John's Revelation

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0:00 Last chapter and gives us the picture of John. I was reading about John in this, I've never actually, I've never used the book of Revelation as the main text for a Sunday morning message before. I've been preaching since 2008. I don't know how many years that is, more than 15. But here we are. And I knew that it was a

0:33 tricky book. I bought, what's the only commentary I bought before I left seminary from this old guy, Dr. Brighton, who was the resource. And I've never cracked it because I just stayed away from Revelation. Revelation is the last book in the Bible, you know, conspicuously because it says like don't add stuff and it's kind of has a nice closure. But I was reading about the history of John, the authenticity of the authorship of John, who wrote it. And I guess there are a

1:05 couple of ideas about a couple of different John's. There's John the disciple. Some people even suggested John the Baptist somehow wrote the apocalypse of John, which is kind of dismissed. There's another John that people don't really know that they're like, oh, it was just random John. But the bulk of scholarship suggests that it was John the disciple of Jesus, the one whom he loved. And you remember that at the end of John's gospel, there's one scene

1:36 where Jesus in his resurrected body is walking with Peter and James and John. And they're asking about when Jesus will restore the kingdom to Israel. And he's saying, you know, day and time's not to be known. And he's telling them that they're probably going to die. And then they ask about John, well, what about John? And he's like, what is it to you if I want John to stay alive until I return? And John was definitely the oldest disciple to remain living. People think he lived until 95 or

2:09 even some people say 114 AD, not years old, but AD. So he was definitely old. And you know, there's like the story that I heard as a kid that he was exiled to Isle of Patmos and they popped out his eyes and he was exiled there. And that's where he died. But in reading, he actually, he was bishop in Ephesus by 70 AD. So before the destruction of the temple, he had moved to Ephesus, the church that Paul started, and was bishop of that region, right? His brother James was the second martyr.

2:44 Remember, they killed Stephen and then Herod beheaded his brother James. And so maybe after that, he left Jerusalem. Thought, I want to get out of here. They just killed my brother. He goes to Ephesus and is the bishop in Ephesus. There's a period there. He lives through a couple of Roman emperors where the persecution of the church gets brutal. That's when he's sent over to Patmos where he's exiled on his own. But he actually makes it back to Ephesus and finishes his life in Ephesus as the bishop of Ephesus, which is really kind of interesting. But this is what gives even more interesting. John had a student named Polykarp. Polykarp became

3:23 a bishop. Polykarp had a student named Ignatius. No, Irenaeus. We have writings of Irenaeus claiming Paul's authorship of the Revelation. And so the tradition is that Irenaeus learned it from Polykarp who got the letter from John himself. So we have first-hand writings of Irenaeus telling stories about John. They started to call John the theologian of the church because he was

3:53 the last one who was taught by Jesus himself. Actually, this is why his gospel is the most kind of theological of the four gospels. If you read it, the first three are called the synoptics. And then John's takes this like kind of almost 100,000 foot view of what's happening and has deeper theological categories because he's undercutting the gnostics and some of the notions that are arising in the church with his story of the gospel. We're pretty sure he wrote the gospel after he wrote the Apocalypse of John that he was given the

4:26 Apocalypse of John the vision. Some people suggest that it was on the island of Patmos where he got it, where he was being persecuted and God gives him this vision of the future, of what it will be like, of the complete victory of Christ and his return. Well, he's there. It's really fun to remember that like the church has always been trying to figure out how to live in and amongst all of the things, right? And that our scriptures are a product of that. So the text that I

5:00 wanted to look at, there's so much in Revelation, there's no way we could cover the whole thing. But what I wanted to get to was Revelation chapter 21, which is kind of a famous chapter if you're into the book at all. I did do a little bit of a dive if you're into Revelation and have opinions on throughout some terms. Pre-post or a millennial. So I can keep up with you now on that if you want. I can run you down what I think. But we don't get into that this morning. Just

