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We are in our final week of our 30-week-long series through the book of Revelation, the wonderful world of the apocalypse, and I am so excited to bring the word of God to you today.
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Revelation chapter 21 and verse 22.
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We'll read just one verse of scripture.
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It says, I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
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It's so good we should read it twice.
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I did not see a temple in the city because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
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When you touch three people, say him, tell him today he's going to be better than expected, better than expected, better than expected.
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Go ahead and grab your seat.
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Now and then and feel a sense of longing to return.
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In fact, uh, in recent years, your phone will help you do this.
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If you were to open up your photos app and click on collections, the first thing you would see is a little section called Memories.
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And parents, I know that you know this section very well.
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Many Saturday mornings spent in my household lying in bed with Nicole, just walking down memory lane looking at pictures of our almost teenager now, back when he was just a chubby little baby.
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Videos of the kids riding a bike, first days of each school year.
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Or maybe some of you you look back at photos of pastimes with parents or grandparents.
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Maybe the early days when you moved here, or maybe when you used to take summer trips to go there.
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You remember and you look back, and sometimes you long to go back to experience again those things, to be there and perhaps even to freeze time just for a little while.
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And there's nothing wrong with remembering, of course, and it's normal at times to want to go back.
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In fact, the people of God have wrestled with this longing for eons, to get back to a particular place at a particular time before everything changed, before things got harder and more complicated and more painful before death and sorrow, loss and heartache, sickness and disease.
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The place that I'm talking about, of course, is God's original garden temple.
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The story of which helps us to reconcile with our longing to get back.
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The first time that we are introduced to the concept of a temple in Scripture is very early in the narrative.
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It's in the beginning, in fact.
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Now, when most people think about the creation story and the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, they think of questions like, How old is the earth?
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Are the seven days of creation literal?
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When did the dinosaurs come to the picture?
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Where exactly was the Garden of Eden?
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And some of the questions that we ask are more relevant to the text than others.
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But in all the questions we ask of the Bible's opening chapters, what many people miss is that the text is trying to have a different conversation altogether.
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See, Genesis 1 and 2 are not especially interested in talking to you about dinosaurs.
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They are interested in talking to you about God's design for humanity to dwell in his presence and to partner with him in extending his glory to the ends of the earth.
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And the biblical concept that captures that idea is the concept of the temple.
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A temple is where the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the human intersect.
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And the glory and the rule of the divine can extend outwards over the entirety of its kingdom.
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Now, of course, Yahweh, the God of Scripture, does not need a physical temple to convey his glory and power.
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Genesis chapter 1, in fact, makes it clear that he is the creator of all things, that the cosmos itself is his temple, and his authority is not threatened by any rivals, yet at the same time, the same Almighty God chose to localize his presence in a particular place with the desire of sharing an intimate relationship and partnership with humanity.
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That is an indescribable privilege for us, and it is a remarkable act of humility for God.
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Genesis chapter 2 and verse 10 describes this reality, reality really well when it says that a river watering the garden flowed from Eden, and from there, from the garden, it was separated into four headwaters.
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So there's three layers in that verse.
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We have this cool little graphic that I want to show you guys of something that helps you to understand what this is meant to be conceived of.
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You have the mountain of the Lord, which is otherwise synonymous with the with Eden later on in scripture.
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You have the garden, and then you have the world outside of the garden.
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So the picture is that there's a central place from which the source of life, the river, flows.
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And that place is Eden.
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There's a garden that is adjoined to Eden, which is beautiful and lush, and where humanity receives the
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benefits of the life-giving river, and then there's the rest of the earth, which is also watered by the river, but it's not yet cultivated to be like the garden.
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But the idea is that Adam and Eve were meant to work alongside that fourfold river and extend the boundaries of the garden before partnering with God, so that the garden that God planted and watered as a place for his presence could go out to bless the entire world.
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Now, this threefold structure is exactly what we see later on in Israel's tabernacle, God's dwelling place in the midst of that nation.
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And we'll talk more about the tabernacle in a moment, but let me just highlight the structure for us really quick.
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Bring up that next graphic, give the same threefold thing going on here.
