The Healing Tree

Good morning, you all. I think I know what I'm up against this morning. For the first or second time since September it's not the Buffalo Bills at 1:00. I'm not against that or up against that, but I am against something and I realize that while I believe that I have some really cool things to share from God's word this morning, I'm up against something and that something can be expressed in a four word sentence. Three days until Christmas. And I realize that maybe some of you, just some of you might be a little distracted and might not hear some of those truths that we have for you from God's word because there are three days until Christmas. And so you might be tempted to actually use that mobile device in your hands rather than finding Revelation 22, where we'll be in just a minute. You might be tempted to use it to make sure that you have everything on your Christmas list. Or you might use that mobile device to download a recipe for that Christmas Eve or Christmas Day get together. Or you might be using this 90-minute worship gathering as one last chance for you to relax before heading out to the mall this afternoon to finish your shopping and these comfortable chairs, especially if you're at the Niagara Falls campus with its theater seating, really might fit the bill and might give you an opportunity to relax.

That would kind of be a shame because in this very last chapter in the Bible, there are some great truths that I hope you are able to see. But if you're distracted by Christmas. Think of the crazy thought that is, distracted by Christmas. But if you're distracted by Christmas, I'll use it. I want to talk about Christmas, not necessarily Christmas present, as in three days away, but I'll start with looking at your Christmas past. I want you to get into your Marty McFly DeLorean from Back to the Future and go to your favorite Christmas as a child. Maybe you're 10-years old and it's Christmas Eve and you can't get to sleep because you're hoping and you're dreaming that, that one toy, that one gift that you asked for is under the tree. And let's say for argument's sake, that it was. And it brings you great joy and satisfaction as you open it. That thing you really wanted has brought you great satisfaction. Maybe it lasted for years like the bike I received when I was eight. Maybe it lasted, that satisfaction, lasted until your baby brother found it and broke it.

Or maybe it lasted until the next Christmas when there was a hotter toy for you under the tree, or maybe when you got that Christmas gift that you always wanted, you realized it really wasn't what you wanted and it got buried real quick in your toy chest. Either way the lesson, whatever you long for, did not bring you permanent satisfaction. Merry Christmas, right. But there is something about us that keeps us believing that there is something under the tree that will bring permanent satisfaction. And there is an onslaught of commercials that tell you that if you will go out in these last 72 hours and buy that gift for your loved one, it will meet the deepest longings of their heart.

Speaking of which, let me pause for a moment. Based on those commercials, is it really true that there are wives out there who will actually buy their husbands brand new cars for Christmas? Is that really a thing? Thanks for the Christmas vest, Pat. Right? But either way, don't get me wrong, this Christmas soak it all up. Enjoy every minute, watch with great joy as your children and your grandchildren open up presents that make their little dreams come true. But when you're holding that big, giant kitchen garbage bag filled with unwrapped wrapping paper and you begin to realize that that satisfaction that you hoped for is short-lived. And there is a purpose in recognizing that that satisfaction is short-lived because hopefully it will point you to a satisfaction that is permanent and does last from the God who promises it to you in Jesus. Don't double down on Christmas and think that maybe a bigger or better will bring satisfaction. Make that disappointment in the temporary satisfaction cause you to long for a satisfaction that will never, ever, end.

No one has ever said this, what I'm trying to communicate to you better than C.S. Lewis. If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. So as you're holding that bag of unwrapped wrapping paper, and recognizing just how temporary that satisfaction is, though it is good and proper to enjoy it, may it cause you to lift up your eyes towards that other world and realize that there are longings in your heart that will only be met in the presence of God. I think Paul understood that when he wrote these words in Colossians, "Since that you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God." I think Paul believed that our deepest longings that we have right now would be altered by a future gaze into what God has in store for us. And I believe the same.

And so three days away from Christmas and maybe write this down as a big idea. If we want our deepest longings to be met, we need to look under a different tree. We've been in a series on Christmas trees, we're going to talk about the last one that's found in Revelation 22. If we want our deepest longings to be met, we need to look under a different tree. We look at this last Christmas tree where history ends and for those who believe, eternity begins. And Revelation 22 speaks of a glory and joy that awaits us so that you and I right now would long for it, we would desire it. We would be captured by it and actually begin to experience some of it right now.

I turn your attention then to Revelation 22 starting with the first verse. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life. As clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the street of the great city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse, the throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and its servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light and the will reign forever and ever."

