5. All New Things, or All Things New? - Living in the Light...Resurrection-Tim Mackie(Bible Project)

Hey good morning everybody how are you this is my obligatory time all right discover who's in the room and I just do small talk banter there you go great good people of doors help how are you good to have you guys here happy Sunday welcome if you're a visitor here hello my name is Tim and you're you and that's awesome we today in terms of our teaching you know when we gather together on Sundays which is less than one seventh of what we do together as the church but this is a really key part of what we do we come together to sing which is what Jesus people have been doing from the very first house gatherings of his disciples singing praise to the one who loves us and gave himself for us and we meet together in with him and worship and taking the bread and the cup but we also opened the scriptures every week together to learn and grow and this summer we've been camping out in this series called a new day and it's we're gonna conclude it today and we're gonna assure into new exciting things in this series for the fall which Josh will be he's back there so the leap again if you're newer to door folk the lead pastor who started door of hope with his core team had eight weeks off this summer that was a sabbatical to the door of Hope turned 7 this year and we wanted him to have a time of rest but also a time to reflect on kind of what's what's next for door of Hope in the season ahead so he's gonna he's back in the game and he's gonna be teaching for the first time in a couple months next week and we're excited about the fall teaching series and that's gonna be awesome but mums the word you just will have to come and find out so anyway but today we're closing the series we've been in this summer called a new day and we have been exploring what it means to live in the light of Jesus's resurrection from the dead Christianity is most classically connected to the image and the icon of the Cross Jesus is death and that's a crucial obviously crucial pun intended center point of who we are that Jesus died for us and for our sins but the cross doesn't mean what it means without the fact that Jesus rose from the dead after that and in fact all of the earliest followers of Jesus always talk about the cross in the resurrection together and understanding what it means to live as people of the Risen Jesus and what it means to embrace our own hope of the Resurrection this is like Christianity 101 but strangely never gets talked about so or at least not very often so that's what we've been doing this whole summer and today it's gonna come it's gonna come to a close the resurrection of Jesus the empty tomb and the events of Easter were not something that the disciples of Jesus saw coming it's not something that they anticipated even though Jesus hinted at it and even more than hinted tried to tell them that the cross his execution wouldn't be the end of the story but their framework for that didn't have room for the fact of Jesus coming back to life in a new kind of existence they just had no categories for this idea and so when it happened it shocked all of them and so we camp out in the stories some of the eyewitness accounts in the Gospels of the disciples encountering the Risen Jesus and it shattered everything they thought they knew about the world and about God about themselves and then as the Jesus Movement began to spread around the ancient world and the decades went by the apostles whose writings we have in the New Testament they reflected on how significant the events of Easter were for what it means to to follow Jesus that if Jesus became what we are so that we could become what he is but what it means is that what happened to Jesus is the hope of what will happen to me as one of his disciples the death won't be the end for you were for me as his followers and so we've explored that whole idea in the New Testament and then even one other step the apostles were convinced that what what happened on Easter the the Jesus that walked out of the empty tomb alive from the dead and a new kind of existence that was physical but a new kind of existence they were convinced this wasn't just about humans but the the future of the universe as I've said walked out of the tomb on Easter Sunday and so we've sat with this idea in a couple of teachings but today it's fitting that we should turn to the second to last page of the Bible to allow the empty tomb and the resurrection of Jesus to truly expand out into the glorious Christian hope of a universe raised from the dead of a resurrected world and that's exactly what what John's talking about here so I'll just put it the big passage up here on the screen but most of you have it open in front of you or turned on in front of you whichever and this is this is a glorious glorious passage of Scripture comes right near the end of the story and it's this vision from the revelation so let's just stop right there this is from the book of the revelation not revelations with an S on the end it's the most common mispronunciation of the book the revelation and you know I was a little nervous in picking a passage to teach on in this series from the revelation because here's what I found about this book in modern modern audiences at least in the West much like as I often say it's cilantro divides a room in half half love half hate half we're repulsed by it the book of Revelation has much of the same effect on modern readers