Heaven is my Home

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] hey there it is great to be with you i am so honored to get to share god's word with you today on this second week of our online church service my name is lane trans i'm one of the pastors here at church of the highlands i've had the privilege of being here almost 20 years i was able to be here with pastor chris when we started the church and i'm honored to help him by overseeing all of our different locations each and every week i traveled to different campuses and last weekend i was in columbus i had a great time the weekend before that at riverchase the weekend before that it's in the shoals and and just loving love love love being with our church family but i'm excited uh that we have this online only experience during our at the movie series this is the first time we've ever had this uh opportunity usually we go to a a previous best of message and we're just excited to get to study god's word with you today if you have your bibles you can go to romans chapter eight that's our our theme text uh for these three weeks while we're having our at the movies series that are in person gatherings of course we've talked a lot about how crazy uh 2020 has been and i think i think at nauseum we talk about all the negative of 2020 but here in this kind of thanksgiving week we're just have so many things that we could think about that we could be thankful for i'm thankful for all of those uh in our church family at our alabama department of corrections facilities we want to welcome you uh as a part of our family to be a part of this service we're so glad that you're with us and of course we have military that join in online each and every week from around the world and during this thanksgiving week we want to look at the camera and say thank you thank you thank you for how you serve and protect us we're so grateful for you but in in this crazy year called 2020 i i think it's important for us to remember that god can do great things he can take negative and turn it positive he can take the bad and make it good that's actually a promise of his in the scripture and i want to talk for a moment about some of the good that has come uh in 2020 for me it's it's been family time like i don't remember my my daughters are 21 and 19 years old and i don't remember when previous to march when we had ever spent three nights in a row at the dinner table together i i don't even remember when that had happened and then quarantine happened and we were having dinner together every night so that was that was an amazing positive result of of quarantine and and connecting with family through zoom that i hadn't connected with uh connecting with pastor friends all over the world more often because of technology and just thinking about connecting with people and then this one's kind of fun we we bought a portable pickleball net i don't know if you've ever heard of pickleball i hadn't known much about it before quarantine but i wanted to get outside wanted to have some kind of activity uh to do with my daughters and their boyfriends yes both of my girls have boyfriends and we knew that through quarantine that they'd end up coming over to our house so we bought a portable pickleball net pickleball is basically large ping pong or small tennis we just set it up on the driveway it's not totally flat but we have enough driveway there we took some tape and marked out the lines and and we play pickleball and we've continued that tradition even after lockdown kind of let up we've played a lot of pickleball in our driveway the last seven eight months and uh chapman and luke i will continue to be better than you no matter how many times we play i just got to stay in their heads because they're actually better than me but i don't want them to know that anyways uh it's just there is positive that has come out of it and that's that's what i i want us to dive in as this is our our theme text here romans chapter eight uh for these three weeks pastor dino did a phenomenal job uh last week and we'll talk more about that in a minute but all three weeks of these at the movies weeks this is our theme text no despite all these things despite 2020 despite covid despite a crazy election season despite despite despite all these things overwhelming victories is ours through christ who loved us and i am convinced that nothing nothing can ever separate us from god's love neither death nor life nor angels or demons neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow not even the powers of hell can separate us from god's love no power in the sky or in the earth below indeed nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of god that is revealed in christ jesus our lord so not even the devil the enemy of our soul the one who prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour the one who comes to steal kill and destroy not even the devil can separate us from god's love so no matter what happens to us god is with us as we are stepping into this christmas season i always loved the term immanuel god with us but one of the enemies most horrible strategies to separate us from god's love or more more probably accurate is to create a feeling of separation of god's love is pain so there's lots of things that can create the feeling and i i want to emphasize feeling because it's not fact pastor dino talked about loneliness and how it creates this feeling of separating us from god's love but the reality is he's emmanuel he's with us always even when we feel he's distant even when he feels so far away he's actually right there but the enemy wants to create that feeling of separation and i i i think one of his key strategies is pain and that's when we are in a situation where we're experiencing pain to the degree that where we would question why god many of us have asked that question before maybe it was through the loss of a loved one maybe a diagnosis a broken marriage a wayward child we end up in a place where we're questioning god and we feel like he's far away because of the pain that we're experiencing not that many weeks ago i lost a friend of mine way too early 62 years old five beautiful grown children well the youngest is 16 and then several grandchildren what what a beautiful family and it was just tragic to lose him and standing there officiating the graveside service experiencing my own pain which i promise you was very small and my own grief which was very small compared to that of of his wife and his children and his grandchildren but understanding and even asking myself god why him a great man great dad great he's a pastor great pastor great friend why and i know you've been there i think all of us have experienced that moment where we feel like god's nowhere to be found he's not close we maybe even question if