Revelation 19:11-16, 21:1-7, 22:1-21

Sermon Notes

What does the term “Advent” mean?

Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “arrival” or “appearing.” In the Christian church, Advent is a season of reflection looking back at the first arrival of Christ in humility—His Incarnation. But Advent is also a season of anticipation as we look forward to Christ’s second arrival—His future appearing in glory.

• Advent Foreshadowed – Genesis
• Advent Promised – Isaiah
• Advent Fulfilled – Matthew
• Advent Fully Realized – Revelation
• Advent Proclaimed – Luke

“The biblical story began, quite logically, with a beginning. Now it draws to an end, not quite so logically, with a beginning. The sin-ruined creation of Genesis is restored in the sacrifice-renewed creation of Revelation.”
Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder

Advent Fully Realized means at least three things:

1. God is sovereign over the entire sweep of history.

“Can you understand the Book of Revelation? Yes, you can. You can summarize its message in one sentence: God rules history and will bring it to its consummation in Christ.”
Vern Sheridan Poythress

2. God intends the ultimate renewal of all things.

“That the peoples of the Roman Empire came to worship as the Son of God not a warlord who had ruled them as emperor but a man who had suffered death at the hands of its soldiers was the marker of as profound a transformation in the understanding of power as any in human history.”
Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World

“The Bible is unique among the sacred books of the world’s religions in that it is in structure a history of the cosmos. It claims to show us the shape, structure, origin and the goal not merely of human history but of cosmic history.”
Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret

3. God extends an invitation for us to believe and receive.

“The power of a metaphor is contained in the fact that it ultimately points towards something that exists in reality. We cannot live on metaphors alone. We cannot use poetry, psychology, and myth to hold God at arms length forever. What if the 2000 year-old story is only able to reconnect with our deepest desires for meaning, purpose, and identity, because it is the true story to which all other stories point?”
Justin Brierley, The Surprising Rebirth of Belief in God

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next… It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”
C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“Christ began a journey in which we have been enlisted. We are on the journey, and the journey is not yet over. The unfinished aspect of the journey is part of the adventure of discipleship. We keep standing on tiptoes, awaiting what God will dare to do among us next.”
William H. Willimon & Stanley Hauerwas, Lord, Teach Us: The Lord’s Prayer & the Christian Life

“May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass!”
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, The Message