APR 26 2026 | Glory Revealed S1E3 | In the Light of the Lamb

Sea Change Church · Glory Revealed · "In the Light of the Lamb" Pastor Harry Wilson · April 26, 2026
Revelation 21:22–27
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Amen. Well, my name is Harry, as you know. I am the family pastor here, and it is, yeah, it's good. It's an honor to get to preach today. We are finishing up our series in future glory is what it's been titled. It is a series that has been focused on the glory of God and also the promise of future glory. And glory is an interesting word. It's not really a word we use in our everyday language. It's not a common word. You might say glorious, you know, if you're kind of, if you're weird and you see the sunset and it goes down, you're like, oh, the sunset was glorious.

We're like, okay, yeah, that's true, right? We might say that. But we don't really use the word glory in our everyday language. No one here would say my birthday party was for my glory, right? That would be a strange, you'd be like, hmm, that this new car brings me glory. It's just not really a word we use. And yet, it's a word the Bible uses hundreds of times to describe God. Sometimes even it's used about man, but most of the times it's used about God.

And as we've been studying these last couple weeks, we've learned that the Hebrew word for glory is kavod, and it talks about the weightiness of glory. The Greek word is doxa, and it talks about the shining radiance of glory. And although it's not a word we use often, I still think it's something that we often chase. I remember being 15 years old, and it was in our two-bedroom apartment growing up here in La Jolla. And I had this, you know, I had my little room.

And on the wall, I hung up all the medals and trophies and things. I had my little trophy wall, and I hung up, right? And I hoped that, you know, if you came into my room, you would ignore my bunk bed that I shared with my little brother. You'd ignore the trash from 7-Eleven on the floor, but you'd see my glory, right? You'd be stuck in, and you could feel the weight of my kavod as you looked at all the shining trophies and like, wow, Harry's so successful, right?

And that's what I did as a 15-year-old, and I have photos of that I did not include because now I find more embarrassment from like that as an adult looking back at that than I do glory. But it is this thing that we so often chase. God's glory, however, it does not fade. And as we've learned in this series, in week one, Pastor Adam focused on this experience that Moses had when he asked God, show me your glory. And God said, the best I can do is show you my back because if I showed you my face, you'd die.

And then in week two of our series, Pastor Adam focused on the transfiguration, where Jesus becomes radiant in front of Moses and Elijah and three of his closest disciples. And we talked about the difference between glory and New and Old Testament. And now today, we find ourselves in the book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible. And the author John is having visions while he's exiled on this island of Patmos.

And in our chapter today, John is seeing a vision of God making all things new. He's looking upon new creation, new heavens, new earth. And at the center point of new creation is the new Jerusalem. It's this new city. And it's this picture of future glory. And so that's where we're jumping in today to Revelation 21, 22 through 27. And the other thing we've been doing here is we've been encouraging you to bring your Bibles, to bring your physical Bibles so that we can become a Bible-carrying church.

And if you do that, then you can check on which one of us jokers in the pulpit is telling you the truth because you've got your own Bible with you, right? And so bring your Bible. This Bible actually my mom gave me 10 years ago when I started here at this church. It was the first Bible I got here starting here. And I love this little Bible. And so bring your Bibles to church. And let's go ahead, open them to Revelation 21, verses 22 through 27.

It says this. And so as John is looking upon new creation, this new Jerusalem, he sees that there's not a temple in it. And this is pretty striking because the temple was the center point of all worship. It was the hub of worship for the Jewish people. So to look and you've got the new creation, new Jerusalem, it's beautiful, exciting, but there's no temple. And the reason it tells us is that because God himself is the temple.

God and the Lamb are the temple. And this represents a shift in the progressive revelation of God's glory. If we've noticed, again, just what we've learned so far, there's been this progression. In the Old Testament, we saw that glory was restricted. Glory was, God's glory was dangerous. It was often hidden behind a pillar of fire and cloud. It would be hidden behind a veil in the temple while God's glory dwelt in the Holy of Holies.

