Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

And for the sake of Jerusalem I will not keep quiet

Until her righteousness goes forth like radiant light

And her salvation burns like a torch

2 The nations will see your righteousness

And all the kings will see your glory

You will be called by a new name

That the mouth of YHWH will give you

3 And you will be a beautiful crown in the hand of YHWH

And a royal diadem in the hand of your God

4 And it will not again be said of you, "Abandoned One"

And of your land it will not again be said, "Desolate"

For of you it will be proclaimed, "My Delight is In Her"

And of your land, "Married"

For YHWH delights in you

And your land will be married

5 For the young man will marry the virgin

And your sons will marry you

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride

Your God will rejoice over you

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the former heaven and the former earth passed away.

Also, the Sea was no more.

2 Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as it descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband.

3 Then I heard a loud voice from the throne say,

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.

For the former heaven and the former earth passed away.

Also, the Sea was no more.

Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as it descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband.

Then I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, as it descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband.

“Behold the the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

It is significant to note that the participles here are passive.

The Bride has been prepped and adorned for her husband.

Brides don’t do their own make-up.

They don’t make themselves beautiful.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne say,

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne say,

4 And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Nor mourning.

Nor crying.

Nor pain.

There will be no more because the former things passed away.

5 Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Then he said, “Write!

For these words are faithful and true.”

“Behold the the dwelling of God is with humanity, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them as their God.

According to bridalguide.com, the most popular months to get married are June, September, and October.

They say that this is because the weather is typically beautiful in early summer and fall.

I’ve personally officiated plenty of weddings over the past 12 years, and those wedding dates have been all over the calendar.

I haven’t done a survey, but I suspect that the reason those wedding dates are all over the calendar year is because the most important thing isn’t actually the wedding date, but the marriage itself.

When my wife and I take couples through pre-marriage counseling, one of the messages that we work hard to emphasize and repeat is that we’re not simply preparing them for a wedding day.

We’re trying to prepare them for a long life together as husband and wife.

It’s so easy, as you prepare for a wedding, to become consumed with all of the details in trying to make sure that the day goes well and that everything is beautiful.

When you’re consumed with all of those details you can easily miss the whole point, which is your union together and the new home that is formed by that union.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Nor mourning.

Nor crying.

Nor pain.

There will be no more because the former things passed away.

I always tell couples that the day is going to be beautiful, even if everything isn’t perfect.

The day is going to beautiful because of what’s taking place.

And most, if not all, of us have been to a wedding.

Many of us have been bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls, ring bearers, or ushers.

And when you’re at a wedding, any number of thoughts can be going through your head.

Typically for me, and I know it’s the case for my wife as well, I’ll reflect back on my own wedding day.

As I hear the vows I’ll be reminded of my own vows and renewed in my commitment to live them out.

If you’ve never been married and you attend a wedding, you can experience a sense of longing as you anticipate the day when you’ll be married.

If you were once married and are no longer married because of death or divorce, while you might be happy for the newlywed couple, weddings can be challenging.

They can remind you of your loss and the accompanying pain or disappointment of that loss.

There can be a longing for relief from that disappointment or pain.

And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Nor mourning.

Nor crying.

Nor pain.

There will be no more because the former things passed away.

So, whether your experience at weddings is delightful or difficult, whether your marriage experience is mostly picturesque or painful, it should amaze us that when God wants to give us a picture of what heaven is like, the imagery he uses is of a wedding.

Do you want to know the destiny of those who come to God through faith in Jesus Christ?

Picture the best marriage you can imagine and then multiply it by infinity.

Take it to infinity and beyond!

When God wants to declare to his people what their destiny is, have the picture in your mind of a beautiful bride decked out for her husband in anticipation of life together with him.

Understand that the Bible begins and ends with a wedding.

In the first two chapters, the pinnacle of creation is the man and woman.

We hear these words from at weddings all the time, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

Those words weren’t just for repetition at weddings, they also set a trajectory forward in anticipation of these words in , “I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem as she descended out of heaven from God after being prepared and adorned as a bride for her husband…And I heard a great voice out of heaven say, ‘Behold the dwelling of God is with humanity.

And he will live with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Then he said, “Write!

For these words are faithful and true.”

What does it mean to have this kind of destiny?

What does it mean to be “Destiny’s Children”?

It means a guarantee of beauty; personal beauty, collective beauty, where nothing that is not beautiful will ever exist again.

It sounds like a fantasy, but it is backed by the full faith and credit of God himself.

Then the one who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

Then he said, “Write!

For these words are faithful and true.”

So, I want to hone in on two things as we work through this passage, Longing for Beauty and Living for Beauty.

Destiny’s Children live with longing for all things to be made beautiful.