“Redefining Hope”
Sunday, January 31, 2010; Luke 15:13-14
Series: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller
Introduction: Illus.- In Florida, an atheist became incensed over the preparation of Easter and Passover holidays. He decided to contact his lawyer about the discrimination inflicted on atheists by the constant celebrations afforded to Christians and Jews with all their holidays while atheists had no holiday to celebrate.
The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the long passionate presentation by the lawyer, the Judge banged his gavel and declared, 'Case dismissed!'The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling and said,'Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah...yet my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!' The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, 'obviously your client is too confused to even know about, much less celebrate his own atheists' holiday!'
The lawyer confused, said, 'Your Honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists. Just when might that holiday be, your Honor?' The judge said, 'Well it comes every year on exactly the same date – April 1st! Since our calendar sets April 1st as 'April Fools Day,' consider that Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then by Scripture, he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!
There are many in our world who think there is no God. I too think this is foolishness, because there is so much that let’s us know there is a God, and that this God that exists personally cares about us. In this parable, we are going to look this morning at how our longing for God, and a place to call home, is filled by God’s love and God’s presence.
I. Longing for Home- (Luke 15; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2)
a. Expecting a better life- While this parable is found in Luke,
chapter 15, we see that it encompasses the whole of the Bible; the whole of humanity. The main theme is exile and homecoming, which shows us the redemption that is found for individuals, but also for the whole human race. If we were to think about John 3:16, we read: “For God so loved the world…” God loves the world, because God created the world. But the verse also goes on to say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” We see that redemption is for “whoever” believes. It is for the individual; it is personal.
In the parable of the two lost sons, the younger brother goes off to a distant country. He does this expecting that he will encounter a better life. However, after having lived that life for a while, he finds himself disappointed. It takes him getting to his lowest point, when he is wanting to eat the pigs’ food, that he begins to long for home.
HOME. What does that mean to you? If you have ever gone on a long vacation you know that home is wonderful place to come back to. If you have ever moved, when you finally gets things set up right, home is a blessing. When you were a kid and went to a camp, a few days into the experience you began to long for home. Home is meant to be an important part of life. It is meant to be a place of love, and security, and provision, and warmth.
However, home can also be an elusive concept. It is the longing we have for a place that perfectly suits us; our true selves. Home is becoming who we are truly meant to be; a place where our longings are satisfied. Sometimes it is those memories of our past that seem so perfect. But we are always found longing, and never satisfied, because we cannot find that perfect place on our own.
There is a German word “Sehnsucht,” that portrays this concept. Dictionaries will tell you that there is no single English word that can aptly describe its meaning. It denotes profound homesickness or longing. One of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis talks about this often. In his famous sermon The Weight of Glory he refers to many similar homesick experiences. He says, “Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them…These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire…”
We see that our physical home and the images of past good experiences help us to approach this concept of home, but still leaves us falling short.
b. The place we call home- All of our longing leads us to want to be
united with something in the universe from which we feel cut off. We feel that we have been left on the outside, unable to get in. In this way, we are all like the younger brother. We are all exiles, always longing for that place we want to call “home.” We feel like we are never able to arrive at that place.
Why is it that “home” is so powerful, and yet at the same time so elusive? The answer to this question is found in the Bible. The answer is the main theme of scripture. The answer comes to us only when we give ourselves over to God.
In the beginning book of the Bible, Genesis, we learn why all people feel like exiles; like we aren’t really home. When God created Adam and Eve, He created them to live in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was designed to be the place people would live. It was a wonderful place; perfect in every way. A place of love, and fruitfulness, and God’s presence. It was Adam and Eve meeting with God daily. This was our original home; the true country we were made for.
However, the parable helps us to see the sin that came into being that affected that perfect home. In the parable of the two lost sons, the father is God, and we have talked about how both sons chafed under the authority of the father. Both sons rebelled against that authority. Both sons wanted to live without the father’s interference. And thus they lost their place in the “home.” We too have many times when we chafe under God’s authority, and we rebel, and we find ourselves outside of our home with God. We find ourselves exiles.
