Transcription
Hello, good morning, morning. It's good to be in the house of the Lord. Amen. All right, as we continue through our series through the 12, we are going to start today with uh, the Apostle John, the brother of James, the son of Zebede. Um, John is going to be not our first most famous Apostle, but now our second one. Um, um, so like a lot of the Apostles, we're going to see as we go through the series, have a variety of time in the spotlight through the scriptures. Uh, but John is one of the exceptions to that rule; he gets a lot of time in the scriptures. In fact, he's one of the major authors of the scriptures. Um, where Peter wrote a couple books of the Bible, first and second Peter, we see John writes the book, uh, the Gospel of John, the first, second, third Epistles of John, as well as the Book of Revelation. So we're going to get to see a lot of John, and he's unique in the fact that he's one of only two apostles who directly writes a gospel. Uh, we have Matthew, and we have John, but John is a lot more personal. Where Matthew was very in uh, information-based, he was trying to give as much information and strategy to the Jewish people as possible, where John's is a lot more personal.
Um, so join with me as we go look through some of these events in John's life. Um, as I was praying and looking through the times that John's going to be highlighted through the scriptures, I noticed as well that, you know, the three—not three books because he wrote five—but the three kind of categories of what he wrote really define a lot of what this man's life has to teach us. And as we, we look at these three events, we're going to see those also kind of reflect in the three categories he wrote: his Epistles, his gospel, and the Book of Revelation. Now, the first story we're going to look at for John is, in surprisingly, John chapter 13. We're going to mostly be playing in his books of the Bible this morning, uh, but John Chapter 13, we see that John, like you said, he's one of the inner three. Um, that means him, Peter, and, and um, and James, his brother, spent the most time with Jesus among all of the 12 disciples. They were there for a lot more of these independent events and versus the other 12 Apostles. So there were some things that John saw or experienced that none of the other Apostles did. So there's a lot of unique stories and narratives we get from John.
Um, and as we look at his life this morning, we're going to see that John had a nickname, and whether it was self-imposed or imposed by the group or imposed by the church as they began to become famous, we're not quite sure where it comes about. Um, but John is often referred to as the uh, the disciple whom Christ loved or the disciple whom Christ calls beloved. And some of it might be, you know, a bit of self uh, promotion; some of it might just, just be a bit of the um, the fame he got from a certain event we're going to read later on in the gospels. But John, as you see him entirely through his gospel, is always referred to as the disciple whom Christ loved, and that is going to be the main theme of all of his writings: the gospel, his Epistles, and Revelation is this idea of love. And every time you see him referred to as the disciple whom Christ loves, it's the same word in Greek, except all maybe one time, and it's the word Agape. Now, I'm sure if you've ever been to church for longer than 3 minutes, you've probably heard of the word agape love, and you know, in the original Koine Greek, which is the common Greek, there was a variety of different words for love. The English language kind of fails in that regard, that we use adjectives and adverbs to describe this, but in other languages, there was a variety of different words that meant a specific kind of love, and agape love was this self-sacrificing, no strings attached kind of love. And every time you read about the gospel, that's the love that they use; this is agape love, this no strings attached love, this sacrificial love. And every time that John is mentioned as the disciple whom Christ loves, it's all but maybe one or two times, is the disciple whom he Agape loves.
Now, some people say that maybe that he's called the disciple whom Christ loved because it's a reminder that Christ loves his disciples, and he gives us all that agape love. And there's really no event in the scriptures where we see this is where he got the nickname versus like the sons of thunder when we learned about him and his brother the other week; we see when Jesus gives him that title. Um, but we really don't see why he calls himself this beloved disciple, but that's how he's going to refer himself through all of his gospel: the disciple whom Christ loved. Now, in uh, John Chapter 13, this is verse 21 through 26, we're going to see that John, like I said, he's one of the three, so he sees a lot of special events that the other disciples don't. But John, I think even if you don't know a lot about the Bible, you know a lot about church; you know that John is where people say to go when you want to learn about Jesus. John, everyone knows John 3:16, whether you've been to church or not; it's, it's on bumper stickers or coffee mugs or something. Everyone knows, you want to go read about Jesus, you go to John because that seems to be the, the tie-in. And even though he's not the only gospel to preach the gospel, obviously, he's the one where that has the most clarity and the most personal connection. And we're going to see that his theme of Love bleeds through all of his writings, and that honestly might be one of the main reasons he's called the disciple whom Christ calls beloved.
