The Longing for Home

Let me ask you. What do you do about the ache within you? What do you do with just that ache? You're sitting in a coffee shop surrounded by people, but nobody actually knows you. You're scrolling through social media at midnight, everyone's highlight reel, yet you feel unseen. You moved into a new apartment and you don't know your neighbor's names. That new apartment's now two, three years old, you still don't know their name and they don't know yours. You're in back to back Zoom calls all day long and not one person ask, how are you doing? There's a quiet ache under all the noise, a restlessness.

We live in a world in a day and age where we're more connected than ever, yet some we are more alone. Packed calendars, endless scrolling, and yet the ache remains. I'd like to suggest to you, what if your longing isn't a problem to fix, but a sign pointing you home? What if that ache is there for a purpose? C. S. Lewis in the classic Mere Christianity writes this, “Our lifelong nostalgia, lifelong nostalgia - our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we feel cut off to be on the inside of some door, which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic, fancy, but the truest in index of our real situation.”

The truth is, we're all spiritually homesick, aren't we? We all carry with us this ache. No matter what kind of home we grew up in, we have a longing for some idea of home.

Tim Keller writes this about home. Home is a powerful but elusive concept. The strong feelings that surround it reveal some deep longing within us for a place that absolutely fits and suits us. Where we can be or perhaps find our true selves. Yet, it seems no real place or actual family ever satisfies these yearning, though many situations arouse them. And so we live with this ache, this longing, a spiritual homesickness.

In Genesis 2, we find the original home for humanity. The place God made for humanity's flourishing. Genesis 2:4 says, this is the account of the Heavens and the Earth when they were created, when the Lord God made the Earth and the Heavens. Now, Genesis 1 is the macro vision of how God created everything and why it all matters. Genesis 2, we zoom into the creation of humanity. Verse 5. Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth and no planet had yet sprung up for the Lord had not sent rain on the Earth and there was no one to work the ground, but streams came up from the Earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground. Trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food in the middle of the garden were the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Verse 10. A river watering the garden flowed from Eden. From there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon. It winds through the entire land of Havilah where there was gold. The gold of that land is good, which I generally think is gold is good. Thank you. Aromatic, resin and onyx are there also. The name of the Second River is the Gihon, it winds through the entire land of Kush. The name of the third river is the Tigris it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Lord God took man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to care for it. And the Lord God commanded the man you are free to eat from any tree in the Garden, but you must not eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil for when you eat it. From it, you will certainly die. The Lord God said, it is not good for the man to be alone. I'll make a helper suitable for him. Now, the Lord formed, out of the ground, all the wild animals, all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name 'em, and whatever the man called each living creature that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky, and all the wild animals.

But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took one of man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib and he had taken out of the man and he brought her to the man. Then the man said, this is now bone on my bone, flesh in my flesh. She shall be called woman for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame.

What do you do about the ache within you? And what if the longing isn't a problem to fix, but a sign pointing you home? In Genesis 2, we come across four aches. Four signposts returning us to our original home, the home we are truly made for. The first thing I want you to notice is the heart aches for permanence. The heart aches for permanence. We live in a transient, ever changing world, fast paced, nonstop. We move more than any other time in human history. In fact, millennials and Gen Z move than any previous generation. The average millennial moves every two years. Psychologists say of this time and age that there is a rootlessness, a constant sense of disconnection leading to anxiety and depression.

We swap cities, careers, communities, hoping the next one will finally be it. The heart aches for permanence. We do this relationally. Love immediately wants it to be permanent, doesn't it? Like when you, you start to fall in love, you want to love forever. In fact, we do this with friendships. It's a BFF, it's best friends. Forever. In fact, we even do this with homes, it's like that's a starter home, but that's not my forever home.

Why? Because the heart, we have this aching in a fleeting world that passes by where the sands, are shifting underneath us, and we feel uncertain, unstable, we long for permanence. In Genesis two, eight says, now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east in Eden, and there he put the man he had formed. See, God created a place of perfection for humanity to flourish with him forever. This was the intended space for flourishing, for humanity, for all time in the presence of God in perfection. We're made, by the way, for a home that lasts. We were made for a home that last.

Eden was more than a location. It was a reality where everything was right. No loneliness, no shame, no striving life with God full and flourishing. We were created to walk with God in the cool of the day, to work, to cultivate the earth without toil to live in deep unbroken relationships. It was home of the truest sense.

