"Eternity’s Advent”

Who is excited for Christmas? This is a special time of the year. This is also special place, and you are a special people, and that makes for a special memory that I hope will stay with us for some time to come.

Christmas is a day of memories, isn’t it? It involves making them and looking back on them almost simultaneously. Oh, Christmas has become such a perfect time for family and friends to gather, to exchange gifts, and for memories to be made. Christmas invites each of us, like children, to dream.

At least, that’s how Charles Dickens told us Christmas should look as he concludes A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim with the rest of the family gathered ‘round with a large goose in the oven. I don’t know how many of us celebrate Christmas with a goose, but maybe the only thing different about our gatherings is the tamales on our tables.

And for as wonderful as that picture is, if that’s all Christmas is for you and I, we’ve fallen into a trap set by the evil one. We’ve missed the point of Christmas and worse yet, we’ve set our eyes on earthly gifts and overlooked the gift that God desires to give.

What gift is this? It’s grander than you could ever imagine. It’s the greatest gift we will ever know and I will tell you you upfront, I am going to fall short of even describing it’s splendor. Words are going to fail us, yet this gift is expressed beautifully in the passage of God’s word that I just read for you. What is this greatest gift? Let me try to tell you about it. First, it is

A Gift for Children of God

This was a gift that the people of God who originally received the book of the Revelation were desperate for. The Revelation is written by John as he is on an island off the coast of modern-day Turkey. And something to know that will help you any time you are reading the Revelation is that the people that would have originally received this were desperate. Here’s why they were desperate. They faced some of the fiercest persecution of the Christian faith we have record of.

Do you know why Christians were persecuted in the first century? Following the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descended and empowered regular people to preach that Jesus is Lord. That Jesus is King of all. And they did this as the Spirit led them in the face of the great Roman Empire who declared that Caesar, not Jesus, was lord and king of all. To suggest that anyone but Caesar was king was treason against the Roman state and punishable by death. And boy did the Romans love to make a point when they killed someone.

I’ve got to share some terrible facts with you so we all can get ourselves wrapped around our text. Remember, Jesus died on a Roman cross. And the criminal who was nailed upon that cross would’ve been nailed to it naked as a spectacle of humiliation. Have you ever heard of those Roman candles that some people may light at a New Year’s Eve celebration? The original Roman candles were Christians who were being locked in a cage and set ablaze to light the pathways along the roads of Rome. Terrible, right?

Now, imagine if you and I didn’t have the freedoms we enjoy in this great country. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to free speech. The right to freely exercise religious convictions. Now, this will require us to really use our imaginations because this doesn’t sound like our situation at all. But, imagine the feeling of your will breaking at the hands of government. Week after week the faces you see today at church can no longer come because they’ve been killed for their faith. Imagine the dread that might set in…if you talk about Jesus or if you gather with other Christians, it could cost you your life.

Yet John is led by God to write the Revelation to share what our Christians brothers and sisters living at the end of the first century needed. They needed to be reminded of the gospel’s sure and certain hope. To tell us that God has a gift that he will joyfully extend to all of creation, but everyone’s not going to get it. Who then receives this gift? John tells us in

Revelation 21:27 (ESV)

… only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Imagine arriving at the airport to catch a flight for a trip that you have planned for months. You’ve looked forward to for months. You’ve convinced yourself you needed for months. And when you’re being processed, the airport personnel tell you that you aren’t on any flights scheduled for that day. You start to pull up the confirmation emails to validate that you did book a flight for that day, but the airport person insists that their system is the source of record, and you have to be listed in it to get on any flight. You expected entry and to get on to where you’d longed for, but on the list that mattered, you weren’t there.

When your life ends, you will stand in judgement before Holy God and the clerk of Heaven will flip through the pages of the Lamb’s book of life. The greatest gift of which I speak will only be given to those whose names are contained in that great book. Someone says, “Well, that sounds a lot like a Christmas song I know. 'He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice...’” But the Lamb’s book of life isn’t the same thing as Santa’s naughty or nice list. Santa’s list is all about how you’ve behaved in the last year. The Lamb’s book of life looks back on your life, but it has nothing to do with your behavior because you cannot behave good enough to get in the book. You can’t buy you way in, either. The registry in that book is perfectly kept.

How is anyone’s name added to the book? Names are written down in the red blood of Jesus Christ when anyone confesses with their mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in their heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. The Bible says that Romans 10:10 “...with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Who then can receive this gift? Only those in the Lamb’s book. Only those who have been justified by grace through faith in Jesus Christ can receive the most precious gift.

Second thing about this gift is that it is

A Gift that Gives Purpose

“But wait!” says someone. “Pastor Dan, it sounds like you’re talking about being saved! I thought salvation was the most precious gift anyone can receive?”

