Bible Passage: Revelation 21:21-27
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: May 25, 2025

Bulletin – May 25, 2025

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

It was just the usual trip to the grocery store.  The kids were buckled in their seats in the back of the minivan.  Mom would occasionally glance at their little faces in the rearview mirror.  All of a sudden her little four-year-old broke the silence.  “Mommy, what is heaven like?”  One of the most profound theological questions ever!  From the mouth of a four-year-old!  On the way to the grocery store!

So, what is the answer?  What is heaven like?  Specifically, what will our eternal home be like after Judgement Day, after the return of Jesus, after the resurrection?  Do we know?  Can we know?  In Peter’s second letter in the New Testament, Peter tells us that when Jesus returns on Judgment Day, all the matter will in the universe will be melted down and then, Peter says, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. (2 Peter 3:13)  That makes it sound like things will be like they were at the beginning before sin entered the world.

Our text for today is a vision John received of our eternal dwelling.  Now, we understand this is a “vision.”  In visions, God often used fantastic images to convey a heavenly or spiritual reality.  In this vision John sees our eternal home as a city, the “heavenly Jerusalem” coming down out of the sky.  And the most significant detail of what John sees is this:  The Lamb is the Light of the City of God.

            Our text jumps into the middle of a vision John sees.  Before our text John has seen the enemies of Jesus and his Church finally judged and sentenced.  Now the end has come!  The ancients called the end the “consummation of the ages.”  Now John sees a city coming down out of heaven.  Just listen to some of the incredible details of this city.  It was laid out in a perfect square.  1400 miles by 1400 miles.  Also its wall was 1400 miles tall!  So the city was a perfect cube!  The walls were also 200 feet thick!  These are impossible dimensions!  The walls and the foundations of the city were made of many different kinds of precious stones.  This is where our text begins.  John sees in the walls 12 gates.  Each gate is a single, huge pearl.  Can you imagine a pearl that big!  And John sees that the main street of the city is pure gold.  Indeed, this is a city the likes of which this world has never seen!

What is the point of this description?  God is teaching us that our eternal home is “beyond.”  It is beyond our earthly frame of reference.  It is beyond our realm of experience.  It is beyond anything we can even imagine.  It is a place of other-worldly beauty and perfection!

But then John notices something is missing.  In verse 2 of this chapter, John called this stunning city the New Jerusalem (21:2).  Jerusalem was most notable for one thing:  the Temple of the Lord.  The Temple was the place where the Lord met his people.  But it was a “mediated” meeting.  The people approached with sacrifices and through a priesthood.  But in this New Jerusalem, the Temple is missing!  There is no more “mediated” presence of God!  The LORD God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. (v. 22)  No more lamb sacrifices at the Temple!  We will be with the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world!

And this leads us into the next detail about this city.  The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God has given it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. (v. 23)  Those heavenly lights created on the 4th day of creation will be unnecessary, because the glory of God lights up the city!  And what is the most glorious thing God has ever done?  He loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son!  The glory of God is the Lamb of God!  And the glory of the exalted Jesus lights up the city of God!

This is such an important point.  Do we always realize and appreciate how “Christ-centered” heaven is?  The glory of Jesus fills the whole place!  How often don’t we imagine or explain heaven in ways that leave out Christ and really almost profane heaven?  Think of the mom in our introduction whose little boy asks her about heaven.  I suppose she might answer, “Oh, Timmy, heaven will be wonderful!  It’s like going to Disneyland every day!”  Unless the exalted Jesus is at Disneyland, Disney is nothing like heaven!  I once attended a funeral where the pastor said the deceased was up in heaven “poking around the mall.”  I have been to many malls.  I do not want heaven to be a Christ-less shopping experience.  Again and again in Revelation, heaven is pictured as a place with the Lamb at the center of it all!  The Lamb is the light of the city of God!  So great is the glory of the Lamb that the most glorious of men glorify and honor Jesus!  The kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. (v. 24)

Not all will dwell in this light.  Nothing that is unclean and no one who does what is detestable or who tells lies will ever enter it. (v. 27)  Well, that’s that.  I guess we don’t get to go.  Have you never done anything “unclean”?  Have you never told a lie?  The word used for detestable comes from a word that means “a foul stench.”  We might say “to stink to high heaven.”  You think your life can pass God’s “smell test”?  So how can you expect to be in this wonderful city?

Only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. (v. 27)  Because Jesus has a little book.  And in it he has written the names of his elect, his chosen.  In it he has written your name.  And he washed you in his blood.  He “fumigated” you with his righteousness.  You DO pass God’s smell test, because you smell like Jesus!  And so you will enter that Holy City!  That wonderful, too-good-to-be true place where the Lamb is the light of the city of God!

Amen.