Rev. 21:1-4 "Dwelling With God"

Introduction

The Kingdom of God is currently manifesting on the earth in a spiritual manner.

Christ came into the world to establish the foundation for that and He is currently ruling over it until all His enemies are put under His feet.

We know that the last enemy to be destroyed will be death and as we saw last week from Revelation 20:11-15

The work of Christ in His Kingdom has been redemptive and restorative in nature. And that Spiritual dynamic has focused us forward to something that will manifest a transformation of a physical nature.

John saw this reality in our text this morning and it helps contextualize our hope and anticipation for what is to come for the covenant people of God. Look back at your text to verses 1-2 at the Description that John gives.

I. The Description (1-2).

The Great White Throne of judgment having ended John sees a new scene that is redemptive in its display.

He describes a new heaven and a new earth because the first heaven and earth have passed away.

And in this new heaven and new earth there was no longer any sea.

Understand that the term “passed away” in this context denotes the idea of something being discontinued.

Like when you have an appliance break down and you try to get the part in order to fix it, you may find out that the appliance and the part is discontinued.

They can’t sell you a part but they will be glad to sell you a new appliance of the new and improved model.

But in verse 2 John gets even more descriptive. He sees the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride to meet her husband.

Christian if you have ever been to a wedding you know that the bride is usually decked out and everyone wants to get a look at her. She is adorned in radiance for the day of her union with her husband.

And you say how can a city be like this? A radiant bride for her husband? She is like this because the city is imagery of the redeemed people of God. The city is the Church of the living God.

Galatians 4:26 refers to the Jerusalem that is above as being our mother

Hebrews 12:22-24: 22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

The display of her radiance if the imputed righteousness of God in Christ.

Now if were to look at Romans 8:18-25 we would see that the Apostle Paul talked about creation groaning in the pains of childbirth longing for the day of our eternal redemption.

Creation longs for that day because in connection to our redemption it too will be redeemed from the curse. This is how the old is discontinued and the new gets established for eternity.

The new heavens and the new earth is the redemption of creation while the new Jerusalem points to the redemption of the children of God.

Now comes the question: Pastor Brett do you believe in a literal city in eternity? Yes I do but the radiance and glory of the city is the Lamb and His redemptive work in building it.

The emphasis does not appear to be the physical structure. The emphasis is revealed in the Declaration of verses 3-4. Look back at your text:

II. The Declaration (3-4).

John goes from what he saw in manifesting redemption to what he heard and the words reveal 2 dynamics at work.

The first dynamic is reconciliation. God dwelling with men as their God and them as His people.

This has all the overtones of the relationship between God and man in the garden of Eden. Sin brought the seperation and the exile and here reconciliation is the dynamic on display. It is the covenant ambition of God in His relationship to His people.

Lev. 26:12; Jer. 24:7; 32:38; Zech. 13:9; 2 Cor. 6:16 as well as many other text of Scripture tell us about this relationship. Even the life of Christ displays it as John’s gospel tells us in John 1:14: 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

God desires a people for Himself in order to manifest His glory and to exhibit His covenant faithfulness to them for all of eternity.

Keep the dynamic of reconciliation hovering in your mind as we look at the second dynamic in verse 4*

This is the dynamic of restoration. He wipes away our tears and death is over, mourning no more, crying no more, pain no more, the former things of life under the curse of sin are gone forever.

Now take being reconciled relationship and connect it to restoration to live free from sin and its curse while being complete in our reconciliation to God and that is the pinacle of our inheritance in eternity and it never ends.

And we can’t even imagine what it will be like. Our thoughts of extreme pleasure are so tied to our fleshly appetites and our experience of the temporal in a fallen world that we struggle to grasp it.

The contrast is more extreme than anything we deal with on earth. You have heard me say that I was raised on a farm in Kentucky.

When I was a little boy around 4 years old I recieved a toy farm. It had a barn made out of metal with the animals, fence and I already had the John Deere tractors to add to it.

But none of that stuff was real. It was all symbolic of the real farm where my Dad worked and made a living for His family.

As I grew I gradually moved away to the real and away from the symbolic toy. I bagan to work with real animals and drive real tractors and to work in a real barn. Who wants the toy when you can play with the real stuff.

Christian, life in Christ in this world will not leave us content at play with the symbolic “toys”. It will gradually push you and point you towards the ultimate reality of eternity. Spiritual growth is reflective of a greater intensity in our relationship with God.

Because it takes you in that spiritual growth away from temporal things to the things that really last and are experienced in and through Christ.

Life in Christ cultivates a hunger to be with God because nothing else will satisfy than to be with Him and have all the hinderences of this life removed, including our sin.

This is where the Spiritual reality of God with us will one day become the physical reality of God with us. And life in this world testifies to this again and again.

C.S. Lewis reminds us of this when he says: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world”

We are redeemed that we may be reconciled and restored to that which we were created for.

Conclusion

What about you? Are you content playing with the toys?

Christian would eternity be OK if you could have everything the Bible describes about heaven but God be absent would that be OK with you?

A thousand times no. He made us for His glory and good pleasure and He has more for us than we can fathom. He has Himself to give.

The Cross reminds us of this. Christ was the foretaste of eternity with God. He is weaning us off of our toys to that which is eternal.

Grace is preparing us for something big. Confess and recieve from Him.

Unbeliever: Believe! Lets Pray!