Rev. David Holwick ZM
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
December 16, 2001
Hebrews 11:8-10
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I. Becca arrives home from California.
A. She came in late last night.
My baby is home!
She will be visiting friends in New York in 30 minutes.
I expect her back in time for opening presents.
B. Holidays are big time for traveling.
1) Even with 9-11 the highways and airports will be crowded.
2) Almost always, people are going to a home base.
II. We yearn for home.
A. "I'll Be Home For Christmas," popular with soldiers & students.
1) Psalm 68:6 - "God sets the lonely in families."
2) If you ever want to be home, it's at Christmas.
3) A time of great nostalgia and traditions.
B. Our unspoken yearning for something deeper in life.
1) God-shaped vacuum.
2) 9-11 spike in church attendance.
a) Young woman interviewed on street.
After 9-11 she knew she had to be in church.
Reporter - are you still going?
Girl laughs sheepishly - no.
C. Deeper fulfillment can be found in God.
III. We yearn for what we don't have, and suffer from what we do.
A. Home isn't always what it's cracked up to be.
1) Tension between family members.
a) Not uncommon to have a big blowup.
2) Disappointment when expectations don't materialize.
B. Sometimes we get disillusioned about God.
1) Disaster strikes and we don't feel his presence.
a) Worse - how could he allow it?
2) Church can seem like a broken home.
a) We look for love and may find rejection.
IV. Returning home.
A. Often the problem is not in the home but in us.
1) Home seems far away because we have wandered, even run away.
2) All have wandered from God. Romans 3:23
3) The good news is that we can go home again.
B. Prodigal sons wander still.
Randy Williams is a pastor of a Baptist church in California.
One night as he was unlocking the church for the evening service
a young woman approached him.
In his words, she "looked like she had spent the night on the
beach."
She asked him if she could pray at the altar.
He let her in and left to take care of some things while she
was at the front of the church praying.
When he returned she was gone.
Later that evening, the young woman and a friend of hers walked
in after the service started.
Both girls were wearing backpacks and carried a box of pizza.
At the end of the service they both came forward and kneeled
to pray.
They didn't want to linger and talk but left the church.
Throughout that week he prayed for them whenever he thought
of them.
About a month later, Randy and his wife had lunch at a nearby
mall.
A lady came up to him and asked if he was a pastor.
She said about a month before, two young ladies had come to
his church and listened to the message.
He said something that spoke to their hearts and caused them to
come home.
One of those girls was her daughter.
He asked if she was kidding, and she pointed out her daughter
across the room.
Randy Williams was privileged to experience something few in
the ministry actually see.
God allows us as pastors to help people randomly, and we never
get to see or hear the end results.
The best result of all is when someone goes home.
#4934
C. The journey lasts a lifetime.
1) Abraham and movable tents.
a) He didn't get the full picture in this life.
1> His possessions never came up to God's promise.
2> His descendants numbered one, not like stars.
b) But he kept the faith and went where God said.
1> I think we won't have all our questions answered.
2> Meaning of suffering, etc.
3> We can know enough to walk in the right direction.
2) Our perfect home is still waiting.
a) A city with foundations.
1> World Trade Center was shattered to the basement.
2> Only God's house can't be shaken.
b) Your heavenly Father wants you to share this home.
1> His greatest promises cannot be fulfilled here, yet.
V. Long ago, God made his home among us.
A. Like Abraham, he "tabernacled." John 1:14
1) A temporary, unsettled condition.
2) Jesus wasn't that impressive.
a) Baby - "No room in the inn."
b) Adult - "No place to lay his head"
3) His own family didn't know what to do with him. Mark 3:21
B. His accommodations were temporary, but his salvation is eternal.
1) He invites us to be part of his heavenly family.
2) His family is those who hear God's word and put it into
practice.
3) He offers peace and acceptance to each of us.
C. Are you heading home to Jesus?
When Wendy Zoba's son, Ben, was younger, he had heard more than
one sermon about the importance of surrendering our lives to
Christ.
And Ben seemed well-attuned to the heart of God; he exhibited
the selfless and kind tendencies that would take some - like
his mother -- a lifetime of sanctification to acquire.
So it disturbed Wendy and her husband when Ben stubbornly
resisted their invitations to him to give his life to Christ.
He would offer no explanations; he would simply tell them in
his preschool English that he wasn't ready.
He resisted for several months.
Then, one morning as they sat around the kitchen table eating
their Cheerios, little Ben announced that he was ready to
give his life to Christ.
He then got up from the table and went upstairs.
Wendy and her husband looked at each other and followed him.
They expected to find Ben on his knees in prayer.
They didn't.
Instead, they found him folding his Star-Wars pajamas into his
Sesame Street suitcase.
They said, "Ben, what are you doing?"
He answered, "Packing."
"Why?" they asked.
"To go to heaven," he said.
They then understood why their child hesitated to give his
life to Christ.
He thought that, in so doing, he would have to leave them and
take up residence, literally, with Christ in heaven.
We should all possess the faith of little Benjamin.
We should have our hearts so fixed on Christ's appearance that
the attachments of our earthly life pale in comparison.
For we are "aliens and strangers on earth ... longing for a
better country -- a heavenly one" (Hebrews 11:13).
#3710
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
#3710 "Future Tense: How Do We Live Under The Shadow Of 'The End'?" by
Wendy Murray Zoba, Online Christianity Today (America Online),
October 2, 1995.
#4934 "Pastor Sees End Result Of Personal Ministry," by Brian Garland,
Baptist Press (with Goshen.net), http:/www.baptistpress.org,
November 5, 1999.
These and 20,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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