On Earth as in Heaven 3: The New Heaven & Earth

This podcast is brought to you by Walnut Grove Lutheran Church in Langley, D.C., in the hope that it will draw you closer to the one who loves you most.

When you grow up on a farm, you very quickly become familiar with the reality of life and death.

Back when I was a kid, I think they have better ways of doing it now, but every farm that had livestock had something called a dead pile.

And whenever a cow or a calf died, somebody had to take a tractor and drag that carcass out to the dead pile and throw it on the pile with all the rest of the dead animals that were there.

And there's nothing that gets you acquainted as a young kid with the reality of death than when one of the chickens that you fed and watered on Friday and helped you family butcher on Saturday is sitting on your dinner table as the main part of the meal on Sunday.

But it wasn't all death on the family farm because you also became very familiar with the reality of life.

You got to see little seedlings grow up and carpet a field, turning it into a grand immense of green.

You got to see little chicks following their clucking mother hen around.

And there is nothing so grand on the farm as when you see a baby calf stand up for the first time, shake its head, and then stagger over to its mother to get its first drink of milk from her.

Growing up in that way teaches you something important.

You are part of a pattern that is bigger than yourself.

A pattern of life and death that existed long before you were born and will continue on long after you are gone.

And for a little while, God places a small piece of that pattern in your hands to steward, to care for, to cultivate, to bring life from the land.

It's a reminder that God's world is meant to flourish.

But the further I get from the farm, the more I notice how many people are unfamiliar with this pattern.

Especially the death part.

Death, sorry, is a future reality for all of us, but we don't like to think about it.

We push it out of sight and out of mind, we sanitize it, we avoid it, and we pretend it's not coming.

At least I do.

But when we close ourselves off from the reality of death, three things tend to happen.

We undervalue the preciousness and the beauty of life.

We are unprepared for death when it comes near, and that unpreparedness can leave us shattered.

And many of us personally know the shattering impact of death.

And we can forget to live in the hope that Jesus has given to us.

The hope of a world where death does not get to have the last word.

So, how do we become the kind of people who face death honestly, value life deeply, and live with confident hope in the new world that is coming?

As we think about that question, let's turn to Revelation 21, verses 1 to 6.

Revelation 21:1–6

Now, when we began this series on the book of Revelation, we saw that the God-given purpose of Revelation was this: to show God's people how the future would unfold so they could have the hope that they need to endure the persecution and suffering they were facing on earth.

We saw that the risen, glorious, powerful Jesus is always with us.

We saw that God still rules over all creation from his throne in heaven.

And today we will see how all of God's promises will be fulfilled at the end of time.

As chapter 21 opens, John writes, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

Those words are easy to rush past, but they are absolutely central to the Christian hope.

John here is not describing the end of creation.

He's describing the renewal of creation.

He's not describing God abandoning the world.

He is describing God restoring the world.

He is not describing us escaping earth to go somewhere else.

He is describing heaven coming down here.

This is the moment that the entire biblical story has been moving toward.

From the opening chapters of Genesis, God's intention has always been to dwell with his people in a world filled with his presence, his beauty, and his life.

Now sin fractured that relationship when our first parents sinned.

And death entered the story.

And creation itself was subject to decay.

But God never gave up on his world.

He never abandoned his plan.

He never stopped working toward the day when everything would be made whole again.

And here in Revelation chapter 21, John sees the fulfillment of that plan.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

The language he uses, a new heaven and a new earth, doesn't mean brand new as in completely different.

It means renewed, restored, transformed, made whole.

In the same way a seed goes into the ground and rises as something more glorious, creation itself will pass through death into resurrection, just like we will.

This is why the Christian hope is not about floating on clouds or escaping to a spiritual realm.

The Christian hope is resurrection.

It is embodied, it is physical, it is earthy.

It is the world as God always intended it to be: healed, whole, and filled with his glory.

And notice the direction of movement in John's vision that Jesus gave to him.

He writes, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.

Note that phrase, coming down.

Not us going up, not us leaving earth behind, not us escaping the mess.

God comes down.

Heaven descends.

God makes his dwelling with humanity.

The distance between God and his people is closed forever.

This is the ultimate fulfillment, dear friends, of the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray.

Thy will be done, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as in heaven.

Every time we pray those words, we are praying for this moment described in Revelation 21.

Every time we say them, we are aligning our hearts with God's future.

Every time we speak them, we are asking God to make his world new again.

And Revelation 21 shows us that God will answer that prayer fully, finally, and forever.

This is not escape.

This is not evacuation.

This is new creation.

And it is the foundation of our hope.

After John sees the new heaven and the new earth, he hears a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.

This is the heartbeat of the new creation.

God with us fully, finally, and forever.

And then we come to one of the most beautiful promises of all in all of Scripture, and it's one of my favorite verses in the Bible.

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

For the old order of things has passed away.

These words are not poetic exaggeration.

They are not symbolic.

They are not wishful thinking.

They are God's promise.

And note the tenderness of it.

God doesn't send an angel to wipe away your tears.

He doesn't hand you a tissue and tell you to pull yourself together.

The hands that shaped the universe, the hands that were pierced for your salvation, the hands that hold all things together.

Those same hands will one day touch your face and wipe away your tears.

And when he does, death will be no more.

Not less painful, not less frequent, not less frightening, no more.

The old order, the order of decay, disease, grief, and loss will be gone forever.

But God doesn't just remove what is broken, He replaces it with something new.

John hears the one seated on the throne say, Behold, I am making all things new.

Not, I will make things new someday, or he's not saying, I will make all things new if everything goes okay.

Or he's not saying I'm making all things new once everybody on earth gets their act together.

He's saying, I am making all things new.

This is the language of resurrection.

This is the language of restoration.

This is the language of a God who refuses to let death have the final word.

And then God seals this promise with these words, it is done.

Now the Greek word behind our English translation literally means they have become.

And it's as if in one moment God is saying, He is making everything new, and in the next moment he is saying, I've already finished making everything new.

They have become new.

The work of redemption is complete, God is saying.

The future is secure.

The new world is guaranteed.

This is the hope that carries us.

This is the hope that steadies us.

This is the hope that enables us to face death honestly, value life deeply, and live with confidence in the world that is coming.

So how do we live now?

If this is the future that God has promised, if this is the world Jesus is bringing, if this is the hope secured by his death and resurrection, then how do we live in the world as it is today?

Revelation 21 is not just a picture of the future, it is a call for us to live differently in the present.

And let me offer three ways of how this vision of new creation can form us.

First, we face death honestly, without fear and without denial.

Because death will be no more, we don't have to pretend that it isn't real now.

We can talk about it.

We can prepare for it.

We can grieve honestly when it touches our lives.

We can walk with others through it with compassion and courage.

Christians are not people who avoid death.

Christians are people who look death in the eye and say, you are real, but you are not final.

The resurrection of Jesus has already broken your power, and the new creation will erase you forever.

Second, we value life deeply because every moment is a gift.

If God is making all things new, then every breath we take now is precious.

Every relationship matters.

Every act of love echoes into eternity.

Every moment of beauty is a glimpse of the world to come.

Christians should be the most grateful people on earth, not because life is easy, but because life is sacred.

We don't rush through our days.

We don't take people for granted.

We don't waste the time God has given us.

We live with open eyes and open hearts receiving the gift of life as it is.

And third, we live with resurrection hope, steady, confident, and unshakable hope.

Hope, you see, is not wishful thinking.

Hope is not optimism.

Hope is not, I hope things work out.

Hope is the settled confidence that the one seated on the throne is making all things new.

And he will finish what he has started.

This hope steadies us in suffering.

It anchors us in times of grief.

It strengthens us during trials and it keeps us faithful when life is hard.

Hope is not an escape from reality.

Hope is the power to live faithfully in reality because we know how the story ends.

And that makes all the difference.

We live in a world where death feels normal and yet it never feels right.

We stand at gravesides, and something deep inside us says, this is not how it's supposed to be.

We feel the ache of our bodies aging, weakening, slowing down.

We watch the news and we see violence, disease, and loss, and our hearts whisper, surely this is not the final word.

Revelation 21 answers that whisper with a shout of hope.

John gives us a picture of the world God is bringing, a world in which everything broken is healed, everything lost is restored, everything sad is undone, and everything good is made even better.

Imagine for a moment a world where grief is a memory, where hospitals are empty, where funerals are unnecessary, where cemeteries are obsolete, where every tear is wiped away, where every wound is healed, where every longing is fulfilled, where every joy is made complete.

Imagine a world where God Himself dwells with his people, not at a distance, not behind a veil, not through some kind of intermediate means, but face to face.

Imagine the voice of God saying to you, It is done.

I am making all things new.

Imagine the moment when the hands that were pierced for your salvation reach out and wipe away your tears.

It's not just the tears that you cried on that day, but the tears you have cried throughout your entire life.

All are wiped away.

Imagine stepping into a world where death is not waiting for you, but life is overflowing around you.

Imagine waking up in a world where nothing is fragile anymore, nothing is temporary, nothing is threatened, nothing is fading.

A world where love is in the air you breathe, joy is the ground you walk on, and the presence of God is the light that fills every corner.

That world is coming, dear friends.

And because it is coming, we can live differently now.

And so, what do we do with all of this?

What does it mean to live as people who belong to the world that is coming?

It means that we begin living now the way that we will live then.

We don't wait for the new creation to arrive before we start acting like citizens of it.

We let the future God has promised shape the present we are living now.

Let me give you three examples of what that looks like.

We live with open hands.

If God is making all things new, then we do not need to cling tightly to the things that are passing away.

We can release bitterness.

We can let go of fear.

We can forgive freely.

We can trust God with the parts of our lives that feel fragile or uncertain.

Open hands are their posture of people who know that their future is secure.

Second, we live with open eyes.

We look for signs of the new creation breaking in around us.

We watch for every act of kindness, every moment of beauty, every reconciliation, every answered prayer, every step toward healing.

Because these are not small, insignificant things.

These are foretasts of the world God is bringing.

And third, we live with open hearts.

The new creation is a world filled with the presence of God and the love of God.

So we practice living in that love now.

We love our neighbors.

We serve the vulnerable.

We comfort the grieving.

We walk with the lonely.

We speak words of hope into places of despair.

Open hearts, dear friends, make us living previews of God's future.

And I want to conclude today with this invitation that I extend to all of you.

Live today as someone who belongs to the world that is coming.

Let the hope of Revelation 21 shape how you grieve, how you love, how you forgive, how you endure, how you worship, and how you live your ordinary, everyday life.

Because the one seated on the throne has spoken.

And he has said, Behold, I am making all things new.

And when God says it, it is as good as done.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Gracious and loving Lord, we thank you for making us a part of your new creation.

And we pray that by your spirit you would help us to keep our eyes focused on Jesus and the new life and the new world that He is bringing into this world and into our lives.

And we pray that you would help us by faith to reflect that love, that life, and that hope into the world around us, so that more and more people could stand with you at the end of time and live with you forever in the new heaven and earth.

In the precious name of Jesus, we ask this, and all God's people said.

Amen.

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