5:33 look at Revelation chapter 21. It says, well, let's pray before we read it. Hey Lord, thank you for this scripture and this story. Be with us as we engage it. Lord, remind us what it means that you are not done in the world, that the story has not been completed, that it's still unfolding. And you are bringing all things to an appropriate conclusion. Teach us how to wait well for that conclusion faithfully, looking

6:07 forward to the future, but being engaged today. And be with us this moment, Lord. Open our eyes and ears to your truth. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Revelation 21, verse 1, then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first 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

6:40 place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be His people. God Himself will be as their God and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more and neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain anymore for the former things have passed away. So beautiful little couple of verses from John giving the vision. Remember that John then is getting this picture of what it looks like when Christ returns and it's so John is like

7:13 well he's not American, right? He doesn't have our set of experience. He's come a completely different cultural setting, I'm saying, completely different cultural setting. And so he's given this like vision of something that's hard to imagine and then trying to put it down in words. And it's why part of the reason why Revelation is so tricky one is because he's given this vision of

7:43 thing that's beyond imagination and he's got to kind of contain it in words that work that are passed around and work. And then the second thing is he's got a whole set of cultural things that we don't have and a language filling up his words or an experience filling up his language that we don't have. And so little things like this like where it says then 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

8:17 it's like there was just a little excursus on this in my Brighton commentary the sea is no more. He's like that's crazy. It's like if it's a new earth it needs to, it needs water, right? And so then he goes on to think about how the sea was like the container place of evil things. Like throw deep into the abyss you know the water that you can't see the bottom of. And so there was a there was a cultural understanding this is why when they would sail they would

8:50 sail in sight of the of the coast always. It was terrifying to go out of line of the coast so they would sail around the coast always, right? And so the sea was this place the storage place for evil. So when John looks and he's trying to describe to people what he's seeing he says there's no sea. He doesn't mean there's no water or no gathering of water. He means there's no storage place of all the evil things. We don't need that. Stuff like that is crazy. So when you start to try and get into Revelation there's one layer in all of scripture

9:23 of like their cultural context is different but it's like ramped up in the book of Revelation to fully understand what John is getting that takes deep contextualization. One of the best ways to do that is with other scripture. So when you're reading Revelation what they teach you is to read it in light of Daniel and the book of Matthew that also have pictures of the end of all things. So I don't know why I tell you that other than if you get into the weeds

9:53 of Revelation do it in context and don't just read it and the first past think you know what you're getting. New heavens and a new earth. Remember how we started like that God has intended always like creation is intended to be in like governed over and ruled by humanity and humanity works when it's governed over and ruled by God and this like symbiotic relationship

10:24 between earth humanity and God is the intent of the creative act of God. We don't know why God made the earth and humanity except for that he wanted to and what he wanted was this like circle of reciprocity like let me be God you'll be humanity the earth will take care of you you'll take care of earth I'll take care of humanity you'll let me be God like it goes back and forth like this and so when he when when humanity feels like they have the capacity to be God that

10:58 for some reason God is holding out on them and this happened first in the garden but happens all the time in your day. It's a bummer but all the time throughout your days in little ways and small ways you're sure you know better than God. He calls you to love those in your house with solidarity and self sacrifice and you're sure you should use them to make yourself feel better. You're sure he calls you to stand in solidarity and self sacrifice with your neighbor

11:33 that has less and you're sure they have less because of the choices they made and they get what they deserve and you keep what you have earned. In large and small choices throughout the day you repeat the folly of Adam and Eve. God has suggested a way for you to live in fact he has built you to live a certain way he's like let me order the world and you live within that order and over and

12:06 again humanity since the beginning until today has said we like our own order. And that broke everything right and so everything's kind of been broken throughout the whole story of scripture and God's mercy and generosity keeps kind of standing humanity back up and starting them again you know he like takes them out of the garden starts him against his okay I'll fix it go on and keep living out here I'll put some clothes on you we'll put you in families

12:42 okay go ahead and then they kind of completely forget in the existence of God and so he like wipes earth out and starts over with Noah and his family it puts him up on the high mountain and says here you go do it again fill the earth and subdue it and within a couple generations they've completely forgotten the existence of God and decided they'll build a tower big enough that if you ever floods the earth again they can protect themselves and they don't need a God at all and so then he separates them into nations this time because he said he'd

