Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 12, 2020 | [re]START - Restart Vision (Arnon Batista)

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July 12, 2020 | [re]START - Restart Vision (Arnon Batista) · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Different face here today.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: As you heard, Teresa, thank you for your prayer.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, Teresa, my name is Arnon Batista.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am from Brazil, and you'll probably notice that every once in a while when I stumble on one word or two.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: But bear with me, this is probably like the fourth time I preach a whole sermon in English.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, just hang in there.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you something about my name.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: When people hear this name Arnon, they're like, what kind of parents would do that, you know, to their child?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, my parents, uh, first-time parents, uh, and they were had a free evening and decided to choose a name for their son, and guess where they went?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: To the Old Testament.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know that they that may, you know, be a bad omen.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they decided to choose the name Arnon, which is a river located in Jordan, very close to Israel, and it shows up like 30 different times in the Bible.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of you who read the Bible and who've maybe who've been to Israel, you've seen that name, uh, that river somewhere.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is my family, Jessica and Elise.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Two most loved ladies in the world for me, and they're watching this, so maybe they're watching this, or Elise is taking a nap.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really know.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start talk about restarting your vision today.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in the middle of this series, restart.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: We restart church, restart hope.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Last week, restart work, and today we're gonna restart vision.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I want you to go back to the last week, the last day of 2019.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And all Americans are planners, as far as I know, so you're probably thinking ahead.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking 2020, your plans with your family, you're painting a canvas of what you really dreamed 2020 would look like for you.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it included some traveling, a great trip with your family, maybe it included some lots of golf or a vacation elsewhere in the Caribbean, or maybe you were about to graduate and it was a big deal.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: You're you've been thinking about commencement, you know, for more than a year.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I had I had lots of friends who were super excited, who were graduating this year, and it seemed to be a great year ahead.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: But by February, we started hearing about this COVID-19 coronavirus coming all the way from China, spreading across the world, and reaching Topeka, not with full force, thank God, but still reaching Topeka, and talk about masks, masks and all these changes, and numbers rising, US going up there, the most cases of COVID and deaths by COVID.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And by the month of May, you were able to tell that 2020 was not going to look like anything you had put on your canvas.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: A lot has changed, and with change came extra frustrations.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: We all probably saw the video of the brutal murder of George Floyd and how that struck us deeply, then the riots going on in the country.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there are a lot of patriots in the room right uh watching this online, hopefully not New England patriots, but still patriots.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and the just a strange 4th of July, you know, with all this going on in the country, plus a pandemic.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the result of all this is a sense of loss of vision.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: The canvas that you had painted for 2010, 2020 did not come to real realization.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: You really want to restart at this point, but every time we try to paint a new canvas, we try to envision something new, we make new plans, there's a new government order, new restrictions, and everything collapses.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And with changes like this and so much unpredictableness, there's accumulated frustration and a sense that a little set a little sense of direction uh for all of us.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning, I'm here to talk about this.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about restarting your vision, and I want you to walk out of here today thinking I have got a new canvas.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I have a new vision.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: God wants to give you a new canvas, and I'm here as your curator.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: I am going to walk you through a painting that God Himself has painted for us, his great canvas for history, to which we can look at and realign our vision according to his.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to the book of Revelation today, okay?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Last book of the Bible, and I really like this painting of John the Apostle, because it's kind of seems he's frightened, doesn't it?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when I think of the book of Revelation, I think of my, you know, sleepless nights when I was like nine, ten years old, my grandmother showed me this film about the apocalypse.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe some of you went through that experience.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of plagues and beasts and nights and death and all these things and the lake of fire, and I was like, oh no.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I would wake up and you, you know, mom, I really need to know if I've trusted Jesus.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Am I going to heaven or not?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so it's a pretty scary book for some people.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are afraid of opening up Revelation, but it's actually a collection of visions of hope that uh the Lord Jesus Jesus himself showed to the Apostle John, and there's an angel guiding John through these visions, and he wrote these visions for us, and we can look at them today.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And these visions these disclose the reality and ultimate fulfillment of God's kingdom, of the direction history is going, of his plan for the whole world.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the churches that re uh read this book in the first and second century were churches that were going through tremendous persecution.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this book is not so much about informing them or letting them know about, you know, all the details in the future, but it's a book about transforming and empowering them to keep on living for this new world that's coming, this gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, this God that calls us to Himself.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So our passage today is Revelation 21.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you're one of those people that opened the Bible throughout the whole sermon, you want to look at the text, maybe your phone, so it's time to go there now.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna read the last vision of the book of Revelation, the last big vision, and it always starts with John saying, Then I saw.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna tell us what he saw.