When I was growing up, we spent every fourth of July with my uncle Ronnie in his house up on the hill Where we shot fireworks and we just played all day. We got there in the morning. We ate sausage and biscuit We ate lunch. It was just an all-day affair and And the run of the place was ours and one year in particular. I'll never forget this. I was about 10 and we were upstairs. We got in the house. We weren't really supposed to be in the house, but we were because Parents didn't want to look at us or watch us. And so we were in the house and we got into my cousin Misty's bedroom and Of course as children will do when they get into a bedroom. We started jumping on the bed and We knew we weren't supposed to, but nobody else's in that. There was none of the dolls in the house, right? And so we were just kind of going forward and and got three of us up there at a time and we're jumping Fourth of July! Wow! Fourth of July! Fourth of July crack! And the bed fell. And I looked behind it and one of the wooden Runners it holds the bed up. We just did just done that. I wasn't worried Because my brothers were downstairs and they could fix it and so I looked at Misty and I said, I'll get Tommy Because Tommy's the cool one and he won't turn us in And so I snuck downstairs and I whispered in Tommy's ear We need you upstairs So he came right up and he looked and we showed him what we had done and he looked at it and he looked at me and he said, what do you want me to do? I said, fix it And he said, you broke the wood. Nobody can fix that and this crazy wonderful party Just became a cry fest because I'd broken my uncle Ronnie's bed and I was terrified of the man who's huge and I just began to cry and cry because I'd broken it and it couldn't be fixed That's kind of what's going on here Paul, John has gone up into heaven and He was caught up in perfect worship in heaven and all the creatures of heaven and earth the angels and the creatures of earth all of creation are worshipping the Father they're worshipping him and he's caught up in that but then Everything that had been a party everything that was filled with joy began to turn to sorrow and He wept He wept because because God has a plan. He he wept because God has this plan to fix the earth To redeem his people to heal us But no one's worthy to enact the plan No one's worthy to open it up and so John's celebration became tears and weeping until This one angel walks over to him and says these beautiful words Weep no more The lamb is worthy Please stand as we read It's an incredible text for revelation chapter 5 It's all part of the same vision that we started two weeks ago. So all the creation singing holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty Let's try it again all creation is crying out holy holy holy is the Lord God almighty Then I saw on the right hand of him who was seated on the throne of stroll written within and on the back Sealed with seven seals and I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the stroll and break it seals and No one in Seven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it And I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look into it and One of the elders said to me Weep no more Behold the line of the tribe of Judah the root of David has conquered So they he can open the scroll and it seven seals and between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a lamb Standing as though it had been slain With seven horns and with seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth and He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne and When he had taken the scroll the four living creatures and the 24 elders fell down before the lamb each holding a harp and Golden bowls full of incense which are the prayers of the saints and They sang a new song saying We're there you to take the scroll and open its seals for you were slain and by your blood You ran some people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation and you have made them a kingdom and Priest to our God and They shall reign on the earth Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels Numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him Who sits on the throne and to the lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever Amen, please be seated word of God I told Jonathan on the way over here this text is so beautiful. I don't want to preach on it I just want to read it and close but I have to that's what y'all pay me to do So let's talk about this wonderful amazing text first real question for us is why is John weeping what what happens and to understand that I need you to understand a few things first of all Let's talk a little bit about John's visions the book of revelation is is filled with seven visions of John seven Seven being the number of perfection that you'll see the number of seven throughout Revelation you should never interpret it literally the lambs don't really have seven eyes. That would just be weird There's not seven holy spirits the number of seventies means perfection is God's number six is man's number. We'll find that out in a few weeks but seven is God's number and The first revelation Jesus sees I mean John sees Jesus in the midst of the lampstands Remember that he's in the midst of the lampstands He's in the church. He's with the church. He has the church in his hands and then he sends out the messages to the churches Now the second time John sees Jesus in heaven and what the reason why this important is this If you try to read John Revelation chronologically you get really confused. It's not laid out chronologically. It's basically the same period of time and is being looked at seven different ways Now if you don't watch sports time might be confusing to you But if you've ever watched a football game you're very familiar with this right you'll see a great play and and they'll show it to you 10 different ways. That's what at least seven different ways right there's a play on the field and it's a touchdown And they show what the what the running back. This is the view from behind the quarterback This is the view from the defense. This is the view of the sideline. This is the view of the quarterback's parents This is the view of the of the coaches in the in the box, right? It's the same thing over and over being layered and That's what's happening here. This is the view I guess in that analogy, which is very weak This would be the view of the the press box The coaches in the box he got it's in heaven from heaven's