All right, it's very good to be with you. I want to thank John for inviting us out here. We've already had a really good time and we're looking forward to the rest of this week and then heading down to the church in Santa Cruz next weekend. It's great to see what God is doing among you all. And again, I bring greetings from the saints at Trinity Presbyterian in Birmingham, Alabama. I want you to know that I'm doing something I've never done before. For years, my wife tried to get me some Birkenstock sandals. And I never would get them because I associate them with liberal California culture. And I mean, that's what people in Berkeley wear and places like that, right? So I didn't want them. But I finally gave in and got some Birkenstock sandals. And now, for the first night ever, I'm actually Peaking in them. Came all the way from Alabama to California to do that. Right. Let me tell you where I'm headed this week so that you have some idea. John, when he asked me about coming out to speak to you, He had listened to a series I had done from Revelation chapters 21 and 22 on the Church, and you might think that's kind of an odd place to go in the Scriptures to talk about the Church. I hope to show you that it's not, that it actually fits. Those two chapters, right at the very end of the whole Bible, actually have a lot to teach us about what it means to be the people of God. But let me give you some kind of idea of where I want to take us this week. These are just sort of These are sort of random bullet points. This is not something that I really organized, but just some random thoughts that I thought, you know, what kind of things do I want people to walk away with this week? When I preached those sermons on Revelation 21 and 22, I did those pretty early on in my time at Trinity Presbyterian in Birmingham, and I did it really to give our church a vision for who I believed God was calling us to be. But I think most of the things that I said in those sermons would be applicable to other churches, And so I hope that they will help you think through what your vision is. Obviously, Scripture gives us a general broad vision for the church. But then, of course, what each particular church has to do is ask, how do we live out that vision that God has given us in His Word? How do we live that out in our particular circumstances? And so that's what I hope you get to do this week. John Calvin said that doctrine is not just a matter of the tongue, but of life. He said, it must enter our hearts and pass into our souls and so transform us into itself that it may not be unfruitful for us. And that is what I hope this teaching will do this week, is that it will pass not just into our heads but into our hearts and transform us into itself, as Calvin says, that it won't just be a matter of the tongue but of life. These are the kind of things that I want you to carry away this week. I want you to understand that the church is at the heart of the gospel. And I want you to understand that mission is at the heart of the church. And I want you to understand that community is at the heart of mission. Those relationships between church, gospel, mission and community. I want you to understand that there's a lot of truth in that old saying, the medium is the message. And when it comes to the gospel message, the church is the medium. The church is itself, herself, a part of the message that we proclaim, this gospel message. Verbal proclamation of the gospel is essential, but it's also not sufficient. There must also be a community that is, you could say, a living embodiment of that message. a living embodiment of the gospel message, of the good news, so that the world comes to see that there is this distinct community in the world, the kingdom of God, the church, and that it's a glorious thing, that it's good news that there is a church in the world. The psalm, the Psalter talks about that, it talks about how the city rejoices in the presence of the people of God and that we need to become the kind of community that can authenticate the gospel message, that by the way we live together in community, it will prove the truthfulness of what we have to teach, what we verbally proclaim. I think in our churches, we should be seeking to create something that people on the outside want to be a part of. that when they wander into our churches, when they get to know people in our churches, they say, this is what I've been looking for. This is the kind of community that I've been looking for. I didn't even know this kind of thing existed. People who live this way towards one another. We need to live in such a way that we awaken in others a desire for God, that they see what we have in our community and they want to be a part of that. They want that for themselves. We want to be a community that models life under God's gracious rules. The Church is clearly God's vehicle of salvation. She's His agent of salvation. She's been given the means of grace. The Gospel has been entrusted to her in Word and Sacrament. But we also need to understand that the Church is the present shape that salvation takes in the world. If you ask, where is God's salvation found in the world? The answer to that question is the Church. Now, you can qualify that in all different kinds of ways. But still, in essence, that's a true statement, that the Church is the present shape of salvation. We need to understand that the church lives in union with the risen Christ, and as He is already resurrected, already entered into the life of the resurrection, and that is our final destiny, but we're already in union with Him, there's a sense in which you can say the church is the presence of the future. Right here and now we are to be giving people around us a glimpse, a foretaste, a sneak preview of what is to come, of what resurrection life looks like. We're to show the life of the world to come even in this present age. So with those things in mind, I want to turn to Revelation chapters 21 and 22. And what I want to do is I will read, I don't know that I'll read all of this each time I speak. But just to lay these things out before you this first time, I want to read Revelation chapter 21. I'll start in verse 1 and go through chapter 22, verse 5. And then over the course of the week, we'll look at bits and pieces of these two chapters. And maybe towards the end of the week, I might also do something on the church from the book of Acts. But we'll be spending both of our time in the book of Revelation. So let me read beginning in Revelation 21, verse 1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then He who sat on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said to me, Write, for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death. Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls filled with the seven last plagues came to me and talked with me, saying, Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like jasper stone, clear as crystal. Also, she had a great and high wall with twelve gates and twelve angels at the gates and names written on them, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. Three gates on the east, three gates on the north, three gates on the south, and three gates on the west. Now the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. And he who talked with me had a gold reed to measure the city, its gates, and its wall. The city is laid out as a square. Its length is as great as its breadth. And he measured the city with the reed, 12,000 furlongs. Its length, breadth, and height are equal. Then he measured its wall, 144 cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel. The construction of its wall was of jasper, and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones, The first foundation was Jasper, the second, Sapphire, the third, Chalcedony, the fourth, Emerald, the fifth, Sardonyx, the sixth, Sardius, the seventh, Chrysalite, the eighth, Beryl, the ninth, Topaz, the tenth, Chrysoprase, the eleventh, Jaseneth, and the twelfth, Amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, and each individual gate was of one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, like transparent glass. But I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light, and the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. Its gates shall not be shut at all by day. There shall be no night there, and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. For there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life. And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him. They shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there. They need no lamb nor light of the sun for the Lord God gives them light and they shall reign forever and ever. And they're in the reading of God's word. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for this beautiful, this glorious picture that you've given to us at the very end of your word. And Father, we pray that we would be able to delve in it. this week with a great prophet that you would teach us who you are and who we are through these symbols and images that you've given to us here. Father, help us to better understand what it means to be your people, what it means to be called out of the world, to be united to Christ, to be sent back into the world with his gospel. Father, we pray that you would help us to understand these things and just as importantly to live these things out, to embody these things in our communities. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. Let me start with a question. Suppose someone who did not know the answer to the question came and asked you, what does it mean to be an American? What is America? Now, I imagine there are a lot of ways that you could go about answering that question. You might answer it with statistics. You might give demographic information about population and the percentages of America's population that fall into different demographic categories, the different subgroups that fill out American culture. That's one way you can answer the question. I don't think it would be particularly helpful, You could answer the question that way. I think a better way would be to answer with a story, to tell America's story, as it were, to talk about how we used to be a British colony, how we fought for our independence, how we grew to be the most powerful nation on the face of the earth, how America went from being originally founded, you could say, by Christians, by godly men who had in view a particular vision for this nation, a quite Christian vision, how that turned into something very, very different as we became secularized and as we moved from being something of a republic in our form of government to a democracy and the changes that have taken place. You could talk about America's story. Yet another way to answer that question would be to take someone on a guided tour. You could show them our national monuments. You could take them, for example, to Washington, D.C. And you could show them the great buildings that make up our nation's capital and how those buildings reveal something of our nation's history and our nation's worldview. For example, the Roman architecture that you see in many of the government buildings in Washington, DC, show that our founders were greatly influenced by Roman philosophy, particularly by Stoic natural law philosophy. You could take the tour up to Philadelphia and show them, you know, this is the birthplace of American independence. You could show them Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, those architectural structures that embody our history, that embody the things that Americans tend to value, America's commitment to freedom, to liberty. those sorts of things. You could take them up to New York City and show them the Statue of Liberty. You could show them the Statue of Liberty and the way that that embodies what America has been about, that we've been a place for immigrants, we've been something of a cultural melting pot through the centuries. You could, of course, take them to California and show them all kinds of things, too. But I'm a lot more familiar with the eastern half of the country, so that's where I've drawn my illustrations. That would be another way to answer this question through architectural monuments, architectural structures that reveal what America is all about, what her history is all about. Now, let me ask you another question. What is the church? What is the kingdom of God? What does it mean to be the church? Again, if somebody asked you this question and they didn't have any idea about the answer to the question, you could answer in similar kinds of ways. You could give them statistics. You could talk about