Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] As we were planning the service this week, in staff meeting, Pastor Clay made an odd comment, which is, it's not unusual.
[00:00:11] But he looked at me and he said, I think we should sing Christmas songs in August.
[00:00:17] It kind of came out of nowhere, sounded crazy in the moment. But I understood what he meant. He was making a theological point.
[00:00:27] And it is that we should celebrate, or we could celebrate the Incarnation of Christ at any time.
[00:00:36] It should be a part of our life in celebrating that God took on flesh, became a man.
[00:00:43] It is what leads up to the cross and the Resurrection.
[00:00:49] So it's an important point of our theology that we should remember at all times and even celebrate.
[00:00:55] But in my mind, I immediately thought of singing Hark the Herald Angels sing at Easter.
[00:01:03] It just wouldn't feel right. Our sensibilities. It just doesn't feel right, even though that may have been when Jesus was born, the time of the year.
[00:01:12] But we wouldn't be able to sing on a cold winter's night that was so deep in September, unless you are Caitlin Duerson.
[00:01:22] And I asked her this week, many of you know Caitlin loves Christmas and starts celebrating it way too early.
[00:01:29] And I asked her this week, I said, caitlin, when was the first Christmas song that you sang this year?
[00:01:35] And she said, I don't want to admit it, but it was probably September, which is weird to me. That's odd. It doesn't make a lot of sense. We don't sing Easter song or it's okay to sing Easter songs throughout the year.
[00:01:50] And to me, it wouldn't be. It wouldn't be weird to sing Fourth of July songs or songs that we sing around then in the winter. That's actually good therapy. I actually do that sometimes.
[00:02:00] Bruce Springsteen in January is great, but it just doesn't feel right to sing Christmas songs, at least before Thanksgiving.
[00:02:11] And it's probably good that we reserve a time to just focus on the Incarnation and celebrate the Incarnation at a certain moment in the year. Kind of keeps it sacred to us.
[00:02:24] And we see something similar working out in Heaven's liturgy as we get to this point in our text. There is a new song that is being sung, and there is a song that can only be sung in light of the Lamb who is standing.
[00:02:43] The Lamb who is standing emerges on the scene, and it invokes this. What Heaven declares this new song. Remember last week, the question was asked, who can rule human history?
[00:02:57] Who can bring history to its end, to its. To its final consummation?
[00:03:03] Who is worthy to do this? Who holds the credentials to do this?
[00:03:08] And John sees a little pet slain lamb who is standing.
[00:03:16] And we are to realize that is Jesus.
[00:03:19] That that is a description of Jesus. That is imagery to remind us of Jesus back from the dead with scars in his hand and his side defeated death.
[00:03:33] And yet we get to this part of chapter four and chapter five. And in these two chapters there's five hymns that are sung by this heavenly choir. But this one here in the center that focuses on the Lamb's work is unique to him because as we've seen, he is the only one who can hold the scroll. He is the only one who can bring human history to its completion. And we see heaven sing this new song here. Notice verse 7.
[00:04:07] And he went up and took the scroll. The word for took here could actually be translated keep. He went up and got the scroll and he still has the scroll. And remember this scroll, it is God's plan for justice, for human history. He is going to bring human history to justice. And here in this book, what will unfold are blessings for God's people. What will unfold are the cursings for God's enemy. But this is God's book that he's going to give to his son, his King, the only one who can do this, Jesus, he's the only one with the credentials to do this. And we see in verse seven he walks up, takes the book from the right hand of him who is seated on the throne. And we talked about last week, this is the place of ultimate supreme authority. The throne of God in heaven is set apart. It is encircled in a way that, that it is unapproachable.
[00:05:10] You cannot just walk up to the throne in some trivial way.
[00:05:16] And here the lamb that was slain, Jesus just walks up to the throne and he gets God's plan for human history because he will be the one to execute it. And he still has it today. That is our hope that when Jesus took the scroll back from the dead, he says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. He is the one who is ruling right now. He has God's plan.
[00:05:46] But notice verse 8.
[00:05:48] And when he took, when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures. Now remember, these are wraith like creatures that are flying around heaven.