If you have ever read Genesis, and if you were here for the very first message on this series, The Christmas Tree, spoken by Pastor Jonathan, you know that the passage I just read sounds an awful lot like the Garden of Eden. It ought to. In Genesis there is a river with two trees. There are many trees, but two specific are called out, the Tree of Life and Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Here is what Moses wrote, The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground. Trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden where the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, a river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters. There are two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but we know, even as we learned three or four weeks ago that the narrative of Genesis gets swallowed up with what takes place around the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God had given Adam and Eve tremendous, incredible freedom. You are free to eat from every tree of the Garden, including the Tree of Life, but this one tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you are not to eat from it, least you die. This is the tree that they were not to eat from. It was a test to see whether or not they would trust that God was sovereign, that he had the right to tell them what to do, but that he was also good. And that giving this prohibition, he had their best in mind. We know that they ate from that tree and because they ate from that tree they were also denied for the rest of their lives, they would die. They were denied access to the Tree of Life. There must have been some health-giving properties to this tree because God gives the reason why they were denied access later on in Genesis.

The Lord God said that man is now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever. The Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

Throughout history mankind has been denied access to the health-giving properties of the Tree of Life. We don't experience life. We go to funerals, we don't experience the life that God had designed. We experience death. But in the new Jerusalem and not until the new Jerusalem, the Tree of Life is accessible to us and this is God's invitation right now to all who would believe. Revelation 2:7, whoever has ears, let them hear what the spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the Tree of Life, which is in the paradise of God. No wonder most Bibles, in fact probably yours, has as a heading, like mine does, Eden restored. The new Jerusalem, Eden, restored, but it's much more than just that. We look at this final tree, this healing tree, this Tree of Life and I start here. Here's the first point I want to make to you.

Things not under the Tree of Life. Things not under the Tree of Life. There are so many things about me that might be different than you, that you might call me weird. Here's one of them. I would think that most of you, if not all of you, when you would run down the stairs on your Christmas morning way back when you were a child, you would look intently to see what was under the tree, namely what had your name on it. I wouldn't. When I came down, running down those stairs with my two brothers and sister, I would first look at what was not under the tree. Here's what I mean. I would ask for things for Christmas and when I got down and saw what was under the tree, I quickly assessed whether the boxes under that tree could possibly contain the things that I had asked for. Like when I was 15, I had asked for a bike. Well, when I came down and assessed the size of those boxes I knew there wasn't a bike under that tree unless it was for a one year old, but I was 15.

Or the next year when I asked for a typewriter because I loved to write, and I quickly assessed, there's no way those boxes, any of those boxes contained a typewriter so I would first look what was not under the tree. And so when I look at this Tree of Life, I first notice what's not under the tree. Here's how John says it. No longer would there be any curse. The curse. Ever since Adam and Eve ate from that forbidden fruit, we have known nothing but the curse. Here's how I see the curse. It's any reminder that we are sinners and the world is broken because of it. Everywhere you turn there are reminders that the world is broken because we have sinned. Not under this tree. Not under this tree. There is no curse. You zoom in and you see right now human relationships fractured by anger and abuse and divorce and hatred and discord. You zoom out and you see nations fighting against nations. You see racial disharmony. All a result of the curse that we are sinners and the world is broken because of it. The curse is not under this tree.

No wonder John says that this tree provides healing for the nations. Healing. And no wonder the removal of the curse is the result and the cause. But there are other things not under this tree. You go back to the previous chapter, Revelation 21, just let me list for you what is not under the tree. All relatives of the curse. There is no more sea. The sea seems to be a reference to death because the sea in Revelation gave up its dead. But there is no sea because next there is no death. There is no mourning or weeping. There is no crying. There is no more pain. There is no more night. There is no curse. All of those things are gone as John says it because when we get into the new Jerusalem, the former things are past away. You and I do not even understand what it means to wake up and not have a reminder of the curse, but some day we will because those things, those seven things are not under the tree.

Let me talk then about this tree. There are things associated with this tree that I want to grip your soul and satisfy your soul. Things associated with this tree. First of all, it gives life. It is called the Tree of Life. The tree that gives life, this is how John speaks of it. On each side of the river stood the Tree of Life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. It means it's always giving life, perpetually. Let me say it another way. There is no winter in the new Jerusalem. I'm not talking about those of you who are longing for a white Christmas or those that love to ski in the southern towns. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about spiritually, because that's what I think John is speaking of.