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There's an innermost room called the Holy of Holies.
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That's where God's life-giving presence dwelt.
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There's a sanctuary that's adjoined to the Holy of Holies called the holy place.
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That's where the priests did their daily work of worshiping and serving the Lord.
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And then there's the outer courtyard where there is an altar and a wash basin, which the Bible uh loads with the symbolism of the earth and the sea.
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In other words, the ends of the earth.
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So you have the same threefold structure.
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You've got Eden, garden sanctuary, and ends of the earth.
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And so coming back to Genesis 1 and 2, this is exactly what we see.
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It's the first temple after which all other temples in Scripture are modeled.
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And that original garden temple was stunning.
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The Bible says that it had all kinds of trees that were beautiful to look at and good to eat from.
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The scripture says that there was gold in the ground, there was the aroma of resin in the air.
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It was absolute paradise.
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Who wouldn't want to be there?
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And look at our role in the garden in Genesis 2.15.
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It says that the Lord God took the man and put him, literally in the Hebrew, rested or settled him in the garden of Eden to work it.
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This is the biblical concept of rest, by the way.
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We are rested to work and teach and to take care of the garden.
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Genesis 1.28, God blessed them and he said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number, fill the earth and subdue it.
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Rule over the fish, the birds, the living creatures.
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So
the idea is that by working and caring for the garden, Adam and Eve would fill the earth with God's glory.
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They would fulfill that mandate to spread out, to rule over creation and to extend God's beauty into the rest of the world.
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And this wasn't just about gardening.
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This was priestly work.
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In fact, those words to work and to care in the Hebrew, those are the same word pair that are used later on to describe the job description of the priests in the tabernacle and the temple.
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Those words can just as easily be translated as serve and keep or guard, as in protect God's holy place from the entrance of impurity.
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Or they can be translated as worship and obey.
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So the garden isn't just a garden, it's a sanctuary where Adam and Eve had the priestly privilege of being near to God with a mission to share this blessed state with the rest of the world.
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Which brings me to the most foundational feature of the garden: being near to God.
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Before the garden was for anything else, it was a meeting place between God and humanity.
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That was the fundamental reason that God created mankind and planted them in a beautiful garden so we could share his life-giving, loving presence with us as a gift.
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And so Genesis 3 says that God would go walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
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Like he didn't just hang out in the innermost place.
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He didn't just hang out in Eden.
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God didn't just stay atop the mountain, if you will, allowing humanity to experience the benefits of his goodness from a distance.
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No, no, no.
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God would come into the garden and actually be with humanity.
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Because enjoying God was the goal, not just serving God.
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What an indescribable privilege for humanity.
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What a remarkable act of humility for God.
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That even in being entirely self-sufficient as the triune God, needing nothing, needing no one, yet he still chose to share his life and glory with us.
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And what an unspeakable loss to have been removed from that due to our prideful rebellion and sin.
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But even in that, God was not done with us.
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And that's what the story of the temple motif is ultimately about.
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It's the story of the fact that God wants to come close.
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And not just like a little close.
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Like when somebody breaks your trust and you still
want to have a relationship with them, but you keep them at an arm's length just for the sake of your safety.
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It's not like that kind of reconciliation.
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No, God wants to come all the way near to us again.
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And so when you fast forward the story to Israel's tabernacle, I don't have time to read all the scripture, but the design of the tabernacle clearly evokes the garden.
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There's flowers, there's blossoms, there's petals.
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In fact, I was researching this week, and what I learned is that even the smell of the incense and the oil that was used to anoint the entirety of the tent was designed to make the tabernacle itself smell like a garden.
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What about the direction that the tabernacle faced?
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God very explicitly tells them, make sure the tabernacle faces to the east.
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Why?
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Because that is the direction that Adam and Eve were expelled when they were removed from the Garden of Eden.
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And so as the entrance to the garden faced east, so also the entrance to the tabernacle faced east, which means that every single time an Israelite walked through the gate and into the courtyard, or every time a priest walked into the sanctuary, they were walking west.
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So even just entering the tabernacle was to walk symbolically back into the garden.
