What Will Be and What Won't Be in Heaven Because of the Resurrection

- Well, if you have a Bible with you, and I hope you do, would you turn to the
last book in the Bible, the book of Revelation? You can turn to the last page and
just go back. We're in the second to last chapter in the book of Revelation this
morning, chapter 21. If you don't have a Bible, we're gonna have a lot of these
verses up on the screen for you this morning, but you may have one on your advice
or you may have a paper Bible with you this morning. And if you are visiting with
us this morning, I wanna say a a word of welcome. We are glad you are here
celebrating the resurrection of Jesus with us. We actually celebrate the resurrection
of Jesus every Sunday when we gather together. I don't know if you know this, but
the church started meeting on Sundays in the early days so that they could
commemorate the first day of the week, which was the day that Jesus was raised from
the dead. So the reason that churches meet on Sundays is because of the
resurrection. This just happens to be that annual celebration of Jesus' resurrection
that we do on Easter Sunday. We think about the death and resurrection of Jesus
every Sunday because it's the central message of the Christian faith. It's the
central message actually of all of human history. If I were to ask you, what's the
most significant event that's ever happened in all of human history? Some of you
would say, well, it was when my team won the Super Bowl, that was the biggest
event in history. Some of you would point to historical markers, the invention of
the wheel, or fire when fire was found. That's the biggest deal, or some would say
the printing press or the internet. All of those were earth -changing events. But
when a man who had been crucified, hung on a cross, was put in a tomb, and three
days later he walked out of that tomb after having been dead for three days, that's
a game changer. That's the most significant event and that's why as we get together
we make that our focus of our worship every week. There's nothing more important
that we can think about, sing about, talk about, tell other people about than the
news about what Jesus did. Easter is a celebration of the best news ever.
The best news ever. And even if you don't know your Bible at all, you might be
surprised to hear somebody say let's look at the book of Revelation on Easter Sunday
because enough people know that Revelation is that kind of mysterious book at the
end of the Bible where it's full of dragons, and it's full of earthquakes, and it's
full of cataclysmic events, and you're thinking what does that have to do with
Easter? Well, the reason we're turning there is because as a church over the last
year we have been going through this book of Revelation. We've been going slowly
through it so that we can try to understand just what that book is about,
what it has to say to us, the significance of that of that book. And as we've
gone through it, what we've seen is that the central message of Revelation is that
no matter how dark things get in our world, no matter how hard life gets for you,
no matter how much opposition you may face in life, especially for choosing to
follow Jesus, if you persevere in following him, if you press on, if you don't
quit, God has a glorious future ahead for you. And Revelation 21 is where you get
your first look at that glorious future. After 20 chapters leading up to that,
in Revelation 21, God pulls back the curtain and says, Here's what's coming, here's
what the next era is gonna look like. It's a picture of what the Bible calls the
new heavens and the new earth. We talked a little bit about this last week when we
got to Revelation chapter 21. This is an extreme makeover that God will do with His
creation. The heavens and the earth that He created have been corrupted by our sin
And he is planning to restore and make all things new more glorious than anything
you've seen or experienced on earth before. When you go to the Grand Canyon and it
takes your breath away, you ain't seen nothing yet, according to Revelation 21. You
can expect the new heavens and the new earth to be even more awesome, more awe
-inspiring. And by the way, as we go through the passage that we're going to be in
today, you will hear me talking about this being a picture of what heaven will be
like. We should actually get this clear. This is a description of the new heavens
and the new earth. So when someone dies today and that person goes to heaven,
the place that they go to is not the final destination. There will be a new
heavens and a new earth that have not yet been created. The heaven that someone is
in today is a glorious place, but it's not the final place. So what I'm talking
about this being a picture of what heaven will be like, it's a picture of the new
heavens and the new earth. It's a picture of that restored extreme makeover that God
is gonna do at the end. And here's what I want you to keep in mind as we look
at this image of eternity in Revelation 21, these chapters that described the new
heavens and the new earth, in fact the whole book of Revelation would not be here
and would be completely unnecessary if Jesus had not risen from the dead. Without
