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Let's pray it together.
Father, thank you for Lauren's faithful witness to your faithfulness.
I'm going to thank you for that, the hope of the joy of expectant waiting,
because you've promised that you will come again and you will make all things right.
And so, Lord Jesus, would you come right now by the power of your Holy Spirit?
Would you take these words that we're going to read from your inspired scripture?
would you lift them off the page, would you write them on our hearts, that we could live in that
kind of joyful, expectant, urgent waiting for you? Would you do that here now among us?
We pray it in your name, Jesus. Amen. Amen. Merry Christmas. Okay, some of you, Bo and your campus
probably freaked you out talking about six days still to Christmas, but that's all right.
Hey, I love this season. I'm not usually a traditional kind of person, but when it comes to Christmas,
I love Christmas traditions. Anybody else, a big Christmas tradition? Like, I love going to a Christmas
Eve service and singing Silent Night with a candle. I love that. I love, we've had a Christmas
party going on in our family for at least 60 years every Christmas Eve. And I don't even know how many
boyfriends and girlfriends have gotten vetted at that Christmas party. So I made it. Some of them made it.
My uncle brings some sort of crazy pickled herring thing. I don't know why he does that.
We like that. We'll watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. It is a tradition in our house to watch it over and over.
Yes, there you go. There's some of my people.
I love the tradition of not putting up the Christmas tree and not listening to Christmas music till it's proper time after Thanksgiving.
I even like the tradition of my in-laws coming in town.
Don't know Kristen, you know.
But we started a tradition, one of my favorite traditions we started in our house,
started about 25 years ago.
It was my first Christmas Eve when I was in full-time ministry,
and we had done a few, I'd preached a few services and got done with service,
and it was about 9 or 10 o'clock at night, and Kristen and I went to go have dinner.
and there's nowhere open on Christmas Eve at 10 o'clock at night.
They're all shut down.
So we went home and, you know, this for Grub, hub,
and so we actually picked up a phone and called places.
Finally somebody answers, and it was a Japanese takeout place,
and they said, no, we'll make you something, we'll bring it to you, be great.
So about half an hour later, this guy shows up,
and he's wearing mailman pants.
I don't know why.
And remember the shirt like your granddad would wear to go to bed,
his pajama shirt that buttoned down and had the pocket right there and the cuffs and everything.
He shows up wearing that and he's got a grocery bag with Tupperware inside of it.
And hands, like he had made us sushi and Japanese food.
I think he made it at home and just brought it to us.
He sat on the floor and ate sushi and Japanese food.
And now every Christmas, our tradition is we put our kids to bed and we bring out the presents
and then we sit on the floor and we eat sushi and Japanese food on Christmas Eve.
and I love that tradition as a family.
Advent, which is the season that we're in right now,
and specifically the series that we're in right now,
is a tradition of the church.
And it goes back almost 1,700 years
is the earliest writings you can find on Advent.
The word Advent literally just means arrival or coming.
And it's a season of expectation, of preparation,
of urgency, of waiting.
and most of the time, and Advent kind of has these two sides to it.
And the first side is one that we talk about all the time in the church.
And that is that Advent's a season where we're expecting and we're preparing to celebrate
the birth of baby Jesus.
And that's right and that's great and that's wonderful.
There's this other side that the church is traditionally celebrated in Advent that I've never
even heard talked about much in Advent, which is that Advent, that Advent, that Advent is that Advent
is a season of waiting and expectation and preparation for not baby Jesus to return, but
King Jesus, ruling and reigning, resurrected King Jesus to return and establish his kingdom
forever and ever.
And so what we're going to do today is we're going to talk about that second side of Advent,
the return of Jesus.
Now, when I say that, and I tell you, we're going to go to Revelation chapter 21, 22,
you can turn there.
Some of you are pumped.
You're like, woo, you're like looking for your whistle and your banners.
Just hang on.
Just put them away.
It'll be fine.
Others of you are like, what in the world did I just get myself into?
And I'll just say, hang on, it'll be all right.
