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April 29, 2007 Easter 4C

Sermon Title: “Before the Throne of God”

Series: Empty Tomb Postscript

Text: Rev. 7:9-17

Dr. Steve Jackson

NewSong Community Church

Delivered on April 29, 2007

“For this reason they are before the throne of God…” Rev. 7:15

Before the Throne of God

During the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. kept the hopes of black Americans alive with his vision of a future day when our nation would fully live up to its belief that all men are created equal. On a hot August day in 1963 Dr. King stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and shared that vision with the nation in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

“I have a dream,” he said to that crowd of thousands, . . . “a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…that this desert state sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice…. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

There is great power in a dream as stirring as Dr. King’s dream of equality for the races. Though his speech that day was only 17 minutes long, it seemed to wake up the entire nation and within months the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted. King’s vision offered consolation, inspired courage and strengthened the committed. It was a galvanizing moment that changed the course of American history and the destiny of millions of our citizens. Such is the power of a great dream and a daring vision.

Twenty centuries before Dr. King gave his most famous speech, the apostle John shared a vision of his own. Like Dr. King, John was speaking to a group of people struggling under persecution. John’s vision is known today as the Book of Revelation. While Dr. King’s vision was cast with amazing clarity so that everyone could understand it, John’s vision was cloaked in symbolism so as to not cause even more persecution for his people. During the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (81-96 C.E.), Christians were being persecuted for their faith. They were required to recognize and declare allegiance to Domitian as “god” and were martyred if they refused. It was some of the fiercest persecution the church has ever faced. Nevertheless, the people were not without hope. John’s vision of a glorious future when God’s people would be gathered around the throne of God strengthened his contemporaries in their resolve to remain firm in their faith, and unashamed of their loyalty to their God.

That gathering around the throne of God is the subject of today’s message, the third in our series called “Empty Tomb Postscript.” In case you’re here for the first time, what we’re doing in this series is we’re extending the Easter message—we’re adding a “PS” to it—mainly because the story of Jesus Christ doesn’t end on the cross, or even at the empty tomb. The story of Jesus Christ was just getting started there! The empty tomb isn’t an article of faith or doctrine—it’s a life-changing event whose impact is still felt today, and it will be felt on out, even to the end of time, as John describes it today. Each week we’ve asked, “What difference does it make that the tomb of Christ was empty on that first Easter morning?” Well today we are reminded by John that because the tomb was empty, heaven is a possibility for us all. Our eternal destinies have been changed because of what Christ accomplished on our behalf. Heaven is, in many ways, the ultimate “PS to the empty tomb for you and for me.

And heaven is what today’s text is all about. John paints us a marvelous word picture of what heaven will be like. We don’t talk much about heaven nowadays in the church, do we? It’s probably because there was so much emphasis in the old days about “casting off our mortal coil and flying off to heaven” and very little talk of what can we do to help make God’s good earth a better place for everyone in the meantime. We’re afraid people will dismiss us as the “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by” and so we go too far in the opposite direction and our message shrinks to little more than “how to have a better life.”

I was looking at the most recent edition of the Readers Digest and, you know how they have all those headlines on the front to grab you? Well the May edition has written right across the top in big bold letters: BEST NEW WAYS to > Live Longer > Sleep So it Counts > Make a Bundle. I ask you now, isn’t that what we all want? To live longer, to get a good night’s sleep and to make a bundle of cash? Yes…of course we do, but we also want something more. An ABC News poll taken last October found that 89% of Americans believe there is a heaven and 85% of them think they’ll get there. Interestingly, even 51% of those in the poll who said they were “not religious” said they believe in heaven. To me that says that even if we had our health, our rest, and a wad of cash we’d still be unfulfilled—there would still be an undefined yearning in our hearts.

And so this morning I want to talk for just a few moments about John’s vision – his “revelation” of heaven. It’s a profound thing for us to consider. What does it look like to him? What kind of picture does he paint for us? What does it look like to you? I suppose we all have our own impression of what heaven is going to be like. Some envision angels dressed in white with golden halos playing harps as they float endlessly on fluffy white clouds. Some see it as a vast celestial palace with St. Peter guarding its pearly gates as people dance on its streets of gold. How do you see heaven?

Obviously we don’t have time this morning for a full-fledged dissertation on heaven, but let me share with you just a few things that stand out to me when I look at this text.

A GREAT CROWD

The first thing I notice when I look at John’s account is a great crowd. “After this,” John says, “I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne…” (v. 9).

