10am Church — New Light Anglican Church Riverstone

In 1994, one of the great movies came out: The Shawshank Redemption. If you haven’t seen it, you’re one of about three people who haven’t, I think, these days. A little-known fact: it was written by Stephen King, the great horror author. Sometimes people don’t realize that Shawshank is the name of a prison. But as the title hints at, the movie is all about hope. The central character is a guy called Red, played by Morgan Freeman. He has this line in the middle of the film where he says, “Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.” I feel you, Red. I know what you’re saying. Hope is dangerous.

There’s a saying for people who obsessively follow their football teams that it’s the hope that kills you. I feel that every year as Parramatta begins their season. It’s the hope that kills you. It was the hope that killed me last night as they were about to accomplish the greatest comeback ever in the history of the NRL, but didn’t. It’s the hope that kills you.

So, what kind of hope is heaven? I was watching a funeral yesterday, live-streaming it because I couldn’t be interstate for it. It was still a profoundly moving experience. But at the center of that funeral, people talked constantly, incessantly, about the fact that there’s a good future coming. What kind of hope is that? The reason I ask is that in our language these days, hope is virtually equivalent to a wish. I hope I get tickets. I hope she likes me. I hope the report is good and the tests are clear. So what kind of hope is heaven? Is that what hoping for heaven is like? I hope there’s a good place.

At the start of this series, I said that Revelation, the whole book, shows us the future so that we might live well now. But you can only do that if the future is both certain and good. The question that drives what I’m doing today is, does God offer me an assured future worth giving my life for?

Revelation 21 and 22 speak directly to that question. But here I need to level with you: I find most people’s idea of heaven boring. Hear me correctly. I didn’t say I find the Bible’s picture of heaven boring. I find the image that most people have in their mind, be they Christian or non-Christian, really drab and dull. The standard stereotype of heaven is that we all float away up to the sky and we sit on a fluffy white cloud playing harps. And heaven always looks so white, so gleaming white. It’s like an ad for bleach. Heaven gleams like my toilet shortly after I use Toilet Duck. I like my bathroom, but I don’t want to live there for a day, and usually not forever.

Sometimes you ask Christians, “What are we going to do when we’re in heaven?” And the answer sometimes comes back, “We’re going to sing praises to God.” And I’m like, “Huh? Is that the only thing we do?” Heaven is me reduced to being a voice box in a choir. One Christian person once said that heaven is like a church service that never ends. That’s my definition of the other place. Jokes aside, the dominant vision of heaven in our culture is that it is colorless, disembodied, and boring. This Gary Larson cartoon captures the problem really well. You don’t want to give your life for a boring heaven.

The great American poet Emily Dickinson once wrote a poem about heaven, a really short one that captured the same problem. She said, “I never felt at home below. And in the handsome skies, I shall not feel at home. I know I don’t like paradise because it’s Sunday all the time and recess never comes.” You really don’t want to give your life for a boring heaven, which is a tragedy because the Bible never describes the final end like that.

A New Heaven and a New Earth

Look with me. Revelation 21, verse one. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” This is a new world. But note, it isn’t a non-physical world. It’s a new heaven and new earth. It’s a new creation. In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. From the very beginning, we were made to enjoy God. We were made to enjoy one another. And we were made to enjoy God’s good earth. God never changes that goal. That’s why every vision of the end throughout the scriptures is earthly in the sense that it pictures the land bursting into bloom, cities renewed, life complete. Jesus himself teaches us to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “may your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” And so too with Revelation here, in the future, God will bring a new creation.

Of course, there are some profound differences in this world. Let us not ignore that. First, it says there will no longer be any sea. Why is that? This is where all the surfers and the swimmers are saying, “Please say it ain’t so, Mark. What’s going on?” To understand this, you need to understand something about the ancient Near East and the world of ancient Israel, which is that Israel was not a particularly water-loving people. Throughout the Old Testament, water is seen as the place of chaos and evil. In essence, to say that there was no longer any sea is to say that the world to come is no longer threatened. This is the language of symbolism, not geography. It’s a world that’s saying it’s not going to fall again. It’s not going to be overtaken by sin and death and evil. This is a truly secure world. That’s what it means that there’s no longer any sea.

Security is awesome, but that’s not the biggest ticket item in this new creation. Because in verse two, it pictures the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. And then in verse three, it makes an announcement that interprets what that means. Verse three says, “I heard a loud shout from the throne saying, ‘Look, God’s home is now among his people. He will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them.’”

That is the fulfillment of the whole storyline of the Bible. The big storyline, because the goal of God from the very beginning is that he would dwell with his people. The glory of the Garden of Eden was that Adam and Eve lived life in the unhindered presence of God. The chief tragedy of sin is that when sin enters, it means we are cast out from the presence of God. We are separated from the presence of God. But as God unfolds his plan of salvation throughout the entire scriptures, God’s relentless goal is to restore us to his presence.