he's even real because he feels so distant the the pain has caused this feeling not fact of distance jesus was actually clear that that this life was was going to include some pain and i i hate that i wish when when we establish a relationship with jesus we give our life to jesus that everything would get fixed and life would be perfect after that but he doesn't promise us that and in john chapter 16 we see what he says here he's speaking to his disciples jesus answered them do you finally believe in fact you're about to make a run for it see what what he's talking about is is is he sees he's about to get arrested uh falsely accused falsely illegally arrested illegally tried and then crucified and he knows we we we talk about judas betraying jesus but all of the disciples that he's speaking to right here they're all going to scatter they're going to all be gone he's like you're about to make a run for it saving your own skins and abandoning me but i am not abandoned the father is with me i've told you all of this so that trusting me so jesus is the only way that we can experience and encounter a closeness with god so you will be unshakeable that's my prayer for you that no matter what you go through no matter how deep your pain no matter how horrible your situation or circumstance you will be unshakeable and assured deeply at peace the bible says jesus can bring a peace that doesn't make sense peace that passes understanding peace when i when i when i'm grieving but yet i feel a peace i saw that over the family that day at the graveside that afternoon back at their house i saw a piece there was grief there's tears there's pain but but there was a peace he says in this godless world see this life here on earth is a godless earth you will continue i don't this is not a refrigerator verse you don't want to put this on a a sticky note and put it on your steering wheel or on your bathroom mirror you will continue to experience difficulties but take heart i have conquered the world take heart he's conquered the world we are more than conquerors in christ jesus god has done something beautiful by sending jesus so that we can experience him in the midst of our pain let's go back several verses from our theme text we started in romans 8 37 but if we go back to 8 32 we can see some some promises from god or some perspective from god that will help us know that the fact is he is right there when he feels like he's not let's go to romans uh 8 32 since he did not spare even his own son so so god did not hold back he didn't say you know what i want to keep my son with me i don't want my my son to suffer on that broken planet earth but gave him up for us all won't he also give us everything else who dares accuse us who whom god has chosen for his own no one for god himself has given us right standing with himself and so here is a promise from the scripture that tells us he never withholds we might feel like he's distant but he's right there we might feel like he's holding back a blessing we might feel like he's holding back his love we might feel like he's holding back his presence we might feel like he is not there but he never withholds our god is not a withholding god he is a giving god he is a giver it is his nature to give and so he is there with us even when our broken world is hurting us when we are experiencing pain he is right there with us the next verse verse 34 who then will condemn us no one for christ jesus died for us and was raised to life for us and he is sitting in the place of honor at god's right hand pleading for us i want to highlight right here who then will condemn us i think most of us feel like our actions affect how close he is i know in my own life like i think all humans we because humans treat each other this way our actions will determine how people treat us and we have to know that jesus doesn't adjust his distance or closeness to us based on our actions whether we fail whether we sin whether we mess up or not is not changing where he is because he is always with us and here's the promise he never condemns that's not what he does he never condemns uh if if you're new to our church uh just to frame it up i grew up in colorado springs and i grew up in a family business a towing business if you've heard me speak before you probably heard me talk about uh some tow truck stories but i was in that family business until i was almost 30 years old when i moved here to help pastor chris start church of the highlands and and i'll never forget i was 16 years old typically i would drive our oldest truck we had a huge fleet of tow trucks and i'd always get the worst one because my dad was kind of raising me up in the business but one particular day we were really busy and i think my truck was broken down and he was very busy and so he put me in his brand new tow truck and had me go run a call i thought i was the coolest and so i went and ran this call finished towing the car and i'm headed back to our shop it's a beautiful colorado uh summer day sun's shining rocky mountains off in the distance it's awesome i've got one arm out the window and i've got one arm over the steering wheel thinking i'm the coolest dude in colorado boom i just slam in the back of a station wagon that was that had stopped in traffic and i i wasn't even paying i was so full of myself i was not paying attention that this car had stopped and i drove right into the back of that station wagon with that brand new beautiful tow truck at like 45 miles an hour thank god the driver of that car was okay but i i mean i destroyed totaled the car and did all kinds of damage to my dad's truck and it's human nature to think okay i've done a horrible thing my dad is not going to love me anymore or he's going to change how he loves me he's going to change how he treats me he might even distance himself from me he's going to be so angry at me he is going to condemn me that's where we feel we're going we that's where we feel life is going to take us i'm thankful that my dad is in my own life is a great example of how god loves us because my dad didn't do any of those things he didn't change how he treated me now he made me pay for it there is always consequence to our action there there is consequence to our sin per se but but he didn't change his he didn't he didn't say okay you can't live at the house anymore he i'm not gonna eat dinner with you anymore i'm not gonna i'm not gonna be close to he didn't do any of those things and it gave me a picture of unconditional love a father that would stay close even when i messed up and that's god he does not condemn us our actions our sins do not push him away he does not condemn verse 35 can anything ever separate us from christ's love does it mean that he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death so this has to do with