Revelation 7:9-15 • Graduation Robes
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Graduates, you get to wear your robes.
I get to wear mine.
I'm wearing it for a purpose, a reminder for all of us that the graduation robes we wear display some things, hide some other things.
And that's a good message to know. Because whether you have more schooling or not, inevitably, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you will wear another robe. I want to take you to a passage in Scripture this morning, Revelation chapter 7. Revelation chapter 7 as we will look at verses 9 through 15 and remind ourselves of the graduation robes that are in store for all who name the name of Jesus as Lord. Let me ask that you would stand as we would honor God's Word and consider Revelation 7, 9 through 15, the Apostle John writes of events that follow the consummation of all things in this world and what Christ has prepared for those who love Him.
Revelation 7, 9, John writes, "After this I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb."
And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying,
"Amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever, amen."
Then one of the elders addressed me saying, "Who are these clothed in white robes and from where have they come?"
And I said to him, "Sir, you know.
These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple.
And He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence."
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, we praise You that You have revealed what is ahead for all who are Your own, a time in which the purification that You have made possible through the blood of Jesus Christ will be made available to all who have claimed Him and His work on their behalf. And because of that great claim that You have worked through the people who love You, You will make His name known among all nations, peoples, tribes, and languages and the earth itself shall be an instrument of His glory. We taste it now, but You are preparing us for that great work in which we shall all rejoice. Thank You that You show us ahead of time that we might prepare and help others to do the same through the robes that You give us. In Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated.
In a new book that's called "12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You," Tony Reinsky catalogs the way that he thinks smartphones are not making us any smarter.
As he describes them, it's disheartening to say the least.
He says our smartphones distract us. On average, we will refer to them every 4.3 minutes. That means 85,000 times a year on average.
They endanger us. Everyone knows, of course, that if you're texting while driving, you basically are in the same danger of someone drunk and driving. Your chance of an accident is 23 times higher than if you were not using your phone at that moment. Our smartphones can seduce us, not just with sexual images, but with social media that tells us whether or not we are socially acceptable and what it will take to become socially acceptable.
Our phones can disorient us with the constant whir of urgent notifications so that we in what is known as the incessant autobiography have to tell everyone about our likes and dislikes, our food, family, friends.
But it's not just that.
We are disoriented by the urgency of all the notes that become indistinguishable from one another so that nothing is urgent.
We lose priorities. We lose any sense of urgency. We even lose a sense of the people who are right in front of us. My wife, Kathy, sent me on her smartphone last week a picture from a fast food restaurant which showed a father captivated by his phone. She said the entire meal he spent swiping his phone as his 4-year-old sat at the table across from him conversing with his French fries.
The reviewer of Ryan Key's book that I read said this, "By the time I finished Ryan Key's book I felt like I had a digital cancer growing in my pocket."
Now for those of you who are graduating, here's my question. Do you buy that?
I'm not sure I do, honestly. I mean, I can know I can make our phones wicked and awful, but I recognize that I have huge benefits from them. And I'm not simply asking you to accept somebody who sounds like an authority saying that phones are good or bad. The fact that you are wearing graduation robes is a statement of training, background, and preparedness to be able to evaluate not only the phones but the people who critique them.
What your graduation robes are saying is that certain things have now occurred because you are graduating and that you are expected to be able to think about them, to prepare for them, to evaluate them, regardless of what other people tell you. How do the graduation robes that you're wearing indicate that you're not just going to be pushed by the culture but you have an ability to push back against it because of the preparation you now have? What your graduation robes say?
Your graduation robes, among other things, say where you have been. After all, you're different colors representing different schools. That's true at the collegiate level as well. By the way, the hats begin to change depending on the school that you go to as well. My university put out a hat in the shape of a stop sign, which doesn't strike me as particularly wise, but nonetheless, that was the mark of that particular university.
Our robes not only indicate where you've been but what you've done.
All the robes that you all are wearing right now are seamed at the shoulders with one color. That's the rest of the robe indicating general studies. But as you move along in education, if you go further, the colors and the seams will begin to change. They will indicate the disciplines in which you specialize. Blue is philosophy.
Does anybody know what engineering is?
Orange.
Medicine.
Green.
Life giving.
Farming or agriculture, believe it or not, you can get a PhD in agriculture as well.
