As we being a 3-week series on Christmas this week we will focus on passages emphasizing “home”. The passages are scattered throughout the text. Discussion questions are:

  1. Did you ever run away from home?
  2. How did that work out for you?
  3. Have you ever had a period of your life that be appropriately described as the time you ran away from home spiritually?
  4. How did that work out for you?
  1. What are the fantasies about home and Christmas that you have?
  2. Why would Jesus use so much “home” language in his stories and teachings about our relationship with God?
  3. What home atmosphere does God want for you according to Dt. 6:6-9?
  4. What is significant about the promise in Malachi 4:6?
  5. What do you think Moses had in mind when he wrote Ps. 90:1?
  6. What does it mean to “live in the shelter of the Most High”? Ps. 91:1-2
  7. What emotions would John 14:1-3 raise in the hearts of Jewish people in Jesus’ day?
  8. Do you see the words of John 14:23 as a promise of a threat?
  9. If you had to prove the accuracy of your answer what evidence would you offer?

11.Put Revelation 21:2-3 in your own words.

Sermon: “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”

George Carlin used to do a routine about the difference between football and baseball. His monologue focused on how football tends to be much more violent and baseball much more gentle. Football, Carlin said, is played on a gridiron. Baseball is played in a park—kind of a fun place to play. Football players wear helmets. Baseball players wear caps. In football there’s a specialist who comes in to kick something. In baseball a specialist comes in to relieve somebody. Football has the two-minute warning. Baseball has the seventh inning stretch. Football has sudden death. That sounds kind of ominous. Baseball gets extra innings. Not just innings, but extra innings. In football a runner will give you the stiff arm. In baseball the runner gets to slide. Its kind of fun.

But the biggest difference is that in football the main object is military. In football the battle is fought in the trenches. The Field General, the quarterback, seeks to evade the blitz, soften up the enemy line with a pounding ground attack and aerial bombardment. He will mix bullet passes with the occasional going for the bomb in order to penetrate the enemy defenses and reach the end zone. In baseball the object is to go home. I want to go home—a beautiful thing.

No word in English language is as evocative as “home”. It can fill your heart. It can make you smile. It can make you cry. I’m a sentimental slob when it comes to songs about home. Every Christmas season I get choked up when I hear, “O, there’s no place like home for the holidays.” I don’t know why that gets to me so. It’s not like I have a job where I’m away from home for extended periods of time and maybe, just maybe, this year I’ll get to be home for Christmas. I’m always home for Christmas. I get choked up when that old Folger’s Coffee commercial comes on at Christmas time. The one where the college age brother and the grade school age brother have had this tradition of singing “O Holy Night” before the family Christmas celebration begins. This year the older brother is not there and the little brother is struggling to sing solo. As he sings the older brother arrives quietly through the back door and adds his rich baritone voice to the weak voice of his kid brother. Every time I see that I have flashbacks to some fantasy of how it was in my home when I was growing up. I have no idea why I have such a fantasy. My brother and I never sang anything together except maybe “The Horse Went Around With His Foot On The Ground”. It’s just all that nostalgia about home where you mix a whole lot of fantasy with a little reality and come up with this memory of how all Christmases were way back when…at home.

I’m sure for some of you the word “home” evokes wonderful memories. Some of you can’t wait to go “home” for the holidays. Some of you can’t wait for the annual family reunion at Christmas because every single person gatherer around granny’s table is a model of spiritual health and emotional maturity. For some, that’s not quite what you anticipate. I know of one guy who every year immediately after Thanksgiving schedules a 2-hour session with his therapist. Truth is, there is the home we long for and then there’s the home we have.

The Bible has a lot to say about home and our longing for it. This morning we are going to talk about home and why we long for home so much. What is it about that word that touches us so deeply? Why do we all have this ache for home that is never quite realized? What does it mean to be home with God? When we close this morning your will have an opportunity, if you’ve never done so, to come home to Him today. I hope you’ll start praying about that right now – just take 5 seconds and ask God to help you understand how you can come home to Him this morning.

WHY DO WE LONG FOR HOME?

Everybody has a story and home is where you story begins. You get your name from your home. You get you identity from your home. All your life people will ask you, “Where are you from?” meaning, “Where is your home?”

The concept of home is all over the Bible. In Deuteronomy 6, the Bible carefully instructs parents to make home a place where children learn to love God with everything they have. Do you remember the Bible story about Noah sending out a dove at one point to try and find out if there is any dry land to be found? The scripture says the dove “could not find a place to rest the sole of her foot.” That’s a Hebrew expression for home – a place of rest. Someone once said that story had to be written by a man because only a man would think of home as a place you can rest. Some time ago a survey was run where they asked people, “What’s your favorite room in your home?” Everybody gave the same answer, “The kitchen.” The kids all said the kitchen. Husbands all said the kitchen. Everybody said the kitchen – except the wife. Guess where the wife said was her favorite room? The bathroom! Typically the wife described the bathroom as the one place where she can be safe. She can go in there and lock the door and hide from the demands her family. No telling how many moms have missed hearing their 2 sons sing, “O Holy Night” because they were barricaded in the bathroom.