point of view What is happening on our throughout history and the answer is the entirety of the Old Testament is this question being asked Is anyone worthy to open the scroll creation has been polluted It's been distorted It's broken There is death There is violence There is heartbreak. There is abandonment. There is sickness. There is loss There is limitation. There is pain There is the wealthy exploiting the poor the strong exploiting the weak It's been polluted And God has a plan He's got this plan and he calls the new covenant we studied it this summer in Jeremiah He's got a plan where the knowledge of God is going to cover the world the way the waters cover the sea when it would be no longer Be necessary to look at your neighbor and say no the Lord for they're all going to know me and everybody's going to be doing his will And he's going to remake this earth. He's going to remake all of these people. He's going to make them Whole and pure again and he's going to restore joy and he's going to restore life and he's going to heal And he's going to eradicate pain and suffering and and never again Whether there be any violence on all my holy mountain says the Lord He's got this plan, but no one's able to put it into play No one's able to execute the plan No one's worthy and John weeps he weeps because he knows the beauty of the planet He weeps because he knows the need for the plan Because he's seen his friend suffer He's seen his family members die He wants the plan to be Inacted he wants it to be executed, but no one is worthy It's as if We're in some kind of zombie apocalypse movie and we know how to make the healing serum. We know how to make the cure And all we need to make the cure is one pure human One uninfected human By God's decree a human has to be the savior and They're all infected and John's weeping because he's infected None of us are worthy to do it and so he's crying He feels the need of this plan and then the elder walks up to him and I And each vision there's like one sentence But you really need to take with you. I want at the end of this service. I want you a series I want you to have these seven sentences Sealed in your memory you remember the first one Was the first thing that Jesus said to John when he fell down paralyzed with fear He said don't fear Do not fear And this one just as beautiful. Maybe even better Wheat no more Wheat no more This is the second great statement of hope in the book of Revelation Wheat no more and he tells him something beautiful. He says the lion of the tribe of Judah the root of David the the source of the Davidic Kings the source of From the from the tribe of Judah from the line that the God set apart Early in Genesis to say is the side the Savior's gonna come from this family the favor of the world's gonna come from this one family. Here he is He's conquered Strong he's a lion. He's strong. He's fearless. He's untamable. He's powerful And and frankly his Christians we need to remember this that what the work that Jesus did was a conquest He has established a new kingdom It was a conquest He Underwent temptation to defeat sin. He underwent torture and injustice and by By absorbing it into himself. He has defeated evil by Dying he has defeated death. He goes into the very Center of evil stronghold Goes into the grave death itself and he explodes it from within He's defeated death and that's that is the reason why we're here today It's like it's a conquest the the story of the Bible is not a story of loss It's not a story of of an earth that was destroyed and so God has you to plan to to zap us off this earth one day and take us to a new planet That's better into the plant is a story of going into this planet going down to the depths of it in the grave and Then renewing it from the very inside It's a conquest He is the blind of the tribe of Judah and And and he is defeated great the grave and death and evil and sin and gone It's brought back to life. He stops weeping and he turns he wants to see this lion this this victorious beast that has defeated Everything that is bad and this is another thing that happens a lot to us in revelation He hears one thing And he turns to see another He hears a A boy's like a trumpet and turns to see Jesus in the midst of the lamp stands Here he hears the lion of the tribe of Judah has has conquered And he turns he doesn't see a line He sees a lamb a Lamb that has been slain a Lamb that is conquered by giving himself up a Lamb that is conquered by absorbing the blows a Lamb that has conquered by receiving the death and the wrath that we deserve He's conquered his by his love not by his force and
That's the that is the thing we had we we learned from this text that Jesus has conquered death and sin and he's establishing a new kingdom in this earth and he is Is levying this earth from the inside to turn it into something beautiful again and he's conquering it not by violence not by force not by power. He is conquering it by grace He's conquering it by his grace He's conquering it by his love I hope you get that all that makes sense to you that you can have a conquest a victory a Real capturing by love. There's a great story of the Apostle John Written by the first century Historian you see beus I'd really the kind of the first church historians where we get a lot of our knowledge about what was happening right after the New Testament and he wrote the story about John coming to a town and This this young man really captured his heart and he taught this man the gospel and he handed him to the bishops of the town He said watch this guy watch over him be it be fathers to him And he left to go to the next town. He's always going from town to town encouraging the bishops and The bishops taught the young man and they baptized him, but the man fell in with the wrong crowd It's typical story and he he ended up just going off with with bandits and actually becoming that the head of this gang this violent gang that would Steel and that would would kidnap for ransom and John came back to the town and he asked the bishops of the town what happened to the young man left in your charge and And they said they told him the story unfortunately he's fallen in with thieves and John got on a horse and he said where where do they hide and He rode straight up into the stronghold of the bandits and they they came to him and they attacked him and he said it's fine I'm not going to defend myself. You can have everything I have just take me to your leader and They take him up into