Bright hope for tomorrow (Revelation 21 + 22)

So Revelation 21 verse one. Then I saw a new heaven and a

new earth, for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed

away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of

heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for

her husband. And I heard a loud voice from

the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the

people, and He will dwell with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be

their God. He will wipe away 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. He who was seated on the throne

said, I am making everything new.

Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy

and true. 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 water without cost

from the spring of the water of life.

Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be

their God and they will be my children.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the

murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts,

the idolaters and all idols, all liars, they will be consigned to

the fiery lake of burning sulphur.

This is the second death we go to verse 22.

I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God

Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for

the glory of God gives its light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the

earth will bring their splendour into it.

On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night

there. The glory and honour of the

nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter

it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful,

but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of

Life. Then the Angel showed me the

river of Water of Life as clear as crystal, flowing down from

the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the

great St. of the city. On each side of the river stood

the Tree of Life, bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its

fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are

for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any

curse. The throne of God and of the

Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him.

They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads.

There will be no more night. They will not need the light of

a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them

light, and they will reign forever and ever.

I'm going to tell you a little story.

I like stories. It's just turned midnight on the

15th of April 1912. If you're really good at

history, you might know what's going on.

There's just over 2200 men, women and children on board an

ocean liner heading across the Atlantic and it's just hit an

iceberg. Not good news.

Water is on board, the boat is going down.

Women and children get on the boats, the lifeboats, but

there's not enough lifeboats even for the women and children,

let alone the men and let alone the people who are on the lower

classes down below deck. There's not really much hope.

As the boat is going down, it's turned on its end and it's going

to sink and people will be in the middle of the ocean,

freezing ocean. Now there's a famous movie from

1997. It won Oscars, made lots of

money, and it has a particular scene in there which may or may

not have happened, I don't know. But there is a moment when

there's a priest and he's hanging onto the boat and he's

going down here and all his kind of the parishioners and the

others who are listening are also hanging on and they're

thinking, what is he going to say?

What, how is he going to come for us?

And he says, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The 1st heaven and the first earth have passed away.

Then he goes and there was no longer any sea.

It's kind of funny, maybe ironic, but it is in the Bible.

We did read it, didn't we? Just now this scene kind of

shows the truth that these words are a comfort and a hope for

people who are facing death. They say, do you know what?

It's not good now, but there's a new heaven and there's a new

earth. That's from the first one of

chapter 21, where we're living now.

We'll pass away along with all the difficulties and the hurt

and the suffering that it contains.

But this glimpse of the future shouldn't just be a hope for

people who are facing death and difficulty.

Should be a hope for all of us. Anyone who is following the

resurrected Jesus in good times and bad times.

There was this offer of hope for those people.

It's going to look at Revelation 21 and 22.

Please have those Bible, your Bibles open in that final book.

You have to hold the final pages.

So it's going to try and close. It's so far at the back.

It's it's big. There's so much that you can

say. You read these chapters over and

over again. You'll find so many different

things in there. Can't talk about everything, but

we are going to look at some parts of it to help us think

about what hope we have for tomorrow.

But we're going to start with a little bit of context because

Revelation is a weird book. I remember when I was a kid and

I was at church, maybe a bit bored, I'd flick to the back and

look at the stories about Dragons because that was cool.

That would keep me going. There's a weird stuff, There's

weird stuff in Revelation. So a bit of context.

It is apocalyptic. That doesn't necessarily mean

it's about the end of the world. An apocalypse, which is what

Revelation is, means it's revealing something that was

hidden. Read this in verse 1 of chapter

1 of Revelation starts with the revelation from Jesus Christ,

which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take

place, so something hidden. Revelation is about showing

God's people what will take place.

Jesus shows these things to the apostle John so that he can then

share it with other Christians. Christians who are facing

persecution in that 1st century. They feel like they're on the

losing side. Everyone is against them.

