Why Are We Filled with Longing | Steve Mathewson
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 08/04/2014

Sermon Title - The Life at the End of Our Longing (Revelation 20)

We have all witnessed in life beauty that provides an abundance of joy, but amidst that joy we often find ourselves longing for more. C.S. Lewis describes this as the “inconsolable desire,” which haunts us in our experience of joy as if to signal a great, more fulfilling beauty elsewhere to be discovered. Revelation 22:1-5 reveals the object of this desire such that our greatest longing is to live in the city of God, the new heavens and the new earth wherein we are restored to life in the presence of God. It is to this reality we must refer when experiencing trials that tempt despair or upon experiencing beauty in this life, which wanes in the shadow of a life to come, a life illumined by the unrestricted presence of God.

Steve D. Mathewson (PhD Stellenbosch University; DMin Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is Senior Pastor at Crosslife Evangelical Free Church and Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at Western Seminary. He is author of and Risen: 50 Reasons Why The Resurrection Changed Everything (Baker, 2013) and The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative (2nd edition) (Baker Academic, 2021).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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