Our reading tonight comes from two places. The first is the letter to the Hebrews, which was written to Christians like us who have questions about, who is this Jesus? Why do we live for Him and what does He look like?
What does it look like to live for Him? And in the 11th chapter, there's a bunch of examples. We'll read Abraham's example, and then we'll read a summary of other examples. And our second reading comes from Revelation chapter 21, and this is an example. This is a vision that God gives the apostle John regarding the end of history. And when we read this passage, keep in mind that God is using symbolic language to describe a spiritual truth that eyes can't see. So, if you would now stand, we will read these passages together.
So, the slides will have them. If you're lost, you can look up there. Hebrews chapter 11, starting at verse 8. Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
And we're going to skip down to verse 13. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared for them a city. Revelation 21. 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 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. Would you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we come to You as people in search of a vision of heaven and of Yourself that You've given us in Your Son and through these words that we've read tonight. But we need help, Lord, because we live in a world where we're not looking up, we're looking down and around. We may come in tonight with anxieties or distractions. There are all kinds of ways that the enemy will want to keep Your word from our hearts, so we pray, Lord, that You will make them ready and able to hear what You have to say, and help me to speak faithfully and truly what You're communicating here in Your word tonight.
Amen. Tonight's scripture is about home. When you think of home, what do you think about?
There's been a lot of songs written about that, really good songs. For John Denver, home is the place where I belong. Country roads take me home. Simon and Garfunkel, it's the place where God will, or not God, place where someone will comfort me. All my words come back to me and words of mediocrity.
I need someone to comfort me. I wish I was homeward bound, homeward bound. Tracy Chapman, whose song was recently remade into a country music jingle called Fast Car.
She writes that home is anywhere but here. You got a fast car. I want a ticket to anywhere. Maybe we make a deal. Maybe together we can get somewhere.
Any place is better. Starting from zero, got nothing to lose. So I remember we were driving, driving in your car, city lights laid out before us, and your arm felt nice wrapped around my shoulder. And I, I had a feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling that I could be someone, be someone, be someone. The song goes on and she doesn't get there. It's sad. She actually ends up worse off than she began.
I think many of us experience life as a never-ending search for home, a place where we belong, where we are comforted, and where we will be someone. And our text tonight tells us where that is found. The example we're given first is Abraham.
I'm not seeing it up there. Abraham, from her background in the book of Genesis, was one of the richest men in the world. He was like Elon Musk, Bezos, proportions of wealth that Abraham had. He also had a family and he longed, the thing he wanted most was a son, and he waited and waited and waited and finally had a son. He had his family. He also, the land where he went to live was actually specifically given to him by God.
So there was no question about where he belonged physically on a plot of land. It was where he was, where God told him to go. So he had the wealth, he had the family, he had the place, and yet what Hebrews says in verses 8 to 10 is that for him the experience was as if he was in a foreign land, living in tents. And that was his experience his whole life, this feeling in a foreign land.
He was not settled. The next thing it shows, and you see on the screen, you have the text on your left and then description on your right, he was looking forward. And when the text writes that Abraham's looking forward, that's not a mere wish like Simon and Garfunkel were wishing to be homeward bound. He's like, I know I'm homeward bound. So he's looking ahead to getting there.
There was no doubt about it. It also tells us that he was looking forward to a city that has foundations, which is an odd phrase. What that means is he was looking forward to a heavenly city, and there's two reasons why we know that. First of all, in the text, as we read down in Hebrews, when it gives the summary of what all the saints were looking for, it says, and you see it on your right on the screen there, they were looking to the heavenly city.
So that's our first clue. It later tells us he's talking about a heavenly city. And then the second clue is when it talks about a city that has foundations, there's only one other place in the New Testament that talks about a city that has foundations, and that's Revelation chapter 21. And that new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven is described as the city that had 12 foundations with the apostles' names written on it.
In other words, that's a symbol. The apostles were God's people who followed him, Jesus' people. Jesus gave the apostles his words, and the apostles gave them to us in the Bible. So it's a city built on the foundation, which is God's word, a city built by God. And that is the next thing Abraham was looking for. And if you look down the text, the city has a designer and builder who is God. And what the rest of the Hebrews text that we read tonight teaches us is that Abraham was not the only one who looked at it this way. In fact, every Christian who's ever lived, this is their way of life.
We'll compare them side by side again. What it says about the rest of the Christians is before Christ, so they're the saints who were believers in God. They were strangers and exiles on the earth, like Abraham, as in a foreign land. They were seeking a homeland, desiring a better country than what they had. Now, keep in mind, all of these examples lived in that same promised land that God had promised and sent them to.