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So please read Revelation 21, verses 1 through 8.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna go through the whole vision because it would take too long to explain the whole thing.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the summary of the vision that he is gonna explain with more detail later in the chapter.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: It says, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, This is God speaking, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Also he said, Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he said to me, It is done.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the vision, and this is where we're going with it today.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I have two big questions that will guide us along the way.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: The first question question pertains to what we see in this vision, and this is what I want to walk you through.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, what did John see?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the second question is what does this vision mean to us?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: What does this vision have to do with us here at TBC, Shawnee County, Topeka Bible Church this morning and for the rest of our lives?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we're going.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if I were to summarize the answer to the first question, if we were to summarize this vision, this is what I'd give.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I am giving: a new creation where God will dwell with his people forever.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the four points for today for this first question.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about a new creation.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And here we get this snapshot of the final destination of believers.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you noticed, but it doesn't read like a sweet pie in the sky by and by, kind of heavenly, cloudy place.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's very earthy.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: New heaven, new earth coming down.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's more glorious and real than sometimes novels or movies portray to us.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to understand the new creation, we must look back at the immediate context and the broad context of Scripture.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: First thing we see is that in Revelation itself, previous vision, there's a great white throne, and this is what happens.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Then I saw a great white throne, and he who was seated on it from his presence, earth and sky fled away.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what John saw.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you ask me, what?
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, just describe.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: How does earth and sky fleeing away look like?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: I know that it's associated with judgment, and it's something really big in history.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And in the next vision, John just says, I then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: So the new creation, heaven and earth, replete replace the old creation.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: But also, the new creation is similar but better than the old creation.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a good Bible reader, when you hear the word heaven and earth, what's the first verse that comes to mind?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, the first creation.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And look at the parallels here.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 21, then I saw a new heaven and new earth.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: In the new creation, it says, For the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea, or the deep, was no more.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no light there, or no night there, verse 17 says.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So the new creation gets better and better than the old creation was, because in the Old Testament, the sea was this sinister place, the deep.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was associated with chaos, and it represented sometimes in the book of Job, for instance, and in some creation psalms, it represented evil trying to take over the world and God containing it.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: In Job 38, the sea is like this wild child that God is witnessing coming out of the womb, and we don't know what the womb is.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in the book of Revelation itself, the beast, the Antichrist, rises from the sea.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the sea is this scary, sinister place in the Bible.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in the new creation, we see that there is no more sea.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: There are no more threats to the well-being of God's world.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And there will be no night there.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of darkness, what we'll see throughout the chapter is that there's light.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And God not only spoke light into the new cre in the old creation, but he himself is the light shining in the new creation.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the old creation is inferior, the new creation is better, though similar.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, we see that from Isaiah, not only this passage, there are multiple passages in Isaiah that talk about the coming of a new heaven and new earth.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the new creation is a fulfillment of God's promise to the prophets, to Israel, to his people throughout history.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting, in Isaiah 66, it reads, For I'll create a new heaven and a new earth.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: The past events will not be remembered or come to mind.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the situation there, as you know, was that Israel had gone into exile.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the nation of Israel pretty much had ceased to exist.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But God, who created the world and who created that nation from the beginning, is saying, I will recreate not only you as my people, but I'll recreate everything.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Your restoration will be way bigger and way better and more excellent than your birth, your origins as a nation.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the promise of God that is realized for us here.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing we often don't realize is that living between two creations, the old creation and the new creation, has very unique implications for every person on earth that ever lived, but also for Christians.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And first, thinking about people in general, every human being, all of us to different degrees carry a sense of longing for a world that is beyond us, that seems to be near yet unreachable, that seems to be familiar.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: When you go to that beach, when you have a great time with your friends, when you behold the mountains, there's a craving, there's a longing for something that you miss, though you have not necessarily witnessed.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what Cornelius Plantinga.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: This book is one of my favorites this year.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not the way it's supposed to be a breviary of sin.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says, every one of us does possess the notion of a world in which things are the way as they ought to be.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong with this world.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you walk into a room and the light bulb is broken, the tables are turned over.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong here.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Hurricane, maybe kids playing after church?