And only one person could go in once a year, the high priest. And then in the New Testament, you see God's glory is revealed. It becomes revealed in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. And his life, his death, his resurrection reveals the glory of God. And Jesus says, I am the temple. I house the glory of God. And he often talked about his death and resurrection as his glory. So God's glory is revealed in Christ. And now in our chapter, we see a picture of glory reigning.

Glory in final creation is no longer restricted to a room, to a building. It's no longer hidden behind a veil. Instead, the glory of God permeates throughout the entire city, shining on everyone like the rays of the sun. And what I love about this passage is notice in verse 23, what is God's glory emanating from? It's emanating from the lamb. The lamb is Christ. It's Jesus. The lamb now is the lamp that is radiating God's glorious light on everyone.

So even in eternity, the image of sustenance, of life-giving power, is the lamb that was slain. And in Christianity, we often, rightfully so, look back in time to the cross. We look back at the cross and we meditate on the cross. And we have so much gratitude for the lamb that was slain, for the forgiveness of sins, that we now have freedom in this life. And we dwell backwards towards the cross, and that's the correct thing to do.

But in doing that, we cannot also forget to look forward. Forward to new creation. Forward to the new heavens and new earth and new Jerusalem. Because who still shines the brightest in the future? It's still the lamb. The lamb is the lamp. I put in your notes that our present hope is found both in the past work of the cross and the future promise of the city. Where the lamb that was slain is the lamp that sustains. So when we talk about future glory, the picture we get is Jesus so radiant, so glorious, that there's no need for sun or moon because he actually outshines them.

And I love that by the time you finish the Bible, when you get to the end, which we're, this is the second to last chapter we're jumping into today. When you get to the end of the Bible, Jesus has been described as nearly every source of life for human beings. He says himself, he says, I am true food and true drink. He says, I am living water. He says, I am the blood that gives you life. I am the replacement for the sun and the moon.

I am the husband that provides. I mean, he is described as every source of life for human beings. Jesus is the ultimate life source. And if you're looking for life outside of Jesus, it will ultimately decay in faith. He's the ultimate provider of life. And in this vision of new creation with him outshining, replacing the sun and moon, it says it is by his truth and his light that we will walk. It's his presence where we will draw continual warmth and comfort.

This is the picture we get of heaven. And I think sometimes, you know, it's a little different than how we tend to think about heaven culturally. We sometimes make a mistake to oversimplify heaven and hell to a good place I go to when I die if I believe the right things and a bad place I go to when I die if I don't believe the right things. But the biblical picture of heaven is that heaven is not primarily about the location of a place, but the presence of a person.

It is the unrestricted and all-encompassing presence of God that actually makes heaven heavenly. Him radiating like the sun on his people, his love and his light on his people. This is the biblical picture of heaven. A few years ago, I went through a mini little revival in my own faith as I followed Jesus. And one of the catalysts for that revival was I started just thinking about listening, reading about more and more of just about the beauty of Jesus.

Just how beautiful Jesus is. And I remember I just started being more and more drawn in by his beauty. And I realized that there's something that spiritually happens in us when we magnify the Son of God in our hearts. When you magnify the Son, something happens in you. When you make much of Christ, there becomes this spiritual movement in your heart. And so my encouragement to you is to make much of Christ. Magnify the Son in your heart.

I'm a big believer that in your spiritual walk in church, more than you need biblical tips for living, more than you need encouragement, more than you need good advice, you need to gaze on the glory. You just need to gaze on the glory of Jesus. You need to become fixated on his beauty. Because only his beauty will just start to stir your soul and draw you in. And so the goal of preaching, in my opinion, is to just try and more show you the beauty of Jesus.

Show you the beauty of God. So the Holy Spirit can draw you in and do its work in your life. And to some degree, every sermon will fail to do that because even my words will fall short of his glory. Every sermon, I can't accurately articulate the totality of his beauty in words. But if we can just show you a little bit more of Jesus, if you can just see a little bit more of Jesus, the church slogan is to make Jesus known.

