Deadly attack on Ukraine using your little targeting civilians.

Israel is pressing forward with its operations in Gaza City as the world awaits a response from Iran.

A new chapter in this era of political violence.

Conservative political activist Charlie Kerr.

He's dead.

He moves with speed, with certainty and with glory.

You must not quit before the shift.

You must keep standing even when it hurts.

Many times the darkest night comes right before the sunrise.

How's everybody?

Everybody good?

All right.

Revelation, just a small book.

Revelation chapter 21, nothing deep here.

Revelation 21.

As you're turning there, I'm going to read the text in a moment.

I'm just going to read the first few verses.

But one of the greatest things about being older, and I've mentioned this before, is the freedom just to say what the Lord lays on your heart without fear of someone getting angry.

It's a good thing.

It's a peaceful thing.

It really is.

This is the most peaceful time of my life.

And I say it kind of sarcastically.

I don't mean to offend anybody, but I just don't really care if you get mad or not.

I mean, I care about you, but it's not going to change anything.

And I was thinking as I was preparing the message that, you know, my father, I had a great dad, and he was quiet most of the time.

But when he needed to speak, he would speak, and usually it meant something.

And I always knew that when my dad came to me and said, can we talk for a second, Oh man, because he hardly ever did that.

And I knew it was something serious.

You know, I remember I was kind of pouting because I felt like I deserved to start on the basketball team as a freshman and I was pouting about it.

And my mother, of course, she was coming over and comforting me.

Oh honey, it's okay, that mean old coach, he doesn't really know you or appreciate you.

And my dad just kind of sat in the corner watching all this.

And when my mom disappeared from the room, oh man, my dad took me in the back room and just gave me a verbal lashing.

Oh my goodness, you little, I can't say what he said to me, but he said, you, you, bow your neck, suck it up, have a little intestinal fortitude.

And he just came at me, said, you think the world's going to be easy?

You think you're going to pout and everything's just going to fall into place?

So I had a great dad, as you can tell.

And again, the only redeeming factor of his speech is that I didn't understand most of it, but I got the gist of it.

Next time he wanted to talk to me, I remember saying, I need to talk to you about girls, you know, when you get that age.

And I thought he wanted information, so I said, what do you need to know?

And it was vice versa, because I never really saw my mom and my dad be affectionate in public.

You didn't do that back in those days.

So I said, yeah, sure, I can help you.

Just time after time, I remember my dad coming to me and saying, let's talk.

And as I got older, the conversations, but they were brilliant.

I mean, they were filled.

My dad, I was blessed with just a fantastic father who knew the right word at the right time and the right place.

So so here's.

Here's what I want to do.

This is the last weekend of the series.

It's a little lighter.

You don't have to think so much.

And yet you do.

You do.

Because I want to talk to you.

Just, you know, just as not as somebody on a stage with, you know, this table in front and there's a set.

Just want to talk to you just for a moment.

I want to read the text to you.

We're all familiar with it.

But as I said before, the more you read the Bible, the more it's illuminated for you.

And the older I get, the more it just comes alive.

And it's so well connected, man.

You would do well to make a life study out of the scripture because when you get older, oh man, the light kind of comes on.

But here's what the Bible says.

We all love this passage.

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 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.

Verse 6.

He said to me, it is done.

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.

To the thirsty, I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Those who are victorious will inherit all this and I will be their God and they will be my children.

Now, when I was younger, I was very stubborn.

And the pastor, when he preached on end times, he would try to, he scared the life out of me.

I mean, I was, you know, 14, 15, and he always talked about darkness, and this pit that you'd fall into, and there'd never be an end, and there's this lake of fire, and worms, and spiders are eating your flesh.

I mean, it was so dramatic, but I was the type of kid that I didn't go for the dramatic.

I just didn't go for it.

If you were going to convince me of something, you had to hit me here first, and then you could hit me here.

But this guy would always try to get everybody in the audience to come forward.

So he'd really play hard on the emotions, just terrified.

I was terrified, but there's no way in Hades that I was going to go forward.

And I was, usually, everybody in the church had gone forward except me.

True story.

Or everybody in the youth group.

