Singing With Jesus

I wanted to, I think, build on, I think, some of a theme that's been shared in today's sharings from Revelation chapter 7. Revelation chapter 7. I want to talk about folks who are in heaven. I trust that everybody in this call, on this call, doesn't have to doubt whether they will go to heaven. I trust that every person who is listening here doesn't even have to question that. It's not something that any child of God needs to question. Do any of your children who are married, do they question whether they are welcome in the house? The child should have no question. They're welcome in the house. Every child of God should know, have the confidence, the supreme confidence, that they're welcome in God's house. And, you know, to the extent that heaven represents that, we should have that confidence. It's what every born-again believer must have, a confidence that God has accepted them and they're welcome in the house. If they start murdering people, then my children, I probably will say, you can't keep murdering people and stay in this house. If you keep breaking the rules of this house, then you have to ask yourself, why are you living in this house? But that's not the way we should be. And I don't believe any of us are going around intentionally trying to break all the rules that God has given us. We fall, we slip up, but then we repent and we know how to get back in the house very quickly. So it's for people who are confident, you're going to make it to heaven, you're going to be with God. But then between that, there are two categories of people. One is in Revelation chapter 7 and one in Revelation chapter 14. And in Revelation chapter 7, it says in verse 9, there's a great multitude, which no one could count. Great multitude of people, no one could count from every nation and tribes and peoples and tongues. And they stood before the throne and before the Lamb, and they cried out with a loud voice. And they were clothed in white robes and palm branches in their hands. And then in verse 14, God says that these are the people who have washed. Verse 14, it says, I said, Lord, who are these people? And whoever it was, spoke to John and said, these are the ones who came out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And they are before the throne of God and they will serve him day and night in his temple. And he who sits on the throne will spread his tabernacle above them. Verse 16, they will hunger no more, no thirst no more. The sun will not be down on them. The Lamb will be in the center of the throne as a shepherd. God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Such a beautiful blessing. This is the heritage of every single believer in God's presence. All of these things. It's a great multitude that cannot be counted. And I hope every one of us knows that they can be, that they are in this multitude. And whether we are living on this earth or we stop breathing, we will be in this multitude. We must have that assurance. It shouldn't be debatable for every single one of us. Our children should know that it's not debatable for us. But that's not what God's purpose for us is. Revelation chapter 14 tells me a different group of people. And that I think is what we are after. That is what NCCF is after. It's not to try to get people to be in the Revelation 7 crowd. That should be an entrance criteria to even become a part of NCCF. And we should be trying to get people quickly into Revelation 7 where there's this multitude of people who are in God's presence, dressed in white, waving the palm branches, serving God. And the tears have been wiped from their eyes and God is their shepherd, things like that. But the purpose of NCCF, the purpose of us coming together as a family of God and to listen to great messages and teachings is to get us to be more and more like the crowd in Revelation 14. That's where we really want to be. And it says these in Revelation chapter 14. Again, verse 1, it says there were 144,000, not a multitude that cannot be counted. Remember we saw that in Revelation 7, a multitude that cannot be counted. Now it's a very small number, 144,000 compared to a multitude that cannot be counted. Well, apparently we could count this. Very specific number of people. It's much smaller subset. And if you can go back and look at it, that the people in Revelation 7 were standing before the throne and before the Lamb. So God and the Lamb were sitting on the throne and they were standing before him and serving him. But notice how these people here are, that the Lamb is standing on Mount Zion. Now the Lamb is standing and the 144,000 are standing with him. So they're not standing before him, they're standing with him. Different relationship. One thing where you're serving God and another one where you're with Christ. It's very important to notice that difference, that they are standing, the Lamb was standing in verse 1 and with him on Mount Zion, standing with him is the 144,000, a small select group of people. And see in verse 3, and they sang a new song. Who's