Ruling On The New Earth Pt.2 3-22-2020

HEAVEN - SEEING THE UNSEEN RULING ON THE NEW EARTH Pt.2 Sunday March 22, 2022 Scripture Reference: Revelation 5:1-10 And I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. There was writing on the inside and the outside of the scroll, and it was sealed with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel, who shouted with a loud voice: "Who is worthy to break the seals on this scroll and unroll it?" But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll and read it. Then I wept because no one could be found who was worthy to open the scroll and read it. But one of the twenty-four elders said to me, "Stop weeping! Look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the heir to David's throne, has conquered. He is worthy to open the scroll and break its seven seals." I looked and I saw a Lamb that had been killed but was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty-four elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that are sent out into every part of the earth. He stepped forward and took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. And as he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense-the prayers of God's people! And they sang a new song with these words: "You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were killed, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become God's Kingdom and his priests. And they will reign on the earth." Revelation 5:1-10 (NLT) Intro. A. Last week we began our study into this idea of ruling and reigning on the New earth. Once again I realize that this is a difficult concept for us to grasp and I will talk more about why that is later on in this message, but the basic reason this is so is because of how sin has corrupted the things that God made to be good for us. Most of what we know and understand about ruling and reigning today is corrupted by greed, envy, pride, power, self-centeredness and the list goes on and no. Let me remind you though that these messages are about Heaven and not about this world as we now know it. That is not to say that we can't do anything about the way the world has corrupted ruling on earth. We are after all supposed to be salt and light. Remember I have been saying a lot that we need to begin living now as if we were in Heaven not waiting until that day arrives. One of the areas where we see the issue of ruling being deeply corrupted is in the area of politics. I think this is one of the reasons why we are so fed up with the things we see going on in Sacramento and Washington DC. We see people who are in these positions of power for all the wrong reasons. 1. We I know we will not be perfect in this life the way we rule, but the scripture is constantly telling us that we are the bride of Christ and we are supposed to be preparing ourselves for the bridegroom. So, let's poise the question: I. WILL WE ACTUALLY RULE WITH CHRIST? Well I hope I have already made the basic answer to that question very clear, but let's explore it a little further today. As I said a moment ago this concept of ruling on the New Earth is a hard concept to grasp, but why are we surprised by this fact? A. Why Are We Surprised That We Will Rule On Earth? 1. God created Adam and Eve to be the King and Queen of earth. It was their responsibility to rule over and in doing so to care for the earth God had created. But guess what, They Failed! Now the Bible tells us that Christ is the second Adam. It says in Corinthians "Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven." 1 Corinthians 15:47 (NLT) Christ is now the new head of the human race and the church, the redeemed ones are his bride and we are to be co-rulers with him. We are to accomplish what was entrusted to Adam and Eve. In Heaven the saints of God will fulfill the role that was originally given to Adam and Eve. 2. Here is what a man named Richard Mouw writes about this "Over and over again the Scriptures make this plain: the political power which has been so corrupted and twisted in the hands and hearts of sinful rulers must be returned to its rightful source." Richard Mouw The kingdom that Christ brings to this earth will crush all other earthly kingdoms. Here is what the book of Daniel tells us "The whole statue collapsed into a heap of iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold. The pieces were crushed as small as chaff on a threshing floor, and the wind blew them all away without a trace. But the rock that knocked the statue down became a great mountain that covered the whole earth." Daniel 2:35 (NLT) Kingdoms rise and fall as history has shown us, but Christ will establish a kingdom that will never end. It will be a kingdom where God and His people will rule and reign in righteousness and we will know nothing of the corruption we see today. Here is a prophecy from Zechariah "Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey-even on a donkey's colt. 10 I will remove the battle chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and I will destroy all the weapons used in battle. Your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth." Zechariah 9:9-10 (NLT) The first part of this prophecy was fulfilled of course on Palm Sunday when Jesus road into Jerusalem, but the second half has not yet been fulfilled. We are all too aware of the lack of peace in our world today. It certainly seems that we have never been further from peace than we are today. Yes, as Christians we can have peace in our hearts, but we also know that because of the powerful force of sin in this world even that peace can be disrupted. When Jesus comes again, we will finally know a peace that right now we only get short glimpses of. We talked a little bit last week that there are two kingdoms operating in the world today. Jesus spoke of this in the parable of the wheat and weeds. Let's look at that. "Here is another story Jesus told: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. 