They're not going to make it. According to church tradition,

John was the only of the disciples who was left.

All the other disciples had died.

They were executed for their faith.

John was the last one and he even he was exiled kind of in

house arrest, which is when he had the vision and wrote this

book. So this whole book is filled

with poetic picture imagery to encourage believers in the 1st

century who are suffering, who are facing opposition, that even

though they feel like they're losing, if they're on Jesus

side, then they will win because Jesus wins.

That's what Revelation is about. You can summarize it.

Jesus wins. It's not a historic account of

what's going to happen on this day.

This will happen, then this will happen, then this will happen.

But it shows us images throughout the whole book to

help us understand something of what God's salvation plan is and

how it's going to end up. So as I said, I used to read

about the Dragons. There's heaven with the glassy

sea and rainbow and golden gates and things.

There's plagues and flying horsemen.

There are Dragons and all sorts of other monsters.

There's a lion who is also a lamb who has been slain, but

he's also standing and winning. There's there's lots of imagery

in here. Maybe one day we'll preach

through Revelation Avenue. I think that might be a good

thing. Maybe we'll think about that

next year. But this context that I just

shared now is to help us this morning to understand some of

the pictures that Revelation is using to tell Christians about

their future. Hope, bright hope for tomorrow.

So we're going to see some images that tell us that wrong

things will be made right, that healing and life will come and

that will satisfy and that the presence of God will be with his

people forever. So as you think about these this

morning, let's allow ourselves to make there'll be all sorts of

things going on. You might come from different

places. Let's try and allow ourselves

for this time as we look at these book chapters to be

excited and to be hopeful of what God has in store for his

people. So we'll start with wrong things

made right. As we heard last week, Jesus

resurrection is the firstfruits of what is to come.

Jesus suffering in death and his payment for sin was turned into

a glorious resurrection body as he rose from the dead and

ascended to the right hand of the Father.

His resurrection is a sign that one day everything wrong will be

made right. So chapters 21 and 22, the kind

of climax of Revelation, start with those verses that are

quoted by the priest on the Titanic we read earlier on.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

The 1st heaven and the first earth had passed away.

The sin and the suffering of this world, this fallen world

will pass away. There'll be something new in its

place. First one calls it a new heaven

and a new earth. We can call it a new creation.

I'll also talk about a new creation.

That's what I kind of mean this morning.

There'll be something new in place of what there is now.

Jesus gives 3 images. Well, there's three images I'm

picking out to explain what this new creation is.

So first chapter 21, verse one, there will no be no longer any

sea. Now I love the sea.

I don't want the sea to go away. Maybe you think the same thing.

I was swimming in the sea in Torquay a couple of weeks ago.

It was freezing, but I was in the sea.

I quite enjoyed it, even as cold as it was.

It's beautiful. It's home to wonderful animals

and plants and we can give God glory for those things.

He made the sea and it's a good thing.

So why would there no longer be any sea?

Well, we need to know that in biblical terms, the sea is a

picture of chaos and uncertainty.

So those people, especially in the 1st century, the people who

this was written to, the sea was uncertain.

It was dangerous, it could kill them.

They didn't know what was going to happen and it would just, it

could just take over at any moment.

So you see these in the stories of this of the disciples when

they're sailing on stormy seas. There's at least 2 cases of

that. Both times they thought they

were going to die. This is it.

The sea has taken us until Jesus stepped in and rescued them.

Throughout the Bible we might see sea, and it's often a

picture of uncertainty and chaos.

So when we read that in the new creation there'll no longer be

any sea, we can hear that Jesus is saying in the new creation,

there'll no longer be chaos, There'll no longer be

uncertainty. Uncertainty will be gone.

The danger of death and the threat of danger is going to be

finished. That's not just for when you go

sailing on the sea. That's for all things.

Things when you're on the land, things in our physical life,

things in our mental life, things in our relationships.

