Introduction:
Three Things You'll Never Do In Heaven: (Revelation 22:1-5):
- Face Death . (Rev 22:1-2)
John 4:14 - ...whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
- Find Sorrow . (Rev 22:3)
- Feel Alone . (Rev 22:4-5)
1 Corinthians 16:22 - If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed. Our Lord, come!
Proverbs 3:18 - She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called blessed.
Proverbs 11:30 - The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.
Proverbs 13:12 - Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:54-00:54
Amen.
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This is the last message, but certainly not least message in our series called Foundations.
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And this has been a Theology 101 series.
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And we have talked about creation.
01:09-01:12
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
01:12-01:20
And then we saw the covenant of marriage instituted as God created Eve for Adam.
01:22-01:24
And then we saw how sin entered the world.
01:24-01:29
And on Good Friday, if you were here with us, we talked about the curse.
01:30-01:34
A curse is a pronouncement of destruction on someone.
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Right?
01:36-01:44
And we saw that God put a curse, not just on man and woman and the serpent, but on the ground itself.
01:47-02:00
And then last week, our story in Genesis ended where we ended the story in Genesis last week was Adam and Eve were covered by animal skins by God.
02:00-02:09
God actually performed the first sacrifice, killing an animal to provide a permanent covering for Adam and Eve.
02:09-02:18
And then he booted them from the Garden of Eden, posted an armed guard, specifically he did not want them eating from the tree of life.
02:21-02:23
And that's where we left off last time.
02:26-02:28
And we can't stop there.
02:29-02:31
That's why we're having one more message.
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We can't say, "That can't be where the story ends!
02:35-02:41
Adam and Eve thrown out of paradise!" Well that's not the end of the story.
02:43-02:50
Because we talked about how Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead to restore the relationship with God and life in us.
02:53-02:55
And what I want to tell you today is the story doesn't end there.
02:59-03:05
Ultimately, Jesus Christ is going to restore all things.
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You're like, "So where does the story end?" The story doesn't end.
03:09-03:13
Ultimately, Jesus Christ is going to remove the curse.
03:13-03:20
And that includes sin and death, and all of the things that go with the curse, it's ultimately going to be removed.
03:20-03:27
And I want you to turn to your Bibles with me to Revelation 22, all the way near the back of your Bible.
03:27-03:31
And if you don't have a Bible, you're welcome to have the one in the seat back in front of you.
03:32-03:37
If that font's too small, in that shelf in the back, there's the largest print that we could buy.
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And you can consider that a gift from the church.
03:40-03:43
but we want to make sure everybody has a copy of God's Word.
03:44-03:45
But open up to Revelation 22.
03:48-03:50
Turn louder, I can't hear your Bibles.
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You're like, "We were already bookmarked before we came in, Pastor Jeff." Sure you were.
03:58-04:00
Come on, let me hear those pages rustling. Come on.
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Oh, that's like waves at the beach to me.
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Revelation.
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Quick on-ramp here.
04:15-04:16
We're in Revelation 22.
04:16-04:20
We're at the end of God's Word, but certainly not the end of the story.
04:20-04:22
But just to kind of give you an on-ramp in Revelation.
04:23-04:31
The book of Revelation is about the last seven years of life on earth, known as the Tribulation, which includes God's judgment on sinners.
04:32-04:36
It talks about the rise and the fall of the Antichrist and of Babylon.
04:36-04:38
Talks about the return of Jesus Christ.
04:39-04:42
It talks about the millennium reign.
04:43-04:45
Jesus Christ is going to reign on the earth for a thousand years.
04:46-04:51
Revelation 20 tells us we see a last revolt by Satan, which is quickly squashed.
04:52-05:00
Revelation talks about the great white throne judgment for everyone who hasn't received the forgiveness that God's offered in Christ.
05:00-05:07
they're going to stand before God someday and have to give an account and ultimately be cast into judgment.
