Revelation 21:1-8, Born to Reign

Theological Proposition/Focus: King Jesus is more than our present king, he is our eternal king.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: As we celebrate Christmas we should also look forward to the end-game that King Jesus has promised.

Introduction:

Image: Cindy's confidence, one way or another we will see you again.

Cindy was a 20 year old young lady from China. Cindy had come to the United States to attend college in Iowa, was visiting Colorado for Christmas, and stayed at my parents house for the two week Christmas break. Just that fall, Cindy had come to know Jesus as her Savior and she was excited in her faith. We went on a number of trips, the zoo, the mountains, sledding, and of course church services. Over the course of that time Cindy and my mom grew close. When the time came for Cindy to return to school in Iowa and hugs were going around I overheard as Cindy was hugging my mom and as the tears flowed down her face. “Whether hear on earth or in heaven, I will see you again.”

Setting the Stage:

The revelation given to John and recorded in the book of Revelation is notoriously hard to interpret. However, not everything about the book is difficult. In fact, there are some aspects of Revelation that are really fairly simple to interpret. Today, we are going to take some low hanging fruit. Please turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 21. We are going to look at verses 1-8.

Revelation chapter 20 concluded with judgement. judgement passed on Satan, and judgement on those who were spiritually dead. In both cases, the destiny is simple. The lake of fire. Satan and those who are spiritually dead are cast into the lake of fire where they are tormented for ever.

The question that remains is really important. What about those who are not spiritually dead? What about those who by grace, through faith, have come to know Jesus as their personal Savior. What fate awaits such an individual? As we head forward into the Christmas season I want to actually start at the end. You see Jesus was born to reign as the eternal king over creation.

Hebrews 1:8 states "But about the Son he says, 'Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.'" and is a quote from Psalm 45:6. Jesus was born to be king, born to reign and so as we look forward to the Christmas I want us to look into eternity and celebrate Christ in light of the promised eternity we know is coming.

Body

Let me read to you from Revelation 21:1-8 and as I read try to picture the scene.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

We might summarize the passage with one word, "together."

Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus are destined for an incredible eternal dwelling (21:1-2).

A new heaven and a new earth are reminders that sin is defeated and the burden of sin is only temporary.

Do you want to know "what is the biggest impediment to relationships in your life?" The answer is pretty easy, sin. Sin get's in the way. Sin destroyed your relationship with God. "Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. (Col. 1:21)" And sin gets in the way of your relationship with others. Just think about it, when was the last time that anything other than sin caused a problem in one of your relationships.

In Revelation 21:1 we see a radical solution to a radical problem, a New heaven and New Earth. We live in a fallen world and sin is all around us. I personally cannot go very long without sinning and even less time without being tempted to sin. The world we live in is broken and it doesn't take long to realize that no mere human is going to be able to solve the brokenness in our world. The idea here of a new heaven is not necessarily a reference to the dwelling place of God, it is a reference to the atmosphere and planetary space. That is, everywhere that the curse is found. We must realize that we are rapidly approaching a time when the fallenness of the world as we know it is no more. Personally, I cannot fathom what this will be like. We are told in the passage that there will be no more sea. The idea here of there being no more sea is probably the idea that there is no longer the need for any punishment for sin. Often the sea, in Revelation, seems to bear the image of evil. Moreover, there will not even be the potential for a flood to destroy sin on this new earth. Why? Because the potential for sin is eliminated.

Listen to how Isaiah describes this New Heaven and Earth in Isaiah 65:17-19

“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. 19 I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

It is worth taking a second to talk about what exactly happens to the Old and what the New might be. John uses the word ἀπῆλθαν, to pass away, to describe the event. This word is a bit ambiguous. It does not necessarily mean the old is destroyed but it could carry that meaning. What we know is that the old is gone. We can cross reference to 2 Peter 3:10-13,

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.

Let me just speculate a little here. At the atomic level we have quarks that make up protons and neutrons. Within the nucleus of an atom protons stick together despite having electromagnetic forces that would otherwise drive them apart. Why do they stick together? The answer is not gravity, gravity is not strong enough to overcome the effect of electromagnetism. The answer comes from what is know as the Strong Force or Nuclear Force. At a scale of 10−15 m (1 femtometer, slightly more than the radius of a nucleon), the strong force is approximately 100 times as strong as electromagnetism. This force holds the nucleus of an atom together. Now suppose this force disappears, what would happen? We would literally have atoms falling apart. this is essentially what happens in a nuclear reaction. Now suppose the entire universe went nuclear? I don't know about you but I would describe this as the elements burning with a roar and being destroyed in a fire. I really wonder if Peter, through the Holy Spirit, is describing something he could not even fathom.

