Heaven. We talk about it. We think
about it. We hope to go there. We believe we will go there, if we
accept Jesus Christ as the Savior.
And yet, when we think about heaven, there’s a certain sort
of unreal quality about our thoughts. We have a hard time picturing
heaven. We don’t really know what it’s like. We don’t know if it’s
like anything, at least anything that we’ve ever experienced. We don’t
know what we’ll be like there. And so, even if we firmly believe in
heaven, even if we have a strong faith that we will go there when we die,
there’s a certain extent to which it still just does not seem real to us.
Our lives here, those are real. We even refer to it
as “real life”. Our senses tell us that it’s real. We can see
things. We can hear things. We can touch things. We can taste
things. We can smell things. All five of our senses tell us that
this life is real.
And so, we’re comfortable with it. We’re comfortable
with real life. It may not always be great, especially not now. But
we’re used to it. And we’re getting more used to things now. Life
on earth is real, it’s comfortable, and it’s familiar. And for the most
part, we’re okay with it.
Maybe we’re too okay with it. Because when we read
what Peter says, he flips all this on its head. Peter says we should live
out our time on earth as foreigners.
Think about how it feels to be a foreigner. Some of
you have traveled to foreign countries. A few of you watching may even
have come here from foreign countries. I have not traveled to a foreign
country, but I’ve been to places that were quite a bit different from what I’m
used to.
Think about how that feels. You don’t really fit in,
right? You’re always aware that you’re different. You’re always
aware that you’re an outsider. You might enjoy your time there. You
might like some of the things there. But you’re always aware that you’re
a foreigner. You’re always aware that you’re not at home. And no
matter how much you might enjoy your time there, there’s always a part of you
that wants to go back home.
Peter is saying that’s how, as Christians, we’re supposed
to feel during our lives on earth. Does that sound odd to you? It
kind of does to me. I mean, I understand it, in a way, and I’ll get to
that in a minute. But when I first hear it, it really seems
strange. Most of us like to fit in. Most of us like to be part of
the crowd. We don’t like to feel like we’re the outsider, the odd one,
the one who’s different. It’s okay for a while, but eventually we want to
find a way to fit in. And what’s wrong with that, anyway?
Well, I don’t know that it’s automatically wrong. But
here’s the thing. When we accept Jesus Christ as the Savior, when we
decide we’re going to call ourselves Christians, followers of Jesus, that
decision needs to change us. That decision needs to make us
different. If our Christian faith does not make any difference in our
lives, if as Christians we are just the same as everyone else, then what’s really
the point of our faith? What good is our Christian faith, if it does not
make us different?
Jesus did not come to earth to tell us to be just like
everyone else. Jesus told us to be different. He told us to be
different in a lot of ways. Some of them are not easy to do. Love
your neighbor. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute
you. Turn the other cheek. If someone takes your coat, give him
your shirt. Treat others, not the way they treat you, but the way you
would like them to treat you, even when they don’t actually treat you that way
at all.
If
you and I take those things seriously, if you and I really try to live that
way, we are going to stand out. Because the majority of people don’t live
that way at all. They don’t even try. In fact, it makes no sense to
them. The attitude of society is I’ll treat you any way I please.
If you’re nice to me, then I might be nice to you. And in fact, you’ll
see a lot of people who seem to think they’ve done something great if they’re
nice to people who are nice to them. Love your enemies? Treat
people well even if they’re not nice to you? What sense does that make?
If you and I take our Christian faith seriously, if we
truly try to live out our faith, people are going to notice. They may
like it or they may not, but they’ll notice. And there will be an extent
to which we are foreigners here. We will not fit in. We will
always, to a certain extent, be outsiders.
That’s not always a comfortable thought. But there is
good news. There will come a time when we are no longer outsiders.
If we hold to our Christian faith, then by God’s grace we will someday go to a
place where we fit in completely. And that’s in heaven. In heaven,
we will not feel like foreigners. We will be where we belong. We
will be home.
Maybe that sounds odd to you, too. I mean, there’s an
extent to which we agree with it. A little while ago, I sang “This World
Is Not My Home”. That’s an old gospel song. It’s a common idea
among Christians that heaven is our true home.
We sing it, and sometimes we say it. And in a way, we
believe it. But as I said at the start of this message, it’s hard to
truly believe it. Because, again, there are so many ways in which heaven
seems so unreal to us.
Why is that? Why should this place, this place where
we are to live as foreigners, seem so real to us? And why should heaven,
the place we call our true home, seem so unreal to us?
Well, look at it this way. Have you ever lived
somewhere for a long period of time, and then moved away? What happens?
We forget. We forget what the old home town was
really like. We have memories, but they’re somewhat fuzzy. And the
longer we’re gone, the fuzzier they get. We forget the names of some of
the people. We forget what they looked like. We forget where some
of the stores were. And the things we think we do remember are not always
accurate. And if we’re gone a really long time, we’re not sure just
exactly what we do remember. There becomes an unreal quality to our memories.
We know that the town exists. We know we used to live there. But
where we are now is what seems like real life. Where we used to be starts
to seem more like a story, or a dream.
And that’s why heaven, even though it’s our home, can seem
unreal to us. That’s why it can start to seem like a story, or a
dream. We know it exists. But where we are now is what seems like
real life.
But it’s not a story. It’s not a dream. It is
reality. Heaven is as real as our life here. And we will not be
expected to live like foreigners in heaven. We will be where we belong.
I talked about leaving your home town and moving
away. But have you ever moved to a new town and felt at home there
instantly? Where from the very first day, you felt like you belonged?
If you have, you know that’s an awesome feeling.
That’s what happened to Wanda and me when we moved to the
Wheatland Parish. We felt at home here from the first day we moved
in. In fact, we felt at home here before the first day we moved in.
You know, Wanda grew up in Blunt, not that far from here. The night we
were introduced to the SPRC, before anyone else knew we were coming, almost
everyone on that committee either knew Wanda or knew someone in her
family. We’d spent three years in North Sioux City, and while the people
there treated us wonderfully, and we still have friends there, it never truly
felt like home. But the night of that SPRC meeting, even though we’d
never been here before, we felt like we were coming home.
That, and more, is how it’s going to feel when we go to
heaven. We’re going to feel at home from the day we get there.
We’ll be in the presence of God, and God will know us. God will know
everyone in our family, too. And we’ll realize that while we were on
earth, even though people may have treated us well, it was never truly
home. And heaven, even though we’ve never been there before, will feel
like coming home.
If we take our Christian faith seriously, it’s going to be
hard for us to truly fit in on earth. We’re going to stand out.
We’re going to be different. But that’s okay. That’s how it’s
supposed to be. After all, Jesus stood out. Jesus was
different. If we say we’re following him, then it stands to reason that
we’ll stand out and be different, too.
But it’s okay. Because we’ll get our reward in
heaven. And in heaven, we’ll fit in. We’ll be loved for who we are
and what we are. We’ll be in the presence of the holy, all-loving,
all-caring God. And we’ll know that we are truly home.
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