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Revelation Series, Week 10
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What do you long for? It's a simple question, but sometimes a hard one to answer. I'm not asking about your to-do list or what you want for dinner. Go deeper. Maybe it's a relationship that's been broken for years, and you're hoping it will be mended. Maybe it's your body, your health—it keeps failing you, and you just want to get better. Maybe you look at the world and feel like it's falling apart, and every time you think it might improve, it gets worse instead. Perhaps you're pursuing a version of yourself you can't quite reach.
Here's what I believe: every human on planet Earth carries this ache. It's woven into us. You don't have to be a person of faith to know what I'm talking about. This is a universal human experience—this sense that something is missing, that the world is not the way it's supposed to be, that you were made for something more.
And hear me when I say this: this ache is not a malfunction. It's a compass. And it's pointing somewhere all along.
We've been in a series going through the book of Revelation all summer long. This is week 10. If you haven't been with us, let me give you a quick recap.
Revelation is not a book about decoding the future. It was written by John, one of Jesus' disciples and closest friends. He was exiled on a remote island because of his faith. The people he was writing to were suffering and afraid, wondering if God had forgotten them.
What John does is pull back the curtain—that's what "apocalyptic" means—on reality. He says, "Yes, evil is real. Suffering is real. The battle is real. But above it all, above every empire and every fear and every broken thing, there is a throne, and Jesus is on it. Jesus will prove victorious."
Over these past ten weeks, we've unfolded the story of Jesus. We've met him as the high priest who walks among his churches, present with his people in their suffering. We've met him as the slain lamb, the one who was killed and rose again, worthy to hold history in his hands. We've met him as the conquering king who defeats every evil forever.
And today, we finally arrive at the ending—the ending where God fulfills everything he's ever promised, where every longing you've ever carried finally has a home.
Let me read from Revelation 21, verses 1 through 5:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people. And he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new."
There are three things from this passage that I believe will change the way we live.
Here's the first: God is not making a new world; he's making this world new. It's a very specific distinction.
When most people think of heaven, they imagine that when we pass from this life, our souls will float up into the clouds, we'll get a pair of wings, and meet Peter at the gates. We'll strum a harp for all eternity in some ethereal, disembodied experience. But I'll tell you—I don't look forward to that picture. And the Bible actually doesn't describe that either.
What John sees in Revelation is something far more astonishing. He doesn't see our souls ascending to some other realm. He sees an actual, real, physical, magnificent city. He sees a city descending from heaven to earth. That's the picture: on earth as it is in heaven.
John sees God not pulling us up from a broken world, but coming down with us to be with us. He sees a world renewed, restored, and redeemed. God doesn't scrap it and start from scratch. There's a restoration of it all.
Let me give you a picture that helps me understand this. If you know anything about the art of glassblowing: a master glass blower takes a piece of glass that has already been shaped—it already has a history, a form, and substance. When it's heated, the glass softens and becomes malleable again. Then, with extraordinary skill and intention, the glass blower reshapes it, transforms it. Out of those same raw materials comes something far more beautiful than what existed before.
That's what God is doing. He is not throwing away creation. He is not starting from scratch with entirely different materials. He is the master craftsman who takes what is—this world, this creation, this history—and through the fire of his redemptive work makes it into what it was always meant to be. The same materials, completely new, completely reformed.
The world that is coming is not a replacement. It's actually a resurrection—just like Jesus himself, gloriously transformed.
Here's something remarkable about the Bible: it doesn't end with a completely different story. It ends by finishing the story it started. If you open Genesis chapters 1 and 2, and then open Revelation chapters 21 and 22, you find the bookends of the greatest story ever told.
In Genesis, God creates the heavens and the earth. In Revelation, God makes the heavens and the earth new. In Genesis, there is a garden. In Revelation, there's a garden city. In Genesis, the river flows through Eden. In Revelation, the river of water of life flows from the throne of God. In Genesis, the tree of life stands in the middle of the garden. In Revelation, the tree of life stands again, bearing fruit and bringing healing to the nations.
But here's what's incredible: Jesus actually reverses what happens in Genesis.
In Genesis, a curse enters the world. In Revelation, there is no longer any curse. In Genesis, death enters the human story. In Revelation, there is no more death. In Genesis, tears begin with people. In Revelation, God wipes every single tear away. In Genesis, humanity hides from the presence of God. But in Revelation, we will see him face-to-face in his presence. In Genesis, humanity is sent out of the garden. But in Revelation, God's people are welcomed home forever.