25 But that night as everyone slept, his enemy came and planted weeds among the wheat. 26 When the crop began to grow and produce grain, the weeds also grew. 27 The farmer's servants came and told him, `Sir, the field where you planted that good seed is full of weeds!' 28 " `An enemy has done it!' the farmer exclaimed. " `Shall we pull out the weeds?' they asked. 29 "He replied, `No, you'll hurt the wheat if you do. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. Then I will tell the harvesters to sort out the weeds and burn them and to put the wheat in the barn.' " Matthew 13:24-30 (NLT) Here is what you and I need to understand from this parable. While it is true that there are evil rulers on this earth today. As Christ's followers we need to continue to grow in Christ like character and in doing so show our readiness to rule when Christ finally returns. 3. Once again this concept of ruling is a hard one for us to grasp and accept, but I like what Randy Alcorn said about this. "Nothing demonstrates how far we've distanced ourselves from our biblical calling like our lack of knowledge about our destiny to rule the earth. Why are we so surprised by something that is told to us in both the Old and New testaments?" The apostle Paul spoke to this issue of our ruling in his letter to the Corinthians "Don't you know that someday we Christians are going to judge the world? And since you are going to judge the world, can't you decide these little things among yourselves? 3 Don't you realize that we Christians will judge angels? So you should surely be able to resolve ordinary disagreements here on earth." 1 Corinthians 6:2-3 (NLT) Paul also said in 2 Timothy "If we endure hardship, we will reign with him..." 2 Timothy 2:12a (NLT) 4. The Bible tells us that we are to be given crowns in Heaven. A crown speaks of someone who has ruling authority. Here are several verses that speak to this. "Remain faithful even when facing death, and I will give you the crown of life." Revelation 2:10b (NLT) "To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, I will give authority over all the nations." Revelation 2:26 (NLT) "Look, I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown." Revelation 3:11 (NLT) "the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the one who lives forever and ever. And they lay their crowns before the throne.." Revelation 4:10 (NLT) Revelation 5:10 tells us that we will reign on the earth. Here is what Hebrews tells us about this. "And furthermore, the future world we are talking about will not be controlled by angels. 6 For somewhere in the Scriptures it says, "What is man that you should think of him, and the son of man that you should care for him? 7 For a little while you made him lower than the angels, and you crowned him with glory and honor. 8 You gave him authority over all things." Now when it says "all things," it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all of this happen." Hebrews 2:5-8 (NLT) Notice that it says we will be rulers over "all things" but then it goes on to say that right now we can't even imagine what the "all things" will be, but he clearly says "nothing is left out". This goes to what I have said many times in this series and that is that we are not able at this point to realize all that life in the Heaven holds for us. It's not that we can't imagine anything, but we can never get our tiny little minds around all that God has instore for us. Trans. Now again because we might have some reservations about ruling on the New earth let me address a question in closing that might well be your question. B. Should We want To Rule On Earth? 1. I will say this one last time, if you are hesitant or even resistant about ruling on the New Earth that is because you do not understand what it means to do so. You are looking at ruling through the eyes of the curse. You might say "I don't think I want to be ruling when I get to Heaven. That would not be my idea of Heaven." To that let me give you this answer, this was not your idea in the first place, it was God's idea. Ruling is part of the family business you might say. To not want to be a part of the family business is to not want to be a part of the family. "The government of the New Earth won't be a democracy. It won't be majority rule, and it won't be driven by opinion polls. Instead, every citizen of Heaven will have an appointed role, one that fulfills him or her and contributes to the whole." Because this is the case you will want to rule because whatever role God has you playing will bring utter fulfillment to your life. It will be something that will joyous and not a burden as we see it now. Here is what a man named Rene Pache said "The future heaven is centered more on activity and expansion, serving Christ and reigning with Him...The emphasis in the present heaven is on the absence of earth's negatives, while in the future heaven it is the presence of earth's positives, magnified many times through the power and glory of resurrected