Revelation 21:9-27 The Geography of Love

The Church Gathering and the Hope of a Prepared Place

You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches through his series, Thy Kingdom Come, taking us through the book of Revelation. Let's listen in.

Well, good morning, Recast Church. Glad that you're here. Hopefully you didn't get washed out on the way. I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome you to the gathering of God's people here at Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan.

My prayer for us this morning is that we would grow together in faith as we worship God by doing a lot of things together. We're gonna sing together, we're gonna take in his word. Hopefully you come with a heart to trust his word as truth this morning, and then our goal then is to, as we trust God's word as truth, to take it in and let it change us so that we'll go out from this place living out his truth in the world around us.

But before we jump into Revelation 21 and the text for this morning, and I read that, I wanna make a special announcement this week. Last week we had an excellent response from the membership of Recast Church at the vote.

70 of our membership voted, and the loan for the building passed with 98%. So I'm just very grateful for what God is doing there. And the loan is currently in process. The site plans are completed and submitted to the village of Matawan.

For their approval, the blueprint should be stamped by an engineer within the next couple of weeks, and we could be breaking ground in about two to five weeks is my guess, maybe up to eight, but we'll see how God works in that.

And so I would ask for you to please pray. Just, there's a lot of dominoes that line up that once one starts falling, the next falls and the next falls, and we really would love there to be no hangups in any of that process, and so just pray that God, obviously we want his timing in it, right?

We don't wanna just force it through, so just pray that things line up very clearly in his plan and in his will and all of that. But I'm just very grateful for the reality that we are moving towards a building.

And I'm always impressed with God's timing. I plan out my preaching schedule, I usually plan it out about six months in advance so I can kind of tell you where we're gonna go in about six months. So I don't really necessarily fine-tune to preach a sermon on the place that God has for us on the same week that I announced that we are going to be building a building, and God orchestrates things like that for us regularly.

And our text this morning is gonna serve as a reminder from the book of Revelation that God loves us enough to prepare a place for us. But I wanna clarify, that place is not a church building, okay, that's not the end game, that's not the end result of where we are driving for and where God is taking us.

That place, by the way, is also not a temple made with human hands. That place is not a tabernacle that we set up and tear down every week. And some of the people who set up and tear down might wanna say amen to that, right?

But the place that God is preparing us is designed by him, given to his children, will one day be given to us like a gift, and it is made for us. Our need for a building here as a church is just a matter of practical need for space to gather in order to be a church, which the word church means a gathering of people, so you need some room to gather.

That's the end of the whole reason we're building is you need a place to gather. But in the end, we do not build a building for God to live in. I wanna be clear about that. We are not building a building for him to live in, but God is actually the one who is building for us a new heaven and a new earth and a new city where we can live with him forever and ever.

And so I've entitled this sermon this morning, The Geography of Love, Because Place Matters. No, it's not gonna be a geography lesson, per se. And some of you, even you hear the word geography and your eyes kind of glaze over, and you're like, okay, this is a nap one, right?

I'm gonna just take a nap this morning. But it's not a geography lesson. I'm not gonna teach you capitals, maps, different features of land and things like that. But place matters. We are material. I don't know if you've noticed this, but you're a material being.

You take up space. We are creatures that have mass, and we live in a material universe that God has created for us. And in the end, that will not change. But in our text, God gives us a glimpse of his great love for his people by rolling back the curtain and letting John peer through even just a small window into the new earth and the new Jerusalem.

And what we will find in this text is meant for our deep encouragement. It is meant to be something that sustains us in the difficulties of this coming week, in the coming months, in the coming years.

It is something that is an anchor for our souls that God has indeed created a place for us without sin, without brokenness, without the things that we suffer in the here and now. How many of you look forward to the sufferings and the pains of this world being done?

Any of you kind of say, yeah, that'd be pretty good if there was no sin, there was no brokenness, all of that was gone. And God loves his people so much that he's preparing for us a glorious city. And we will read in our text this morning how John is struggling for the words to convey the beauty and majesty of the final city of God that will someday be united and brought down to earth when his kingdom comes.