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to come up with an explanation.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you know that that room is not the way it's supposed to be, and we know for a fact that creation is not the way it's supposed to be.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong, and there's a longing that we have for something better.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's language language time.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna teach you a new word.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Portuguese word.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's pronounced saudade.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's a German word I found this week that has a very similar meaning, but you don't have something as precise or as deep as we what we mean when we say saudade in Portuguese.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And those of you who are fans of Brazilian music, you've heard of Bolsonova, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's a song entitled Chega de Saudade, very famous.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I can't take this saudade anymore.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Please take it away.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And saudade is this melancholic longing or nostalgia for a person, place, or thing that is far away from you at this point.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So in English you usually say we're missing someone, we're missing something.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: But saudade has this melancholic feel to it, this longing that we experience when we think of that loved one that passed away, when we think about this world that creates longing in us that it doesn't really satisfy.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: So saudade is what we we call this longing.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the interesting thing for Christians, on the other hand, is that we not only experience the longing, but we can look forward to a concrete hope that fulfills and satisfies this longing.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we sort of have to walk between two gardens, between two creations, looking back at one and longing for what was lost, but also looking forward and being sure that one day we're gonna end up in a restored creation.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be back in the garden, so to say.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: This makes me think of the Lord of the Rings.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, the Lord of the Rings had to come at some point in this sermon.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this this is like you know, Jim calling, you know, hey, you have to insert some Lord of the Rings picture there.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Anyways, you remember this scene?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're close to Mount Doom, and Frodo's is just passing out.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Sam is Sam is the best guy in the movie.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: He's stronger than Frodo, and he's always encouraging, he doesn't take the credit, but he says, Do you remember the Shire, Mr.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Frodo?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on, do you remember the taste of strawberries?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on and describes the Shire, and Frodo's like, Sam, I'm passing out.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can't even I can't even think of these things.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what gives Sam the strength to keep going in his darkest hour.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And all the journeys in the Lord of the Ring, the big ones, they start in the Shire and they end in the Shire.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that longing and concrete hope for the Shire that gives us the strength to stare suffering in the face and walk on.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: To stare evil in the face and say, You will not have the final word.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: God in a restored creation will have the final word.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that's the new creation, new heaven, a new earth that John saw.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It was better than the old creation.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was the fulfillment of God's promise for the world and for the church and his people throughout the ages, and it's the fulfillment of our longing as human beings for a creation that was lost.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: But we also see that this is the place where God will dwell in a very new and significant way.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And more important even than this stage of this last vision, this last scene is the central character of the scene and what he is doing.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: John says, I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a glorious picture.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes on to say, Behold, this is very interesting.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, when you're reading a narrative, and it says, Behold, it's usually the narrator saying, Hey, hey, hey, hey, come, look at this from my perspective.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Look what I'm seeing.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what John is telling us.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Old promise made to Israel.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: God himself will be with them as their God.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: The interesting thing, though, is that the history of humanity was initially a history of a story of belonging, a story of being in God's presence, but then it turned south.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there's anything wrong with the south.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Is Kansas considered South?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, right.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Good.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I live in Texas.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: South is great.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: But things turn south.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we we get in uh after Genesis 3 a story of alienation.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Cain is expelled from the presence of the Lord.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's wandering in the earth.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then we have the Canaanites being kicked out of God's land through the armies of Israel because they don't belong in the sacred space that God has created.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story of driving away, a story of not being in God's presence anymore, of alienation.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we not only share the saudage, this alienation, the sense of longing for uh for a creation that was lost, but we also share when we experience this, when we think about a relationship that was lost.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a connection that goes deep in every relationship that we have in life, and the longings that come about in these relationships as human beings.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is who we are.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And even people that don't believe in God have to struggle with that saldade, that relational longing of a God, a person, a relationship that was lost.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I love the way Julian Barnes, an English novelist, says it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I don't believe in God, but I miss him.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I miss him.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: So God had a plan.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't let his creatures go on living like that, living apart from him.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we know how it goes.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's an old Jerusalem.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a temple in the old Jerusalem.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: So God calls his guy, Abraham, out of his land.