bodies on a resurrected earth, free at last from sin and shame and all that would hinder both joy and achievement." RenÉ Pache 2. Now let me address what I consider to be a very important issue when it comes to these responsibilities on the New Earth. Let me give you something Jesus said "Unless you are faithful in small matters, you won't be faithful in large ones. If you cheat even a little, you won't be honest with greater responsibilities." Luke 16:10 (NLT) All of us are going to have duties and responsibilities on the New Earth. Some have the idea that Heaven is going be eternal retirement and that is just biblically inaccurate. The bible tells us that there will be responsibilities for us in Heaven and what those things are, are being determined by what we are doing with our lives right now. Now this doesn't mean that those who have pushed and shoved and manipulated their way into positions of responsibility will be given greater roles in Heaven because the bible says this. "For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored." Luke 14:11 (NLT) 3. As I said in the very beginning of this message, we have trained ourselves in this world to see ruling and governing associated with self-promotion, greed, corruption, disparaging others and the list goes on and on and that's why I said I think we have such a distaste for politicians because this is how so many of them get into power. But again, let me say these are just evidences of how sin has corrupted things that God made good. Again, you may not think right now that you will want to be ruling in Heaven, but what you don't like now will surely change when we leave this sun cursed world behind. Imagine leading and serving as pure joy. Whatever God choses to give us to do in Heaven will being us nothing but pure delight. None of us will be saying "God do I have to do that or, I don't want to do that." Whatever God gives us to do in Heaven we will be perfectly wired for in fact I believe that God has wired us NOW for what we will be doing in Heaven and that is why I am so big on us finding the SHAPE God made for us and employing that shape in His service Now. 4. Let's do a little imagining shall we? Let's imagine what God might make us responsible for. I dearly love the ocean. Maybe God has a role for me in caring for some part of the ocean. Maybe you love the mountains of deserts so maybe God has a responsibility for you in those areas. My wife loves animals she has often said that she would love to volunteer in an animal shelter. I think living with me the past 44 years has helped equip her but that's another story, but maybe God will have my wife working with animals in Heaven. Maybe your delight is in work working or metal or even technology. Maybe God will just simply let us choose what we want to do of course doing what God wants me to do is going to be doing what I want to do anyway. 5. Matthew 25:23 says, "His master said to him, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' Matthew 25:23 (ESV) Dallas Willard made this comment on this passage "That 'joy' is, of course, the creation and care of what is good, in all its dimensions. A place in God's creative order has been reserved for each one of us from before the beginnings of cosmic existence. His plan is for us to develop, as apprentices to Jesus, to the point where we can take our place in the ongoing creativity of the universe." Dallas Willard Once again I want to emphasis that fact that we are Right Now in training for Heaven and that is why we need to live like we are in Heaven. Psalm 139 speaks the uniqueness of how each of us was made. He has a Divine purpose for each of our lives and if we wish to hear him say some day "Well done good and faithful servant" then we had better be good and faithful servants now. Our ministry on this earth is not insignificant or unimportant, it has eternal consequences! Notice again that Matthew 25:23 tells us that when we do what God designed us for, we "share" our master's joy. When we are doing what God wants us to do, we are being fulfilled and we are also being filled with an inexhaustible joy, the joy of God Himself! Let me close with this. Conclusion A. We all know what it means to have our hopes and dreams crushed or destroyed. It is very easy to become disappointed and or discouraged, but here is what all of us needs to know. 1. Here on earth we are apprentices we are people learning a trade as it were. In this life we are learning the trade God has designed us for and we are also training for the life to come. Now sometimes an apprentice might think they have learned enough to move on. They think they are ready for more and greater responsibilities when in fact they are not. A good trainer will say "no" even if it means he might hurt the feelings of the apprentice. So now the apprentice has a choice, either follow the counsel of the trainer or decide they know best and strike out on their own. 2. What I might see as the death of my dream or the lack of trust of my trainer is actually the wisdom and protection of that trainer. I need to understand a very basic but important lesson, God's "no" is not rejection but redirection. He loves me and desires even more for me than I do. I must learn to trust Him and walk with Him and not against Him. 3. One last word. God is not only preparing a place for us he is preparing us for that place. Will you allow yourself to be clay in the potter's hands so that He can mold as He will and not as you will? 4