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Why don't you stay saying grab your Bible, turn with me to Revelation chapter 21?
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I want us to stand for the reading of God's Word.
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Scripture is the only infallible authority for the church.
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We must revere God's word together.
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I'm gonna read just a couple verses from chapter 21, starting in verse 9.
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We're nearing the end of Revelation.
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How are you feeling?
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It's been a good journey, yeah?
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It says, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, This is not my message, but I was thinking about when I read that how it's so unique because everything like you know, Phil's chapters 21 and 22 is like all the best stuff in Revelation.
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It's like nothing but good news.
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And the angel who brings this good news to John is the one who carried one of the seven bowls, which is a plague, it was a judgment.
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I was thinking about how interesting that is, how one of the angels who represented judgment now is the bearer of good news to us.
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It just reminds me how God works all things together for good for the those for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose, that God can even use refining work in our lives to bring us into his greatest blessings.
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The angel said, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
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And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
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I'm gonna do part one of two parts as we close out Revelation today, and I'm gonna call it better than expected.
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Better than expected.
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Why don't you turn to three people on the way down to your seat and say it's gonna be better than you expect?
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It's gonna be better than you expect.
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You've experienced that recently, yeah?
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When something is better than you expected it to be, that's the best.
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When something is a letdown, that's the worst.
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Like when something lives up to the height, it feels super great.
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You know, like I would say Spider-Man.
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Lived up to the Odyssey.
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Yeah, yeah.
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But when something is hyped up so much that it almost seems impossible for it to measure up, but then not only does it measure up, but it actually exceeds the level of hype that it received.
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I would say that was Project Hail Mary.
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And the end of Revelation.
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These final two chapters do not just conclude the book of Revelation, they don't even just conclude the entire story of Scripture.
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These two chapters they take the core motifs of the entire biblical story and they show you how they are ultimately fulfilled.
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And all of it is better than we or anybody ever could have imagined or expected it to be.
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So, what I want to do today is I want to look at uh two of those motifs.
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We'll hit four over the course of this week and next week.
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And we're gonna do something fun uh over the course of the next two Sundays.
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We're gonna engage in a little bit of biblical theology.
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Biblical theology is when you trace a theme or a motif over the canon of scripture, typically, and you see how the theology of that theme develops over the long arc of the story so that you can ultimately see how God fulfills that theme.
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It's really uh enriching as we do that.
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So the first one I want to look at is the theme of the bride.
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Say the bride.
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The first time that we see the concept of God's people as his bride in Scripture is when Israel enters into a covenant with God at Mount Sinai after he delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
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And the interesting thing about this marriage imagery is that it is constantly defined by Israel's likelihood of committing adultery by worshiping gods other than Yahweh, other than the one true God.
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Now, it does not take a theologian to know that a strong marriage is not defined by a constant concern that one of the partners is going to be unfaithful to the other.
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And yet that is the way that the Old Testament consistently conceives of Israel in relation to God.
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And for good reason, because that's what Israel does early and often.
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Moses doesn't even come down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments before they are at the base of the mountain worshiping a golden calf.
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That is, of course, akin to Israel committing adultery on their wedding night.
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So the bride motif does not start out very romantically in Scripture.
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If anything, it seems to be the telling of a sad story where the faithful love of God is constantly taken for granted.
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It's constantly rejected in order to go after that which is not love at all.
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Now, one thing I learned as I was studying for this message, this is interesting, is that the Mosaic law actually forbid a man from remarrying his wife after they had been divorced and she had gone to be a partner of another man.
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If for whatever reason they wanted to get back together with the original husband and wife, the Mosaic law actually forbid that, because to do that would uh be to bring defilement upon the nation.
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So that would seem to be a major problem for Israel's marriage to God.
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And this is exactly the point that the prophet Jeremiah makes in Jeremiah 3:1.
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He says, if a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again?
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Would not the land be completely defiled?
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But you, Israel, you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers.
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Would you now return to me, declares the Lord?
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This is what you call a lesser to greater argument.
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He's comparing it to a lesser scenario and saying, yours is a whole lot worse than that, and yet you still expect me to come back to you.
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God is saying if that such a reunification is not allowed in the case of divorce and remarriage, how much more so in the case of repeated infidelity?
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On paper, Israel's circumstance is hopeless.
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And yet God says that his mercy will triumph even in this scenario.
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Look just a few verses down in verse 14, Jeremiah 3.
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Return, faithless people, declares the Lord, for I am your husband.
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I will choose you, one from a town, two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.
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And then it gets even better in Jeremiah 31, verses 21 and 22.
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Set up road signs, put up guideposts, take note of the highway.
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In other words, make it really obvious for people to come back.
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Return, virgin Israel.
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Return to your towns.
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How long will you wander?
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Unfaithful daughter Israel, the Lord will create a new thing on earth.
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The woman will return to the man.
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Isn't that amazing that after her infidelity, God's mercy is so great that he calls Israel virgin?
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He says, the woman will return to the man, and it will it will be like they are standing at the altar for the first time.
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And stunningly, she won't even be haunted by the memories of her unfaithfulness.
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Isaiah 54, the prophet says, Don't be afraid, you will not be put to shame.
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Do not fear disgrace, you will not be humiliated, you will forget the shame of your youth.
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This is for some people today.
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You will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood, for your maker is your husband, the Lord Almighty is his name, the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer.
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He is called the God of all the earth.
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The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be rejected, says your God.
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So it's one thing to be brought back to the altar after a lifetime of unfaithfulness.
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It is quite another thing to be promised the gift of being able to forget your shame.
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And yet God gives the promise.
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Anyway, and we could go on elsewhere in the Old Testament prophets, God's unfaithful people are promised re-betrothal, re-commitment, even renaming as they go from being called deserted and desolate to being named the Lord's delight is in her and married.
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These are the promises that are held out as the Old Testament concludes.
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And it's beautiful.
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But the beauty of a relationship isn't fulfilled in the stage of betrothal, engagement.
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The point, of course, is not to long for the wedding day.
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The point is to get married.
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And can we just acknowledge how cute those hiccups sound?
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That is.
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Is that baby Graham?
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Wow, God bless him.
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Those are the cutest sounding hiccups I've ever heard in my whole life.
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The point is to get married, and that's the tension as you make your way into the New Testament period.
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Because Jesus, the Son of God, comes into the heart of the human story to call his bride back.
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But rather than recognizing him and returning to him, his unfaithful bride resists him.
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John chapter 1 and verse 11 captures the dissonance between the promise in the Old Testament and the delayed fulfillment in a single line.
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It says, He, Jesus, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
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In fact, not only did they not receive him, they flat out rejected him, they crucified him.
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They filled up the measure of their unfaithfulness to God by trying to rid themselves of him.
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But even that could not undermine God's love for them.
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Because it turns out that the cross of Christ was not just the bride's rejection, it was also the groom's devotion.
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It was his sacrificial love, an act of cleansing to make her beautiful once again.
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So the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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Why?
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To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
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So that through the cross, Jesus is making his bride more beautiful than ever before.
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First of all, because she is no longer comprised of just one nation, Israel, but now in Christ Jesus, Jew and Gentile have been brought into unity with one another in their union with Jesus Christ, but also because he is cleansing her from all of her sin, making her radiant and spotless, holy and blameless through the washing that comes through his word.
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That is the proclamation of the gospel.
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What is the gospel?
