Conquerors and Cowards

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Don Filcek; Rev 21:1-8 Conquerors and Cowards

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You're listening to the podcast of the Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week,
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Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation.
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Let's listen in. Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and I want to start off just by saying
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I'm glad that you're here and a big welcome to you, especially if this is your first time here with us. We're grateful that you've taken the time out of your busy week to join together as God's people.
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I'm very glad that we're here and have gathered together as God's people to worship him and grow in our faith by taking in his word this morning.
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I believe that that's fundamental to what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ, is to take in his word and believe it and trust it.
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And the T in Recast, our name is an acronym for our core values. The R and the E is for replicating.
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The C is for community. The A is for authenticity. The S is for simplicity. And the T is for truth.
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And our conviction here at Recast is that we turn to God's word for the truth. How can we know?
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There are so many voices out there in the world that will tell us what God is like. And everybody would love to fashion a
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God that meets their expectations, that matches their love for whatever.
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And really, it would be really convenient to have a God who always agrees with us, right? Like, and kind of just endorses the things that we endorse and hates the things that we hate.
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But we have to turn to God's word to know what he really is like. And that's where we have a standard. We have an anchor for our lives, an anchor for our weak to turn to and say, hmm, who is
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God and what does he want from us? And that's why the word is so vital. And by truth, when we think about God's word as truth, capital
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T, we don't just mean that it's a set of facts that conforms to reality. But we ought to think more of God's word as truth like the source of hope, truth like the source of purpose.
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We turn to God's word to know the reality of God's relationship to humanity and how we ought to relate to him and then how we ought to relate to the world around us in light of the truth of who he is.
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And faith is the word that we use to describe the way we take God's word and apply it to our real lives.
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That we gather together on Sunday morning, we hear a message that we let it kind of marinate in our, let our minds marinate in the word and in the truth and then we trust it, we believe it, and we believe it enough to then go out throughout our week and live it, to actually do something about it.
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You see, I believe all of scripture is meant to transform us on the inside. It's meant to convert us, if you will, to change us from one mind to another, from one way of thinking to another, so that we live differently on the outside throughout the week because of a transformation that's happening on the inside of us.
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And I hope that the book of Revelation has been doing that for you. We're getting really close to the end of this book and I hope that over the course of this series, the end of the story has been impacting your everyday story.
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That the way that this is all going, the direction that history is flowing, the things that God's word tells us is true of the trajectory of history is changing the way that you live day in and day out.
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This morning, we're going to turn a corner in the text of Revelation. We're going to see one final mention of judgment here at the end of our text, but the bulk of our text is taken up this morning by setting before us a vision of the new heaven and the new earth.
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And that is where the rest of the text is going to take us. And equally, it's going to talk to us about a new city that will come down to heaven from earth, the new
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Jerusalem. And even in this, we find the practical hope that can sustain us in rough times.
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When this text is combined with our trust and belief that it is true, that this is indeed the destiny of those who belong to Christ, it can have a radical impact on the way that we live our lives.
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Everything in our life, from losing a job to facing down cancer, will be tempered by this eternal hope.
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And the way we interact with the world around us will equally be impacted by our belief and trust in this text.
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Because in the end, this highlights that there are really two types of people, and you're going to see it in the text as I read it.
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There are the conquerors and there are the cowards. And we are either, we are one of those two.
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We're either the conquerors or the cowardly. So let's open our Bibles to Revelation chapter 21.
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We're going to be looking at verses 1 through 8, and check out this text and see what God has for us this morning,
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Recast Church. So if you don't have a copy of God's Word, if you could just raise your hand, and we want everybody to have a
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Bible on their lap so that they can check that out. Raise your hand and we'll get one to you.
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Otherwise, follow along, Revelation chapter 21, verses 1 to 8.
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Recast, this is God's Word to us. I would love it if you were just kind of following along, seeing it, feeling it, experiencing it as I read it, and realizing that God wants to speak to you through this, through these words on this page this morning.
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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.
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And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
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He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their
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God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
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Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain. Anymore, for the former things have passed away.
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And he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.
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Also, he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. And he said to me,
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It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, to the thirsty I will give from the springs of water of life without payment.
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The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.
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Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity to look into your word this morning, and as we've had a chance to even just read it together, and contemplate it, and consider it, we end on a really tough verse.
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That last verse that just talks about a multitude of people that are going to experience the second death.
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And after a painting of this beautiful picture of this eternal and glorious kingdom that you're bringing to this new earth, that will be renovated in a place without sin, and without pain, and without suffering.
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And the contrast couldn't be stronger for us this morning. And now we have a call to worship, and we're gonna praise you by singing some songs.
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And Father, it's a pretty heavy thing to think about judgment, and it's a pretty glorious thing to think about the eternity that you have for your people.
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And it can sometimes get mixed up in our minds. So Father, I pray that you would help us to worship you as the only hope, as the one who has given purpose, the one who has given salvation, and has offered that to the world,
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Father. And I pray that we would not take this as a big downer when we hear about the destruction that is coming for those who are under judgment, but rather a motivation to be out and sharing the glorious truth that they too can have eternity with you, if they would humble themselves before you and accept the salvation that you provided through your
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Son. So Father, I pray that this be a rejoicing time, a celebrating time, a time of lifting our voices before you and recognizing how glorious and awesome you are as the divine judge, but also as our
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Savior and Lord, and the one who has provided a way for us to come out from underneath the crud and the mess that we've made of ourselves and of this world.
