Coming Home 1983

I'd like to read from Hebrews chapter 4 verses 9 and 10. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever enters God's rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

Perhaps the chief reason why we're so afraid to commit ourselves to each other in the body of Christ and really let go of ourselves and fit in with each other. You know, Lord, I'll commit myself to you all the way, but do I have to commit myself to these people? And the reason we're so afraid of this is because we think that to commit ourselves to these people is somehow going to bring us down with burdens that are just too heavy for us to carry. Lord, I'm tired now.

If I get myself really tangled up with these people and all their needs and all their problems and their unpredictable ways, I'm going to be exhausted before the week is over. And so what we all are very inclined to do is to continue to go through the motions of being with each other and committed to each other, but to hold ourselves somewhat aloof. You know, don't really open the heart all the way.

Don't get too close. We're going to travel alone, even though we aren't traveling together. We're really traveling alone.

We all know that when you travel alone, you can always travel faster. I mean, if I'm traveling alone, I can stop when I want to and I can go as fast as I like. But if I'm traveling in company with these other saints, then I have to answer to them, I have to fit in with them, and that's going to slow me down.

Now, and I can remember in my own life, I'll never forget this, a trip I once made with a man from Nova Scotia to New York, who wanted to stop at about every hour, maybe sometimes two hours, you know, and check the car and see the sights and look up an old friend and go to the telephone and make a phone call. It was the most tiresome, weary, tedious journey I've ever made in my life. And I'm sure we've all had that experience, what that's like, you know, but the truth is that that man and I, while we were casual friends and still are friends, we're not really in unity.

We really didn't share the same Lord, we didn't have that kind of fellowship, the same purpose in our lives. He had his Lord, I had mine. He had his goals and I had mine.

And we were traveling in the same little Austin to New York City for two different reasons. After that, Jeanne and I made that trip many times in a Volkswagen Bug, you know, with babies and diapers and, you know, potties and luggage, and we all know what that's like. But it was joy, you know, it was comfort by comparison to that first trip.

You know, even the hassles of, you know, stopping for this and that, you know how it is. This was really comfortable because we were one. We had fellowship.

We were equally yoked. Now see, traveling together becomes far, far better than traveling alone. So when the Spirit of God draws us and calls us to fit ourselves together with each other in the body, he's not calling us to some added burden.

He's calling us to a rest deeper than any rest we've ever known. Let me say that again, because this is something I think we here have a terrible time with. When the Spirit of God nudges us and calls us to fit together with each other in the body.

He's not trying to add to our burdens. He's calling us to a state of rest deeper than any rest we've ever known. So then, Hebrews 4, verse 9, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.

But this Sabbath rest is never experienced in isolation. It's only experienced in fellowship with brothers and sisters in the unity of the body. The prodigal son traveled alone.

He traveled fast, but where did he go? This man never had any rest. Reading from Luke, chapter 15, starting at verse 11. And Jesus said, there was a man who had two sons.

And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of property that falls to me. And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country.

And there he squandered his property in loose living. But he had no rest. When he had spent everything, a great famine arose in the country.

And he began to be in want. Still he has no rest. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine.

And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate. But no one gave him anything. Still he has no rest.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to the servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.

Bring the fatted calf and till it. And let us eat and make merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found. And they began to make merry. So this younger brother, this younger son has no rest.

He's traveling. He's doing things. He seems to be trying to satisfy himself, but he has no rest.

No rest until he comes home. Rest for this man is the father. And the servants and the dinner table.

And a household for him. Rest is to be back where he belongs with those to whom he's been attached. And joined by God himself.

And how many of us are like that younger brother? You know, we're out there spending our money, but we have no rest. We're out there attaching ourselves to anyone who gives us the promise of taking the pressure off a little bit for us. Still no rest.

Nor will we have any rest at all. Until we come home to the father's house. Then we have the older brother.

The older brother stays home on the farm. I mean, he never leaves home. And he does all the things he's supposed to do.

But he doesn't have any rest either. Reading on in Luke chapter 15, starting at verse 25. Now his elder son was in the field.

And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, your brother has come and your father has killed a fatted calf because he has received him safe and sound.

But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and he treated him. Thanked him.

But he answered his father, all these many years I have served you, I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry with my friends. But when the son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf.

And he said to him, son, you are always with me. And all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad.

For this your brother was dead and is alive. He was lost in his fowl. So even though this brother remains on the farm, stays home, seems to be in the body of Christ, in other words, goes through all the motions of obedience, he's as far away as the kid brother who's out there squandering his living.

Because he won't open his heart to his father or to his brother. And how many of us are like that? You know, we didn't leave the farm. We stayed home.

We're good little Christians. We do all the things we're supposed to do. But we're isolated, cut off, restless, because we won't humble ourselves enough to join our heart, open our heart to our father or to our younger brother.

