I Am Coming Soon

Okay, if you have your Bible, and I hope you do, Revelation 22, turn to Revelation
for the last time. Since the beginning of the year,
for those of you who are visiting with us, we've been going through the book of
Revelation for a year now with some breaks. We've actually, this is our 44th Sunday
in the book of Revelation. And as we come here to The last message from this book,
I want to step back and just remember where we've been, what we've learned,
what we've seen as we have walked our way through this book, what the big themes
have been. John, in this book, is writing down a series of visions,
a series of revelations that he was given, he received these while he was in exile
on the Greek island of Patmos having been exiled there because of his faith.
The Roman government did not want him to be advancing the faith and so they
imprisoned him essentially on this island of Patmos. And on that island Jesus came
and appeared to him and showed him a series of visions and had him write these
down and he wrote that down and what we've been studying was originally circulated
to churches throughout Asia Minor and is still a part of our Bible today.
And again, he was there because of his refusal to do what the Romans insisted
everyone do, and that is declare that Caesar is Lord. In their day Caesar, the
Roman emperor was seen as deity and a God and you had to acknowledge his deity to
be a part of the Roman government. So if you came along saying Jesus is Lord and
you would not say Caesar is Lord, they saw you as an insurrectionist, and they
would deport you for that. And in the first chapter of this letter, this prophecy
that we have, the book of Revelation, John has his first vision, and his first
vision is a resurrected Jesus who looks very different than he looked the last time
John saw him, 60 years earlier, when Jesus ascended into heaven. Jesus is coming to
John and appearing now as a warrior coming dressed as a glorified warrior coming to
make war on evil. And think about this, the churches in Asia Minor to whom this
letter were, these were converts who had heard the word of God, that this was the
God who made the heavens and the earth and that he had come as a human being and
he had dwelt among us, that he had performed miraculous acts and signs and had a
wisdom like no one had ever had. And these Gentiles who had heard this had come to
believe that the God who made the heavens and the earth had come and had died for
their sins and that he was coming again. But they've been waiting and waiting and
waiting and the heat has been turned up and they are starting to say, "When is he
coming? How soon do you think it will be? How long do we have to hold on? Because
increasingly they are facing opposition for their faith. And some of them are having
to wonder, can we really trust what these people have told us about Jesus coming
again? We're not seeing much to support that. And they know that the threats from
the Roman government, if they continue to follow Jesus, these are real threats,
exile, imprisonment, even punishment, even death. So Jesus comes to John and says
write this down and then share it with these people to strengthen them and to
encourage them in the face of this persecution that yes indeed I am coming again
and that they need to hold on. Don't quit, persevere, overcome, conquer,
don't quit. And Jesus begins his revelation to these churches with letters addressed
to each of them. In chapters two and three of Revelation, there are seven letters
that Jesus has for these seven churches. And the theme of these letters is pretty
consistently speaking to churches that were spiritually compromised or churches that
were spiritually complacent. Those were the two things that he was addressing, the
complacency and the compromise that was taking place in these early churches. And by
the way, that's a challenge that churches and Christians face all the time,
complacency and compromise. You face it all the time, complacency and compromise.
You are at a place in life where you think, "Oh, I just need to relax, I just
need to chill. You take your focus off Jesus, you don't make such a big deal out
of Jesus, you just get on with life and Jesus kind of fits in as a side part of
your life. That's spiritual complacency. Spiritual compromise is when you say, I need
to go with the flow, need to be culturally relevant, I wanna be on the right side
of history, I need to adapt and change to fit the culture rather than saying I
need to follow Jesus and what he's revealed. Those were the things Jesus addressed
in these letters to the seven churches in chapters two and three. And to fail in
regard to either one of these is not to overcome. He's calling them to be
overcomers to stand firm and when you're complacent or you're compromised not an
over. And we need to be on guard for those just as he called these churches to
be. Then in chapters four and read the scroll and the scroll that he's opening is
the announcement of God's plan to bring the end of the age. So what has been
hidden, how is Jesus coming back, what should we expect, what will those signs be?
