Week 10 | “The World We Long For”

We're excited that you're here this morning. Do wanna welcome all of our Willow locations, those of you joining us online. It is always a big shout to our friends who join us at the Jefferson City Correctional Center. Great to have you guys with us as well. But my friends, we made it. It's week 10 of our Revelation series. We survived the tribulation and we get to talk about the good stuff here this weekend as we get to wrap up Revelation, looking at chapters 21 and 22. Now before we jump there, let me start with a question. What is your deepest longing? I'm not asking like, what do you want for dinner later today or what's on your to-do list. I'm asking, what is it that keeps you up at night at two in the morning? What's the weight that you carry that, there are certain moments that it almost feels somewhat unbearable. What is the stuff that you wish you could change if you had the power to do so? Like what are your actual deepest longings? What's fascinating about that is for, I'd say all of us, that's actually a universal thing that we experience. Like these aches and these longings that something's not quite right or that something kind of goes unsatisfied.

You don't have to even be a person of faith. It's kind of this universal human experience that we have these longings. And I love what C.S. Lewis says about these longings. He says this. He says, if you find a longing in yourself that nothing in this world can fully satisfy, the most likely explanation is that you were made for another world. That that longing inside of you is not the indication that something's broken. It's actually a compass pointing you somewhere to someone. And I wanna talk about this other place. Again, it's recorded for us in the book of Revelation, chapter 21 and 22. This beautiful picture of the new creation. Now, I remember when we first planned this series, I thought, we can handle eternity in one week. Hindsight being 2020, if I got to go back and do this again, I think you could do an entire series just on Revelation 21 and 22. It's absolutely beautiful. So rich with so much theology. But if you allow me to, I'm just gonna have to take a flyby at like 30,000 feet, but make sure you go and read it for yourself. It's absolutely unbelievable. It's the fulfillment of all of our longings. So I wanna take us to Revelation 21 and 22 to open our eyes to this new creation.

Now, before we go there, in case this is your first time or maybe you haven't been a part of the whole series, let me give you a quick flyby in the book of Revelation. Again, a lot of people stay away from this book. It's kind of fear-filled. There's all kinds of crazy images, but we've discovered that this is not just a book of fear, it's a book of hope. You're almost with me, right? It's a book of hope. And if I were to boil all of Revelation down to just one thing, it's a book that's all about Jesus. If I were to sum it up in a couple of phrases, I would say this, there is a throne, Jesus is on it, and he will prove himself victorious. So even if you missed all the previous nine weeks, just know that there is a throne and Jesus is on it and he's gonna prove himself victorious. There's these powerful images about Jesus. He's this high priest that walks among the churches. He's actually holding us in his hands. He's this sacrificial lamb that gave his life but took it back as he sprung up from that grave and because of that, he holds all of human history. And last week we talked about he's the returning king.

My friends, Jesus is coming back. It's a promise. Now I don't know when. It could be next week. It could be next year. It could be decades from now. It could be hundreds of years from now. I'm not real sure when he's coming back, but the message of Revelation is to make sure that you are ready whenever that day comes. What's it mean to be ready? It means that I've gotta commit my life to Jesus. I've gotta commit my life to follow him because I promise if you walk in obedience of following Jesus, it doesn't matter when he comes back because your life's ready. But he is coming. And once he comes, he will take those who are connected to him and he will usher them in to eternity. And so Revelation 21 and 22, it paints this beautiful picture of our eternal dwelling peace. As I'm gonna read it for you, at least the first few verses. Chapter 21, we're gonna start at verse one. This is John giving us this vision of what he saw. He says this. He says, 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. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is 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. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who is seated on the throne says, I am making everything new. And then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. In other words, he says, write this down. This is a promise that you could take to the bank. Write this down, because you can stake your life on this claim. Now, as I think about these words and the powerful piece of the words, I want to talk about a couple of principles that I think we can draw from, but not only just understand, but we can truly live from as well. So here's the first principle I want to lean into. God is not making a new world. God is actually making this world new. And you picked it up a little bit in the text.

