Revelation | Recalibrating Life

Hello and thank you for joining us on the Sierra Bible Church Sermon of the Week.

We hope you enjoy this message by Pastor Nate Levering.

Love it.

You remember early on in Jesus' ministry, his disciples, you know, watching him pray, asked them a unique question, right?

They said, Teach us what?

Teach us how to pray.

We want that connection with God.

We want to be stirred in the ways that you are stirred.

And one central to what we call the Lord's prayer, maybe you use this as a rhythm for prayer yourself, uh, is this refrain.

Your kingdom come, your will be done.

Prayer's talking to God on earth, right?

Then what does he say after that?

As it is in heaven.

If you're new to that, you know, he says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

We're not studying chapters four and five to sort of get some facts about what heaven is like, but rather to enter in as God has revealed for us.

So, what do we see?

Some of you maybe are familiar with this.

Some of you are like, what in the world just happened?

We saw a lot of eyeballs, right?

That we just read about.

Like, what this is odd.

So show up at four, they'll describe the eyeballs and all those kinds of things.

That'll be great in our revelation chapter by chapter study.

We're not going there this morning, but we are going to enter into the throne room because this is our invitation in Christ.

So, what does he see?

This entire room, this throne room is orange.

This is not a trick question.

This one you can all get right, is oriented around a what?

A what?

A throne.

On this throne is one that is represented by a particular color.

It's jasper and ruby.

Do you know what color that is?

Green and red.

Red.

So there's red, there's noise and light.

So you think we got lights?

They had lights in the throne room, right?

We got lightning, so it's like that.

Blinding light, there's peals of thunder that are coming from the throne.

Around the throne, remember what the image is?

Is a what?

Around the throne is a rainbow.

In front of the throne is a sea of glass.

What might help is to picture in your mind right now a sea not in glass.

So, like a sea that you've seen just completely torn up by wind and waves.

Now imagine when I click my fingers.

A sea of glass.

There are 24 thrones surrounding the throne.

There are four kind of wild creatures.

There are elders on these thrones dressed in white with crowns.

The actual Greek word is Stephanos.

Revelation is going to talk about two kinds of crowns.

It's helpful to know the difference.

This Stephanos crown would be like a crown that uh an athlete would be bestowed if they win.

The diadem for crown, excuse me, is the crown that Jesus wears when he comes in at his return later in the story.

So we have a crown given to us as a part of Jesus' ultimate victory, not ours.

But Jesus wears a different kind of crown.

A crown that says that's what true royalty is.

He sits on the throne, he gives us a little throne, but he sits on the throne.

These images aren't simply so that we know a couple facts about what heaven's like, but so that we can enter in with our hearts and with our minds.

So what would these uh images render for us in our minds and in our hearts?

We are nowhere near where we're supposed to be.

Look at that.

David, he's just throwing me curveballs right here.

Here we go.

The throne reveals God's authority.

So when we walk in, we know, oh, who we can tell right in the room who's in charge.

The radiance reveals his glory.

The lightning and thunder declares his power.

The rainbow declares his mercy and faithfulness.

This is an image that's meant to draw us back to when the ark thumped into the rock and God painted the sky with a rainbow and said, I'm a faithful God, a God of mercy, a sea of glass, his sovereign peace.

These burning or blazing lamps display the presence of God's Holy Spirit in the throne room.

There's four living creatures that point to his rule, as we'll see over all creation.

There's 24 surrounding thrones, all pointing to his supremacy.

He is the one everyone in heaven is centered around.

The elders represent God's people.

They're wearing white.

It's sort of like they're wearing the righteousness of Christ or the forgiveness of Christ.

And then, as we said, they have these crowns, not because they want a victory, but because they're claiming victory in Christ.

This is a crown they've been given by him.

This is what we're meant to be invited into.

Now, as we begin to see these things, there's gonna be, we're gonna do a little heavy lifting theologically really quickly, okay?

And this is super important if you're gonna unlock this book and unlock what it looks like to sort of live this life on earth as a kind of spirit of God-filled Christian.

So we're gonna try and pull the language together.

Now, in order to do that, there's a lot of weird imagery in here.

So I brought some hula hoops and I'm gonna, and I'm just kidding.