[00:05:59] The description in chapter four was that they have one with a face of the lion and one with the face of an eagle and an ox and a man. And it's just this weird description of these majestic, fear invoking creatures in heaven.
[00:06:16] And the description of them means that they hold all the power that you could have in the created order to protect God's set apart throne. And so this protected throne by these creatures, the Son of God just walks up. Jesus back from the dead just walks up and takes the scroll from this place of power.
[00:06:39] And notice when this happens also the 24 elders fell down to worship or fell down before the lamb. And so you have all power in the four living creatures and then you have all authority in the elders. These elders are the highest authority in heaven that surround the throne. They represent the saints of God. And, and so you have all power and all authority that is protecting the throne. And again Jesus just walks up and grabs the scroll, God's plan that he's going to execute. And all power and authority acknowledge it.
[00:07:16] The most powerful creatures in the cosmos, those with the most authority say no, no, no, he has more authority than we do. He has more power than we do. Jesus.
[00:07:29] This just reminds, this just tells us that what's going on here is an act of worship. Remember in chapter four, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. There is worship going on here.
[00:07:42] And notice they also have golden bowls full of incense or sensors full of incense. And throughout the Bible we see that this smoke was involved in worship. And it just symbolized the worship of the people of God that are, that is rising up to God, which in many places is described as a sweet smelling aroma to God. He delights in our worship. And here our worship has the utmost importance as these creatures and these angels present it to God on our behalf. But notice the description here, this incense which are the prayers of the saints.
[00:08:22] And so as these angelic beings present in worship the prayers of the saints, the logic here is we have found God's king.
[00:08:36] The Lamb that was slain that is now standing. He has the credentials, he has the ID to open up the scroll, the seven seals. His credentials match. And now that we found the Lamb, the one who is worthy to rule, what is of utmost importance at this point are the needs of his people. The prayers of the saints. They are crying out from the earth to be delivered. We'll see throughout Revelation the prayers of God's people. How long O Lord, until you vindicate us? Come Lord Jesus, come. And here these prayers are presented to Jesus because he's the only one who can answer them.
[00:09:16] And as they present these prayers to Jesus, notice verse nine, they sang again. This is all of worship declaring the worth of God presenting these prayers to Jesus. They sang. And can you imagine the heaven, the echo, the sounds throughout heaven as these massive creatures sang to Jesus.
[00:09:38] Remember we've been trying to be very careful with our angelology.
[00:09:44] These aren't naked babies singing to Jesus sitting on a cloud, playing a harp. They would scare us to death.
[00:09:53] Can you imagine them singing, all of them, as they sang? Notice a new song, a different song.
[00:10:05] All of a sudden the tune changes.
[00:10:08] All of a sudden the lyrics are different.
[00:10:11] This phrase new song is repeated throughout scripture and it's used when there is deliverance, when God has come through and God has been faithful, when there has been affliction, where there has been distress, when they're. When the people of God are crying out in desperation and God comes through and he is faithful, there is a new song. So the song goes from desperation affliction to a new song of rejoicing. Because God has done what he said he would do.
[00:10:42] What has he done? Notice the text continues. They were saying, worthy are you to take the scroll and open it seal again. You deserve this. You deserve. You're the only one who can handle the weight of the keys of God's kingdom to rule the the lamb that was slain that is now standing notice. You are worthy to rule. And here is why. You were slain.
[00:11:10] You are worthy to rule. And remember he talked about last week you were slaughtered like a Passover lamb.
[00:11:18] Remember the imagery of the Passover?
[00:11:21] The blood was put on the doorpost and the judgment of God passed over.
[00:11:28] As God came and judged the firstborn, it passed over the blood and judged his enemies.
[00:11:36] And the same thing has happened at the cross through the blood of Christ.
[00:11:41] At the cross, God's judgment passed over us and fell on God's firstborn.
[00:11:48] You were slain. This is why you are worthy. They're singing this.
[00:11:53] Why does Jesus get to rule? Because he was slain.
[00:11:57] And what happened when he was slain? Crucified by your blood.
[00:12:04] Now blood is important in scripture.
[00:12:08] It represents life.
[00:12:11] God required animal sacrifice because we might say there's life in the blood.