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And all of this was by God's design.
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He gave the blueprints for every detail of the tabernacle, which is to say that through the construction of that tent, God is saying, I want you back in my presence.
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And as Israel is participating in this reality, they were experiencing the feeling of longing to get back to something.
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Because while the tabernacle preached to them, it did not provide the ultimate fulfillment of their longing.
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A golden lampstand that looks like flowers is pretty, but it's still not a garden.
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The smell of a garden in a tent in the wilderness is not the same as being in paradise.
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And God's presence contained to one room where only one guy can enter in once a year is not the same as God walking in the cool of the day with humanity.
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So Israel gets a taste, but the taste makes them long to get back to the real thing.
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And the story continues.
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Fast forward another few hundred years, you have the construction of Solomon, the king of Israel, the son of David, Solomon's temple.
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And that temple was absolutely stunning.
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And what do you think informed the design cues for the temple?
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Look at 1 Kings 6.18.
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The inside of the temple was cedar, carved with gourds and open flowers.
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Everything was cedar, no stone was to be seen.
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629, on the walls all around the temple, in both the inner and outer rooms, he carved cherubim that is angels, palm trees, and open flowers.
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Chapter 7, the capitals on top of the pillars in the porticle were in the shape of lilies, four cubits high.
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On the capitals of both pillars above the bowl-shaped part next to the network were two hundred pomegranates in rows all around.
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It's clearly evoking a garden, and God wanted it to, because he provided the design for that building just like he provided the design for the tabernacle.
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He wants us near him.
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But even with the majesty and even with the ornate beauty of this temple, Solomon still said at the completion of the work in 1 Kings 8 27, but will God really dwell on earth?
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The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you.
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How much less this temple that I have built.
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That's not to say that Solomon's temple was futile.
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God's presence did fill the Holy of Holies.
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But even so, it was easy for Solomon to see that this is not it.
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He was still longing to get back to the garden.
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Solomon's temple was a man-made structure.
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The garden was planted by God.
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The temple had God's presence in a room, the garden had God's presence moving freely about.
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The temple had a lampstand signifying the light of God's glory.
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The garden had the fullness of God's glory.
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So once again, the temple gives a taste, but it does not ultimately fulfill.
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Not to mention, outside the temple, there's still suffering in Israel.
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There's still poverty, still sickness, still brokenness.
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There was still the very real issue of sin.
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That Israel had proven again and again that they, along with the rest of humanity, were completely unworthy of returning to the garden, incapable of living in God's holy presence and undeserving of partnering with him in his mission, which leaves us with the realization that no matter what temples we build, no matter how much we long to return, it is very clear that we on our own are a far cry from getting back to that garden.
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And you know this feeling.
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You don't need to live very long before you encounter the longing to return to some place or sometime.
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Nostalgia comes for us all.
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Everybody has a before.
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We long for life before the sickness, before the accident, before the divorce, before the death of that loved one.
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We long for life before that loss, that change, before that person left me, before that parent passed.
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We all think at some point, if I could just get back to the way that I felt before that heartbreak, if I could get back to the way that I saw things before that disappointment rocked me, or before that relationship wrecked me, or before that decision disrupted my entire life, if I could just go back to the time before that friend showed me pornography.
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If I just go back to before I said those words that I can't take back to my spouse, before my trust was so deeply eroded by that family member.
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Every single one of us has before we all wrestle with a longing to get back to something.
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And at the heart of that longing is the core desire to get back to the garden.
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King David could relate an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, the murder of her husband, the prophet Nathan coming to him, looking him in the eye, saying, You are the man who has done this.
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David writes a psalm, and in the middle of the psalm he says, Restore to me the joy of your salvation, give it back.
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Let me have what I had before, before I threw it away.
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Naomi could relate, she left Bethlehem with a husband and two sons, she came back with none of them.
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And when the women of the town called her by her name, she said, Don't call me Naomi, call me Mara, call me bitter, because I went out full and I came back empty.
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The exiles of Israel could relate, they came home from Babylon, they lay the foundation of the second temple, and the young men shouted for joy over its construction.
