Arriving Home, Forever

The reading this morning comes from Revelations chapters 21 and 22, various verses.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

You can follow along in your bulletin or in the screen behind me.

In chapter 21, verse 1, we read,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.

And God himself will be with them as their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.

For the former things have passed away.

And he who was seated on the throne said,

Behold, I am making all things new.

Also, he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.

And he said to me, it is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars,

their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues,

and spoke to me, saying,

Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.

And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great high mountain,

and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem,

coming down out of heaven from God,

having the glory of God.

Its radiance like a most rare jewel,

like a jasper, clear as crystal.

It had a great high wall with twelve gates,

and at the gates, twelve angels.

And on the gates, the names of the twelve tribes of the Son of Israel were inscribed.

On the east, three gates.

On the north, three gates.

On the south, three gates.

And on the west, three gates.

And the wall of the city had twelve foundations.

And on them were the twelve names of the apostles of the Lamb.

And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls.

The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width.

And he measured the city with his rod twelve thousand stadia.

Its length and width and height are equal.

And I saw no temple in the city.

For its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.

And the city had no need of sun or moon to shine on it.

For the glory of God gives it light.

And its lamp is the Lamb.

By its light will the nations walk.

And the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

And its gates will never be shut by day.

And there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

But nothing unclean will ever enter it.

Nor anyone who does what is detestable or false.

But only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

And in chapter 22,

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.

Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,

yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree were for healing of the nations.

No longer will there be anything accursed.

But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it.

And his servants will worship him.

They will see his face.

And his name will be on their foreheads.

And night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun.

For the Lord God will be their light.

And they will reign forever and ever.

And he said to me,

These words are trustworthy and true.

And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets,

has sent his angels to show his servants what must soon take place.

And behold, I am coming soon.

Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.

Yeah.

Thank you.

This is the word of God.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Okay.

I'm sure we will get this right.

Sorry, Ange, I cut you short.

I think there was a miscommunication on my side that it was longer than we were meant to read.

So we can call it there.

Okay.

Let me pray for us.

And then we're going to look at this passage.

Heavenly Father, this morning, we live in a broken world.

All of us come here, 100% of us, with something on our heart, Lord.

Whether it's something that's happened in the past or something that we anticipate in the future,

something that's heavy.

God, we need to meet with you.

We want your word to speak to us, to encourage us.

Lord Jesus Christ, come and be with us today.

And let your word come alive to our hearts.

I pray this in your wonderful and gracious name.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay.

Let me ask you a question.

And the question is this.

If you could describe your perfect life, how would your perfect life look like?

I know the youth are with us today.

High schoolers.

High schoolers.

Youth.

If you could describe your dream life, paradise, what would that life look like?

You can think about that for a minute.

If you are new to Watermark, we are, for the last four months, we've been doing this preaching series called The Wonderful Work of God.

And we've been working through the storyline of the Bible.

If you're new to Watermark, we often think that the Bible is just a collection of wise sayings or a collection of random things that tell us about God.

But actually, the Bible is a story.

It has a storyline.

In order to make sense of the Bible, you need to make sense of the storyline.

And so we've been doing that for about four months.

And today is the final sermon in the series.

You may be saying, okay, finally, we're getting to the end.

And so if you're new with us today, I hope it makes sense.

Let me recap the story for us.

I'll try to do it briefly, and then we're going to dive in.

The story starts in Genesis 1 and 2, the very first pages of your Bible.

And it starts off where God makes humanity.

He makes humanity distinctive, unique, different from all the other creatures.

What is distinctive about humanity?

It's the fact that we're made in God's image, and we are made to have relationship with God.

We're meant to live with God.

Not next to God, not above God, not beside Him.

With Him.

And God makes us to be in deep intimacy and oneness.

To know Him and enjoy Him.

To experience life with Him.

However, it isn't long in the storyline that things go horribly wrong.

Page number three, everything falls apart.

And humanity rejects God's rule.

We rebel against Him.

And in a sense, in that time, sin enters the world.

And when sin enters the world, death enters the world.

