Death No More Bryan Dunagun April 26, 2020

Well, if you have a Bible, would you open up to Revelation 21? This is the last book in the Bible, the second to last chapter in the Bible. I want to start off by reading this Scripture together. This is written by a guy named John, one of Jesus' disciples, who's now living in exile as a prisoner of Rome. John has given this vision of the future that we have in Jesus. We'll start in verse 1. "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. 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 and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away." Verse 5. "He who was seated on the throne said, “Behold I am making all things new.”, and then he said, “Write this down for these words are trustworthy and true.” 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 water without cost from the spring of the water of life without payment. Those who are victorious will inherit all of this and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur, this is the second death." We'll end our reading there with that rather difficult verse, which we're going to come back to in a little bit. What do you think heaven will be like? What's your picture? What do you think of when you think of heaven? Some of us have an image that's been shaped by culture, media or movies. So we think that when we get to heaven, we're going to see people like Morgan Freeman or George Burns. Maybe you think of a place like Disney World where everything sparkles and it's all just perfect, childlike joy. Although most of my Disney experiences were in youth ministry and getting kicked out of the Magic Kingdom. It's a true story for another time. But what do you think about when you think about heaven? People sometimes wonder about whether animals are going to be there. Every so often, I'll get this question from a kid in our church, "Will my pet be in heaven?" Little girl will write a letter. "Will my dog Bailey go to heaven?" I don't know. Maybe. What about cats? Will there be cats in heaven? The answer is no! That's somewhere in second Maccabees. No cats, no mosquitoes, no mayo. My kind of heaven. There were two lifelong friends and they loved baseball. And so their biggest question because they loved baseball was will there be baseball in heaven? Because they knew if there wasn't baseball in heaven, they weren't going to be happy. So they made this pact together that when one of them went first, he'd find some way to let the other one know if there was baseball in heaven. Well the day came and one of them went first and he went to heaven. Sure enough, in a time of prayer he found a way to talk to his friend. He kind of visited his friend and his friend said, "Well what's the answer? Is there baseball in heaven?" His buddy said, "Well I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is there is baseball in heaven. The bad news is you're pitching Friday." So, last weekend we kicked off this series on heaven and I love how Charlie set the direction for this series. If you haven't watched the message, you can do that on our website or on our YouTube channel. But he asked this question that I think a lot of us may want to ask. Is it really okay? Given all the challenges in our world today with this pandemic and shelter in place and negative oil prices and the way that our world and our lives have been turned upside down, is it still okay in the midst of this present crisis to focus on the future on something like heaven? I mean, isn't that a little bit escapist or tone deaf or naive? There's a guy named Dallas Willard who taught philosophy at USC for 40 years and I have found this so helpful. Willard said that we human beings, we think about the future as naturally as we breathe. It's like we're wired to think about the future. We all want to know. We're all deeply concerned with what the future holds. Here's the thing, and Willard has written extensively about this. He says, "Our picture of the future, it shapes the way we live and act in the present." We end up living out in the present what we think the future holds. The choices we make, the relationships we pursue, what we invest, our time, heart, giftedness, money and value in. This is shaped by our picture of the future. In this last book of the Bible, we have a picture drawn of the future by the one who holds the future. This is what Christians believe and I know that there are those of you who are joining us and watching who you may not describe yourself that way. I'm so grateful that you're a part of this, whether you're curious about faith, you're exploring faith or you're skeptical. But for those of us who follow Jesus, we believe that this is not just some kind of escapist alternate reality to help numb the pain. This is a glimpse into our future reality and it can shape our lives in the here and now. So the Apostle John, he has this vision of the future and what he sees is a city. Verse 1, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. John sees a new city and a new creation. The New Jerusalem, which right off the bat is kind of striking because this is not a return as many would have thought to the very beginning in the Garden of Eden, which we had at the beginning of creation. It's a city. There are gardens in that city. Yes, but it's still a city. This is a little surprising for those who have been steeped in the story of the Bible because many of the authors of Scripture were not so impressed with cities. Cities were often seen as these places of corruption, of humanity's desire