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: He says, You know, I'll bless your descendants.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You believe in me, obey me, and I'll make something great.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'll bless the nations through your family.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So God starts promising that he will dwell among his people.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's the tabernacle, there's the temple, there's Jerusalem.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: But, you know, things go wrong again because the Israelites are disobeying, they're breaking covenant, and God, after hundreds of years of enduring their sin, lets the Babylonians come in.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And when the Babylonians come in, Jerusalem is destroyed.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: The place that represented God's dwelling on earth, the headquarters of God's mission to the nations of bringing all back to the sphere of his blessing, was apparently thwarted by the Babylonians.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But then God says, I'm recreating my people.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm bringing them back to the land, and partially Jerusalem is rebuilt, but you've known from those last few books, the little books, last final pages of the Old Testament, the people were very discontent.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, you know, this temple, it's like, it's not even close to the glory of the temple in the days of Solomon and the days of David.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: So through the prophets, God started speaking of a day in which he would rebuild Jerusalem.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: He would be the architect.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: He would bring it to the people.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this idea of a restored, heavenly Jerusalem began developing throughout Scripture.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: But look at what we see here in the New Jerusalem.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is a tapestry that's in France nowadays.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And may I hope you can see the parts of it.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you have John, the angel, uh, and then New Jerusalem, and then you have the two trees and the river of life flowing through it.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the New Jerusalem is coming down out of heaven.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's coming from the Lamb, and it's the bride, the bride of the Lamb.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's interesting, interestingly, a ginormous cube, if you think about it.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Read the dimensions in verses 15 to 17.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the same dimensions of the Holy of Holies, of the most holy place in the temple.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: So scholars believe that this the symbol here, the idea, is that the New Jerusalem is going to represent, it's actually going to fulfill the presence of God in its most intimate and glorious way throughout the earth.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this river flowing from the throne.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you recall Genesis 2, in God's first garden, there are rivers flowing through.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the tree of life, which Adam and Eve did not have access to anymore, it's back here.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And now there are two trees of life and separated by this river of life that runs through it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about this, I don't know if you can recall Hebrews chapter 11.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's something that always struck me.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you go into section on Abraham, and it starts, it starts saying, by faith, Abraham left his land to a place he didn't know.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't know where he was going.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes on in this section, and talking about the patriarchs, the author of Hebrews says, and they were looking forward to a city whose builder and architect is God.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, whoa, that, wow.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did they know about Jerusalem?
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or how does that work?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we see it over and over in Scripture.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the author of Hebrews go on goes on to say in chapter chapter 13 that we have no lasting city here, but we look forward, we seek a city that's to come.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: The city that God Himself will establish.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And we gotta realize from this point clearly that this is a city coming out of heaven from God.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's God's doing, it's his action.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: Bringing heaven down is something that only God Himself can realize.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Humanity has always been trying to rebuild Eden, or at least a different version of it.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we never get back to Eden.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Eden has to come to us, and this is what God is going to accomplish.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So a new creation where God will dwell, New Jerusalem, with his people.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And here we see that there's a great distinction that John makes between outsiders, people who would not be in this city, who will not enjoy this new creation, and insiders, people who will enjoy this new creation.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to take much time here because uh we want to get to application in the end, but some of us grew up hearing about this very very narrow view of sin.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sin, you know, sin is just these the set of arbitrary, capricious rules that God established and the church is trying to enforce.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But each each church is kind of doing it their own way.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So it's usually about you cannot do this, you cannot do that, you cannot do this, you cannot do that.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's about prohibitions.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what we see here instead is that there's sin is understood much more broadly in Scripture.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not understood in this moralistic sense only.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is offense against God, but it's much more.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what I'd call you to realize today and understand why certain people do not get to walk into the New Jerusalem, though the doors remain open by God's grace now for all who will believe.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the reason.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sin offends God, again, plentiga.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: You guys seeing that I'm really I really like this book.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sin offends God, not only because it bereaves or assaults God directly, as in piety or blasphemy, so it's not only about offending God, it is, but not only, and he says, but also because it bereaves and assaults what God has made.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And certain people will keep on resisting God and his restoration of the world to the end.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're in love with the very things that destroyed the old creation.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: And God is not gonna allow them a place in the new creation.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: We see, however, that we will get, all who believe, will get to come into the new Jerusalem to enjoy the new creation as God's people.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Saw the emphasis?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: They will be his people, he will be their God.