If we could just show you a little bit more of Jesus, to draw you in, to stir your heart. Over time, the beauty of Jesus will change your life. And each one of us has room to grow in this category. We never, like, arrive to, like, I've seen all of the beauty of Jesus. I get the glory of God. We never arrive. We all have room to grow. Walking with Jesus is a constant rediscovery that your view of God is actually too small.

God will continue to just break your categories about his goodness and beauty and love if you pay attention to him. It reminds me of my son and I. One of our favorite things to do is to go to the zoo here in San Diego. And we got zoo passes. It's like most of the moms in this church have zoo passes, I've learned, right? So Kalina and I got zoo passes. Vinny and I gifted us one year for Christmas zoo passes. And we never went back.

We're like, this is amazing. And so we got zoo passes. And one of the enclosures we always pass, we never, like, want to go to this, but somehow we always pass it, is the baboons. And I think I actually have a photo of Jude. No, not that baboon. I'll talk about that baboon. That's the baboon I'm looking for. That was right before we cut his hair. And he's at the zoo, I don't know, maybe being a lion. I don't know what he's trying to be.

Man, we love the zoo. And so one of the enclosures we pass frequently is the baboons. And every time we pass it, I cannot help but think about my very first time going to Africa. This was about four years ago. And I was there. My primary role there was self-defense for the girls in the safe house and for just our team, right? And after an amazing trip, we went to safari to celebrate with the team. And near the end of the safari, our guide had to get out of the car and go do some paperwork.

So he left us in the vehicle. But he left the top open because you can stand up in a safari vehicle and, like, look around. He left that top open. So he left. And I'm sitting there. We're waiting his return. And I look up. And I see less than 10 yards away from me, up in a tree, I see a baboon. And he is just hovering over our vehicle. And now you can show that baboon. That's the picture I took. If you want an evidence of my stupidity, it's that I took a picture instead of got out of the car.

But I took this picture. You could see how close he was. And he's looking at me. And I looked at him. And if you've seen a baboon's ever looked at you, it's not a pleasant experience. And so he looked at me. And I looked at him. And my hand went to the door handle. Because I'm like, dude, this guy could jump in our car. And so I'm just staring at him. And sure enough, his feet left the tree. And as soon as his feet left the tree, I was out of that car.

I was gone. And he landed right in our car. He landed right in our vehicle. He actually landed right next to my sister-in-law, who was also on the trip. And this should be the part of the story where I tell you about my heroic efforts to defend my sister-in-law. But we're not blood-related. And look, I had been teaching self-defense on the trip. I thought maybe this was an opportunity to put some of what she learned to work, right?

I don't know, man. You can't jujitsu a baboon. I got away. And so I, every time, now, so, well, basically what happened, he jumps next, I should finish that story. That's important. He jumps next to my sister-in-law. He swipes some of her cookies. She had these cookies. She swipes them. This is really her fault anyway, right? Has these cookies. Swipes the cookies. Jumps out of the car. Hops on the hood of the car. Starts hissing at all of us.

I don't know baboons hiss, but they do. And it was this terrifying experience. And so now every time I pass the baboon enclosure, I can't help but think of this moment. Where, like, I almost died by baboon. And, but to my son, I mean, they're just, he just sees them behind an enclosure. They're just monkeys that look like they need pants, right? They're just kind of these indecent-looking monkeys to him. Like, he's got no perspective or danger of a baboon.

Like, I have this fear now of baboons. And yet, I've been to Africa several times now. There was a time where I saw a woman in Africa sitting on a curb, and she was just scrolling on her phone. And I kid you not, next to her, sitting nearly thigh to thigh, was a baboon. And they were just, it was like they were old friends sharing a park bench. They were just hanging out. And she had no fear, no concept of, like, the danger of this baboon.

Clearly, she had a deeper perspective of the baboon. I have this fearful perspective. She's got a friend. And so my point is, is we all have these varied experiences with God. We're all at different points in this journey. And just as my categories for baboons continues to be broken, if you pay attention to Jesus in your life, he will break your categories. On how you think he moves, how beautiful you think he is, what you think he's going to do, what you think he's like.