13:15 never flood the earth again and he pulls Abram out of Huron and sets him up in the fertile land and gives him in his ascendant and says here try again we'll build a whole little nation through you and by the time there he's protected them in Egypt and they've forgotten the God again he pulls them out of Egypt and brings them back to Mount Sinai and says here I'll figure out a way to remind you that I exist I'll set up the sacrificial system where you can see now I'll be God you'll be people and every mistake you make will set right in the

13:46 moment just like this right and then instead of being humanity for the world they're humanity at the expense of the world and so finally he comes down in the person of Christ and he reimagines them from the beginning he's like we'll just kill the old you that is always sure that God's holding out and we'll resurrect a new you right Paul calls it the old the old man in the new creation life according to the flesh and life according to the spirit he said we'll resurrect a new you with the capacity to let me be God so when he leaves he says the reign of God is here now he says you can live under my authority now you

14:22 don't have to wait you had now have been given the capacity to let God be God in large and small ways you can abdicate your own kind of initiative to want to be in charge and with all the incumbent things that that brings and you can let God be in charge but we still don't have an earth that collaborates we're still not at the full picture of creation and so he gives John the disciple whom he loves this picture at the very end of a new heaven and a new earth and he says I

14:57 saw the holy city holy Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for a 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 you see it's what he wanted and God himself will be them with them as their God and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain for the former things have passed away I don't know what it would be like if I were John

15:37 to see that the guy who I like I hung out with on the boat who like ever climbed at the table with seated on the throne a world where there is no death or crying or mourning I think it'd be pretty good I'm saying you would see it and you'd be like I know that guy right and I'm excited about what's coming the kicker for me when I read this was like wow John got that picture and then what

16:16 he doesn't get to go there which is kind of a bummer John comes back to the world he gets this picture on Pat most where they plucked out his eyes and he sees the future of what's coming as good as it is and then he comes back to the world where they're persecuting the followers of the way of Jesus and he's got to figure out do we still go to the temple prostitutes or not you know like I mean it's a bummer that he makes

16:55 his way to I guess I'm saying like it's nice that the future is good that's good but it's nice that there's no death there but there's still death here right it's not that it's nice that there's no tears there but there's still tears here which is kind of a bummer which is why I got to that Psalm that we had Psalm 16

17:30 you want to look at it Psalm 16 David says preserve me oh God for a new I take refuge I say to the Lord you are my Lord and I have no good apart from you as for the saints in the land they are the excellent ones in whom is my delight the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out or take up on my lips the Lord Lord is my chosen

18:01 portion and my cup you hold my lot the lines have fallen for me in pleasant places indeed I have a beautiful inheritance I blessed Lord who gives me counsel night and day my heart instructs me I've set the Lord always before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be shaken David is saying like I'm in this world and I'm trusting God everybody else is trusting somebody else everybody else is following their what they can manufacture what they can get what they can control but I'm waiting on the Lord and I trust that in the end it

18:32 will go it will work out for me well and then he says therefore my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices my flesh also dwells secure for you will not abandon my soul to shayol or let your holy one see corruption you have made known to me the path of life in your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand our pleasures forever more I don't know David kind of melds together the future and the present somehow he's walking through the world and he says that things will be good for me but then he says

19:05 also there is joy in the present moment he says somehow I have hope for the lot that falls secure but somehow also he says right now is joy forever more he says I'm going to a place but also I am in a place Job says something similar Job is like a member of Job famously loses everything he loses his health his money his wife his kids he loses everything and in

19:41 Job chapter 19 starting at verse 23 his friends are saying everything's falling apart for you it's never going to work and Job and verse chapter 19 verse 23 says oh that my words were written oh that they were inscribed in a book oh that within an iron pen and lead they were engraved in rock forever he wants to say this what I'm about to say should be written down so that it can never change because it will never change I'm committed to this truth forever for I know that my redeemer lives he says and at last I will stand upon the earth and