05:08-05:13
And then Revelation tells us that this heaven and this earth will be vaporized, destroyed.
05:14-05:26
And then when we get to Revelation 21, there's a creation of the new heaven and the new earth and the city, New Jerusalem revealed.
05:27-05:34
Now, there's so much confusion about heaven.
05:37-05:50
And even in the church, a lot of times, if you were just grabbed to just grab somebody here randomly and say, "Hey, describe heaven for me." You might get a weird answer.
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There's just so much misunderstanding about heaven.
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And look, I'm not judging.
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I'm not criticizing because I've been there.
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And much, if I can confess to you, much of my understanding of heaven came from the music that I listened to growing up.
06:10-06:15
And if you get your theology of heaven from the music you listen to, you're gonna be all kind of messed up.
06:15-06:16
Do you know what I mean?
06:17-06:19
For example, like, how do you get to heaven?
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How do you get to heaven?
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Well, according to Led Zeppelin, it's a stairway to heaven.
06:25-06:31
I'm like, "Oh, okay, so you go up the stairway, "and apparently when you get there, how do you enter?
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"Well, according to Guns N' Roses, "you have to knock, knock, knock on heaven's door, right?
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"Do you know what I'm talking about?
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"I could sing it for you if you don't know the reference."
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(audience laughing)
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And that's the moment the riot broke out.
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(audience laughing)
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Where is heaven?
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Well, Warrant said, "Heaven isn't too far away." But at the risk of sounding like she was contradicting, and Belinda Carlyle told us that heaven is a place on earth.
07:18-07:24
But then Alice in Chains came along and said, "Heaven's beside you." I can do this all day.
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And you're like, oh, I hope he doesn't.
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You know, Eric Clapton made us cry when he sang "Tears in Heaven." But "Heaven" was a pickup line for NXS.
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And they sang "Heaven Sent." That's what I call you ♪
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(imitates guitar riff)
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I promised I wouldn't do that, but it came out.
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One of my all-time favorite bands, Cheap Trick, asked, "Would you like to go to heaven?" And then I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
07:56-08:00
I wouldn't want to go to heaven tonight because Phil Collins said something happened on the way to heaven.
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I don't know what that was, but apparently it wasn't good because Kiss sang that heaven's on fire.
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And I will stop there, I promise.
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But my point is this, there's a point to all this.
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We get all these concepts about heaven from all these other sources And it's no wonder we're confused.
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We're like, what's heaven like?
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I could tell you what Belinda Carlisle said about it.
08:28-08:32
And then we get to church and we're like, you received Jesus Christ and you go to heaven.
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And you're like, I'm not even sure what that means.
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Right?
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I'm gonna tell you what that means today, all right?
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So no more excuses.
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No more, this is what I think heaven might be like.
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I'm gonna tell you what the Bible says.
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Revelation 21, we're gonna look at this quickly.
08:49-08:50
and then we're gonna land on 22.
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But look at 21, first couple of verses.
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John says, "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." All right, we talked about that.
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This heaven and earth is gonna be destroyed.
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He's going to create a new heaven and a new earth.
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Look at verse two, because this is something a lot of people miss.
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He says, "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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We'll stop there.
09:26-09:32
You see, John sees this capital city of new heaven and new earth.
09:34-09:36
And like, what is this city?
09:37-09:42
Well, you see, this is the place that Jesus is preparing for you.
09:42-09:48
You remember, we went through the gospel of John And Jesus says, "I'm going to prepare a place for you." This is the place that He's making!
09:49-10:00
And you're like, "Well, what's it like?" Well, He gives us some description of heaven, but really here's all you need to know.
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It says right here, it's prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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We have a whole bunch of weddings coming up.
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And have you ever seen a bride?
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Like seriously, have you ever seen a bride?
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Every bride, breathtakingly beautiful.
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Because on that day, there is so much time and energy and effort and expense and so much care.
