Untitled Sermon (8)

Revelation 22 1-5

Back To The Garden

For all who are weary and need rest

To all who mourn and long for comfort

To all who feel worthless and wonder if God cares

To all who fail and desire strength

To all who sin and need a Savior

This churchopens wide her doors with a welcome from Jesus, the mighty friend of sinners.

Our Call To Worship

Psalm 63:1–4

         [1] O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;

                  my soul thirsts for you;

         my flesh faints for you,

                  as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

         [2] So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,

                  beholding your power and glory.

         [3] Because your steadfast love is better than life,

                  my lips will praise you.

         [4] So I will bless you as long as I live;

                  in your name I will lift up my hands. (ESV)

Gospel Zone

New Members – Jacob and Jessica Franco

For the students and their families who are facing the end of a school year with events and tests and papers due and graduations coming up.

Pray for the women who attended the Stay Treat this weekend – pray that the messages they heard and the conversations they shared would continue to stir in their hearts and shape their thinking and their prayers for one another in the weeks ahead. 

Rick Tarter’s mom diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer

Radiant Church in Round Rock TX which is part of the Great Commission Collective.  Pastor Andy Snider and Pastor Lee Lewis.  Pray that their time working through the book of Exodus, this morning in Exodus 22,  would bear fruit and pray their impact in the north Austin TX area would continue to be significant.

Turn to Revelation 22 – the last chapter in the last book in your Bible. 

Our long journey through this book has brought us the morning to what I expect is the penultimate message.  Next Sunday, Lord willing, we will wrap up this study.

I know that as we slogged our way through chapters 6-19, with the trumpets and bowls of judgment and seals being opened and the dragon and the beast and the earthquakes and the floods and the battles -

you may have found yourself thinking “enough – I get it.  When does this end!”

Which is kind of the point.  Christians throughout history have found themselves longing for Jesus to come back and put an end to evil and violence and persecution.

Well, that’s where we are.  When we got to chapter 21 two weeks ago, John was shown the first of a series of visions that reveal – revelation – reveal the new heavens and the new earth that God will create at the end of the age, on the last day.  

So we’ve been getting a tour of what will be the eternal dwelling place for all who know and love Christ when the end comes.

And I’ve told you that I think these visions have a lot of symbolic meaning.  I don’t think what John is seeing and describing is intended to be understood as literal. 

Now let me be clear.  I think the new heavens and the new earth are a literal, tangible place.  I think when we get our new recreated, resurrected bodies, which will be real flesh and blood bodies, like the ones we have, but different, we will live in a real, literal, tangible, physical place. 

I think the new heavens and the new earth are not clouds and air.  I think there is dirt and there are hills and rivers.  Just like the Garden of Eden was a real place with real people living there, the new heavens and earth will be real too.

But I think the visions John is seeing are visions filled with symbols.  He’s not seeing a photograph of the new earth.  He’s seeing something more like an impressionist like Van Gogh than a realist.

So as I said last week, I don’t think we’ll live in a huge cube surrounded by thick walls with giant pearls for gates and streets of gold and gemstones on the walls. 

And as we get to the final vision, John sees the center of the heavenly city.  And again as we’ll see, this description is loaded with symbolic meaning.

It may be that in the new heavens and the new earth there is a throne room and a river than runs from it and a tree of life in the middle of it.  Or it may be that those images John is seeing here are meant to point him and us to something else.

Let’s read the verses we’re going to look at this morning.

But let’s pray first.

Revelation 22:1–5

[1] Then

the angel showed me

the river

of the water of life,

bright as crystal,

flowing

from the throne of God

and of the Lamb

through the middle of the street

of the city;

also,

on either side of the river,

the tree of life

with its twelve kinds of fruit,

yielding its fruit each month.

The leaves of the tree

were for the healing of the nations.

[3] No longer

will there be anything accursed,

but the throne of God

and of the Lamb

will be in it,

and his servants

will worship him.

[4] They will see his face,

and his name

will be on their foreheads.

[5] And night

will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp

or sun,

for the Lord God

will be their light,

and they will reign

forever and ever.

Amen.  May God bless this reading of His word. 

The grass withers and the flowers fade but the word of our God will last forever.

