Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them.
They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. But the old order of things has passed away.
He was seated on the throne and said, I am making everything new. Then He said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. He said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
To the thirsty, I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray.
Father, we believe, indeed, we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Grant to watch this transformative, substantial, life-giving hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. I mean... So every visionary that's made traction in this world has asked humanity to imagine a world that's different to our own.
And so, for example, to imagine a world without slavery, that will be will be a will before us. Or to imagine a world without war, or without cancer, a world that is more just and with less suffering. The great speeches of our time are peppered with such hope and probably the most well-known and recent example is MLK's I Have A Dream. Great visionaries speak with clarity and boldness and cadence, sometimes for good, but not always, not always.
Often, they think they're speaking for good, and then they go on and decimate lives with utopian dreams. Adolph Hitler being the example of par excellence. They have their own vision of neatness. Chilling, isn't it, neatness and justice.
Leaving strong, for example. Either way, they tap into something that's deep in the human heart. Most of us believe that this is not as good as we're willing to believe what he or otherwise. And so we had this nagging feeling that something more seemed promised that we believed somehow in a better world.
Mark Mackenzie, whom I don't know, once tweeted, of Canada, once tweeted, I believe we can build a better world. Of course, it'll take a lot of rock, water and dirt. Also, I'm not sure where to put it. Cheeky.
Jesus believed in a better world. He called it the Kingdom of God. But he knew that it didn't come bubbling up from humanity. It came, or it comes from God.
Our theme for 2026 is all things new. And it comes from our text this evening, Revelation 21 verse 5. Here it is. Amid a sea of suffering for Christ, present sentences, death by the sword.
Comes this revelation. It has to be a revelation. From the risen Jesus, who was the one seated on God's throne, he said, I am making, I am present tense, making. Everything, everything new.
When the King James Version, behold, I make all things new. This is God's vision for the world. The risen Jesus is quoting the prophet, I, you heard it a moment ago. Forget the form of things, Exodus and the luck.
Do not dwell on the past, see or behold, said God, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? Don't you know it.
So Jesus is the bringer of newness and will explore this in 2026. Newness is a theme in the Bible and it does not mean novel, but rather renewal via resurrection. Last Sunday, if you were here, we said, we talked about you, new. Remember this in the Greek.
If anyone in Christ, new creation. Your part of what God is doing in the world starts with the individual and communities. But this week we lift our eyes up higher to God, but more than that of the universe. Because the power of Christ's resurrection spills into all creation.
This week all things new. Do you not perceive it? That's how we'll end this evening. So I'm going to work through Revelation 21.
I believe that Christ gives us a bold future and a bold present, a bold future and a bold present. And I want to talk about how we're going to learn to perceive it in 2026. So firstly, a bold future. In the Revelation of St John, the bold future is named the new Jerusalem.
Not the old one, certain not the current one. It's in verse one. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. It's a quote from Isaiah 65.
For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, or former things. And there was no longer any sea, a symbol of chaos and evil. Then I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem. And it's an image, I don't know how, you know, I cannot tell.
But this I know. Here, coming down, a new Jerusalem being delivered. Right. Out of heaven, out of the sky.
I think it's a metaphor, an image of something. I'll come to that in a moment. But the point here is that it's a new Jerusalem. So four things to say.
Number one, though it be new, it's promised of old. The idea of a new Jerusalem doesn't just pop into John's head in the Revelation. And it doesn't come because he wants to believe in a better place, like many of us do. So it's not wishful thinking or a gut feeling.
Rather, the whole book of Revelation is drawing on the whole history of Israel. The promise of God from the beginning to renew all things. It comes through. It comes to Abraham, that through his descendants and his seed, his descendant.
He will bless the whole world. It comes through the story of the Exodus, that God will come with a mighty and an outstretched arm. You know, side note, they did not expect God to eventually have unarmed with tendons and skin and veins, that incarnation. It comes through the promises of David, that the Messiah will come to rescue and renew this broken world.
And then the end will come. The end will come. Now, this is all behind Isaiah's prophecy. For example, in verse 16, this is what the Lord says, he who made a path through the sea, that's the Exodus, a path through the mighty waters, forget the form of things.
