Hello from the Other Side

I want you to grab these message notes that look like this in your bullets and says, "We begin a brand new series, we call it Rev, Glimpses of Heaven, the Future and God's Plan for the World." In this new series, we are picking up in the book of Revelation, right where we left off before the holidays. You might remember that in our fall series, called The Seven, we looked at Revelation chapters 1 through 3. And now, in the seven weeks before Easter, we're going to do a tour through the rest of the book.

And simultaneously, on Wednesday nights, as Adrienne mentioned, Pastor Paul Spurlock is teaching Rev Extra. That is a class designed to dig deeper into the book of Revelation, because clearly in seven weeks, we're not going to be able to dig totally deep. So if you like the book of Revelation, if you are one of those people who every single year, since I first got here 22 years ago, has emailed me and said, "We should really do a study on the book of Revelation," and both of you know who you are. If you're a fan of this book, this is like a golden era for you.

But what about those of us who are a little intimidated by this, right? A lot of us look at the book of Revelation, we think about all the imagery of the apocalyptic beasts and dragons and symbolism that seems so hard to understand. Why should you care about this book? Well, the book of Revelation was originally written to first century Christians being brutally persecuted by the Romans. Bleak future, seemingly hopeless present, but after three centuries of this, Christians not only survived, they thrived, in large part inspired by what they found in this very influential book.

And here's the thing, it can have the same effect on you and me, and we need this. The world again feels very scary. Christians again being brutally persecuted in many countries. And maybe it's not the headlines, maybe in your life right now, your relationships or your job or your future somehow seems very overwhelming to you. You need to know what's in this book, the book of Revelation, that inspired generations of those early Christians to have hope.

And here's why I'm so excited about this as a pastor. The world is scary, and I think therefore what people need to see in Christians more than anything is hope. Do you agree with that? They need to see people full of hope, but instead what they often see in us is people full of fear. And a real study of the book of Revelation is really going to transform you. Your hope level might be high right now. It's just going to go through the roof after you've dived into this.

And let's start with Revelation chapter 4. I call the verses we're going to look at today, "Hello from the other side." Because this is a peek into heaven. If you have a Bible, crack it open to Revelation 4, and let me set this up for you. Remember John is riding this on the tiny, rocky island of Patmos. It's dreary. It's lonely. He's all by himself. He's under guard. He is in solitary confinement. There's nobody else there except for the Roman soldiers that are keeping watch over him.

And then Jesus kind of taps him on the shoulder and says, "Hello, come on up for a peek to the other side, a peek into heaven." Imagine how that felt to him. Imagine that as you hear these words. John writes this, "After this, I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven." And the voice I first heard speaking to me like a trumpet. And last fall, as we looked at Revelation chapter 1, we learned this was Jesus Christ. Same voice said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this. And at once I was in the spirit." In other words, this was a spiritual thing. It was a vision.

And there before me was..." And what I want to show you today is roll out, verse by verse, what John describes as he starts describing what he saw. And then what he saw surrounding that first thing he saw. It just builds one image upon the next to show us the heavenly reality about worship. And let's ask God, the same God who inspired these words, to illuminate our minds as we study this.

Lord, as we dive into this Revelation series, help us to see what those first believers saw that gave them such courage and such hope. Because I know that while we all need this, there are some here this morning listening who need this in a really extra way today. I don't even know, but you know, they're battling some demon of an addiction, or they just got a dreaded call from the doctor, or there's horrible relationship trial going on. You know what trouble people are in right now in this room. And I pray that you would help them help us all to see the reality of your presence when our world is intimidating. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So this week, my wife Lori and I being huge football fans, went up to Super Bowl City in San Francisco. It was a total blast because we're kind of football maniacs. I even got a walk-on tryout with the Denver Broncos. So it was a... They turned me down, but still I tried. But I say all this to kind of give you my credibility on what I'm about to say next. I just love football, but I have to admit I was a little bit taken aback when I was watching something and over an aerial shot of the stadium where the Super Bowl is about to happen, an announcer said these words, "Make no mistake, worship happens here." Would you agree with that? About the Super Bowl? Honestly, I would. I think it becomes a religious experience for a lot of people.