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She puts so much care into the preparation of herself because she wants her husband when he sees her coming down that aisle, Just this is what is prepared for me, right?
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And that's the same analogy that's used here.
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Jesus is putting that much care and attention into preparing this place for you.
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He's not just throwing up a couple of two by fours and some nails and say, "This is good enough.
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"You deserve hell, but here's a shanty for you." No, he's preparing this perfect place.
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And we're not gonna read it, you can read it later, but we see the dimensions of this city.
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Verses 15 through 17 says that it's shaped like a cube.
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Like how big is this city?
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Well, each wall is 1,380 miles long, the Bible says.
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And each of the walls also 72 yards thick.
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I was gonna tell you what that was in feet, but I'm like, these are football fans.
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They know what 72 yards looks like.
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That's how thick the walls are.
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You think that's literal?
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Yeah, these are literal measurements.
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If you look at the text, it's straightforward.
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These are literal measurements.
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Like, well, how big is that?
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Well, if you took this new Jerusalem and just set it on top of the United States, it would go from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and it would go from the Atlantic Ocean to Colorado.
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That's how big this city is.
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That's not really what I want to talk about this morning.
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I want to talk about life inside the city.
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And that's where we get to in chapter 22.
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And with everything that we can wonder about heaven, you know, just was it about a month or six weeks ago, Alex Gianetti preached about heaven.
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And we have all this information.
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We know so much, like, what the Bible says about heaven.
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And it seems that for every answer we get, we have three more questions, right?
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We can wonder a lot what this place is like, but there's one thing that I wanna make absolutely clear today, because this is tied right into this whole series that we've been covering.
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There's one thing I want you to know today.
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In heaven, there's no more curse.
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It's gone.
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The curse that we experience on the earth, everything that we have to go through every second of our lives in this fallen world, the consequences of Adam and Eve's sin, and all of the pain and heartache that comes with that.
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Everything associated with the curse is forever gone.
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your outline today with the curse gone, here are three things you'll never do in heaven.
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See Alex, again, about a month and a half or so ago, he told us some things that we'll do in heaven.
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I just want to give you the other side of the coin.
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I want to show you three things that you'll never do in heaven.
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So number one, write this down, face death.
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Face death.
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Look at chapter 22, the first couple of verses.
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It says, "Then the angel showed me..." This is John speaking.
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He's receiving this whole preview from this angel.
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He says, "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the street of the city.
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Also, on either side of the river, the tree of life, with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month.
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The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
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Stop there. The first thing we see, something you'll never do in heaven, is face death.
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First of all, verse 1 talks about water.
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It talks about the water of life.
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Do you see how it's described?
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Bright as crystal.
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What does that mean?
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That means there's no impurities, there's no pollutants, there's no snake venom.
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It's absolutely 100% pure, clear.
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And he makes a clear point to show us the source.
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Right?
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Where's this river coming from?
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flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.
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And it's called the water of life, because in this place, there's no more death.
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This is the expression of life from God, flowing unceasingly.
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Look at the picture that is being painted here.
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You know the water flowed from the cursed lamb on the cross, and here the water is flowing from the glorified lamb on his throne.
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That's the water, but we also saw in verse 2 the tree of life.
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Does that sound familiar?
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We talked about that.
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It was introduced to Genesis chapter two in verse nine.
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It's this tree that was in the middle of Eden.
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And again, we saw in the end of Genesis chapter three, that God, very specifically, God drove them out of the garden of Eden because he did not want them eating from that tree.
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Because God didn't want Adam and Eve to live forever in a fallen state.
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Right?
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So what we see here with the tree of life is God's story with man comes full circle.
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Right?
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Back in Genesis chapter three, God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden.
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But here in Revelation 22, we are all brought back into a garden city.
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And just as in Genesis, the tree of life was taken away from man, now the tree of life is given back.
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Interesting, it says leaves, the leaves were for healing.