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It is his proclamation of love.
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So as Christ proclaims his love to the church, she is cleansed.
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Basically, God is making his bride beautiful for her wedding day.
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So that the prior marriage that was marked by infidelity on day one will be a thing of the past, and the new marriage will be to a bride who is absolutely flawless.
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That's the promise that we're meant to hold on to in this wilderness age as we journey towards our wedding day with the Lamb.
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That we who are absolutely flawed, we who are absolutely still wrestling with sin, are given the promise that we will be pure and holy.
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That's the promise that John himself receives and he's told to hold on to as the apocalypse comes to a close.
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You see, all throughout Revelation, there's been this major emphasis on being a faithful witness, resisting compromise, fleeing idolatry, resisting sin, proclaiming the truth of God to the world around you without hesitation.
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And John, as a pastor, is clearly concerned for the seven churches that he originally addressed.
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And of course, those seven churches are representative of the whole global church.
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John is apart from them as an exile on an island called Patmos.
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And yet from that distance, he knows their faults, he knows their missteps, he knows their habits, he knows their sin, and he's constantly calling them back to faithfulness.
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And so John's tension is are they going to make it?
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Will the bride make herself ready?
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As it says in chapter 19.
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Will she continue on in the righteousness that is required of her?
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Or will she stumble and fall?
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Will she go back to her sin?
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And here at the conclusion of the book, these questions are answered.
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Questions that haven't just been lingering in John's mind, but also in the mind of every faithful reader of scripture before him.
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Can God do what he says?
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Will the bride be ready for the day that her groom comes?
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Or is the impurity too deeply ingrained?
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You ever wonder that about yourself?
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Is the impurity too deeply ingrained in me?
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And that's when the angel says to John, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
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And look where she comes from.
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Look at verse 2 of chapter 21.
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I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.
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This is incredible for a few reasons.
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In the Jewish custom, the preparation process was always up to the bride's family.
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She got ready at her own family's house.
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That preparation involved bathing, anointing with oil, being adorned with beautiful jewelry and a beautiful dress.
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And only after the preparation did the groom come to escort the bride back to his family's house for the celebration.
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And yet, here we see that the custom is inverted as God Himself prepares, as God Himself oversees the preparation of the bride.
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So much so that when it comes time for her to be presented to the Son, she isn't rising up from the earth, her house, so to speak.
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She's coming down out of heaven, God's house.
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It turns out that all this time the bride wasn't even getting ready at her own house.
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She was getting ready in the house of the Lord.
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Imagine a bride to be who is marrying astronomically above her own socioeconomic status.
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She is sorely unprepared in her ability to get ready.
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She doesn't even have an adequate place to get ready.
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She doesn't have the resources to prepare herself in such a way that would be fitting for the wedding day that awaits her.
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That would be an occasion for panic and fear, as she risks showing up shamefully unprepared to her own wedding.
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Except the groom's father knows full well her lack of resources.
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And he does not want her to worry or fret.
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So what he does is he makes space for her in his own home.
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And he provides everything that she needs so that she will be more prepared, more than prepared for her marriage to the son.
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That's what Revelation teaches us about the preparation of the bride.
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On our own, we entirely lack the resources to make ourselves ready.
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We don't have the willpower, we don't have the innate desire for righteousness, we don't have the strength to resist temptation to sin.
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If it were up to us alone, we would repeat the same story of unfaithfulness again and again and again as we see in the Old Testament.
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But what the gospel says to you and I is that it's not up to us.
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God says it's up to him, and he invites us to come get ready at his house.
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The Apostle Peter, chapter 3, 2 Peter 3, 1, he says it like this.
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He says, His divine power, God's divine power has given, past tense, already happened, has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him that is Jesus, who called us by his own glory and goodness.
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So everything we need is in our experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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We can get ready at God's house.
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The New Testament makes it clear again and again that we experience Jesus most regularly as we congregate together in his place.
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That's his church.
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And in the church, we have all that we need to lead godly lives.
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We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit.
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We receive the ministry of his gifts at work in the body.
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We gather together at the Lord's table to receive his presence through worship, through communion, through the proclamation of the word, through the laying on of hands.
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We form relationships with others in the church who care for us and encourage us, admonish us and correct us.
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And although we appear ordinary, although we appear unqualified on earth, the reality is that God is so at work in our lives through this place that it is though we are getting ready at his heavenly home.
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The Apostle John, as a man who was steeped in the Hebrew scriptures, was very well versed in the faithfulness of God to reunite his bride to himself.
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He expects to witness certain things.
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He hears the bride, he has a certain level of expectation about what he is going to see.
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As he beholds the fulfillment of this long-awaited promise.
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But what he sees is even better than he expects.
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Any concern about whether the bride will truly make herself ready, truly throw off her sin, truly be robed in righteousness is his promise for you.
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Any concern about whether those things will happen is cast aside.
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And from his place on Patmos, it looks like the bride is wrestling and struggling.
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But from the perspective of the apocalypse, the fact is that God is getting her ready.
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God is overseeing our preparation.
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He himself will keep you from stumbling.
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He will ensure that you stand at the altar, shame forgotten, anointed with oil, flawlessly dressed, spotless and pure, and ready to enter into eternal union with the Son, Jesus Christ.
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What should we do with this truth?
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Number one, first receive God's love for you.
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Before the imagery of the bride is about anything else, it is about the fact that God loves you.
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And when we reflect upon the wedding of the Lamb, we are invited to recognize, wow, look at how much Jesus loves the church.
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Not look at how much the church loves Jesus.
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But first to recognize, look at how much he loves us.
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For him to even conceive of his people as a bride is exactly that.
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I love you.
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And you have to start there to believe and receive the love of Jesus.
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If you do not believe his love for you, you will not follow through on your love for him.
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This is at the heart of all disobedience in the Christian life.
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Our hesitancy to serve and to sacrifice and forgive and give, ultimately to walk in God's ways is not fundamentally an obedience problem.
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It is fundamentally a love problem.
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We need to trust God's love for us, and then we will walk in God's ways for us.
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That was Israel's problem.
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They constantly doubted God's love and care for them, so they failed to love him in return, and they constantly went looking for other lovers to provide for them.
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And all the while God constantly held out his love to unrighteous people because he knew that the antidote to sin is the revelation of his love.
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And so Christ comes bearing his cross to demonstrate his love for you and I.
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And we must receive that.
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Before you move forward into activity, receive.
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Before righteousness can ever be an expression of love for Jesus, it first has to be an experience of his love for you.
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That's why righteousness in Revelation doesn't start with your good works, it starts with the blood of Jesus.
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Those garments that we wear that have been laundered wider than snow says that they are washed because they're dipped in the blood of the Lamb.
00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:40.359
So you don't launder your own garments through your good works.
00:20:40.599 --> 00:20:43.799
You don't get clean through your own activity of righteousness.
00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:46.120
You get clean through the blood of Jesus Christ.
00:20:46.279 --> 00:20:52.440
That's why we will never tire of singing the gospel as a church because it's the gospel who has made us who we are, given us what we have.
00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:58.759
It is good news, not just for the lost person, it is good news for the saved person to know that how you began is how you continue.
00:20:58.920 --> 00:21:03.400
It'll always be by the power of his blood carrying us forward in our righteous lives.
00:21:03.640 --> 00:21:07.319
This is an amazing contrast in Revelation that's presented to make this exact point.