You can thank me later.

Somebody thought, I thought you were gonna hula hoop up there.

No, I'm not.

But these will help us with the theology and trying to answer the question: what in the world does John mean when he says a door opened and I saw heaven?

You might ask yourself, is this the heaven that I'm sort of headed towards when I die?

Is this the heavens that are holding the star?

So when I go outside, am I looking at heaven?

Is this the same thing?

Now, within the book of Revelation itself, in the scriptures, there's about five different ways that this word heaven is used.

Okay, so the first one is like where the birds fly, they're flying around the heavens, okay?

Then beyond that, there's where the sort of galaxies are held together.

That's the heavens, okay?

Same word that he uses here.

He says, This, I went up to heaven, I saw through this door.

Now we get a little bit more specific in the book of Revelation because what we see is John is taken up to this heaven, he says, and heaven in the book of Revelation is the realm or region or sphere where God is.

Okay, so it's gonna we're gonna have to stretch a little bit here, but I think you can get this and we'll dive in here.

I think these will help.

So heaven is what?

It's the region where God is.

So if we're going to answer the prayer Jesus teaches us to pray, we would be part of this kingdom coming.

His will be done here on earth as it is where?

In heaven.

What's heaven?

Where God is.

Okay, so here's what he begins to talk about.

Now, there's three of these that we'll look at.

Heaven could refer to, and it will later on in the book of Revelation, the perfect order of things which will exist after Jesus' return.

Okay, so we believe that at the end of days there's a book of life.

Your name's written in it.

If you have surrendered your life and found salvation in Jesus alone, okay, not by your good works, not by your bad works, because you said yes to Jesus and his forgiveness.

You are written into the Lamb's book of life.

You will spend eternity in heaven with him.

Spoiler, that's not the heaven that we're reading about here in chapters four and five.

Okay, it is the realm, but it's the sort of future one.

There's another one, heaven as the sphere of perfection existing alongside our perfect world.

So if you picture it this way, we have right Jesus' prayer, earth, and we have like it, it's the gold one.

What is it?

Heaven.

So this is heaven, it's this perfect reality, the region where who is God is that exists alongside, but in some ways, outside of our current reality on earth.

Okay, good job.

Then we have this play, the heavenly places.

Again, there's lots of scripture that kind of talk about these things.

Then we have this heavenly place, a sphere of spiritual reality where the masks are off, and both good and evil are seen for what they are.

So this is where we begin to kind of get this vision.

It's John on earth, throne room of heaven, crashing into each other.

So that John experiences in this space on earth, but in the spirit, life, where God is, as God wills it.

This begins to inform how we down here live and act and breathe.

So when I surrender, Jason talked about 22 kids.

I walked in 15 minutes later, hands are going up, kids are meeting Jesus.

I'm like, oh wow, I just stepped in right here, where young kids are putting their faith in Jesus Christ and they're bending the knee to him.

That's heaven on earth.

Some of you were up at the baptism, right?

And so as you're about, you're just like these pure moments.

But Jesus also says, you know, when you love someone that's lonely, what that is is bringing heaven into, or when you're healing someone that's hurt or broken, that's heaven stepping into earth.

Why?

Because heaven will not, heaven, the place where God is, will not experience those kinds of things.

So this is the heaven that he's inviting us to step into.

Look at how Paul kind of wraps these things together to the church in Ephesus, one of the seven churches we looked at.

He says this, this is in our salvation in Christ.

His next step is, and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.

What's he saying?

He's saying part of your salvation, what happens in the spirit is you get a little baby throne, and in Christ, you are what?

Raised up into the overlap between heaven and earth because you are saved eternally.

Like it's fixed, it is not changing.

He gave you a little chair, and you get to sit in it.

It's your throne.

He's raised you up in Christ.

Into where?

The heavenly realm.

Yeah, you're still walking around earth, you're still broken, you're still sort of in part of this discipleship thing, and it's screwy and weird.

But it's fixed, it's secure.

It's wrapped with the presence of Christ.

So that's what we're invited into.

That's the picture of this throne room.

So, what's actually happening in the picture?

Let's look at this in chapter four.

I think it's fascinating.