And here's what I want to do today as we dive into Revelation 21 and 22,
is that I have three goals.
The first goal is that you would be excited about what is happening in Revelation 21 and 22.
The second is that you would want to,
urgently, expectantly prepare and wait for Jesus to return. And third is that you would learn how
to wait faithfully for all of these other things that Jesus would give you in your life to be
waiting for. And so let's jump in, Revelation 21. Revelation's the last book of the Bible,
chapter 21, 22 are the very last chapter. So all you've do is turn to the very end of your
Bible and go to Revelation chapter 1, 22. If you don't have one, grab a Bible out of the
seat back and follow along.
Start in verse one.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
Now, this is really important
because you do know that our final end destination
as followers of Jesus is not floating disembodied
in the clouds somewhere in heaven,
but that there will be a new heaven and a new earth,
like a resurrected heaven and a resurrected earth
in which you and I, as well,
believers will live and dwell forever and ever and ever with our king. For the first heaven and the
first earth had passed away. And the sea was no more. Sea was chaotic. Seas meant separation.
And so in this new heaven and this new earth, there is no more chaos. There is no more destruction.
There is no more separation. And I saw a holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down, that is really important,
coming down out of heaven from God,
prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,
and he will dwell with them.
And they will be his people,
and God himself will be with them as their God.
You know, Jesus didn't stop being a manual,
when he was born.
Emmanuel means God with us.
We will forever know Jesus as God with us
because he will dwell with us forever.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
I was reading over this last night
and it struck me for the first time.
Can you imagine Jesus himself wiping away the tears from your eyes
so that you have no more tears?
And death shall be no more.
Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.
Can I get an amen from everybody over 40?
All right, okay, as long as it's not just me.
The former things have passed away.
And he who is seated on the throne said,
Behold, I am making all things new.
And he also said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and trustworthy and
true. And he said to me, it is done. Jesus on the cross says, it is finished. My work of paying for sin
is finished. And when Jesus returns, his work of making all things new will be done. It will be
complete. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty, I will give
from the springs of the water of life without payment.
Grace upon grace upon grace.
And the one who conquers, do you know who conquers is?
Jesus, Jesus is the one who conquers
because when he was crucified three days later,
he was raised from the dead, he ascended into heaven,
he rules and reigns, and one day he will conquer all the pain
and all the evil, and it will be no more.
And then those of us who play,
our faith in Jesus,
will be co-heirs with Jesus in that
conquering. The one who conquers
will have this heritage
and I will be His God and he will be my son.
But as for the cowardly,
the faithless, the detestable,
as for murderers, the sexually immoral,
the sorcerers, idolaters,
and all liars. Basically,
he's just, if you want to trust in yourself
and make yourself your own God
instead of making God your God.
Their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur,
which is the second death.
Then came one of the seven angels who had seven bowls full of the seven last plagues
and spoke to me saying,
come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb.
He's going to show him the universal cosmic church.
That's the bride.
of Christ, and he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain, and he showed me the
holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance
like a most rare jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal. Let's skip down to verse 22. And I saw no
temple in the city for its temple is the Lord God, the Almighty, and the Lamb.
Do you know why you don't need a temple?
You don't need a temple because temples represent the presence of God.
You don't need something that represents the presence of God
when you have the actual very presence of God with you.
But nothing unclean, even this is good news.
Listen to this.
Nothing unclean will ever enter it.
Nor does anyone who does what is detestable or false,
but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
if you have placed your faith in Jesus,
your name is forever written and kept by Jesus
in his Lamb's Book of Life.
First chapter 22, verse 1,
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.
Also, on either side of the river,
the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit,
yielding its fruit each month,
the leaves of the tree
were for the healing of the nations.
No longer will there be anything accursed,
but the throne of God and the lamb will be in it,
and his servants will worship him,
and they will see his face,
and his name will be on their foreheads,
and night will be no more.