Physical death, people die.

But even more so, a spiritual death, an existential death, enters all of the world and all of our hearts.

I don't know if you've ever spoken to somebody or interacted with somebody that's gone through a deeply traumatic, a horrific experience.

Maybe they've come back from the front lines of a war zone.

And you might say, it's like talking to a ghost.

The person has become a shell of what they once were.

Something inside of them has died.

It's still the same person, but they're not the same person.

That's what happened to humanity.

It's what happened to our world.

Something inside of us died.

Our relationship with God died.

That's what sin does.

But, from that very moment, from page number three, God makes a promise.

And he makes a promise that he is going to put right all that is broken and wrong and painful and destructive with this world.

God is going to reverse the curse of sin.

He's going to reverse death.

God is going to put things right.

And he's going to reconcile us, God and man, together.

Where we meant to live together, but now there's friction and fighting and conflict.

God is going to reunite us.

And so God makes these promises.

First to Abraham, then to Adam, then Abraham, then Moses.

And all throughout the Bible, he makes these promises.

We call them covenants.

To David and Solomon and Isaiah and Jeremiah.

And makes these promises that he is going to put the world right again.

And this is the wonderful work of God.

This is what the whole story is all about.

How God is going to put it right.

And so, he starts off with this little group of people, Israel.

And he blesses them.

And then he gives them a king so that they will know what does it look like to live under a king and experience his blessing.

And then he gives them a temple so that they'll know what is it like to live with God's presence in their midst.

And God goes on making these promises.

And of course, Jesus comes and is, in one sense, the fulfillment of all these promises.

Jesus is the true king.

Jesus is the true temple.

Jesus is the one who starts to put things right again.

And he does it because he deals with sin on the cross.

That's the cause.

And he starts to deal with the consequences of sin by making life better.

But when Jesus dies and rises again, his disciples say, okay, let heaven come.

You've done it.

Now let the good times roll.

And Jesus says, not yet, just wait.

There's work to be done.

Heaven is not going to come just yet.

There's work to be done.

What is the work to be done?

He says, there are many, many people throughout the world that don't know me.

Don't know the gospel.

Don't know Jesus.

I want you to go and tell them and let them know they too can be reconciled with God.

And so Jesus sends out his disciples, sends us out to live on mission.

And so that's where we're at in the storyline of the Bible.

And we're about to come to the end, but we're not quite there.

So that's where we're at in the storyline of the Bible.

But it's also where we're at in the history of the world.

Because that's where we're at.

Jesus has come.

He's died.

He's risen.

He sent us out.

Two questions for us.

One, how does the story end?

Two, how should we live life now in light of how the story ends?

Okay, so that's what we're going to look at today.

Let's look at the first one.

How does the story end?

The last book of the Bible that Antony read to us is called Revelation.

It's a wonderful book of the Bible.

Many people are scared.

Don't be scared.

I encourage you to read it.

It's full of lots of strange imagery and pictures and illustrations.

Most of these are not meant to be taken literally.

And the book of Revelation, the whole book doesn't tell us how the story ends.

It's written to encourage Christians who are going through a hard time to keep on going, to persevere.

It's the story of the world.

But right at the end of Revelation, God tells us how the story ends.

And let's look at what he says, verse 21.

Maybe as we look there, just a question.

What do you think heaven is going to be like?

I know Neil spoke about this a few weeks ago.

We often think that heaven is going to be clouds and angels and harps and stairways made of heaven.

Sorry, stairways made of clouds.

But Revelation tells us something different.

And John here uses a couple of pictures, imagery, to describe, to try and describe what it's going to be like.

And his main point is this.

One of his main points is heaven is going to be a new creation.

A new creation.

A new creation.

A brand new created world.

A physical world.

Look at what he says here.

Look at verse 1 with me.

He says,

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

And the sea was no more.

Verse 4.

At the end he says,

And for the former things have passed away.

Now, the apostle John, who wrote the book of Revelation,

He is telling us that the storyline of the Bible and the storyline of the world ends with a new creation.

In a sense, the story doesn't end.