When there's uncertainty and there's chaos, when there's

threats and danger, it'll be restored to order just as things

were meant to be fully. And finally, I happen to believe

that in the new creation, there will be sea and we'll go sailing

and kayaking and it'll be amazing.

I will never drown, just like the whole of creation will be.

It'll be a restored, amazing, joyful place to be next.

So I'm going to be flicking around, which is why I need to

have your Bibles open. Now, Verse 23 of chapter 21, the

city, it's another way of looking at the new creation.

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for

the glory of God gives it light and the lamp is its lamp.

Also in chapter 22 and verse 5, it talks about this.

There'll no longer be any night. They'll not leave the light of a

lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them

light. So we've already lost the sea

and now we've lost night time as well.

You might think again. I loved we were in talking at

night time. They had all these lights around

the harbour, they reflected on the water.

It was really good. Maybe you enjoy fireworks or

maybe sometimes there's a blood moon.

When it's low down it all goes colourful.

It's really amazing. There's nocturnal animals that

come out at night that are awesome to have a look at, to

see what they see, how they live.

There's good things about night time.

But again, let's think about those original heroes, 1st

century heroes, when they think about night, when they think

about darkness, to them it's danger, it's the unknown, it's

threat at any moment. There's no St. lights or

electric lamps in the houses. There's no car lights.

Darkness was even one of the plagues that gods sent in Egypt

during the Exodus. Darkness is a bad thing.

It's dangerous threat for day-to-day life.

Night time in darkness was the time when people would hide and

attack then God's new creation. There's no need for lights to

shine into the darkness to remove that danger.

There's no need to even for the sun in the daytime or the moon

or anything like that. Because God Himself is the

light. His Holiness and His goodness

and His truth is all the light we could ever need.

He will be our everlasting light like that never runs out.

He'll be our guide to help us know the way that we should go.

Light will be clear and bright it'll be.

We'll be able to see exactly where it's going, where to go,

where to go next, where there's danger, an unknown hiding around

the corner. They'll be gone.

We'll be led by the light of God.

He'll shine into the darkness that we might have in our lives

now forevermore. And third picture, go back to

chapter 21, verse four. He will wipe away every tear

from their eyes. There'll be no more death or

mourning or crying or pain. For the old order of things has

passed away. The current order of things is

hard, right, and can be hard. Physical illness, both chronic

and short term illness and injury.

Mental illness that plagues us and steals our joy.

Breakdown of relationships. There's broken families and

marriages and friendships. There's the loss of life we

hoped we might have that is taken away.

There's the loss of people, our friends and our family, our

loved ones. But this is not how things were

meant to be. This is not what we were made

for. That's part of why Jesus came

and was born and lived a human life, because he knew what it's

like to live a life like this. He knew that when he lived.

We read that Jesus wept. He cried.

We see that Jesus was angry at the fallen world.

That was not how it was meant to be.

But in God's new creation, all these wrong things will be made

right. There's a wonderful verse in

Psalm 56. It says that God collects our

tears in His bottle. God sees every one of our tears,

every difficult situation that we have, and they matter to Him.

That's now in the new creation. There will be no tears to

collect. He's going to wipe away every

tear. There will be no more death, no

more mourning, no crying, no more pain.

There'll be no more illness, physical or mental, will be a

thing of the past. Relationships will be restored

and they'll be renewed. We will love one another just as

God has loved us. Death, as we heard last week,

will be defeated. It has been defeated.

It will be destroyed forever. Wrong things will be made right.

For those who trust in Jesus, this world, with its hard and

painful experiences, is as bad as it will get.

Jesus knows what it is to suffer.

We see that. We see in the Bible that he's

suffered. And now he promises to walk

through life with us as we suffer.

But in the new creation, when he finally returns and makes all

things new, He will remove it forever, completely.

It'll be gone. Hallelujah.

