Future Hope
Series: Easter 2025- Celebrate Hope
Speaker: Steve Jeffrey
Date: 27th April 2025
Passage: Revelation 21:1-8
00:00:00 --> 00:00:02 Good morning, everyone. My name's Steve. I've not met you before.
00:00:02 --> 00:00:08 I've seen you past here at St Paul's, and we have been journeying through the topic of hope
00:00:08 --> 00:00:10 ! In this Easter season.
00:00:12 --> 00:00:22 And in 1941, December 1941, British Prime Minister was with the American ambassador when he heard
00:00:22 --> 00:00:30 for the first time the news that Japan had bombed the American Pacific Fleet while it was
00:00:30 --> 00:00:37 in anchor at Pearl Harbor and the devastation as a result of that. And he knew as soon as hearing
00:00:37 --> 00:00:46 that news that the United States would be entering World War II and therefore giving Britain and its
00:00:46 --> 00:00:56 allies an extra quite formidable ally. And that night, he wrote something in his diary that captures
00:00:56 --> 00:01:06 the beautiful, I think, image of what hope is and how it shapes our future. And not just shapes our
00:01:06 --> 00:01:10 future, the hope for the future, but also shapes our present existence, our present reality.
00:01:10 --> 00:01:19 He recalls what he wrote in his diary in his six-volume work, The Second World War, about nine years
00:01:19 --> 00:01:30 later. He wrote, yes, we have won after all. Yes, after Dunkirk, after the fall of France, after the
00:01:30 --> 00:01:39 horrible episode of Iran, after the threat of invasion, when apart from the air and the Navy, we were almost
00:01:39 --> 00:01:48 unarmed people. For 17 months of lonely fighting and 19 months of my responsibility in dire stress,
00:01:48 --> 00:01:56 we have won the war. How long the war would last or in what fashion it would end, no man could tell,
00:01:56 --> 00:02:07 nor did I at this moment care. We should emerge, however mauled or mutilated, safe and victorious.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:14 We should not be wiped out. Our history would not come to an end. Many disasters, immeasurable cost and
00:02:14 --> 00:02:26 tribulation lay ahead, but there is no more doubt about the end. Being saturated and satiated with emotion
00:02:26 --> 00:02:36 and sensation, I went to bed and slept the sleep of the saved and thankful. What an image of hope.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:44 image of hope. That's what we've been unpacking in this Easter season and the understanding of what
00:02:44 --> 00:02:52 Christian hope is. The New Testament word for hope means not wishful thinking, but a rock-solid
00:02:52 --> 00:03:02 certainty. And its foundation is the explosive events of the first Easter in the death and resurrection
00:03:02 --> 00:03:10 of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus guarantees sin is forgiven, guarantees that everything that Jesus
00:03:10 --> 00:03:18 promised in his life and ministry is true and it guarantees it is being delivered, it's granted,
00:03:18 --> 00:03:26 eternal life has been granted. It also guarantees that what he said about himself is true. It validates
00:03:26 --> 00:03:37 that as he declares that he is God himself. Salvation is certain now and the Christian's future victory over
00:03:37 --> 00:03:48 death is a foregone conclusion, even if there are troubled times ahead and we ourselves will spend some time
00:03:48 --> 00:03:58 in a coffin. That is the end of all people, but not the end of all. And so to use Churchill's words,
00:03:58 --> 00:04:07 the future is so certain in Jesus that the Christian can sleep the sleep of the saved and thankful. That is,
00:04:07 --> 00:04:20 in a restless world, the Christian can have deep rest. Hope shapes our present life. I've got three things
00:04:20 --> 00:04:27 in terms of points this morning that we're going to journey through as we wind up our series on hope.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:33 So the nature of our future hope, that's what Jackie just read out to us. Verse 2,
00:04:33 --> 00:04:41 I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The Bible describes here
00:04:41 --> 00:04:51 a vision of the end of the world, the climax of history, and it's a picture of what the Christian
00:04:51 --> 00:05:03 would call heaven. The vision is not of individual souls raising in spirit form,
00:05:03 --> 00:05:10 maybe with some wings, you know, gathering a harp along the way and floating around on white fluffy
00:05:10 --> 00:05:21 clouds. That's the Simpsons and that's their theology and many others, but it's not the theology of the
00:05:21 --> 00:05:30 Bible. It's not the Christian hope. What we see instead is heaven coming down and transforming the earth.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:39 That is God's kingdom descending with God's king and transforming the universe. The climax of God's
