Make Your Home In My Love

July 8, 2020

By Tim Shaw, Associate Pastor

In 1988 an earthquake shook the European country of Armenia, and in a matter of minutes 30,000 people were dead. After the shaking stopped, a father ran to an elementary school to look for his young son. What greeted him was just a mound of rubble. His boy was somewhere underneath this collapsed building. He figured out the location of where his son’s classroom once stood, and he began, with his bare hands, to pull the broken stones off the pile. Piece by piece, he lifted the shattered concrete blocks. As he did, he remembered a promise he had made to his son. “No matter what happens, I will always be there for you.”



Eight hours of digging turned into sixteen, then thirty-two, and then thirty-six. In the thirty-eighth hour this father lifted a stone and heard his son’s voice. He called to his boy, “Arman! Arman!” And the voice answered, “Dad, it’s me.” After his rescue the boy said that he told the other kids who were trapped underneath the collapsed school, not to worry. “I told them that if you were alive you would save me and when you saved me, they’d be saved too. I knew that you would keep your promise. “No matter what happens, I will always be there for you.”

That’s the kind of love our God has for us, and he has proven that through what He did in coming to our shattered world in Jesus Christ. When our lives are falling apart, when hope seems shattered, when our dreams have died, God says “I love you” with a love like this. He has come to get us. He has come to pull us from the rubble of failed relationships and broken dreams. He has come to rescue us from the destruction that the earthquakes in our lives have caused. 

There is no better news in the world than the good news that there is a God who loves us with a tenacious love like this. There is so much pain and brokenness in our lives we sometimes have a very difficult time believing this is actually true. Many of us have so many experiences of broken promises in our human relationships that we don’t know how to abide, how to rest, how to entrust ourselves to Jesus Christ, the One who has this burning, passionate, unchanging, unshakeable love for us.

A good friend of mine, who is also a Presbyterian pastor, tells a story about a trip we took together to Hawaii from California a long time ago. Steve Schibsted has used this story in a lot of sermons. He even told it one time when I was sitting in the sanctuary at his church, calling me out by name! It’s a great story but it comes at my expense. Here’s how Steve tells it. 

“My family and I and a good friend of ours (that’s a reference to me) went to Hawaii for vacation. And as usual, we were running a bit late in getting to the airport. Our friend is the type who gets to the airport two hours before the flight, so our running late was getting him a little nervous. I just kept telling him "Tim, relax, it's only 7 minutes from our front door to the United terminal.” (Steve, his wife Leslie and young son Drew, lived close to San Francisco International Airport at the time.)

Well, we ended up being more than just a few minutes late. We were so late that United had given our seats away to other customers. Something about the flight being very full. Steve continues, “You can imagine my friend (me) was not very happy at this point. But the agent at the gate said, "Well, hold on for a second. Let's see if we can work something out."

A few minutes later she came back with some great news: "Mr. Schibsted, we have some room in business class, so we'll upgrade you free of charge. Would that be OK with you?”

Steve then went on preaching, “Now, you have to understand something to really appreciate this whole scene. We are an economy class flying family. We never fly anything but economy, so this was a whole new world for us. Flying to Hawaii is always a great experience. Have you ever noticed that? Everybody is going on vacation so everybody is happy, the customers are happy, the flight attendants are happy, everybody’s happy. But flying in business class--it's another world. There was all kinds of room. You can actually get comfortable. And they gave us seats right in front of the movie screen so there was this big area for our son Drew to play. The flight attendant addressed me as Mr. Schibsted and actually pronounced my name correctly.

“And it just got better. Before-dinner drinks, after-dinner drinks. Real silverware and table cloths with dinner. Filet mignon. Warm towels to clean your hands. Great movie. As I was sitting there I thought: this is just like God's grace. I did nothing to deserve this. In fact, I made a huge mistake. I sinned, and yet they are treating me like I had personally paid to be in business class. I kept wanting to tell the flight attendant, ‘You don't understand—I’m not supposed to be up here. The only reason I’m here is because I was so late getting to the airport.’"

Steve continues, “That’s just like grace. It’s absolutely free. Grace is a gift. It’s God’s unmerited favor. It’s something like United Airlines upgrading a customer who did nothing to deserve it. In fact, we made lots of mistakes. We didn’t deserve it. And yet there we were. A free upgrade to Hawaii. That’s just like God's love toward us. There is nothing we can do to earn it.

Steve, concludes his little sermon illustration by saying, “And you know, because I didn't deserve it, it was even more pleasurable, more fun. I totally enjoyed it. Not only that, I had a great deal of fun telling my friend (me) that this is exactly how I planned it. It was just pure joy.”

Grace is like that, a total surprise, pure joy. In John 15:9, Jesus says to His disciples, “As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you. Abide in My love.” That is an astonishingly rich, potentially life-transforming and extremely disruptive verse of Scripture. Think about it. Jesus says to His disciples, “As God the Father has loved Him, so He has loved us. As God the Father has loved Him, so He has loved us.” 

Let’s stop and think about that for a moment. Even a meager appreciation of what Jesus is saying here should explode our hearts with gratitude that we have a God who is like the One revealed to the world in Jesus Christ. God the Father loves God the Son with a love that is beyond measuring. The love the Father, Son, and Spirit have for one another is so intense, the Triune God is described as love itself.

God the Son loves us with a love that is just as great, just as intense and unchanging as the love Jesus experienced from God the Father. That is incredible. That is love that can begin to heal and transform us. Jesus then goes on to say in the last half of John 15:9, “Abide in My love.” Jesus wants us to make our home in His love. That’s where He wants us to live our lives. He wants our lives immersed in that love. The love we see in the homecoming of the Prodigal Son is that kind of love. It’s a love that waits, that watches, that runs to embrace us when we turn towards home. It’s a love that forgives and blesses. It’s a love that encourages and enables us to begin again. It is with a love like that, that Jesus loves us. Today, He wants us to abide, rest, relax and trust His love for us.

Prayer: Gracious God, thank You for removing the debris from the earthquakes of our lives and setting us free to live liberated lives that are filled with ever deeper experiences of Your love. Come, Holy Spirit, and fill us with Your love. Help us to rest in Your love and make our home with You there. In Jesus Name we pray, Amen. 

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