Jesus Wins

So that's how we started this series seven months ago. Seven months. Now we took a little time off for Christmas and Easter, but September 21st is when we started this series. A lot has happened since then. Like good stuff, not so good stuff. The astronauts in Artemis 2 went further in space than anybody has ever gone. Yeah. The Olympic men's team and women's team won gold in hockey. Yeah. Woo. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of the Olympics, we all watched curling for about five minutes and then forgot about it. The last penny was minted. NVIDIA hit $5 trillion in market value. 6-7 pretty much went away. Yay. Political violence and angry rhetoric didn't go away. BTS started its world tour. Woo. Timmy the Humpback Whale got stranded. See, there's all sorts of things. Some of them are just like really, really good. Some of them are really, really bad. They're not minimizing any of this. We went to war. People fell in love. Some of you had a marriage end.

Some of you welcomed a little one into your family. Some of you lost a loved one. Some of you, last September, had just barely tucked your little guy or your little gal in like kindergarten, and now they're just about done with their first year. Some of you started like your senior year, and it's almost graduation. Some of you started to pay down a debt. Some of you went to a counselor for the first time. Some of you came to Christ. Some of you said, I'm going to take the next step on my journey. There's all sorts of things that have happened since we started this series we call Peak Experiences. Now, if you'll remember, if you were here the day that we started it, I asked you to tell me about your favorite mountain or maybe the mountain that you have not seen that you want to see someday, and then I gave you kind of what my answer was, which is in the book of Revelation. We'll read it again. This is from chapter 21, verses 10 to 11. So he took me. Now, this is the Apostle John trying to describe this freaky vision that he had that becomes what we call the revelation of Jesus Christ. So he, this angel, took me in the spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and sparkled like a precious stone. Now, this is the end of the Bible. It's the final mountain, and I told you back then, this is where we would wrap things up. This is where we will wrap things up. But first, let me pray for us, and then we'll get started. Father, we bless you. We're grateful for your mercy and your patience, your sovereign control and plan. We're grateful for your protection.

Jesus, we worship you. We want you to be even more real to us even now in these moments. Spirit, we welcome you. The only way that we're going to be able to hear and to understand and to even then at the end respond will be you moving through our midst. So I pray now that you will do that here at Fenton and at Rivers and Grants Trail. People who are watching online around the city, around the country, around the world, Lord, help us now. We pray this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Okay, so let me just catch everybody up. We said way back at the beginning of this thing that mountains in the ancient imagination meant even more than just a place like where the sky seems to meet the earth. It was a place, people began to think of it as a place maybe where heaven meets earth. So it doesn't surprise me that the one true God would use mountains to speak to the ancient mind. Mountains come up in the story and we have covered some ground, haven't we? We have scaled some mountains since this whole thing started. We were at Mount Sinai more than once with Moses and with Elijah. We were at Mount Carmel, a big showdown between God and the prophets of Baal. We were at Mount Moriah where there was a heart-wrenching story and a son was spared because God provided. We went back to Moriah later in the story of Jesus. This is where he was sacrificed. This is where he was not spared in the shadow of the temple that's built on Mount Moriah. We learned a whole bunch of stuff. In the middle we took a detour. And we went to Nepal for a minute and we heard from our friend for poo who actually takes people up Everest And he talked to us about how you prepare for scaling these mountains some of you will remember that in the story of Jesus We came to the wilderness where he is tempted

We went to we went to the the mountain where he began to teach this sermon on the Mount Mount Transfiguration We were at Mount of Olives the Mount Zion all of those things last week. We were at Mars Hill in Athens we have covered some ground and Through it all God has been sovereign But here we are now at the last the final mountain and I want to talk to you about it But first I want to stir your thoughts a little bit. So will you now here we go Will you hang out with some people? Will you meet some new people and Will you tell them the last time you were homesick? That could have been last week. It could have been summer camp when you were a kid Some of you are gonna have to take a minute because you were so invincible that you can't even imagine ever being that way But when was the last time you were homesick for a place a person go ahead talk to each other You All right So, I don't know when or where it was for you, but there was a philosopher who once said That he felt like all humans suffer From homesickness now, I won't bore you with the German word that he used but he said you basically can't even hardly put your finger on it, but there's a kind of a things aren't as they should be that's in the human soul and in his Unfortunately godless approach to things. He was actually on to something. I think most of us can feel it and sense it. It's like this isn't as it quite should be and we're Homesick for something that we were created for well today. We're gonna go to the final mountain today I think we'll we'll find ourselves back home and and hopefully some of this will make sense For some of you we've talked about these things before I want to give you a new way to think about it It's not my way. There are many commentators scholars entire books have been written about this I think the ESV study Bible actually gives you like a little summary of some of this but let me just tell you for us right now, let's think of The last the first three chapters of Genesis and the last three chapters of Revelation So we're talking about the first three chapters the last three chapters of the entire Bible. Let's think of them as bookends now, let's just go through this real quickly in the first couple of chapters of Genesis in the beginning God did what altogether now he He created some of you aren't quite sure in the beginning God