The wandering of exiles is a major theme of scripture. Israel was constantly going astray from God and finding herself in foreign lands, longing to return to their homeland. It is true for us all, that when we are in this place of longing, we cannot feel like we are at home; our deepest longings go unmet. What we see in our physical bodies (struggling with disease, aging, and ultimately death) is true of our spiritual selves (struggling with sin, and disconnection from God). We may try and re-create the home we have lost, but it only exists in the presence of the heavenly Father.
As I said before, this longing for home cannot be satisfied on its own. There is hope though, as we are told in 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2- “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day….For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” Our exile is met with God’s provision of Jesus dying on the cross to bring us into a right relationship with God, the forgiveness we need to “come home,” and the provision for eternal life with God in our heavenly home.
II. The Feast- (Mark 1:15; Hebrews 2:14; Acts 2:24; Isaiah 35:4-10; Revelation 19, 21:4)
a. The difficulty of return- The poet Robert Frost said in his poem
The Death of a Hired Man: “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The younger brother, however, knows that a successful return is not guaranteed to him. He knows that his sins have created a barrier and he does not know how that wall can be breached. He knows he might be rejected and forced to stay in exile. In the same way, the Bible shows us how high the barriers are for our own homecoming as a human race.
During the Babylonian exile, the prophets of Israel predicted a great return and homecoming for the people through the grace of God. Eventually the people of Israel were given permission to leave Babylon and return to their homeland. And yet they were still under the domination of Persia. Then one world power after another invaded and controlled Israel, first Greece, then Syria, and finally Rome.
The people were still oppressed. What seemed like a homecoming was not, because there still were enemies to be overcome. The return was never like the prophets had foretold. But this was all caused by the brokenness within human beings. Israel in particular, and the human race in general was still given over to selfishness, pride, and sin. Humans are oppressed by the conflicts within our own hearts. To overcome can only come about by a radical change in our very nature.
But there is more. It is not only our own brokenness that leads us into exile, but the brokenness around us as well. We live in a world that is fallen; sin abounds all around us! We live in a world where there is disease and natural disasters, a world in which everything decays and dies. This surely is not the “home” we long for. A real, final homecoming would mean a radical change not only in human nature, but also a change in our physical world.
Can such a thing really be accomplished? The answer is yes, but only by God. When Jesus came, one of the messages He proclaimed was that He was bringing in “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:15). Yet this confused people, because He had been born in a stable, not a palace, and He wandered around with no real home. He remained outside of the social and political networks. He didn’t even have any religious credentials. Yet, in the end, when Jesus died, the Bible tells us that He prepared the way for us as individuals, and for our world to “come home.”
Jesus didn’t come in power, but in weakness. Jesus came and experienced the exile we experience; the exile that we deserve. Jesus took upon Himself the full curse of human rebellion so that we could be welcomed into our true home.
b. The end of history- What would you do for a loved one who is
lost? Could you even imagine that scenario? I could not imagine the pain I would experience if Tyler or Tiffany left home, and I didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. I’m sure that I would be like the father in the parable. If I saw them a great distance away, I wouldn’t sit there and wait for them to walk up to me. I would go running up to them, and hug them, and kiss them, and welcome them home!!
The truth of this story Jesus tells, is that death will not have victory over us. Jesus not only died, but rose from the grave on the third day. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus broke the power of death. In Acts 2:24 we read: “But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.” Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin with His death, He has achieved victory over the forces of death, decay, and disorder that keep the world form being our true home. Someday Jesus will return to make this victory complete. The prophet Isaiah writes in Isaiah 35:4-10- “Your God will come…He will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. The ransomed of the Lord will return, they will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
At the end of the story of the two lost sons, there is a feast of homecoming. So too at the end of the book of Revelation, at the end of history, there is a feast, the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19). The Lamb is Jesus, who was sacrificed for the sins of the world so that we could be pardoned and brought home. This feast happens in the New Jerusalem, the City of God that comes down out of heaven to fill the earth, which we read about in the book of Revelation, in chapters 21 and 22. The tree of life, which was in the Garden of Eden, is now found in heaven. Death and decay and suffering are gone. The nations are no longer at war. Rev. 21:4 tells us: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain—for the old order of things has passed away.”
Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an ethereal, impersonal consciousness. We will not float through the air when we die. We will have a spiritual body. We will eat, and sing, and embrace, and dance, and praise. We will live in the kingdom of God and experience God’s glory.
Jesus will not only make us perfect, but will make our world a perfect home again. We will no longer be living out of “Eden,” but in our true Eden. We will not be constantly in a wandering state as we are now, but we will be home.
Conclusion: God designed a home for us. But Jesus shows us through this parable that because of our sin, the home we seek, the home we long for is flawed. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can find a place of rest in the presence of God which helps us to feel somewhat at home here on this earth. We can create an atmosphere of love, and peace, and hope. But ultimately this “home” we long for is the home in heaven. It’s as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:21-26, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” While we are on this earth, God can bring us joy and celebration. But ultimately, we will depart and be with God in heaven; the home we long for. Let us give thanks and praise to God this day, for this life He gives us, and the life to come. Amen.
Sunday, January 31, 2010; Luke 15:13-14
Series: The Prodigal God, by Timothy Keller
Introduction: Illus.- In Florida, an atheist became incensed over the preparation of Easter and Passover holidays. He decided to contact his lawyer about the discrimination inflicted on atheists by the constant celebrations afforded to Christians and Jews with all their holidays while atheists had no holiday to celebrate.
The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the long passionate presentation by the lawyer, the Judge banged his gavel and declared, 'Case dismissed!'The lawyer immediately stood and objected to the ruling and said,'Your honor, how can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and many other observances. Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah...yet my client and all other atheists have no such holiday!' The judge leaned forward in his chair and simply said, 'obviously your client is too confused to even know about, much less celebrate his own atheists' holiday!'
The lawyer confused, said, 'Your Honor, we are unaware of any such holiday for atheists. Just when might that holiday be, your Honor?' The judge said, 'Well it comes every year on exactly the same date – April 1st! Since our calendar sets April 1st as 'April Fools Day,' consider that Psalm 14:1 states, 'The fool says in his heart, there is no God.' Thus, in my opinion, if your client says there is no God, then by Scripture, he is a fool, and April 1st is his holiday! Now have a good day and get out of my courtroom!!
There are many in our world who think there is no God. I too think this is foolishness, because there is so much that let’s us know there is a God, and that this God that exists personally cares about us. In this parable, we are going to look this morning at how our longing for God, and a place to call home, is filled by God’s love and God’s presence.
I. Longing for Home- (Luke 15; John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2)
a. Expecting a better life- While this parable is found in Luke,
chapter 15, we see that it encompasses the whole of the Bible; the whole of humanity. The main theme is exile and homecoming, which shows us the redemption that is found for individuals, but also for the whole human race. If we were to think about John 3:16, we read: “For God so loved the world…” God loves the world, because God created the world. But the verse also goes on to say, “For God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” We see that redemption is for “whoever” believes. It is for the individual; it is personal.
In the parable of the two lost sons, the younger brother goes off to a distant country. He does this expecting that he will encounter a better life. However, after having lived that life for a while, he finds himself disappointed. It takes him getting to his lowest point, when he is wanting to eat the pigs’ food, that he begins to long for home.
HOME. What does that mean to you? If you have ever gone on a long vacation you know that home is wonderful place to come back to. If you have ever moved, when you finally gets things set up right, home is a blessing. When you were a kid and went to a camp, a few days into the experience you began to long for home. Home is meant to be an important part of life. It is meant to be a place of love, and security, and provision, and warmth.