00:05:39 --> 00:05:48 plan is a rewoven, healed, perfected material world. A world where even the good things of this world are
00:05:48 --> 00:05:58 remade to be infinitely better. Infinitely better. The Bible doesn't give us a picture of heaven where we
00:05:58 --> 00:06:05 hover around with wings and in clouds playing hearts, communicating, I'm assuming through some sort of
00:06:05 --> 00:06:12 mental, you know, telepathy or something like that. It's a material world, a real world, like this one,
00:06:12 --> 00:06:20 where people hug each other, where we walk and we run and we laugh and we dance and we kiss and we eat and
00:06:20 --> 00:06:27 we work and we play. It's a place like we have never experienced in this world, but it's also familiar
00:06:27 --> 00:06:35 as this world is familiar to us. That is, the Swips Alps will still be the Swips Alps, but fundamentally
00:06:35 --> 00:06:40 better. I'm not sure how that works, but it will be fundamentally better than what it currently is.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:47 The difference is everything in this world that is broken, even the beautiful things in this world
00:06:47 --> 00:06:55 that are broken, all of those things will be made pure and right and whole and good. There will be
00:06:55 --> 00:07:06 no Centrelink, there will be no hospitals, there will be no prisons, there will be nothing wrong or bad
00:07:06 --> 00:07:16 or evil or right at all. Every one of us has this sense or longing for the perfect and for the complete.
00:07:17 --> 00:07:23 It's why we whinge and complain when things don't go well. As good as this world might be at times,
00:07:24 --> 00:07:31 it never will ever give us the satisfaction that lasts because every single human being has planted
00:07:31 --> 00:07:40 deep inside of them. A longing for the eternal. Deep inside of them. Even the very best marriages
00:07:40 --> 00:07:52 will end. The best car will rust. The best holiday becomes a mere photo. It all leaves us longing for something
00:07:52 --> 00:08:01 else. It might be a longing for a body or a mind that we've never had or the approval that we've never
00:08:01 --> 00:08:06 had or a home that we've never had or a beach or not on today but a beach or a wave that we've never had.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:13 A family we've never had. Whatever it is, these chapters here in the climax of all things
00:08:13 --> 00:08:22 says that every one of our desire for fulfillment and satisfaction and contentment is coming.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:34 That is the Christian hope. Whatever it is, it's coming. Verse 3 tells us why it will be so right
00:08:34 --> 00:08:45 and why all of our hopes and our expectations will be fulfilled. Now the dwelling of God is with people
00:08:45 --> 00:08:51 and he will live with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them and be
00:08:51 --> 00:08:57 their God. That's what we were created for. It's what we see right at the very beginning of the Bible.
00:08:57 --> 00:09:05 God and his creation living together in perfect harmony. It's what his plan was all along with his
00:09:05 --> 00:09:12 people in the Garden of Eden. Having created all that is and at the end of six days of creating,
00:09:12 --> 00:09:20 it says that God rested on the seventh day. And if you look in the creation accounts,
00:09:20 --> 00:09:27 the seventh day does not have a morning and evening. The seventh day has no end.
00:09:28 --> 00:09:36 Rest, everything in harmony and peace of God and humanity dwelling together in perfection
00:09:36 --> 00:09:43 was the goal of creation of all things. All things in their proper order and in harmony.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:53 That's the goal. And here at the end of all things, we read at the end of the Bible,
00:09:53 --> 00:10:01 God is again dwelling with his people. He has always planned and desired to be with his people
00:10:01 --> 00:10:10 in a state of perfect harmony. Rest, harmony, flourishing for eternity is the goal.
00:10:12 --> 00:10:19 And when we lost our relationship with God back in Genesis 3, we lost every relationship.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:30 Even our relationship with our true selves fell apart in such a way, depending on what's happening
00:10:30 --> 00:10:36 in my life, I feel like I'm in a carnival of mirrors. I walk, I'm not sure which one is the
00:10:36 --> 00:10:43 true reflection of me. Am I short and stubby? Am I tall and thin? Am I upside down? Am I back the front?
00:10:43 --> 00:10:52 I don't know who I truly am. I've lost even my sense of who I am. Adam and Eve immediately began to
00:10:52 --> 00:10:59 experience fear and anxiety and their relationship with each other fell apart right at the beginning
00:10:59 --> 00:11:04 when they chose to reject their creator. Their relationship with the physical world fell apart.