And then I'm kind of thinking about that. Then I come across a column this week. Now this is a column about the Super Bowl, but listen to what this columnist says. He says, "We were born to worship." That's why Americans invented the Super Bowl. And he goes on, "Our national religion is not Catholic or Protestant. It's sports." Article goes on, "Last year just over 111 million Americans watched the Super Bowl." That's roughly the same number of people who go to church each week in the United States. And now watch this. We want the fellowship. We want the excitement. We want the mystery. We want to see glory. He's not talking about church here. He's talking about this is why we love football and why we love the Super Bowl. And you know what? He is exactly right. He's right.

Now please don't get me wrong here. I wanted to establish my credibility as a huge football fan up front because where I'm not going with this is, "So you should feel guilty if you watch the Super Bowl. Don't watch that thing." I'm going to watch it and I'm going to enjoy it. But what I think this writer really nailed here is it's an attempt to fill a gap in a lot of people's souls. And the gap is this. We want to worship. We crave worship. We thirst for worship. And it's sometimes we are blind to this in our secular society but it is an absolutely universal human thirst.

This is why millions go on pilgrimages to say the Ganges River in India or go on pilgrimages to Mecca or pilgrimages to the Vatican or the Super Bowl. This is the longing that George Harrison sang about. I mean he had all the money, all the fame, but still he wrote, "Lord, I really want to know you. We want the fellowship. We want the mystery. We want the excitement. We want the glory." Well in the passage we're going to look at today, we're going to see the fulfillment of all that we are longing for, that we can't put our finger on because we crave worship like we crave water or like we crave food or like we crave oxygen.

Why? Because in worship, I find four essentials. For my soul. And John sees this is rolling out in his vision. What he's seeing is the heavenly reality that happens. What's happening right now in heaven as we are worshiping. And the first thing he notices is this, jot this down, worship centers. Worship centers me. And you can jot these down right there in the notes that are in your bullet sense. If you're watching online, you can download these notes. Worship centers me. This is the first thing that John sees. He says he sees a throne in heaven. I want you to watch this. That word throne appears 47 times in the book of Revelation. It is a key image of Revelation. It is in almost every single chapter.

Now why do you think that is? Why would the author of the book of Revelation choose to bring up throne? 47 times. This was a really central problem for the readers of this book in the first century, right? Those Christians brutally persecuted by the Romans. There was a throne in their lives. Who's throne? Caesar's throne. You know, this was literally a throne. I just read this article this week. Archaeologists working near Pompeii have actually unearthed what they believe is the first Roman imperial throne. It's in a house that belonged to Julius Caesar's family. It's very impressive. And for these Christians back in those days, man, that throne was like the center of the universe because whoever sat on the throne had the power of life or death over them like a god.

But what John is saying is that throne is nothing as impressive as it is compared to the real throne that's at the center of the universe. John, look at how he describes it. He describes a rainbow encircling the throne. And I want you to hear that word encircling and kind of keep it in the back of your mind because you're going to start to see a pattern here. You ever seen the whole circle of a rainbow? You ever been lucky enough to see that? You know, rainbows aren't just arches, but they're whole circles. And this is what John sees a rainbow encircling the throne for the original readers. They probably would have thought of the original rainbow in the Bible where God promises his faithfulness to Moses. The rainbow is a symbol of God's promise, but it doesn't stop there.

Then John says, "And from the throne came flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder." And that represents the awesome power of God. So the rainbows, the promise of God, and this lightning and thunder is the power of God. And this is important because you have to understand that there is a throne. There is a center of reality. There is someone in charge of the universe, and it's your faithful, powerful God. And worship centers us in on that. And if I'm not centered like this, what happens is I get so distracted in my life.

I want to show you something. I love this quote from Eugene Peterson. He says, "People who do not center on God through worship live in a vast shopping mall where they go from shop to shop, making endless trips to satisfy first this need, then that appetite, this whim, that fancy. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks at the mercy of every ad, every seduction, every siren. Without worship, we lead manipulated lives." Isn't that good? Manipulated lives! Because whoever wants to come and jerk you this way or that way, just appealing to your random thirsts and urges. But when you're centered on the center of all reality, then you're truly free.

That's why we always start with worship songs at church. That's not like the opening act. It centers us. I don't know about you, but I'm a pastor here, and I come into worship on the weekend before the services. I come in distracted. I come in wobbly. I come in driving and thinking about all kinds of different stuff, right? I mean, what about what's going on in the Middle East with ISIS? And what about where our youngest is going to go to college? And why did Dave and Mark get to go to the Super Bowl and not me? And all these things are going through my head!