00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:15.160
In chapter 17, the same angel who shows John the bride back in chapter 17 says, Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute.
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:16.359
It's the same language.
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:18.519
Come, I will show you the prostitute, Babylon.
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.240
Come, I will show you the bride, New Jerusalem.
00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:24.120
And in between those two visions is a call.
00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:26.680
It's in chapter 18, the invitation goes out.
00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:31.960
It says, Come out of her, come out of Babylon, my people.
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:34.359
Listen carefully carefully to that.
00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:36.759
Come out of idolatry.
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:39.240
Come out of Babylon, my people.
00:21:40.359 --> 00:21:47.559
That even when you were devoted, even when you were complicit with Babylon's unfaithfulness, God says, You are mine.
00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:50.440
Even when you were lost, you belonged to God.
00:21:50.680 --> 00:21:52.920
Even when you were dead in your sins, you belonged to God.
00:21:53.079 --> 00:21:55.240
Even when you were unfaithful, you belong to God.
00:21:55.400 --> 00:21:58.920
Even when you were looking for the right things in all the wrong places, you belong to God.
00:21:59.079 --> 00:22:04.200
Listen, the bride of Christ is not made up of people who were doing pretty good and just needed a little bit of help.
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:10.839
The bride of Christ is made up of people who were supposed to be at the altar with Jesus, but instead were in bed with Babylon.
00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:14.279
Those are the only kinds of people that are in the kingdom of God.
00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:18.680
And God has won every single one of us back to him with the power of his love.
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:25.880
Not because he needs you, not because he can't go on without you, not because he's some hopeless romantic, but purely because he loves you.
00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.079
And our call is to receive his love.
00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.160
Which connects us to the Second point of application, just really quick.
00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:47.160
Accept that your preparation, say preparation, accept that your preparation, another word would be your sanctification, the process of you becoming more devoted to Jesus, accept that that isn't ultimately about what you can achieve with your own resources.
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:51.880
It's about receiving the invitation to get ready at God's house.
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:55.799
None of us alone is the bride of Christ.
00:22:56.759 --> 00:22:58.680
We are the bride of Christ.
00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:07.079
Which means you've got to genuinely be a part of the community of Christ if you are to benefit from all of God's resources.
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:16.039
If you aren't truly connected to God's church, then you are placing yourself out of alignment with the flow of God's resources, the process of God's preparation.
00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:18.839
Our preparation is not dependent upon our own strength.
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.839
Our preparation is dependent on the power of God's Spirit in His church.
00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:30.599
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that his spirit is work, is at work most prominently in his church, each member empowered to minister to the others.
00:23:30.759 --> 00:23:43.000
See, the greatest practical danger for John's original audience that they faced was disassociating themselves with their local church for the sake of being accepted by their Roman culture and prioritizing Rome's version of success.
00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:46.519
And many Christians make the same mistake today.
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They treat the Sunday gathering of the church casually because it conflicts with the set of priorities that have been handed to them by the world.
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Make more, travel more, work more, get the kids to that event, have more me time.
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And they aren't growing in godliness because they are neglecting the resources in God's house.
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Friends, this is not entertainment.
00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:19.720
We are not here to do a good job for you.
00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:23.240
We are here to lead you in formation.
00:24:23.880 --> 00:24:25.079
This is discipleship.
00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:30.759
We sing the songs that we do, we come around the table the way that we do, we lay hands the way that we do.
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:33.480
I preach the way that we do because I am not here to entertain you.
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I am here to help form you into the image of Jesus Christ.
00:24:36.120 --> 00:24:37.720
This is discipleship, this is formation.
00:24:37.799 --> 00:24:46.039
There are resources at work in this house that are the power of God's Spirit ministering through us as he helps us to grow into the image of Jesus Christ.
00:24:46.359 --> 00:24:52.920
It's not that we aren't meant to live ordinary lives in the world, going to work, taking our kids to practice, engaging with culture.
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Absolutely.
00:24:53.720 --> 00:25:00.359
But our primary place is to be planted in God's church, where his grace is uniquely at work to make us ready for the wedding of the Lamb.
00:25:01.240 --> 00:25:02.359
Should we do one more?
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:04.599
Let's talk about the city.
00:25:05.720 --> 00:25:09.160
The first time that a city, we're going to run it back, do the whole thing all over again.
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Okay, this is biblical theology.
00:25:11.400 --> 00:25:31.240
The first time that a city is mentioned in Scripture is soon after Adam and Eve's exile from the garden, when their son Cain, who was even further exiled due to his sin, began building a city, which he named the Hebrew word there is Shem, after his son Enoch, whose name means to dedicate.
00:25:31.960 --> 00:25:38.440
So Cain builds a city, he shems it after his son Enoch, whose name means to dedicate.
00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:46.680
The whole idea is that Cain is building a city that is dedicated to his own family's name, his own family's renown.
00:25:47.000 --> 00:26:00.519
And then, not coincidentally, downstream from Cain, the next mention of city building is the Tower of Babel incident, where the people built a city and a tower that would reach to the heavens in order to make a name, to make a shem for themselves.
00:26:01.079 --> 00:26:05.960
And together these two stories they form a picture of building for the sake of self-exaltation.
00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:13.480
And then immediately after that, against this backdrop of self-exaltation, God comes to a pagan man named Abram.
00:26:13.880 --> 00:26:17.160
He says, Trust and follow me, and I will make your name.
00:26:17.319 --> 00:26:19.319
I will make your shem great.
00:26:21.240 --> 00:26:25.319
It's a contrast between man's grasping and God's giving.
00:26:26.440 --> 00:26:30.680
Man wants to grasp at greatness by exalting ourselves.
00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:34.359
God wants to give you true greatness by inviting you to exalt him.
00:26:35.160 --> 00:26:39.640
Now, when you reach this point in the biblical narrative, you might think, well, is God an anti-city?
00:26:39.880 --> 00:26:40.759
But that isn't the case.
00:26:40.839 --> 00:26:47.880
Eventually, God oversees the establishment of Jerusalem, the city atop Mount Zion with the temple where God eventually puts his name.
00:26:48.120 --> 00:26:54.279
And the greatness of Israel is dependent upon and unmistakably intertwined with the glory of God.
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If they neglect God's glory, they lose their greatness.
00:26:58.599 --> 00:27:00.039
And Israel forgets this.
00:27:00.120 --> 00:27:02.440
And in their pride, they begin to worship false gods.
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They become about their own name rather than God's name.
00:27:05.720 --> 00:27:12.200
So God brings down their city, he brings down their temple, he brings down the people as they fall from such great heights and go into exile.
00:27:12.359 --> 00:27:14.120
In fact, this doesn't just happen once to Israel.
00:27:14.279 --> 00:27:19.000
Jesus himself prophesied that Jerusalem would fall in dramatic fashion because of their rejection of him.
00:27:19.160 --> 00:27:24.920
And then 40 years later in AD 70, that's exactly what happened when Rome ransacked Jerusalem.
00:27:25.400 --> 00:27:28.519
The city motif in Scripture is teaching us something important.
00:27:29.000 --> 00:27:39.000
As early as Cain City, we see that such places served as the developmental hub for music, for invention, for culture making.
00:27:39.400 --> 00:27:40.680
And that's what cities can be.
00:27:40.839 --> 00:27:43.880
They can be a hub of beauty and creativity and advancement.
00:27:44.200 --> 00:27:46.920
But only when God is at their center.