20:15 after my skin has thus been destroyed yet in my flesh shall I see God whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold him and not another my heart faints within me if you say how will we pursue him and he's saying though he says after my skin has thus been destroyed yet in my flesh will I see God Job somehow is like in the midst of losing everything still has this hope for the future that is rock solid and secure that sustains him in the midst of all loss he doesn't

20:49 give up on it it's like the hope of the future has something sustaining in him the last one when I was thinking about this was in Deuteronomy if you want to look one more place Deuteronomy chapter 34 this is the one this is like maybe the biggest kicker of all

21:22 Moses has like been through so much by Deuteronomy chapter 34 you know we think Moses wrote this and if you remember he once he realized that he was an Israelite living in Pharaoh's house he had this great moral failure where he killed the guy and tried to take control then after that he abdicated but after living 40 days running away from who he was God calls him back and then Moses demonstrates incredible courage and confidence in God on multiple occasions

21:58 he stands in front of the Pharaoh though most arguably the most powerful person in the world and tells him what's up over and over and over again throughout of life he stands in front of the Red Sea with the Egyptian army and like praise and lifts up his hands and the whole thing splits Moses demonstrates incredible courage and faith on behalf of God there's one point where God wants to wipe out all of Israel and Moses stands in face of God and tells God according to your own character God you cannot do it he stands

22:30 in the wrath of God in between the wrath of God and the Israelite people he puts himself there and bets on God's character the courage to bet on the character of God to do what he says he's gonna do is off the charts Moses's courage in the confidence that God will do what he says he's gonna do is off the charts and like what I'm trying to say is there's something in the courage betting that God will do what he says he's gonna do that animates life throughout the whole story of Scripture and like there may come places in our life where

23:04 we need courage not to stand against an army but to move forward in life instead of being like stagnant or complacent or apathetic but to take a next step to move towards some new adventure to take on some new project to demonstrate a character of love towards somebody besides ourself we may need courage that God will come through Moses has demonstrated every courage when God gave

23:36 him the opportunity he took it at the risk of his life in multiple occasions against God and against other people and then we get to Deuteronomy chapter 34 the last thing we learn about Moses then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisca which is opposite Jericho and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan all Naftali and the land of Ephraim and Manasseh and the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea and the Negeb and the

24:10 plain that is the valley of Jericho the city of palm trees as far as Zor and the Lord said to him this is the land of which I swore to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and I will give it to your offspring I have let you see it with your eyes but you shall not go over there so Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord and he buried him in the

24:41 valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth Peor but no one knows the place of his burial to this day Moses was 120 years old when he died his eyes were undimmed and his vigor unabated and the people of Israel wept for Moses in the plains of Moab 30 days then the days of weeping and mourning for Moses were ended and Joshua son of an unfull of spirit of wisdom of for Moses had laid on his hands on him said to the people obeyed Moses God only the sight of the ultimate provision

25:14 of God and that was enough for him Jesus will come and bring something new for all of us

25:51 there's something in that promise that has animated adventure and courage and service and faith in the people of God from Job to Moses to David to John to Pauli Karp to Irenaeus it can animate you I'm saying it would be nice if we got

26:29 the same vision it would be nice if he came back now but he we we haven't and he isn't and yet allowing yourself to engage the reality that he will in there is the spirit of God that can build a life of courage Moses in the in Deuteronomy 34 doesn't be begrudge the life that he lived standing on the mountain

26:59 overlooking the promised land not getting to go in because he lived 40 years of adventure and purpose in his life he didn't begrudge it following God with courage was the life that he wanted and he looks forward to the crossing over of the Jordan and so can you that's what I'm saying I'm inviting you to consider I'm inviting you actually to believe that Jesus will come and bring a new heaven and a new earth and that he has appointed a place for you in it and consider how

27:32 might you live in light of that truth today let me pray that we could believe like Job and David and John hey Lord thank you for the promise of your new heavens and a new earth let the promise take root in our hearts this morning with the courage of faith to stand with conviction in Jesus name we pray amen