how many Christians there are in the world and the different denominations that they belong to and how the church has grown and what that means. You could give demographic information once again, but of course, again, we'd know that that doesn't really get to the heart of things. You could tell the church's story. I think this would be a much better way to answer the question, much more in line with the Scriptures. One of the major ways the Bible reveals to us the kingdom of God, one of the major ways the Bible reveals to us what it means to be the church is through story. In fact, you could say the Bible from beginning to end really is one big story about the kingdom of God, about the people of God. You could talk about the overarching story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, that this story really encapsulates God's plan for His creation. You could talk about the smaller stories that sort of sum the Bible up in a nutshell. You could talk about the story of the Exodus and what God did there with Israel. You could talk about the story of the Davidic Kingdom. You could talk about the central story of Jesus Himself recorded for us in the Gospels. His ministry, His death, His resurrection, His ascension. You could talk about the stories that Jesus Himself told about the Kingdom. The parables that Jesus gave to teach his followers about the kingdom, about what it means to be the people of God. And again, that's something that scripture itself does. But one thing I find very interesting. is that Scripture again and again shows us what the Kingdom of God is all about. It shows us what the church is all about through architectural monuments, architectural models. In a sense, you could say God reveals the Kingdom to us in architectural form. God uses symbolic architecture to reveal the glory and beauty and majesty of His Kingdom. In a sense, what God does in various places in His Word is, take us on a guided tour. Just like I said, you could take the one who asked, what does it mean to be an American on a tour through Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia and New York City, take them on a guided tour of those places. So in the scriptures, God takes us on a guided tour of his architectural structures. And through these symbolic architectural models shows us what it means to be the people of God. In fact, there are about 20 to 25 chapters in the Bible that are taken up completely with describing architectural models, architectural structures, you could say, as well as the furniture that goes in those architectural structures. And if you think about it, 20 to 25 chapters, that's a pretty good chunk of the scriptures. And you need to understand that material is not trivial. It's not something you should just Passover, when you come to those parts of the Bible, I think we have a tendency sometimes to just start turning the pages and get to where the narrative picks up again. But we shouldn't do that because these sections of the Bible have a whole lot to teach us. They describe for us the church in her idealized form. They give us the kingdom in visionary form, you could say. Let me explain. some of these to you where they fall in Scripture. Say you're reading through the book of Exodus, and of course at the beginning of the book of Exodus you've got this very exciting story about the birth of Moses, how everything that's going on there as Pharaoh is ruling over the Israelites and as he becomes very oppressive and then you've got Moses and his challenge to Pharaoh and you've got the plagues and of course you have the exodus with the Red Sea Crossing and the Passover and all of that and then you've got the Israelites journeying in the wilderness and then you get to Sinai and the narrative kind of slows down. You get the giving of the Ten Commandments. You get all these other laws that unfold the meaning of those Ten Commandments. They seem a little bit more obscure perhaps but you can see their relevance at least to life in ancient Israel and think through what some of those applications for today might be. But then you get to a description of the tabernacle and everything that's going to go into the tabernacle, all its furnishings, all its furniture. And if you're reading through, you kind of slow down a little bit with the law, but now things seem to really grind to a halt. You start reading about curtains made of goat's hair and the number of loops on the curtains that attach to the bronze poles, and you read about acacia wood pillars and badger skin coverings, and you have measurements for everything, and colors are described for all these things, and it just seems bizarre that all this stuff would have been recorded in the Bible to be passed down to the end of the ages. Why has God included all of this stuff in His Word? Well, say you keep reading through the Bible and you come to 1 and 2 Kings. And certainly there's a lot of exciting stuff in the Book of Kings. There are stories about Solomon, the beginning of his reign, that kind of thing. But you also find there pretty early on, five very long and you could say very tedious chapters that are devoted to the temple that Solomon built. And again, you've got all kinds of measurements and you've got the materials listed and it all seems very detailed, very obscure. It talks about this great sea of bronze and a big bronze basin of water that sits on the backs of 12 oxen. And it describes these bronze ox carts in great detail and gold hinges for the doors, all this kind of stuff. You're reading through, the stories are great, and then you kind of hit a brick wall with all this stuff, and you think, why is this here? What's this doing here? Why has all this stuff been made a part of God's Word for us? Say you're reading through the prophet Ezekiel, and there's all kinds of weird stuff in Ezekiel, even before you get to the end of the book. But say you do persevere, and you get all the way to chapter 40. Well, in chapter 40, Ezekiel begins an eight chapter long description of, you could say from his perspective, the new temple. Remember, the temple was destroyed in the exile, but now God is bringing his people back. There's a restoration of the people to the city and to the land. And so the temple is going to be rebuilt. And here you have that temple in visionary form. And you start reading through this. And again, the