Revelation 21:9-27 and the Vision of the New Jerusalem

So let's open our Bibles. If you're not there already, Revelation 21. We're gonna be looking at verses nine through 27. Again, we're just marching through the book of Revelation for those of you that are new here or just arriving.

We've kind of covered the majority of the book, but welcome and I'm glad you can join us even here for the end. Boy, you have missed some stuff, believe me. But now we get to kind of like the encouraging part.

We've talked a lot about judgment. But Revelation nine, or rather 21, verses nine through 27 is God's word for us. And if you don't have a Bible on your lap, I'd ask that you just please do me a favor and raise your hand so that Mark can get one to you.

It's not to call you out,.

But just so that we want everybody to have a copy of God's word. Obviously, you can navigate there in your devices or whatever. But follow along, Revelation 21, nine through 27. What God desires for us to hear together this morning.

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me saying, "'Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.'. And he carried me away in the spirit.

To a great high mountain.

And showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God and its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal.

It had a great high wall with 12 gates.

And at the gates, 12 angels. And on the gates, the names of the 12 tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed. On the east, three gates. On the north, three gates. On the south, three gates. On the west, three gates.

And the wall of the city had 12 foundations. And on them were the 12 names.

Of the 12 apostles of the Lamb.

And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies four square, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12 ,000 stadia.

Its length and its width and its height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel's measurement. The wall was built of jasper while the city was pure gold like clear glass.

The foundations of the walls of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth, emerald, the fifth, onyx, the sixth, carnelian, the seventh, chrysolite, the eighth, beryl, the ninth, topaz, the 10th, chrysoprase, the 11th, jacenth, the 12th, amethyst.

And the 12 gates were 12 pearls. Each of the gates made of a single pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold like transparent glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day, and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

Prayer for Worship and the Glory of God's Future City

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship this morning. Father, as we approach the end of the book of Revelation, we recognize just your amazing patience down through all the way from the book of Genesis up to Revelation to where your final judgment is indeed poured out, and sin is dealt with once and for all, and Satan is cast into the lake of fire, the Antichrist, the false prophet, and all whose name were not written in the book of life, and there is no more sin.

And then this glory, then this hope, then this place that you are preparing for those who love you, those who desire and seek to honor you, those who recognize what Christ has done for them and have humbled themselves.

And so, Father, I pray that we would rejoice and exult this morning, and that our singing would be fueled and flavored with our delighting and rejoicing in what you have for us. Father, I pray that you would help all of the frustrations and the difficulties and the pains of this past week to fall away in light of this coming glory that is indeed to be ours.

And so, Father, I pray that this would be an encouraging text, that this would be an uplifting text for our souls, that it would inform our worship, not just the singing that we do here in a moment, but also the way we live our lives, the way we talk to each other, the way we interact with those that we love around us, and those that we don't love around us, Father, that we would be interacting on the basis of this hope that we have, to share it with others, yes, but also to live in it, to delight in it, and to not place our hope in other things, but to place our hope firmly and squarely on the shoulders of Jesus Christ.

And so, Father, I pray that you would accept our worship before you this morning, in Jesus' name. Thanks a lot to Dave and the band for leading us. I'm really grateful for the skills that they have and that they use for God's glory here at Recast.

I encourage you to get comfortable. If maybe this is your first time here, you haven't heard this before, but feel free to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts. You're not gonna distract me during the message, and so you can take care of that if you need to.

And then I would encourage you to keep your Bibles open to Revelation chapter 21, verses nine through 27. Again, that's gonna be our outline, that's our text. And so being able to reference it quickly and seeing the things that I'm saying are coming out of that text is very, I think, important for us to actually recognize and believe and trust the things that I'm saying, that it's actually connected to the word.

And again, part of getting comfortable is recognizing that those chairs are probably not gonna be on the new earth. They are not the most comfortable chairs. They probably actually are a part of the fall, originally.