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Like, wait a minute, why did, I thought there was no sickness in heaven.
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Well, there's not.
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We're not gonna need healed in the sense of we get a disease or a virus or whatever.
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There's no sickness in heaven.
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A better translation for this could be health giving.
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These leaves were health giving, sort of like vitamins.
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You don't take vitamins to heal an illness, you take vitamins to promote general health.
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So I do believe we will be eating in heaven, it's very clear here.
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But it's not going to be for survival.
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it's going to be for enjoyment.
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So here in Genesis, that's where we were the last few weeks.
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Revelation chapter 22, we have the water of life, and we have the tree of life.
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But you have to see, church, that this is like so much more than a Bob Ross painting, alright?
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The symbolism here that God wants us to experience in His presence is so deep.
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This could be a whole sermon series, we're going to get through this quickly, I promise.
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Water, biblically, is the picture of satisfaction and salvation.
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That's what water symbolizes.
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We can look at a whole lot of passages, I just want to refer you to one where Jesus summed it up.
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Jesus and the woman at the well, he said, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again." That's satisfaction, right? Then he goes on to say, "The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." There's salvation. I could show you so many more passages, but that's the picture that we're seeing. Water is the picture of of satisfaction and salvation.
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You're like, what about the tree?
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What's the tree of life a picture of?
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The tree of life is a picture of everything that is good and right.
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And it is a concept that is used throughout the Bible, especially in Proverbs.
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And you might be shocked to realize how much, I'm just gonna give you a couple examples.
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But the tree of life is this picture, every blessing, everything that's right and good.
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Like for example, Proverbs 3.18, talking about wisdom, says, "She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her." Right, Proverbs 11.30 says, "The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life." Proverbs 13.12 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, "but a desire fulfilled is a," tell me church, tree of life, you see that?
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It's a picture, everything that's right, Everything that's good, everything that is of God, it's a picture of that, the tree of life.
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Like, well, wait, wait, wait, okay, Jeff.
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If we don't need water and food, why are these things there?
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You're telling me we eat just for enjoyment.
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Like, I think it's more than that.
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I think the reason that we see this river and we see this tree of life is I believe this is an eternal testimony that God is our source of life and goodness.
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But listen, get Alex talked about this and I'm just sort of piggybacking off of that and wanted to, there's so much can be said here.
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Listen, in heaven, you will be totally satisfied in every way, every day, all the time.
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And you know there's people, even in the church, there's people that think they have the spiritual gift of criticism, right?
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And I'm constantly reminding people, that's not a spiritual gift, that's not a fruit of the Spirit.
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It's not in there.
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Even the harshest critic is not going to be walking around heaven going, "Well, you know, it's all right.
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It's all right, but I really think we could spruce the place up a bit with this side or the other.
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You're never going to get over how awesome it is in every way.
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Think of the happiest day that you've had to this point on the earth.
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And every day in heaven is going to be so far beyond that in every way.
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It's not even, not able to compare it to anything, right?
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But with the curse gone, here's something you'll never do.
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You'll never face death.
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Everything is life, abundant life, joyful life.
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You'll never face death.
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Three things you'll never do in heaven, number two is a fine sorrow.
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Fine sorrow.
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Look at verse three.
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We've been talking so much about the curse, right?
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Look at verse three.
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No longer will there be anything accursed.
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Just let that soak in for a second.
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There's no sin, there's no death, and there's no sorrow.
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He doesn't expound on this a lot here because he just did, and I want you to just look back to chapter 21 and verse 4 because he just explained this, and that's why he doesn't I'm not going to really do a deep dive here, but what does it mean?
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That we'll never find sorrow. What does it mean that there's no curse?
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Look at verse 4, it kind of sums it up here in chapter 21, verse 4.
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It says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more.
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Nor shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more for the former things have passed away." There's no depression.
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There's no discouragement.
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There's no pain.
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There's no cancer.
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There's no diabetes.
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There's no autism.