I like how Ronald Rolheiser in Sacred Fire says it. We all want at the end of the day is home. Ease. Rest, someone to be comfortable with some place to be comfortable in a home. Eternal rest, deeper than our wonder loss and desire for adventure is the desire to find our way back home. Ultimately, we want adventure only so that we can savor it and tell it around the fireplace. The older I get, the stronger my ache for permanence grows. 'Cause the more I see how fleeting life is, how fast things go.

This last, weekend, my family and I, we got to go to the snow. We hadn't been to the snow in three years. We picked the one weekend, there was a blizzard, it was fantastic and scary all at the same time. We get up there Thursday, Friday, like four feet of snow had dumped. We're trying to snowboard it. It, I've never been out there like this before, by the way, I mean, you couldn't see at times you know, 40, 50 feet in front of you. You're on the ski lift, the wind is whipping your face, the snow's hitting you. It's frigid cold.

That night, my brother and I are sitting on a couch. And, you know, one of my favorite features about the phone, at least the iPhone. I don't know about you Android people. Is I get these memories that pop up on my photos. No lie, I've been in a coffee shop with a memory pop up and I just start bawling. I'm just like, oh my gosh, look at my kids. And so I'm sitting with my brother and a memory pops up. And it was a family photo with our entire, my side of the Ingram family and I just look at, it was 13 years ago on that day.

We're taking this photo and seeing 13 years ago, the ages of all of our kids and our families. And I pass it over to my brother and he's like, no way. And we're like on the verge of bawling and then he's showing everybody else. But it just reminds us that life's fleeting. Even the very best moments of our lives, those moments that you try to capture that feel like, oh, that might've been it, that was home. It's only a picture now. It's a memory. It's a thing you revisit in your mind and the emotions come back, but you can't quite hold onto it, can you? 'cause the heart aches for permanence.

And then Jesus reminds us of something so powerful and profound, and it's his, some of His final words to His disciples before He's to go to the cross. He says, let not your heart be troubled. And then he gives them this beautiful promise. My father's house has many rooms. You want to talk about home? Let's talk about my dad's home. My father's house has many rooms. If that were not so, I would not have told you that. I'm going there to prepare a place for you.

Like I want you to know that on this planet where you're traveling, there's a reason it doesn't feel fully like home. Like you get glimpses of it, but it's not home. But I'm actually going to prepare a home for you that is full and final and secure and eternal. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am. Our hearts ache for permanence. And part of that ache points us to the reality is we are created and designed for a home that lasts, we are actually created for Eden. We are created for the Garden, and we live in the disrupted in between. And Jesus said, I came to restore that and I want to bring you back home forever.

And then there's the ache that are heartaches for presence. We ache for presence. Experts say that we live in what's called a loneliness epidemic. 50% of adults in America report to experiencing acute loneliness - half of our population. The Surgeon Generals says that this is actually a health crisis and the impact on our health of loneliness has a similar impact as if you're smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The heart aches for presence, and we live in a day and age where we're constantly connected and we have the illusion of relationship, and yet we live in isolation, in loneliness. Genesis 2:7 says The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Our deepest desire is to be fully known and fully loved. Our greatest fear is to be fully known and rejected. It. And so we hide, we curate, we cover up what is deemed unlovely so that it will be accepted in some form, but we're never fully known. And then God breathed. The Hebrew word carries intimacy. There's no distant decree, cosmic snap of a finger. This was touch, intentionality, nearness. God formed humanity like an artist shaping clay with bare hands, tender and presence.

And then did you notice like all that talk about rivers? What is that about? See what this biblical text describing is the way the royal palace would design the garden. They would always design it around a spring welling up that would pour out and water the garden and the grounds. So the Garden of Eden wasn't just a place for humanity, it was the King's residence. It was God's residence and presence. It is like you were designed and hardwired to live and be at home in the residence of the king, in his presence. We were made to be with God and with each other. You are hardwired. Our hearts desperately long for the with-ness.

You know, friends are rare these days, not because they've diminished importance, but because we've increased in speed. We fill our lives with noise, screen and schedules, but what we crave is real embodied presence and the entire arc of the Bible is all about restoring the presence we lost in Eden, like we were created to walk with God in the cool of the day. The with-ness. And so the entire arc of the Bible moves us that direction of intimacy and presence lost and God working His way to be the "with us God". I mean, we sing the songs about Emmanuel at Christmas time. Guess what? That's true. Not just then. It's true all year long, Like there would be one who comes, that is God with us. That has been God's heart and longing from the beginning. And Jesus steps into history fully God, fully man - with us.
No matter what kind of home we grew up in, we have a longing for some idea of home.

Tim Keller writes this about home. Home is a powerful but elusive concept. The strong feelings that surround it reveal some deep longing within us for a place that absolutely fits and suits us. Where we can be or perhaps find our true selves. Yet, it seems no real place or actual family ever satisfies these yearnings, though many situations arouse them. And so we live with this ache, this longing, a spiritual homesickness.