They will need no light of lambs,
or son, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
I mean, I don't even know where to begin to describe how utterly perfect this new heaven and new
earth will be. No more sin, no more pain, no more disease, no more hurt, no more destruction.
no more offense or rebellion to God,
no more distance between anybody that's there,
perfect relationship between you and God and you and others.
The question I've got is, I mean, how does all that happen?
How does the new heaven and the new earth come to be an actual reality?
In Revelation 22, verse 6, gives us the answer in verse 7.
He said to me, these words are trustworthy and true.
And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophet, has sent his angels to show his servants
what must soon take place.
And here it is.
And behold, this is Jesus.
I am coming soon.
The Jesus who was born as a baby in the flesh in a manger that we celebrate at Christmas,
that baby, he grew up and he lived a perfect life.
He died the death that.
that you and I deserve.
He paid the penalty for our lives and our rebellion
and our sin against God on the cross.
They put him in a tomb.
Three days later, he was resurrected from the dead.
He spends 40 days walking around to hundreds
and hundreds of people saying, if you would repent,
if you would trust me, if you would come to me
and trust in my finished work on the cross,
then you know what becomes yours?
This new heaven and this new earth.
way that it happens is that this this baby born grows up, dies on a cross, is resurrected, ascends,
and when he returns, the new heaven and the new earth come again. Now, this isn't just a picture
of what's going to happen, and it's not even necessarily about when it's going to happen. The thing
that follows in here also is how do we wait for this to happen? How do we wait for this to happen? How
do we wait faithfully? How do we wait well for it? Listen, I don't wait well in line.
Like, I don't know about you, the littlest bit of waiting. I'm not proud of this.
This is just confession time, right? Like, I get in line, I have to wait a little bit. I get grumpy.
I start complaining. I'm like, what is, what are they doing? I mean, we live in a time
that makes it so hard to wait, don't we? I mean, we live in an instant culture.
You've got Instagram on your friends, like instant friends, right?
I mean, it's probably instant like comparison, but that's another topic.
You got, you got Instacart for your on-demand groceries.
You've got Ibook or Kindle for on-demand books.
You don't have to go.
I mean, who goes to a bookstore, right?
Download that bad boy right there.
Spotify, music, Pandora, you get instant music on your phone.
DoorDash, you got instant groceries to your house or instant restaurants to your house.
You got Amazon Prime.
You have anything you want instantly.
Our world is freaking out about supply chain demand, right?
God forbid we drive down the street and buy a Christmas present.
But that instant culture makes it so hard for us to wait.
It really does.
and we often do more than just complain when we wait.
Our waiting hasn't, the way we wait
hasn't really solved our waiting problem.
Because when most of us are waiting,
whether it's a big thing or a little thing,
sometimes we'll just go into like force it mode, won't we?
We'll just try to push this thing through.
We don't want to wait, I don't care,
we're going to jam the square peg and the round hole,
and I'm going to make it work.
Or else we just, we just abas.
abandon the thing altogether. You're like, well, it didn't happen, and I guess it's not,
and we just check out. Or we zone out, we numb out, we tune out, and we just kind of,
we don't wait well. But the fact of the matter is, every single person, you and I, all of us,
are waiting on something, aren't you? For some of us, we're waiting in the next couple days to see
somebody that we haven't seen in a couple years and we are so like you can hardly wait.
I mean our daughter in high school is counting down the hours until exams are over. She cannot
wait for midterm exams to be over. Some of us are waiting on some really hard things.
Some of us are waiting on that diagnosis to come back or that test result to come back.
some of us are waiting on
an entrance exam
into a college
to come back
some of us you've gone and done
the interview for the job
and now you're just waiting
for that to come back
some of you're waiting on that
prodigal son or daughter
to find will this finally
be the time they come home for good
some of you are waiting on that friendship
that just crumbled
and you're waiting
for it to be restored.
Or you're waiting on a business partner that just did you wrong.
And you've been waiting for that person to come back and apologize and just say, I did it.
Or you're waiting, you have some sort of pain in your body and you literally are waiting
for the day that that pain would go away.