He created he created what did he create? everything It says the heavens and the earth. That's a Hebrew way of saying everything. So God created everything and it was good It was look at that. We've got it all there. Boom That's okay, we'll just leave it all there so so so Yeah, again, we love technology. Don't we guys? So I want you to see that that creation is something that that that God does but it's not just the world that he creates He creates us and so when he creates us What he's doing is he is now you guys just take that down and I'll walk through it Okay, because everybody's gonna kind of keep jumping ahead. We can do that. Can't we? There we go So, let me just walk you through it. You don't even have to worry about it In creation, he creates us and he creates us in the image of God. It means that we have dignity We have value, but we also have this capacity like no other part of creation to connect with God to love God You see to return a love to God because that's where a relationship happens. Let me put it to you this way. I Love that team. I love her music. I love Lamp, I love lamp Anyone? No? Okay. Thank you Uh, I love gooey butter cake. Ooh, yeah. Let me tell you something. None of those things can return love back to me. None of them can love me back. You see, for there to be relationship Robin has to return love to me. Now we're there. You with me? We as human beings have that capacity. So remember that. In creation

we have that. He says it's good. It's good, but very good. In the Hebrew, Tov Mayot, this is very good. He creates a garden. He plants a garden. We read in Genesis 2, God creates a garden and it's a place for man and woman to live. It's not this really neat, highly manicured English garden, prim and proper. It's alive and it's raw and it's got huge potential, but this is home. The thing that you need to see now is this is a home for them. But it also is going to be a home for God. Now God doesn't need a place to crash, but God creates a place, a sanctuary where he can dwell with them. Now this part's for free, but there are some people who think when you read like in Ezekiel 28 that when you see the writer there say, in the same breath I was in the garden of Eden and on the mountain of God. Some people begin to think well maybe the garden of Eden was on a mountain. Now we could go into some of the things we talked

about that there are clues in Genesis 2 of this some of the rivers and where the headwaters were, but we don't know where Eden was. Some people think it was down in modern day Iraq. Some people think that it was up in the mountains of eastern Turkey. It does kind of make sense to me that they would be in the mountains. Again, the place where heaven meets earth. It's home, but it's a place where God wants to dwell with his people. It's a place where you begin to see that he says I want you to learn from me. I want you to trust me. I want you to love me. Extend the boundaries of Eden to the edges of the earth. I want you to just watch what happens if you trust me in this life. But they didn't. That's chapter 3. In chapter 3 what we see are the enemies of God enter the story. Satan shows up. The serpent shows up. Our first parents trust and believe the lies of the serpent and they betray God. So now Satan has entered the story. Sin has entered the story and the consequence of death has entered the story. God

warned them that they would die if they rebelled against him. Now eventually they die physically, but spiritually they begin to die in that moment. This power that's coursing through their lives, the love and the joy and the presence of God, it's now broken. This connection is now broken and there is a longing and a homesickness now. They're banished from the garden. They were made for this, but they can no longer live there. But even in that moment grace abounds. Because it's right there in chapter 3, the third chapter, that there's a promise that there will be one who is born who will make a way back home. His name is Jesus. He's the one who makes things right. And so for the rest of scripture, things are pointing towards Jesus and the cross. And then you get into the New Testament and everything starts pointing back to this Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Now listen to me. I believe he is the king. I believe he restores. I believe he forgives. That's the whole