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We look forward to a renovation in a time when this will be fixed and taken care of. Forever.
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And so from that place, I pray that we would lift up our voices before you as your church here in Madawan, in Jesus' name.
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Amen. Um, would like to, and I would encourage you to keep your Bibles open to Revelation 21, 1 through 8.
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Um, I don't really put them in outline in the, in the bulletin or in the, in the worship folder or anything like that.
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What I do is I walk right through the text. So if you've got it open, you're going to see the outline right there because it is these verses that we're going to be talking about as we dig in and work through.
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But I think it'd be helpful for us at the start here to do a quick review of the book of Revelation. Obviously I was out last week and not everybody has been able to catch everything in the entire series.
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And so I think there's some benefit here for us to, um, to just dig in and think this through.
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And so, um, the first three chapters, remember, and I, I did that as a completely separate series. And then people encouraged me to go on with Revelation.
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And so, um, we're nearing the end of that book. But those first three chapters began with letters to specific churches.
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Identifying that the book of Revelation is actually, in its entirety, a letter to these churches in ancient
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Rome that were in the area of modern day Turkey. And in each of those letters, various challenges were posed to those churches.
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There were, there were commendations, you're doing this well. And then there were some, uh, things that they weren't doing so well.
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And they were rebuked for certain things. And there were challenges for them. And it was declared at the end of each one of those letters to those seven churches that he who overcomes will receive some kind of a reward.
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The word overcome there is also equally, could be translated conquer, to he who conquers.
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And we're gonna see that that matters in our text because we're gonna see the ultimate reward for the conquerors here in our text this morning.
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But it ultimately all falls down to God telling his church here at the beginning of Revelation, at the very beginning, um, saying, follow
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Christ and there's gonna be a reward for you. Then from chapter four on, John recorded for the church numerous visions that he was granted by the power of the
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Holy Spirit, not necessarily in chronological order. Some of them cyclical in nature, but he received these visions of things yet to come.
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And most of the cases, um, we saw the church in heaven observing the events of the judgment going on down here, an indication of rapture, an indication of the church being present in heaven during a lot of the book.
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We saw the cycles of physical judgment on the earth during the time of a great tribulation. We saw clear evidence that God will never leave the earth without a faithful remnant of witnesses who will endure great persecution, but will remain faithful and true to Christ.
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And more recently in the book, we saw Satan's final scheme to raise up an antichrist, one who would be like a world ruler who would oppose
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God and a false prophet to bring the nations together against Christ. But then we saw the return of Christ with his saints in victory over the antichrist and the false prophet.
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And John recorded for us a vision of a thousand year reign of Jesus Christ on the earth with peace, with Satan removed to the degree that he was not allowed to influence people or nations for a thousand years.
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But after Satan's release, he's released for one final moment and there's gonna be a final battle where he will gather the nations to come up against Jerusalem and come up against Jesus one final time.
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And at their defeat comes the final great white throne judgment that we saw a couple of weeks ago.
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The antichrist, the false prophet, Satan, and all were cast into the lake of fire whose name were not written in the lambs.
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That's Jesus's book of life. So that's where we're at. That catches you up to date where we're at in the book of Revelation.
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So we come into this final movement of the book that describes now for us the eternal state of those whose names are written in the book of life.
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We were given a cursory glance at that horrible judgment and devastating reality for those whose name was not written, are not written in the book of life.
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But now we come to where we will see what happens for those who are. And it's a bit different.
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John records another vision and he sees this, imagine with his spiritual eyes, he's given a vision of these things.
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His eyes are open to things that maybe many of us would long to actually look into. How many of you would like to know what the new earth and the new heavens will be like?
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You'd like a glimpse of that. Well, John was given that and he sees the new heaven and the new earth.
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There are two Greek words for the word new that are common in the New Testament.
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And so we kind of have to figure out which word are we looking at and it matters. One word would be like the sense of making something like new, like renovating something.
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How many of you know Chip and Jojo? Any of you ever watched Chip and Jojo on HGTV? You get a chance to see the show
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Fixer Upper. It's really common to see those kinds of shows where they're trying to flip houses or they're renovating old or repurposing old furniture.
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Is that a pretty common thing in our culture right now? It's a big thing in America is kind of repurposing, recycling.
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And that's the kind of word, the nuance of the word that we see here in our text. There's another word that means completely novel, brand new.
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Like you've taken raw material and you've created something new out of it. And this is a renovation, a fixing up of things.
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That's the word that's employed for the word new earth, new heaven, a renovated heaven, a renovated earth.
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Now my theology professor up at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary, I just saw him this past week at the pastor's retreat.
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That's why I was out. I was up at Mackinac Island, tough, tough gig. But I was up there with a bunch of pastors, very encouraging time for Linda and I.
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We really enjoyed it and really appreciated Bill Smith filling in for me so that I was able to go to that. So very grateful for that.
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But I actually, one of the main speakers at the retreat was my theology professor.
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And he's a big proponent of restoration theology, the idea that this current earth is going to be remade without sin.