00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:50.680
Which is the constant failure of humanity worldwide.
00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:55.160
As we build civilizations that are centered on self instead of centered on the Lord.
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And we'll always be this way throughout this age, by the way.
00:27:57.640 --> 00:27:59.079
It's not our mission to try and fix that.
00:27:59.400 --> 00:28:05.880
So the writer of Hebrews says, For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
00:28:07.000 --> 00:28:18.920
And that promise that reaches all the way back to the Genesis narrative and says that everything that the human heart has longed for and looked for by exalting itself, God is actually preparing as a gift for those who exalt him.
00:28:19.319 --> 00:28:24.279
It is not coming to those who grasp, it is coming as a gift to those who live for the glory of God.
00:28:24.440 --> 00:28:30.519
In other words, it isn't achieved by those who make much of their name, it's received by those who make much of the name of Jesus.
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:33.319
And so John sees the city coming down out of heaven.
00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:38.039
It's not a different thing than the bride, it's another angle on the destiny of God's people.
00:28:38.279 --> 00:28:42.359
An eternal city prepared by God as a gift, descending from heaven to earth.
00:28:42.519 --> 00:28:45.160
Notice the contrasting direction with the Tower of Babel.
00:28:45.400 --> 00:28:50.440
At Babel, man built up, pridefully trying to ascend to heaven in the new creation.
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God humbly comes down and brings the heavenly city with him.
00:28:53.799 --> 00:28:55.960
Look at how the city is described in verse 11.
00:28:56.120 --> 00:29:03.400
It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like Jasper, clear as crystal.
00:29:03.720 --> 00:29:11.960
Back in chapter 4, we first saw God seated upon his throne in heaven, and it said that he had the appearance of Jasper.
00:29:12.440 --> 00:29:23.960
And now the whole heavenly city shines with exactly that same appearance, which is to say that the beauty and enduring nature of the heavenly city is based upon the fact that it centers around the one true God who is seated upon the throne.
00:29:24.120 --> 00:29:28.680
Glory and beauty don't come from exalting ourselves, they come from exalting God.
00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:34.920
And I think John conveys this point not just with the visual descriptions of the city, but also with a sense of musicality.
00:29:35.480 --> 00:29:46.359
When he lists out the stones that are at the foundation of the city's walls, he could have listed out those stones in any order, but he lists them out in the most rhythmic-sounding way possible.
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:48.039
In Greek.
00:29:55.720 --> 00:30:01.480
So that even the aspects of the heavenly city's description rolls off the tongue in a musically pleasing way.
00:30:01.720 --> 00:30:08.440
I think all to convey that when the authority of God is at the center of our lives, then beauty and order will follow suit.
00:30:08.680 --> 00:30:11.960
A truly beautiful life will reflect exactly that same pattern.
00:30:12.200 --> 00:30:13.079
Look at verse 12.
00:30:13.160 --> 00:30:16.680
It had a great high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates.
00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:19.319
On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
00:30:19.480 --> 00:30:30.680
Now, maybe you remember that when Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, angels were placed at the entrance to the garden to forbid them from re-entering and bringing their uncleanness into God's sacred garden temple.
00:30:30.920 --> 00:30:35.880
But here, the angels stand at the gates to welcome all of those whose faith is in the Lamb.
00:30:36.120 --> 00:30:39.559
So the gatekeepers in Genesis have become the doorholders in Revelation.
00:30:40.200 --> 00:30:54.039
In fact, on all four sides of the city's walls, there are three gates each, twelve entrances facing out, north, south, east, and west, meaning that all people now have equal access to the city from all four corners of the earth.
00:30:54.279 --> 00:31:01.160
Doesn't matter where you're coming from, doesn't matter what your family's last name is, doesn't matter that you come empty-handed, all are invited to come.
00:31:01.319 --> 00:31:05.640
The only qualification is that you come exalting the name of Jesus Christ.
00:31:05.799 --> 00:31:13.240
The city has enormous walls, not because there are any threats to keep out, but because they symbolize the perpetual safety of those within.
00:31:13.400 --> 00:31:18.120
As the text says earlier, there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain.
00:31:18.279 --> 00:31:20.120
The old order of things has passed away.
00:31:20.359 --> 00:31:30.279
So for those of you who grew up accustomed to the feeling of danger, who know what it is to live with the fear of a constant threat in the heavenly city, that fear will melt out of your body once and for all.
00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:32.920
You will never know anything other than complete safety.
00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:36.200
Your nervous system will not need a fight or flight mechanism.
00:31:36.359 --> 00:31:38.200
Your brain will not be scanning for danger.
00:31:38.359 --> 00:31:41.319
You will be safely at home in the presence of Almighty God.
00:31:42.920 --> 00:31:44.120
Verse 16 goes on.
00:31:55.559 --> 00:31:57.000
We'll talk about that next week.
00:31:57.319 --> 00:31:59.160
12,000 stadia.
00:31:59.319 --> 00:32:01.160
That's 1,500 miles.
00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:06.920
The city that John sees descending from heaven is half the size of the United States.
00:32:08.279 --> 00:32:11.480
It spans from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River.
00:32:11.799 --> 00:32:15.400
This is what John sees in his vision coming down out of the heaven.
00:32:15.960 --> 00:32:21.000
As much as he had been taught to look for the restoration of Zion.
00:32:22.120 --> 00:32:30.519
As much as he had been taught to look for the heavenly city whose builder is God, this vision far exceeds anything he ever could have expected.
00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:37.319
It breaks the bounds of human imagination and language because it surpasses the scale and beauty that anyone ever could have thought possible.
00:32:37.400 --> 00:32:51.319
And not only does its size speak to its cosmic scope and the fact that it has room for people from all nations, it also communicates that the heights, remember it's also 1,500 miles high, the heights that humanity longs to reach do not ultimately come from building towers for our own name.
00:32:52.759 --> 00:32:57.400
The heights that we long to reach ultimately come from bending our knees in worship before the throne of God.
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:04.359
Greatness doesn't come from grasping, it comes from receiving God's gift to those who trust and obey Him.
00:33:04.519 --> 00:33:07.160
The Christian life is received.
00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:10.279
It is not achieved.
00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:19.000
The life that you really want, the life that you actually long for, is not found in the pursuit of all of your pleasure.
00:33:19.880 --> 00:33:27.720
It is not found in satisfying all of the demands that your desires make of you.
00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:30.120
It's not found in any of those things.
00:33:30.519 --> 00:33:31.960
It's found in serving God.
00:33:32.039 --> 00:33:37.720
You will never reach higher than when you go low and exalt God with the way that you live.
00:33:38.440 --> 00:33:47.079
Towards the end of chapter 21, it says that the people in this city they reign with Jesus because they serve Jesus.
00:33:48.920 --> 00:33:53.559
And in the economy of the kingdom, those two always go hand in hand.
00:33:54.519 --> 00:33:57.960
Which makes the application of this whole image pretty clear, doesn't it?
00:33:59.400 --> 00:34:07.319
The way that it's revealed to John is that he first sees the city from the outside, and it's laden with jewels from foundation to finish.
00:34:07.559 --> 00:34:08.759
It's stunning.
00:34:09.319 --> 00:34:12.679
But then the angel shows John the city from the inside.
00:34:13.159 --> 00:34:19.880
And the core feature there is that people are living holy, devoted lives.
