Introduction

They Just never seem to get it right

Israel’s story is downbeat – They struggle with faithfulness

The Judges, the Kings of Israel & Judah, and the religious leaders in Jesus’ time can make us pessimistic

We have reason to hope in the church – God’s spirit dwells in us (like Moses, David, Elisha, Isaiah)

But studying the history of the church we see people (some well intentioned, some not) making the same mistakes

The Great Schism between the East and West, the corruption of the Catholic churches, religious wars and modern church scandals all show how our efforts to be better end in frustration

It is easy to lose hope that the difficulties of this world can ever be dealt with.

Maybe we need to reduce our expectations of what we can hope for.

Maybe Christians should make compromises in the pursuit of a lesser but achievable good?

But to do so, is to say that we know better than God how to bring about blessing on the earth

What are we to do?

While it’s easy to become discouraged, we must remember that hope is not in human effort.

The end of Revelation gives us a vision of the end of history

In the end, it is the grace of God, not human effort that brings God’s plan to its final fulfilment.

When we understand this it frees us to a new form of faithfulness

Over and over again Revelation calls believers to be victorious (conquer, triumph, prevail or overcome in other translations)

15 of the 24 verses in the NT that use the underlying Greek word are in Revelation

But in Revelation victory doesn’t look the way most people think of it.

For most people, victory looks like winning a fight or contest that allows you to impose your will on others

But Jesus redefines victory: by being obedient to God to the point of death on a cross

for us to be victorious means to be likewise unflinchingly faithful to God’s will, even in the face of persecution

This way of being victorious doesn’t look like victory except through the eyes of faith – to all others it looks like losing

As we ‘lose’ by faithfulness to God, he transforms our apparent defeat into victory in the same way he transformed what appeared to be Jesus’ defeat on the cross into the victory of the empty tomb.

The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is the pattern of God’s victory over sin and death.

When we face hardship and suffering, we may be tempted to take matters into our own hands, doing what seems right in our own eyes to salvage victory

But we can obey God knowing that God’s ultimate objective is accomplished through obedience to His will, no matter how hopeless it may seem from our perspective

So when we face hardship and suffering, when we feel like we’re losing, we can hold on to hope that God can bring victory from what seems to be certain defeat.

We can rejoice and worship the God who brings victory even from death.

Since God has won the victory in Christ, we should respond to all life’s circumstances with worship and faithful obedience

As we do this, we declare our trust in the God who will remake heaven and earth.

In order that we can have the confidence necessary to do this, God communicated a vision of the ultimate fulfillment of his promises to John in Revelation 21. Let’s look at how God does it.God will renew what is broken (21:1-5)

The story of New Creation in Revelation 21 unfolds after the destruction of the Spiritual forces of evil.

Babylon—the embodiment of human arrogance—has been destroyed

The dragon—Satan—has been cast out

God has judged all people

Once evil has been decisively dealt with, God’s creation is transformed:Revelation 21:1–5NIV

1 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.”

Heaven and earth are made new.

The ‘new’ in ‘new heaven and new earth’ is the Greek word Kainos (καινὀς). This doesn’t mean something that hasn’t been around long, but something that has the quality of newness (or often improvement)

The word ‘heaven’ is ouranos (οὐανός) which can refer to God’s space, but here means the skies. New Heaven and New Earth is a shorthand for a renewal of creation

When sin is removed from the world, God renews creation

What we see is as good even greater than the Garden of Eden.

In the New Creation, God has extended his will sovereign will over all.

At the very beginning, the depths symbolize the chaos that God conquered when he created the worldGenesis 1:2NIV

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

For the Israelites, the sea was that area over which God had not asserted his rightful control. It was thought to be the abode of demons

In saying that the sea was no more, John is illustrating how God’s will is now done on earth as in heaven—He has asserted his rightful authority over all of creation.

As a consequence of sin’s destruction and creation’s renewal, God can now live among his people.

In the past, God had lived among his people in the tabernacle (and later the temple).

John picks up this language to describe the incarnation of Jesus

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling [pitched his tent] among us” (Jn.1:14a)

God had dwelt among his people in a provisional way, where his presence was hidden behind the curtain (or veiled in flesh), but now the hope of humanity to dwell with God is fully realized.

As Jeremiah had writtenJeremiah 31:31–34NIV

31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”

God will dwell with his people in a renewed creationGod will reward the just and punish the wicked (21:6-8)

In the next section of John’s vision, we see how God will exclude sin from his renewed kingdomRevelation 21:6–8NIV

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. 8 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.”

While the punishment of the wicked seems harsh, God’s kingdom can only be a blessing if wickedness is excluded.

In the Adam and Eve Story, we saw how sin multiplies

Adam and Eve’s sin leads to Cain killing Abel

A few generations later Lamech boasts that he kills a man for insulting him

Eventually the world becomes so broken God must send the flood

The only way that this new heaven and earth can avoid the same fate is through the exclusion of wickedness

God gives grace to those who do wicked things, but forgiveness can only come to those who accept God’s grace

In verse 6, God offers water to the thirsty: a free gift to those in need

Righteousness is a free gift from God.