the resurrection of Jesus there would be no need for a new heavens and a new earth
because there wouldn't be anybody going there. Without the resurrection of Jesus,
the end of the age that would be a day of judgment and a day of punishment for
all people who had ever lived and The description we're about to read in Revelation
21 of this new world coming This is entirely dependent on it being populated by
redeemed people and the only way There are redeemed people is for Jesus to have
been raised from the dead and to lead the procession of the redeemed into the new
heavens and the new earth, into Revelation 21 and 22. So my point is eternity would
look very different if Jesus had stayed in the tomb, if he had died and stayed
dead. But because he died and then walked out of the tomb three days later,
because he rose from the dead, there is a glorious future ahead for all who belong
to him, for all who have surrendered their lives to him, all who are now living
for him with him being at the center of their lives every day. They can anticipate,
we can anticipate a glorious future. Now we're going to read a lot of verses from
Revelation 21. This is a long passage and let me just say as we read these verses
what John is seeing here, Not only in chapter 21, but throughout the book of
Revelation. He's seeing a series of visions. God is showing him visions and they are
not Always visions of a literal reality. They're loaded with lots of symbolic meaning
and This morning rather than going close up and trying to look at what each symbol
means What what the the meaning of every symbolic and turn in here is we're going
to pull back and try to look at it from a from a wide -angle view. I mean some
things look really good close up but some things you need to pull back and go oh
okay I see that differently now. There's nothing wrong with digging into the details
and trying to understand a verse or get down in the weeds. In fact we think that's
important to do but it can also be helpful to pull back and see the big picture
and that's what I'm hoping we're going to do with this passage this morning. So I
want us to read through the verses together. I'll have them up on the screen. You
just follow along and read with me as I read this out loud. This is Revelation 21,
beginning at verse 9. Let me pray for our time in God's word first. God, we need
you. We need your word to have strength and power in our lives today so we ask
that your Holy Spirit would be the one who would take your word and would plant it
deep in us that you would form and fashion us in your likeness. And Lord we pray
that as we hear these words we would not just be hearers, we would be doers of
your word. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. Revelation 21 beginning at verse 9,
this is the word of God for the people of God, the Bible says, "Then one of the
seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven plagues and spoke to me,
saying, 'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.' And he carried me
away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem
coming down out of heaven from God. Having the glory of God,
its radiance like a most rare jewel, like Jasper, clear as crystal,
it had a great high wall with twelve gates and at the gates twelve angels and on
the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed on
the east three gates on the north three gates on the south three gates and on the
west three gates and the wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them were
the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the lamb and the one who spoke with me
had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city
lies four square. It's length the same as its width. And he measured the city with
his rod. 12 ,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal.
He also measured its wall. 144 cubits by human measurement,
which is also an angel's measurement. The wall was built of Jasper, while the city
was pure gold like clear glass, the foundation of the wall of the city were adorned
with every kind of jewel. The first was Jasper, the second Sapphire, the third
Agate, the fourth Emerald, the fifth Onyx, the sixth Carnillion,
the seventh Chrysalite, the eighth Barrel, the ninth Topaz, the 10th Chrysopraise,
the 11th, Jason, the 12th amethyst, and the 12 gates were 12 pearls.
Each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the streets, the street of the city
was pure gold like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city,
for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, and the city has no
need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its
lamp is the lamp. By its light will the nations walk,
and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will
never be shut by day, there will be no night there. They will bring into it the
glory and the honor of the nations. but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor
anyone who does what is detestable or false, only those who are written in the
Lamb's book of life. Amen. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass
withers and the flower fades. The word of our God will last forever. Now, a lot of
images in what we just read, right? A lot of symbols. There are a lot of numbers.