So there'll be bad things that are removed in the new creation,

but there'll be wonderful things that will be given to us too,

healing and life. So verse 6 of chapter 21, to the

thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of

the water of life. Water is life for a lot of

people today, especially those in the 1st century.

Water is life when it's in the sea.

Yeah, it's chaotic and uncertain.

But the well, the place where people got water to drink and to

do the things they needed to do, was the place in the village or

the city that brought it life. Without water, you don't, you

don't survive. That would be it.

So in the new creation there's water for everyone whenever they

need it, for free and forever. There'll be no thirst, there'll

be no striving against adversity.

There'll be abundant life on tap for anyone whenever they need

it. Maybe you remember the woman at

the well in John chapter 4. The well is the centre of plain

John 4 · chapter mention

of the village and there's a whole thing that goes on with

Jesus and the woman at the well. Jesus said to her, Whoever

drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of

water welling up to eternal life.

This living water we now receive today.

We can receive that today by faith.

We can receive the abundance and living and flourishing now by

faith, but in the new creation they'll be freely available.

Yes, there is faith, but it'll be a whole different thing

because we will see Jesus. We'll never doubt we'll have

that eternal life, living water whenever we need it.

We'll be fully satisfied, fully refreshed, fully alive forever,

all thanks to the grace of God. That's living water.

And then chapter 22, verses one and two talks about the Tree of

life. On each side of the river of

living water stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit,

yielding its fruits every month. And the leaves of the tree are

for the healing of the nations. Aren't trees amazing?

I was driving down Wellford Rd. the other day.

I'm so used to them being completely bare for the last few

months and suddenly they're full.

Little green leaves. The sun shines through it.

That's amazing. Or the blossom that's coming out

on some of the apple trees, the fruit trees around.

This happens every year. Green leaves in the flowers and

the fruits in the spring, they almost overflow.

In the summer, they fall off. In the winter, they're empty.

They fall off in autumn. Sorry, they're empty in the

winter, and then they come back in spring.

Even more amazing are the trees that have fruits, apple trees,

damson trees, where the fruit comes back year after year.

Well, here's an image of the provision of God that we already

get now, but forever for the people, for His people in the

new creation. This tree of life on both sides

of the river has twelve kinds of fruits in this image.

It would like it's full and abundance #12 in Revelation.

There's lots of numbers in Revelation.

That's another thing we won't particularly talk about, but #12

in Revelation is a is a number of fullness of completeness,

especially relating to people. So twelve kinds of fruits means

there's enough for everyone. There's more than enough for

everyone. It's at the 12 baskets when

Jesus was feeding the 4005 thousand.

More than enough for everyone. And not only each year do we get

fruits like we do now, but each month we'll get fruits.

It's just say, look, it's going up.

It's it's exponentially increased undeserved goodness

from our gracious God, from the tree of life.

I'll be reminded of the garden in Genesis where we first hear

about the Tree of Life. It stood by the river that

watered the garden. Well.

Then Adam and Eve had everlasting, everlasting food,

and they enjoyed it until sin came and Adam and Eve were

parted from the garden, parted from the fruits that they would

have had. Well, that parting, that

separation will be restored. We'll have access to the tree of

Life again, but even better because it's not just a tree

next to a river, but it's this weird tree that stands on both

sides of the river. I've seen some people trying to

figure out as the roots and the roots go above doesn't really

make sense, but it's a picture, isn't it?

I think it means that there's trees everywhere.

There's the river and there's trees everywhere.

The tree of life is all over the place.

The river is has water clear as crystal, living water, the tree

of life with living fruits for us to enjoy, and the leaves on

the the leaves of the trees by the river heal the nations.

There's a lot again in Revelation about who's going to

be in this new creation. There'll be a great multitude of

people from every tribe, every nation, every tongue, and

they'll all know the healing life of the new creation.

All the hurt and harm and suffering that came before in

this world will be healed by our healing and restoring God.

He'll bring healing and life in the new creation.

