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An archive of Jacob Nannie's Sermons & Lectures
- You're welcome. - That might be better. Wow, now you can really hear me. Let's start over. Okay, Revelation 21, verses one through six. Hear now the word of the Lord. 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. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling with humanity and he will live with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Grief, crying, and pain will be no more because the previous things have passed away. Then the one seated on the throne said, look, I am making everything new. He also said, right, because these words are faithful and true. And then he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Chapter 104, All Things New, Revelation 21 to 22. Then John saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth, the one God made at the beginning, had passed away. And John heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, heaven is coming to earth. God is coming to dwell with his people. No more tears, no more pain, no more death. When God is everything, nothing sad can endure. Then the one who sat on the throne said, look, I am making all things new. It is done. I am your A and your Z, the first earth. I am your Z, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. I am your faithful God, and you are my forever children. And John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride, walking down the aisle for her husband. The city sparkled with the glory of God. The foundations of the city were adorned with every kind of precious jewel. The city had 12 gates for the 12 tribes of Israel, with great high walls and a street through the middle made of pure gold. What a sight the holy city must have been for John. What a sight it will be for us, not only for what is there, but for what is not there. There is no temple in the city because God is all in all. There is no sun or moon in the city because God and the lamb give it light. There is no night because the city is never at risk, and the gates never shut because nothing bad can ever enter in. The world to come is like a new creation. It's like a new city, and it's like a new garden. John saw the river of the water of life flowing from the throne, and on either side of the river was the tree of life with 12 kinds of fruit, and the leaves were for the healing of the nations. This garden will be the paradise that the first garden was meant to be. There will be no more curse in the heavenly garden, no more separation from God, and no more scary things in the dark. Then Jesus said to John, "These words are trustworthy and true. "Listen to this book, obey this book, trust this book, "and look for me. "I will be back to judge the living and the dead." That's our hope. That's our confidence. The snake crusher will return. He will be our joy, and we will be his delight. The Holy Spirit says, "Come." The church says, "Come." Let everyone who is thirsty for living water say, "Come." Let everyone who wants to live forever say, "Come." Then Jesus had one last message for John, and it is one last message for us. Count on it, the snake crusher said, "I am coming soon." And so we say, "Amen, come, Lord Jesus." - Well, that's it, that's a sermon. You can stand for the benediction. (audience laughs) No, I love that video, and it's the vision that scripture gives us for what is coming. The world's gonna be made new, God with his people. No more tears, no more death, no more night. But if we stop for a second and we're honest, as beautiful as that sounds, we still don't quite know what to do with the thought of the new heavens and the new earth. When we think about the new heavens and new earth, our mind starts to fill in the gaps, doesn't it? We imagine what eternity might feel like. We wonder what it might actually look like and be like to live forever in God's presence. Those questions aren't new. We've asked these questions all the time, and I've been asking that question as long as I can remember. We all have many ideas of what it would be like, but when I was a kid, the thought of heaven actually gave me quite a bit of anxiety. Remember one time driving down a highway in Monterey, California, and there was a stretch of highway that felt like it was forever when I was a kid, and I was an adult, it's like maybe 10 seconds long, but it felt like forever, and it was this highway lined with eucalyptus trees. It looked somewhat similar to this. It's a beautiful stretch of highway. I remember thinking to myself, though, what if heaven's like this? Just the same thing over and over again, same boring trees, same boring houses, same boring everything forever, and that gave me a lot of anxiety. I don't want heaven to be like this. I don't want heaven to be the same thing over and over again into nothing. Is heaven a place filled with never-ending streets, rows and rows of houses, trees after tree, maybe just hallways? This thought of a never-ending, boring, bland landscape really gave me a lot of anxiety as a kid. It might even be beautiful, but after a while, doesn't that beauty kind of wear out if it's just the same thing over and over and over again? A thought of heaven disturbed my sense of peace. What images have you thought of heaven? Maybe you think of them in certain images now. Maybe you think of certain images when you were a kid. Maybe it was an escapist viewer. You would settle for anything that just wasn't here. Maybe you have or have had the classic cloud and harp viewer all floating around as babies in diapers, playing harps. The point is that not everyone is anxious about heaven, but I think a lot of us are just indifferent about it. And we're indifferent about it because our ways of viewing the new heavens and the new earth are distorted and kind of bent. I became anxious about heaven because I had a distorted view about heaven. I didn't understand where heaven would be. And I didn't understand who would be in heaven. And what I understand now and I want to help us understand this morning is this. God will live with us on earth again. Heaven will be on earth and who will be there? God will be there. God will