00:34:20.599 --> 00:34:25.159
The kings of the earth they bring their splendor as worship to God.
00:34:25.480 --> 00:34:31.000
The nations, they bring their glory and their honor, and they lay it at God's feet in praise.
00:34:31.719 --> 00:34:39.559
And all of it communicates that the beauty on the outside is a result of the worship on the inside.
00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:49.879
These people have received genuinely blessed and bountiful lives because they did not make reaching for blessing and bounty the goal.
00:34:51.559 --> 00:34:54.519
They made worshiping God the goal.
00:34:55.159 --> 00:35:01.079
And the lesson is that's not something you wait to do once you get there.
00:35:02.039 --> 00:35:05.399
The lesson is that we do that here and now in this life.
00:00:31.319 --> 00:00:35.479
Why don't you stay saying grab your Bible, turn with me to Revelation chapter 21?
00:00:35.960 --> 00:00:39.000
I want us to stand for the reading of God's Word.
00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:44.200
Scripture is the only infallible authority for the church.
00:00:44.439 --> 00:00:47.239
We must revere God's word together.
00:00:54.679 --> 00:01:00.280
I'm gonna read just a couple verses from chapter 21, starting in verse 9.
00:01:01.959 --> 00:01:03.560
We're nearing the end of Revelation.
00:01:03.640 --> 00:01:04.840
How are you feeling?
00:01:05.799 --> 00:01:07.560
It's been a good journey, yeah?
00:01:10.359 --> 00:01:25.799
It says, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, This is not my message, but I was thinking about when I read that how it's so unique because everything like you know, Phil's chapters 21 and 22 is like all the best stuff in Revelation.
00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:27.959
It's like nothing but good news.
00:01:28.280 --> 00:01:35.159
And the angel who brings this good news to John is the one who carried one of the seven bowls, which is a plague, it was a judgment.
00:01:35.479 --> 00:01:42.359
I was thinking about how interesting that is, how one of the angels who represented judgment now is the bearer of good news to us.
00:01:42.599 --> 00:01:54.199
It just reminds me how God works all things together for good for the those for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose, that God can even use refining work in our lives to bring us into his greatest blessings.
00:01:54.839 --> 00:01:59.079
The angel said, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
00:01:59.559 --> 00:02:08.680
And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain great and high, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.
00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:16.360
I'm gonna do part one of two parts as we close out Revelation today, and I'm gonna call it better than expected.
00:02:16.599 --> 00:02:17.479
Better than expected.
00:02:17.640 --> 00:02:21.319
Why don't you turn to three people on the way down to your seat and say it's gonna be better than you expect?
00:02:21.479 --> 00:02:23.240
It's gonna be better than you expect.
00:02:32.759 --> 00:02:35.319
You've experienced that recently, yeah?
00:02:36.439 --> 00:02:41.000
When something is better than you expected it to be, that's the best.
00:02:43.000 --> 00:02:48.120
When something is a letdown, that's the worst.
00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:53.400
Like when something lives up to the height, it feels super great.
00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:55.560
You know, like I would say Spider-Man.
00:02:57.960 --> 00:02:59.879
Lived up to the Odyssey.
00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:01.879
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:02.280 --> 00:03:14.120
But when something is hyped up so much that it almost seems impossible for it to measure up, but then not only does it measure up, but it actually exceeds the level of hype that it received.
00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:15.800
I would say that was Project Hail Mary.
00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:21.560
And the end of Revelation.
00:03:24.680 --> 00:03:33.719
These final two chapters do not just conclude the book of Revelation, they don't even just conclude the entire story of Scripture.
00:03:33.879 --> 00:03:42.920
These two chapters they take the core motifs of the entire biblical story and they show you how they are ultimately fulfilled.
00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:50.200
And all of it is better than we or anybody ever could have imagined or expected it to be.
00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:54.040
So, what I want to do today is I want to look at uh two of those motifs.
00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:57.719
We'll hit four over the course of this week and next week.
00:03:57.879 --> 00:04:00.840
And we're gonna do something fun uh over the course of the next two Sundays.
00:04:00.920 --> 00:04:03.879
We're gonna engage in a little bit of biblical theology.
00:04:04.280 --> 00:04:19.719
Biblical theology is when you trace a theme or a motif over the canon of scripture, typically, and you see how the theology of that theme develops over the long arc of the story so that you can ultimately see how God fulfills that theme.
00:04:19.959 --> 00:04:21.719
It's really uh enriching as we do that.
00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:24.120
So the first one I want to look at is the theme of the bride.
00:04:24.279 --> 00:04:25.319
Say the bride.
00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:38.360
The first time that we see the concept of God's people as his bride in Scripture is when Israel enters into a covenant with God at Mount Sinai after he delivered them from slavery in Egypt.
00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:52.920
And the interesting thing about this marriage imagery is that it is constantly defined by Israel's likelihood of committing adultery by worshiping gods other than Yahweh, other than the one true God.
00:04:53.319 --> 00:05:03.400
Now, it does not take a theologian to know that a strong marriage is not defined by a constant concern that one of the partners is going to be unfaithful to the other.
00:05:04.439 --> 00:05:09.639
And yet that is the way that the Old Testament consistently conceives of Israel in relation to God.
00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:15.079
And for good reason, because that's what Israel does early and often.
00:05:16.600 --> 00:05:24.680
Moses doesn't even come down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments before they are at the base of the mountain worshiping a golden calf.
00:05:25.240 --> 00:05:29.879
That is, of course, akin to Israel committing adultery on their wedding night.
00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.759
So the bride motif does not start out very romantically in Scripture.
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If anything, it seems to be the telling of a sad story where the faithful love of God is constantly taken for granted.
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It's constantly rejected in order to go after that which is not love at all.
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Now, one thing I learned as I was studying for this message, this is interesting, is that the Mosaic law actually forbid a man from remarrying his wife after they had been divorced and she had gone to be a partner of another man.
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If for whatever reason they wanted to get back together with the original husband and wife, the Mosaic law actually forbid that, because to do that would uh be to bring defilement upon the nation.
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So that would seem to be a major problem for Israel's marriage to God.
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And this is exactly the point that the prophet Jeremiah makes in Jeremiah 3:1.
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He says, if a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again?
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Would not the land be completely defiled?
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But you, Israel, you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers.
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Would you now return to me, declares the Lord?
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This is what you call a lesser to greater argument.
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He's comparing it to a lesser scenario and saying, yours is a whole lot worse than that, and yet you still expect me to come back to you.
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God is saying if that such a reunification is not allowed in the case of divorce and remarriage, how much more so in the case of repeated infidelity?
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On paper, Israel's circumstance is hopeless.
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And yet God says that his mercy will triumph even in this scenario.
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Look just a few verses down in verse 14, Jeremiah 3.
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Return, faithless people, declares the Lord, for I am your husband.
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I will choose you, one from a town, two from a clan, and bring you to Zion.
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And then it gets even better in Jeremiah 31, verses 21 and 22.
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Set up road signs, put up guideposts, take note of the highway.
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In other words, make it really obvious for people to come back.
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Return, virgin Israel.
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Return to your towns.
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How long will you wander?
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Unfaithful daughter Israel, the Lord will create a new thing on earth.
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The woman will return to the man.
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Isn't that amazing that after her infidelity, God's mercy is so great that he calls Israel virgin?
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He says, the woman will return to the man, and it will it will be like they are standing at the altar for the first time.