There's some ways there's two different things happening, and I want you to see them as different because I think it has a lot to say about how you and I are invited to worship.

So the first thing that we see are these kind of wild beasts, right?

Or these four creatures.

And this word creature has a lot for us to think about when we look at their response.

So the first creature looks like a lion.

This is gonna be interactive.

There's lots of pictures, so let's help me out.

First one's a lion, the second one is an ox.

Okay, so the lion, king of the beast, the ox is the king of the tamed beast.

Then the third one looks like a look like me, okay, just in case you're wondering what it looked like, but look like a person, a human being, and the third one look like a like an eagle, sort of the king of the things that fly.

This imagery is saying that all of us, everything that was created, it just throws us in there with our like biology teacher in college.

It says, Hey, we're all the same.

We all at the end are created in relation to a creator.

So, in some ways, he says, This is this is what it ought to look like for you to live and to breathe.

And look at the time in the in the scripture.

If you remember, it says that day and night they said, holy, holy, holy.

It's like everything in the good, in the bad, in the hard, and the victorious, when they were off, when it was this is sort of the baseline of what it means to be created, is to in some ways worship or praise or adore the creator.

And we get with creation on when when we sing, I join with all of creation.

A fascinating place where we see this is in Luke chapter uh, I think it's 19.

Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

And I want to just kind of draw your attention to it.

It's fascinating, I think.

What happens is that Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem.

Well, he will eventually give his life on the cross, be raised in three days, and invite you and I into salvation in him.

Now, the Jews that are watching Jesus, knowing the backstory of who Jesus has been, begin to believe that he is God's final king, his Messiah.

History is breaking through.

The king has come.

So as Jesus is making his way up to Jerusalem, they think to be God's conquering king.

In verse 38, we read this, right?

This is the triumphal entry, we call it.

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace is in heaven, glory is in the highest.

Why?

Because God's promise is crashing into history in Jesus.

Now, the fascinating thing is what happens next.

Because the religious leaders all look at Jesus and like, you better shut those guys up.

You realize that they are calling you God's chosen king.

Like you can't, you're from Nazareth.

You can't be that person.

Now, look what Jesus says to them.

Jesus says this.

He says, I tell you, this is Jesus' response.

If they keep quiet, if the peoples keep quiet, what the stones will cry out.

Jesus says, All of creation.

One of my favorite quotes, I read this last week, was this question.

And it says, This, have you joined all of creation in a theater of praise?

What Jesus says, if the people walking on top of the stones don't praise me, those stones will.

I made a commitment a long time ago.

I don't want my stone having to praise Jesus because I'm not.

And so I praise.

That's my response.

I'm part of his creation.

He's created, he's filling these lungs with with air.

If not for him, I I ain't.

Okay?

And so I praise him with the ox and the lion and the eagle.

Holy, holy, holy, he says.

We say.

So what is our response?

If if earth is to look like heaven, what that will mean for us as creature is that we engage our heart with all of creation in adoring praise.

We join creation as a theater of praise.

And then we align our lives to that truth.

What this tells us, if we're to sort of peel back between heaven and earth, is that worship is sort of the core action of a living being.

This is just what is meant to kind of come out of me, the sense of worship and praise.

Romans chapter 1, Paul actually says that the brokenness in our world, the sin in our world can all go back to one thing.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

It's when people like you and I decide to worship created things, not the creator.

And he says, from that place, sin entered the world and has had its way and continues to.

And so we sort of aim our little throne, don't we?

At all kinds of different things.

Sometimes we're looking in the mirror if you're anything like me.

Sometimes I'm looking at those things that Jason talked about.

Looking at the finances, looking at the relational struggles.

I'm looking at just safety and security.

Like this is the thing I really, really want.

And I'll fight for it if you try and take it.

Ah, you can have God, He's fine.

But don't take.

That's how we begin to understand what we worship.

And so we worship with created, but then this gets better.

And here's where we see the striking contrast.

So if you have your Bibles open, verse 9, I think it'll also be on the screens.

Verse 9 of chapter 4.

Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders, which is a picture of God's people, fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever.

They lay their crowns down before him and say, Our Lord and God.

So they've moved from sort of this heartbeat of all created things before its creator to a personal relationship with the very one that created them.

