Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
950 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025 650-323-8600
Series: Home for Christmas
1 Peter 2 and 4
December 27, 2015
“There's No Place Like Home”
Eugene Lee
I'm the campus pastor up north. I'm usually not here for obvious reasons because I'm hosting the service
there. But it's so great, so wonderful, to be a part of you guys this morning. We appreciate all of your
support, all of your prayers as God is just moving in incredible ways in the San Mateo community. I get a
front-row seat to that. I just love we're one church in many locations, and we're in ministry together.
As a campus pastor, I don't preach very often, but a few months ago, I got an opportunity to preach in San
Mateo live. I was sharing with everyone about a story from my childhood. One of my hobbies was
collecting baseball cards. Did anybody collect baseball cards before? My kids are like, "What are baseball
cards?" You know, everything is on a device now.
I didn't have many good baseball cards as a kid. I just wasn't the lucky one. So when I got together with
my friends and we wanted to trade baseball cards, nobody wanted to talk to me. Nobody wanted to look at
my album. Nobody wanted to trade with my cards. I was always off to the side doing my own thing. I
remember thinking, "Man, if I just had one special card, everybody would want to talk to me. I'd be
accepted. I'd be embraced. People would want to look at my album."
The card I wanted more than any other card was a Bo Jackson rookie card. Do you remember Bo Jackson?
He played professional football and professional baseball. He was just an all-star in every way. I just
wanted a Bo Jackson rookie card. Anyway, as the story goes, later on that week, someone from San Mateo
(I think one person was listening to the sermon) heard that story about the card I wanted. They went out
and found a Bo Jackson rookie card, and they put it on my desk that week. They just wrote a sweet note to
encourage me.
Isn't that the kindest thing anybody could do? Right? You know, when I was a kid, I also wanted to drive
a Ferrari when I grew up. If anybody is paying attention and you have an extra Ferrari in your garage, you
can just park it at my place. Black would be preferable.
You know, it's great to be with you guys. I hope you had a merry Christmas. If you were here at one of
our Christmas Eve services for the very first time and you're back again, we're so honored you're with us.
We want to get to know you. We want to connect with you, and we'd love to just invite you in to our
church community.
What I love about Christmas is all the movies that come out around this time of the year. Did anybody see
the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens film (Episode VII)? Right? A lot of you have seen that. Man, I
almost cried at that point in the movie when they… Okay, I'm not going to give it away. I'm not going to
give it away. I know not everybody has seen it yet. You're one of the few people in the world who hasn't
seen the movie yet.
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Have you ever seen a movie that made you cry? Have you ever watched a film that was so well written, so
well produced, where the actors were so in touch with their characters, where the storyline was just
perfect, and it just kind of teased your heart throughout? There was a moment that it stirred you so deeply,
so profoundly, that you just burst into tears. Maybe it was a drama, a romance, a comedy, a romantic
comedy. It could've been any kind of film, and it just spoke to you in such a way that you were broken.
You let loose, and you cried.
You know, for my wife, almost any movie will do that to her. For me, I've only seen one movie my entire
life that made me cry. Do you want to guess what it was? I said almost. Well, the movie that made me cry
actually was made back in the 1930s. It was a movie called The Wizard of Oz. Some of you've seen it.
Maybe some of you haven't.
Basically, the movie is about a girl named Dorothy who lives in Kansas. She wakes up one day after a
series of events in this foreign land called Oz. In this land, she is trying to figure out how to get back
home to Kansas. She goes on this journey as she follows the yellow brick road that will lead her to the
wizard of Oz. Maybe the wizard of Oz will help her to get back to her home in Kansas.
The part of the movie that stirred me and made me cry was toward the end of the movie when Dorothy
has finally found the wizard of Oz. He is in this hot air balloon, and he says, "Hop into the balloon, and I'll
take you home. I'll take you back to Kansas." She is saying goodbye to all the friends she has made in Oz.
She is hugging, and there are tears and kisses. She is getting ready finally in that climactic moment to go
back home to Kansas and to be with her family.
Right at that moment, something happens. Her dog, Toto, sees a cat. What happens when a dog sees a cat?
It has to chase the cat, right? Dorothy is in a moment where she has to make a decision: "Do I get into the
hot air balloon and float off and go back to Kansas without Toto, or do I stay and find Toto and miss my
opportunity to go home and live in the Land of Oz forever?"