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There's no organ failure.
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You won't see handicapped parking spaces because there's no wheelchairs.
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There are no mental health problems.
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of the things that ravaged us and beat us down and hurt us never again.
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You will never experience another second of pain for all of your existence.
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is described with the greatest word in the world.
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And I can't get this close to my favorite verse in the Bible and not share it with you, alright?
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But it's the very next verse here in Revelation 21.
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It says, "He who was seated on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' I said, "Write this down.
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"For these words are trustworthy and true." See, it's described with the greatest word ever.
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You're like, "What's heaven like?" I guess the elevator talk version of this, I could give you one word, it's new.
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New, it's the greatest word, new.
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Isn't that awesome?
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New, nothing's better than new, right?
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Because we love new stuff, don't we?
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We love new stuff.
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There's nothing like getting something new, right?
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New shoes, right?
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I heard somebody say the worst part about being an adult is when you get new shoes, people don't ask you, can you run really fast in them?
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I do kind of miss that.
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But new shoes, we love new shoes, don't we?
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How about a new car?
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A new phone, a new computer.
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A new fishing rod, Stephen.
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All right, a new house.
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George, how about a new puppy?
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Maybe this isn't the right day to ask that, but there's nothing like getting something new.
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And heaven is described as everything's new.
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Get back to chapter 22.
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Look at the rest, pick up where we left off in verse 3.
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You see, no longer will there be anything accursed.
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Look, it says, "But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His servants will worship Him." His servants will worship Him.
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There is no higher privilege than that.
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You're like, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. No higher privilege than what?
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Serving Him or worshipping Him?" The answer is yes, all of the above.
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But I want you to see here that heaven is not just rest and singing, despite what you may have seen in a far side cartoon where the guy's just sitting on the cloud with his harp.
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That is a terrible depiction of heaven.
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And it's shocking to me, but over the years, I've had people say to me, can you tell me more about heaven?
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Because honestly, it sounds kind of boring to me.
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And I'm like, boring?
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Boring?
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What?
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Well, that's what happens when you get your ideas of heaven from pop culture.
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And these stupid cartoons, boring.
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You think that's what God has for you, boring.
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Even in verse three right here, I see productivity.
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We're still called servants.
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Do you see that?
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We're still called servants.
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You're like, well, how are we going to serve?
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I don't know.
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We'll find out together, right?
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But I'm hoping, and I can't say this for sure, but I'm hoping in heaven that we will get new talents and new abilities, because I am so gonna be out of a job in heaven.
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I'm just gonna be walking around like, hey, can I tell you about Jesus?
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And they're like, yeah, we know that's why we're here.
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Like, all right, well, if you change your mind, I'll just be.
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Like, dude, we get it.
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We get it.
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He's right there.
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We know Jesus, right?
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And so I'm hoping, I'm hoping so much when I get to heaven, I can play the drums.
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Even if I can just be like the gong player in the heavenly band, something, please.
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I don't know.
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But see, being called servants means that there's productivity.
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There's stuff happening.
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But here's the thing that's really exciting to me about that.
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With the curse gone, you know what else is gone?
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Entropy.
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You know, second law of thermodynamics, Everything is moving from order to disorder.
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Everything's decaying, wearing out.
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That is a law, right?
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We see that all around us.
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In heaven with the curse gone, there's no entropy.
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So, every project completed is going to last for eternity.
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It's not gonna wear out.
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It's not gonna rust away.
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Everything built will last.
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Try to wrap your brain around the ramifications of that, because I sure can't.
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But listen, church.
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Someday sorrow will be gone.
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So my encouragement to you is to soak it up here.
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Soak up as much sorrow as you can here.
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your worst day, just be like, "Ahh, sorrow!
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I'm not going to miss you, but I'm going to have you while I'm here.
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Soak it up!" Because someday it's going to be behind you forever.
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Something you'll never do in heaven is find sorrow.