Now, what's interesting about this is sometimes when we think about heaven or the eternal dwelling place, we think about us ascending to the clouds and maybe getting some wings and maybe a little harp in our hands and maybe singing songs. Now, I don't know if that's your picture of what eternity looks like. For me, if that's the actual picture, it's pretty uncompelling. I mean, if that's what eternity is going to be like, I think I'm going to be bored like three days in. Good news is that John gives us a far more compelling picture of what eternity looks like, a far more grandiose picture of what it's experiencing. Now, the way that I think that John's going to get at this is he tries to use the most vivid language he possibly can to try to represent what he sees. And so he draws out of the most rare substances and those brilliant colors, but you've got to get the sense that as much as he's trying to express what it's going to be like, language falls a little short. And maybe you've had this kind of experience. Have you ever traveled to someplace absolutely beautiful? Anybody traveled someplace beautiful? Have you ever had that experience

that whether it was a, you know, you were on the beach in Maui or you're up on the top of a mountain cliff and you came back down and you tried to describe it to somebody. Have you ever felt like you couldn't really fully describe what you saw? Language is almost insufficient to describe what you'd experienced. And even if you get out the pictures you took, you start showing the pictures like, the pictures don't quite do it justice. I mean, that's what John's at. And that's what he's trying to do. He's trying to use the most color-filled, vivid language imaginable to try to paint the picture of this spectacular place. But you get the sense that it kind of falls short. But let me go back to the text. Chapter 21, verses one and two, he says, then I saw a new heaven, a new earth, the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. There was no longer any sea. Really quickly, some people get concerned about that statement because they think, oh no, there's no beach there because there's no sea. Remember the word sea is a Old Testament image for turbulence and chaos and unpredictability. It's that there's none of that there. I promise there'll be a beach.

You'll enjoy it. He says, then I saw this holy city, this new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. Now, oftentimes when we talk about eternity, we talk about one day we'll be in heaven. And I understand what we're saying there. We're saying that we're gonna be eternally dwelling with God. What's interesting is the Bible actually paint the place that we'll actually live in this thing that's called the new Jerusalem. Jerusalem, maybe not like the city that we know in the Middle East today. Jerusalem literally means the city of peace, that we will live in this experience that will be fully peaceful. That's why there's no more longings. That's why that deep longing that we've held in our heart, that's why it will be ultimately be fulfilled. Now, the description of what John does over the next couple of chapters is strikingly similar to how the Bible starts. What's the first book of the Bible? Book of Genesis. Remember God creates everything in Genesis chapter one and two. I tell you, if you read Genesis chapter one and two, and then you read Revelation chapters 21 and 22. 22, they're almost a perfect mirror of one another. They're like the bookends of the Bible. God created perfection and He restores it all

to that state in perfection. I wrote a little bit of a comparison and I wanna go back to my notes just so I can get it precise for you. Here's some correlations between the book of Genesis and the book of Revelation. In Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth. In Revelation, God makes the heavens and earth new. In Genesis, there's a garden. In Revelation, there's a garden city. In Genesis, there's a river that flows through Eden. In Revelation, there's a river of the water of life that flows from the throne of God and the Lamb. In Genesis, you see the tree of life that stands in the middle of the garden. In Revelation, you also see the tree of life that stands once again bearing fruit and bringing healing to all the nations. But here's what actually moved me this week. John doesn't just repeat Genesis. He reverses everything that sin broke. In Genesis, a curse enters the world. In Revelation, there's no longer any curse. In Genesis, death enters the human story. In Revelation, there will be no more death. In Genesis, there are tears that begin. In Revelation, God himself wipes away every tear from our eye. In Genesis, humanity hides themselves from the presence of God.

In Revelation, they will see his face. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are driven away from the tree of life, but in Revelation, the tree of life is open again. In Genesis, humanity is sent out of the garden. In Revelation, all of God's people are welcomed home forever. Church, don't miss this. Revelation isn't just telling us where we're going. It's telling us that Jesus, what Jesus has been doing all along, every miracle, every act of forgiveness, every healing, every victory over sin, every empty tomb, every promise that he has ever made has ever been moving history toward one great moment when everything that was broken is made whole again. That's why the throne announces, I'm making everything new. He makes everything new. Again, I want to take us back to that opening question when I was asking you about your longings. What do you long for? What do you hope for? What do you pray for? What are you carrying? Whatever that is, that's fulfilled in the end because he makes all things new because there is no more loss. Because there is no more loss. There is no more heartbreak.

