Do we have a seat? It's nice to be back. Nice to see some familiar faces. Nice to see a lot of new faces too.
It's always encouraging to see more and more folk you don't know in a church.
If you have a Bible, do just turn to 1 Peter 1, that passage we read a few moments ago.
We're not going to spend most of the morning here, but I just want to start us off in that passage.
I don't usually preach from a laptop, but I wasn't very organized to get it printed off.
That's a first, isn't it? Nor did I iron my shirt.
I think my trousers have collected most of the dust in Daphne's house, which is quite a lot.
If you were hoping for perfection, your hopes have probably been let down.
But there is a hope that we have that we can look forward to, which will most certainly not let us down.
It was a very applicable question in this shorter catechism that you were looking at today.
Unlike many of Paul's letters written to certain groups of people in certain situations,
Peter is writing to Christians far and wide.
I can't turn the page in this Bible.
His audience is varied, but in this epistle, certainly the first chapter, there is one thing he is hammering home.
Look down there at verse 3 with me.
Peter writes,
Verse 6,
Again down there in verse 8,
Verse 13,
Verse 20 and 21,
Christ was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God,
who raised him from the dead and gave him glory,
so that your faith and hope are in God.
I don't know you all that well.
I don't want to be overly presumptive,
but I think it is generally true that we as Christians dwell much more on our faith than we do on our hope.
That is no bad thing to dwell on our faith,
but we often deal with it in the here and now.
Rarely do we lift up our heads and look forward to the hope that awaits us.
Listen to what Calvin says on faith and hope.
He writes,
Faith believes God to be true.
Hope awaits the time when his truth shall be manifested.
Hope strengthens faith.
Hope refreshes faith.
Faith is the foundation upon which hope rests,
but hope nourishes and sustains faith.
We dwell often on what we have been saved from,
and that is good and right.
It's exactly what we're going to be doing this evening.
But I want this morning to look with you all at what it is that we have been saved to.
What does the Christian's hope look like?
What is this imperishable inheritance that Peter speaks of in his epistle?
Quite simply, I want us to consider this evening, this evening, this morning,
what will heaven be like?
In order to encourage us, right?
To lift up our heads.
To stop staring down at our own two feet and worrying about our current situation.
Stop getting bogged down in the here and now.
And reducing this world to what we see with our own two eyes.
But to look forward with eager expectation.
At what is to come.
And to live in light of that.
And it's worth getting this right.
It's worth spending time thinking about this.
Because heaven isn't some abstract reality that should mystify and confuse us.
As Peter says, right at the beginning of this epistle,
heaven, for those of us in Christ, is home.
This is where we belong.
Paul in Colossians tells us similarly,
have our minds set on the things above.
And so it is good to meditate on what our true home will be like.
So that we can be looking to that certain hope.
As we dwell in the meantime in this fallen world.
So with that in mind, I want us to turn to Revelation 21.
That is the passage we are going to be looking at this morning.
That hope that Peter speaks of.
That he encourages us to rejoice in.
That imperishable inheritance.
That is something that John saw something of in the book of Revelation.
A glimmer of what is to come.
A foretaste of what it is that we have been saved to.
So we're just going to read this whole chapter together.
And let us rejoice as we do so.
John writes,
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.
And the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, Jerusalem,
coming down out of heaven from God.
Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them.
And they will be his people.
And God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
And death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain.
For the former things have passed away.
And he was seated on the throne and said,
Behold, I am making all things new.
Also he said,
Write this down,
for these words are trustworthy and true.
And he said to me,
It is done.
I am the Alpha and the Omega,
the beginning and the end.
To the thirsty I will give from the spring of water,
of life without payment.
To the one who conquers will have his 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 liars,
their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,
which is the second death.
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.
Its radiance like a most rare jewel,
like a jasper clear as crystal.
It had a great high wall with twelve gates,
and at the gates twelve angels,
and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed.
On the east three gates,
on the north three gates,
on the south three gates,
and on the west three gates.