There are a lot of precious jewels, A lot of measurements, gemstones, pearly gates,
streets of gold, we saw it all there. But here's what I want us to see from the
verses this morning. I want us to see three things that will be in the new heavens
and the new earth because Jesus rose from the grave. And I want us to see three
things that won't be in the new heavens and the new earth because Jesus rose from
the grave according to this text. So let's look first at what this passage tells us
will be in heaven because Jesus rose from the grave. First, there will be a bride
in heaven. That's the first thing you see in verse nine. Interesting, when you read
this whole book, the angel who's appearing here and taking John to see this vision
of a bride coming, this is the same angel that we saw back in chapter In the last
time this angel showed up, the angel took John and showed him a vision of a woman
and a city. In this case, the woman was a harlot and the city was Babylon. So the
woman was an unfaithful woman and the city was a city where God was not present.
Now this angel shows up and takes John to see a different woman and a different
city. The woman that he sees here is a faithful woman, a bride. And the city that
he sees is the new Jerusalem. The Bible often uses the term the bride of Christ to
talk about Christians. In fact, the Bible tells us that when God created marriage
back in Genesis chapter two, he created it so it would be a picture for everybody
of what it looks like for people to be joined to God, for people to be in a
relationship with God. When a husband and wife get married, they enter into a
relationship that's different from any other human relationship we have. You make a
covenant with one another, you pledge your loyalty to one another, you promise
yourselves completely to one another, the two become one, you're joined together.
That's what marriage is all about. Well when somebody becomes a Christian, that's
what happens. He or she enters into a covenant relationship with God, who has
created us and created the whole world. He promises he will never leave us or
forsake us. We pledge our loyalty and our devotion to him, and he joins us to him
by giving us the Holy Spirit, who is with us and in us, Uniting us in him and we
become a part of the fellowship that exists between the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So when John sees a bride, he's seeing a picture of
God's people being joined to God, being united with God.
It's a symbol for you and me. If you pledged yourself to Jesus if you've exchanged
your wedding vows with him and said Lord Jesus I belong to you I will be yours
and you will be mine forever Then you become a part of that bride of Christ that
John is seeing here. So he sees a bride it Verse 9 he says come I will show you
a bride and then he takes him to a high mountain and shows him a city It feels a
little like a bait and switch I'm gonna show you a bride and I don't see a bride,
I see a city, but that's because the city and the bride are two different symbols
for the same thing, two images of the same thing. The bride is a person who has
given himself or herself to Jesus, the city is the collective assembly of those
people being united to Christ. So this new Jerusalem is the city that encompasses
all those who are the bride.
The city is identified as the new Jerusalem, and at the time that John wrote this
book, this collection of visions, the city of Jerusalem in the Middle East had
actually been destroyed. The Roman government had come in, and they had quashed a
rebellion that was taking place there, and they'd leveled the city.
So this new Jerusalem that he's seeing is a redo of that Jerusalem.
For centuries, Jews understood that Jerusalem was the place you would go if you
wanted to go to God's house. The temple was in Jerusalem, and so three times a
year, Jews would pack up the family, they would all go to Jerusalem for one of the
feasts or the festivals, because that's where God dwelled in the temple. In fact,
not just in the temple, he dwelled in a part of the temple called the Holy of
Holies, that the priest alone could go into once a year. It was a sacred place.
The book of First Kings chapter 6 tells us about the holy of holies and says it
was 30 feet by 30 feet by 30 feet. It's a cube. And you could only go into the
holy of holies if you were the high priest. You could only go once a year and
they tied a rope around you because they thought you might die when you were in
there in the presence of God and they had to haul you out with a rope because
nobody could go in and get your body if you died. So when Jews hear Jerusalem,
they think that's God's hometown, that's where God lives, that's where you go if you
want to see God. So when John says, "I saw a new Jerusalem coming down," what he's
seeing is the dwelling place of God coming to be among men. That's the big picture
here. And in fact, he describes it in here as a cube. Now it's a much bigger cube
than the one that was in the temple. The one that was in the temple was 30 by 30
by 30. This one is, what's it say, 1200 stadia.