either some people love it and are obsessed with it and often not always but often it's King to an upbringing or a background in church traditions that are really into the prophecy timelines and end times timetables and this kind of thing when predicting Jesus's return and all that so some people love it and find it endlessly fascinating for that and it's precisely that group of people that makes the other half of the room totally weirded out and repulsed by the book of Revelation and they're just like I just want to let them follow Jesus I don't know it'll all pan out in the end kind of thing so that's about the effect that this book has on on modern readers and it's it's understandable it seems like a bizarre book to most modern readers and eventually you know you might get accustomed to it but it's it's a highly image driven book full of imagery that it's just fantastic and outstanding and author John has all of these visions that he's writing down it seems bizarre to modern readers it was not bizarre to the first followers of Jesus who were all Jewish the book of Revelation is a perfect example of a kind of literature that was very popular at the time of Jesus called the period of the second second temple or second temple Judaism Bible nerds today call it Jewish apocalyptic literature but the book of Revelation is not the only book of its kind from this time period there are many other Jewish apocalypses that recounted dreams or visions that prophets had and what these dreams or visions do is they give the prophet or the visionary a chance to zoom up to like 30,000 feet so to speak over history and current events and to offer God's point of view on the meaning of history in the meaning of events and what's gone wrong and where it's all going and the primary way that all of these book of Revelation but other Jewish apocalyptic texts I could give you a whole list of them you can go by translations of them down at Powell's and you will be better off for it because they're fascinating to read but the way that all of these texts communicate is through heavy intense the tree the the best analogy that I can find it's not perfect but it's a good one in our own way of thinking about media and communication today is is cartoons and specifically political cartoons work with me here you guys ready work with me here you'll see to appear on the screen what each one of them is lampooning the main presidential candidate got play fair right since a diverse crowd at door foe so there you go so there you go Hillary is getting made fun of and so's Donald right there so let's play fair okay so here's two recent political cartoons now if you're an American citizen if you have even just if you're not an American citizen if you've been in American culture for say five years do you need me to explain these cartoons to you do you get it you get it don't you the one on the upper left is brilliant isn't it come down alright whether or not you agree with it let's just give this is a very creative thoughtful artist in a million ways and the one on the right if you're an Indy racecar fan that's also brilliant it's in its own right right do you need me to explain this to you I don't I don't think you do so but just think it let's say someone from Jesus day you know a Jewish person who's living in ancient Rome we're to time-travel right and come sit next to you right now and be looking at these images would it make perfect sense to them no of course not where do you what do you think they would start asking about why is there a man in a dark like costume wearing cape what's that blonde bangs protruding from there and why is there an elephant hanging from a spaceship weathervane right in the cloud city of best men like what's happening yeah like what's that about right and why is there what's that automobile and why is it crashed before the finish line an indie racecars and why is there a donkey pushing it like what's you with me these are not self-explanatory you actually have to have a very sophisticated knowledge of American history of American political symbolism and imagery you also have to have a background in American sports race car sports you have to be well-versed in a whole imaginary universe okay no there's Star Wars and do I have to teach you any of these no you're just you you get it you get it so these are images and symbols that refer to real people and real things in history but also laid on top of them is a layer of symbols and images from other real things or imaginary worlds and it all swirls together into these really complex drawings that didn't require you to have an explanation but an ancient reader would and I would suggest to you that when we come to the book of revelation it's exactly the same thing just the Sitra swapped you and I have become time travelers to ancient Israel Palestine and we are being invited into the highly image driven dreams and visions of John that he you know like your dreams are weird and fantastic by the way but also that John clearly had these experiences and then he prayerfully meditated over them and represented them in this form of literature that was common in John's day and just like these assume that you have a knowledge and IndyCar racing and Star Wars John's apocalypse assumes that you are immersed in the world of the Hebrew Scriptures and in the world of first century Roman Israeli politics that's what John assumes that you know and that's why we find it all so bizarre and so like lesson number one