Sermon Tone Analysis

Inscription: Writing God’s Words on Our Hearts & Minds

Part 97: Longing for Heaven

Revelation 21:1-8

December 2, 2012

PRAYER

~* Help us long for Heaven and yearn for your glory and may that change our lives.

Help me express the inexpressible.

MOVE OUR HEARTS [Don’t read along, just listen]

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 there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.

They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe 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.” 5 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.” 6 He said to me: “It is done.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.

To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

This is the second death.”

As I reread this passage on Monday, I got just the slightest glimpse of “WOW.”

It felt less like a thing to be EXEGETED and TAUGHT and a little more like a thing to be EXPERIENCED.

~* My goal is for you to be MOVED by VISIONS of Heaven and to create in you a DEEP LONGING that changes how you LIVE.

There is almost a MYTHOLOGICAL ELEMENT in the symbolism that appeals to our HEARTS more than our heads.

~* John describes FOUR THINGS that are RENEWED, then repeats them again several times in the rest to the chapters.

1. CREATION MADE NEW

Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.

Q How many of you LOVE the sea?

I do.

This “no more sea” thing sounds more like Kansas than Heaven, but again this is symbolic and in the ancient mind, the sea represents CHAOS and DISORDER, so John is promising God’s order.

~* We are promised a NEW WORLD, GOD’S KINGDOM, where his WILL is done on earth as it is done in Heaven.

Q How many of you watched “WALL-E”?

A new Heaven and earth isn’t like that, where we trash this world so bad that God gives us a DO-OVER.

Rather, Jesus clearly speaks of the RENEWAL of all things.

~* This is universe is not God’s ROUGH DRAFT, but the first chapter of his great story.

PAUL says “...creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (ROMANS 8:21).

~* What we do here MATTERS; what we do to our bodies matters.

~* What we do to the EARTH and on the earth matter: The ENVIRONMENT, ART, and social JUSTICE all matter.

2. SPIRITUALLY MADE NEW

Revelation 21:2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

Later is the chapter, John makes is clear that the NEW JERUSALEM isn’t just where the saints live, it is the SAINTS.

Q What does that even mean?

First, I want you to see that we are COLLECTIVELY the Bribe of Christ.

We have an INDIVIDUALISTIC view of Heaven (part of the American Cult).

Part of it is KJV’s mistranslation of John 14:2:

NIV John 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.

I am going there to prepare a place for you.

We get a room in God’s house, not a mansion of our own.

In Jesus’ culture, when you got married, you didn’t move out, you added a room to the family complex.

NO MORE INTERNAL WAR

But more than that, we are the HOLY City, the pure and righteous BRIDE of Christ.

Q Do you feel like this describes you?

Does it feel like a CRUEL JOKE to call you “HOLY”?

There are many things that are not right in our world, pain and persecution.

But the war I hate the most is the one inside me:

~* We WANT to be HOLY, but fall short again and again.

I want to LOVE my wife but whenever I am hurt I RESPOND with CUTTING words.

You want to TRUST GOD and walk in peace, but every time you open your BILLS you are filled with ANXIETY.

We want to be PURE in THOUGHT and when our thoughts WONDER the go to DARK PLACES we hope NO ONE ever SEES.

In our short time here, the HOLY SPIRIT continually REFINES and refines us, but we long for the time that RIGHTEOUSNESS comes EASY and TEMPTATIONS are only a MEMORY.

John describes the city as being made of precious stones and gold that is SO PURE that it’s TRANSPARENT:

Revelation 21:11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

~* I LONG for the day that I will be as CLEAR as CRYSTAL, that I no longer fear you looking into the DEEPEST DEPTHS of me.

I long for the day God can truly call me HOLY.

3. DWELLING WITH GOD

This is the CORE, the CENTERPIECE of not the passage, but the ENTIRE BIBLE:

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.

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

Throughout these last chapters, John draws heavily from EZEKIEL’S VISION of the New Jerusalem.

But he DEPARTS from it in one very significant way:

~* Ezekiel spends a lot of time MEASURING the TEMPLE, but in Revelation is the NEW JERUSALEM that is measured.

Revelation 21:22-23 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 it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.

John is reaching all the way back, BEFORE TEMPLE was destroyed, before SOLOMON was given the highest privilege to build it, before GOD PROMISED to dwell with ISRAEL.

~* It goes all the way back to EDEN when God walked with Adam.

This is the VERY CORE of the EPIC STORY of the Bible, the total RESTORATION of all that was LOST through our sin, RESTORED by God’s love and sacrifice.

~* Did you watch “ACROSS the UNIVERSE,” where Jude is pulled apart from Lucy?

This is like them seeing each other.

STARTING ANEW

We think about these final chapters as being about “THE END,” but they are really more about “THE BEGINNING.”

~* I said last week Revelation is filled with OT PICTURES, and in these chapters John alludes to the GARDEN of EDEN constantly.

The point isn’t that God is ENDING EVERYTHING, but he is RESTORING everything to better than before.

THE LIGHT OF HIS GLORY

In one of Revelation’s most POWERFUL IMAGE, John says there is no sun, for the GLORY of GOD is our LIGHT.

The idea of the GLORY of God is hard for us to UNDERSTAND, but this helps us picture it.

It is so full and all ENCOMPASSING that there will be NO NIGHT (22:5), nothing is in the SHADOWS.

~* The Ptolemaic System was not earth centered but GOD CENTERED; it’s coming INSIDE, out of the dark into WARMTH and SAFETY.

Reading OLD BOOKS like that have give me the tangible sense that I am on the outside, LOOKING INTO the GLORY of God, eagerly waiting to be allowed in.

~* Cf.

Dante, PARADISO, the eager anticipation of God’s presence.

~* The more clearly I see this life as a LITTLE GHETTO beyond which God’s GLORY EXPANDS FOREVER, the less it is ABOUT ME.

I resent that I LACK the WORDS to COMMUNICATE this, but I know that the better I UNDERSTAND HEAVEN, the better I understand.

4. EMOTIONALLY AND PHYSICALLY MADE NEW

And in GOD’S PRESENCE, we are comforted and healed.

SICKNESS, DESPAIR, and PAIN FLEE away; they cannot endure his presence.

Revelation 21:4-5 He will wipe 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.”

Some of us have had a HARDER LIFE than others.

Some have known more PHYSICAL pain, others more EMOTIONAL pain.

~* Many of us are TOO YOUNG or HEALTHY to FULLY APPRECIATE the promise of a new body.

I read about a 17th century pastor named RICHARD BAXTER who was a well known preacher and writer.

He was trouble be frequent sicknesses.