Now I don't have a stadia measurement, but scholars tell us that that's about 1400
miles, 1200 stadia. So take half the United States,
either east of the Mississippi or west of the Mississippi. That's about the size of
the square that would be there, and then you'd go up 1 ,400 miles. You're not far
up, you gotta go to get to outer space. If you're Katy Perry, how far up do you
have to go to get there, right? Sorry, I couldn't resist. How far do you have to
go? You're in outer space when you get to 60 miles.
This is 1 ,400 miles in the sky. Now,
again, this picture of this cube is designed to point us to the Holy of Holies,
the only place the priest could go, and now it's massive, and that's where everybody
lives, in the cube. It's not an actual cube. I don't think heaven's a high rise
that goes 1 ,400 feet, or 1 ,400 miles into the sky. I think it's just saying,
like the Holy of Holies, the place where God lives, everybody can fit there.
Everybody lives there because it's massive. The New Jerusalem, the measurements, the
pearly gates, the streets of gold, this is not a literal physical description of
what heaven is gonna be like. What John is seeing is a vision that tells him that
the new heavens and the new earth, the place where God dwells, is gonna be massive.
It's gonna be a holy place. That's the first thing John sees in verse 10 in this
vision. There's no evil. There's no sin there. It will be safe. It will have
massive walls again I don't think heaven's gonna need walls to keep up the bad
people But the picture of walls is there to say it's a place of safety In fact
that the text says that the walls were 144 cubits Now if you're thinking height
that's not very high when you go 14 ,000 miles into the sky and you got this
little wall around it. 144 cubits is the width of the wall according to this,
and that's 200 feet thick. That's how secure you are. You're in a 200 foot thick
walled city. The point here is, again, not the measurements. We shouldn't go literal,
shouldn't have a physical description here. This city is going to be big, it's going
to be radiant, it's going to be holy, it's going to be safe. Nothing can harm you
in this city. And this city will have 12 gates and 12 foundations according to this
passage. The 12 gates correspond were told with the 12 tribes of Israel because it
was through the 12 tribes of Israel that we're able to enter into the covenant with
God. They're the ones who brought the Messiah into the world. And then the 12
foundations correspond to the 12 apostles because Christianity is built on the
testimony and the lives of these 12 men who went out into the world and took the
gospel forward and proclaimed the gospel to the whole world. There's a lot of other
interesting symbolism in this new city. The measurements, for example, John says, are
human measurements, which are also angel measurements, and we presume he's telling us
that they don't have a different yardstick in heaven than the one we have down
here. I don't know if they're using metric or if they're using the English system
with what they have there, but he's saying there's not some special measurement in
heaven that you don't know anything about. What's significant about all of this,
though, is the number 12 keeps showing up. There are 12 foundations and there are
12 columns or 12 pillars and there's 144 which is 12 times 12 and there's 12 ,000
stadia. By one calculation there are 12 -12s in this portion of the chapter.
And in the Jewish mind, the number 12 was a way of saying that the dwelling place
is complete. 12 is a complete number. It's a permanent number, it won't change. It
won't get bigger, it won't get smaller. This is a fixed number. So John's beautiful
bride, who represents God's people, There's a city where God dwells that everyone is
going to inhabit and then the last thing that he sees is a foundation of the city
that has the 12 jewels and the 12 precious stones again. By the way, what will
come to mind for John's readers here when he sees this listing of precious stones
in verses 19 and 20? They would have immediately thought of Exodus chapter 28,
which is a picture of the breastplate that the high priest would wear. And the
breastplate of the high priest had precious stones in it that represented the 12
tribes of Israel so that every time the priest put on his breastplate and went to
intercede for the people, he was carrying God's people over his heart. So when they
read about onyx and barrel and carnelium and all of these stones, they're thinking
about like the priest who wore these stones over his heart when he would intercede.