Don't miss this. When we look at the whole story from Genesis to Revelation, it tells us what Jesus has been doing all along. Every miracle, every act of forgiveness, every healing, every victory over sin, every empty tomb, every promise he's ever made has been moving history toward one great moment when everything that was broken is made new again, made whole again.
That's why the throne declares: "Behold, I am making everything new."
And so this longing, this thirst, this desire will one day be completely fulfilled. There will be no scarcity, no need or desire to go without. That's hard for us to think about. But there will be no thirst because it will all be satisfied.
C.S. Lewis said something really insightful: "If you find a longing in yourself that nothing in this world can fully satisfy, the most likely explanation is that you were made for another world."
Some people will live a life and quickly find that the world around us will not ultimately satisfy. You might feel satisfied for a little while—maybe even years. But there comes a point where we realize: Is this all the world has to offer?
Have you ever been in those moments where you wish time would just stop because of what you're experiencing? The joy, the beauty that life has to offer? Maybe it's a song that gives you chills. Maybe you're hiking or standing on a mountain, feeling this presence of God, wishing you could stay there forever. Maybe it's a beachfront where you see the ocean, hear the roar of the waves, watch the sun setting, and you think, "I wish I could just be right here forever." Or maybe it's simpler—every laugh around the table with your kids, your grandkids, your family, and you wish that moment would never end.
Here's the reality: none of those moments are the destination. They are trailers, glimpses, previews of something your soul already knew was coming. Those moments weren't meant to satisfy us completely. They were meant to awaken us to something else. Because the ache is not a malfunction; it's a compass. And it's pointing us here all along to the world that Jesus is making new.
Here's the second thing I want you to know: the greatest promise of eternity is not the place; it's his presence.
Verse 3 says:
Look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.
John 17:3 in the Gospel of John says:
Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Notice: not mansions, not streets of gold. This is eternal life—that they know you.
Revelation wants us to see that the who matters more than the where as it relates to eternity. Heaven is less about a place and more about a person.
Think of it this way. If you spent an evening dining with the king, you're not going to just talk about the place settings—as beautiful as they might be—or the curtains. When John was shown heaven and wrote about it in Revelation, yes, he recorded some details, and those details are awesome. But from beginning to end, he kept talking about Jesus, the lion and the lamb, with great infinite gravitas and beauty.
Heaven without God would be like a honeymoon without a groom, or a palace without a king. The greatest promise of eternity is not about a place. It's about his presence.
In John 14:3, Jesus told his disciples: "I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you also may be where I am."
In 2 Corinthians, we read about preferring to be away from these earthly bodies so we'll be "at home with the Lord." The focus is not on mansions. The focus is not on streets of gold. Those will be there. But the focus is on Jesus.
Here's the thing: we hear "streets of gold" on this side of life, and it's valuable to us. That's why we get excited. But gold will mean nothing when we're in the presence of God. Streets of gold are not valuable when we're there in God's presence.
To be with God, to know him, to see him is the central, irreducible draw of heaven. If we knew nothing more than that heaven was God's dwelling place, it would be more than enough to long to be there. Of course, we will enjoy the secondary gifts that God gives us in heaven. But they will be derivatives of God himself.
Psalm 63:1 says:
Oh God, you are my God. I earnestly seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
The longing is for God. God's presence brings fulfillment and satisfaction deep within our soul. His absence brings thirst and longing. Our longing for heaven is actually a longing to be with God.
That's where all of this comes full circle. The longing and the ache that every human soul has is to be with God. This is the redemptive story of humanity from Genesis to Revelation—the rescue mission to redeem people back to himself.
The Bible describes pearly gates in verse 21:
The 12 gates were 12 pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold as pure as transparent glass.
A pearl is one of the most unusual and beautiful things in nature. But it doesn't begin as something beautiful. It begins as a wound or an irritant. A grain of sand, a tiny imperfection, gets inside the shell of an oyster. In response, the oyster begins to secrete a substance called nacre. Layer by layer, the oyster wraps that wound, that imperfection, over and over and over again until the irritant that was never supposed to be there has been transformed into something extraordinarily beautiful.
A pearl is what happens when an imperfection is wrapped completely by something far greater than itself.
