Eccl 3:11, 1 Cor 2:9, John 14:2 Elderly Care Ministry
“Homesick for Heaven”
Prop Needed:
- Movie clip from “Wizard of Oz” of the White Witch and Dorothy, Dorothy clicking her heels and repeating, “There’s no place like home”
- Images of home, cozy cottages, by Thomas Kinkade
- Images of devastation in Japan caused by tsunami
- Laptop, projector, projector screen
Today I wanted to start off by showing you a movie clip from a movie that I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with [“Wizard of Oz” clip]. For me one of the most memorable lines from the movie is when Dorothy says, “There is no place like home.” I think a lot of us here will agree with that statement that there is no place like home. I know in my conversations with many of you here how you have mentioned how you long to go home. Why do so many of us get homesick and yearn for home? [images of Kinkade’s paintings]. Even looking at these paintings of what “home” is, it creates in me a feeling of homesickness. I think for many of us, home is a place of familiarity, where we grew up, where we have so many fond memories. Home is also a place of security for many of us, where we can go and feel safe, at the end of the day we come home and we feel okay to let our guards down and just be ourselves.
I had thought about this topic two weeks ago and in the midst of preparing for this message, I heard about the devastating news in Japan and how so many people their homes were completely destroyed by the tsunami within a few minutes [images of tsunami devastation]. As I was watching the news clips of people’s homes literally being washed away, it was such a powerful reminder for me that our homes here on earth ultimately are perishable. Like I had just mentioned, home is that place where we are supposed to feel secure and safe in, and yet for so many people in Japan through an instant they realized that their homes in reality are so frail and fragile.
Today, I want to talk to you about a different home, a home that the Bible tells us will never be destroyed and this is the home all of us should be very homesick for. That place is called heaven. I will read an excerpt from the devotional that I have shared from you before:
Homesick at ninety two?
Being homesick makes sense for a seven year old child leaving for camp.
But I am very old.
Why am I so restless for home?
I believe it’s because you made me that way, God.
You created me with an earthly body but a heavenly spirit that yearns to be with you.
This world is not my home. Not really.
I can recall every nook and cranny of the old home place.
It’s where I raised my family and stood at the kitchen sink.
Those vivid memories bring comfort and joy.
But as wonderful as it was, heaven is better.
You promise it beyond my imagination, a place where pain and worry do not exist. [1]
The author here is homesick but she’s talking about a different type of homesickness. She’s not homesick for her earthly home, but rather she is homesick for heaven. She mentions that she feels so restless for home and the reason why is God created her that way, with a spirit that yearns to be with God. Even though most of the time we may not be aware of it, I think deep down inside of each one of us there is this homesickness for heaven, almost as though we have a homing instinct guiding us there.
It's amazing how God has built the homing instinct into animals. Against all odds, salmon come home from the sea to lay their eggs in the rivers of their birth. Birds migrate home over long distances every year as well. There is something built into those animals that brings them home.
Likewise, God has built that into each of us, too: an instinct, a desire, a homesickness for heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, "He has planted eternity in the human heart."
Each one of us was created to go to heaven. CS Lewis, a famous Christian writer once said:
Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well there is such a thing as water…If I find in myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.[2]
Let me give you this illustration...let’s imagine you take a fish and place him on the beach. Watch his gills gasp and scales dry. Is he happy? No! How do you make him happy? Do you cover him with a mountain of cash? Do you make him a nice sand castle to live in? Of course not! Then how do you make him happy? You put him back in his element. You put him back in the water. He will never be happy on the beach simply because he was not made for the beach.
Likewise, each one of us will never be completely happy on earth simply because we were not made for earth. And because of that, we will never be fully satisfied with our lives here on earth. But the irony is that so many of us feel that somehow we can find satisfaction on this earth, we think if we are able to achieve the perfect home here on earth which may entail a nice big house, a loving spouse and obedient children, a nice stable job, two cars - basically the American dream - then we will be happy and content. But how many of us here as we look back at our lives can honestly say that we have really become content after achieving all of this. Just look at how so many rich people who have far much more money than most people, and yet they are never content and happy. Just a few days ago, I read about this survey in which they asked millionaires how much money do they need to have in order to feel rich. They said that 7 million minimum before they will feel like they are rich.