So they did not have a sense that they had arrived. And the city they were looking for was a heavenly one. And it was one that was prepared by God.
So this is normative. If you are a Christian, if you've been born again and you have the Spirit of God in your heart, you, like the rest of these, will throughout your life have a sense that I'm a stranger and an exile in some way. But you will also be seeking and looking forward to a homeland that is of heaven and prepared by God. And that is the fulfillment of that hope is what we see in Revelation chapter 21.
All of these elements are there. We see in the first and the second verse that there's a holy city. We see it comes out of heaven from God prepared by Him. So whenever we wonder where home is found, this is it.
Revelation chapter 21. This describes our home. And there are three things that I would like to point out tonight that we can notice about our home from this chapter. Home is from God, home is with God, and home is for God.
From God, with God, and for God. In chapter 21 verse 2, it says that home comes out of heaven. What that means is home does not come out of earth.
It's not made on earth. It comes out of heaven, first thing. Second thing, it comes from God, which means it doesn't come from you.
And there's a lot of impulse and anxiety that I know I have felt about making myself a home. And this verse says right there it's not going to come from you. It's coming from God. Home comes from heaven and it comes from God.
That rules out the major world philosophies of the day and of all of human history. The first philosophy is what most other religions try to teach you to do is that you climb up to heaven. You have to get to heaven, so it comes from you. You have to get there by being just good enough, more good than bad. Do enough good deeds, you know, give enough money, follow enough rituals, you can get there.
And that is ruled out by this passage. The other world philosophy, which is more prevailing in America today, is you can make heaven right here. Now, I don't think there's any coincidence that as religion, as we experience it, has declined. We have another thing in its place, which is make heaven on earth. We can make a great society. If we can just come together, be strong enough, be unified enough, we will have heaven here. This verse rules that out. Home comes from heaven.
We don't make it ourselves, and it's not going to be of this earth. The second point is that home is with God, and that is the central point of our passage. It says in verse 3, 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. Why is that a good thing? The whole Bible will teach us why that's a good thing, but our passage contains a clue, a couple of clues.
This first clue is strange. In verse 1, in describing the New Jerusalem, it says that the sea was no more. Of all the things to describe about the new earth and the new heavens, why that one detail, that there's no more sea? You ever wonder that? That particularly, does God not like the oceans he's made?
I mean, I think they're beautiful. What's wrong with the oceans? You remember that Revelation is a symbolic book, and if you're not convinced of that, I don't have time to do that tonight, but I'd recommend to you Greg Beal's Revelation commentary, which is fantastic. He also taught me the class on Revelation, so good guy, too. He will show you in general how we know Revelation is symbolic, but he also observes that the idea of the sea is highly symbolic, both in Revelation and also in the Old Testament background. I'm going to show you a few examples of what the sea represents in Revelation.
One, it is the origin of cosmic evil. The sea is where that beast rises out of. You have heard about in popular culture and that is talked about in Revelation, the beast that comes to persecute God's people and oppose God rises out of the sea. It's also the place of the nations who persecute God's people. It is where the symbolic figure, the woman, she seats on the waters.
It's the seat of power where they're coming for you. The sea represents the place of idolatrous trade, materialism, taking advantage of other people, trying to get myself rich. The sea is the place.
It's symbolically represented as where that takes place. That's Revelation 8-18. Revelation 20-13 shows that the sea is shown as the place of the dead. And Revelation 16-3 shows the sea as representing cursed creation.
Because of sin, it is cursed. Now, if all these things are banished away from God's presence, what does that imply about God? It implies He's the opposite of these things. And so you can go through each one of these things that's not welcome anymore and say, well, then God is the opposite of that. Instead of the origin of cosmic evil, in God's presence there is all cosmic good.
It's beyond our imagination how good He is. Instead of people persecuting you, you have a powerful protector who's for you. You're safe. You have power on your side.
You're no longer on the run. Instead of idolatrous trade, you have generous self-giving. God is inherently self-giving, three persons for all eternity giving themselves to one another and then generously giving themselves to us. Instead of death, of course, there's the opposite of that, which is life and everything that involves. And instead of any curse, it's only blessedness.
In God's presence, it's everything that you've ever longed for, and everything bad is removed. Now, one problem that this raises is if we know ourselves, there's bad in us too. So how is it then that we can be at home with God if we have bad in our own hearts? And if you don't realize that of yourself, then you haven't actually spent time in God's presence. Because throughout Scripture, any time someone comes into the presence of God, they immediately realize just how bad they are. We compare ourselves to each other, so we may think I'm good compared to that guy, but when we compare ourselves to God, it totally changes the analysis. And when Peter started to detect, we're looking at Luke 5, verse 8, the power of Jesus implied that he was God. And when Peter saw that, his first reaction was, I can't be near this guy. Depart from me, for I am a sinner. So then, that's the problem. And the more we know about God, as John Calvin wrote, the more we know about ourselves. And the more we know about ourselves, the more we see that we have this problem that would keep us from God.
