Sermon: "Leaving Home"

Series: Following Jesus in a Broken World


Part 2: Leaving Home

Texts: John 3:1-17; Genesis 12:1-9

SUMMATION


• If we are going to follow Jesus, we must leave our old home behind to journey for many years with very little knowledge of where Jesus is leading us. We must be youthful and adventuresome! We must believe that the place Jesus is leading us is better than the place we now know.

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I. Introduction


• Last Sunday was a bit of a shock to our senses. Jesus is driven by the Spirit into the WILDERNESS. . . a place of temptation . . . a place of death inhabited by wild beasts and many other dangers.


• It was not what we had bargained for at all. We had hoped for a easy ride to the Promised Land.


• Reality #1: Following Jesus in this old, fallen and broken world is not easy.

II. A Second Reality: To Find a New Home You Must Leave Your Old Home Behind! 


• Now we encounter a second uncomfortable truth.


• Following Jesus means leaving our old, comfortable home behind.


• I goes without saying that in order to get to a new place we have to leave the old place behind. Somehow we had hoped that truth did not apply to the matter of our faith in Jesus.

III. The Truth of the Need to Leave Home Is a Universal Reality We Encounter at Every Level of Our Being and at Every Age of Our Life Here on God's Good Earth.


• Our Birth

o We being life in the sanctuary of our mother's womb and for 9 months or so we are quit happy there.


o Then we are suddenly violently pushed out of that warm and safe place into a new and strange world we had never encountered before.


• "Leaving Home" Experiences Continue Throughout Our Lifetime! 


o Going to School


o Entering the turbulent teens and all the trials and tribulations of puberty


o High School Graduation: Soon we are going off to work, or college or into the military.


o Getting Married: Forming a new home out of the often very different experiences of two very different people


o Having Children: Radically changes everything about "home" . . . so you have to make a new home out of the old to accommodate the new "little one."


o If what seems like only a few short years, they begin to doubt your word and insist that you stay out of their rooms.


o Before long . . . they leave home and are off to college, or a job, or off to a strange land far away to service in the military following the same pattern in their lives that we had experienced only in a world that has changes since our childhood and high school days. 


o In adulthood, many of us have the experience of leaving home to a far away place in order to get a promotion and to continue to follow a carrier path.


o Then there is the 'Golden Years' when you begin to realize that you are closer to the end of your earthly journey than to the beginning. Changes in your body let you know with absolute clarity that you will be leaving home in due season.


IV. Hope In Leaving Home Experiences 


• If we have the courage to look closely, we discover that in every 'Leaving Home' experience there is new birth, new adventure, new joy, and new hope!


• In the birth of every new child into the universe, there is evidence of the glory of God from whom that child came.


o Wordsworth writes in 'Intimations of Immortality":

Not in entire forgetfulness

And not in utter nakedness

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home. (p. 17, One Foot in Eden, J. Philip Newell (Paulist Press, 1999)


• In the Bible we find leaving home experience from Genesis to Revelation! The Bible is the story of a spiritual journey from hopelessness and death to meaningful, joyful and eternal life. 


o Genesis: Adam and Eve were forced from their Garden paradise and since that day, all of humankind has been wandering about aimlessly in seems at times . . . trying to get back to the peace, joy, wonder of that holy garden.


o Old Testament Narratives: Tell the story of a people beloved of God who sin and yet are loved by God. It is the history of a people always on the move. 


Example: The Jewish people were bound in slavery in the land of Egypt. Moses is commissioned by God to lead these people out of bondage and form them into a great nation. This can only be accomplished if they leave their old life in Egypt and cross a barren desert to reach the Promised Land. 


o New Testament Story of Jesus: We see the truth of this narrative in the story if even our Lord Jesus who left the glory of his home in the heavenly realm to show of the narrow way through the desert that leads to the glory of our true home with God.

V. The Case of Abraham and Sarah


• Abraham at the age of 75 (or 99 depending upon the text you use) is called of God to leave his old home behind and wander out into the wilderness to a new land God promised to give him.


• Abraham and Sarah had a pretty good life going for them with possessions, friends and family. Why would they leave all that behind in to find a new home in an as yet undisclosed location?


• In other texts, God promises to make out of Abraham a new nation with sons and daughters that match the number of stars in the heavens. When he told this story to his friends they must have laughed thinking it was a joke. Sarah surely laughed at the thought of an old and to this point, barren woman, having a child with an old man! Still, Sarah did bear a child and they named that child as instructed by God, Isaac or "He Laughs!" (How about "Laughing Boy" for a name?)