What if?
What if waiting wasn't something that we kind of grinded our way?
through, but it really was a gift of God.
What if in the waiting, God had an intentional purpose to tell us something about who he is,
his character and his nature?
What if in the waiting, God was going to tell us something about faith?
A God that is an instant God does not require any faith.
What if in the waiting God wanted to reveal something about our heart and our life and our character
and our nature that we otherwise wouldn't see or no.
What if waiting wasn't something to be ignored or to be pushed back?
What if it was something to be invited in and be embraced?
How do we wait faithfully?
How do we wait faithfully for the return of Jesus?
How do we wait faithfully for all of those other things in our lives?
And I think this passage, the rest of Revelation, 22, gives us, I'm going to tell you, gives us seven things from God to help us wait faithfully.
So go back to verse 6.
And he said to me, these words are trustworthy and true.
The Lord, the God of the spirits and of the prophets, has sent his angel to show us his servants what must soon take place.
and behold, I'm coming soon.
Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.
Do you hear that?
I mean, he says these words are trustworthy and they're true.
In the rest of 22, he's going to use the word word six times.
He's going to use book seven times.
What he's talking about is scripture.
How good is God that he didn't just leave us on our own,
but that he gave us his word to tell us about his character and his nature,
about faith and about life and about relationships and about work,
about parenting, about being a child.
How good is God that he would do that for us?
And it says these words, they come,
from the God of the Spirit of the prophets.
What he's saying is these words are inspired
by the Spirit of God.
And he says these words are trustworthy.
It means they're infallible.
You can trust them.
And they're true.
They are without error.
Have you ever been waiting for something?
And you thought, man, I wish God would just speak to me.
I wish you would just tell me what's going on.
I wish you to pull the curtain back and go,
let me just tell you how everything's unfolding.
Here's the good news.
He has.
He's given us his word.
If you want to hear God speak to you,
open this word and read it out loud.
You'll hear God.
Here's the point.
You don't need a new revelation.
You don't need a fresh word
because God himself has given you
his full and final revelation in his word.
And on top of that, he says,
blessed are you who keep these words?
That's an amazing promise from God.
That the words of God contain a promise of God,
many promises of God.
And every single one of those promises are yes in Jesus Christ.
And they are a blessing if they're kept.
He says it's a blessing if you keep them.
And the word keep literally means to watch or to guard or to protect or to serve.
And so watch the word.
Read the word.
Guard this word.
Drive it deep down in your soul.
guard what it really means, like learn how to interpret the scriptures and serve the word.
Do what it says.
James says, don't just be a hearer of this word.
Be a doer of this word.
Now, I know when I say that, there's some of you that will go, well, that sounds great, Adam.
I don't know.
How do you do that?
Like, what does that mean?
And so I think you need three things to do that.
of all, you need a Bible. Good news is, there are tons of Bibles right here, right now, so you can
reach in front of you. If you don't own a Bible, or if you know somebody that doesn't own a Bible,
I would love it if you would clean this place out of Bibles. I'm serious. Take it. Merry Christmas.
Don't say we didn't ever give you anything. And then you need a plan. Here's a real simple plan.
the gospel of Matthew
there's Matthew Mark, Luke, and John
they tell the story.
Each one tells the stories
of Jesus' life.
Take Matthew.
It begins with the birth of Jesus.
It's perfect timing.
And in your Bible, you'll see
there's a little heading
and then there's a paragraph or two
that's in there.
Just read that little chunk.
You don't have to read
chapters upon chapters
upon chapters.
Just start with a little chunk.
And then you need a time
in a place. For me, my time is early in the morning because nobody in my house wakes up early. It's
peace and quiet. I'm all by myself. I get my coffee. I sit on the left end of my couch. I put my
coffee right here. There's a drawer. I pull it out. I keep my Bible and a couple pens in there.
So get a Bible. Take a Bible. Have a Bible. I would love it to restock every one of our
campuses. Don't just wait for the Word of God to come true. Wait in the
the word of God while all of his promises are coming true.
