Eternity: Kingdom Come - Further Up and Further In (Revelation 21)

Hello, friends.

This is Pastor Creighton.

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Our second lesson today is taken from the Book of Revelation, chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the fert 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.

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.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives its 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 any one who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, the Word of the Lord.

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.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we pray, thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Visit us with your word and Holy Spirit, we pray.

In your precious name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Further up and further in.

After all of the trials and tribulations, after all the hardships that our heroes have faced in the land of Narnia, this is the cry of all those invited into Aslan's country.

Further up and further in.

The final enemy's been defeated.

And now all of our heroes and their companions are being drawn nearer and nearer to the marvelous and fierce but wonderful lion Aslan.

And they're met by my favorite character, Reapich, this valiant little mouse, who welcomes our heroes.

Welcome in the lion's name.

Come further up and further in.

Later on, we meet Mr.

Tumnus.

Mr.

Tumnus is a fawn, and Mr.

Tumnis was the very first character we meet.

In the very first book, very first published book of Narnia, there is a right order to read Narnia in.

And I feel very strongly about this.

We can talk after the service.

In the Lion, the Witch in the Wardrobe, we meet Mr.

Tumnus.

He's the first character we meet, and now Mr.

Tumnus is among the last characters we're reunited with at the very end of this seven-book saga.

He says to our hero Lucy that the further up and the further in you go, talking about Aslan's country, the bigger everything gets.

The inside is larger than the outside.

Lucy says, I see.

This is still Narnia and more real and more beautiful.

So, friends, we've been journeying over the last number of weeks into this topic of eternity.

We've been looking at eternity through the lens of a pilgrimage.

The Christian life is not aimless or a to-do list, it's a journey with a destination, and that destination is the marriage supper of the Lamb, at which the Lord and all his people will be united forever, in the eternal union for which we were always purposed.

And Jesus will be in the very center of it as the bridegroom inviting his bride to come.

And so here we are at the very final session, sermon, whatever, of this five-part series, looking at the new heavens and the new earth.

The kingdom come fully realized, our eternal home.

And I share this illustration from Narnia, I suppose, for two reasons.

One, I just love Narnia.

I hope you can tell that.

It's a wonderful series.

If you haven't read Narnia, please treat yourself and give it a read, because it's it's just splendid.

C.S.

Lewis has one of the most wonderfully sanctified imaginations you'll encounter.

He's the author there.

So that's the first thing.

But the second thing is this Narnia reads, it's suppositional fiction, but it reads like this wonderful fairy tale.

But sometimes I wonder if we hold that against the story.

And sometimes I wonder if we come to the biblical account of the new heavens, the new earth, as land's land, so to speak, and we say, boy, that sure sounds nice, but it sure sounds like a fairy tale.

Eternal happiness, everlasting life.

Haven't we put childish things beyond us?

Don't we know better than that?

The wonderful thing about C.S.

Lewis and his contemporaries, the little writers' group they formed called the Inklings, which included J.R.R.

Tolkien, is they took these kind of fairy tales seriously.

And not because they checked their brains at the door, they took fairy tales and great stories seriously because they understood that great stories point to an even greater story.

That fairy tales resonate with us because we're caught up in this story that God is telling for Himself.

And when we see heroes encounter adversity but rise up in courage and secure an even better outcome at the end of the story than they had going into it, there's something that resonates with us because we long for that too, don't we?

Maybe there's more going on than wish fulfillment.

Maybe if we can't find something in this world that corresponds to this deep desire within us for Aslan's country, maybe it's because we were made for another world.

At least so observes C.S.

Lewis.

See, the reality of heaven, as wonderful it is, the fact that it might sound to us like a fairy tale is not less reason to believe in the reality, but it's all the more reason.

It resonates with our deepest desire for belonging, for home, for rest, for union, to see our purpose fully realized.

The new heavens, the new earth, heaven as it's fully realized, is an invitation to us, friends, to come further up and further in.

World without end.

This is what the prophet in Isaiah chapter 65 is catching a vision of.

Isaiah 65 · chapter mention

This is what John sees in Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

They see the world being made new.

