Where is your home?

 

WHERE IS YOUR HOME?

Sermon Reflection by Andy Gilstrap

 

This past Sunday Rachel spoke of the “dwelling” place.  Jesus had said, “….destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days”. This reminds me of the idea of home.

I have a home.  It nice, safe, familiar, comfortable, and a place where myself and family live.  It exist in a physical space and has an address, but when you think about it, its not really my home.  It could burn down.  It could be blown away in a storm.  We could sale it and move, and then it would become a home to someone else.  We could decide it doesn’t meet our needs and build another.  The reality is, its just a house.  

The truth is whether I’m home, traveling, in the wilderness, at the beach, wherever…my home is where is with my family.  When I am with my wife and two girls, when I am connected to the moment and fully present with them….they are my home.  The idea of home goes way beyond simply a dwelling place and speaks to something much deeper.  Jesus was not talking about the actual temple.

God doesn’t need a cathedral, an arc, or a church building.  He is taking up His residence in us.  We are His home.

In the ancient near east there were many different versions of religion and gods.  It seems that everyone had a god for everything.  At this time, no one believed that any one person had personal access to any god except for a priest.  If you wanted to know what a god was like, you would watch the priest.  How he walked, how he talked, when and where he slept, what he ate, how he dressed, how he treated others, what he found important, the way is filled his time…..all these things would tell you what the god of that religion was like. The priest put the god on display for everyone else.

Then God comes to Moses on Mt. Sinai and says, “…you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Exodus 19:6  You are dwelling place for God and you are putting Him on display.  If you want to know what kind of God others believe in, what kind of struggles they have with him, what kind of questions and doubts….if you want to know why people struggles believing whether God cares for them…look at yourself.  God has taken up His divine residence in you and has asked you to put Him on display for the rest of the world.  You are to reflect the very image of the Divine Himself.  How you live, what you deem as important, how you treat others…will be the kind of God, those you can come in contact with, believe you serve.  If you want others to believe that God is about love, beauty, truth, light, peace, finding the good in all, and bringing redemption…then it is up to you to do these things, as well.  When you show up, you are bringing God with you.  It is not enough to say you believe in this type of god, because you are putting God out there for all to see.  We must find the resolve between what say we believe and what we live.  We must find our home in God, as He finds His home in us….may our home be open, loving, and inviting to all.  May you reflect the image of God himself.  

Recall the old sayings, “home is where the heart is”, or “….home is what you make it”.  What kind of home are you?  God had made His residence in us all.  In what ways are you doing your part to make a home with Him?
 
-Andy Gilstrap is the Experiential Worship Leader at The Gathering at Scott Memorial UMC 
 

Leave a Reply

^