But worship centers me. Then the second thing worship does is worship gathers. Worship brings people together. Remember that sports column said, "Oh, people love the Super Bowl," because it gives people a community, right? It gives people fellowship. 111 million people. You know, that's nothing compared to this. Now, really get your mind's eye working here, because John's painting a picture. John says, "Surrounding the throne were 24 elders." Notice a little detail. They are not next to the throne. In a line, right? That's what we usually see like thrones pictured in movies and stuff. They are what? They're surrounding. There's another circle around the throne, because the throne's the center.

So who are they? Well, there's some debate about this, but most scholars think this represents the 12 Jewish patriarchs and the 12 Christian apostles. In other words, the leaders of Israel and the church. All the believers, old and new, are represented here from the very first steps of faith from patriarchs of Israel, like say, Joseph, who didn't know the name of God. He didn't have the law of God. Didn't have the 10 commandments. Really didn't know much about God, but he did his best worshiping him all the way from them, all the way to the apostles, who knew personally the full revelation of God and Jesus Christ. They're all, century after century, all represented here around the throne.

And then John sees this. Here's where it gets weird, right? If you're waiting for like, where's the beasts? Where's the dragons? Here's where it starts. In the center, around the throne, again, around the throne, were four living creatures. And John describes them. He says they had wings and they were covered with eyes. And one looked like an ox and one looked like a lion. And one was a little bit more like a man. And one was a little bit more like an eagle. So are we all clear on that? No explanation needed, right? Okay, let's move on. No. What is this about?

Well, I think this is one of those passages that archaeology illuminates. This isn't the only time we see these in the Bible. Isaiah and Ezekiel, both in the Old Testament, saw creatures like this when they had visions of heaven. They were also around the throne. But these kind of creatures aren't just in the Bible. I had the privilege of being at the British Museum, where they have statues of winged creatures that guarded the entrance to the king's palace, the throne room in Assyria. And they too have wings. One has feet like a lion, one has feet like an ox. And in the original palace in Nimrud, there were four guarding the king's throne room. Sound familiar?

And you see creatures like this many, many times in statuaries surrounding royalty, royal throne rooms, royal tombs, all around the ancient world, the civilizations around the Mediterranean. I think what was happening here is these kings were suggesting that they had access to powers that normal people don't have access to. You know? They had access to these sphinxes, these cherubim, these seraphim. But John is saying, "Really?" Because what I saw is I saw creatures like that, and they were not worshiping Caesar or Pharaoh or the king of Assyria. They were worshiping the one true king, the only true king.

And watch this. John says he saw four of what kind of creatures? How does he describe them? Four what? Four what? Living creatures. I think he's saying the best that the rest of us have been able to see is stone creatures, dead creatures. And they're pretty impressive. But I saw four living creatures. I saw the real thing. Worshiping the real king. You know? And now you gotta imagine a camera zooming out, because you saw the elders, then the four creatures, and then he zooms out a little bit further, leaking into chapter five here.

Then I saw many angels numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand, and they... What? Encircled the throne, and the four living creatures, and the elders all in circles. Then he zooms out even more, and he sees next every creature in heaven, and on earth, and on the earth, and on the sea. The whole idea is this scene of ever widening worship with the throne at the center. And I want you to notice something in his description, and this is huge. Follow me here.

Does he say, "I saw like one big, blurry, over soul. I saw every creature and every angel and every person, they were all blended into one mind. They'd all been assimilated into the Borg. And having lost their identity, they were all worshiping God together." No. In fact, he says there are people from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation. And this is huge because this is, listen, this is very distinct from the way a lot of people see the other side. A lot of people will say, "Yeah, you know, we just kind of lose our identity." As Eugene Peterson, again, puts it, "Are the centering energies of that throne so overpowering that the gathered are simply absorbed, losing identity? Not at all. Worshipping God, the true God, does not squash your individuality. It reveals it. It redeems it. It restores it. It makes you more of an individual than you could ever be. If you didn't have God at the center of your life.

See, if I don't have God at the center of my life, then my individuality gets absorbed by every random urge and stuff that comes along, right? But it's when I've got at the center, that's when I'm free at last. Worship centers, worship gathers. Now, think of how much this meant to John. As we said, trapped alone on a prison island. Put yourself in his shoes. When John worshiped, what did it look like? It looked like he was sitting all alone in the middle of this rocky island, except for the guards. What does it look like when you worship? What did it look like when you worshiped a few minutes ago? Looks like you're with, you know, a few hundred people, in a big room in Aptos with slumstone and plaster walls.