John says this crowd was so large that “no one could number it. Have you ever been in a large crowd? I mean a really large crowd? I remember back when I was a boy and attended my first football game at the stadium at the University of Georgia. We parked over in downtown Athens and walked through the old part of the campus and even way over there we could hear the roar of the crowd—it’s amazing how much noise thousands of people can make when they all bark at once!

What’s the largest crowd you’ve ever been in? I looked it up online and discovered that the world’s largest crowd to ever gather for a single event was 12.7 million for an Indian religious festival on Jan. 19, 1977. Can you picture that? I also read where an estimated 1.07 million shoppers visited a department store in Shanghai, China on one day in back in 1995. As you can see, all over the world, people gather in large crowds for many purposes, but as exciting as some of those gatherings might be, they all pale in comparison to the giant crowd too big to be counted that will happen one day in heaven.

And notice that this crowd is from every tongue and tribe and nation. I’m proud we have folks from different cultures in our congregation and that we serve people as a church who with different backgrounds than us, but our feeble attempts at being multi-cultural will pale in comparison to the group that will gather before God’s throne in heaven. In his presentation on Egypt a couple of weeks ago David Eitel recounted his pre-dawn hike up Mt. Sinai. He said as they moved through the darkness he looked forward and back and saw a long line of flashlights bobbing up and down as some 700 people made their way to the top. And when he got to the top he heard people speaking in many different languages. He even showed us a photo of himself, arm in arm, with a Nigerian, both of them beaming at the camera. Imagine that for a moment, a middle-aged, lily-white biblical archaeology enthusiast from Cumming, GA mugging around with a “black-as-night” pilgrim from Nigeria on the top of a mountain in Egypt—brought together by their common bond as believers in Jesus Christ.

That’s how it’s going to be in heaven some day—only a million times better. I don’t know about you…but I can’t wait.

A GREAT MESSAGE

The second thing I noticed about John’s account of what it’s going to be like there at the throne of God in heaven is there will be a great message being proclaimed. John tells us this great multitude of people “…cried out in a loud voice, saying, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (v. 10).

What a great message! What a profound message! And what an appropriate message it is for us to hear again on this, our seventh anniversary as a church. Did you know that this message is what our church is founded on? When we were looking for the name for our church we chose the name NewSong for a very specific reason. It comes from Psalm 96, which begins: “Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, praise his name; proclaim his salvation day after day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise…”

Did you notice? That’s the same message we’ll be proclaiming in heaven for all eternity – “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Again, I have to confess to you that many times I get distracted with what our message is as a church. I read church books and leadership magazines and go to conferences and I talk to people about our church every day and they ask questions like, “What is your church all about?” And I find myself analyzing us like those guys on ESPN zone do saying, “Well, we’re a bunch of real nice people.” Or, “We really emphasize community at NewSong…or discipleship…or “We’re real good at worship.” Or “We’ve got a fantastic pastor.” J

The reality, however, is that we have a great message that we simply can’t allow ourselves to get distracted from – it’s the one thing that we have to offer (we, being the church universal, not just NewSong) that no one else on earth has to offer – and that’s statement that “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” That’s the message that will be proclaimed for eternity from the throne room of heaven! What a great message that is! It’s such a great message, that it segues nicely into the third thing I notice about John’s description of the folks gathered around the throne of God a the end of time in heaven.

A GREAT CELEBRATION

And that is that there is a great celebration going on. Not only is a great crowd gathered shouting out their great message, but they’re doing so in the midst of a great celebration. They are waving palm branches (v.9), which in the Bible is always a sign of victory and joy, and they are worshipping day and night, 24/7, before the throne of God (v. 15).