However, home can also be an elusive concept. It is the longing we have for a place that perfectly suits us; our true selves. Home is becoming who we are truly meant to be; a place where our longings are satisfied. Sometimes it is those memories of our past that seem so perfect. But we are always found longing, and never satisfied, because we cannot find that perfect place on our own.
There is a German word “Sehnsucht,” that portrays this concept. Dictionaries will tell you that there is no single English word that can aptly describe its meaning. It denotes profound homesickness or longing. One of my favorite authors, C. S. Lewis talks about this often. In his famous sermon The Weight of Glory he refers to many similar homesick experiences. He says, “Our commonest expedient is to call it beauty and behave as if that had settled the matter. Wordsworth’s expedient was to identify it with certain moments in his past. But all this is a cheat. If Wordsworth had gone back to those moments in the past, he would not have found the thing itself, but only the reminder of it; what he remembered would turn out to be itself a remembering. The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust them; it was not in them, it only came through them…These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire…”
We see that our physical home and the images of past good experiences help us to approach this concept of home, but still leaves us falling short.
b. The place we call home- All of our longing leads us to want to be
united with something in the universe from which we feel cut off. We feel that we have been left on the outside, unable to get in. In this way, we are all like the younger brother. We are all exiles, always longing for that place we want to call “home.” We feel like we are never able to arrive at that place.
Why is it that “home” is so powerful, and yet at the same time so elusive? The answer to this question is found in the Bible. The answer is the main theme of scripture. The answer comes to us only when we give ourselves over to God.
In the beginning book of the Bible, Genesis, we learn why all people feel like exiles; like we aren’t really home. When God created Adam and Eve, He created them to live in the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was designed to be the place people would live. It was a wonderful place; perfect in every way. A place of love, and fruitfulness, and God’s presence. It was Adam and Eve meeting with God daily. This was our original home; the true country we were made for.
However, the parable helps us to see the sin that came into being that affected that perfect home. In the parable of the two lost sons, the father is God, and we have talked about how both sons chafed under the authority of the father. Both sons rebelled against that authority. Both sons wanted to live without the father’s interference. And thus they lost their place in the “home.” We too have many times when we chafe under God’s authority, and we rebel, and we find ourselves outside of our home with God. We find ourselves exiles.
The wandering of exiles is a major theme of scripture. Israel was constantly going astray from God and finding herself in foreign lands, longing to return to their homeland. It is true for us all, that when we are in this place of longing, we cannot feel like we are at home; our deepest longings go unmet. What we see in our physical bodies (struggling with disease, aging, and ultimately death) is true of our spiritual selves (struggling with sin, and disconnection from God). We may try and re-create the home we have lost, but it only exists in the presence of the heavenly Father.
As I said before, this longing for home cannot be satisfied on its own. There is hope though, as we are told in 2 Corinthians 4:16, 5:2- “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day….For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.” Our exile is met with God’s provision of Jesus dying on the cross to bring us into a right relationship with God, the forgiveness we need to “come home,” and the provision for eternal life with God in our heavenly home.
II. The Feast- (Mark 1:15; Hebrews 2:14; Acts 2:24; Isaiah 35:4-10; Revelation 19, 21:4)
a. The difficulty of return- The poet Robert Frost said in his poem
The Death of a Hired Man: “Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” The younger brother, however, knows that a successful return is not guaranteed to him. He knows that his sins have created a barrier and he does not know how that wall can be breached. He knows he might be rejected and forced to stay in exile. In the same way, the Bible shows us how high the barriers are for our own homecoming as a human race.
During the Babylonian exile, the prophets of Israel predicted a great return and homecoming for the people through the grace of God. Eventually the people of Israel were given permission to leave Babylon and return to their homeland. And yet they were still under the domination of Persia. Then one world power after another invaded and controlled Israel, first Greece, then Syria, and finally Rome.