See, and this thing we're so afraid to do, to open our heart to our father and to our sisters and brothers, is the very thing that will bring us the rest we so desperately long for. We want to find rest. Everybody says, I want peace.

All of us only had peace. And this rest we're looking for is right under our nose. Matthew 11, 28.

"'Come to me,' Jesus says, "'all you who labor and are heavy laden, "'and I will give you rest. "'Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, "'for I am meek and lowly of heart, "'and you shall find rest for your souls. "'For my yoke is easy, my burden is light.'" See, my yoke is rest.

When you get under my yoke, learn from me what it is to be meek and lowly of heart, you've come home. But where do we find that yoke? And where do we learn under the yoke of Jesus how to be meek and lowly of heart but in the body? Nowhere else but in the body. Only in the fellowship of the saints who are the ones who irritate us and try our patience and let us down and do all these things.

Here we learn what it means to be meek and lowly of heart. "'So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. "'For whoever enters into God's rest "'has ceased from his own labors, "'even as God did from his.'" So the younger brother, out there, spending his money, is weary.

You know, he's laboring and heavy laden, doing his old thing, has no rest. And the older brother, who stays on the farm and does everything right, apparently, is also laboring and heavy laden, doing his own thing for all that. He has no rest.

But when the younger brother comes home to the farm and to the household and fits in with the household and fits in even with those servants, now he has found the true Sabbath. He has ceased from his own labors and he has entered into the rest of God. See, and when we, in fact, come home to God, enter back into the household of God or come into it for the first time and truly join ourselves to each other and get under that yoke and learn what it is to be meek and lowly of heart, then we find the Sabbath rest of God.

And only then, what a wonderful thing, to be able to say, this is my father's house. This is the place where I belong. These are my sisters and my brothers.

This is the work that God has given me to do. And in the doing of this work, I'm never going to get tired because my heart is at rest. I'm going to go from strength to strength because my heart is at peace.

What does it mean to come home to God? To come home to God, even when it means coming home in repentance from sin, is to come home to fellowship with God and with each other. Notice that the prodigal does not just come home to an empty house and to a kind of a barren, cold, empty father, but he comes home to a welcome that includes not only the father, but the father's whole household. And he arose and came to his father, but while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion on him and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.

But the father said to the servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, shoes on his feet, kill the fatted calf. Let us eat and make merry, for my son was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found. They made merry. Didn't come home just to that empty house or only to the father, just me and the father.

He came home to fellowship. He came home to the household. And it was in that unity with the father and the household that he began to find rest.

And the same is true for us. When we come home to the father, there's no way we can come home to the father and not also come home to each other. No way.

We become members of each other in the father's house. And in the father's house, we learn to fit in with each other. We learn to serve each other.

And it becomes celebration. It becomes joy. He came home to music and dancing.

And that's what fellowship with each other always is. It's the constant preparation, warm up party for the eternal celebration of heaven. And even when we're out there chasing through the streets, trying to find our brothers and sisters and bring them back to the father's house, even when we're laboring and physically tired, we're at rest.

And the more deeply we commit ourselves to the father's household and to the father's kingdom, to each other, the more perfectly we experience the Sabbath rest of God. To come home to God means that we get under the yoke with Jesus. And under that yoke, to share the yoke with everyone else who is yoked with him.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest from your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

When I get under that yoke with Jesus, it's not just me and Jesus. It's Jesus and all who are his. I'm joined to him and immediately with all those who are his.

See, and in this unity of the faith with brothers and sisters in the body, even as we irritate each other and aggravate each other, still in this commitment that we make to each other, we begin to learn, and the only place we ever do learn, we learn what it is to be meek and lowly of heart, what it is to lay aside our pride and wash each other's feet, what it is to serve joyfully, what it is to fit in, what it is to ask forgiveness and show forgiveness, and under that yoke, in union with each other, we find rest and healing and restoration and peace in the unity of the spirit as members one another. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever enters into that rest, God's rest, has ceased from his own labors as God did from his. And so the question that is being put to us, I believe, at this hour is, isn't it time for us to enter into that rest? Isn't it time for us to cease from our own labors, whether our own labors are out there on the road of sin, obvious sin, or whether our own labors are in the hidden sin of staying on the farm, doing everything right, appearing to be just right, but having our heart, our religious heart, hard as stone? Isn't it time for us to leave the sin and to leave our self-centered, individualistic religion and come back to the Father's house? One question, are we willing to leave our old ways and really yield to the Father and to each other? Are we willing, see, to get under that yoke and learn from Him, in experience with one another, what it is to be neat and lowly apart? If we really want to come home, really want to come home, the door is open now.

The Father's arms are waiting. The table is spread. All we have to do is come.

Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest, he said. I'm standing at the door. I will bring you into fellowship with the Father, he said.

I will bring you into fellowship with me. I will bring you into fellowship with the Holy Spirit, and I will bring you at the same time into fellowship with each other. Are we ready for fellowship with each other? Let's take some time just in silence before God.

Total silence.