There is no more relational turmoil. There is no distance between other people that we can't reconcile. There are no more sleepless nights. There's no more financial instability. All the things that we hope for and we long for and we pray for, God makes everything new. My friends, when you read Revelation 21 and 22, it's not just this picture of floating on the clouds and playing a harp. It's God restoring what he originally created. He's not just making something new and different. He's making what is completely new. He restores it. He renews it. He makes it all right. Here's the second principle that I want us to lean into. It's this idea. The greatest promise of eternity is not the place. It's actually his presence. I would go as far to say the most stunning statement in the entire book of Revelation. And it won't be the one that would have probably stopped you as you're reading it. It's probably one that you would have read by it and you kind of, okay, whatever. I would argue it is the most stunning verse in all the book of Revelation is verse three. We already read it. It says, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people

and he will dwell with them. My friends, this is a huge deal. You kind of get this sense from the book of Revelation that the place is unbelievable, but the place pales into comparison to the who. I mean, the where and the what matter, but they're just not as near important as the who. Let me make this really personal. My favorite person on planet earth is my bride, Lindsay. My wife's amazing. We've been married 22 years. She's the best thing that's ever happened to me. Never happened to me. I mean, truly, outside of Jesus, most important relationship that I have. Now, my boys are a close second, but they are second. It's all about my bride. My bride's amazing. Now, I would say I would love to live somewhere amazing with Lindsay. And so, you know, in our crazy days, we'll say, what if we one day got a place that the ocean waves roll in right on our front doorstep? Wouldn't that be fun? Or maybe we think about like some sort of mountain chalet in the Swiss Alps. Wouldn't that be fun? And I think about like these exquisite places that we could possibly maybe live someday. But I tell you, if I have to choose whether to live

in a mountainside chalet without Lindsay or live in a cardboard box with Lindsay, I'd choose the cardboard box every day of the week. Because it's not just about the place, it's about who you get to experience it with. And for me, I would love to live somewhere amazing with Lindsay, but what's most important is that I'm with Lindsay and I can live anywhere as long as she's there. The same is true when it comes to our eternal dwelling. Now again, John uses this rich, amazing, elaborate language about how amazing the place is gonna be, but I tell you, the place pales in comparison to who's gonna be there. That it says that God will dwell with his people. Here's why that matters so much, that even those of us who've bent our knee to him, who've chosen to follow him, who call ourselves followers of God, followers of Jesus, even those of us, there's still times where we feel spiritually distant, don't we? There's still moments that doubt creeps in, that we have questions that we can't answer, that sometimes we still have somewhat of a disconnected relationship with God in the end, that will no longer be true. That we get to fully, wholly live in the eternal presence of the almighty God. It doesn't get better than that. And revelation doubles down on this idea.

Now, will you allow me to Bible nerd on you for just a second? You'll have to like, just hang with me. You're like, this is not gonna make sense, and then hopefully it'll make sense when I'm done. There's this interesting detail, Revelation chapter 21, that I've glossed over. I've read this book so many times, I've glossed over this every time until I prepared this message. This wrecked me in all the best ways. So let me give you the verse, and then we'll unpack it. John's again just describing what he's seeing. He says, this angel who talked with me had this measuring rod, kind of this divine tape measure. It was of gold to measure the city, its gates, and its walls. It was laid out like a square as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length and as wide and as high as it is long. You're like, yeah, Sean, there's reasons why you've skipped over that for so long. Like, what's up with that detail? So basically what he's describing is this new Jerusalem, this city, and he measures it. Why in the world would that detail be given to us in the book of Revelation? Here's why. It's a perfect cube. That's a massive cube, 12,000 stadia.

That's roughly about 14 to 1,500 miles. And so it's as large as Florida past the Canadian border, from the eastern shoreline of our country all the way to Colorado. I mean, like this massive, massive, not just square, it's a cube, it's as high as it is wide and long. Now, the point is, if you were a first century Christian who was reading this text, you would've gone, it's a perfect cube. A couple of times throughout scripture, God commanded his people to build things. There's only two times that what he commanded to build were a perfect cube. They were the same thing. One was in this thing called the tabernacle. I call the tabernacle, it's when God's people were nomadic and they're moving around. So I call it God's RV. I know you're kind of with me, right? Kind of traveling around. But there was this part of the tabernacle that was called the Holy of Holies. That's where God's presence dwelt. Do you know the shape of the Holy of Holies? It was a cube. Now, it was such a holy place where God's presence was that the people couldn't go in there. There's only one exception, that the high priest got to go in there one time every year to atone for the sins of the people.

The Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, initially the tabernacle became permanent in this building called the temple. There was also a Holy of Holies in the temple. Do you know what the shape is of the Holy of Holies in the temple? It's a cube, you're catching on, right? And again. Again, same rules apply, that's where God's presence was. People couldn't go in there, except for one exception. The high priest could go one time a year to atone the sins of the people. But you remember, when Jesus gave his life on the cross, one of the details that the Bible gives us is the veil that separated what was outside from the holy of holies, that veil was torn in two, top down, as if heaven was the one that was tearing it in two. Because there's no longer any distance or disconnection between us and God. And so as John's writing this picture about the book of Revelation and this holy city that's coming down, what's the shape of it again? It's a cube. Every Jewish first century Christian would've gone, oh, it's the holy of holies, it's just a massive holy of holies. I mean, it's 1,400, 1,500 miles wide, 1,400, 1,500 miles long, it's the same

It is God's presence everywhere you go, but it's not that you have to stay out and only one person gets to go in once a year to atone for the sins of the people. Don't you understand? The sins of the people have already been atoned for because of the blood of Jesus Christ. So now you and I have access. We don't need a intermediary. We get to just live eternally in the holy, magnificent, almighty presence of our great God. Can I tell you about the gates into this place? Maybe you've heard about the gates and people talk about the pearly gates. Here's where that statement gets, it says that there were 12 gates, that the 12 gates were 12 pearls and each gate was made of a single pearl. The great streets of the city were paved in gold as transparent glass. You know, it's a pretty amazing place to be in the middle of the night You know, it's a pretty amazing place when the asphalt is made of gold. But look at these gates. They're made of pearls. And so you may have heard pictures or images or seen cartoons where you meet Peter at the pearly gates. Have you ever heard that before?

Just so you know, Peter's not there. Peter's gonna be enjoying the holy city. He doesn't need to be standing with a clipboard at the gate to make sure he was there. That's actually not his job. But the gates are made of pearl. Why pearls? Well, think about how a pearl is made. A pearl is made when a grain of sand, this imperfection gets inside of a clam. And then there's this substance, it's called nacre. And what it does is it takes that imperfection, this grain of sand that's inside the clam and it goes over and over and over and over and over and over again until it takes what was imperfect and it makes it something beautiful. Do you see what John's doing here? He's saying the gates are very similar in the sense that you and I had imperfection. But because the cross of Jesus Christ, our imperfection was covered over and over and over again by the grace of our great God. When you go into the city, it's a reminder of the beauty that God created out of our imperfection. I would say it this way. The gates remind us of the cross. Every one of them reminds us of what Jesus made of our mess.

The beautiful, redemptive work of Jesus. And that's why verse four says this, that he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He has made everything new. He's made it all new. And so I would say this third principle is one that we've got to live into. And it's simply this. Eternity is not something we escape to. Eternity is something that we learn to live from. You know, sometimes in our hardest moments and our hardest days, we think, gosh, God, would you just take me to be with you? Would you just take me to glory? And sometimes if we're not careful, we can think about this world as being something we just escaped from. But I would argue that eternity actually starts now. Like the moment that you give your life to follow Jesus, the moment you commit your life to follow him, the moment you are a part of God's family, the moment your name is written in the book of life, eternity actually starts for you right now. It's not just something we long for. Eternity is something we actually live from right now. Think about where this is all going. We talked about this a little bit last week, just this world where there's no more dying,

no more pain, no more crying, no more tears. You remember all those things. But we actually have the opportunity to partner with God in the greatest mission to planet Earth, to live for that day. And that's why the mission of the church really is primarily about two different things. The first is, the mission of the church is to help as many people as possible experience the eternity that we just described. And there's a sense that there's this invitation, we're gonna get to that in just a moment, this invitation that Revelation ends with, that God wants to invite every single human being on planet Earth to experience the goodness and the grace of God for all of eternity. And part of our opportunity as a church is to continue to love people well and to serve people well so that people might be able to say yes to Jesus and experience eternity with him. Truly, my study of the book of Revelation, I've become convicted around this particular thing so that I just want you to be aware and maybe even get used to this. More frequently than we've done before, we're gonna do an invitation at the end of most services here at Willow. The why behind it is it's part of our mission to invite as many people as possible