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It's not, that redemption ultimately comes down to the concept that it's the thing being bought back.
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And if God takes this whole thing and crushes it up and crumples it up and throws it in the wastebasket and then creates a new one, he hasn't redeemed the old one.
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That's kind of the notion behind that. And that's where we kind of have to, words matter, right? And I mean, I think kind of some of us are like, well, why does it matter whether he recreates it or whether it all is destroyed or whether it's just a fixed up earth or something like that.
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But those kinds of things matter. And the word redeemed has the implication that it's gonna be you and I in heaven. It's not gonna be a completely alternate, like he's gonna create a robotic you, who's not really you that's in heaven, but you will be redeemed, the earth will be redeemed, all of those kinds of things.
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And so this kind of thing does matter. And you know, theologians like to talk about it. I lean in the direction that it is indeed restored.
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And every text that speaks of, you can probably think already, you've got a couple of texts in your mind. Maybe some of you have some texts in your mind that you're like, man, that's gonna be a tough theology.
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You're gonna go into first Peter, where it says the elements are gonna be destroyed or melted with a fervent heat or different texts like that.
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And I would love to sit down. This isn't the time for us to have that discussion. But if you have those texts in your mind, you're like, Don, how do you get past this?
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How do you get over this? Well, we can talk about that. I believe every text that speaks of the destruction of this earth can equally be interpreted and understood.
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Just like later in verse one, it's gonna say the old heaven and the old earth have passed away, but it can be explained in terms of a complete overhaul.
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It doesn't necessarily mean that everything ceases to exist and is rebuilt. I could be completely wrong on that.
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And if I am indeed wrong on that, I apologize and I'll apologize to you on the new earth about it. But whether this earth is completely recreated and starts over from scratch or it's restored as I believe it will be, we are gonna be happy with the results.
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Amen? The text is abundantly clear that we're gonna be glad for this transformation that happens where we're gonna live in an amazing place and the text is gonna go on to explain it this week and then next week we're gonna even dig in more in it.
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But one of the things that I think of that kind of makes me less happy is the end of verse one, right? Let's see.
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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.
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Anybody ever been hung up on that verse? No one? Just me? Maybe a couple of us?
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How many of you like the ocean just in general? You like marine life? How many of you like to watch the documentaries about stuff going on under the sea and you got that guy with that British accent that you could just listen to all day long?
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Do you know what I'm talking about? I love those kind of shows. Maybe I just geek out on that kind of stuff.
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I'm a little bit science -y in my mind but I like that stuff and I'm like, man, no more dolphins? Are you serious?
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Like blue whales no more? No more coral reefs? No more of that kind of stuff and it's a little bit, like I was raised thinking that.
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I was raised in a church where I remember that being preached. I remember there's just not going to be an ocean there because it's just not going to be because the text says there's not going to be an ocean and it always bummed me out because I like the idea of beaches without sin.
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I like the idea of petting the sharks while checking out the coral reefs, like just kind of pet the great white as it swims by and maybe grab on and go for a ride.
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I don't know. But the word sea has occurred a lot of times already and so it's beneficial for us to look at how did
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John use the word sea? What was his understanding of that word? Half of the time it's used so far in the book of Revelation, it's been used as a metaphor, an image for something, not the actual water itself but something else and then the other half, it's been used for the literal sea so not a whole lot of help there in the sense of like what is he talking about?
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Is he talking about literal water or is he talking about these figures of speeches that he's been using metaphorically?
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But to really understand the sentence, the sea was no more, I think it's beneficial for us to get in the mind or work and that's part of my job each week is to try to get in the mind of the ancient
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Greek speaker, the ancient Roman during this time in the first century and how would they have read this?
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How would they have heard this? What would the phrase the sea was no more, why would that make them elated?
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Why would that make them rejoice? Because this is a text of rejoicing. Do you see that? I hope you can see that this was meant to encourage so where I'm kind of bummed and I'm going, well would they have been bummed when they read this?
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And I want to point out that to the ancient Greek, to the ancient Roman, there was not a love for the sea.
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There was an intense fear of the sea. Now certainly they utilize the sea to travel. There were trade routes and all that kind of stuff so they recognize some commercial benefit from the ocean and the
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Romans gained from it but by and large, they didn't even go across. They would stay very close to the shore.
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They didn't like to go out into where you couldn't see land from any direction and often they would skip from island to island to island and that kind of thing, just try to stay as close to shore as they could.
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They had an intense fear of the chaos of the sea. The sea was a fierce and terrifying symbol of chaos.
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The Romans sought to tame everything that they touched. They wanted to control things. I don't know if anybody in the room can relate to that.
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Some of us in the room kind of like to tame everything that we touch. We like to have it controlled and easy and figure it out and all that kind of stuff and the sea was fierce.
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It was a territory of terrible creatures with sharp teeth that would drag sailors down to their doom if they went overboard and I mean, can you imagine the depth of knowledge?
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Whoa, there he is. Can you imagine if you were in ancient times and you saw that, okay? You don't know what's under there.
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There's no, there isn't that British guy who's giving you the documentary of the stuff that lives under there and so you see these things come up from once in a while and they take a guy, they take a lady and it's like, what is going on under there, right?
