Hope: We Will Receive the Home We Always Longed For

A little while ago, there was a 60 Minutes interview. I don't know if you saw this or if you're a 60 Minutes watcher, about the story of a man called Ruben MacDonald, who was a fisherman whose trawler had capsized in the early morning one morning just outside of the coast of Bundaberg. I think it was 1770. In the blink of an eye, he says, during the night or the early morning, there was a freak wave, a rogue wave they call it, that capsized their fishing trawler. And seven men in this same one cabin were pinned down in utter darkness as water started seeping into the boat.

MacDonald says that he was able at one point, and it was a split second, to squeeze out of the door. You can imagine the pressure that was against that door with the water coming in. But at one point, the door gave way and he was able to come outside, but six of the other guys drowned that night in that boat. However, escaping the boat wasn't the end of the saga because he was still kilometres offshore. He had a multi-kilometre swim to get to the mainland.

Now in this interview, MacDonald spoke about the one thing that kept him going throughout all of this, and that was to see his wife again. He swam, he says, for hours and as he did this, he says he was talking to his wife, Sammy. I'm not going to disappoint you, Sammy. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it.

And by God's grace, and he said those words. I don't know if he's a Christian, but those words said that out of nowhere, a yacht came by. And this was like 5:00 in the morning. There was no other boats on the water.

And it came by within a few metres of him. And he was able to obviously get their attention and was saved. It was an absolutely compelling interview. But I remember thinking how powerful is the concept that is being communicated here, the concept of hope. We've heard it before, probably watched movies or something similar of POW prisoners being kept in concentration camps and the whole time, the many years that they are there, they are longing and waiting to see their family.

That is what keeps them going. Well, in this final talk on our series, Home: The Gospel Narrative of Belonging, we look at the concept of hope, final hope, life-giving hope. It's a thing that gives every Christian the endurance and the purpose to get through this life. And this hope is not a concept, the Bible says. It is a place.

This hope is not a concept. It is a place. And this hope is home. It's a home we've been talking about these past five weeks. Let's have a look at that and how it's described, at least in part, in Revelation 21 this morning.

It's right at the end of the Bible, second last chapter. Revelation 21, verse 1. John the apostle 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, new 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 anymore, for the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne 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 the water of life without payment. 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 sulphur, which is the second death.

So far our reading. The chapter of Revelation 21 opens with a breathtaking description of a new existence. The beast, up until this point, the false prophet and Satan himself have now been cast into the lake of fire. This lake of fire that is also mentioned in our passage this morning. Along with them, according to Revelation 19:20 and 20:10, along with them, death and the grave.

Death and sin is thrown in there as well. All that was and is destructive of the present existence we face now is removed from the picture. The things that have caused people pain for millennia are gone. And what of the earth itself? Does Revelation envision life to continue much as it has before now that all God's opposition is gone?

The answer to that question is an emphatic no. Just as the cosmos shared in the results of Adam's fall, the curse, the pain, the suffering that came from us walking away from God. As Paul writes, the creation was subjected to frustration. Romans 8:20. Just as the cosmos shares in Adam's fall, so too the cosmos is waiting, waiting with bated breath to see the fullness of Christ's redemptive power.

The apostle Peter hints at how this comes about in 2 Peter 3:10 and 11. The heavens will disappear with a roar. The elements are destroyed by fire and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. But Matthew 19:28 and Acts 3:21 say this is not an obliteration. This is a restoration.

There is a regeneration that happens, almost as if, you know, in Australia we have these massive fires, these bushfires that just seem so destructive. But then within days, perhaps, there are green shoots coming out. Restoration. Regeneration. This is again repeated for us in verse 5 of our passage.

Jesus says, and he who is seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. This is perhaps my favourite verse in the Bible. I am making all things new. Now the structure of that sentence and the wording is significant because as we hear these things and we hear about things being laid bare and consuming fire and so on, we may think that this new is like a blank slate. It is like God getting a massive eraser and just erasing everything that has happened, starting brand new.