On a serious note, some homes don’t have a safe room to hide in. It is not OK with God when a home is not safe. It is not OK with God when children are afraid to go to bed at night because someone in the home abuses them. It is not OK with God when family members have to be on edge because alcohol is being consumed and things get loud and ugly when alcohol gets consumed. I’m digressing a bit here but I want to say clearly to you, if you are frightened in your home, you do not have to live that way. Talk to someone in your Home Team who has shepherding instincts. Call one of the elders. Call me. Whatever you do, don’t just be quiet about it. Don’t keep the secret any longer!

There are few better illustrations of grace than a healthy home. When you are home you don’t have to perform to receive. Good stuff just comes your way all the time. Somebody massages your shoulders just because they love you. Somebody fixes a meal just because they want to. Somebody helps clean stuff just because they want to lessen your load. Somebody says reinforcing things to you just because they really value you and want nothing more that to encourage you. All that good stuff is freely given in a home. Its grace at work. When I set out to teach someone about the grace of God, if they have been raised in a home full of grace, it’s an easy task.

The Old Testament closes on a promising note about home. It says in Malachi 4:6, “God will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.” Doesn’t that sound like a hopeful time? Wouldn’t it be great if 2010 was the year we witnessed the complete fulfillment of that prophecy?

Moses must have thought a lot about home, especially since he really never had one. He was born in slavery and didn’t get to grow up with his mom and dad living in the same house with him. He was raised as an orphan in Pharaoh’s castle. He had to flee that home and live as a fugitive for many years in Midian. No sooner does he marry and have children than God calls him to leave that home, return to Egypt, and lead Israel on a 40-year homeless journey. He dies on a lonely mountaintop looking at what would have been his home if he hadn’t messed up. So when he writes just one Psalm, guess what the keynote is – home!“Lord, through all the generations you have been our home!” – Ps. 90:1 That is the cry of a homeless man: “God you are our home.” It’s not a house. It’s not a town. It’s not a place. It’s not a group of people. It’s not familiarity. It’s not nice furnishings. Home is where God is.

Ps. 91:1-2 puts it this way, “Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him.” God is my home. Our longing for home is really an echo of our longing for God, our longing to be loved, our longing to be protected, our longing to be shaped and molded, our longing to be secure, our longing to be wanted. Don’t you occasionally have a day where you feel a sort of holy homesickness? One of those days where everything is going O.K., no big problems, but there just seems to be something missing, some emptiness.C.S. Lewis said, “If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can satisfy, also we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for another world.”

Did you ever run away from home? I did once. Packed a few things in a red hanky, tied it in a knot, and went down the alley to our neighbor’s cornfield and sat there wondering when the good stuff was going to start falling out of the sky. After giving my parents a few minutes to repent I returned home to accept their apologies. Much to my dismay my dad didn’t apologize. He suggested I not try this approach again.

The Bible says we’ve all run away from home. “All of us were like sheep that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way….” – Isaiah 53:6 We are all runaways.

Arguably Jesus’ most famous story was about a boy who ran away. Eventually he wants to come home but is afraid home won’t take him back. His plan is to go home on the “good works” plan. What he doesn’t know is that his dad has been looking for him every day, brokenhearted. When his dad sees him a long way off he just starts running and throws his arms around him. That story is in many ways every man’s story. All God ever wanted from you or me is for us to come back home.

Jesus seemed to have a real affinity for stories about home. He used language that flowed out of his own living environment in Nazareth. Many people, likely including Jesus himself, lived in what is called an “Insula”. It was a kind of courtyard with dwelling places built around it. The courtyard might have animals or places to cook. People tended to house multiple generations of people in those dwellings around the Insula. Marriages were generally arranged by fathers on behalf of their children. When the engagement happened, the new couple did not go house hunting. The paternal family would just add another room to the Insula and the new couple would move in after their wedding. The newly engaged couple did not set their wedding date. The father set the date and the building program got underway with father and son working side by side. The son doesn’t get a vote on when the construction job is finished. The father announces it when he is ready to announce it. Jesus uses that language when he says, “In my father’s house are many rooms. I am going there to prepare a place for you.” As father and son work side by side on the new room, eventually one day the father says, “It is finished. Go get your bride.” The son would get his friends and parade toward the bride’s house. The bride was to be ready at a moment’s notice for the arrival of her husband to be.

Jesus pulls deeply on his own home life experiences as he advises us to be like a bride who waits prepared, with her lamp trimmed, for the coming groom. When he announces his ascension he uses that same kind of imagery. “I am going to prepare a place for you and if I go and prepared a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am you may be also.” On one occasion he said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23)

Listen to the marriage and home life language as the New Testament comes to a close, “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them.” – Revelation 21:2-3 One day we are really going to understand what being home is like. One day when God lives with us and we with Him, we shall be truly home.

Prayer: God, I want to be home. I am so tired of being worried and alone and afraid. I am weary of guilt and regret. I admit to you today that I am a runaway. Thank you for preparing a place for me. Lord, I’m coming home.