Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: Revelation 22:1-21

REVELATION 22:1-21

All right, come on back in. If you have your Bibles, would you grab them, please? We’re going to be in Revelation 22. As you turn there, you will notice that’s the last chapter in Revelation. So, you can get excited. All goes according to plan, we close out the Book of Revelation today. 

I don’t know about you– I can only speak for myself– this study has radically shaped and shifted a lot of my theology, my understanding. If I’m totally honest, I studied Revelation when I was sixteen to eighteen a lot, and then let it go, and went, Don’t really care, not touching it again. 

This study has been really fun because it’s just made the Scriptures make so much more sense. 

And so, we’re going to bring it to a close today. Any of you who are like, Oh, we’ve been in this for so long, let me tell you what Greg Sanders thinks. So, you’re going to go to church every week, and you know we’re going to study the Bible, right? And if you go to church not expecting to study the Bible, you should find a new church. If you’ve ever gone to a church that didn’t study the Bible, that’s a bad thing. 

We’re supposed to be a people of the Scriptures, governed by the Scriptures, studying the Scriptures, and so we work really hard in this house to put a high priority on the Scriptures. 

My least favorite thing in the world was when I was a young youth pastor, and I would crawl under my desk to get a word from God every week. Because it was just so dumb because I felt like the Holy Spirit whispered something to me. He’s like, There’s a whole book full of them. 

And I realized it could just be that simple, that we just study the Scriptures as a people, and we let the Scripture dwell richly in us. And so, here’s how we do it: I just tell you ahead of time, here’s where we’re going to be for a while. And you know we’re going to be there. So, with all kindness and love, we’re going to be fine as long as it takes to get through stuff because the goal is to be students of the Scripture and be taught by it. 

A long time ago, I let go of any fear of being pop-savvy and creating cool Instagram bites. I don’t care. What I care about is being governed by the Scriptures. I care that my life, personally, looks like I’m growing because this is in me. I care that our lives look like we’re growing because it’s in us. 

So, where do we go after this? We’re going to go to the Book of Titus after this. We’re going to step into a teaching series called Becoming the Households of God. If you thought Revelation was tough, oh boy, Titus has some teeth. Titus is going to deal with how we handle our believing faith inside of our homes. 

It deals specifically with how we handle each other in the privacy of our homes, to the place where, as Americans, we generally want to say That’s none of your business. Well, for Titus, it’s everybody’s business. 

Paul will step into the Book of Titus and basically create a parallel that says, The level you’re willing to live the Gospel in your home creates an authority for the Gospel in your region. Nobody will see the two because one’s hidden and one’s public, but the public one has authority when you live the private one correctly. 

And he makes this statement: he says, “Promote the kind of living that reflects right teaching.” He’s going to deal with how we live. Husbands and wives, it’s going to deal with the way we handle each other in the home. It’s going to deal with our sex life. It’s going to deal with our work lives as people, with how we handle bosses. It’s going to deal with how we handle sobriety, how we handle substance. Paul deals with all of it in this book. You’re going to be wishing for Revelation, I promise you. 

HEAVEN COME DOWN TO EARTH

All right, let’s dive in because I want to deal with the first five verses, just take a quick look at them. The first five verses in chapter 22, I think, give us a lens to really understand the entirety of the Book of Revelation and the remaining balance of it. 

“And the angel showed me a pure river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, coursing down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. 

“No longer will anything be cursed. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. And there will be no night there– no need for lamps or sun– for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever.”

So, there’s a picture being given to us of the City of God. It’s the City of God that has come down into the earth. And I think Pastor Gary taught on the dimensions of it. It’s like fourteen hundred miles square or something crazy like that. It’s massive. 

There’s all these statements that are being made about the caliber of life, the quality of life, that God will be there, His people will see His face. That’s not just a euphemism. That means they will physically be in the same place He is, able to see Him. It’s said that there is no light. There’s no more need for the sun. 