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Can you imagine in the ancient mind how terrifying the ocean would be? Vast stretches of water, huge amounts and you don't know how deep it goes.
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No method to know actually how far down this Mediterranean Sea is. That's just the
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Mediterranean Sea, right? So, and they would see all kinds of things in there. So, a terrifying thing and I firmly agree with the majority of the scholars that I read this week who believe that this use of sea here, the sea will be no more as likely a figure for the chaos that they would have thought in their minds that the sea represented.
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Maybe even more accurately and more to the point of the Book of Revelation, it's quite likely that the sea represents the mass of humanity in opposition to God.
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It's already been used that way twice in the Book of Revelation, that the sea, that the beast rises up from the sea, that is the mass of humanity or that the harlot, the prostitute who is
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Babylon the Great actually sits on many waters and then it's actually declared that the many waters are the nations, the peoples in opposition to the creator.
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What does the prostitute hold sway over? The many nations earlier in the book.
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From where does the false prophet rise? From where does the beast rise? From the mass of humanity.
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And so, it's likely that that is what is no more and that's an indication that would have brought joy and rejoicing to the heart of the ancient
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Greek to just kind of say, okay, there's no more opposition to God, there's no more of this chaos that is there.
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But John's sight is turned away from the generalized view, new heaven, new earth, no sea and he sees something very specific that grabs his attention and ought to ours as well.
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He sees a city coming down from heaven, a city moving in the atmosphere down to bring itself down onto the new earth.
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And one thing we know for certain from the text regarding the relationship of heaven and earth is that the kingdom of God will be an eventual blending of both.
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God's kingdom is coming down here to a new refurbished earth.
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The trajectory of this direction coming down to earth is so opposite to what many of us have been taught regarding heaven and our eternal destiny.
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So many of us have been taught that we're going up there. He's bringing us down here. We've been led to believe that God is going to take us to heaven and we will forever be there floating on clouds, playing harps and kind of this ghost type thing or ethereal or just spirit and that is, it couldn't be further from the image and the picture that we have of this new earth and the city that's coming.
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Jesus said he was going to prepare a place for us so we're like, okay, he's there. He's preparing a place for us. What's he preparing?
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He's preparing the new Jerusalem to bring it here. He's preparing a place for us and then he's gonna bring it to us.
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Now certainly in the rapture and we understand that from different texts of scripture from Thessalonians, from just parts and portions of revelation that he is indeed going to take the church to heaven so it's not wrong to have that trajectory in your mind but remember just a few chapters ago, he brought us back with him in victory to reign with him for a thousand years.
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The saints were with him. The trajectory is indeed to be in heaven, I believe protected for a period of time from the great tribulation and the great judgments that are gonna come on the earth but in the end, we come back with him and he brings the city to us.
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He brings this glorious reality of heaven come to earth with him. To us.
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Fundamentally, we need to shift our thinking to match the testimony of scripture. We are earthlings.
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We were specifically designed to worship God on earth and our destiny, our future is to worship
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God on earth. We are made physical beings with flesh and bone and the whole point of the resurrection thing isn't just merely victory over death but it even identifies that there's going to be a physical resurrection for those who belong to Christ.
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Living in these bodies for eternity. Now we're gonna see it's pretty cool because they're without pain, they're kind of like super bodies, they're enhanced, there's some really cool features to them that are gonna be a lot better than this experience that you experience now but nonetheless, flesh and blood and real, real physical beings.
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God designed us to worship him as physical beings. We will forever worship him.
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With all the cultural activities that come with being physical. He's given us so many ways to worship him and I've often pointed out that the way that humans worship him is unique to everything else that's created because he's given us creativity ourselves.
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He, the creator, has instilled with us, within us, creativity that is a means and a method to continue to worship him.
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We will not worship him in rote, abject, bowing for eternity or anything like that.
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It's gonna be with creativity and with relationship. He's created us relationally. We see a group of angels, by the way, earlier in the book of Revelation who are just constantly repeating the same phrase, are constantly bowing and that sounds to me like angels.
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That sounds to me like the kind of things that he has angels doing but that doesn't sound like the kind of things that he's created us for.
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Look at all the diversity of relationships and behaviors and actions that he's created us capable of.
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I think that's gonna continue on with culture, with art, with all kinds of cool things, even with sports.
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I think we'll play sports. I don't know how where competition fits into all of that. I think we're just really glad when we lose and we're really glad when we win and we keep working at it.
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I don't know. Are there some of those conundrums in your mind too? Are there some of those things where you kind of go,
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I don't know how that's gonna work out. I believe that God's gonna be in charge of all of it and it's gonna be all to his glory. Maybe there will be competition and we'll dog each other to the praise of God.
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I don't know if we'll trash talk for the glory of God. I don't know if you can do that. That's not in my notes, so you can strike that from the podcast.
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You're not recording anyways? Okay. Thank you. But the cool thing is the city is glorious.
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The city is glorious. We're gonna see a more detailed description of it next week and it's an amazing, beautiful, lavish gift that God is bringing down to earth where heaven touches earth.
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And the beauty, this city is meticulously adorned. The text tells us directly, like a bride on her wedding day.
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It doesn't mean that it's a woman that he sees coming down out of the sky. He's giving us an analogy, an illustration.