And I’d say to that person, you’ve got it half right. The Bible says that Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Salvation is a gift from God, but it’s not the greatest gift God is willing to give.

And the desperate people to whom John wrote needed to be reminded of this fact. Remember, the will of our brothers and sisters was being broken by the firm and unbending rod of Rome. They were near that place we go in our minds where we are convinced that defeat is certain. No one living then could imagine anyone other than Rome emerging as victorious.

For Christians, both then and now, I think that sometimes, we’re guilty of looking out at the situation of society and believing that, as Christians, we’re on the losing team. It’s easy to let our morale take a hit again and again with each situation that we believe to be a loss for Christ, leaving us bitter and purposeless. But no Christian has any place to be bitter or without purpose, friends! If there were ever such a Christian, they are ones who need to read this book of the Bible. Here’s why! Battles are won and lost, but God has given us this book in all its entirety to prepare for Christ’s coming once more and to be read as God’s certainty that he’s going to. Even when it seems as if the cause of Christ has suffered a loss in a battle, we must remember that Jesus has already won the war!

You want purpose? Look at this morning’s text! Read the entire 21st chapter of Revelation! God’s telling us about that time in the future when all of God’s enemies have been defeated forever and God’s city descends from Heaven after all of creation has been renewed. The holy city, the New Jerusalem, descends and the beauty of it all is nearly indescribable.

Notice what we’re told beginning in Revelation 21:24. The nations will walk freely into God’s holy city. These nations will represent the people groups of the world. There are walls to the city, but her gates will never shut to the redeemed people of God. The kings of the earth will bring the glory and honor of the nations within the walls of God’s city and lay them all down as an expression of their worship of God.

Think about how our encouraging God meets us in our hour of need to remind us about his faithfulness. To remind us of his unwavering love towards us. I mean, what sort of encouragement could this be to a church who had lost so many of its members and were on the brink of giving up? What sort of encouragement might it mean for a church like ours who has suffered such great loss this year ourselves?

Our text is God’s encouraging invitation to look to the end of time. To imagine that grand scene. So many different people. All the variety of skin colors. Short hair and long. Tall and short and average height, too. Countless people flowing in and out of a city whose walls have for their foundation all the most precious jewels on earth. Notice how John, like others before him who’ve been given heavenly visions, begins to struggle to put into words what he sees when in Revelation 21:18 and Revelation 21:21 he uses the word “like.” A city of pure gold whose streets are pure gold, like transparent glass. Can you imagine this?

Adding to the glory and splendor of God’s eternal city, God is glorified in the diversity of peoples who have been redeemed by Christ as they bring in their glory. “Where’s the encouragement?” I told you a short while ago that the nations in the text are the people groups of the world, but let me point out that the text tells us these nations are made up of individuals whose names are in the Lamb’s book of life. How did these people come to be redeemed? By their faith. How then did they come to faith? Well, the Bible says that Romans 10:17 “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” As this text calls us to look forward to the end of time, it also calls us to look at the present and past of all of human history to acknowledge that the nations only come to worship in God’s eternal city because someone at some time didn’t let their circumstances define them. No, someone at some time pressed on despite their circumstances, despite the insurmountable odds, in the faith that 1 John 4:4 “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

I can’t pretend to guess all that you may be facing today that makes you want to throw in the towel, but the encouragement here in this text is for you and I trust in God’s provision and God’s victory with the purpose of living on mission to glorify God by being obedient to Jesus’ mission to make disciples of all the nations, by taking the word of Christ out into the streets of Devine and to the ends of the earth.

Another thing about this gift is that it is

A Gift Beyond Compare

And by taking the word of Christ out, we can rest assured that God goes before us to prepare the hearts of those who would hear the word that we carry out. The word that God has breathed out will never return to him empty or void. The word of God will always succeed in whatever God has purposed. Like that perfect Christmas gift that you long debated to express your affections for the one you love, God has given his word to communicate his love for each of us so that among all the things that God has purposed, it is to bring worshippers to his eternal city to be blessed by the greatest gift.

What then is this gift?

We can begin to discover the answer by exploring what makes this city of God so different. We can see how different God’s city is than our present existence. Take this church who has gathered this 22nd day of December to worship that babe born in Bethlehem who was always King. Some who have entered here are unclean and do detestable and false things. Each of us depend upon the light of the sun and artificial illumination from the lights overhead. Our doors have been open for a few hours now in the hope that all who pass through know they’re welcome here in God’s house but not long after we conclude our time together, the doors will be locked because there is evil in this land that we must protect from entering and wrecking havoc.