But what Jesus is telling John is, there's something much more vital happening that you can't see with your eyes. He's saying, in reality, you're not alone there on Patmos. You're not just with a few hundred people in a room in Aptos. You're surrounded by thousands upon 10,000s of angels. And by all the saints who've gone before, Israel and the church, for centuries and centuries, we find out later in the book of Revelation that this includes those who have died in the Great Tribulation so that we know for sure it's those who've gone before us.

And this is why this is so huge. My mom, when she got Alzheimer's disease, she died, as many of you know, a few months ago, last year. She very quickly went to something they call aphasia, where people can't put words together anymore. She couldn't talk anymore. She could say three words really at the end of her life, and she couldn't say them in sentences, right? Aphasia. But there was one way she could still communicate fluently. And you know what it was? Yeah, music. We discovered this almost by accident, but if I was with her, you know, sitting next to her in a room or when we were together on walks, and I'd forget that she had this aphasia, and I'd try to talk to her, and she would just get so frustrated because she'd say like, she just couldn't say anything.

Then I'd remember, and I'd start to sing, "Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father." And the words would just pour out of her. And she meant it. She could say something at last that she meant. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And we could worship together on our walk. And pretty soon our walks just became worship services. Crown him with many crowns. And sometimes I move to tears even now and worship. Because what I know on the authority of God's word, is that mom and I, we're still worshiping together.

What happens when it looks like we're just here, just this little moment of time in the presence of the God who was, and who is, and who is to come, is she's worshiping in heaven with my father who went before her, and worshiping with me now. We're together singing before the throne and before the Lamb. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. And you're joining with your loved ones who've died in the Lord. All worshiping together. John gets this amazing revelation by Jesus who reminds him, worship gathers us all together. It's amazing fellowship. And worship centers us. Worship gets us centered. And then third, worship reveals.

Worship reveals. What's it reveal? Two amazing things. My need and God's fulfillment of that need. Here's a question for you. What happens pretty much every time in the Bible when a human being sees some kind of a vision of heaven? Do they go, "Oh, cool heaven. Let me take a selfie. You know, #heaven. Is that what they do?" No, what do they do? They fall, every time they fall on the ground and they say something like, "Oh, no. I am not worthy to be in the presence of God. I'm unclean. I'm not worthy." And that happens to me sometimes when I worship too. Worship reveals this because I see God and I see me and I see the gap. And I can't count how many times I've wept thinking, "I'm not worthy to be in the presence of God." And this happens to John here too.

John says, "I wept and I wept." Because no one in all these thousands and thousands of people, no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Now, we're going to cover chapter 5 in detail next weekend, but briefly the point here is John is acutely aware of his own unworthiness in the presence of God. And this is a healthy thing to be humble before God. But listen carefully. Like any healthy thing, the evil one can try to twist it, right? Satan never has any new ideas. All he does is take healthy things and tries to pervert them. And humility before God is healthy. But what happens is this.

You're sitting in church and maybe you've already felt it today and you've thought to yourself, "What am I doing here? I don't belong here. These are all good church people. I've blown it so many times. God must be sick of me. I'm so unworthy. And we're going to take communion in a few minutes and there's going to be a temptation for some of you to go, "I can't even take communion. I know what I did yesterday and I know that I'm such a failure. I'm going to come back next month and I'm going to try to be better because I'm just a hypocrite." That's a temptation that God does not want you to take.

God does want you to stay at the point where you're weeping and aware of your unworthiness. He wants you to move on from that and I can show you how. This is the good news. An angel tells John, "Do not weep." You see the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered and he is able to open the scroll. And John turns and says, "And then I saw what? A lamb looking as if it had been slain." Now it's alive but it looked like it had been slain dead. Now when the first hearers heard that image, they would have thought of one thing, the Passover lamb.

Jews still celebrate this today in the Seder, the idea that centuries and centuries and centuries before when their ancestors were slaves in Egypt, there was a plague upon that country, a plague of death. But God warns them and he says, "Take the blood of the lamb that you eat at dinner tonight and what I want you to do as a sign is to put it on the doorposts of your house so that when the angel of death sees the blood, he passes over your house and you're spared from the plague." And that's why they call it the Passover. They were literally saved by the blood of the lamb. And Jewish people remember that miracle during Passover or the Seder.