So this listing of stones I think is again a reference to the people of God who
are gonna be present there, the precious people of God who are a part of the new
Jerusalem, a part of the new city, a part of the bride of Christ. One reason I
think that is because of what Peter says in first Peter chapter Well, I'll show you
this. He says, "As you come to him, he is a living stone rejected by men,
but in the sight of God chosen and precious." He's talking about Jesus. "As you
come to Jesus, who was a living stone who was rejected by men, but in the sight
of God was chosen and precious, you yourselves, like living stones, are being built
up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood and offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. I think the precious stones that we're seeing
in this new city are a picture of the precious people of God who are a part of
the new city. If you're a child of God, you're a precious living stone in his
sight. You will be with him in his house in all eternity.
And you will have a beauty that will radiate forever from you. He is forming that
in you now, and one day it will shine for eternity. The point of all of this,
the bride, the new city, the stones, these are all symbolic of the people of God
dwelling with God forever. Because at the end of this, what makes the new heavens
and the new earth glorious is not the stones and the streets of gold and the
pearly gates. What makes it glorious is that God is there and that we are dwelling
with him. The geography, the physical dimensions of the structure, that's not really
the point. The passage is about a community of people, not about the physical
appearance of the new heavens and the new earth. Marianne and I were talking about
this this week about the pearly gates, the 12 giant pearls that make up the gates.
And we were talking about the streets of gold in verse 21. And I said to her, I
don't actually think that in the new heavens and the new earth that 430 and 630
are going to be repaved with gold. David O'Dodd is going to be covered with gold.
New parking lot is going to be covered. I don't think that's what it's saying, that
all of the concrete or the asphalt is going to be replaced with gold. She was kind
of bummed out about that. She was thinking that would be cool to drive around on
gold, although she acknowledged it's a off metal and probably wouldn't hold the
weight of the car. So we were getting technical on all of this, but the picture
here is not about the dimensions or the splendor, it's about you and me. It's about
people. It's about the radiance and splendor of God being demonstrated in the people
who will spend eternity with him. Now you may look at yourself today and go, if
he's looking for radiant and splendor, Splendorous radiant and people of splendor.
I will not make it into heaven. I won't either. Okay? You may not look and go.
I don't have the beauty to belong in heaven. That's true about each of us, but
Here's what John says in another place in 1st John 3. He says beloved we are God's
children now and What we will be Has not yet appeared But we know that when he
appears we shall be like him. We will see him as he is. One day,
you're gonna look better than you do today. By the way, some of you look pretty
good today, all right? Some of you. But one day, the glory of God will radiate
through you because of the transition that is coming. If Jesus had not walked out
of the grave 2 ,000 years ago, this vision of this glorious city in Revelation 21
would be a what might have been instead of a what will be.
But when we read this, we can read this as a what will be because of what
happened on the first Easter 2 ,000 years ago. There would be no bride, no city, no
precious stones if there had been no resurrection. No one would be spending eternity
in God's presence if there was no resurrection. You get that, right? Heaven is not
a place where good people go when they die because there aren't any good people to
go there. Heaven is a place where forgiven and redeemed sinners are welcomed home.
Not because we deserve to spend eternity with God, but because God by His grace and
his great love for us opens the door and says come, come in, come dwell with me
forever. And that great love God demonstrated for us when his son died on the cross
in our place. His great love, there's no greater display of love than a dying Jesus
who is saying, I'll do this for you. And there's no greater demonstration of power
than an empty tomb three days later when that same Jesus says death has no hold on
me anymore. Because of what happened 2000 years ago on the first Easter because
Jesus defeated sin and death and hell and walked out of that grave, we can live
with him forever. We just sang this a few minutes ago. We sang crown him with many
crowns who triumphed or the grave who rose victorious in the strife for those he
came to save. His glories now we sing, who died and rose on high, who died eternal
life to bring and lives that death may die.
