(The Long Road Home)
Home. It’s the one word that can make grown adults swallow hard and stare off into the distance like they just remembered something important.
Ask people what they want most in life and beneath all the surface answers—success, health, stability, love—you usually find a deeper hunger:
They want to belong.
They want to be known.
They want to go home.
Not necessarily to a brick house on Main Street…
but to a place where their soul breathes freely.
Every one of us has looked at life some days and thought:
“There has to be somewhere better than this. Something better than this.”
And Scripture nods and says:
“Yes. There is.”
In fact, that longing is one of the best arguments for the gospel. Why would we yearn for something that doesn’t exist? Why would eternity haunt us unless we were built for it?
The Bible opens in a home.
The Bible closes in a home.
Everything in the middle is the story of how God gets us back there.
Genesis to Revelation is not a theology textbook arc.
It is a homecoming story.
Today, we’re connecting the first five chapters of Genesis with the last five chapters of Revelation—an inverted pairing—so the narrative folds back on itself like two hands clasping. The story ends where it began… only better and unbreakable.
This sermon moves through five pairings. Feel them like stepping stones across history… across time… across your own journey.
Before we step onto the first stone, hear this quiet truth:
There is a homesickness built into every heartbeat.
We pack our dreams like luggage
and keep walking toward a place we’ve never seen
but somehow already remember.
Let’s walk toward home.
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1) GENESIS 1 ? REVELATION 22
Life from God restored forever
Genesis 1 is the very first fireworks show. God steps into nothing and speaks everything. Light explodes into the darkness like God striking a holy match. Oceans appear like blue applause. Birds and beasts populate the world like a living parade.
God doesn’t create with boredom.
He creates like an artist who can’t help Himself.
Day after day He smiles at what He made and says, “Good.”
Then He makes humans—His image-bearers—and says, “Very good.”
Humans are not accidents of the universe.
Humans are beloved daughters and sons of a Father who made us on purpose, for purpose.
Now turn to Revelation 22.
We see the river of life flowing from the throne of God. A river is not a symbol of decoration but a symbol of unstoppable life. If God sustains everything at the beginning, He sustains everything at the end without interruption.
The tree of life returns—branches stretching across both sides of the river like divine generosity that cannot be contained to one bank. Its leaves are “for the healing of the nations.” That is God saying:
“My creation isn’t limping into the Kingdom.
It is running into glory.”
In Genesis 1 the earth is brand new.
In Revelation 22 the earth is finally healed.
In the first chapter, God looks at His world and calls it good.
In the last chapter, He looks at His people and calls them His.
Creation begins with God giving life.
New creation ends with God giving life forever.
**Poetic refrain
There is a homesickness built into every heartbeat.
We pack our dreams like luggage
and keep walking toward a place we’ve never seen
but somehow already remember.
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2) GENESIS 2 ? REVELATION 21
Home with God… restored forever
Genesis 2 gives us Eden.
Not just a place to survive…
A place to flourish.
Adam and Eve wake to birdsong.
Wind through trees.
God walking in the garden.
No shadows lurking in the corners of the heart.
Humanity is fully alive because they are fully with God.
Then comes exile.
When Adam and Eve leave the garden, they aren’t just leaving a location. They’re leaving a relationship unhindered. We have felt that ache every day since.
Now look at Revelation 21.
Heaven comes down.
The new Jerusalem descends like a wedding procession. God literally moves into the neighborhood. He wipes away every tear with His own hands. Death is evicted permanently. Sorrow, pain, hospitals, funerals—gone.
Eden wasn’t the end of the story.
It was the preview.
In Genesis the home is a garden.
In Revelation the home is a garden-city.
The family grew.
The story grew.
The home grew.
God always intended to fill the world with Eden.
He finishes what He starts.
He makes all things new.
**Poetic refrain
The story of God begins in a garden
and ends in a city with a garden at its heart
because home is where love grows.
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**Transition
Let’s catch our breath here for a second. These first two pairings show:
• the life God intended
• the home God intended
Which means every longing for belonging in your soul isn’t weakness…. it’s memory.
You’ve never seen the New Jerusalem…
but something inside recognizes it.
That homesickness you carry isn’t a liability.
It’s proof.
Something in us knows the world we live in isn’t the world we were made for.
Which brings us to the turn in the road…
When everything went wrong.
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3) GENESIS 3 ? REVELATION 20
The curse vs. the curse crushed
Genesis 3 is the chapter where the story gets a scar.
A snake speaks.
Trust shatters.
Blame falls like hail.
Leaves become clothes and shame becomes normal.
The ground is cursed.
Work becomes a burden.
Pain becomes personal.
Death becomes inevitable.
And humans learn to hide.
We hide from God in our fear.
We hide from each other in our pride.
We hide from ourselves in our shame.
That’s why some people only ever show you the shiny parts of their heart. The messy parts are wrapped up in fig leaves they hope no one sees.
But Revelation 20 is God un-hiding everything.
The deceiver is exposed and destroyed.
The graveyard loses its grip.
Justice comes—not to humiliate—but to heal.
God does not allow darkness to have the last word.
He doesn’t shrug at sin.