Not just yellow, officially in the college manuals, it is known as maize.
Well, that makes sense.
Theology. Any guesses? What color would theology be indicated by?
Scarlet. Exactly right. Scarlet. And you might think why that is. Not only do our graduation robes indicate where you've been and what you've done, but how much you have done. Almost all of your robes now have squared off sleeves, which is for undergraduate, high school, and then bachelor's degrees. If you move on to get a master's, they are the swallowtail sleeves, the one that have long sleeves that hang way down like that. If you get a PhD, they look like these. They are what are called the bell sleeves with the chevrons, which means you've stayed in school a long time.
Not only do they indicate how much you've done, your graduation robes indicate how well you have done. Depending on the school that you go to, you may receive medallions or medals or honor cords that indicate various achievements. You know that your cum laude, whatever that Latin phrase means, it means with honor, or magna cum laude with great honor, or summa cum laude with highest honor, or like me, summa cum barely, which means you squeaked by.
Finally, the graduation robes that you are wearing indicate that you're done.
You've accomplished something. You're at the end of a course. And most of you, if you graduated already or are soon to graduate, you will recognize that on your hat, your tassel moves from right to left, indicating you're going from education to vocation. And that means by the time you're doing doctoral or master's work, the tassel simply stays on one side. It doesn't move anymore, as it indicates you are now entering or qualifying in a more specified profession.
In summary, if you look at these graduation robes, they are saying, they indicate that you have fulfilled requirements to move on, that you are joining the ranks of other people who are wearing similar robes. Different ones of you are from the same school today, and you're saying I'm joining the ranks with them and others who have gone before and completed the same course. Finally, the graduation robes are indicating you are ready to launch.
I mean, after all, these graduation services we go to this year are not called completion services. They are called commencement services. We commence, we begin, we start because we've been qualified and are ready to move on into the next stage of life or the next discipline. And so, in essence, when we put on the graduation robes, the graduation speakers at our ceremonies are going to say, now you're ready, so get set and go, get out of here. And if it's a good graduation speaker, he will speak that with cleverness. And if it's not a good graduation speaker, hopefully he or she will at least speak with brevity.
But if that's all these robes signify, you're done. You're ready to go, then the question I think you should have as a believer in Jesus Christ and a follower of Him is, is that all?
I mean, some graduation speaker is going to say to virtually every graduate, you're ready, get set, go.
But if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, is there anything else that's to be the takeaway?
I remember that great struggle that I had as I was graduating from college and it was about Thanksgiving of my senior year of college. And I recognized as I was considering the priorities of my future that the only things that were in my mind were how much money can I make and how big a name can I make for myself. Now, I've been a Christian a long time and I recognized here I was on the threshold of my career and the only things I was thinking about were the priorities that I recognized the rest of the world was thinking about. I mean, is there any difference for a Christian when you graduate of what we should be thinking about of what priorities should be in our thoughts?
I mean, as I was graduating from college, the well-known Christian philosopher of the time was Francis Schaeffer. And he said, "The average American has only two priorities in life," which he called personal peace and affluence.
He said, "Let me alone and give me enough money that I don't have to worry about stuff."
And as I was graduating, I began to say, "You know what? I hear that's what the secular world thinks, but honestly, that's all I really want too." I managed to kind of want a life without too much trouble where I have enough money to make it, but then I recognized what's that pushing upon me is just the treadmill everybody else is on. You graduate, you make a little money, get married, have a few kids, pay for their education, it all starts again.
I mean, is that really all there is?
And the answer of the Scriptures through another set of robes is no, that is not all there is. That there are robes ahead of us, not just the graduation robes that will soon be behind you, but robes ahead of us that are saying profound things of what heaven is preparing for us. Those robes are described here in Revelation 7.
They are white robes. They are robes for those from every tribe and language, people and nation. And what do those robes represent? Not where you've been, but where you are bound.
After all, what is ahead?
Verse 9 of this passage says that as John looked, he saw a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, tribe, language, and they were clothed in white robes. I mean, what is all that about? Just as I think about it and say it to you again, remember that the robes display some things, they hide other things.
"If the white robes are for people from every nation, tribe, language," what is that saying? It is saying that you, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, are joining the ranks of peoples from every generation, every nationality, every ethnicity, regardless of their differences, they are united in Christ. That means we no longer view other people from a worldly point of view. But we see in other nations, in other ethnicities, in other languages, in other people groups, brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ united in a single cause.