This scene is meant to bring to make you think of Genesis 2.  The place where we will live forever has a lot in common with the place God created for the first man and first woman to live in forever and to

subdue

and have dominion

and work

and keep

and be fruitful

and multiply. 

These verses from Revelation 2 are a vision of the Garden of Eden which was sealed off from human beings when the man and the woman were expelled from Eden after the fall being reopened and repopulated. 

Here’s what we see in these verses

Eden Reopened (v. 1-2)

· The river of the water of life

· The tree of life

Eden Forever (vs. 3-5)

· Serving God

· Seeing His Face

· Reigning With Him

So let’s start off here in the first two verses.  And here’s how I want to work through this passage.  I’m going to give you my thoughts about what I think are the important observations we should make about this passage.

So I’ll start with this.  The parallels we see between this passage and the first half of Genesis 2 makes it clear that Johns vision here is meant to think about the Garden of Eden.

We won’t take the time to read Genesis 2, but if you go there, you see that a river flowed out from Eden to water the garden.  Here in Revelation 22, we have the river of life flowing from the throne.

Genesis 2:9 says the tree of life grew in the midst of the garden of Eden.  The tree of life is here again in Revelation 22.

Adam and Eve lived in God’s presence in the Garden of Eden.  He was right there with them.  The same is true in Revelation 22.

Adam and Eve were assigned to serve as co-regents with God in Eden, to subdue the earth and to rule over the animals.  In this passage, mankind is again assigned the responsibility of ruling with Christ.

The Garden of Eden is the focus of the story right after God creates the heavens and the earth.  This new garden city, this center location in the New Jerusalem, comes right after God creates the new heavens and the new earth. 

And of course, we can’t miss the fact that human history begins in the garden and this last chapter of the Bible is where eternity begins.

If you know and love Christ, you will live in a restored and recreated paradise.  Eden reopened and remade.

I say it’s reopened because you know that after Adam and Eve sinned, God posted an angel with a fiery sword at the entrance to Eden to keep people out.

Now there is no angel with a fiery sword guarding the entrance.  The gates are open.  People are coming home.

Now once again, I think in both settings, the language of paradise being a garden doesn’t mean that we will spend eternity in a place that looks like Garvin Gardens or the Gardens at the Biltmore in North Carolina or Victoria Gardens in Canada. 

I mean those are all beautiful places to visit and explore.  Mary Ann and I were in Asheville NC a year ago, before the floods came from Helene, and we toured the Biltmore Gardens.  Amazing.  Beautiful. 

This is what it looks like when the tulips are in bloom.

Or when the Azaleas are blooming.

Or the Sunflowers.

I mean breathtaking, right?

And I suspect the new heavens and the new earth will have magnificent gardens like nothing we’ve ever seen.

But this picture of living in a garden city is here as a symbol of life.  Remember, John grew up in a land this is mostly desert.  The promised land was described by God to the Israelites as a land that flows with what?  Milk and honey. 

That’s a poetic phrase meant to picture abundance and prosperity, both physically and spiritually. 

In the same way, the image of a garden is a poetic way of saying that the place where we will live with God forever will be a place of stunning beauty and vibrant life. 

Life is, I think, the key word here.  In fact, that’s the second point I want to make.  The new heavens and new earth are teeming with life.

The last chapter ended with a reference to the Lamb’s Book of Life.  This chapter points five times to the river of life or the tree of life.

Each time, the Greek word Zoe is used.  Zoe is one of two Greek words for life.  The other is bios.  Bios means biological life.  Organic life.  Physical life.

Zoe is a quality of life, a kind of life that is characterized by love and joy and excitement. 

Bios is existence.  Zoe is living.

In fact, Tim Keller tells a great story here about the first time he brought his seven year old son with him on a ministry trip.  It was the first time his son had been on an airplane. 

Keller says his son loved it.  He liked the fact that the flight attendant brought him a snack and a soft drink. At one point, his son leaned his chair back, kicked his legs up, he looked down on the clouds, he sipped his soft drink, and he turned around to me and said (he was 7 years old at the time), “Dad, this is living.”

Now maybe at age 7, but it’s been a long time since I was on a plane and thought to myself “this is living!”  At my age, a cramped seat with thin cushions and with a fussy two year old in the row behind you cannot be overcome by a biscotti and a diet coke. 

