Back to the Garden

Well, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, turn to Revelation chapter 22,
the last chapter in the last book in your Bible, you can just go to the back and
work your way back until you get to a chapter, Revelation 22. This has been a long
journey that we've been taking through the book of Revelation, and this is the
penultimate message, Lord willing. I expect that we will be concluding our study in
Revelation next Sunday and I know that for many of us especially as we were kind
of slogging our way through chapters 6 through 19 and there were bowls and there
were trumpets and there were seals being opened and there was war and pestilence and
famine and it got a little heavy and you kind of had the feeling of how long oh
Lord is this going to continue how long are we going to have to experience this
with the earthquakes and the floods enough, I get it already, you know, but I think
that's kind of the point is that life as members of the body of Christ in the
church age, it is not going to be unusual for us to experience the kind of
persecution and the kind of famine and pestilence that was talked about here.
Christians throughout history have found themselves longing for Jesus to come back and
to put an end to the evil and the corruption of our day. And that's where we are.
When we got to chapter 21, it was a turning point in Revelation. We turned from
all of the darkness of that age to a new age where John has the first of a
series of visions where he sees the new heavens and the new earth. It's a
revelation to him. That's the name of the book. What's revealed to him is what the
new heavens and the new earth are gonna be like and look like what God is going
to recreate on the last day at the end of the age. So we've been getting this
tour of what our eternal dwelling place will be if we know and love Christ.
When the end comes, this is what God has for his people. And I told you that
there are a lot of symbols and there's a lot of poetry and a lot of symbolic
meaning in these chapters. I don't think what John is seeing or describing is
intended to be understood as literal. Now let me be clear. I think the new heavens
and the new earth are a literal tangible place. So we're going to a place that is
as real as where we are right now in bodies that are as real as the bodies we
have Now, they will be different, real but different. The place we're going in our
bodies will be different, but fully tangible and real. You remember when Jesus
appeared in his resurrection body, you could tell it was Jesus. He said,
"You can touch the wounds in my hands," but he could also walk through a wall. So
it's real but different. The Bible tells us that I has not seen or you're here has
it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who know and
love Him. So while it's real, it's beyond our comprehension. And John is seeing
visions that describe for him this place. I think the new heavens and the new earth
are not clouds in the air. We're not floating around playing the harp. I think
there is dirt and there are hills and there are rivers just like in the Garden of
Eden, which was a real place with real people living there, so the new heavens and
the new earth are going to be real as well. But I think these visions are filled
with symbolic meaning. We're not looking at a photograph of the new heavens and the
new earth, or John is not looking at a photograph, he's not describing it as a
photograph. We're seeing something more like a van Gogh than like a realist painting
of something. We're seeing something that has more impressionism in it. So as I said
last week, the description of the new heavens and the new earth in Revelation 21 is
a giant cube. I think that has symbolic meaning. I don't think the new heavens and
the new earth are a giant cube. There's a description of walls that are 200 feet
thick. I don't think there will be those walls. I think that's there to say you're
going to be safe. You're going to dwell in the presence of God. There is splendor
and majesty. There are precious stones pictured. I don't know that those precious
stones are going to be in the walls in heaven. I think there's symbolic meaning
here. It may be that when we get to the new heavens and the new earth, there's an
actual throne room. There's an actual river that runs from it. There is an actual
tree of life in the middle of the garden. Or it could be that these symbols are
here to point us to something greater and deeper. And as I read this,
that's a conclusion I come to. You may come to a different conclusion, that's fine.
I think the point is, John doesn't want us focused so much on the geography,
he wants us focused more on the community that we'll be experiencing. The community
with one another, the community with God himself. So we're going to look at the
first 5 verses of chapter 22 this morning and as we turn to it again I want to
ask the Lord's help Lord we need you now, we need your spirit to be our teacher,
we need you to point us to exactly what you want each of us to see and Lord for
some of us that will be different than what you want others of us to see but
that's the wonder of your spirit and the power of your word. So we ask that you
would give us Ears to hear, eyes to see, hearts to obey, what your spirit would
say to us this morning, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. You follow along as I
read, Revelation 22, beginning at verse 1. This is the word of God for the people
of God. John says, "Then an angel showed me the river of the water of life,
bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the
middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river,
the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit yielding its fruit each month,
the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there
be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him. They will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads, and night will be no more.
They will need no lamp, light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their
light and they will reign forever and ever. Amen, may God bless this reading of his
word, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God will last
forever. This scene is intentionally designed to make you think of another garden
scene. When you get In Revelation 22, Genesis 2 should come to mind.
This place where we will live forever and ever has a lot in common with the place
that God created for the first man and the first woman to live, because He told
them to subdue it, to have dominion over it, to work it, to keep it, to be
fruitful and multiply. And these verses in Revelation 22 22,
our vision of the Garden of Eden, which was sealed off from human beings,
now recreated for us to live in. You remember the story,
the man and the woman created to live in the garden, to subdue, to have dominion
over it. They sinned, when they sinned they were kicked out of the garden, there
was an angel placed at the door of the garden with the flaming sword to keep them
from being able to come back in. Well, in these verses in Revelation 22,
we see the following. We see Eden reopened and we see the river of the water of
life flowing and we see the tree of life in the center. There was a river and a
tree in Genesis 2. Eden, That's kind of the first half of this, we moved from Eden
reopened to what I'm calling Eden forever, which is just a way of saying this is
what life is going to be like forever there. God's people are going to be serving
God, they are going to be seeing His face, and they're going to be reigning with
Him. We are going to be doing those things forever and ever according to this. So
let me jump back and we'll look at these first two verses where we look at Eden
reopened. And here's how I want us to work through this passage. I'm gonna give you
just some observations, some thoughts from these verses, what I think are the
important observations we ought to be making as we read this. And I'll start with
this. These parallels we see between this passage and the first half of Genesis 2,
make it clear that what John is picturing for us here is a restored Garden of
Eden. And we won't take the time to read Genesis 2. You can go there on your own
this afternoon, read it again. But if you go there, you will see that there was a
river that flowed out from Eden to water the garden. Here in Revelation 22,
we have a river of life flowing from the throne. In Genesis 2 .9, it says,
"The tree of life grew in the midst of the Garden of Eden." Here the tree of life
reappears in Revelation 22, Adam and Eve lived and walked in the presence of God in
the garden. And right here in Revelation 22, we are dwelling in the presence of
God, seeing him face to face. Adam and Eve were assigned to function as co -regents
in the Garden of Eden, working as co -regents with God to subdue the earth,
to rule over the animals, and in this passage, once again mankind is given the
assignment of ruling with Christ. The Garden of Eden is what we see right after God
has created the heavens and the earth for the first time. When God creates the new
heavens and the new earth, here's where we go, right here to this garden scene
again. And of course we shouldn't miss the fact that human history begins in a
garden and human history wraps up in a garden. It comes full circle.
Eden is reopened and remade. I say reopened because again there was an angel
guarding it to keep Adam and Eve out. That angel has been removed. There's no more
fiery sword keeping people out. The gates are open that all who know and love
Christ can come in. People are coming home here. Now, once again, I think in both
settings, the language of paradise being a garden doesn't necessarily mean that we
will spend eternity in a place that looks like Garvin Gardens or the Biltmore
Gardens or the Victoria Gardens. I like gardens. I've been, have you, I don't know
if you've been to one of those pretty gardens. We went, Marianne and I were in
Asheville, North Carolina a year ago before the floods came from Helene and we
toured the Biltmore Gardens, and they are amazing, and they are beautiful. In fact,
here's what the tulips look like in the Biltmore Gardens when they are in bloom. I
mean, that's gorgeous, right? You wouldn't mind living, or when the azaleas are
blooming. Yeah, it's gorgeous. When the sunflowers pop up, it's amazing. I mean,
it would be, it would be, it will be nice. I'd like to think there are gardens in
heaven that look beautiful like that. I suspect that the new heavens and the new
earth will have magnificent gardens that will be like nothing you've seen at the
Biltmore or Victoria Gardens or Garvin Gardens or any of those other places. But
this picture of this garden city in Revelation 22 is a picture of life exploding.
