Revelation 21:1-8 "Living in Light of Eternity" - Jimmy Alexander

Good morning.

Since it's New Year's Eve, I figured I would hit pause on Colossians and preach a sermon that is more fitting for the season.

So if you know anything about me, you know that I am not a big holiday guy.

So it's no surprise to hear me say that I'm not a fan of New Year's Eve.

And here's three reasons why.

First, pointless New Year resolutions.

So people make all these goals, they, you know, diet, exercise, lifestyle changes, but no one follows through.

Okay, by February, it all goes to the dump.

I've done it.

So my goal last year was to cut out junk food, and by the end of the week, on Friday, I ate an entire box of Dunkin' Donuts.

And so perhaps this critique of mine is coming from my own personal frustration.

In fact, I know a guy last year who gave up smoking and he's still with it.

So the second reason is the excuse to indulge.

Okay, I heard a recent statistic that the average American puts on 10 pounds over the holidays.

And I also heard that we consume more alcohol than the whole rest of the year.

So I feel like holidays are just an excuse to overeat and overdrink.

And we keep adding more holidays.

There is now National Bean Day, there's National Twin Day.

And I'm not kidding, there's National Squirrel Appreciation Day.

And I see these Facebook posts of people painted up, they're trashed, and they're saying, let's party hard tonight, National Squirrel Day.

And so holidays seem less and less about observing something and more about debackery.

And lastly, what I don't like about New Year's Eve is the false hope of a better year.

And everyone says, every year, this is going to be the year.

This is the year of hope, the year of revival, and yet we still have wars, school shootings, loved ones die.

The world is still filled with pain and sorrow.

And so there's no deluding ourselves.

There will be suffering to some degree in 2024.

Of course, certain years are better than others, but overall you can escape this sin-stained world and its tarnishing effects.

As 1 John 5 tells us, we know that we are the children of God, but the whole rest of the world lies under the sway or the grip of the evil one.

And so today, instead of preaching a sermon about how we could, you know, spiritually crush 2024, I have decided to preach out of Revelation 21, verses 1 through 8.

Revelation 21:1–8

And my hope is that we wouldn't have our hearts set for a better calendar year, but that we would live a greater life in Christ every year until He returns or calls us home.

That we might live every day in light of eternity as we await future glory.

So allow me this morning to read Revelation 21, verses 1 through 8.

Revelation 21:1–8

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, the 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 any more, 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 Alme Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty I will give 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 abortion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

So the letter of Revelation was written by the Apostle John.

It is a prophetic letter, it's a telling of the future, and its purpose is clearly stated in chapter one.

For God to show his servants what must soon take place.

And so what I love about God and his heart is that he's shown us the past, he's shown us the present, and he's shown us the future.

We have the full picture.

We don't need to freak out or be uncertain on how this universe unfolds.

He has graciously shown us, and it is glorious for those who are in Christ.

And so, leading up to this chapter, John has shown us the conclusion of history as we know it, in this climax of good and evil.

The age of grace has come to an end, the tribulation has passed, the battle of Armageddon has been fought and won by the Lord Jesus Christ.

Satan has been judged, the great white throne judgment has taken place, and we come now to what theologians call the eternal state, the finality of the universe.

So here we're given the most detailed passage in Scripture concerning this topic.

I hear many Christians say, you know, this is the future, so we don't need to concern ourselves with it.

It doesn't matter, it's too lofty, it's not practical.

But it's here for a reason.

It's here so that we could know and have a glimpse of insight that would cultivate in us a greater yearning and eagerness for the glorious things that are to come.

And so the first thing that John reveals to us in verses 1 through 3 is a description of how it's established.

And the first thing he mentions is this the first heaven and earth has passed away along with the sea.

And what this means is this the world as we know it, that is sin infected, polluted by evil, damaged by demons, it's gone.

And this is hard for us to imagine because this is all we have ever known.

If you remember back in Genesis 3, after God created the whole universe and he said that it was good, Adam and Eve sinned.

And as a result, God gave the world over to sin.

He removed his manifest presence.

And the world since then has been lost.

It's been subjected to judgment.

And because we forfeited God's rule over us, we subjected ourselves to the ruler of evil, the snake, Satan, who, as Paul describes him, the God of this world.

So from that point forward, sin has tarnished this world in so many ways.

It is in every fiber of all creation.

Morally, sin has affected the way that we think, the way that we walk and talk.