And he kept pushing hard because he wanted 100%.

And the harder he pushed, I was not going to go.

I just wasn't going.

I'd rather go to hell than to go forward that night.

I'm telling you, that's how stubborn I was.

Because I just felt like it was all this kind of big picture.

Now, part of it is I was terrified of the end coming.

And in fact, I had that on into my 40s.

I was just terrified.

And even though I believed in heaven and hell, I just, I didn't want this to end.

Okay, yeah, I'm all for heaven, and when it happens, it happens, but I got a lot to do right here, right now.

Now, what happens for you guys who are older now, like me, and you got a lot of young people seated around you, and they're still thinking like you, like you did when you were that age, so take it easy on them.

right?

I guarantee the 20 year olds aren't here saying, but I can't wait till heaven.

Can't wait till Jesus comes back.

No, they got a lot of things to do.

They still want to find a wife or a husband.

They want to have a career.

Then after I've made a name for myself and made my money, then he can come back, right?

That's how you thought.

Be honest, even though you were a Christ follower.

And then as you get older, what happens?

You realize that this world has nothing of substance to offer you.

You try it all.

And you also realize that the thing you want most cannot be found here.

And that's why as you get older, death doesn't scare you anymore and that you want Jesus to come back.

Please, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

So as you read Revelation 21, and we've read it probably for most of our lives and for Christ followers, you're looking at it as this vague...

picture of what the next life's going to be.

And we've been in a series called the end of everything.

We've said the end of everything means the beginning of everything that is good.

But what exactly does that mean?

And as you pour over Revelation 21, as you get older and you start to understand what the writer is trying to do, you really began to see that what he's really doing is trying to describe who you really are and what it is you're really looking for.

So this is a shorter sermon.

I need you to hang on tight.

Yeah, he says Pinocchio.

He's going to try.

He's going to try, but here, let's talk about, is it not true that we know these things with certainty and those things we know with certainty are recorded right here.

Number one, do we not know that there is something beyond us?

I've said that for a long time.

Martin Seligman, he is the foremost authority on happiness.

He has written extensively on happiness and he makes a good point.

He says, you know what?

And he's not a Christian.

He's not a Christ follower, or at least he wasn't at the time of writing the book.

He said, you know, what's interesting is we today are the healthiest of any generation.

We are the wealthiest of any generation, and we have more liberty than any generation before us.

That is, we can go and see the world.

You know, my parents probably didn't travel 100 miles from home.

They didn't have the means back then, and our grandparents probably didn't travel outside of the city or the state.

But you and I, most of us around here have been not only out of the state, probably been out of the country.

And yet he says, we have greater liberty.

Greater health, greater wealth, and yet we are the most miserable of any generation.

That depression and anxiety are of epidemic proportions.

And then you think of C.S.

Lewis, his famous quote, where he says, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, then the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Great quote.

What he's basically saying is that sure, you're going to be discontent because you weren't made for this world.

You'll have some times of joy.

But you weren't made for this world.

You were made for another one.

I'm simply saying that whether you're a Christ follower or not, isn't it true that you know something's been lost and you're missing something, but you can't put your finger on it?

Something is not quite right?

Isn't it true that you yearn for a better life than you have now?

Even in the very best of days, there's still something that you wish you had and you probably don't even know what it is, but you know something's gone missing and you're trying to find it.

What is that thing?

You know, my father once told me the story that he, when he was 16 years old, my father's father beat him with a shovel.

So badly that as my father got older, even his mid-40s, he walked kind of like this with his back bent over.

And if it wasn't for his mother, Grandma Bessie, the round mound of sound, if it wasn't for Grandma Bessie, he probably would have been lost.

But at 16 years old, he had nine brothers and sisters, by the way.

At 16 years old, he ran away from home.

And he said he was going to stay away from home, but it dawned on him one day that he really missed his brothers and sisters, and he missed his home, and he missed his room.

And he missed biscuits and gravy and pancakes and things like that.

And he paused a little bit and he said, I realized that the love I had for my brothers and sisters and my mother outweighed the fear and the risk of pain and death for my father.

See, as you get older, what really matters?

It's not the money that you've made, is it?

