Revelation 21 verses 1 through 8, these are God's words. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them and be their God, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then he who sat on the throne said, behold, I make all things new. And he said to me, write for these words are true and faithful. And he said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers, the sexually immoral, the sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death. So far the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word. So on the coming Lord's Day morning, children are called to worship, are put up for help, are confession of sin. are all gonna come from this passage. Because we're gonna be singing a paraphrase of this passage. Lo, what a glorious sight appeared. And so the whole section will be coming from God's word. Because it's very important for you, for us, for the whole church, that whenever we sing in the public worship, it be clear that we are singing God's thoughts after him. We're singing from his word. He is putting his word into our mouths, especially since we know from scripture that it is the Lord Jesus who sings, that he says, Hebrews chapter two, that in the midst of the congregation, he will sing his father's praise. We must not put our words into his mouth. And so we will be singing this passage, and one of the things we'll be rejoicing over is not only that we are joining with the souls of the just made perfect, but that God is cleansing us, that he is faithful and just, not only to forgive us our sins in Christ, but that he's also faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We see that in our passage here. because the holy city or the New Jerusalem rather is a holy city and she's not just holy in the fact that she's been set apart, she is holy in her conduct, in her character, in what has been done to her because she's described here as a bride prepared and adorned for her husband. Ephesians 5, when it talks about the way Jesus deals with his bride, it talks about his giving himself up for her, and we often think, oh, giving himself up for our forgiveness. Well, yes, we do need to be forgiven of our sins and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and his suffering, God's wrath for us on the cross is the only way we can be forgiven of our sins. But that's not where Ephesians five goes. It goes to this very picture that he might sanctify her by the washing of water with the word so that he can present her to himself blameless without spot or wrinkle. And so The Lord Jesus' love for his bride, even the Lord Jesus' giving himself up for his bride, has these eight verses at the beginning of Revelation 21, or rather the event that is described in these eight verses in mind. Jesus has died so that he can make us holy. So that on the last day, when he presents us to himself, he will have perfected his bride. And he will not just have cleansed each one of us from our sin, but he will have purified the church as a body, as a city, as a temple, as a bride. And everything about the church corporately will be perfect too. And so we rejoice that what we will be has not yet appeared. But since we know that we'll be like him when he appears, we purify ourselves even as he is pure. Of course, we can only do that by his mercy and his strength to us, his grace. And so there's a good and glorious reason that God is making his people holy. And that is that in this new creation, this new heavens and this new earth, there's nothing bad at all. He's not going to allow any sorrow to be there, or any crying to be there, or any pain to be there, or any death to be there. Praise God. And you know what else can't be there? There can't be any sin. not our sin at all. So either our identity is in Christ as his bride, his people, his city, whom he is cleansing and getting ready for that new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells and there'll be nothing bad and not our sin either, or our identity is not in Christ, not in being cleansed and prepared for that day, not purifying ourselves as he is pure. Our identity might be then with our sin being cowardly or unbelieving or abominable. That is especially offering to God that which he hates in pure worship, most of all. murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, those who have their identity and all the spiritual spooky powers and stuff. A lot of people fall into that. They think it's their Christianity. They call themselves charismatic, but it has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit or the work that he is doing in sanctifying the church. It has everything to do with power in the spiritual world. Idolaters and all liars, and of course the beginning and the end ones there, match one another. People lie because they're cowards. They lie because they don't think God is accomplishing everything for good in this situation. Some even think that they are lying righteously to make something good happen or to stop something bad from happening. Well, their lying is something bad. So, so much for stopping something bad from happening. It's interesting how the cowards and the liars bookend this list. And you could put any other sin in there. There's not going to be any sin. There's not going to be any sinners in glory. We will all have been cleansed. So if you participate in the first resurrection and are made alive in Jesus and believe in him and belong to him, then he is making you holy. And at the second resurrection, you will not participate in the second death. If you don't participate in the first resurrection, and you are not being made holy, and at the second resurrection, of course, you are not holy at that point, you will participate in the second death and go to hell. See, if you want to, if you don't want a second death, you have to have two resurrections. And you have to have your first one before your first death. Come to faith in Jesus, belong to him, be made, be counted right with God, be made right with God through him, and God will be making you holy because those whom he justified, scripture says, he glorified. And you never know when you're going to die, so come to Jesus now. So the great work of the Christian in this life and everything else that you are doing, my dear children, is to grow in holiness. Anything that you build in this world is going to be lost with this world. The old heavens and the old earth are going to pass away. that which belongs to the next world are those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be one of those and be about the work of getting ready for the next world, which means that you'll serve God according to his law in this world, because that's what being holy looks like, right? Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you and praise you that you are going to wipe every tear from our eyes that you'll bring us at last in the last day into a world of no more death and sorrow or crying or pain. And Lord, we know that we are not right now suitable for a world like that because our sin brings sorrow and pain and crying and its wages are death and it often brings death. And so, Lord, we ask that you would be getting rid of our sin so that you would rightly, gloriously take us at last into that world as well. I pray, Lord, that you'd have mercy on my children, that you would give them faith by which to be joined to Christ from whom alone this holiness can come. lest they should have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone in the second death. Preserve them, O Lord, and deliver them from such an end as that, and bring us all at last together as members of your bride, whom you are preparing, and who will appear having all her beauty treatments completed on that day, adorned for her husband, even our Lord Jesus, in whose name we ask it. Amen.