Jesus remembered that miracle with his disciples. The night he was betrayed but he reinterpreted the Seder meal and said, "This bread, this wine, this cup of juice from the grape," he says, "Now it's no longer representative of the Passover lamb, it's representative of the lamb that was slain for the whole world." Because none of us is worthy and he redeems us from the plague of death that comes from sin. And John says, "When heaven sees this," because everybody's been feeling unworthy. And when they see this and they realize that the lamb was slain for their sins, the whole place just erupts into praise.

And that's the final point, worship responds. It responds to God, responds to what we get revealed to us when we study the word and worship God. It starts in the circles closest to the throne. First come the 24 elders and it says, "They cast their crowns before the Lord." What's that all about? I love this quote from Tim Keller. "Worship means to so fill your heart with the worthiness of God." Not with your own worthiness, because we're unworthy, but with the worthiness of God that you respond with a wholehearted reorientation of your life. And that's what casting crowns is. It's a symbol of reorientation going, "Oh yeah, all these crowns on earth that look like they're glittering down here." You know, money and glory and fame and working for NFL films at the Super Bowl. They're really not that important. They're not important at all. I cast them at the feet and then they sing three songs in a row.

First they respond to God's otherness. God's otherness. Watch this. The four living creatures sing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come." Holy, holy, holy. This is one of those phrases that we see it so much in Scripture that it kind of has the pledge of allegiance factor. "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," where we just kind of say it and it goes and we don't think about it. What does it mean? What does it mean? What's it mean?

When we think of somebody being all holy, "Oh, that person's all holy," what we usually mean is very religious, right? So religious, religious, religious is the Lord Almighty. That doesn't work, right? That doesn't make any sense. I've heard people say, "Well, maybe it means like pure. Pure, pure, pure is the Lord." That's getting a little bit closer. But two language experts that I read recently said that the Hebrew word for holy means something more like other, alien, strange, different. And when a word is repeated three times, it means somebody possesses this attribute in completeness, in perfection. So it's like they're saying, "Totally different is the Lord." Alien, alien, alien is God.

And do you see why this is so important? Like for these first Christians, they were surrounded. They lived in a world surrounded by idols. And when I say idol, we think of these giant statues like these ones on the Parthenon of Zeus and Diana and all the other human-looking gods. But actually, when archaeologists unearth the gods, the idols of ancient times, usually they're very tiny. They're kind of like these gods. These guys are about two inches tall like this, little pocket gods. The people kept with them almost like kind of good luck charms. When archaeologists unearth these things, they call them domestic gods. And what people were doing in those days was they were reducing the image of God down to something they could carry around in their pocket.

And all these gods, whether they're big or small, they basically looked like versions of what? Us. There's just another version of me. But what these four living creatures are singing is, "No, no, no. God's... if there is a god, he's more different than you than you are from an ant, right? If there is a god, he would be like in another dimension that we can't even imagine. And that's what they're expressing here. The only reason I know anything about God is because God wants me to know it because he's so different than me.

Now, you might be saying, "Well, that's great for these people back in the idol-worshipping days. We don't have the problem anymore, don't we? Don't we try to make God into a little pocket god, a little domestic god, a little good luck charm? You say, "I don't do that." I heard somebody say, "You know, if your god likes the exact same things you like and hates the exact same things you hate, that's a pretty good bet you're making God in your own image." Somebody said, "God made man in his own image and ever since man's been trying to return the favor." So you gotta watch it. Don't tame God. Don't domesticate God. Worship him for his otherness. He's real. He's not just an imagined big version of you.

And then they move on to responding to God's creativity. The 24 elders saying, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power for you." What? Created all things. By your will, they were created and have their being. Show of hands here. How many of you exist? Quick show of hands.

Now, what does this verse say about that? It says, "By God's will, you have your being." I don't know what your parents told you about why you were born. You were an accident. No, you were not an accident. By God's will, you have your being. You and everything around you. You know, you can move into this place of worship. It's so easy for us here in Santa Cruz, right? Because we're surrounded by God's beautiful creation. It's gonna be a beautiful week. Here's some homework for you. Get outside somewhere and worship like this. This is the memory verse this week. Say this verse and ask God to open your eyes to all the things you can praise him for that he created. And around here, there's so many things. You can look at the surf. You can look at every wave. You look at every grain of sand. You look at every plant, every flower, every tree. You look at every wild creature. You look at every domesticated creature. You look at the stars and the moon and the planets at night, all created by him. Everything, all of it. Except for cats. Clearly, result of the fall. But everything else. No, I'm just kidding.