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And stunningly, she won't even be haunted by the memories of her unfaithfulness.
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Isaiah 54, the prophet says, Don't be afraid, you will not be put to shame.
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Do not fear disgrace, you will not be humiliated, you will forget the shame of your youth.
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This is for some people today.
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You will remember no more the reproach of your widowhood, for your maker is your husband, the Lord Almighty is his name, the Holy One of Israel is your redeemer.
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He is called the God of all the earth.
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The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit, a wife who married young only to be rejected, says your God.
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So it's one thing to be brought back to the altar after a lifetime of unfaithfulness.
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It is quite another thing to be promised the gift of being able to forget your shame.
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And yet God gives the promise.
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Anyway, and we could go on elsewhere in the Old Testament prophets, God's unfaithful people are promised re-betrothal, re-commitment, even renaming as they go from being called deserted and desolate to being named the Lord's delight is in her and married.
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These are the promises that are held out as the Old Testament concludes.
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And it's beautiful.
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But the beauty of a relationship isn't fulfilled in the stage of betrothal, engagement.
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The point, of course, is not to long for the wedding day.
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The point is to get married.
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And can we just acknowledge how cute those hiccups sound?
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That is.
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Is that baby Graham?
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Wow, God bless him.
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Those are the cutest sounding hiccups I've ever heard in my whole life.
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The point is to get married, and that's the tension as you make your way into the New Testament period.
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Because Jesus, the Son of God, comes into the heart of the human story to call his bride back.
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But rather than recognizing him and returning to him, his unfaithful bride resists him.
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John chapter 1 and verse 11 captures the dissonance between the promise in the Old Testament and the delayed fulfillment in a single line.
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It says, He, Jesus, he came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
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In fact, not only did they not receive him, they flat out rejected him, they crucified him.
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They filled up the measure of their unfaithfulness to God by trying to rid themselves of him.
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But even that could not undermine God's love for them.
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Because it turns out that the cross of Christ was not just the bride's rejection, it was also the groom's devotion.
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It was his sacrificial love, an act of cleansing to make her beautiful once again.
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So the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
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Why?
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To make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
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So that through the cross, Jesus is making his bride more beautiful than ever before.
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First of all, because she is no longer comprised of just one nation, Israel, but now in Christ Jesus, Jew and Gentile have been brought into unity with one another in their union with Jesus Christ, but also because he is cleansing her from all of her sin, making her radiant and spotless, holy and blameless through the washing that comes through his word.
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That is the proclamation of the gospel.
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What is the gospel?
00:11:23.720 --> 00:11:25.720
It is his proclamation of love.
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So as Christ proclaims his love to the church, she is cleansed.
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Basically, God is making his bride beautiful for her wedding day.
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So that the prior marriage that was marked by infidelity on day one will be a thing of the past, and the new marriage will be to a bride who is absolutely flawless.
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That's the promise that we're meant to hold on to in this wilderness age as we journey towards our wedding day with the Lamb.
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That we who are absolutely flawed, we who are absolutely still wrestling with sin, are given the promise that we will be pure and holy.
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That's the promise that John himself receives and he's told to hold on to as the apocalypse comes to a close.
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You see, all throughout Revelation, there's been this major emphasis on being a faithful witness, resisting compromise, fleeing idolatry, resisting sin, proclaiming the truth of God to the world around you without hesitation.
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And John, as a pastor, is clearly concerned for the seven churches that he originally addressed.
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And of course, those seven churches are representative of the whole global church.
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John is apart from them as an exile on an island called Patmos.
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And yet from that distance, he knows their faults, he knows their missteps, he knows their habits, he knows their sin, and he's constantly calling them back to faithfulness.
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And so John's tension is are they going to make it?
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Will the bride make herself ready?
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As it says in chapter 19.
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Will she continue on in the righteousness that is required of her?
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Or will she stumble and fall?
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Will she go back to her sin?
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And here at the conclusion of the book, these questions are answered.
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Questions that haven't just been lingering in John's mind, but also in the mind of every faithful reader of scripture before him.
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Can God do what he says?
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Will the bride be ready for the day that her groom comes?
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Or is the impurity too deeply ingrained?
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You ever wonder that about yourself?
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Is the impurity too deeply ingrained in me?
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And that's when the angel says to John, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.
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And look where she comes from.
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Look at verse 2 of chapter 21.
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I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband.
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This is incredible for a few reasons.
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In the Jewish custom, the preparation process was always up to the bride's family.
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She got ready at her own family's house.
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That preparation involved bathing, anointing with oil, being adorned with beautiful jewelry and a beautiful dress.
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And only after the preparation did the groom come to escort the bride back to his family's house for the celebration.
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And yet, here we see that the custom is inverted as God Himself prepares, as God Himself oversees the preparation of the bride.
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So much so that when it comes time for her to be presented to the Son, she isn't rising up from the earth, her house, so to speak.
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She's coming down out of heaven, God's house.
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It turns out that all this time the bride wasn't even getting ready at her own house.
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She was getting ready in the house of the Lord.
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Imagine a bride to be who is marrying astronomically above her own socioeconomic status.
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She is sorely unprepared in her ability to get ready.
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She doesn't even have an adequate place to get ready.
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She doesn't have the resources to prepare herself in such a way that would be fitting for the wedding day that awaits her.
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That would be an occasion for panic and fear, as she risks showing up shamefully unprepared to her own wedding.
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Except the groom's father knows full well her lack of resources.
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And he does not want her to worry or fret.
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So what he does is he makes space for her in his own home.
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And he provides everything that she needs so that she will be more prepared, more than prepared for her marriage to the son.
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That's what Revelation teaches us about the preparation of the bride.
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On our own, we entirely lack the resources to make ourselves ready.
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We don't have the willpower, we don't have the innate desire for righteousness, we don't have the strength to resist temptation to sin.
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If it were up to us alone, we would repeat the same story of unfaithfulness again and again and again as we see in the Old Testament.
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But what the gospel says to you and I is that it's not up to us.
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God says it's up to him, and he invites us to come get ready at his house.
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The Apostle Peter, chapter 3, 2 Peter 3, 1, he says it like this.
00:16:24.680 --> 00:16:38.759
He says, His divine power, God's divine power has given, past tense, already happened, has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him that is Jesus, who called us by his own glory and goodness.
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So everything we need is in our experiential knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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We can get ready at God's house.
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The New Testament makes it clear again and again that we experience Jesus most regularly as we congregate together in his place.
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That's his church.
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And in the church, we have all that we need to lead godly lives.
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We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit.
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We receive the ministry of his gifts at work in the body.
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We gather together at the Lord's table to receive his presence through worship, through communion, through the proclamation of the word, through the laying on of hands.
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We form relationships with others in the church who care for us and encourage us, admonish us and correct us.
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And although we appear ordinary, although we appear unqualified on earth, the reality is that God is so at work in our lives through this place that it is though we are getting ready at his heavenly home.
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The Apostle John, as a man who was steeped in the Hebrew scriptures, was very well versed in the faithfulness of God to reunite his bride to himself.
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He expects to witness certain things.
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He hears the bride, he has a certain level of expectation about what he is going to see.
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As he beholds the fulfillment of this long-awaited promise.
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But what he sees is even better than he expects.
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Any concern about whether the bride will truly make herself ready, truly throw off her sin, truly be robed in righteousness is his promise for you.