[00:12:18] There's. There's a realness of life that leaves an animal, a person. When the blood leaves, we feel the realness of that.
[00:12:29] I've never walked up to Glenn Pruitt after he's mowed his yard and there's grass clippings everywhere, with him weeping as if he killed all the grass in his yard.
[00:12:41] And so there's life in blood that's different from when you cut down a tree.
[00:12:46] God requires an animal sacrifice because life is leaving in the blood. It's one reason we get. Some of us get life light headed when we see blood.
[00:12:57] There's something more there.
[00:13:00] And as we see this word blood, we are to remember that Jesus took on flesh and blood.
[00:13:08] That our forgiveness and what happens at the cross wasn't this abstract thing in a galaxy far, far away on some ledger board?
[00:13:19] No, it happened in flesh and blood.
[00:13:22] God's payment for our sin.
[00:13:26] Jesus took on flesh and he consciously endured what it meant to be separated from God and to only know his judgment.
[00:13:36] When Jesus cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He's not just acting out a scripture.
[00:13:45] He fills it. It's real. And when we see blood, we are to be reminded that the life given was real. And what did it do? You ransomed people, you purchased back. You redeemed. It is as though Jesus went down to the slave market and he purchased people, notice for God.
[00:14:06] People who were serving sin and death. And by the blood of Christ Jesus purchased them to only serve God, to give them to God as a treasure, as a possession. He bought with his blood. And notice, this is why they sing the new song.
[00:14:28] Because at the cross, the prayers of the saints that are being offered to the Lamb have been answered.
[00:14:35] This is the most pressing need for the prayers of the saints.
[00:14:41] Sin and death have been defeated.
[00:14:45] When you believe sin and death are the most pressing issue in your life, it makes all the sense in the world for you to join in heaven's chorus. Here you get it.
[00:14:58] You realize everything else you're going through is trivial in some sense.
[00:15:04] You've been freed from sin and death. And heaven realizes that this is a big deal, that the Lamb would defeat sin and death, that that would be on his resume.
[00:15:16] He gets to rule because he's the only one who could do this.
[00:15:21] Think about Israel. 400 years under oppression in Egypt and they get up every day and they have to go burn bricks and they have to work for a pharaoh.
[00:15:33] Mean everything else is trivial, right?
[00:15:40] Traffic on the way to work, it's trivial. When you're a slave, the little petty conflicts at home, you look down at your shackles.
[00:15:51] This is my worst problem.
[00:15:56] This is what I'm crying out to God for.
[00:15:59] This is it.
[00:16:01] And this is why when they stood on the other side of the Red Sea and they looked down and they saw Pharaoh's army floating in the water, what did they do?
[00:16:16] They sang.
[00:16:18] And Moses probably wasn't having to get people in the congregation. Come on, guys. You really got to sing.
[00:16:26] Some of you men out there, I know you don't like singing at church. Come on.
[00:16:30] No, it would have been perfectly normal and natural. And the reaction of their soul is, yes, this is what we've been crying out to God for. This is what we want more than anything, to be delivered from bondage. And the same should be true when you hear and know the gospel.
[00:16:53] God has done this.
[00:16:55] He's the only one who could deliver us from such bondage. And heaven says the cross is a really, really big deal when it comes to who's going to rule, who's in charge.
[00:17:07] And the same thing should be so in your life.
[00:17:11] If Jesus, you're standing here today and you realize the weight and bondage of sin that condemns you to hell, and then you hear the gospel, every time you hear it, it should be as though you're, you're, you're standing on the other side of the Red Sea. And God has defeated your enemies. And you say, yes, yes.
[00:17:33] And if that's true, if he has defeated your worst enemies, just like he's worthy to rule human history, he's worthy to rule your life.
[00:17:45] You say, yes, my worst enemies have been defeated.
[00:17:49] There is a soundtrack over your life. Worthy. If he is worthy to deliver you from sin and death, he is worthy to trust.
[00:18:00] When you're worried about the bills, yeah, yeah, I'm going to trust him. Why would I trust him right now? Oh, because he delivered me from sin and death. Who else am I going to trust? I can't trust myself.
[00:18:11] I'm unworthy.