So we've got the removal of these wrong things to be made

right. We have the arrival of these

good things to restore us and to help us to flourish and to live.

That all sounds good, right? Yeah, it does.

It is good. But these things are just an end

in a way. They don't mean anything without

the presence of the God who provides it for us.

Without God's presence with us, the removal of wrong things and

the giving of good things is just stuff.

It's just stuff for us. They may be unending, but they

won't truly satisfy. There'd always be something

missing. We weren't made just to enjoy

lots of stuff. We were made for a close

relationship with the God who can satisfy, and that's what we

get. We see that in Revelation 2122

as well. So here's where the images get a

bit more abstract. Chapter 21, verse 22.

I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God

Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

So again, the city is another picture of the new creation.

In the garden of Genesis 1, the Lord walked with Adam and Eve.

They saw him, they spoke with him, they knew him, but from the

moment that they were banished from the garden, the presence of

God was just out of reach and they knew it.

No presence of God means there's none of His blessings.

None of His blessings will come without His presence.

Bible talks about that as a curse.

A curse took place. The curse was put on the people,

the curse was put on the creation.

Because without God's presence, there's no blessing, there's

only curse. All the right things became

wrong. So throughout the Bible, in the

Old Testament, we see God's people are seeking to get back

into God's presence. That's why we have the tent of

meeting that Moses set up. We had the Tabernacle then,

which was kind of the bigger tent that moved around to have

God's presence inside. Finally, this is a picture of

what some people think the temple in Jerusalem looked like,

which is the temple where God's presence was found.

But it was never fully there. It was never fully accessible.

It was always still out of reach.

The sin of the people and God's holiness meant that there

couldn't be a connection. There was rituals for people to

go through to be able to access God's presence.

Even for the priests, I think the priest could only go into

God's presence once a year and they had to tie a rope around

him just in case he was struck down.

He had to pull him out so he didn't have to go in after him.

God's presence was always there, but he was just out of reach.

And then in Jesus, the New Testament, we see God's presence

come down and arrive in human form, but not forever, because

Jesus ascended to heaven, to the right hand of the Father, but he

sent the Spirit. The Spirit again, is God's

presence come to live in us, to come and live in his people.

But we still sin in this fallen world.

We're still tempted away from the Lord.

We still quench the Spirit, but in the new creation, there's no

need of a temple say that to say that there's no barriers between

US and God's presence anymore. It's not about literal temple,

it's about God's presence. It'll be freely available.

There'll be no nothing in our way from getting to know God, to

know His blessings. There'll be no rituals.

There'll be no place we need to go to be in the presence of

Almighty God. There'll be no sin that gets in

the way that clashes with His Holiness or be in God's presence

forever. We will see His face.

We'll know His warm embrace every day.

Psalm 16 puts it this way. You will fill me with joy in

Your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

It's what we look forward to in the new creation.

And chapter 22, verses 3 to 4, the throne of God and the Lamb

will be in the city, and His servants will serve him.

They will see His face and His name will be on their foreheads.

You remember the jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth

the second, or maybe the coronation of King Charles the

Third? Get these big moments in British

history. The British people lie in the

streets in London. They're looking to see the

golden carriage come by and there's the wave.

Something like that, isn't it? The royal wave?

They wave their flags. Maybe they wear union union

flags on their clothes. They see the King and the Queen

go past and some of them get to meet them.

You might not be a royalist. Whether you are or not, I don't

know. But this is this idea is

something of what we will experience in the new creation

when we see our King, our true King, the King of kings,

Almighty God, we'll see him on his throne every day.

We'll have that exciting privilege again.

Don't forget, this is an image. I'm not sure there'll be a big

throne that we look at, and I don't know what that will look

like, but we'll see. God, our king, and don't forget

this God is the King of kings. He is the best king.

He's a servant king, King who's never high and mighty, looking

out for himself, always doing what is best for his people.