• Despite of the absurdity of the whole proposal, Abraham leaves his home and his old life behind with no road map or GPS to guide him. He goes out not knowing even where he is going. He leaves home with nothing more that a command to start walking in the direct of the wilderness!


• Why did he do it?

o Something happened within the heart of Abraham. 


o In the wake of God's command and promise, he was reborn! 


o He became that young, adventuresome, passionate young man who married Sara many years before.


o He was given a new mission, a new hope and the promise of a home far better than any he had ever known!

VI. The Case of Nicodemus


• Jesus stirs up something in Nicodemus. That something is both exciting and deeply troubling. 


• Deep down in his soul, Nick knows this Jesus is no ordinary prophet. He is a miracles worked and he with spiritual authority. He speaks the truth. 


• Nick is a successful man. He is a leader of his people. He is part of the temple elite. Most of his colleagues think this Jesus is a blasphemer and a threat to the peace of the nation. He knows that following Jesus will cost him dearly! 


• The troubling feeling in his soul gets drives Nick to meet Jesus. Under cover of night . . lest any of his colleagues discover what he is doing . . . Nick and Jesus meet and share together. 


• Nick opens the dialogue nice enough: "Jesus, I know you are a man from God because no one could do the things you do apart from God!"


• In John's telling of the story, immediately Jesus cuts to the heart of the matter. "Nick, I tell you truly. No one can see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again." 


• Nick does not take this statement as a biological statement. This man is a scholar. He knows what Jesus is saying. He knows the Torah. He is a spiritual man in many ways and he knows full well that the issue here is spiritual. It is a question of what teaching you will allow to shape your life. 


• "Jesus, how can an old man be born again? Can a man go back into his mother's womb and start his life all over again?"


• Jesus given the same answer again with more detail to which Nick replies: "How can this be?"


• For Nick, his whole way of life is being challenged. He want to follow Jesus but the cost is terrible high for him. If he follows Jesus, he will have to leave home.
He will lose everything he has spent years trying to achieve!


• If he becomes a disciple he will lose his "place in his old home," At this point, he doesn't know anything about the new home with God Jesus is talking about here. He doesn't even know if this new home . . . this new Kingdom where God's will reign . . . will ever truly exist.


• Still, a voices deep within his soul cries out: "Follow Jesus! Follow Jesus! Leave your old home behind and follow Jesus to a new home I will show you!"


• John doesn't tell us what Nicodemus decided to do. My guess would be that he tried to split the difference. He continued to silently reflect on the message of Jesus and the hope of a new home. However, he could not bring himself to leave his old life behind and so . . . we don't hear from him again until. . after Jesus has been crucified. 


• Other References to "Nicodemus": 


o In John 7:50-52 we see what appears to be a rather feeble attempt to support Jesus cause against those who accuse him of blasphemy:

"Nicodemus, who had gone to Jesus earlier and who was one of their own number, asked, “Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee, too? Look into it, and you will find that a prophet does not come out of Galilee.”


o In John 19:39 we see that Nicodemus expresses his love of Jesus openly by this act of compassion. Was Nicodemus an admirer of Jesus or a devoted disciple? We don't really know the answer to this question. What's your best guess?

"He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds."





VII. Conclusion


• Well! Well! Well! Once again the Bible challenges us with a very uncomfortable reality we had hope to avoid! 


• Many of the stories of Jesus are uncomfortable and troubling when you truly understand what they are saying.


• Leaving home? Hummmmm . . . the idea is troubling and yet . . . somehow it stirs in me once more that adventuresome spirit of my youth when I first felt the power of God's Spirit flowing through me.


• Yes sir! Back then I believed anything was possible! I was eager to leave my old life behind and take on the awesome task of following Jesus.


• Then . . . as time when on . . . some where along the way I become comfortable with the status quo and it seemed that God was moving far too slowly in his plan to transform the world. At the same time, I became more aware like Nicodemus of the true cost of fully leaving my old life behind to be a true, devoted, fully committed, sold out follower of Jesus. 


• Yet, today I feel the power of the Spirit calling me to follow Jesus to a place I've never seen before with a power stronger than I've felt in a very long time. God is moving on and if I am to follow the path he sets before me I must move on as well! 


• Can't you feel it? Is there a trembling deep down in your soul today?


• Can't you hear Jesus call? In the midst of the confusion of voices calling you to follow, Jesus calls out to you with only two words: FOLLOW ME! 




• "Follow me! I will take you to a new place . . . a new home . . and I will be there with you forever! All you have to do is LEAVE HOME!"

THANKS BE TO GOD!