But there is something significant, something stirring, and something ancient that is being referred to here. And I want to point back to Isaiah. Isaiah 65 is actually being referenced here, actually being thrown back towards. Isaiah 65 says, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth.

This is what God says. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind, but be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. Never again will there be an infant in it who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years. The wolf and the lamb will feed together. The lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's.

Remember, Satan will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord God. Isaiah 65:17 to 25. In this great vision in Revelation 21 of how humanity's story ends, the apostle John sees what God's victory is going to be like. And what we see is a magnificent cosmos, all but ruined under the old system, all but self-destroyed under that system, now beautified and repaired into a new system.

It is paradise restored. Paradise was lost in Genesis 3. Revelation 21 says it has been restored. Verse 4 starts hinting, doesn't it, at the reversal that starts to take place. Verse 4 says, there is no more death.

There's no more pain. There is no more crying. Why? Because the curse of sin has been undone. If you were to flick across to the next chapter, verse 2, you see something else.

Revelation 22:2, through the middle of the street of the new Jerusalem, of the city, also on either side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of this tree are for the healing of the nations. We see the tree of life is back. The tree of life from Genesis 1 and 2. Paradise has been restored.

Life itself has been given to mankind. The covenant promise as well. The promise that God has made all along is also fulfilled in verse 3, chapter 21. This is what it says: 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. This has been the promise all along, hasn't it? Remember the patriarchs. Remember Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The promise was every time: I want to be your God. Be my people.

In the exile, God through Ezekiel and Isaiah and Jeremiah said, I want to be your God. I want you to be my people. Revelation 21 says, here it is. Here it is.

God will dwell with his people. The dwelling place of God is mentioned. What is a dwelling place? It's a home. It's a home.

And so we see the motif. We see that metaphor coming full circle. We see Adam and Eve dwelling with God, walking with him like we would do in the cool of the day, and now God will have a dwelling place with his people. So what does this passage give us then if we read it? If we understand it and if we meditate on it?

What does it give us? Why did God give this vision to John to communicate not only to the first-century Christians back then, but also to Christians in the twenty-first century? Well, it is to give us this thing: hope. And there are three things I want us to just quickly reflect on this morning regarding this hope. The first thing is the nature of this hope.

In Revelation 21, we see the new heavens and the new earth replacing the old heavens and the old earth. Now the Greek word for new that is used here is special. It is significant. It is different. There are two forms of the word new that is used in Greek: kainos and neos.

Neos, neo, which we get our word new from. The word here that is used is kainos, which is a newness in quality. A newness in quality or in nature. Neos is something that is new that has never existed. It is brand new.

In other words, referring to a creation that is not started from scratch. It is something that is renewed and redeemed. God redeems his original creation so that it may return to its intended glory because there was nothing wrong with it. God made it perfect. It is in this redemptive renewal that the heavens, which is talking about here, the rest of the universe, the ends of space is also being renewed.

And then the earth, which is specifically everything here on planet earth, is also being renewed. Now this all happens and we see a new Jerusalem comes from heaven down. Now the question is, why is this happening? And the answer, I think, is that Jerusalem, this new city, is the capstone. It is the ultimate expression of God's place with mankind.

Does this city, the new Jerusalem, come down physically from the heavens as if it sort of falls on top of the current Jerusalem now and, you know, there's going to be another five hundred years of excavating to get down to the original part of where Jesus walked or whatever? Will a city drop down from thirty thousand feet? I don't think so. My interpretive grid for Revelation takes things a little bit more symbolically rather than literalistically. And what we get apart from the problematic situation of a city on top of a city and so on, we find that this city has come from God.

That is why it's coming from heaven down to earth. But this descent, this arrival of the city is described as like a bride coming. It's been sent by God. It comes from God, but it is like a bride coming to the wedding. And there is so much joy, and there is so much anticipation because of this.