architectural detail can just be excruciating. It talks about all these courts and chambers and these gateways and all the dimensions are given in great detail and it can overwhelm us as we're reading it through and we wonder what do we do with all of this. Well, say you're reading through the book of Revelation and of course there's all kinds of very strange stuff in the book of Revelation. But when you come to chapters 21 and 22, I think what you have is the capstone of biblical architecture, which really means the capstone of biblical symbolism, of biblical imagery. This is the new Jerusalem. This is the holy city descending down out of heaven, which when John sees it, we find if we connect it back with these earlier passages in Scripture, we find it has all kinds of things in common with those Previous descriptions of the tabernacle and the temple, Solomon's temple and Ezekiel's temple, has a whole lot in common with those previous visions, only now it's much more glorious, much more beautiful. It has these gemstones, it has these gates, it's cube-shaped like the most holy place. It has walls and streets that are breathtakingly beautiful. It has a river flowing out of it. Just like Ezekiel's temple had a river flowing out of the center of it, just like Eden had a river flowing down through the middle of it. Water flows out, but we find, as John describes this vision, the nations flow in. And we find it's not just a city, it's a garden city. It's got all these things in common with the original geographic model that God gave to His people. The description of the Garden of Eden that we have back at the very beginning of Genesis. In fact, you might say that this, and I hope I'm not getting ahead of myself in saying this, but you might say what you have in Revelation 21 and 22 is the Garden of Eden transformed, the Garden of Eden matured and glorified. The Garden of Eden has been turned into this well-ordered, beautiful city. So there are trees that are all grown up, tree of life there in the center around the river. but also you've got all these features of the city. So it's kind of a garden city mixed together. Now the question we have to ask when we come to Revelation 21 and 22 is this question. What is this? What is this temple, city, garden thing that John sees descending down out of the heavens? What is it? What is it and what do we do with it? Well, to put it simply, it is the church. Now, to kind of get things started tonight, what I want to do is go about proving that to you, and I know that I can't do that in the kind of exhaustive detail that it might call for, but I want to at least show you how this is a plausible interpretation. Let me first start with this. I want to show you why this is a description of the church, that really what's being described here is not so much a place as it is a people. I'm not saying there are no implications for place, and that's something maybe we can talk about in Q&A or whatnot. But fundamentally, this is a people that is being described. And then second, I want to show you that while this You could certainly say the consummation of this vision comes at the end of all things. So this is a description of the people of God as they will exist in the eschaton, as they will exist at the last day when Jesus returns in glory. Fundamentally, this vision describes the people of God as they exist right now in history, in what we could call the New Covenant era, the New Covenant phase. of God's plan. So those two things, I want to show you this is a people, not a place, that it really does describe the church. And then second, I want to show you it's the church, not just in her future condition, but as she exists even right now in the new covenant, this new covenant phase of history. Now, why do I say this is the church? Well, I want to say, what else could it be? Look at some of the things that John sees here. See, really what John has here is a vision. You could say John's vision is really God's vision for his people, God's vision for his church. John describes a holy city. He describes a city that is also a temple. a city and a temple that is also a bride. Now, I remember growing up, my English teacher told me not to mix metaphors. Well, that's all John does is mix metaphors. And so I guess, you know, maybe John would have failed an English class. I don't know. He knows what he's doing here because God is the one giving him this vision, giving him this message for us. And that's what John does here. He mixes the city metaphor with the garden metaphor, with the bride metaphor, with the temple metaphor. All these things are thrown together. Let's talk about how some of these metaphors are used elsewhere in the New Testament. What John describes here clearly is a temple. How is that used elsewhere in Scripture? Well, 1 Corinthians chapter 3, Paul writes, Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that God's spirit dwells in you? Now, every place where Paul says you there, it's really y'all. Unfortunately, we don't have a Bible that's translated with a southern accent. So we miss that. We just get the you and we don't know that it's plural, but it is. He's talking about the people of God corporately considered are a temple. The people of God taken together are God's temple in which God's Spirit dwells. So Paul thinks of the church as an architectural structure. It is a temple made of people and filled with the Spirit, filled by the Spirit. Ephesians chapter 2, Paul tells us the same thing again. He uses a little bit different language. He says to the Ephesian church, he says, you're being built. So that's a construction term, an architectural term. You're being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. See, Paul is pretty good at mixing metaphors, too. He's got an architectural metaphor of the temple mixed with this organic metaphor, something that grows, something that's living. But what I want you to note here is that he describes the church as God's architectural project, God's construction project. And what is the church being built into? The church is being built into a temple in which God himself will dwell. You could say the church there in Ephesians 2, it's a temple being built on the foundation stones of the apostles. Now John in Revelation 21-14 tells us the same thing, that the wall of the city had twelve foundations