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And tell me, how much attention does a woman give to her appearance on her wedding day?
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Is there a little bit of attention? Is this one hair in the right place?
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Is this one blemish covered up carefully? And every attention to detail. And she's got women who are around her just making sure that everything is just so.
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And somebody is literally there to move the train of her, I almost said cape, her gown.
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Maybe she wears a cape, I don't know. I mean, I don't know these words. But I mean, there's so much attention to every detail brought into that.
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And I think that's the indication of what Christ has gone to prepare for you and I. Every detail, just spotless, every detail carefully and meticulously taken care of for the delight and joy of his children.
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Oh, church, you are loved. He is there preparing a place for you right now.
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I don't know about you, I'd be satisfied with a shack on that new earth, right? Maybe that's what
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I got waiting for me, I don't know. I mean, you kind of look at it, some of the comments on this sermon earlier, I don't know, we'll see.
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But I mean, just anything there would be glorious, but he's not fixing you a shack. You might think, oh, he's fixing you what you need and what he wants to give you out of his love.
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That's a beautiful thing. It's a glorious, amazing thing to put that kind of detail into preparing a city for his people.
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And then in verse three, we see a shout from heaven. Begins with this phrase, check this out, behold is kind of the
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Greek way of saying check this out. I want you to pay special attention to this. We see it twice here in our text.
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Behold, check it out. And the next words give me chills because this is what he wants you to check out.
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This is what he wants to just rivet your attention on this for just a moment, church.
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He says, pay attention to this. The dwelling place of God will be with us.
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He will come down and he will live with us. What?
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I think sometimes we get this idea in our mind, like maybe we missed that point. We missed the understanding because some of us skip over the whole
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Old Testament. Like we just kind of like, that's old stories. Or you just only know the stories that you know and you don't see the flow of it.
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You don't really read it for the flow or understanding that there's this trajectory of God coming closer, drawing nearer, drawing nearer until the revelation, the beautiful revelation of his son in the
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New Testament. But even then we killed him. Even then we pushed him out. And I think we have this idea, we would love for him to live here with us.
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But throughout the Old Testament, remember with Adam and Eve, it's even declared that he would come down and visit once in a while.
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He would come and walk with them in the cool of the day. But he'd return. He'd go back to heaven.
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He didn't set up shop down here with them. Even in that perfect paradise, he didn't live here.
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His throne was in heaven. You've got to understand the starting point and then the flow of the history to the point where you understand it, it just, your jaw just drops at the thought that he would live here with us.
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And he's going to. The text is abundantly clear with that. Well, remember that throughout the
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Old Testament, in that flow, he would temporarily dwell in the tabernacle or the temple with his people throughout the
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Old Testament. And then it said of Jesus in John 1, 14, that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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The word dwelt there is the same word that we see in our text. It's a tabernacled among us, set up his shop there.
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But remember, we turned on him. We have a way of rejecting him. Down through the ages, humanity has thought it was a good idea to invite
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God over to stay. But then we realized that he doesn't dance to our tune. He wants to call the shots and have ownership.
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And he has a way of demanding righteousness and holiness that ruffles our rebellious hearts.
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But a day is coming, a glorious and beautiful, amazing, and most awesome of days is coming when he will come be with his people.
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And we will be his peoples. The text says that in Greek.
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Now, people don't want to translate, and translators and English speakers don't like the translation.
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Because people is already a collective plural noun. So the translators never quite want to use the word peoples in a translation because it just sounds a little backwater.
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And yet at the same time, it's the right word here because it is the idea that we will maintain some level of distinction.
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We will still be peoples on the earth. And I believe that God in his grace and in his mercy will be worshiped.
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And all the cultures and all of the languages and all of the peoples will blend in a way that they will still have some distinction and they will employ their specific strengths to the worship and glory of God.
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It's not going to be just a nice analytical Western mind that is there.
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It's going to be peoples from all over the world who will be there worshiping on this new earth.
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It'll be a glorious thing. And those who have boldly conquered their fear, the conquerors, those who have boldly conquered their fear and run to him for mercy will find that mercy to be more than sufficient.
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It says in the text, he will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Death will no longer exist. There will be no mourning, no crying, no pain for this current system of sin and death will be done away with forever.
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Amen? Done away with forever. All will be made new.
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It will be a completely radical overhaul, a completely different way of existence for humanity.
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Everything will be renovated. And I'm stoked about the no pain, no mourning, no death and no crying thing.
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I love that notion. You see, I don't know about, I think probably some of you in the room have had this similar experience, but death visited me at a young age.
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I think some of you know this about my story, but it's really stalked me all of the years of my life in the absence of both of my fathers.
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I mean, both of my parents. My father died when I was eight. And it's an enemy that I have grown to hate and despise.
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I hate death. I despise it. And yes, I don't use the word hate often, but I hate death.
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It is a terrible thing. It is nobody's friend. And we will speak about it as a friend at times in our culture.
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And it drives me batty. It is the final enemy. The word of God testifies that death is your enemy.
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It is not a friend. There is no such thing as euthanasia, the
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Greek word meaning good death. There is no such thing. It is always a fracturing and a breaking of what
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God did not want to do. He did not want a separated body and soul. We are meant to be together with ourselves.