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Any concern about whether those things will happen is cast aside.
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And from his place on Patmos, it looks like the bride is wrestling and struggling.
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But from the perspective of the apocalypse, the fact is that God is getting her ready.
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God is overseeing our preparation.
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He himself will keep you from stumbling.
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He will ensure that you stand at the altar, shame forgotten, anointed with oil, flawlessly dressed, spotless and pure, and ready to enter into eternal union with the Son, Jesus Christ.
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What should we do with this truth?
00:18:36.120 --> 00:18:38.200
Number one, first receive God's love for you.
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Before the imagery of the bride is about anything else, it is about the fact that God loves you.
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And when we reflect upon the wedding of the Lamb, we are invited to recognize, wow, look at how much Jesus loves the church.
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Not look at how much the church loves Jesus.
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But first to recognize, look at how much he loves us.
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For him to even conceive of his people as a bride is exactly that.
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I love you.
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And you have to start there to believe and receive the love of Jesus.
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If you do not believe his love for you, you will not follow through on your love for him.
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This is at the heart of all disobedience in the Christian life.
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Our hesitancy to serve and to sacrifice and forgive and give, ultimately to walk in God's ways is not fundamentally an obedience problem.
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It is fundamentally a love problem.
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We need to trust God's love for us, and then we will walk in God's ways for us.
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That was Israel's problem.
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They constantly doubted God's love and care for them, so they failed to love him in return, and they constantly went looking for other lovers to provide for them.
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And all the while God constantly held out his love to unrighteous people because he knew that the antidote to sin is the revelation of his love.
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And so Christ comes bearing his cross to demonstrate his love for you and I.
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And we must receive that.
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Before you move forward into activity, receive.
00:20:16.039 --> 00:20:21.880
Before righteousness can ever be an expression of love for Jesus, it first has to be an experience of his love for you.
00:20:22.120 --> 00:20:26.920
That's why righteousness in Revelation doesn't start with your good works, it starts with the blood of Jesus.
00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:35.640
Those garments that we wear that have been laundered wider than snow says that they are washed because they're dipped in the blood of the Lamb.
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So you don't launder your own garments through your good works.
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You don't get clean through your own activity of righteousness.
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You get clean through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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That's why we will never tire of singing the gospel as a church because it's the gospel who has made us who we are, given us what we have.
00:20:52.599 --> 00:20:58.759
It is good news, not just for the lost person, it is good news for the saved person to know that how you began is how you continue.
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It'll always be by the power of his blood carrying us forward in our righteous lives.
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This is an amazing contrast in Revelation that's presented to make this exact point.
00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:15.160
In chapter 17, the same angel who shows John the bride back in chapter 17 says, Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute.
00:21:15.400 --> 00:21:16.359
It's the same language.
00:21:16.519 --> 00:21:18.519
Come, I will show you the prostitute, Babylon.
00:21:18.680 --> 00:21:21.240
Come, I will show you the bride, New Jerusalem.
00:21:21.480 --> 00:21:24.120
And in between those two visions is a call.
00:21:24.359 --> 00:21:26.680
It's in chapter 18, the invitation goes out.
00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:31.960
It says, Come out of her, come out of Babylon, my people.
00:21:32.440 --> 00:21:34.359
Listen carefully carefully to that.
00:21:34.599 --> 00:21:36.759
Come out of idolatry.
00:21:37.079 --> 00:21:39.240
Come out of Babylon, my people.
00:21:40.359 --> 00:21:47.559
That even when you were devoted, even when you were complicit with Babylon's unfaithfulness, God says, You are mine.
00:21:47.880 --> 00:21:50.440
Even when you were lost, you belonged to God.
00:21:50.680 --> 00:21:52.920
Even when you were dead in your sins, you belonged to God.
00:21:53.079 --> 00:21:55.240
Even when you were unfaithful, you belong to God.
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Even when you were looking for the right things in all the wrong places, you belong to God.
00:21:59.079 --> 00:22:04.200
Listen, the bride of Christ is not made up of people who were doing pretty good and just needed a little bit of help.
00:22:04.759 --> 00:22:10.839
The bride of Christ is made up of people who were supposed to be at the altar with Jesus, but instead were in bed with Babylon.
00:22:11.480 --> 00:22:14.279
Those are the only kinds of people that are in the kingdom of God.
00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:18.680
And God has won every single one of us back to him with the power of his love.
00:22:18.839 --> 00:22:25.880
Not because he needs you, not because he can't go on without you, not because he's some hopeless romantic, but purely because he loves you.
00:22:26.519 --> 00:22:29.079
And our call is to receive his love.
00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.160
Which connects us to the Second point of application, just really quick.
00:22:33.400 --> 00:22:47.160
Accept that your preparation, say preparation, accept that your preparation, another word would be your sanctification, the process of you becoming more devoted to Jesus, accept that that isn't ultimately about what you can achieve with your own resources.
00:22:48.839 --> 00:22:51.880
It's about receiving the invitation to get ready at God's house.
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:55.799
None of us alone is the bride of Christ.
00:22:56.759 --> 00:22:58.680
We are the bride of Christ.
00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:07.079
Which means you've got to genuinely be a part of the community of Christ if you are to benefit from all of God's resources.
00:23:07.400 --> 00:23:16.039
If you aren't truly connected to God's church, then you are placing yourself out of alignment with the flow of God's resources, the process of God's preparation.
00:23:16.200 --> 00:23:18.839
Our preparation is not dependent upon our own strength.
00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:22.839
Our preparation is dependent on the power of God's Spirit in His church.
00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:30.599
The New Testament makes it abundantly clear that his spirit is work, is at work most prominently in his church, each member empowered to minister to the others.
00:23:30.759 --> 00:23:43.000
See, the greatest practical danger for John's original audience that they faced was disassociating themselves with their local church for the sake of being accepted by their Roman culture and prioritizing Rome's version of success.
00:23:43.720 --> 00:23:46.519
And many Christians make the same mistake today.
00:23:46.680 --> 00:23:53.000
They treat the Sunday gathering of the church casually because it conflicts with the set of priorities that have been handed to them by the world.
00:23:54.599 --> 00:24:05.319
Make more, travel more, work more, get the kids to that event, have more me time.
00:24:07.799 --> 00:24:13.720
And they aren't growing in godliness because they are neglecting the resources in God's house.
00:24:14.120 --> 00:24:15.799
Friends, this is not entertainment.
00:24:17.480 --> 00:24:19.720
We are not here to do a good job for you.
00:24:21.319 --> 00:24:23.240
We are here to lead you in formation.
00:24:23.880 --> 00:24:25.079
This is discipleship.
00:24:26.039 --> 00:24:30.759
We sing the songs that we do, we come around the table the way that we do, we lay hands the way that we do.
00:24:30.920 --> 00:24:33.480
I preach the way that we do because I am not here to entertain you.
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I am here to help form you into the image of Jesus Christ.
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This is discipleship, this is formation.
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There are resources at work in this house that are the power of God's Spirit ministering through us as he helps us to grow into the image of Jesus Christ.
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It's not that we aren't meant to live ordinary lives in the world, going to work, taking our kids to practice, engaging with culture.
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Absolutely.
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But our primary place is to be planted in God's church, where his grace is uniquely at work to make us ready for the wedding of the Lamb.
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Should we do one more?
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Let's talk about the city.
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The first time that a city, we're going to run it back, do the whole thing all over again.