The people were still oppressed. What seemed like a homecoming was not, because there still were enemies to be overcome. The return was never like the prophets had foretold. But this was all caused by the brokenness within human beings. Israel in particular, and the human race in general was still given over to selfishness, pride, and sin. Humans are oppressed by the conflicts within our own hearts. To overcome can only come about by a radical change in our very nature.
But there is more. It is not only our own brokenness that leads us into exile, but the brokenness around us as well. We live in a world that is fallen; sin abounds all around us! We live in a world where there is disease and natural disasters, a world in which everything decays and dies. This surely is not the “home” we long for. A real, final homecoming would mean a radical change not only in human nature, but also a change in our physical world.
Can such a thing really be accomplished? The answer is yes, but only by God. When Jesus came, one of the messages He proclaimed was that He was bringing in “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:15). Yet this confused people, because He had been born in a stable, not a palace, and He wandered around with no real home. He remained outside of the social and political networks. He didn’t even have any religious credentials. Yet, in the end, when Jesus died, the Bible tells us that He prepared the way for us as individuals, and for our world to “come home.”
Jesus didn’t come in power, but in weakness. Jesus came and experienced the exile we experience; the exile that we deserve. Jesus took upon Himself the full curse of human rebellion so that we could be welcomed into our true home.
b. The end of history- What would you do for a loved one who is
lost? Could you even imagine that scenario? I could not imagine the pain I would experience if Tyler or Tiffany left home, and I didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. I’m sure that I would be like the father in the parable. If I saw them a great distance away, I wouldn’t sit there and wait for them to walk up to me. I would go running up to them, and hug them, and kiss them, and welcome them home!!
The truth of this story Jesus tells, is that death will not have victory over us. Jesus not only died, but rose from the grave on the third day. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus broke the power of death. In Acts 2:24 we read: “But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him.” Because Jesus paid the penalty for our sin with His death, He has achieved victory over the forces of death, decay, and disorder that keep the world form being our true home. Someday Jesus will return to make this victory complete. The prophet Isaiah writes in Isaiah 35:4-10- “Your God will come…He will come to save you. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf be unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. The ransomed of the Lord will return, they will enter Zion with singing. Everlasting joy will crown their heads. Gladness and joy will overtake them, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
At the end of the story of the two lost sons, there is a feast of homecoming. So too at the end of the book of Revelation, at the end of history, there is a feast, the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19). The Lamb is Jesus, who was sacrificed for the sins of the world so that we could be pardoned and brought home. This feast happens in the New Jerusalem, the City of God that comes down out of heaven to fill the earth, which we read about in the book of Revelation, in chapters 21 and 22. The tree of life, which was in the Garden of Eden, is now found in heaven. Death and decay and suffering are gone. The nations are no longer at war. Rev. 21:4 tells us: “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain—for the old order of things has passed away.”
Jesus, unlike the founder of any other major faith, holds out hope for ordinary human life. Our future is not an ethereal, impersonal consciousness. We will not float through the air when we die. We will have a spiritual body. We will eat, and sing, and embrace, and dance, and praise. We will live in the kingdom of God and experience God’s glory.
Jesus will not only make us perfect, but will make our world a perfect home again. We will no longer be living out of “Eden,” but in our true Eden. We will not be constantly in a wandering state as we are now, but we will be home.
Conclusion: God designed a home for us. But Jesus shows us through this parable that because of our sin, the home we seek, the home we long for is flawed. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, we can find a place of rest in the presence of God which helps us to feel somewhat at home here on this earth. We can create an atmosphere of love, and peace, and hope. But ultimately this “home” we long for is the home in heaven. It’s as the apostle Paul says in Philippians 1:21-26, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.” While we are on this earth, God can bring us joy and celebration. But ultimately, we will depart and be with God in heaven; the home we long for. Let us give thanks and praise to God this day, for this life He gives us, and the life to come. Amen.
posted by Logan's Blog at 11:23 PM
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