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And finally, three things you'll never do in heaven.
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Number three is feel alone. Feel alone.
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Look at verse 4.
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It says, "They will see His face." Again, that could be one of those statements when we read the Bible, we just kind of skim past that.
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You can't rush past a statement like that.
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Do you realize biblically how huge that statement is?
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"They will see His face." Do you know what that means?
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Even Moses, who was like tight with God.
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Do you remember back in Exodus 33, verses 20 and 23?
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You can look that up later, not now, but Moses was restricted in seeing God.
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And listen to what God said.
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He said, "Man shall not see me and live." He says, "But Moses, you can see my back." That was all Moses got.
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And even the high priest.
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I mean, he was restricted to being in God's personal presence, His Shekinah glory, Hebrews 9.7, just one day a year for the sacrifice.
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Leviticus 16, Day of Atonement.
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Even the high priest was so restricted.
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Right here, your Bible says, "But we will see His face." The lamb is always accessible.
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He goes on to say, and his name will be on their foreheads.
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Like, what does that look like?
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Is that some kind of a seal?
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Is that some kind of a tattoo?
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Is it like a plate hanging from the crown and the name is on the plate?
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I don't know, we'll find out together.
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But whatever, however that looks, here's the point, there's never going to be a doubt who we belong to.
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Because His name is going to be on us.
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And the last verse, look at verse 5.
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It says, "A night will be no more.
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They will need no light of lamp or sun.
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For the Lord God will be their light.
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And they will reign forever and ever.
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no darkness, no night.
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We will walk in the light of the Lord.
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You know, in the very beginning, like the beginning, in the beginning, there was light apart from sun, remember?
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Light was created before the sun.
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And apparently, speaking of going full circle, God's gonna bring us back to.
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There's not gonna be a son.
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He will be our light.
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It says, we will, look at this last phrase.
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It says, reign forever and ever.
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Let me ask you this.
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Do you ever get tired of the leadership that we're under right now?
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Anyone?
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Anyone at all?
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Anyone get frustrated with the leadership that we have in our state, in our country?
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Anyone?
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Okay, I was gonna say, wow, wow, just me, awesome.
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Look, I'm not making a political statement, I'm not endorsing a political party, but I'm just saying I am really sick of some of the antics of the leadership.
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Well, you think you can do better?
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Because you'll get a chance to, right here it says that.
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We will reign with Jesus Christ.
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In, now this is going to be something that we really need to stretch our imaginations here, but imagine this, we will reign with Him in a holy and sinless kingdom.
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There will be no corruption or ballot stuffing or quid pro quo or any of this other stuff. None of that.
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A perfect righteous kingdom.
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We will reign with Him forever and ever.
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Never end. It'll never end.
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You know, sometimes God seems distant, doesn't he?
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I mean, he's not, but doesn't it sometimes feel that way?
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Don't we sometimes feel alone?
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I know I do.
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We go through trials, we're hurting, and we need comforted.
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We feel betrayed, we're disappointed, we're let down, we're exhausted, and we feel like, where are you God?
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You ever felt that?
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I sure do sometimes.
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God, you see what's happening here.
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Where are you?
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Any moment you wanna step in, please, And here's what we're seeing in heaven.
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Never again will God seem distant.
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Never again will we feel alone.
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We will see His face. He's right there.
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And we will reign with Him.
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So, we've been talking a lot about the curse.
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Especially on Good Friday, we saw from Galatians that Jesus became a curse for us on the cross.
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And when you believe in Jesus Christ, you are no longer cursed.
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Even though, for now, we still live in fallen bodies, we still live in a cursed world, but things will not always be as they are now.
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Because this is what's waiting for God's people.
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This is what Jesus is preparing for us right now.
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There's no death.
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There's no sorrow.
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There's no feeling alone, as you are forever walking in the light of God.