But in John Chapter 13, we see the Passover supper, which we, we will call the Last Supper because it's the Last Supper Jesus ate before he was betrayed and then crucified. And Passover was, as many of you probably know, this very important Festival in Jewish culture where they remembered they were rescued out of Egypt. But this Passover had special significance because it would be the last supper Jesus ate before he was uh, crucified and betrayed, and then he would be uh, victoriously resurrected on Easter Sunday. So as they're eating the supper, they're eating in a very special way. Um, it's not like the da Vinci picture where they're all on one side of the table, which made no sense to anyone. If you were a, a waitress at that restaurant, you'd wonder why you had this giant table lined up and everyone's on one side. But when they would have probably eaten in a U-shaped table where they were all lying down and kind of leaning on, on cushions and things to eat on this U-shaped table where they would more likely be able to serve from the inner, from a servant. Um, so as you see this last supper, and we see here in John Chapter 13, we're going to read 21-26 and kind of have that picture in your head of this is how they're sitting at the table when Jesus said this: he was troubled in spirit, and he testified, Truly I tell you, one of you will betray me. And the disciples started looking at one another, uncertain which one he was speaking about. And one of his disciples, the um, the one who Jesus loved was reclining close besides Jesus, and Simon motioned to him to find out who he was talking about. So he leaned back against Jesus, and he asked him, Lord, who is it? And Jesus replied, He's the one who I give this piece of bread after I have dipped it. And he eventually goes and he gives it on to Judas, and he tells him, Go do what you're going to do quickly. They all thought he was going to go buy something for supper, but Judas and Jesus knew he was about to go and uh, do him dirty and gets betrayed, and the rest is history. But he leans on Jesus, you know, because the way they're sitting at this table, there was a place for the honored guest, and there was the one who he, um, the honored guests most treasured and honored, and that would be John. The way they were leaning, he was the one closest to him. So the way he would have, he would have leaned back into Jesus's arm; they weren't just randomly buddy buddy at the table at Olive Garden, just kind of leaned in Jesus's lap and said, Hey Jesus, who's going to betray you? It, there was a strategic reason um, why he leans into Jesus this way and has this kind of private conversation, because otherwise, if he shouted it to the table, they all would have stood up and be like, Why, Jesus, you going, uh, Judas going to betray him? Um, but this we see is one of these rare instances where it's just John and Jesus; it's just this tiny moment. And I love that imagery of John leaning on Jesus, because as we're going to look, I said these three events we're going to look at for John kind of correlate these different themes from his gospels, his Epistles, and the Book of Revelation.