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be citizens of God's country.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: No better country than that.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We will be members of his family.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there we go, the ultimate fulfillment of all our relational longings, an unbreakable family.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what is promised to us.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And our portion here, instead of eternal alienation, is vindication.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you take a look at verse 4 and read it slowly, maybe do that this afternoon or tomorrow, it says that God will wipe away our tears.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very intimate, relational God that cares for us, who knows of our suffering today.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: In the new creation, there will be no more death.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no mourning, no crying, no pain.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: No wheelchairs, no chronic pain, no hospitals, no doctors.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, Dr.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Haynes.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: They will have applications for new professions in the new earth as well.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's such a different, such a different world that we look forward to, but we do not yet fully experience.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: God is going to set all things right, and we as his people will get to enjoy it, and we'll get to enjoy it finally forever.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: The only problem with good times, I think we can all agree with on this, is that they end, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: That great family meal, the time with your friends, sometimes right in the middle of it, you start thinking, it's gonna end.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Matter of hours or days, and it's going to end.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And even in the midst of good times, we're caught up with that feeling.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: The amazing news here is that this new beginning that God is starting, his restart button, is actually the beginning of a world that will have no end.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: We will inhabit this vision forever.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: Forever and ever.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: A vision that God Himself has painted.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to see five pointers in the text.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: This little phrase, no more, no more, no more pain, no more death, no more suffering.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: It appears five times in just these first few, four verses.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is a city that's coming down, it's not a tent.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: God is not just coming to stay the summer, he's actually moving into the neighborhood.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: His house is coming down, and he's gonna be with us forever.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: The city is measured.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I remember my mentors always teaching me, Arnon, you have to be a man of your word.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started trying to think of ways to apply that in real life.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, my wife would ask me too, you know, would you do this, this, and that?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, well, I hope to.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I intend to.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: No vague promises.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because I had this feeling that, you know, I don't know if I'll be able to fulfill.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know if I'll be able to be on time for next service at 11.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, yes.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we can't really guarantee everything.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're finite, we're humans.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: But this city is measured.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: All the details, the dimensions are there.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then God says, write this down.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: I am the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning and the end.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: I will fulfill, I'll finish what I started.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: The vision that John described is permanent and inalterable, and it has everything to do with us.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And here are three lessons that I'd like you to take away from all this, and we're we're moving to the end.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um first one is that we are all living towards some vision of the good life.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: All of us.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: All of us, even if you're not conscious of it.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And here's another author that I'm really enjoying, and this book is a great book.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says to be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as flourishing.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we want that.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: We crave it, we desire it.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: This vision that we're that we're moving to is actually part of the fact that we're humans.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: The notion of paradise lost.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've been trying to replant Eden in our own terms for thousands of years, our visions of happiness.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we do as humans.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the other important detail, second lesson.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: There are rival visions of flourishing, of the good life, competing for our hearts.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would like to highlight two of them, two of them that are very familiar to you.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's just skip this quote.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: The first of them is consumerism.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've stopped to think about this, but the ordinary American, average person, has a more comfortable life than 99% of humans, of people who ever walked on the face of the earth.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even kings and nobles of the past.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is big.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of comfort.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of stuff.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: There are hundreds of articles online on how to retire early.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how to save and work a lot and retire early, but still with a lot of money to spend.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: Large homes and limited food, education, entertainment, transportation, not even to get into health and safety.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: There has never been so much health and safety as there is today.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: The irony, though, is that despite all this flourishing, despite all the material blessings, there's there's this big gap between the emotional state of people nowadays.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the more the more people have, the more prosperous nations Western nations become, the higher the rates of depression, the higher the rates of discontent with life.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: There's an enormous gap between our emotional state and our material state.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Consumerism promises a happiness that it cannot deliver.