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Death is not the way that he designed it. And it is a fracturing of the way that God created us to be.
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And in the end, it will be restored and it will be done away with and there will be no more death.
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Glory to God. No more death. It will be vanquished forever. And in verse five,
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God declares from his throne the trustworthiness of these words. I believe that God records the command to record so that we have an added level of confidence.
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Go ahead and look at it with me for just a second. Verse five, and he who was seated on the throne said, Behold, I am making all things new.
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Also, he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.
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He records that, John, I want you to write this. I want to make sure that you know. And then he wants us to know that he commanded that these things be written down and that they are indeed trustworthy.
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God wants us to be motivated to endurance by these things. And so he double emphasizes, this is my word.
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You have my promise on this, folks. This is rock solid stuff from the
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Almighty. Our faith is one of future hope. And that puts us in a bit of a precarious situation when there's so many other minor hopes, so many other small promises, so many other smaller purposes that grab at our attention that promise us shorter -term results.
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How many of you know that the hope for heaven is a bit of a long -term goal? Do you feel that from time to time?
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And there are so many other things that would pull your attention away to the lesser things of life, to the lesser goals, to even sins that would promise us more power, more fame, more pleasure in the here and now.
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And we are told to let those things go for a hope that is greater. Man, it's long -term.
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It can be tough. And so he says, this is sure. This is trustworthy. This is true.
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Hold on and cling to this reality that there is indeed a hope and joy for all of us, that we might endure even trials and tribulations in this life knowing that there is this hope of an eternity with our
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Father forever. And with this coming down of God's kingdom, we will find the final answer to the
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Lord's prayer, something that we should be praying on a regular basis. Jesus taught his followers. They came to him and they said, how should we pray?
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And this is right in the middle of the prayer that he taught them to pray, thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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And that will happen on this day. That will happen on this glorious day where heaven comes down and touches earth.
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And heaven and earth will come together at the point of the new Jerusalem. And God will utter these final words.
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We've heard them before. It is finished.
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It is done. We've heard that phrase before because the first time it was the cry of Jesus on the cross.
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The second time it will be the cry from the throne room. The first time the cry bought our salvation.
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The second time it brought his kingdom. And our
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God is the first and the last. He will, he had the first word in the beginning and he will have the final word in the end.
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He is alpha and omega. And to those who are thirsty, he says, he will give living water for free from his life -giving springs.
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Wow, a very simple and profound question to each one of us this morning. Are you thirsty?
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Are you thirsty? Jesus told us about this spring from a different angle.
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He said in one of his beatitudes in Matthew 5, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.
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Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Do you thirst for the living waters?
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Are you thirsty? Even in your imperfections, do you wish you were doing better?
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Do you thirst for the life of Christ in you? Do you hunger to honor God even though you fail?
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Jesus told us to take heart. And I'm convinced that when our hearts truly hunger and thirst for righteousness, that that is a sign of life within us.
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But I wanna beware to contrast that with a thirst for self -righteousness. Because I think we can deceive ourselves and I think, yeah,
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I wanna be better. I certainly wanna be better than him, him, her, her, her, right? Isn't that often what our thirst looks like?
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Isn't that often what our hunger is, is to be better than the person next to us? That's not the kind of hunger and thirst that God is talking about here.
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How do you tell the difference? How do you tell what's motivating your heart? How do you tell what really is going on there? And I'd be one of the first to be honest with you and say, sometimes my own motives are tricky.
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Sometimes I trick myself into, I can't really even tell you what my motives are in some of the things that I do. You know, you have to stop and think about it and work backwards with it.
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But just ask yourself this question. Do you wanna be righteous so that others are impressed with you? That's a clear sign of self -righteous thirst.
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That's thirsting after your own benefit, your own fame, your own glory.
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Or do you want righteousness because you love God and would just be grateful to see him smile, just be grateful to see his delight over you?
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What's motivating you? You see, everything in this life is deeply rooted in relationships.
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God doesn't say in verse six that to the diligent, I will give living water. Is that what it says?
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To the diligent, to the hardworking, I will give living water. He doesn't say he will give living water to the top 25 % of the most generous people.
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He doesn't even offer living water to those who attend church a lot. That's not what it's about. According to this text, it's free.
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What? The living water is free. And the only thing that you need to bring to the equation is thirst.
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You won't take a drink if you're not thirsty. Do you thirst? Thirst is a reflex that occurs in our body when we know, when our body knows it's lacking something.
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It's missing something that it needs. Who gets the living water? Those who know that they are lacking.
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Those who know that they're lacking and they need something. Are you thirsty this morning? Do you know that you're lacking something?
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Do you know that you need something? You're sitting here and you're going, well, I've already accepted Christ as my Savior. Do you need something? Are you still thirsty for more?
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Have you been there, done that, and you're kinda like, I've already done that and I've checked the box and I moved on?
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Oh, caution. There'll be some red flags going off in your head if you're already moved past the gospel.
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Don't move past the gospel. The gospel is our only hope, that we are saved out of our neediness for God and that never ends.
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Still need Him. I wake up every day needy. I wake up every day at least wanting to be thirsty, at least striving and recognizing that my thirst is important, it's valuable, it's beneficial.