Philip Jenkins, who writes about the movement of Christianity right now in our lifetime from the West to the global South, says, "What is the typical Christian of the 21st century going to look like? It will not be a businessman in America, in a mega church, in an American suburb. The typical Christian of the next century, the one we're in right now, is going to be
a village woman moving, who has moved from her village to a slum in a major city in Nigeria.
That would be the much more common Christian, which we will call our sister in Christ.
And because that is a sister in Christ, or a husband, or child, a brother in Christ, we no longer look at people as not our concern.
As though we could take advantage of them economically, or politically, or physically in any way. But rather it becomes our obligation to say, we are part of a great multitude. And because we are a part of great multitude from every tribe and language and people and nation, we recognize we are part of a great cause.
We are joining the ranks of those whose robes of white indicate that they are designed for a purpose. The purpose meaning to glorify God. In verse 10, those who have these white robes cry out with a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God." And not only the world is to know, but the heavens themselves are to know. The angels, the elders, the four living creatures recognize, which represent the great powerful forces of nations past as well as nations future. But all of those are to name the name of Jesus, which means we no longer view ourselves from a worldly point of view. We are not just on the treadmill. We are not just about personal peace and affluence. We are about making sure the world, from every tribe and language, people and nation hears the name of Jesus. Salvation belongs to our God. And my goal, my life, my purpose is to make sure people know. So when we recognize these white robes are our future, we are saying it's not where you have been that's primarily the message, but where you are bound to other peoples and to a greater cause. That means the white robe is also saying this is not primarily representing how you have done, but what remains to be done.
We are to bring glory to our God. At the end of verse nine, these people who are clothed in white wave palm branches as their expression of praise to the King.
What is John telling us in the book of Revelation? But that every aspect of earth is to be given to the glory of God. When we see those palm branches mentioned, I know for almost all of us, we think back to the triumphal entry Sundays when you as little kids carried the palm branches down the rows here and we all kind of chuckled and laughed and thought that's a wonderful little show.
But what is happening here at the end of creation is that we are being told that we are to bring glory to God with the things of earth.
And those are not just palm branches, but as testimony is made of our souls changed by the work of Jesus Christ, even the angels begin to say what brings glory to God. They say in verse 12, glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God. Everything is to bring glory to God.
God loves everything that He has made and because God loves everything that He has made, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it. Psalm 24, what does that mean?
It means that cell phones are the Lord's. While it's so easy in kind of our little restrained Christian culture to take some aspect that is being abused and say how awful and terrible, we are not in retreat.
We are taking every thought captive. We are taking every technology captive, every talent, every ability, every industry, all of it is to be put before the throne of God. All power and might and wisdom is to His glory and fame. And for that reason, we don't just kind of say, I'm not going to touch the world, I'm not going to be involved. No, we are saying my job is to enter the world and with earthly things glorify my Savior. Can cell phones be used for that?
I thought of it some time ago when I was actually helping start a school for preachers in Western Kenya. We were three hours beyond any paved road, three hours beyond the last rail station in very, very rural Kenya.
And I was one morning washing my face in a bucket because there was no running water in that place.
And my cell phone in my pack began to ring. I didn't remember that I had my cell phone with me, certainly didn't think it was going to work, but here was my cell phone ringing. I picked up my cell phone in the rural of Western Kenya and my son Jordan said to me, "Dad, I'm thinking about marrying Suzanne. Do you have any advice for me?"
And I said, "Do you have any idea where I am in the world?"
Now, it wasn't just that that cell phone was able to unite a father with his son so far away. That's what was being signaled, that in this rural destitute part of the world, quite literally technology had leapfrogged decades forward. There were not telephone poles being set up by the hundreds of thousands, not telephone trenches and lines being set up. Just by establishing a few cell towers, technology had moved forward. And because technology is moving forward, do all sorts of perverted images move into Western Kenya? Yes, but what else does?