point of the cross. It's the whole miracle of Easter. We see that he is the light of the world in a very dark world. Easter is dawn breaking. We saw that and we believe the light will eventually push back all of the darkness. We actually believe that this is how it's going to end. Can you even imagine? Like everything I was just talking about because now because of their rebellion, because of our first parents pulling away, sin will poison everything from the soil to our motives, to our words, to everything. It touches us every day of our lives. But can you imagine it not being there? Can you imagine evil being quarantined? Can you imagine Satan no longer a threat? And the glorious presence of God is flooding creation. Because I'm going to tell you what, I think I don't think, I know that's where we're headed. I can't anymore explain how it's going to happen than when it's going to happen, but it will happen. So radical

and so all-encompassing is it that words will fail us. But if you belong to Jesus then this is your future. Do you ever allow yourself to think that way? Because as best I can tell, a lot of times we pay attention to the stresses and the things that are kind of pushing in on us, all the distractions and we forget what awaits us. Can you even go there for just a second? If you follow Jesus, do you allow your thoughts to go there? Francis Schaeffer. Scholar once wrote that the Christian is the one whose imagination should fly beyond the stars. I want you, before we now go into the description and what we learn from this, I want you to see if you can begin to sort of stretch things. So maybe start with homesickness. But if you belong to Jesus, can you even for just a moment allow yourself to think of what he will do one day? Like what will it be like when you finally come home? Father, I'm asking you to now stir our thoughts and our hopes, push back the fear, peel off the cynicism that gets in the way. Lord, heal up our hurts enough to for just a moment, even if it's just a moment, to think of it all as you would have it be. What it will be like when I walk by your side. I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me. I can only imagine. Yeah. Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in all of you be still? Will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak it all? I can only imagine.

I can only imagine. So we're, we're trying really hard to get your attention because the world is busy and it's stressful and it's chaotic. And like even right now, your, your head is just full of so many things. You're like, no, I cannot imagine. How do I know that about you? Yeah, because that's me. And there are conscious moments where we have to say, God, could you, would you, will you finally pull this off? Help us this way. Would you take out your phones and use the app? And what I'm going to ask you to do is to just, uh, in one word, you get one word. What's the one word that would sum up what it is that you're longing for that you're hoping for? When you think about coming home, what's the one word? You get one word. Let's see what everybody says. Uh, and, and we'll kind of, we'll, we'll talk about this in just a minute. And then once you're done with that, go ahead and tell the person next to you, Hey, this is my one word. What's yours? I want us to take just a second now and continue to give ourselves permission to imagine what it will be like when we come home. So Surrounded by your glory. What will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in all of you be still? Will I stand in your presence? Or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak all I can only imagine? ♪ I can only imagine ♪ So, thank you, John. Let's go to that final mountain. Let me ask you this. Those words, what will it be like? I mean, will I stand in his presence? Will I kneel? Will I be able to speak at all? See, that's a part of it now, is what will be your expression of worship?

I'm asking you that now, to consider that, because to be honest with you, in the coming minutes, you're gonna be invited to express yourself in worship. Maybe in a way that you never have before. Maybe it'll be, you'll bow your head. Maybe it'll be that you'll open your hands. Maybe you'll sing for the first time out loud. Maybe you'll be praying. Maybe you'll raise your hands. And maybe like people have done every service before, and this is something you can start asking God about right now. Maybe you'll join some of us down here, and we'll kneel. Can you imagine kneeling before the king in worship? Because I'm gonna ask some of you to consider that in just a few minutes. But the final mountain. If we're gonna talk about the final mountain, we have to say that when we look at the book of Revelation, we did an entire series on that, and if you're interested in that series, where we're talking about all of the numbers and the symbols and the outrageous things that are going on in there, and the history of it all, and how it all works, we've got a series. It's in the message resources in the app. If you look there, you can click on that, and now you've got all access to all of those services, and we want you to continue to learn in that area.