It is the cause of every perversity, failure, and flaw.

Universally in creation, sin is the cause of natural disasters, earthquakes, starvation, diseases, disabilities, and the list goes on.

Sin is the cause of every tragedy, every pain, every demonic influence, every headache, big or small, to death itself to lower back pain.

So however bad you think sin is, it's infinitely worse.

And however deep you think sin runs, it runs infinitely deeper.

And so don't miss what John is saying here.

This sin-infected world in all that it entails will vanish.

It will be no more.

God is going to wrap it all up, the infection of sin, the rage of the nations, the throne of Satan, and he will say, no more.

What a wonderful thought.

It's almost hard to believe.

But a question remains.

If the world as we know it will cease to exist, what will it be replaced with?

What will come in its place?

And John tells us in verse 2 and I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

So many people, when they think of heaven, they think of a place that believers go to far away after we die.

And in part that is true.

When we die, we go to be with the Lord in his tangible presence.

But what we often forget is that God has a plan to bring heaven to earth.

That is why we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.

There is a promised great day coming when God will recreate a new entire world by bringing heaven to a new earth.

And so once God judges all of mankind and he removes the sinful world, he is now able to come in the full manifest glory of his holiness and establish his kingdom.

This includes the army of angels, the heavenly tabernacle, indestructible buildings and structures not made by human hands.

God and his dwelling place will come and permeate in all and through all.

It is described as the holy city, the new Jerusalem.

This is a city where perfection rules.

It is a perfect society, an economy.

Not a city where God needs to be contained in a temple, but a new, a better Jerusalem where God's goodness is fully made manifest.

And it will be amazingly huge.

John records it later if you look at verse 16, it's 1,400 miles long, wide, and high.

It's decorated with precious stones.

Its streets are made of gold.

And the city will be dazzling, lighted by the light of God.

But not only is it described as a holy city in a New Jerusalem, but it's described as a bride adorned for her husband.

What a beautiful picture.

So this is a place where that God has specifically made for his people.

In the same way that a bride meticulously prepares herself for her husband on her wedding day, so has God prepared this city for you and I.

An unfading, imperishable, eternal city.

And here is the best part of all of this.

Look at verse three.

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.

God and his people will dwell together in complete fullness.

This is the consummation of God's salvation.

That he would fully reconcile his creation back to its original purpose, where he rules with and over his creation.

This is what all of salvation is working towards: a complete and final union when we will walk with the Lord in the cool of the day, enjoying nonstop, unbroken fellowship with him in perfect unity.

We see but through a dim mirror now, even with his word, in having his spirit, in being in a church, we have but a glimpse.

It's all just a taste of heaven.

We're still in a sinful world, living in sinful flesh.

There is a yearning for more, a longing for complete redemption.

This is what Paul describes in Romans 8, when he says that we know that the whole creation has been groaning in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

Have you guys ever sung a worship song or read the Bible or you prayed and you just felt the Lord's presence?

That unexplainable peace, joy, ecstasy, and you just want more of it.

That is just a small foretaste, a tiny dose of the Lord's presence.

God cannot fully manifest the fullness of his glory to us, not yet, not in our present state.

You saw what it did to the Israelites when Moses came down from Sinai.

They couldn't handle it.

A boundary was made.

They couldn't get close lest they be consumed.

And so 1 Peter 1.8 says that although we do not see him, we love him.

And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and you're filled with inexpressible and glorious joy.

Church, if we have inexpressible joy now in the Lord, without seeing the fullness of his glory, how much more exuberant joy will we have when we tangibly dwell with him, when we see him clothed in the full measure of his majesty.

Friends, there is a day coming, as 1 John 3 says, when we shall be like him and see him face to face.

There is a day coming when God will give us new bodies that will be able to withstand and endure the full blast of his permeating glory and majesty.

A day where we will personally talk to him, intimately know him, a day where we will crave nothing more, want nothing more, because we have him.

That's why we're told in Revelation that there's gonna be no sea, there's gonna be no sun, and there's gonna be no sex in heaven.

Because none of those things will be needed or relevant.

We will be fully satisfied in the Lord of glory.

There will be no need for thirst because he will be our living water.

There will be no need for light because he will be our light, and there will be no need for sex because he will be our complete pleasure.

God will be with us and we will be with him.

God will delightfully rule over us and we will delightfully worship him.