Cell apps and people who are presenting the gospel and people who are simply uniting societies with greater knowledge so that there is human flourishing provided by people who have taken that technology and say, "We can use it to help people live better." And if they perceive it is being done by Christians, then they begin to praise God as well. It's what's supposed to happen because what happens here is from all creation, tribe, language, people, nation, there are creatures that are hearing the message of the gospel in heaven as well as on earth. And because of that, all time is being changed. Ultimately, the heavens themselves declare the glory of God forever and ever.
All creatures for all creation for all time. It's the image of what God is saying is, "If I have purified you, if I made you my own, if you are joining ranks with me for a great cause, this is not just the treadmill of personal peace and affluence. This is not just you getting along, nor is it just you being pressed by culture into a mold you don't want to be in. If I actually believe that the God of the universe is purifying me to be part of His cause, then I begin to lift my head above the fray, not just pushed by the curtain saying, "How is it actually possible to make a difference?" Before God calls me, He's given me different talents, different abilities, but if they are all made to give Him glory, what does that mean?"
A thousand years ago, in a little church in Coventry, England, somebody got the idea, the vision of what it really meant that if God is calling His people from every place and walk of life to give Him glory, to change the world for the name of Christ, what would that mean?
On the walls of Coventry Church for the sake of prayer, there was a rewritten Lord's prayer. Speaking of what it meant to say, "I am called by God into a great cause regardless of my walk in life." Here's the prayer.
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory. How would be thy name in industry?
God be in my hands and in my making. How would be thy name in the arts? God be in my senses and in my creating. How would be thy name in commerce? God be at my desk and in my trading.
How would be thy name in government? God be in my plans and in my deciding. How would be thy name in education? God be in my mind and in my growing. How would be thy name in my home?
God be in my heart and in my loving. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty and the heavens and the earth are full of His glory." It was that profound understanding that regardless of talent or resource or profession or place that we are called to take every thought captive, every skill captive, every talent captive, every resource, all technology and say, "How can this help the people that God has put into my life and into the purposes that He has given for my life for His glory and will people hear because I have helped them at the office, at home, at school, in the laboratory? Where is it that the name of Jesus needs to be known that society can be changed for the sake of the one who has given me these talents and skills? I am called to have an eternal purpose and make an earthly difference by taking the earthly things that He gives and using them for His glory.
If you actually do that, what should you expect?
What you should expect is indicated in verses 13 and 14. One of the elders addressed John saying, "Who are these clothed in white robes and where do they come from?"
John said, "Sir, you know, these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation." Now, the scholars will debate what that means and when it occurs, but there is no question in anybody's mind the essence of that statement. It is a warning.
If you would put on the white robe, if you say, "I am now living for the righteousness and the good of Jesus Christ, I have covered my purposes with His purpose to bring Him glory," you are going to get pushback.
The world will resist. There will be a price to pay.
And here it is called tribulation.
It's what they did to Jesus.
If you are a follower of Christ, why should you not expect similar things? It can happen in any profession if you would give yourself to His purposes. I read recently, some of you may have too, of David Coppage who worked at the National Propulsion Laboratory of NASA until he was fired because he gave to a friend a pamphlet saying he believed the universe was a product of intelligent design. There was not even a mention of God, a product of intelligent design rather than materialistic evolution.
Some of you may have heard in the news just this past week of a group who is called Answers in Genesis who applied to the National Park Service to take 50 rocks of fist size out of the Grand Canyon to subject them to scientific research to try to determine the age of the Grand Canyon. But because they are creationists, they were denied the ability to take 50 rocks out of the Grand Canyon.
Why should you not expect that?
If we would live for God and say, "My life, my talent, my resources, I am trying to use to bring glory to God so that the world will be changed for good, but also they will claim His glory."
The world would push back, we would expect that, so why would you bother?
And the answer is there at the end of verse 14. Not only have these who wear the white robes come out of the great tribulation, they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Not a mystery to you. Lots of people look back to their high school years and there are things in that high school that they are ashamed of, that they wish did not happen, that they regret, and to say, "But listen, we have robes made white in the blood of the Lamb, that we are covered, we are given the righteousness of Christ, His robes on our behalf. And the reason that we have white robes is our sin has been washed away by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ." And what that fundamentally means right now is that Jesus is now for you.
You are not on your own. The pushback that the world gives is not up to the push forward that He is willing to give. I cannot tell you that it will always be easy or nice on this earth, but I can tell you not only that God is for you, but He is with you.