Spiritually when you look into your soul and you see a barrenness, there is nothing going on. It's as if God is not speaking to you. There is no fruit. You are wondering what is happening in your relationship with God. That's winter. When you look into your soul just as you look outside and see the trees and there is nothing on it, there's nothing in your soul. There is no winter there. No winter at all. Always bearing fruit, always having the opportunity to eat from this tree that gives life. But do not think of this tree as a thing. It's symbolic of a relationship. A relationship that, if you know Jesus, present tense, you have. Jesus said it this way in John 17:3, this is eternal life right now, that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That's the privilege of knowing Christ, that the things that I'm talking about right now, you and I can have a fore-taste of just how beautiful and gracious and lasting and satisfying. The life that we now have in Jesus, it gives life.

But it also, secondly, gives health. This is how John says it. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. The Greek word for healing is from which we get the word, therapeutic or therapy. This is what John is saying, it's for the healing of the nations. John, in speaking the way he does, is merely confirming that he is seeing the same thing that Ezekiel say years before in his vision. The swamps and marshes will not become fresh, they will be left for salt. Fruit trees of all kinds will grow on both banks of the river. Their leaves will not wither, nor will their fruit fail. Every month they will bear fruit because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing. Healing of the nations. Is there anyone who would doubt that the nations need this therapy, this healing? Is there anyone who would look at the political landscape regardless of where you land politically that would not say our nation needs healing? The racial disharmony, that our nation does not need healing?

Would there be anybody that would look at our community, our city and not realize a long for healing? Is there anyone here this morning that would say, if there is anything my family needs at Christmas, it's healing? Some day that healing comes. Full restoration, full reconciliation, full health, full healing. Nations whose citizens have been ravaged by war and famine, never again. Minds broken by depression and anxiety and mental illness, fully restored. Relationships disrupted by hate and discord and hurtful words, never again. Bodies crippled by disease, never again. This healing will come, everything will be fully restored. Do you long for it? Do you want it? Do you desire it? Do you live your life in anticipation of it?

There's a third thing that I want you to see. This Tree of Life is nourished by a river and the river flows from the throne of God. The source for this tree is not a styrofoam cup that you put a little soil and a seed and pour a little water in and put on a window sill. It flows from the throne of God. This is how John saw it. Then the angels showed me the river of the water of life as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the Tree of Life. It flows from the throne of God and it gives life to the Tree of Life.

Ever since Satan came into the Garden and he promised Adam and Eve a life that they had not yet experienced and he delivered death, he has given to us the death that he will someday experience. But when we come into relationship with Jesus Christ, we get the life that flows from the throne of God. The life that God always has had. Do you think that if you and I would embrace that and live by that as a present possession, it might change the way we live? How in the world could the God who created everything in six days, not enter into your heart and make an incredible difference? Are you daily drawing in to the river of life that is in the word of God and the Holy Spirit who resides in you and drinking freely from that water that and in anticipation of having it non-stop accessible to you in the new Jerusalem. God has always given us the choice of life and death. Satan promises life, but he gives death. God promises life and he gives life and that is always the choice before us.

Deuteronomy 30 says it this way. This day God speaks, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you, that I have sat before you life and death, blessings and curses, now choose life so that you and your children may live. Why? Why choose the death of your soul that pornography brings when you can live in purity? Why live in the death of relationships that bitterness and anger and resentment and unhealed and unforgiven wounds cause when you can live in the life of joy and peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith. Today God sets before you the life that he promises in the new Jerusalem. Why would you choose? Why would I choose death? I long for the life that God promises that flows from his throne.

The next thing I want you to see is that there are things on this tree. I think most of us are aware that at least in the beginning parts of celebrating Christmas, oftentimes, the Christmas gifts were placed on the tree. And I looked at this passage of scripture, this Tree of Life, and as a result of eating from this tree there are four all-satisfying gifts that God provides for us in the new Jerusalem that I not only tell you so that you can long for them, but so that you can actually fore-taste them now. Here's the first. We will serve him. I'm just reading right out of the text. I'm not inventing anything. This is what John says. We will serve him. Here's how he says it. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him. This is what Adam and Eve were created to do. To serve God as priests in his temple. That's what the Garden of Eden was set up to be. The Temple of God. And Adam and Eve were created to serve God as his priests, but they rebelled and so have we.

