THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME Isaiah 32:18 September 3, 2000 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] It would not be an overstatement to say that I am not a carpenter. But I once built a house, single-handedly, all by myself. I had a shovel, a saw, a hammer and some nails, about 50 linear feet of lumber, a screwdriver and and a dream. I also had a kit--$100 worth of tubular steel supports, a stack of pre-painted aluminum panels and about a half-million tiny sheet metal screws. It was September, 1973. Krista was one month old and Heather was ready to turn three. We lived in a mobile home on a 40' X 80' rented lot, and there in the right rear quadrant of our tiny yard I did my work. To be honest, it wasn't really a house-it was a 6' X 8' utility shed-even though Heather was sure it was a play house for her and her friends. I was up early that Saturday and sank my shovel into the dew-moistened sod. I had measured out the dimensions of the shed's floor and set about digging four precisely located holes for my footings. I was at the time naïve enough to believe that untreated 4x4 pine posts would serve me well as footings. I sank them four feet into the ground, with exactly 10 inches protruding to which I would attach my floor (this baby was going to be tornado-proof!). I nailed the 2x4's to them, and was surprised and not a little proud when the ensuing frame was in fact square, exactly 6'x8', and quite level. On went the plywood decking, and over the course of the day, I built a masterpiece of a shed, a.k.a. playhouse. As the sun set the last sheet of roofing material was screwed into place. Was I proud! It was off to the Dairy Queen for a celebration snack. I sat fairly tall in the chair as my family affirmed my hard work and engineering genius. I was their hero. And when we drove home in our 1970 Maverick we simply had to go around the block three times to get a view of the new shed from every conceivable angle. It was mid-summer the next year when I stepped into the shed to get the lawn mower and the floor shifted suddenly toward one corner and metthe ground. Wood splintered and metal groaned. A quick look at my perfectly engineered foundation and I learned two things about untreated pine-it is not good footing material and it is high on the list of preferred dining for termites. I replaced the rotting foundation with about a dozen concrete blocks and it lasted until we sold the trailer and the shed two years later. The good news was my lawn mower and my daughters toys and tricycles were safe and dry-and I am still their hero. The foundation of society is the home, the family. And if you want a good, solid foundation make that the Christian home, rooted in scriptural truth, values and virtues. In the text of Isaiah 32, a "messianic" chapter, in which the prophet writes of a new era, when things will be different, new, fully redeemed. Verse 18 reads: "My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest." In this prophecy of an age to come we have a glimpse of perfection, of full favor with God, of heaven, of Eden restored. And it is a picture of the will of God for every place called home by any family whom the Lord's grace will touch. What the Lord is saying is that it is His will that His people, those in whom His Spirit is found, should have homes like this-homes of peace, security and rest. I'd like us to have a quick look at a part of our Mission/Vision Statement-the part that expresses a fundamental value that we hold as a congregation regarding the home. Let's read that together (flyer in bulletin). Before we look at four foundational principles concerning the Christian home, let me start this series with some preliminary assertions. These are basic biblical concepts that we assume as true. 1. God directly created two institutions, the church and the home 2. Both the church and the home are commissioned by the Lord as "discipling agencies" in His world. So similar are they that their differences are often blurred. a. in Eph. 5, Paul moves back and forth between the love of Christ for His church and the love of a husband for his bride b. the church is called a family, the household of God c. in the early church, no church buildings, church met in homes Jonathan Edwards: "Every Christian family ought to be as it were a little church, consecrated to Christ, and wholly influenced and governed by His rules." 3. Regardless of the noisy idiocy of liberal sociologists and self-appointed iconoclasts, the home, the nuclear family, is NOT an ancient relic of a dead ethic. It is still God's design for the rubric of society, his centerpiece of order and His designer model of how life and culture work best. It's just this simple-healthy homes raise healthy kids and they make a healthy society. We could spend a lot of time talking about how bad things are in our society-crime rates, gang violence, corrupt officials, rampant immorality-and I could quote statistics and tell stories that would prove the point, but, you know what? We all know about the problems. I would rather talk about part of the solution this morning. Let's take a look at four foundational principles that undergird the healthy Christian home-four footings, if you will. And let's see if the prospect of having such homes are not desirable enough to entice us to pray for and do whatever it takes to provide such homes for ourselves, our children, our grandchildren and for a desperate, dying society looking for hope. 1. The Christian Home should be a place of SECURITY Have you ever noticed how your pet cat will always find a cozy nuzzling kind of place, then curl up and nap? And the dog always has his favorite sleeping spot, and his favorite position-he'll walk around in circles until he senses "this is the right place and position to plop down in." Bears hibernate in safe, snug places. Foxes have holes, birds have nests, crickets have their crevices and aphids