all

around this little garden area that overlooked downtown Cincinnati, and

I told Gina, we need to go back and get

my laundry, and we drub a bear and I said, oh,

look at this place with all these flowers and seats

and candles. You want to sit here for a little bit.

She goes, oh yeah, and we overlooked Cincinnati. She thought, Wow,

we're so lucky. I can't believe somebody didn't take these

seats in the middle of all these candles lit up. Yeah,

I know. And then a friend of mine walked up

and he was wearing a suit, and he had a guitar,

and he said, if I sing you a couple love songs?

And I said sure. My wife says, can you believe this?

This is amazing. What a night. I go. I know,

it's crazy, it's just wild. And then she finally got

that we were getting engaged. Whenever, twelve of my friends,

one by one came up with a rose with a

word on it, and then I would talk for that

minute about how I wanted to live up to each

one of those words. And then I got down on

my knee and I put this ring on her now.

She absolutely loved her engagement ring. It reminded her of me.

It was cheap and it had a lot of flaws. Now,

after we got engaged and we had this big, beautiful moment,

you know what I didn't do. I didn't look at

her and say see you at the wedding. No, I

wanted to get to know her more because I loved her.

And I think today so many people they make a

commitment to Christ and then they check it off and

say good, that's done, and then they're kind of lived

their life like seeing Heaven. No, no, no, no, When

you love someone, you want to know them. We don't

wait until we get to Heaven to know Jesus. We

get to know him now. And let me tell you

a couple of ways that I think are the best

ways to get to know him. One of that is

by joining him in his mission. See, one of the

main ways we get to know God is a team

with him on his mission in the world. So he

Apostle Paul understood this. And See, when I first came

to Christ, I didn't know how to preach. I didn't

know how to teach, I didn't know how to lead.

I didn't know how to run a service. I didn't

know how to run a budget. I didn't know how

to run a staff. I knew nothing. The only thing

I knew how to do was invite my friends at church.

And before I graduated, I probably invited every single person

in my class to my youth group. That's what I

could do. Then I looked at my youth pastor as

I felt a calling into ministry, and I said, hey,

put me to work. Well, there wasn't much I could do,

But so what did I do. I was the guy

who moved all the chairs in the church and set

up all the classrooms because that's what I could do.

And I did that for a long time. And then eventually,

right before I went off to Bible College, he gave

me this six week this six week Bible study, and

he says, you can facilitate it, don't try to teach it.

Do not go off script, James, he's so worried about me.

He's like, stick with the script. So I facilitated that.

Here's what I noticed that over the next couple of years,

the more engaged in his mission and the bigger it

became in my life, the more I leaned on him.

Every one of us should have an area with our

walk with Jesus that is pushing us to the edge

of faith. Whether it's witnesses to somebody, or serving here

or doing this. Every one of us should have a

spot that pushes us to draw closer to God because

we need his help to accomplish his mission. The other

thing that was so helpful to get known God is

actually being in relationship with others. That's why here at

Church of the Crossing we have study groups, small groups,

Sunday groups, and serving groups. Because you know, when I

first came to Christ, I gathered with some other people

and I would watch these older guys. I'll watch all that.

That's how they pray, that's how they navigate this, and

here's what they do with this. And I learned how

to follow Christ by hanging out with a group of

people who were ahead of me. So we disciphled chur See,

we were not meant to do Christianity on our own.

The last thing that I would encourage you to do

as we close up the book a Revelation, is because

Jesus is in the midst of making all things new,

you could go ahead and take your pain to him.

Now see Unfortunately, a lot of people they kind of,

you know, kind of resist the presence of God when

they're in the midst of struggling or pain. See, pain

has a way of alienating us from God if we

let it. When life hurts, sometimes well we're being punished

by God, or we think, well, it's my fault. I'm

a little embarrassed, so I'll stay away from God. Or

we're bitter at God because we think it's his fault.

Why did he protect us? But here's what we know

from scripture is that when we're struggling, God wants to

strengthen us. What a Psalm twenty three says, even though

I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,

for you are with me, and you're Rod and your

staff they do what they comfort me. We're going to

walk through pain on this earth. What do we do

when we walk through pain? We drove closer to God. Now,

as we close out this series, we're at the end

of the Book of Revelation, and I hope it's been

challenging to you. And here's the thing I know about revelation.

Revelation is hard to interpret. We try to hit some

of the main things and stuff like that. But at

the end of the day, if I could sum up

revelation in two words, here's how I would do it.

I would just simply say, Jesus wins. Jesus wins. It

says here that than the one who sits on the

throne said, and now I make all things new. And

he also said to me write this. Because these these

words are true, it could be trusted. We don't know

what's going to happen between now and the end of days,

but here's what we know. We can trust him with

our future. We don't understand all the details of revelation,

but here's what we know. We can trust him with

our future because Jesus wins. And only does Jesus win,

But someday you and I, because of his victory, we

will get to see him face to face. Now, let

me tell you something. I've been following Christ for twenty

six years, and that's a long time. And despite all

of my foolishness, Jesus has never forsaken me. I've been

protected by him, defended by him, rescued by him by

more times than I know how to count. In my

darkest moments, He's always been there. For me, and after

all these years, even though I'm still slow to obey

and stunted him in any areas, I know this. Someday

I'm want to see him face to face, just like

you will. And when I see him face to face,

just like you will, here's the words that we will hear,

despite haul the flalls, despite how messed up we are,

because of our faith in Jesus Christ, We're going to

hear well done, good and faithful servant. And so I

want to close out this series by one simple statement.

Jesus wins, and so do we because of the work

of Christ. Jesus wins, but so do we. So I

think a perfect way to close out this series today,

it's just for us. As the band comes up, It's

just for us to take some time and pray and

thank him, thinking for his mercy, thinking for his grace,

thinking for his goodness, thanking for not giving up on you,

thinking for how he's healed you in the past. So

let's just take some time at the end of the series,

as we are living in the in between, but we

do know that he holds our future. Let's just take

some time to give God praise and thank him for

his goodness in your life. Let's bow our heads and

go before the Lord.