Taking what we know from our present, John gives us clues about this greatest gift by telling us what’s not there.

Notice that in God’s eternal city, John tells us that nothing or no one unclean and nothing or no one who is evil can enter God’s city. He adds that the city’s gates never close and we can conclude that the unclean things and the evil things in existence now, will have been subject to God’s judgement and otherwise dealt with by then.

Though night yet falls upon these lands in our present, in that eternal city, there is no night. What’s more is that in that eternal city, John tells us that there is no longer need for light offered by the sun nor the moon.

And as unimaginable as it might seem for life to exist absent the sun or moon, what would have been most odd for someone who originally received this word from God through John is that in God’s city, there is no temple. For the Jewish community, the temple was the center of communal life. Better said, the temple was center and life existed and a city was built around it. For all intents and purposes, the one true God had been worshipped primarily at the temple. So important was the temple to life, God was very specific about the construction of the temple and he had commanded specific steps of how he was to be worshipped in the temple by saying that only certain people can go to certain parts and do certain things at certain times. And aside from the particulars of what God had commanded, the temple is where God was known to dwell on earth and where he was to be worshipped. Yet, we notice, John tells us that this city has no temple.

What could eclipse the glory of the sun? What could eclipse the moon in all its glory? What could eclipse the glory of the temple?

Have you guessed what it is? The answer is not what. The answer lies in asking the question Who? At the center of God’s eternal city is the center of all known existence. At the center of God’s eternal city is the center of the worship of the universe. All the copies that were created have given way to the original. The gift that God gives most wonderfully is free, unfiltered, unlimited access to himself.

Friends, if you’ve ever read the Bible from cover to cover, you have seen the unfolding drama of God’s redemption story. Very early on, we introduced sin to the world’s stage and caused ourselves to be separated eternally from God. We read on and the Bible shows us two things:

a.The Bible shows us ourselves and our nature, routinely acting like we can go it our own way.

b.The Bible shows us the faithful God who desires to seek and save us from the damnation we bring upon ourselves.

To what lengths would this faithful God go? He would send his Son who gladly abandoned Heaven to add to himself humanity and go through a terrible cross to die the death we each deserve. To what ends would God do this?

For this gift. This greatest gift motivated by God’s character, by God’s love. This gift that we squandered in the garden that can only be restored by faith in Jesus the Christ. By faith,

The most precious gift is God’s presence

This gift is what we who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ through faith in his death for our sin and his resurrection will enjoy for all eternity. This is a gift that we know, in part, in our present age as we have personal relationship with God, yet now 1 Corinthians 13:12 “...now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face...”

Friends, can you imagine that day?

Can you imagine that glorious city where the glory of God Almighty and the radiance of the Lamb shine forth so that there is no need for the s-u-n? How great and magnificent is the S-o-n?

Can you imagine walking to and fro through Heaven’s gates? Walking along those golden roads to bring God Almighty your own glory and honor to bestow upon him all the honor and glory that he alone is due? What glory!

Can you imagine what it will be like to look upon the face of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb?

Friends, this is the gift that awaits us. God’s present to each of us is his presence. Do you want this gift?

Heed then this word: Revelation 21:27 “But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”

For the person who came here whose name is already contained within that great book, this passage calls you and I to pursue greater holiness for the sake of the one who has saved us. Repent then of the wickedness that remains in your life and prioritize Christ and his kingdom with the remainder of your days. Family and friends are great gifts, but living for this day in eternity’s future and for God is greater.

For the one who is uncertain about whether their name is written in the Lamb’s book, there is but one way to Heaven and his name is Jesus Christ. It’s only by trusting upon Jesus Christ unto salvation that your name can be added to this great book because it is he alone who can atone for your sin.

Someone says, “That’s great. I’ll make trusting in Jesus my new year’s resolution. My mind is on the presents I’ve got under the tree, so can we be done?” The good news for you is that I’m almost through, but the better news I have for you is that you can have the confidence of knowing you can be among those who flow through Heaven’s gates and enjoy God’s gift for you of himself. There’s nothing greater that you will ever receive. Won’t you repent of your sin and surrender to Christ today?

Delaying for another day wouldn’t be wise. How do I know? I’ve read the final words of Jesus Christ that are recorded in the Bible and are found in the next chapter, the last chapter of the Bible. Revelation 22:20 ““...I am coming soon.” I don’t know when soon is, but I would advise against wagering your eternity that Jesus’s soon isn’t your today.

In fact, there’s a room full of us praying that Jesus would come once more and finally because we don’t just long for the new heaven and the new earth, we long to see our Creator, our Redeemer, the lover of our souls, face to face. We too, with resounding voice, declare with John, Revelation 22:20 “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”