Now think about this: every time you walk through the gates in the New Jerusalem, you are walking through a pearl. Twelve gates, twelve pearls, twelve constant reminders.
I wonder if this was intentional. I wonder if every entrance into that city is meant to remind us: we are here not because we were perfect. We are here because our imperfection, every wound, every failure, everything we were ashamed of, was wrapped layer by layer by the work of Jesus on the cross, covered completely, transformed into something beautiful. The gates remind us of the cross. Every one of them reminds us of what Jesus made of our mess.
Here's the last point: Eternity is not something we escape to; it is something we live from.
Where you're going changes how you travel. Where you're going changes how you pack. Where you're going should change how you wake up every day.
If you actually believe that Jesus is making everything new, then what does your life look like today because of that?
Obviously, part of the mission for Christians all over the world, certainly for Willow, is that we want to see people in a right relationship with Jesus. But there's a second part that I don't think we talk enough about in church at large: we are called to bring as much of the beauty of that city to earth as possible.
On earth as it is in heaven. To bring that experience here on earth. To be previews of Jesus wherever we go. When we represent Jesus, we are showing people glimpses of the life, the world, the eternity that we all long for. The church is at its best when we welcome people the way those pearly gates welcome us—as a reminder that God has made all things new, restored us because of his grace, love, and mercy.
Let me be practical. I don't want this to just be an ethereal idea you walk away with. I want us to actually think about it practically. Practice eternity.
I think that's where the church sometimes misses it. We get selfish, we get bitter, we have our own opinions and ideas. It's hard not to think about yourself all the time. But when we are selfless, when we think of others better than ourselves, we're practicing eternity, and people get a glimpse, a preview, a trailer.
Why are you that way? What is that? When you step into circles and groups of people and you're the different one, people go, "Why are you so encouraging when everything is falling apart?"
Every time we stand firm when the world around us is shaking, we're practicing eternity. When you live out that peace that passes understanding, you're practicing eternity.
This isn't just about escape from this world. This is also about living eternity in the here and now. Heaven came down in and through the person of Jesus. But then there's an invitation.
In verse 17, it says:
The Spirit and the bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.
Jesus in the Bible is inviting us to come.
Maybe you need to come for the very first time. You're here, and you're going, "Man, I've got a longing in my soul. And I've been chasing after it."
Some of you have done an incredible job chasing after everything—that promotion, success, talent, gifts, huge platforms, making money, leading people. I wish you the best. But my hope for you is that you would not rely on that to satisfy your soul. In the end, all that matters is God and people.
I've gotten to walk with people and be at the bedside of people for over twenty years of ministry. It's an honor and a privilege. And not once have I heard someone say, "I wish I would have spent more time in the office. I wish I would have applied for that one job. I wish I would have made more money. Can I see my bank account one more time? I just really want to see what I was able to accomplish."
Nobody says that. Nobody even thinks of that.
You want to know what people think about in the last moments of their life? God and people. That's it.
Practice eternity—live out the Christ life in a way that people can see eternity, see Jesus, see the longing in our soul that can only be satisfied and fulfilled in the person of Jesus.
Maybe today you're longing for something. You're taking inventory of your life, trying to answer that question: what do you long for? And maybe today your soul is a little restless. Perhaps today you realized that you need Jesus, that you need to put your faith and trust in him—that he is the one who can satisfy and quench the thirst of our weary and thirsty souls.
Maybe you want to pray something like this in your own heart:
Dear Jesus, I believe that you died on the cross and rose from the dead. I believe, Lord, that you are the savior of the world, and that my sin has separated me from you. My heart longs for you. Today, I give you my life. I surrender to you today. Thank you for paying the price for my sin. Thank you for pursuing me. And thank you, Lord, for making all things new.
If you said that prayer today, maybe for the very first time, I want to welcome you to the family of God. You can begin practicing living eternity every single day.
Our team in the next steps area would love to meet you. We have a Bible and a new believers guide to help you get started. Congratulations on surrendering your life to Jesus.
For everyone else here today: maybe you've put your faith and trust in Jesus, but maybe you haven't been practicing eternity, living out that Christ life. I want to encourage you: we don't have to wait until the hereafter, until one day when we get to be with God, to experience heaven. We can experience heaven in the here and now.
Why? Because heaven is Jesus, the presence of God. And if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus, we can be with God today. Today we can experience his presence and walk this life sharing Jesus and practicing eternity, so that all may see that one day he will make all things new again.