I just burst into tears at that moment. I felt a tension of, "What if I could never go home? What if I were
separated from my family and my parents?" I felt like Dorothy in that moment, and my mom came next to
me and wrapped her arm around me. I was just sobbing my eyes out because I felt that tension and that
pain and her heart just kind of tearing in two.
As the story goes, Glenda the good witch comes, and she tells Dorothy, "Actually, you've always had the
power. You've always had the power to go home any time you wanted. All you have to do is click your
heels together three times and repeat this magical phrase." What's that phrase? "There's no place like
home. There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
The next thing you know, Dorothy wakes up as if she is waking up from a dream, and she is surrounded
by her family in Kansas. She is so excited and happy to be home that she doesn't mind they don't believe
her incredible, sensational story about everything she experienced in the Land of Oz. There's no place like
home.
You know, we're wrapping up this series we've been in called Home for Christmas. I think it's a fitting
title, because recently so many of us have traveled over the holidays. Many of us have gone home for
Christmas. Some of you have come home for Christmas. AAA is estimating that over this past week, 99
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million Americans were traveling to go home for Christmas. What is home? How would you define it?
Where is home for you?
For some people, home is a place where they grew up, where they were born. It's where their roots are.
They go back home where they grew up and where they lived as a child and where they were raised from
their family. For other people, home is where their family is. It's where their parents live or where their
children live. They go home to be with family. Home can be different things to different people.
I've talked to a lot of people recently who were so excited to travel home for the holidays. They couldn't
wait to be together with family and friends and to sit around the table and share meals and stories and just
catch up on life. I also talked to a lot of people who were timid, afraid, and nervous to go home. They
weren't quite sure what the conversation was going to be like, what was going to come up around the
table. They weren't sure if those same, old dynamics that had hurt them in the past were going to rear their
heads again. So they weren't actually looking forward to going home.
See, home can be two different places for two different people, right? Home has a powerful influence over
human life. It shapes us in incredible ways. Children who never find a place to belong carry with them an
incapacity for attachment into their adult lives. That's what home can do for us. If we never find a place
where we belong, a place that feels like home, a place that suits us and meets our needs, it shapes us in a
certain way that we have a hard time attaching and committing to others and settling as we grow into
adults.
Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, writes about home in his book
The Prodigal God. This is what he says. "Home, then, 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 that no real place or actual family ever
satisfies these yearnings, though many situations arouse them."
What Tim Keller is suggesting is that deep inside every single person is a yearning, a longing, a deep
desire, to be in a place or to find a place where we are fully known, where we are fully loved, where we
are fully accepted, where we can flourish in every possible way, where there's acceptance, security, and
safety.
The reason every human being longs for a place like that is we were actually all created to live in a place
like that. If you go all the way back to the beginning of the Bible in Genesis, it tells us God created a
garden, a paradise. In the center of this paradise, he put Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve had everything
they could ever possibly want. This is where life flourished for Adam and Eve spiritually, physically, and
socially. There was no sin. There was no sickness. There was no death.
At the center of this perfect paradise was this intimate relationship with God. That was home. That's what
we were all created for. But you know the story. Adam and Eve wanted some autonomy. They wanted to
live a little independently from God. They wanted to live by their own rules and by their own ways, and
so they did. That was a choice they made, and they were expelled from the garden.
Ever since that time, people have been searching and longing to find that place where they can flourish
absolutely and completely. We yearn for that, and many of us find close glimmers of that here in this life.
Others of us are still searching and longing and hoping someday we'll find that place. This idea, this
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concept, of home and journey is actually pervasive throughout the Bible. You see it from Genesis to
Revelation.
At the very beginning, you see God speaking to a man named Noah. He says, "Noah, it's going to rain a
lot, and your house is going to get flooded. You need to build a new home in a boat, in an ark. That's
where you're going to live, and that's where you're going to dwell. I will take you to a new place." Noah
finds a new home on a boat.
Then God comes to Abraham and says, "Abraham, I want you to go. Leave this place you call home, and
go to a new home I'm showing you. Start a family there, and that family will become big and will become
my people. I will care for them, and I will be their God."