That's really what the garden imagery is there to say There is life, there is
vibrancy, there is thriving taking place, nature is unleashed to do what nature was
created to do in the first place. It's a magnificent display of God's creative
glory. Remember the people, John when he was growing up, remember where he lived?
He lived in a desert climate. Have you ever been to Israel? There's not a whole
lot of garden scenery in Israel. And in fact, when God described to the nation of
Israel when they were coming into the Promised Land, he said, "This is a land that
flows with what?" Milk and honey. Well, that's a poetic phrase,
because honestly, there's some honey in Israel, but there's not a lot of milk in
Israel. It's not Wisconsin, where you have dairy cows all over the place.
When God describes the promised land as a land that flows with milk and honey, he's
saying there's going to be abundance and prosperity where you're going, both
physically and spiritually. And I think the same is true with this garden scene.
There's going to be beauty. There's going to be life. It's going to be magnificent.
And I think life is the key word here. In fact, the second point I want to make
the second observation here is that the new heavens and the new earth will be
teeming with life. The last chapter we were in,
chapter 21 ends with a reference to the Lamb's book of life. This chapter points
five times to the river of life or the tree of life. We keep seeing that. And
each time life is mentioned here, the Greek word that is used is the word Zoe.
Zoe is one of two Greek words for life. The other one is bias.
So from bias we get biology, we get biological life, organic life,
physical life. Zoe describes something different. It describes a quality of life.
It describes an abundant life, a life that is characterized or experiences,
love and joy and excitement. Bayas is existing,
Zoe is living. Tim Keller tells a story about the first time he took his son with
him on a ministry trip and they went on an airplane together. His son was seven
years old and his son was wide eyed. That's the first time on an airplane.
They get on the airplane they're in their seats they take off he has that
experience of kind of feeling like you're on a roller coaster taken off they're up
in the sky he's looking out at the window seeing what's down below and then a
flight attendant comes and says would you like a biscotti and a Coke and he he
said yes and so she served him Tim Keller says at one point my son leaned his
chair back kicked his legs up looked down on the cloud sipped his soft drink and
turned to me and said dad this is living now
maybe for a seven -year -old I don't know when the last time you flew was but now
to be cramped in one of those little seats right and I have not thought recently
on an airplane man this is really living and the biscotti and the coke just don't
do it for me right but but the But back to this, the picture of the river of
life, the tree of life, the book of life, it's not describing the duration of our
lives or our existence, it's describing the quality of life.
Now yes, we will live forever, we will have life forever. But as Tim Keller points
out, eternal existence without Zoe is hell.
To live forever without joy and love and peace and all that Zoe is designed to
bring to us That would be terrible If I said to you you're gonna live forever and
it's gonna be just like this You'd go no No,
if it never gets better than this this is all it get no I You've you've met I
remember my mom in her 90s when she was like, I'm ready to go,
I don't want it. You get to a point where it's like, okay, I've had enough of
this. If somebody said, oh no, you're gonna live forever and keep getting older and
older, you'd go, no. But what God promises is not eternal existence,
it's eternal life, eternal Zoe. Remember what Psalm 16 tells us.
The Psalmist says, "You will not abandon my soul to sheol or let your holy ones
see corruption. You make known to me the path of Zoe." In your presence there is
fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures ever more.
That's eternal life. This life is filled with struggle and trials and unpleasantness
and sorrow Our daughter texted us yesterday morning, and she said please say a
prayer for Rachel and her daughter Lily and this is a picture of Rachel and Lily
and Rachel's husband Jimmy Who passed away yesterday after having stomach cancer for
a number of years. So Rachel and Lily Are at this birthday party now. There's no
dad there The sorrow, we face news like that every day.
Sadness and sorrow are an inescapable part of life on earth, but in the new heavens
and the new earth, there's never a party where they announce that dad has cancer.
All of it's gone. The pain, the sorrow, it's all gone. What the Bible describes as
light and momentary afflictions that we experience in this life, And I know some of
you are experiencing very hard things and you say these do not feel like light and
momentary afflictions The Bible says I know I know but compared to the eternal
weight of glory that's coming. That's what this is Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's real
But something so great is coming that the the sorrow and the pain you're going
through now Will one day be a fleeting memory something that you go. Oh,
yeah. Yeah, I remember that was hard. This garden city of Revelation 22 is teeming
with life. There's a river of life. There's a tree of life. The river flows and
brings life everywhere. The tree nourishes and delights with life.