In any case, for John the emphasis is not on how the New Heavena nd New Earth come to be, the emphasis is on the newness. John's point is that God will create a New Heaven and a New Earth.

The new city Jerusalem is a reminder that God is the eternal provider.

One of the hardest theological truths that people struggle with is what is called dualism. Now most of us would not call ourselves dualists. However, we often subscribe to dualism in how we act. We talk about heaven as being our ultimate destination. We talk about leaving our earthly body. But we need to be careful. We were created as physical beings, we were created to inhabit the earth. I am convinced that our ultimate destination is the New Earth. The existing material world is fallen, but that does not mean that anything physical or material is inherently broken. No, we serve a God who redeems and he will redeem, recreate, renew the physical too. You have heard me say it before. The eternity I expect is not an eternity playing a harp on a cloud but I expect an eternity lived in a new body, with a new Earth, serving the eternal God.

Back in Isaiah 65:17-19 Isaiah wrote "See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." When I read this I immediately cringe. What do you mean the old will not be remembered? There are lots of things I want to remember here and now. Doesn't my life now matter? Here is what strikes me. The city that God provides, the dwelling he provides, is still named Jerusalem. What this tells me is that while I do think we will be so amazed, so enamored with the New Creation, the past does matter. We might forget the past, we might not have it come to mind, but the here and now still matters.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to the phrase "as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." In Revelation 19:7 John introduced the picture of the bride -Christ's Church "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." Now John uses that same picture to make sure that we all realize an essential truth. The relationship of Christ to his people is an eternal relationship. The intimacy we enjoy with Christ now and will be enhanced in the future will remain in eternity. God will provide us with an eternal dwelling where we will enjoy the ultimate relationship with our Savior.

Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus are destined for the reunion together (21:3-4).

Image: your choices reflect your priorities.

The choices that you make reflect your priorities. This really is true. I want to eat healthy but I will admit if I am at a restaurant I don't usually consider the salad. My choice betrays that eating something tasty is a higher priority than eating something healthy.

Something that amazes me in Revelation 21:3 is that God chooses to be with us. Look at the text of Revelation 21:3 "And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God."

God will make it clear that we are his priority.

The text tells us that a loud voice from the throne makes a declaration. The loud voice reminds us that this declaration is something to which we should pay attention.

God's dwelling place is with his people. Remember that we saw the city of Jerusalem coming down to the new earth but now we see that there is even more significance to this than we ever could have imagined. God opts to dwell with us. Back in Genesis 3:8-9 in the midst of the fall narrative, we read that God regularly visited Adam and Eve "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”" It seems that in God's original creation plan, he regularly chose to spend time with Adam and Eve. In the new creation, it seems to me that God goes a step further and moves his dwelling to be with his creation. The more I think about this the more I cannot fathom this. The God of the universe, who dwells in heaven, the one about whom Solomon states in 1 Kings 8:27 "“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!" This God of the universe makes his dwelling with his creation.

This tells us something very important about God. We are a priority to God.

God will continue to be the catalyst that brings us together.

It is not just that God makes us a priority but also that God catalyzes relationships. In the Old Testament, various passages speak of God's people (Lev. 26:11-12, Ezekiel 11:20, Jeremiah 31:1, Zechariah 8:8). However, the Hebrew in these passages is always singular. In other words throughout the Old Testament there is a singular people of God. The greek word λαός used here in Revelation 21:3 means a "body of people with common cultural bonds and ties to a specific territory, people-group, people. " However, here the plural λαοὶ means peoples instead of just a people. In other words God dwells and has an intimate relationship with a multi ethnic group of peoples. Israel still has a place as one of God's people groups and we do not become or replace Israel. Instead, God takes on various peoples. Believing Israel becomes a channel of blessing whereby a variety of heritages are brought together to form a diverse peoples of God!

Here today, God is what has brought us together. Not our genetic heritage, while family is important it is not as important as God, not a common job, not a common heritage, no what has brought us together is God. In eternity that catalyst for bringing us together will be even more obvious.

God will right all that is wrong.

In Revelation 21:4 we read that "‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”" The description is intended to be intimate and tender. God compassionately loves each of us!

Beyond the wiping away of every tear we have the removal of death. Death is the ultimate woe we all face but there are other problems. We face pain, we suffer, life is hard because of sin.