It's the relationships that you have.

And you start, you become incredibly nostalgic.

It's the wife that you lost.

or the home that you used to live in, or the pet that you used to have.

Isn't it amazing?

Why do you think about those things?

I mean, I had a dog, Milo.

And Milo, doggone it, that dog made me love him.

And I am not happy about that because I didn't want to get the dog in the first place, but my daughter wanted a dog in New Zealand.

So we went down to the local kennel.

We got this dog that they told us was a Staffordshire Terrier.

Turns out it was a mutt.

Who knows what it really was.

And I made the rule that that dog is going to stay outside.

And of course, you know, then my daughter says, well, let him at least come into the laundry room because it's warm in there.

I said, okay, come into the laundry room.

And then from the laundry room, they find their way up the stairs into the kitchen.

From the kitchen, they find themselves into the living room.

And it wasn't long before he was sleeping on my bed because that's what wives and daughters are able to do.

That dog made me love him.

I love that doggone dog.

And when that dog died, when that dog died, I cried my eyes out.

I went into my bedroom in the closet door.

I love that doggone dog.

And still today, I think of that dog.

Sometimes I come home and I forget he's not there to greet me.

Man, a dog really is a man's best friend in a lot of ways.

But then there are ultimate longings, right?

That we long that our wives that we love would never depart, that our children would never suffer, that homes would never fade, that pets, that pets other than cats would never die.

Right?

Right?

So here's the point.

Why is it in us that we long for something better?

Who told us there was something better?

A fish doesn't wish to be out of water.

It's his home.

He doesn't, man, I wish I could be out of water.

Why is it that only humanity knows that there's a place that they belonged to before they were in this world?

Call it paradise, call it even, call it whatever you want.

But we know that we are slaves shackled by everything that demands our survival.

And we know there's got to be something better.

The Bible calls that, Ecclesiastes 3.11, it calls it God placing eternity in your heart.

What does that mean?

God has placed this real emotion in you that you existed before you were born in another place, and you're going to go back to that place after you die.

That's why you're so discontent.

There's no other explanation.

Atheistic evolution would not create some kind of idea in you that there's something beyond.

Atheistic evolution is the survival of the fittest.

This is my argument with young adults all the time.

Dude, when you die, you go to dust.

Why is it you're so discontent?

Your heart longs for something.

Now, there's a second thing.

Quickly, we also possess an overwhelming desire to attach ourselves to something that will give us a stable identity.

What I mean by that is...

unchanging identity, regardless of outside circumstances.

Think about it.

Those of you are young.

When you're young, how much time and effort and money do you spend trying to figure out who you are and what your place is in the world?

You go and give a university 150 grand to help you discover what your gifts and talents are so that you can go out into the world to make your mark.

You know, the Bible has a great story about this.

Do you know the story of Jacob?

Jacob is a little rascal.

He's a brat.

He deceives his father, betrays his brother, isolates his mother.

For what?

Because he thinks there's something he can't live without, and he spends his whole life trying to get it until God shows up, and there's this thing called Jacob's Ladder.

And the whole lesson of Jacob's Ladder is simply this.

Jacob, the thing you're trying to get, I've intended on giving to you all along.

Stop struggling.

So I'm going to change your name today from Jacob to Israel, which means striven to strive.

Then you get the middle age.

Oh yeah, middle age.

Then you start looking around and you reflect and you realize I'm not where I was meant to be at this point in my life.

And you panic.

It's called midlife crisis.

Oh, you're terrified now.

So what do men do?

Men get a red Corvette or a huge truck compensating.

And then they unbutton their shirt a little bit to convince themselves that they're young.

And some of them go out and get a mistress so they can prove that, hey, I still matter.

I still got it.

Now, I did read an interesting article this week.

Evidently, millennials, when they hit midlife, are going to express it a little differently.

I thought this was interesting.

Millennials, it is anticipated when they hit midlife, they will see a therapist, buy an electric car, and start a movement to overthrow the government.

Because it has to be somebody else's fault, right?

Can't be my fault.

The need of the human heart is to separate themselves from the herd.

It's always been that way because then I'll prove that I really matter, that I have value.

By the way, while I'm on this, this explains why we're in the middle of political violence right now in our world.

This is it.

You ever wonder, how can we be so mean?

See, before your religion, your faith, your belief system is the thing that you really defended because you didn't put any trust in the world around you, you put trust in your God and what was coming next.

So if you met a person that disagreed with you, you kind of got a little upset, and depending on what religion you are, you would respond, or how committed you were to your faith would determine how you respond.

And then there would be kind of this tension in, not because you hated the person, but because they were challenging your very identity, because your identity is in your faith and your belief system.

Well, all that's changed now.

Now we've kicked God out.

So in the past where people used to identify, they used to get their faith and their hope and their trust in God, in America, in the West, most people have kicked God out.

So they got to replace him with something.

Political ideology is the new God of our time.

So you have to understand when you're talking to someone about politics, see, they see you attacking their very identity, not just the disagreement on political views.

That's why they get so upset.

That's why they get so angry, but I know you Christ followers are different.

Right?

That you listen and you respond with grace and mercy and you ask questions to learn, right?

Because you're confident in your God and you're confident in that Jesus will have the last word and you don't put all your hope in the political climate at all.

All your hope is in Jesus, right?

I hope so.

The other thing is if you place your faith and trust.

in any kind of earthly ideology.

Think about how unwise that is.

Number one, all political ideologies are fragile at best and evil at worst, right?

All of them.

You know why?

People are involved.

G.K.

Chesterton.

When my friend, when my mentor put me, told me about Malcolm Muggeridge and G.K.

Chesterton and told me that I should read everything they've ever written, I'll tell you, it's one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given because it really brings things into perspective.

And G.K. Chesterton, one time, wrote what is sure the shortest letter to the editor ever written.

There was an article in the New York Times that said, what is wrong with the world?

And it talked about all the things wrong with the world.

I'm sure that article could be written today, right?

And G.K.

Chesterton, one of the most brilliant writers of our time, wrote a response, and here's what he said.

In regards to your article, What's Wrong With The World, I am yours truly, G.K.

Chesterton.

I am.

I'm what's wrong with the world.

What he's saying is, as long as humanity's involved, you better not put all your faith, hope, and trust in any political party, in any ideology, other than the kingdom of God.

And the truth is, the Bible tells us what we really need is the ultimate jubilee.

We need a new world order.

We don't need the improvement in the one we have, although that would be nice.

What we need is a world of fairness, equality, void of hate, and racism.

And that ain't going to happen as long as humans are in charge.

Let me read it again.

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 and he will dwell with them.

They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

And he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain for the old order of things have passed away.

When he gives us this glimpse of the new Jerusalem, Jerusalem always represents the people of God and the city of God.

And he's saying that here's what's going to happen in the future.

There's coming a new world order where you're not going to sit around and watch the news all the time and just get angry.

There's a new world order when you and I will return to Eden, the place we were supposed to be.

And the impact of sin and rebellion and failure will be defeated and wiped out for good.

And it's Revelation's way of telling you, don't put your hope in anything in the present.

It's flawed, and it's always going to be flawed.

The second thing is, only Jesus gives us an identity that will last, right?

Look, this is beautiful in verse 6 and 7.

To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Those who are victorious will inherit all this.

And I will be their God and they will be my children.

Jesus used this type of language throughout his ministry to speak of human longing and inner satisfaction so that you and I could have an identity that is unshakable.

And the reason, listen, I want to talk, like my dad said, can I talk to you for a minute?

The reason you and I often are so depressed and anxious is because you've attached yourself to something that your soul knows will never deliver.

So even if you try to trick yourself and say, oh man, I know this is a fickle world, but I'm going to do this and this is going to give me everything I want.

And then you can say that to yourself.

But see, if it's temporary, your inner you, the real you knows you're going to die one day.

So the real you knows that that can't be lasting.

So you fight constant depression.

Plus, when you meet somebody that's better at something than you are, you really go into depression.

Ernest Becker, I quote this book all the time, the secular atheist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Denial of Death.

He says the problem, and remember, this is an atheist saying this.

He says, you know, the problem with a society eradicating the idea of God is that then humans will try to attach themselves to one of the big three, sex, money, power.

But the problem Well, that is...

Their soul will know, their inner person will know that these things are fleeting.

They're temporary at best.

I mean, think about it.

I mean, it is true.

The day is going to come when, man, I hope I can say this without, I don't mean to be crass, but the day is coming when nobody's going to want to have sex with you.

I'm sorry.

It's going to happen.

The day is coming when your money's no good.

It's going to run out.

The day is coming when you're not going to have any power.

Believe me, it happens to everybody.

What are you going to do then?

So the young generation that thinks, if I can make enough money, if I can be loved, you're nobody until you're loved by somebody.

If that's what you think, all of that will end.

It's temporary.

Then what are you going to do?

What are you going to be loved?

You're still going to die.

Charles Tooley, the American sociological king, developed this concept called the looking glass self.

And here's what he said.

Listen carefully.

A person's self-concept is determined by what he thinks the most important person in his life thinks about him.

So this is a psychologist telling us this, not a Christ follower.

Your self-esteem is going to be based on what you think the most important person in your life thinks about you.

Now, do you see how the gospel changes you?

Because there's no more important person in world history than Jesus Christ.

And he loves you and values you so much that he's willing to die for you on a cross.

So the most important person who ever lived thinks you're the greatest thing ever and worthy of dying for, giving up his own life.

in order that he may not lose you.

And that alone provides an identity for you.

It provides an unconditional love that is not based on the ups and downs of our performance in our lives.

When you really get that, when you really understand that, you will have peace like you can't believe.

You'll have peace like you can't believe.

You know, this thing of living water is used all...

I'm almost finished now.

This thing of living water is used all through the Bible.

It's a lovely, lovely idea.

But you know, as a pastor, I've had trouble explaining it to people.

What do you mean?

It will be like a spring of living water.

Well, okay.

What is joy?

And then I had grandchildren and I understood.

So my little granddaughter, Ada, comes to me all the time.

She goes, Papa, are you leaving today?

Because I do get up in the morning and I go to work and I come back.

And sometimes I come back after they're already in bed because I got to go to school the next day.

Papa, are you leaving today or are you staying all day?

Now, when I tell her I'm staying all day, she is just so happy.

All the kids are.

But you don't know what it's like to come home every day, open the door, and three little kids, Papa.

It's like I am the greatest thing ever.

Now, what is it about Papa that's so great?

And over time, I've begun to realize, when they're with me, they feel secure.

They feel a sense of belonging.

They feel communion.

They feel love.

They feel no fear at all.

They feel incredible freedom.

It has something to do probably with when Ada asked me, what do you want us to call you?

And I said, Superman.

So it probably has something to do with that.

But the point I'm making is when they're with me, that's what we are supposed to feel like when we're with God.

Nothing to worry about, nothing to fear, man.

Think about it.

In Ada's mind, she is totally unconditionally loved and accepted by me.

And that's what it is, the spring of living water that flows out of us.

So we're supposed to be totally...

I mean, like I said before, there's going to be times of suffering and sorrow here, but you should get to the point where you've got this overwhelming joy and appreciation and you're safe and you know you're good to go and you know that the new kingdom, the new world is coming.

Nothing, folks, nothing satisfies like Jesus.

Nothing.

During difficult times, during confusing times, during times of emptiness.

Psalm 91 says, whoever dwells in the shelter of the most high will rest in the shadow of the almighty.

I will say of the Lord, he's my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust.

He will cover you with feathers and under his wings, you will find refuge.

His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

You will not fear the terror of night nor the arrow that flies by day.

And listen to this, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday.

A thousand may fall at your side, 10,000 at your right hand, but it will not come near you.

If you say the Lord is my refuge and you make the most high your dwelling, No harm will overtake you.

No disaster will come near your tent.

So we know that there's something beyond.

Young people, listen to me.

You know it too.

We possess an overwhelming desire to attach ourselves to something that will give us a stable identity.

Only Jesus is going to do that for you.

And then here's the final.

Isn't it true?

Oh man, I've been trying to preach this for the whole 18 years I've been here.

Isn't it true that we want to get back what we've lost?

Don't we yearn to get back everything we've lost?

This passage is eye-opening.

There's a part of me that I think, why didn't my pastor teach me this when I was younger?

Why did someone not show me this?

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.

Now, over the course of our lives, we lose so much.

But like I said, it's not the money that really matters.

It's the people.

You know, it's when our grandchildren move away.

It's when our wife that we've loved for so many years passes on.

It's when divorce happens, when things just don't work out.

Now, can I ask you something?

Okay, I don't know how many of you know this, but Robin and I lost our first child.

She was in third trimester, and we were in Africa, and Robin was driving, and she got...

hit by an army truck head on.

And everything basically was destroyed except the little space that she was seated in.

But the seatbelt crushed the head of our child.

We named the child Luigi just to give a name.

We never actually gave the child a name.

Now, can I ask you something?

If God came to Robin and said, you know what?

Don't worry.

We're going to replace Luigi with another one.

No, no.

You want Luigi back.

See, the thing I've been trying to show you is that when the Bible talks about new heaven and new earth, there are two Greek words for new, kynos and neos.

One means brand new, never been in existence, and now here it is.

But kynos means renewed, renewed.

And you've heard me use the phrase in heaven, in the new heavens and new earth, God replaces everything you've lost to an infinitely greater degree, which means that every woman who's ever lost a child will be reconnected with that child.

They're not going to be given a consolation prize.

Heaven is not consolation.

It's like, okay, you had a tough time here.

Here's door number three.

Maybe you'll like these prizes.

The love that you lost.

That's why it's the greatest reunion ever.

The people that, when we go to funerals and we talk about seeing them again, it's not just to make ourselves feel good.

It's good and proper and deep theology that anybody that's gone before us, we will meet again.

We will see them again.

Kinsman Redeemer.

You return to the land that you lost, and all the slaves are set free.

What you have lost is returned to you because of your kinsman redeemer.

Listen, the Christian story is not, one more time, that God takes us away from this nasty, dirty planet off into some eerie, fiery land.

If you read the early church creeds, they were not banking on going to heaven when they died.

Yes, absent from the body, present with the Lord, but they were banking on Jesus coming back here and restoring everything that is rightfully his.

Do you understand that?

That's why I say, what's heaven like?

And I say, you're sitting on it.

It's just renewed, refurbished.

It's not brand new.

Think about how, look, in the book of Genesis, did not God say, this is good?

Did he not look at everything?

This is good.

This is very good.

But sin tainted it all.

See, the reason you don't get that excited about the new heavens and new earth is you think you're angels with wings and you don't have any idea.

You're flying around.

No, no, God's gonna come down and restore.

In other words, Think of some of the most beautiful places, and I always bring this up.

Victoria Falls, it is my place to go.

I have filled my bucket on this thing probably a thousand times.

I don't know how many times we've been.

Michael, we've been a few times, haven't we?

Victoria, beautiful.

And I just stand there and say, God, is this going to be in heaven?

And God, I think, would say, well, sure it is.

This is a beautiful creation.

You just don't have to worry about hippos eating you if you go for a swim.

The Australian outback, beautiful.

New Zealand, the mountains of New Zealand, especially when they have this incredible reflection, the crystal clear lakes.

Is New Zealand going to be?

Well, I think God said, well, sure it is.

You just don't have to worry about freezing to death.

On and on it goes.

Africa's lands where the animals roam free.

And I'm convinced that God gave giraffes to show us how graceful he can really be.

Animals of the great deep, the whales, the dolphins, the creatures that are odd and mysterious.

Man, then you got Hawaii, where God vacations.

Southern California, where God lives.

And Tennessee, where God eats.

Everybody knows that.

The point I'm making is there's so much beauty.

And Revelation 21 reminds us that somebody hijacked the world system, sin has devastated the world, and the real king is going to come back and restore everything that's been lost.

Everything.

We are getting closer to the final jubilee.

So man, if you're in the room, if you're in the room and you've never received this kinsman redeemer, that means that your debts have not been forgiven.

And it means you will not return to the land.

Do you know what's happening around this church right now?

Oh my goodness.

It's so much fun to be here right now.