He's not saying don't read your Bible. He's saying, that's not the future. Don't dwell on the past. He goes to Paul saying, forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what is ahead.
Don't dwell on the past. The prophet says, see, I am doing a new thing. See how Jesus quotes that? Now it springs up.
Do you not perceive it? And specifically in Isaiah, John quotes chapter 65, hundreds of years before Jesus and John who wrote Revelation, see, I will create new heavens and new earth. The vision is higher than a city called Jerusalem. The form of things will not be remembered nor will they come to mind, but a whole brand new thing.
But be glad and rejoice forever. So that's what's being promised. I don't know how to say it anymore clearly than this. And I get how God smacking what I'm saying is somebody came to me this morning and said, you know, I'm hearing you thinking, that's so bold, a whole new universe.
The temptations to read the science books and say, oh, it all ends in 4 billion years when the sun becomes a giant dwarf. No, not according to the plans and purposes of God. A whole new universe. That's the promise.
That's how this ends. And you must see how the word ends works. It actually means telos or goal. And so the end isn't the end of all things, meaning there's nothing after it, but rather the beginning of all new things or renewed things.
And if you don't understand what that means, let me draw an illustration from the Truman Show. I'll give a spoiler, but it's been like 30 years. So, you know, you might have to get over it. The Truman Show is a stunning show.
I watch it every two years or so. The Truman Burbank is a reality TV character who has been the star of a show since birth, but he doesn't know it because he's in his own whooping great big bubble in North Los Angeles. But the hope of his liberation into the real world held by fans in the real world who think he's trapped, that hope is summed up by a badge. How is it going to end?
How's it going to end? End, normally means a death, you know? How's it going to end with his death? That's not how it ends, of course.
The answer is that it ends in a new beginning. It's the same here in the book of Revelation. But with Jesus' new beginning, the revolution or the renewal is not just a few gains, like the end of slavery, but it goes on really with modern slavery or the curbing of cancer, but it goes on because people die less suffering, but rather, eventually, a new heavens and a new earth. And I think sadly for some of us, the hope is too audacious.
You've got to work tomorrow, too audacious. And so we wish for less. And we go collecting scraps of hope from politicians rather than feasting on the meal. And I think that makes us open to utopian visions of the future which can decimate lives.
So can you see it? Do you not perceive it? John isn't sitting down to scribe a remarkable literary piece in Revelation, rather he's drinking deep of the promises of God, in promise of all. It also comes down.
We don't go up. Many songs we sing and hymns we sing are about going up into heaven when we die, and we just sung one as I go from earth to eternity, as I go from earth to eternity. And the earth renew, rather, the holy city comes down to earth. May your will be done, may your kingdom come, your will done on earth as it is in heaven.
I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. Now don't miss hear me. When a believer dies in Christ, they depart with Christ, which is better by far. In that sense, in heaven, but the ultimate hope is in resurrection of the body, your bodies.
That God will renew this world that he made and loves, he wants it back, and resurrect our bodies to be like, Christ's resurrected body and placed in this new heavens and new earth. It's important because your hope is not just clouds and wings and a harp. I'm not the first person to say that sounds boring. Rather, Matthew 19, it's about the renewal of all things.
Jesus said it, the regeneration. At the regeneration, Jesus said, Christians have the conviction that God made the world and he wants it back. We have the conviction that God owns the world and he'll get it back. And that vision is comprehensive.
And it doesn't just happen slowly over time through politics, maybe things will get better. Even if we just dialogue and sort out humanity's problems. That's called progressivism. As good as progression is, no one could disagree with that.
Progressivism is a sense that God is doing his thing to the politicians, through the votes and through the community organizers. And although many of those things mirror the values of Jesus Christ, they do. They certainly do. Here in Revelation, there's a decisive moment.
I saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. That is on a day when you least expect that Jesus said, I assume cheekily, I will come like a thief in the night. But I will come to Jesus. Creation weights in Eagle longing for the children of God to be revealed.
And over in a Michael Byron Smith blog, he wrote, instead of our hope being located elsewhere from heaven to eternity or up there in heaven, instead of our hope being located elsewhere, it might be less confusing to see of it being located elsewhere. When will God renew the world? It's no wonder we look for the resurrection of the dead, and yearn for it and the life of the world to come. So it comes down, we don't go up.
