What God is Building

Transcript is automatically produced. Errors may be present.

It is good to see you all this morning. Hey if you’re new or new-ish, my name’s Aaron Bjork. I’m one of the pastors here, and it’s good to see you if you’re tuning online. Thanks for tuning in there. If that is you and you are new it’s a great day to be here because of Circle of Sunday. It’s a great way to get plugged into this community.

But also we have a table and a little wall that’s labeled welcome out in the lobby. That’s just for you if you’re new because here’s the deal. If all you ever experience of South Fellowship Church is what we do here on a Sunday morning, then you’re just missing out on the good stuff because this is good and beautiful.

When we gather for corporate worship, when we gather in this place to hear from God’s word, that’s great. But what it means to be a church is to find places where you’re known, where you’re valued, where you’re loved. It means finding ways that God gifted you, that to participate in his kingdom and your soul just comes awake and.

A huge percentage of that takes place, not on Sunday morning. If you really want to check out what South’s about, you’re gonna check out that table and find a way to get plugged in here. Before I continue, I would just like to pray and settle our hearts before the Lord.

Maybe just take a moment, take a deep breath in. Breath out. God is present here in this place,

and I believe because this is true about every moment of every day, that God has a plan to engage and encounter you.

Heavenly Father, spirit of living God. Would you speak? Through me this morning and the ways that you would have would you communicate your goodness to this church and to those who are visiting, who are just observing maybe a little bit on the outside looking in. But Lord, I pray that you would cut through and you would speak your truth.

It’s in your beautiful matchless name that we pray. Amen. So last year. I, my wife had the ultimate, I told you so moment with me. See I struggle to lock doors. I just don’t lock doors very well. I struggle to remember to lock doors in my car, of my house, of all sorts of things like this. I just struggle to lock doors.

You’d think because I grew up in a wartorn country that I’d be really security sensitive, but as far as I’m concerned, if there’s no machine guns going off in the background, it’s so safe. So there’s no need to lock the doors, right? Last year I learned my lesson because at about 10 30 at night, I got a text message from my 16-year-old daughter.

I keep, I was in bed. I keep my phone by my bed because my daughter works until about 10 o’clock and it’s. Way past my bedtime, but I want, I’m a sort of in and out of sleep waiting until I know she’s home and safe and all that sort of thing. So I get a text message and I’m like, oh, she must be home.

And it just says there’s someone in our house. And of course I’m like marking wiping the sleep outta my eyes. What do you mean? I text back what do you mean? There’s a boy in my room.

Alright, now I’m awake. Like how big is he? Do I so I text her back I’m like, I bolt out of bed and she said. There’s someone in my H in the house, and I’m just freaking out. As you can imagine. I bolted out of bed in my underwear, by the way, and I run to the top of the landing and then she texts me back, nevermind.

It’s okay. False. Incorrect, not okay. I don’t care if this is a joke. Worst joke ever. So I. I’m like all amped up and I turn and I look down our, the stairs and I can see our landing, our entryway in the kitchen, and there’s a, like a 14, 15-year-old boy in the dark. Our house is dark, it’s nighttime, 10 30, maybe 11, and he comes up and he just stands at the bottom of the landing and he’s texting and I go, Hey, what are you doing?

As intimidating as I could be in my underwear.

And this kid, this poor kid, just. Looks up from his text message and he’s just like shaking as you can imagine, as this rather large human being in his underwear, shouting at him. And then I hear my daughter like bolting up the stairs and saying dad, it’s okay. I think I know what’s going on. And I’m like, I don’t care what’s going on.

There is no reason why a 14-year-old boy or 15-year-old boy should be in my daughter’s bedroom at 11 o’clock at night. So I start going down the stairs and she puts herself in between me and this kid. And she said, dad dad wait. Let me, I think I know what happened. And so I take a breath. I trust my daughter’s character.

She knows what’s going on. She says, dad, I think he meant to go to our neighbor’s house, and long story short, this kid gets invited to a sleepover at a neighbor’s house, two doors down from us, with the same floor plan as our house. Okay, this is important. So then he comes and they say, just come on in the door will be unlocked, see where this is going.