00:11:04 --> 00:11:10 They began to experience aging and disease and pain and death. And when our relationship with God
00:11:10 --> 00:11:17 falls apart, all other relationships fall apart. Restlessness, constant restlessness is the
00:11:17 --> 00:11:25 consequence. And when the relationship with God is put right, every other relationship is put right.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:33 Everything sad and broken and wrong will be wiped away. That's what's coming. That's the picture of
00:11:33 --> 00:11:41 the end of all things. And so heaven, as it's described here, is a place of endless joy and happiness
00:11:41 --> 00:11:48 and freedom and fulfillment and beauty and love and contentment. It is a place of rest.
00:11:50 --> 00:11:57 Conversely, the future for the inhabitants of Babylon, as it's described here, the picture of those,
00:11:57 --> 00:12:03 the kingdom that rejects God, is one of darkness and despair and loneliness.
00:12:03 --> 00:12:09 The future for the members of the new Jerusalem, the bride of Christ, the church is light and joy
00:12:09 --> 00:12:18 and intimate relationship. And that's why we see in the second half of chapter 21, in verse 9,
00:12:18 --> 00:12:23 one of the angels says to John, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb, and he carried me
00:12:23 --> 00:12:32 away to the spirit, to the mountain great and high, and he showed me the holy city. And he's taken away
00:12:32 --> 00:12:38 this moment. John, who writes, he's taken away to see the bride, the wife of the lamb, and what he sees
00:12:38 --> 00:12:45 instead is, you know, he's probably imagining he's going to see someone with a big white dress and a
00:12:45 --> 00:12:53 violin. Instead, let me show you the bride, let me show you the wife of the lamb, and he takes me and I see a city.
00:12:53 --> 00:13:05 And the details of the rest of the chapter reveal it's a highly unusual city. It's a huge city. And in fact,
00:13:05 --> 00:13:15 it's unusual because it's a, it's this massive cube, 2200 kilometers by 2200 kilometers by 2200 kilometers.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:28 And you go, well, what's that all about? Well, it's symbolic. The measurements of the great city,
00:13:29 --> 00:13:37 the hope of, of those who trust in Jesus is symbolic. You see, this cube echoes the measurements
00:13:37 --> 00:13:45 of the most holy place in Solomon's temple in 1 Kings 6. The whole city now is, is what's saying here?
00:13:45 --> 00:13:51 The whole city is now the most holy place where God dwells with his people permanently.
00:13:53 --> 00:14:01 In the past, only the high priest could, and only once a year, and only under very,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:10 very specific preparation rituals. And it's saying here that the blood of Jesus
00:14:10 --> 00:14:18 has opened the way now for all to enter and for all to permanently dwell in the presence of God.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:28 And the jewels of the high priest breastplate from the Old Testament, which, which were jewels,
00:14:28 --> 00:14:34 which represented the people of God, are now embedded into the, the, the, the walls of the city.
00:14:36 --> 00:14:41 The old temple had one entrance. This one has gates on all four sides,
00:14:41 --> 00:14:44 welcoming people from all four corners of the world.
00:14:46 --> 00:14:56 This, the temple was a symbol of God's presence. And now the symbol has been given away to reality.
00:14:56 --> 00:15:08 And John sees something so magnificent, so incomprehensible, that he grabs for language and symbols
00:15:08 --> 00:15:16 to try and describe that which is so perfect and so magnificent and so eternal.
00:15:18 --> 00:15:24 This is a city that contains all of God's people. That is what the numbers signify.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:28 It's about the size of the world as they knew it at the time.
00:15:30 --> 00:15:38 The thick walls, the angelic watchmen on each gate, the gates which never close,
00:15:38 --> 00:15:45 are references to its, its safety, its security, its permanency.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:51 Perfect relationship with God, all people, and the whole created order.
00:15:51 --> 00:15:59 And John's grasping for language to try and give us a picture.
00:16:00 --> 00:16:08 How do you describe a world where everything negative, broken, evil, sinful, decaying,
00:16:09 --> 00:16:15 dark, destructive, wrong, every single element is taken out.
00:16:15 --> 00:16:25 And all that is left is everything good, perfect, whole, light, righteous, loving, kind, and magnified.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:33 And we start to get a glimpse of what forever with God will be like because of the cross.