And if we're looking at the gospel, the Gospel of John, we all know it, whether you know the Bible or not, is that that tends to be the place where you go to hear the good news of Jesus Christ. You know, even if I told some of my atheist friends or my agnostic friends, they would probably know. I'm like, Hey, what's a, what's a Bible quote? They would probably say John 3:16, because it's, it's so used and we so know, even in popular culture today, because John loves to talk about love, the love of Christ. And we see here this first point um, is going to be leaning on his love; John leans into Christ, he leans on him for this moment to ask him a question. But as we read his gospel, we find that the major point of it is learning to lean on the love of Christ. In John 3:16, we all, we all know it: For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. But there's more to that verse, and often times we neglect to say the other verses because they don't sound as nice. But in John 3:16, 17, and 18, it says this: it says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. And anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Whenever I would read that gospel, when I would teach my teenagers or youth groups, I would often describe it to them like this: it's kind of like the idea of you are in a house fire, and the fireman comes and breaks down the door, and he tells you, Follow me, this is the way out, this is the way to life. And you sitting there and saying, No, I'm good, I got it, I'll figure it out myself. That person will, it be a tragedy that they burn alive is going to be ridiculous because they've already given the way out. And it's not that, Well, why did you burn that person alive, fireman? I didn't burn him alive; I showed him the way out, and he refused to take it. And it's the same with us; he says, for those, um, Verse 18, it says, Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who, who does not believe is already condemned. We're already sitting in the problem; we're already sitting in an issue. It's a lot of people, they wonder if there's a just God, then why is there hell? Why is there these things? Like, you are already under the, the judgment and the, the consequence of sin; you are in a house fire; you are ready to be burned alive; you are already about to be committed to your fate. But here comes Jesus knocking down the door, saying, Come follow me, I'm going to bring you to life. And if you don't accept it, you already know where your fate resides. And that's, that's, that's kind of what this gospel is; it's not just um, about loving Jesus and putting your faith in him; it's about he's offering you the way out away from the consequences already of your sin. You need to follow him; you need to trust him; you need to lean on Jesus, not, I can figure it out. Because how ridiculous would that be in that situation? If we read that in the sun in the morning paper, Person almost rescued by firemen told him he'd figure it out himself, we would look so confused, confused in that person and say, What do you mean? The rescue came for you; there was a way out; you just had to trust in him and follow him; you had to lean; you had to let him carry you out, and you decide, Now, I, I'll figure it out myself. But we often do that, don't we? Where we say, Hey, Jesus offers the way, the truth, and life; Jesus says, Lean on Me, trust in me, lean on my love, and we say, No, I'll figure it out. Maybe not even in Salvation, because I hope many of us in this room, if not all of us, have at some point leaned on Jesus' love and asked him to be our salvation. But in everything, there are situations where we say, No, Jesus, I'll figure it out. And he said, I, I, I am the way; Lean on Me, trust in me, lean on my love, and we don't. And there's that consequence, and that, that's already fallen. But we see that love; we see his, we see his rescue plan; we see what he did in bleeding through his gospel. I mean, we see a parallel another other places in Romans 10:9 and 13 where he says, If you would believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and confess him with your mouth, you will be saved. And for all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We see it in the book of Ephesians, chapter 2:8. Um, we have been saved by grace through, through faith, not by your works, lest any man should boast. This gift of God he gives, it's not because you figured it out, not because you earned it, not because you were able to handle the solution; it's because you totally and wholly trusted in Jesus, leaned on him, accepted his gift he gave to offer you, and he offered the way out; he offered the solution because we were unable to do it ourselves. So that's where we see this, this love, leaning on it and trusting in it. But this isn't the only time John talks about love.
In John Chapter 13, as he's talking to his disciples once again, he has a lot to say to his disciples at the Last Supper. And after he's washed their feet, and as they're preparing for this meal, he does a lot of preaching to his disciples, preparing them before he goes off to be crucified in, in uh, his resurrection. And in John chapter 13:34-35, he says this: he says, I give you a new commandment: Love one another, just as I have loved you. You are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. As Jesus is preparing that night to be betrayed and to be brought through, excuse me, his crucifixion and to be the crucified and to die and to rise again, he gives these instructions and teachings to his disciples. And one of the things he says, because there's many things he says, but this new commandment I give to you: Love one another as I have loved you. And then he goes and he gives the example of how he loves them by going to the Cross. He, he gives an example, and he lives an example, and he tells his followers, Okay, I want you to, to mimic me. Jesus doesn't tell us to go and love our enemies and