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(upbeat music) - Welcome to our study of Revelation 21 in Daily Drive Time
Devotions. Hi, this is Pastor Tom. First day of our look at this awesome
chapter.

We are looking at heaven this week. We are looking at what God can do and will
do in our lives as we trust in Him. In Revelation chapter five, we got to see
back in chapter five what God's dwelling place in heaven was like.

Remember the throne room and the rainbow and all the sea of glass, the glory of
that. Here in Revelation chapter 21, we get to see what our dwelling place will
be like in heaven. It's sort of like a guided tour of where we will spend
eternity.

Revelation 21 is the clearest description of heaven in the entire Bible. And so
I consider it a privilege this week to be your tour guide as we walk through
this description of this perfect place that God has by His promise set aside for
us so that we can spend eternity. This is an awesome description that God has
prepared for us of what He has done for us for the future.

There really in many ways aren't words to describe all that is in God's glory
for us in all of eternity. John gives us some pictures and some words that have
been revealed to him, but there aren't enough words in the human language to
describe what God has prepared for us in eternity. There's a taste of it here.

There is a sense of it here though of what God's going to do for us. And as we
get that taste, as we get that sense, there's something in every one of us that
just rises up with a great sense of joy. Paul Menier said years ago, "If you
delete the thought of heaven from man's lexicon, he is soon reduced to a one
dimensional environment, living without what he called any invisible means of
support.

" We do need an invisible means of support. We do need to know that there is
support above and beyond the visible things that I see in this world. And so
this week as we walk through Revelation chapter 21, we're going to do some then and
now thinking.

You've heard of if and then thinking or when and then thinking. If this happens,
then I'm going to do this or when this happens, then I'm going to do this. When my
ship comes in, people say then I'm going to start giving to the Lord or when my
family, all the kids leave home, then I'm going to really start serving God or when
my marriage starts to be happy or then I'm going to really work harder on my
marriage.

That's when and then thinking and it never works. You gotta do it now, whatever
God's given you to do. And one of the things that strengthens us to live the
kind of life that God has given us now is what we find in this chapter.

An alternative to the when and then thinking is what I would call then and now
thinking. Since we know what will happen then, God shows us here in Revelation
21 what heaven's going to be like, what does that mean for my life now? That's what
we're going to walk through this week.

We're going to walk through specifically three things that will happen then, a new
heaven and a new earth, God's dwelling being with us, and then the third thing,
a new Jerusalem. As we walk through these, we're going to think with each of them,
what about now? What does this mean for my life right now?

The first then that we are looking forward to is a new heaven and a new earth.
Revelation 21, one, and then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first
heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea.

It's interesting, we're coming towards the end of the book of Revelation one
week after this week. The Bible begins with a beginning, obviously. Bible begins
by saying in the beginning and then it ends not as you might expect.

It does not end with an ending. The Bible ends with a new beginning. Here we
have, right in the last chapters of the Bible, this new beginning, this new
heaven and this new earth.

And this was not a new promise. This is just a reaffirmed promise. If you look
back in Isaiah 65, if you look at Isaiah 66, you hear this promise of a new
heaven.

You can see it in Ezekiel, you can see it in Hosea, all throughout the Old
Testament in various places. But here, it's not just a future promise. John is
seeing this new heaven, this new earth as a fulfilled promise.

Now what does this mean? A new heaven and a new earth. Many people on our
research team had questions about this.

Someone asked, am I correct in saying that our eternal home will be on a
restored planet earth? Someone else asked, if we'll be in heaven with the Lord,
what's the purpose of the new earth? Why is there a new earth if I'm going to
reside in a new heaven?

Somebody else asked it very simply, what does new heaven mean? Let me just walk
this through with you. Some people think that when God takes us to this new
heaven and new earth, that the old is going to be entirely wiped out, sort of
vanish, and he's just going to make this new thing.

Others think that the new is going to be made out of the old. And I agree with
those who think that the new is somehow resurrected out of the old, just as it
is with our bodies. The Bible tells us very clearly in 1 Corinthians 15 that the
new, the new bodies he's going to give to us, they are made in some marvelous way
out of the old.