God comes to a man named Moses and says, "Moses, my people are suffering under captivity as slaves in
Egypt. I want you to deliver them out of Pharaoh's grip, and I want to lead you and my people into the
Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey."
Then in the New Testament, the New Testament Christians feel like foreigners and exiles under the
Roman captivity. Their patriarch is now Caesar, but they know this is not their true home. They're still
waiting and holding out for a messiah who will deliver them and restore their home, their sense of home.
Home has a powerful influence on all of us. At Christmas, God makes his home with us. At Christmas,
Jesus Christ is born. God sends his Son to dwell among us. I love the way the gospel of John is translated
according to The Message Bible. It says in chapter 1, verse 14, "The Word became flesh and blood, and
moved into the neighborhood." I love that translation! God moved into the neighborhood. John talked
about this at Christmas Eve. He said God is at his best when he makes his home in our hearts.
So what happens? What happens when God moves into the neighborhood and makes his home in our
hearts? Well, I think three things happen. First of all, what happens is radical community takes place.
Secondly, there's a releasing of ministry among God's people. Thirdly, there's a revealing of God's great
love. Let me say that again. Radical community takes place, there's a releasing of ministry among God's
people, and there's a revealing of God's great love to all the world.
1. Radical community takes place. The apostle Peter writes about this. He writes to the church in 1 Peter,
chapter 2, and he explains it like this. "As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but
chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house
[a spiritual home] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus
Christ."
You see, Peter is writing to a community of people who feel like they're far from home. He is speaking to
a community of people who are experiencing persecution, suffering, and oppression from every angle.
Life is hard for them, but Peter says, "Do you know what? God is with you. God is in your midst." To
encourage them, he says, "You are now being built into a spiritual house, a temple where God dwells.
You are being built together as a community of living stones."
Now what is Peter talking about? What are living stones? Well, imagine this. Imagine being a mason, and
you're building a brick wall or a house. Imagine you're building a stone wall, and you're laying one brick
upon another. You're laying one stone upon another because you're building up a wall, or you're building
a structure, or you're building a house.
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Every brick, every stone, is bearing the weight of one another. Every brick, every stone, is important.
They're interconnected. They're interdependent. If you remove one stone or one brick from that wall or
from that structure, it will threaten the integrity of the entire wall, the entire structure. Every single brick,
every single stone, is important to the strength of the wall, to the strength of the building.
In other words, Peter is saying, "Now that God has moved into the neighborhood and has made his home
in your hearts, you are a community of living stones that are becoming a spiritual house. You are now a
radical community that is interconnected and interdependent upon one another. Every single one of you is
vitally important. If any one of you were missing, the entire community would be weakened. The entire
community's strength would be compromised. Every single one of you matters to God. You matter to this
house, and you matter because God has made his home in your heart."
You see, interdependence is a pretty radical idea, because in this world, we're told, "Autonomy is the way
to go. Be successful so you don't have to depend on anyone. Make a name for yourself." Right? That's
what the world celebrates and prizes. "If I can get to the top, I'll win. I'll be the winner. It's lonely at the
top, but I'll be at the top."
Radical community according to the Scripture says we are together in every possible way. We make
decisions together. We go through life together. We celebrate victories and successes together, and we
mourn and comfort one another in times of loss and defeat. Paul writes to the church. He says, "Rejoice
with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." He is saying, "In every aspect of life, be together
and do it together. Support one another. Love one another.
As one of my friends likes to say, "Radical community is when we have refrigerator rights (when I can
walk into your house at any time without even knocking or ringing the doorbell and I can go straight to
your refrigerator and open it up and find something to eat." That's pretty radical, isn't it? But that's what
Peter is talking about. When God moves into the neighborhood and he makes his home in your hearts, you
become interconnected and interdependent.
My family moved out here to California a couple of years ago. One of the things personally I love about
living in California is the trees. I love palm trees. Palm trees just remind me of paradise, or they remind
me of tropical places. But I also am in love with redwoods, these big, tall, majestic trees. Sequoia trees. It
takes, you know, a group of people to wrap their arms around them. I love going into the Redwood Forest
and just going on a hike and just looking up and just seeing how high they go and watching sunlight just
kind of break through the trees and the branches up top.
Someone told me recently that the redwood trees only exist in certain parts of the country, particularly
here in northern California. There are no redwood trees on the East Coast where I've lived my entire life.