He will be our final and forever Sabbath, our resting place with God.

Heaven's greatest glory will be his presence.

And as if that's not glorious enough, we're told in verse 4 that he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.

Neither shall there be mourning, crying, pain, for the former things have passed away.

No more persecution, no more funerals, no more sleepless nights crying over a loved one, no more pain, no more heartache, no more anxiety, no more depression, fear, sadness, no more cancer, no more doctor appointments, no more sickness, no more addictions, no more temptations or tribulations.

That former life as we know it will be over and it will never be instituted again.

So God wipes away our final tear.

He brings a comforting promise that those former things that sin caused it will never happen again.

I hear people say, you know, what if we go to heaven and we rebel again?

We somehow reinstitute, God's got to do this salvation all over again.

We don't need to concern ourselves with such thoughts because we are clearly told here that death, sin, sorrow, evil, it will be forever dealt with.

It will be considered a previous time which will never return, and that's a promise.

So in our current spiritual walk with Christ now, we are constantly going to him with our troubles.

We are constantly seeking comfort from him because we are still living in this dark world.

Sin keeps injuring us.

But in the new world, God will wipe away our very last tear.

He will no longer need to uplift us because there will be nothing to ever bring us down.

He will no longer need to heal us because there will be nothing that will make us sick.

There will be no boxes of tissues in heaven, no urgent cares, no morgues.

And if you're like me saying, Man, a world without sin, a world of perfection, a world of eternal bliss, that's hard to believe.

Well, God anticipated this kind of response, which is why he reaffirms this promise in the next few verses, in verses five through seven.

And it says that he who is 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 for 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.

So God reaffirms this promise.

He says, Behold, I am making all things new.

Then he tells John to write it down.

Pay careful attention to what I'm saying, says God.

And how can we trust this promise?

Because, says God, I am the Alpha and the Omega.

He is the ancient one, the eternal one.

He is outside of time.

Which is why he can confidently say, It is done.

It's a for sure matter.

Whether you believe it or not, it's going to happen.

And he reminds Everyone that this eternal state, this total reconciliation, the inheritance of a new heaven and earth, it is freely available to anyone who thirsts and anyone who conquers.

If your thirst has been quenched in Christ, and if you overcome the world through him, this is your guaranteed inheritance.

And even though you are his son or daughter now, and he is your God now, there is a day coming soon that this relationship will have no hindrances or barriers.

This is a very poor illustration, but imagine if one of my sons went to Africa on a mission trip for 30 years.

We still talk and communicate.

But there is a mission he must complete before returning home.

But when he returns, there's a much richer and fuller sense in which our relationship is more complete.

And so, in the same way, just because you cannot see God doesn't mean that he isn't your God now.

Just because you are not in his tangible presence in heaven, it doesn't mean that you're not his child now.

But there is a day coming that all of history is working towards when this relationship will be fully and gloriously what it ought to be.

You and God dwelling together in personal union forever.

Behold, church, this is what awaits us.

Now, what about those who don't partake in the new heaven and earth?

Where will they be?

Well, we're told in verse 8.

But as for the cowardly, faithless, detestable 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.

This is both comforting and terrifying.

It's comforting because God will not spoil heaven.

It's great knowing that everyone in heaven will be righteous.

There will be no sinner to spoil us.

And so one bad apple would ruin all of heaven.

So it's also comforting to know that God will punish evil perfectly.

We all longed for perfect justice.

God will right every wrong.

But it is terrifying knowing that many people despise God so much, they hate him so much, they would rather spend an eternity in hell rather than to receive his love and lordship.

They would rather cling to sin, cling to self, cling to eternity in hell than worship the Lord of glory.

And the sentence, as mentioned, is being banished forever in a lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is referred to as the second death.

Now, many people have a hard time with this.

Many object and they say, that's not fair.

You know, the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Why not just annihilate them?

Why not let them suffer the same amount of time that they lived on earth, and so on?

And I would answer that question threefold.

And the first is, as humans, we have a distorted view on justice.

If we can begin to understand the severity and the depth of divine treason that happened in Genesis 3, that the eternal, holy creator was sinned against by his creation, then there's no problem saying that the perfect punishment is eternal hell.

A crime committed against an eternal God is eternal hell.

And the only solution to that problem is providing an eternal sacrifice.

Do you see that?

So the fact that God even made a way possible for salvation is nothing but pure, undeserved grace, patience, and love.