Let me make just an observation about the river of life in this passage. Did you
notice When the throne is mentioned in verse 1, it's described as the throne of God
and of the Lamb. Did any of you stop and think, "Well, wait a sec.
Where's the Holy Spirit? Shouldn't He be on that throne as well?" I mean,
He is God just like the Father and Son are. In fact, the whole scene in Revelation
21 and 22 has a lot to say about God and about the Lamb, and very little to say
about the Holy Spirit until you get to the end of the book where it says, "And
the Spirit and the bride say, 'Come.'" Why is the Holy Spirit absent from this
picture of heaven? He's not.
The river of the water of life in verse 1 is the Holy Spirit.
He is the one who flows from who proceeds from the father and the son who brings
life to all who spreads life throughout Heaven now,
how do I know how can I say that that this is that the text doesn't say it? But
remember back in John chapter 4 when Jesus is having his conversation with the woman
at the well in Sychar outside of Samaria and He says to her he talks to her about
living water. He says to her every
is the one who springs up in us eternal life. That's our, our Zoe comes from the
Holy Spirit. And just in case John four is not clear enough in John seven,
Jesus is at the feast of tabernacles. And the Bible says on the last day of the
feast, the great day Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come
to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, "out of his
heart will flow rivers of living water." And then John says in his gospel,
now this he said about the spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive,
for as yet the spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So
when we go back to Revelation 22, and we see a river of water of life streaming
from the throne, that's pointing us to the Holy Spirit who likes, by the way, to
stay in the background and point to Jesus anyway. That's his assignment. Anytime the
the Holy Spirit gets too much attention put on him, he says, "No, Jesus, look at
Jesus. He's here to point you to Jesus." You might, again this afternoon,
might want to note Ezekiel 47. We won't look at it this morning, but in Ezekiel 47
there's a picture of a river that begins to trickle out of the temple and that
trickling river begins to get deeper and wider and more full,
more voluminous as it moves forward, increasing in depth and volume. It's a picture
of the gospel spreading through the church age and more and more people coming to
faith in Christ. And Ezekiel in talking about that river in chapter 47 says that
along the banks of the river there are trees to provide food. He says their leaves
will not wither, nor will their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every
month. The fruit will be for food and their leaves will be for healing. So Ezekiel
47, Genesis 2, these are all popping up here in this picture that John is seeing
in Revelation 22. There is a river that flows forth and there is a tree.
In Ezekiel it appears to be a variety of trees, many trees, and here it appears as
well that this tree of life is a kind of tree, that there are many of these trees
of life growing because they're on either side of the river. And in Revelation It
says that these trees produce 12 kinds of fruit, and you remember 12 is a number
that means completeness or fullness. And these trees, bearing whatever fruit there is,
they bear it year round, as opposed to being in particular seasons. Any time you
want a fruit, it's always in season in heaven. And by the way, I'll just add here
that the highest and the greatest of all fruits is the Bing Cherry, okay? That's
the best fruit there is. It's the fruit above all fruits, and I said last week
there will be chips and queso in heaven, but I'm also sure that these trees will
bear Bing cherries throughout the year, not just in June or July, but you can have
them any time you want. And those of you who are shaking your heads and saying,
"No, that's not the greatest fruit, I'm sorry, we'll on church discipline sometime,
or you can, if you don't like being cherished, you like your peaches, whatever it
is, they're always there in season and the sweetest, best ones you've ever had.
Again, I don't think this is intended to be literal, that there's going to be a
fruit orchard here. There may be, I'd love for there to be as many being cherished
as I want, but I think the bigger thing is that there's abundance and there's
sweetness and there's nourishment and there's delight and the provision of God that
never runs out for us. We are always cared for in eternity.
The Bible pictures trees often as a source of life. Psalm 1,
blessed is the man who does not walk in the council the ungodly, but he is like a
tree planted by streams of living water, drawing his sustenance from the water.