and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Now it's not just Paul who does this, Peter does this. 1 Peter chapter 2 he says, you all are living stones being built up into a spiritual house. See here the church is a house once again, it's God's temple. We are living stones just as the temple was built of of stones, we are living stones being assembled into the true temple in which God will dwell. Peter goes on to say the church is also a priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices in the house. So church is both house and priesthood ministering within the house. So again, Peter can blend multiple images together. The church is both temple and priesthood. But finally, what I think is the real clincher, Hebrews chapter 12, in fact, Hebrews 12, ties together in a very compact little package a lot of the imagery that you have in Revelation 21 and 22. What you have unfolded at length in chapters 21 and 22 of Revelation are given to us in just a few verses in Hebrews chapter 12. The writer of Hebrews, I'll just call him Paul, that's probably a debatable point, but for convenience sake, I will refer to him as Paul. There, Paul compares the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. And he says, you have not come to Mount Sinai. That's how he symbolizes the Old Covenant, Mount Sinai. He says you have come to Mount Zion. That's his symbol of the New Covenant. And then he explains what it means to have come to Mount Zion. He says, you have come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. See, there he says, you have come to the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem. And then he describes this as the church. The church is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God. See, the city is the church. And in fact, you can take this back into Hebrews chapter 11. where the city is mentioned. There it talks about a city whose builder and maker is God. It talks about how Abraham looked for a city. He waited for God to build him a city. And now Paul says, you have come to that city. That city is the church. It's the people of God as they exist in this new covenant form. Now, a heavenly people, the people that Abraham was expecting God to form. You're the fulfillment of the Abrahamic promises. You're the city whose builder and maker is God. See, John sees the heavenly Jerusalem descending down out of heaven. But Paul in Hebrews 12 says there is a heavenly city, which is the church. And so if John sees the same thing, it's got to be the church as well. So there's a lot more that can be said about that. There's a lot more evidence that could be cited. But I think we are warranted in viewing this as a symbolic architectural model of the church. Now, what that means is what we're going to unpack a little bit tonight, maybe at the end, but then especially through the rest of the week. What does it mean to see ourselves as this city, to see ourselves in terms of these images and symbols and pictures that are drawn for us here? Let me draw a few other things out here, though. Revelation 21 verse 2, John sees the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. It says that she is prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. Okay, so again, this is John's metaphor mixing going on. The city is bride. Now, of course, if you ask, well, who is the bride? What is the bride? That one's easy to answer. Really familiar passage in Ephesians chapter 5. There, Paul says, a wife is to her husband as the church is to Christ. The church is the bride of Christ, the wife of the Lamb. And this is what's interesting. I think that would be enough to confirm it. But this is something else to keep in mind. The connection of bride and temple really goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 2. In Genesis chapter 2, Adam is told to tend and keep the garden. Well, what's in the garden that's so valuable? What's the treasure in the garden that's to be kept or guarded and tended to? Well, of course, it's his bride, it's his wife, ultimately. That same word that's used there in Genesis chapter 2 to describe his guarding of the garden, the guarding of his bride, is the word that's used later on for what the priest will do with the temple, or with the tabernacle, and then later on in history with the temple. The priests do guard duty. They guard the tabernacle. They guard the temple just as Adam was to guard his bride. See, there's that connection there. But there are other connections as well. Genesis chapter 2 verse 22 literally says that God built Eve from Adam's side. That's the same word that's used later on in scripture for the building of the tabernacle and the temple. It's a construction term. In fact, while the church is described in terms of temple architecture, the temple is described in terms of human anatomy. This is really, really interesting. This is one of those things that doesn't come through in our English translation, so it's kind of an obscure point. But if you were reading, say, the Old Testament in the Hebrew, this is something that you could not help But see, the Bible speaks not of the front of the temple, for example, but of the face of the temple, the same word that's used for the human face. It speaks not of the side of the temple, but of its ribs, just as it speaks of Adam's ribs back in Genesis chapter 2. So you see, all this fits together. You have the bride being built the way the temple will be built. And then you have the temple itself described in terms of human anatomy. So there's this, this connection between the temple and the person. And of course, all of that points us to the church. Now, this is something we're going to see more clearly as we unpack this passage in more detail, but consider a few other clues here. Well, let me, let me, let me. Let me just say, that is the first point. The first point is that what John sees here is a symbolic description of the church. The church is described as a garden, city, temple, sanctuary. It is an architectural description of the people of God. The second point then is this, and again, this is all preliminary to what is to come. The second point is this. While this describes the church, you could say in idealized form, It's a vision of what the church should be and will be. I want to show you this vision is not just applicable to the future. It's not just what God