00:16:34 --> 00:16:39 Revelation 21, verses 4 and 5 kind of sum it up perfectly.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:44 He, which referring to God, will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:53 There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away.
00:16:54 --> 00:17:00 He who was seated on the throne says, I am making everything new.
00:17:00 --> 00:17:05 It is such a beautiful and intimate image.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:09 Intimate image.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:16 God's perfect future for you where he will stoop down and wipe away every tear.
00:17:17 --> 00:17:18 Every tear.
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 That's the nature of the Christian hope.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:28 The future hope of those who put their trust in Jesus.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:30 And so how do we receive that?
00:17:31 --> 00:17:33 How do you get this future hope?
00:17:33 --> 00:17:39 And the simple answer is, which is what we just looked at in the last couple of weeks,
00:17:41 --> 00:17:47 is believing in both the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ
00:17:47 --> 00:17:51 and holding onto that as your hope in life.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:58 Jesus' death is alluded to in verse 6 where it says,
00:17:58 --> 00:18:03 To him who is thirsty, I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 So if you weren't here in the last couple of weeks,
00:18:07 --> 00:18:11 let me just touch base with you on what's happening here.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:15 The John who gets this glimpse of vision here in Revelation
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 is the same John who wrote John's gospel.
00:18:18 --> 00:18:26 And on Good Friday, we looked at John chapter 4 where Jesus meets a woman at a well
00:18:26 --> 00:18:30 and says that he can give her water that will mean that she will never thirst again.
00:18:31 --> 00:18:38 Jesus in that moment is talking about eternal life and giving her a deep, deep satisfaction in the soul
00:18:38 --> 00:18:44 where she's pursued everything else in life to try and meet that hole that's in her life.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 And Jesus says,
00:18:46 --> 00:18:51 I can give you a water that will flow over into eternal life.
00:18:52 --> 00:18:58 And Jesus was offering her in that moment a foretaste of this new heaven and new earth.
00:18:58 --> 00:19:05 And the point that I made on Good Friday is that the deepest longings of our lives,
00:19:06 --> 00:19:12 the longing for love, the longing for value, the longing for life never to end,
00:19:12 --> 00:19:17 are satisfied in and only in and by Jesus.
00:19:17 --> 00:19:20 And Jesus offers it entirely to us for free.
00:19:20 --> 00:19:27 Not through religious performance, not through moral effort, not through anything.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:31 He offers it, as it says, without cost.
00:19:32 --> 00:19:33 Without cost.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:35 And how do you get that?
00:19:37 --> 00:19:41 I mentioned that at the end of John's gospel, we have Jesus on the cross.
00:19:42 --> 00:19:45 And he says several things when he's on the cross.
00:19:45 --> 00:19:50 And one thing he says is, I am thirsty.
00:19:50 --> 00:19:54 Now, that's just not physical thirst, because he also said,
00:19:55 --> 00:19:57 my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
00:19:58 --> 00:20:04 So on the cross, Jesus is experiencing cosmic thirst that we deserve
00:20:04 --> 00:20:10 so that we instead can have the spring of the water of life.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:15 So on the cross, Jesus was experiencing cosmic hopelessness
00:20:15 --> 00:20:17 so that we could experience living hope.
00:20:18 --> 00:20:21 On the cross, he took the curse of God for our sin
00:20:21 --> 00:20:25 so that we can experience an eternal future with blessing.
00:20:26 --> 00:20:33 On the cross, the sun went out at midday and darkness fell
00:20:33 --> 00:20:38 so that we could experience an eternal future of light and glory.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:41 And safety.
00:20:42 --> 00:20:47 Jesus was nailed to the cross of death so that we can have eternal access
00:20:47 --> 00:20:49 to the tree of life.
00:20:49 --> 00:20:54 So the foundation of the Christian hope is the work of Jesus
00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 in taking our place as a sacrifice for our sin
00:20:58 --> 00:21:06 and turning the judgment that we deserve for rejecting our creator
00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 away from us.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:17 Jesus, God the Son, enters the world he made to rescue rebellious humanity
00:21:17 --> 00:21:21 by willingly placing himself under his own judgment on the cross.
00:21:21 --> 00:21:26 He diverted God's wrath for our sin onto himself.
00:21:28 --> 00:21:33 So the gospel, the Christian gospel, is the reversal of all things.
00:21:33 --> 00:21:37 I think the theologian John Calvin expressed it beautifully.