John 15, Jesus talks about we are the vine, he is the vine,
we are the branches, and the only way to have life is for the branches to be
connected to the tree. Life comes from the tree, from the vine. He goes on here to
say that, or goes on there to talk about how fruit comes in our lives when we are
attached to him. and I think the fruit that John is seeing in Revelation 22 is
that fruit that nourishes and sustains and brings enjoyment to life. Our life, our
Zoe, comes from the river and from the tree. So here's how I would sum up verses
one and two. The main point in the new heavens and the new earth just as now,
real life, abundant life, Zoe flows from the throne. If you want the kind of
abundant life that God is talking about and that he's promised, it comes from the
throne. The only place you can get it is from the throne. I think it's easy for
us to get caught up in these physical descriptions and go, "Well, wait," since the
river runs through the middle of the street and there are trees on either side and
we get a picture in our mind, I think that's not the main point of what's being
talked about here. The glory of eternity, as I've said, is not the geography, but
the community. We are going to be together free from sin. Let me say that again.
We're gonna be together free from sin, eternally existing in the presence of the
living, loving God of the universe. That's the Zoe that is ahead for us. God is
the source of all life, both by us and Zoe, but here it's is Zoe that we will
experience going forward. In 1 John 5, John says it pretty straightforwardly.
He says this is the testimony that God gave us eternal Zoe and this Zoe is in his
son. Whoever has the son has Zoe. Whoever does not have the son of God does not
have Zoe.
Life flows from the throne. Life comes through Jesus, through God,
and through the Lamb.
That's true in the here and now, and that's true in the life to come. If you want
life, the only source of it is King Jesus. He is the source of Zoe.
If you have him, you have life. If you don't have him, you try to patch up your
life. You try to fill the longing for life that you have with all the wrong things
in all the wrong places. Everyone is on a quest to have a life that is abundant,
a life that that brings joy, a life that brings contentment and satisfaction. We're
all longing for it and there's no end to people who are making their living
suggesting to you that this will satisfy you. This car, you get you get this car,
then you'll have what you've been longing for. You get this job, you take this
pill, you drink this drink, you spend some time on this website, this experience,
this relationship, this is where you're gonna find what your heart is longing for.
That's the idolatry that we just talked about in the Catechism. Thinking that good
things are ultimate things. And they're not. They'll never deliver what God says
comes from the throne. Life, the river of life and the tree of life.
This kind of life here and in the life to come, its only source is God.
Knowing Him, being known and loved by Him, aligning your life with His purposes,
that's where life comes from.
Is that where life comes for you?
When you are longing for what your heart longs for, do you continue to come back
to God as your source for that? Or does the TV ad or wherever you hit the thing
that pops up on your screen, does that make you think, "Oh, maybe it's over here.
Maybe I'll find it here."
Are you still pursuing substitutes? Whoever has the sun has life. Whoever does not
have the sun does not have life. Pretty simple. Do you have the sun? Is he at the
center of your life? Do you keep coming back to the throne as the source of life?
Joy, peace, shalom.
You can, if that's not what your life is centered in now,
it can be today. You can make that turn, you can pivot. Jesus says, come to me,
all you who are weary and heavy laden, I'll give you rest. I'll give you what your
heart is longing for. But you have to come to Him. You have to turn from what
you've been chasing and go to Him and find your rest in Him. "follow him, serve
him, worship him." And you do it simply by crying out to him, saying, "Lord, I
need you. "I need you to be at the center of my life. "I've made a mess of my
life. "I have sinned, I've rebelled against you. "I've put myself at the center of
my life. "Instead of you being at the center of my life, "I need a new life. "I
believe that your son Jesus died on the cross and give my sins, and to give me
new life, and Lord, I come and ask for that today. When you pray a prayer like
that sincerely from your heart, God honors that prayer, and begins the
transformational work in your life. He gives you new life, and the remodeling project
is underway.
That's where Zoe comes from. Not just in the new heavens and the new earth,
but right here. We have a foretaste now of what we will have an abundance in
heaven. The end of verse 2 says that the leaves on the tree are the leaves for
the healing of the nations. In the Old Testament the Bible says that when the day
of the Lord comes enemies will lay their weapons down and they will study war no
more and lions will lay down with lambs and it will be a season of peace. They
will live in the shade of the tree of life, and they will experience, they will be
healed. Healing will come. Past hurts are healed. Relationships are healed.
