Intro/Outro: Welcome to Garden Church podcast. We're in part two of a series on the book of Revelation. We're doing a deep dive into how to read and interpret this amazing amazing book. Enjoy.
Jon Rosene: We have also been having our missionary families join us each week as we have seen what God is doing in the nations. It's been incredible to hear each week what he is doing and that there is a commission in us all to bring about his kingdom here and now as it is in heaven. So today is no different. We have an incredible family with us, half the family's here. They have been friends, partners with us, actually before even Garden was was a thing.
They've been friends with Darren and Alex seventeen years ago. And the last three years, the Tarantino family has been in Tel Aviv, Israel. And so we have the privilege and honor of of having Nolan and two of his boys with us today. So would you give a warm welcome to Nolan Tarantino? There we go.
Nolan, so good to have you with us. And I think for many of us, you know, we can get caught up in the news cycles of things. We can see things from a distance. We can find ourselves in all different varying viewpoints of what is happening. You have your family is there and you're experiencing this in real time and I know this isn't exactly why you went, but this is the reality of the situation now and so I would love to just hear from you.
How has your family what have you sensed God doing in the midst of this? Like, what's your posture been as a family? And what have you seen God do as you postured yourself in that way?
Nolan Tarantino: That's a let's see where this goes.
Ramin Razavi: Yeah.
Nolan Tarantino: No. I would I would start off by saying, it all started because I said yes at one point. I was 18 years old. And it's led to this moment. You know, a lot of people come up.
I've and I've and I've listened, you know, people that say they're called into missions and they said, we were supposed to go to a certain location, a country, a people group, a language. And it's amazing when God works that way. But what happens when God works that way and he says, just will you trust me? That's that's fun in the beginning. But twenty three years later to have rockets going off your above your house, I thought, yes, it's supposed to get get easier.
I think God, over these last twenty years, was setting up us up for this moment though because he knew he could use my family in a way in Israel that would be different than a lot of people view Israel.
Ramin Razavi: Yeah.
Nolan Tarantino: Do you know that there's more missionaries? Israel has one of the most missionaries per capita. Let me help you break that down. All of you guys have a candle and we turn off the lights and it's really bright in here. But in all of our kids rooms, there's no light.
My family chose to go to a city that has no light. There's maybe a lot of missionaries there that are trying to do probably amazing things, but they're they're isolated in these little tiny groups in in a group that already knows Jesus. And when we went there for the first time on a holy Land trip, our messianic guide said, I would never go to Tel Aviv. There is too much sin there. Wow.
And I remember it was in that moment that we said we'd go.
Jon Rosene: Yeah. Sounds good. Not only would we go ask you to go.
Nolan Tarantino: But we just had a vision of a table. And it didn't matter who was sitting across the table. You're Arab? You're Jew? You're Russian?
Because we have lots of Russians. All we knew is we would be willing to be available to be used by God no matter what to no matter who would be there. Because they're desperate to have a real relationship with Jesus. To be exposed to somebody who had that. That's what we're trying to live. And in that, my boys are right here. Stand up real quick.
Jon Rosene: Come on, Colton.
Nolan Tarantino: This is Colton. It's his birthday today.
Jon Rosene: Happy birthday, Colton.
Nolan Tarantino: This is Ryland. We flew for twelve hours from Athens to Chicago and that's how he celebrated his birthday.
Jon Rosene: So good.
Nolan Tarantino: Following Jesus at times can be you guys can sit down. Can be scary and honestly, it's really crazy right now. But he protects us. If you ask my boys later, you'll see the joy in their life.
Jon Rosene: Yeah. Yeah. I would love to It's so good.
Nolan Tarantino: We're doing good.
Jon Rosene: So good. I love the aspect like because we can get so caught up in in the the camps or the different perspectives of this and so you've seen it as a table. And that is what Jesus does. Like he doesn't he doesn't create boundaries. He sets up tables.
And so sometimes he uproots them and sometimes it's necessary. But at the same time, there's just a posture that you've had. Can you just share this? There's two stories that I feel like are just really helpful to understand kind of that what that posture has looked like and what that's produced. Yeah.
My
Nolan Tarantino: boys have created every avenue of ministry for us. So by them playing sports, we're constantly on a on a field somewhere. And you don't realize how people are constantly watching you. When you live in the context that we do, I cannot share my faith with minors. I will go to jail.
Most people don't know that. So how are you going to live in that context? Well, you're just going to, every day, live out life the way I I I parent, the way I love my wife. People in our neighborhood notice those things. Yeah.
And this last week, no lie, one of the one of the grandfathers is at our game and he wasn't able to get back into the country during this last the twelve days that we had with Iran. And he was just heartbroken. He said, just was it brought me to a place of prayer. And I realized every time I go to the synagogue, I can't connect with God there. And Hannah goes, man, with the way we pray is just as he's our friend.
He goes, I know. I see that. I sense it in you. I am I he goes, I am so honored that you would be here and show us how to truly connect with God. Yeah.
And I'm going, you like, I'm amazed that he sees that. Wow. But it's because we're available in that moment. Yeah. Last night, Hannah calls me and says, Nolan, you're not gonna believe her three girls were over at our house for three hours.
She goes, it is the deepest we've ever talked about faith. Just sitting in our backyard. Just but it's because we're available in that moment. I wish, I can't go into all the stories, but it's just being available in that moment, it's been a beautiful story.
Jon Rosene: So good Nolan. Well, I want you to know that this this family is one that we are investing heavily in. And two, and and wanting to see just more of our community understand all that's going into what they're doing. So give abundantly, give generously. I wanna see phones come out right now and I wanna see a lot of, as Darren calls them, Pentecostal handshakes with cash in your hands as with the boys particularly, we got a birthday boy and two birthday boys, so bless them abundantly.
So, Nolan and actually, would the boys be okay with this too? Can we have them come down here? Let's just pray and bless. If you wanna come around and just lay a hand, if there's a stirring even right now of of just covering protection, all that they are experiencing as a family. We're just gonna pray our best prayers right now.
So yeah, just begin praying as you feel led those of us that are down here laying hands. Yeah. Jesus, we thank you that you have called and and Jesus, you have not only called, you have prepared and equipped even beyond what they had imagined this would look like. So I pray that the abundance of the kingdom would flow through the Tarantino family. That more and more thin spaces that they create around the table that would bring about your way of life, that would cut through division, that would cut through politics, that would cut through all of the noise Jesus, would you give them the clarity and perspective of your kingdom?
The just a region God that is that is so near and dear to your heart. God, would you raise up ancient ruins in this time to this family. God, bless them, we cover them, we ask that you would anoint them for your purposes, Jesus. And would you bless them abundantly. In your name we pray, amen.
Amen. Amen. Thank you, thank you guys. Thank you and please meet them after service. Thank you Nolan.
Ramin Razavi: Yeah. Love you guys. So good to be together family. What an honor to host them, isn't it? It's an honor to host them.
Thank you Nolan for coming. Thank you boys for coming. Happy birthday to both you guys. It's incredible. My friends, my name is Ramin.
I'm one of our pastors here and I get the privilege of taking the next step with you in our Revelation series today. We're in Revelation 21 so Darren left us with the lake of fire and today we get the new heaven and the new earth. Isn't that good news? John this is your phone. There you go.
I really believe that the Lord wants to speak a message of hope to many of us today. I don't know if anyone else in the room maybe could relate to some of the things that Tarantino's were saying, maybe it's not been physical rockets or physical warfare that you're facing but you have felt sort of like the ground has been shaking underneath you for a while and despair has been a much more regular occurrence than a sense of joy or hope. Or maybe today you're coming in and you've been in a season of mourning or pain or brokenness or loss and you've been longing to receive the comfort that can only come from heaven. Or maybe today you're coming in and there's just a prevailing sense of weakness. You feel weary, you feel tired, you feel burdened and you feel worn out and you're just wanting to believe again that the wind of the spirit could breathe new life into you today.
And if you're in any of those places, I have incredible news for you and it's not my news, it's the news that John sitting on the island of Patmos in ninety six AD had his eyes opened to reality as it actually was. And sitting on the throne of heaven, God himself speaks with profound clarity, I am making all things new again. And in that word comes everything that we need for now and for forever because it's not a word that minimizes our pain but says that our lives will ultimately be defined not by the suffering we experience but by the salvation that we receive in Christ Jesus our Lord. And this is the hope that we cling to. That in the midst of whatever it is we're facing that the story of Jesus is one of renewal, salvation and redemption.
And that when he touches our hearts with his restoring love, it gives us the ability to have a hopeful imagination for the future again today. I believe God wants to restore that to some of us today. The ability to have a hopeful imagination for the future again. If you like sermon titles you're also in luck today because I actually have one to start the message and it's very simple. Hope rises when heaven comes down.
Hope rises when heaven comes down. So let's pray. Jesus we thank you for the power of your word and right now we still ourselves in your presence. We bring our whole selves to you. Faith and fear, confidence and doubt, love and pain.
And we say to you Holy Spirit, would you breathe the newness of life in us through the power of your word? Thank you Christ for coming and dying. Thank you for gaining access for us into the very holy of holies and we come there now Lord by faith and we pray that you would speak your word to us as only you can. We pray in Jesus name together, Amen and Amen. So let's read this text.
It's Revelation chapter 21 and our lead pastor is not here today but in his honor let's show him the Bibles if he catches this ever. Paper Bibles, we love our leather bound bibles here at Garden Church.
Nolan Tarantino: If you
Ramin Razavi: have a phone, that's okay. I'm little less strong on that. If you're reading the bible on your phone, I mean I do recommend getting one of these, it's distraction free. But let's all read, let's read this together, I'll read it. It says, 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 or behold, God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.
He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true and he said to me, it is done. I'm the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end and to the thirsty, I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 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 the liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.
This is the second death. This is the word of the Lord. If you've been tracking with us in Revelation, you know that last week we got that image of the throne room of God and from the throne room of God it was a moment of justice where mercy was flowing to those whose name had been written in the book of the of life because of the love of Christ and also a picture of justice of those who had chosen on their own will and volition to say I don't want anything to do with he who sits on the throne and the lamb and so God ratified their decision into eternity. That's what his justice is and sends them to this lake of fire. And so if you're John capturing this and remember Revelation is not so much about what's going to happen in the future although this is a very clear picture of what will happen in the future.
It's a discipleship manual and you're trying to track with what is God gonna call us to see next. You're hoping for a hopeful vision and thanks be to God, that's what John receives. The vision of the new heaven and the new earth coming down from heaven. And this is kind of the the scene that I want us to think about as we work our way through this text. It's this, it's that our vision of the future will frame and form how we live in the here and now.
Our vision of the future will always frame and form how we live in the here and now. And so as we work our way through this text, what we're going to be doing is seeing with John the vision of the future that we have in Jesus and then asking the question, what does that look like for us to embody that reality, to live into that reality here and now because that's the vision of our church. That's how Jesus taught us to pray. God would your kingdom come here as it already is in heaven. And so the vision of the future that we carry will always frame and form how we live in the here and now.
So this first thing that John sees and if you've been walking with us through Revelation you remember that's always the important thing is what does John see next? Well what John sees is a picture of a new heaven and a new earth coming down from God. The first heaven and the first earth, they pass away and he sees a new city coming down from God. Now here's what's powerful about this. This is not a statement that God is going to kinda gather up everything from the previous creation and throw it on the eternal rubbish heap wherever that goes in the cosmos and he's just gonna scrap everything.
But the language that is being used here is the language of renewal, the language of restoration, the language if you're into this, renovation. Some of you've renovated a home lately, you know, you keep what's good, you discard what's left, you throw some shiplap on the walls and you call it a day. So this is renovation of all things. God is renewing all things. He's making all things new again.
And what's so powerful about this is it says there's no more sea and I know that I lost about a third of the room on that because you're like, look man, if there's no foiling, if there's no surfing, if there's none of that in heaven, like I might need to reconsider. But here's some good news, this is not a hydrological statement from God because if you've walked through Revelation, what you know is the sea represents something, doesn't it? It represents chaos. Do you remember the last time we were in the throne room with God? There was a picture of the sea and what had happened to the sea?
It had become all glass. God had subdued the chaos. He had victory over all of the noise and the chaos and so what this picture is, is that God is going to create a future for us that is one, material. I don't know if you think about that. You're always and forever with God is not a disembodied evacuation where you spend all of your days floating around on some kind of cloud like flotillas singing hymns.
That's not what happens. Our eternity with God is a return to the creation that we saw at the beginning. The end of the story is actually a new beginning. It's not an end. It's God remaking all things and renewing all things.
That's why when Jesus is talking about stewarding what we've been entrusted in this world, he uses the picture of you will receive 10 cities in the next world. That's why he said if you're faithful with a little, you're gonna get entrusted with much and so some of us today are walking into a future that's gonna blow our minds because of the faithfulness we've had with the world that we've been entrusted with here and now. And so it's a material world and just as a preview, pastor Bill is coming next week and he's gonna teach the part about all the gemstones and about the foundations and about how it's as tall as it is wide. So we're gonna save that for pastor Bill next week but we're gonna get to that and help unpack what this city is actually gonna look like. But the hope of it is there's no evil in it.
There's no chaos in it. There's no rebellion from God in it and that's even more profound because it is a city. And if you read through scripture, scripture doesn't have an overly high opinion of cities. When Cain killed his brother, he fled to a city. When the people of God were trying to rise up in independence against God, they built a tower in a city.
When we saw the two witnesses getting killed in the book of Revelation, they get killed in the great cities of the world. If you're trying to do a meditation retreat or a prayer retreat, you're not going to Times Square, are you? Cities throughout scripture represent people in rebellion to God. And God envisions the new heaven and the new earth and his people as the city of God because God is saying, there is nothing that is beyond the reach of my redemption. So watch out Los Angeles, hold on New York, London we're coming, Tel Aviv we're coming.
There's no part of creation that's safe from the redemptive purposes of God because Habakkuk tells us that the glory of the Lord, it's gonna cover the earth like the waters cover the sea. So God is not calling us to some escapist vision of redemption and salvation. He's saying heaven's coming down into the world and I'm gonna remake everything. And so the question that we have as people who wanna follow Jesus if that's where we are today is what do we do now? That's what God's gonna do because he's coming down from heaven.
He's gonna do this so I guess I can just vibe and chill. Just continue the fourth of July weekend, right? But this is the picture, the invitation we get is that if God is making all things new again, The invitation that we have is to be people who build for his eternal kingdom here and now. Theologian N. T.
Wright says it better than anyone I've ever read on the topic and I will tell you this is a long quote and N. T. Wright writes much like the Apostle Paul. Tons of run on sentences so buckle up but I think you'll agree with me this is worth it. And T Wright says, in response to that idea, what do we do now if the new heaven and the new earth are coming?
What we can and must do in the present if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus and if we were indwelt energized and directed by the spirit is to build for the kingdom. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that's about to roll off a cliff. You are not restoring a great painting that shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that's about to be dug up for a building site. You are strange though it may seem almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God's new world.
Every act of love, gratitude and kindness. Every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation. Every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk. Every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support for one's fellow human beings, and of course, every prayer, all spirit led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel builds the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world. All of this will find its way through the resurrecting power of God into the new creation that God will one day make.
This means that what we do in Christ and by the spirit in the present is not wasted. It will last all the way into God's new world. In fact, it will be enhanced there. Oh, thank you Lord. What N.
T. Wright is echoing are the thoughts of the Apostle Paul that he penned in first Corinthians chapter 15. He's just spoken about how Jesus was the first fruits of the new creation. He's the example for us and then he brings in this beautiful scripture. He says, Where o death is your victory?
Where o death is your sting? And I like the question marks there because he's just kinda putting it into the atmosphere like you got anything death, Christ conquered you, he already rose from the dead, he vanquished you to the the Lake Of Fire. You got anything? Okay, you don't? Okay, we'll move on then.
The sting of death is sin and the power of the sin is law but thanks be to God because he gives us victory through Christ Jesus our Lord and here's the part for some of us. Therefore my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you and always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord because you know that the your labor in the Lord is not in vain. So many times what leads us off the path with God is not necessarily our distraction or our weariness or our lack of discipline, it's the despair we experience. Because the deepest hopes and longings that we have, the prayers that we prayer pray, the dreams that we carry, the ambitions that we present to God, they often don't come out looking the way that we hoped that they would.
And then we find ourselves grappling for a vision of God that's large enough to hold our most earnest prayers that sometimes feel like they're met with deafening silence and this scripture speaks directly to that. It says, your labor in the Lord is not in vain which is a way of saying that you are a prophet of a future that is not your own. You are building something that someone else will later complete. You're telling a story that someone else has the final chapter to. Your life is becoming a ceiling that is someone else's floor.
Your journey creates a trailhead for someone to scale the next mountain. You're planting seeds that will someday be watered and someone else will harvest. Your life is writing a story on a landscape that's far greater than your own. So run your race, be faithful to what it's put in front of you, have the conversations, share the gospel so generously, give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord. It's not in vain, it's caught up into his story and by his grace he's making something beautiful out of it.
This is the hope that we have And so we share about how to pray with the guy who used to go to synagogue and help him see that light of Jesus. We show up at work and say, God, help me have eyes to see. And this is the prayer, the purpose that you have for me here. I wonder how much of our despair about life would just get kind of burned away like the marine layer if we just simply got God's purpose because despair isn't often a lack of energy or a lack of direction, it's a lack of purpose. Why am I here God?
And we ask God, Lord give me eyes to see the purpose for which you have me here and Jesus give me the endurance and the perseverance to run my race well by the power of your holy spirit. So that's our prayer. God you're making all things new. Let's build for your kingdom in the here and in the now. Let heaven come here as it already is with you God.
The second thing that John sees that's so beautiful is that God is promising to dwell with his people. And the invitation we have when we see this picture is that we can pursue living in his presence today. We see this in Revelation 21 verse three, it says, look God's dwelling place is now among his people and this means people of all kinds. I love that Nolan's here ministering to Israel. I'm from Iran and where where do guys who are living in Israel and a guy from Iran, we give each other a big bro hug because in Christ he's creating one new man.
So this is all people and based on current demographics, English will not be the leading language in heaven if we even speak languages that we currently know. So buckle up, it's gonna get fun. God's dwelling place is now among the people and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be their God. Did you know how deeply God has always longed to spend time with you? Darren asked a similar question last week, do you know how much God loves you?
And I meditated that question all week. That's a good thing to do when your pastor asks really good questions, meditate on them. And it leads even to that deeper question. Do you know how much God longs to spend time with you? To be present to you?
This word dwelling it means to tabernacle. It's a transliteration of the word Shekinah. It literally means to be present to someone, to be with someone. And this desire of God to dwell with his people is not a new desire in the book of Revelation, right? We see beginning in the book of Exodus when God says that I will be your God and you will be my people.
I've heard your cries of slavery. I've seen your oppression and I'm going to deliver you out of slavery and in to freedom so that you can worship me on this mountain. And maybe most beautifully there's a little book of the bible tucked in to what they call the minor prophets. I'm never gonna call them the minor prophets because I don't wanna roll up to Amos and be like, hey, how are you doing minor prophet? Like they're the prophets man.
They're just shorter. They're better writers, they don't need so many words. So Hosea, that's not a real thing. Hosea is a minor prophet and what Hosea does is God says I want you to be my voice to the generation but I got an assignment for you first. You first need to marry a prostitute who's gonna be unfaithful to you because I want you to know what it's like for me to try to love my people.
And so he does and in the midst of this journey of love and redemption and sorrow and heartbreak and loss and salvation, Hosea gets this word from God. He says, I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord. In that day I will respond declares the Lord.
I will respond to the skies and they will respond to the earth and the earth will respond to the grain and the new wine and the olive oil and they respond to Jezreel. I will plant her for myself in the land. I will show my love to the one I called not my loved one. I will say to those called not my people, you are my people and they will say you are my God. I don't know if any of the guys in the room when you rolled into that engagement moment and you were getting down on the knee, if you said to your bride to be, I am betrothing you to myself forever.
What do you say? Not a good idea. You ask. God didn't ask. He said I chose you.
I chose you. He said that to every one of you. I chose you. I chose you and I'm coming after you. And there's no mountain you can climb up, right?
No shadow that I won't light up. I'm coming after you. And this is what God has been doing for all time. He's been cranking up the vibe of his love and just saying, I'm coming after you. I'm coming after you until we get to Jesus and God demonstrates his own love.
He puts it on full display for us to see so that we can go from being those that God is with to those that God resides within. See this is the pattern of God dwelling with us. The first move is that God says I'll companion you, I'll be with you. Which is a world of better promise than I won't be with you but that's not as deep as what Jesus can now say when John one fourteen says, the word becomes flesh and he dwelt among us. Same word.
I'm gonna tabernacle among you. I wanna be in your presence and I want you to be in my presence. And then Jesus goes to the cross and he dies, he raises from the grave, he sends the holy spirit and foreshadowing that in John fourteen twenty three, what did Jesus say? If you obey my commands, my father and I, we will come and we will make our home in you. Whereas Paul writes in Colossians one twenty five through 27, this is the hope that for ages and generation the prophets have been standing on their tiptoe to see it.
It's Christ is in you. That's the hope of glory. And so what began as God companioning his people, moved to God incarnating among his people as Jesus to now we get to be embodied dwelling places where the spirit of God lives within us by faith in Christ and eventually what the new creation is is that we get absolute and unmitigated experience of the presence of God for eternity. Whoo. Love, love, love, peace, peace, peace, peace.
No more conflict in your soul. No more insecurity. Hello. No more wondering how did that land, it always landed. Can you imagine that?
No. I think about that stuff all the time. This is the promise of God that his perfect peace, his shalom will be our resting place, our permanent home with him. And so what do we do now if we wanna be people who have a vision for the future that frames and forms how we live in the here and now? It's kind of elementary right?
We pursue living in his presence now and that's the invitation of all invitations. Jesus gave it in John chapter seven he said this very beautifully he said, if anyone is thirsty, let them come to me and drink and streams of living water will flow from within them. And John then commentates, this is the same John who captures revelation. He commentates Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit which had not yet been given until Jesus was glorified and we stand on the other side of Jesus is glorified. So the spirit has been given and so our posture towards God is I'm hungry for more of you.
I'm thirsty for more of you. I need your living water God. And I think sometimes we can live so much of our lives in a spirit of self dependence that we never pause and stop and simply say, God I need your help. That's the best prayer I know to ask for more of the Holy Spirit is to confess your weakness to God. To get low before God and to catch the updraft of his holy spirit because he pours his water out in thirsty souls.
He pours his water out as scripture says, God draws near to the brokenhearted and he saves those who are crushed in spirit. James says it this way, that God opposes the proud but he gives lift where he lifts up the humble. And so you could think of it this way, God's hand is always on your life. He's either opposing you because you're not living in alignment with him or he's trying to lift you up. And when we choose to be people that simply say God I am hungry, I am thirsty, I long for more of you.
We invite the Holy Spirit's presence because God longs to come to places where through our faith in his power our weakness can be made perfect. That's the way that the Holy Spirit comes. And so this is the invitation is that in a future where we look forward and we say we know that we will dwell with God forever we say God fill me today. Restore me today. Draw near today.
Let heaven come down so my hope in you can rise. The next window that we get from John is truthfully one of the most precious promises I think in all of scripture. It's this, is that Jesus will redeem all suffering. Jesus will redeem all suffering. And how does that frame and form how we live today?
It means that you and I as audacious and risky as it can feel can actually live with hope in the midst of whatever circumstances we might face in this world. What this promises is that God will wipe away every tear and that the future that we're inheriting from him will not have any death or mourning or crying or pain. It is in no way trying to minimize the suffering that we experience in this life but it's simply a statement. It is a clarion call in the midst of our brokenness, our disorientation and our pain that our deepest reality will be defined by the salvation that we receive in Christ not the suffering we experience in this life. And as I've been preparing this message I've been wrestling with God about how much of me to share about this message.
I tread really lightly when preaching about sharing about me because Paul said I don't preach myself. I preach Jesus Christ and him crucified. And so I pray in these next few minutes as I share a little window into my story, I pray it's just an accelerant into your faith with God. It's an accelerant into your view towards the cross. It lifts you towards him.
About two or three years ago I was in prayer and I was just asking God to speak a word over my life. I was asking him for some direction and he spoke something that I did not want to hear. Do you ever have that happen? You get a word from the Lord and you're like, I don't want that one. Oh you know what that must be for John.
Where's John? John I got a word for you. It's for you. Amazing Lord you speak to me for my friends. Can, you ever have that friend that like every time God speaks to them he thinks it's for someone else and you listen to him and you're like bro, that might actually be for you.
Like you don't need to preach that, you might need to like take that to the secret place and see what God has to say to you about that word. But the word was one of those things that you you really don't wanna hear. And what God was saying to me is I'm gonna teach you how to steward suffering well. And I said, alright, I'll I'll I'll take the first step. What does that mean?
And shortly after that, I experienced a betrayal on a level that I've never experienced before. People I thought I could trust fully, give myself to fully, be vulnerable with, betrayed me in the most hurtful way I can imagine. And shortly after that I experienced a litany of like unexplainable financial losses. Just I'm not gonna share what they all were, they weren't bad investments, they were just things that came at us all at the same time, one after another after another. During that season as well, my my dad gets diagnosed with severe mental illness for the second time in his life and despite all the work we were doing to try to help him through it, he took his own life, committed suicide.
We found him in his garden. Shortly after that time we learned that our nephew is experiencing a terminal form of cancer and a few months later he dies. A little bit after that Isaiah finds out that he's got diabetes and then my mom's whole neighborhood burns down, the Palisades fire, our entire home that we used to call home is burned to the ground. Shortly after that we experience the real broken effects of sin in our lives coming undone through a family member. After that there's an incredible sorrowful divorce that goes on and then there's a miscarriage in my family.
This is the last two years. And you can trust me, like I pray for heaven to come. Do you believe me? I really do. I do like laps around my neighborhood, heaven come.
Like more heaven, more heaven. And sometimes heaven comes by answering your prayer and sometimes it comes by experience of God's presence with you. His silence is not his absence. It's a different form of his presence. And during that time I have people praying for me and they're It looks like John and Darren, who else could pray for you?
And God's still not changing the circumstance. And when God doesn't change the circumstance what he began to show me is there's a different kind of prayer I want you to pray. Because you can't go back and change those things, a lot of them. But what you can pray is that God would restore what's been broken. So I began to walk my neighborhood and I began to pray Psalm 126 which says, when the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, his people, we were like those who dreamed.
He's saying that when God starts restoration, he unlocks the capacity for you to have hope again. You can dream again and some of you today, that's what you're gonna come and God's gonna do. He's gonna restore you to the point that you could actually begin to dream again. You can have an imagination for a future again. But it says we were like those who dreamed and it says that our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with songs of joy and then it was said among all the nations.
All the people started to notice you, your coworkers and they say, the Lord's done some great things for them. And then we said, the Lord's done great things for us and now we're filled with joy. And the next part of that Psalm is a prayer and some of us, this is our prayer today. It says, so restore our fortunes God. Like water courses in the desert.
And maybe you've seen the planet earth episode where they show the deltas of the rivers that have been dry and desiccated because of drought and somewhere a 100 miles downstream, the rain starts to fall and pretty soon what is dry and dusty and brown, it starts to burst into life and vibrancy again. And this is the prayer, God where there's been nothing but hardship and pain and loss, would your spirit come and would your restoring work begin? And he says, so would you restore our fortunes like water courses in the Negev? And then it says, those who sowed in tears are gonna reap a harvest of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow are gonna return with shouts of joy carrying the sheaves of the harvest with them and I hold on to that.
And I know that some of that joy is going to come in this life. There may be some restoration that God brings to a degree where I can say thank you Jesus but those tears that fall, they're not limited to this finite human experience. They are amplified into my eternal experience with God so that I can have faith and I can trust that the tears that I have sown will become a harvest of joy before the throne of God. And that's why we can be people who say as Paul writes in Romans chapter five, I rejoice in my sufferings because I know my suffering, it produces something in me, perseverance and perseverance builds character and character leads me to have hope and hope does not disappoint me because God is pouring his love into my heart by the Holy Spirit here and now. And so I can rejoice in my suffering.
I can say I take joy in this God because you're producing in me the kind of strength and worship and joy that I could not have if I did not walk through the suffering. And I just offer that to you today because scripture does not give us a formula to find exemption from the pain of the human experience, it offers us a savior who says in the midst of the pain, take heart because I've overcome the world. And we cling to him. Which is the last invitation that we get from John. Cause he sees this picture and what the Lord on the throne says is pretty simple.
