"Finally Secure"

Dear Friends in Christ,         

   It was about 10 years ago that we had a very happy situation occur in our family.  Marilyn and I have a niece named Terra who lives in DuQuoin with her husband Patrick who is a doctor there.  Ten years ago they had no children and they decided that they wanted to adopt a child from Guatemala.  After months and mountains of paperwork, multiple interviews, and planning, praying, and preparing, they were finally notified of a little boy who was available for adoption and they flew down there to experience the culmination of this rather long and drawn out process.  They named their new son Victor and all was well.  But then it wasn’t long after that that they were notified by the adoption agency of a rather unusual situation that had developed.  Apparently another couple had also adopted a little boy and girl from Guatemala about the same age as Victor, but for some reason they no longer wanted the boy.  Or to put it another way, they wanted to un-adopt him, leaving him without parents and a home in a strange country.  So the adoption agency called Terra and her husband to see if they would be interested in adding this little boy to their household, thus giving Victor a brother.  They decided that this would be a good thing to do and in the best interests of all the parties involved, so they adopted little Nathan.  Then a few years later they had a son of their own to round out this trio of boys that they are now raising down there in DuQuoin.

   While that was a very happy occasion in our family, it also had a tinge of sadness to think of this little boy being un-adopted by the couple that originally wanted him.  Now I don’t know whether Nathan has any idea what happened back then or whether Terra and her husband will ever tell him, but if they do I suspect that he might wonder why his first parents un-adopted him and it might be possible that he would even fear being un-adopted again.  But you know what?  He’s not the only one to have that fear for I think we’ve all had it at some time or another – the fear of being un-adopted, the fear of being rejected not so much by our parents but by others.  It’s the fear that if people knew the real me, if they knew the story of my life and knew the details of my past, would they accept me?  Would they like me?  If those who sit next to me in church or school knew the mess inside me, would they change their minds about me? 

   We fear rejection.  We fear un-adoption.  And as a result, we try to hide our past.  We try to cover up our faults and flaws and imperfections because we don’t want anyone to know the real me.  We wake up in the morning and we put on our masks, our false fronts, as we go out to face the day.  Somebody asks us how we’re doing and we reply, “Oh, I’m doing great!  Couldn’t be better,” when in fact we might be dying on the inside.  We’re ashamed of things we’ve done wrong.  We’re embarrassed of mistakes we’ve made.  And we’re determined to not let our true colors or our true feelings show through for fear that people might think ill of us.   

   And sometimes this fear of being rejected by others spills over into our relationship with God.   We fear that since we can’t hide anything from him, since he sees all and knows all about us, then one of these days he’s going to have enough of us and he’s going to un-adopt us.  Recently I found myself visiting with an individual who felt that way.  This person felt that they just weren’t good enough to have a relationship with God and couldn’t imagine how or why he could ever love them.  And what a joy and privilege it was for me to explain to this person the meaning of grace, which is nothing less than God’s undeserved, unearned, unmerited kindness, favor, and love that he offers to us and lavishes upon us simply because that is his nature.  And what a joy and privilege it is for me today to share that same grace with all of you and to let you know that no matter what you’ve done wrong in your life, no matter how far you have fallen, God will never un-adopt you.  Like Paul says in Rom. 8:39, nothing “in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”   

   And in our text for today we find ample evidence of this as the Apostle John gives us a brief tour of what he calls the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city that will serve as part of the eternal dwelling place of God’s faithful people once all is said and done with this sin-filled and sin-cursed world.  In v.2 of our text he writes: “I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”  For a number of weeks now we’ve been studying the subject of heaven and where we will spend eternity in a sermon series that I have entitled “Homeward Bound.”  And as we study about the New Jerusalem today, I would submit to you that once we are finally home there, we will be what I’ve stated in my sermon title.  We will be finally secure.  And we will never worry again about being un-adopted by God.

   Now it might come as kind of a surprise to you to hear heaven – or at least part of it – described as a city.  In fact, that may actually conjure up inside of you negative feelings because if you’re anything like me, you don’t like big cities.  You stay as far away as possible from places like St. Louis or Chicago because you hate the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the crazy drivers, the road construction.  Sometimes when I drive home late in the afternoon for supper, I’ll be coming from the south like Mt. Vernon.  So I’ll turn off of Highway 37 onto the 161 extension.  I follow that to Bannister Road and turn north on that till it takes me to Rt. 50 which then takes me the rest of the way home.  But when I’m on Bannister Road, it’s not unusual for me to not see even one single car and I just revel in the lack of traffic as I think of those in St. Louis or Chicago who have to battle heavy traffic each and every day when they go to work and when they come home.