And so if you need to get up and stretch out in the back, I've sat in those for a while, and I know that they are not the most comfortable, and I hope that they don't become a distraction to you. I'd rather you get up, stretch out, do what you need to do in the back of the room, if that's what it takes to keep your focus on God's word here for the half an hour or so that we're gonna dig in and walk through this.

The Glory of the New Jerusalem

Last week, we saw the introduction to these last two chapters with the general description of John's vision of a new heaven and a new earth. That's where we were at last week, was kind of like introducing the final two chapters of the book of Revelation.

And the old order of things will one day pass away with the death of death. We've seen that in the text already. We saw a judgment for sin, both on the earth and then also now in condemnation, and there will be no more death, no more pain, no more sorrow, no more tears, and God will come and dwell with his people forever, according to the text last week.

He will be our God. We will be his people. That's a glorious introduction to this that we saw last week, but now in verse nine, our text digs deeper into describing the city that we were introduced to last week, where there's a new Jerusalem that is coming down, and John saw that and just kind of explained that in general terms, but now he's gonna dig in deep to tell us what kind of city is this that Jesus has gone to prepare for us?

He has gone to prepare a place for us. And so John is taken to a high mountain in order to take the epic, amazing, glorious scope of this cosmic shift as heaven comes down to earth and God moves to our place to dwell with us forever.

That's a pretty amazing thought, really, when you think about it. I mentioned last week that there's a whole scope to the entire movement of scripture where God kind of visited with them from time to time in the garden.

It says that, but he would go back home again. Throughout history, he's come down and dwelt in the temple for a period of time and in the tabernacle, sometimes his glory would shine out and he would come down into that place.

And then we saw Jesus, of course, a perfect manifestation of God in flesh, came down and dwelt among us, but he went back to heaven. But there's a day coming when he will forever dwell with his people.

He will take up permanent residence among us, and that's an amazing thought. That's a beautiful thing. The angel in our text here at the start is identified as one of the seven angels who poured out the bowl of God's wrath.

It's apparent that angels have a variety of different functions, and this one is gonna give John a tour, if you will, of the New Jerusalem. But John has received, another interesting thing about that angel is that John has received so many visions and he's recorded so many visions that he can identify some of the angels by sight, and he even recognizes this one just by sight and he's like, oh, that's that same one that I saw earlier doing this.

But at the end of the first verse, we might be confused and think that John is mixing his metaphors. Look at the end of verse nine with me for a second. It says, the angel speaks to him who had the seven bowls full of seven last plagues, and he spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.

And then he's gonna describe a city. And we might be confused and think he's mixing his metaphors. I've always thought that the bride of Christ was the church, and now he calls the city of God the bride of Christ, and so is he mixing metaphors?

Is he kind of using the same metaphor for two different things, or what's going on? And so you might be tempted to think, which is it, John? Is the bride of Christ the people, or is the bride of Christ the city, or is there really no city at all, and it's just all of one big metaphor for the church, and some people have interpreted it that way?

But I think John is using a figure of speech that we use a lot. Like we might say something like a common phrase that I hear today, Congress is a den of thieves. Okay, so some people might say, I'm not making a political statement, I'm just using this as an illustration.

Or then later, you might say the same thing, but you might say it differently, and you might say Washington is a den of thieves, right? And are you talking about the city itself, or are you talking about the politics and all that goes on there and the people and that kind of thing?

And so we mean the same thing by both statements, right? We can refer to the city as this thing, or we can refer to the people by their position as this thing, but we use it as a figure of speech. So John is identifying those who live in this city will be the wife, the bride of the Lamb.

Now, remember that when we talk about that, I think we've taken it too literally, the idea of bride and wife. The wife of the Lamb is a metaphor for the commitment that Jesus will have to us, the covenant that he will fulfill to us, and the celebration that we will experience.

That joy of wedding celebration is kind of part and parcel of what will go on for eternity. Nobody in this room is gonna literally marry Jesus, okay? So you guys just kind of settle down, and this is a powerful metaphor when understood in terms of just what it is that Jesus wants to communicate to us, and that's that he's committed to us.