And then come into the basement, which is on our floor plan, my daughter’s bedroom. And we’re playing video games down there. So this innocent little kid just comes in and he, it’s dark in there. Maybe a little weird, but whatever. He walks downstairs and he says, Hey, where are you guys? And my daughter responds.

And so he goes, is your brother here? He is so confused. She’s I think you’re in the wrong house. And so they have this whole conversation. Long story short, the, we figure it out. I say. I’m not gonna murder you tonight. You can go to the door down the way. And I heard later he never told his friend about this.

Ha. So as you can imagine, alright the moral of the story is lock your doors. People who do you think you are keeping unlocked doors? It’ll reassure you to know that we’ve installed a automatic lock on our house now. It locks every one minute. Automatically, if it’s unlocked, it just so crisis averted.

Now, I tell a story like this, and for many of you out there you’re thinking, oh that’s fun and lighthearted. But for some of you, you’re like, that could have been so much worse. What if this kid had malicious intent? What if this had been a robber? What if this had been someone else who’d made their way into our house unlocked?

Yeah. And maybe even for some of you, you’re a little triggered right now and you’re like ha. Not cool. So take a deep breath. It’s interesting. The world can be a scary place and we need locked doors and walls around our houses to keep us safe, right? Because the world is terrifying sometimes it can be a space that we are trying to protect our families from danger.

It can be a place where we can’t protect our families from danger, from natural disasters and all these sorts of things. And don’t you wish the world was a little bit different? Don’t you wish that there wasn’t a situation where someone evil made their way beyond the safety net that was your household to harm someone?

Don’t you wish? Today we’re talking about a place that’s just like that completely safe. And beautiful. We find ourselves in the series, the things we build. And today we’re actually finishing the series and we started this several weeks back and we’ve been exploring the things that human build, human beings have been building throughout history.

But for those of you, any checklist people out here that just love checking off things off a list. And maybe you even complete something and put it on the list just so you can check that thing off the list. Today you get to check off another series because we’re also finishing if my remote worked, which it doesn’t.

Of course. We’re also finishing the Revelation series today. Many of you last year we went about nine months. We spent in a revelation in and out of the Book of Revelation and yeah, the remote’s not gonna work all. Nine months in the Book of Revelation, and many of you asked, why didn’t you finish the book?

The reason is because today the ending of this series aligns perfectly with the last few chapters of Revelation. So if you have your Bibles, you can turn to Revelation chapter 21 and 22, and it aligns rather beautifully. The title for today’s message is The City. We All Long for. We Long for a place that is safe.

That is beautiful where we can thrive and so much of the time we don’t feel like that place exists. So today we’re talking about the city we all long for, thank you.

As a Alex has been showing us throughout this series the things we build this reality. For some reason, human beings, they started as gardeners and they eventually, within a few chapters started building cities. And cities don’t have a great track record, but what is one of the OB observations that Alex gave to us throughout this series is this deep seated emotions drove the building projects of these cities.

Deep emotions drive our building projects. So he started with a story of Cain who was deeply saturated with fear because of his situation, and he built a city to protect himself. Even though God said God would protect him, he built out of fear. And so deep emotions drive our building projects oftentimes.

And so I don’t wanna put words in Alex’s mouth, but I’m going to, anyway, here’s my, what I think the thesis of this entire series has been. I think it’s this. What we build reflects why we build, what we build, reflects why we build it. So we have these deep-seated emotions, whether it’s fear or anxiety or shame, and we build things to try and remedy these situations.

And it’s not just cities, it’s. The systems of government that we design, it’s the relationship structures, the families we build. We’re trying to mitigate for certain things in our human condition. And so what we build reflects why we build it. And so the question for us this morning is this, if the track record of cities in the Bible is so bad, which it is, as we’ve, if you’ve been paying attention to the series, it’s just not a very good story.

We build cities out of shame. We create cities full of shame. We create cities out of fear and ambition and loneliness. We actually propagate the very thing we’re trying to mitigate. We actually start to create cities that actually consolidate humanity and their sadness and their brokenness, and their fear and their shame.