we're gonna move on real quick here but just lesson number one and this is for free the book of Revelation seems weird to you primarily because we don't live in his time and place from 2000 years ago that's why it repulses half the room and fascinates the other half of the room and so that we always have to do is first ask first humble ourselves and then second ask what is the thing that he's alluding to and what thing is he picking up from the Old Testament Scriptures or from his culture and adapting and doing something brilliant with to to communicate and the way that John has pulled from the Old Testament and then mixed it together with his vision of the empty tomb and the resurrection and what that means - for following him in the future of the universe brilliant thing of brilliance dude the book of Revelation is what I'm telling you it's a work of literary ninja Rhee it's really amazing and brilliant let me just show you one example and it's from the paragraph let's go back to the paragraph here oops go back so first line and this will get us ride into the resurrection and in how the book of Revelation works so when you heard or read the first lines of this great paragraph right here from revelation 21 I saw a new heaven and a new earth the first heaven and the first earth passed away there was no longer any sea now even if you're not an expert in the Old Testament Scriptures my hunch is that some page of the Old Testament came into your mind and would page with EB there was a spoiler it was gray already what page what page of the Old Testament page 1 page 1 he's deliberately echoing the opening words of the the whole Bible from Genesis chapter 1 now just pay attention a new heavens and a new earth first heavens first was passed away and what's no more see now Christian surfers around the world are very depressed when they read this like really I was actually hoping I could do quite a lot of that in the new creation but and you'll see I actually do you think there's there's still hope once you get the meaning of John's image okay so let's go back to where he's he's quoting from and you'll you'll see what he's doing here he's quoting from the opening lines of the Bible in the beginning God made the heavens and earth when you see the heavens don't think city in the sky the heavens is the normal Hebrew way of referring to the clouds like what's up there the sky and when you see the earth don't think globe right Hebrews had no concept of the globe because it wasn't but it wasn't until like 70 years ago that you and I have a picture of this globe to look at for goodness sakes there's no way that's what was in their head what's in their head is what if if Heaven's refers to what's up there what does Earth refer to it's just what's down here it's just like it's a normal language based on normal observations that you and I would make just standing right here the heavens and the earth now let's talk about what's down here what is the current state the uncreated state of things in the beginning that God is working with how are things down here on the land happy face sad face well it is wild and waste and darkness is over the surface of the deep and the deep there refers to the deep deep waters of the deep seas so right here we're introduced into a very very Israelite ancient Israelite view of the world Genesis 1 tells a story of how God takes a chaotic watery wasteland and transforms it into a garden that's ordered and he'll appoint the humans to both cultivate it and expand it so the Genesis one is telling a story about God transforming darkness and wasteland into beauty and into order and precisely what God does in Genesis 1 is take the sea the chaotic sea and transform it into land and and garden and so on you might ask like what cave so why why is this is the see this image of chaos you know so we take cruise ships out into the oceans and whatever we certainly have and it tamed the thing do you guys know there was a new species of whale discovered just three weeks ago did you see this it was a debt it was a dead they called a beak nose whale that what it washed up dead way up on the in the Arctic but it was a completely unknown species of whale I mean just like what do we know really we don't know anything about what's swimming under there so amazing right so we but we had a sense since you know sea travel has continues to be perfected and so on like the sea isn't the first thing that comes to our mind when we think of the most dangerous threat to human stability in existence on planet Earth all right the sea is not what comes to our mind but it is what came to Israelite authors minds if you read through the Old Testament and just tally all of the times of the ocean or the sea is talked about it is almost never positive it is one of the it was one of the most threatening the Israelites were never a seafaring people they left that to the Phoenicians up north and the Egyptians down south they never had huge fleets except under one Kings reign but they they were never known for being a seafaring people and it's reflected in the Old Testament the sea was a terrifying place to Israelites right and maybe had something to do with the passage through the Red Sea and it just freaked them all out after the Exodus and they never wanted to make boats again after that but so here's the point you read through the Old Testament the sea was a place that represented the instability and chaos of the world it's a place where humans shouldn't spend too much