Secondly, we have a low view of sin and God's holiness.

We drink sin like it's water.

We view sin as just an honest mistake.

We're all sinners, it's just an accident.

But in reality, it's heinous.

And we don't understand how holy God truly is.

We forget that He is so pure and majestic and righteous that there are angels in heaven who don't have sin natures, by the way, who were given an extra set of wings for the purpose of shielding themselves from the glory of his presence, who cry out day and night, the only words they can find to describe God is holy, holy, holy.

Thirdly, I would say, who are you to question God's judgment?

Did you create the mountains?

Did you speak the world into existence?

Do you know the motives and the thoughts and the intents of every human heart who's ever existed?

To question God's judgment or the way that He does things is the same exact crime that got us in trouble at Genesis 3.

Trying to understand it is one thing, but to doubtfully question it is repeating Eve's folly.

This is very evangelistic.

The wicked has their city, and God has his.

So, church, the question this morning is: to which city do you belong?

Babylon the Great or the New Jerusalem?

There are two eternities, two inheritances, two ways and no middle ground.

There is embracing Christ or rejecting him.

There is being your own authority or submitting to God's.

There's living for sin and then there's living for Christ.

And there is going to hell or going to heaven.

And I would be unloving if I didn't speak honestly about this.

We can't brush over it.

If you do not have Christ, or if you're a faker or a Christian imposter, you will inherit everlasting torment in hell.

If you are habitually cowardly, faithless, your actions and your thoughts are detestable, and you murder people in your heart, and you refuse to repent from sexual or morality or drug usage, which is, by the way, what the word sorcery means, or if you continue in idolatry or lying, I don't care what you think you are or what you say you are, you are heading into the flames of God's wrath.

And I say this in love that you would come to Christ freely.

It costs you nothing.

Simply come to him by faith, receive his forgiveness, and inherit the eternal life that he offers.

A life with your Creator in the holy city where he reigns and rules.

Stop holding on to your life as if it's your own and admit that you need Jesus the Savior, that you need his redemption, and come to the fountain of life.

So, church, I could keep going on through this chapter, but I simply don't have time.

I would encourage you to keep reading it on your own time and just bask in its glory.

So, as a way of application this morning, I ask us: are you living in light of eternity?

Our hope is not in 2024.

At least it shouldn't be.

Our ultimate hope is not what the government can do or what lawmakers can do.

They're mere people.

Our chief excitement in life should not be next year's vacation or the new home you're going to buy, not even the new birth of a child.

These things are great joys, gifts from God, and we should enjoy them with thanksgiving.

But our ultimate hope and excitement, the greatest anticipation of our soul, is the future glory that awaits us in the new heaven and earth.

And so when is the last time you just took a moment to stop and meditate on this glorious reality?

Are you so consumed with the details of your schedule, the trinkets of this world that you can't take a moment and just think about the glory that awaits us?

Don't be so narrow-minded, so focused on the here and now, and broaden your perspective.

Some of us in this room, myself included, are so hyper-focused on the week, the year, the news, the condition of the world, your own emotions, and you are miserable.

You are so downcast, and it's because you're missing the bigger picture.

You have forgotten what God has promised you: an eternal, unfading, glorious heaven and earth where you will rest complete in perfect peace with God.

And so what brings joy to the present and what fuels our faithfulness is looking ahead to what God has prepared for us.

Don't fall for that silly motto, don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good.

That's unbiblical.

We are commanded to be heavenly minded so that we can be earthly good.

Hebrews 11 talks about this concerning the fathers of faith.

The author says that they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

So we must live our lives like pilgrims' progress, with our eyes fixed on the celestial city.

This is why we endure suffering and we get back up when life punches us in the gut.

Because we realize that this world is not our home.

We're just pilgrims passing through.

So may we every day, every week, in every year cry out, Lord Jesus, come as we live in light of eternity.

Church, let us pray.

We confess, O Lord, that we are so short-sighted.

We are so focused on the here and now.

We live our lives day by day, forgetting what you have promised us in the future.

Help us, God, to grab a hold of this truth today.

Give us a sense of wonder.

Give us an eternal perspective that we may live holy, righteous lives as we await the day of full restoration and redemption.

Thank you for giving us a future of hope when we deserve a future of misery.

Thank you for Jesus Christ, who has made this all possible.

We thank you, Lord.

We pray these things in Jesus' mighty name.

Amen.