[00:18:13] I can't fix this problem.
[00:18:15] When you look at world events and anxiety wells up in your soul. You're checking out the economy, you're checking out what's going to happen around the world. And there's just stress and anxiety that overwhelms you. When you think about your marriage, you think about your kids, and you think, who's going to fix this? How is anyone going to be able to take care of this? Yes, because he's already took care of your worst problem at the cross, sin and death. So you look to him and you trust him and you sing a new song.
[00:18:43] But notice this new song was also, is also for the nations. Notice when he purchased this people for God. Notice the text continues. He purchases them from every tribe and language and people and nation.
[00:19:00] Now, this is just a way to summarize or to separate distinct ethnic groups and culture.
[00:19:09] They're separated by language and geography all around the world. You could also say the gentile world. Now, for mission purposes, we, we study and we, we make distinct groups and for the purpose of strategy. But you could say the whole gentile world here.
[00:19:30] And this group of people in the chapters following become a multitude that no one could number.
[00:19:38] Here we see the church from among nations and cultures. That's what Jesus does when he purchases a people enduring the consequences of sin and death. He. He purchases a people for God.
[00:19:55] Now, the believers in the churches and remember we've talked about throughout Revelation, you have to keep this letter in context to the people who first heard it.
[00:20:02] And they would have thought of the Pax Romana, Romans, Rome's desire to rule and bring peace to the known world.
[00:20:11] And Rome did this through fear, bringing their enemies into surrender and invoking fear everywhere they went. This is how they, they said they were going to bring peace. If you surrender to us, you'll have peace because you have peace with us.
[00:20:27] Well, Jesus has purchased peace with God through His blood for people from every tribe, language and people and nation. This is how Jesus rules the world, not through fear, but through freedom, giving us freedom. And he does so in purchasing this church from the nations for God. And here in Revelation 5, we so often go to this passage because here we see the goal and motivation for missions.
[00:20:58] First of all, the goal of missions is to call out those whom God, who Jesus purchased for God from the nations. That's what we're doing.
[00:21:08] Jesus has died for the nations. He died for a church from the nations. And so we go about and we declare the gospel and we are calling out people from every tribe, every language, every people and every nation.
[00:21:23] He deserves what he has purchased. But we also see the motivation.
[00:21:30] The whole scene here is that Jesus is worthy of this. He's worthy to rule. And as the book unfolds, he's worthy to receive this church, to receive his possession. Those who believe in him, those who trust in him, disciples from all nations that he tells us to go and proclaim his authority to he's worthy of this.
[00:21:53] In the 1700s, there were two Moravian missionaries who were into the West Indies. And to get there, they sold themselves into slavery so that they could go and preach the gospel in the West Indies.
[00:22:06] And one of the quotes from them as they left was this, may the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of his sufferings.
[00:22:15] There's people for whom he died in the West Indies.
[00:22:19] And we're going to go tell them we're going to go proclaim the gospel so that they would believe, because he is worthy to receive this purchased possession. This is the motivation for missions. And by the way, nothing else will sustain us but the worth of Christ. When we think about missions, if we think as a church that Just our generic love for people going to, going to get us to the nations and plant churches. It'll never happen. Why?
[00:22:51] We're not that loving.
[00:22:54] We're not always that loving.
[00:22:58] And people are not lovable.
[00:23:01] And there are certain people that you don't want to love.
[00:23:05] And so you're not going to want to go to certain people groups.
[00:23:10] You're not going to suffer for certain people.
[00:23:14] So what makes it worth it?
[00:23:16] Jesus is worthy. Jesus is worthy.
[00:23:20] That's why we go. That's why we sacrifice. The task is too difficult. It costs too much.
[00:23:27] It requires too much of us for us to just love the task and love people. No, we start and we should love people and we should enjoy the missions. But there are going to be times where it's going to be extremely hard for us to push through if it's not for Jesus's worth, He's worthy. This is when we, when we talk about missions, we talk about it in light of Jesus being worthy of crossing cultural lines. Jesus being worthy of risking our lives to rescue those for whom he died. Here's the thing. Jesus is worthy of our dearest possessions to reach his possession, the church.