They are resurrected out of the old. Romans chapter eight tells us that the
whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth until now, until the
redemption of God's children. So there's a sense in that verse that all of
creation is going to be redeemed.

All of creation in one sense is resurrected. And just think about it. Think
about what it's going to be like.

A new heaven and a new earth, all of it. We live in all of it. I don't know how
we get to go back and forth between the two.

I don't know how our homes are situated. God doesn't tell us that here. But we
live clearly in all of it.

The new heaven, God's dwelling place, the new earth. Think of what that would be
like. We get to experience this earth.

What about a new earth, a perfect earth? When you see pictures of heaven in the
movies, when you see pictures of heaven on a television show, it's usually just
white puffy clouds. Why do people picture it that way?

'Cause they can't afford to picture what it's really like. They couldn't even
attempt to picture because it's a perfect place. So they just say, well, let's
throw a few puffy clouds on the screen and people will get it.

That means heaven. That's not at all what heaven is like. Heaven is a perfect
place.

Think of heaven and the perfection of what's going to be there. Think of earth made
perfect. That's part of it.

And then there's also a new heaven as well. I'll never forget, years ago,
talking at my son's school and they were asking questions of the pastors that
were there and one of them asked, what's heaven going to be like? And I was telling
them this, that it's going to be a place of perfection.

And it wasn't connecting with the kids. I was telling them, well, it's going to be
a place where like if you saw a waterfall, it would be a perfect waterfall. And
they just sorta nodded their heads.

A forest, a perfect forest, can you imagine that? They sorta nodded their heads.
Can you imagine a perfect ocean, what that would be like?

But then I finally hit on it. I said to the kids, can you imagine what a perfect
puppy would be like? And their eyes lit up.

They almost came out of their chairs. They could imagine that. The perfection of
what you most desire in this life, the perfection of what is the closest to your
heart in this life, that is heaven.

A new heaven and a new earth. In eternity, everything is perfect. It's not the
place of limits that we think about.

It's unlimited beauty, unlimited glory. It's a new heaven. It's a new earth.

It's God saying, I'm going to make everything new. Now, since we're looking forward
to this new heaven and new earth, what does that mean about my life today? Well,
John, who saw this revelation, also wrote a letter to the churches called First
John.

And in First John 2:17, he says, the world and everything that people want in it
are passing away. But the person who does what God wants lives forever. The way
that I look forward to this new heaven and new earth is by doing what God wants
in my life today.

That's how I look forward to it. That's what I do now. That's how my heart is
drawn even more and more into this new heaven and new earth, this place of
perfection.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about investing your money in different stocks.
One stock that will inevitably go down, and the company's eventually going to lose
everything. You'd never invest in that if you knew that.

The other stock that we know is going to keep appreciating, there's no doubt that I
would invest in the company that I know is going to keep appreciating, and that is
heaven. The question I have to ask myself, we all have to ask ourselves, you
have to ask yourself today, in the way that you live, the things that you do is,
why do we find ourselves investing so much of our lives in things that will pass
away? Instead of investing in lives that we know will last for eternity.

Investing in eternity doesn't mean that you don't invest in things that are
happening here and now. You just wait until somehow you get to heaven. God has a
lot of eternal things that he's doing right now in people and through people.

He's got a lot of eternal things that he has for you to do right now. And it's
all caught up in doing what God wants. You want to live for heaven today?

Just pray this simple prayer. God, what do you want? What do you want in my
relationships?

What do you want in the way I handle my material things? What do you want? And
then God, give me the strength to do what you want.

How am I going to spend the now? How I spend the now determines the kind of hope
that I'm going to have today. Let's take a minute to pray.

And as we pray, I encourage you, just pray that simple prayer. God, Father, show
me what you want. Show me what you want in my life, in my relationships, in my
finances, in my decisions, in my business, in my schooling, in my family.

God, show me what you want. Then give me the strength, I pray, to do what you
want. Help me to look forward to eternity with you by living for what you want
today.

I pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk about the promise
of God dwelling with us.