I will say, when we did that series a few years ago, we said again and again and again that Bible-believing, Jesus-loving, hard-studying scholars of Scripture do not agree on some of the stuff that's in the middle chapters. We called it the swirly middle. Those swirly middle chapters have different ways that you can get to this, but everybody agrees on the bookends. We understand that there are some major themes going throughout, the reality of evil, the majesty of God, his patience, our rebellion, and this, Jesus is coming again. Now listen to me, let me tell you something. We don't know when that's gonna happen. There are even some hints in the book of Revelation that we need to not get too caught up in the date setting of it all. Matthew 24 tells us that we don't know the hour. We don't need to get obsessed about that. I don't want you thinking and putting all of your timelines together and going, well, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be next Tuesday at 3.30. Jesus warns against that. He wants us to keep the eye on what's gonna happen. You see, in God's timing, the King of Kings will return. I don't know when it will happen, but it will happen. Jesus, the Lord of heaven and earth, is gonna show up,

and when I say show up, I mean in a way that this indifferent world cannot deny. His blazing glory and his power will fill the sky, and the world will know once and for all that Jesus is King, and in that moment, listen to me, he will defeat evil. It's in the story, I'm telling you, but if you wanna read the battle, it's over before it started. It is the power of his word, and that's it. He has no rival, he has no equal. The one who speaks the universe into existence says that's it, and it's over, and in the third to last chapter of the Bible, those enemies that show up in the third chapter, in the third to last chapter, they are vanquished and quarantined forever. Satan, evil, death, they're gone. This is the only way that we can move into the future that God has for us, but there is something else we see in the third to last chapter. You see, we will stand before a holy God. Every person who has ever lived will stand before God and face one of two destinies, either a joyful eternity with him or a joyless one without him. You see, when you begin to look at what is going on, what you will see, and there's all sorts of images that John uses, a great white throne,

and books upon books will be opened, but it all comes down to this. You and I will stand before God, and there will be a moment where we enter into this life with him, or we are excluded from that life. Now let me just explain this to you, because in the third chapter, we see a consequence for rebellion. They have to leave the garden. In the third to last chapter, there is an eternal consequence, and y'all, there's no other way to put this, but it's hell, it's hell. The Bible teaches it. We believe it. Jesus talks about it more than you even want to think about it, but there will come a moment when we stand before a God who sees everything, and the question will be, did we repent? Did we allow him to restore? and redeem us in a way that only He can for eternity? Or did we refuse to admit that we needed any help? Did we refuse to admit that we were sinners? Did we refuse His way, His offer, His grace? Did we bow instead to the idol of self, or greed, or lust, or power, or money, or even religion? We can't fix this on our own. And the people who refuse His offer

will now spend eternity without Him by their own choice and by their own doing. He has given you that freedom. Now, that's heavy. I can't think of a more politically, emotionally, psychologically incorrect and uncomfortable thing for me to say. I can't think of a more essential, and transcendent, and important thing for me to say. If you have turned to Jesus, you have nothing to fear. Sometimes people get to this part of the story and they're like, oh man, this freaks me out. He's gonna open the book like my whole life. No, listen, if you have turned to Jesus, then you are covered in His grace, and He's now gonna walk you into eternity, and that's the last two chapters. What we see is that John is taken to this mountain, whatever it is, and the city of Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, it's now descending, remember that, descending, and he sees it. Is this a literal city? We don't know. Is it some symbolic, kaleidoscopic thing where John's trying to describe everything that life with God is now gonna be like? Probably. I mean, I think words are failing him, and he's trying to describe the indescribable. We don't have time to go into that now.

Here's the main point I want you to see. If you look at these last chapters, what you will see is that we don't go up to heaven. Heaven comes down to us. Now, this is kind of interesting, but just pay attention to this. Heaven is where God abides, and so when you die, you will go to heaven, you will be with God, that's it. But what we see at the end of the end of the story is not us going up to heaven to be with God, but God coming down to be with us. It happens, that direction is mentioned more than once. I wanna read one last big passage for you here, and see if you notice this. John says, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. All of this is symbolic language. 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. That sounds like Eden. You see how we're echoing what happened back in chapter two? They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away 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. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new.

So the last great image is God coming down to us. Somehow, someway, at a fundamental level, the universe is going to change. I will say this to you. Way back in those first three chapters, in that part of the bookend, God says things are good. Creation is good. So apparently matter, the physical universe, it's not bad. It just got polluted and contaminated and poisoned by evil. But something is going to happen now. There's a new creation. So if you think creation in these chapters, think new creation in these chapters. It's not heaven instead of earth. It's heaven and earth. Something is going to merge now, and this is the new creation. There is no curse. This is where we live. This is the new Eden. This is what God had all along. This is what it means to come home. But what I want to see is what you were thinking about what it means to come home. All right, so let's just look. I have no idea what you're going to put as your answer. Pretty sure what the number one was, right? Because you know how word clouds work. So we just begin to see things like love and wholeness, family, wonder, anxiety-free.