He's gonna take care of us. He will pledge his covenant to his people to forever protect them, to forever provide for them, to forever be theirs, and him to be theirs as well,.

Or us to be his.

And so the angel takes John, it says in the text, to a great and high mountain. Now, when we get a grasp of the scope of this city and this just epic vision that John takes in, we recognize the need for a mountain view in order to just take in this entire massive vision.

That he sees.

And John sees the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. A slice of heaven is coming to earth, and it is coming from the Almighty. It is not built by human hands. It is not for us, by us.

It is for us, by him. And the simple ending of verse 10, as you can see there, just the two words there are powerful in its meaning and implication, and that is just the two words, from God. This is a city from God.

It's like the gift tag on a present, and it reads, to my people, from God. And now we get into the heart of the text, which is the description of this gift of love.

From our creator.

If you allow me to kind of just think of it in these terms, I'm gonna have the privilege of taking you on a tour in your mind and through the text. John was given a tour by the angel, and now I get to give you a tour that John has recorded for us, a tour of the New Jerusalem.

A vision and some metaphor and some imagery of what that eternal state will be like. And there are nine things that God communicates to us about our future home. But I wanna point out, just real quick, that we're gonna blaze through these, and by the end, we're gonna go right into communion, and I'm not gonna make a whole lot of application to this, but so I wanna explain to you, just real quick here at the outset, that as we think about God's love for us, we think about these glorious things that he has for us, how ought that to fuel the way that we live our lives?

I mentioned it a little bit in the introduction, just thinking in terms of trials that we face, difficulties that hit us and strike us, and Paul called those momentary and light afflictions in light of the great weight of glory that waits for us.

What kind of glory?

This kind of glory. This kind of glory that we're gonna be walking through and touring and having an opportunity to set our spiritual eyes on and rejoice in and glorify God for that he has an eternity for those who are his, and it's an amazing, glorious.

John is gonna work hard to try to use language to explain the things that he sees, and I really believe in faith that he's just scratching the surface of it. He's not giving us an exhaustive view of what that eternal state is gonna be like.

He's giving us glimpses. He's working at this. So the first thing that we're gonna see, if you're a note taker, this is number one. The city is glorious, okay? The text tells us that in a variety of different ways, and I think it would be beneficial for us at the outset of thinking about the new Jerusalem and our eternal home, that the one who designed this city that we're going to, or really that's coming to us, is the same one that designed sunsets, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Lakes, the Grand Canyon, star clusters, nebula, and all kinds of beauty that produces wonder within us.

Have any of you ever been just caught up in a moment of wonder in creation? Have you just had those moments? I mean, you live in Michigan, so I hope you have, right? Your eyes are closed if you're not seeing it from time to time.

This is a beautiful place, right? And if you get a chance to travel around, each place that I travel has a different kind of glory, a different kind of beauty. There's a beauty of the desert. There's a beauty of the snow.

There's a beauty of a tropical beach, right? There's all kinds of beauty on this planet that God has created for us, and he loves us enough to delight in that. And so when he says this is gonna, he's gonna create a place for us, it's that same God who's created the things that we wonder about now, the things that blow our minds now.

It's the one who's creating this. But this city possesses within its construction the very glory of God, according to verse 11. All of creation shows off God's handiwork. Some of God's attributes can even be seen by looking at the world around us.

But that is veiled and weak and broken by sin.

Where we live.

So when you've delighted in that sunset, it's still a broken sunset. It's still a sunset that you know that you've got problems that you gotta go back home to. You still have issues at work. You've got things that are troubling you.

You've got family relationships that need mended. You've got all kinds of things. And so you can, it's almost like you have to detach yourself for a moment to enjoy the sunset, really. I mean, if we're honest.

There's other pressing things that are on us, and even the sunset itself is pretty short and is, you know, only can carry you so far. And so we live in a world that is veiled and broken by sin. And so I think that will, all of that will make it just so much more stark and clear on the new earth, the glory and the majesty of God.

The city will blaze out with the glory of the Almighty. John loses his language, by the way, trying to state the glory of this city. He says it in four different ways. He says, it has the glory of God.