There’s going to be something that we talk about a little bit later in the teaching, but I’ll just kind of give you the CliffsNotes version right now. I think we’ve had a picture of what Heaven looks like and what Hell looks like wrong. I don’t think we actually know. And I think we’ve decided we know, and we’ve built that out of things in the Scriptures that we can’t prove, instead of having the humility to go, I don’t really know. 

Because it’s possible, when you think about it– if I just want to geek out for a second– if there’s no light and there’s no sun outside of that City, it would be what? Dark. And then you hear the Scriptures talk about outer darkness, people being banished to outer darkness, all of a sudden, as we’re going to read later, outside of this City will be people that aren’t allowed in. 

So, I want you to come in. Here’s the right way to study Scripture: I don’t know. I’m going to learn. Anytime we study Scripture with a preconceived notion, we’re going to end up with the wrong conclusion because we won’t leave ourselves open to be taught by the Scriptures. 

So, before you freak it out, be like, I think he said Hell’s not real. That’s not what I said. You know why? Because Jesus said it is. What I’m saying is I’m not sure we know what it is and what it looks like. We know there’s torment, we know there’s weeping, there’s gnashing of teeth. 

We know, at some level, there’s deep levels of resentment and regret and sadness. Great, no arguments there. 

What we don’t know is that it’s weirdly locked cave places that are full of flames. We don’t know that. That came from Dante’s Inferno. I’m pretty sure there won’t be angels sitting with little wings playing harps on the clouds. That came from Hallmark, I think, I don’t know. 

THE RIVER OF LIFE

So, I want to highlight just a couple phrases here. There’s two phrases I want to highlight in these first five verses. One is that Jesus is showing John a river that gives His life. “And the angel showed me a pure river with the water of life clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” 

And I just want to make a couple statements to us about that river: if you want to actually live, you have to drink this water. You have to drink from this river. And there’s no option to get the water of life except from the Throne Room and from the Lamb. If, at any level, you’ve bought onto the idea that believing in Jesus is Christianity, you’re false. You’re believing a lie. 

The water of life doesn’t come from calling yourself a believer. The water of life comes from spending time with the King, worshiping the Lamb, and encountering Him in the secret place are where the water of life is found. 

You have to intentionally go to that place to draw the water of life. Just calling yourself a believer doesn’t mean you’re drinking the water of life. And some of us believe that. We believe that calling ourselves a Christian is what it’s about, and it’s not. 

And here’s why: if you’re not fueling your life with that resource, you’re spiritually dehydrated and destined for ruin. How many of you have done enough study to know that water is actually important for your body? How many have a Stanley to prove it? You have a Hydro Flask that goes with you everywhere to prove it? 

Why do we do that? Well, because we understand that without hydration, our organs don’t function correctly. Let me ask you this question: can you drink water one day a week and survive okay? No, you will live constantly dehydrated. Let’s say Saturday is my water-drinking day. It doesn’t really work that way because you will dehydrate in those next six days. 

So why, spiritually, do we treat Sunday like our water-drinking day? When the reality is we have to be a people that are drinking regularly from the water of life? That means you and I have to discipline ourselves to find time and place to go get alone with Him, to drink from the water of life. 

How many of you have ever felt crispy in life? How many notice the older you get, the crispier you feel? I would argue that crispiness is one hundred percent caused by a lack of time in the Throne Room. We get crass, we get cynical, we get bitey because we don’t spend time with Him. 

You’re like, well, I spent time with Him, and I’m still bitey. Spend more. You might be extra dehydrated. You may have a high capacity for dehydration in the Kingdom, and the rest of the world around you needs you to hydrate. 

How do you give water if you don’t have water? How do you meet somebody in the street that’s desperate for the life of the Kingdom and give them something that matters if you haven’t been drinking of Him? 

NOTHING WILL BE CURSED ANYMORE

The second thing I want to highlight is that He reveals His ultimate desire: that nothing will be cursed anymore. I just want to highlight this because I think it’s so important. Jesus is in the business of erasing curses, not giving them. His dream and His goal for humanity– therefore, His goal for your life– is to break every curse, to wipe away its effect, and to bring freedom.