Worries are quieted. Emptiness is filled. That's what the tree of life brings.
The tree of life brings healing. Let me just point out here that the tree of life
has a connection in the Bible to a very different tree. The tree of life,
we experience life from it because Jesus went to a tree of death.
We can know eternal life because Jesus was crucified on a tree of death.
We used to sing an old gospel song here that included this lyric. His sacrifice on
Calvary has made the mighty cross a tree of life for me. What was the tree of
death for him is the tree of life for us. Healing comes from the leaves on the
tree of life and it is by his stripes hanging on the cross that we are healed.
So we talked about this being Eden reopened. I want to look at verses three through
five in this passage which focuses less on what John sees and more on what the
experience of God's people will be in this eternal place. And I call it Eden
forever because this will be our eternal experience as sons and daughters in the new
heavens and the new earth. Here's the first thing I want us to see in this
passage. The curse that God had pronounced on His creation when Adam and Eve sinned
in Genesis 3, that curse
is reversed. In Genesis 3 the ground was cursed, the serpent was cursed,
the man and the woman had to live and do life in a world that had been cursed
and the creation that had been cursed. In Revelation 22 the curse is broken,
it's reversed, it's eliminated. That's why verse 3 says, "No longer will there be
anything accursed in the new heavens and the new earth. It's gone, it's lifted.
Everything that was subjected to the curse, material creation, humanity,
our bodies, our broken relationships, all of it is no longer under the curse.
Every year at Christmas, we sing a familiar carol that was not written for
Christmas.
When Isaac Watts, was it Watts? Watts wrote Joy to the World, right? Isaac Watts,
when he wrote Joy to the World, he did not have the incarnation of Jesus in mind.
He had the second coming of Jesus. He had the new heavens and the new earth in
mind. Think about it the next time you sing and sing lyrics like, "No more let sin
or sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground." He comes to make his blessings flow
far as the curse is found. In the first coming, Jesus begins the process of
breaking the curse here in the new heavens and the new earth that's completely gone.
No thorns in heaven. No ground that has weeds in it.
The curse is replaced with blessing.
The curse is removed and we experience eternal blessing. Imagine.
In fact, notice that the reason that nothing accursed exists in the new heavens and
the new earth is because of the throne of God and of the Lamb, that the reason
there's nothing accursed is because the throne of the God and the Lamb are there.
And God and the Lamb cannot dwell in the presence of sin.
So it's removed. When God and the lamb are on the throne, the curse is gone.
Second thing to notice in this passage is that your life in the new heavens and
the new earth, you will be servants who worship him. Now the most common word in
the Greek for worship in the New Testament, in the New Testament, is the word
prosconeo. Prosconeo literally means to kiss toward. So you worship by bowing and
kissing the hand of the king, or you're expressing your admiration, your affection,
you're making a statement of God's worth, and you're admiring or adoring Him, you're
kissing toward Him. That's the literal meaning of that word. But here in Revelation
22, when it says we will worship Him forever, His servants will worship him,
it doesn't use the word prosconeo, it uses the word latriuo, latriuo,
I hope I'm saying that right, which means to worship by serving or ministering to.
It's not just an expression of affection, it's worship through service. In Romans 12,
when Paul says, "I urge you brothers to present your bodies "as a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable to God, "which is your spiritual service of LaTri 'uo." It's your
service of worship. You worship by serving. We tend to think of worship in eternity
as kind of an extended Sunday morning service where we'd sing songs and we just,
our hearts are filled with love and joy. And I'm sure that's gonna happen in
heaven. I'm sure those moments are there? Revelation describes moments where the
saints are gathered around the throne and they are singing praise to God. That's
going to be there, but that's not the only way we worship in heaven. In fact, I
would suggest it's not the primary way we will worship in heaven, in the same way
that it's not the primary way that we worship on earth. The primary way that we
worship on earth is through our service to Christ. It's our lives being poured out
as an offering to Him, our service for him,
we will worship him by serving him. And you say, what are we gonna be doing? I
don't know. The Bible doesn't say what our service will look like. But it looks
like, according to verse three, we will worship him by serving him in some way.