It's like a most rare jewel. It's like a jasper. It's as clear as crystal. Do you see him like just saying multiple things to kind of just try to explain to you.

The glory of this city?

And he can't quite, he can't quite get us there. The city sparkles like a diamond. The word jasper is often translated as diamond or is often understood that that might be what they meant by that stone.

But John's eyes behold a glory he cannot quite describe. The city is glorious because God loves us. Second, the city is safe. The city has a high wall and there's, when you think about it, a high wall, why do cities have walls?

Why would ancient cities have a wall? Well, there'd be an element of protection. And we may think that that's the only reason.

That they would ever have walls,.

But that would not be entirely true. There's a lot of other things that the ancient reader would have understood to be a city that you and I don't relate to very often. It's like in Jericho, it said that Rahab lived in the city wall and actually had a nice view outside of the city from a window in that wall.

In ancient times, walls were protected, but they also served as places of residence. It's clear that these walls are not to keep anyone in or out by what comes next, by the third point that we're gonna make here in a moment, but the walls do help to define what is actually the border of the city, what's inside the city, what's outside the city.

And since there will be life in and outside of the city, according to this text, and we're gonna see that again later, the walls will help define the border of this massive, massive city. And I think there will be literal walls.

I think this will be a literal city, but I think that they are included for our benefit now to remind us of the safety and security of that place. And the measurement of their thickness is given at about 216 feet thick in verse 17.

And all ancient readers would have expected a city to have walls. And so probably the ancient reader reading this would probably have something in their mind about the need for protection. And so what comes next would cause them to wonder and would actually create awe in them in the next description.

For this second one, the city is safe because God loves us. The third point is the city is open. It's safe, but it's open. Despite the city having walls, there are 12 gates, three on each side. And according to verse 21, each gate is made up of a single pearl.

Now here's the trick. You have a different view in your mind when I say gate than what they had in their mind when they say gate. You know, like in ancient times, have you ever read in the Old Testament where it says that the kings would hold court in the gate?

And they would actually judge the peoples in the gate and people would go down to the gate for instruction or for wisdom or for judging an issue that they had or a dispute or something like that. Well, the gate is an actual room.

The gate is an actual channel that runs into the city where outsiders and insiders could meet together. So it's still a safe zone within the boundaries of the walls, but this would be basically like a pearl that makes a tunnel would be the idea here.

And you would walk through this immense pearl to get into the city. And so a single pearl for a gate would be a pretty massive thing. Like imagine this room being one of the city gates and the entire outside is just one circular hollowed out pearl and you walk through the middle of it.

That'd be pretty impressive, right? Now you're going, what kind of oysters are there gonna be on the new earth?

I mean, you're gonna be drowning in oysters, right?

How many of you know, and this is just an interesting little tidbit that I think you already know, but probably putting it in words is helpful. God doesn't need an oyster to make a pearl.

Did you know that? You're going, what kind of, what's the size of this, man?

This is gonna be a big shell. This is gonna be amazing.

Are we gonna live in the shell? Like what's the deal?

He doesn't need an oyster to make a pearl. And the implication is that these are massive pearls hollowed out to make a corridor through which all who enter and exit the city will walk. And the gates will never close.

According to verse 20, 25, it is obvious by this point in the book of Revelation that there's no more enemies of God. Satan, Antichrist, false prophets, all who oppose God are now punished. And the inhabitants of the city are free to enter and exit without fear.

There are no locks, no safes, no fear of theft or invasion on the new earth. Every evening throughout ancient history, any city would shut its gates during the nighttime and even during the day under threat of invasion.

But this city is open. The gates will never shut because God loves us. The fourth thing, the city is for all the people of God. It is for all of us. Old Testament and New Testament. According to verse 12, each gate has on it a name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel.

And according to verse 14, the wall of the city has 12 foundations and each foundation bears the name of one of the apostles of the Lamb. I hope it's very clear to you that the Lamb is Jesus Christ and his 12 followers, his 12 disciples.