And so often, we have a bad God complex, and we just assume He’s waiting for that moment when He gets to execute the judgment that we deserve. If you’ve lived in any way, shape, or form in that mindset, you have believed a falsehood about who He is. 

His goal from the beginning at the garden, when sin entered, was to bring restoration, that every curse was broken. And if we take these two simple principles– the absolute requirement to draw life from Him and the understanding of His passion for restoration– we gain an understanding what Jesus was working to teach the seven churches in Revelation. It’s really what He’s been doing this entire book. 

THESE WORDS ARE TRUSTWORTHY AND TRUE

So, let’s dive into His final address, picking up verse 6. “Then the angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true: “The Lord God, who tells his prophets what the future holds, has sent his angel to tell you what will happen soon.”’ ‘Look, I am coming soon! Blessed are those who obey the prophecy written in this scroll.’ I, John, am the one who saw and heard all these things. And when I saw and heard these things, I fell down to worship the angel who showed them to me. But again he said, ‘No, don’t worship me. I’m the servant of God, just like you and your brothers the prophets, as well as all who obey what is written in this scroll. Worship God!’” 

So, some things that jump out here: “These words are trustworthy and true.” That statement, I think, is easy for us to miss. In simple truth, what that means: this isn’t a set of ideas, this is real, and it is Truth. Therefore, you and I can bank on what this says, and we can and should build our lives based upon it. 

I want to challenge us to avoid the danger of reading the Scriptures like they’re a cool idea. Avoid the danger of reading the Scriptures like philosophy. Avoid the danger of reading this like it’s just some book. This is Truth. 

You’re like, Well, I don’t know if I believe it is. I don’t care what you believe. The Lord here says it’s Truth. And my job, therefore, is to approach it as such. It has authority in my life.; it’s not a suggestion. When I read it, I give it government immediately. That when I read something, it becomes the code I live by because I’m subjected to it as a disciple. 

“Blessed are those who obey the prophecy written in this scroll.” Again, want to remind us: Revelation is not a book to be understood; it is to be believed, obeyed, and practiced. What we see in this book, we are to live out. 

When we see the Scriptures talk about, “Come up here into the Throne Room and worship,” that’s not just a cool idea; that is an invitation for us to step into obedience and become worshipers who live from the Throne Room. 

GROWING IN AWE AND WONDER

The phrase, “Don’t worship me, worship God.” I would just remind us that the goal of this entire book has been to reveal Jesus in such a way that we fall more in love with Him and worship Him with greater passion and fervor. 

Now, I think we tend to be awed and wowed by the wrong things– feats of strength, a great golf shot, sunrises, babies– we’re just like, Oh. I’m not saying those things are bad. Babies are great. Sunrises are awesome. Great golf shots are really hard to have. 

But I want to challenge us with some questions because if we go back to chapter 4, and we remember this call to, “Come up here,” an invitation to learn to live from the Heavenly realm, my question is: are you growing in your awe and wonder of the King? 

Is it increasing? Is your worship becoming more passionate, more engaged, and more wholehearted? Or do you find yourself going through life becoming a little more numb, a little more disenfranchised, a little less passionate? Are you learning to live from the Throne Room? 

Because if the answer to any of those questions is No, then the response has to be to cry out for a fresh revelation of Jesus. You individually need to be able to cry out, say, Lord, I’m getting stagnant. I can feel it in my worship. I’m not that concerned. We come into worship, and I don’t get that excited. I don’t find myself desiring to pour myself out before You. I’m just like, Yeah, I don’t know, that song was kind of lame. I don’t really care. 

Worship isn’t about whether we liked it or not. It’s about what it says. I mean, good grief, you look at that first song we sang, Holy, Holy, Holy. You look at the theology of this song, and it should just cause awe and wonder to rise up in us, to be able to sing these kind of phrases.

We sing this song, Old For New. It should cause everything in you to get excited and begin to declare, Yes, yes, you are changing things. You’re giving new for the old. And we start to align with it, and we get passionate about it. We’re growing in it. 