Our text explains how that is dealt with, too. The city is described as a bride. I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride. Brides are not buildings. Brides are people. And you read on in the passage, and it's clear that God is talking about being with his people. And most commentators agree, then, that this city represents the church, which is the people of God. And this bride, it says, has been adorned, adorned for her husband.
So something has been done to beautify her to make her ready for her wedding day. And we know what that something is from the rest of Scripture. I'm going to turn to Ephesians 5, where I'll go now. Paul writes to the church, chapter 5, verses 25 to 27. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. We see here that Jesus cleansed her.
He made her clean and without blemish. Now the church can be in the presence of God without fear. That solves the problem that Peter experienced. We see also the way he did it was by giving himself up for her. That's a reference to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross, where the punishment, the wrath of sin that Peter feared, wrath against sin, was poured out on Jesus Christ Himself on behalf of any who believes in Him. And the reason he did it was to present a bride to himself in splendor. So we see that presentation in Revelation 21. When it describes a bride adorned for her husband, it's describing a bride adorned for her Christ, who is God. Now we can be in God's presence.
Now that's not God on the screen, obviously. It's one of our family's favorite movies, Pride and Prejudice, also based on a book by Jane Austen. And the book takes place in a Victorian English setting, where the identity of a woman was who she married. And the person she married then was who she was. And there was all this drama around who these girls in the Bennett household were going to marry. Elizabeth was an ordinary woman that came from an ordinary family, which meant they were rather embarrassing. And the man in the story, Mr. Darcy, was very wealthy, very handsome, very influential.
So this is the one that all the ladies would love to be paired up with. And they get to know each other, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth is shocked to learn that Mr. Darcy has his sights set on her. And she doesn't like it. She doesn't like him. And at first she refuses him. But then as she grows and she learns, she grows to learn about his character, his sacrificial acts of love, his goodness, she realized she'd misjudged him and in fact fell head over heels in love with him.
And the movie, of course, the book, of course, ends with marital bliss with them two. I think that when the idea of our marriage to Christ strikes a lot of us in a similar way at first to as Elizabeth's with Mr. Darcy. Like if someone that powerful was actually interested in me, he's not to be trusted. Maybe he's trying to enslave me.
He wants to control me. He's an egomaniac. And what our texts show us tonight in fact is rather than enslave us, he became the servant for us and he gave away himself for us. He's very good.
Not only is he very good, he's very rich. So if we want to be somebody, try being the bride of Christ. And here's what he'll do. Here's what he'll do when he comes back. Verse 4 says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
In that first detail, you might just pass by. He says he's going to wipe away every tear from their eyes. You might think, why didn't you say there's going to be no more crying?
That seems to get a point across almost as well, get the point across almost as well. But he goes out of his way to say he is going to wipe away the tears from your eyes. Imagine somebody taking their hand and coming up to you and putting it on your cheek and wiping it away. I think God is sometimes thought of as impersonal, kind of distant God. There's nothing more personal than that. I just kind of thought it was a hard God.
It's hard to think of anything more tender than that. And there's an example from Scripture, I think, where we can see this idea of God wiping away tears and how it plays out. So chapter 6, verses 12 to 15, it says, As Jesus drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
What we know about this man is a couple of things. One, he was the only son of his mother. I don't think mothers in this room would have trouble imagining the agony of being bereaved of your only son. No father could have trouble imagining that either.
Not only that, we know from a few verses later that he was a young man, a man but a young man. So there's the grief of a life taken before the time, a life taken before it's really lived. And then we see that this woman is a widow. So she'd already lost her husband. Now she lost her only son. So she lost her family. She lost all means of economic support. And she lost her identity as a mother and a wife.
These things were who she had been for decades, all taken. And Jesus comes to her, and when the Lord saw her, says he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. And I can imagine at this part of the story, maybe him stretching out his hand, maybe wiping away a tear.
And it wasn't empty comfort. For most of us, that would be empty comfort if we said that because she had a lot of reasons to weep. Why shouldn't she weep? From the rest of the story, we see, then he came up and touched the beer, and the bearer stood still, and he said, young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. In that moment, for that widow, death was no more. In that moment, there was no more crying, nor pain.