Something else that's remarkable that'll be taking place here is that we will also
see him face -to -face.
Now you may know this is a big deal, a bigger, I mean it's said here like it's
just matter of fact, we will see him face -to -face. And we think, okay, you
remember Moses on Mount Sinai? Moses said to God as he's receiving the Ten
Commandments, "Lord, let me see your glory, show me your glory." And God says, "No
one can see my face and live. And then it's hide your face in the rock.
I'll pass along behind you. And that's enough for Moses to come down from the
mountain. His face is shining because he was that close to the glory of God. In
heaven we see his face.
Seeing God's face. Now remember, God's a spirit. So again,
we're talking about something symbolic here. God does not have a face, but what
we're seeing when we are face to face with God is the revelation of who he is in
an unclouded way. We are seeing the glory of God in a fullness that we can't
experience here on earth. Now Jesus does have a resurrection body and does have a
face. We will see the face of Jesus, and I'm excited to see whether it matches the
out of Turin or not, right? But, so we will see the glory of God in the face of
Jesus.
But John tells us, in 1 John, he says, when Jesus appears,
we will see his face and as a result we will be like him.
Seeing him in the new earth face to face, it won't be through a mirror dimly.
God will fully sanctify us through the process of seeing the face of God.
In fact, look at this passage. Second Corinthians 3 says, "And we all with unveiled
face behold..." Do we have this? Do I have this? Second Corinthians 3 18,
"We all with veiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed
into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the
Lord who is the Spirit.
Seeing the face of God now, we see veiled. We see through a glass dimly.
One day the veil is removed, we see him face to face, and the transformation of
our lives occurs as a result of that. Sam Storms says it this way. He says, "In
the new earth the final stage of this transformation will be attained.
We will, by God's grace, reach the final degree of glory. Just as the vision of
Christ in the present in Scripture sanctifies us progressively, the vision of Christ
in the future will by us wholly. It is our experience of Christ that sanctifies.
If progressive assimilation to the likeness of Christ results from our present
beholding Him through a glass darkly, to behold Him face to face, that is to see
Him as He is, will result in instantaneous perfection and glorification. You're being
changed now by seeing the image of God through His Word, but it's a clouded image,
and it's a slow -going thing. When you see Him face to face, you are entirely
sanctified. Through the radiance of His glory, it has that sanctifying influence.
And in addition to the sanctifying effect that seeing the face of God will have in
our lives, can you even imagine what the experience will be like to see Jesus face
to face.
We sang about it last week. Remember when we sang, "Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look
full in his wonderful face." And that has a sanctifying influence. We do that today
through a glass dimly one day in eternity. We will see him face to face as he is
and it will change us forever. I can't wait.
John says we will also receive officially his name. It will be written on our
foreheads. You bear the name of Christ today because you call yourself a Christian.
You've been adopted into his family, but there will be a permanent ceiling of that
with the name on the forehead. We saw this back in Revelation three. It's also in
Revelation seven. To the one who conquers Jesus says, "I will write my name on them
that signifies ownership. I don't know if moms still do this. When I was a kid and
I went to camp, mom wrote my name in all my clothes. I think she actually sewed
labels with my name on them in all of my clothes.
Again, I don't know if that still happens, but the reason for that was so you
would know those genes belong to me. They have my name in them. God writes his
name on us so that it's disputable who we belong to, that we are his.
He will not only declare his ownership of him, of us, that we have been adopted
into his family, that we are his children, but he is officially giving us his name
for all eternity. Today we bear his name as his children. It will be sealed when
eternity comes. And then the last thing this passage says is that we will reign
with him forever." And again, I come back to this, "What does this mean? That we're
gonna reign with Christ forever." Have you ever wondered about who you're gonna be
reigning over, what it's gonna look like, what it means to reign with Christ? Me
too. And the Bible doesn't give us a whole lot of explanation of what it means to
reign and rule with Christ. This is pretty much all it says. We know in the first
garden, God said to the man and woman, you are to subdue. You are to exercise
dominion. You are to work it and to keep it. So I imagine that this new eternity
will be like what Adam and Eve had in the first garden. Maybe we're ruling over
angels. Some have suggested that. Maybe there are animals in heaven. Some of you
have been hoping there would be animals in heaven. We don't know for sure. C .S.
