The Return of the King

Rev 21-22

Hello to everyone!

And 5th Graders welcome!

I am so excited that you are here— in just a few days you will be 6th graders!

Congratulations!

Well you guys are going to be getting a small taste of what you can expect from our teaching.

Over the next 3 years you will hear about the Bible.

All of it- from Genesis the very first book all the way till the end book Revelation.

And Revelation is actually where we open up to tonight!

But before we do this i have something for us to do.

Go ahead and break into your breakout groups.

5th graders all of you can actually go back with Austin.

As you gather in your groups, you all will need a deck of cards.

So send someone up here to get a deck of cards.

You will have 3 min to build a house of cards.

once the time is up then we will see how long your houses will stand for.

You can only use the cards for your house, nothing else.

Get ready and Go!

Alright— Everyone loses!

Head back to your seats.

When God first created the world it was perfect.

He crafted the world with precision and care.

That included you and me.

But something happened.

In the beginning Adam and Eve sinned and in doing so laid out a blueprint for the rest of the world to follow.

We tried to build our own kingdoms that put us on the throne.

Following the blueprint given to us by Adam and Eve— Sin continued to destroy everything that God had created.

The world was a giant mess.

We were brought into the world that was messy.

And just like your house of cards that kept falling down,

We fell for sin.

It wrecks our lives.

BUT GOD—

The master architect.

The God of the universe choose to bring restoration to what was and is broken.

The blueprint was changed—

The plan was fixed.

God brought restoration to our relationship with Him through Jesus and it continues today!

And one day, He will complete that work in us. (Phil 1:6)

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

And everything will be made new around us.

Our journey through the gospel project comes to a close in Revelation.

While there are some details we did not cover, and some stories that were left untold.

We followed the major theme of the Bible.

Jesus.

He is the main character.

As we look to the future, in the book of Revelation, we see God laying out a blueprint, a story that has yet to unfold, but will keep pointing to the main character Jesus.

For he is the one who will make all things new!

So if you have your Bibles lets open up to Revelation 21.

We are going to be looking at the end of Revelation!

The end times are complete.

Jesus has made His return.

Satan is defeated!

While we may want to get hung up in the details of the two witnesses, the seven seals, the 144,000— sometimes we forget to look past all of those future event to what is going to be next for us.

So I have three things that will change or that will be part of Jesus’ Kingdom.

The first thing is Christ will make all things new.

CHRIST WILL MAKE ALL THINGS NEW

As we saw at the very beginning of this gospel project durning the study of Genesis, humanity is created in the image of God.

Of course that does not mean that we are God.

We are actually far from it.

But we reflect God.

So now at the end everything is being restored.

God is making all things new and getting us back to a full, image-bearing relationship with him.

Revelation 21:1–5 ESV

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 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. 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.” 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.”

As you may remember from Genesis Adam and Eve traded eternal freedom for the bondage of sin that they found in a piece of fruit.

Satan deceived them into believing a lie, and as a result Adam and Eve rebelled against God’s commands.

The consequence of this was brokenness.

There was brokenness is the relationship between God and his creation.

The world became broken.

We also developed broken relationships with each other.

It is only through a perfect man— The Messiah— could the image of God and the brokenness of humanity be redeemed and restored.

And he did.

Paying the debt that we would owed.

This was the plan in the beginning when sin entered the world, the plan was executed to perfection.

We see God being faithful over and over again in this book.

From the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament.

And by understanding the past— the sin of Adam and Eve, Jesus- his perfect life, death, and resurrection; as well as his ascension to the throne and to him sending the Holy Spirit we can understand how and why God is renewing all things.

And more then anything else we can understand why it is so important to live in light of eternity now.

All things are broken, but one God will make all things new.

Last week, my grandpa past away.

He was my papa.

And it has been really sad, and really hard to deal with that.

It happened pretty quickly, but I know that he had hope in Jesus and it makes it easier knowing that he is free from pain.

In our broken world— we will experience the consequences of a broken world.

Maybe you have experienced something like this.

Death was a part of sin entering the world.

And when Jesus makes his return, we will no longer taste death, but life abundantly.

Look at verse 4

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.”

God will make all things new!

He put our hope in God and we wait for the new world— When Jesus is on his Throne.

Another thing that is going to be different is that Christ will separate believers from unbelievers.

CHRIST WILL SEPARATE BELIEVERS FROM UNBELIEVERS

Because God is good, loving, and just, one day sin, evil, and death will be no more.

God will wipe out all ungodliness from creation, and we will live forever with him.

Without the fear of sinning, or slipping back into sin, or fear of losing a loved one, or war.

The end of Revelation gives us a pretty clear picture of this.

Revelation 22:8–15 ESV

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

When thinking about Christ separating believers from unbelievers for eternity I can imagine you may have some fear about this.

As in am I a believer?

In Romans 10:9 we are told what we must to to be saved.

Romans 10:9–10 ESV

because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.

Once you make this profession of faith then you will be saved.