And then we will serve him as his servants.

And straight away, that's a bit jarring, servant.

That's not very free, is it? That's not a good place to be.

But I think that's to say, as we all know what we were made for

because we are God's people, his creations, which who he loves.

We all know that we are made to serve him and that's the best

thing for us. And we all serve him gladly and

joyfully. We'll see his face at the

moment, maybe picture what what do I think of when I when I

think about God? It's difficult to try and

understand, but we'll see God's face.

We'll have that deeper understanding that we can only

imagine that we can't even imagine of now.

He'll not be unknown. Sometimes it's hard to have that

faith, to know that God is there, to know that God is real.

That'll be gone. He'll be tangible, He'll be

visible. There'll be no doubts.

We'll see him face to face all the time, and we will be marked

as His again. It's a picture.

I'm not sure we'll have God written on our foreheads, but

it's the idea that we'll be marked as His.

We will know that we belong to God, that we are His forever,

His precious possession, His loved children who will never

forget that. The best part about the new

creation is that God is there. God is there with His people.

We will see Him for ourselves. Wrong things will be made right.

Hallelujah, there'll be healing and life.

Hallelujah for the presence of our glorious and loving Creator

and Father will make it all worthwhile.

Jesus presence with us is what will satisfy us and fill us with

joy forever. More than wrong things being

made right, more than the good things that we get before the

infinite Almighty God, there'll be glory upon glory, joy upon

joy, love upon love. The best of what we know now.

There are really good things that we have in our lives now,

aren't there? In our relationships.

The greatest moments we can think of, they'll be multiplied

exponentially as we enjoy God's presence and his blessings to

us. What I hope to look forward to.

If you watched Titanic, maybe you remember the movie Titanic.

The boat goes down, 1500 passengers and crew die along

with it. And the movie follows this.

One of the passengers Rose, she grows old, she throws a jewel

into the sea. It's a bit of a weird moment,

but she does that. And then she has this kind of

vision, this afterlife vision where she meets all the people

she remembers from Titanic on the boat.

And then her love interest comes down the down the stairs and

they meet and everyone applauds and it's very happy and all

lovely. A wonderful reunion.

I do believe that there will be a wonderful reunion in the new

creation with our loved ones. Those who are there, who who

trust in Jesus, we'll all be there.

Maybe people we never knew, maybe the person who shared the

gospel with once and then they left.

Maybe down the line they become a believer and they see you

there. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Maybe those who just know through stories, biographies,

even in the Bible will meet those people there.

But this hope from Revelation is more than just a reunion like in

Titanic, as wonderful as that reunion may be.

New creation is a removal of the curse of all wrong things in

this world. It's healing and life.

Everyone who is there, it's eternal life in the presence of

the God who made us, who loves us, and who saved us.

That's the good news of Jesus. That's the gospel, right?

All of these things are waiting for those people who trust in

him and in his resurrection, For those who go to Jesus for

forgiveness and eternal life. This is what I want.

Sin is paid for. They are invited in to this new

creation to be of God forever. They will live as they are

always meant to live. But there is a warning in these

chapters. We had those two chapters.

We think, oh, which parts of it should we read?

Is tempting to avoid those bits we don't really like.

Because this hope is only a hope for those who put their trust in

Jesus, who'd been forgiven by His grace.

The Bible says that those who are unbelieving and who live for

themselves will be cast out into a horrible image.

We've had lovely images, this horrible image of the fiery lake

of burning sulfur in Revelation 21/8.

Their sin means they cannot come in.

Their sin must be dealt with and that is how God is dealing with

their sin. They reject Jesus, so they are

rejected by Jesus. Revelation 21 and 22 offers a

wonderful hope for those who have washed their robes.

That's in 2214. Think that washing of robes is

to believe in Jesus death and His resurrection for their sins.

Their names are written in the Lamb's book of Life.