As I was thinking through this verse a few weeks ago I had a thought. How much of my time is spent dealing with the consequences of the curse. My foot hurts today, why because I broke it a nearly two months ago. I am debating about how much exercise to do. I don't want to really do it today but I know that I should because my body is only getting older. I really need to take care of the weeds growing up outside sometime soon. The list goes on and I can't help but wonder, how much free time am I going to have when the effects of the curse are gone!

When I first stated "God will right all that is wrong" I was thinking big, you know murder, theft, etc. But the big things are actually insignificant, it is all the little wrongs that I will notice most. And all those little wrongs that get in the way of a relationship. Wow! I cannot wait to see what life is like without wrong in the world.

Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus are destined to be a part of His eternal kingdom (5-8).

The promise of King Jesus is a promise to redeem.

What is your favorite characteristic of God? Is it his holiness? Maybe his omnipotence? How about his omniscience? I have to admit that for a long time I would have stated that my favorite characteristic of God was his omniscience. I just really liked the idea of God knowing everything that could be know. However, the older that I get, the more I have come to focus on God as redeemer. I don't really know why this has come to be my focus but it has. Time and time again I have seen God take that which is broken and redeem it. What's more, when God redeems he makes it better. In verse 5 we read God himself state "I am making everything new." The phrase is emphatic in the Greek. That means that the original greek includes the word ἰδοὺ (behold) to emphasize the phrase. Within the phrase the word καινὰ (new) is in the emphatic position. God is redeeming everything. We live in a world that is broken but God has promised that He is redeeming the brokenness.

Take a second and think about the significance of this. You, just like me, are a sinner. Sin is so engrained into my body that often I don't even realize my sin. Unfortunately, sometimes I do and I still choose to sin. However, God has positionally sanctified, redeemed, me and so I stand before him justified, declared righteous. But more, he is in the process of progressively sanctifying me, that is he is redeeming me to be more like Christ. One day he will perfectively sanctify me. That is God will completely redeem me, not just that I am forgiven from sin, not just that I am more like Christ, but that I will never sin again for all eternity. Do you see how God redeems? He makes things new, better. Adam and Eve were created without sin, but capable of sin and fell into sin. God will redeem me so that I never sin again!

In fact, long before much as known of God's redemption Job knew God as redeemer. Look at what he said in Job 19:25-27.

I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

We must recognize and celebrate the redemption of Christ that was purchased not with God and silver but "with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect." 1 Peter 1:18-19.

The promise of King Jesus is a promise of eternal life.

In verse 6 Jesus states "I am Alpha and Omega." The greek letter alpha is the first in the alphabet and the letter omega is the last. The phrase is fully explained for us next, beginning and end. The reminder is a reminder of eternality. I will be honest, eternity is the part of theology I struggle with the most. I understand, at least well enough for my own understanding, the existence of God, salvation, grace, etc. I don't pretend to have free-choice and predestination figured out but I have ideas on it. I have worked through many of the textual difficulties in the Bible and understand those. I even feel like I understand God's wrath. What I just cannot make sense of is eternity. How in the world am I not going to get bored? If you asked me what about theology takes the most faith for me, my answer is that it takes an incredible amount of faith for me to accept that I am not going to get bored in eternity. Why? Because I realize that God has promised something I cannot fathom.

The promise that King Jesus has made to you is that if you have accepted that Jesus died on the cross for your sin and his payment is sufficient. If you have placed your faith in Christ's death on the cross, then you have been promised eternal life. The one who is himself the beginning and the end has made his promise to you and that promise it eternal life lived with him!

The promise of King Jesus is a promise to be identified with God.

Before I talk about verse 7 I want to mention verse 8. Part of who God is, is the trait of just. God will judge sin. Actually, in my first draft of the sermon I was thinking of just not including verse 8. But verse 8 is part of what Jesus states! We need to cover not just verses 1-7 we need to recognize that God does judge sin.

Now onto the good stuff, look at verse 7. Some people might get tripped up on the phrase "those who are victorious." The point is not that you must work to be victorious, the point of Scripture is that Christ has already won the victory if you have accepted him as your Savior. If you are here today and have made the decision to trust on Christ completely for your salvation then you can count yourself as among those who are victorious. Now look at the reward. Those who are victorious are counted as Children of God.

One of my seminary professors used a phrase that has struck me. In the end, I am a child of God and God is my God. What I strive for is to live in a way such that God is proud to be my God! I feel a little odd ascribing pride to God so let me phrase that differently. I strive to live a life that brings glory to my God. The promise of Christ is a promise to be identified with God, may my identification with God bring Him glory.