the stronghold and he sees the young man and the young man tears off running away He's terrified of of his spiritual father and John. This is what you see be it's right John for getting his age pursued him with all his might crying out. Why do you flee from me? your own father Unarmed agent Pity me my son Fear not you still have a lot of life. I will give account to Christ for you I will willingly endure your death as the death as the Lord suffered death for us For you. I will give up my life Stand and believe that Christ has sent me John's words penetrated the young man's heart and he stopped and he looked down and threw away his arms and He trembled and wept bitterly Baptizing himself with tears Concealing only his right hand read done so many acts of violence and John pledged himself a shirt him on oath that he would find forgiveness and Fill up on his knees and kissed his right hand itself as if now purified by repentance and Let him back to the church That's what it looks like to be conquered by love Conquer by weakness Conquer by grace It's it's frankly what Catholic charities are attempting to do here in our own midst It's fascinating, you know Tulsa's receiving about 800 refugees, we think from Afghanistan and As these refugees are coming in Catholic charities are are leading this plan to To overwhelm these these refugees with grace to give them apartments and jobs and and furniture and hopefully put them in the nicest place That they've ever lived in and just give it to them for free and when they ask why say this is what grace is all about and their hope is that Understanding between refugees and Taliban soldiers, but go with me here the same tribe of people the same race of people That the strongest army in the history of the world could not conquer Their hope is that they will be conquered by God's grace They'll be conquered by kindness Have you experienced that ever if you ever just been conquered absolutely taken captive by grace Maybe the grace of your father getting up in the middle of the night to sit with you when your Feet heard and needed to be robbed maybe the maybe the grace of your mom who never ever ate a hot meal through herself Because she was always getting up to serve everyone else maybe Maybe it was your husband as he as you drove him to the airport handing you his phone saying will you when you put Perennial controls on this and not tell me the code I Need your help Maybe it was your wife saying thank you For loving me And not wanting to Get away from me and and look at whatever you want to look at If you've ever been conquered by grace Have you been conquered by the Lord's grace giving you a son when you were still running away from him if you have Then you know what worship is all about Weep no more the elder says and then John takes part in the worship worship a Renewed sense of worship a worship because the lamb is worthy that's that's the the meaning of the word worship itself Worship is is shipping worth. It's it is telling someone they're worthy and That's what all of heaven is doing and our prayers are Actually in this text if you saw it the elders in heaven are pouring out bowls of incense and those are our prayers Coming before the father telling Jesus he's worthy Thank worship for your worship is It's always the least popular topic That way teach on it's kind of a fascinating thing and it sounds awkward and something Kind of separate especially if if you're not used to going to church and using those kind of words And we we don't really know what it is and so we just basically say singing is worship, you know Like that's that's that's basically what we've done We kind of reduce worship down to singing instead of it being everything that we do but I Got to see worship last night. It was really cool. I Went to see Cheryl Crowe in concert and and During the next the last song she was singing soak up the song, you know tell everyone a light note and it was great because all the people up front just rushed the stage and They're all holding their hands up and even those COVID and she knew better she went by just she would grab every hand it was up It was fascinating That's that's interesting when it's a bunch of teenage girls, you know It's like the Beatles and the crying or whatever when it's a bunch of 50 somethings It's pretty fascinating actually And it's they were worshiping or not in a sinful idolatrous way, but they were just saying You mean something to me Your music has meant you even though you have no idea who I am you mean something to me You've done something for me. You show me beauty you've you've you've inspired me in deep places You have me you mean something and that's that's what worship is. It's it's looking at Jesus saying you mean something to me You're important to me You're worthy You're worthy because of who you are you are worthy because of you have ransomed us You've ransomed us and made us a kingdom and priests they say What does that mean to be ransomed? It means you realize that you were lost You were a captive you were enslaved by your sin by your addictions by your habits by your desires You were enslaved and now you are free It's a new kind of worship the worship and in chapter four is worship for creation and we can sort of take part in that sort of the worship for being redeemed is different We have two church members who almost died two weeks ago One was in a car accident where he tore off through the woods highway speeds and didn't hit a tree amazingly and the other was actually Standing on a street corner when a car lost control and in a telephone pole right beside him and And in both cases I looked at him I said I want you to try just try. It's impossible But try to be as happy as you would have been sad That's that's being thankful. That's what it means to feel yourself being ransomed You're as happy that you're alive as you would have been sad if you weren't You're ransomed And that's what it energizes their worship John is told weep no more but worship Cosignus and heartbreak and abuse and death and poverty and abandonment don't have the final word Death has been defeated You've been ransomed and the lamb is worthy to open scroll Please please pray with me Lamb you are worthy to receive power and honor and glory and wisdom and might Forever and ever and ever would you tune our hearts to sing your praise To tell you your worthiness Would you draw it out of us So that we would reach to you To be touched to tell you that you've mean something to us
Jesus name we pray