And they see the invitation to come further up and further in, and they see that our happiest end is God's kingdom come.

And I think John in particular wants us to catch a few things to be true of the kingdom, a few things that are true of our everlasting hope, of the destination of our journey.

And I think these three things are this the kingdom come brings a renewed creation.

The kingdom come brings resurrection bodies, and the kingdom come brings a radiant union.

Renewed creation, resurrection bodies, and radiant union.

So, friends, we're looking at the end of our pilgrimage, the goal of our pilgrimage today, but we're going to discover that it's really not the end and more of a beginning.

The end of the age to come and the giving way to eternity spread out in front of us.

Let's go further up and further in together.

Kingdom come brings a renewed creation.

If you've got your order of service, if you've got your Bible, please open up with me to Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

And I want to pull a couple of pieces out of this passage as we look at the kingdom fully realized in front of us.

The kingdom come brings a renewed creation.

Here is John in exile on the island of Patmos, being given a vision of things to come by the Lord, the last day when he comes in all his glory.

I saw a new heaven and a new earth, John writes.

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

I think the first thing we want to catch about this new creation is it's less like Earth 2.0 in the sense that the old creation that we experience around us has been done away with, and in comes the newest model, and more like more like the renewal of creation.

More like creation restored to what it's always intended to be.

See, this Greek word, there are Greek words that correspond to the idea of doing away with one and creating something new.

This is more of a Greek word that suggests a renewal, taking something that is and working such that it fulfills the purpose it was always made for.

This is the word here when we talk about the new heaven and the new earth.

I think it's important to observe that this new heaven and new earth, there is discontinuity with the world that we experience around us.

Second Peter chapter 3, he writes that we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

2 Peter 3 · chapter mention

This new heaven, this new earth.

This isn't an obliteration of the first creation and the institution of something entirely new and unfamiliar to us.

No, this is the raising up of creation as we experience it now, to what it's always intended to be.

To realize righteousness in our midst.

Everything that is wrong and breaks our hearts in the creation around us today.

These are the things that are going to be done away with, and creation is going to be set right by the one who rules over it.

There's going to be discontinuity with the tragedy and the chaos that we experience in the world today.

It's going to be set right, but there is going to be considerable continuity with our experience today.

The new heavens, the new earth will not be something that is so unfamiliar to us, we'll have no categories for it.

No, I love what the Anglican bishop and biblical scholar Tom Wright has to say on this.

He says that the newness of this vision, John's vision in Revelation 21, is not a matter of God throwing away his first creation and, as it were, trying again, having a second shot to see if he can get it right this time.

We have in Revelation 21 and 22 the utter transformation of heaven and earth by means of God abolishing from both within heaven and earth the tragic effects of human sin.

This is create this is creation, heaven and earth raised to what they were always purposed to be.

I got up early this morning, I got up before the sunrise, and I was thinking about an experience recently that I had at a cottage.

I went to a cottage and got up early before the sunrise and was looking out the window.

And when you get up before the sunrise and you look out a cottage window, you just see pitch black, don't you?

There's really nothing to see.

Until a smudge starts coming up on the horizon, where you start to see the silhouettes of the trees and the outline of your surroundings.

Maybe you start to see light reflecting off the lake in front of you.

You start to catch a glimpse of what's around you.

And maybe that's enough to navigate what's around you.

But we know the difference between we know the difference between being in an environment five minutes after sunrise and being in a new environment in high noon.

Things are vibrant.

Colors pop.

We experience not a totally different surrounding than we were in hours earlier, but we experience it with a vibrancy, a realness that it didn't have to us as the light was breaking.

I think this will be our experience in the new creation.

It'll make our present experience right now feel like we were just five or ten minutes after sunrise.

And everything will be that much more vibrant, that much more real and beautiful, to use Lucy's words.

Heaven will not be something that is unreal, but all the more real because of God's renewing work in it.

Earth is not obliterated, it's renewed.

And it's being renewed in the order of its being, and the former things are passing away, and they're giving away to a restored order, God's purpose for things.

He says that the first heaven, the first earth passed away, the sea was no more.

