Sermon Tone Analysis
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Introduction:
It feels like forever since I’ve been home.
But no matter how often I’m home, I don’t need a map to make my way around.
I can just drive as if on autopilot.
I can just feel my way around.
And there is a flood of memories that comes roaring back.
If I were to walk through my high school, I could probably find my way to all my classes.
I remember the field where we used to we used to play football dreaming of high school glory.
I remember the 7-11 parking lot where we hung out on Friday nights because there was nothing else to do.
I met Amanda in my home town even though it wasn’t her hometown.
But God has built into all of us a desire for “what’s next?”
And I’m not talking about changing jobs or moving to another city.
But I am talking about waking up each day with an anxious anticipation about what God’s task is for us today.
Home has a way that it smells, feels.
Even the way that it tastes (like mom’s cooking).
You can feel it in your being that you are home.
And maybe for some of you, it may not feel as strong because you’ve never left home.
But you know what it’s like to go on vacation or on a long trip (maybe that long trip is your commute to work) and when you walk through that door, you can feel you are home.
Now in some ways I can never go home.
My parents don’t live in the house I grew up in.
But home is more than a house or apartment.
Home is about the relationships.
Because when I go home it’s not for the sights and sounds of Ellicott CIty, the most boring town in the world.
I go to see family.
But more than that, many of us have stopped longing for eternity.
We get comfortable in our lives.
Even if we’re miserable, we can begin to love the misery.
But all of scripture points to something more.
To the idea that we don’t belong to and in this world.
And that there will come a time when we will finally be home.
And for today, we want to answer the question, “What’s next?”
And when we finally make to our eternal home, its going to feel like coming home.
Like we’ve always been longing for this place and just didn’t know it.
And sure it will be amazing, but for us, getting to see Jesus will be even better.
Many seem to emphasize that we’ll see lost loved one who will go before us, but the first person we’ll really want to see is Jesus.
And it won’t be like meeting a stranger but a friend with a relationship that began in this life.
Our eternal home will be just that like coming home.
Transition to the Text: Revelation is one of the complicated of all books to understand because it is filled with figurative language.
But the thing we need to understand is that there is no secret code embedded in Revelation.
The figurative language is used to described literal realities that John, its writer, didn’t have words for.
At the core of Revelation aer letters to 7 churches that are meant to encourage each church to stand firm for Jesus in the face of great persecution.
And 2 major themes of Revelation is 1) The Holiness of God and 2) the endurance of those who have believed in Jesus.
Now many accept that the first 3 chapter of Revelation had an immediate audience and application for those 7 churches in Asia Minor.
However beyond that chapter 4-22 seem to have the future in mind to the events leading up the second coming of Jesus.
I know many of your are fascinated with this book, as am I, and you but we do not have time to dive into the middle.
We’re not dealing the great tribulation or the millennial kingdom.
We are jumping to the end which doesn’t necessarily speak to “how will this all work out” but it will hopefully produce in us joy as we long for our heavenly home.
Big Idea: Look forward to the home for which you were created.
John writes chapter 21-22 that we might know what happens next.
This world is not our home and our circumstances are not permanent.
This is why Jesus went to the cross.
That we might have eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth.
But it is only for those who conquer through Jesus.
But it also closes the loop on .
Paradise lost becomes paradise remade.
1.
A New Heaven is being united to a new Earth.
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Explanation: When John sees something new, it is not God’s great renovation project.
Not like extreme earth makeover and they now say...”Move that Bus!” The old earth, with it’s sin and brokenness is gone.
More specifically, it will be destroyed by fire.
That’s what the better part of Revelation is about....God’s judgement and destruction on His creation.
What John sees is something brand new that has never been seen before.
It certainly hearkens back to when Moses writes of God’s creation of a good good world…it’s what it was…it’s what it was.
But the truth is this new heaven and new earth will be absolutely perfect and the only way to get rid of the stench of sin is to start over.
It’s a new Genesis.
Now one clear distinction is that in , Moses speaks of the heavens which is not the spiritual reality where God’s specific presence abides.
This is literally what we call the universe.
God created the universe out of nothing.
In , we’re speaking of the singular “heaven.”
Which means that God is even discarding that spiritual reality in favor of a unified “New Heaven and New Earth.”
Throughout the Bible you see that there is God’s creation which is the dwelling place of man.
And then there is heaven which is the dwelling place of God.
And they are not always separate.
In the garden of eden, we had God dwelling with Adam and Eve. in Exodus we see God instructing the Israelites to build a tabernacle (a dwelling place for God) as God goes with them.
Later Solomon built a more permanent Temple, a place where through sacrifice a purified place could be created whereby heaven and earth could dwell.
Obviously when Jesus comes, we are told that Jesus, thought veiled in human flesh, is literally God’s dwelling among men.
He even refers His body as the temple of God.
In the Church age, we’re told that we (the individual and the collective people of God) are the dwelling place of God on earth.
But all of these instances where heaven and earth are joined together are limited.
And all of Scripture has been pointing forward to a full reunification of heaven and earth.
And in , we get a picture of what that will look like.
Word Study: This word “dwelling (σκηνή)” in verse 6 is the same word that was used by John to describe Jesus coming to earth in the incarnation.
The way in which God will be dwelling with His people in a new heaven and a new earth is the same way that Jesus dwelled on earth among his people.
Bodily and present.
But it will be for eternity.
We will forever experience the presence of God through the person of Jesus Christ.
It won’t be like you may have seen in movies where there is a throne of light.
The Father is spirit and the Holy Spirit is spirit.
But Jesus is forever both fully God and Fully human.
We’ll experience God through Jesus.
Illustration: I love new things.
There is just something about a new pair of shoes.
Or the smell of a new car.
One of the things that I loved in high school was the smell and feel of a new football.
It just felt right.
the problem is that new things fade.
Shoes get those creases in the toe that our young people hate so much.
Cars no longer smell new and if you have kids they begin taking on a new smell…that no matter the deep cleaning, just never quite goes away.
We love new things, but new things never stay new.
Except the new heaven and the new earth.
It will never fade.
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