And the wall of the city had twelve foundations,
and on them were the twelve names of the twelve 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 foursquare,
its length the same as its width.
And he measured the city with his rod,
twelve thousand stadia.
Its length and width and height are equal.
He also measured its walls,
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 wall 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 tenth chrysoprase,
the eleventh jacinth,
the twelfth amethyst,
and the twelve gates,
were twelve 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
and 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 its 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 into it,
nor anyone who does
what is detestable or false,
but only those whose names
are written in the book of life.
Amen.
Just a couple of things
before we get sort of stuck
into this passage, right?
This is very much going to be
a general overview.
There is some amazing,
great detail in this passage
that it would be well worth
spending time unpacking
and understanding,
but that's not our aim this morning.
We don't want to get lost in the trees
because we really do want to see
the whole thing.
There's going to be little
in the way of profound insights.
I just want to show us
something of what we can
look forward to.
The other thing I want to say
is don't be afraid
to picture things in your head.
It's pictorial language
for a reason.
Don't think that just because
we don't know exactly
what heaven's going to be like,
you're not allowed to
imagine it in heavy way.
There's a reason this chapter
is full of imagery.
Full to the brim of words
and phrases that invigorate
our imaginations,
that fill our minds with pictures.
So go ahead
and imagine what
kind of painting
this is trying to
portray.
Just remember
to not hold on to that image
too tightly.
Because
if there's one thing
I can guarantee you,
it's the real thing
is going to be
unimaginably better
than the very,
very best
that our imaginations
can conjure up.
So what is
heaven going to be like?
Well,
it's not,
I think,
what people often
think it is.
And there's two main areas
people fall into
which are really just
two sides of the same coin.
We think heaven
is really similar
to this life
just without
some of the nuisances.
Right?
It's like it's going to be
the exact same
except you'll never have to
wake up in the middle of the night
needing to pee.
But when we do that,
right,
we make heaven
so much less
than it will be.
Just a slightly better version
of the world
as we know it.
On the other hand,
and probably far more commonly,
we think of heaven
as wholly unlike
anything we've ever seen
or known.
A totally separate existence.
Entirely unrelated.
It's relatable
to anything we can think of.
Maybe we just think of heaven
as some space
up in the clouds
where you play harps
all day long.
Or just this
massive church service
where you've got
thousands and thousands
of people standing
shoulder to shoulder
singing Kumbaya
for all eternity.
Sounds quite boring,
doesn't it?
We need to avoid
either of these extremes,
right,
because they both
detract from the wonder,
the reality
and the significance
of what heaven is
to us as believers today.
Because neither of them
are anything like
what is described to us
in Revelation 21.
Heaven is real life,
but on the most epic
and glorious scale.
And we see that
when we just let
our vision of it
be guided
by God's word.
So I just want to pick out
five things
this morning.
It's fairly basic
that we can be sure
heaven is going to be like
from this passage.
We're taking the big picture here,
right?
We're going to skip over
lots of details.
We're not going to have time
to dwell on them.
By all means,
go and look at them afterwards.
But I just want to put together
a framework for us
this morning.
It's five things.
Number one,
it's going to be new.
Right?
That's pretty obvious
from verse one.
Then I saw a new heaven
and a new earth.
It's a new heaven
and a new earth.
Right?
I've been saying heaven
from the beginning
just because that's what
we sort of think of it
colloquially.
But the future inheritance
that awaits us
isn't somewhere up there
in the clouds.
It is a whole new creation.
It is a new creation.
Verse two,
it's a new Jerusalem.
This is God's city.
Verse five,
and within that new creation,
he who's seated on the throne
said,
behold,
I am making all things new.
Ever since the fall,
right?
Since Adam let Eve
eat the fruit
and ate the fruit himself,
everything has been decaying.
Things have literally
been falling to pieces.
The Bible speaks
of creation groaning
because of the sin
in this world.
A lot of the time
we can see that
around us pretty clearly,
right?
Just switch on the news.
Sometimes we see that
pretty clearly in ourselves.
From the moment
that sin entered the world,
the things that God made good
have been wasting away.