I see what you did there. That's not one word, but that well-played. Uh. Fulfillment, connection. Okay, reunified, unity. Okay, okay, all right. All right, okay. So let's talk about some things. Peace, we can experience peace from a bunch of different angles. Let me start with one that you might not have expected. You will forever finally be at peace with you. I'm not talking about some self-healthy, you know, self-love kind of thing. I'm talking about all of the things that just get in the way of our relationships. All of the things that we can't believe that we're doing or thinking. When you walk out of a meeting, when you walk out of a room, when you walk out of a conversation and go, why did I say that? It was the insecurity, it was the fear, whatever it was that was going on. is fueling you, those jealousies, gone, gone. You are now at peace with who God made you to be. You're home, baby, you're home. That's a good thing, okay? Let me give you another thing. When it says anxiety-free,

one of the great fears of life is death. People think about it in a bunch of different ways, and not just old people. We think about death, and we think about, well, what is it gonna be, and what is it gonna be like? Let me tell you something, there will be no more death. Now, that sounds intriguing, and it also sounds very modern, because there are people right now who are doing everything they can to try to solve death. I read an article recently that said, we live in an era of the vampire. It's a weird way to put it, but what this writer was saying is, there are a whole bunch of people who are using a whole bunch of money and a whole bunch of technology and some kind of dark, murky ways to chase immortality. Listen to me, there are people of great means. You take a lot, I mean unimaginable amounts of wealth, plus AI, plus new technology, plus ego, plus fear of death, and you get people who think that maybe they can solve death. Here's a quote from Peter Thiel, and it's not even a new quote, but I wanna put it up there for a reason. He says, there are all these people who say that death is natural. It's just a part of life, and I think that nothing could be further from the truth.

I want you to know, I agree with him on the surface. When people tell me, oh, great, death is just, it's a natural part of life, you just gotta get used to it, it's just the way things happen, I couldn't disagree more. It doesn't feel natural to me when I'm standing at the graveside of my loved ones. It doesn't feel natural to me when I'm standing at the graveside of your loved ones. There is something that cries out at us that goes, that's not right. The problem is, when we humans think we can now solve it, so you do have guys like, forgive me, but you got guys like Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel and a whole bunch of others throwing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars towards trying to eliminate death. Brian Johnson and the whole Never Die movement, I've told you about him before. Listen to me, I am all for extending and improving life. Let's get better at what we do, but we humans cannot solve death. And some of you are going, well, it sounds to me like you're saying there'll be no more death. Yeah, but I'm not saying a human has figured it out. I'm saying the author of life himself stepped into the story, my Jesus, absorbed the consequence of sin on the cross

and then it made a way out through his resurrection. What am I saying to you? The road to immortality doesn't run through Silicon Valley. It runs through the cross and the empty tomb. And you know what that means? That means for your loved ones who love Jesus, it doesn't matter when they died or where they died or how they died, there will come a day when my God finishes what he started on that first Easter morning and they will be resurrected and given a body built for eternity. Some of you think I'm crazy for saying that out loud, but that's how much I believe in the creative power of God. But he will also redeem and restore creation itself. I want you to think of the most beautiful, like the most awe-inspiring place you've ever been in the world. Now think of it, it's even better. I don't even know what that means, but it's better. The colors are richer, it's everything. Christopher Wright says, just imagine all of creation, put that one up there, with the poison of evil and sin sucked out of it forever. In both the early chapters and the end chapters, you see a river and you see a tree of life, this life, this river of life, and it gives life to us. But there's a tree of life, it gives healing to the nations. Now let's talk about peace again. There'll be no more prejudice, there'll be no more war,

there'll be no more battles, there'll be no more conflicts, there'll be no more loved ones being deployed. There'll be no more hostilities and conflict between nations and people groups and ages and classes. And neighborhoods and zip codes. The tree of life, its leaves give healing to the nations. Somehow, that's gonna happen. Oh, and I don't think we lose our distinctiveness. It says every tribe, tongue, and nation will worship him. I don't think that means that then we just all become this bland, homogenized whatever. I think all of the culture, all of the music, all of the language, all of the food, I think it's all in play. Well, how do we talk to each other? What is the language of heaven? You ever think about that? You should ask these questions, what do you think? I don't know. You're like, well, then why did you ask the question? Because I'm trying to imagine. What how God's gonna solve this? I don't know. Is it gonna be like in science fiction things where there's a universal translator? And I say something in my language and you just automatically hear it in your language. I don't know I know d.a. Carson is a biblical scholar and he says I think it's all of the The languages are still there and we just take an eternity to learn and laugh our way into those languages with people that we now meet and partner with And we become fluent in all of these things over time and some of you're like That sounds like a spanish class forever. That is not heaven