He doesn’t negotiate with lies.
He destroys everything that destroys His children.
Genesis 3: Curse begun.
Revelation 20: Curse undone.
Death dies.
The serpent chokes on his own poison.
The door to Eden swings open again.
**Poetic refrain
Hope is a compass set to true north.
Even when we get lost
the way home keeps finding us.
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**Reflection
Have you ever wondered why Jesus had to come?
Because a God who loves us would never leave us lost.
He comes into the garden we wrecked.
He steps into the shame we feel.
He takes the curse and makes a crown out of it.
The cross is the moment the story turns around.
Where we fell…
He stands.
Where we ran…
He pursues.
Where we hide…
He calls our name.
Humanity fell in a garden.
Jesus rises from a garden tomb.
We are heading home.
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4) GENESIS 4 ? REVELATION 19
Blood cries out vs. Blood heals everything
Genesis 4 is a crime scene in the first family. Cain, burning with envy, rises up against Abel. The ground drinks innocent blood. God says, “Your brother’s blood cries out to Me.”
What does it cry?
“Justice.”
“Make this right.”
“Please, God, don’t let my story end like this.”
Violence arrives fast in the human story. One chapter outside the garden and the world is already groaning. From that moment onward, mothers bury their sons, nations sharpen swords, people take what isn’t theirs because they can.
Blood cries from the ground.
And if Genesis 4 were the end of the story… heaven would be awfully quiet.
Then Revelation 19.
Heaven roars like a stadium. The Rider on the white horse appears, not as a fragile infant in a manger, but as the King of kings. Eyes like fire. His name called Faithful and True. He judges—not to crush human souls—but to end the crushing of human souls.
Genesis 4 shows blood shed by a brother.
Revelation 19 shows blood shed for brothers and sisters.
In Genesis, the world is stained by violence.
In Revelation, the world is washed by the Lamb.
God does not ignore injustice.
He answers it with love that bleeds and breathes again.
**Poetic refrain
Some nights the stars look like windows
and you wonder if home is just on the other side of the glass
waiting for you to knock.
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Reflection — Justice with a Father’s Heart
Some people fear God’s judgment because they picture an angry tyrant.
But Revelation 19 isn’t about cruelty.
It’s about protection.
It is God saying:
“No more stealing daughters’ futures.
No more weapons traded like toys.
No more corruption thriving while widows starve.
Enough.”
Judgment is love stepping onto the battlefield to bring His children home safely.
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5) GENESIS 5 ? REVELATION 18
The death toll vs. death’s downfall
Genesis 5 is the saddest drumbeat in the Bible.
Adam lived … and he died.
Seth lived … and he died.
Enosh lived … and he died.
Over and over. The obituary is the rhythm of fallen humanity.
There is one break in the pattern: Enoch.
He walks so closely with God that one day the world looks around and he’s simply gone. Not dead. Just… home.
A whisper of what God always intended.
Now jump to Revelation 18.
The system that feeds death falls. Babylon—this global parasite of self-exaltation and exploitation—collapses in one hour. The economy of suffering is bankrupt. The powers that build their thrones out of bones are dethroned forever.
Death is not a part of life.
Death is the enemy of life.
And the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself.
We started with funerals.
We end with resurrection.
**Poetic refrain
Every traveler knows the moment
when the lights of home appear on the horizon
and your shoulders finally remember how to rest.
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THE BRIDGE — Face to Face
There is a promise stitched through Scripture like a golden thread. Every page tugging us forward toward the same destination: Presence.
The garden lost the face of God.
The New Jerusalem gains it again.
The greatest human longing isn’t pleasure.
It isn’t power.
It’s presence.
To be fully known.
Fully loved.
Fully home.
Listen…
To see Thy face.
Someday not distant, Lord,
I’ll see Thy face.
Not filtered through a prophet or a preacher.
Not hinted in symbols or shadows.
The Father’s face… unobstructed.
This is why faith keeps walking through nights of doubt:
because the dawn includes His smile.
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THE FINAL CHORUS — Coming Home
The entire Bible can be summarised like this:
God made us.
We walked away.
He came to get us.
He fixes everything.
We go home with Him.
The gospel doesn’t end with souls floating in clouds.
It ends with feet on a restored earth
in a world finally right.
Eden was Act One.
The New Jerusalem is the encore.
Jesus does not give up on the story.
He finishes the song.
So speak this slowly… like the final lyric:
Coming home.
Never more to roam.
Then proclaim the last hope-filled promise in Scripture:
> “They shall see His face.”
Revelation 22:4
This is not wishful thinking.
This is the guaranteed future of every life hidden in Christ.
One day you will step into a place where you can finally say…
“I’m home.
And I’m never leaving again.”
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Appeal
If your heart has been wandering…
If life has felt like the wrong address…
If you’ve carried homesickness like a secret…
Hear Jesus:
“I go to prepare a place for you.”
Not just the world in general.
You.
Lay down the suitcase of regret.
Walk away from the detours of shame.
Come back onto the road that leads home.
He’s already waiting at the door.
Your Father built that home with you in mind.
The table is set.
The light is on.
The welcome is sure.
Let’s go home together.
