Revelation 21:1-4
Aren’t weddings great?
I’ve never been to a wedding where people don’t wander around smiling. Sometimes they smile so much that by the end of the day it hurts to lift the corners of your mouth.
The joy of the day just overflows to everyone involved. All who are there are filled with joy and happiness. Its one of those exciting days that sticks in our memories forever. The perfection of the day remains no matter what happens later.
I can remember thinking that my wedding day would never arrive. I can remember Kris thinking the same thing. Even the night before at our rehearsal we were making jokes about it not happening because God would intervene to close out history.
That morning was filled with anticipation. I knew that by that evening my life would be drastically changed for the better.
When we stand in front of God at the altar, none of us realizes everything that is in front of us. The commitment to stay with each other in sickness and health, for better or worse, till death do us part is only a bunch of words, that don’t yet mean anything to us. They aren’t really real yet.
None of us sees into the future the nights we would spend staying up with each other when we or the kids are sick. None of us sees the financial struggles we will face over the years. We don’t see the many kinds of pain that life brings and all the tears we will shed because of it.
And even right now, we can’t see what tomorrow will bring. It could be joy. It could be sorrow. But we land right in the middle of this passage that says that God sees it all and will wipe away every tear and sorrow from His beloved Bride. That is a promise to those of us who have heard Him call and followed Him with our whole lives.
It is hard for any couple standing at the altar to realize the gravity of that commitment in the joy of the moment. The wedding day is such a perfect day for the couple that bad news usually only creeps in when the couple’s friends play practical jokes on them.
When we stand at the altar to get married, ,we aren’t thinking about the bills to be paid. We don’t think about the car needing to get fixed. We’re aren’t worried about to fix for dinner or about our next doctor’s appointment. It is hard not to think that the happiness we are feeling is not all there is to married life.
In the same way, it is hard for us to imagine that what we experience in life is all that there is to experience. We think this is it and we forget that life is more than what experience every day.
We work so hard to survive, to make ends meet because nothing it seems comes easy in this life. Then we see the news every night on TV or in the mornings in our papers and we’re left with the impression that this world is tough place to live. People do nasty things to each other. We struggle against nature, floods, storms, forest fires, drought, famine, too much food in one place and not enough in others.
Then there’s our own lives. We are never ready for the doctor to say, “I’m sorry.” Sickness and disease devastate us and rob us of the joy of living. They steal our joy and hope for the future and make us afraid of what tomorrow might bring our way.
But this life isn’t all that there is to life. Verse 1 of this passage in Revelation 21 says, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” (Rev. 21:1, ESV)
The old earth and heaven had passed away. They have been wiped out. Look at chapter 20, verse 11 and see that John, who is recording this vision, has seen God sitting on the throne. He rules supreme over the universe and heaven and earth flee from His presence. They cannot stand to be in God’s sight because they are imperfect. So God replaced them with something better.
We forget that God did not design this world to be like this. He wanted something better, but we humans, the ones God put in charge of this paradise, have mucked it up so badly that there’s nothing for God to do but erase it and start over.
Although God designed everything to be good, we humans made a mess of things and suddenly it wasn’t so good any more. Adam and Eve knew right away that things weren’t right. When God threw them out of the garden they suddenly had to struggle to live. The command to be fruitful and multiply became a chore and pain.
Sometime after that horrible event mankind gave up on the whole concept of God after all. People no longer thought the world was made by God. They gave the credit to someone or something else. In the ancient world, they thought it the great dragon built the world. Today some scientists tell us that it was just an accident that happened in the just the right sequence at the right time and suddenly the world and the universe existed. Given enough time, life would then appear by accident as well.
People didn’t think they needed God then. They don’t think they need Him today. We can manage the process of evolution just fine thank you. We’ve made this much progress, we will certainly make more in the future.
But then we look around and wonder what kind of progress are we making? If this life is the epitome, the height, the very best of life in this universe, who wants to be a part of it?
So God steps in and reveals Himself once again in human history and this time says enough. He says “Y’all have made a big enough mess out my garden, I’m going to start over.” And He does.
And what He makes new is holy. It is perfect, no blemishes, nothing to mess up the picture of what God has done. Right at the point when we begin to think that this world is all there and the processes of Darwinism, whether scientific or social, are all that there is, God re-creates the whole thing.
He makes it all new! God demonstrates that He is the creator of everything we see in this world and He is the creator who will take care of every problem in this world. We must see Him for who He is—the Creator of our past, our present and our future.
But He is not just the creator, He’s the proud groom as well. Verse 2 of chapter 21 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.” (Rev 21:2, TNIV)
God is standing there waiting at the altar for the new city to be made ready! He is longing for her as any red blooded husband longs for his wife to meet him at the altar to begin their life together.
We often don’t think about God as a husband waiting for His bride when it comes our own lives. We think of the all powerful God who speaks and it happens. We think of the king of the universe who calls the stars by name and tells them go here or go there. We think of the God who knows more about us that we will ever know. He knows the number of hairs on our heads and even our words before we speak.