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You know, I was thinking about these concepts this week, you know, no death, no sorrow, no feeling alone, living forever in the light of God, And then it hit me suddenly that, you know, the Bible describes hell as the complete antithesis of all of these things, right?
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Like we said, in heaven there's no death. Do you know what hell is?
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Hell is eternally dying.
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We see here that there's no sorrow in heaven.
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Do you know how hell is described in the Bible?
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A place of weeping. A place of eternal sorrow.
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Here we see that we walk forever in the light of God, and hell is described as what?
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Outer darkness.
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And I think I would be doing us a disservice without giving an invite at this point.
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Look, we can read all about heaven, and get all excited about what's in store.
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But if you haven't personally received Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, if you haven't bowed your knee to Him on your face, crying out, saying, "Please, "forgive me for all of my sins.
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"I know that you died on the cross to take my sins away.
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"I believe that you rose from the dead "so that I might have eternal life.
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"I want to receive you." Listen, if you haven't done that, biblically you are still under the curse.
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And hell is what is waiting for you.
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Still under the curse. That's why 1 Corinthians 16.22 says this, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed." Our Lord come.
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Heaven or hell, one of these destinations awaits you after you take your final breath.
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Today can be the day that you cry out to Jesus for your place in heaven.
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I'd like you to bow your heads with me, please.
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We don't want to get excited about a place that we'll never see.
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You know, some people think, "Well, I'm going to start going to church, and I'm going to try to be a good person, and I'm going to do this..." and none of those things will get you to heaven.
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Because the fact remains that we're all sinners by nature, and we've sinned in the face of a holy God.
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And that's the point of God's Word, is He remedied this.
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Just like He made skins for Adam and Eve to make a permanent covering when they couldn't do that.
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God made a permanent covering for us, and not even just covering our sin, He took our sin away in Jesus Christ.
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And if you have never received Him, let today be the day.
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Again, you just have to pray something like this, "God, I realize I have been far from You.
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And God, I haven't really cared much about You, I haven't been living for You.
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I've been kind of living for myself and in my sin.
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God, I realize that I am a sinner.
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And I see, Father, that You sent Jesus Christ to die for me.
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That's why Jesus was on the cross.
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He didn't die for His own sin because He didn't commit any.
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for my sin. You would send your Son to die for me. I believe that you did that to take away my sin and I believe that He rose from the dead, proving that He's God and giving us the hope of eternal life, that that empty tomb is our receipt. He is alive and promised I will be too.
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If you've prayed that today, or something like that, I want you to come and see me in guest reception after service.
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I want you to go to the other corner of the room where the big prayer sign is, and maybe you need to take that step, maybe you'd like somebody to pray with you, Any of us would be happy to do that.
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I can't possibly tell you how awesome heaven is going to be.
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We just get almost a quick one second peek behind the curtain in God's Word because it's going to be so much greater and more glorious, I think, than we can ever describe with human words.
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And you can enjoy that place too, thanks to Jesus Christ.
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So come and see me.
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And if you have prayed this, if you have received Jesus Christ, He calls you to make your profession of faith public through baptism.
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And we're going to give you an opportunity for that next week.
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That it's your opportunity to stand before God and before man and say, "I belong to Jesus Christ. I'm not ashamed to admit that.
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He died for me. He lives in me.
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And I'm telling the world, come and see me, so we can celebrate with what Jesus Christ is doing in your life." Father, we thank You.
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We thank You for this peak behind the curtain.
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And I just ask, Father, for a place so glorious that we would be consumed with knowing the God who is preparing this place, who died so we could go to this place.
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Father, let our lives be about serving You and worshiping You and loving You now in preparation for when we will do all of these things before You face to face.
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Through the glorious name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.
Small Group Discussion
Read Revelation 22:1-5
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Share a misconception you used to have about heaven.
Which “curse reversal” are you most looking forward to?
If we don’t need water or food to survive in heaven, why is there water and food (the river of the water of life and the tree of life)
Breakout
Pray for one another.