Jesus is worthy to open that scroll, break the seal, and read it. And that's what
the rest of Revelation is, chapters 6 through 19 are those scrolls being read out
and God's plan for the end of the age to be fulfilled. And those chapters,
6 through 19, are full of persecution and full of tribulation and earthquakes and
all kinds of things. What life is going to be like until the final day? And it's
all happening by God's design. That's the message. When it happens, this is not out
of the plan of God. This is according to the plan of God. It doesn't mean that he
is powerless or that he is disinterested, that he doesn't care, yes it's hard, but
Jesus is still coming back, so hang in there, overcome.
Chapter 20, we get to that day when Jesus does in fact come. It's the final day,
it's the last day when judgment comes, the wicked are judged, and then in chapters
21 and 22, which we've been looking at the last few weeks, we see a vision of
what eternity will be like for those who know and love and follow Jesus. The glory
of eternity which is primarily focused on the fact that we are with Jesus for
eternity. Yes, it's a glorious vision that John has, but the center of that vision
is being face to face with the God who made you and dwelling in His light and His
love. So that's the overview of where we've been and this morning the visions are
essentially over and now it's the epilogue. This book began with a prologue and now
it ends with an epilogue. John has been shown all that he's going to see and as
this book wraps up there is an angel first and then Jesus himself who comes and
based on all of these visions, these final words are here's how you should respond
because of what you've seen and because of what you've heard. And I see as I go
through these verses, seven takeaways from these verses.
Now, there are others who see three or four or twelve. Seven's not the magic
number, but I thought, you know, it has been a pretty good number for us throughout
Revelation. We've seen seven a lot of times. So here are my seven takeaways. We're
going to go through them, but let me, I want to read the passage first before we
do that. And again, Lord, we need your help as we read this passage. We want to
hear and understand, and not just to be hearers, but to be doers of your word. So
speak to us by your spirit, and encourage and equip us to serve you better.
We pray in your name, amen. You follow along as I read these verses. We'll have
them on the screen here. Revelation 22, beginning at verse six, this is the word of
God for the people of God, the Bible says, John says, and he said to me,
these words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord,
the God of the spirits of the prophets has sent his angel to show his servants
what must soon take place. And behold, I am coming soon.
Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book. I,
John, am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I heard and saw them,
I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me. But he
said to me, you must not do that. I'm a fellow servant with you, and and your
brothers, the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book, worship God.
And he said to me, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the
time is near, let the evil doer still do evil, the filthy still be filthy, and the
righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy. Behold, I am coming soon,
bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done. I am the
Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree
of life and they may enter the city by the gates, outside are the dogs,
the sorcerers and the sexually immoral, the murderers, idolaters, everyone who loves
and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these
things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David,
the bright morning star. The spirit and the bride say come and let the one who
hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come, let the one who desires take
the water of life without price. I warn everyone who hears the words of the
prophecy of this book, if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues
described in this book. And if anyone takes away from the words of the book of
this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy
city which are described in this book. He who testifies to these things says surely
I am coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.
Amen.
May God bless this reading of His word. The grass withers and the flower fades. The
word of our God will last forever. Okay. Lot to cover in this. I'm going to give
you my seven takeaways, we'll walk through them and I'll address some of the
confusing parts in this passage as we work through that. Okay, here are my
takeaways. Number one, God's word can be trusted. You need to trust it,
believe it, keep it, share it with others, and don't mess with it.
Number two, Jesus is God. He is the king and the judge and the Messiah who was
promised. Number three, Jesus is really coming again and he's coming soon.
Number four, we are to worship God and no one or nothing else.
Number five, the white robes are what get you in. Stubborn sin is what keeps you
out. Number six, oh, I combined a couple of didn't I?
No, I got it on number six. There's still time to come. This is, this offer may
expire at any time, but there is still time to come today. And then number seven,
it's all grace. It's all by grace. So let's walk through all seven of those. First,
we are to trust God's word. The first thing we read in verse six is that the
angel says to John, "These words are trustworthy and true. In fact,
John is saying that what God has revealed to him is equal to what God revealed to
the prophets in the Old Testament. I don't know that John is thinking to himself,
I'm writing scripture just like the Old Testament prophets did, he may have been
thinking that. I don't know if John had a vision that there would one day be a
New Testament and a Bible and a collection of books that we would read and study.
