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 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.

Biography

Steve Mathewson is the Senior Pastor of Crosslife Evangelical Free Church (Libertyville, IL). He is widely published in preaching, including The Art of Preaching Old Testament Narrative. Steve received a Masters of Arts Degree in Old Testament in 1986 from Western Conservative Baptist Seminary (Portland, OR) and his Doctor of Ministry in 2000 from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he studied preaching under Dr. Haddon Robinson. He and his wife, Priscilla, have four children.