have.my garden. People have their homes. Whether it's a puny studio apartment or a palatial mansion, it doesn't matter-just as long as it has that comfortable feel, and in it are the things we are accustomed to, the familiar smells the form-fitted furniture, the native memories and the people we love. The poet, J. Payne, captured it well: "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." Why? Home is a secure place-or it should be. Security is knowing there is a place I can really count on, with reliable people who really love me. A place with traditions and predictable outcomes, forgiveness and encouragement; a place where we know we are faithfully, unconditionally loved and supported, even when we make mistakes; a place where you can run when the whole world seems to gang up on you. Benjamin West, the artist, said that when he was a young boy he had to baby-sit his little sister Sally. While nosing around the house he found some bottles of colored ink and decided to paint sister Sally's portrait. He said when his mother returned she found a horrible mess, but kept her cool. She picked up the spotted and blotched paper and said, "Why, this is a picture of Sally!" and she bent over and kissed him. West said, "My mother's kiss made me an artist." The home should be a place of security, but all around us are children and adults who find little security. Parents who move in and out of their lives on the wings of quarrels, separations, divorces and desertion. Families that never have the time to even eat one meal together because they have sold their security for a mess of pottage called a busy lifestyle. Absentee fathers--in 1960 only 7% of all children in America lived in households without an adult male present. By 1992 that figure had tripled, and now it has nearly quadrupled. In some social groups the figure is over 50%. Is your home a place of security? Look around at those who live with you. Are they secure? Are they able to rely on you for Christ-like encouragement, forgiveness, blessing, hugs, unconditional love? It is uniquely possible in the Christian home to find security. Because here are people who not only are in the same family, but they are those who are also in the family of God, people of hope, faith and love. People who know how to forgive, because they have found forgiveness; people in whose hearts the love of God is being poured out; people who have received grace and are prepared to give grace; people who know the peace of God and can share it with the others in their lives. 2. The Christian home should be a place of healthy relationships I don't know what it is about the grocery store, but it must bring out the worst in kids. I was in the local Schnucks store the other day when it happened again. I heard a grown woman screaming at her kids, belittling them and even using foul language as she scolded them for misbehaving. As bad as that scene was, I thought to myself, if this is the way she treats these kids in public, what must it be like at home? Just the other day I pulled up to a red light and to my right in the next lane, in a Jeep, were a couple who were arguing loudly with one another, using language that was not only offensive, but clearly designed to deeply wound one another. The statistics are alarming-50% of all marriages end in divorce. Some wag came up with a closer analysis-he pointed out that this high rate of divorce is just as high among believers. This got a lot of press. But, a closer study of the details showed that the pollster defined believers as those who attend church services at least once per year. Other surveys, with tighter controls, show that, among those whose faith means something to them, that is, they regularly attend church services and volunteer their time in church programs, they pray together as families and have as a priority serving other people-among this group, divorce rates drop below 7%. What does this tell us? It tells us the same thing the New Testament teaches us-that genuine faith changes people, but religious behavior can easily be just whitewash. When people genuinely meet the Lord, have their sins forgiven and the hope of eternal life planted in their hearts, it makes a difference in the way they treat others around them. Jesus said that His serving His disciples was a model as to how they were to treat each other. In Ephesians 5 and 6 we find one of what we call the "household" passages. Paul brings words of exhortation to married couples, moms and dads, children and employees and employers. When you study that great passage, you soon discover that the controlling verse is not "Wives, submit to your husbands," or "Husbands, love your wives," but it is verse 21, which is written to everyone in the body of Christ: "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." That verse not only teaches that Christians are obligated to behave toward one another in respectful and loving ways, but it also teaches that it is POSSIBLE to do so. Part of the expression of the Kingdom of God in this world is Christ changing lives, and giving people the ability to live harmoniously with one another. The church is God's new society, a people he is perfecting into the image of Christ. Someone asked a Christian, "You don't really believe that story in the Bible about Jesus turning water into wine, do you?" He responded, " I don't know about water into wine, but in my case, He turned beer into furniture!" What is He changing in you? Rage into meaningful dialogue? Bitterness into forgiveness? Sarcasm into sensitivity? Bossiness into servanthood? Impatience into longsuffering? There is one exclusive way to healthy relationships, and that is to allow your relationship with God to be fully healed. Once you have learned to receive mercy and grace, forgiveness and peace, encouragement and hope, then you can begin to give it to others. Former hostage, Thomas Sutherland said he tried to kill himself three times during