Back to the book of life, the river of life, the tree of life – these are not describing the duration of our life – eternal existence.  Yes, we will live forever.  But as Keller points out, eternal existence without Zoe – that’s hell! 

Would you want life to go on forever without joy, without peace, without love, without contentment and exhilaration? 

Remember what Psalm 16 tells us.  The Psalmist says

Psalm 16:10–11

         [10] For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

                  or let your holy one see corruption.

         [11] You make known to me the path of life;

                  in your presence there is fullness of joy;

                  at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This life is filled with struggle and trials and unpleasantness and sorrow.  Our daughter texted us yesterday morning and said “please say a prayer for Rachel and her daughter Lily. Rachel’s husband Jimmy passed away yesterday after having stomach cancer for several years.”

There they are at Lily’s birthday party a short time ago.  Now Jimmy is gone. 

We face news like that every day, don’t we.  Sadness and sorrow and pain are an inescapable part of life on earth.

In the new heavens and the new earth?  It’s all gone.  These light and momentary afflictions we face here – that’s what the Bible calls them even though they don’t feel light and momentary – these will give way one day to an eternal weight of glory, where it’s all life and no sorrow or suffering or death.  Ever.

The Garden City of Revelation 22 teems with life.  In flows like a river.  It nourishes and delights like the fruit of a tree.

Let me make an observation about the River of Life in this passage.  Did you notice who is missing from the throne in vs. 1?  It’s the throne of God and of the Lamb.  In fact, this whole scene in chapters 21 and 22 say a lot about God and the Lamb, but it’s not until the end of the chapter where the Holy Spirit is mentioned, where “the Spirit and the Bride say ‘come.’”

Why is the Holy Spirit absent?  He’s not.

The river of the water of Life in vs. 1 is the Holy Spirit.  He is the one who flows from, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.  He is the One who brings life to all.

Here’s how I know that.  First, back in John 4 when Jesus has the encounter with the woman at the well in Sychar and He talks to her about living water? 

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit here.  It’s the Holy Spirit in us who is the spring of water that produces our eternal life – our Zoe.

And just in case it’s not clear there, later in John 7, Jesus is at the feast of tabernacles.  And John says

[37] On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. [38] Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” [39] Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

So it’s not a stretch back in Revelation 22 to see the River of the Water of Life coming from the throne as pointing us to the Holy Spirit, who likes to stay in the background and to have the attention going to God and to the Lamb anyway.

You might want to look this week at Ezekiel 47, where there is a picture of a river flowing from the temple of God that starts as a trickle and keeps increasing in its depth and volume.  It’s a picture of the church throughout redemptive history growing and growing and flourishing. 

Ezekiel also sees on the banks of the river trees that grow and provide food.  Ezekiel says about these trees Their leaves will not wither, nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month.… Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.

In the image John sees in Revelation 22, the river that flows from the throne of God is the source of ongoing Zoe for the inhabitants of the new heavens and the new earth.  And along the banks of that river is the tree of life.

It appears he’s seeing a variety of tree – many trees of life growing on either side of the river.  And in vs. 2, he sees the same think Ezekiel saw.  These trees produce 12 kinds of fruit (remember, 12 means fullness or completeness) and it bears fruit year-round, not in particular seasons.

By the way, I will just add here that highest and greatest of all the fruits is the Bing Cherry.  It is the fruit above all fruits. 

And in the same way that there will be chips and queso in heaven, there will be Bing cherries year round in heaven.  Not just in June and July.  And there will be no bad tasting cherries.  Only the sweetest and juiciest. 

In the Bible, trees are pictured as a source of life.  In Psalm 1, a blessed man is like a tree planted by the stream that yields fruit in season. 

Jesus in John 15 talks about branches and vines, and how branches draw life from the vine by being attached to the vine. 

And He goes on to say that it is by being attached to Him that we bear much fruit. 

The fruit John has in mind here is the fruit that nourishes and sustains and brings enjoyment to life.  We will draw our life – our Zoe –  forever from the tree of life. 

Here’s how I would sum up vs. 1 and 2.  Here’s the main point. 

In the new heavens and the new earth, just as now, real life, abundant life, Zoe life flows from the throne. 