He says in verse 8, I John, in the one who heard and saw these things,
John is John the Apostle that was with Jesus.
And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them
to me.
But he said to me, you must not do that.
I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers.
the prophets. And with those who keep the words of this book, worship God. See, to wait faithfully,
not only does God give us his word, but to wait faithfully, God gives us worship. He says,
worship God. Like, we don't just worship God because our circumstances get better. We worship God
because Jesus is always better than any of our circumstances. Jesus, Jesus,
says, I am the alpha and the omega. I am the beginning and the end. That is the statement of his
character and his nature. We worship Jesus for who he is more than what he does for us.
If you only worship Jesus, if you're waiting to worship Jesus until he gives you some things,
you aren't really worshiping Jesus. You're worshiping the things, not him.
And worship is this invitation, really.
Worship is an invitation for us to kind of lift our eyes, up off our situation, up off our circumstances, to fix them on Jesus, the pioneer, the perfector of our faith, and to say, Jesus, I'm going to worship you while I'm waiting.
Because your character and your nature never change and they never fail and they never stop and they are always good and perfect and right.
and just and loving and merciful.
And my circumstances don't dictate that.
And so, God, I'm going to worship you in that.
And worship is a weapon.
It is a weapon against my self-centeredness.
Listen, how self-centered can we get in our waiting?
It's a weapon against cynicism.
And it is a weapon against idolizing things
and making the...
angel even says it, right?
Don't worship me.
I'm just a thing of God.
Don't worship a lesser thing than God.
Worship God.
Worship is this,
it is a gift of God for us in our waiting.
In Acts 16,
there's a guy named Paul and Silas.
They're talking about Jesus.
They get thrown in jail.
It's about midnight.
Do you know what Paul and Silas?
Any of you guys,
who knows what is happening to Paul and Silas,
while they're waiting to get left out of jail.
What are they doing?
They're worshipping.
It says they're singing hymns and praying,
and everybody in the jail is like,
what is going on?
You have no idea how powerful
your worship is in the midst of your waiting.
I snapped to this picture.
I want to show you this picture.
This is my friend Asher.
I took this picture a couple months ago.
I was sitting right down here.
Asher was over here.
And Asher showed his video and you can go and see it, you can listen to it, you can watch it.
Usher's waiting for some things.
And to watch him worship was such a powerful thing to me.
You have no idea your worshiping in the midst of your waiting is not wasted.
It's not.
When you fix your eyes on Jesus and you worship him for who he is,
your worshiping in your waiting is never a wasted thing.
So it goes on in verse 10, and he said to me,
do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book,
for the time is near.
In our waiting to wait well and to wait faithfully,
God gives us this word, he gives us his worship,
and he gives us his urgent purposes.
Look, I mean, he says, the time is near.
In verse 6, he says, I must tell you what must soon take place.
Three times in Revelation 22, Jesus says, I'm coming soon, I'm coming soon, I'm coming soon.
If Jesus is coming soon, and the new heaven and the new earth will come when he comes,
again. It means every minute, every hour, every day that you and I live are that much closer
to this being a reality, which means time is running out for those who do not know the good
news of Jesus Christ. In the midst of our waiting for Jesus to return and wait on whatever
else we're waiting on, there is an urgency and there is an urgent purpose that the world would
hear the good news of Jesus so that they could be invited in and live in this new heaven,
in this new earth. Now, I know when I say Jesus is coming back soon, it spurs a bunch of questions.
People get into all kinds of speculation and predictions about timing and when and how all this
is going to happen. And listen, Jesus answered it. He just said, it's not for you to know.
the father's got it it's not for you to know and then jesus said or scripture also tells us
that a thousand days thousand years is like a day to the lord a day is like a thousand years
which means jesus has been resurrected and ascended and is ruling and reigning and said i'll be
back soon for about two days i mean he's like he's like hey guys i'll be back it's been 48 hours
cosmically speaking.
Listen, skip the sign interpretations.