they? Jesus and the 144,000. You've got one group of people who are serving God and serving Christ and another group of people who are singing with Christ. And these group of people are, in verse 4, they, I want to underline this couple of things, they follow the Lamb wherever he goes. When Jesus went to the cross, they all deserted him. But after he rose from the dead, as we heard 500 people saw him alive after the dead. It must have been such an incredible thing to see Jesus risen from the dead with a body that wasn't, could go through walls and things like that. But by the time it came to Pentecost, 50 days after he rose from the dead, sometime in that period he appeared to 500 of them and more. By the time you get to just less than two months, that 500 has become 120. Less than two months. And you've got a large multitude and then you've got 144,000. It's a much greater finding process of people who say, I want to follow the Lamb wherever he goes. Well, he's gone to heaven. So I guess I don't need to follow him anymore. I don't need to be anywhere. But the 120 said, I want to be with God's people. They had a loyalty to Jesus and were constantly looking at that. Well, you know, we also heard about Mary Magdalene. I want to show you a parallel passage in Mark chapter 16 about when Mary Magdalene was going to the tomb. It says in Mark chapter 16 that Mary Magdalene and a couple other women were also there when the Sabbath was over. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James and Salome came to anoint him. And they came early in the morning to the tomb. And listen to what they're saying to each other as they're walking to the tomb. These three women, right? Not very strong. They were saying to one another, who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb? This was this big, massive tomb. And these three women get all the spices. And are going to the tomb. I'm like, I don't know where we're going, because I don't even know how we're going to open the tomb. But it didn't stop them from going. They were still going to the tomb. It didn't stop them from going to the tomb. They're like, I don't know. We'll just figure it out. But they had such a deep desire to honor the body of Christ, even though it was the dead body of Christ. It's such a loyalty to Jesus that they're like, even though there's a rock that cannot be moved, we're going to go as close to it and we'll see what happens. Maybe the Lord will provide a way. Maybe the gods will roll away the stone for us. They had no idea that something was happening. But here's the key point. It didn't stop them from going to the tomb. Because if it was us, we'd have sat and said, well, the door is locked. The stone is rolled. We can't roll it. Let's just stay here. And maybe once we hear that the stone is rolled away, then we'll go. But these women went to the tomb because they wanted to honor Christ. And as we heard, Mary Magdalene stayed at the tomb and says, look, I don't know how to carry this body, but give me the body. First, let me have the body. Then I'll figure out how I need to carry it. It's just one inch at a time. I need to honor the body. I need to honor the body of Christ. Even though it seems dead, even though there's no hope for this body anymore. But I want to anoint it with spices, unsurmountable stones in the way. I'm going to be with Christ. And many times when Christ can seem absent, when Christ ascended to heaven, kind of like, okay, I guess the story's over. And logically, practically, on an earthly standpoint, it seems no hope. 120 people said, we're going to stick. We're going to keep waiting for what Christ has promised. Same here, Mary Magdalene, no hope of rolling the stone, no hope of carrying the body of Christ. But she says, I want to stick with the body of Christ. And this is the, you know, in Revelation 14, this is the people who are singing with Jesus. They are following the lamb wherever he goes. So after Jesus has ascended to heaven, they're still saying, I got to go somewhere. After Jesus is dead, they still say, I'm going to get as close there. I don't know what's going to happen with the stones and all the other things. But I need to be with the body of Christ. I need to follow the lamb. And there's a loyalty to the lamb. This is not just about their robes being washed. And so they're interested in singing a song with Christ. There's such a union with Christ that they want to do it with him, not just for him. A lot of things we can do for the body of Christ. We can serve one another in so many ways. And it's a wonderful thing to get to serve Christ. But Martha also wanted to serve Christ and his disciples, but there is a lot of danger in that versus people who want to sing with Christ. So that's a mindset that we have to constantly keep rooting out, the spirit of service that can be a substitute for worship, the spirit of service that can be a substitute for intimacy with Jesus. And as we heard, Babylon can very quickly come in through that. And I want to leave you a verse from Job