Philippians 3:18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

 

How easy it is to find our home on earth.  As Paul wrote from prison, we have three things that we as people try to do:

  • Feed Ourselves
  • Rebel
  • Focus On Only Things That We Can See

 

But the reality is that we must realize that we were built for something greater.  We were built for eternity.

 

Solomon says in Ecclesiastes that:  “He puts eternity on our hearts but then does not give us the answer”.  In other words, we will constantly have this burden in our hearts to ask the question:  What is the point of all of this?  But we will never truly answer this without the Lord.  Solomon himself, before Christ, decided to try it all.  He tried drinking and partying, he tried chasing women, he tried getting rich and getting smart and getting powerful …. And none of these things worked.  In fact, they lead him to the point:  Life is Meaningless!  The Lord allowed him to pursue these things in order to find meaning and write the book.  And the reality is:  The Lord will let us do the same thing.  We can look and seek and never really understand what it is we are trying to find.

 

Why does He do this?  The reason is simple:  Our Citizenship Is In Heaven.

 

We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a physical one.

 

In other words, we will never truly understand our role or who we are on this side of heaven.  The Bible says that we are aliens, that we are strangers, that we are foreigners, that we are pilgrims.  In other words, we are always going to be a little out of place here.  

 

What do we do with this?

 

We connect with Christ.  We cry out and connect with the one Author that can give us direction and hope.

 

We try to find our purpose in life and carry it out to the fullest.

 

This is not a condemning word, but a word of freedom.

 

Years ago, I took one of my players to church and Lloyd ministered to him.  He accepted Jesus and was filled by God and convicted by the Spirit.  When I took him to eat afterwards he told me that the food “never tasted better”.  In the years that followed, he has wondered and suffered greatly.  He told me he was having trouble finding his place in life, that he was struggling greatly with depression and fitting in.  He has turned to “medical marijuana” and finding other ways to turn from the pain that is part of his life.

But his reality is simple.  He is a citizen in heaven.  His hope and his future and his home is with Jesus.  Without that, he is lost and hurt and looking for hope.

 

And so it is with all of us.

 

When you get tired and weary at the end of the day, you go home.

When you are sad and need support from those you love, you go home.

When you need a place to rest, you go home.

When you need to feed yourself to go out and work, you eat at home.

You sleep at home.

You eat at home.

You rest at home.

You get encouraged and loved for who you are at home.

 

Heaven is the same way.  Jesus is there and He waits to refresh and renew and revive us.

 

When you need help, cry out to Him.  Go home.

 

In the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

 

Amen.

 

1 Peter 2  11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.

 

1 Chronicles 29  15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.