Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1619
December 31, 2023
Revelation 21:1-8 Click here for audio worship.
Dr. Ed Pettus
(This is an extended outline, not a verbatim transcript.)
“A New Creation”
21.1Then 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. 2And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3And 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. 4He 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.” 5And 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.” 6And 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. 7The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8But 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 sulfur, which is the second death.” (ESV)
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A New Year
It’s New Year’s Eve, happy new year! Maybe it comes with age, but with each new year I find it hard to believe the numbers...2024 just looks odd. Maybe it is because I can still remember the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and I know some of you who have more experience than I can hearken back even further. Every new year brings new challenges whether we are thinking about growing older, new resolutions, new beginnings, or any new things. I also trust that anyone born in the 2000s thinks 2024 is no big deal as far as the numbers go!
A new year is exciting, filled with possibility, and hope for a brighter future. When I worked at a health club we always had a large number of people join the club in January to get in shape for the new year. By March the excitement and newness wore off, the resolution evaporated, and only the regulars from the previous year continued to work out. Very often people had some type of vision of what they wanted for their life. Too often they had to rely only on their own strength and will power and could not follow through.
The Bible is filled with new things. New songs, new grain offerings, new life, new spirit, new name, new heavens, new earth, new covenant, new mercies, new heart, new teaching, new tongues, new commandment, new creation, new self, and at the end of Revelation, God makes all things new! At first glance this all sounds really good. We like new things, new cars, new toys, new buildings, most anything new. The problem with the new of the Bible is that it requires a change in us. At first glance that does not sound really good.
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God’s New Things
Unlike folks who set out with good intentions on their own strength to lose weight or tone up, we do not need to rely on our own strength or on our own resolve for the new year and beyond. We have a promised future and a God who sustains us for that future. Revelation 21 reveals the future God promises. John’s vision tells us, “This is how it will be.” This promised future is in step with God’s sovereign grace for life and peace and making all things new. This also means that this promised future is in step with all of God’s truth in His Holy Word. And that means that anything that is not in step with God’s Word and God’s future is false. The world’s nonsense we see propagated through news and sport and entertainment and all the rest, will not be in the promised future. It is all wasted empty falsehood, a house of lies that will not stand. What the promised future reveals in Revelation is a vision that should influence how we are to live for today.
I want to suggest some topics for today that are revealed by this promised future. The first is hope. We live with a constant hope because there is a new thing in our future. Sometimes we hear someone speak and a comment might be, “it is not what he said that bothers me, it is what he did not say.” Here is a similar case. It is not what John saw that excites the Christian heart for hope, it is what he did not see. John says there will be no sea, 21.1Then 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. John’s understanding of the sea is not the physical oceans of the world. The biblical significance of the sea is its representation of chaos. It is creation un-done, the very opposite of the Creator God. In the gospels when Jesus walks on water and calms the sea he orders the chaos that threatens the disciples lives. In the book of Revelation the sea is the chaos out of which the dragon arises to torment the earth. In the new heaven and earth, the sea, the chaos, the undoing of creation ends. Evil will no longer be able to disturb creation, it will be overcome. Chaos will be defeated. Our hope for the future where all the chaotic nonsense of the world helps us to look beyond all the troubles and to set our hope on a promised future where none of the lies remain.
Interesting that this vision reveals things that will be no more! The sea, the chaos is one, but there are other things that will end, 4He 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.” All things that cause pain and death and mourning will cease. Some call this a move back to Eden where sin is erased completely and death has no meaning. Perhaps, but it might be even better than Eden because the serpent will have no place to tempt as those former things will have passed away.
Another revelation out of Revelation is obedience and faith because without the faith there can be no obedience. We are to live in obedience to God’s truth because anything outside of that truth will lead to destruction, a second death… 8But 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 sulfur, which is the second death.” The lies of this world are unsustainable. It appears to us that everything is lost because we are being told that men can compete against women in sports, that ten year old children are not old enough to drive but they can make the decision to change their gender, that it is okay to murder a child in the womb, or it is fine to want to eliminate all Jews from existence. The future promise says otherwise. The world of woke America is a world turned upside down, opposed to God, against the truth, and set on forcing everyone else to believe as they do in their crooked and twisted insanity. We have seen so much of this kind of behavior in 2023 and the years before, that we yearn for such a world in the future where righteousness and justice can have its way. All who fail to repent and seek the Lord, trusting in Him, and confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior will face a dire future.
Perhaps our new year, our new beginning in the year 2024 can bear in mind the vision of a promised future absent of the evils of our time. It is a vision of the future without chaos, without tears or death, without fear, without the delusions of identity and all the other immorality of the day. How might such a vision affect our present reality? How can the promise of a new heaven and a new earth affect how we live a new year?
Revelation offers three words of truth:
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The sea of chaos is not the final word for our lives.
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The miseries of death, mourning, crying, and pain are not the final word.
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The cowards who hate and kill and strike fear in society are not the final word.
All of the false narratives in the world today will perish. It is part of the devil’s work to get all of us caught up in the hopelessness of turning things around. We begin to think nothing in the world will ever change or be changed. The lies lead us to doubt and anxiety and fear, and yet, the promise rings true throughout God’s story with us. The Bible is clear. 5And 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.” These words are trustworthy and true. Believe them and rejoice. Trust them as look forward to what God will do in the coming year. Do not give up hope, for we have the Truth, the Truth that is God’s Holy Sacred Inspired Word and the Truth that is Jesus Christ. 6And 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. 7The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
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Believing the New to Come
Do we truly believe? I believe Mary and Joseph weathered the chaos of a pregnancy before marriage because they knew that this world did not have the final word. I believe Jesus could stand before Herod and Pilate and the crowd that yelled, “Crucify him” because he knew that the kingdom of this world did not have the final say. I believe that Jesus is the beginning and the end and He is making all things new. We can stand upon the truth of God and announce to all the problems, pain, chaos, crime, sickness, uncertainty, and all that would attempt to enslave us and say, “You are not the final word.” Nothing of this world will determine who I am or who you are. Our lives are fixed ahead of this life, focused on the One who defines who we are by what we have become and are becoming in Jesus Christ. That, my friends, is a statement of faith that holds confidence in the promised visions of the Bible.
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A New Creation
And this is why I believe and why everyone who trusts in Jesus believes, because He has already done a new thing in us! “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5.17). As Christians, God has done a new thing in us. All is made new within us and therefore all that will be made new in known to us. We can see the vision of Revelation 21 because the Spirit has given us sight, spiritual sight, for new things now and new things to come. We have insight into the things of God and His kingdom that non-believers cannot see (1 Corinthians 2.14). Every believer has already experienced a new creation! And God will soon make all things new. Trust in the Word of truth that is Revelation 21 and the Word of truth that is Genesis to Revelation. Find ways to integrate one’s self into this Word. New things will come in a new year saturated with God’s Word. Watch out 2024, “Behold, I am making all things new.” It’s New Year’s Eve, happy New Year and may God show all of us the new things to come. Amen.