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But the old men, the ones who could remember Solomon's with Solomon's temple, they wept out loud because it isn't what it was.
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Scripture says, You could not tell the shouting from the weeping.
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God is building something new right in front of them, and half of them could not even see it through their tear-stained eyes.
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The apostle Peter could relate after denying that he knew Christ, after watching Christ die, what does Peter say?
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He says, I'm going fishing.
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I'm going back to the boat, back to the life that I had before everything got turned upside down three years ago when I started following Jesus.
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The Apostle John could relate, he was an exile on an island, writing letters to churches that he used to walk into, praying for people from across a sea, instead of laying hands on them and seeing them face to face.
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To long for before is a universal human experience.
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But there is one person in Scripture who never looked back.
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Jesus Christ, though he had every single reason to.
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He came from glory, he left the Father's side, he left worship of myriads of angels without end.
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He stepped into a world that would kill him.
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If anyone had a before worth aching for, it was Jesus.
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But the book of Hebrews says that the joy that was set in front of him, he endured the cross.
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For our sakes, Jesus looked forward, not behind.
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Because Jesus knew what we so often forget, that even if we could reach every single marker in time where things seemingly took a turn for the worse, the reality is that before, every before, is another before.
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Because life is made up of moments that mark us, and the list goes on and on.
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So Jesus did not come to take us back.
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And this is what I felt the Lord give me for us today.
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The reason we can never fully get back to what we long for is because what we long for isn't actually behind us, it's ahead of us.
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And this is what the end of Revelation preaches to us.
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Revelation 22 and verse 1.
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The angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
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What is that?
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That evokes the life-giving water that flowed from God's presence in the garden in Genesis 2.
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Except now that river is clear as crystal.
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So you don't look at it so much as you look through it.
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Like everything else in the new creation, the river does not point to itself, it points to God and the Lamb.
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That river it flows from a single throne where God and the Lamb are seated.
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There's one source.
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The river is their presence.
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Which is why it should sound familiar, because if you've read the Gospel of John, you know that Jesus promised living water to every single person who believes in him.
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And John plainly tells us Jesus was talking about the Holy Spirit.
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And the Holy Spirit's whole work is turning us to see the glory of the Father and the Son, the glory of God constantly before us, so that what Adam and Eve Adam and Eve lost sight of in the garden, you and I will never miss in the new creation.
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Our eyes will behold his glory all the time.
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Look at verse 2.
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On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.
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At the center of the garden in the beginning was a singular tree of life.
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But in the new creation, the tree lines the entirety of the river, and it will bear its fruit every single month.
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In other words, life is always in season in the new creation.
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Life will abound for all, and all may come and receive from that gift of life.
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The prophet Ezekiel in the Old Testament he saw something similar.
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He saw this river that's lined with life-giving trees.
00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:55.319
He says that the leaves of the tree will be for healing.
00:19:55.640 --> 00:19:58.839
But in John's vision in Revelation, it goes even a step further.
00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:01.480
It says it will be for the healing of the nations.
00:20:01.640 --> 00:20:09.880
So what Ezekiel saw for one nation, John sees for all the nations of the world, that all people may come and be healed by God from sin and sickness.
00:20:10.120 --> 00:20:19.319
Chapter 21 and verse 3 says, I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.
00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:23.079
They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:26.759
So God's presence is no longer confined to a holy of holies.
00:20:27.079 --> 00:20:30.200
One man once a year no longer has soul access.
00:20:30.440 --> 00:20:41.720
Now, because of Jesus' high priestly sacrifice on the cross, all may enter back into the presence of God, and God will walk among his people for all eternity, undiluted and unfiltered.
00:20:41.960 --> 00:20:45.319
21.4 says that he will wipe every single tear from their eyes.
00:20:45.480 --> 00:20:51.000
There will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
00:20:51.160 --> 00:20:53.000
Just pay attention to how personal that is.
00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:59.319
That's the picture of a father's hand on a child's face, wiping away his tears.
00:20:59.480 --> 00:21:03.640
But it's also the picture of a father's ferocity against all that has hurt his child.
