My Father's House

My Father’s House

By Pastor Jim May

Many years ago there was a movie produced that bore the title, “The Wizard of Oz”. Now I don’t believe that we should be honoring wizards, and I certainly don’t promote Hollywood and the movie industry as a shining example of righteousness, but I see in that story a little bit of what we all face in life.

When man fell in the Garden of Eden and was cast out, and lost that place of perfect peace with God, I can just imagine what went through Adam’s mind as he looked at the world of sin where he had been sent and he could well have said, “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, Eve.” (I guess, depending upon how much you like that area of the world, he could have said, “Well, I guess we’re in Kansas, Eve.) But seriously though, Adam, and every man since Adam, has had to face the powers of evil as he walked through life. Everywhere you look there are scarecrows, men who attempt to rule by fear and very few of them ever turn out to be very friendly. Every where you look it seems that there is a “tin man”, a man without a heart, who cares about no one, nor anything, other than himself.

Do we face the lions? Oh yes, we certainly do. There are two great lions in my life. Maybe someday I should preach about those two lions more in detail. One of those lions is Satan; the devil, who goes about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. But thank God for the other “Lion” in my life, for He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the symbol of the power and majesty of my Lord Jesus Christ.

At the end of that movie, after Dorothy had traveled the long, hard and dangerous journey with the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion, she finally discovered a wonderful truth and said, “There’s no place like home.”

That’s what I want to talk to you about today; I want to tell you that there’s no place like home. I want to welcome you home. I want to welcome you to my Father’s house.

There’s an old chorus that says, “Come and go with me to my Father’s House, where there’s peace, there’s love and there’s joy!” I like that chorus because it always brings to my remembrance just what I can find in my Father’s House. It reminds me that, in my Father’s House, is where I want to be.

When we were living in sin, chasing after the things of this world, and giving God little or no thought, there was no real peace. Oh we might have had a little cease fire in the battles of life every once in a while, but there was no lasting peace.

A wise man by the name of Job knew what he was talking about from personal experience when he wrote those words in Job 14:1, "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." But peace doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of trouble does it?

We often think of peace as a time when no is going wrong, when the kids aren’t feuding, all the family is speaking calmly to one another, things are going right at the job, and there’s no fighting going on in the world. But how many of you know that you can have all those things and still not be at peace with yourself? While a part of peace may be determined by what is going on in the world around you, the biggest part of peace will always be determined by what’s going on inside of you.

Real peace can only come when we are right with God. He is the source of real peace. Jesus said in John 14:27, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

The kind of peace that I can feel in my Father’s House is a peace that is there even when everything around me seems to be going wrong. After the boss has given us a hard time all day long, we can still lay our head down at night and rest in the peace that Jesus gives. There may not be peace in the home. There will be no peace in this world. But you can have peace in your heart when you live in My Father’s House.

There is a song that I always loved to hear. It always seemed to be such an encouragement. I went like this:

When my soul was disturbed with sorrow,