But he did know that what he was experiencing was coming directly from God in the
same way that the Old Testament prophets had received revelation from God. So he
says, "You can trust this not because of my veracity," although he does appeal to
the fact that he's a trustworthy person, "but you can trust this because this is
God's word." And you can understand why John's first readers would hear this prophecy
and think, why should we trust what's here? In fact, they weren't seeing a whole
lot of these signs pointing to the soon coming of Jesus. It looked like Rome was
turning up the heat and it looked like maybe Christianity might fail.
People were leaving or being killed. So you can, if you're in 96 AD and you're in
a little town and you've been in a church gathering there and some of your brothers
and sisters have been killed and others have walked away from the faith. You look
around and you go, okay, maybe this thing isn't gonna turn out the way we thought
it was gonna turn out. Maybe this is not gonna work. And the angel says to John,
say to these churches, this prophecy is trustworthy and true. Remind your readers
that they can trust this. Why can they trust this? Because the God who is
delivering it has proven himself to be trustworthy and true throughout history. You
understand this, right? We experience times in our own lives where it seems to us
like what God has promised to us isn't happening the way we thought it was gonna
happen. You have events in life where you lose a job or a big bill comes up and
you keep thinking, well, God said he will care for me and he'll provide for me,
but it doesn't feel like he's doing that right now. and you begin to wonder, can I
really trust the promises of God? Can I really trust him? Well, this is why the
Bible tells us that we don't walk by what we see, we walk by faith.
We purpose, we choose to believe and to trust in God because he has demonstrated
his trustworthiness. And then when we see things that clash with what we believe,
we hang on to what we believe instead of trying to adjust what we believe to fit
our circumstances. That's a part of the message here. If you're gonna be an
overcomer, you have to learn that you trust God's revealed word more than what you
see or what you feel. It has to be a higher authority than the circumstances you
are facing in life. That's one of the key messages in the book of Revelation. And
something we need to be careful not to miss along the way is that John says to
his readers here, Jesus says to John to his readers, "Don't mess with this
revelation either." Verses 18 and 19, "Do not add to or take away from this
prophecy." The specific application here is for this specific prophecy,
for this book. And again, there's no reason to think that John thought, I bet my
book will go at the end of the Bible. And so these last words in this book will
apply to the whole Bible. But it does apply to the whole Bible. We are not to
mess with the revelation of God. When you add to the Scriptures, you are guilty of
doing exactly what the Pharisees did in Jesus' day and they were condemned for it.
They added to the Scriptures things that weren't there. They placed burdens on
people's backs that God never intended for people to have. So when you add to the
scriptures, you're being a Pharisee. When you take away from the scriptures, you're
being tolerant of sin. You take away because you want to water things down, because
you don't want to have to live in obedience to what God has said. In either case,
you're putting yourself in God's place. You're saying, "I know better than God. He
either didn't give us enough or what He gave us is wrong, And so I need to edit
God's revelation so it fits my life or fits our day. And the warning that is in
these pages,
it's pretty interesting. He says if you add to this, God's going to add plagues to
your life. That's what verse 18 says. The plagues that these people experience, you
can expect by adding to the scriptures, things are not going to go well for you.
And if you take away from the scriptures, now this verse is confused some, verse
19, you see where it says, if you take away from this prophecy, God will take away
you from the tree of life and from the holy city. And so people have read that
and said wait, so I can lose my salvation, is that what you're saying? If I mess
with the Bible, I can somehow lose my salvation? Well here's the idea, if you are
part of the visible church, people who attached himself to the church and they say,
"Yes, I am a believer. "You profess faith in Christ and you claim to follow Him.
"You are already participating in the benefits "that come to that covenant community."
Just by being a part of this community. Whether you're actually a believer or not,
you're experiencing some of the benefits that come from the new city and the tree
of life that we're already experiencing in a limited way now and will experience in
fullness then. But if you start messing with the scriptures and taking away from the
scriptures and saying this doesn't really matter or we don't have to believe all of
this, you begin to develop this new view of scripture and you're demonstrating that
you're not one of the overcomers and what you've been granted a portion of in this
life you will not experience the fullness of in the next life. That's what that
verse is saying. It's not about losing your salvation, it's about professing believers
who never really had salvation and they demonstrate that they're not overcomers by
how they mess with God's word. Two more things about how we're to handle God's
word, and I want to point out, John says this twice, that we're not just to
believe this prophecy, we're to keep this prophecy. Do you see it in verse seven?