They are welcome to come in, but anyone who has not been washed

and forgiven by Jesus will be outside of this hope,

tantalizingly out of their reach.

Hear the words of verse 17, chapter 22 on the screen here.

The Spirit and the Bride say come.

Let the one who hears say come. Let the one who is thirsty come.

Let the one who wishes. Take the free gift of the water

of life. Have you come to Jesus yet?

Do you have this hope? As we finish, I've got three

things I think I hope you'll be able to take away for what this

makes to a difference to our lives today.

Because these are good things. I hope that you have been

encouraged and excited about what God has in store.

Here's some more practical things that I hope will help.

Number one, let it guide your actions now as you work to bring

glimpses of this new creation into this old current creation.

What are the wrong things in this life that you're able to

put right? What wrong things can we help

people to endure through comforting them and loving them

and praying for them? One thing.

One day all tears will be wiped away, but until then we still

cry. So whose tears can you help wipe

away as we wait together for that hope to come?

How can we bring life and healing and flourishing to those

who are in need? How can we .1 another to the

presence of God? You know God will bring this one

day, but we still pray in the Lord's Prayer your Kingdom come.

That's for now. How can we bring God's Kingdom

now? Second, let it encourage you to

share the good news, thoughts about this is good news.

This is the gospel that we share.

Doesn't this news answer our longing for an end to suffering,

an end to conflict, for healing and flourishing in life, for

purpose and meaning and belonging?

All of those things, all of those longings answered in the

Christian hope. That's what's in store for God's

people. Let's tell the amazing story

that one day Jesus will return and all the wrong things will be

made right. God will break in and finally

restore creation to how it was always meant to be.

That is a great story that we have to share.

It's a theologian called Blaise Pascal, and he said make good

men or women wish Christianity were true and then show that it

is. I think this hope is something

that people would want to be true.

Don't you want one day for everything to be restored, for

wrong things to be made right, to have healing and life and

flourishing and meaning and purpose?

Let's share that with people so they wish it were true.

And then let's show them the evidence of the life, death, and

resurrection of Jesus that proves that it is true.

Finally, let this news be help you to be sustained in good

times and in bad times. When things are good, remember

this hope that we have that encourage you to share the

gospel that excites you about what things lie ahead that cause

you to praise and glorify God for His salvation plan.

When things are hard, remember this hope that we have.

The bad things in this life are as bad as they get.

There's a wonderful new world in life to come.

Maybe you've prayed for healing for years, maybe all your life,

or one day that healing will come.

Maybe you're seeking God desperately, you never seem to

fully find Him. Or one day you'll see His face

and you'll be marked as His. Maybe you live day-to-day with

uncertainty and dread of what might be coming next.

Well, one day there'll be no more sea.

There'll be no more uncertainty. There'll be certain order.

That'll be the warm embrace of your perfect Father every day.

So remember, Revelation is a book to remind us that Jesus

wins. Anyone who is with Jesus, they

will win with Him. One day he will return to make

all things new. And a big question is, will you

be with him? Let me finish with the verses.

Right at the end of Revelation, right at the end of the entire

Bible. He who testifies to these things

says, yes, I am coming soon, Amen.

Come Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's

people. Amen.

Let's pray. Our Father God, we praise you

for your salvation plan. One that we could never come up

with, one that often we don't fully understand.

But it's amazing that you would send your Son to die for

undeserving sinners like us, to bring us into your presence with

fullness and joy forevermore. We praise you now for this

creation, for the things that we enjoy in this life.

And we praise you for the promised new creation to come.

Help us to live out the new creation today.

As your Kingdom breaks in, we pray that you would use us to

wipe away tears, to bring life and healing to those who are

struggling to point people towards you.

Help us to be excited about this new creation by this hope of the

future, the hope that Jesus offers us.

And please sustain us and encourage us through good times

and in bad times, as we hope and trust in the promises of

revelation, come, Lord Jesus, we pray.

Amen.