Revelation 21:3

0:00 And when I was seven years old, my first American friend invited me over to my first sleepover. And I think many of you guys know, I grew up in Japan, and I met this American kid and his family at an event. I barely knew him, but he invited me over to this Halloween sleepover. And so my dad asked me, "Hey, do you want to go?" And I was not a brave kid at all. So, not sure, but probably try new things. So I said, yeah, sure, why not?

0:31 So my dad proposed this. Hey, at 10 p.m., I'll call you. And if you want to spend the rest of your night there, great. If not, I'll pick you up. So I said, sure. So I go to this friend's house, and this house is not like my house at all. It's Halloween. People are dressed up in all these characters. It's this American friend and his American friends, characters I don't know. I'm like, who's Green Lantern? I've never seen these characters. We proceed to eat greasy pizza and all these American sugary snacks, and there's no rice at all anywhere in any of the dishes.

1:12 My friend looks at me smuggling. He's like, my dad allows me to watch PG-13 movies. We're seven years old. I was like, my dad doesn't. He must have a good reason. So I felt really uneasy, and I sit there, and we're watching this guy in a whip running around, and faces melting, and ugh. On top of all of that, even though this was in Japan, the people in this house wore their shoes inside the house. And that just, that was breaking one of the Ten Commandments. It was rough.

1:42 Everything was so different. I was disoriented. It did not feel like home at all. And so I began to really look forward to that 10 p.m. phone call where my dad would come and pick me up, and I could go. Well, in a similar way, have you ever felt homesick? Have you ever felt like something is missing, that something's off, something's different? Maybe you're longing to go back to a certain place or a certain community or to a certain person. And as Christians, we should be feeling homesick because we're not home.

2:18 Just like I was feeling, how I was feeling waiting at my friend's house, we need, we are waiting. We're waiting for that 10 p.m. phone call, that call to go home to where our Heavenly Father is. So, in today's passage, we're going to read this announcement from heaven that our Father is home. So, in the next few minutes, let's set our minds on this grand announcement. Let me read the passage. You'll find it on the front of your bulletins and in your Bibles in Revelation 21, verse 3.

2:51 It says, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. In many ways, this text is the climax of all of scriptures. It's the moment towards all of history, all of the scriptures, and all of our lives are culminating towards. Like Brandon said this morning, the presence of God, entering into the presence of God is our primary, primary priority.

3:24 This is the end of a long journey, the part of the story where the weary traveler falls into the arms of their loved ones, the part where the happily ever after begins. The new city has arrived, and now God is coming to dwell with his people. And so this is what I want to persuade you of this evening. Be homesick for the presence of God. Be homesick for the presence of God. And we will look at this in two parts. First, we'll look at homesickness. And then we'll look at the presence of God.

3:57 So our homesickness. As you look at the text, notice that the text is talking about this future time. He will dwell. They will be his people. God himself will be with them as their God. This is the time when the new heavens and new earth comes, right? This is pointing to the next life. But maybe some of you are thinking, well, I thought God already was with us. I thought we already were his people. I thought God was already with us. Well, yes and no, right? God is with us, yes. We are his people.

4:28 He is our God, as Brandon explained. The church is his dwelling place. But no, it hasn't been completed in its fullness yet. And we're waiting for that day. The Bible teaches that we were created for a perfect relationship with God, dwelling in his presence. As image bearers, we were supposed to soak in his presence and then shower his glory, his presence throughout the world until the glory of God covers the world like the waters cover the seas. But sin ruined everything.

4:59 Remember Adam and Eve. They must have felt that first deep homesickness as they look back towards the dwelling place of God where they had come from. And all they saw was a flaming sword telling them that they were exiled from their home. They could not return. They are no longer welcome home. We look at the nation of Israel, God's chosen people. And even then, even though God was with them, he was only with them specially in the temple. There were rocks and cedars and gold and all that, but it was partial, mediated.

5:32 It was a shadow of what was to come, a reminder that they were not home yet. Even in the New Testament, even though Jesus is with us, even though we, the church, are the temple where God dwells, Yet we know that we are not yet home. We experience that. Peter calls us exiles. The author of Hebrews says we're awaiting a new and greater heavenly home. We are not home, and we are longing to hear that voice proclaim, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.

6:06 Do you feel that in your own hearts? Do you feel that in your own lives? Maybe for you, that homesickness is like a whisper in your heart. Maybe that feeling called nostalgia or happiness mixed with sadness, that deep longing you feel when you look at a really beautiful sunset. That whisper reminds us, even in the good times, maybe especially in the good times, that you were made for more. Do you believe that? Even when life is good, do you remember, do you long for a greater, a better home?

6:42 Or do you drown out that whisper? you drown out that life and busy yourself making this home your world. Friends, let's listen to that whisper, because no matter how comfortable you are here in this world, you were made for more glorious things than successful careers and exciting vacations, any earthly fame and glory. Listen to that whisper, which says you were made for more. You were made for God. Know that and live faithfully in this world as exiles. Or maybe for you, that homesickness is more like a nagging. You have unfulfilled desires. Frustration and futility eats at your heart. And you say, this world cannot fulfill me. Friends, we need to listen to that nagging. It's true. This world is futile and there's hardship. Maybe our aspirations, even our simple ones, don't come to fruition. And all your efforts keep hitting dead ends. And friends, maybe you'd be tempted to grow numb. You set lower and lower expectations. But friends, don't lose hope. Remember, even though

7:49 this world cannot fulfill us, there's more. God is coming to dwell with us. And at that moment, everything will be meaningful. So live faithfully in light of God. Or maybe your homesickness is more like a shout, a voice loud and clear, screaming in your face, a sickness that won't go away. Hardship constantly yelling in your face. Saying things are not alright. Friends, don't let that shouting drive you to despair.