History has been filled with the travesty of serving anyone but God. My goodness we have made a mess of things when we serve ourselves. We have been oppressed when we have served tyrants. We have been frustrated when we have served what we would think are unworthy people. But there is coming a day when our greatest delight will be to serve and love and worship and adore God because that's what we were created to do. But do not think of that as a new Jerusalem entity alone. You and I have the privilege of waking up every morning and saying, "God, to the best of my ability, as the spirit infuses me with your energy, your life, may I serve you today. Not myself, but may I serve you and please you with all that I say and all that I do." We will serve him.

The second thing he says is that we will see his face. Again, I'm taking it right from the text. This is what he says. They will see his face. Now you might have to forgive me for returning to this thought as I was a few weeks ago in the passage from 2nd Thessalonians 2. I can't help it, it's right here. We will see his face. What a glorious thing it will be to see the one that love right now, but have not seen. But we will see him face to face. And the very same person who told us that we will see his face here in Revelation tells us that it has a present so what to it. This is what John says in his first letter.

See what great love the father has lavished on us. That we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God and what we will be is not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. Here's the so what. All who have this hope in him, purify themselves just as he is pure. The idea that we will some day see him has a present so what, we purify ourselves. Do you realize over the last few months that when Pastor Jerry delivered that series, When Christ Shall Come, it was not so that you would fill out your prophecy chart or your timelines. Because every single time the New Testament talks about the second coming of Christ it is always with a so what, that you and I would live in preparation for that day. Please do not tell me that you don't know what that's like.

Every single one of us at some time, maybe this Christmas, are waiting for someone to come home. Maybe it's your children coming home from college or it might be a loved one coming home from the military or maybe it's a loved one who just simply hasn't been able to be with you the last few Christmases. Would you not admit that everything, and I mean everything in your mind and in what you are doing is in preparation for the moment that person's face comes through the door. You understand exactly what it means to shape everything in your present in anticipation of that future moment. This is what John calls for. We will see his face and what a day that will be. But in preparation, I'm aligning, I'm shaping every part of my life in anticipation of seeing his face. This is what the gospel calls us for.

There's a third thing. We will have his name on our foreheads. we will have his name on our foreheads. Again, I speak right from the text. And his name will be on their foreheads. What does that mean? It means ownership. We will have his name on our foreheads because it is a declaration that we belong to him. I found this in my memory box. This is my sneaker bag from kindergarten. You think your kids have a cool backpack, you can't beat this. This is my sneaker bag from 1963. You can't see it now, but my mother embroidered, This Belongs to Deone Drake. That meant that it belonged to me. And so when John says that his name will be on our foreheads, it means that we belong to him forever. I want you to know that doesn't happen when you get to the new Jerusalem. If you know Jesus Christ, that has already happened. He has already sealed you. Here's how Paul says it. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth. The gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit-guaranteeing our inheritance onto the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory.

Pastor Jerry talks often, and he should, about you and I getting the identity issue settled. Every single one of us have wore names that maybe we don't think we want, including sinner or maybe you might be thinking, and it comes real personal up at Christmas, maybe some of the things that your mom or your dad said to you when you were growing up or maybe some of the things that people in your life had said, you have a new identity, you are his son. You are his daughter. That is the only identity that matters. And you might still here those voices in your ear saying you're something different. But that will be drawn out for all eternity when God says to you, you are my son, you are my daughter and nothing in eternity will separate you from me. Nothing will change that. We will have his name on our foreheads.

There's one more thing. One more thing. We will reign with him. Here's the verse. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever. This, this guy from North Tonawanda, who was told by his 4th grade teacher that he would never amount to anything, some day I will reign with Christ. And that's because of the grace of God. Some day you will reign with Christ. Some day you will reign with Christ. In fact, Paul says in Romans 8, that God has, right now, made you through his spirit a joint heir with Christ. How in the world can you think of it anything but grace that you have just as much right to heaven as Christ does because of his grace.

If you think of those four words, we will serve him. We will see his face. We will have his name on our foreheads. We will reign with him. Let me tell you what the enemy wants you to do. He wants to keep your preoccupation on things that do not matter. So that you are not overwhelmed on a daily basis and live in view of what God has in store for you. Again, we will serve him. We will see his face. We will have his name on our foreheads. We will reign with him. That is our destination and we live in view of that instead of settling down here on things that don't matter and don't last. Again, no one ever said this better than C.S. Lewis. It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. Don't be too easily pleased. Look for that holiday that awaits us and live in anticipation of it. This is what God has for us.