All too often, though, we stagnate. We get bored. We quit pushing and investing. If you’ve ever worked out, you’ve ever been in the weight room, you understand that in order to continue to grow or see benefit, you have to continue to increase the challenge. 

If you’ve gone to the weight room, guys, if your bench press is at one hundred thirty-five and it’s been there for ten years, you’ve been doing it wrong. You haven’t been pushing weights, you haven’t been challenging yourself. You haven’t been forcing your body to respond. 

You can actually do that. We force our body to respond all the time. Sometimes, we just force it the wrong way. In the Kingdom, we have to challenge ourselves. We should be challenging ourselves regularly to grow. You’re like, Well, that just sounds like a lot of discipline.

THE TIME IS NEAR

“Then he instructed me, ‘Do not seal up the prophetic words you’ve written for the time is near.’” I just want you to sit in that phrase for a second: “For the time is near.” Can you just allow the truth of that to sink in? Jesus is giving a revelation, and He says, “The time is near.” 

Multiple times– three times in this passage, or four– He says, “I’m coming soon.” We have to understand this isn’t just an idea. Now you’re like, Yeah, but it’s been two thousand years. Two thousand years in the scope of eternity is a drop in the bucket. It’s nothing.

It doesn’t matter if we can quantify when it’s happening. It matters that He says the time is near, and it should cause us to live with an awareness that the time is near. 

THIS LIFE AFFECTS ETERNITY

“‘Let the one who is doing wrong continue to do wrong; the one who is vile, continue to be vile; the one who is good, continue to do good; and the one who is holy, continue in holiness. See, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me, to repay all according to their deeds. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.’” 

So, Jesus makes some authority statements there. What He’s putting on it is an end cap saying, Look, I’m the one who gets to determine this. There’s no arguing with Me. 

But this phrasing of, “Let the one who’s doing wrong continue…” if you’re like me, you read it, you’re like, Huh? It makes no sense because, in English, we can’t see what’s actually happening in Greek. So, I want to take us into the Greek a little bit. 

The best translation, if we really look at it in the Greek, there’s a linguistic thing happening where the verb tense is shifting in it. Active verbs are moving to passive verbs. And you’re like, Great, cool English lesson. It’s not, it’s a Greek lesson. 

What it reveals is that being unrighteous, vile, good, and holy ends up being unrighteous, vile, good, and holy. There’s this continuation of movement into these actions. 

What Jesus is speaking about here is the lifestyle of filthiness versus the lifestyle of holiness. 

So, if we want to break this verse down into actual Greek and then reinterpret it to how it could read in the English so we understand it better, it goes like this: let the one who is unrighteous in this life be unrighteous for eternity. Let the one who is filthy in this life be filthy for eternity. Let the one who’s righteous in this life do righteous acts for eternity. Let the one who’s holy in this life be holy for eternity. 

So, we see the invitation to repentance, and to the water of life is open and available to all. And those who are made righteous in Christ and do His works in this life– do His righteous works in this life– they remain righteous for eternity; but all who remain unrepentant in this life will endure eternity unrepentant. 

What verse 11 is indicating is an incredibly sobering truth that goes like this: you can’t separate your present from your future. Either both belong to Jesus, or neither do. You see, there’s this illusion that how I live doesn’t really matter, I can make my decision on the other side.

What Jesus is giving to these churches is an incredibly sobering truth: the decisions you make in this life, you will live out for eternity. If you decide to stubbornly, arrogantly refuse to repent, you will live in unrepentance for eternity. There won’t be some moment where on the other side you’re like, Oh, I was wrong. 

These are His words, not mine. This is His interpretation, not mine. When He says, “My reward is with me to repay all according to their deeds,” we have to see and comprehend the severity of this statement. It has to cause us to live with a proper lens for eternity, to keep eternity in the front of our minds. 

To that end, we have to deal with the issues of our heart. We have to surrender every deed to the King and serve Him with an awareness that He will reward our faithfulness. Sometimes, we get so hung up on whether or not people see us, They don’t really see what I do, they don’t see my faithfulness, they don’t see my good, who cares? He does. 