00:21:38 --> 00:21:43 He was sold to buy us back, captive to deliver us, condemned to absolve us,
00:21:44 --> 00:21:47 cursed for our blessing, marred that we might be fair,
00:21:47 --> 00:21:54 died for our life so that by him fury is made gentle, wrath appleased.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:59 Darkness turned into light, fear reassured, debt cancelled,
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 labour lightened, sadness made merry, misfortune made fortunate,
00:22:04 --> 00:22:11 difficulty easy, disorder ordered, division united, rebellion subjected,
00:22:11 --> 00:22:16 assaults assailed, vengeance avenged, torment tormented,
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 damnation damned, the abyss sunk into the abyss,
00:22:20 --> 00:22:24 hell transfixed, death dead, mortality made immortal.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:31 In short, mercy has swallowed up all misery and goodness, all misfortune.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:34 That is the Christian hope.
00:22:35 --> 00:22:39 It's all placed on Christ, on the cross, and it's the great reversal.
00:22:39 --> 00:22:43 He gets what we deserve and we get everything that is his.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:53 The resurrection of Jesus guarantees that he has accomplished it, all of it.
00:22:53 --> 00:22:59 And it confirms that he is God and guarantees the future of all who trust in him.
00:23:01 --> 00:23:05 His resurrection is a promise to us that this world is not everything
00:23:05 --> 00:23:07 and there is hope beyond it.
00:23:07 --> 00:23:15 His resurrection guarantees our resurrection with him and therefore guarantees our hope.
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 So how do we live for that future hope?
00:23:20 --> 00:23:24 What does it mean to live day by day with such a future hope?
00:23:25 --> 00:23:32 For too many, I think, Christians, we view the Christian hope as like an insurance policy.
00:23:32 --> 00:23:36 It's there when you need it, you pull it out.
00:23:37 --> 00:23:40 You know, you have an accident in your car, you pull the insurance policy out.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:45 As opposed to a registration certificate which attaches my name to the vehicle
00:23:45 --> 00:23:48 and it's on the very basis that I use the vehicle day by day.
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 What does it mean to live day by day?
00:23:53 --> 00:23:58 It's common for Christians to believe that the cross alone saves us from our sins
00:23:58 --> 00:24:05 and the resurrection is this wonderful, wonderful miracle that proves Jesus was God
00:24:05 --> 00:24:07 and that our sins are forgiven.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:14 If you like, the resurrection for too many is the happy ending of the gospel.
00:24:15 --> 00:24:21 Sort of like after the darkness of the cross, we kind of need to call Hollywood in
00:24:21 --> 00:24:24 just to clean it all up for us a little bit, you know,
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28 and to finish an ending like a positive happy ending.
00:24:29 --> 00:24:32 But the resurrection of Jesus is fundamentally so much more than that.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:36 It is not just for Easter, it is for all of our life.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:41 Too many of us, I think, just don't notice statements like Romans 4.25,
00:24:42 --> 00:24:47 which declares that Jesus was raised for our justification.
00:24:47 --> 00:24:53 And to be a Christian is to know the power of his resurrection in Philippians 3.10.
00:24:53 --> 00:25:01 The resurrection is a source of salvation and life and power to the Christian right now.
00:25:02 --> 00:25:10 It is true that the resurrection of Jesus was a display, a magnificent display of God's power.
00:25:10 --> 00:25:16 But it is so much more than the ultimate miracle.
00:25:16 --> 00:25:24 It is not so much a suspension of the natural order of the world,
00:25:24 --> 00:25:30 and it is the beginning of the restoration of the natural order of the world.
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 That's what the resurrection is.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:36 The resurrection of Jesus is unique.
00:25:37 --> 00:25:43 The resurrection is not just hope for the future that hopefully I will get there in the end.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 It is hope for the future.
00:25:45 --> 00:25:56 It is the mighty declaration of God that the future kingdom of God that he has promised is now present.
00:25:57 --> 00:26:00 The resurrection is the breaking in of the kingdom.
00:26:04 --> 00:26:08 The resurrection of Jesus is not a great spectacle.
00:26:08 --> 00:26:14 It is an invasion in human history.
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 The cross and the resurrection together, and only together,
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 bring the future new creation.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:29 The omnipotent power through which God renews and heals the entire universe
00:26:29 --> 00:26:31 comes into our very presence.
00:26:32 --> 00:26:38 Right now, the risen Christ sends those who trust in Jesus
00:26:38 --> 00:26:40 the Holy Spirit.