His justice, his mercy, his power, his beauty will continue to break your categories if you pay attention. Because he is glorious. So we all have room to grow in this, no matter how much you've studied or prayed or worshipped. We can all grow in our understanding of his glory. And this passage gives us a great perspective of that. So let's jump back into it. Let's jump in at verse 25. It says, God communicates to us that in this time of future glory, there will be no danger.

There will be no threat. There will be no violent baboon. There will be nothing to fear. The gates open wide. Nobody to sneak in at night and cause harm. Every danger defeated. Part of the glory of the city is that it's truly safe. And most of us, no matter how safe we feel living here in San Diego, most of us still lock our doors at night. Because most of us are aware that there's a potential for danger. I live in La Jolla and I have a little two-bedroom apartment here.

And I'm not going to get into some of the stories that have happened. But it's not as safe as I thought. I've had some really strange experiences come right to my doorstep that were not safe. I have a lot going on in my little neighborhood. There's a darkness here that I didn't realize maybe growing up here as a kid. And so I've become like the king of the ring camera. I don't know how many of you got ring. I got four ring cameras now around my house.

I'm like, I can see you from every angle coming. In this vision of future glory, there's no more deadbolts. There's no locked doors. There's no ring cameras. It is gates open wide. It's safe. And this in the context of when it is written to the church in Rome and to the seven churches in Asia Minor, when Rome was persecuting Christians, when Rome was burning Christians alive, crucifying them and feeding them to lions, when they received this letter and this vision from John meant to encourage the churches, and they're being persecuted and killed, and they hear that the glory they're going to step into, that the new city is safe.

What a profound encouragement for this people struggling in persecution to know that one day God is going to put an end to darkness, put an end to evil, put an end to suffering, and that the faith in Jesus that could get you killed in the corrupt city will now, in the new city, that very faith is how you enter into it. And the gates being open, it's not only a picture of safety, but it's a picture of welcome. If you read earlier in the chapter, you would see there are 12 gates.

12 often represents the tribes of Israel, so there's these 12 gates, and God told Moses it would be through him that the nations, or not Moses, Abraham, I went to seminary, and he told, don't confuse, pretty easy ones to, anyway. He told Abraham, right, the nations are going to be blessed through you, through your lineage, and now through the 12 gates, you see nations, kings pour in to the new Jerusalem, to the new city, all different people, what was once exclusive is now inclusive, for all people of all backgrounds to come into the new city, and live in the light of the Lamb.

Entry into the city is not based on ethnicity, wealth, power, status, or moral striving. It is based on belonging to the Lamb. And belonging to the Lamb is as simple as believing in the Lamb. But that belief is not just a cognitive understanding that, okay, Jesus is real, it's a relational reality. It's an entrusting of my whole self and being, to believe that his way leads to life, and choosing to follow him, I will be changed by him.

So following Jesus is not about earning a place in the city, or earning your spot in heaven, it's about becoming a people who feel at home in his presence. Becoming a people who belong to the Lamb, becoming the type of citizen that would love to dwell in this new city under the light of the Lamb. And so this vision John is having, by the way, it's not new. This is what God has been planning. This vision in Revelation 21 is nearly identical to a vision we get in Isaiah chapter 60.

And so I included in your notes Isaiah 60, verse 11 and verse 19 through 22, and I'm going to read them for you. It says, It says, It says, John has in Revelation. And I love what it says in verse 19. It says, The Lord, He'll be your everlasting light. And check it out. Your God will be your glory. See, when God becomes your glory, your life becomes heavenly. I will. Thanks, Pastor, for the prayer. If God will be your glory, when God becomes your glory, your life will become heavenly.

It will gratify your deepest longings and desires. And our problem is, as human beings, is we're really good at misplacing glory. We long for moments of glory. We long for self-gratification that we often confuse as glory. And all the time, it's fleeting. All the time, we're trying to wrestle down happiness, and we just, it always gets away. C.S. Lewis says, in one of the resources Pastor Adam was offering to us, The Way to Glory, he says this.