If there’s one image of heaven that is more prevalent than any other, it’s the image of a heavenly feast or banquet – a party! There’s a great book, later made into a film called “Babette's Feast” that tells the story of a refugee from Paris who flees to Norway and forms a relationship with two elderly and deeply religious sisters. Babette, whose background as a great chef in Paris is unknown to the villagers, works as a cook and housekeeper for the two women in their house in a small village on the remote and beautiful coast of Jutland. The congregation Babette becomes a part of is known for it’s dark and austere view of life. Everything in their religion must be earned, and most of life’s joys must be denied. After the women “teach” Babette to cook the bland fish soup on which they subsist, Babette spends fourteen years as their cook. Her only link to her former life being a lottery ticket that a friend in Paris renews for her every year. One day, she wins the lottery and the village is sad this joyful person will be leaving them. But Babette decides to use the money to prepare a delicious dinner for the sisters and their small congregation. For weeks boats arrive at the remove village bringing foods the people could have never imagined. The feast itself turns into a wonderful meal with overtones of the Eucharist. The crux of the story turns on the conflict between the congregation's austere religion with its denial of earthly enjoyments, and the sumptuousness of the meal Babette prepares. Many years before Babette had landed among the supposed “religious ones” who were actually graceless. They heard sermons on grace nearly every Sunday and they spent the rest of the week trying to deny themselves and earn God's favor with their piety and renunciation. Grace eventually came to them in the form of a feast, Babette's feast, a meal of a lifetime lavished on those who had in no way earned it, who barely possessed the faculties to receive it. Grace came to that village as it always comes: free of charge, no strings attached, on the house.

The message of Babette’s Feast, and the message John wants us to get by relating this great celebration going on in heaven, I believe, is “Let the party begin.” After all, don’t we pray, “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven?” If there’s a party going on in heaven—if we’re going to spend eternity surrounding the throne of God in heaven celebrating with him—it seems to me that to do anything less now makes us more like the two sisters in the story of Babette’s Feast than like Babette herself. Paul agreed when he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, “Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4). That’s a commandment you don’t hear preached very often, but one I believe we need to hear with new ears and new interest today. There’s a party going on right here…a celebration.

A GREAT RESPONSIBILITY

There is one more thing I notice when I look at this text that I would be remiss if I didn’t mention. I see a great responsibility on the part of you and me. And that responsibility is two-fold: First of all, we must do all within our power to make sure that we will be a part of this innumerable multitude with the great message who are partying in the streets of heaven. And second, I believe there is a responsibility incumbent upon us all to make sure that we take as many people with us when we go.

As for the first responsibility, our responsibility to make sure we are “in that number when the saints go marching in.” Did you notice what he says about it? Look at verse 13 – one of the elders standing near the throne of God asks John, “Who are these people robed in white, and where do they come from?” And John gives a great answer – do you see what he says, He said, “Sir, you are the one who knows…” I love that answer.

At any rate, the elder then tells us how to make sure we are one of them. He says they are the ones who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” (v. 14). What a clear answer. He says if you want to go to heaven you must claim the forgiveness offered by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. It’s something God alone can do – take a garment, wash it in blood, and have it turn out white.

You can twist that any way you want to—and many have—but as I see it, there is but one way to make SURE you are “among that number” is to be washed in the blood of the lamb. And so I ask… “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?”

As for the second responsibility I mentioned—the responsibility to take as many with us as we can—the responsibility to share the gospel—we’ve obviously got our work cut out for us. But it is an important responsibility we must not ignore because we’re uncomfortable sharing our faith. We can start with those we know, and work our way out from that.

How can we at NewSong bring them in? How do we engage in evangelism? How do we share our faith? The way we seem to do it best is we share our faith through relationships. We share our faith by inviting others to come and see our church. We share our faith by introducing others to our risen Lord.

A woman was to preach at an African Annual Conference. She was a very bright young woman who had recently received her PhD. An African man, who knew fairly good English, was to be her interpreter. She began her sermon that morning by saying, “I want to talk this morning regarding the relationship of the East and West with special emphasis on the psychological and theological implications for Christian Mission.”

Many of these words the African interpreter had never heard. He paused for a moment and then turned to the congregation and said, “Mama is glad she is here.”

The interpreter was a wise African man. Thankfully he realized that Christ does not call most of us to share our faith with big words and fancy sermons. Christ calls most of us to share our faith through relationships. “Mama is glad she is here…now she’s going to talk about Jesus.”

I ask you this morning…are you ready to make sharing Jesus a part of your relationships with others so you can begin doing your part to add to that heavenly crowd? Christ is calling us to do that today.

As I close let me just say this….I am confident that I haven’t told you a single thing you didn’t already know this morning in my sermon. But I’m equally confident that if I had read every book in every library in the world…If I had sat down with all the great philosophers and politicians and leaders through the ages…I could not have shared a more profound message with you than the one I have shared with you on this, our seventh anniversary as a church. I want each one of you to be a part of that multitude standing around the throne of God proclaiming that great message and partying like nobody’s business. Will you be there? Will you receive my challenge to you this morning to share your faith relationally so many others will be there as well? I pray you will. Amen.