REv 20
Notes
Transcript
Advent is the sunrise.
Revelation 20-22 is the sunset.
We see by the light of Christ in the world. He is our North Star and our waypoint.
We are led by that reality, the revealed Christ in the world until the very end.
Advent is the promise of the reality of the end. It is the beginning. We arrive in this Advent season at the conclusion.
We rejoice in the glory of God revealed in Christ and we wait in hope in the promise of the fulfillment of everything He has begun. We declare in hope He will finish it.
After Babylon has fallen. He remains
After the enemy is chained into the sea. He remains.
After hope in the world falls to despair. He remains
After the second death arrives. He remains.
Advent is taking “fearless inventory of the darkness.” We act fearlessly because we are upheld by the promises of Christ. He becomes more and better.
There is a reason the city is lit by the glory of God. We finally get to the point in Revelation when He is the completeness of all things.
God is God and He is our source. And we respond from that place.
We are held by Christ because of Advent. We are held by Christ because of His return. We can hold on from that position.
We are held by Christ because of Advent. We are held by Christ because of His return. We can hold on from that position.
And He doesn’t just remain. He returns to get us. He returns as a means to fulfill His promise. He told us that He was going to prepare a place for us and His return is the reality of that.
This is the second week of advent. The last four chapters of rev are an incredible look at what revelation really is.
It’s the understanding of Gods action I. The world that is starkly clear that God is acting, He alone is sovereign and is the actor in this relationship.
We see that in revelation that the relationship between God and man asymmetrical
He bears the weight.
He enters into our world
He lifts us up
Revelation is the reminder that Christ is working that Christ is the primary actor and that ours is a response
What Advent begins
Revelation concludes
Christ seizes the dragon
Opens the book of judgment
He judges
He determines the times.
We need to be reminded who has authority when it feels like everything is spinning out of control
We need to be reminded who will win because we live on one side of the resurrection where we need to apply trust and we need to live in faith.
We learn in revelation 20 that Christ enters the world once as a child who gave His life as a ransom for many.
Luke 2:8–14 (ESV)
And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
But He will enter the world again as a reigning king.
Revelation 19:11–15 (ESV): Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. 12 His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. 13 He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. 14 And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. 15 From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron
Christ has shown what kind of king He is during advent.
And He shows what it means for Him who will enter back into our world as reigning king.
The return of Christ as reigning King means that He will bring on the consequence of all evil. But what we read in Rev 20 is that His return is delayed 1000 years.
We know He is coming back. Rev 20 makes it clear that He will arrive again. The question is when.
And so the church is living in the middle, from the place of Christ’s first arrival to His final return to where He will settle everything that isn’t settled.
We are living in the middle. That is why Christ has called us to hang on. To believe. To hold on to something more.
To be held by Christ in the middle is to trust His resurrection. The Advent on one end and His return on the other. Being held by Him is trusting His resurrrection.
A Christian trusts that Christ will return and that Christ will raise us again into new bodies. That we belong to Christ and in His return we are taken with Him. If we die, we will be resurrected. Christ is the first one raised. Christians will follow. And that is our great trust and hope. And in that we can wait.
We are held because of the resurrection. We wait because everything surrounding that event is new life we experience
We are held because of the resurrection. We wait because everything surrounding that event is new life we experience
Christ’s resurrection and return is well documented within the Scriptures.
All of life is surrounded by death. We don’t talk that way but we know it. We fear death and dying. We revolt against sickness and weakness. We ignore that which gets too close to showing our mortality.
Christmas reminds us that for the Christian those days are over. We live with imaginations spent on Revelation 20, where we await Christ’s return we await with hope of new life. Not renewed life, or like a second wind. But new life.
Everything that surrounds the Advent, resurrection and return of Christ speaks to new life.
We live within the season of the resurrection. Everything the church experiences points to the reality of life.
Our trust is in the resurrection of Christ. And Christ will destroy death, the final enemy. That is Revelation 20. What we are waiting for.
This is why Christians throughout time have been able to wait in difficult circumstances. And why we can even have significant hope
Even when it looks like everything else is winning,
There is complete victory over evil and over death. There is complete victory over Satan.
Revelation 20:1–3 (ESV): Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. 2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.
Christ will return. He will reign. Our bodies will be restored and renewed.
Everything in Christ reveals new life. Even death itself, the most non life thing there is, is a symbol of the renewal of life.
In Christ even that which has been opposite is the offer of life. His death means life for us.
If what we are offered in Christ is life then everything He gives us, mercy, forgiveness, grace, is the essence of life.
That is something we can hope for and hope in.
Christmas is the promise.
Revelation is the reality.
We are held by Christ who gives us faith to hold on
We are held by Christ who gives us faith to hold on
To hope is to have a reality set in the future that is better than the present one. It is where we can experience a part of the truth in the current moment that fully exists in the future.
Look at Hebrews 11.
Hebrews 11:13–16 (ESV): These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city
We are suited, as those who follow Christ, to live eternally with Him. We are suited to trust Him even when things are dark.
Even when things are unsettled, Our reach spans beyond our immediate.
This is why your faith is valuable. We are called as a church to believe that Christ entered once into the world and that He will enter into our world again as King. He gives us parables in the Gospels about hanging on and waiting.
We hang on through faith. The faith you have is incredible valuable. It is a gift from God Himself and is likely the most valuable thing you have.
1 Peter 1:3–9 (ESV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
We have a living hope in an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. It is kept by Christ. Held by Him.
Faith itself, a gift from God, is the ability to hold onto Christ who is greater. To hold onto Him who holds onto us. To hold onto Him when life is hard and presses in. Faith maintains.
The ancient Christians knew something about this. I was just in Rome last week and we got to visit the catacombs. On the outskirts of the city of Rome there are caverns that ancient Christians dug into the ground. They were burial sites. In the site that we visited there were 13 miles of caverns where Christians would bury their dead and as well hide from the Romans. They would meet and worship there.
In these catacombs there were family tombs. Places that entire families would be buried. They were called dormatories. A dormitory is a place where you would go to sleep, to spend the night. But these early Christians called these burial sites dormatories because they anticipated resurrection.
Revelation 20, trusting that Christ will return. Trusting that HE will return for us, means that we have to choose now how we will spend the rest of our ADvent.
We can choose to define Christmas this year. As something that we stop at annually, pass by and then move onto the cold of January.
He turns places of death into dormatories.
Or Christmas becomes a place to reflect on the goodness, hope and joy that we have. We have much to hang onto.
Communion