00:21:03.799 --> 00:21:06.599
Death, mourning, crying, pain, all gone.
00:21:06.759 --> 00:21:18.440
No more before, no more sickness, no more diagnosis, no more waiting rooms, no more accidents, no more divorce, no more words you can't take back, no more gravesides, no more anniversaries of losses, no longer will there be any more curse.
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.000
Everything Genesis 3 unleashed is done.
00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:26.680
22, 4 says they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
00:21:27.720 --> 00:21:34.359
In the Old Testament, the high priest wore a plate on his forehead that said, Holy to the Lord, on his turban.
00:21:34.839 --> 00:21:38.920
But in the new creation, all people will bear the name of the Lord on their foreheads.
00:21:39.160 --> 00:21:42.920
It symbolizes the fact that we are all high priests when we get there.
00:21:43.559 --> 00:21:54.599
We all stand before God in most intimate union, not on the basis of any sacrifice that we mustered up, but on the basis of the sacrifice that He provided for us through His Son.
00:21:55.079 --> 00:21:59.079
And we will see the face of God and the Lamb.
00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.599
Literally in the Greek, we will see His face.
00:22:03.720 --> 00:22:06.839
Singular pronoun God and the Lamb.
00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:14.039
Because their theological union is so indescribable that it breaks the rules of grammar.
00:22:14.680 --> 00:22:16.039
And we will see him.
00:22:16.839 --> 00:22:19.880
We will see the God who dies for sinners.
00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:23.319
We will see the God who rescues the rebellion.
00:22:23.960 --> 00:22:27.799
And we will look him in the eye, and we will be able to say thank you.
00:22:29.480 --> 00:22:30.039
Moses.
00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:33.960
God's backside from behind a rock.
00:22:34.759 --> 00:22:38.839
The high priest got God's formless presence behind a cloud of incense.
00:22:39.799 --> 00:22:46.359
You and I will get God's face shining upon us, transforming us fully into his image once and for all.
00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:56.920
Finally, in 21-22, it says, I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
00:22:59.400 --> 00:23:18.599
As much as the Old Testament had taught the Apostle John to expect some kind of recreation of the garden, some kind of recovery, he still could not separate that expectation from a physical temple with all of all of its various sanctuaries and structures and rooms.
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:26.440
So as he has this vision, he surveys the heavenly city coming down out of heaven and he looks for a temple, but it's not there.
00:23:27.079 --> 00:23:31.799
And he's so surprised by that that he actually says, I look, I didn't see a temple in the city.
00:23:32.680 --> 00:23:39.000
Instead, what John saw is he saw a city in the shape of a cube, 1,500 miles in every direction.
00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:44.920
And that's because back in the temple, the holy of holies, the innermost room was a cube.
00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:49.240
So what John sees coming down out of heaven is a giant
holy of holies.
00:23:50.519 --> 00:23:51.880
The entire city.
00:23:52.120 --> 00:23:57.160
No more Eden, no more garden, no more rest of the world.
00:23:57.720 --> 00:24:00.440
There are no more grades of holiness.
00:24:01.319 --> 00:24:03.640
Just God's presence filling all in all.
00:24:03.799 --> 00:24:08.519
There's no step you can take in any direction and not still be at home in the light of God's glory.
00:24:09.319 --> 00:24:15.400
Which means that what John sees here in Revelation 21 and 22 is not merely a vision of paradise regained.
00:24:15.880 --> 00:24:18.120
This is a vision of mission accomplished.
00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:22.920
Where the earth ends up full of the glory of God.
00:24:23.720 --> 00:24:27.400
That where Adam failed, Christ has succeeded.
00:24:28.359 --> 00:24:34.120
And we received the gift of his success as a gift of his love.
00:24:35.079 --> 00:24:43.799
And what this tells me is that though we were designed to remember the past, we were not designed to long for the past.
00:24:45.160 --> 00:24:53.880
In fact, I would say this to you today: do not spend your life longing for before when God is leading you to better.
00:24:56.279 --> 00:25:06.120
I know you may want to go back to before the loss, to before the rupture, before that mistake that you made.