God welcomes all who will come to him because of his great love

They are rewarded for being just, even though their becoming just is a gift from God

But the gift of God’s grace has a transforming affect on those who receive it:

Paul explains the relationship between grace and worksEphesians 2:8–10NIV

8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We are not saved by good works, but God’s grace saves us so that our lives will produce good works

Those who are wicked are those who refuse the gift

God does not will them to be excluded, but their exclusion becomes necessary to keep the renewed creation from going the way of old creation

The renewal of creation and the exclusion of those who refuse God’s grace, finally allow the fulfillment of God’s plan for creation: God will live in intimate relationship with his people.God will live in intimate relationship with his people (21:9-27)

God’s objective of living with people was sidetracked by the fall, but now it’s back on

Even though God is infinite and we are not, God loves people, and desires to live in fellowship with us.

John uses the imagery of a marriage to speak about God’s intention towards humanityRevelation 21:9–27NIV

9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16 The city 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 high as it is long. 17 The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass. 22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

In the Old Testament Jerusalem was a symbol of promise and disappointment.

Promise because it was the place where God dwelled among his people (in the Temple)

But disappointment because his people proved not to be faithful

Nothing illustrates this point more than the crucifixion of Jesus by the leadership in Jerusalem just outside the city.

But in Revelation, we see a new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven as a gift from God

By God’s grace the New Jerusalem can be the place where God dwells with his people, while not proving faithless as original Jerusalem had.

This is Jerusalem as it was always supposed to be

The New Jerusalem is also the bride of the lamb (v.9) signifying God’s desire to dwell in intimate relationship with his renewed people.

The city is described as a cube 12,000 stadia (about 2,200 Km on a side) which, if understood literally, would give it a footprint equal to the Roman Empire, only cubed

But this is a symbol – In both the tabernacle & temple, the Holy of Holies was a cube. The temple interior was also overlaid with gold.

This is a picture of God’s manifest presence enveloping the whole world

There is no temple—space set apart for God—because the whole world is filled with God’s presence in a way that could only have been hinted at in the tabernacle and temple and even the incarnation.Responding to The Vision

Is this just a nice story we tell ourselves or is it meant to affect how we live?Worship

The first way we respond to what God has done is through worship

Natural eyes see Jesus as a man, humiliated by Roman Power in his crucifixion

Natural eyes, of course, are unwilling to consider the testimony of the resurrection

Only eyes of faith can understand what truly happened on the cross

Through death, Jesus defeated the power of sin and death

This truth was demonstrated in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

So we have two stories:

Rome’s where it is the victor and Jesus is defeated

or Jesus’ in which he is the victor who has overcome Rome

Both Stories can’t be true

Worshiping the lamb means we dismiss what natural eyes see and look with eyes of faith.

We join with the chorus of heaven:Revelation 5:9–10NIV

“You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.”

Worshiping a crucified lamb mean acknowledging his victory and reorienting our lives around that victory.

We worship God by becoming like the lamb – our worship works itself out in faithful obedienceFaithful Obedience

If you lived in a contested territory, in which a long-time king was defeated by a challenger, you would express your allegiance to the new king by obeying him rather than the old one when the directives conflicted.

The church demonstrates its faith in Jesus’ victory by being allegiant to Jesus’ commands

In many ways this doesn’t set them apart from those who worship Rome

Serving Jesus means serving their communities and loving their enemies rather than engaging in violence against them.

In this way, Christians obedient to Jesus, make the very best subjects

But Babylon is not content with its subjects doing what is good: human arrogance demands ultimate allegiance

When allegiance to Jesus and to Babylon come into conflict – Faithful obedience is to follow Jesus, despite the costs

In John’s day,

The Roman authorities demanded Christians make sacrifices to Caesar – Christians resisted and paid tremendous costs for doing so

to participate in the life of the community meant participating in pagan religious rituals or face exclusion, or even the anger of those who felt snubbing the gods would lead to divine wrath on their community

In my context:

If my government declares a war and tells me that I must fight and kill its enemies – faithful obedience means objecting because Jesus tells me to love my enemies.

If my government were to tell me to report illegal immigrants for deportation, I wouldn’t report them (unless they were a danger to public safety).

By being faithful to Jesus we may run afoul of Babylon’s claims to authority

Being faithful means paying the cost, trusting that God rewards us for our obedience

Remember The vision of the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven, is a victory won by God, not by our effort

Sin is defeated by his power – We can concern ourselves with faithful obedience, leaving the victory to GodConclusion

So when we look at the state of our world and are tempted to lose heart, we can remember. God has overcome the world.

The messiness we see is the result of human sin

The ultimate victory doesn’t rest on flawed humans, but on the power of God

Our response is to worship God and faithfully serve him, because he has already won the victory

No matter how dark things get, we can find peace knowing that we are in good hands.

The victory rests on God and he is faithful