has in store for us. It's not just our final glory. It's also applicable to the present life of the church. Now, this really the proof is in the pudding here. I mean, as we get into the passage itself, I think you'll see this more and more. But I want to throw out a few clues that I think point us in this direction. Consider the gates of the city. Chapter 21 verse 12. The gates of the city are still open. There are 12 gates, three on each side. 21 verse 25 says the gates shall not be shut. Okay, hang on to that detail for just a minute. Second clue, chapter 21 verse 24. the nations shall bring their treasures, their glory, and their honor into the city." So you've got nations and kings on the outside of the city, moving inside the city, and as they move to the inside of the city, they bring their glory and their honor and their treasures with them. It's a way of saying they come to worship. to honor God. It's a way of describing the nations converting from idolatry, from service of the not gods, to service of the true God, to worship the true God, the Creator and Redeemer. Third clue, Revelation chapter 22, verse 2. Within the city are trees which have leaves for the healing of the nation. So this is applicable to a situation in which the nations are still in need of healing. The nations are still in need of transformation. Now, I think Scripture teaches that when Jesus at His final coming, the opportunity to repent and be saved will be over. That is to say, if you don't repent and embrace Jesus and enter into His church before Jesus returns, you're going to find it's too late. And I think there are passages in Scripture that point that direction. I won't go to those here, but I think that's something that Scripture clearly teaches. That is to say, there will come a point where you could say the gates of the New Jerusalem are shut, at least in some sense they are shut. So Revelation 21 and 22 describe a church with open gates. That is to say, if this picture given to us in Revelation describes the ongoing evangelization and discipling and transformation of the nations, if it describes the converting of the nations, the conversion of the nations, they move from outside the city to inside the city, if it describes nations turning to the Lord, entering into the city to worship and to receive healing. It must describe something that takes place in history and not eternity. Okay, you see that? The open gates, the healing that takes place, the fact that the nations are coming in, all, I think, indicates to us that this is describing something that's in the here and now. We can also look back at those images that we talked about, church's city, church's bride, church's temple, All of those are ways that the New Testament describes the church as she exists in the present. Not just the church as she will be at the last day or in resurrection glory, but the church as all those things right now. And so if John sees all those things, he must be seeing something that is applicable to the church in her present existence, in her present state, in this age of history. Now, let me stop there and make a few applications. There's a lot more that can be said about all of those things, but I want to go ahead. I started off with a Calvin quote where he says that doctrine is not just a matter of the tongue, but a matter of life. I want to start to show you how this has got to trickle down into our hearts and then work itself out in the way that we live as God's people in the world. Go back to that question we started with, what does it mean to be the church? Well, here we have a picture that shows us what it means to be the church. And one thing we find is that the church exists for the sake of the world. She is, in the title of a wonderful book by Russian Orthodox theologian Alexander Shmaiman, she exists for the life of the world, for the healing of the nations. William Temple said it well, he said, the church is the only society in the world that exists for the sake of its non-members. John sees the church coming down out of heaven. The church is not of this world. What does Paul say? The book of Philippians, he says in Philippians 1.27, live as worthy citizens of the gospel. He puts it even more clearly, I think, in Philippians 3.20. He says your citizenship is in heaven. We are heavenly people. Now think about this. What did that mean for the Philippian Christians, that they were citizens of heaven? The city of Philippi prided itself in being citizens of the Roman Empire. But the idea there is not that when you die, you go to Rome to live there happily ever after. No, the idea is that you're living in Philippi, you're a colony of Rome there. Rome is over here. Your job is to bring the culture and the way of life of Rome, the Roman way of life, Roman culture, bring that to bear in Philippi. And when Paul says to the Philippian Christians, when he says, you are citizens of heaven, He's not just saying, isn't that great, you're going to go to heaven when you die. Okay, that might be part of it. But what he's really saying is, look, you're down here in Philippi, heaven's up here, but you have to bring heaven's way of life, heaven's culture to bear on the city of Philippi. And when John sees the church as a city coming down out of heaven, that's the idea. What does it mean to be the church? It means our calling is to heavenize earth, to do God's will on earth as it's done in heaven, as we pray in the Lord's Prayer. to bring the life and culture of heaven to bear upon this world. You could say that the church is a kingdom that is sent into the world to do God's mission, to do ministry in God's name in the world. See, the job of the church is not just to be God's holy nation, God's holy people, that's central. but also to call the nations of the world into God's holy nation, to call the cities of the world into the city of God. See, the church, you could say, is God's missionary enterprise in the world. It's not just to get saved and plucked out of this world, so we now have our citizenship in heaven, so we don't care what happens to this world. No, that's not it at all. The church comes down out of heaven into the world. We're sent into the world to heavenize earth. to be a colony of heaven on the earth. You ask this question, what is the best thing the church can do for the world? What's the best thing the church