00:26:40 --> 00:26:45 The Holy Spirit, and both Christ and his Spirit, unites us with Jesus.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:53 We have the down payment, the first installment of the future triumph over death,
00:26:54 --> 00:27:01 and of our own new, regenerated, remade, renewed physical world.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:08 The great gift of the resurrection is that the future comes into us now,
00:27:08 --> 00:27:15 and it frees us from shame, guilt, and fear.
00:27:15 --> 00:27:26 The hope of Revelation 21-22 is not in the present right now for us,
00:27:26 --> 00:27:32 who are those who are in Christ fully, but it is substantially.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:38 The Christian can expect a substantial renewal,
00:27:38 --> 00:27:43 but not total renewal in all areas of life.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:50 If we make the mistake of overstressing the now aspect of the kingdom of God
00:27:50 --> 00:27:51 because of the resurrection,
00:27:51 --> 00:27:58 we will be overly optimistic and naive about the possibilities of revival
00:27:58 --> 00:28:00 and change and transformation.
00:28:00 --> 00:28:04 And therefore, we will expect quick fixes to problems,
00:28:05 --> 00:28:09 and we will be dismayed with the ongoing suffering and tragedy of our world.
00:28:11 --> 00:28:15 If we overstress the not yet aspect of the kingdom,
00:28:16 --> 00:28:19 and it's just there in the future, but not so much now,
00:28:20 --> 00:28:23 we will be too pessimistic about personal change,
00:28:24 --> 00:28:27 too pessimistic about change within the church and change within society.
00:28:27 --> 00:28:31 This sort of Christian plays it entirely safe.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:35 It's more like the insurance policy.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:39 Emotionally disconnects from church,
00:28:39 --> 00:28:44 moves churches constantly looking for the thing that's going to satisfy their immediate needs,
00:28:45 --> 00:28:49 and withdraws from society in fear of being polluted from society.
00:28:50 --> 00:28:56 The incomparable great power with which God raised Jesus from the dead
00:28:56 --> 00:29:05 is now in us, according to Romans 8.23 and Ephesians 1.19 and 20.
00:29:06 --> 00:29:13 And that is why Romans 13, 11 to 13, Galatians 6.15 and 1 Corinthians 6.1 and 2
00:29:13 --> 00:29:21 call us to live every day in light of our future new creation
00:29:21 --> 00:29:25 because that new creation has burst into the life of the Christian now.
00:29:27 --> 00:29:32 We participate in the new future renewal of all things in the way we live now.
00:29:34 --> 00:29:39 The resurrection of Jesus changes absolutely everything for the Christian
00:29:39 --> 00:29:42 because you are part of a new kingdom.
00:29:42 --> 00:29:46 It changes how we conduct our relationships,
00:29:46 --> 00:29:49 our attitudes towards wealth and power,
00:29:49 --> 00:29:50 what we do with our time,
00:29:51 --> 00:29:52 how we work on our vocations,
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 our understanding and practice of sexuality,
00:29:55 --> 00:29:58 race relations, social justice.
00:29:58 --> 00:30:03 The cross and resurrection give us the shape of the Christian life
00:30:03 --> 00:30:06 and how we interact with all of life now.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:13 The person who knows that their destiny is guaranteed and it is certain
00:30:13 --> 00:30:20 and it is glorious because of the radical love and sacrifice of a forgiving God
00:30:20 --> 00:30:26 will be entirely free to live the most radical life of love and service
00:30:26 --> 00:30:27 here on earth right now.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:35 It's the hope of eternal rest of safety and love in the end
00:30:35 --> 00:30:41 that releases radical sacrificial love in the present
00:30:41 --> 00:30:49 and that should cause the Christian to move away from lives of self-centeredness,
00:30:51 --> 00:30:55 lives of flimsy loyalties to Jesus,
00:30:55 --> 00:30:59 lives of undisciplined devotion,
00:31:00 --> 00:31:02 presumption on God's patience
00:31:02 --> 00:31:08 into people whose lives are consistently living for something
00:31:08 --> 00:31:12 more than self-preservation, self-praise and self-fulfillment.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:18 We are being made into the image of our Saviour
00:31:18 --> 00:31:21 who gave himself for all.
00:31:21 --> 00:31:25 And so just before Easter,
00:31:25 --> 00:31:30 we went through our vision series of seven rhythms of grace.