"Blessed is the one who keeps the the words of the prophecy of this book. Verse
nine, those who keep the words of this book. And I wrote about this in the
newsletter. Those of you who get the e -newsletter and if you're not signed up for
the e -newsletter, there's a clipboard out in back. You can add your email address
and we'll send you on Wednesday night newsletter that lets you know what's going on
in the church. But there's also a short devotion that I add. And this week I wrote
about the fact that saving faith, that genuine belief is not just saying I agree
with that, but it's a different kind of belief. It's a belief that says I'm going
to change my behavior as a result. It's faith in that. If you said to me today, I
really believe my team is going to win the championship. Okay, that's a hope. But
if you said to me today, I know it's the first round, but I've already bought my
tickets and made my plane reservations and I've got my hotel room reserved. That's
how confident I am in what my team is doing. You've now demonstrated that it's not
just a hope, but it's a belief. You're changing your life to conform to what you
believe is true. God doesn't want us just to hear his word and say, "That sounds
right to me, I believe it, he wants it to change our lives. He wants us to keep
his word. He wants us to obey it, to do what he says. And,
according to verse 10, he wants us to unseal it for others. So,
he said to me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book for the
time is near." Overcomers don't seal up the prophecy, they declare it openly,
they share it with others. This actually is a look back at what was said in Daniel
chapter 12. In Daniel chapter 12, at the end of obviously the Daniel,
the visions that he's been receiving, God says to Daniel, "But you, Daniel, shut up
the words and seal the book until the time of the end." Well, we've seen over and
over again in the study of Revelation that there is a connection between what was
happening in Daniel's day and what is being declared here in Revelation. And here at
the end, it's a reversal. He said to Daniel, "Shut it up." He's saying here, "Open
it up. Share it with others." The time of the end has arrived. Time to unseal
this. The Messiah has come. The kingdom has been inaugurated. Unseal this and spread
it to others.
Overcomers are people who unseal this book and share it with others. They spread the
word. So trust it, don't add to it, don't take away from it, keep it,
unseal it. That's how we're to handle God's word and that's the first takeaway from
this. Here's the second takeaway. And by the way, the others can't go as long as
that one did or we'll be here all afternoon. Number two, Jesus, who we met back in
chapter one, or in chapter one, and we've seen throughout this book who is speaking
to John at the end. He says, "In case you have any doubt about who I am and
about my authority, he declares in verse 12, "Behold, I am coming soon. I'm bringing
my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done." Jesus is declaring
that he is the judge over all the earth, Recompence is a word that talks about
giving people what they're due, paying what they're due. Jesus says, "I am the judge
of the earth and I have the right to judge and I'm bringing my judgment, my
recompense with me." Now this verse, verse 12, comes on the heels of verse 11,
which is a little bit confusing. Look back at verse 11 where it says, "Let the
evil doer still do evil, let the filthy still be filthy, let the righteous still do
right, let the holy still be holy. This is not a command from Jesus. It's a
restatement of what Jesus said in Luke chapter six in the gospels when he said,
"Good trees are known by their fruit. "Good trees don't bear bad fruit." If you see
evil being done over and over again by somebody, guess what that person is? He's an
evildoer. If you see a person who is filled with moral impurity,
filthiness, that's a filthy person. If you see a person who is doing what is right
for the right reasons, that's a righteous person. If you see someone who is living
a set -apart life, that's a holy person. He is saying, let people be who they are
because it will reveal who's they are.
When you see somebody living a life for Christ, that's revealing who they belong to.
When you see somebody living a life for themselves and it's manifesting itself in
filthiness, it's manifesting itself in evil, that reveals who they belong to. And
again, this is connected to Daniel chapter 12 as well. It's fascinating how these
things tie together. In Daniel 12, Daniel was told, "Many shall purify themselves and
make themselves white and be refined, but the wicked shall act wickedly, and none of
the wicked shall understand, but those who are wise shall understand." The point is,
you're not always going to be able to tell who is and who isn't a child of God,
and in some cases it may be confusing, but in other cases it will be clear.
The evil will be evil, the impure will be impure, and that should tip you off
about what's most important in their lives. And when Jesus comes to bring recompense,
that by the way is a statement of deity, only the God who makes us can be the
judge of the earth. He will pay to each group what they're due. So to the evil
and the wicked, he will pay them with judgment, they will face his judgment,
and to the righteous and the holy, He will pay to them the reward of heaven.