He says, Lewis argues that our problem is not that we desire too much, it's that we desire too little. That if our truest and deepest desires and longings were awakened and pursued, we wouldn't so often settle for counterfeits. We wouldn't settle for moments, because nothing would satisfy other than finding belonging in his glory. And then, I love verse 21. There's a mutuality that happens in verse 21. Let's go back to that in Isaiah and read that.

It says, Your people shall all be righteous. They shall possess the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I might be glorified. So not only will God be our glory, but when God's people are living in his light, when God's people are righteous, when they possess the land promised to them, God takes glory in it. He becomes our glory, and then he's glorified when he sees his people, creation, thriving under the light of the Lamb.

God desires to see his children flourishing. It brings him glory. And I think we can get a glimpse of this as parents. Right? We see this a little bit for those of us who are parents. Right? We went to, I had the great privilege last summer of getting to go on sabbatical for my 10-year sabbatical. I'm deeply grateful to this church for getting to do that. And Pastor Adam, and they sent me to Oxford. I got to study at Oxford for two weeks.

And that's why I didn't confuse Moses and Abraham, because I went to Oxford. And got to study at Oxford. And then my wife got to come out with my son. It was this beautiful experience that we all got to have. I've never been to Europe. And it was so amazing to get to do that. And one day we brought my son to this playground. And he's playing. And he sits next to this little girl at some point. And they're kind of, you know, babbling like, you know, little two-year-olds do.

And at some point my son leans in for a kiss. He just leans in and puckers up. I know. And I don't know if it was her accent or like, I don't know, like, just being in a new place in a new city. Like, I don't know what he was feeling. But whatever he was feeling, it was not reciprocated by the little girl, which is probably good. And the mom just leaned over to my wife and was like, well, the moment just must have just felt right.

I can't do a British accent, but it's my best attempt. And I just missed this. I just got out of class at Oxford, which is a really cool sentence. And I made my way over to this playground to meet up with my family. And my wife told me this story. And the first emotion I felt hearing about what my boy did, I don't know if this is the correct emotion, but it was pride. I was like, I was just kind of proud of him. Not that I want him running around kissing British girls, but that like he wasn't afraid to take a chance on love.

You know what I mean? Like he put himself out there. And like you just got to be kind of proud of him. Like, I don't know. And we do this, right? We take when our kids are thriving, when you see your kids stepping to their gifting, stepping to their callings, just start to just move in a life and have success and know the Lord. You're just like, we take glory in that. We revel in that. And if we do, how much more than does God?

To see creation, to see his children thriving. God finds great delight in you. And when you walk in the light of his son, and you experience forgiveness, and you have relationships healed, and generational curses broken, and you begin to use your gifts to step into your callings, God just takes glory in that to see his children thriving. I got a text just this morning from someone I've been meeting with, and they texted me this morning that they were 31 days sober of an addiction they'd been dealing with.

And I was just like, oh, like I just was reading that at 7.30 this morning, and just like I couldn't help but just feel like the weight of the glory of that just be like, oh man, we're breaking generational curses. We're breaking habits and patterns of sin and death. Like God is doing the work, and Lord, you're glorified. And that was so gratifying to read, and that God would let me share in that with the people I love.

This is a deep joy for me. And if I got joy from a text message, how much joy does God get to see you walking in his light, to see you healed of brokenness, to see you thriving and using your gifts for his glory, he finds great joy in that. And you don't have to wait till you die to walk in the light of the Lamb. That truth, that healing, that is available to you today, and it's afresh for you each morning. So as we close, my encouragement is to you to fix your eyes on the Lamb.

And I'll invite the band up for our closing song. But fix your eyes on the Lamb. Just start to be captivated by his beauty. Find belonging in him, and then spend your life becoming a citizen of that new city. The only thing you take to heaven with you is you. That's it. You don't take anything else. None of this stuff lasts. But you take you. So why not now start spending your life becoming the type of citizen that's going to belong in the light of the Lamb in the new city, the new Jerusalem.

Amen? Amen. Amen.