can do for the world? I think Revelation 21 and 22 would tell us the best thing that the church can do for the world is simply to be the church. And what does it mean to be the church? I think you see here. It means to be a worshiping community. See, where do you see worship here? The nations come in, bringing their treasures, offering all of their cultural treasures to the service of God, devoting all of life to His service. We've got to be at the forefront of that. The church here is cube-shaped. It's length, it's width, it's height are all the same. It's symmetrical in that way. It's described as a cube. Well, what does that make you think of? You go back to the Old Testament Scriptures, you find that the most holy place is cube-shaped. We are a cube-shaped people. We dwell in the most holy place, you might say. We have access to the most holy place. See, we are God's new covenant priesthood. We have access to the heavenly sanctuary. What does it mean to be the church? It means we worship God. We offer God praise on behalf of all creation. But it's not just worship. Flowing out of worship is also service. See, that cube is not this hermetically sealed container. No, it's got a river. It's flowing out of it. A river of life. And we are to be that river of life. That garden has trees that grow with healing leaves. Leaves that bring healing to the nations. It wouldn't mean to be the church. It means worship. We're a cube-shaped people. A people who dwell in the most holy place, who have access to the heavenly sanctuary, the heavenly most holy place, the very throne room of God, you might say. But it also means that we are a people devoted to service, to serving the nations, to bringing the healing power of the gospel to bear upon the nations. So it doesn't mean to be the church. It means we are a worshiping and serving community. Let's talk about service for just a minute. That's how I'll leave off this tonight. Let me give you a quotation here from somebody who I think understood this well, what it means for the church to exist for the life of the world. This is from that Southern Roman Catholic novelist, Walker Percy. Percy was actually born in my hometown of Birmingham. He's usually associated with Louisiana because that's where he lived and did a lot of his writing. He's actually from Birmingham. Listen to what he says. He says, I need not warn you, I am sure, of the dangers of over-acculturation. We know what happened to some of the mainline Protestant denominations who are attuned to the opinion polls, so to speak, and trim their sails accordingly as the winds of culture shift. So he's talking about these mainline Protestant churches that compromised with the culture. They didn't stand against the culture. They were swept away by the culture. They became acculturated rather than transforming the culture. So instead of serving as the yeast which leavens the cultural lump, they tended to disappear in the culture. By remaining faithful to its original commission, by serving people with love, especially the poor, the lonely, and the dispossessed, and by not surrendering its doctrinal steadfastness, sometimes even the very contradiction of the culture around it by which it serves as a sign, surely the church serves culture best. See, what does Percy say? I think this is exactly right. How does the church serve culture best? By not giving in to the culture. And yet, by serving that culture, ministering to the poor in love, the lonely, the dispossessed. But in doing those things, not surrendering her doctrinal distinctive but standing in those things with steadfastness. Even if they turn out to be the very contradiction of everything that the culture around us believes. Standing firm in those things. In that way, we are a sign of the coming Kingdom of God. This is the way in which the church serves the culture best. Well, let me give you something from another Southern Roman Catholic, and there's no particular reason why I'm picking out Southern Roman Catholic authors other than the fact that I just, I guess I just like them. I think Walker Percy has a lot of good things to say. I especially think Flannery O'Connor has a lot of good things to say. Listen to what she said. She points out that when the world pushes on the church, the church has got to push back. Listen to what she says. Push back against the spirit of the age as hard as it pushes against you. What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket when of course it is the cross. I think that would be a beautiful slogan, a wonderful slogan for our churches to adopt. Push back. It doesn't mean to be the church. It means you push back against the world as hard as the world pushes against you. The world pushes against us all the time, trying to conform us to its mold, to its shape, to its way of thinking, and living, and doing. And what do we have to do as the church? We've got to push back just as hard, even harder. Push back. Push back against the false normality of modernity. See, what modernity has done, what you could say the modern, western, secularized, is created a whole way of thinking about what's normal that is utterly false. And the church has got to bear witness against its falseness, against its falsity. The church has got to push back. Well, listen to how Leslie Newbigin describes it. Talking here especially about the role of the local congregation. Newbigin was a British Presbyterian, so I guess I'm sort of back on firm ground here, and missionary to India, too. He says, I've come to feel that the primary reality of which we have to take account in seeking for a Christian impact on public life is the Christian congregation. He says, OK, you want to talk about the impact of the gospel on public life, the place to start the discussion is with local Christian congregations. He says, how is it possible that the Gospel should be credible? That people should come to believe that the power which has the last word in human affairs is represented by a man hanging on a cross? See, if you think about it, the Christian claim is absolutely absurd to say that all of history hinges on a man who got crucified. How can you say that that's the ultimate reality? How can you make that claim plausible in the modern world. He says, I am suggesting that the only answer, the only hermeneutic of the Gospel, that is the only way to