Jesus says, not only am I coming as judge, but I am the alpha and omega, the
first and the last, the beginning and the end. In other words, I am eternal. Well,
who is eternal but God? Not only is he the judge, but he says, I am an eternal
being before Abraham was I am. He He's co -eternal with God.
And finally, he declares himself in verse 16 to be the root and the descendant of
David, the bright and the morning star. These are messianic titles. The first are
from Isaiah chapter 11 and then the other from Numbers 17. Both titles point to the
Deliverer, that's what the Messiah is, the one who delivers his people. And And he
says, "I am the root," he's talking about the root that comes from the stump of
Jesse, and he says, "Where you see a stump, I'm going to show you life coming from
it." And then when he says, "When you see darkness, I'm going to be the bright
morning star who brings light into the darkness. I'm going to bring deliverance where
you see no life, I'm going to bring life. Where you see darkness, I'm going to
bring light.
Overcomers never forget who Jesus is. He is the king, he is the judge,
he is the messiah, and those are not just abstract titles. It's better to say it
this way. He is my king, he is my judge, he is my deliverer.
Do you worry about him being your judge? Does that, the thought that Jesus is going
to Bring judgment does that worry you the only reason it shouldn't worry you is
Because he's your deliverer So he's your judge. Yes, but if he's also your deliverer
guess what he will rescue you from the judgment that he's bringing to the earth If
you're on your own You need to worry When the judge is presented with the tax,
the verdict will be clear. See, Jesus doesn't try to, a lot of people think,
well, Jesus, at the last day, he's gonna kind of weigh out the good and the bad,
and as long as you're good as bigger than you're bad, then you'll be okay. That's
not how this functions. Mike talked about this when he was talking about our
catechism question today. No, it's not a case of if you're good outweighs the bad,
or if Jesus looks and goes, well, I know you have a good heart, you don't have a
good heart. Okay? Your heart is deceitful, desperately wicked. Your heart is hard.
And the wages of hard -heartedness and evil -doing is death. The wages of sin is
death. If you're a sinner, you're guilty, and the punishment is death. And that's
all of us, right? The only hope that any of us have is for a deliverer who can
deliver us from the judgment that Christ is bringing. Our only hope in life and in
death is that we belong to the Lord Jesus, that he is our deliverer. Is he your
deliverer?
That's your only hope in the face of coming judgment. Never forget that Jesus is
God, never forget who he is, and let that knowledge strengthen you,
your confidence as a believer, and if you're not a believer, may you run to Him
because He alone can provide you with the deliverance you need. A third takeaway
from this book for overcomers, and this is a major theme of the book. Jesus is
coming again soon. Three times in this text, beginning, middle, and end. Verse seven,
"Behold, I am coming soon." Verse 12, "Behold, I am coming soon." verse 20, "Surely
I am coming soon." These things are about to happen, it says a couple of times
here. I want to talk about that word soon, because maybe you've read this book and
went, wait, wasn't this written like 1900 years ago? Behold,
I am coming soon? I mean, is that, we're supposed to trust that that he's coming
soon when it's a hundred years now? Now let me just say, as an interpretive
principle, when you get something in the Bible and you read it and you go, okay,
that doesn't seem to make sense to me. You can either decide, the Bible must be
wrong, or you can decide, maybe I don't understand that the way I should. If you
start with the premise, the Bible is right, then when you come to passages like
this, you go, I gotta figure this out with a little better understanding than what?