Stop with all the time and all the speculation that's so pointless
and get on with the urgent purpose of evangelization.
Jesus said that this gospel will be proclaimed to the ends of the earth
and then I will return.
While you're waiting, make
disciples.
Actually make your waiting your witness to Jesus.
When somebody, you're waiting, let's say you're waiting on a job and somebody calls and says,
how's that job coming?
You heard back?
Give them an update on the job.
But what would it look like if you turn the conversation and said, hey, can I tell you
what God has been doing in my life in the middle of waiting on this job?
Or maybe you're waiting on a diagnosis or a test result to come back and a friend asked you
about it. And you would say, I can tell you the update, but can I tell you the way the Lord has
sustained me in the middle of this? Maybe you're going through a really hard time in your marriage
in a relationship, in a friendship. And some of you've been confiding and asked you about that.
What would it look like for you to say to them, here's what's going on right now? But can I tell
you what the Lord has shown me in this? Can I tell you how God has dug around?
in my heart and my soul and things he's unearthed in me
in places that I found that I need to confess
and I need to get out and I've seen grace of God
in the middle of that.
If you would take the thing you're waiting for
and turn it into a witness,
your waiting will never be wasted.
And you will wait faithfully.
In verse 11, it says,
let the evil doers still do evil.
And the filthy still be filthy.
and the righteous still do right and the holy still be holy.
Behold, I'm coming soon, bringing my recompense with me to repay each one for what he has done.
I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life.
and they may enter the city by the gates,
outside of the dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral
and murders and idolaters
and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.
Do you see what he says here?
He says, let the holy still be holy.
To wait faithfully, God has given us
the pursuit of holiness.
Holiness, the pursuit of holiness
is not a condition to salvation.
salvation. The pursuit of holiness is not a condition to entering into this new heaven and this new
earth. The pursuit of holiness is a joyful response from the follower of Jesus who has received
grace from Jesus to say, I want to live and be more like you. It's a response to it, not a condition
for it. What if the waiting is a gift of God to reveal in us,
what doesn't look like Jesus in us?
What if the waiting is a gift of God to reveal in us what isn't from faith?
What if the waiting is a mercy, is a gift of God,
to show in us where I'm looking for joy and where I'm looking for satisfaction
and where I'm looking for wholeness in any other place other than in Jesus?
What if this waiting is a gift?
of time for you and I to confess and to repent. I mean, if you were Jesus, think about this.
If you were Jesus and you were returning, what would you want to find you doing? Not as a scary
thought, but if you were Jesus, what would bring your heart joy to see your people doing
when you returned? Here's what I'll tell you, it would bring your heart joy to see your people
confessing of their sin, repenting of things that aren't from faith,
fixing their eyes on Jesus, pursuing holiness,
conforming their life to the image of the likeness of Jesus.
That would bring you such joy in your return.
And there's a promise again in here.
Do you see it?
Blessed are those that wash their robes.
Blessed are you who find your purity, not in your works,
but in Jesus' work on the cross.
Blessed are you who wash your sin
in the blood of Jesus shed on the cross for you.
And that's where you find your holiness
and then you respond and you pursue holiness
all the days of your life.
Your waiting is not wasted
in your pursuit of holiness.
Verse 16, I Jesus
have sent my angel to testify to you
about these things
for the churches.
To wait faithfully, God has given us his church.
And not just like his Big C, universal, global, all-time church,
but he's given us, it actually says his churches.
Ecclesia just, it's a gathering.
He's given us these local gatherings of churches
to encourage us while we're in the waiting.
The churches are a gift
of God. Churches are not an event to attend. It's not an organization to be a member of. It is so much more than that.