What do you do about the ache within you? And what if the longing isn't a problem to fix, but a sign pointing you home? In Genesis 2, we come across four aches. Four signposts returning us to our original home, the home we are truly made for. The first thing I want you to notice is the heart aches for permanence. The heart aches for permanence. We live in a transient, ever changing world, fast paced, nonstop. We move more than any other time in human history. In fact, millennials and Gen Z move than any previous generation. The average millennial moves every two years. Psychologists say of this time and age that there is a rootlessness, a constant sense of disconnection leading to anxiety and depression.

We swap cities, careers, communities, hoping the next one will finally be it. We do this relationally. Love immediately wants it to be permanent, doesn't it? Like when you, you start to fall in love, you want to love forever. In fact, we do this with friendships. It's a BFF, it's best friends. Forever.

We were made to be with God and with each other. You are hardwired. Our hearts desperately long for the with-ness.

You know, friends are rare these days, not because they've diminished importance, but because we've increased in speed. We fill our lives with noise, screen and schedules, but what we crave is real embodied presence and the entire arc of the Bible is all about restoring the presence we lost in Eden, like we were created to walk with God in the cool of the day. The with-ness. And so the entire arc of the Bible moves us that direction of intimacy and presence lost and God working His way to be the "with us God". I mean, we sing the songs about Emmanuel at Christmas time. Guess what? That's true. Not just then. It's true all year long, Like there would be one who comes, that is God with us. That has been God's heart and longing from the beginning. And Jesus steps into history fully God, fully man - with us.

And what was Jesus' final promise to His disciples before He ascended, "and behold, I am with you, even to the end of the age." Think about this, your greatest need is to be fully known and fully loved. God fully knows everything about you. Nothing is hidden from Him. Every secret thought. Every emotion, everything that you think, if I showed to someone else, they would reject me, He knows all of it, and he said, I'm coming for you. And not I'm coming to get you. That's how we hear it. I'm coming for you. Woo. I'm coming for you. That's not what He did.

Love compelled him. Love compelled him. Love compelled him. Love compelled him. Love compelled him. Love compelled him towards you. Love compelled him towards you. He looked at all of you and His heartbreak that you're not with Him, and that you're living in the brokenness of that, and he love compelled him towards you. You are fully known and fully loved, and that's the reason Jesus came.

Our hearts ache for permanence 'cause we were created for a home that last. Our hearts ache for presence because we are created to be with God and each other. And believe it or not, our hearts ache for pleasure. there's these aches and longings inside of us, and somewhere along the way we got the idea that pleasure is bad, that following Jesus means white knuckling our way through life, denying our every desire. By the way, Eden wasn't just functional, it was pleasurable. It was meant to be enjoyed.

Genesis 2:9 and the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground. Trees that were pleasing to the eye good for food in the middle of the garden were a Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. By the way, you know what Eden means? Delight. The Garden of Delight.

Now, it was pleasure, without perversion. It was love without distortion. It is almost impossible for us to fathom the beauty and the wonder of that reality. It was love without strings attached, without self-interest. It was pleasure without manipulation or somehow using somebody for your own good. It was the Garden of Delight, why, because we're made for joy. Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore." The ache for pleasure is actually an ache for God.

C.S. Lewis would say it this way. It seems that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are too far easily pleased. In the presence of God is fullness of joy. See, the great lie that we believe in is somehow God is holding out on me. No good thing, Scripture says, do I withhold from those I love.

The heart aches for permanence, for presence, for pleasure. The final ache of home is the heartaches for peace. In Hebrew it's the word shalom. Shalom is more than just the absence of strife and chaos or conflict. It's the presence of wholeness that all is well, everything as it should be. Genesis 2:15 says, "The Lord God took man and put him in the Garden of Eden. Now, if you're carefully following along in the notes, you'd notice in 2:8 it's almost like a restatement. But in verse, 15, that word 'put' is a different word than earlier. That word means a place of rest and safety, dedication in God's presence.

In a world of chaos, confusion, uncertainty, brokenness and conflict. We often feel fragmented, overworked, stress, striving always on the inbox never stops, the pressure never lifts, the mind never slows. The heart aches for peace, like the sense of wellbeing that all is as it should be. Why? Because we're made for wholeness. we want that shalom. That peace, that safety of home, where all is as it should be, no worry.