We think of God as being so completely other than us that we agree with God when He says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” (Isaiah 55:8, ESV) He is the God who is completely sovereign over the universe. Nothing happens without His say so.
But He is also the great lover. He is the One who pursues us in all of our ugly sins and says to each one He calls to Himself, “I will make you my beautiful bride. I will lavish my love on you forever. Come be my Bride.”
God says to each of us who have been steeped in sin from birth, “I will make you acceptable to me. I will make you holy as I am holy and I will take you as my wife and love you like no other.” He wipes out all the transgressions we have done and clothes us in white garments like a bride entering the sanctuary.
We are spotless in His eyes if we follow Him. If we trust in His payment for us to be His bride through His Son Jesus Christ, our sin stained clothes are washed clean. We all come to Him completely dirty and dressed in grubby clothes, but He cleans us up and adorns us with the beauty of a bride.
Can you imagine such great love? No price is too high to have the one He loves. Nothing will keep Him from His appointment to come and take the one He has sought so earnestly, with a deep abiding love, and have her for Himself. Brothers and sisters that is us! His Church. Everyone who places their hope and trust in Him alone is destined to be that bride.
If we read on chapter 21 in verses 15-21, we see that the bride is a city big enough to cover the eastern half of the United States and just as tall. She shines with the brilliance of jewels, gold like clear glass. The crown jewels of England have nothing on the beauty of this bride that God has chosen for Himself. She reflects the incredible glory of God in all of His brilliance.
That is our future as God’s people. This life may not be all its cracked up to be but we have a future and a hope in God that things will some day be different. In that day we will no longer struggle to be holy the way we do now. Holiness will be as natural to us as our breathing is today. We will see the truth that sin has no hold on us. We will see the chains have been completely broken off of us.
But there’s more. We will have a joy that cannot be wiped out. God’s love for us will overflow to us so that we become His bride. Like all brides we will go to live with Him, but not till death takes us out of this world. Even death does not part us and separate us from God.
Verse 3 says, “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.” (Rev 21:3, TNIV)
From the very throne, God announces that He will live with His people. No longer will we run around looking for Him and what He is doing in our lives. We will not have any questions about what to do next or what His will for our lives is; He will be right there living among us.
When we turn to Him and offer our lives to Him we get a taste of what this will be like in our lives. God says that when we trust Him and accept His payment on our behalf for our sins that He comes to live in us. Our bodies become the temple of God. The Holy Spirit came at that moment to dwell in us as the seal guaranteeing that what God promises for our future inheritance will actually happen.
But now God is saying the seal can be broken. The guarantee is fulfilled. He will dwell among us the way a groom lives with His bride. He will make His home with us.
And by making His home with us, He will make our joy complete. Notice verse 4, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4, ESV)
Remember the old song? “No more crying there, we’re going to see the king, no more dying there, we’re going to see the king, hallelujah, hallelujah, we’re going to see the King!”
Imagine all the pains you have experienced in life. Imagine all the hurts others have thrown at you. Imagine every wound you’ve have felt from those you loved. Now imagine them all gone.
The child who told you off and never talked to you again, the pain wiped clear. The tears brushed off your cheek as a lover brushes them off the cheek of the one He loves. The business partner who dealt with you like dirt and left you in financial pain, all of it taken away. The parent who wasn’t there for you growing up and left a gaping hole in your life, God says that wound is healed by His touch.
Think of the comfort this brings to us when we are wracked by deep sobs of grief when a parent or brother or sister dies. Or even a child. God says it is all taken care of for His bride, He will wipe away every tear, comfort every sorrow, heal every broken desire because He loves us.
That is how great His love for us really is. He will no longer let the worst enemy everyone of us faces ever touch us again. Death will have no hold on us, because as His people, God wants us forever. He will not allow anything or anyone to take us from Him if we are His.
He will make all things new by re-creating them, but He will also make all things right by healing them. That is our future as His children.
It is a future filled with holiness. Remember the Bible says, “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” (Heb 12:14 TNIV) We must be holy as He is holy. That has been the premise of this series of messages. But we must not only be holy, we must allow Him to work in our lives to make us holy so that we can be presented to Him pure and spotless without the slightest blemish as His bride for all of eternity.
It is also a future filled with joy. Today we search for joy even in the midst of hard times and trials. Then the joy will be ours and it will overflow from God to us. We will see His great love for us face-to-face and be overwhelmed to the point of rejoicing as at our own weddings. The smiles will not be wiped off our faces, but they will be made greater and they last longer.
If we have accepted His grace through Jesus Christ, We have been offered joy as well. One day, His joy will be made complete as He brings you, me, and everyone who follows His Son Jesus into His house to be with Him forever. On that day “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His servants will serve Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.” (Rev 22:3-5, TNIV)
[…] From Rev. Mike of the estimable History, Mystery, Liturgy blog, we have another edifying sermon, Future Holiness, Future Joy. This sermon has as its text Rev. 21:1-4, and Rev. Mike gives us a truly encouraging exposition […]
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