It gets reborn and starts again.

It's what he calls a new heaven and a new earth.

So this created world is not going to burn up when it collides with the sun.

It's not going to end when an asteroid hits the earth and we decimate.

Christ is going to come and he's going to recreate a new creation.

He's going to take this world and renew it, reform it, transform it.

Think about this.

I don't know if you've ever seen those TV shows where somebody takes an old house and they renew it.

Right?

They renovate it.

And then they show you the pictures at the end.

The before photo and the after photo.

And it looks like a completely different house.

In some senses it is.

But it's also the old house that's been made new.

In some sense, that's what God is going to do.

He's going to take his creation.

He's going to so renew it.

It's going to look and feel completely different.

And yet it's going to be, in some ways, the same.

Heaven is not some distant place up in the sky made of clouds and harps.

It's going to be a physical world, much like our own, yet altogether new.

Look at verse 5 with me.

It says,

He who is seated on the throne, that's God, said,

Behold, I am making all things new.

In some senses it's going to feel and look a lot like the Garden of Eden.

And yet it's going to be much better.

I don't know if you saw this in chapter 22, Angelina read to us.

We won't look at it now.

But in verses 1 to 5, it describes this new creation a lot like Eden.

It's a city, but there's rivers, and there's the tree of life,

and there's trees and vegetation and plants.

It looks a lot like Eden.

Except these trees that bear fruit,

these fruits are not going to curse the world.

They're going to heal the world.

They're going to bring restoration, wholeness.

It's going to be a new creation, a perfect world.

Now, you may ask the question,

Okay, but in Genesis 1 and 2, there's this perfect creation.

And then there was temptation.

And sin came in and messed it all up.

So how do we know that in the new creation,

we're not going to do it again?

If Adam and Eve had free will,

and they could choose to rebel against God,

how do we not know that in the new creation,

we're just going to rebel against God

and bring about the curse and the fall all over again?

Well, that's a great question.

In chapter 20, just before this,

God does something.

He deals with Satan,

and He judges him,

He defeats him,

and then He casts him away forever.

Look at the end of the first verse of verse 1.

It says,

I saw a new heaven, new earth,

the first heaven and earth had passed away,

and the sea was no more.

In biblical imagery,

the sea is a deep, dark, unknown place

from which evil arises.

So in Revelation 13,

there's a sea,

and the beast rises out of the sea.

In Job, remember,

we spoke about it last year,

Neil spoke about it,

Leviathan rises out of the sea.

But here,

the sea is no more.

That doesn't mean there won't be any beaches or water.

The point is,

Satan will be gone.

There'll be no more temptation,

no more evil,

no more wickedness.

And that's actually what it says.

Look at verse 4.

Verse 4 says,

He, that's God,

will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

death will be no more,

nor shall there be mourning,

nor crying,

nor pain,

the former things will pass away.

Friends,

in that new creation,

the new world to come,

there will be no more sadness,

no more tears,

no more cancer,

no more relational conflict,

no more bitterness,

no more unforgiveness,

no more earthquakes,

no more depression,

no more anxiety,

no more panic attacks,

no more war,

no more injustice,

no more abuse,

no more sin,

will ever exist.

There's this beautiful paragraph,

at the end of the Lord of the Rings,

where,

Samwise Gangry,

wakes up,

and he says this,

it says,

at last Sam gasped,

Gandalf,

he said,

I thought you were dead,

but then,

I guess I thought I myself was dead.

Is everything sad going to come untrue?

What's happened to the world?

And Gandalf replies,

a great shadow has departed,

said Gandalf,

and then he laughed,

and the sound was like music,

or like water in a parched land.

And as he listened,

the thought came to Sam,

that he had not heard such laughter,

the sound of pure joy,

for days upon days upon days,

without count.

Friends,

that's what heaven is going to be like.

In this new creation,

everything sad,

everything broken,

is going to come untrue.

It's going to become non-existent.

For the former things have passed away,

behold,

I am making all things new.

And the point is this,

that throughout the Bible,

from Genesis 3,

all the way through thousands of pages,

and stories,

and ups and downs,

and kings,

and exile,

and sin,

and all sorts of rubbish,

and pain,

and heartache,

God has been making promises.

This is not how the story ends.

This is not how it ends.

I will make all things new.

Friends,

the end of the story tells us,

God will be true,

and faithful,

to his promises.

This began through Jesus,

dying and rising again.

And he will complete it fully,

and finally,

in the new creation.

So,

a new creation.

But also,

secondly,

heaven is like a new city.

Heaven's not going to be harps and clouds,

or disembodied souls.

So,

what's it going to be like?

What will we do?

Well,

you might think of,

it's going to be unspoiled nature,

the Garden of Eden,

the best camping site in the world.

Actually,

it's going to be a city.

For those of us from Hong Kong,

we like cities,

right?

That's why we live in this great city.

We are going to win.

Look at verse 2 with me.

It says,

So,

in some sense,

the new creation is going to be

a version of Eden,

with rivers and trees and vegetation

and glory and wonder.

But it's also going to resemble a city.

Now,

why does the Bible describe

the new creation like a city?

What's special about cities?

Well,

in the Bible,

cities are primarily places of

safety and refuge.

In the Old Testament,

God dedicated these cities

that if you were in danger,

you could flee to them

and you would be safe there.

Cities are places where you're safe

from bandits and enemies

and wild animals

and persecution.

And so,

cities in the old days

had walls around them

and they had gates

and at night,

they would close the city gates

and you were safe in cities.

It's a place of safety.

Out there,

it's dangerous.

In the city,

you're safe.

Cities are places of diversity of people.

All sorts of different cultures

and ethnicities

come together

and are unified

and can accept one another.

But cities

are also places of

culture making,

innovation,

productivity,

work.

In some senses,

think of the very best day

you've ever had at work.

Creation is going to be

something like that

but infinitely better.

Productive,

exciting,

wonderful,

exhilarating.

But think of how

in the Old Testament

in Genesis 11,

the people come together

to build a city,

the Tower of Babel.

And they come together

to build a city

that they say,

let us reach up to the heavens

to meet God.

And they build a city

to the fame of their own name,

to the greatness

of their own name.

And what does God do?

He judges them

and He scatters them.

But here in Revelation,

it's the inverse.

Here,

man is not building

the city of man to God.

God is bringing

the city of God

down to man.

And rather than scattering us,

God is uniting all people,

different languages

and cultures

and ethnicity.

He's uniting them together

around worship

of the throne.

But there's something

unusual about the city

and that is

its shape.

This is the most unusual city

you've ever seen.

It has a very peculiar shape.

Now,

in the Old Testament,

what is the center

of all life?

Civic life,

communal life,

spiritual life?

It's the temple, right?

The temple is at the center

of all civilization

in the Old Testament.

All the people

camped around it.

And the temple

is where heaven

and earth meet.

Where God comes

and dwells with His people.

I don't know if you know this,

but in the Old Testament,

the temple

always faced eastwards.

And the reason is

because Adam and Eve

were expelled

out of the garden

to the east.

And so when the priests

go back into the temple,

it's like a symbol

saying we're going

back into Eden.

We're returning to Eden

to how we were meant to live.

The temple is a picture

of God coming to earth.

And in the center

of a temple,

what is there?

There's a room.

It's a cubic room.

Two meters by two meters

by two meters.

It's called

the holiest of holy places.

No one can go in there

except the priest

once a year.

In the holiest

of holy places,

God's presence dwells.

In this cubic room,

this very small room

in the center of the temple,

in the center of life,

in the center of the world.

Look at how this city

is described,

verse 16.

It's a city,

it's a thousand

five hundred miles wide.

Then it says,

verse 16,

its height,

its length,

its width

are all equal.

In other words,

the city is a cube.

It's a replication

of the most holy

and sacred place

on earth.

In other words,

what God is saying here

is heaven is going

to be like the center

of the temple

where God's presence

dwells all over.

No special places,

no churches to go to,

no special people,

no pastors,

no priests.

The whole of all creation,

the new creation,

is going to be like

the holiest,

holiest places.

God himself

is going to dwell there.

Look at verse 22.

It says,

I saw no temple

in the city,

for its temple

is the Lord God Almighty

and the Lamb.

Or verse 3,

behold,

the dwelling place

of God

is with man.

He will dwell with him

and they will be his people.

God himself

will be with him

as their God.

The point is,

the most important thing

about the new creation

is that God is there

in absolute,

perfect splendor.

No hiding behind a veil,

no going through a mediator,

no special people,

special buildings.

God is there

and we will know him

perfectly

and intimately.

That's why

the city is described

not only as a city,

not only as a temple,

it's described as a bride.

Verse 2 says,

the new Jerusalem

came down as a bride,

adorned for a husband.

What do brides

and bridegrooms do

on their wedding days?

They make a vow

to each other.

They make a commitment.

With all that I am,

with all that I have,

I'm naked before you.

I give myself to you.

You belong to me

and I belong to you.

Friends,

on that day,

we will see

the God

of all creation,

the one who created

galaxies and stars

and the universe,

that God,

we will see him

almost naked in a sense,

face to face

and he will say,

with all that I am,

with all that I have,

I give myself to you

and you to me.

We'll be one

with God.

It's astounding.

Friends,

what do you think

heaven is going to be like?

This morning,

we've only just scratched

the surface,

but the point is,

heaven is going to be

the final fulfillment

and so much more

of every promise

God has ever made.

In the new creation,

life will be

as it's meant to be,

even better than

your dream life.

Sin,

death,

corruption,

no more

and we will be

with God.

Okay,

second question is this,

how then should we live

now in light

of that age to come?

I remember hearing

a story a few years ago

of somebody that

was a chartered accountant

and when they were

studying there

for the exams,

their accounting exams,

they were extremely,

extremely disciplined.

He would study

for two hours

and then he'd

allow himself

out of his bedroom

for 15 minutes,

okay,

15 minutes

and then after that

he'd go back to his room

into his books

and all his roommates

and his friends

and his housemates,

they would be outside

playing games,

cooking,

hot pots,

watching videos,

playing computer games

and he would come out

for 15 minutes

and on the mark,

okay guys,

got to go back

to the books.

Extremely,

extremely disciplined.

Why did he do that?

He had a vision,

a vision of what was

to come.

He said,

now I'll be disciplined

because I'm going to

pass these exams,

I can have fun later.

How should we live now

in light of the world

to come?

Let me give us

four things to think about

and I'm going to take them

from 1 Peter,

we didn't read it

but it's on the back

of your bulletin

so grab your bulletin

and look at 1 Peter

with me.

1 Peter is a letter

that's written by Peter

to a bunch of Christians

who are going through

a hard time.

How should we live now?

Four things.

Firstly,

live as a sojourner.

A sojourner.

Okay,

what's a sojourner?

It's a very strange word.

A sojourner

is somebody

who is a traveler,

a pilgrim.

Somebody who is

in transit,

we might say

in transit

between now

and your final destination.

Right?

So these days

you want to fly to America,

you've got to stop off

in Tokyo

on the way

and wait in the airport

until your final destination.

Friends,

live this life

as a pilgrim,

a traveler,

a sojourner

knowing this life

is not your final home.

Look at how

Peter writes it.

Look at verse 1.

He says,

Peter,

that's himself,

as an apostle of Jesus,

writing to those

who are elect exiles.

What's an exile?

An exile is somebody

who doesn't live

in their home country.

They've had to leave

their home country

and they're living

somewhere else.

They're waiting to return.

Friends,

that's what the Christian life is.

You're temporarily

living in this world

as we await Jesus

to come

to take us home

to our final home.

In chapter 2,

I'm friends,

it's not in your bulletin,

but Peter writes this.

He says,

Beloved,

I urge you,

live as sojourners

and exiles in this world.

Abstain from the passions

of the flesh.

In other words,

don't give yourself

to everything

that you might feel like

in this world

because this isn't your home.

There's a home

waiting for you

and live now

in light of that.

So here's my encouragement

to you.

Live this life,

high schoolers,

if you're in youth,

this,

you've got dreams

for your life.

Heaven is going to be

infinitely better

than your best dream

for your life now.

As you dream

for your life,

live now

in light of the world

to come.

So,

friends,

live lightly.

Don't hoard possessions.

Don't be like Gollum

in Lord of the Rings.

My precious.

Grab more and more

and more,

right?

Friends,

don't believe YOLO.

You know,

YOLO,

you only live once.

No,

you don't.

You're going to live forever

and ever and ever

and it's going to be awesome.

Friends,

what would it look like

to live this life now

in light of

the new creation?

See yourself

as a pilgrim

and a sojourner.

Secondly,

embrace suffering.

Embrace suffering.

Look at how

Peter writes this,

verse 6.

He says,

in this,

what is this?

This is the hope

of the new creation

that's to come

if you're in Christ.

In this,

you rejoice.

Even though now

for a little while

you have necessarily

been grieved

by various trials

so that the tested

genuineness of your faith,

your faith which is

more precious than gold

even though that perishes,

your faith may be found

to result in praise

and glory and honor

at the revelation of Jesus.

Friends,

if you are going to follow Jesus,

suffering and hardship

are probably going to be

part of your life journey.

In fact,

if you're a human being

that's going to be

part of your life journey.

But particularly

if you're a Christian,

if you're a Christian,

suffering and hardship

and difficulty

are going to be

your constant companion

on this journey of life

until the new creation.

And one of the reasons

is God says

that suffering refines us,

it grows us,

it matures us.

Like when you put gold

in a furnace

and the gold bubbles up

and all the impurities

come to the top

and you can remove

the impurities

so that what's left

is pure.

So suffering

and hardship

and crises

have a way

of refining

our character,

our conduct,

our heart

so that we can purify

us for God.

But friends,

there's a temptation

to want to avoid

all suffering

and hardship

in this life.

Nobody likes suffering.

You don't need to

seek it out.

But when it comes,

don't think

it's the end of the world.

Friends,

don't avoid it.

Suffering will come

but suffering

is preparing you

for the world to come.

And so embrace it.

Embrace the hardship

of repentance.

Embrace the hardship

of humbling yourself

to go and say sorry

to somebody else.

Embrace the hardship

of sharing the gospel

with somebody.

Embrace the hardship

of giving away

some of your resources

to some missionary

in Myanmar

or some kingdom adventure.

Embrace the hardship

of saying,

this world isn't my own.

I don't need to build

my own castle here.

There's a will to come.

Friends,

this week

you will face

some difficulty.

Let that difficulty

refine you.

Don't run away from it.

Here's the third thing.

Live on mission

for Jesus.

I don't know

if you know

when you watch

YouTube videos,

you know,

you want to watch

a YouTube video

and the first thing

that always comes up

is an irritating advert,

right?

Some skin care product

that you're not interested in.

And at the bottom,

on the bottom

right hand corner,

it says,

skip this ad

in five,

four,

three,

two,

one,

right?

That five second ad

before the

10 minute YouTube video

is like this world.

The 15 billion years

of creation

plus however many more

is like the five seconds

and there's a countdown clock

that's ticking.

Christ is coming soon

in 5,000 years.

Four,

three,

two,

one.

Jesus is coming soon.

But friends,

when he comes,

there will be no more chance

for us to repent.

And there'll be no more chance

for our loved ones

to come to know him.

Friends,

God is creating a new world,

the real story of the world,

but he's not going to force

anybody to be there.

Only those who love him now

will love him there.

And if you don't want God

in your life now,

if you say,

no,

I don't want you now,

he's not going to force you

to be with him

for all eternity.

He will say,

okay,

fine,

you do it your way.

But friends,

it is going to be

infinitely terrible.

And so friends,

live on mission with Jesus.

And so there's two implications

for this.

The first one is this.

Are you going to be

in the new creation with him?

In other words,

are you a Christian?