The reason is that if you were to take a redwood tree and take it out to the East Coast, a hurricane would
knock it down in a heartbeat. A strong gust of wind would just knock it over because it's so big and it's so
tall. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, right?
The reason an earthquake or a drought or a storm can't knock down a redwood tree in northern California
is they exist together in a forest. Deep beneath the surface of the earth, their roots go deep down, and they
are interwoven and interconnected together. You take one tree out of the forest, and it won't last a week.
But you put that tree in a forest, and it lasts for hundreds of years and can withstand any challenge the
weather or this world can bring.
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That is what Peter is saying about the community of faith when God dwells with us. When God moves
into the neighborhood and he makes his home in our hearts, we become an interdependent community. I
can't wait till next week when we start this new series Squad Goals about this idea of life together,
because this is so important for us as we become a Jesus church. As we continue to become a Jesus
church, we become a radical community together.
That's the first thing. The next thing that happens when God moves into the neighborhood and makes his
home in our hearts is…
2. There is a releasing of ministry. Everybody experiences ministry together. Peter goes on to write in 1
Peter, "…you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." That second part of the verse is
what I want to focus on. "…holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God…"
What does Peter mean by that? Well, in the Old Testament, the priesthood was that group of people from
a particular line and family and tribe that were set apart to minister to the people of God. Oftentimes when
the people of God would sin or they would break covenant with God or they would go their own way, it
was the priesthood that would come and mediate between God and the people and make things right.
They would offer animal sacrifices at the temple to atone for the sins of Israel. That way the relationship
between people and God could be restored. Their relationship could be repaired, and they could be
together again. That's what the priesthood did. They were the mediators. Now that God has moved into
the neighborhood, now that God has made his home in our hearts and we are a community, a living house
of living stones, now Peter calls all of us a holy priesthood.
He calls all of us to offer spiritual sacrifices to one another. That means every single one of us now are a
part of the ministry. There's a releasing of the ministry when God makes his home in our hearts. What are
spiritual sacrifices? What is ministry? Well, Peter elaborates on that as we continue in 1 Peter. He says…
"Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because
love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you
should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its
various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone
serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised
through Jesus Christ."
You see, Peter goes through a list of things here that we can be doing to offer spiritual sacrifices to others
because we are now the holy priesthood. He begins off the top by saying, "You should pray. You should
pray for one another!" One of the things I love about Menlo is, any service you come to, you can receive
prayer. Right after the service, you can come right up. If there's something you're going through, you need
wisdom for a decision, you just need somebody to pray for you, that is available at every service you
come to at every campus. We are a people of prayer.
Peter is saying, "Pray for people. Pray for people you know. Pray for people you don't know. Pray for
people who like you. Pray for people who don't like you." There's a story of a family once who called the
church, and they asked to talk to the pastor. They said, "Pastor, would you come to our house? Our mom
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has been sick for a really long time. She has had the flu for weeks. Would you mind coming to our house
and praying for her?"
The pastor knew this family quite well and also knew this family was attending another church down the
road. The pastor said, "Well, wouldn't it make more sense for you to call your pastor so he would come to
your house and pray for your sick mom?" They said, "Yeah, we would, but what if he gets sick?" In other
words, they were saying, "You come, because we don't care if you get sick." Right?
Do you know what? Whether people are for us or against us, whether they're for our good or not, we are
now a radical community that releases ministry to serve and meet the needs of everyone around us. I
believe God is always teeing up people in our lives for whom we can be praying. Maybe there's somebody
at work who had a rough holiday season. Maybe there's somebody you know in your community who is
having a lot of struggles at home or they have a lot of really big decisions to make in the new year, and
they're not really sure what to do.
Well, what we can do is we can say, "You know, I'll pray for you. I'll be praying for you. Let me know
how I can pray for you." This is one of the ways we can extend God's love and minister to people around
us. Then Peter goes on to talk about serving and hospitality. As many of you all know, we've been
receiving the Christmas offering for the last few weeks. I love that we do this together as a church. We
take our generosity, and we pull it together. We say, "We're going to use this gift to bless and to serve and
to meet the needs of our community around us."
