Home. Imagine your first home. You are sitting in the living room or den. The sun is shining through the window. You get up and walk over, what can you see out your window? Then you hear familiar sounds, unique to your home, a family pet announcing a visitor, conversations around the dinner table, or the background melodies of radio or television. Now a luscious smell wafts to your noise from the kitchen. Your mouth waters and you can almost taste your Mom’s home cooking. What feelings come up? Safety, comfort, warmth, family, (not a feeling but envelops you like one)? Home is a magical place, not the building, but the people and the connections, the shared traditions and history. Homes are so important we sometimes get sick when we are away from them.
Yet when we go out into the world we try to find our own way, make something of ourselves and our lives. Paul did that. He had so many things he could boast about in the Jewish tradition. Seven things that set him apart from everyone else: circumcised, Israel born, a blameless Pharisee with zeal. Paul had it going on. He was what every mother hoped her son would become. I am sure Paul felt pretty confident in his achievements too. That is until he met Christ. He discovered the surpassing value of knowing Christ making all these other things in his life rubbish, worthless. Can you do that? Can you put everything in your life on one side of the scale and “surpassing value of knowing Christ” on the other? Which is the heaviest? I can do that with most things and be OK but I truly value raising my sons and have a hard time calling that rubbish.
It is true once you clear out the trash you can see what you truly value. The surpassing value of knowing Christ tops the list for Paul. Then he states three things he wants:
• I want to know Christ because he has made me his own.
• I want to press towards the goal of the heavenly call of God in Jesus Christ
• I want to share in the suffering of death so that I can know the power of the resurrection.
Paul wants three things- to know Christ, to know the heavenly call, and to know the power of the resurrection. Paul’s three wants, our three wants, are answered with the poetic beauty of the 23 psalm.
The Lord is my Shepherd. With that simple phrase we, as Christians, become the sheep of Christ’s pastures. We get to know Christ because he has made us his own. Jesus declared, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me” (Jn. 10:14). Christ knows you, and wants to know you more. The good shepherd will find you even when you are lost.
Max Lucado tells the story of Eric Hill an educated 28 yr. old man who wandered away from home and never came back. He heard a voice that led him to his “assignment” of picking up trash along the highway. He made his home out of a hole in a vacant lot. Eric’s sister Debbie searched for her brother Eric. After 16 years of looking, a private investigator locates him. Her husband and kids go with Debbie to see Eric, but Eric does not recognize her. Her week long visit turns into a permanent stay. Can you imagine how hard it would be to move, home school your kids all to be close to a brother who did not want your help? Even though he didn’t know her, didn’t recognize her, he even cursed her, Debbie stayed to be near her brother. Max asked her, “How do you keep from giving up?”
“Simple” she said. “He’s my brother” (Traveling Light, pg. 141-3).
The good shepherd says about you, “He is one of my own.” “She is part of my flock.” Never doubt you belong to Christ.
Paul wants the prize of the heavenly call of God. He knows it comes from God, starts with God, and is something he can never earn. Something you and I can never earn. If we look toward the 23 Psalm we hear the promise of that call of God. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” God’s goodness and mercy follow you in this life and call you to the next. Max Lucado writes, “If the Lord is the shepherd who leads (and knows) his flock, goodness and mercy are the two sheepdogs that guard the rear of the flock…Goodness to supply every want. Mercy to forgive every sin. Goodness to provide. Mercy to pardon” (TL, pg. 144-5). God follows you all the days of your life with the two things you need most: God’s goodness and God’s mercy.
The power of the resurrection is our promise fulfilled in Christ. We journey through Lent anticipating Christ’s victory over death, soon to celebrate that we share in that victory. But in order to share in the victory we must also share in the suffering. But God has not abandoned us; we are not alone there. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil, for you are with me” (vs4).
We face the sufferings of this world confident not in ourselves and our achievements, but in God who is with us. This is the same God who has prepared a place for us in his house, a place in God’s home.
“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Molly is Max Lucado’s long awaited for golden retriever. He had always wanted a dog, but he was outnumbered by his family. When the tides turned, they ordered the pup from out of state, named her Molly and cleared a place in their home for her dog pillow. Before the dog was even born she was named, claimed and given a place in his house. Lucado wonders, “Can’t the same be said about you? Long before your first whimper, your Master claimed you, named you, and hung a reserved sign on your room. You and Molly have more in common than you think. You’re both being groomed for a trip. We prefer the terms maturation and sanctification to weaning and training, but it’s all the same. You are being prepared for your Master’s house.” (TL pg. 152).
“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Yesterday at Jud’s memorial service I read from John 14; Jesus promise of a place in God’s house. Christ promised to go and prepare a place for you in God’s house and return for you to take you there (John 14:2-3). You have a room reserved for you in God’s house. You live in the promise of dwelling with God forever. Because of the love of Christ Jesus you and I have God’s promise, to dwell with God forever. We have a home in heaven with God. Paul, a few verses later writes, “Our homeland is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). Heaven is our forever house. The place we will dwell with God forever. So even your best home on earth is only short term housing. Our earthly home, with welcoming sounds and warm smells will pale in comparison to our heavenly home with God; a home beyond our imagining where we will dwell with God forever.
In closing I will share a final story from Max Lucado, the story of his good friends Jeff and Carol adopting two small children. They had both been in foster care for part of their short lives. Christopher, the older one, is only three, but he knows the difference between Jeff’s house and the foster home from which he came. Little Christopher tells every visitor, “This is my forever home” (TL, pg 154).
God’s home is your forever home.
“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Amen.