The tabernacle and the temple in ancient Israel are a sign of how passionate God is to dwell with his people because He initiates those things, not we. He initiates them. But at the same time, the tabernacle and the temple remind us that we are separated from God because those tabernacles and temples are filled with curtains and walls and dividing sectors, letting us know that we’re not fit for his presence. Then you come to the New Testament and you see that what the Lord Jesus does is that in Jesus, presence is made possible. God’s presence is made possible. At the death of Jesus, the curtain of the temple is torn in two, the dividing wall is broken down, and we can enter into his presence without fear of condemnation. We may approach the throne of grace in our hour of need.

The climax of that journey into God’s presence is the new creation. Because even as we experience God now by the receipt of his Spirit, the New Testament describes that as a down payment of heaven, a deposit of heaven in our hearts. But there’s an even better day coming. This is that better day. In the future, God will make his home with his people as heaven comes down to earth. Did you notice that in verse two? The final vision of the Bible is not an image of us going up to him, but God’s presence coming down to dwell with his people upon the earth. Just like in the Garden of Eden, heaven, God’s dwelling place, and earth, our dwelling place, overlap, and his dwelling place and our dwelling place is the same dwelling place.

The Critical Question for Our Generation

The primary joy of the new creation is the presence of God. Let me ask you the question: what most excites you about the future God has in store? Do your eyes light up at the thought of a perfect body, perfect rivers, perfect things? I get it. They’re very cool. But does your heart beat faster because we’ll see him face to face? Does that make your heart beat faster, that we will experience his presence in all of its fullness?

John Piper said something many years ago that cut me. He said:

The critical question for our generation and for every generation is this. If you could have heaven with no sickness and with all the friends you ever had on earth and all the food you ever liked and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven if Christ were not there?

John Piper

It’s a stunning question because God is not presenting to us an either/or, but he is trying to say, “Do you actually long to meet me in the new creation?” Because our chief hope, our ultimate delight is that we will see him face to face. Of course, that presence of God is not the only joy and blessing of the new creation. No, no, no. That presence of God there brings joy and life to our bodies and to the whole of creation. You see that happen in verses four and five.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. And there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever. And the one sitting on the throne said, 'Look, I am making everything new.'"Revelation 21:4-5

Because in the presence of God, life erupts. It explodes. Joy erupts and explodes because in the presence of God there is no death. There is no pain. In his presence, everything is made new.

How Do We Get From This to That?

Which raises two questions for me. How do we get from this to that? And the second question is, how can I know that’s real hope and not just a wish?

The Necessity of Judgment

First question: how can we get from this right now to that which is portrayed here in scripture? That question has to do with the whole topic of judgment in this book. You will be aware that there are large slabs of this book that I haven’t talked about. Large slabs of the book of Revelation. Lots and lots of pictures of God bringing judgment on the earth: plagues and locusts and hailstones and rivers turning to blood and so on and so forth. If we had done this series for 10 weeks, I would happily teach as many of those details as I can. Maybe not happily, but I would have taught as many details of those as I could have. But running through all those sequences of judgment is a singular truth. The singular truth is this: to have a new world, someone has to fix what’s wrong with the present.

Most everybody agrees on that, irrespective of your religious perspective. We all agree a fix is needed. What we disagree on is the specifics of the fix. What needs to be removed, what needs to be judged, what needs to be taken out. Lots of people say, “I don’t agree with judgment.” But it seems like everybody has a heart for some sort of justice. In the scriptures, that’s what judgment is. Judgment is God bringing his justice to the earth. In the Bible, judgment is what is necessary to remove sin and evil from the world.

You can’t have a new creation without God bringing his justice. Those scenes of judgment in the book of Revelation do many things. But above all, they teach us that God will set things right and evil won’t win in the end. Evil will not win in the end. Indeed, evil should not be joined, because God will bring judgment on those things and remove them. That’s how we get from this to that. There is a judgment to come, and it is necessary for us to have the world that we truly want, the world that God will bring.

How Can I Know This Is Real Hope?

That leads me to the second question. How can I know? How can I know that this isn’t just pie in the sky when you die kind of thinking? This isn’t just people going, “This is glorious wish fulfillment of Christians who are dying an early death.” Why were Christians so sure that God could make everything right? There’s a very simple answer to that: because they knew that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead. Because in the resurrection of Jesus, Christians know that that is the start of God making all things new.

The Bible constantly uses this language to explain the meaning of Jesus’s resurrection. It says Jesus’s resurrection is the first fruits. The first fruits. The language of first fruits is agricultural imagery. It’s the imagery describing when you get the first fruit, quite literally, in a season. But that first fruit is not the whole of the fruit. It’s not all of the fruit, but it’s the pointer, the signal, the advance indicator that the whole harvest is coming. Jesus’s resurrection is always portrayed as the first installment of God making all things new, including you, including me, and eventually extending out to all of creation. Everyone who is connected to Jesus by faith, united to him, both trusting in him, will be raised from the dead. And then all of creation will be made new. Or as it says here in Revelation, “no longer will there be a curse upon anything.” That’s Revelation 22:3.