And thirdly, it's about the presence of God and therefore it's about life, not mere happiness. There's not about playing golf for the first 10,000 years. It's not about playing the game they play in heaven. It's not about personal pleasure or mere happiness.
Some of us have a pedestrian view of this ultimate hope, rather the way John frames it in the revelation, drawing on old testament, temple language. It's about being with someone, not being with God. Verse 3, then I heard a loud voice, i.e. with conviction from the throne, i.e.
not just another human hope, saying, look, God's dwelling place is now among the people, like in the days of the temple, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. So those who want God, those who are thirsty for him, they get him. Those who are thirsty, they get to drink. In other words, for any of us who have struggled with the invisibility of God, and I have, for any of us who have wondered where is God when it hurts or when you're struggling, ultimately you get God.
You get the Father. Verse 7, those who are victorious will inherit all this, despite being put in prison, despite being killed with the sword, and I will be their God, and they will be my children, God's the prize. Therefore life is the prize, and not death, because this hope fourthly is about the absence of death, not mere improvement. Eventually verse 4, he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Just quietly, I'm hoping for tears of joy, I'm hoping for them, my secret hope. But here, of course, it's the tears of suffering. He'll wipe them away, like the fingers of God under your eyelids. There'll be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things that's passed away.
I'm doing something new. Jesus, here is quoting those I, 25, God will swallow up death forever, the sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There'll be no more death.
That's a quote from my Zaj 25, and Jesus adds no mourning as well, no crying as well, no pain, no more pain for the old things, the old has passed away. How's that for a vision of the future? It's not better than I have a dream. Don't get me wrong, by the way, I have a dream, of course, extraordinarily beautiful things in the United States and other parts of the world.
But how about this for the arc of the universe is long and abends towards justice. You know, you say that with God. Now, somebody might say, how can this be? I have desires for a better world.
The concept that things should be a certain way is real in my life and can be tapped into. But all of this is hard to square up with, well, maybe it does square with the comprehensiveness of our desires. We want the world to be a certain way, and God is saying, I'll make it a certain way, according to my will. We want things changed across all manner of evils.
We're not just happy with the government to work on one thing at a time, or we want all manner of evils gone. We want it all. And I think, see us Lewis now this in his essay, the way of glory, and if I remember I'll put it on the WhatsApp channel. He says, if I find myself desires, which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.
Lewis goes on, when you have desires to eat, it's because there's an object of that desire, food. We have desire for love. Other people exist. We're strange to have desire for love if you're the only person on the planet.
We have thirst, water exists. But if we have a desire for a better world and one does not exist, it will be the only desire we have without an actual object. So for the thirsty, why is your hope? And where is your hope?
In the future, it'll come through his appearing, but there is, of course, a bold present. In the future, no more mourning, no more death, no more tears of pain, no suffering, no cancer, no war, no famine, no malnutrition, no more lousy elections, ones that aren't free and fair, no elections, but no oppression either, no vilification, no gossip, no stealing, no pride causing carnage on the ground. This is our hope, no more addictions, no alcoholism, no porn, no adultery, no rape, no child abuse, no violence to women, one exists, no disability, no stigmas, no racism, no sin, no violence, sexism, no ageism, no migraines, no backhacks, no illness at all, no confusion about who I am or where I'm going, just sons and daughters of the King orientated towards God as they should be. I'm watching utopia by the way, anybody watching utopia?
When everybody becomes the same. In the Kingdom of God, everybody keeps their individuality even as they interact in ways that are entirely righteous and according to the will of God. We have a bold future but also a bold present. This comes in disappearing, but in the present we hear, I am making all things new.
I am making all things new. So what Christ is doing in the world, what Christ is currently doing in the world in the renewal in the present is of utmost importance. For all of our lives, but certainly in 2026, crucially Jesus does not say I am making all new things as if he's going to discard with old people like you and me, but rather I am making all things new. It's about renewal, not abandonment.