chapter 22, verse 21. Job chapter 22, verse 21. Know God intimately and be at peace with him. The NASB says yield now and be at peace with him, but the margin says know God intimately and be at peace. And good will come to you. Thereby, good will come to you. Know God intimately and be at peace with him. Be at rest with him. Don't need to squirm. Don't need to toil. He's so, Lord, what's going to happen to this? What's going to happen to that? What's all this? What's my future going to hold? Know God intimately as a father. Know God intimately as our savior. Know God intimately. Follow him wherever it goes, wherever he's going and be at rest. Thereby, good will come to you. May God help us to not worry about being in this multitude that cannot be counted. I hope there's no debate in any born again believer here, but that the pursuit of the lives, secure in the knowledge that God has loved us and that God will keep us. As we see sins, as we hear the teachings of Christ and all that, that that whole process will be for us to know God intimately and to be in that bridal relationship with God where we're singing with Christ, that we can be immersed in the love of God so that we can say, Lord, I want to sing with you the song you're singing. When you were on the cross, you were saying, come be enthroned on my praise. Right before he was going to get betrayed by Judas, he sang a hymn. Could have been, this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. That was part of the songs that they sang at the Passover time. Imagine singing that when you know in a few minutes you're going to get betrayed, but he was singing at that time. Songs like that, songs of praise, songs of hope. The question is, in the trials that we go through, in the different situations that we go through, it's not about whether we're going to make it or not. I hope we'll grow and mature past that. The question I have is, Lord, will I sing the song with you in the trial? God's heritage for us is that we will overwhelmingly conquer with Christ. That's a triumphant song in the trials. Even if we are led like sheep to the slaughter, that's Romans 8. Even though we're led like sheep to the slaughter, we overwhelmingly conquer through Christ who loved us. That's a song to be sung who is following the Lamb wherever he goes, to his crucifixion, to his betrayal, to all kinds of things. And I believe that God wants that for us and I want to renew my pledge over and over again every day. Lord, that's the life I want to live. That's the life that you gripped me with. It's the only life worth living. I want to sacrifice all desires to serve God. I want to do much more than that. I want to sing with you. I don't want to serve you. I want to sing with you. I want to follow you wherever you go and sing the song you're singing. What's the song you're singing today? I want to sing with you. And we'll see that there's a lot fewer people in that crowd compared to the much bigger crowd. I find there are lots of Christians who want to wave the palm branches and boast about the blood of Jesus. But let us desire to be in the few days we have left on earth before God calls us. Let us choose to make our days a days of singing with Christ. I want to end, maybe I should have ended with this other verse in Revelation 14 just to remind you that it says about the song that nobody could learn that song. Revelation 14 3. No one else could learn that song. Imagine all the multitudes that were in heaven couldn't learn the song even though they were in heaven. Even though they knew Christ and they were like Jesus in many ways, they couldn't learn the song. I believe it's because the song can only be learned here on earth. And if we learned it on earth properly, then we can sing it in heaven. It's too late when we get to heaven to sing that song. I hope that we will be inspired to make Jesus everything, to make a daily life of saying, Lord, I want to follow you wherever you go. I want to just follow you. I need to leave everything else behind, all the troubles and the trials. Now, that doesn't mean we don't go to work. It doesn't mean that we, of course, we have our motherhood, we have fatherhood, we have our work, we have to earn our money, all of that stuff. But where we get our joy and our hope and our excitement and our validation of who we are comes from the fact that we're singing that song over and over again and we make it a goal and a priority of ours. Lord Jesus, I want to keep singing that song with you. Where are you, Lord? I want to find you. I want to sing with you. May God help us. Let's close in prayer. Father, we pray that this may be true in our lives. May we sing with you, Lord. What a beautiful life of intimacy, Lord. Help us not to be scared by the afflicted road or all the challenges, Lord, and all the high standards, Lord. We just need to follow you. Where are you at? We want to follow you and sing a song. Sing a song, the song you're singing. Thank you, Lord, that you will do this in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen.