Bible Passage: Revelation 22:1-5
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: November 6, 2022

Bulletin November 6, 2022

Due to microphone difficulties, the first part of the service will be harder to hear. This was corrected when the sermon started. Our apologies.

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Last week we concluded our worship service by singing the hymn “The Church’s One Foundation.”  As we sang, one verse really grabbed me.  In verse 4 of that hymn, we sang this about the Church on earth:  “Though with a scornful wonder, men see her sore oppressed, by schism’s rent asunder, by heresies distressed.”  And I thought, “What a sight the church must be to the world!”  Jesus’ Church on earth doesn’t appear all that glorious.

We’ve got issues.  Christian congregations struggle with declining memberships and budget shortfalls and doctrinal issues and in-fighting.  After church last week, someone shared with me the story of a pastor who murdered his wife and got away with it!  With a scornful wonder, men see these things.  Men hear these things.  The Church must be quite a sight to the world.  It can be discouraging sometimes.

That is why our God encourages us.  That is what the final book of the Bible is all about.  It is encouragement for the oppressed and distressed Church on earth.  The encouragement God gives us today we might call A Postcard from the City of God.

We all know what a postcard is.  It’s a little picture sent to someone.  It is often a faraway place.  It is sent from someone who is in that faraway place.  The last two chapters of Revelation are just that.  They are a little picture sent to us from God through the pen of St. John.  As the series of visions to John finishes up, the Lord ends it in grand fashion.  This is it!  This is the final scene.  This is how all history ends!  John sees heaven and earth, made new by God.  And he looks up and he sees this city coming down out of the sky.  It is called the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, the city of God.  It is beautiful and glorious!

As our text begins, John’s angel escort is giving him a “tour” of the City of God.  In the center of it all is the throne of God and the Lamb.  That is such an important thing for us to remember about our eternal home.  God is at the center, and Jesus Christ.  Everything in heaven orbits around the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world!

Flowing from the throne of God is the river of the water of life (v. 1)  And John sees a tree of life.  And this tree of life produced twelve kinds of fruits.  And it wasn’t only in October that the fruit was ripe.  There was ripe fruit twelve months of the year!  John tells us that the leaves of this tree are for the healing of the nations (v. 2).

Remember how one of the things that happened as a result of Adam and Eve’s eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is that they forfeited their right to ever eat from the other special tree in the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life.  Recall that after their rebellion, the Lord God drove them from the Garden, and he placed an angel guard at Eden so that Adam and Eve could not return to the Garden to eat from the Tree of Life.

They were driven out and they lived “east of Eden.”  And life lived outside and east of Eden has never really been that great.  It’s never been all that God intended life to be.  Life since the fall into sin has been “diminished life.”  “Deficient life.”  This is “life lived at a loss.”  “Reduced life.”  “Sickly life.”  “Diseased life.”  What we’re living right now is NOT “life” the way God intended life to be!

But the fullness of life is coming!  In the City of God!  The water-of-life river!  The tree of life with its abundant fruit production!  It’s leaves that heal the nations.  The verb in the Greek is “theraptao.”  It gives us our word “therapy.”  Being in the eternal city of God is where we finally get the “therapy” we need!  “Aroma therapy” and  “psychotherapy” might improve your life a little in this world.  But the best therapy, what will truly make “life” all that God intended life to be, is living in the City of God!  John says, There will no longer be any curse. (v. 3)  The curse of sin in its many manifestations in this life will be lifted.  Life will be unleashed to be Life!

We Christians often speak of “eternal life.”  And I think sometimes we focus on the word “eternal.”  And that’s fine.  Eternal means it will never end.  And we imagine a really good day and we think about it lasting forever.  But we are looking forward to eternal LIFE.  It’s not going to be like a good day here that just keeps going.  It is going to be LIFE.  Life the way God meant it to be.  Life without sin and its curse.

And here is the essence of this life:  His servants will worship him.  They will see his face. (v. 3-4)  We will see the face of God.  John describes it this way in his first letter, We shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:1)  Part of life diminished because of sin is not being able to see God as he is.  His holy glory would kill us.  Remember how Moses asked to see Gods’ glory but was told no because seeing God’s glory would kill him?  In the City of God we will see him as he is.  And we will worship him!  What other impulse would there possibly be when we see God in his glory?  Think of that.  Worship here is pretty good.  Can you imagine what “church” is going to be like in heaven?  Can you imagine the singing?  Last Sunday I substituted in our quartet for worship.  I struggled and stumbled my way.  Rather inglorious.  In the Holy City, I’ll find all the right notes.

Finally, we are told this:  There will no longer be any night or any need for lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will shine on them.  And they will reign forever and ever. (v. 5) The first thing God did when he created was create light for this world.  In our eternal home, there is no need for created light, for God will be our light.

It is a remarkable feature of God’s story in the Bible.  It begins with humanity forfeiting its right to eat from the Tree of Life in Eden, and it ends with that right given again.  And of course, in the middle of this wonderful story is another “tree of life” that makes this all possible.  It is the tree on which Jesus was crucified.  It is the cross of Jesus that bridges the story of Genesis 3 with Revelation 22.  Only at Jesus’ cross is the curse of sin removed.  Paul writes, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.  As it is written, Cursed is everyone who hands on a tree. (Galatians 3:13)  Jesus dies a cursed death so that we can have the blessing of eternal LIFE in the City of God.

Many times when someone sends a postcard, on the back it says, “Wish you were here!”  We have seen a postcard from our eternal home, the City of God, this morning.  And on the back it doesn’t say, “Wish you were here!”  It says, “You will be here!”  For the sake of the Lamb.

Amen.