[00:24:09] And when I say dearest possession, some of you all immediately think about money that, but also our best church members.
[00:24:18] Jesus is worthy. In the days ahead, as we think about church planting, we're entering a new stage as a church where we have resources and we have opportunity and for us to be successful and for us to, for the glory of Christ, for us to get done what we need, what we want to get done in planting more churches, we're going to have to let some of our best members go.
[00:24:40] Our dearest possessions, friends, leaders that we love so much, we say, no. Jesus is worthy. We're going to send you here. We're going to send you here. We're going to send you here because Jesus is worthy.
[00:24:54] Some of you grandparents, we're at that point as a church too. Grandkids are everywhere now.
[00:25:02] Jesus is worthy.
[00:25:04] Jesus is worthy that they may not be across the table at Thanksgiving because they're serving Jesus somewhere else. Jesus is worthy of your precious possessions to send around the world for the sake of the gospel, to reach his possession, we will have to give up our treasured possessions at times. He's worthy of some of you to consider.
[00:25:28] You know, should I change my, my career? Could I leave my job? What does our savings look like? Could I go into and train and be a missionary at this point in life? Jesus is worthy. Consider it.
[00:25:41] Jesus is worthy of pies today.
[00:25:46] Go back there.
[00:25:48] Everybody get a pie, is what Eric said. Everybody, Oprah of pie auctions here.
[00:25:57] But Jesus is worthy.
[00:26:00] He's worthy of glory. He's worthy of the sacrifice. And this what drives us. But finally we see a new song of freedom.
[00:26:10] We see the new song is sung. It is a new song for the nations. And it is a new song of freedom. Notice what this people becomes. You have made them a kingdom. And this just refers to a distinct rule marked out from the rest of the world. Marked out from the nations. That's what God does when He. When he sets apart a people. He makes them distinct in the world. This is why Israel was to be holy, because God is holy. They were to be separate from the world. And they were to declare God's greatness and his glory. That's why he refers to them here as and priests. To our God, to be a priest just simply means to stand in between.
[00:26:53] And so this people that God has set apart, they stand in between him or they stand in between the presence of God and the world. Now understand what's going on in heaven. Here, there's no one who can approach the throne but the Lamb. And the Lamb becomes a mediator for his people. But then the people become a mediator for the nations. Just like Israel was set apart to show God's greatness to the nations, so what Israel did, this is why they were called a kingdom of priests. Because they were set apart to God. And they declared to the nations, our God is better.
[00:27:31] Our God is better than any other God.
[00:27:34] He's great and he's faithful. You want to know why he always does what he says?
[00:27:39] And they would always go back to that Exodus story.
[00:27:43] And they would say, you want to know how great our God is?
[00:27:46] We'll tell you what happened as we were delivered from Egypt.
[00:27:51] We'll tell you what happened when he delivered us. And so often they sung of the Exodus.
[00:27:58] Psalm 77, Psalm 78, Psalm 80, 105, 106, 114, 135 and 136 are all songs that include Psalms. And there are songs that include the Exodus. They sung about the Exodus all the time. It was their amazing grace.
[00:28:18] You want to know how kind and gracious and great our God is? Remember the Exodus. We will sing about it. It was their new song.
[00:28:26] But here, what we see here, the church has a newer song.
[00:28:31] And the church is a new witness.
[00:28:33] And we have a better Exodus.
[00:28:36] The passover lamb that was slain has delivered us from sin and death.
[00:28:40] And we have walked across the serpent's head to rule and reign. This is why he says they shall reign on the earth. As we move through Revelation, we get to this point where there is this literal reign of Jesus that comes to earth.
[00:28:56] And it seems as though here he's talking only about future, this future rule that we've talked about, even in the seven letters to the churches where Jesus shares his rule.
[00:29:07] Rome conquers you, defeats you.
[00:29:12] Jesus conquers, and you rule with him in freedom.
[00:29:18] And there's a shared rule with him. But a lot of manuscripts actually have the word reign in a present tense, meaning they are reigning. They reign now. And one of the reasons is theologically, especially when you're looking at passages in the Old Testament, it's hard to understand which coming of Jesus the passage is referring to.
[00:29:43] Is this referring to Christmas, or is this referring to the Second Coming?