time because it will destroy you and so-and-so ghent the first opening page of the Bible depicts the uncreated chaotix in stable state of the world as a watery wasteland and what God does is he overcomes the sea to create land and and everything Genesis chapter 1 now you can debate about the details and all that all that kind of stuff but that is just the basic storyline of Genesis chapter are you guys doing so John knows this he grew up on these scriptures and so when he envisions the the new world that opened up on Easter morning and the kind of world that God is going to make that could be called new a place that's permeated with God's love and God's presence what does where does his mind go it goes to page 1 of the Bible and so what hit let's go back to Revelation here I think the next slide yeah so when he envisions a new heaven and a new earth the way of life the way that humans exist on the world is still marked by the same instability and chaos and and death and so what God is going to do is invite the world because of the resurrection of Jesus into a new kind of existence a new kind of community and this is a world that has no see do you get it do you get it good yeah that's right so and so what we want to know is ok but what does that actually refer to in terms of like the physical makeup of this read this resurrected universe this actually mean there's no h2o molecules gathered together in large bodies right and yeah like that's what our minds go and that's a similar question to asking of these political cartoons okay so is a donkey actually going to push Hillary at some point in this election like will a donkey appear on the stage and the artist would just be like no you know no you don't get that's not the meaning of the image are you with me we're missing the point when we when we ask if there's going to be h2o molecules in the new creation we're just missing we're missing the point the point is we we get the echo of page 1 of the Bible and what we see is this is the world where every threat to the safety and stability of the new creation has been removed if John were sitting and right having his visions in the 21st century he would say you know a new heaven and new earth and there were no longer any nuclear weapons or something like that it's thinking of the ultimate threat to human safety in existence hey guys doing ok so just put on this set of glasses and read through the whole book of Revelation and it will blow your mind it's the most brilliant most brilliant theological literary work it's incredible now I want to focus in here on something now that were equipped with a set of reading skills look at what he does here when he opens his vision of the new creation he calls it the new heaven and the new earth and the first heaven and the first earth passed away so if you if you just read that at face value what it seems to say is which heaven on earth are you and I inhabiting the old one it's going to pass away and God's going to bring about a new one so that puts in our minds a story so we live in the present heaven and earth that you and I are familiar with and God's going to bring about a new one this one's going away what that's tended to feed into is a story that's very common in many traditions of Christianity about this world being second-rate or evil primarily because it's physical and material and what God is going to do is bring about a new world of some kind that's partly physical or not physical at all most of us haven't really worked that one out and the goal though is to get out of this heaven and earth and get into heaven or a new heaven on earth and I just from reading this paragraph itself I just would like to invite us to see that what John's saying is actually more complex that's more sophisticated than that if you don't think as a as a follower of Jesus that your ultimate eternal destiny is in a non-physical world of clouds and bliss and so on even if that's what you don't believe your neighbors who aren't followers of Jesus definitely think that's what you believe and they think that your altima dream and vision is to get out of the world as opposed to engage it and live in it and seek its well-being and so what this is this matters because what what a person hopes for shapes what they live for and so if the story is to like scrapped this heaven on earth and let's just wait for the new one if that's my primary way of thinking about it it will affect how I live and engage this heaven on earth and John's inviting us to see something that's more interesting than that I think because look at the last line when he uses the word new again if we just had that first sentence we would definitely have the this one completely gone and it'll be brand spankin new one but look at what he says here at the end the one who is seated on the throne says I am making all things new I am making all things new now both in the language John's writing in in Greek and in English just take two words new things and swap their order and what you get is a sentence that says I am making all new things but it's not what it says doesn't say I'm going to make all new things it's going to I'm making all things no is there a difference in your mind between those two there is there is an English and there is in Greek to make all new things says the things that existed before done never over new things but what John actually says is there are things that are right now and they're going to be made new so which is it is the first sentence saying I'm going to make all new things or is it the last sentence I'm going to make all things new which is it it's exactly right what with this the fact that we're asking the question shows that we have the wrong categories we don't have the right categories we have this idea that if something is going to be done away with that it has no connection to the new thing it will become and if something is new it means it's completely disconnected from the old and John will say no sorry I'm sorry language is failing me at the moment the empty tomb the empty tomb John's not peering into a crystal ball here he was a witness to the Risen Jesus and where his mind goes is to say if if what happened on Easter is the future of the universe in the future for Jesus's followers how do we begin to talk about that resurrected world and he does it with the word new now we've already nerd it out but can we know down to one more thing and then we'll then we'll move on and this is really this is really fascinating because it's a challenge that we have in English I think one of is one of the main challenges here on its with the word new there in the language John's writing in in Greek and all through the New Testament Greek or the Jewish Greek that the New Testament is written in has act two different words for new in English we just have one new in in John's language and in the language of the New Testament authors they've - and they have different nuances of meaning and it's important to actually see the difference so the first one it's less common and you can see it up there at the top it's called nos nos and what English part of a word do we get from this one this one went right in English through Latin neo it's not just a character of the matrix although that's true right but we put neo on on like the front of words make make up your own example but neo so now us in New Testament Greek is primarily referring to the time of something how long something's been in existence its newness of time Nass is one of the main words you actually don't see it very often translated as new because most often way it's used is of young people gets translated as a young person or a new a new person meaning a young person one who has not lived very very long so it's new in time but then there is another word it's more common in Jesus's teachings in Paul and I'll let you guess which word that John is using in Revelation that doesn't have to do with how long some things existed it has to do with its quality or its nature this is a little parable that Jesus told where he uses both words and he plays them off each other it's brilliant where he talks about no one pouring new neos wine into old wineskins otherwise the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wine skins will be ruined okay so let's pause real quick here they didn't have ziplock bags and they didn't have plastic containers or so when for most humans for most of human history when they want to make something that's waterproof and airtight what what material do they have to use animal materials either intestines tie him up like sausage that kind of thing or leather and so when he says skins here he's referring to leather leather pouches that would be sewn together so tight that it would be watertight and airtight and so this is how they would ferment wine so they would get nice wine right so new grapes but they opted to become wine not just grape juice they need to ferment it so they would create and so together these leather pouches and pour the wine in and seal it up and when they seal it what does wine do over the year that is fermenting what's it emitting through the process right so gas so what's gonna happen that bag that leather pouch it's gonna it's gonna expand so they're made out of leather so there's a limited number of times you can do this with the leather pouch because by the sixth or eighth round this the leathers gonna at first it was robust and stretchy and thick and after another times it's gonna be stretched and thin and then it starts to dry this is why if you have a leather jacket from a hundred years ago or whatever it's all brittle and you don't it flakes and stuff like that so it gets dry so you get do you get jesus' point here if you want if you want to ferment neta swine you can't use old dr thin brittle stretched out wine skins what you need is a kindness wine skin so this isn't about how long the wine skin has existed it's about the quality of the leather it needs to be a leather that's still thick and stretchy and that has a waterproof seam it's about the quality and it doesn't did the goat live ten years or one year before we're gonna you know kill it and then use the skin oh that doesn't matter how long it's been existed then what matters is the quality do you see the difference do you get it Jesus is clever look let's just say Jesus is clever playing the two new words off of each other here's very brilliant okay so let's go back let's go back to Revelation and just ask ask yourself which which word do you think he's using he's using kindness a new quality look I'm bringing about in a new kind of creation a new quality of existence and the old kind of existence is going to pass away and when God brings and invites the world into its new quality of existence he will be making all things new he's both he's making new things but more importantly he's making all things new do you get it so what's this talking about this isn't just talking about material and physical