Keep growing in your faith and following the path God has laid out for you.

John 10:28–29 ESV

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

This is the hope that we have.

Do you have this hope?

If you do not, do not leave here without talking to someone about this hope in Jesus.

Something else also happens as we talk about separating believers from unbelievers for an eternity.

We think of the terrifying word death.

Death is inevitable.

10 out of 10 people die.

And while it is inevitable it is never easy trust me.

And when the death of a loved one hits what can we do?

We dive into Scripture.

We pray.

We seek comfort from other believers in our community.

This why we encourage you to get involved with your small groups.

They are your community.

It is so important to have your community around you.

Last Friday was my papa funeral and I did the funeral and i knew it was going to be hard and it was great having my family there who love and support me but about ten minutes before it started Kevin Fogerty walked in and....

Or we develop coping mechanisms to comfort our souls.

Denial, detachment, and distractions.

Sometimes the death of a loved one is too painful to deal with—even if we know that our loved one trusted in Jesus and are now with him.

So when we think about Jesus separating believers from unbelievers and those unbelievers being cast into a place of eternal torment—of eternal separation from God and we are told that is good— we look at that in horror.

That is not something we want to think about.

So we develop different coping mechanisms for that as well.

We deny, detach, and distract.

Listen loved ones,

The eternal separation of people we love—or anyone for that matter, even those we struggle to love or those we don’t know— should break our hearts.

We trust in God’s justice and goodness and we know that this is what all sin deserves—even our own.

Romans 3:23 ESV

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 6:23 ESV

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Yet we should look forward this day with grief.

Why?

This grief should drive us.

It should drive us into action as we pour our lives into sharing the hope of the Gospel.

The gospel is the only reason we will not be among those cast away from God’s presence.

Now just knowing of the Gospel is one thing— but actually living it out is another thing.

So what else will change?

We know that Christ will make all things new.

That Christ will separate believers from unbelievers.

and lastly God’s people will forever be in God’s place under God’s loving rule.

GOD’S PEOPLE WILL FOREVER BE IN GOD’S PLACE UNDER GOD’S LOVING RULE

Forever!

Forever is a long time isn’t it?

In fact, when the Bible speaks of forever it uses the term to describe exceeding time.

Forever more or less means no time.

That can be hard for our brains to think about because we function is this world on time.

But here is what Revelation 22:1-5 says.

Revelation 22:1–5 ESV

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. 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. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 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.

This is what Jesus prayed for in Matthew 6, also known as the Lord’s prayer.

Matthew 6:9–10 ESV

Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

In the beginning/ in Eden this was a reality.

God walked among His people.

There was no barrier between them.

Though sin broke that bond, Jesus stepped into human history to fix it.

So when he prayed for heaven and earth to meet, he was not being poetic—he was proclaiming something universe-altering.

He was praying for the beginning to Rev 21 and 22.

Where sin was no more and satan has been defeated.

And God people, you and I will dwell with Him again.

Our hope is not to escape this earth all together one day and live somewhere in heaven.

We were not designed for that; we were designed to live here, on earth.

But not in its current condition.

We were suppose to live here in a place where heaven and earth are fused together.

If we were sent out of the world, it would mean Satan won, at least a partial victory and that God failed and had to come up with plan B.

But God is sovereign and good, works out all things for His glory and our good.

Romans 8:28 ESV

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

The perfection of Eden will be restored one day, only it will be even better—the world will look like it was suppose to, covered in image-bearers who bask in the rays of God’s glory for eternity.

We should not fear this, but we rejoice in it.

And with that the story has come full circle.

What began with God creating everything good— and humanity at the pinnacle of creation ruling under his sovereignty, enjoying relationship with Him and one another, and enjoying rhythms of work and rest for His glory— has ended the same way.

Well nearly the same way— the ending is much better than the beginning.

We have seen lot in our journey through the Bible, we have seen God’s glory deeper and more clearly with every turn of the page.

What we ruined in our sinful rebellion, God has redeemed in Christ Jesus, who will one day return and restore all things to what they should have been.

Our God is a pursuing God who came after us to bring salvation from sin and he continues to pursue others until the end.

A.W. Tozer said

“We need never shout across the spaces to an absent God. He is nearer than our own soul, closer than our most secret thoughts.”

God is with you, today, tomorrow and always.

Lean into him and trust him always.

Christ will be on the throne in the end.

Everything will be restored.

If you want to be part of the new kingdom, repent of your sins, accept Jesus as Lord of your life and believe in the resurrection and you will be saved.

Let’s pray

Questions:

What did you learn about precision and carefulness as you built your house of cards?

How have you experienced the consequences of a broken world in your life?

How should Jesus’s promise to restore all things influence the way we live today?

How does the gospel provide comfort and understanding when it comes to dealing with the reality of death?

What is something that you have learned over the last year? (or two years or three years depending on which grade).

Who is one person that you can share the Gospel with this week?

Who is one person that you can invite to Grounded this week?