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 Spiritual disciplines, if you want to use that language.
00:31:33 --> 00:31:37 And if I'd had the four thoughts, a wonderful thing, isn't it?
00:31:37 --> 00:31:38 If I'd been able to...
00:31:38 --> 00:31:40 I just would have called them rhythms of hope.
00:31:41 --> 00:31:42 It would have been another way of putting it.
00:31:42 --> 00:31:47 Each one of our rhythms, those seven rhythms,
00:31:47 --> 00:31:50 constantly put the gospel in front of us
00:31:50 --> 00:31:54 and constantly put our future hope in front of us.
00:31:55 --> 00:31:55 Constantly.
00:31:57 --> 00:31:58 As we pursue them,
00:31:58 --> 00:32:01 so our hearts are shaped by our future hope.
00:32:02 --> 00:32:05 The Christian is not a citizen of this city in the future.
00:32:06 --> 00:32:07 They are part of it now.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10 And this means that to some degree,
00:32:11 --> 00:32:12 to some degree,
00:32:13 --> 00:32:18 we can wipe away the tears of our city now
00:32:18 --> 00:32:22 through acts of selfless love and mercy and justice.
00:32:23 --> 00:32:28 The Christian hope is a life-transforming, living hope.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:31 It's not an abstract idea.
00:32:33 --> 00:32:36 We human beings are hope-shaped creatures.
00:32:36 --> 00:32:41 And the Christian hope is a hope that is a gift to us.
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 Not a single one of us deserves it.
00:32:46 --> 00:32:48 And it transforms the way we live.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:51 If your hope, for instance,
00:32:51 --> 00:32:55 let me just pick up the area of our current day.
00:32:55 --> 00:32:57 You might have noticed as you walked in.
00:32:58 --> 00:33:02 If your hope is which government sits in parliament in Canberra,
00:33:02 --> 00:33:08 it will entirely shape the way you pursue this election.
00:33:11 --> 00:33:13 And if you want to see that in practice,
00:33:13 --> 00:33:15 come along here Monday to Friday.
00:33:16 --> 00:33:16 It'll come here next Saturday.
00:33:17 --> 00:33:18 And you'll see it in practice.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:21 If that is your hope,
00:33:21 --> 00:33:23 if your hope is in your team winning,
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26 you'll be devastated when they don't.
00:33:26 --> 00:33:34 Christianity declares that there is no other or greater hope
00:33:34 --> 00:33:35 than Jesus Christ.
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 And billions around this world have discovered it
00:33:39 --> 00:33:41 in the last 2 years.
00:33:42 --> 00:33:45 And the closing verses of Revelation,
00:33:45 --> 00:33:46 So first of all,
00:33:47 --> 00:33:48 if you're a Christian,
00:33:49 --> 00:33:50 pursue life in the city,
00:33:51 --> 00:33:52 the eternal city right now,
00:33:52 --> 00:33:53 in the way you live.
00:33:56 --> 00:33:57 Pursue it now.
00:33:57 --> 00:33:58 Secondly,
00:33:58 --> 00:34:01 if you are not someone who has embraced Jesus,
00:34:01 --> 00:34:04 let me just take you to Revelation 22 verse 17.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:07 It's an invitation to you this day.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:09 On the back of Easter,
00:34:10 --> 00:34:11 the spirit and the bride say,
00:34:11 --> 00:34:11 come.
00:34:13 --> 00:34:13 Come.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:16 And let the one who hears,
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 let the one who hears this message today,
00:34:19 --> 00:34:20 come.
00:34:21 --> 00:34:22 Let the one who is thirsty,
00:34:22 --> 00:34:23 come.
00:34:24 --> 00:34:27 Let the one who wishes take the free gift
00:34:27 --> 00:34:29 of the water of life.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:32 And so this Easter,
00:34:33 --> 00:34:35 in a age of uncertainty,
00:34:35 --> 00:34:39 as confidence in the future declines
00:34:39 --> 00:34:40 in our own country,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:42 come now to Jesus
00:34:42 --> 00:34:44 and find rest for your souls.
00:34:45 --> 00:34:46 Come to Jesus
00:34:46 --> 00:34:49 and discover a living hope
00:34:49 --> 00:34:52 and live the life of the saved
00:34:52 --> 00:34:53 and thankful
00:34:53 --> 00:34:55 despite your circumstances.
00:34:55 --> 00:34:55 Amen.