The former things had passed away. And so it will be for you when Jesus Christ comes back for you. So if you want to find a home, who you belong to, where do you belong, where will you find comfort, where will you be somebody, it's found in Christ. Now, there are people, there are some, some of you may be here tonight, that don't have that longing. They don't feel that sense of I need to belong somewhere because they feel like they belong.
They're not looking for something more because they're satisfied. And I need to say a word about that. Jesus has words in the same book, same chapter that we've been looking at, Luke 6, 24-26.
I want to read these and explain these and how they relate. He writes, starting in verse 24, Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. This is a description describing people who feel quite at home. They don't have that longing for a homeland to be with Christ.
They have their fill with things that this world has to offer. The word for that is idolatry. And the New City Catechism, which is a reformed, more recent expression of something that the Heidelberg Catechism said 500 years ago, was idolatry is trusting in created things rather than the Creator for our hope and happiness, significance and security. Another word for idolatry in the Bible is adultery, spiritual adultery. So if Christ is your husband coming for you, you can't have other lovers. There's one lover, and it's Christ.
So what are some examples of other lovers that may satisfy us and keep us from Him? Well, let's go back to the passage in Luke that we just saw. Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. That's wealth. Now, wealth is not just having the money. It's everything that represents. Of course, it's having nice stuff that you like. It's also having power.
It's having independence, not having to rely on anybody. And that is one of the biggest idols there's ever been. But there's more. Woe to you who are full now. Woe and drink and other things like that. You ever comfort eat, go to food for comfort instead of Christ? You're tending in this direction, or hedonism. What do you take more delight in? What do you get more excited about? Is it a good meal, a good drink, or is it spending time with the Lord Jesus?
What arouses you more? Woe to you who laugh now, okay? Sometimes, having fun, and I don't think there's anything more to say about that. Woe to you when all people speak well of you. You're popular. People like you. No one's disrespecting you. No one's misunderstanding you.
Everyone likes you. Now, you may say, well, this, thankfully, I'm not in trouble here because I don't have any of these things. I'm poor, I don't have the food I want, people don't like me. But if you are hanging in your head because you don't have those things, that's also idolatry. You're still seeking your hope, happiness, significance, and security in those things.
Now, it's a blessing to not have them because it shows you that you're hungry for something more. The answer is to find that satisfaction in Christ. A lot of times, what we end up doing is arranging our lives to try to get things like this. There's other examples of idols besides this. I can think of some from our culture.
Beauty, entertainment, sports, your team or politics, how our land is doing, any of those things and more can be something that we put our sights on and we scramble to get our hands on so that we can have hope, have happiness, have significance, have security. And what Christ says is, those are bad lovers. Turn from them. Turn to Jesus Christ. He will forgive you for that. All of us have been guilty of idolatry at some point, even continuing into this very day.
But what a Christian does is repents and turns from them and turns to Christ continually to make him your number one hope. And he's worth it. He's a good husband. He is your home. But you can't have him and keep your idols. It's one or the other. When we have this perspective, it's not the perspective we're born with. The perspective we're born with is chasing after those other things, those other idols. When the spark of divine life comes into your heart, you do get a new perspective.
That's what happens when you're born again. And when you see what your home is, it changes your purpose, it gives you a new power, and it gives you patience. The game of golf has a very clear purpose to it. It's to put the ball in the cup. And because you know that's your purpose and the way the score is kept is the lowest score wins because you're trying to get to the cup as fast as possible.
Trying to get close to it and then in the cup. Most sports, the highest score wins. Golf is unique in that it's one of the few where it's the lowest that actually wins. Now, somebody who doesn't understand the purpose of golf and wants to follow the lead of most sports will think, well, the highest score wins.
And so imagine with me you go to another planet or world where people have this game called golf and they're all trying to hit it as many times as possible. And if they're hitting the ball, going around whacking it, this and that, it changes the way they play the game. They probably don't even know why the cup's even there. They're like, there's this cup.
That's odd. Why is there a cup here? They're just trying to hit the ball as much as they can and rack up a score. And if you get there and you know the rules of golf and you start playing it the way it's designed to be played to get into the cup, you're going to look odd.
And if you're taking your cues from what everyone else is doing, you're going to feel insecure about it because you're doing not what everyone else is doing and they may even think you are odd by playing the game that way. And so it is in the pursuit of the Christian life of finding our home in Christ. When you know that your goal is to get to Christ, He's got you and then we're going to Him, it affects the way you play the game. It affects the way you live your life and it gives you a focus.