This is a huge shift in the story.

He goes on, you deserve to receive glory and honor and power because you created all things.

They existed and were created because that is what you will.

Do you see the contrast?

We have been now drawn out as human beings with the option to worship, not simply because we're created, but with our minds, with our reason, because we begin to understand who this God is, and he reveals himself as our Lord and our God.

I love how N.

T.

Wright says it in his uh commentary on Revelation.

He says this worship is what we were made for.

Worship with a because in it is what marks us out as genuine human beings.

This scene remains the foundation for everything that follows in the rest of this powerful and disturbing book.

All that is to come flows from the fact that the whole creation is called to worship the one true God and its creator.

The profound problems within that creation mean that the creator must act decisively, and we'll see this, we experience it, to put things right.

Not because creation is bad and he's angry with it, but because it's good.

And he's angry with the forces that have corrupted and defaced it and which threaten to destroy it.

What sets us apart from creation as a whole, it's that humans can worship because.

Worshiping God then is the most central Christian activity.

It's what we were made to do.

As we said, these 24 elders represent, in many ways, the God's people as a whole, God's church.

We're grafted in, we're invited in to the space between heaven and earth.

We're given, as Paul said, we're raised up with Christ into the heavenly realms.

Our hearts and minds are meant to be aligned around the throne of God as creatures with a because.

In heaven, all the thrones are facing in one direction.

On earth, all the thrones are not quite so consistent.

Amen?

Let me just tell you how this played out in my life this last week.

Uh my oldest son and I got into a we'll call it a strong disagreement about some things.

Uh, and we're driving, and and I'm just mad.

And what I and I'm studying this, and I'm I'm just spending time with God in this crazy throne room, and I'm trying to ask myself how.

And he's saying, you know, what worship is is when you when you align the throne of your own life with with me.

But but I'm in this sort of conversation, very heated, with my boy, and I start getting defensive.

And I start getting angry.

And what I realize is this throne starts moving away from the place it was created to look.

And it starts looking at all kinds of other things.

How could you?

Do you not know what I've done for you?

What is wrong?

How can I?

And I realized in this moment that I'm beginning to damage the relationship in increased ways because now I'm not looking at anything besides this problem.

And it was in that moment that I felt like God just saying, hey, Nate, lay the problem down for a minute.

Realign your cute little throne that's only yours because of what Jesus has done anyway, with what's most central.

Can I tell you, I was sitting in the driver's seat of my truck, and my heart was like a sea that was so tumultuous, I was drowning.

I mean, I was hot, I was frustrated, I was stuck.

When I realigned the throne, God's given me and focused on him.

Man, it was like I began to see a rainbow.

It was like all that tumult turned into peace, a sea of glass replaced all that was torn up in me.

And what we begin to see is that this is what we were primarily created to do.

One of the things we see is that God doesn't need me to worship him.

I need me to worship him.

It's what realigns it.

You know, anger, fear, shame, these are all misaligned thrones.

So turn back, worship him, elder, lay your crowns down, and begin to then allow his peace to restore this conflict and walk in him.

What we see then in chapter five uh begins to kind of sort of take this thing off the rails in some ways.

And what I want to do for the rest of this time together is to move towards a communion together.

And so we have some communion servers.

I know sometimes we're up here with a little bit of background tunes.

I'm not gonna play any background tunes.

They're gonna come forward, they're gonna pass baskets down the aisle if you haven't been here before.

And we'd love for you to take out while the baskets passing in front of you one of these little packaged communion elements.

This act of communion, which we will practice together, is a part of the eternal story.

In fact, central, as I hope you'll see.

Yeah, just start passing them out.

Go team.

It's central to the entire story.

So what do we see as we like we're we're in this crazy time of worship, right?

We got elders there worshiping, we got all these crazy creatures with eyes all over the place.

They're worshiping.

And what happens?

Track with me.

I know it's a little distracting, but it'll be okay.

Track with me.

What happens in the in the throne room?

The story comes off the rails, the story actually gets dark.

The story actually for John gets incredibly challenging.

Why?

Because he sees this thing called a scroll in the right hand of the one sitting on the throne.

So do you have the picture in your mind?