live with us on earth again. Again, my thoughts of heaven were wrong. Heaven doesn't mean that you will go to some new place that contains endless nothingness. Heaven does not mean that you and I will get sucked up into the sky to live some formless life with God, whatever that means. No, heaven will be God coming down to earth to live with us in the new heaven and the new earth for eternity. In fact, that's what Advent is about. It's about remembering first and celebrating that Jesus came to earth to be with us, to inaugurate his kingdom, to bring healing and peace. But it's also building the anticipation and waiting for his second coming. Well, he will descend again to a renewed heaven and a new earth to be with us forever. The manger of Jesus reveals that our hope is not for an empty sky but for a full world renewed by the presence of God. If you think of heaven that way, here on earth, renewed, brand new, in God's presence, don't you wanna go there? Again, the manger means that one day God will live with us on earth forever. The manger is the biblical down payment on a restored creation with God. The manger is a promise to us. And there are three promises in particular I wanna walk us through this morning. Three promises that the new heaven and new earth give us. And the first promise is that God will bring peace to our world and the new heaven and new earth. God will bring peace to our world. Again, when I was a kid, thinking of heaven gave me a profound lack of peace, but that won't exist in the new heavens and new earth. God will bring peace to all things. And we see that if we look at our text closely this morning. We see God bringing peace to the world in Revelation 21, one and two. John says, then I saw new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. You see, in the ancient world, the sea represented many things. It represented the origin of cosmic evil. It represented the rebellious nations of earth that caused trouble for the people of God. It represented the location of the dead. It even had a representation of being the location where nefarious business and idolatrous business activities happen. The sea meant many things, many bad things. But in general, the sea was the untamed chaos of the world that we all feel. In Revelation 21, one, the sea represents the entire range of afflictions that formally threatened God's people in the old world. And friends, when God comes, he will do away with that sea. He will do away with everything that threatens our existence, that threatens our peace, that threatens our safety. That's not a boring place to live. Now, God won't do away with the large bodies of water, but he will do away with what they represent, the untamed chaos of the world. And he will create a new heavens, a new earth, where we can live fully expressed before the face of God. I mean, think about it. Which world do you wanna live in? Do you wanna live in a world full of chaos, where anything could happen, even the bad things? I mean, think of this sea. Does this sea invite you to try surfing? It'll be fun. Or go swimming forever. No, this is terrifying. I personally do not like the ocean. The ocean terrifies me. And images like this really capture the chaos of the world. A world like this is not where we wanna try new things out. It's actually giving us our limits. I don't want to try that. I don't wanna express myself if it means something dangerous like that. Chaos, it threatens our safety, but it also shrinks the enjoyment we have in this life. That's not the world we wanna live in. But what if you live in a world with no chaos, just peace? How about this image? Is this image a little more inviting to you? Maybe it's more relaxing. Maybe you'll try surfing in these types of waters. I don't know how you would, but you could surf. And maybe you're like me and it's still the ocean, it's still scary, you don't wanna surf ever. But it's more peaceful. It's more peaceful. The new heavens and new earth will be a place where peace saturates everything to the point that we can try things. We can be ourselves. We can be who God made us to be and fully express ourselves with no fear of failure, no fear of chaos, no fear of death, just profound peace. A new creation, God will make all things right. He will bring peace that overcomes and transcends all the chaos of the world. There'll be no more anxiety, no more of that constant hum of worry that never quiets down, no more bullying, no more being picked on, no more being excluded, no more being made to feel small, no more loneliness, no more bad dreams, no more broken relationships, no more strained family relationships, no more fractured friendships, no more sickness and pain, no more bodies that hurt and are decaying. There'll be no more injustice, no more oppression, no more systems that crush instead of protect, no more fighting, no more anger, no more yelling, no more cruelty, no more harm, no more fear of the future, no more uncertainty about what's coming next, no more death, no more saying goodbye, no more final losses and no more lasting grief. Isn't that a heaven that you want to be a part of? This is not because there'll be a time when the human race figures all this out, but because God with his presence coming down to us will conquer all of this chaos. The presence of God will be with us and he will bring everlasting peace. God will bring peace to our world. But even with that hope, that future hope, we're left asking a simple yet profound question. How do we experience and cultivate that peace, new heaven and new earth peace right now? And the answer is simple, but it's not an easy answer. If we want to experience the peace that the Bible speaks about, then we have to be active in cultivating it. We have to be the salt and the light of the world that Jesus has called us to be. And as we participate in being the salt and light, participate in the kingdom of God, as we yoke ourselves to Jesus, the peace that transcends all understanding, as the Apostle Paul says, will become a lived experience for us. And yet even as we taste that peace, we have to remember it's just a taste. It's a foretaste of something that we will know fully for eternity. And even as we taste that peace, we have to know something is still not right. Peace does not mean the absence of our pain. It does not mean our bodies stop hurting or our hearts stop breaking or our tears all of a sudden dry up. We can walk with Jesus faithfully, daily, and still carry many wounds. We can live in the kingdom of God and still feel the ache of a broken world. Which raises an important question. What is God promising to do with all of this pain? That peace alone cannot ease. That's the second promise of the new heavens and new earth. The new heavens and new earth promise us that God will bring healing to you. In the new heavens and new earth, God will bring healing to you. It's in our passage, in Revelation 21, and verses like these are so precious, we should hold on and cling to these promises. Here again, God's word, in verse four. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Grief, crying, and pain will be no more because the previous things have passed away. It doesn't take much to remember or remind ourselves we live in a broken and shattered world. We are wounded people. We don't have to go far back in our memories to know how we're wounded. We are in constant need of mending and healing, but one of the glorious realities of the manger is that the king of the universe came as a humble and vulnerable baby. He lived as a real human, and because of that, Jesus knows our human weakness. Jesus knows pain. We have a savior who can sympathize with us in our weakness, in our hurt, in our pain, in our brokenness, and more than just know how we feel, Jesus, our savior, has promised us that he will make all of that go away. He'll make all things new physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Friends, Jesus knows what it's like to shed tears of pain, of heartbreak, of agony, of grief, and the new heavens and new earth, those tears that even Jesus experienced, he will wipe away forever. And he won't just wipe away the big tears, the ones that everyone sees that are hard to hide. He even cares about the small ones, the small ones that we cry when no one else sees. And he promises to remove their cause, which is death. Death itself will be no more, not only physical death, but the death brought by sin, evil, and the devil, and the new heavens and the new earth. Jesus will finally and forever defeat our true enemy. That's all great news, isn't it? The pain seems to still be ever-present before us, here, right now. Some of us struggle with chronic illness here and right now. Some of us are fatigued by struggles with our mental health right now. Some of us have deep grief, maybe even trauma that surfaces this time of year. We feel those things right now. And friends, Jesus knows all of that. He knows that pain, and he knows it well. In his first advent, he drew near to conquer the true enemy behind those symptoms, which are pain. And he's coming again to do away with it all. He's coming again to wipe away every tear, to do away with death forever, to do away with grief and crying and pain. None of that will be in the new heavens and new earth. Jesus is coming back to make all things new. Yes and amen. But if you're like me, you might be asking a question we asked earlier. How do we experience and cultivate this healing now? This is a serious question. I mean, some of us have real ailments, physical, emotional, spiritual, that we want healing from now. How do we experience that healing now? Well friends, the way to experience various types of healing is to draw near to Jesus. Remember in the gospels, it was when those who were sick, and even those who were dead, it's when they drew near to Jesus that they're healed and restored. If we want healing, emotional, physical, spiritual, if we want a foretaste of what the new heavens and new earth will be like, we have to draw near to God's presence. Whatever healing you experience here and now is just, it's just a partial foretaste of what is to come. Healing now is partial and temporary. Healing in the new heavens and new earth is complete and eternal. And Jesus does not promise that every wound here will be healed now. But he does promise that none of them will remain forever. Whatever hurt you feel now, whatever pain you feel now will not remain forever because in the new heavens and new earth, God will bring healing to you, everlasting peace, eternal healing. And the reason that we will have that is that in the new heavens and new earth are where God will bring his presence to us for eternity. The new heavens and new earth promise us that we will live in the presence of God forever. God will bring his presence to us. That's a promise. And John is clear about this promise in our passage. He's clear about what he saw in verse three. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne. Look, God's dwelling is with humanity and he will live with them. They will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and will be their God. All of scripture points to this future reality. God dwelling with humanity forever. This question we've been asking in this Advent series is where does God live? Where on earth does God live? And we've looked at various places of God's dwelling throughout the scriptures. In the garden, God dwelled with Adam and Eve. He even walked with them when sin and death entered in. They were distanced from God. But the story progressed and God cared to be near his people so in the tabernacle and in the temple, he made a way for his people to be near to him. Yet even there, his nearness, his presence was veiled and guarded. And then he drew close in Jesus on earth. And it was in the presence of God and the person of Jesus on earth that marked the beginning of God's kingdom. It was Jesus' presence on earth that brought peace and healing. But he just ascended and he sent his spirit to be with us in the church indwelling believers. God is present all through scripture. God is good and gracious for drawing near to us in all of these ways. And we know that there will be a day in the new heavens and new earth where God will dwell with humanity fully. But if we're honest, we might fill a gap right now. Yes, I know God is indwelling