to run from God or to make a name for ourselves and to find their own glory apart from God. This goes all the way back to the first pages of the Bible to the city and the Tower of Babel. If you remember the story, the key phrase is “we can make for ourselves.” Ourselves. That's often the language of the city. It's a place of pride and sometimes of violence. When Cain kills Abel, he runs off into a city. So this picture of heaven in Revelation 21. It's not just some abstract, serene landscape of rolling hills and wide open spaces. It's not a retreat from reality at all. It's a remaking, a redeeming and a renewing of life as we know it. Notice the language there in verse e, "Coming down out of heaven." In other words, it's not our doing. It's not something we can create. It's not the result of an evolutionary process or our ever greater enlightenment, which leads us to towards some kind of utopia. Hegel was wrong. No coming down out of heaven. That means it's a gift. It's grace, we receive it. It's beyond anything we could ever achieve. So what I want us to do is to walk through this picture of heaven coming down, this new city because of our vision of the future that shapes how we live today and in the present. What we'll find as we walk through this vision that God has given John of heaven is that a number of things will come to an end. They will be no more. Every day I get an email update of all the latest closures and cancellations in the city and in our society. Things that have been canceled. Last week, it was the rest of the school year. If you live in Texas, it's been canceled. Graduations, for those of you who are seniors have been canceled. Prom, which for a lot of students would have been last night, was canceled. Haircuts, canceled. Gyms canceled, workplaces canceled, sports and leagues are all canceled. The Olympics was canceled. College football has not yet been canceled. I was just seeing if you're paying attention. This week, we found out if your last name begins with A through L, well the Katy Trail on Sunday is canceled. Then there's all the plans that we may have had for this summer. Hopes to go on a trip or a vacation with the people that we love and you're left, you're wondering, is it going to be canceled? See what we find in Revelation 21 where John gives us a series of things, seven things that have been canceled. I'm grateful to Darryl Johnson for his writing and his commentary on the Book of Revelation. Seven things that are canceled in heaven. Here they are starting in verse 1 it says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth and there was no longer any sea." So the first thing that's canceled is the sea. Now, this is probably just me, but every time I've ever been out at sea, I've gotten sick as a dog. So I'm okay with this. But some of you are like, "Man, I thought this was supposed to be good news. I love the sea. I miss the ocean, the beach, the waves, all things Jimmy Buffett, anything but safer at home in Dallas. What do you mean the sea is canceled?" Well, notice that John doesn't say that water or bodies of water had been canceled, but the sea. In the Bible, the sea represents these forces of chaos, of danger, disorder and nothingness. The sea was like the opposite. It was the undoing of creation. So things like winds, waves, lakes and oceans. These weren't sources of hope or transcendence or beauty. No. In the ancient world it was these that were the fear of powers that would threaten to undo us. No longer any sea. It means that the forces of chaos are now gone. It means among other things, no more hurricanes or typhoons or flooding or storms or tornadoes that destroy and just take innocent lives. No more sea, it means no more chaos, no more wreckage, that there's nothing to fear. The sea is canceled. Second, down in verse 4, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain." In this new city, tears, mourning, crying, death, they're all canceled. All a thing of the past. Is there any greater picture of the future that we have in Jesus and through Jesus? It's almost too good to be true. No more pain, no more suffering, and some of you know what it's like to live with pain and in pain in ways that most of us will never know. For as long as I can remember growing up until the day that she died, almost 15 years of my mother's life, pain was pretty much a weekly, daily reality. She suffered from chronic migraines and they came in waves and they came often and if she wasn't hiding in the dark with her Diet Cokes and ice packs, she was waiting and we were really all wondering when would the next one come? "No longer any pain", John says, "And no longer death." Undone, defeated in this new city. Death is canceled. It's a thing of the past. As of today, and many think these numbers are lower than reality, but more than 190,000 deaths from this corona virus around the world. We're nearing 50,000 deaths in the United States alone. 