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Okay, this is biblical theology.
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The first time that a city is mentioned in Scripture is soon after Adam and Eve's exile from the garden, when their son Cain, who was even further exiled due to his sin, began building a city, which he named the Hebrew word there is Shem, after his son Enoch, whose name means to dedicate.
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So Cain builds a city, he shems it after his son Enoch, whose name means to dedicate.
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The whole idea is that Cain is building a city that is dedicated to his own family's name, his own family's renown.
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And then, not coincidentally, downstream from Cain, the next mention of city building is the Tower of Babel incident, where the people built a city and a tower that would reach to the heavens in order to make a name, to make a shem for themselves.
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And together these two stories they form a picture of building for the sake of self-exaltation.
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And then immediately after that, against this backdrop of self-exaltation, God comes to a pagan man named Abram.
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He says, Trust and follow me, and I will make your name.
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I will make your shem great.
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It's a contrast between man's grasping and God's giving.
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Man wants to grasp at greatness by exalting ourselves.
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God wants to give you true greatness by inviting you to exalt him.
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Now, when you reach this point in the biblical narrative, you might think, well, is God an anti-city?
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But that isn't the case.
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Eventually, God oversees the establishment of Jerusalem, the city atop Mount Zion with the temple where God eventually puts his name.
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And the greatness of Israel is dependent upon and unmistakably intertwined with the glory of God.
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If they neglect God's glory, they lose their greatness.
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And Israel forgets this.
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And in their pride, they begin to worship false gods.
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They become about their own name rather than God's name.
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So God brings down their city, he brings down their temple, he brings down the people as they fall from such great heights and go into exile.
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In fact, this doesn't just happen once to Israel.
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Jesus himself prophesied that Jerusalem would fall in dramatic fashion because of their rejection of him.
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And then 40 years later in AD 70, that's exactly what happened when Rome ransacked Jerusalem.
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The city motif in Scripture is teaching us something important.
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As early as Cain City, we see that such places served as the developmental hub for music, for invention, for culture making.
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And that's what cities can be.
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They can be a hub of beauty and creativity and advancement.
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But only when God is at their center.
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Which is the constant failure of humanity worldwide.
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As we build civilizations that are centered on self instead of centered on the Lord.
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And we'll always be this way throughout this age, by the way.
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It's not our mission to try and fix that.
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So the writer of Hebrews says, For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
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And that promise that reaches all the way back to the Genesis narrative and says that everything that the human heart has longed for and looked for by exalting itself, God is actually preparing as a gift for those who exalt him.
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It is not coming to those who grasp, it is coming as a gift to those who live for the glory of God.
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In other words, it isn't achieved by those who make much of their name, it's received by those who make much of the name of Jesus.
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And so John sees the city coming down out of heaven.
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It's not a different thing than the bride, it's another angle on the destiny of God's people.
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An eternal city prepared by God as a gift, descending from heaven to earth.
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Notice the contrasting direction with the Tower of Babel.
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At Babel, man built up, pridefully trying to ascend to heaven in the new creation.
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God humbly comes down and brings the heavenly city with him.
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Look at how the city is described in verse 11.
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It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like Jasper, clear as crystal.
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Back in chapter 4, we first saw God seated upon his throne in heaven, and it said that he had the appearance of Jasper.
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And now the whole heavenly city shines with exactly that same appearance, which is to say that the beauty and enduring nature of the heavenly city is based upon the fact that it centers around the one true God who is seated upon the throne.
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Glory and beauty don't come from exalting ourselves, they come from exalting God.
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And I think John conveys this point not just with the visual descriptions of the city, but also with a sense of musicality.
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When he lists out the stones that are at the foundation of the city's walls, he could have listed out those stones in any order, but he lists them out in the most rhythmic-sounding way possible.
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In Greek.
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So that even the aspects of the heavenly city's description rolls off the tongue in a musically pleasing way.
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I think all to convey that when the authority of God is at the center of our lives, then beauty and order will follow suit.
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A truly beautiful life will reflect exactly that same pattern.
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Look at verse 12.
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It had a great high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates.
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On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
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Now, maybe you remember that when Adam and Eve were exiled from Eden, angels were placed at the entrance to the garden to forbid them from re-entering and bringing their uncleanness into God's sacred garden temple.
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But here, the angels stand at the gates to welcome all of those whose faith is in the Lamb.
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So the gatekeepers in Genesis have become the doorholders in Revelation.
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In fact, on all four sides of the city's walls, there are three gates each, twelve entrances facing out, north, south, east, and west, meaning that all people now have equal access to the city from all four corners of the earth.
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Doesn't matter where you're coming from, doesn't matter what your family's last name is, doesn't matter that you come empty-handed, all are invited to come.
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The only qualification is that you come exalting the name of Jesus Christ.
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The city has enormous walls, not because there are any threats to keep out, but because they symbolize the perpetual safety of those within.
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As the text says earlier, there will be no more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain.
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The old order of things has passed away.
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So for those of you who grew up accustomed to the feeling of danger, who know what it is to live with the fear of a constant threat in the heavenly city, that fear will melt out of your body once and for all.
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You will never know anything other than complete safety.
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Your nervous system will not need a fight or flight mechanism.
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Your brain will not be scanning for danger.
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You will be safely at home in the presence of Almighty God.
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Verse 16 goes on.
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We'll talk about that next week.
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12,000 stadia.
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That's 1,500 miles.
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The city that John sees descending from heaven is half the size of the United States.
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It spans from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River.
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This is what John sees in his vision coming down out of the heaven.
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As much as he had been taught to look for the restoration of Zion.
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As much as he had been taught to look for the heavenly city whose builder is God, this vision far exceeds anything he ever could have expected.
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It breaks the bounds of human imagination and language because it surpasses the scale and beauty that anyone ever could have thought possible.
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And not only does its size speak to its cosmic scope and the fact that it has room for people from all nations, it also communicates that the heights, remember it's also 1,500 miles high, the heights that humanity longs to reach do not ultimately come from building towers for our own name.
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The heights that we long to reach ultimately come from bending our knees in worship before the throne of God.
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Greatness doesn't come from grasping, it comes from receiving God's gift to those who trust and obey Him.
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The Christian life is received.
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It is not achieved.
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The life that you really want, the life that you actually long for, is not found in the pursuit of all of your pleasure.
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It is not found in satisfying all of the demands that your desires make of you.
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It's not found in any of those things.
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It's found in serving God.
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You will never reach higher than when you go low and exalt God with the way that you live.
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Towards the end of chapter 21, it says that the people in this city they reign with Jesus because they serve Jesus.
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And in the economy of the kingdom, those two always go hand in hand.
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Which makes the application of this whole image pretty clear, doesn't it?
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The way that it's revealed to John is that he first sees the city from the outside, and it's laden with jewels from foundation to finish.
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It's stunning.
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But then the angel shows John the city from the inside.
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And the core feature there is that people are living holy, devoted lives.
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The kings of the earth they bring their splendor as worship to God.
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The nations, they bring their glory and their honor, and they lay it at God's feet in praise.
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And all of it communicates that the beauty on the outside is a result of the worship on the inside.
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These people have received genuinely blessed and bountiful lives because they did not make reaching for blessing and bounty the goal.
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They made worshiping God the goal.
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And the lesson is that's not something you wait to do once you get there.
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The lesson is that we do that here and now in this life.