And one thing it will do, if you know that you were made for communion with God and everlasting bliss in relationship with Him, it will cause you to want to cultivate that relationship right now. The Billy Graham Museum, the library here in Charlotte, they have an exhibit where there's a video of Billy Graham's last interview ever given. He was in his mid-90s. And in that interview, the interviewer asks him if he had any regrets. And Billy Graham said, oh yeah, oh yeah, I have regrets. And the interviewer was surprised. Really?
What? He said, if I could do it over again, I would have spent more time being with Jesus and telling Him I love Him. Well, what about all the revivals and all these things, all these great things you did? Yeah, I would have still done it, but I would have done less of it.
I would have spent more time with Him loving Him. That is not the way we naturally think. Even when we think about other great Christians, we think about the work they did.
And so the world, that's confusing. But the most important thing is building that relationship with Jesus Christ and enjoying Him, as we read this morning in the first answer to the Shorter Catechism. Another thing Jesus says that goes hand in hand with enjoying Him is obeying Him. And Jesus is clear about this. John 14, verses 23 to 24, He says, if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words. Now I want to be clear that we don't earn his love.
He's already loved you first when you believe and you receive Christ. However, someone who's been born again and had that since will prove it by desiring to obey Him. It changes your loves. It orients you towards Him. And because God is holy, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are holy, they want us to be holy so we may commune with them. And so obeying Christ, being with Him, enjoying Him, as Billy Graham said, and obeying Him, as Jesus says, it orients your purpose away from all these other things that we are so tempted day in and day out to expend our effort chasing after.
The next thing it does is it gives you power. There's this idea that Christians are losers. And I think one of the reasons for that idea is because we play the game differently than the rest of the world. We're going for a low score and everyone's going for a higher score. So we look like losers. We're losing. We're not doing what makes you a success. And that is, this is reading from Hebrews 11 here on the screen, anything but the case. When you have a sense of purpose and you are going towards that cup, God gives you power to get there. You will not fail.
You are winners. And He gives you a mission in the world to accomplish and you will accomplish it because it's His mission and He's God. He's very rich and powerful.
And so you can take that to the bank. And so here's another example of that chapter we read at the beginning. Chapter 11, this is now verses 32 to 34. For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put armies to flight. You will put armies to flight. And the main armies against you are the forces of hell and his kingdom.
And he's determined to make you forget everything we've talked about tonight and make you anxious about how much money you have or how much comfort or what you're going to eat, whether people like you and all those things. But when you turn to Christ and you put your hope in Him and you raise His flag, they will flee before you. You are destined to conquer. Christians are the most powerful people in the world because we have the power of God in us and for us.
He is for you and you will conquer. The last thing is it will give you patience. Imagine how the widow's perspective might have been different. You can imagine the deep wailing she would have had when Jesus found her. If he knew, if she'd already seen the rest of the book, that in about five minutes Jesus is going to walk up here, He's going to wipe away my tears, and He's going to raise my son from the dead. That would have affected her experience. The pain wouldn't have been as deep. There would be a sorrow for losing my son for five minutes even.
That's really sad. And for us, we have departures for 50 years sometimes. But in the scheme of eternity, it's five minutes. And Christ is coming to wipe away the tears and to make all things new and the former things going away. The violence is gone. Only goodness, only love, only life, that's coming for certain. It's coming for certain because it's from God. It's not coming from you. It's coming from God, so it's certain. You don't have to be disappointed that you don't see it yet because it's not of this earth. It's coming from heaven, so it's not yet. You don't have to despair about not having it yet because by faith, you get to taste it even now. Home is with God, and you can be with God right now. If you haven't had that experience yet of knowing that spark of divine love that warms your soul and turns you, melts away your sins, and turns you to love, you can have it.
He opens His arms freely to you. That's why Jesus Christ gave His life on the cross for you. Don't wait. Don't hold on to those other lovers. Look from them now and receive Christ.
It's open. You can enjoy Him right now, and by enjoying Him right now, your perspective on everything else will change. It won't matter how much money you have or how many people like you or anything like that because you will have the Lord Christ because He is your home. And you're for Him.
You are for Him. And because of that, you don't have to worry, I'm loving myself enough or taking good enough care of myself, or if I made bad choices yesterday that have put me in a bad spot. You don't have to have regrets about sins that have been forgiven.
Because you belong to Him, because He has you in His hands, that means you're safe. So Christ is where you belong. Let's pray. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we love You.
We love You and we thank You. Lord, I pray for all of us for help with perspective as we go from here. And purpose as we live our lives. Help us to focus on the main thing and to do it. And just to believe, help our own belief. And pray for belief for those here or those who may be watching through the live stream. I pray for a miracle where we pray and we expect that, and we know that You will do all good things. Amen.