I remember when I was about 12 years old, and we were living in Tennessee. It was late one summer
night. My friends and I decided we were going to race our dirt bikes. So we got up on this hill,
and there's a big steep hill, and it's going down, and the way it went down, it kind of went like
this and then there was this big kind of curb bump right here and then the cornered and went around
and so we were going to race from the top of the hill down around the curve and to the bottom as we
started to go I looked and I thought you know what my teacher's right the shortest point between
two points is a straight line and so I'm losing everybody else turns left to go around the corner
and I just I go straight and I hit that bump and I just launched my dirt bike
I am flying through the air, and for about a half a second, I'm like, this is awesome.
Everybody's watching me, you know, and this is cool.
And then all of a sudden the bike disappears, and I'm just supermanning.
I'm like, uh-oh.
And I come down, because what goes up must come down, and I come down, and bam, I land like this, and my bone goes,
boop, boop, right out of my arm, compound fracture.
my mom comes running out with duct tape a southern living magazine and a cookie sheet wraps my arm up
I mean we're one step away from like rub some dirt in it you know I mean like duct tapes my arm
to a cookie sheet using the magazine as a splint we hop in the car my dad rides to the hospital
how crazy would it have been for me when I broke my arm to just go no problem I don't need to
go to the hospital. They're probably going to get mad at me when I get to the hospital.
They're probably going to judge me for my broken arm. They're probably going to send me home and
tell me when my arm is. No, that'd be insane. The same is true for the church. Listen, if your life
is a mess and you're waiting on something to get better, you know where you should be in the church.
If you're waiting on going through a hardship, you know where you should be waiting in the
church. The book of Hebrews says, let us spur one another on to love and to good deeds that we would
not neglect meeting together as some are accustomed to do as we wait for the day to draw near.
We wait for the day, whether that's the little day or the big day, the church is the place
that we would wait. It's why, look at this, I want to show you a couple of these pictures of
this map. We have planted almost 4,000.
churches partnered in planting, 403 churches all over the world. Do you know why we've done that?
So that there would be these churches, these little hospitals all over the world, these waiting
rooms for people who are busted and broken and need to wait for the healing.
He goes on in verse 16, I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star.
the spirit of the bride says come and let the one who hears say come and let the one who is thirsty come let the one who desires to take the water of life without price
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book if anyone adds to them God will add to him plagues described in this book and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy God will take away his share in the tree of
of life in the holy city which are described in this book.
He who testifies to these things says,
surely I am coming soon.
And then look what it says.
Amen.
Come Lord Jesus.
That's a prayer.
Amen.
Come Lord Jesus.
To wait faithfully.
God has given us this gift of praying.
How good is God that he would give us a way for us.
us to tell him what is going on inside of us, to meet with him.
And I love this.
I love how simple this prayer is.
It's just come.
Just come be in the middle of this thing.
Most of the time, you and I don't need Jesus to do more things for us.
What we need is for Jesus to just come be in the middle of it with us.
And I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, I don't even know how to pray.
I listen to all these people pray
and they use all these big words
and it's so fancy
here's how you pray
you want to pray an incredibly biblical prayer
you want to pray a prayer that Jesus
will answer 100% of the time
come Lord Jesus
Jesus
come be in the middle
of my marriage that's fallen apart
come Lord Jesus be in the middle
of my relationship that's crumbling
come Lord Jesus be in the middle of my desire to be in a relationship come Lord Jesus be in the middle of this
waiting on this test and this diagnosis or this healing come Lord Jesus be in the middle of me just
waiting to finally be pregnant come Lord Jesus be in the middle of my prodigal son to come home my friend
to apologize my business partner to make it right come Lord Jesus the waiting is not
wasted if you invite Jesus into the middle of it. And then listen to how the final words of
scripture close. Think about this. If you were going to close out everything you had to say
to people that you loved, what would be your last words? And here's God's final words in
scripture. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.
The final words of Scripture are grace.
Grace is the unearned, undeserved favor, acceptance, love of God.
It's actually not that we're undeserving of it.
It's so much worse than that.
We're actually ill-deserving of it.
That you and I, here's this, do you know how you get the grace of God?
You and I were created to live in a perfect relationship with God.
You and I were created in the image of God.
