ABC's of Salvation
July 17, 2005 am
JOY IN THE JUNKYARD!
Isaiah 58:12
“Those from among you shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell in.”
I love a good junk yard. Even at times when I don’t want to be searching for a car part I need. I love to walk around and look at the various cars that have definitely seen better days. These “bone yards” are great places to find that alternator at a cheaper price or that used air conditioning unit or the broken door handle. Instead of buying a new part I go for a good used part. It’s cheaper and usually just as good.
When I see cars I imagine quite often the first day that that car or van was driven off the car lot. I imagine the smiling wife and the excited children in the backseat. I think of the somewhat smiling dad trying who is still figuring out if he got a good deal or not. But overall, everyone is happy as they drive their new car to the store, the family reunion and the kids to school. A friend will tell them, “Wow, you got a new car. How do you like it?” On and on life goes as the car goes with them.
But one, day most cars will end up in the yard. Waylaid by old age, breaking down parts and maybe even a serious accident. That good old car you drive now will one day be torn down for parts to help someone else limp their vehicle along a few more miles.
I think about the old waste places that Isaiah speaks of. I consider how the countryside of Israel had become a junkyard- filled with the broken memories of yesteryears.
I also consider some of our homes. Some of you may look back at better years in your marriage. There was a time when you drove off into life after “I do. And then the wedding car experienced life. Potholes of disagreement grew bigger with each passing winter. Trust began to turn to rust. Sure, you patched things up but sooner or later you began to realize that this “just ain’t workin’ like it used ta.”
Maybe your marriage and your home has become a junkyard of sorts. And it doesn’t matter how clean or how messy your home is kept or how well you dress or not or if you have a new car or an old used one, your lives seem like the waste places.
And what can really complicate the matter is that maybe a few here have seen the mess growing up. In fact, you feel as though you live in the same junkyard your parents and their parents lived.
But God has a better plan for you this morning. He wants to restore that old rust bucket and reach down into your marriage, into your home, into your family and into your heart and give you His Holy Spirit to not only live with that cantankerous spouse but to love him or her. Not only live for your children but to love your children. Not only live with your parents but to love your parents.
Isaiah was probably the most descriptive writer in the scriptures. His imagery of truth cannot be compared to most other Biblical writers. And in this situation we find him homing in on the truth of God’s restoration of the people of Israel to their homeland.
The nation of Israel had been disobedient to God. They had ignored Him and worshipped idols and committed despicable acts against God. They were to become a conquered nation and their land was to be laid to waste. It became a junkyard of sorts. Villages were plundered, families separated and homes destroyed. Their sin brought on their own destruction.
The Prophet Isaiah is foretelling of a time when the wasted places will be built once again. True, the people had forsaken God in all their ways and made a mess of their lives but yet God is merciful- as the Psalmist says over and over again. True, the people didn’t deserve another chance yet God in His great mercy and love was going to help them rebuild their ancient ruins.
Thank God for His mercy. We love His justice when it is us who are offended. But we love His mercy when we are the offender.
And after a fresh rainfall, blossoming roses will appear in the land that was a desert of waste.
God desires to restore your home in such a fashion that you will not look to the world’s glitz and glamour for affirmation. In fact the Christian home is not built to look like the world.
Do you believe that God wants to make your home a place of gladness and joy? Do you believe that God wants to restore your home, restore your soul and return the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers?
I am convinced that if we are going to have a healthy and growing church it will be because we have healthy and growing families. And we desperately need healthy and growing families in a world that is increasing desperate.
The people of Israel have been given a new lease on life. They received a second chance. They got what a lot of people never get: a new opportunity. How many times have you and I received another chance to make something right? How many times have we faced the tall wall of saying “I’m sorry” and failed? How many times have you ignored the chance to make your marriage better and your home more secure?
In these chapters there is the discussion of the importance of holy living as being the result of salvation. If you are saved then your life will express that salvation in how you live. It will be expressed best in how you live at home.
Let me say something about holiness. We Wesleyans are supposed to live distinct lives of holiness before God and people. We believe that God not only calls all men to salvation but that he also calls us to live as though we are saved. We have built into our systematic theology this thing called entire sanctification. In fact, we believe that the sin nature is removed from us by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We are now set free from the guilt of sins committed through forgiveness and we are cleansed of inward sin and that bent toward the sin nature is turned the other way. The old nature of sin has been put death by giving it a pink slip. It is now paralyzed and unemployed. This is very important for you as a Christian to understand. It doesn’t mean that we can never sin again but it simply means that we don’t have to.
I was thinking the last few weeks as I have pondered this issue of holiness in my own life and in your life that what better place to test holiness than in the family structure. Your home is the inner sanctuary of daily life. Who you are as a father or husband, who you are as a mother or wife, and who you are as a child in the home will have the longest reaching impact in life than who you are in the church.
Holiness has come to mean to me that how I act around my family and how I react to my family is a greater test of my faithfulness to God than any other test at church or the workplace.
Let’s face it, we can put on the right kind of mask for any situation. We can fake it pretty good. But God knows what your home is like.
Show me someone who is faithful to God in regards to his family and I’ll show you someone who is faithful in all things.
Let me ask you a series of questions.
Does your home life seem to you as though it is a wasted place- a dry desert where there is no spirituality?
Is your home life a place of negativity and put-downs?
Is your home a place of peace and rest from the weariness of life?
Is Jesus Christ Lord in your home?
These are powerful questions that should wake some up to what’s happening.