You adjust your view to the Bible rather than trying to adjust the Bible to your
view. So what do we do with this? I am coming soon. Well, some of you know how
Peter, the apostle Peter, John's friend, how he responded to this, because in 2
Peter 3 there were scoffers who were saying, "Where is the hope of the promise of
his coming? Where is it?" You guys keep talking about Jesus coming. Where is it? I
mean, put up or shut up. And Peter's answer to that is with the Lord one day is
a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. You don't see time the way God
sees time. When he says I am coming soon, that's not according to your definition,
that's according to his definition. He says the Lord is not slow to fulfill his
promise as some count slowness. He's patient toward you, not wishing any should
perish, but that all should reach repentance. In other words, he's saying the and
that God has not come soon. The reason that you've not seen Jesus coming is he's
waiting for you to repent, to come to him. Okay, but still,
why does Jesus say I'm coming soon? If he knows it's gonna be hundreds and hundreds
of years from now, is he being intentionally misleading to his audience? Well, think
about it this way. Parents, have you ever said to your children, you need to get
ready 'cause grandma is coming soon. Now you might mean one thing and your kids are
thinking something else. Or have you ever said to your kids when you're walking
through Walmart and they're looking at toys and going give me this, give me that
and you remember your birthday is coming soon. Again in their mind they're thinking
like tomorrow and you're thinking no soon means two months from now, right? We have
a different way of understanding soon as parents than the way our kids do it. I
agree with Tom Shreiner, the Bible commentator, who says there's a mystery and
elusiveness about Jesus' return, but it's there to motivate us to be prepared for
it. The reason he says I'm coming soon is to say, we don't know exactly when,
but live like it's happening soon. Live expectantly, live anticipating the coming
every day, live alert to the fact that I'm coming soon,
even though it may be longer than you expect. Don't worry about the timing, it
might be in your lifetime, it might not be in your lifetime, that's not the issue.
The issue is, are you living your life in a way that reflects your awareness that
one day Jesus is coming and it could be soon? I've talked about this before, some
of you are old enough to remember a book that came out In 1970, a book very
popular, it sold 28 million copies. It was translated into 54 languages.
It was called The Late Great Planet Earth. It was written by a guy named Hal
Lindsey. And a lot of what is in that book is theologically suspect, I wouldn't
recommend it to you, including the fact that he tried to put, not a hard date, but
he tried to say, well, Israel became a nation in 1948, a generation's gonna come,
so he said it seems to me like Jesus should come back by 1988, or maybe he kinda
hedged it later, maybe 2032 or 2037, where his outside dates.
Anyway, a lot of people who read that book thinking that Jesus is coming back in
my lifetime, it changed the way they lived. Now again,
I don't recommend the book, but what it did, the motivation that people had thinking
Jesus could be coming back any time in my lifetime, I think it's gonna happen. They
start, first of all, I got right with God. Secondly, they started telling other
people about God. It became the most important thing to them. Jesus is saying, I'm
coming back soon, live that way.
So, Jesus is coming. It's declared throughout this book. It's a central message of
this book Let's live our lives in such a way that that reality affects how we're
how we're living and the choices we're making Date setting by the way, it's a
really bad idea. The son doesn't know the date He says I don't know the date or
the time only the father knows that if he doesn't know it. You don't know it
either okay Don't calculate or try to calculate when it might be,
instead, live expectantly. Live in light of eternity. Because in light of eternity,
whenever he comes back, is gonna be soon. Eternity's long. Whenever he comes back,
that's gonna be soon. All right, fourth take away for overcoming and overcomers.
Worship God and worship Him alone. This comes from what the angel says to John at
the end to verse nine. Verse eight, the angel is telling John things that are so
overwhelming, so compelling that John has this momentary lapse and he just falls down
and he starts to worship at the feet of the angel. Whether John was actually
worshiping the angel or not is not clear in the text, but the angel was
uncomfortable with John at the feet of the angel, just worshiping God. And he says,
get up, I'm a servant just like you are. Don't worship me, worship God. By the
way, if you want to be an overcomer, this is kind of step one to being an
overcomer. You have to decide who or what is gonna get your time,
your attention, your affection, your money, your devotion, what is gonna direct your
life. Something's gonna get it. We were made to worship at the men's breakfast
yesterday. Mr. Cole reminded us that John Calvin famously said that the human heart
is an idle factory. We are, if we can't see something to worship, we will invent
something to worship. Our heart will make up something for us to worship. We were
made to give our attention and our affection to something or to someone. God says
it all belongs to me. Your worship belongs to me. Life won't work right for you
until your affections are directed in the right place. And by the way,
this is not because God needs your worship. It's not that God's saying, oh, I will
be less if the people are not worshiping me. He doesn't need it, but you need it.
You need to direct your attention and your affection to him and put everything else
underneath that.