Verse 15, "They are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple, because He has provided His grace toward them, forgiving their sin, removing their shame, forgiving their weakness, forgiving even their lack of application of their talents to His purpose. Nonetheless, He provides His blood for them as they look to Him in faith, and those who know it respond in gratitude. I will serve Him day and night, my life now in His purpose, in His cause, not just personal peace and affluence. I'm living for Him now, and the consequence of that, the end of verse 15, "And He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence." It's just the continuation of the message that we got from the beginning, that this God would be named Emmanuel, God with us, that He would come in the form of a baby, that when He died, He would send His Spirit to continue to be with us all the way through our lives until the consummation of all things in which He will still shelter us with His presence. To say our God is not only for us, He will be with us.
And in the challenges that you will surely face, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ,
it will mean everything to you to know.
My God is still for me. I may have failed. I may have been weak. I may have been pushed upon. My God is still for me, and He is with me. And if Jesus is with me, I can face anything.
God is giving us this great future promise so that we can kind of get ahead of the curve, get ahead of the awareness of where the currents of culture will push us and say, "We are made safe not just by being trapped in the current, but being able to move beyond it." It's summertime, just getting warm enough that people like me who have kayaks and canoes begin to think about getting on the streams again. And if you're a canoe or a kayaker, you know that the most dangerous thing you can do is just go with the current. To have any control, you need to go slower than the current or faster than the current. If you just go with the flow, you are in great danger.
And so what we are being told here is God has told us the end of things. I will have people from every tribe and language, people and nation who will gather in my cause, and we will have heaven and earth to give glory to God, to experience His goodness forever and ever. And because I know that, I'm not just caught in today's current. I'm living for that great day. I'm living for the purposes by which God is saying, "I will be with you, and I am for you." So you stand when you need to stand. You take your thoughts, your abilities, your talents, and you pour them in the purposes of God because that's what it means to get ahead of the game. To not just be trapped in the current where everybody's just living for themselves and hoping not to get hurt. To actually say, "I have contribution to make to an eternal purpose and an eternal plan, and God is calling me to that in my daily activities. Day and night I serve Him, believing there is greater purpose in my life than even I can see, but promised by God." Is it possible to live that way? Is it possible actually to live as though I'm not just pulled along by the current doing what everybody else is doing, but getting ahead of it for an eternal priority and purpose?
For me, one of the most telling examples of that recently was Dr. Jason Fader, who just a few years beyond where most of you are right now, made a decision not to just get trapped in the current.
He went to medical training, became a surgeon, and while all the rest of his friends and so much of those that he associated with were just, "How much money can I make? How good a position can I make? What can I do to kind of get in the flow?"
He made a decision to take his surgical skills that could have brought him such financial reward, personal peace and affluence in this life, and instead went to what Time magazine calls the world's hungriest nation, Burundi, and has become in Burundi, quite literally, the one surgeon to millions of people, one surgeon for millions of people.
For that, he was just recently awarded the Gerson-Lakiam Prize for Clinical Medicine, kind of the Nobel Prize for clinical physicians.
$500,000?
Wow.
Well, now he can retire.
What do you think he's going to do with the $500,000? He wrote this, "Because of these funds, hundreds will walk in Burundi.
Hundreds will receive care. Tens of thousands will be saved by the doctors we train." And one more thing.
Jesus Christ will be known as my Savior and the Savior of many more.
Living ahead of the game, living beyond the current to say it can make a difference. How do I know that?
Because this church supports the mission agency that he serves.
And so there are people here who are doctors and attorneys and plant workers and retail workers and teachers who are participating in the purposes of God by which millions will ultimately be blessed by your saying, "I am not just in the current. I am living beyond it for the sake of the one who dresses me in white robes, not of my deserving.
But as I put my faith in him, he's for me and he's with me and I will live for him." Father, I pray for these young people and not just for them, but for every single person here that you would lift our eyes so that we would not just be captured by the currents of our culture, but would perceive what you have told us is our future. And we would live for that. And living for a future of a God who is for us and with us would have our hands strengthened, our funds devoted, our lives given day and night to the purpose of the one to whom glory and wisdom and power and might are deserved attributes both now and forever because he has given his son for us. And so we live for him in confidence that you will make us not just consumers, but contributors to the eternal plan. Thank you for giving us such a privilege, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.