not give us an example of how to do it. He doesn't tell us to go and to live the love of Jesus and to do all these things that he wasn't willing to do first. I love where it says in the Bible that we were first his enemies, and then he gave himself as our, for us over in the Book of Romans. We were once his enemies; our, our sin isn't just a playful like dirty spot that needs to get washed clean; it is open rebellion against the King of Kings and Lords of Lords. It literally makes us his enemy, but he went and he died for us to forgive us and to bring us back and call us Sons and Daughters of the King. There's a, an artist by the name of Andy Mineo who, on one of his songs, said, Where have you ever heard a story about the hero dying for the villain? And yet that is the gospel story: is that you and I were the enemies of God; our rebellion isn't just this cute, Oops, I fell down; Oops, I'm dirty; Oops, I, I went the wrong way; it's open rebellion of saying, God, I want to be God of my life, not you; I want to sit on the throne of my heart; I want to be in control. And yet God said that deserves condemnation; that is open rebellion. But instead of condemning you, I offer you salvation; I offer you adoption; I offer you new life in me through my love. And Jesus tells his disciples, I want you to love like I love, and that's how the world should know that you follow me is because my love just drips off of you. And then he shows them the greatest example of what that love looked like. So if we live on our, if we lean on Christ's love, his love leads and bleeds out, out through us. And that's what we're going to see in the next section as we, we live out his love in the books of, um, First John is honestly, um, so much conversation about love. But John, one of the second events we see from him besides leaning on Jesus after the last supper, is that John is the only disciple besides, the only of the 12 I should say, because he had female disciples there, but the only one of the 12 who made it all the way to the crucifixion. All the other disciples, they run away; they hide. Even Peter, he makes it only to the, the trial of Jesus before he has the whole three, uh, the time before the rooster crows, and then he runs away crying. Only John makes it all the way to the cross, for the 12; there's the female disciples are there as well, but he's the only one who makes it all the way to the Cross. He's the only one who sees Jesus fulfilling the promises and the prophecies he just gave them that he would have to go and suffer and die for them. He's the only one who goes and sees that all the way there. He's also one of the only two of the 12 who makes it on Sunday morning to the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene had just come back and it says we just encountered an angel; the stone is rolled away; they told us he has risen and to come back and tell you guys. And him and Peter have a foot sprint all the way back to the tomb. I love how John takes the time to tell them that he won in the foot race; I think there was a small humble brag right there. Um, but he tells him he, he outsprinted Peter; he made it to the tomb first. But I love this imagery: he gets there to the tomb, and he can't, he can't go in yet in disbelief, but Peter runs right in, and then eventually John follows him, and they see the burial rags left there. And it says, um, this is in John 20, that he believed. This was the one who had been with Jesus and saw him gloriously transformed on the Mount of Transfiguration, saw him raise people from the dead, heard him preach that he would die and be buried and rise again, heard all of these things, saw him on the cross, literally had Jesus tell him, Behold your son, son, behold your mother; literally, Jesus bequeathed his mother to him in this care for his most trusted earthly relationship to John. And it was that moment as he saw the empty tomb that he believed. And I, and I love that that John is there for some of the greatest moments in history versus all the other 12 disciples. But we see that he was there for the crucifixion and there for the resurrection. And as we talked about that these, these events kind of coordinate with some themes from his gospel and from his Epistles and his John, his epistle. First John honestly is all about love; not, not, not the only thing that it's talked about, but if you read 1 John 3, the conversation about love is prevalent throughout the whole thing. And he talks about living the love of Christ. Like I said in John Chapter 13, he says, I want you to go follow my example to live and love like I have loved, then that's how people will know that you are my followers. And then he gives them the example at the cross. So then this is what he says in First John uh, 3:16: he says, This is how we come to know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Now scroll down to verse 18: Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth. John remembered this conversation he had with Jesus at the Last Supper where he tells him, You will love like I have loved. And then went and gave the greatest example of how to love your enemy, how to love your neighbor, how to love like Jesus. And then he says, Don't love in word and talk, but in deed, in truth. And I love that because sometimes our love can be all talk; sometimes love can just be, I love you so much, and then our actions don't back it up. And yet John is telling us that from the example of Jesus, you want to go and live the love of Christ; don't let it be all talk; live it in action. And Jesus gave us the greatest example of how to live out his love when he went to the cross, and we should do likewise, live our lives and live our love out to the world. I, I love this in John, 1 John 4:7 through uh, 7-21: Dear friends, let us not love one another, let us love one another because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is made complete in us. And this is how