to say yes to Jesus so that may experience eternity. That's part of our mission. The other part of our mission is to give as much of eternity for people to experience it right here on this Earth. So I wanna introduce you to a phrase that I want you to think about and really be thinking about how do you live it out. And it's this phrase. I want us to be people who practice eternity. What does that mean? Well, think about the stuff that's not in eternity. And how do we bridge the gaps so that people don't experience it even today? So the moment that you show up for that friend who's really hurting on a Tuesday night and you bring over a meal to them and you just sit, you don't try to fix it, you just sit with them. You basically stand in the gap and you help people experience the promise of what it's gonna be like to be present with the Lord forever. I would say that is a form of practicing eternity. You think about every moment that you give, whether you're giving financially, whether you're giving your time, whether you're giving your energy, whatever you're giving, you could have kept that for yourself, but you saw the need in somebody else's life

and you recognize in eternity, there are no needs. And so if there's no needs there, how do I bring a little bit of that to here? And how do I meet that need today and allow people to experience it? That is a form of what it looks like to practice eternity. I think about this young woman, I'm gonna put a picture of her on the screen. She's right there in the middle, her name's Sydney. Sydney attends our Huntley location and she's a high school student at Huntley. Now what Sydney's done is her form of practicing eternity is she actually leads a seventh grade girls small group. And then as an entire seventh grade girls small group, they all serve together in our Willow Kids Ministry as well. I love this. You have the next generation serving the next generation to mobilize them all for the sake of the next generation. That's pretty incredible. And so I would argue that what Sydney's doing is she's actually practicing eternity. That she's using her God-given time and ability and influence to make a difference in the life of somebody else. I'm not just gonna wait for eternity someday. I'm gonna play my part to partner with God and allow people just to taste it today almost as a preview for what ultimately is gonna come. Is across all of our locations,

we have something called the Teams Invitational this weekend. It's not the only way that you can serve and practice eternity, but there are lots of ways that you can. Is if you're not yet serving and using your God-given gifts and pouring your life into somebody else and making an eternal difference in the life of somebody, what are you waiting for? And so visit the booths, check them out, kick the tires with them, and figure out how God might use your life in an eternal difference-making type of way. Be somebody who practices eternity. Let me close this way. Book of Revelation chapter 22 actually ends with an invitation. And so it makes sense for me that I end with a similar kind of invitation. You get the sense that John's wanting as many people as possible to experience the eternity that he's just described. You get there in chapter 22, verse 17, says this, says the spirit and the bride say, come, come with me. I want you to experience the beauty of what God has in store for you. And let the one who hears say come. In other words, if you hear what he's describing, if you're hearing the sound of my voice right now,

the invitation is for you, it's come. Let the one who's thirsty. Remember that longing that we started with today? The thing that we carry so heavy. The beautiful thing about Revelation 22 is describes this river that flows from the throne of God that satisfies the thirst that we all have. It's if you're somebody who's thirsty, which we all are, let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. The invitation is to come. As I mentioned, as we started this message, the book of Revelation is really designed to make sure we're ready for Jesus' return, not knowing when that's gonna take place. The question that we all have to wrestle with is if he came today, is our life ready? The beautiful thing is that we can literally get our life ready today. If you've never said yes to Jesus, if you've never chosen to follow him, you can literally make that choice today. I was hanging out with a friend of mine who about 30 years ago was in one of our auditoriums here at Willow Creek. And somebody extended the invitation and they took me to the chair in our auditorium where they raised their hand and they gave their life to Jesus for the first time. It changed the full trajectory of their life. I believe that God wants to do that again.

If you haven't ever said yes to Jesus, the whole invitation of the book of Revelation is to come, enjoy the wedding feast of the lamb, enjoy this eternal dwelling peace, enjoy living in the presence of our almighty God for all eternity. And so if you've never said yes to Jesus, I wanna invite you to say this prayer with me. And you can say it out loud, you can say it in your heart, but I just wanted to ask that you say this prayer and pray it with full devotion to God when we bow our heads together. And we pray, God, thank you for loving me. I believe you died on the cross for my sin. I believe you rose again. Jesus, forgive me for my sin. God, give me the gift of eternal life. God, help me overcome the challenges that I'm facing. I surrender my life fully to you. In Jesus' name, amen. If you made that decision, if you made that decision, whether in this room, at one of our Willow locations, if you're in Jefferson City Correctional Center, you made that decision to follow Jesus, would you just communicate that decision by just simply raising your hands? Thank God, I'm giving my life fully to you. Let me pray for those who raised their hands. God, I just wanna say a prayer for every single person

across all of our locations at JCCC, every single person that's reaching their hand up to you. Father, you see them. God, you know them. God, you know their longing. Father, I just ask in this moment, would you forgive them? Would you empower them? Would you give them your Holy Spirit? God, may they experience new life with you. God, we pray this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.