My brother Dirk, he got married around this time last year. Now as Ruthie, his wife, was coming down the aisle, beautiful, radiant, Dirk just couldn't help but burst into tears. It was absolute mess. Try as he might, he just couldn't fight back those tears. Now us brothers will forever and ever have ammo against him for that because he often tries to be the untouchable, sarcastic guy in the family.

But he was ugly crying that whole time. All the way down the aisle and it was a very long aisle as well. Why did he cry? Because he was so overcome with joy. He was so moved.

There had been so much anticipation, so much longing. This is what the Bible says the arrival of God's dwelling place with his people is going to be like. The most beautiful thing you have ever seen. One of the most intriguing aspects of this hope and this renewed world is in the phrase of verse 1, that there is no sea with this new heavens and this new earth. There is no sea.

Now again, I don't think this is meant to be understood literalistically because again, there's so much symbolism involved with that term sea. For a people like the landlocked Jews of the time, the sea was always something seen as a threat. In the Old Testament, death is often pictured as drowning. You just have to read the Psalms. The waters have come up to my neck.

Psalm 42:7 or 69:1. Jonah. Remember Jonah and his story? The judgment that he receives from God is to be thrown into the sea. Jesus, when he threatens those who cause harm, those who cause the little ones to sin, a millstone around their neck straight into the ocean.

Consequently, in the Old Testament, the sea becomes synonymous with threat, with hostility. And stylistically, even the book of Revelation has employed the sea to talk about the chaos, the war that is against God's people. In Revelation 13:1, the great ten-horned beast is said to rise out of the sea in order to pursue humanity, in order to steal people away from God. Out of the chaos, in other words, of a world at enmity, a world at odds with God comes this great enemy of God's people. What does it mean in Revelation 21 that there is no sea?

It means that there is no hostility. It means that there is no chaos that can disrupt. Everything is in order. Everything is at peace. All that threatens God's people has been removed.

You don't have to accept that interpretation, perhaps some people here won't. But then you have to answer the question, if you don't, if there is no ocean, where will all the marine life be? The marine life that we believe God created and said is very good. No more whales. No more dugongs.

No more snapper. No more delicious lobsters. I hope we can still eat them. I think this is what it's trying to get at, that creation itself, creation itself, has now been restored so that there is no harm anymore. The thorns and the thistles, remember, that was cursed.

The cursed ground that Adam would have to work on doesn't exist anymore. The chaos of the storm that Jesus, the Son of God, quietened down and everyone, everyone said, who is this? This was a foretaste of God's power. A foretaste of the sea of chaos being stilled.

And so there exists now in Revelation 21 perfect harmony between God, ourselves, and even nature itself. We move on to the second point, the need for hope. We need to see that we are given a vision of this final restoration to satisfy our deepest needs. When John wrote this, he wrote it to an audience, remember. He didn't simply think of twenty-first-century Christians in Australia.

This was two churches, and we know who they were, struggling in the midst of persecution, severe persecution at times. And John writes to these guys to give them what? Hope. Hope. Now we can get lost in all the details and we can try and figure out when and where this all happens and takes place.

But the overarching story or message of Revelation is to give hope to people tempted to give up. The vision of God's victory over the curse of sin and death, therefore, gives us what we need the most today: hope. You and I might forget this. You and I might not think about this, but our Christian friends need this as much as we do. Hope.

Hope dictates how we see life. Whether we are Christian or not, hope dictates how we live this life. Our non-Christian friends who may not think of these sort of things still live with hope. They hope for a more financially secure future. Therefore, they get up every morning.

They hope for that relationship that will be perfect, that boyfriend, that girlfriend that will be everything that I need them to be. They hope for a life that is fun, a lifestyle that is all that they are imagining life is supposed to be about. Hope dictates how we live and what we live for.