He goes on to say in verses three and four, he John hears a voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, he will dwell with them, they will be his people, and God himself will be 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.

The chaos and the tragedy we experience in this world, those things have given way, as the age that we live in presently is has given way to an age to come.

No more will we see a tornado level a town, or explosions kill factory workers.

No more will we see nations invading other nations.

We won't see violence.

The order of this world and all of its sinful corruption will give way to a future glory to come.

It will be realized.

And shalom will be restored, this peace that God has always intended for his creation.

This is what we see, I think, in the kind of cryptic symbol that John says, the sea was no more.

What's that about?

Well, the sea for John is this primordial symbol of chaos.

Out of the sea comes beasts that oppose God and his will and want to consume God's people.

Well, the sea is no more.

God has dealt with this chaos.

And there's no more night because chaos and threats dwell in the darkness.

No, God has made creation everything that it was purposed to be.

So creation is renewed.

And in it the former things have given way to the things that they were always supposed to be.

There's going to be no more.

It's not supposed to be this way in the creation to come.

And friends, I can't help but think this is good news for those of us who might despair of the world as it is.

Maybe we despair of the world as it is because we know things are not the way they're supposed to be, and people don't treat each other like they're supposed to be treated.

It is not a childish hope to see these things fulfilled.

It is the hope of a Christian that one day we will see these things come to pass in creation that is raised and renewed by God's work.

The kingdom come brings a renewed creation.

He who is seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.

And this all things I think is so important.

There's nothing beyond God's renewing and restoring work.

God's renewing and restoring work includes our very selves, our very bodies.

The kingdom come brings resurrection bodies.

We see this in the chapter previous in Revelation chapter 20.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention

We read about a general resurrection.

Those who have died have been raised to new life.

This is not a disembodied experience, but this is an embodied experience.

Those who have died have been raised to new life.

And I think Isaiah is catching a glimpse of this in chapter 65.

He talks about how these people find homes for themselves and they dwell in them.

They have vocations, they have work to do.

These are all embodied things.

See, in eternity to come, we will not be disembodied spirits floating around in the ether.

No, God created us to have bodies for a reason, and he intends for us to be embodied in the new creation.

This is not a disembodied experience, but we are being raised to new life.

Not perishable life as we experience it now, but imperishable life.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, this great chapter on the resurrection, Paul uses the uh illustration of a seed dying so that it can give way to the new life of a stalk of grain, and he compares that to our resurrection experience to come.

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

He says, So it is with the resurrection of the dead.

What is sown is perishable, and what is raised is imperishable.

He goes on to say, this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

And when all of this is happened, then shall come to pass, he says, the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

O death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

The new heavens and the new earth are not a disembodied experience.

It is God restoring our bodies to what they were always purposed to be.

It's the reversal of the curse in Genesis chapter three that we read about last week.

God banishes the man and the woman from the garden, lest they eat of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever.

God does not want them to live in this alienated and corrupted condition forever.

No, he's going to deal with death first, so that he can invite them back into his garden city, and they can eat of the tree of the fruit of life, which we read about in Revelation 22, and its fruit is for the healing of the nations.

God is going to deal with sin and death and then invite us into this eternal life forever.

It's this resurrection experience, I think, that that is so important for us to consider because if our spirituality ignores the needs of the body or ignores the embodied experience, then it's not true Christian spirituality.

It's something else.

I remember a missionary telling me not too long ago that when they go into a you know a third world country or a needy community, he says the first thing we do is not preach the gospel, as important as that is, it is important, but he says the very first thing we do is we're going to dig a well and we're going to make sure that they live in sanitary conditions because you can't go in and proclaim the gospel to people who need drinking water.

I think the reality of this speaks to the resurrection experience.

Our bodies matter, they matter to God.

They should matter to us as well, and how we care for our bodies and how we care for the bodies of others matters to God because matter matters to God.

He's going to raise it up.

He's got great plans for it.

So, friends, the kingdom come brings a renewed creation.

It brings with it resurrection bodies that will be everlasting, but it also brings radiant unity.