But a new creation
is coming.
It won't just stop the rot.
It's not like you're just
not going to get
any more fragile.
You're not going to lose
any more teeth.
Your hair will stop falling out.
It'll be nice.
You're going to be made new.
The world is going
to be made new.
God is saying
loud and clear to John,
everything about this place
is brand new.
So not only is there
going to be no more decay,
but the things
that have decayed
will be renewed,
restored to how they
should have been
in the first place.
All the marks
of the fall,
all the stains
of sin
are removed.
I know, again,
that's very different
to just being made
young again.
We often think
that age is the problem.
It's because we get old
that we start breaking
and become fragile.
But age isn't the problem,
sin is the problem.
But everything will be new
and will exist
in a place
where there is no sin.
And there is no Satan,
and so there is no
possible way
for it to be ruined again.
Nothing again
will ever decay.
That's the first thing
about our inheritance, right?
It is a whole new creation.
Number two,
none of the pain
and misery
of this life
will be there.
Let's look at verse four.
He will wipe away
every tear
from their eyes
and death
shall be no more.
Neither shall there be
mourning
nor crying
nor pain
anymore
for the former things
have passed
away.
Think of all
the pains
and struggles
of this life.
None of it.
you kind of want
to just say
it'll be perfect
and it will,
but I think part
of the reason
God doesn't say that
is because we just
can't get our heads
around how amazing
that will be.
Instead of filling up
this chapter
with all the amazing
things that you
wouldn't understand,
he just says,
you know all those
things you struggle with?
All the stuff
that sucks
about life right now.
None of that
is going to be there.
all the suffering
that we've gone through,
all the sorrow
and the heartbreak.
No more death.
No more funerals.
No more losing
loved ones.
No more crying.
No more worrying.
No stress.
No anxiety.
No depression.
No more broken
relationships.
No more getting
let down.
No more people
giving up on you.
No more pain.
No illness.
No disease.
No cancer.
None of it.
not a single drop of it
for the rest
of eternity.
All of those things
which bring suffering
into our lives
will be no more.
And at the start
of verse 4 there,
we see that it's
God himself
who sees to it.
God himself
wipes away
the tear.
He doesn't just
drop us
into this flawless
new creation
and let us go free.
he is there with us, caring for us, making sure that all these things have passed away for good.
Number three, it will be beautiful.
Let's look at verse 9.
Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues,
and he 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 Spirit,
and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God,
its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.
Verse 18, the wall was built of jasper while the city was pure gold, like clear glass.
The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel.
I'm not going to read them again because I struggled with it.
The twelve gates, verse 21, were twelve pearls.
Each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass.
It was important to remember, right, this is all a vision that John is seeing.
We don't know it's going to be exactly like this.
It might be, it might not.
But the point here is pretty clear, right?
All the things we think are most beautiful,
all the most precious gems and jewels,
crystal and gold,
all that people back then would have considered most valuable,
most precious.
The place is filled with them.
It's literally made out of them.
The point being nothing will ever surpass the beauty
of the new creation.
You imagine the most beautiful thing you've seen in all the world.
If you've been to Scotland, you'll know it's there.
It'll probably be better than Scotland.
Sometimes maybe we think of heaven as just this,
this big old plain where everyone's huddled together,
staring at a throne in the middle.
But there will be all sorts of beauty.
It's a better Eden.
Right?
Go back to Genesis and look at all the amazing things
that God filled Eden with.
And Eden was very good.
But this will be even better.
All the intricacies and marvels of this creation
will still be there.
But they will be greater.
And they will be untarnished by sin.
The new creation will be beautiful.
Number four, it'll be huge.
Right?
It's another thing I don't think jumps out to us immediately
when we start thinking of heaven.
You get that in part right from the fact
that it is a whole new creation.
It suggests it's going to be fairly large.
But then helpfully in verse 15,
some guy comes out with a measuring tape
made of gold, obviously.
And when he measures it,
well, first of all, it's a cube.
Right?