Not only are we receiving this offering, but we're also going to organize and mobilize thousands of people
in just a few months to go all throughout the peninsula to serve and to support and to minister to and to
care for the needs of the people who live around us. We are the holy priesthood now, and we're offering
spiritual sacrifices. When God moves into the neighborhood and he makes his home in our hearts, not
only are we a radical community, but we are ministers who are released for ministry.
Lastly, when God moves into the neighborhood and he makes his home in our hearts…
3. There's a revealing of God's great love to the world. Peter writes, "But you are a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who
called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the
people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
What Peter is saying is now you belong to God. You belong to the family of faith. You live in the house
of God. You are sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. You are this radical community, and you now
have gifts you can use to serve others. But all of this is so you can declare the praises of him who brought
you out of darkness into the marvelous light.
What that means is we declare the incredible goodness and greatness and love of God not only to God but
also to the world, because when we worship God, two things happen. When we worship God, God gets
honored. God gets blessed. God is exalted for who he is and for what he has done. When we declare his
praises and worship him, people see we're different, that there is a different foundation on which our
community is built.
We have a different hope, a different reason to belong. We have a different purpose. We are not chosen
for privilege. We're chosen for purpose, and that purpose is to serve the world and to let the whole world
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know God is good. God has a plan for this world. God wants to restore and renew this world so it can be
like the garden again. God has called us to be a part of the restoring of that garden.
As a church, together we can create a home where anybody can come, where anybody can belong, where
anybody can be loved and accepted, no matter where they're from, no matter what they've done, no matter
who they are, because God has moved into the neighborhood. We become a radical community, and the
reason why we can do that… The power comes from the fact that Jesus came to earth at Christmas 2,000
years ago. That wasn't it. Jesus was the one who was rejected in our place so we could be accepted in his.
Now that we are accepted by God and loved by God and forgiven by God, we can love and bless and
serve and forgive anyone and everyone else right here and outside the walls of this church. When God
moves into the neighborhood, when God makes his home in our hearts, we become a radical community,
everyone in this room is released for ministry, and we get to reveal the goodness of God together. Amen?
Would you bow your heads with me?
God, we thank you so much that you sent your Son Jesus to us as a baby born in a manger 2,000 years
ago, that the Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood. God, we're so thankful you
desire to make your home in our hearts and that you bless us and love us and receive us as your children.
God, we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude. We worship you, and we thank you. As we end this
year and begin a new one, we give you praise. We declare your praise together and to the world. We pray
this in Jesus' name, amen.
Charley Scandlyn: Hang on, Eugene. Can we say thank you to Eugene? Just say what a blessing and a
gift he is. I just want to stop you for a second. You know, it's been really fun to watch what's happening at
San Mateo. It's an exciting ministry, an exciting campus. Eugene has been a gift to our campus pastor
team and our whole church. It would be great to hear what you're most excited about at San Mateo and
maybe how we can pray for you guys.
Eugene: Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been to the San Mateo Campus. We'd love to have you
sometime. We're a growing campus. We started off a little small, but we're excited about reaching more
people for Jesus. Kind of like what we just talked about now, creating a home, a campus, in San Mateo
where we can invite anyone and everyone to be loved and accepted and to receive care and ministry and
just to be a family together.
Charley: Yeah. Well, how can we pray for you guys? You have some vision things you guys are excited
about.
Eugene: Right. We want to reach 1 percent of all the people who live within a five-mile radius of our
campus. There are about 160,000 people who live within five miles of our campus. So 1 percent is like
1,600 people. Right now we're at about 800. We're halfway there. We'd love your prayers and support so
we can get the rest of the way and reach more people for Jesus.
Charley: Yeah, you should see. It's very exciting. I want to say thank you to you guys. You know, you are
a part of that. You were such an important part of launching the San Mateo Campus. What a gift that is to
know there's this thriving community of people who are worshiping every weekend with you guys. Let me
pray for Eugene right now.
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Jesus, thank you that you would bring Eugene and Esther and their three boys to our church. You have
called them to minister to a community that so needs you. Thank you for the whole San Mateo team and
the San Mateo church that's there, that campus. God, would you bless them? Would you use them to reach
people for you? May they be the community you have called them to be, and may they know your
goodness every day they serve you. God, anoint Eugene and their team. We pray all these things in your
name, amen.
Would you give Eugene another big hand?
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