I was at a wedding a little while ago, and maybe you've been at a wedding like this where you kind of look at the groom and you're like, oh, that's a nice guy.

I'm glad for him.

And then you look at the bride and you're like, really?

How did he land her?

Have you ever been at a wedding like that?

Maybe I'm getting a couple, so maybe some of us have.

Maybe some of us don't want to admit it.

But we look at this pair and we go, I can't believe this match.

This is a wild thing.

This is a strange match that we see in Revelation chapter 21.

Revelation 21 · chapter mention

It's the sort of thing that if we didn't know better, we'd look and go, really?

Because we read in chapter, oh, in chapter 21, verses 2, we read about the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and we want to ask, well, who's the husband?

And we meet the husband in verse 9.

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

So here we have this first century Middle Eastern city marrying a barnyard animal.

And we might kind of go, that's an interesting match.

Those of us who are tracking with Life Explored, you know we were exploring this just this last Wednesday.

What's going on here is deeply symbolic.

Jerusalem stands in for all of God's people through all of history.

They are descending out of heaven because when we are among God's people, our lives are hidden with God in Christ, and so we are with the Lord.

And here all of God's people come to earth where they were purposed and destined for, and they meet the Lamb.

Who's the Lamb?

Well, we know that the Lamb symbolism comes from Exodus 12.

It comes from the Passover.

The Lord appoints a lamb to be slain and its blood to be painted on the doorposts, so that when the Lord visits the place and takes from it the firstborn of every family, he'll see this blood, and he'll know that life has been given on behalf of this family, and he will pass over the doorway as Israel makes preparation to leave Exodus.

We remember that story, right?

This is the Lamb we're talking about here, and now we meet the Lamb in John chapter 1.

John 1 · chapter mention

John the Baptist points at Jesus and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The great Passover Lamb is the one who hung on the cross for our sake.

He died the death that we deserved so that we wouldn't have to, so that the penalty of sin could be paid for, and we could be passed over, as it were, and brought into his eternal kingdom.

God's people are being united forever with God in Christ.

So we end where we began this series with a wedding.

You remember our pilgrimage's destination is to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Here is the happy union between God and his people.

This is the happiest of ever afters, world without end.

And it is a happy union, not just for us, his people, being brought into the new creation, but it is a happy ending for God, who for his great love for us endured the cross, was raised to new life, and has promised to come again to make his home with us.

The story of the Bible is a love story, not our love for God so much as God's great love for us.

He is coming to make his home with us, to dwell with us forever.

This is the wedding we're made for, saints.

This is the goal of all eternity, perfect and unending union with God in Christ, sharing in God's life and his glory forever, further up and further in.

But there might be one last question lingering, and that might one last question might come from verse 27.

Only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life will be brought into the city.

So the question might be is my name written in that book?

Because maybe I do this whole pilgrimage, maybe I do this whole Christian life only to discover my name's not on the list.

That'd be a pretty cruel thing, wouldn't it?

Partly, I think we need to deal with our image of God as our Father.

Is he capricious?

Is he arbitrary?

Is he the sort to perform a bait and switch?

Or is it his great love for us that inspires him to come and make his home with us forever and reunite heaven and earth?

Friends, the other thing to consider is the very ending of this book, Revelation.

At the very ending of this book, we find an invitation.

We find the invitation to come.

The Spirit and the Bride, John writes, say, Come.

And let the one who hears say, Come.

And let the one who is thirsty come.

Let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Friends, eternity is not something the Lord is looking to snatch away from us at any given moment.

Eternity is an invitation to take up a journey, to come and be present with God in his new creation.

The invitation is to you and to me.

Come.

Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Come to the throne of God by way of the glassy sea of baptism and be washed.

Come to the marriage supper of the Lamb, as those who are sustained by the supper we receive at his table, a foretaste of the marriage supper to come.

Come by faith.

And know that the Lord has prepared a place for you.

But for them it was only the beginning of the real story.

All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page.

Now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read, which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

Friends, we were purposed for a new heaven and a new earth.

The longing of our heart points us towards it, so come.

Come by faith.

The Spirit of God and his church say, Come.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.