God Moves Into the Neighborhood

[00:00:00] Foreign. [00:00:07] You made it to Friday. This is Pastor Chuck Allen. Welcome back to another weekday podcast. We've been talking through the Book of the Revelation most of the week, actually, I think all week. And today we're going to skip forward a little bit further and get to Revelation, chapter 21 and 22, and talk a little bit about what it looks like when God moves into the neighborhood. [00:00:30] If you've ever tried to read the Book of the Revelation and you made it all the way to the end, you know this. The ending is not primarily about people escaping Earth. No matter what the movies try to make you believe, it's about God coming home. [00:00:48] The book of Revelation begins with churches trying to remain faithful in difficult cities. [00:00:56] Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Tyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodosia. [00:01:05] Now real people that have, like, churches on real streets with real, honest goodness, meals with one another and, you know, real pressures. Just kind of like today, except way back. [00:01:18] And those folks, well, they're trying to follow Jesus in a world that feels like it's con. Just constantly tempted to make them compromise, to be quiet, to blend in, to get along, to. To give their deepest allegiance to something other than the Lamb, who, by the way, is none other than Jesus. [00:01:40] And. And then the Book of the Revelation ends. Not with believers floating away into some disembodied heaven. It. It ends with a city coming down. [00:01:52] John writes in Revelation 21, then, I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And he says, I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband coming down. Now that matters. The Christian hope is not that creation gets discarded. The Christian hope is that creation gets renewed. [00:02:19] You see, God isn't giving up on what he made. God's not like walking away from us and abandoning the world that he loves. [00:02:28] God's making all things new. [00:02:31] Not all new things. [00:02:33] All things new. [00:02:35] That's a very different promise. Because all new things might mean God throws everything away and starts over somewhere else. But all things new means God takes what sin has fractured and what grief has scarred and what death stole from us, even what evil had distorted. And then God takes it. And what does he do? What God always does. He redeems it. He restores it. He makes it new. [00:03:04] And then John hears a loud shout from the throne. Look. God's home is now among his people. Come on, y'. All. That is fantastic news. [00:03:15] In some translations, it says, the dwelling place of God is with humanity. Or you could say it this way. God moved into my neighborhood. [00:03:24] The whole Bible's been moving toward this moment. In Genesis, God walks with Adam and Eve in the garden. [00:03:31] Then, after sin messes up the world, God instructs Israel to build a tabernacle, a place where his presence dwells among his people. [00:03:40] Then there's the temple. Then in Jesus, John says the Word became human and made his home among us. [00:03:47] And in Revelation 21, the story reaches this super cool conclusion. God will live with his people forever. He's not distant, hidden, abstract. [00:03:59] He's not just an idea or concept. God is with us. [00:04:03] And Revelation 21 puts it this way. At that point, he's going to wipe away every tear from their eye, and there'll be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. The very promise of heaven. [00:04:15] God doesn't merely announce that tears are going to be gone. He wipes them away. This is deeply personal. [00:04:22] This is not God standing at a distance, making a declaration from a throne. Your suffering has now been removed. No, it's Jesus walking up to you and wiping away your tears. [00:04:37] Think about that, y'. All. The God of all creation. Close enough to not only feel, but touch your eyes. [00:04:46] Close enough to touch your face. [00:04:49] Close enough to say, I know. I saw. I was with you. This isn't the end. I got you. [00:04:56] There's a. There's a pretty cool detail in Revelation 21 that I think is super encouraging. John sees the new Jerusalem described as a perfect cube, its length, width, and height all equal. Now, that sounds like. Like architectural trivia, but it is full of meaning. In the Old Testament Temple, the innermost realm, the Holy of Holies was a cube. It was the place that symbolized the concentrated presence of God. Only the high priest could enter, and only at particular times. [00:05:28] But now the entire city shaped like the Holy of Holies. [00:05:32] Do you see that? I mean, you don't have to be Billy Graham to get this. You have to. In the new Creation, the whole city is the place of God's presence. No more restricted access. No more keep out. No more, you know, no trespassing. I mean, think about it. That means there's. There's no more sacred people over here and ordinary people over there. There's no more searching for God because he feels like he's far away. The whole world becomes his dwelling place. [00:06:00] And listen to what John goes on to say. For the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. [00:06:07] There doesn't need to be a temple because worship has disappeared, but because the entire purpose of the temple has now been fulfilled. The temple was where heaven and earth came together. But now heaven and earth have been joined. [00:06:25] Then Revelation 22 gives us another image. A river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. And on each side of the river is the Tree of Life. [00:06:39] Now this tree of life takes us all the way back to Genesis. In Genesis 3, humanity loses access to the Tree of Life because of sin. And at the end of Revelation, the tree is back. And God's been telling one long story. What was lost in a garden is restored in a city. [00:07:00] But the city's better than the garden because now there's a great multitude of redeemed people there. There are gates, there are nations, there is music and beauty and healing. And the leaves of the tree, Revelations say, are for. Listen to this. For the healing of the nations. Not just individual people, but for the world, for nations, for people groups and cultures and tribes. [00:07:24] The places where human history has been divided, divided by racism or violence, by greed or war, maybe by pride or hatred. God's ultimate future begins and includes healing. [00:07:39] So when you work for reconciliation, when you feed someone who's hungry, when you welcome the stranger, when you forgive somebody, when you refuse to let cynicism make you cruel, you're not wasting your time. You're practicing the future you're living now in the direction God says history is going. And then Jesus says, hey, look, I am coming soon. Now, that word soon isn't given to give us a countdown chart. I mean, it's not how we create a way of life. Jesus is saying, you should live awake, live ready, live faithful. Don't give your worship away to things that cannot save you. [00:08:20] And then the very last prayer in the Bible is simple. Amen. Come Lord Jesus. It's a hope filled prayer. It's not an escaping prayer. It's a prayer that says, jesus, come and set things right. Come and make all things new. And until he does, we live as people of the coming city. [00:08:39] We should preview that as followers of Jesus and people of the book folks that tell the truth and practice mercy and forgive and serve and refuse despair. [00:08:50] It's not the end of the story that is darkness. It's not death or beasts or Babylon. It's a city, a river, a tree, a lamb on the throne, and God with us. My friend, thanks for walking through the book of the Revelation. Remember, even so, come, Lord Jesus, God bless you. Friend. I'm so grateful you joined me this week. If you want to replays these or share these with a friend please feel free to. Because sometimes people just need a word of encouragement. And hearing it from a friend means a lot. God bless you. Bye now.