Just one more thing. Open these gifts early. Open these gifts early. I'm pointing you out, I'm staring right at you. I know you. I know your past that you sometime came down when you were a kid and you looked under that tree and you opened one of those gifts because you wanted to know ahead of time what it was. And then you tried to seal it up as if your parents did not know. Right. These gifts you can open up early and you can share. The reason I know that is because the word picture in this Tree of Life is a river flowing and it produces a tree planted by that river of water. And it brings forth leaves that prosper. David wrote about it Psalm 1. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers. But whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night. That person is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither and whatever he does prospers.

This tree right here, we're calling it the Healing Tree because it's for the healing of the nations and as I, as we, soak our hearts in God's word, that is the river that is planted, we become a tree who has leaves on it for the healing of those around us. And God can use us and God wants to use us as people who heal, who touch the lives of those around us. There are so many different directions I could take this. I could speak, and I need to speak that you and I, in the culture and the community that we live in, can be used by God to break down walls of racial disharmony and provide healing. And maybe you see that in where you shop, in where you work. And you can be a healer that's used by God because of the river of life that flows in you and out from you.

I could speak of many others but it is most appropriate when I'm talking about being a tree of life that you would be a healer in your home and family and loved ones at Christmas. If there was anything that was true about Christmas, it's that there is drama at Christmas. Preach it! All right, I will. And maybe your Christmas resolution this year is, I'm not going to get sucked into that drama. Or maybe that drama is in this one room at Christmas and I'm going to be in another room. What would it look like if in the three days before Christmas, if you were praying, God, there's some healing that needs to take place in my home. Let it begin with me. Let it begin with me. What would that look like for you to live out the reality of the gospel because part of the gospel is our hope. And because some day I will drink freely from this water and eat freely from this tree, I am going to be a person who sets about my course to heal.

Do you know the very first thing that Jesus spoke in his earthly ministry were these words, I have come to heal the broken hearted. And later on he will say, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." And your greatest mission field might be your marriage right now. Maybe your marriage right now isn't what you've ever wanted and certainly not what God wanted. What would it look like for you to grab ahold of your husband's hand or your wife's hand even right now and saying, "Let's pray that God would heal our marriage. Let's pray that God would use us to heal our homes. Let's pray that God would use us as a Tree of Life."

Would you bow your heads with me, close your eyes. I want to have a specific prayer for those that maybe this last part of the message resonated. First of all I'm going to ask you to do something bold. If maybe right now your heart is broken because of the relationships that you have in your family and you might actually be dreading Christmas because of that brokenness. We want to pray for you. If that's you, if you're broken hearted right now because of a very close relationship in your home, I want you to stand. All across any of our campuses, I want you to stand. It might be difficult for you to do. I'm asking you to stand. Thank you.

The second group of people that I'm talking to is those of you who would right now recognize there's some drama, there's some brokenness and maybe you've tried to stay away from it but God right now is speaking through his spirit into your heart and he's saying I want you to be a vehicle of healing and you're willing to commit the next three days to praying that God would use you at this Christmas time to bring some healing in your family. If that's you, I want you to stand. We want to pray for you. Thank you.

If you're standing near somebody who's standing or if you're somebody who is standing, would you go by them and lay a hand on their shoulder. As we have this closing time of prayer, that you're agreeing to pray with them and for them that God would heal their broken heart and use them to do the same in the lives of others. Let us pray.

It's ironic, Lord, that the greatest news in all the world that Christ is born is Bethlehem. Even today 2000 years later the idea of Christmas brings some pain because all is not well, all is not right and sometimes we thought that maybe the best thing to do is just to stay as far away from it as possible. But Lord, you've given us the vehicle by which by your stripes we are healed. And we recognize that is a healing that takes place, the full restoration of our souls will take place in the new Jerusalem, but right now Lord you have done so much in our hearts to produce grace and love and mercy and kindness. And we have the opportunity Lord, to come to you for healing for our broken heart. We also have the opportunity to come to you and ask you to use us Lord in the next few days to be the vehicle by which you speak words of healing that we would pray right now Lord for that family member or that family situation, I don't have the love within me to deal with it and so I'm praying for the Holy Spirit who pours out his love in our hearts to do it to overflowing in mine so that the words that I speak are words of joy and peace and healing.

We pray, Lord, that in many of our homes this Christmas would be different as we see that there is room in our homes for Christ to rule unhindered and do as he pleases. We pray Lord for miracles of healing to do be done in our homes as we turn our attention to the one who came to give us life. This we pray in Christ's name and everyone said, Amen.