Revelation 21, "God with Us is Now Residing"

Someone said that cities are the monuments to humanity’s collective hopes and dreams. Cities are where people pursue belonging and community, creativity and art, the exchange of ideas, and innovation, all the beautiful parts of what it means to be human. But our sin corrupts our desires into greed, malice, envy, and strife. In our sin, cities become temples to the glory of man, where we worship self. When you collect people who worship self into cities, they become filled with the people Revelation 21:8 describes,

Revelation 21:8 (ESV)

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for 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.”

These qualities serve self much better than faith, hope, and love. But the end of a life lived this way is death and torment.

What if there was a city that was not from this earth?

Revelation 21:10–11 (ESV)

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,

that was filled with the glory of God?

having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

Where nature itself was changed by the presence of God?

Revelation 21:23 (ESV)

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

That city is a temple, into which the kings of the earth, those who had achieved the most in our world, will bring their glory in worship of God.

Revelation 21:24–25 (ESV)

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.

Revelation 21:26 (ESV)

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

If entering that city meant having to die to this world and all its pleasures and denying your self the worship you desire, giving your glory and honor to God, to spend eternity in union with God, would that be the fullness of your joy and pleasure, or a disappointment to you? Would it be your greatest gain or your greatest loss?

Revelation 21 focuses on the kind of person we will find in the New Jerusalem, and the kind of person we will not find there. The challenge to the reader is to consider, which person am I? In the end, do I want a temple to myself and spend my life achieving that? Or will I put my faith in Jesus to give me the courage to die to self to find my true self in union with God?

The new Jerusalem is the realization of all the hopes and dreams of all true saints.

Revelation 21:3 (ESV)

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.

Revelation 21:4 (ESV)

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.”

Revelation 21:5 (ESV)

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.”

Revelation 21:6 (ESV)

And he 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.

What is the most satisfying thing you can think of on earth? We were with some people at a gift exchange yesterday, and it was fascinating to hear the level of thought and detail that went into choosing articles of clothing and beverages and whatever else. These are goods that will be consumed and will satisfy for a while. But when the satisfaction wears off, you will be hungry and thirsty and craving again.

The record of the saints that have truly communed with God is that He is satisfying in a way that lasts and makes all the goods this world offers seem like sand or trash or at least cheap trinkets.

Moses said to God,

Exodus 33:15–16 (ESV)

And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people?

Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

David said,

Psalm 27:4 (ESV)

One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.

Psalm 27:8–9 (ESV)

You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”

Hide not your face from me. Turn not your servant away in anger, O you who have been my help. Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!

Philippians 3:8–9 (ESV)

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

This has been man’s desire since the Garden of Eden, when things went so wrong. In the Garden man and woman dwelt with God. Adam and Eve had joy, pleasure, shalom. But Satan tempted them to rebel against God, rule themselves, and this separated them from God. They were exiled. The family fell into sinful patterns. Beginning with their first son, Cain, murdering their second son, Abel. God was merciful to Cain, but in His fear, Cain built a city.

Genesis 4:17 (ESV)

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

Cities continue to be built on fear, faithlessness, murder, immorality, and idolatry. The next city is Babylon itself, the monument to mankind, worshipping self over God.

Genesis 11:4 (ESV)

Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

Babylon is built on the hope that if man achieves its own greatness, they can escape God’s judgment. But this is a misplaced hope based in fear. Babylon becomes the symbol of empires led by tyrants who dominate men and women and rebel against God’s kingdom. God choses one family, the family of Abraham to walk by faith out of Babylon, into the land they can only see by believing in His promise.

Before that promise is realized, Abraham’s descendants are enslaved to the empire of its day, Egypt. The Pharaohs force them to build the great cities of Egypt.

But God redeems them. He takes them out into the wilderness where He makes a covenant of marriage with them (Exodus 19-24). Every married couple needs a dwelling place to make a home. The unique thing about God and Israel is that He tells Moses to build Him a tent, but He doesn’t live in the tent. He dwells in the people. And God Himself will be their dwelling place (Psalm 90:1).

Exodus 25:1–2 (ESV)

The Lord said to Moses, “Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me.

Exodus 25:8 (ESV)

And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst.

God’s desire is our hearts moved toward Him, who promises to dwell among us. But God is holy, and people are not. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But God has always made a way.

He gave Israel the tabernacle as a tent in which to meet with Him. They would bring their offerings to the courtyard and their prayers would go up before Him while the priest offered incense on an altar in front of the holy place where God sat on His throne, called the mercy seat.

Exodus 28:29–30 (ESV)

So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel in the breastpiece of judgment on his heart, when he goes into the Holy Place, to bring them to regular remembrance before the Lord.

And in the breastpiece of judgment you shall put the Urim and the Thummim, and they shall be on Aaron’s heart, when he goes in before the Lord.

Thus Aaron shall bear the judgment of the people of Israel on his heart before the Lord regularly.

Exodus 28:36 (ESV)

“You shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave on it, like the engraving of a signet, ‘Holy to the Lord.’

But what if you could make a way to write God’s judgments on every heart, and we could all bear it to God and seek His forgiveness for ourselves? What if you could make all the people holy to the LORD? This is exactly what God promised to do in the new covenant.

Jeremiah 31:31 (ESV)

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah,

Jeremiah 31:32 (ESV)

not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 31:33 (ESV)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jesus says this is the covenant He is ratifying in His blood on the cross.

Luke 22:20 (ESV)

And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Revelation 21:5 (ESV)

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.”

The cross of Jesus makes us new. This is how Jesus purified the bride for Himself in Revelation 21. This is why the city, made up of all the saints, we are called the bride, the wife of the lamb.

Revelation 21:9 (ESV)

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.”

The challenge in revelation is to be a conqueror. But in the kingdom of God, the conqueror is not the one who raises weapons against their enemies. The one who conquerors is the one who will forsake all the temptations this world will offer to be satisfied in the temple of self.

Revelation 21:7 (ESV)

The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.

The one who conquers finds their greatest satisfaction in knowing God, being known by Him. When you learn to grow in intimate love with God, to let Him speak words of affirmation, acceptance, forgiveness, and adoption over you, to abide in Christ, the One who reconciles us in peace with God, who grants us the shalom we are all looking for, you will find the things of earth grow strangely dim. He will make you new, new enough to receive Him within you.

Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. You can commune with God now, at this table. Come, be made new.

Communion