Which might seem a bit weird,
but we'll come back to that in a minute.
But when he starts measuring it,
he finds out that it's 12,000 stadia wide.
12,000 stadia high.
You might have a little footnote in your Bible
that says that's about 1,380 miles.
Just to put that into context,
that's further away than St. Petersburg in Russia.
That's the size of the place in John's vision.
And you need to remember, right,
this was a vision being shown people 2,000 years ago
who didn't have Google Maps.
You couldn't swipe across the globe in a few seconds.
They would have known their surrounding area well,
but maybe distances 50, 100 miles.
That might have meant something to them.
But then John comes along and says,
heaven's 1,000 miles wide.
It's 1,000 miles high.
It's 1,000 miles long.
The whole point is this is incomprehensibly big.
It's like someone coming up today
and saying that something's a bajillion miles away.
You have no idea what they mean,
but you know it's a long way.
Heaven will be enormous.
Finally, number five.
We've flown through those four points fairly quickly
because this is the one where we want to spend some time.
Verse 22.
I saw no temple in the city.
There will be no temple.
You might be thinking,
what's the big deal?
Right?
We can read it and quite easily think,
the other stuff, that all sounds great.
It doesn't really matter whether or not there's a temple.
But as you look there,
you see that the reason there is no temple
is because God is the temple.
which is a massive difference
from what we find in the book of Ezekiel
in the Old Testament.
One of the Old Testament prophets.
You don't have to turn there now.
But in Ezekiel,
at the end of Ezekiel,
we have this other sort of major heavenly vision
that we get in the Bible.
And Ezekiel has this,
there's a lot of similarities in the visions.
But in Ezekiel's vision,
which is eight chapters long,
seven of those chapters
are all about the details of the temple.
And then John,
in this sort of parallel vision,
just goes,
there's no temple.
Why the big change?
Well, we need to understand,
the temple, right,
had two main points for God's people.
It was where God dwelt among his people,
and it was where God's people
could come to him
through sacrifices,
through making themselves holy.
And the bit where God's presence was
in this temple,
that first major purpose of the temple,
for him to dwell amongst his people,
was at the very middle of,
at the very heart of the temple,
this little cube
called the Holy of Holies.
And once a year,
once a year,
one guy in the whole world
could go into this cube
where God's presence was.
And to do so,
he had to make all kinds of sacrifices,
go through purification,
purification rites,
so that just a moment each year,
this one guy
could enter into God's presence.
And this was the kind of temple
that Ezekiel saw in his vision,
surrounded by priests,
where there's different sections,
some bits holier than others.
The point is that while God wanted
to be with his people,
for the safety of everyone,
there had to be separation.
God was there in their midst,
but he was still separated.
Because there was a problem of holiness.
There was a problem of our sinfulness.
The story of God's dwelling with man
is a major theme.
You can trace it through the whole Bible.
But in all of it,
the fullness of God's glory
is never,
not once,
on display to God's people.
They always,
always have to be kept separate.
And we can see,
we can see the reason for that
in Exodus 33.
Let me just read you
the end of that chapter now.
Where Moses said to God,
please,
show me your glory.
And God said,
I will make all my goodness
pass before you,
and I will proclaim before you
my name,
the Lord.
And I will be gracious
to whom I will be gracious,
and will show mercy
on whom I will show mercy.
But,
he said,
you cannot see my face,
for men shall not see me
and live.
And the Lord said,
behold,
there is a place by me
where you shall stand
on the rock,
and when my glory passes by,
I will put you
in a cleft of the rock,
and I will cover it
with my hand
until I pass by.
Then I'll take my hand away,
and you'll see my back,
but my face shall not be seen.
It's not because God
reduces our glory
or makes himself
less glorious,
but throughout history,
by the tabernacle
or the temple,
or Jesus himself
or the spirit dwelling
within us today,
God is shielding us
from the fullness
of his glory,
like he was
with Moses there.
God is shielding us
from his glory
because in this state,
we simply cannot stand it.
God's holiness
and righteousness
and glory and power
are so overwhelming,
no man can see it
and live.