So we've seen this morning what will be in the new heavens and the new earth
because Jesus rose from the dead, there'll be a bride, there'll be a new community,
a new city, the new Jerusalem, there'll be precious stones, you and I will be
precious stones. I want you to see three things that this text tells us won't be
in the new heavens and new earth because of Jesus' resurrection. Before we get to
what's in this text, we need to back up a bit because back in verse four of
chapter 21, there's a big list of what won't be in the new heavens or in the new
earth. Yes, Revelation 21 .4 says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
"Death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain
anymore, for the former things have passed away." Now if we just stopped there and
said that's all the new heavens and new earth will be, is no more of this, that
would be enough. No more tears, no more death, no more mourning,
no more crying, no pain,
That's enough right there a place where Skin and death and pain and tears are gone
sorrow is erased But this passage tells us three more things that won't be there
because of the resurrection of Jesus first 21 says there will be No temple now. We
just talked about how we will be the temple of God. This passage tells us God
himself is the temple That's what it says in verse 21. If you're interested this
afternoon, you've got a little spare time, you want to do some homework, pull out
your Bible and read the last nine chapters of the book of Ezekiel in the Old
Testament. Ezekiel 40 through 48, what we're reading about in Revelation 21 is the
fulfillment of that Old Testament passage, because Ezekiel saw a time when there
would be this temple of God, this eternal temple of God, and John is now seeing it
come in Revelation 21.
Now, in the new heavens and the new earth, everything is the temple. Remember,
I told you it's a cube, so everything is the holy of holies. Everywhere you go,
you're in the dwelling place of God. There's no place in the new heavens and new
earth where you get away from God. You don't want to. It's not like there's going
to be a time and eternity, "Can I just take a break from God?" No, you want to
be with Him forever. Every time you're near Him, the Bible tells us that in His
presence there is fullness of what? Joy, fullness of joy. Every time you're with
Him, your joy is full. So there's never a time when you go, "I just need a break
from this joy, God." So the whole heavens and the New Earth is the dwelling place
of God. It's not like the earthly temple or tabernacle, but it's everywhere because
God is everywhere and when you dwell with Him you're in His home. The writer of
Hebrews says we are His house if indeed we hold fast our confidence and our
boasting in our hope. So God Himself is the temple and we join ourselves and I'm a
part of his temple when we enter into this new heavens and the new earth. There's
no temple per se in eternity because God is everywhere and we are the temple and
there's also no temple because the temple was constructed so they could perform
sacrifices there but the sacrifice that establishes this temple is the death of
Jesus. It's been made once for all. There's no need for additional ongoing
sacrifices. So there's no temple. It also says there's no need for the Sun or the
Moon. Now, it doesn't say there won't be a Sun or a Moon. It just says you don't
need the Sun and the Moon. Again, I don't think we're talking literally here.
What do we need the Sun and the Moon for today? Well, the Sun provides us with
light and with life. If you take away the sun, we're gone. You take away the sun,
you can't see the the roadway. If you've ever been in pitch black, you can't see
your hand right in front of you. You're gonna stumble, you're gonna fall, you're
gonna stub your toe, you're gonna bump into things. The picture here is not of
physical darkness but spiritual darkness. There's no spiritual darkness in heaven. We
will not be in spiritual darkness in any way. God's first words in the Bible,
what's the first thing God is back in Genesis one, let there be light. God himself
is light. Jesus says that he is the light of the world and John elsewhere says
that God is light and in him there is no darkness, no, no darkness at all. There's
never a power failure, a spiritual power failure in eternity. We will walk in light
and there will be no darkness present because God is the light And Jesus is the
lamp.
So there's no temple, there's no need for the sun and the moon, and finally John
says nothing in clean or detestable or false will be in this new city.