And the significance of this may simply be that there is a literal imprint of each name on the foundations, a literal imprint of each name on the gates, but the unity of both 12 key men from the Old Testament and 12 key men from the New Testament signifies the welcoming of people from both covenants into one people in this city.

It is not a city for only Jews from the Old Testament. It is not a city for only New Testament believers. This is a city for all who have placed their trust in Messiah and have their names written in the Lamb's book of life, according to verse 27.

So who's welcome here? Those whose name are written in the Lamb's book of life. And this is a list that reaches way back into the ancient history of humanity. Even Noah would be an example of someone who was declared righteous by God.

The city is for all the people of God because God loves us. Fifth, the city is massive. You've probably heard this before, right? The city is ginormous. In verses 15 through 17, the angel who is guiding John in his vision pulls out a human measuring tape.

It's a golden measuring tape just because, hey, we can't use gold because there's a lot of it. And he begins to measure this city. And in verse 17, John uses the word four square, which some scholars think it's, it's only time that it's used in the entire Bible is right here.

So it's a little bit hard to translate. Some people would actually,.

Actually believe it's the word for cube,.

But they just translate it four square because it's a literal translation of those two Greek words put together, four square, but it may very well be cube. But it's a little bit unclear, but by the end of the measuring, it's clear that the city is indeed a cube.

Okay, so the other terminology and the other words that are used in this immediate context show that it's a cube. And the only other cube we see in the entire Bible is the most holy place, the holy of holies within the temple of God.

The most holy place was measured out as a cube, and it's likely that this city is meant to reflect the shape and dwelling place of God among humanity, according to those who understood him through the Old Testament to dwell in the most holy of holies.

Each side of the city measures 12 ,000 stadia, and you're like, wow, that's really big. I don't know, what's a stadia, right? Like 18 inches? That actually amounts to approximately 1 ,500 miles. This is a massive, massive city.

This is not New York. This is not Calcutta. It's not Mexico City. It's not Tokyo. This is an unreasonably sized city. Like, this is a city that just is mind-boggling, and even the concept of a city that goes 1 ,500 miles up, what does that look like?

Some of you have been into Star Wars a little bit, and so there's the capital city, the capital planet of Coruscant has all of these skyscrapers. I just geek out. Thank you, I spoke for a couple of us in the room there, and the rest of you, just ignore it.

But there's these cities in Star Wars that are just miles and miles up, and that's enough. But I did some really useless maths, and I wanna just tell you that maths are not my strong suit. I speak more than I math, and even just calling it that betrays something, but I tried my best to math this, and I just did a brief Google search to just kind of identify approximately, okay, you just go, just take the secular numbers, just take what historians would go and say, what do they think the population that has ever lived on this planet is?

And they say, they believe that about 100 billion people, obviously, a really nice round number, we don't really know, about 100 billion people have been born on the planet. So then if we take a really generous number like half, which I don't believe it is according to some of the things that Jesus said, but if you were just to say half of the people that have ever lived are gonna be on the new Earth, that would be, again, generous, and then you, what I did is I went to acres because I thought acres might be a better measurement for us, which took a couple of conversions, and a little bit of work, and then I actually got to the point where recognizing that this is a cube, I went with, you can't quite call them cubic acres, but it's just basically a picture, an acre cubed, so an acre up, an acre down, and I recognize that acres are area, so you kind of, some of you that are doing the math are going, well, what?

But anyways, bottom line is that every single person would possess, if half of the people that they assume have ever lived were on the new Earth, everybody would have about 103 acres of city space. Now, that's apartment space, like kind of going up and out as well, so each side of this cube would be 103 acres, if that makes sense to you.

That's a, how many of you think you could do some pretty sweet stuff with 103 acres of city space? Like, you're gonna have a pretty nice crib. Are you getting what I'm saying here? I mean, this is, I mean, just so that your mind could grasp the dynamic size of this, the massive area that we're talking about.

I mean, some of you might actually be thinking kind of like the whole ark thing. Could all of those animals fit in there? Could all of us really dwell in this space? Yeah, and you have your own park, too, okay?