8:23 Don't let that shouting drive you away from God. Don't be like the atheists who say there's so much evil, God cannot exist. Rather, remember and hope that yes, things are not alright because God is not fully present with us. But there will be a day when he returns and holds our hand and takes us home and so live faithfully in hope. Friends, whatever season of life you're in, fan into flame that homesickness because, friends, what a glorious, glorious homecoming that awaits us.

8:58 So point two, let's think about our home in the presence of God. What does this home look like? Who will be there? What makes this home homey? Look at the passage with me. Do you see how many times the word with is used? It says the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them. God himself will be with them as their God. And this is the most important part. What is highlighted here is God's withness. What makes heaven home is that God, our Father, will be there.

9:29 He will be with us. God's not just going to prepare a mansion for us with TV and pool and a full fridge and say, enjoy, I'll come back another day. No, he's not passing by, but he's going to dwell with us. Look at it. It says the dwelling place of God, he will make his home with us. What's most amazing about this home is that he will be there. He will dwell there. He will be with us. This is what makes heaven home. This is what makes our home home. It's the presence of our Father. And that's the whole point of this heaven.

10:02 The presence of God is the greatest blessing of new creation. The presence of God will be the most glorious thing ever. His presence will be there fully. Notice the phrase, God himself will be with them as their God. Why is it structured that way? God himself. Why can't they just say God will be there? It's emphasizing that he himself, unmediated, he himself will be there. His presence will no longer be hidden behind a curtain in the temple. His glory won't be mediated by rituals and priests.

10:36 His glory won't be something we see glimmers and glimpses of. Rather, he will dwell with us face to face, directly. So what is this presence going to be like? What is the presence of God like? Well, to describe the glory of God is an impossible task. It is beyond the ability of our language. No words can describe the presence of God. No image can capture its fullness. And no experience can come close to comparing with what that is.

11:08 Even here in the book of Revelation, John seems to be just grasping for the highest images and words that he can find. It's like a star and a rainbow and all these precious metals. He's just using everything that we know and experience to try to describe a glimpse of what this glory looks like. And in fact, every time the scripture talks about the glory of God, it's almost as if it can't look on it and it goes around and explains everything else that points, everything else glorious around God that points to God's glory.

11:42 And here, but we know, we understand, even though words cannot fully describe that, that the presence of God is glorious. It is more beautiful than anything you or I can imagine. And as we read in our call to worship this morning, better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. And as it says in Psalm 16, in your presence there's fullness of joy, and at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Heaven will be an eternity in the presence of that God.

12:16 Let's look carefully at the last few phrases of our text. It says, they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. God is present, he's there, but it's more than that. We see here that he will relate to us in a very special relationship as our God and as his people. Friends, we will be his people and all our longings and desires will be met in God. We will be completely known and completely accepted. Think about your best friend or a family member and take out all the hard parts and look at all the sweetnesses and the joys of that relationship.

12:53 Multiply it by infinity and that's what it's gonna be like in the presence of God. It's going to be so sweet to be fully in his presence, fully known and fully accepted, fully loved in his presence. There will be no more frustration, no more loneliness. Rather, we will be, every longing that we have will be met in him. And God himself will be with us as our God. He will be among us. He will rule over us and protect us.

13:25 Every fear and anxiety that we have will be no more because he will be our God among us. all the stresses and troubles will be gone. And just like a good father holding his child's hand, God will bring us comfort and there will be nothing to fear. We will be perfectly satisfied and perfectly safe. And as we meditate on this coming day where we enter into the glories of the presence of our God, you might be asking, how can these things be? I thought our sin made it impossible for us to be with God.

13:58 What happened to those cherubim holding those flaming swords? And friends, you likely know the answer, but we should never cease to marvel at the work of our Savior Christ. Jesus died and was resurrected so that our sins could be paid for, so that we could be resurrected to these eternal glories of being in the presence of God without shame, without fear of punishment, without being incinerated in a moment, Because Jesus took the punishment for us. And so in this glorious coming of God, at the center of it will be our glorious Savior, our God and our glorious groom who saved us so we could be with him.

14:39 So praise Jesus who saved us so that we could have the hope of enjoying the full presence of God for all eternity. At the beginning, I talked about the sleepover and how I was waiting for that call, right? I was looking at the clock, 9.30, 9.45, 9.50. The time was coming, and sure enough, at 10 p.m., my dad called, and I said, yeah, I'm out, I'm ready to go home. And I sighed a deep sigh of relief as my dad came and took me home where everything was as it should be.

15:16 Normal, not crazy. So friends, as we look at Revelation 21.3, and talked about our homesickness, and talked about our home that's awaiting us in the presence of God. I hope that our anticipation for that grand homecoming, our ache for heaven, sometimes grinning in anticipation, sometimes tearful, as we beg for him to come soon. And as we pray often here at this church, come Lord Jesus, I pray that we will pray that prayer more and more, and that it'll sink in more deeply in our hearts, because we're waiting for that 10 p.m. phone call. And that call will come. The angel will announce. He will say, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. So when that call comes, I pray that we would rejoice, saying, we've waited so long through the blessings, through the trials in exile, but now we're going home to the presence of God.

16:15 Let's pray. Our glorious Heavenly Father, we know that we are exiles, that we are still not home. I pray, Lord, that you would protect us from making this world too much of our home. I pray that you would protect us from an apathy that grows when things are futile. I pray that you would sustain our hope when pain and suffering feel overwhelming. We eagerly await that day when we will stand in your presence and we will see you face to face when we will dwell with you forever. when we will rise and meet the Lord and where sin and death will be destroyed, Lord.

16:50 We pray for that day to come soon. So Lord, come soon, Jesus. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.