I saw a meme this week that I cut and pasted and sent to my wife, because I can
relate to this. It said this, it said this is my brush, so this is my brush, This
is my paint, and this is my canvas. It's my shirt, right?
Now, I'm counting on the facts that there will be chips and salsa in heaven, and
queso. I want queso, not just chips and salsa. I'm depending on it, right? I heard
somebody this week, 'cause I was meditating on this passage, he said, there will be,
If you need something to bring you joy in heaven, it will be there. I will need
chips and salsa to bring me joy in heaven. I'm pretty sure of that. And as much
as I'd like to think that this verse is telling me that I will never dribble the
salsa on my shirt, again, I don't think that's the picture that John is seeing here
when he says there will
No, nothing that stains your soul. I think that's what he's saying. It's not that
you won't ever dribble on anything in heaven, but there'll be nothing that leaves a
stain on your soul. Nothing that is spiritually defiling, nothing that interrupts your
fellowship with God. Back in Jesus' day, the Greek philosophers,
people like Plato, in fact, I think Plato was the one who first came up with the
idea of It was called the human triad, that all of us are in pursuit of, or the
platonic triad. All of us are in pursuit of that which brings the good, the true,
and the beautiful. Maybe you've heard those three words together, the good, the true,
and the beautiful. That's what we all want in life and in the world. We want that
which is good, that which is true, that which is beautiful. In eternity, there will
be nothing that isn't good, nothing that isn't true, nothing that isn't beautiful,
because God himself is the source of goodness, truth, and beauty, and it would be
antithetical to who he is for there to be anything that's not beautiful, that's not
true, that's not good.
Now there's one final category of what won't be in heaven or what will be in
heaven and what won't be in heaven because of the resurrection. It's the last
sentence in the chapter that we've looked at this morning. It says, "Nothing unclean,
detestable, or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life."
Some of you here this morning will spend eternity in the place that is described in
Revelation 21, and some of you here this morning won't.
I said this earlier, "Who "will be and won't be in heaven" is not based on how
good you are.
We tend to think that's how it works. Good people go to heaven, bad people don't
go to heaven. But have you heard the story from the Bible about the father who had
the two sons and one of them was a prodigal? Pretty well -known story that's in the
Bible. If you've never read it, it's in Luke chapter 15. And the way Jesus tells
this story, the father has two sons. One of them is the good son who stays home
and serves the father. The other one is the prodigal son who says, "I want my
inheritance," and he takes it and he squanders it on what the Bible says is riotous
living. The good son stays home with his dad. The bad son goes off and lives a
bad life. The interesting thing about this story is, One day the bad son wakes up
and realizes he's made a mess of his life He comes home to his father and his
father welcomes him and he invites him in to a party And when that happens the
good son takes a look at that and says hang on just a cotton pick in a minute He
just went out and squandered everything lived a riotous life, and he's going into
the party? What about me? I've been here working hard. I've been the good boy my
whole life." And the father says, "You can come into the party too, but you have
to want to come in. You want to come in? This son wanted to come in.
The difference between who will be in heaven and who won't be in heaven is whoever
wants to be there will be there. Whoever doesn't want to be there won't be there,
and you might think, well, after I die, I'm sure I want to be there. No, do you
want to be there now? In such a way that it reorders everything about your life,
this picture in Revelation 21 is a heavenly celebration. Elsewhere,
it's called the feast, the wedding feast of the Lamb. Those who will be with God
in eternity are those who say, I wanna be there.
Now, you might read this and go, doesn't it say that it's those whose names are
written in the Lamb's Book of Life? What about that? How do I know if my name is
written in the Lamb's Book of Life? Here's how you know. Do you wanna be there?