John looks, he sees God the Father with a scroll.

The scrolls we've talked about a couple of different times represents God's plan of redemption in human history.

The hope that God will intervene, the hope that life as it is is not the way life was always meant to be nor will be.

This is God's redemptive plan.

Now, an angel shows up, John says a powerful angel shows up in the throne room.

And do you remember what he's saying?

Is there anybody here in the throne room that's worthy to open the scroll?

Like, we got to get this thing opened.

We got to crack this open.

Sin is having its way in the hearts and the lives of people.

It's wrecking havoc.

Can anyone open it?

And it's as if in this, this is not said in the scripture, but it's as if they're like, hey, somebody grab Abraham, Father Abraham, we got to get him in here and to get the scroll open.

He can't open the scroll.

What about Moses?

What about David, the king?

Maybe he's the one that God has chosen.

And what we see is a sense of hopelessness.

Nobody is worthy to open the scroll.

John's crying like a baby, man.

And he's like, I wept and I wept in in sort of a lostness and a darkness and a hopelessness that was suspended, as we see in verse 5 of chapter 5.

Because an elder sees John making a scene over here crying.

He says, Hey, do not weep.

Says, in fact, remember, God has a plan.

God is going to redeem all things.

He says, This, see.

So he says to John, look, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has triumphed.

He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.

He says, Look, there's there's hope.

And then he says these interesting things, right?

Like a lion of Judah.

He goes on, like a root of David.

Now, what that is, if if you're sort of just learning the scriptures, is it's as if God has this story that He's gonna unveil.

This is the scroll, right?

His redemptive history.

What happens in the biblical story, our history, is that the story's leaked.

So through prophets, throughout the Old Testament, there are these moments where what God's going to do gets leaked.

We call it prophecy.

He says, Here's what I'm gonna do.

Here's where this thing's going.

These are two of those places.

Because the nation of Israel were looking for a tribe of Judah, one of the root of David that would come.

They were looking for a triumphal king, a conquering king.

And there's so much language in the Old Testament that these little breadcrumbs that God leaks a part of the story to give his people hope.

Here's one of them in Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

This has caused the nation of Israel to look for this conquering king, this Messiah that God would send.

Why?

Because that's what he says he's going to do.

If you're familiar with this text, it's Isaiah chapter 9.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

It's also one that we study a lot around Christmas, time where we would say heaven collided into earth in the person of Jesus.

But here's the promise: He will, this one that God will one day send, this is written on the scrolls, he will reign on David's throne.

He's going to come through the line of David.

This is why, if you open up to the book of Matthew and you're like, I'm going to read God's word.

And all of a sudden it's like so-and-so, begot so-and-so, begot so-and-so.

It's all these names, and you're like, this is a weird book.

What he's doing is he's saying, This Jesus of Nazareth, I know it's going to be hard to believe, is actually the ancient one foretold.

He is from the throne of David and over his kingdom establish and uphold it with justice and righteousness from that time on and how long?

Forever.

This is the change.

This is the climax of the story.

But not only did they look for, because of these sort of leaks of the greater story, a conquering king.

They also looked for a suffering servant.

I would say less they looked for it, but they were aware of it in the prophecy.

Listen to the words of Isaiah 53.

These are leaks of the story of what God's going to do.

He, this one he would send, was led like a what?

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

He was pierced for our transgressions.

The punishment that brought us peace was on him.

It's actually by his wounds that we receive healing.

After he, this is again that prophetic breadcrumb of truth, after he has suffered, he will see the light of life.

What does it sound like he's talking about there?

Something we celebrate Easter.

It's called resurrection.

It's like he's going to suffer, but there's more to the story, what gets revealed in Jesus.

And here's the crazy part, right?

So we're back up into the throne room.

John's weeping.

No one's worthy.

This elder's like, stop crying.

Look, what does he say to look for?

Lion of Judah, throne of David.

Here comes the king.

John says, What?

I looked and I saw.

What do you see?

What?

A lamb.

Somewhat of a letdown, maybe, if you're looking for a lion, but not just any lamb.

A lamb that was slain.

What he's doing here is he's tying together these breadcrumbs throughout the ancient story and landing them on the person and work of Jesus.