00:25:06.440 --> 00:25:08.440
But God isn't taking you back.
00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.000
God is taking you to better.
00:25:11.480 --> 00:25:15.559
Yes, the garden was great, but the new creation is better.
00:25:16.200 --> 00:25:29.319
Every element, every aspect of beauty, every ounce of abundance, all of it multiplied many times over, received and enjoyed, not by a couple, not by a nation, but by people from every single nation the world over.
00:25:30.519 --> 00:25:40.039
Ultimately, I would sum it up to you like this: that what we lost in Adam can never compare to what we have gained in Christ.
00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:49.480
See, the church was never meant to worship at the altar of nostalgia.
00:25:52.200 --> 00:25:55.240
We are supposed to be building for better.
00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:01.319
We, the people of God, gathered in the name of Jesus.
00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:06.200
We are the current expression of God's temple on the earth.
00:26:06.440 --> 00:26:11.319
And we are always to be pressing forward, not longing for yesterday.
00:26:11.880 --> 00:26:14.839
What does the Apostle Paul say in Philippians 3:12?
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:24.440
Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived at my goal, but I pressed on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
00:26:24.759 --> 00:26:28.519
Christ Jesus took a hold of you so that you would press on, not look back.
00:26:28.759 --> 00:26:31.720
We are a pressing forward people, not a waiting people.
00:26:31.880 --> 00:26:35.160
We are longing for what's to come, not what lays behind.
00:26:35.319 --> 00:26:38.359
And we have not been left empty-handed in our pursuit.
00:26:38.519 --> 00:26:43.319
Because when Jesus died on the cross, the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
00:26:43.400 --> 00:26:46.920
And what that signifies to us is that God's presence was relocating.
00:26:47.400 --> 00:26:57.960
So that at the day of Pentecost, the same fire that filled the tabernacle and the fire that filled Solomon's temple came down and rested on 120 ordinary people in an ordinary room.
00:26:58.440 --> 00:27:01.559
God's presence was no longer localized to one place.
00:27:01.720 --> 00:27:08.120
Which is why the Apostle Paul can write to the church in Karth and he can say, Don't you know that you are God's temple?
00:27:08.680 --> 00:27:11.480
And that God's Spirit dwells among you?
00:27:12.120 --> 00:27:14.359
That's true of us right now.
00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:24.839
See, we are the garden sanctuary that is adjoined to the Holy of Holies of God's throne room, where the Father and the Lamb are seated.
00:27:26.120 --> 00:27:29.799
And the unsaved world around us is the ends of the earth.
00:27:30.599 --> 00:27:32.759
And so what does that mean for us?
00:27:33.400 --> 00:27:39.000
It means that we have been handed the same work that Adam and Eve were given.
00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:48.680
To serve, to work, to worship, to guard, to keep, and obey.
00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:52.120
To serve is to work.
00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:55.400
To work is to worship.
00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:58.120
Worship is a life that you offer.
00:27:58.359 --> 00:28:00.440
It's not just songs that we sing.
00:28:02.359 --> 00:28:06.759
Paul says, present your bodies as a living sacrifice.
00:28:07.960 --> 00:28:10.599
That is your true and proper worship.
00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:13.400
That is your true and proper response to the gospel.
00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:19.640
To take your place in God's church and give your life to others.
00:28:20.359 --> 00:28:25.160
So if you came to Christ last month, you are in the army now.
00:28:27.960 --> 00:28:35.000
You are a priest standing in the presence of God, doing the work of the sanctuary as worship unto the Lord.
00:28:36.279 --> 00:28:38.440
We don't just serve, we also guard.
00:28:38.680 --> 00:28:44.039
To guard means to keep the temple free of impurity by obeying the word of God.
00:28:44.599 --> 00:28:50.440
Adam and Eve, they failed to guard the garden against the impurity of the serpent coming in.
00:28:50.680 --> 00:28:55.319
But you and I can succeed in guarding God's temple by the power of the Holy Spirit.
00:28:55.880 --> 00:28:58.519
What this means is that we guard our hearts.