his six years of captivity in Lebanon. the suicide attempts cam in late 1986 when Sutherland's captors moved him to a tiny underground cell, deprived him of light, and isolated him from his fellow hostages. he pulled a plastic bag over his head and tried to suffocate himself. "I found out on each try that it got very painful and as it got more painful, the vision of my wife and three daughters appeared before me ever more clearly. I decided each time, "I can't go through with this," and I would pull it off." 3. The Christian home should be a place of maturity I ran into an old friend at a conference a few years ago. I hadn't seen him for a long time, maybe ten years or more. The instant I began to talk with him my memory of him as a very self-absorbed person jumped up in me. About one minute of conversation confirmed he was still the obnoxious, egocentric he was years before-he hadn't grown at all. (I couldn't help but wonder if he saw me as the same louse I'd always been!?) Some people grow older, but they never grow up. Most of the time these perennial children were not in growth-inspiring homes. The will of the Lord, according to Ephesians 6:4, is that children are brought up 'in the fear and admonition (instruction and training) of the Lord." You don't have to do much to get your kids to grow taller and heavier. For the most part, time and minimal nutrition will do that for them. But kids don't automatically get more mature, at least not in godly ways, unless they are deliberately led in that way by the model and teaching of wise parents. God's express will is that parents instruct their children. The family was created as a "teaching unit" for the precise purpose of bringing children up with primary wisdom. Do you know what primary wisdom is? Proverbs 1:7 - "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom-fools despise knowledge and instruction." In far too many cases, though, parents are abdicating their crucial job as teachers, role models, disciplinarians and disciplers of their children. They say, "Let the schools do it!" or "Let the church do it!" but God says, "Let the parents do it!" Focus on the Family, "Crafting Your Child's Education," Jan. 1994: Parenting is compared to building a home in Cheri Fuller's book, Helping Your Child Succeed in Public School. In the building process of a home their is a general contractor and various subcontractors. the general contractor maintains relationships with the subcontractors and makes certain they understand his expectations as he is ultimately responsible for the proper construction of the home. Parents are "general contractors" of their children's education. Parents "sub out" parts of the educating tasks but they must oversee, provide support, and take the initiative to keep in touch with what is happening at school. This translates to the church as well. Spiritual development is the duty of parents, even if they take their children to church. Sunday School teachers, youth workers, and ministers are "sub contractors" who are working with the parents to build spiritually healthy children. And the home is a place of maturity not just for the children-we are ALL called to keep growing to maturity. And the home and the church are the only places where you find that issue alive. Put the Word of God and the will of God into the priority agenda of your HOME. Do as Deuteronomy 6 teaches-speak the word of God to each other in the morning and in the evening, and when you go places and do things, let the wisdom of God govern your speech. Soon it will govern your lives. 2. The Christian Home should be a place of MINISTRY I was reading through Acts 16 this past week and I noticed something extraordinary. That is generally the account of Paul and his companions coming into the city of Philippi. They went to pray by a river just outside of town on Saturday and there they met a group of women. They shared the Lord with them-one of the women, a rich lady in a profitable commercial business, responded to the gospel. In fact, her whole household were baptized that afternoon. She invited the apostolic team to stay at her HOME. Later the apostles were arrested for preaching the gospel and disturbing the commerce of the city by converting a key player in the occultic fortune-telling business of the city. When they were worshiping the Lord in jail, the lord delivered them with a miraculous jailbreak. The jailer was going to kill himself, but they shared the gospel with him, and with the rest of those living at his HOUSE. They responded and were baptized that same hour of the night. The bible says, The WHOLE FAMILY was filled with joy, because they came to believe in God." Before the team left the city, they went to Lydia's HOUSE again, "where they met with the brothers and encouraged them." And this same kind of scenario was repeated city after city, when the apostles met with the church it was usually in HOMES. That's not to say that the church didn't meet in larger assemblies, in courtyards and borrowed public places, but the ministry of the Lord went on and grew explosively through the medium of the HOME. Paul would later remind the Ephesian elders, "You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house." Acts 20:20. Your home is a place of ministry-both to those who live there and to those who will visit there. Repeatedly we are instructed to be ready to offer hospitality, love and kindness, and the gospel to those we meet. And the home is the center of a family's ministry. We tend to think of ministry as a thing that happens 'down at the church." But true, godly ministry is a personal, relational thing that God intended to happen everywhere, especially in the intimate surroundings of home and family. Ask yourself these key questions: 1. Why did God allow me to have these children? 2. Why did God permit me to live in the neighborhood where I live? 3. Why has God given me the home where I live?     [Back to Top]