So the question for us is what? Motive builds good things? That’s what we’re gonna be exploring today. And then if we can answer that question, then I have a feeling we’re gonna be able to see a picture of the city we all long for. Are we ready? Revelation chapter 21, and I’m just gonna read for us just the first section here.

Revelation 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new Earth for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer NEC. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride, beautiful and dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

He will wipe away every tea from tear from their eyes. There will. There will no be, no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. Praise the Lord. He who has seeded on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down for these words are trustworthy and true, and he said to me, it’s done.

I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty. I will give water without cost from the springs of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit this and I will be their God and they will be my children. But to the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts and idolaters and.

And liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death. So what does this city look like? This place that we all long for, today, I think this text gives us some insight into that. And then once we observe what this city, this heavenly city, that Revelation is talking about, when we learn what it looks like, it’s gonna give us some great guidance in how we can start creating systems.

Out of health and beauty. So the first thing we learn is this. Then I saw a new heaven and a new Earth for the first heaven, and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. How many people out there? Ocean people? How sad is this? Am I right? Have you read this? And you’re like, doesn’t sound like heaven to me.

Here’s what I think, what is going on here? Remember we’re in the book of Revelation. If you weren’t here for that series, we talked about this a lot. This is a genre of scripture called apocalyptic literature. It’s a genre that is highly metaphorical, is saturated with images. And one of the things that especially the Book of Revelation does is it’s almost like a thesaurus of ideas that previously were established in the rest of scripture.

And I think that this is a rich metaphor for something else. I don’t have time to make this case for you fully this morning. Trust me, I don’t have time, but I could make a case for you that the sea does not mean necessarily a literal sea. You can take it that way, that’s fine. But if you see this as a literal ocean, there’s no more O ocean.

That’s fine. You can take it literally. It’s not the point of this passage. John is trying to accomplish something different because he’s calling back on an image and an idea that’s been established since the very beginning of Genesis. And since I don’t have time to make the case, just you can go to the Red Couch Theology podcast.

Maybe I’ll make a better case there. If you have questions about that, I can make the case there a little bit. It more thoroughly. There’s gonna be a lot of these red couch theology moments. ’cause I need to not linger here anymore and move on. So this helps me psychologically not talk about this. Alright.

Alright, moving on. So this image in the scriptures is like this. Back earlier in the book of Revelation, we read this, the dragons stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. So even in this book, the Sea represents chaos. And I actually would tell you this, if you’re reading the Bible, just note this down and try a test case.

Almost every single place that the sea and the ocean is referenced, it’s a subconscious reference to chaos and disorder and destruction. Again, red couch theology, if you want me to prove that to you. But that’s what I think is going on here. And so the city we all want. Is not chaotic. The city that we all long for.

We long for a place where chaos is put in its place and no longer affects our worlds. I was reminded this last week, our life group gathered and we were just trying to close up the evening after life group and pray. And during the course of this prayer, it’s like the kids are like, oh, they’re praying now.

Let’s all scream simultaneously. You take a shift, I’ll breathe when you’re not. Yeah, so I like, and so it was just chaos. And by the end of the prayer, we have one of our life group members in the other room changing a diaper. Another one’s like trying to hush a baby and all this sort of thing. 32nd prayer, by the way.

So chaos. No more chaos in this place, but maybe more importantly, this is referring to the chaos of natural destruction in the world Also. It’s not just the chaos of everyday life, but it’s the chaos that we see unfold when a tsunami hits the shores or an earthquake, takes the lives of innocent people.

In his famous book, the Doors of the Sea. David Bentley Hart wrote this book in response to what he observed from the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. The tsunami was kicked off by a 9.1 to 9.3 magnitude earthquake underneath the ocean that caused the tsunami and it claimed over 227,000 people’s lives.

9.9 billion people. $9.9 billion worth of damage. Took place in multiple countries in Asia and he observed the destruction. He saw images of small children clinging to treetops trying to survive, and it just took them out. And he was asked to write an article, how could a good God exist in an environment like this?

