Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction
This season the lectionary has been focusing on the book of Revelation.
This can be a difficult book to read, even more to understand, and even more difficult to preach on.
I have heard great pastors say they never want to preach on this book.
While we are not going through the entire book I have been taking a stab some of the passages.
I was excited when I saw what this week’s passage was.
This passage at the end of Revelation is one of my favorites in all of Scripture.
This is one of the passages I read with my mom as she was laying in the ICU nearing the end of her journey.
In this passage the apostle John is shown the prize, the end of the journey, as John Bunyan called it the Celestial City.
John is a witness to heaven, the new Jerusalem..............or is he.
One of the biggest issues with understanding the book of Revelation is that Bible scholars don’t agree on the genera in which it was written.
There are some people that view it as apocalyptic.
This would see it as a prophecy for the future.
The literal end of days, think of the Left Behind series.
There are others that believe it was written in code to communicate with Christians that were suffering persecution.
Still others believe it is a metaphor for the world, for humanities fall and God’s redemptive plan.
Now I believe that all these interpretations have merit, but more than anything I feel that it is a book about worship.
How and why we worship God.
We see God’s majesty and we see our response to it.
I would like to present this theory to you.
The New Jerusalem here can be understood in two ways, first is the ultimate goal.
The eternal home for all of those who believe.
But I also think it can be understood as a metaphor for us, because here on earth we are God’s dwelling place, and when we have faith, we are the new Jerusalem.
We are the new Jerusalem because....
God is Close even when we are not
John 14:23
There are times when we feel like God is not with us.
But God is always dwelling with us
He promises to make a home with us (John 14:23)
God is the temple
It is said that a temple is where God resides
But we are told there will no longer be a temple because God will always be with the people.
This is not a new concept
The Hebrew people in exile were taught this
God has always been with His people where ever they are
When it feels like God is distant from us it is not because of Him it is because of us.
Teens and their parents
Being the New Jerusalem we know....
God is our light when we are in the Dark
There are times when we feel like we are in the dark
Darkness is a real condition
could be from mental illness
Could be from addiction
Could be from loss
Darkness is the void of light
When God is with us there is no need for light
God is the light
We do not need to look for outside sources for the light
no sun or moon
God is the light
God lights our path
When we don’t know the way or when we feel that we are in the dark we have to look to God to be our light
My personal struggle with ministry and lack of God
Because we are the New Jerusalem we know.....
God is our purity when we are impure
We cannot hope to be pure on our own
Total depravity
We cannot make the right decisions
Even if the decisions we make seem like they are right without God we make them for the wrong reasons
Phoebe doing good unselfishly
We cannot be impure when we allow God to reside in us
It is physically impossible to be impure when God totally resides in us.
Nothing impure may enter our body when we are filled with God
But it takes total submission to God to allow us to be totally pure
By our human nature we do not want to submit
We have to be willing to completely submit to God
Body
Mind
Soul
John Wesley writes in his sermon Repentance of Believers: “Now self-will, as well as pride, is a species of idolatry; and both are directly contrary to the Love of God.
The same observation may be made concerning the love of the world.”
“It is true, when [a believer] first passes from death unto life he desires nothing more but God.
He can truly say, ‘All my desire is unto thee,’ and ‘unto the remembrance of thy name.’
And ‘there is none upon the earth that I desire besides thee?’
But it is not always so.
In process of time he will feel again (though perhaps only for a few moments) either the desire of the flesh, or the desire of the eye, or the pride of life’.
Nay if he does not continually watch and pray he may find lust reviving, yea, and thrusting sore at him that he may fall, till he has scarce any strength left in him.
He may feel the assaults of inordinate affection, a strong propensity to ‘love the creature more than the Creator.’
He may feel in a thousand various ways a desire of earthly things or pleasures.
In the same proportion he will forget God, not seeking his happiness in him, and consequently being a ‘lover of pleasure more than a lover of God.’”
With out total submission we are destined to slip back into our impure lives.
And, because we are the New Jersualem we can have the assurance that ........
God is our life when we are dead
Scripture says we are dead to sin Romans 6.11.
It is because of the sin of Adam that death has even come into the world Romans 5.12
But in the same way we were all offered eternal life through one man.
Romans 5.19
Through the sacrifice of Christ we are all offered life.
Conclusion
To say that God is ever far from us it to not have a full understanding of God.
God is always right there with us.
All we have to do it look for him and there he’ll be.
Whenever we feel there is a distance between us and God it is because of us.
It is a distance that we create.
Whether it comes through our embrace of the world over our embrace of God.
Whether it comes from our own dis-interest or complacency.
No matter what the reason, it is not because of God.
Jesus has opened the way for our closeness with God.
It is up to us walk through.
Let’s pray.
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