me, but will I get a better taste of his presence here? And the answer to that question is a resounding yes. And the day will come when Jesus returns that you will see and feel and experience the full presence of God. All these dwellings point to the new heaven and new earth where God will dwell with his people fully. Not for a time, not veiled and guarded, not just by his spirit, but the full presence of God dwelling with humanity. And friends, we can get a foretaste of that presence in the here and now. We ask, again, how do we experience and cultivate God's presence now? We might ask that question because maybe we are praying to God yet we feel unheard. Maybe we worship, but we still feel like we're kind of reaching out for God's presence, not really fulfilling it. Maybe we love God dearly, but we long for a more tangible expression of his presence. You can experience a taste of God's presence now, so how do we experience and cultivate that? Well, the answer is not a new answer. And actually, if we read it on the surface, it's a quite boring answer, but it's important and essential. Because God has already given us all the means by which we can draw near to him and experience his presence. And that is through reading scripture, praying, and communing with your brothers and sisters. Scripture, prayer, and communion. But it's not doing these things mechanically and out of habit with a cold, distracted, and divided heart. No, it's doing them sincerely. Scripture is more than information about God. It's an invitation to meet him. In the scriptures, God speaks to you and me. You can hear God's voice in the scriptures, and if you want to hear it audibly, then read them out loud. So if we want to experience the presence of God now, we don't have to look much further than the scriptures. Not to rush chapter by chapter, but to listen and be shaped by his voice. The presence of God is there. And friends, this is exactly what we're gonna do in 2026 in our sermon series titled "With God." This series is designed to help us do that, to be with God. For an entire year, from Genesis to Revelation, we will be walking through the story of scripture together. Not just to learn more about God, which we will, but to see his persistent desire to live life with his people. Week after week, we'll see the same truth. God draws near, God speaks, and God invites us to walk with him. And he invites us to respond, and the way we respond to him is in prayer. Prayer is not a performance, it's not a formula, it's honest, and it's honestly being present before God. Through prayer, we draw near to God, we bring our doubts, our gratitude, our needs, our fears, all this we bring to the presence of God. And the scriptures promise us that as we draw near to God, he will draw near to us. If we want to draw near to God, we must also draw near to our community. We experience God's presence through communion with his people. God's presence was never meant to be experienced alone. Instead, he meets us in shared spaces, shared worship. I mean, don't you kind of feel it sometimes when we all sing together, worship songs on Sunday morning, just a little taste of God's presence. Sometimes God's presence is in shared suffering. Sometimes God's presence is in shared joy. Sometimes God's presence comes when a prayer is spoken over us, or a brother or sister encourages us and carries our faith when our faith feels weak. Communing with your brothers and sisters is a way to experience the presence of God, a foretaste of what will be forever in the new heavens and new earth. And these practices, scripture, prayer, communion, these are not magic. They don't force God's presence, but they put you where God promised he will be. And as we do them with open hearts, with expectation, with humility, and with hunger, we will begin to taste, even now, what will be ours fully one day in the new heavens and new earth. The manger tells us that God does not stay distant. God does not stay far off. He draws near to us, and as we draw near to him, we're given a taste of what will be forever in the new heavens and new earth. We long for that day, don't we? And Advent is a season of longing. But the cry that shapes Advent is the same cry that shapes the Christian life. It's the same cry that Christians have been crying out for thousands of years, and that is the prayer. We see it at the end of Revelation, "Come, Lord Jesus." The Christian life is a life of waiting, waiting for the day that Christ returns to bring peace and healing in the fullness of God's presence. But until that day, we do wait, but do not wait passively. The Christian life is not a life of waiting passively. We participate in the kingdom of Jesus. We live as people shaped by a future hope that we know will be ours one day, a future hope that's not abstract but deeply personal. The promise of the new heavens and new earth is not just that God will live with us forever. That is true, God will live with us forever. But the promise is that one day there will be no more distance whatsoever, no more wondering where God is, no more reaching for him and filling just fragments of his presence, because one day God will be fully and finally with us with his people. Don't you wanna be there? Don't you long for that kind of nearness of God? Do you long for a world where God is not partially present but fully among us, where there's peace, where there's healing, where there's fullness? Well, friends, God is inviting you into that life. He's inviting you to walk with him through his word, through prayer, through communion with his people. And even as we taste it now, we can get taste of what will become in the future. And as we wait, we remember the manger, we remember that God came once humble and near in the person of Jesus. He was embodied in human flesh. We remember that he's with us now, indwelling us by his spirit, sustaining us and shaping us. We remember that God will come again to wipe away every tear, to do away with death forever and to dwell with his people fully. So we wait in hope, we wait in longing, and we pray together with confidence that it will happen one day. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.