Does that describe you? Okay, you can't be an overcomer unless worshiping God first
is your priority. And when those priorities get out of line, because they will, they
do for me, it will happen this week that Jesus will not be the priority in the
moment in your life. When that happens, you do a reset, you do a refocus.
You turn back to God and you worship him fresh and new. He alone is worthy of
that worship. Okay, priority number five for overcomers. And this is one you should
never forget. White robes will get you into eternity with God's stubborn sin that
you give into, that you keep giving into, that you give yourself to, that you don't
turn and repent from, that's what keeps you out. Verses 14 and 15 describe the ones
who will against the new heavens and the new earth as those who are inside the
gate and those who are outside the gate. The ones on the inside, now listen
carefully, they're not in because they're good people 'cause there aren't any good
people.
The standard the Bible sets is be perfect. No one meets that standard. If that's
what gets you into heaven, heaven's empty.
And it's not saying on the inside are those who are perfect. It's saying on the
inside are those who wash their robes.
Some people who are those people who will spend eternity with him are the ones who
know what to do with their badness.
They recognize their badness and they don't just say, oh well, everybody's human.
These are people who know what to do with it. They first John 1 .9 it. I'm so
glad that Mike took us to that verse as our assurance of pardon. When you're aware,
when you're confronted, in fact, let me just back up, 'cause this passage is good.
Verse John, you start with verse eight. Verse John 1 -8 says, "If you say you have
no sin, "you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you." So if your self
-appraisal is I'm not that bad, you're deceiving yourself and you don't know the
truth.
If you look at your life, as I did for many years, I thought I'm a mostly good
person who does a few bad things. I was deceiving myself and the truth was not in
me. When that was my mindset. If you're here this morning and you're thinking, I'm
a pretty good person, I've got a good heart, you're deceiving yourself and the truth
is not in you.
But, verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is both faithful and just to forgive
our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. This is how you wash your robes.
This is how you get your robes clean. You don't cleanse yourself, you take your sin
to the cleaner.
This is really important. It's not your goodness that will get you into eternity
with Jesus.
It's that the people who will spend eternity with Jesus are the bad people, the
sinners, who knew where to take their robes and get them cleaned.
And the people who will be outside the gates are the ones who clung to it and
wouldn't take it for cleansing. John goes on to say, if we say we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. If you say you're not a sinner,
you're fooling yourself now, you're telling Jesus that he is lying and he doesn't
know what's true.
So the people in heaven are the dirty robed people who got their robes cleansed by
God. They have confessed and they have turned from their sin. The people outside the
gates are described here with the catalog of their sins, sorcerers, sexually immoral,
murderers, idolaters, everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I think that's
interesting that falsehood is listed here in that, but that's another sermon. This is
not an exclusive list, but it is a description of those who are outside the gates
and who have rejected God's plan for their lives. These are people who will show
their rejection of God's plan by their sinful behavior. So are you clear about which
group you're in? The whitewashed robes or the people who have not brought your robes
to Jesus for cleansing, who are relying on your own goodness to get you in. Do you
know which group you're in?
This is not about you cleaning up your life, this is about you surrendering your
life and letting Jesus cleanse you. You need washed robes,
overcomers have them. Okay, two more things, hang with me. Take away number six for
overcomers, there's still time to come. Wherever you've been, whatever you've done,
if you're not following Jesus now, there's an open invitation for you. The first
step to becoming an overcomer is to come to Jesus and to worship him. We sang this
morning, come unto Jesus. Lay down your burdens. Look at verse 17.
It starts with you crying out to Jesus and saying, come, we're ready for you, with
us saying this. So verse 17, the spirit and the bride, this is the believers and
the spirit saying, Lord, it's time, come. Let the one who hears this say come, join
with him. But the second half of the verse shows that God's invitation for us to
come to him and receive the living water is an open invitation for anybody who
recognizes how spiritually thirsty they are. Let the one who is thirsty come.
Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. This may be your
first Sunday at Redeemer. Maybe you've been here for a while now. This book we've
been studying, as I've said, is written to encourage those who profess their faith
in Christ to overcome, to persevere, to endure. It's also written to call those who
are not following Jesus to come to him. It's a warning. The door is open, but it
won't be open forever. Jesus is coming soon. We don't know when. it might be today,
come to him, get your robes washed. And then the final takeaway from this book,
it's all grace. You will never overcome or conquer or persevere apart from God's
grace. When you do overcome and conquer and persevere, it will not be because you
persisted, it will be because God was gracious. The last line in this book,
the last line in your Bible. This is not, some people read this last line that
says the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all, amen. And you kind of think that's
like, yours truly God. Okay, that's not what this line is. John is saying as he
ends this letter, we are totally dependent for God's grace, for every spiritual
victory, every spiritual step we take in the right direction, every spiritual impulse
that is a right impulse, That's all from grace, that's not from you. I want you to
remember, when the Bible talks about grace, there are two big categories for grace
in the Bible. There is saving grace and there is sustaining grace. Saving grace is
how you pass from spiritual death to spiritual life. God graciously opens your eyes
so that you see the reality of your sin, you cry out to and it gives you a new
life. That's saving grace.
You probably heard the gospel a number of times before you believed it.
Why did you believe it the time you heard it? Is it 'cause it was a better
presentation? Is it because something was going on in your life? It's because God,
by His grace, opened your eyes and you went, oh, I've heard that before, but now I
see it's true. That was a work of grace in your life. But there is sustaining
grace as well. When you participate in spiritual activities or spiritual disciplines,
God is pouring his sustaining grace into your life through those activities. It's the
spiritual fuel. It's the gasoline that gives you the desire and the strength to live
each day for him. He saves us by his grace, he sustains us by his grace.
Without his grace, your sunk. So when John ends Revelation,
the Bible ends the whole book with this simple statement, "The grace of the Lord
Jesus be with all." It's saying that overcoming is only possible. Living faithfully,
getting to the finish line is only possible because of God's grace. If you do, the
only one who gets praise for that is God, who gave you the grace to do it. So
that's it for the takeaways, and for our study of Revelation. Let me just tell you,
next week, we're gonna start a five week series that we're calling, I just wanna
give you a preview. It's called Jesus Said What, and we're gonna try to make sense
of some of the hard things that Jesus said. We're gonna start on Mother's Day with
our baby dedications, then we're gonna look at the statement that Jesus said, that
we're to love our enemies and hate our families. I thought that was a great way to
celebrate Mother's Day with that statement from Jesus. And then on May 18th, we're
gonna look at Jesus saying, you must sell all your possessions and follow me. May
25th, you must forgive in order to be forgiven. June 1st,
you must be perfect as I am perfect. And June 8th, if you have enough faith, you
can move We're going to look at those kinds of thoughts and go, "Wait, how are we
supposed to understand any of that?" If you have friends who have questions about
these passages, you could invite them to come. It should be fun. But I want to end
our study of Revelation this morning by reading to you from the last page of a
different book. The last page of a book called The Last Battle, which is the last
book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, that beloved series, and the story in this
book, in the last battle, it ends with the children who have been a part of the
story all along. They are in Narnia and they find themselves going behind the
curtain and they're in a new place. And it's describing Revelation 21 and 22, the
new heavens and the new earth. It's the Narnian version of that. And here's how C
.S. Lewis imagines this place, the place to which we are bound if indeed we know
Christ. Listen to what he says. He says the light ahead was growing stronger. Lucy
saw that a great series of many colored cliffs led up in front of them like a
giant's staircase. And then she forgot everything else because Aslan himself was
coming. "This is the lion who is the type of Christ." Aslan was coming, leaping
down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty. Aslan turned
to them and said,
"Listen, you do not yet look so happy "as I meant you to be." Lucy said,
"We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. "And you have sent us back into our
own world so often. "No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?
"Their hearts leaped with a wild hope rising within them." Aslan says,
"There was a railway accident. "Your father and your mother, all of you, are," as
you used to call it in the shadowlands, "ed." Turn is over. "A day gone by God's
grace. "Let's be overcomers. Pray with me, Father. "We thank you for what your word
tells us about the place you have created for us.
And Lord, I pray that everyone here, everyone hearing this message is bound for that
place and knows that they're bound, that they are living as overcomers.
Lord, I pray for anyone here who is not a follower of Christ and pray that you
would open their eyes this morning to see the reality of their own sin, their need
for you, that they would turn and embrace you and step into a new life.
And for each of us, may we be overcomers by your grace. Live faithfully for you
today and this week and this month and for the rest of our lives. We pray it in
your name.