If you live for the audience of One, it makes it much easier. You’re living your life for His approval, and you’re no longer pandering for everyone else’s. It’s not that it’s wrong to want approval from others, I think that’s fine, but if we get that thing one millimeter off, we end up living in the fear of man, for people’s approval, and we forget about Him. 

His statement here is, Set your eyes on eternity. Make what I want what matters to you, and stop worrying about what’s going on around you. 

I don’t want to leave this for a second because if I take this idea of you can’t separate this present time from your eternal time, it forces me, as a believer, to say, I need to deal with my stuff now. 

And if you’ve fallen in any way into a trap, It’s all grace. I came to Jesus. It’s all grace. Jesus makes a very clear statement: If you want to follow Me, if any person wants to follow Me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and then follow Me. 

What does He mean? I want you to shift away from your life. I want you to put your passions and desires to death, and then you can follow Me. And the way you follow Me is by putting on My life, My nature. You are to look like Me. You are to act like Me. You are to be like Me. That’s what it means to follow Me. 

Somehow, some way, we’ve turned this into some kind of greeting card thing to where it’s like, I’ll just come to Jesus, and He says, I forgive you, and then go back to your life. When you come to Jesus and you say, Lord, I give You my life, I give You my heart, I’m taking Yours in exchange. What you’re saying is, I am crucified with Christ. I no longer live, yet I do live, but the life I live, I don’t live according to flesh. I live it according to Him. So, me died the moment I came to Him, and from here on out, I’m living for Him, as Him, carrying Him. 

But what about my individuality? It’s buried in Him. You were grafted into a vine. You were grafted into a church. You were grafted into a people. Your identity became Him. You’re part of His Bride. 

APPROPRIATING HIS BLOOD

He said, “Blessed are those who washed their robes so they can enter through the gates of the city and eat the fruit from the tree of life. Outside the city are the dogs– the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idol worshippers, and all who love to live a lie. ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star.'” 

“Blessed are those who wash the robes–” that only happens through encounter with Him and through appropriating His blood. Appropriating His blood, I want to put some language to that: it means we live in alignment with the cross. We accept His forgiveness, but we also choose His life. 

And church, I just want to overstate it: There is no other way. You cannot accept His forgiveness and not choose His life. Discipleship is choosing the life of God, to put on His life, His nature, His image. 

And I think we have erred in our culture because we’ve treated it like it’s cool just to come to Jesus, Please forgive me, and we never deal with the fact that our lives haven’t changed to become like Him. But that’s what He’s after. That’s actually the requirement of the Kingdom. And then you look at what we get from this: to be in the City of God with Him, to eat the very tree that gives life. 

THE CITY OF GOD

Now, just want to put a bug in your ear. You know what I said before, I’m not sure our understanding of Heaven and Hell is correct? How do you explain the fact that those who’ve washed their robes and come into the Kingdom get to be inside the City, and outside the City are unbelievers? 

How do you explain our common version of Heaven and Hell with that understanding? This is the City of God on the earth. It says– later on, we’re going to read it in a little bit– that there’s no need for sun, there’s no need for moon, there’s no need for any light because God is in the City, and He is the light. It says that His people will see His face. So, He’s in the city, dwelling with them, He’s there. 

But outside the City– if there’s light in the City and it’s Him that’s the source of light– outside the City, what would it be? Dark. Huh. Here’s what I’m really driving at: I have no idea what it means for Heaven and Hell. All I do know is both are Scriptural ideas that we know are real, but I don’t know what they look like. 

Therefore, I’m not going to make a dogmatic argument for what it is. I’m just going to hold it with gentleness and go, I don’t know. Interesting. We sat in teaching team, and just kind of went rounds about it because we’re like, It is, if you really think about it, kind of strange to think that God would go to all this extent to create this beautiful creation, and then destroy it so we can go fly around with wings in the sky. 

It’s also possible that what He’s really going to do is restore earth to what He intended it to be– perfect creation– and then we might still be here. I don’t know that, and I can’t know that, and neither can you. 