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We need to be thirsty. Our text concludes with a moral to the story.
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Not many texts wrap up this easily and this clearly, but verses seven and eight are kinda like, He's told us all the glories and all the beauty of this new place.
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Do you thirst for the place that is mentioned here? Do you thirst for that at least? Do you wanna be on the new earth?
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Do you look forward to God dwelling among humanity? Are you excited about a place with no death and no pain?
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Do you wanna be in His presence? Are you among those who have conquered fear of God and run to Him for the mercy that you need?
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Have you continued in the fight against sin in your life through His grace? You see, verses one through six are a heritage the text tells us for the ones who conquer.
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And adoption as sons of the Most High belongs to anyone who overcomes this life by faith.
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And I say it's by faith, even though the text doesn't mention it. Simply because here the word conquer is just hanging there.
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Conquer what? Conquer how? And we might wonder by what means we are conquerors.
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But the testimony of Scripture is crazy clear that we overcome, that we are conquerors by faith in the
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Son of God. At this point, we can embark on a trip through my 15 top favorite verses that explain that faith is the means by which the saints conquer.
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Here are some of the things that we're said to conquer by faith. We conquer sin, we conquer the evil one, we conquer the world, we conquer the flesh.
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But I'm not sure that you guys are up for 15 verses scripted through here and there.
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So I'm gonna turn in my trust chips and just ask you to trust me on this, that faith is the means by which the believer conquers.
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It's not by pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. The testimony of Scripture is clear time and time again that we conquer through the blood of Jesus Christ.
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We conquer through His salvation for us. What is the armor of faith?
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Or what is the armor of God? But the helmet of salvation. What did you do to earn that?
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The shield of faith, the belt of truth, all pertaining to the knowledge of what
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Christ has done for you, all pertaining to the things that have been given to you by God.
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How do we conquer? Not by doing a bunch of great things. We conquer by trusting what
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He's done for us already. It's by faith. If I don't have many trust chips with you as an individual, you can come to me and talk with me about this and I can show you where Scripture says it.
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I rarely tell you take my word for it. And if you're one of those people who is like, Don, I don't know, we can go through it later.
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But the faith is simply this, a reversal of the temptation of Satan. Think about what faith, how faith fits into the entire story of Scripture.
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Why is faith such a big deal? You see, Satan attacked humanity's trust in God when he declared this in Genesis chapter three.
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He said to Eve, God knows that when you eat of it, eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good from evil.
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A seed of distrust sown there. God knows something that you don't and he's kind of keeping you from something,
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Eve. Adam, he's holding you back. There's something that you could have, there's something you could possess, there's something that you could take for yourself, but he knows that if you obtain it, then you'll be like him.
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And so he's holding you down. He's suppressing you. He knows that that would be joyful.
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He knows that that would be fun. He knows that that would be entertaining. He knows that that would be satisfying to you.
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Do you hear the distrust in the deceiver's voice? Do you hear him breeding a faithlessness amongst humanity?
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You see, mankind since that day has always operated based on distrust of our creator.
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We've always thought he has sketchy motives. We've always thought in our hearts that maybe God truly isn't.
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Good. Or even we've just thought it maybe more simplistically. If he catches me, he's gonna roast me.
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I think everyone in this room has felt that at some point. Man, hope he didn't see that. Right?
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Am I alone in that? Anybody else? It's just me.
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Knowing good and evil means that we recognize that we deserve the wrath of God. And that leads to a life of fear, right?
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If you live in that, man, that's a terrifying place to be. But faith in God's word reverses that.
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The clear testimony of scripture is that God is good. If you're gonna believe the word, then you're gonna believe that he is good.
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And anyone who runs to him for mercy will receive it. But in our sin, we live cowardly lives.
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A cowardly life is a life lived in the shadows, trying to hide from God, trying to cover up our sin like the fig leaves of Adam and Eve, forging our own way, trying to avoid
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God and keep him out, maybe even to the extent of denying his existence as many in our culture do.
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And the going alone, going it alone is defined ironically in this text as cowardly. And it manifests itself in all kinds of representative behaviors that stem from that cowardliness.
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It manifests itself as faithlessness, which again is the opposite of faith and trust. It is a lack of trust that leads to all kinds of chaos in life.
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There's a category here in the text that is detestable, according to the English Standard Version.
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It could equally be translated deplorable. But the word implies a group of people who corrupt others.
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They are a corrupting influence. There's a category like that. But the word implies a group of people who take others down with them.
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And along with this is another list, murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars.
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And a glance over this list is scary, right? It's a scary list. Anybody?
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Anybody find that a bit scary? I find it a scary list. So we might be guilty of a few of the things that are on that list.
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And it might cause a little bit of question in our minds. But if you thirst for what is good, you are engaged in the battle to overcome and conquer sin in your life.
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Then you can stand in the face of this text with confidence. But equally, if you have no fight in you against sin in your life, and you do not care about God's standard of righteousness, you don't hunger and thirst for his righteousness at all, this text should indeed make you tremble.
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You see, the difference between eternal life on the one hand and eternal punishment is about the trajectory of your life.
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Either you are running to God in trust that he will provide you the righteousness and salvation that you lack.