we know that we remain in him and he in us. He has given us his Spirit, and we have seen and we testify. The Father sent his Son into the world's, in the world's savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and him in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this God's love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment. Because as he is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; and perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. We have loved because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And we have this commandment from him: the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister. So there's a lot there, but here's where we break it down, and I, and I, I love this: First, we know, we know love because God loved us; that that is how we are able to learn and experience love, not from our abstract definitions, because everyone can have a different definition or different expectations of what love looks like and what love is. We live in a world where there is no such thing as truth and defined standards anymore, and that your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth, and you shouldn't invalidate mine, etc. So where is the standard? And yet this is here: how we know what love is: that one, God is love, and that we know love because he first loved us. We didn't create it out of the chasm; we didn't figure it out with our cleverness; we didn't, we didn't gain it because we just have this big open hearts; we learned it from God; he lives his love through us. And this is what I love where it says, um, in verses, um, 9-16, where he says, God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so we might live through him. Love consists in this: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. This is this is the part I love: No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is made complete in us. No one has ever seen God; we are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ on Earth right now. We get to be the body of believers, the body of Christ, and we get to be the way people experience the love of God. It, it's more than just about being a good person and having great interactions with people and, and giving them kindnesses and courtesies; it's about literally being the love of Christ to another person, that the way that they may experience Jesus, that the way they might know his love for them. We're about to have uh, Valentine's Day in barely a week and a half, the time where we all think about love, and we think about it in a romantic sense. But as we think about this love holiday coming up, think about how we know love: Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross, his complete and whole surrender to love his enemies and to give his life for them and to rise victoriously from the grave, and that he has called us not just to experience that love, but to help other people experience it through us. You get to be the vessel of God's love that someone gets to experience; it should be dripping from us; it should be lived through us that someone might be able to encounter the love of God through you. That's one of the reasons why we're here, not just poofed up to heaven when we come to trust in Jesus, 'cause why else are we here? Why else, when we come to know Christ, do we have to then suffer through the rest of our lives in a sin-filled world and all its ups and downs and difficulties? Why didn't God just poof me right to Heaven into perfection and glory? Because we get to be here on Earth to live the love of Jesus to a world that needs love. Yeah, it's got its greatest attempts at it; it's got its hollow comparisons, and it's the best it can be, but Jesus's love, this perfect love, this agape love, we get, we get to live it and share it to the world, to be that light when in the still is dark and hurting and in pain, and we get to bring that love to other people and make it manifest.
To them, and that is amazing. It's more than just love; little hearts and and uh, guys with wings and bows and arrows. And we think romantic love and cutesiness. It's the sacrificial love, this overwhelming love, this transforming love that Jesus gave on the cross. And we get to be that to the world. And Jes—as we know, Jesus's love transforms the world, and we get to be a part of that.
The last event we're going to see, and it ties into John's last um, great work of writing, the Book of Revelation. We see in John 21:20-22 when uh, resurrected Jesus is resurrected. It's after Easter, and he's appearing to the disciples in a variety of different ways. And there's one morning where seven of the disciples are out fishing for the rest of the for the rest of the group, and they find Jesus on the beach having breakfast. They they bring him some fish; they have breakfast with Jesus. Peter has an interaction with him. You might remember when we first started the series, Peter had the conversation with Jesus um, "Jesus, do you uh, Peter, do you love me?" "Yes." "Feed my sheep." "Jesus, do you uh, Peter, do you love me?" "Yes." That that conversation is the same breakfast. And then Peter looks and sees John. And this is uh, John 21:20-25. So Peter turned around and saw the disciple Jesus uh, loved following them, the one whom leaned back against Jesus at the supper and asked, "Lord, who's the one who betrays you?" And when Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about him? If I want him to remain until I come." Jesus answered, "What is that to you? As for you, follow me." So this rumor spread to the brothers and sisters that this disciple would not die. Now Jesus did not tell him that he would not die, but "If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?" This is the disciple who testified in those things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true, and there is also many more things that Jesus did which if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.