Timothy Keller puts it this way: you and I are unavoidably, irreducibly hope-based creatures. We are controlled not by how we live now. And some people think, no, I just get up. I don't have to think. I just get up and do.

We are not controlled simply by how we live now. We are controlled by what we think will happen later. The Christian hope has to do with the ultimate future, not the immediate. So like the story of Ruben MacDonald and the hope to see his wife again, it affected how he was dealing with the terrifying situation he was in. The hope for what our future holds is a crucial component to human life.

We need hope like we need air to breathe. Now, again, how does this work with the non-Christians in our lives? Their hope is just far closer. It is far more immediate. Those goalposts are closer to them.

They hope for financial security in the next five years or a relationship within the next year or whatever. Don't get me wrong, Christians also operate according to some of these shorter-term goals and hopes. But things get very shaky if that is all you build your life upon. What happens if those hopes of the relationship that is perfect or the financial security that you hope will allow you to live a certain lifestyle doesn't get met? What if the fun time that you were hoping for isn't so much fun?

What if you don't find the lifestyle you wanted? Well, I can tell you what I think happens. Life is not worth living anymore. And I've said this to us at this church a few times before. Every year when I was doing hotel chaplaincy at Red Frogs schoolies, end of twelve years of work, and every time everyone was saying, after school, that is when I'm going to be happy.

Life sucks. School sucks. Schoolies is going to be the best thing ever. The amount of suicide ideations we have to deal with halfway through Wednesday night, it was almost clockwork, when everyone realised life hasn't changed. It's all just the same.

I'm just as miserable. People on the point of committing suicide. What if you don't find what you have always hoped for? The hope held out for humanity in the Bible is a hope with life-changing implications regardless of these shorter-term circumstances. The promise of a God and of a new heaven and a new earth affects the way we see and experience life now.

The Bible, in fact, calls it a living hope, not just hope, not just a hopeful hope, a living enduring hope. In 1 Peter 1:3 and 4, this is what we read: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, just opens with praise. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

That's not hopeful hope. That is living hope. And why does he call it this? How can we be sure that all of these things he's talking about will be so? Peter says it's known because of one thing: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The apostle Paul calls that resurrection the first fruits of Revelation 21. The first fruits, the first taste that this is true. If Jesus was raised like this, in other words, it means that any of us can be as well. If a human body can overcome death like that, then how we view and how we experience this life, even its very short and fragile life as everyone keeps telling us, it's so short.

Maximise it. It's so short. But if life is eternal, that affects the way we think about life. That is why Jesus says, blessed are those who are poor now. Blessed, too, are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness now, who desire to live holy lives now.

In the scope of eternity, this immediate gratification, it just fades into insignificance. But then we come to Revelation 21, and we don't only see that it is eternal life, but it is very good, very good life. It is the life of Genesis 1 and 2, and we are strengthened and encouraged by that news. It is eternal life, but it is the very best of life. And so I just want to say this morning, if you are dealing with hardship, if you are dealing with dissatisfaction and frustration, you need to hear this.

There's a future in store for every person who puts their trust in Jesus, which outweighs every bit of pain, which it outweighs any heartache that you are experiencing now. Just hold on. Just hold on. Everything you have hoped this life will be will either be fulfilled for you or your mind will be so transformed in you that you will find the joy that will fully satisfy you, the joy that will comfort you. And that leads us to our final point and we're nearly done.

How do we get this hope? Right? I mean, we, there's no point in knowing about it. How do we get it? What good is it to be told that there is a personal, tangible future of love without parting, love without death if you can't be certain that it's for you.

Martin Luther, the great reformer, once said that suffering is intolerable if you are not sure of your salvation. When Jesus came to the disciples after His resurrection, every time He greeted them, every time after the resurrection, He greeted them with this phrase: peace be with you. Why? Because the fact that He is alive through His resurrection gives peace. The resurrection of Jesus is the giant down payment.