I think it’s easy for us to get caught up in the physical description of the new heavens and the new earth that we find in Revelation 21 and 22 and miss what is the main point.  The glory of eternity is not the geography, it’s the community.  It’s all of us together, free from sin, and eternally in the presence of the living, loving God of the universe.   That’s zoe.

It is God who is the source of all life.  Bios and Zoe.  But here, it’s Zoe we’re talking about. 

In 1 John 5, John says it pretty straightforwardly.

[11] And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. [12] Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Life flows from the throne.  Here and there. 

If you want life, you find it in King Jesus.  He is the source of zoe. 

If you have Him, you have zoe.  If you don’t have Him, you try to patch up your life with imitation zoe.  You go looking for zoe in all the wrong places. 

Everyone is on a quest for zoe.  For fulfillment.  For meaning and purpose in life.  For joy.

And there is no end to people who are making a living suggesting to you that this car, this job, this pill, this drink, this website, this experience, this relationship – this is where you’ll find it. 

The Bible tells us that in this life and in the life to come, the source of zoe is God.  Knowing Him, being known and loved by Him and aligning your life with His purposes.

Is that where life is found for you?  Or are you still pursuing substitutes?

Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

Do you have the Son?  Is He at the center of your life?  Are you turning to Him for your life, your joy, your shalom?

You can.  Jesus says to everyone “come to me and I will give you rest.”  But you have to come to Him.  You have to turn away from what you’ve been chasing after and rest in Him.  Follow Him.  Serve Him.  Worship Him.

You do it by praying a prayer like this.

The end of vs. 2 says that the leaves on the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.  In the OT, the Bible says that enemies will lay their weapons down and be reconciled to one another by coming before God’s throne.  It’s in the shade of the tree of life that relationships are healed, past hurts are healed, worries are quieted, emptiness is filled. 

The tree of life brings healing. 

Let me just point out here that the tree of life has a connection in the Bible to a very different tree.  A tree of death.  The tree on which Jesus was crucified. 

We used to sing an old gospel song that included this lyric – His sacrifice on calvary has made the mighty cross a tree of life for me.

Healing comes from the leaves on the tree of life.  And it is by His stripes on another tree that we are healed.

Let’s look at vs. 3-5 in this passage, where the focus is less on what John sees in this vision and more on what we will experience in this place. 

I called it Eden Forever, because this is what will be our eternal experience as sons and daughters in the new heavens and the new earth.

And here’s the first thing for us to see in this part of the passage. 

The curse that God pronounced on His creation when Adam and Eve sinned in Genesis 3 – the ground is cursed, the serpent is cursed, the man and the women have to now live their lives dealing with the effects of the curse – that curse is reversed.  There is no more curse.  That’s what vs. 3 says

[3] No longer

will there be anything accursed,

It’s gone.  Lifted.  Everything that was subjected to the curse, material creation, humanity, our bodies, our broken relationships – all of it – is no longer under the curse.

Every year at Christmas, we sing a carol that was written not about the incarnation of Christ but about His second coming.  Do you know what carol it is?  It’s the Isaac Watts song “Joy To The World.” 

And one of the verses is “no more let sin or sorrow grow, or thorns infest the ground.  He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found.”

Curse is replaced by blessing – eternally.  Imagine.

In fact, notice that the reason there is nothing accursed in the new heavens and the new earth is because but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it.

Where God and the Lamb and the throne are, there cannot be a curse.

The second thing to notice about life in the new heavens and the new earth is that His servants will worship Him.

The most common Greek word for worship is the word pros-ku-NEH-o which literally means “to kiss toward” – to express love and affection in a particular direction.  When you worship God, you are making a statement of His great worth – He is worth your time and affection and adoration.

But here, the word John uses is la-TREE-u-o which means to worship by serving or ministering to.  It’s the word we find in Romans 12 where the Bible talks about us presenting our bodies to God as a living sacrifice, which is our acceptable service of worship – la-TREE-ah.

We tend to think of worship in eternity as one extended Sunday morning service where we sing hymns to God.  And I’m sure that’s going to happen.  We’ve already seen it happening in earlier chapters of Revelation. 