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know just remember you have a completely fully restored brain that works in ways you can't even imagine Let's go to that idea of reuniting Because that was one of the words up there You there will be a reunion with people you will build on relationships that you have with one another Friends that you haven't seen you will connect with them again, and you'll go deeper. How about this rivals? You know anybody who loves jesus and they know you love jesus but for the life of you y'all can't get along Maybe it's a family member and for all sorts of reasons. You just stop talking There will come a day where rivals actually Enjoy each other I'll be reunited with my loved ones I'll see them differently because they're healed. There's no disease now when I see my dad. He won't limp in pain If there are keyboards in heaven and pianos and i'm sure there will be in the new creation on this earth I'm, just sure of it My friend russ will play unhindered Dead My father-in-law and I will catch up And i'll make bob laugh the way I used to with that texas kind of an edge on it But his breath won't catch because of a disease in his lungs that he never signed up for There'll be reunion and there'll be healing But there will be more than physical healing for some of you. It will be the healing of trauma It will be the healing of abuse. It will be the healing of an injustice that was done against you That every day of your life it haunts you i'm telling you There will come a day where god says no more and you were healed of it because of that glorious phrase there There will be no more tears. He will wipe them away. That means there's no heartache. There's no cruelty. There's no hurt There's no grief. There's no there's no injustice that will overshadow your experience of god in eternity That's how good this is going to be now some of you at this point and I always have to make this point Some of you say well if it's that good I mean, isn't it essentially going to be boring? Now you're too kind and you're too polite to say that out loud, but some of you are thinking it What are we going to do? Let's just be real clear

You will not be shuffling around on clouds in your snuggie and crocs drinking warm milk That is not eternity with god You've got stuff to do if you've been a good steward with what he's given you now Hey volunteers i'm telling you everything that you're doing to invest in the kingdom god's gonna One day he's gonna say what do you get a load of what I got for you now? But we will be given new things to do new partnerships Anthony hokum, I just love the way he puts this he says will there be better beethoven's will we see better rembrandts will scientists? Continue to advance in technological achievements. Will architects continue building attractive structures? Will there be enticing new adventures in space travel? Yes, please All I know is that surprise will be a part of your existence because god will keep revealing things And a surprise rooted in awe and gratitude will happen because we will be enveloped in his glory 22 verse 4 and they these are the people of god will see his face And his name will be on their foreheads The first part of that is so cool the last part of that is so weird you don't even know what to do with it First part so god says To moses when moses says hey, can I see your glory god says you couldn't handle it It would overwhelm you it would destroy you but right here we see his face So somehow something happens where we are prepared and we are ready now to take in all of god and who he is And I think that gets to the next part so when it says there and and and his name will be on their foreheads I know some of you are looking at that going My my first tattoo is going to be a face tat What are the grandkids gonna think when they see me in heaven? That's not what this is Think permanent But this is symbolic. It's identity You are his And he is yours and there's no doubt we can talk about Sanctification we can talk about glorification all you want, but i'm going to tell you what when you behold the goodness and the majesty of jesus

That's it It kind of to that worried question that we sometimes have of am I gonna be the one that blows it like you're right so it's just gonna be like oh man after two billion years I don't want to be the one who sins and messes this whole thing up you won't be able to in freedom you chose God and there is a moment that you are now sealed that's the whole thing here it's just this permanence William Lane Craig says first of all there will be no evil to tempt you anymore second of all God just does something when you see him and you're changed Craig says it's kind of like iron filings in the presence of a super powerful magnet like you're just drawn to him you can't separate from him now and then this you will spend an eternity exploring the infinite God and his goodness he will sit you down and answer all the questions he will tell you where he was and what was happening the great dawn will have broken he will be your God and you will be one of his and y'all will finally be home but even that on that final mountain isn't the end you see there's more now we can't imagine this but we try C.S. Lewis this these Chronicles of Narnia they're gonna come out on Netflix now I saw but a new version of them but but Lewis writes these things and they're important to many of us with our kids a seven book series magical stories of spiritual growth and adventure and these kids are in this land and then at the end of every one of the books they come back home to England but at the end of the seventh book and I don't think I'm scooping anything at the end of the seventh book things change and this time for reasons that you'll have to read the book they're not coming back home they're gonna enter into heaven now and so it's the great King Aslan the the lion figure who is Christ in these stories he's the one who's going to welcome them into heaven and he says these words now if you ever want to know the connection of these words that I'm about to read to Westminster Abbey in the Poets Corner and C.S. Lewis and this little old church here in the Midwest who was behind the scenes connected to something you come find me if you ever