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: It promises that if you get more stuff, you will be happy, and then you get more stuff, and you never realize that you actually need to get more stuff.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's always about getting more stuff and enjoying the latest products and not finding the fulfillment that is promised in the advertising industry.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: Second, we can think a little bit about nationalism, and this is a hard one.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: Nationalism works on our pride and makes us embrace a narrative of superiority.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Our country is the best, you know, the foundation of the country was perfect, country is growing in a great direction, and then things start happening, you get really angry because the country that was founded of this greatness, you know, and we start struggling with that.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is not that we're we're patriotic.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay to be patriotic, it's actually noble to be patriotic, and it's it's wrong to be a hater of America.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: But America is not Eden.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: Brazil is surely not Eden.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Both were established by flawed human beings and are subject to corruption and to decay.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in in this very awkward decade, in this strange, crazy year with riots going on and talk about injustice and all these uh feelings of anxiety for the state of America, I think it's important to ask yourself, am I a patriot or a nationalist?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: And here's a good test.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: If the vision of perfect America drips your heart more than this vision that we're talking about today, maybe maybe you've gone over the line.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your heart has been hooked by nationalism and it's not a good place to be.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, God wants to align us to his ultimate vision.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: He wants our visions, our canvases to be repainted in light of his, with his as the backdrop.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think about the story of a woman, Fanny Jane Crosby.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, most of you have heard of her.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: I won't sing any of her hymns because that would spoil the any of the sermon.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: But Blessed Assurance is one of my favorites.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she was blinded by a medical error at the age of six weeks.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine that?
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: Six weeks as a baby.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for her whole life, she developed this vision, this passion to lead people to Christ through her poetry.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: She was a writer, she wrote more than six thousand hymns.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: There was a point in her life when she would write two or three hymns a day.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe that?
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's just amazing.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: This woman who lost her vision, quite literally, embraced a new vision for her life that ultimately was based on this great vision of God's future.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a foretaste of glory, of glory divine.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And God is filling the world with people that are willing to restart their vision, to realign their understanding of life, to reshape their longings, to repaint their canvases in light of his great vision for the world.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And there are people in this very room that you can look to next to you who are willing to do that over and over again.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: People who are always painting their little canvases with God's canvas as the backdrop.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you may tell me, but well, I'm not amazingness, Fanny Crosby.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Fanny Crosby struggled with depression when she lost her only child.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're all human beings, we're all struggle.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, but I don't have that kind of endurance.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the kind of person that loses vision quickly, and I get deeply frustrated.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm far from this heroic character that you're trying to throw at us today.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Revelation 22, 17 says, The Spirit and the bride say, Come.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And let the one who hears say, Come.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And let the one who's thirsty come.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let the one who desires take of the water of life and drink without price.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: God is not calling perfect people to repaint their vision for 2020 or for life.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: God is calling thirsty people.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you may be thinking, you don't understand.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm okay with this religion, and I'm sort of enamored with this idea of God.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm a little bit a little bit about like Julian Barnes.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't believe in God, but I miss him.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still not decided with this whole Christianity thing.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, my life is just this room, just filled with broken canvases.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: My aspirations for life have been broken, crushed over and over again.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: To you, the one who's seated on the throne says, Behold, behold my vision.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Come and drink without cost, no payment.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, but I'm a Christian, I've been a Christian for a long time.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what you don't understand is that I've let a lot of people down.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've let my family down, I've let God down.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: I blew it too many times in life.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot I need to fix before I can come to God and say, Hey God, let's repaint my canvas, please.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: To you, the one who's seated on the throne, says, Come, look, behold, come and drink of my water.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Free of charge.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: Free of charge.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Look, come and drink.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Could you pray with me?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_00: Triune God, we look forward to the day when your vision will be realized on earth.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Not sweet pie in the sky, but a new creation.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: What a tough year for all of us, and many of us in special ways.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not only is coronavirus out there, and not only are our visions for the year being frustrated, but we ourselves, we we blow it, we we mess up, we lose opportunities, we hurt people that we're supposed to love constantly.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: But we praise you because you're the kind of God who looks at us and says, Come, who says, The doors of my new Jerusalem remain open because they were open by the blood of your Son, Jesus Christ, the Lamb.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we offer you the final prayer today, the prayer of John, Come, Lord Jesus.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Come, Lord Jesus.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.