The people whose names aren't written in the Lamb's Book of Life, they don't wanna
be there. They don't care. But the people who's names are written in the Lamb's
Book of Life, they hear a passage like this and they go, I wanna be there. And
the question is not, does this place sound nice to you? It's not like I checked
out the VRBO listing and this one looks like a good one. Let's sign up for that
one. No, do you wanna be with God in his presence? Do you wanna be with him
forever?
If you look at your life today and you say, I'm not really interested in spending
any time with God right now, why do you think that's gonna change when you die?
You see the people who will be in heaven are the people who today say I want to
spend time with God now and then.
People who look at their life today and say God I can take him or leave him or
I'll call on him if I get in a jam.
Those are people who are evidencing I don't want to be with God when I die. I
don't want to be with him now.
This vision that John is seeing in Revelation 21 is a vision of our eternal home.
This is the place every one of us was made for. The Germans have a word that you
may have heard before. It's the word "zinsucht." Now there's no real good English
translation for "zinsut." It means a profound longing or homesickness.
It means you have a sense of something. I was made for this. It's a spiritual
homesickness. And if this life is what matters most to you,
if this is what you really care about, then you don't have that feeling of being
zinsut. You're not sitting around longing for something more, you're going this is
fine. And if that's true, that's an indication your name's not in the book.
But if you have those late night longings for something more, something that's more
true and more good and more beautiful than this life, a longing that's put there by
God to lead you to his son. If you long
To know something more if there's a spiritual longing in your heart God put that
there to lead you to Jesus So you would come and find that for which your soul
longs you would find life You would find rest both now and in the life to come
That's the Easter message Jesus rose from the grave because the grave is not what
you were made for He rose to lead you home
I'll wrap up with this as I studied this passage this week. I kept thinking about
a song I first heard about 50 years ago written by a songwriter in Georgia got in
Pat Carey and The lyrics to the song are this They say that heaven's pretty And
living here is too But if you said that I would have to choose between the two
I'd go home Going home where I belong. And sometimes when I'm dreaming it comes as
no surprise that if you look you'll see the homesick feeling in my eyes. I'm going
home. Going home where I belong. While I'm here I'll serve him gladly,
sing him all my songs. I'm here but not for long. When I'm feeling lonely,
when I'm feeling blue, it's such a joy to know that I'm only passing through. I'm
headed home, going home where I belong. The last verse, one day I'll be sleeping
when death knocks on my door and I'll awake to find I'm not homesick anymore.
I'll be home, going home where I belong.
Pastor and author Tim Keller says the message of the Bible is that the human race
is a band of exiles trying to home.
On this Easter morning, if you have that longing in your heart and your soul to be
home, a longing for what's true and good and beautiful to be true in your life and
in your world and to dwell in that forever, when you read about a place like this,
a place that God is preparing for those he loves, if there's something inside you
that says I want to be there, I want to be with him, I I wanna be with the God
who created me and loves me. I wanna live with him forever. Then if that's the
longing of your heart, you can cry out to him today, this morning. You can take a
first step in that direction today. Right now, you can say, God, I need you.
I've made a mess in my life. I need a do -over. I need a new life. I need your
forgiveness, I need you, and I want to be with you." God hears that prayer,
he answers that prayer, and he gives you the greatest news there could ever be. You
can live with him forever. Let's pray. Father,
we thank you for this picture that you've given us of life with you forever, the
splendor, the glory, the majesty, the beauty not
because of the physical description but because you are there because we dwell in
you you are the temple you are the city we are your people Lord we long for that
day and we thank you that we can have a taste of it now by walking with you day
in and day out Lord I pray for any here this morning who don't know you Any here
this morning who aren't walking with you? Any here this morning who have heard this
and are thinking I I need something new in my life I need something different. I
pray that you would move them by your spirit To surrender their lives to you to
follow you to commit themselves to you And to start on a new path in a new
direction today The path that will lead them to an eternity with you.
And Lord for all of us I pray that our lives would be centered on this vision
that we would be looking for this great day when we will one day be home where we
belong. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.