So, we should all take a step back from whatever you were raised in. I was raised mostly Assembly of God. We have some pretty dogmatic ideas about this stuff. I’m studying Revelation going, How did we get there? Because I can’t prove this. I have more questions than I do answers, and I think that’s healthy. 

Here’s what I know that we can bank on: Jesus went to the cross, He died, and He rose again. His blood atones for sin. The Holy Spirit is real and empowers us, lives in us, and in Him, we live and move and have our being. Outside of that, I have a bunch of questions.

THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE SAY COME

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ Let each one who hears them say, ‘Come.’ Let the thirsty ones come. Anyone who wants to let them come and drink the water of life without charge.” 

“The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’” It’s interesting to see that Jesus says the Holy Spirit is saying, “Come” to anyone who’s thirsty. And He says that we– the Bride– are saying the same thing. And my initial question is, Are we? Are we living in such a manner to say, “Come on” to anyone who’s thirsty? 

Because that’s His direction in this verse, that we are to actively be open to anyone interested. It’s supposed to shape how we live. It’s become a directive of temperament, that we are to contagiously be sharing His love. 

I would love to say it this way: His love is a lifestyle more than it is a message. And all too often, we’re really good at putting hurdles in the way, putting rules in place of telling people the things they have to do so they can come get the water of life. 

And Jesus doesn’t do that. He just says, If you want to come, get it. He says you could come drink that water of life without charge. He makes it easy for people to find life, no hoops, no hurdles. If they want to drink the water of life, His answer is, Awesome. I want you to drink it. 

And church, we have to be just as easygoing and willing to help people drink the water of life. We need to put away a spirit of religion. What’s the spirit of religion? It’s anything that causes us to feel like we have the right to disqualify somebody from their chance to come in. 

Any part of us, if it ever shows up, if you’re like, Well, you know, they didn’t really show up kind of looking like us. Who cares? Hey, they didn’t show up smelling like us. Who cares? Hey, they still believe bad things. Who cares? 

We’re never going to acquiesce on what the Scriptures teach, but we also should never say to someone, you can’t be here if you’re curious about God. We want anybody that wants to know about Him to come. 

Here’s my answer: if you play with fire long enough, you’re going to get burned. I want anybody in this house that’s curious about the Lord. Well, what if they’re not following Him? They’re not following Him, then we can’t expect them to follow Him. Pagans act like pagans for a reason: they’re pagans. So, we love on them. 

The moment they declare, I’m a believer, I’m following Jesus, then we hold them to the standard of Scripture. That’s what that judgment is supposed to look like. Judgment begins with the house of God. We’re supposed to hold each other to a standard, but until they’re willing to say that, our answer is, Come hang out, keep drinking, keep hanging around the fire. We can’t wait until you get burned. 

DO NOT ADD OR TAKE AWAY

He goes on and says, “I solemnly declare to everyone who hears the prophetic words of this book: If anyone adds anything to what is written here, God will add that purse to add to that person the plagues described in this book–” yikes. “And if anyone removes any of the words of this prophetic book, God will remove that person’s share in the tree of life and in the holy city that are described in this book.” If anyone adds or subtracts.

As we close, this book is full of incredible pictures, some are difficult to understand and some are terrifying, but our mandate is to hold this text with great reverence, asking for wisdom to understand, but refusing to add things that we cannot prove. 

Please hear that. I don’t care what doctrine you were raised in, if it isn’t what is actually taught here, you have to hold it loosely. I’m okay with you saying, I think this is what it means, great, but you cannot say this is what it means if it’s not. 

Jesus had an agenda with this book, and it’s His agenda to have. So, it’s got to be a caution to us to both hold what He said with great regard and guard against ideas and teachings that add what wasn’t said. I honestly think this might be one of the most important things we take out of this study. 

HE IS COMING SOON

And He finishes out and says, “He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming soon!’ Amen! Come Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all.” 

That phrase, “Yes, I’m coming soon,” those are His words, and it means He’s coming soon. We don’t know when, but we know that He has said, “Soon.” So, church, we have to live in that truth, letting it be vision, letting it give us a reality to be a little scared of, to be aware that how we live is important, that we need to be focusing on Him, allowing our discipleship with Him to be the number one thing in our life, our top priority. 