A home should never be a place of fear. A home should never be a place of chaos. A home should never be a place of sin.
God wants to rebuild the wasted places- those ancient ruins. And today, God wants to take your home and remake it to His glory and for your blessing.
So what should be the mark of a good Christian home?
1. The Christian Home should be a place of REJOICING.
This past spring there was ado about the rainfall in Death Valley, California. It seems that the last time Death Valley received rain was over 100 years ago. What was the result? Flowers blossomed and greenery was seen in a place of waste.
When God rains His love into your home there will be rejoicing. You will experience a newness of life. You will start see changes- even the subtle that shift your focus and shift your life in a new direction.
Your children should sense a daily worship at home. There should be a constant atmosphere of seeking God and seeking God’s will.
2. The Christian Home should be a place of REVELATION.
The last part of verse two says this: “They shall see the glory of the Lord, the excellancy of our God.”
This is spiritual revelation. And why not in the home? I suggest to you that the best spiritual growth cannot be found at church. If you come to church and feel as though you are not being fed, then something is wrong at home. It’s one thing if the church is teaching heresy or ignoring vital doctrinal instruction but it’s quite another when the lessons taught are Biblical and doctrinal.
Mom’s and Dad’s: the best teacher of spiritual things for your children is you. If any expects the church to do the job then you’re barking up the wrong tree.
I made very clear as a youth pastor that my role was simply to enhance the home ministry that should already be taking place by the parents. I was not about to take it on the chin because somebody’s kids wandered from God. “I’ll do what I’m paid to do and you do what you’re supposed to do.”
3. The Christian Home should be a place of RECONCILIATION.
“Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.”
Just as God disciplines the children- such as us- that He loves, so to we discipline our children- not because we want them to do things our way but because we truly love them.
Have you seen a two-year-old grasping whatever is in sight? They love to claim whatever is in their hands. And so when Momma tells the little tyke, “Don’t touch that!”
What is his or her instinct? “I’ll touch it.” And so he does. And the good Christian Momma gently swats his hand and says, “No!”
She doesn’t swat his bottom at that age because his bottom didn’t disobey, his hand did. As the child grows a little bit older the swat may reach the bottom but the child now has begun to understand right from wrong and that there is an association of discomfort with disobedience. The parent never slaps a child in the face or on the head- this is demeaning and degrading to the image in which this child is created.
And let me add something about punishment. Whether a family practices moderate corporal punishment or none at all, the discipline must be consistent. (I’ll tackle this issue in the coming weeks.)
I talk about punishment because there must always be reconciliation. When you have a disagreement it should conclude with reconciliation. Somehow find that place of saying, “I’m sorry” is important for the one who is wrong and learning to accept an apology without gloating is important for the one who is wronged.
This is how we strengthen the weak hands in the home. We reconcile ourselves to each other. We submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
4. The Christian Home should be a place of REWARD.
In verse four, we are to be encouraged knowing that God will reward those who do evil against Him. At the tail end of that verse Isaiah writes, “He will come and save you.”
What a wonderful heavenly Father we have. Someone who will come and save us. This is our reward.
Likewise, the Christian home, the very foundation Christian living, will have the heavenly Father come and save it. Your reward as a Christian home is salvation.
The home is a place where first rewards must come. So what I hear different people tell me how proud of me they are. But when my mom tells me a few months before she died- now it means something. So what if everyone tells you, “Happy birthday!” But when your loved one says something… yeah, it’s different.
Just as our heavenly Father rewards our faithfulness, so should the home be a place of rewards. A home of pure discipline is no home at all. But a home filled with love and discipline, where rewards are found in kind words and nice gestures, is a truly a place where God can work.
Conclusion
Maybe you feel overwhelmed by the immensity of desolation in your home. Perhaps you feel as though your home is a desert wasteland. That marriage isn’t chugging along like it used to.
I tell you that there is hope.
There is hope in the face of hopelessness if you will only surrender your will to God’s will.
There is hope in the face of tough circumstances. Every home encounters tough trouble. None of us are exempt from suffering in life. We will all deal with difficulty. Every marriage will reach a crossroads. Every child will challenge us to some degree or another.
Do you desire for God rework your home?
Here’s what you do.
Surrender your way to the Lord. Are you fully surrendered to God’s will?
This means for husbands to surrender their leadership role to the Lord so that He can retool you into the spiritual leader you should be.
This calls for wives to fully surrender their help-mate role so that God can retool you to be the wife and mother God has called you to be.
This requires children- both young and old- to go back to that fourth commandment, “Honor your father and mother” and let God heal the wounds of childhood.
And before anything can truly happen it calls on you to seek forgiveness and restoration of your own heart.
Hanging on the wall of my dad’s living room is a picture of Jesus walking on water in the midst of the storm. I remember the day that he brought that picture home. I was in fourth grade and we as a family were going through tough times. When he hung the picture on the wall he told us how he had come to get it. He worked for LaRoach’s Used Furniture as a delivery and pick-up man. On that day he and his partner, Domingo, had to haul some junk to the dump. As they unloaded the truck something caught his eye. He walked across the piles the trash to a picture lying among heaps of refuse. And there he found a picture of grace and power and majesty.
And in your home Jesus wants to do more than hang on your wall. He wants to work out His Holy Spirit in your heart and your home.
Are you in desperate need of the Holy Spirit’s power this morning? Are you ready to surrender your will and your way so that the roses can blossom once again in your family?