And he wrote these words. Our faith is in a God who has come. To rescue his creation from the absurdity of sin. And that’s what that is. It’s absurd. It’s just an absurdity and the emptiness of death. And so we are permitted to hate those, these things with a perfect hatred. When I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God, but the face of his enemy and his enemy, as it’s articulated in Bo in the book of Revelation, is Satan.

And the, and that shows up in images as a dragon, that shows up in a number of different ways, but it’s also depicted in this text as chaos. And so the city we all long for is not chaotic. What else can we learn about this amazing place that will come one day? The city we all want is marked by presence.

It’s marked by presence. If you look at Revelation 21, verse two, let’s look at this together, it says this, verse two, I saw the holy city and the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bridegroom, a bride as a beautiful bride dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look.

God’s dwelling place is now among his people and he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God.

His presence will be there. And for those of you who’ve been walking with Jesus for a long time, that’s the most reassuring thing I could tell you all morning long. And if you’re still on the fence about the presence of Jesus, I hope you get to sense a little bit of it this morning,

but his presence will be there. I thought when I started formulating this message, I thought that maybe this should be the central idea of the message, but I felt like there was other movements that, that God had for us this morning. But let me just say this, it. I’m gonna try and make it the central thing, but also not the central thing.

By doing this, every single good thing that the city of God has to offer flows from the fact that God is there. This is a place where a good God sets up his rule and his reign and his way happens thoroughly. And this is a God who died on the cross for you and I. This is a God who demonstrates his love for us by going to such extreme lengths, and he’s there and he’s all powerful, and he puts chaos in its place and evil in its place.

This is good news people. Amen. Amen.

Revelation 21, 22 says this, I do not see a temple in the city. So this is later in this chapter because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple in ancient cities in Hebrew. In the Hebrew mind. They would set up these walls and they would put some sort of temple to a deity or whatever in the center of it to say, this is what we sent our lives around, and there’s no temple in this city because Jesus is there.

God Almighty is there. He’s present, and this is a place that’s marked by presence. Isn’t that good news? Later on in his book, David Bentley Hart, who wrote about that tsunami, wrote this, he, Jesus will strike off the fetters in which creation, languishes, and that. Rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for building of the kingdom, he will instead raise her up and wipe away all her tears from her eyes.

This is the promise of this place. He doesn’t just put chaos into its place. His presence is such that he will rise her again. Wipe away. Every tear does that wiping of away every tear. Sound familiar? We just read it in Revelation 21. Look at verse four. Here he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things has passed away. This is a good place, huh? The city that we all long for is marked by presence. What else can we learn about the city? We learn this. The city that we all want is completely safe. The city that we all want is completely safe.

The first place I see that happening is verse four here in chapter. In chapter 21, verse four. He said He will wipe away every tear and from their eyes they will be, there will be no more Death. Death stands as the ultimate big final boss of human existence. And we don’t necessarily feel it all the time in our everyday lives ’cause we live in a relatively safe environment.

But when you. Put it all together. The reason we have doors locks on our doors and walls. The reason we have a military, the reason we have all these things is because we’re trying to mitigate for death. Death will be no more. There’s some more evidence here In verse 21, or in verse 23 of chapter 21, he says, the city does not need the sun.

Again, rich metaphor, light and dark. The sun represents safety. This is the sun and dark and night in the Bible sort of represents like scared of the dark. There’s monsters in the dark. Scary things happen in the dark. Goodness and beauty happens into the light. So the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God gives its light, and the lamb is its lamp.

And then later on in chapter 22, verse five, there will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp. Or the light of a sun for the Lord God will give them light and they will rain forever and ever. This is a place where there is no danger. There’s no danger. There’s another spot that it I want to point out in verse 25.

On no day will its Gates ever be shut. This is super intriguing to me and I wish I could make. The entire sermon about this as well. In fact, this is the part that I was most interested in when I started studying and I didn’t feel like God had a force today. So it’ll have to go to the Red Couch Theology podcast.

But here’s what’s interesting about cities. The Hebrew mind, cities always had walls ’cause it was about protection. But look with me at verse 25, there’s walls, we read about them here in this chapter. They’re big and they’re tall, and they’re majestic. On no day will the gates ever be shut. These are just show walls.