You know that song we sing at Christmas, “Joy to the World.” It’s a banger. I really like it. We should keep that on the list. There are some carols I don’t think we should keep on the list, but you can talk to me about that afterwards. That wasn’t originally written as a Christmas carol. When it was first written, it wasn’t mostly talking about Jesus’s birth. It’s actually talking mostly about his return. You can sing it in relation to his birth. Don’t worry. Please have it there for December 24 and 25, folks. But the full meaning of the song only makes sense in light of Jesus’s return. There’s a third verse which we often drop because it doesn’t really fit Christmas. The third verse goes like this: “No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found. Far as, far as, far as the curse is found.”

That is joy to the world when it’s fully complete. When Jesus was raised from the dead, that is the inauguration of living hope to a dying world, and that there will be a time when there will no longer be any curse. Everything that fell apart in the Garden of Eden, God is putting it all back together again in Jesus. Or as Samwise Gamgee asks in Lord of the Rings, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” And the resurrection says yes. And Revelation says this is what it looks like when everything sad comes untrue. The signal is Jesus. He’s the advance indicator that God is making all things new.

If Jesus has been raised from death to life, then it’s only a matter of time before the whole inheritance comes. That’s why the risen Jesus says in chapter one of this book, “Don’t be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am the living one. I died, but look, I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and the grave.” If Jesus has the keys, then the future is assured.

What Should I Live My Life Like Right Now?

If that is the way creation will end up, then what should I live my life like right now? Do you notice that in chapter 21, verses 6 to 8, it comes back to life right now? The topic is the future, and then all of a sudden it addresses the present at the end of it. Verses 6 to 8 say:

"And he also said, 'It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end. To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life. All who are victorious will inherit all these blessings, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.'"Revelation 21:6-7

We come back to that theme of victory that was there from the very beginning of the book. The victorious are those who won’t surrender their love for Jesus and their love for people, even if it means difficulty. That’s what it means to be victorious. They won’t surrender their love for Jesus and their love for other people, even if it means difficulty. Notice then that there is a list of sins in verse 8 of all kinds of sinful behavior that won’t belong in the new creation. Hopefully, a few of them seem reasonably obvious, like murderers or the sexually immoral. I think we’re all hoping for a new creation without murder.

But remember, this is a description of what the culture of the new creation will be like. It’s not a description of people who have perfect pasts. The new creation is filled with forgiven sinners, but it’s filled with people who have ultimately turned from their sin and want to live in alignment with that future that’s coming. But there’s a really interesting thing right up front that, apart from those obvious sins, it starts with something that seems a bit weird. It describes cowards. Why would you say the cowardly are not in the new creation? Because I’ll level with you. I am a coward. I’m afraid of heights. I’m no good on roller coasters. I’m low-key terrified of ice skating. Pretty much anything that involves my body needing to be held in some sort of balance is a problem. It’s just the way God made me. He made me awkward. And that is not what this is talking about. Thankfully, there’s a place in the new creation for people with a fear of heights.

Cowardly. What does this mean? It’s really very simple. It takes courage to keep worshiping Jesus. It takes courage to love the lost, even if that’s going to mean things might get hard. It takes courage to keep worshiping Jesus when your culture might say you’re mad or even bad for doing so. It takes courage to keep witnessing to the love and beauty of Jesus when it could cost you your reputation or your job or, in some circumstances, your life. It takes courage. It takes courage more broadly to sacrifice something in your present because you know that God’s future is worth it. It takes courage, and ultimately that is what Revelation is challenging us about: if our hope is assured, we can be courageous.

The assured hope of a new creation means I can sacrifice something in my present. A number of years ago, there was this acronym that did the rounds for about three minutes: YOLO, which stands for You Only Live Once. Even though people no longer use the term, they still live by the logic. You only live once. Because when people lose their hope in a future life, it brings a corresponding panic in the present. When you live in the frame of YOLO, you have to make your own heaven now because there is no heaven to come. You’ve got to grip tight to everything in the present. You can’t ever let it go. This is your only chance. You’ve got to take a holiday every single place on the universe because there’s nothing better out there that’s coming.

When you look at the sacrificial acts of Christians throughout the ages, throughout all of church history, part of what drives them to be so sacrificial is the knowledge that they can give themselves away because God is the God of resurrection and new creation. As one of the Puritan writers once said, “You might have a hard breakfast, but you shall have a very good dinner.” That is how Paul thinks. In 1 Corinthians 15:30-32 he says:

"And why should we ourselves risk our lives hour by hour? For I swear, dear brothers and sisters, that I face death daily. This is as certain as my pride in what Christ Jesus our Lord has done in you. And what value was there in fighting wild beasts—those people of Ephesus—if there will be no resurrection from the dead? And if there is no resurrection, 'Let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die!'"1 Corinthians 15:30-32

Paul’s generous life only makes sense because he has a real and living hope in Jesus. If our future is sure, we can be courageous. When you become convinced that God’s future is so much better than even what we have in the present, then present difficulties for the gospel and for discipleship, you can see them for what they are. They are light and temporary and momentary, and there’s nothing that you can lose that cannot be made up for in the new creation. Christians are always a people of hope. It’s a fundamental Christian virtue to be people of hope because we know that justice will come and we know that the best is yet to come, and that hope changes everything.

Let’s pray.