[00:29:50] And in some sense, it's referring to both. A lot of times at Christmas, there is the coming of the kingdom that is also coming.
[00:30:00] And it's okay to refer to the coming of Christ, Christmas and the second Coming as one thing.
[00:30:07] Jesus has come.
[00:30:09] The reign of God was inaugurated at the birth of Christ. And guess what? It hasn't left.
[00:30:15] Jesus rule didn't go back to heaven. It's with the church now.
[00:30:21] So his coming is here with us presently. And guess what? It's still coming.
[00:30:26] We wait. A consummation of his full rule.
[00:30:31] The reign of Christ has come. It's here, and it will come.
[00:30:36] And if you have a problem with this, you should never sing Joy to the World again at Christmas. I guess you could sing it at Christmas, but you could not envision the little baby in the manger as you sing it.
[00:30:50] Because originally, Joy to the World was a meditation on Psalm 98.
[00:30:56] And if you go read Psalm 98, you see that it's not really a Christmas psalm.
[00:31:02] It's about the second coming of Christ. And when you read that psalm, guess what happens all the way throughout? Judgment. Judgment. Judgment. And when you read it, you're thinking this. He's talking about the second coming of Christ.
[00:31:15] But when we sing Joy to the World, which is based on this, all we can think about is the manger, the baby, Bethlehem.
[00:31:26] But it's okay, it's theologically okay to sing the song and think about both. Both.
[00:31:34] You can sing it at Christmas even as you think about the coming of Christ, because we can consider this one event.
[00:31:41] And in the same way, our reign with Christ in Christ that is coming forever has already come because Christ came We are. We also experience his reign now. We experience the rule of Christ now in the gospel, and the power of the Spirit now. But what does it look like? Well, the whole thing, this whole section is about freedom. If you want to know what the reign of Christ looks like, it looks like freedom.
[00:32:11] Christ has rendered sin, death, Satan, and for the churches in Revelation, Rome, powerless.
[00:32:21] He reigns over them now because of what he did at the cross. And you reign with him. Think about the believers that John is writing to.
[00:32:32] And if you mentioned the cross, it invoked fear. This is how Rome scared everyone into submission.
[00:32:40] But Jesus dying on the cross has rendered the cross powerless. This is why in Revelation, chapter 12, verse 11, this declaration is made. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb. They have conquered the beast by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. And what does it look like that they have conquered? What does this reign that is present in the church look like now? Revelation 12, verse 11 ends this way. For they loved not their lives even unto death.
[00:33:18] They were free in the face of death to declare, no, Jesus is king. Jesus is Lord. That's what the reign of the church looks like. Now that we're free of guilt because of the cross, and because we're free of guilt, we're not scared of death.
[00:33:35] And we proclaim the gospel and we sacrifice and we suffer because he is worthy. The reign of Christ shows up in our lives when we are reminded of our past.
[00:33:49] We're reminded of our past. And some of us go, I have a horrible past. There are thoughts, there are things that I did that haunt my memory every night when I lay down. I cannot conquer my past. The guilt is slavery. The guilt is bondage. What do you need to do?
[00:34:10] Sing a new song if you're in Christ, experience the reign of Christ who has conquered your sin through the cross.
[00:34:20] And sing, he would say, who can sing after all I've done?
[00:34:25] Those who are freed by the cross.
[00:34:27] Those who are freed by the cross.
[00:34:31] The rain is experienced amidst the curse of death.
[00:34:35] We gather at funerals and sing. It is well with our soul.
[00:34:40] That is the reign of Christ over death.
[00:34:43] It is well. How do you do that?
[00:34:47] Oh, you've been freed. Jesus conquered sin and death, so I can sing.
[00:34:52] It's probably why we should have more congregational singing at funerals.
[00:34:56] Another one of Clay's crazy ideas, I imagine.
[00:35:01] But who does that?
[00:35:03] Well, those who are free.
[00:35:04] Those who are free from sin and death.
[00:35:07] And the same kind of folks who would choose to sing Christmas songs all year at any time who understand joy to the world.
[00:35:16] The Lord is come.
[00:35:18] The kingdom has come and it is coming.