These are walls that sort of say, remember the things that you tried to protect yourself, the things you tried to build to protect yourself. This is what the walls mean. The walls of the city of God stand as a reminder, as reminders of what we thought we needed. But the gates are never shut because there’s no one threatening.

And if they were to threaten, God himself is there to protect. So it’s like these walls, like the scars in Jesus’ hands remain to remind us of the journey that we’ve been on as human beings. All of the self effort, all of the anxiety, all of the pain. And he says, there’s the walls. The doors are wide open.

It is so safe. The city, we all long for. Is completely safe. What else can we learn about this city? The city we all want has no evil.

Chapter 21 verse eight says this, but the cowardly. Again, fascinating word there I wish we could dive into. But the cowardly and the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts and idolatrous, all the liars, they will be consigned to the fiery lake and the burning sofa.

This is the second death. And I’m sure you read this and maybe you say, wait, I’m some of those things and that’s a little bit scary. And so it’s very easy right now in which I wish I could engage that and answer questions. If you have questions about that, submit them to the Red Couch Theology. We’ll deal with some things there, but here’s what I think is going on.

He is talking to a church that is deeply persecuted in the day that Revelation was written, and he’s basically saying all the bad guys out. All right. And I’ll just read this passage just to set your mind a little bit at ease so we can move on. This is one Corinthians three, and he uses similar language.

I’ll start here in verse 13. Their work will be shown for what it is because the day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what he has been building survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it’s burnt up, the builder will suffer loss, but yet will be saved.

Even though only as one escaping through the flame. There’s a lot of things going on here in scripture when it comes to the flame. The idea is that God’s goodness is almost function and the fire functions like a filter system. Only good and beautiful things enter these gates and the filter system will burn that.

What is that? That which is evil and broken. That’s all. I have time for that this morning. If you have questions, again, you can do the red couch theology. Apologize. We will be, we will build out of fear, even fear of judgment. We build dangerous things. So just like I said a moment ago the thesis of this se this series has been the idea that the things that we build are det, are reflect why we build them.

Religious systems are often built because we’re scared of God. That creates dangerous systems for humanity. Just look at church history, human beings when they build religious systems, because they’re just scared of trying to figure out, how do I get outta the bad place and God’s scary and all this.

That’s not the environment that God’s trying to design here, so let me set your heart at ease. I don’t think that’s what’s going on in this passage. The point is. The dangerous people and the evil is relegated outside the walls. The city we all want has no evil. I wanna give us one more. I think it’s just one more thing that marks the city.

The city that we all long for has abundance provisions. It has abundant provision. Did you know that oftentimes one of the main drivers are things that we build, whether it’s ambition or like trying to save as much money as you can or make as much money as you can. It’s driven by a fear that there won’t be enough for me and mine.

By the way, this is probably my greatest struggle in life. If we build from that place, we build walls that are actually dangerous and detrimental. But the city we all want has so much provision we can’t possibly imagine. Look at what verse six with me. He said to me, it is done. I am the alpha in the omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty.

I will give water without cost. How about that? From the springs of the water of life. Now we don’t catch the reference as much here because water is generally free ish, but. The point is it’s so abundant, the resources of water here. Later on in chapter 22, it says this, then the angel showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God.

So there’s a river throwing from him and from his throne and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of this city. So much water. No need to worry about water on each side of the river. Stood a tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nation.

This is the ultimate tree crop. It provides food for the nations and healing for the nations. No longer will there be any curse for the throne of God and of the lamb will be. This in the city and his servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. There’ll be no more night.

They will not need the light of the lamp, of the light of the sun. For the Lord God will give them the light. This is abundant provision, abundance. We build out of fear that there won’t be enough. We build toxic things. But the city that we all want has so much imagine never needing anything ever again, never having to pay for it or budget for it, because there’s so much overflow that everyone can consume abundantly with joy and with peace, without the anxiety of where’s the next paycheck coming from?