160 deaths in the area of our city. Our church family has lost loved ones to this pandemic. Whether you've lost someone or not, we all know people who because of health complications or because of their age or because of where they live, because of their work, which puts them in harm's way every single day. We know the fear that comes for those who are at risk of death, which in the end is all of us. We're all terminal and John says, a day is coming when that fear is simply irrelevant. Death will be no more pain, death, tears, mourning, all canceled. Again, this isn't just hope for something that we look to in the future, although it's certainly that. It's so much more because it gives us hope that we can begin to live towards. It shapes the way that we live and love and serve even now. About a month ago, the same week that we canceled all of our church services and Dallas was beginning to lock down one of our team members, Walter Teeter, he works with our kids, earlier that week, his wife, Amy went in for a routine physical and there was something abnormal in her blood test. She had to go in for more testing and they found that there was cancer. Somehow in the midst of all of this, just unraveling in our world and sheltering in place, Amy was able to get in to see the right specialists and she was able to schedule the right surgery and they were able to remove all of the tumor that they could see. We have been praying as a staff team for Walter and with Walter and Amy every day on a Zoom call. Just imagine going through all of this right now. You're at the hospital recovering and your kids are sheltering at home. This week, Amy, she started chemo and it's going to be a journey. It's going to be a process. Walter has talked about how they found more hope and more encouragement in God's word and through the church than they ever have before. Just one example, there's a woman in our church, her name is Leslie Melson and those of you who know Leslie know that she has been in her own battle with cancer for the last few years. Round after round of chemo and treatments and trips down to MD Anderson. Well last week, Amy gets a phone call from Leslie and they've just been talking through this last week for hours about what is to come and what to expect. Leslie's just encouraging Amy as she begins her own chemo treatments. God's going to be with you in this. God is with you. God's going to lead you through this. Here's one woman who's suffering through her own battle and she's spreading hope to another. I wish you could hear Walter's family as they just share what they're experiencing in the midst of this. Walter keeps telling our team, "Hope is real. Hope is a person." Who are you going to share this hope within your life? We don't have to wait until heaven. It can happen now. Up there can come down here through us as we live in the reality of what Jesus has already done and in the power of the Holy Spirit that he's given us. The Holy Spirit that's at work in your life and in mine. It's a future where pain, death, tears, they are no more. What else has canceled? Number three, "Behaviors that are inconsistent with the kingdom of God." This brings us to that tricky verse at the end of our reading. If I'm completely honest, my first thought was just to end the reading right before this wild verse because it's such a downer, right? But we can't make a habit of just hiding from these harder texts. So, here we go. Notice how in this list in verse 9, it begins with the cowardly and it ends with liars. Okay? That's intentional. John is singling out these two things in particular, cowardice and lying. This was not just some bright broad swipe at lying or white lies. Like if you've ever told a lie before, there's a lake of burning sulfur waiting for you. I hope not because we're working on lying in our house right now. Our kids have finally discovered that there is such a thing as deception. I used to assume that when my sweet and wonderful and innocent daughter came downstairs in the morning and she said she had brushed her teeth that she had actually indeed and in truth brushed her teeth. Now when she comes down in the morning, I've learned that I have to ask her. When I say, "Annie, have you brushed your teeth?" And she says, "Yes." Now I have to fact check. So I'll say, "Annie, come over here. Come over here and breathe into your mom's face and we'll see if you're really telling the truth." But the Apostle John, he singles out cowardice and lying. Why? Because they're connected and they're related. They're related to the cost of being a follower of Jesus in the early church. In the late 1st Century when this was written, Christians were facing increasing persecution in the Roman world. Most of all in the Roman Empire, this persecution was a result of their refusal to bow down and to worship Caesar, the emperor. This, by the way, taps into one of the dominant themes at the heart of Revelation. Who is king? Who is it that sits on the throne? Is it Caesar or is it God? All you had to do if you were a Christian and you were trumped up on charges or you were brought before the authorities or you were threatened with persecution, all you had to say was, "Caesar is Lord." And you could go on with your life. Now, I want to be cautious here because John is not just referring to those Christians who on one particular day they fell under the pressure of torture and intimidation against their families. Jesus was actually quite merciful toward those who were persecuted. No, what John is referring to here are those who continue over time, who've grown accustomed to caving in the face of pressure from a world that wants them to deny the truth of who God is. It's those who continue, who build a life on caving under pressure and denying the truth of who God is. And then maybe beyond that is just this question. Would you really want to spend eternity in the presence of one whom you spent a lifetime denying? I know that there's so much more that we could get into with that, and if you've got questions, I'd love to hear those from you, but I'm going to keep going. Verse 4, and this may be the most shocking, the