The first deposit by God stamped across all of history for all people to see, saying that there is a future for humanity. But we also read, don't we, in Revelation 21 that this is not for everyone. Not everyone will receive this. They are called various things. These individuals who don't receive it, who will not receive it, but one of them is that they are called enemies of God.

Those who have put themselves at odds with God's will have put themselves at odds with God's law and His plan. And the horrifying thing is, the unsettling thing is, the Bible says that is all of us at one point. All of us. All of us chose ourselves over God, rejected His lordship, rejected His kingship, and thought we know better. We pursued sin instead of righteousness.

We pursued riches instead of poverty. We pursued injustice instead of mercy. All those things that Jesus told us about in Luke 6, we desired and we ran after instead of righteousness, holiness, godliness. Ironically then, some of us realised this was dumb because it backfired on us big time. And perhaps today we're sitting in church because of the pain of that.

But here's the wonderful news that you are loved despite all of that. You are loved despite all of that. God is far more gracious, far more gracious than you imagine, far more gracious than you even hoped for.

And He has made a way that has been proven for us in Jesus. His death was the payment for that rebellion. And His resurrection back to life is proof that that payment was accepted. And He said that all who will simply and humbly bow, bow the knee of their hearts to Him. Those who will simply and humbly say, Lord Jesus, forgive me a sinner.

Forgive me a sinner. And those who will take Him to be their King, to love Him, to follow Him, to grow so deeply in affection for Him that it will be a joy when one day He lives with us. To all those who can say that honestly, the promise is you will receive it all, all of it. You will receive the new world. You will receive the home you've always hoped for.

You will receive the relationship with God you could never ever get, even now as you try so hard. And that day you will receive a conscience spotless from sin, a heart unshackled from guilt. It is today, however, all available to you. It is all here for you to receive.

And all you must do, all you have to do is simply hold out your hand and say, yes Lord. I desire that. I throw down those weapons that I've had and held up against you. I lay down my life. Please, Lord, I just want to go home.

And the promise this morning to you is the promise that Jesus gave His disciples: in my Father's house are many rooms. I'm going there to prepare a place for you. Revelation 21 says the city is coming and God will dwell with us and we will dwell with Him. Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man, where He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain.

For the former things, the old things, have passed away. And Jesus says, behold, I am making all things new. Let's pray. Oh God, these words make us so homesick. Some of us this morning are so aware of the brokenness, the fragility of this life.

We are so aware of broken relationships, so aware of bad decisions, so aware of our rebellion, even at times our hatred towards you. And so, Lord, we first have to say forgive us. Forgive us from our arrogance. Forgive us of our anger. Forgive us of the pride of thinking that we can tell the God of the universe what He should do and how we may live.

But God, we also feel the brokenness not in ourselves only, but in the world around us. And even as we live fairly good lives, fairly healthy lives, in the blessing of a church that loves us, in the blessing of families that know you, we feel the emptiness and the lostness of a world that does not know You. And even in their lostness, even in their exile and their wandering, it seems like they don't even care. We pray for them. Because as real as this new earth and new heaven, this new Jerusalem is, so real is the lake of fire that awaits and that also changes how we live.

We pray for family members that must be saved. We pray for friends, dear dear friends, that live in open rebellion. God, use us. Use our church. Use our resources.

Use our attention, even our affection. And Lord, where we are so tempted to walk away, where we are so tempted to say you deserve all of it and joy, Father, give us that incredible understanding that there is nothing that separates us from them apart from Your grace. Give us the patience, therefore, the perseverance and the deep, deep love to keep persuading, to keep convincing, to keep sharing, to keep pointing to grace. And Father, finally, we pray for this reality to come soon. We pray as Your church has prayed for hundreds of years: come soon, Lord Jesus.

We wait with anticipation. We wait with joy. We wait with longing because we know it is going to be the most magnificent, joyful experience of not only this life, but the next. Thank you for your word. May you add it to our lives to encourage us. In Jesus' name, Amen.