Lewis thought certainly there are animals in heaven and maybe there are animals in
heaven. I remember somebody wrote to Steve Brown one time. Steve Brown's a pastor in
Florida and they wrote to him and said, "Will my dog be in heaven?" And Steve
Brown wrote back to her and said, "If you need your dog in heaven in order to
experience joy, your dog will be in heaven." Left it at that. I don't know if your
dog's gonna be in heaven or not, but I know you will have fullness of joy, and if
your dog's not in heaven, you won't even notice. If your dog is in heaven, then
you will rule and reign over your dog, okay?
And your dog will not sin against you and will not, anyway. Here's what we know.
We know that God's plan for eternity will include a role for us to play.
In this setting, where the river of life flows, where the tree of life bears fruit
all year long, where we experience life as it was meant to be, full of joy and
peace and love with no sin, where the curse is removed, we will have work to do.
And whatever the work you will have to do in eternity is, you will love it.
You know how some days you go to work and you come home from work and you go, I
wish I never had to go back there again. But some days you come home and you go,
that was a good day. That was rewarding, that was fulfilling. Every day, whatever
you're doing in heaven, that will be your experience. There won't be a day when you
come home at the, I don't know if there's an end of a day 'cause there's no night
now, I don't know how it works. But I do know that there will be joy in whatever
God calls you to
I'm going to conclude with this last thought this morning. If this is what our
experience of eternity is going to be like, how should that shape how we live in
April of 2025?
Is this just here so we can say I can't wait to get there and then we just go
on with life? No, I think it should have an impact on how we're living now as we
prepare for that day. And in fact, I'm going to give you three passages in the
Bible that show us how this vision of eternity should shape how we live today.
The first of those passages is 2 Corinthians 7, where the Bible says, "Since we
have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body
and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God. Since we have these
promises from God about eternity, our response should be to be cleansing ourselves
from defilement. We should be pursuing holiness. Verse John 3,
verse 3, "Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure." And the
last one, this is a longer passage, 2 Peter 3, at the end of 2 Peter 3, Peter
says, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass
away with a roar, the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, the earth
and the works that are done on it will be exposed." That's Revelation 19. "Since
all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in
the lives of holiness and godliness?" Waiting for and hastening the coming of the
day of God, hastening, wait, wait, wait. My pursuit of holiness might hasten the day
when the Lord comes, hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the
heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, the heavenly bodies will melt away as
they burn. But according to His promises, we are waiting for new heavens and a new
earth in which righteousness dwells." The right response to reading Revelation 22 and
thinking this is going to be amazing, this is going to be awesome, is to respond
by saying, "I should be getting myself ready for this. I should be getting myself
ready to live in a place where sin is no more. I should be cleansing myself,
purifying myself. I should be seeking to live a life of godliness and holiness now.
Now, you can't cleanse and purify yourself by your own power. It is the work of
the Spirit doing that cleansing and that purifying, but you can cooperate with the
Spirit. You can pursue that. Our sanctification is a project that we work on
together and God empowers through His Spirit. We should be, I should be as the
writer of Hebrews says, laying aside every weight or every sin that so easily clings
to me now and I should be running the race toward the finish line with endurance
and I should be fixing my eyes where? On Jesus, the author and perfecter of our
faith. Into whose likeness I will one day be transformed when I see him face to
face. That's the right response to a passage like this.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for this picture that you've given us of eternity with you,
full of life, full of joy,
where the curse is broken and where sin is no more. And we long for that day we
long to see you face to face.
And Lord, I pray for each of us here that as we think about these things, it
would motivate us, it would challenge us to cleanse and purify our lives,
to pursue godliness and holiness now,
to want to be more and more like your son as we prepare for that day when you
will cleanse us completely and we will be completely sanctified.
And Lord, I pray for any here who do not have this vision,
this burden at the center of their thinking. Pray for any here who are trying to
find Zoe in something other than the sun,
trying to find life in something other than you.
Lord, would you help them to see the futility of their pursuit?
Help them to turn from their folly and turn to you.
Give them new life. Help them to taste now what we will have in abundance in
eternity.
I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.