And in the midst of our stress and our chaos, our uncertainty, Jesus offers a better way. And He says, come to me. Come to me. Are you weary? Are you burdened? Come to me. Are you lonely? Come to me. Is your heart aching? Come to me. Are you grieving? Come to me. Are you confused? Come to me. Are you doubting? Come to me. Are you struggling right now and wandering through life? Come to me and I'll give you rest. I'll give you Shalom.

All of us have this God-sized hole within us. This ache that nothing else can satisfy. And Jesus invites us and says, I am the wholeness that your heart needs. Come to me. Take my yoke upon you. Learn from me. I'm gentle, humble of heart. You'll find rest for your soul. We spend our days looking for something. Or someone to fill the ache of our soul, to bring a wholeness to our life, to mend the brokenness that we cover up from everyone else. And so what I do with the ache within me.

C.S. Lewis, once again wrote these words, “If I find in myself desires, which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is I was made for another world.”

We are all spiritually homesick friends. We all have an ache, a God-sized hole that only He can feel and the home my heart aches for is not just a place but a person. And Jesus, after He said that, He goes to prepare a place for us, told his disciples, I Am the way, I'm the way back home. I Am the truth. I am the, the truest thing. The, the, the part of your soul that you've been longing for. I Am life itself. No one comes to The Father except through Me. You were made for Eden. You were made for God, and Jesus. Jesus is the way back home and he is home itself.

As we close, I just wanna share a story I've shared a few times before, most of you've heard it. Years ago, it was on a Sunday morning I was getting up early to prepare I was gonna head to a coffee shop. I come out of my door and I see, uh, my neighbor's truck, there's a guy standing next to it leaning up against it. At first I thought it was my neighbor Jerry, he's a construction guy. And so I thought like, okay, he's up early. But then I noticed it's not him. Now I'm afraid somebody's breaking into Jerry's truck. And so I hop in my car to pull right up alongside him because if he really is breaking into the car, I don't want to be like, well I want a fast getaway. Let's just say that I wanna call the cops and just woo go.

I pull up to him and the guy's leaning against it and he's got his phone and I just go, ‘Hey man, you okay?’ He kind of ignores me, he's fiddlin' with his phone. And I ask again like, 'Hey man, you okay?'. Then I realized maybe I'm asking the wrong question. And so I said, 'Hey man, do you know where you're at?' And I guess he had called his girlfriend and he's like crying. He's like, “I can't believe you guys left me. I've been wandering all night long and there's this nice man talking to me.” Apparently he was at some party, you know, was drunk, got walked outside, got lost, wandered the wild streets of Will Glen, all night long. And he is freaked out by himself and he's talking to his girlfriend.

And then he says, this line, no lie, it is pretty funny. He says, ‘There's this nice man talking to me. I think he sent from God.’ I'm like, well, I am a pastor, you know. And so I looked at him and said, ‘do you need a ride home?’ He's like, ‘Yeah’. I said, ‘Come on, get in the car.’ And as we got in the car and we're driving and we started to have a conversation. He began to just say this line over and over again. I can't believe you found me. You saved me, and you're bringing me home like you found me. I was lost. I was scared, and you found me, and you didn't just find me, you saved me. And now you are bringing me home.

And the truth is the ache of our soul. There's so many of us that we just feel like we've been wandering in life and we're lost and we're just going through the motions and we just are desperate for somebody to find us. And Jesus says, I've come to find you. I've come. I've come. I've come. I came to seek and save that, which is lost. And then there's just this reality for our hearts where we gotta realize that at some point we don't need help and we don't need advice. We need to be saved.

We settle for advice, friends. We settle for self-help. Minor tweaks to try to modify our lives to get better. And at some point we gotta say, I, I can't. But He can. And then the invitation he had to get in the car and you're bringing me home. What if the ache, the longing of your heart, isn't a design flaw? What if it's pointing you home? What if it's leading you to the one you are made for? The one who can fill the ache, the one who came for you.

As we close, I just would love for you to pray with me. And the truth is, there's so many in this room who are far from God and feel like, I don't feel like I can come back to him. And today His words are come to Me. And then it's better than that, I came for you. And there's those that you're just like that young man sitting by the car and you've just been wandering. There's been an ache and a hole you can't quite fill, and you've never said yes to Jesus. You've never experienced His grace, His mercy, His life, His hope, His peace, His wholeness, and this is the moment. This is the moment where you say yes and you experience new life erupting inside of you.

If that's where you're at, would you pray with me this simple prayer. Ah, Jesus, I ache. I have a longing and I feel like I've been wandering and I'm hurting, and I need you. I believe you came for me. You died for me. You rose again from the grave for me to bring me home, to bring life. And so today, Jesus, would you come and make your home in my heart, would you come and make me new?