Where’s the next slice of bread? This is a good city. So the question we have as we move towards a close here is this, how do we ensure. That what we build is good. So if the things that we build reflect why we build them, and things that are built out of fear and out of anxiety, and out of shame, build cities and infrastructures and businesses, and even churches that are full of fear and anxiety and shame, then how do we ensure that we don’t go there?

And I think this text gives us a few quick tips on what that looks like. Before I go there, I recognize the risk of a sermon like this is to say, is to think this, let’s just hunker down and grit our grin, our teeth and barr it, and someday we get this city. That’s not what this chapter’s about. This chapter was written to a church.

Deeply persecuted so that they could start creating this city 2000 years ago.

So every single tip that I’m gonna give you here, yes this city was built by a heart of God that is not swayed by fear. A heart of God that is not swayed by shame. A heart of God that is not full of anxiety, but he invites the people of God, that church of God, to participate in creating systems like this city.

And here’s the key to it. Open the gates.

The reality is we, there’s gonna be this ultimate fulfillment in the new heavens and the new earth, and this new city where the reality of safety will be more fully blossomed. But let’s be honest, because of the cross, there is no fear of death anymore. We can open the gates today. We don’t have to put up walls of shame around ourselves to keep ourselves safe.

If we have the guts to actually buy into and believe the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of the Book of Revelation, we can open the gates and try to not be so confined by them. We can trust the river. Trust that there is provision so abundant. God created. God owns a cattle on a thousand hills.

He created the entire cosmos. He can take care of you. And as soon as we can believe that we can open our hands and the systems of the kingdom of God start to function today, and he provides abundantly for those who choose to live in his kingdom today, the kingdom can be now. Enjoy the presence.

He’s promised it. Next week we’re celebrating Pentecost Sunday, which is when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of the living God When he placed his spirit into his church, his presence is today people, and I can’t wait for the day when I get to see him face to face and worship him. Face to face.

But if we believe, if we can enter into his kingdom today and trust and learn to communicate with the spirit, we can have this city now. And so we build well when we are unafraid, provided for, and deeply loved. This is an environment in which good things are created. Good and beautiful things are made in that space.

Let me tell you this, that kind of building only happens where Jesus is king is Jesus in a king and your soul is he thoroughly king of kings and Lord of lords in this church?

So a couple years ago I had a conversation with Aaron Young. So if you don’t know Erin Young, she’s been attending this church for a long, a lot of years and she’s been deeply involved in the food bank over the last six or seven years. The exciting thing for us here on staff is that now she is recently become the director of outreach.

She’s now on staff here, and I was having a conversation with her about the food bank and she was articulating her passion for the food bank. And she was saying like, yeah we do this and this is why we do this and we do this. And I sat back in my chair and I said, so what you’re saying to me is the food bank isn’t about food.

The food bank isn’t about feeding people. The food bank is about creating a microcosm of the kingdom of God where people are safe, people are loved, people are seen. People are dignified by showing up in this place and they’re provided for, and Aaron was like, now you’re getting it. Now you understand The food bank is about creating a microcosm of the kingdom of God.

It’s just an excuse to create a space that’s like that space. Oh, I love that South. I love that. And we are trying to create systems like that here in this community. This is why we wanna live in the way of Jesus with the heart of Jesus. So we build well when we’re unafraid, provided for, and deeply loved.

We’re trying to figure this out as a church family. Alright, I’m gonna invite the worship team back up is, we’re gonna move into a time of commune in just a moment. But before we do that, I wanna linger on a verse found in verse in revelation 22. This is the sec, the next chapter here. I will just put it on the screen here for you.

It goes like this.

I, John am the one who heard and saw these things, and when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who’d been showing them to me. But he said to me, don’t do that. Don’t do that. I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll worship God.

This is a place where God will be worshiped. Why? Because he created everything we ever wanted, everything we ever longed for. And so we’re gonna do that now. His presence is here this morning. Whether you sense it or not, he is here. We’re gonna worship him, and this is what we’re gonna be doing in eternity.

We’re gonna be acknowledging his presence and his goodness. So church, would you stand with me? And we’re just gonna soak in his presence for a moment and then I’ll be back as we prepare for communion.