First of all, I love that last sentence, that if all the things that Jesus ever did were written down, the worlds could not contain it. For I love that. But Peter had this interaction with Jesus on the beach where Jesus is telling Peter how he will live his life for him, kind of how his life is going to end. And then Peter kind of looks at John; he's like, "Well, what about him?" And Jesus's reaction is, "If I want John to stay and remain a witness for me, what is that to you? Go and do what I have told you to do."
First off, we need to, as followers of Jesus, remember that your calling and your calling are not the same. We are all called to live the love of Jesus; we're all called to be lights in the darkness, but what God calls us to individually is going to be different from one another. And we can't compare ourselves like that. We're going to spend a lot of time being frustrated or confused or just belittled because, "Hey, why is my life in my story not like theirs? Why why am I doing this and they're doing that?" And I just—Jesus doesn't want us to compare our callings. We are all called ultimately to share the gospel, to live the gospel, but Jesus takes us on a couple different—our own roads. So let's not spend too much time cross-comparing, losing sleep over it. But I love this one. He said um, in other translations it says, "If I have called him to be a witness until I come, what what does that matter to you?" And and I love that. So John—what makes him special over all the other of the 12 disciples—is that he was the last one to die. All the other 12 would eventually be murdered and uh, persecuted for their beliefs, and John is the exception to that rule. He goes on to be a 90-something-year-old man at a prison camp on this island called Patmos. This was like a prison camp, and he, even though he's a 90-year-old man, is sent there. And this is where he has this encounter with God and writes the Book of Revelation. Uh, I always had a a Bible professor in college who always made sure there's no such thing as Book of Revelations; it's the Book of Revelation, and would be very upset if anyone called it Revelations. So just a tidbit, if you're talking about it, it's the Book of Revelation, the revelation. It was this big um, Louisiana man; we called him the Louisiana Santa Claus 'cause he always wore red flannel, had a giant old white beard and a big thick Louisiana accent, but he was always uh, booming. He'd like, "It's the Book of Revelation, not the—" Um, it was just a funny memory from Bible college. But John stays longer than all of the other of the 12 disciples to see this encounter and writes it down, the very last book we have in the scriptures, The Book of Revelation.
Now, like I said, all of John's writing has been about love. The Gospel of John is about how you lean on the love of Christ, how you come to know him and to trust in him and to be born again. And the book of First John is about living that love to the world. The Book of Revelation—I mean, how is that about love? I mean, that's all weird end-time prophecies, right? And all these weird emeries and and like, how is that a book about love? And honestly, a lot of people will—a lot of Christians, a lot of churches—will lose themselves in the mystery of end-times stuff and and Revelations and all these things because it's it's neat and it's weird, and we love to think about, "Well, this is the end times, and that person's the Antichrist, or that person is the Antichrist. No, this is the end time. No, I figured out—I I read the Bible backwards and upside down and on a Thursday, and I figure out when the end times is." And I can remember being in Bible College, and there were some pastors like, "I figured it out; I know when The Rapture's happening." We all walked around Bible camp and said, "Hey, if I don't see you later, I'll see you later—" Um, it's like, "Well, I guess we weren't saved 'cause we missed the bus," and you know, just this always happened. But churches and Christians love to get wrapped up in the mystery of the end times, and they miss the point. The Book of Revelation isn't that we try and figure out the mysteries of God's prophecy; it's that we would live, 'cause we know we don't know tomorrow is guaranteed. I I I was watching a pastor online who said, "The Book of Revelation isn't about building bomb shelters; it's about building bigger tables and inviting people to come and dine with you and share Jesus with them." And that just made me sit and kind of let the hairs stand up on it and be like, "Whoa," because so many of us, we read the end times, we read those things, and we get wrapped up in the mystery and the weirdness, and we're like, "Whoow, we're—we're the end times are coming; we're about to see fire and brimstone," all these things. And yet the Book of Revelation isn't about the mystery. I mean, it is, but it's for us to be encouraged to live today. We don't know tomorrow. The love—because this could be our last chance to tell someone about the love of Jesus and invite them in, to build bigger tables, not build bomb shelters and hide because we don't know what tomorrow brings. And that's that's that's where the love is found in the Book of Revelation, because we know how the story ends, and we are not called to hide and be separate from the world, but to go out into the world and tell them, "Hey, I know how the story ends; would you like to hear it? Would you like to be on the winning side? Would you like to feel it?"