We see even the angels
have to shield their eyes
from the glory of God.
It's like when you stare
at the sun,
and your eyes go a bit funny.
that this big,
but don't stare at the sun,
this big burning ball
of gas,
right,
is so bright
and so powerful
that 100 million miles away,
you can't look straight at it.
You can barely look at it at all.
Look at all the stars in the sky
and think,
what is the sun
in this universe?
Look at this vast creation.
And yet,
God is infinitely bigger
than all of them.
Think of all that means
for God's glory.
You can't look at the sun.
The sun is but a speck to God.
Our eyes simply cannot behold him.
Our bodies cannot behold him.
No man can see God
and live.
But then in Revelation,
there's no temple.
Not because man
has made himself holy,
but because God
has made himself man.
The big difference
is, of course,
Jesus.
There's no temple
because at the resurrection
on the last day,
there will be no need
for a temple.
There will be no need
to separate God
from his people.
There's no need
for more sacrifices
or for special priests
to go in and out
before God
like we see in Ezekiel.
What he was seeing
was a heaven
before Christ had come.
But there still had
to be separation
between God and man.
But that has changed.
because of what he has done
for us,
we,
people like you
and me,
can look forward
to being in the very
presence of God.
I don't know how.
But we have in Revelation,
instead of this
continuing division,
there will be no more division.
For everyone,
at one point,
had to be kept out
of God's presence,
we will be invited in.
All because of Christ.
The whole of this new creation
is one massive cube.
It is all the holy of holies.
The whole of creation
is filled with God's presence.
He is its light.
The city has no need
of sun or moon
to shine on it
for the glory of God
gives its light
and its lamp
is the lamp.
I don't know
if heaven is going
to be literally a cube,
but this all points
to this amazing
reality
of the most perfect,
holy,
glorious God
that no man can see
and live
bringing his children
into his presence.
Let's look back
to verse 3
of Revelation 21.
And I heard
a loud voice
from the throne
saying,
Behold,
the dwelling place
of God
is with man.
He will dwell
with them
and they will be
his people
and God himself
will be
with them
as their
God.
All of a sudden,
only one guy
could go once a year
under the strictest
of conditions.
only to the
footstool of God,
the whole of God's
people are living
in for eternity.
I don't know how,
I'm not going to
hazard a guess,
but the fullness
of God's glory
will be with us
forever and ever.
We will be there
sharing with him
this new,
massive,
beautiful creation
with none of the
pains of this world.
enjoying it
for all eternity
to come
in the presence
of our great God.
Just as we finish up,
the thought
of this new creation
should excite us.
We should long for it.
It is something
we should always
be looking forward to.
when we struggle
with the sin
and misery,
the pain,
and sometimes
what feels like
hopelessness of this
world,
lift up your eyes.
Look to what is
to come.
This is the hope
that we have.
And that should
spill out to those
around us.
An eternity.
this massive,
beautiful new creation
where there will be
no evil.
And God,
the very God
who made it all
will be there with us
and we can worship
him perfectly
in all that we ever do.
That is the hope
that Peter speaks of.
The certain hope
that we have
because of the
amazing work
of Jesus.
We,
through no merit
of our own,
get to enjoy
the most
unimaginably
amazing existence
to the end
of time
and beyond.
So long,
right,
verse 27,
as our names
are in the Lamb's
book of life.
So long as we
live this life
committed to Christ
come,
we know for certain
that this
is the future
that awaits us.
I know I'm
probably not alone
in having a million
other questions
of what this
new creation
will be like
or maybe what
we hope it won't
be like.
But the one thing
we can say
with total confidence
as you read
through Revelation 21,
whatever you're
imagining in your head,
whatever you can
picture,
the one thing
we can absolutely
guarantee is that
it's going to be
immeasurably
better than that.
a perfect place
where we dwell
in perfect harmony
with our perfect
God
forever and ever.
That's the life
that awaits us
when we get home.
That is our hope
that we rejoice in.
Let's pray together.
Amen.