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You're coming to him thirsty, and you're willing to run in your thirst to the one who has waters to give. Or you're running like a coward in the opposite direction, trying to do it yourself, going,
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God, I don't need your help. I've got this. And I don't even want you really around because I'm scared.
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So you're trying to make yourself better, trying to get as far from God as possible, maybe even denying his rightful claim on your life.
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And there are a couple of applications here in the text, and they both come from the answer to this question that you have to answer.
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Are you a conqueror or are you a coward? Are you a conqueror or are you a coward?
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If you have a hunger and a thirst for righteousness, and you are running to God for mercy, then scriptures call to you this morning to declare openly to others around you and to the world around you that God is good.
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He is safe to run to. That's kind of what evangelism is about. Encouraging our friends, pleading with them to run to the one who has life -giving water.
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Encouraging them that you know where the fountain is to slake their thirst.
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They're dying in the desert. They don't have anything to drink, and you know the one.
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And it's just this direction right here, and he will give you life -giving water. And he's safe to run to.
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They're afraid. They're afraid that he's going to take them out in the moment because they know their sin.
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Now imagine a scenario in which you broke a vase that was valuable to your parents. Probably nobody in this room has ever broken anything that belongs to your parents, but maybe in the event that you watched the
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Brady Bunch when you were a kid and you saw that episode, never play ball in the house, and then some of you know what
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I'm talking about, four of you. But the natural response to breaking the vase is what as a child?
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Run, hide, try to fix it, superglue, whatever. She'll never know, right? Depends on how bad the break is.
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Sometimes we shatter things, right? But a massive cover -up is probably our first level of reaction.
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But how would it be different if your big brother came to you in that scenario and said, dude, chill, the same thing happened to me last year.
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I went to dad and I confessed to him, I told him the truth, and he was actually pretty cool with me. As a matter of fact, because I came clean and was honest and upfront with him, he let me off the hook and he actually paid the price to buy the new vase and fixed it and took care of it.
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And he forgave me because I was honest. Is that a different scenario? Do you see how the one is taking and saying, dad is good.
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He might be upset that you broke the vase, but he's good in his heart and he loves you.
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And it's gonna be okay if you run to him with this rather than hiding it. Hiding it's gonna be rough.
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Hiding it's gonna create anger. Hiding it is gonna be worse for you. Run to him.
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He's a good father. We know him to be merciful and kind and compassionate. If you're here in this room,
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I have a hunch that you have some notion that he is merciful and kind and has indeed been kind to you.
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So go tell others. Go let them know that our father is gracious and kind to anybody who comes to him for mercy.
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Maybe you're here this morning and you have a fear of God because you recognize that you do not have a thirst for righteousness.
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As a matter of fact, the only thing that would define your thirst is a thirst for self, a thirst for your own fame, your own power, your own money.
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Man, the best thing that could happen to you is you'd win the lottery and the only thing that drives you is your own pleasure or your own benefit.
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And really maybe you've not even begun to battle against sin in your life. The starting place is not, hear me carefully, the starting place is not cleaning up your life so that you can go into the presence of God.
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Satan's, one of Satan's greatest lies is that, man, you're gonna have to get perfect before you can go to God for mercy.
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And then you're gonna spend a whole life outside of the mercy of God, outside of running to him because you're trying to fix it yourself.
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It's what Satan would love for you to do. But that is not the starting place. The starting point is running to God, confessing your need for a savior and asking
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Jesus Christ to save you from your own sins. Our hope is in the kindness and mercy of God that was shown to us at the cross of Jesus Christ.
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And every week we come to communion, every single Sunday, to remember that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of our faith.
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If you are one of the conquerors who has run to God for mercy, then I'd encourage you during this next song to come to the table and remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for you.
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Remember his body that was broken for you by taking a cracker. Remember his blood that was shed for you by taking a cup of juice.
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Remember how much he loves you. But if you're here and you would admit to being one of the cowards,
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I'd encourage you that you shed that fear and take a bold and radical step of running to God today with your sins, confessing and asking him for forgiveness.
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Maybe the bold step is to come and talk with me after the service. I'm going to be standing out by the door. But come and talk to me if you'd like to know how to run to God for mercy today.
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For all of us this week, my prayer is this, in humility, stay thirsty.
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Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would keep us in a place of recognizing we have not arrived.
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We have needs. Each person in this room has a need for a savior, each and every day. We need to bring our confession to you and we recognize that we fall short.
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And so I pray that we would never be far from the gospel. We would never be far from the cross and that we come to this table this morning to remember and reflect on the place of our salvation, to remind ourselves that our salvation does not take place in our behavior.
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It doesn't take place in our actions, in the trying to clean up our own lives, but the salvation comes through the cross of Jesus Christ.
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That is the place of hope. And then I pray, Father, that from that place you would launch us out into a life lived for you, where we would testify of your goodness and your kindness to us, that would give reason for the hope within us and that that hope would be because we've come to our
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Father and he has been lenient and generous with us in his grace and his mercy through his son,
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Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray that you would empower anybody in this room who recognizes that they're on the cowardly side of the equation, running from God, fearful of him, afraid that you're gonna roast them, that you would move them to a place of boldness to take the next steps to run to you with their sin and confess it and find freedom there.