existence when when John talks about the old heaven on earth and again you have to read chapters 1 to 20 right so his vision of the world as you and I know it it's a it's a world that is good that that we who as humans is God's images who have been given responsibility over it we've ruined what God has made good we've ruined it through our own moral corruption and our selfishness and that happens on an individual level that happens on a corporate level you and I inhabit a heaven and earth and a way of existing where life is a zero-sum game it's true in nature if the wolf wants to live the rabbit must die that's just how like food chains work it's woven into the very pattern of the heavens on earth even I inhabit and it's true in human existence too for this people group to have resources this people group usually loses out on its resources for this group to have freedom in existence and to live some other group eventually has to die as they fight over those resources and for me to win you have to lose this is the heavens and earth that you and I inhabit do I need to provide examples just think of your day yesterday think of your workplace and how people compete and one-up each other and huh and I think think of what's happening in politics think of those political cartoons right think of what's happening in Syria or in Iraq think of what it name any human community on the planet life is a zero-sum game for me to win and to survive and to have abundance usually someone else loses and goes without and dies and and that's heaven and earth that you and I know and then into this heaven on earth comes Jesus of Nazareth and he has this announcement that that God's reign ruling kingdom has invaded and broken into this have the kingdom of heaven has come to invade the kingdom of Earth and as Jesus summons people to a new kind of life a new way of living Howard did he do it and he boiled it down for us write clearly and keep key moments he said the meaning of existence is love it's to live as God's images and humans under the reign of God and to love God which is about devotion and allegiance and gratefulness and not giving my allegiance and not assigning the meaning of my life to something that's created and not to create or to love God and it's also about loving neighbor they're totally connected that I seek the well-being of others even if it costs me and regardless of their response to me and then Jesus he both thought about it and this thing we called the Sermon on the Mount and all of his teachings and then he didn't just like teach about it he lived it he was the leader who was the servant and he was the glorious exalted one who gave himself to serve other people and Jesus's vision of the universe and of what God's inviting the world into is that it's in a universe governed by God's love life is not a zero-sum game if I spend myself in love for your benefit it looks like I lose but actually I win because you win and you got to win in a way that didn't involve you haven't crushed me and then you come down and you say like ah well you helped me like have benefit can I can I please return the favor because you didn't beat me up to take it from me are you with me in Jesus's vision of the kingdom of God life is not a zero-sum game and that there you go that's Jesus and it's not just his teachings it's not just the way that he lived its what the meaning of his death is the meaning of the cross that is of God becoming human to take into himself the horror in this consequences of the sin and the evil and the treachery in the hypocrisy and the selfishness of the current heaven and earth that you and I have all produced here and he allows it to destroy him he allows us to win and allows himself to lose precisely through his upside down kingdom to hope and so the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the triumph of God's justice in Wrath and judgment on our current heaven and earth and the way of life that we exist in but it's also the moment of his greatest love and life because he invites us into a new kind of existence what John saw happen at Easter isn't just about material existence like getting reconfigured in the future it's it's about the meaning of life it's about a new way of existing that the resurrection opened up hey guys done crickets crickets right so let me let me flow this into one idea and we'll kind of land this and prepare ourselves to take the bread in the cup just like John talks about the first heaven and the first earth passing away and a new quality of existence a new kind of universe and life that God has in store and he's in the process of making all things new in Revelation this is all like at the future at the end you know this is where history is going but notice in this whole series this is the same exact language that the other apostles used to describe what's happening inside of you and me as followers of Jesus right now right now because of what Jesus did in his life and death and resurrection because of his commitment to us and the presence of his spirit he's committed to making his people new let me just show you two brief places this is where the whole series and itself but just two statements for close together in Paul's writings Paul the Apostle says therefore we followers of Jesus we don't lose heart even though outwardly we are wasting away yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day we are being made new can you guess what what word he's using Neos or kindness its kindness so a