In the Book of Revelation, uh, chapter 21:3-5, it says that there's coming a day where he will wipe away every tear. There is coming a day where every where every tear will be wiped away, where every where every pain will be healed, where every bone that was broken will be fixed. There is coming a day, and Jesus kept John around to be a witness for that to come and to witness The Book of Revelation and to tell people, "Hey, there is coming a day where God will make all of his promises fulfilled. There is coming a day where the love of Jesus will find its completed story." Because there is a day, and we we sit in this longing expectation of—it's been 2,000 years, y'all. Like, it's been a long time. Why is why is God taking so long? Why are we still here? Why where is he? We are called to tell people there will come a day, to be that witness that God's love is going to frighten in the story. I love where it says in the Bible that all God's promises find their yes and amen in Jesus, and the way the Bible ends is no different. Jesus is the punctuation mark, the period, to the end of the Bible. "One day you wipe away every tear; one day the love of God will be made complete, and all the pain and suffering of the world is going to be wiped away." Yeah, you know Jesus; we lean on him and we love him, but there are still hard times. He promises that to those who follow him, like, "Follow me, but they hate me; they're going to hate you." That's not a great sign-on bonus; that's a bad sales pitch. "Hey, come follow me; your life will be filled of misery, pain, and persecution because they hated me, but I love you." It's a great sign-on bonus, Jesus, but there's coming a day where all those tears will be wiped away, where his love will be made perfect. Yes, there will be trials and tribulations. The people who you will love on with the love of Jesus will tell you, "Get away from me, you bigot, you you you idiot, you fool. Like, go find and follow your Jesus somewhere else." Your family members will cast you out and and be angry with you. It's like, "Why do you always make everything a religious affair? I don't want to hear about your Jesus." Your job places may think of you as, "Oh, look, here's the uptight Christian." Your children might look at you and say, "Look at my my foolish parents and their dead old religion," and all these things. But we're still called to love on them, the love, and to drip the love of Jesus that they might see his love. We're not called to fix how they respond, but we know there will come a day, and that's where we keep going. And that's why we face every hill and every valley; that's why we face those interactions because we know there will come a day where the love of Jesus will be completed and we will be with him forever, and there will be no pain, there will be no sorrow, and every tear will be wiped away. But we are called to be witnesses for that awaiting love. That's why when the early church met, they would end their meetings with this prayer, "Marana tha," which means, "God, God come quickly. Jesus, come again. Jesus, come, come, come. Finish your story. Come be the period at the end of the Bible. Finish and complete your love and your promise." Often times, I think we think when it comes to the end times, we think of the mystery and the and the weirdness, but we forget the point of it, and that is to testify and be a witness to the love of Jesus, that one day he will come again. And we don't know if that's today; we don't know that's tomorrow. So we're called to live the love of Jesus that other people would lean on him and trust in him and live that love as well and go out and be witnesses for it and to it. There will come a day, but lean on Jesus's love today and let him live through you and on you and out to the world. And go and live and be the love of Jesus to someone today because you do not know what tomorrow will bring. That's the book of that's the that's the life of John. Let's pray. Lord, heavenly Father, I thank you and praise you, Lord, for the fact that you are the God of love, that you call us to lean on you and to trust in you and to experience your love, that you call us to be your love and to live out your love, and that you call us to remember the promise that your love one day will be complete and perfected and that every tear will be wiped away and that every day will be made new. Thank you, Lord, and let us be witnesses for it and to it. It's in your Son's precious name I pray. Amen.