But I think most of our time in eternity will be serving God in some way.  Worshipping Him by serving Him.  Doing what?  I don’t know. The Bible doesn’t say.  But it looks like that’s what’s happening in vs. 3.  His servants are worshipping Him by serving.

There is something else remarkable that will be taking place in eternity.  Vs. 4 says God’s people will see His face.

You know why this is a big deal, right?  Remember Moses on Mt. Sinai?  What did he ask God for?  “Show me your glory.”  But God said “no one can see that and live.” 

Seeing God’s face – remember God is a spirit, so this is really an expression that means the revelation of God and His glory will be complete for us.

Jesus, however, does have a resurrection body and a face, so we will see it and see if it looks like the image on the shroud of Turin or not! 

John says in 1 John that when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is.  Seeing Him in the new earth, face to face, not through a mirror dimly, is how God will fully sanctify us.  When we see Him, that experience will conform us to His likeness.

In fact, look at this passage.

2 Corinthians 3:18

[18] And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Sam Storms says “In the new earth the final stage of this transformation will be attained. We will, by God’s grace, reach the final degree of glory. Just as the vision of Christ in the present (in Scripture) sanctifies us progressively, the vision of Christ in the future will sanctify us wholly. It is our experience of Christ that sanctifies. If progressive assimilation to the likeness of Christ results from our present beholding of him through a glass darkly, to behold him face to face, i.e., ‘to see him as he is,’ will result in instantaneous perfection or glorification.”

Aside from the sanctifying effect seeing the face of God will have in our lives, can you even imagine what it will be like to look into the face of Jesus, to see Him face to face?

We sang about it last week when we sang “turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.”  Today, we can do that through a glass, dimly, as I said.  But in eternity, face to face, unveiled.  It will change us forever.

John says we will also officially receive His name.  It will be written on our foreheads.  We saw this back in Revelation 3 and in Revelation 7.  The one who conquers, Jesus says, will have my name written on them.  That signifies ownership. 

I don’t know if moms still write names on kids clothes before they send them to camp, but if they do, like my mom did – I think my mom actually sewed labels on my clothes – the reason is to say “this pair of pants belongs to me.” 

Again, I don’t think that all of us in the new earth will have Jesus’ name visible on our foreheads for eternity.  Maybe we will. 

But the point is that God Himself will not only declare His ownership of us – we will belong to Him, adopted into His family.  But He is officially giving us His name for all eternity.  Today, we bear His name as His children.  It will be sealed for eternity when that day comes.

And finally, we will reign with Him forever.  

Now, have you wondered about this?  Have you wondered over whom or what you will one day be reigning?  Me too.  And the Bible tells us we’ll be ruling and reigning with Him, but that’s all it says. 

We know that in the first garden, the man and the woman were to have dominion and subdue the earth.  So I assume it will be in eternity what it was to be in Eden. 

Some suggest well will rule over angels.  Or over the new earth.  Maybe animals there?  We just don’t know.

Here’s what we do know.  Whatever is God’s plan for eternity, we will have a role to play. 

In this setting

where the river of life flows

and the tree of life bears fruit all year long,

and where we experience life as it was always meant to be,

full of joy and love and peace,

with no sin,

with the curse removed completely,

we will have work to do. 

And we will love doing it, whatever it is. 

I’ll conclude with this thought. 

How should a passage like this affect us today, in April of 2025? 

I’m going to show you three passages quickly that will answer that question for you. 

2 Corinthians 7:1

[1] Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

1 John 3:3

[3] And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

2 Peter 3:10–13

[10] But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

[11] Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, [12] waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! [13] But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

The right response the reading Revelation 22 and thinking “that’s going to be awesome and amazing” is to respond by saying “I should be getting myself ready to live in a place where sin is no more.  I should be cleansing myself, purifying myself.  I should be seeking to live a life of godliness and holiness now.”

I should be, as the writer of Hebrews says, laying aside every weight or sin that clings to me, and I should be running the race with endurance.  And I should be fixing my eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith, who I will one day see face to face and into whose likeness I will be transformed. 

That’s the right response to a passage like this.

Let’s pray.

Benediction

Psalm 67:1–2

         [1] May God be gracious to us and bless us

                  and make his face to shine upon us

         [2] that His way may be known on earth,

                  His saving power among all nations.