follower of Jesus is somebody with a foot and in two worlds in the old heaven on earth then in the new heaven on earth and we like you straddle them and so my my outward right my physical existence but also like when I'm insane and forget my true identity as a follower of Jesus the way my brain and body and mind works in the stupid decisions that I make like that's all wasting away and that should be very clear from you know the way my skin's wrinkling up and the more gray hair that I have in the way that it's painful even to just to sleep these days you know if you wake up sore how sleeping painful but it is right you see your body you feel it you're wasting away but that's not the end of the story because of Jesus and especially his resurrection from the dead there is a new quality of existence that's happening right now that you're being invited into as Jesus's disciple which is what connects to one of his pause most famous statements in chapter 5 he says so then if anyone is in Christ if anyone has given their devotion in their faith and and wrapped their arms around Jesus for dear life so that what becomes true of him is what becomes true of me my identity is in Christ and what he's done for me if that's my reality and my identity new creation new creation the old has passed away and the new has come it's exactly what John said the old heaven on earth passed away and the kindness has come now I don't know how you feel about your body or your life right now but Paul wants you to envision that you're your old humanity has passed away and if you're sitting here in the body of your old humanity you're wondering really when did that happen when I was sleeping when do they really so what does that mean it's it's this image of having a footing in two worlds so outwardly I'm in my old heaven and earth my old humanity and it's passing away quite visibly right as for all of us but there's something happening inside of us that Jesus if you allow Jesus to mess with you and his teachings and his precedence in his life and his death and resurrection to really mess with you what you'll find in yourself being birthed in yourself is a new way of existing it's the way of the kingdom it's the way of Jesus is upside down Kingdom and there are moments I wish they were way more often and you perfect you to where I actually by by God's grace actually obey Jesus and follow him and love my neighbor as myself and when and I how many of you know what I'm talking about and when you do that you realize like oh oh the this is real like this is what I'm here for and this is what a real human existence is all about I don't have to win and you don't have to lose for us to weekend like reconcile and and forgive each other of what we've done to each other and we can actually find a new way forward and this broken relationship or I can find a new way of existing in the world so that other people don't have to lose so that I win and when you actually obey Jesus and do that that's what Paul's saying you're in touch with the new the new has come you you're actually experiencing new creation the new heaven on earth right here in the midst of the old one hey guys done so uh I know this is all very intense imagery and I can be very theoretical in ethereal and this is the last thing that John the visionary wants us to wants us to feel John's inviting us to see that you and I live in simultaneously the old heaven on earth and in the new heaven on earth and that every day I'm invited to to choose which heaven on earth I'm going to inhabit and make decisions by and allow to be the filter for how I treat you in how we relate to each other and we live here in the city and it's a decision that requires an immense amount of faith to allow myself to undergo loss and inconvenience so that I can serve and love other people for their own benefit like this bear it's not natural it's not it can become second nature by God's grace but it takes a long time it takes practice it takes a whole community of faith people committed to each other to living this new quality of existence and so I don't know I don't know what that is for you as we come to sing and to take the bread in the cup here's the question that I would encourage you to ask what what relationship in your life what person like get a person is there a person in your life where how you relate to them it's the old way right it's the broken way and what would it look like for that strained relationship to truly be made new the way John talks about it what would it be for the way you approach a difficult situation in your workplace or in your family what's the new way of doing things not the old way it might be your own mindset as your own body ages whereas life goes on and difficult things happen and and we're disappointed and we lose opportunities and we make stupid decisions and and we get in this this mindset of melancholy and depression what does it mean to truly live in the hope of all things being made new even though in the present I'm losing out I don't know what that is for you but Jesus knows and he wants to meet you exactly in that place and help you see how he's making all things new within us and and around us amen let me close in a word of Prayer you

Channel: Tim Mackie Archives

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Rating: 4.8365593 out of 5

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Id: Sg8pumho1nw

Length: 47min 21sec (2841 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 03 2017