Why? Because our King’s coming back soon, and I don’t want Him coming back on a day when I took my discipleship off. Can you imagine? Oh, sorry, I was just taking a discipleship vacation today, Lord. Sorry. 

FINISHING OUR STUDY

All right, let’s close out this book and put it all together. Jesus begins it with a call to seven churches in Asia Minor, and His call to them is to dig in and serve Him with all they are. Each of these churches faces a different reality in life, and we are the same– Fort Collins, Windsor, Timnath, Wellington– love Him. 

The church here, we’re faced with unique difficulties in this region, and as believers, we each face unique and different challenges in our daily lives, but His call to us is the same as it was to them. 

And what was that call? Persevere in holiness and love Me. And He reiterates this message and closes out this book with a very direct call to how we live our daily lives. Jesus– not some leader– is calling His people to live with an eye on eternity, putting a priority on their love for Him. 

And He calls them to reveal it with holiness, with living in purity. For Him, holiness is simply aligning with His nature and His life. It’s to put on His nature in all things, and it’s to repent where we fail. 

Why does holiness matter? Because it’s the culture of the Kingdom. Holiness matters because He’s holy. That’s why in Peter, it says, “Be holy because I’m holy.” 

Revelation teaches us that evil is going to grow in a mass until He decides enough is enough. 

It teaches us that He’s also graciously allowing this season so that the lost can have as much time as possible to find Him. 

And it teaches us that the church must recognize that our lives, when properly consumed by Him, become a beacon for our culture. 

And to that end, your discipleship, your faith, your love, your purity have a massive impact on the world. And if we live that truth, what Revelation teaches us, is if we recluse and live in a vacuum, assuming that our role in the world has no value, and we just hunker down, we want to protect, and we live with this mindset that says, We just can’t wait until He takes us out of here, we’re tragically releasing the world around us to its fate, and we’re forsaking the very love our King has for them, instead of allowing it to drive us to love them the way it drove Him to love the world. 

Revelation, in summation, teaches us that Jesus will call for something much greater from our lives, a circumspect life rooted in His presence and filled with holy discipline. 

If I were to put a couple of statements on the Book of Revelation for us to consider, I think the whole book kind of summarizes into these two statements: for those that follow the Lamb, there is certainty; for those who don’t, there is not. 

It’s that simple. Stay close to the Lamb and everything works. Attempt to live adjunct from Him in any place, and it doesn’t work. 

All right, stand with me. Revelation is done. Hey, come on. You can now say I have officially studied the Book of Revelation, and you can say, We really studied the Book of Revelation, but I hope you, like me, come out of this study with just a greater passion to walk right before Him. 

A greater awareness that the micro-moments in our daily lives matter, how we’re living the Kingdom at home, in the marketplace, it matters, our level of devotion to Him. 

I would challenge you to walk away from this study and go sit with the Lord and ask this question: are there any areas of my life that are not surrendered to you? Lord, are there any areas where I’ve just treated this like it was religion? 

I would challenge you to leave this study and make a discipline to live from the Throne Room every day, get alone with the Lord, spend time with Him, drinking the water of life.

Let me pray. Jesus, we love You. We honor You. Lord, this study has been rich. It’s been full, it’s been challenging. But Jesus, I can’t shake the words “I am coming quickly.” Over and over and over again, you say these phrases, that You’re coming soon. 

Lord, would You grace us as a family to live with eternity in front of us? A real perspective where we don’t walk away from this teaching like, Yeah, whatever, and go back to our daily lives, that we assess our lives and ask the question: Am I really living with an eternal perspective? 

And Holy Spirit, we give You permission to search us and know us and challenge us for the places we’re selfish, places we’re stubborn, places we’ve wanted to prioritize our own agendas over Yours. Break our hearts, Lord, with the things that break Yours, and give us the courage to step into real, authentic discipleship. We love You, and we honor You, Jesus’ name.