most surprising cancellation of all. Verse 22, "And I saw no temple in the city." Now this is the one where context is everything. If you've been raised among the Jewish people, which the writer John and most of his contemporaries were, no temple was just unheard of because the temple, this is where God dwells. This is where you go to meet God. So here's John, and he's being given this tour of the heavenly city, and he's walking street after street and he keeps looking at all this amazing stuff. After a while, he starts to wonder. He's like, "Wow, I see a lot of great stuff. There are the streets of gold, and there's the onyx and the sapphire and the emerald foundation. That's pretty amazing. And hey, there's the tree with leaves for the healing of the nations. That's beautiful. That's incredible. But hello, where's the temple? Where is God in the midst of all this?" What he comes to realize is that the whole city is the temple, but it gets even better than that. In Verses 16 and 17 John, he lays out the measurements of this new city and it's measured in stadia, which none of us know what a stadia is but that sounds kind of cool. But if you look at these measurements, what shape is this new city? What shape is this new city? John, as he lays this out, he even calls it, he says it's like a square. But it's not really a square because its length and its width and its height are all the same. Well, what kind of shape is that for those of you who are still taking geometry online? Equal width, length and height, that's not a square. That's a cube. Well, what's that all about? What else in the Old Testament, what else in the Scriptures of God's people, what else was measured as a cube? If you've spent your life immersed in the Scriptures as the Jewish people did, this cube, this equal length, width and height would send out all kinds of flares. The moment you heard that because this was the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place inside the heart of the temple were only the High Priest could go, only once a year, only with a rope tied around his leg in case he died. So you see what John is saying, what he's inviting us to see with him is this new city is not just the new temple. It's the new Holy of Holies. There is not one inch, one cubit, one stadia in this new city where God's glory does not dwell in all of its fullness for all people to delight in for all of eternity. Can we keep going? Another thing that is canceled, Verse 23 it says, "The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light and the lamb is its lamp." Of course, because there's no temple. God's glory is just pouring out and shining through into every street in this new city. Notice it doesn't say that there's no more sun or moon, but there's no longer any need for the light from the sun or the moon for the glory of God and the lamb himself. They will provide all the light that we need. Number six, this is Verse 25, "And its gates will never be shut." Closed gates are all canceled because there's nothing to fear, nothing and no one to keep out that could ever bring harm to that city. No more gates that are closed. No need to protect ourselves against other foreign nations or other enemies. Again, this is tapping into the story of Israel. God's people who were called, chosen and blessed so that they could be a blessing for everyone in the world, for all nations and, for the Gentiles. Israel always existed for the sake of the Gentiles, for those beyond their gates. And yet somehow, somewhere along the way, it's like they forgot. They forgot that it was never just about them that they were to give themselves away for the sake of all people. John, he's invited into this city to see this heavenly reality where there are no closed gates, which means that what God had always wanted done has now been done. This new city full of people from every tribe, every tongue, every nation, and there is no more need for close gates. The last thing that's canceled and we'll end with this. Revelation 22:3, "No longer will there be any curse." The curse, which began back in the beginning in that garden with Adam and Eve, this curse of separation, exile and broken relationships, hatred of brother and sister and the curse of sin and shame and injustice and racism, of suffering and sickness and disease and even of death itself. The curse is canceled. "No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow. Far as the curse is found." The curse has been canceled in church. This is our glorious future. So God we pray. May it be so. Jesus, would your kingdom come on earth just as it is in heaven? Help us to be a people who see with such clarity, courage and hope what is to come and what will be no more. We ask God that this vision of heaven that it would give us comfort to those who've been wrecked by suffering. That it would give hope and perspective to those who've lost so much, even those they love. Would you fill us with hope that one day we're going to get this life back and so much more? And then Jesus, we ask that this vision of our future with you, that it would give us new resolve, a burden to pursue the things that matter most right now. To live more in your presence and to help more people come to know your love and to know your presence in their lives. And that we would be compelled to bring healing and to feed the hungry and to fight for justice and to love our enemies so that this world and this city can look more and more like heaven even now. We pray this in Jesus name and everybody said. Amen.