go to London and you're gonna go to Westminster Abbey come find me and I'll tell you a story before you get there but Aslan now says these words to those kids the term is over the holidays have begun the dream has ended this is the morning and as he spoke he no longer looked to them like a lion but things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them and for us this is the end of all the stories and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after but for them it was only the beginning of the real story all their life in this world had only been the cover in the title page and now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story which no one on earth has read which goes on forever in which every chapter is better than the one before y'all I don't know how God's gonna do it but I believe he's gonna do it because Jesus is King and he is Lord of heaven and earth and if you do not know him please consider what it would mean to turn to him in fact I'm gonna ask you this is I mean we haven't done this I just I just feel like we should I'm gonna ask y'all just to bow your heads if you would in chapter 20 there's something called the book of life and the book of life is opened and every name is there of the people who have turned to Jesus I guess what I'm saying is for some of you this is your chance to be a part of the biblical story Greg I don't even know what to say I don't even know how to to go through something like this you pray in your own way in your own words but but it really could be something like Jesus I trust you you are Lord of all I trust that your death on the cross and your resurrection is enough for me I'm not gonna trust on my religious habits I'm not gonna trust on my goodness I need your grace forgive me cleanse me come into my life my thoughts my being leave me and I'll keep following you one step at a time listen to me if you prayed that prayer or some version of it then this is your day and real soon you're gonna get a chance to tell the whole world that you belong to him, and we'll talk about that. Please come find us. People have been talking to us all weekend

about this next step of telling the world that they belong to Jesus. But for the rest of you, like right now here at the end, man, we've covered a lot of ground, haven't we? And even today, I hope that you don't see those bookends as kind of like a Bible trivia thing that now you know. I want you to see that God has been in charge of the story the whole way through. The God of Jacob, the God of Mary, the God of David, his name is Jesus, and he is worthy of all praise and glory and honor. I want to bow, I want to bow to him. I want to bend the knee to him and to no one else. It's Jesus, always Jesus, and so I think for the rest of us, it's time to worship. Now what does that look like? What does that sound like? That's gonna be your call. I want to tell you this. We're at the end of the end of the end now, and it's like we've got just mere sentences before the book of Revelation is over, and Jesus says, I'm the bright morning star. Now why would he kind of end things with that? Because I think he wants us to know that in this dark world, he's still coming. It's gonna happen. You see, the morning star shows up right before the dawn. When you see the morning star, you know that it's only a matter of time,

and dawn will break. Listen to me. You and I live in a darkened world. I'm gonna ask some of you in just the next couple of minutes to express yourself in worship. I don't know what it's gonna look like. Here, sights, I don't know. I know for many of us, it has been coming and kneeling. I'm gonna ask you, those of you who are not afraid to physically express yourself in worship, sometimes we raise our hands, sometimes we shout, sometimes we jump. All of those things are appropriate, and they might happen here in just a minute, but first, would you join me? Can we kneel before the King? We're told that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess to the glory of God the Father that Jesus Christ is Lord. Let's pray for our world. Let's pray for our friends. Let's pray for ourselves. Jesus is coming, y'all, and we need to live with hope. In this world, we need to live with hope. Why? Because Jesus is the King of kings, the Lord of lords. He is the Lamb who is worthy to receive all honor and glory and power, and I am telling you, until that day that he returns, you sons and daughters of the King,

you children of the dawn, do not lose hope. Jesus is King. The promise of the final mountain is real. Would you join me in worshiping him? And as you even have to climb over somebody, would you come join me, many of you, and kneel before the King? Let's worship him. Let's worship him.