And Adam and Eve, when they were created, they looked at God and they said, you know what, God, I know you designed all this, I know you created all this, I know how you think you think all of this is supposed to work, but I got this, thanks a lot, I'll handle it on my own.
And stiff-armed God and walked away from God.
And ever since then, you and I have been doing the exact same thing in every single one of our lives.
every single one of us have rebelled against God.
Every single one of us have tried to create our own little kingdoms and be our own little
king.
It's why we're not really all that concerned that Jesus would return.
And we've stiff-armed God and we said, I can run my life better than you can.
But here's the problem.
God is a God of perfect holiness.
He cannot allow, he will not allow sin into his presence.
That's what sin is, a rebellion of God.
He won't do it.
He's holy, he's perfect.
And God is not only holy, God is just.
And we actually want a God that is a God of justice
because a God of justice looks at things like human trafficking and child abuse
and says, I'm not just going to sweep that under the rug.
I'm going to actually make something that's wrong right.
I'm going to do something about that.
I'm going to punish what is wrong.
I'm going to set the record right.
The trouble is that you and I are on the receiving end
of God's holiness and God's justice.
The wages of our sin,
the justice against our sin, is death.
It is a sea, a separation between us and God.
that we can't overcome.
But God is not only holy, and he's not only just,
but God is loving and merciful.
Now think about that.
How do you reconcile the holiness of God,
the justice of God,
the mercy of God, and the love of God?
Because God is, it's not like there's a tank of a hundred
and it's a little bit of all of it.
So like if mercy goes down, justice goes up,
or if justice goes down, his love and mercy must go up,
and so it all kind of adds up to a hundred,
it's that God is 100% holy and 100% just,
and 100% loving and 100% merciful.
How do you reconcile that?
The only place you can reconcile that
is in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
That on the cross of Christ, Jesus took our sin
and our rebellion put it on his shoulders, paid the penalty, death for that sin,
and in turn he gave us his righteousness.
It put him in the grave, and three days later, he became the one who conquered.
He walked out of that grave, not just resuscitated, he walked out of that grave, resurrected.
And he is now ascended.
and one day he will return.
And do you know that is the grace of God?
It says the grace of God be with you.
The grace of God is with you when Jesus is with you.
And do you know how Jesus is with you?
By faith.
Look at the final word of all of Scripture.
It's amen.
Amen is just a Hebrew word that means let it be so.
That's a faith word.
He says, may the grace of God be with you.
May the work of Jesus throughout all of history,
namely in his life, death, and resurrection be with you.
And here's how it's with you.
When you just say, let that be so in my life, Jesus.
So right now, I want to invite you
if you have never trusted Jesus,
but you want the grace of God to be with you forever.
You want your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life.
You want the new heaven and the new earth,
no separation between you and God.
No more pain, no more tears, no more crying,
no more hurt, no more death.
That comes when Jesus comes.
When he comes again and when he comes into your life right now.
And I want to give you the opportunity
to accept that today.
Would you bow your heads?
And if that is you, would you raise your hand right now?
If you want to say amen, raise it way up high.
Come on, be bold.
Amen.
Heavenly Father, thank you.
Thank you for the gift of the new heaven and the new earth
that will be a reality for all of eternity
when you return again.
And so Jesus, I pray that we would be people that live and wait expectantly for you.
Thank you for the gifts you have given us to wait.
Do your work in us while we wait, Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
Amen.
Would you stand and we're going to respond to the gospel?
You may want to respond by giving, giving back.
back to God. What he's so faithfully given to you? We're going to respond by singing. We're actually
going to sing words of the book of Revelation right now. And then here's what I want you to do.
I want you to come down here and I want you to fill up these carpets and these kneelers. And I
want you to come down because I know some of you all are waiting. And I want you to come down.
I want you to pray. Come Lord Jesus into the middle of blank. Come get down on your knees.
Come get down on your face. And don't just ask.
ask Jesus to do something for you, but ask Jesus to come be with you in the middle of it.
So let's sing, let's bring, let's cry out, come Lord Jesus. Let's respond.