   So perhaps the idea of a heavenly city may not be all that appealing to you.  And especially a heavenly Jerusalem.  I’m picturing the 1^st century readers of this passage thinking, “Jerusalem?  You’ve got to be kidding!”  You see, by the time John wrote Revelation, Jerusalem was a ravaged city, having been leveled and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D.  While it was a city that had a glorious past, it also a sordid past.  It was the city where David seduced Bathsheba and plotted her husband’s death.  It was the city where David’s son, Solomon, built that beautiful temple to the glory of God but where he also built a reputation as a womanizer who had 700 wives and 300 concubines, many of whom turned his heart away from the Lord.  And while it was a place that saw many miracles over the centuries, it was also a place that witnessed child sacrifices, gross idolatry, hypocrisy, and heresy.  But most of all, it was the city whose inhabitants and leaders called for and arranged the execution of God’s Son.

   So a city?  Jerusalem?  Not exactly the best advertising campaign for this place where God’s people will be spending eternity.  And I think John recognizes this so he goes into great detail describing this city in Rev. 21 through a flurry of word pictures and images and symbols, all of which are designed to stir the imagination and ignite the enthusiasm of those who will one day reside there.  And the 1^st point he makes is this: In the New Jerusalem, God has sufficient space for us.  Yes, cities may be over-crowded today, but when it comes to the New Jerusalem, hang on to your hats, folks, because space will not be a problem there.  In v.16 of our text he says: “The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia (the equivalent of 1400 miles) in length, and as wide and high as it is long.”

   The size of this city is mind-boggling.  It’s large enough to encompass the land mass between the Appalachian Mts. and the West coast from Canada to Mexico.  It’s 40 times the size of England and 10 times the size of France.  The entire country of India could fit in the New Jerusalem.  And keep in mind, that’s just the ground floor.  Remember, John said it’s not only 1400 miles long and wide, but it’s also 1400 miles high.  If God chooses to build this city like architects build buildings today, there is room in the New Jerusalem for 600,000 stories.  Now some people think this is just imagery, that it’s symbolic.  And it may very well be.  But I don’t take it that way.  I believe that this massive city will one day sit upon God’s new and perfect earth that we talked about last week and it will serve as, how shall I put it, the capital city or the focal point of God’s new world.  But regardless of whether we take this description literally or symbolically, the message is clear: there will be plenty of room, plenty of un-crowded space there for all of God’s children.  And as if that isn’t enough, John makes it clear later on in this same chapter that the gates of the New Jerusalem will never be shut, so God’s people will be able to come and go as they please and they will have access to the rest of his renewed and restored earth. 

   So the picture of the New Jerusalem that John paints for us in our text reminds us that God has space for us.  Then secondly, it also reminds us that he has sufficient grace for us.  In speaking of the walls and gates of the city, John writes in vv.12-14: “It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel…The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”  Now it’s easy to read that passage rather quickly and miss the incredible message that it contains.  Whose names were written on the gates?  The names of the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel.  These were the 12 sons of Jacob.  Do you remember any of those fellows and do you remember what some of them did?  How about Simeon and Levi who once convinced a tribe of men to undergo circumcision and then while they were 3 days into their recovery and still in quite a bit of pain murdered them all in cold blood.  How about Judah who took a veiled harlot into his tent one day unaware that she was his daughter-in-law purposely disguised as a prostitute?  She became pregnant as a result of that one-time sexual encounter and he eventually became full of shame once it was disclosed what he had done and with whom he had done it.  Remember Reuben, the oldest son of Jacob, who slept with one of his father’s concubines?  And we can never forget what the 10 older brothers did to their younger brother Joseph when they sold him into slavery and then deceived their father into believing that he had been killed by a wild animal.  We could go on and on about these brothers.  And yet these are the names that are chiseled into the gates of the New Jerusalem.

   And dare we say anything about the names that are carved into the foundation, the names of the 12 apostles?  How about good old foot-in-the-mouth Peter who saved his skin rather than take a stand for his Savior?  How about James and John who on one occasion wanted to call down fire from heaven to destroy some Samaritans who wouldn’t let them pass through their territory and who on another occasion wanted Jesus to give them VIP treatment in heaven?  Or Thomas the dubious who demanded a personal visit from the resurrected Christ before he would believe?  These are the names on heaven’s honor roll?  Why, these are the very same men who told the children to leave Jesus alone, who told Jesus to leave the hungry alone, and who chose to leave Jesus alone in the Garden of Gethsemane when he was arrested there.  These are the names that are chiseled into the foundation of the New Jerusalem?  Yes, they are.  And all I can say is, aren’t we glad they are?  For we’re no better than they.  We too have committed plenty of failures.  We too have disappointed our Lord and forsaken our Savior more times than we can even remember.  We too have wished ill on other people and pridefully demanded that my will be done rather than Thy will be done.  But the names of the 12 sons of Jacob and the 12 apostles of Christ serve as powerful reminders to us that there is grace available for all who will come to the Lord with humble and repentant hearts, trusting in the saving work of Christ to get them safely there someday.

   So the New Jerusalem, a place where there is space for all and a place where there is grace for all.  And because there is space for you and grace for you, guess what?  You need never fear being un-adopted by God.  Instead, you can live each and every day with the full assurance and certainty that as long as you have Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, your eternity with him is 100% guaranteed.  And there you will be finally and forever secure. 

Amen.