Worship In Heaven Part II December 7, 2003
Revelation 5
Two weeks ago I preached from Revelation 4 where we got this glimpse into the worship of heaven. John gives us this fantastic description of the throne and the One who sits on the throne. There are amazing colors like gemstones and flashes of lightning and rumblings and claps of thunder. There are 4 fantastic living beings, 24 elders. The living beings cry out day and night;
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, and is, and is to come."
9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:
11"You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they were created
and have their being."
I talked about how we are to worship God at all times because Worship is what we are created for first and foremost.
We worship because God is holy
We worship by laying our crowns before God
Jesus
All for Jesus
All I am and have
And ever hope to be
All of my ambitions
Hopes and plans
I surrender these
Into Your hands
We worship because God is worthy – he created all things.
I want to preach that sermon all over again – I don’t know if you enjoyed it, but I did, preach it was an act of worship in itself! And then we worshiped, and some of you stayed until 2pm continuing to worship God.
It would be great to stay in that place, and sing those songs over again, but John continues to see more in the throne-room, and he speaks of a new song that is sung!
Let’s read Revelation 5 – again lets read the parts that are set apart out loud together
The Scroll
While John is taking in the scene from chapter 4, he notices that God, the one who sits on the throne, is holding a scroll in his right hand. We see later that the scroll is what is to come in the history of the world, it is God’s sovereign plan. An Angel booms out, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” And John begins to weep because there is no one who steps forward. He cries not just because his own curiosity won’t be satisfied, but he weeps at the prospect of an indefinite postponement of God’s final and decisive action.
Just as when I have to tell my kids not to be scared in a movie because they always turn out good, an elder (who knows how the story ends) says to John, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
He is talking about Jesus, and he is using this glorious language – Lion of Judah
When Jacob blesses his sons, this is what he says to Judah:
Genesis 49:9-10
You are a lion’s cub, O Judah;
you return from the prey, my son.
Like a lion he crouches and lies down,
like a lioness-who dares to rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
Root of David
Isaiah 11
1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him-
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD -
3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD .
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
…10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his place of rest will be glorious
John looks up ready to see this glorious, victorious lion roaring with might ready to rip the seals from the scroll, what he sees is a dead lamb. “6Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain,”
What a paradox! But if you don’t like a good paradox, you won’t last long with God – he is full of them!
He chose Israel not because they were the greatest, but because they were the least of all the nations.
Jesus is the very son of God, the creator and sustainer of all that there is, he has power that we would never imagine, he lowers himself to become human, and he comes as a nobody child to a nobody family who is momentarily homeless and he is born out in the shed with the cows, sheep and chickens on a bed of damp straw. There were no halos here. We add the halos to the manger scene because we can’t quite handle the paradox of God coming as a nobody baby, so we give him a halo so as not to be mistaken.
In John 13:3 it says “Jesus knew that the father had put all things under his power, and he had come from God and was returning to God;”
He had all things under his power! What would you do? I would do something big and splashy! Jesus does something splashy… verse 4 says “so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.”
He is the prince born in a stable, he is the king whose scepter is a towel and basin, he is the victorious lion who appears as a slaughtered lamb.
The devil’s greatest weapon is our own sin – he uses it to keep us from God, he uses it to make the world a terrible place. When Jesus went to the cross, he went to pay the price for our sins and take the power of sin away. On the cross, Jesus takes out the devil’s wepon of mass destruction, and wins the victory over death.
Jesus wins the victory over all of God’s enemies, not by pounding them into submission, but by offering his life as a sacrifice. It’s brilliant, really. He defeats the devil – the one who grasps at every bit of power, who would place himself over God and all that is – Jesus defeats the power grabber by giving up all power – Philippians 2
Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[1] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death--
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Last week Richard spoke of some serious spiritual warfare that is coming to our city. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:3-4 “for though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.”
While there will be a great deal of prayer happening over the next few months and there should be, if you really want to do a number on the devil, wash someone’s feet, befriend the stranger, humble yourself and apologize for doing wrong, lay down your life for a friend.
Talking about this image of the Lion of Judah that is the lamb that was slain, Robert Mounce says, “In one brilliant stroke John portrays the central theme of New Testament revelation – victory through sacrifice.”
Jesus, the son of God arrives on the scene – the victorious Lion who was lead to the slaughter like a lamb.
But this lamb that bears the wounds of death – he is no normal lamb – he has 7 horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God. This mention of the seven Spirits or Sevenfold Spirit came up in chapter 4. Seven? I thought God was three in one, what is this seven? Numbers often have symbolic meaning in the scriptures, past their statistical significance – this is not always true sometimes seven is simply seven, but in places like this it is a sign of perfection, completeness, trueness. The sevenfold spirit of God, represented by the seven lamps in chapter 4 is the Spirit in His fullness, represented in chapter 5 by the seven eyes is the Spirit in his perfect, all seeing ways. The seven horns speak of Christ’s perfect power.
The lamb approaches the throne and takes the scroll from the Father, and when he does this, the 4 living creatures, and the 24 elders (representing God’s people OT and NT) fall down in worship before the Lamb.
Then they open their mouths and there is this great new song of Praise to Jesus because he gave up his life so that people of all races, and all places have been taken from being rebels to priests that serve to one and only true God!
And the 4 and the 24 sing
"You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
10You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth."
Then the angels hear what is going on and they want to get in on it too, so thousands upon thousands, ten thousand times ten thousand angels (can you imagine this sea of burning beings, full of light and full of praise?) sing:
"Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength
and honor and glory and praise!"
Then all of creation hears the call of heaven, and The command “let everything that has breath praise the Lord” comes true, in fact even the rocks cry out in praise of the father and the Son, and the Spirit orchestrates the whole thing. Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:
"To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!"
It is like this great nuclear bomb of praise that starts with the lamb, explodes out into the 4 living creatures and the 24 elders, the wave hits the billions of angels and then all of creation is hit by this wave of praise, that comes back to the centre with the great “AMEN” from the living creatures and elders
It takes Psalm 150 and puts it into action
Psalm 150
1 Praise the LORD . [1]
Praise God in his sanctuary;
praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power;
praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,
praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with tambourine and dancing,
praise him with the strings and flute,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals,
praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD .
Praise the LORD .
Response
Receive the lamb as your king – all of creation praises him because he died to pay for all that you have ever done wrong – accept his forgiveness, accept his payment, accept his leadership – join all of creation in declaring him as the King in your life
Praise him!
Call Don to lead and Pray