If you went to YA, was it last Tuesday, Rick?

So I'm talking to my buddy Rick over here and he says, man, you should have been at YA.

It was amazing.

You got all these young adults in here and Alan's preaching his heart out.

It was Alan, right?

Preaching his heart out.

And people coming forward, people getting baptized, people giving their lives.

That's happening in the high school, the junior high.

Junior high kids raising their hands in words.

What's going on around here?

I'll tell you what's going on.

Revival's happening.

Which means it's just going to get better until God decides, okay, okay, time to come back.

Man, can you imagine?

Can you imagine you're here on planet Earth?

And Jesus returns and your eyes are open to the reality that heaven ain't no eerie, fiery place.

Heaven is all everything fixed and repaired and the beauty of your relationships and the beauty of the created order, the beauty of everything that is good, that was tainted by sin, fully and ultimately restored.

Now, some of you might say, well, hold on, Pastor Jeff, I had a horrible father.

How's that going to be restored?

Well, you'll have the ultimate father.

You'll have the old, when you have the ultimate father, that father pales in comparison.

So what, you know, while I was abused by a family member, what you don't understand is when healing comes, it comes all the way.

There is something that Jesus does internally in you that brings the healing all the way.

You get a foreshadowing now because healing can happen in the here and now, but that's just a small deposit of guaranteeing what is yet to come.

When you walk in the presence of Jesus, man, healing comes.

I mean, suddenly your eyes are open to the way everything really has been.

Everything.

That God was always working his will and bringing his plan to fruition.

And that's going to cause you just to fall down on your knees and say, God, I am so sorry that I blamed you for those horrible 10 years of my life.

Now I see what you would do.

I'm so sorry.

Everything's restored.

So if you're here, understand.

You've got a kinsman redeemer.

That's the story of this book.

Number one selling book in human history, the cross, the most recognized symbol in human history.

And the reason is it's the way of salvation.

And you've got a choice.

God is holy.

God is love.

And because God's holy, he's got to deal with your sin.

And he chose rather than to exhaust his wrath on you, to exhaust it on his own son who took your sins past, present, future on his shoulders.

But in order for that to be applied to you, you've got to RSVP.

to God's invitation.

You've got to repent from thinking that you could earn your way in.

Somehow you were good enough for God just to let you in.

God's holiness is not going to be violated by anybody, including you.

You've got to say you're sorry of the past experiences, the sinful things that you've done, the things that you've done that you're not proud of.

You say you're sorry, you repent, you turn around, you walk the other way, you say, I'm going to live for Jesus.

You verbalize your trust in Jesus.

That's the V, R-S-V.

You verbalize, I trust Jesus.

I know he's going to take away my sin.

And I trust his work on the cross to atone for my sin.

And then you what?

Plunge your past.

You plunge your past and you die to your old way and you resurrect to the new.

Last week, I said something that I could tell you were shocked.

I said, when Jesus comes back as the go well, hadam, the blood avenger, the time for mercy and grace is finished.

And it is.

What this sermon you just heard was another extension of the grace and mercy of God just now you heard it and Every over the course of your life there have been so many opportunities God extends mercy grace mercy grace, but if you ignore that when he returns That means his holiness is going to come down on you because you don't have the kinsmen Redeemer man I hope Michael my brother I hope that if there's anybody in this room that has never received Christ as their Savior and entered the waters of baptism, I hope that you'll lose your pride and you'll do it now because he could come tomorrow.

He could.

Father, thank you for the power of your word and the power of story for Revelation 21.

And I pray there would be an opening of our eyes right now to acknowledge what the word of God teaches that we all long for that other place.

We know it's there.

We just don't know how to get there.

That we all attach ourselves to something that will give us ultimate meaning and significance, but only Jesus can do that because his love for us is unconditional.

And he's proven that by giving his life for us, by giving up something precious to him so that he would not lose us, his own life.

And then Father, we know there's got to be a new heaven and a new earth.

There's got to be somewhere where everything we've lost will be replaced to an infinitely greater degree.

I pray our eyes would be open and today would be the day that if we strayed, we would come home.

And if we've never come home, that today would be the day of salvation in Christ's name.

Amen.