Do you love Jesus?

Have you centered

your life around him?

In the new creation,

God is going to be

the center of everything

that happens.

Is he the center

of your life now?

Have you surrendered to him?

Have you accepted

his offer of forgiveness,

his offer of grace?

Will you be with him there?

But secondly,

if you are a Christian,

are you reaching out

to people

and telling people

about him?

Are you helping people

to come to know

the wonder of Christ

and that we will live

with him forever?

And then here's the last thing,

live by faith.

Live by faith.

Look at what Peter writes

here in verse eight.

He says,

though you have not seen him,

you love him.

Though you do not now see him,

he's talking about Jesus,

you believe in him

and rejoice with a joy

that is inexpressible

and filled with glory.

Friends,

the point is,

one day we will see Christ

face to face

and it will be

infinitely better

than you can imagine.

But right now,

we don't see him.

You don't hold him,

you don't touch him.

And so this week,

live by faith.

This week,

when you're tempted

to do things your own way,

live by faith

that Christ is enough.

This week,

when you're tempted to sin,

live by faith

Jesus is enough.

This week,

when you're tempted

to get angry and bitter

and resentful

towards somebody else,

friends,

live by faith.

Reconcile,

because that's what

it's going to be like

in heaven.

At the moment,

your relationship with Christ

is one of faith,

not sight.

But one day,

that's going to turn around.

It's going to be sight,

not faith.

And so live this week

by faith,

knowing that he will

bring you home safely.

Let me close with this.

When we lived

in South Africa

many years ago,

I know this might,

let's see if you can

connect to the story.

Our favorite place

in the world

to go on holiday

was a place called

Plettenberg Bay.

Okay?

And it was

as close as you can get

to paradise.

It was on a stretch of road

that's called

the Garden Route.

It's about six hours

away from Cape Town,

600 kilometers away.

The Garden Route

is called the Garden Route

because it's like

the Garden of Eden.

And each kind of area

on each side

of Plettenberg Bay,

one side is called

Nature's Valley,

the other side

is called

the Wilderness.

Right?

So this is like Eden.

And so once a year

we'd try and drive there.

So what we'd do,

we'd young kids,

we'd leave at three

or four in the morning,

maybe three in the morning.

The kids could sleep

in the car

and we would drive

to paradise,

right?

To Pletten.

And invariably,

we'd stop somewhere

in the road,

maybe eight o'clock

in the morning,

we'd stop for some coffee

or some breakfast

and about two hours

outside of Pletten.

And we'd stop

and we'd get some coffee,

to breakfast

and then we'd get back

in the car and go.

Friends,

just imagine how ridiculous

it would be

if we stop at a gas station

on the side of the road

and you start pulling out

your beach chairs

and your beach umbrella

and you bring out

your suitcase

and you start unpacking

your clothes

on the side of the road

and you bring out

your food

and you start living

as if that's holiday.

No, that's not holiday.

We're just a traveler,

just a pilgrim.

This is a temporary stop

on the way

to paradise.

Friends,

this world is not your home.

Don't live as if

this world's your home.

There is creation coming,

a new creation.

It is going to be wonderful.

Live life now

as a pit stop,

a short gas station stop

on the way

to glory.

Live with faith.

Live trusting Jesus.

Embrace the hardship

but live knowing

that Christ is going to

make all things new.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father,

we come before you this morning.

God, I confess.

I'll start with myself.

I confess, God.

I often live

with such a small perspective

that this world

is everything.

God,

write on our hearts

that we are pilgrims

and travelers,

sojourners in this world

as we make our way

towards our true home.

Lord, remind us

that as wonderful

as this city Hong Kong is

and we want to work hard

to make it even better.

We want more joy

and peace

and grace

and hope

to fill our city.

But God,

help us remember

this world

will never be our home.

There is a new homecoming.

And so help us

to live with faith.

Help us to trust you, Jesus.

Help us to live as pilgrims.

Help us, God,

to love you

and love one another

as we live

with hope

for the world to come.

We pray this

in your wonderful

and gracious name.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.