I think St. Augustine sums it up very well what I am trying to say here. He said, “Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.”[3] We will always be restless if we try to find rest here on this earth and through things of this earth. We need to come to the point where we realize this world is not my home, and that true rest can only come when we finally return to our eternal home in heaven.
So I’ve been talking a lot about heaven, but I know many of you are wondering what heaven will be like. First of all, is heaven a myth? A fantasy? A wish? A state of mind? No!
The Bible tells us that Heaven is real place. We have Jesus' word on that. He told his disciples not to worry about death, and then gave them a reason:
John 14:2
"In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.”
Heaven is a real place for real people as much as this nursing home is a concrete living residence for all of you here. But what is it like? I think often we don’t desire heaven or want to go because our expectations of it are so low. We see it simply as a place where we go after we die, or where we’ll meet all our friends/family again, or where we’ll be holding harps and singing all day long, but no ... heaven is far better than that. The author of the devotional we had read earlier mentioned about heaven: “You promise it beyond my imagination, a place where pain and worry do not exist.”
1 Corinthians 2:9
No one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.
What a breathtaking verse! Do you see what it says? Heaven is beyond our imagination. We cannot envision it. Try this. Whatever heaven means to you, imagine it. Get it firmly fixed in your mind. Delight in it. Dream about it. Long for it. And then smile as our heavenly Father reminds you, no one has ever imagined what God has prepared for those who love him. Anything you imagine is inadequate. Anything anyone imagines is inadequate. No one has come close. No one. Think of all the songs about heaven. All the artists’ portrayals. All the lessons preached, poems written, and chapters drafted. When it comes to describing heaven, we have all failed. It’s beyond us.
But I think the bible does give us glimpses into what heaven will be like. Think of a place where we will be free from sin, where pollution cannot enter, and where the righteous shall reign forever. Think of a city that is not built with hands, where the buildings do not grow old with time. Think of a city through whose streets are crime free, a city without griefs or sorrows. Furthermore, in heaven we will have new bodies and there will be no more tiredness and exhaustion, no more aches and pains... no more cancer or other diseases... no more arthritis... no more glasses or hearing aids... We will be changed into a heavenly body that is perfect and all our senses will be perfect like they were meant to be!
Heaven will be a place where there will be:
- No more locking your doors
– No more being afraid
– No more murder
– No more guilt and shame
– No more fight and constant struggle to do what’s right
– No more Satan
– No more demons
– No more temptation
– No more struggle
– No more Tears
– No more being hurt by people
– No more being let down by others
– No more depression
– No more loneliness
– No more low self-esteem
– No more problems
– No more wants
So hopefully as I am describing to you what heaven will be like, all of you are getting more and more excited about heaven and what it holds in store for each one of us. And as I close today, I wanted to end with this important question - so how do we get to heaven? Is it something we have to earn our way into, by doing good deeds, and if we do enough then we are qualified to go? No, the amazing good news is that each of us had a free pass to heaven by the grace of God.
All we have to do is to recognize and acknowledge that we have sinned, that we have turned away from God and desire to restore that broken relationship with God by asking Jesus into our lives to be the Lord and Savior of our lives. So let me close by reading John 14:2 once again: "In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.”
God has already prepared a room for each one of us in heaven and He is waiting for each one of us to come back to our true home. I know that so many of you here are homesick, but my prayer is that each one of you here will learn to be homesick not just for your earthly home but, more than anything else, for your eternal home in heaven.
3
[1] Missy Buchanan, Living with Purpose in a Worn-out Body (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2008), 88.
[2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1980), 136-137.
[3] Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book 1, Chapter 1.