00:28:59.160 --> 00:29:02.440
For out of your heart flows all the issues of your life.
00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:05.160
Your heart is your responsibility to guard.
00:29:05.400 --> 00:29:09.400
We guard our relationships against gossip, against bitterness, against unforgiveness.
00:29:09.559 --> 00:29:19.559
We guard God's church, we guard cathedral, helping one another to live holy and devoted lives
to Jesus Christ, confessing our sins to one another and praying for one another.
00:29:21.079 --> 00:29:22.680
We keep God's word.
00:29:23.240 --> 00:29:25.079
We obey his commands.
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:31.480
Because we understand that everything that God asks of us is ultimately tied to what God wants for us.
00:29:31.880 --> 00:29:37.400
So obedience for us is not a chore, it's a delight because we know that in obedience is our blessing.
00:29:38.359 --> 00:29:41.000
And of course, we extend.
00:29:41.720 --> 00:29:45.160
The garden was never meant to be a static place.
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:49.400
It was always meant to be a growing, expanding ecosystem.
00:29:50.920 --> 00:29:54.440
The river that flowed from Eden did not pool in the garden.
00:29:55.079 --> 00:29:57.640
It flowed out in a fourfold direction.
00:29:57.880 --> 00:30:04.599
And Adam and Eve were meant to follow that, to push the borders of the garden outward until the whole world looked like God's home.
00:30:05.480 --> 00:30:16.920
And so, in the same way, the church is always meant to be pushing outward to your family, your neighborhood, this city, and honestly, further than you and I will live to see.
00:30:17.960 --> 00:30:28.440
Remember, all throughout the book of Revelation, there's these characters, the nations and the kings of the earth, and every single mention of them tells us that they were opponents of Jesus Christ.
00:30:29.240 --> 00:30:40.519
Except in the final chapters we've been looking at these past couple of weeks, these same characters are bringing their splendor, their honor, their glory into the new creation as worship to God.
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:42.920
And that details there on purpose.
00:30:43.000 --> 00:30:46.279
It's meant to tell us that our witness is more effective than we think.
00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:54.039
That the people who are currently enemies of Jesus will be converted to become friends of Jesus through the faithful witness of the church of Jesus Christ.
00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:58.039
So we must persevere in bearing witness to Him.
00:30:58.359 --> 00:31:01.880
This, by the way, is why we're adding a third service in just a few weeks' time.
00:31:01.960 --> 00:31:06.519
This is us participating in making room for the garden to continue to grow.
00:31:07.319 --> 00:31:18.359
Now, not coincidentally, these three things that are straight from the Bible's priestly resume, they make up what we say every single week as a church.
00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:25.559
That we exist for the glory of Christ, the beauty of the bride, and the good of the city.
00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:34.359
Serving and worshiping Jesus Christ, discipling his saints, and reaching the world around us.
00:31:34.759 --> 00:31:38.519
So our mission statement is the oldest job description in the Bible.
00:31:39.640 --> 00:31:41.160
And that is our work.
00:31:42.519 --> 00:31:48.759
We are not here to preserve what was, we are here to extend what is.
00:32:10.519 --> 00:32:14.680
Constructed not by human hands, but built by God.
00:32:15.960 --> 00:32:18.839
And it will be stunning.
00:32:19.720 --> 00:32:23.240
More beautiful than that first work of God.
00:32:24.039 --> 00:32:27.000
Certainly more beautiful than a tent in the wilderness.
00:32:27.160 --> 00:32:29.240
More beautiful than Solomon's temple.
00:32:32.599 --> 00:32:36.599
More beautiful than this building, more beautiful than this gathering.
00:32:36.920 --> 00:32:43.640
Out of God's glory, and down from heaven will come God's finished garden temple.
00:32:43.880 --> 00:32:52.599
And we will look and we will see that every single act of service, sacrifice, generosity, faithfulness will have been worthwhile.
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:59.160
Because as we see that, we will see that what we have gained in Christ far exceeds everything we ever lost in Adam.
00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:04.279
The glory of God on display, shining on the face of his people.
00:33:04.759 --> 00:33:05.880
God be the glory.