He said to all of those who overcome, I'm gonna give the right to inherit all of these promises. But then he gives a list but to anyone who's cowardly or immoral or idolaters or liars, they get the lake of fire. And what's so beautiful about this invitation, couple things. Number one is that it's an inheritance. An inheritance is not something you earn.
It's not saying that you get to the end and God's like, wow, you showed up to bible study, you made it to the 11AM smooth, you tithed about 30% of the time, that's strong, quite strong, better than most Americans. Raised a family, you built a business, way to go man, like way to go. Here's the inheritance. Inheritance comes out of a relational economy. It's a continuation of what Paul saw in Romans chapter eight when he says, we do not receive a spirit that makes us slaves to fear.
Why would we be slaves to fear? We don't believe we have a good future. We did not receive that spirit in Christ. If that's the spirit you're living from that's not of Christ. You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave to fear but you've received the spirit of adoption or sonship.
And by that spirit, we get to call out Abba Father and that spirit, the spirit of Jesus testifies. He preaches to your spirit every day that you are a child of God and that if you would share in his sufferings you will also share in his glory And so we await an inheritance because of the relationship that we have with Jesus. Then he gives this other picture of those that won't inherit these promises and he brackets the list with coward and liar. And that was specific to that time period and has contextualization for us today because what he's speaking to are those who were proclaiming to be followers of Jesus but as soon as they moved out from the environment of the church and into the culture they shifted who they were. They were double minded, they were duplicitous.
And they would go into the environment of worship, they would worship. But as soon as they went into the environment where it was required to take a pinch of the incense and worship Caesar, they took a pinch of the incense and worship Caesar. And what John is simply saying is the grace of Jesus will cover sin. The grace of Jesus will cover your distraction and your rebellion. But if you're choosing to try to live in a duplicitous way, watch out, watch out.
But the invitation stands. And how do we overcome? How do we overcome? Well if you've been reading Revelation, you remember Revelation twelve eleven, how do we overcome? Anybody remember?
The blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. And I just did for fun a little research on what does the love blood of the lamb do for us. The worship team, you guys can come back up as we land. The blood of the lamb does this, it disarms Satan. The blood of the lamb forgives our sins.
The blood of the lamb heals our wounds. The blood of the lamb gives us full love and acceptance. The blood of the lamb cleanses our sin. The blood of the lamb gives us unmitigated access to the father in heaven. The blood of the lamb gives us peace with the living God.
The blood of the lamb writes our names in the book of life. The blood of the lamb offers us protection and deliverance. The blood of the lamb is our means of adoption into the family of God and the blood of the lamb speaks a better word over all of our lives. So how do we overcome and inherit these promises? The blood of the lamb and guess what the word of our testimony is?
Jesus. And so we speak Jesus as a church over every hardship and every brokenness in this room. Let's begin to ask him to come now. We speak Jesus over every place of despair and longing in this room. We speak Jesus over every sin and every addiction in this room.
We speak Jesus over every attack of the enemy and we say that he is bound and must go to Jesus' feet. We speak Jesus over every point of suffering and pain and brokenness and sorrow. And we invite you Jesus to come now so that heaven would come down right now. And we will wait in hope but we pray in hope that you would meet us here. And so let's begin to stand as we respond to the Lord.
Prayer team you guys can come and if some of you already are feeling like the Lord is touching you and you want to respond to him, please just come, we don't need to wait. But we wanna pray now that the Holy Spirit would would minister to us out of the abundance of heaven. So God we ask you now to come. We come hungry, we come thirsty, we come with all of our unresolved tensions, all of our needs. And we ask Lord where we've known despair you would now speak hope.
If you need to receive hope today, a fresh gift of hope from the Holy Spirit, just come and receive hope from him today. If you're facing a situation today where you need heaven to come, here and now come. Let someone come alongside you and and partner with you in prayer. Ask God's kingdom to come. Holy Spirit, would you come and would you bring heaven now, Lord?
We look to you Jesus, we pray for your blood to cover us. We pray Holy Spirit for a fresh filling of you, for endurance, for perseverance. We pray lord that you would open our eyes to see how you're working, how you're moving in our midst right now, lord. We pray that hope would rise in this room, lord, as you come near. Thank you, Jesus.
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