1500 years before Jesus comes, God is getting his people out of Egypt.

And just as he's kind of getting them ready to go, he sends these plagues on the nation of Egypt.

The tenth one, you may know, is what we may be called the plot Passover plague.

The nation of Israel was told these words.

Think they're here.

The blood will be a sign for you on the house where you are.

And so they were to take an unblemished lamb, kill it, and then to over the doorposts on their house put that blood.

That would be then a sign for God.

When I see the blood, I will pass over you.

What's the promise?

No destructive plug will plague, excuse me, will touch you when I strike Egypt.

God says, I'm coming after Egypt for their sin against me.

But for those covered by the blood of an unblemished lamb, I will pass, you will not experience the condemnation, the punishment, due sin.

Not because they were perfect, but because God provided a way.

And for 1,500 years, the nation of Israel would gather.

This was their biggest celebration, and they would celebrate what's called Passover.

And they would come together around this meal, and then they would sacrifice animals as a way of holding to the promise that was written within this scroll that God would one day step onto the page again of human history and begin to redeem his people.

This is where it's going.

Remember the phrase when John the Baptist, he's he's down baptizing people like crazy, makes pinecrust look like small potatoes, you know, and he's like thousands of people are getting baptized.

Jesus shows up in the stream.

Do you remember what John the Baptist says?

Not John, this guy, John, the other John, one of the many other Johns.

What's he say?

He says, Look, right here.

It's a similar phrase almost.

Look, the Lamb of God.

Look, Jesus of Nazareth.

No, he says, This is the Lamb of God that's come to take away the sin of the world.

Jesus would gather his disciples on the night before he would go to the cross.

What John tells us, or Luke tells us, excuse me, in his gospel, six times is that this happened at Passover.

This was Jesus' last Passover meal.

Six times.

Passover, Passover, Passover, Passover.

What Luke is trying to do is saying Jesus is orienting what he's about to do squarely, right in the middle of this ancient promise that God made to the nation of Israel while they were still in Egypt.

It's all coming together.

And then Jesus says these words.

And I want you to, you know, again, hold your communion elements, because this is where Jesus sort of turns this Passover into communion.

And he, Jesus, takes the bread, gave thanks, and broke it, and gave it to them, his disciples, saying, This is my body given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.

So we have a little piece of bread that we still celebrate this way.

In the same way, after the supper, he took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant.

No longer will you be required to sacrifice animals and live in the promise.

Now you can receive by faith forgiveness because of what I'm about to do.

He says, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

Paul would say it this way.

Peter puts it this way He says, with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect, he, Jesus, was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake, for my sake.

Through him, you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God alone.

We're invited as we come to communion together to examine ourselves.

To maybe ask before we take of the bread, his broken body and the cup, his blood poured out for us.

What am I looking at?

What am I fixed on?

Am I looking at my own stuff?

Like maybe it's my good stuff, maybe it's my bad stuff, or am I aligned to the throne of God?

And it says, for for those of you who have their lives aligned, their little thrones aligned with his throne, make a regular practice out of sharing bread together, celebrating that it was my blood given for you.

And so this morning, if you uh examine your heart and your mind in an act of worship for what Jesus has done, I want to just invite you right now to peel off the top of your uh elements there to take out the bread and to take the bread together.

Go.

And then he says, it's my blood.

It's the Lamb that is revealed for you on your behalf.

If you're willing to trust me alone, if you're willing to align your mind, if you're willing to allow your because to be that I gave my life for you, because I love you, I'm crazy about you.

Well, I don't need you to worship, you need to worship.

Will you align?

If that's you this morning, I just want to invite you to peel off the top of that cup and to drink the juice in celebration of the new covenant Jesus makes for us.

Paul, a couple last little scriptures.

I I actually just want to take us to this last phrase in Revelation chapter 5.

Revelation 5 · chapter mention

He, this lamb, went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne.

When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, and they sang a new song.

You are worthy to take the scroll, to open its seals because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons.

Any persons here this morning?

You purchased for God persons, people like me and you, purchased because of Jesus from every tribe and language and people and nation.

You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God in the overlap of heaven and earth, and they will reign on earth.

Let's worship together.

Thanks so much for joining us, church.

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