And that's why the resurrection, to perfect bodies, in a renewed heaven and a new earth is central and crucial. And orthodox Christian, by the way, this is what I'm saying is nothing that hasn't been said for thousands of years since Jewish people prophesied it and the life of Jesus secured it. I am making all things new is in the present tense, but with a future certainty. It points to work already underway even as we await its completion.
It's spoken from the throne, so the divine throne, so it's not wishful thinking, but a royal decree, a divine royal decree, not spoken by a politician or a dictator intended to create their own vision of what is right, but rather the settled purpose of the one who reigns and therefore it is currently bold hope for weary people in a world marked by decay and grief and loss and death. These verses anchor Christian hope in Christ's future, but also in his present work. And this sermon, and indeed, 2026, is all about us knowing it, perceiving it what God is doing. Forget the form of things, do not go on the past.
One thing I do, forgetting what lies behind, and straining the water's ahead. I'm doing a new thing. I said, God, now it springs up, do you not perceive it? It's a challenge for us in 2026 to perceive what God is doing.
We wait patiently, but not passively. We actively wait, pressing into God and praying and expecting to see Him at work. We wait working towards this end, which is the beginning of all renewed things. And we work towards this end in whatever field God has chosen you to be in, whatever work, whatever loves, whatever neighbourhood.
And so we need to be better in 2026 at seeing where Christ is at work and naming it. It won't come to the politicians and dictators. So for example, we need to see the acts of sacrifice and determination and name it in others. I can see Christ in you, giving you strength.
I can see it. I can see all things being renewed in you. We need to see the acts of grace and forgiveness and nameth in ourselves and others. This is you liberated in an act of forgiveness and grace, liberated from bitterness, to be miraculously kind, not just to have empathy, miraculously kind.
We need to see overflowing generosity and sacrificial giving and nameth in others and in ourselves. His indescribable gift isn't working you. And we need to see those who are suffering miraculously well with faith even as they're dying and nameth. I can see how outward it would waste your way but I can see inwardly you're being renewed day by day.
God is using all things to make you more like Jesus Christ, more loving, more lovely, more like God. It might hurt. There might be pain that will be taken away but it is a mighty work in the present. We need to see you renewed in your love for family and those around you, neighbourhoods and work environments and no longer work in work environments according to the guts.
This person did that, I have a response this way. But rather to see things no longer from a worldly point of view that we once regarded Christ in this way we do so no longer. You're a new creation. We need to manage the difficulties and challenges, for example, to manage the depression seeking help where needed, surrendering to joy even as it's complicated in many of our lives.
We're refusing to promote and defend any addiction we might have and many of us do. After all Christ is in you, I promise you, Christ is in you the hope of glory. So we need to be peacemakers and not peacemakers, life givers and not life suckers. Seeing where he's at work in the world and we'll talk about this in 2026, this is how he perceive it in 2026.
He says, Lewis again, same essay, if this bold future is true, then it has implications for the present. He says, there are no ordinary people. There are no ordinary people. You've never talked to a mere mortal.
Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations, these are mortal. They come and go and their life is to ours as the life of a nat if the resurrection is true. But it is immortals who go in one of the other directions, as Lewis makes the point. It is immortals who we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit.
It means that we should carry on our business, he says, with a sobriety, the kind of merriment that is serious. So be Christ's in your workplace and in your families. Be Christ's in your schools and hospitals. Be Christ's in all your politics and your play by acts of love and reconciliation and peace borne out of grace and the work of Christ.
I'm done at the, don't be held back by the past. I'm exiled in Israel's sake or maybe regrets as is the case for us. When it takes seriously the word of God's prophet to forget the form of things, do not dwell on the past. See I'm doing a new thing.
It's a new day. Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? Let's pray.
Father, may we be challenged with such a hope. Not be daunted or overwhelmed but rather lifted up and changed and transformed by such a substantial hope. Most people we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit. Most people want a better world but they don't know where to go to get it.
It makes us human, very susceptible really to the whims of politicians and visionaries. But we have the mind of Christ. We have a settled, careful, hope in Him. And then power.
The power that raised Christ from did and work in us. Power. Grant us that power. Show it to us.
And may we show it in the lives of others. For Jesus' sake. I'm in.