And then finally, here's the best part. They respond to God's redemptive mercy. They go, "And the only reason I can even stand here is because of this. Because you were slain and with your what? With your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language, people, nation." Ever been moved in tears when you move from I'm so unworthy to Jesus is so worthy of praise. God didn't stay up there on his rainbow encircled throne. He came down and became one of us. He became the Lamb that was slain for us.

Now, add all this. Now, put all this together. John sees this in an instant. Takes him a few minutes to describe it. But there it is surrounding him. Wow. And that's what's happening when you and I worship. That's what is happening in heaven when you and I are going to sing praises to God in just about two or three minutes from right now. Remember what that sports columnist said? He said, "People worship with the Super Bowl because," he said, "we want the fellowship. We want the excitement. We want the mystery. We want to see glory. Are you kidding me?" The Super Bowl has nothing on what happens in heaven when we worship.

But here's the big idea. There is a throne and God is on it. Although the world seems random and chaotic and sometimes catastrophic, he is in control. He's at the center of reality. And if that's the big idea, then the big question is, is God on the throne of my heart? He is the center of reality. And so am I aligned with that in my life? Have I turned over control of my life to this rainbow encircled throne of God and the one who sits on that throne? And some of you are going, "Why don't you die? That sounds good. What are you talking about?"

Let me just be very practical about this, okay? Let's just walk through a normal day. Look up here for a second. Let's say you wake up tomorrow morning. Before you open your eyes, what are the first thoughts usually in your head? Coffee, right? Or worries or my agenda. How about this? Just consciously choose to say, "God, before I think of that, God, I just want to acknowledge you as the center of everything that happens to me today. And that means even if stuff goes crazy today, I know that you're at the center of reality and that you promise that you're going to work all things together for good.

And then when you get into your car on your way to school or to work or to do errands, you make that car a throne room. Maybe put in worship music or maybe just in silence you center yourself on God. And at work or at school, you make your cubicle or your desk a throne room. And that doesn't mean you've got to announce it to everybody else. It means quietly you can just say, "God, let everything that happens at this desk just glorify you. I want you to be the center of my work life and of my school life." When you eat dinner that night, what you do is God, sometimes I just gobble stuff down and I say a little Pledge of Allegiance type prayer. But what I'm doing right now, God, is I'm not taking for granted that I have my being. By your will, I have my being. And whatever the vegetables or meat I'm eating, had their being. And you provided these things for me for sustenance. And God, I give you glory for that.

And when you go to sleep at night, you go, "God, I'm not going to go to sleep with worries. I'm going to go to sleep acknowledging that you're at the center of my life. And even while I sleep, I will be guarded by you. And I'll be focused on the one who is encircled by all the rest of reality. And you'll guard me and you'll guard my loved ones even as I sleep." Because God, there will come a day when the reality of you being on the center of the universe is known and acknowledged by every tongue that will sing your praises and every knee that will bow before you. That's what it means to center your life on God. And that's where you find peace. That's where you find joy. That's where you find the hope that we've been talking about, that all these early Christians got.

And I want to give you a chance just to put God on the throne of your life right now. Would you stand with me? Let's all stand together. And we're going to move into a time of worship where we first just praise God, acknowledging His worthiness, His holiness. And then we're going to have communion together, remembering the land that was slain. And then the third thing we're going to do is through the offering, we're going to cast our crowns before His feet. So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this reminder in your word that we live in a world of distractions. But the reality is in the center of the universe. You're on the throne. And so now, God, I want to align myself with reality. I want to put you on the throne of my heart. And I want to thank you that the Lamb was slain for me. And I want to just cast down my crowns. I want to reorient my priorities. I want to give you my whole life. And help me now as I worship you to realize that I am encountering the center of reality. And to realize that I am now worshiping with myriad angels around the throne. And all of creation and all who have gone before help me to be centered on you, on the mystery, on the excitement, on the fellowship, on the glory that is there. And I pray this in the name of the Lamb who was slain, Jesus Christ. Amen.