see what the Gospel really is, to make it believable, to make it credible. He says, I'm suggesting that the only answer is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it. I am, of course, not denying the importance of the many activities by which we seek to challenge public life with the Gospel. evangelistic campaigns, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, conferences, and even books. But I am saying that these are all secondary and that they have power to accomplish their purpose only as they are rooted in and lead back to a believing community. See, how can we make the gospel of Christ in Him crucified, plausible in the modern world? It's by living as a community that embodies the Gospel message, that lives the Gospel out. Only as we do that can we enable the world around us to make sense of the claims of the Gospel. Only then can we enable the world to see what life looks like from a Gospel perspective. And that's what we're called to do. Newton goes on, he says, It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden, and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. That's what it means to be a city coming down out of heaven. That's what it means to have your citizenship in heaven, even when you live in places like Philippi or Sacramento or Birmingham. It's to bear witness to the reign of Christ in every sector of life. It's as we live together in our church communities, in our congregations in a way that bears witness to So that we show the world what it means to live under the gracious reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. The most important thing for the church to do is to be the church. To give the world something firm and angular to bump up against. To give the world a rock-solid witness to the truth of God's Word as it impacts every segment of human culture. It's interesting, I think, and this is something I'll talk about more as we go, but John's vision here, this is a vision of the church. We see that the church has gates. Now, why does the church have gates? The church has gates to let the repentant in, so that the nations can be welcomed into the kingdom of God. And the church should always be a place that welcomes sinners into her midst, so they can come and hear God's truth. It should always be a place of hospitality and welcome. She'll always be a place with open gates. But at the same time, as John describes the church, she also has walls. Walls to keep worldliness out. And I think the challenge for every church, for every local congregation, is to strike the right balance. to strike the right mix between gates, so you're a welcoming and hospitable community, with walls. A community that bars worldliness, that keeps worldliness out. See, that's what we've got. Gates. Gates that are always open. Our community's always open. We want to grow. We want the outsider to come in and to hear God's truth. But walls. to protect God's truth from compromise, to protect righteousness, to protect the people of God from worldliness, from compromise with the world's way of thinking and living. So what do you see here in John's vision? You see what it means to be the church. It starts with worship. But it flows out from there into a community that serves the Lord by serving the world, really you could say, in love, in righteousness, in beauty, and in truth. Or another way of getting at this, it starts with worship, but it flows out into healing. Healing for the nations. The church is to be like a garden. The church is to be a community of trees. trees that bear leaves for the healing of the nations. So, we're inviting the world in, calling the world in, summoning the world to repent and believe, engaging the world with the gospel, even as we are putting up walls to protect our community from the invasion of worldliness. Again, if you think about this healing, this ministry to the nations, How might that work itself out? I read to you that quotation from Walker Percy where he talks about the church's call to help the poor, and I think that's a really important thing. One thing you find throughout history is whatever institution in a given culture does the most to assist the poor typically tends to be the institution that has the most influence, the most clout, the most authority within that culture. In our day, of course, that would be the civil government. And it's very sad, I think, that the church has not done a better job in ministering to the poor. But I don't think that we should limit this just to financial poverty. You know, some of us read about all the Bible has to say about helping the poor, and it's kind of discouraging to us because we think, you know, where I live and where I work, I don't really encounter that many poor people. I mean, people who really are living, who are mired in financial poverty in that way. But there are other kinds of poverty that the Bible speaks about besides just financial poverty. The Bible talks about familial poverty. You could say broken families. It's sad to report, but in our society now, over 50% of American children come from broken families. And we need to ask, does the church have any healing leads for those children, for those families? There is social and relational. poverty, people who are friendless, people who are lonely. Surveys come out from time to time where they survey people about their friendships and about their relational connections with other people, and they find that year by year, people get more and more disconnected, more and more isolated, more and more lonely. Does the church have healing leaves to offer these people who need friendship? Who need community? Are churches places where these people could come in and be welcomed and feel like they've actually connected with somebody else, like they have a friend who would be there for them. We need to offer healing leaves of friendship and community to the world around us. What does it mean to be the church? It means we worship God. We are a cube-shaped people, a Most Holy Place-shaped people. But we are also a people who serve. We are healing leaves for the nations. We are gates welcoming the nations into the Kingdom of God. That's what it means. This is our mission. We're to worship God faithfully. and flowing out of that we are to serve the world in a way that brings transformation, that brings healing. Let's pray.