OPEN: A four-year-old boy asked his mother, “Mommy, when do I get to go to Heaven?” She responded, “Well, when you die or when Jesus comes back again.” The boy’s eyes got really big and he said, “Comes back? You mean He was here before?” (Celeste Gregg, California, Christianity.com 7/22/09)
Yep, Jesus was here before… and He’s coming back. And when He comes back, everything’s gonna change. That’s what Revelation 21 is telling us. John writes: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’”
When Jesus comes back, everything’s gonna change. He’s going to wipe away every tear from our eyes. There will be no more Death. And there’s not going to be anymore mourning or crying or pain. Because… all that’s gonna change. But the most important thing that’s gonna change is this: God’s dwelling place will be WITH US, and God will be WITH US as our God.
Now, the keynote scripture for our sermon series has been Matthew 1:23. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).” And every sermon I’ve preached in this series has focused on the fact that God wants to be with us.
OVER AND OVER AGAIN He was with His people. He came down to be with them. He came down to walk and talk with Adam and Eve. He came down to be present in the Tabernacle/ Temple and be in the midst of His people. He came down to become an infant who could walk and talk with the people He came to die for. And God came down and filled every Christians with His Holy Spirit so He’d be with at all times.
He did all that because He wanted to be WITH US. And now, here in Revelation 21 God’s going to do it again! One more time at the end of time, God will come down to be with us.
Now, when I first read our passage for this morning… something caught my eye. John wrote: “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, COMING DOWN out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is WITH man.
Did you catch that? New Jerusalem (the Holy City) was going to COME DOWN out of heaven, and that Holy City would be the dwelling place of God with US. God wants to be with us - He’s always wanted to be with us.
But (as much as God wanted to be with us) there was always something that got in the way. That something was called SIN. But it was more than just sin it was the fear and shame that came because of that sin.
ILLUS: Do you remember when Adam and Eve ate the fruit in the garden. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And (Adam) said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself."
Adam had sinned! But that’s not WHY he hid. Adam hid because he was afraid. And what was he afraid of? He was afraid of God. And his fear was that God wouldn’t love Him anymore. And his shame and fear led Adam to avoid God. He hid!
ILLUS: A couple years ago, my grandson Benjamin came down the hall of my home and he asked me: “If I told you what I’ve done… will you still love me?”
Now that statement told me a few things: 1. Apparently, he KNEW he’d done something he shouldn’t have done; 2. He figured I would KNOW what he’d done wrong; 3. He expected to be punished; 4. BUT his biggest fear was that I wouldn’t love him anymore. And he wasn’t sure he WANTED to tell me what he’d done.
And that’s what Adam was afraid of. His fear of being rejected led him to HIDE from God.
ILLUS: A famous woman told of a terrible sin she’d committed as a teenager: “One night I was hanging out with one of my cool new friends. We paid a guy to go into a store and get us some liquor. The first sip burned my lips and throat, but I swallowed it down and followed it with another quickly to keep from coughing. Pretty soon we were drunk.” The next day she was terribly sick, and she kept saying ‘I’m sorry God. This isn’t me.’ She curled herself up in bed, trying to make herself invisible. She thought: If God couldn’t see me, maybe he wouldn’t be disappointed in me.” (Guideposts, July06; as told by Fantasia Barrino).
She tried hiding from God because she was ashamed. Now, there’s a couple problems with trying to hide from God. 1st – you can’t. You can’t hide from God. Adam tried hiding the garden, and this lady tried to hide in her bed. But it doesn’t matter where you try to hide, there’s no place you can go that God can’t find you.
Psalm 139:7-12 says it this way: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in (the grave), you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.”
So, the 1st problem with trying to hide from God is - you can’t! And the 2nd problem with trying to hide from Him is that you don’t have to. You don’t have to hide from God.
People struggle with the idea that God would care for them. They wonder why God would want them? Because they’ve messed their lives up so badly that they don’t think He’d want them around. But God does! He does want to have YOU around.
Now, remember what we’ve learned. God has always wanted to be with us… even when we were STILL SINNERS. That’s what Ephesians 2:3-5 tells us “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.”
Did you catch that? We all were (by nature) children of wrath! We deserved to be destroyed! But God made us alive with Christ - even when we were dead in our trespasses. WHY? Because of His great love for US. He had a love for us even when WE were dead in our sins!
God wanted to be with you! He wanted to have you around!
But there’s still this… sin thing. Sin has always separated mankind from God. Now you’d have thought, that if God really wanted you with Him, that He would have thought of SOME WAY to deal with your sins.
Well (pause) it just so happens that HE DID. God DID come up with a way to deal with our sins. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
And 1 Peter 2:24 explains HOW Jesus did that “(Jesus) himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
In other words, Jesus did something for us we never could have done for ourselves. Jesus paid the price for our sins. Romans tells us that the “wages of sin is death.” In other words, our sins required that we die for our past, but God said NO! I’ll die in your place. And I’ll wipe away all of your sins.
ILLUS: Martin Luther was a German preacher in the 1400s. He often struggled with the sins of his past… and one night, they say, he had trouble sleeping because he dreamt he saw an angel standing by a blackboard and writing all of his sins on that board. He was filled with despair, and felt his sins were so many he could never be forgiven. But then suddenly, in his dream he saw the pierced hand of Jesus appear and write a verse from I John 1:7 that said: “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” And in his dream he saw blood flowing from that wounded hand of Christ and washing away the list of his sins from the chalkboard.
That’s what Jesus did for you (and me) when we became Christians. His blood has washed away the entire list of ALL our sins. That’s what Jesus did for us. And, all that Jesus asked is that we accept His gift of forgiveness… by Believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Acts 10:43 says “Everyone who BELIEVES in (Jesus) receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” By Repenting of what we’ve done, and deciding not to live that way anymore. Acts 3:19 says “REPENT therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out. And by being Baptized in water to wash away our sins. Acts 22:16 declared “Rise and be BAPTIZED and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’
ILLUS: There’s a true story of a Revival where a held where a woman approached the Revivalist after the crowds had gone to explain that she had a desire to become a Christian but she just couldn’t understand how God could forgive her and accept her. For some reason, the Revivalist felt he should ask her if she recalled any scripture. At that point she said yes: “For God so loved the world that he gave His only FORGOTTEN son...” That comment caused him to pause. The verse said that Jesus was the only BEGOTTEN son of God, but she’d heard it wrong. She thought it said Jesus was the only FORGOTTEN SON. And suddenly he knew what to tell her; “Do you know why God forgot His son?” “No,” she replied. “He forgot His son because He wanted to remember you.”
CLOSE: Returning to our text: We’re told that Heaven CAME DOWN. The Holy City descends from on high so that God could spend time with us. That’s going to happen because God wanted to remember YOU (and ME).
If you will: He FORGOT His only begotten son so we could be forgiven and spend eternity with Him. That brings to mind a powerful old hymn. Sing it with me:
“O what a wonderful, wonderful day - day I will never forget. After I'd wandered in darkness away, Jesus my Saviour I met. O what a tender, compassionate friend - He met the need of my heart. Shadows dispelling, with joy I am telling, He made all the darkness depart. (CHORUS) Heaven came down and glory filled my soul. When at the cross my Saviour made me whole. My sins were washed away, and my night was turned to day.
Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.”
Heaven came down that God might be able to live WITH US forever. We didn’t do anything to deserve heaven coming down because God wanted it to do so. But because of His great love for us He supplied us way to have our sins forgiven - by His BLOOD, and by accepting Him on His terms.