not necessarily our actions condemnation is what we put on ourselves because of what we did but our circumstances all this list all these terrible things persecution hunger danger death all of that is what happens to us that we didn't have anything to do with we didn't have anything to do with cancer or covid we didn't have anything to do with uh the the business that we worked in has no longer exists they went bankrupt because of the pandemic or whatever we we we were a victim of circumstance it's the situation that we're in that has created this pain that then creates the feeling of separation but here's the promise he never leaves he never ever leaves jesus understands the feeling of separation jesus sympathizes with you empathizes with you knows what it feels like when everything comes crashing down when horrible things happen that you had no control over make you feel separated from god when jesus was hanging on the cross he even expressed the feeling that god had left him and jesus cried out from the cross right before he gave his life and said my god my god why have you forsaken me he sympathizes with you he knows the feeling of distance but we also know that god did not leave him his heavenly father did not abandon him but jesus in his love for us actually prays for us so before his arrest in john chapter 17. i wish we could read through the whole prayer i encourage you maybe after you watch this service to just open your bible whether it's on your device or a paper bible go to john 17 and read the whole prayer that jesus prayed over his disciples which is a prayer for you and a prayer for me and you sense in this prayer he understands what we are going through and out of this prayer i want to give us four promises so john chapter 17 we'll pick it up in verse 13. now i am coming to you he's you is the father he's praying to god the father i told them that's us his disciples those that are following him many things while i was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy key word joy i have given them your word key word word that's his scriptures and the world hates them because they do not belong to the world the world hates us that follow jesus the world hates us as much as ever before right now when we when we choose to follow jesus because they do not belong to this world just as i do not belong to this world so jesus is pouring his heart out to god in this prayer i am not asking you to take them out of the world he's not just saying hey i want to get them out of trouble i want to get them out of all these circumstance i want to get them out of unemployment i want to get them out of divorce i want to get them out of sickness cancer disease death and just bring them to heaven i'm not i'm not saying that but to keep them safe from the evil one they do not belong to this world any more than i do make them holy by your truth teach them there it is again your word which is truth just as you sent me into this world i am sending them into this world so there are four things that i see that god prayed for us these would be our four action steps four things that we can do to close that gap that i i submit to you the gap is not there he is with you he's right there he never left you no matter how far off how far how distant he feels he's he's been there but if we can hold on to these things that he prayed for us these promises that he prayed over us these action steps will help us keep him close like where we feel that he has closed first of all receive his joy that's the first thing he prayed that there would be a joy and i i submit to you that that true joy can only come from jesus true joy can only come from a relationship with jesus we just finished an amazing series through the book of james james chapter one pastor mark taught an amazing message verse two is consider it pure joy when you face trials that makes no sense but jesus is saying look you are going to grow you can take the bad and turn it to good you can take what the enemy meant for evil and you can make it good you can develop perseverance through that you can experience joy but that is a decision to say you know what i'm going to i'm going to choose joy in this moment i've got i've got to make sure that i'm going to receive the prayer i'm going to receive what jesus wants for me jesus wants you to experience joy even in the midst of pain even in the midst of feeling distant and that joy will close that feeling of distance secondly he talked a lot about his word and so i think if we'll just start to consume his word i i'm not sure about you but i i grew up with a pretty negative view of god's word all i saw was a rule book all i saw was a have to i never saw a get to i did not have a healthy perspective on god's word let me tell you this you want to consume god's word because it's full of promises it's full of comfort it's full of direction it's full of encouragement it's full of hope it's full of peace it's full of clarity god's word is hope to receive not rules to follow consume his word the more you can get his word in you the closer to him you will feel now he never left you but it once again we're trying to close that feeling of separation because nothing can separate us from his love practically we've talked about it for years at highlands we love the one year bible it's an easy way to get god's word in you every day i promise you even if it's just for a few minutes get his word in you it will come alive in you and it will close that gap of feeling distant from god we encourage one year bible it's on the church website if you want to look it up in your paper bible we have each verse each segment there on the church website or youversion has the one-year bible app inside of the youversion bible app or find a reading plan but get god's word in you consume his word the next thing that we see in that prayer is is is no heaven is my home to me this is this is probably most important especially as i see people go through pain and the pain that i've experienced myself and really that's the title of this message is heaven is my home i would even love for you to say that where you are heaven is my home my hope is in heaven my hope is not in our government my hope is not in my political party my hope is not in my job my hope is not in my bank account my hope is not in my friends or my co-workers my hope is in heaven i think too many times we're wanting all of this to work out and jesus said in this world there will be trouble it's tough to live here on this earth and we've got to put our hope not on the work on the earth working out but on heaven because it is perfect and that's where we get eternity with him the scriptures say our life is but a vapor the apostle paul describes our body as a tent it's it's temporary living this this body we live on this earth is temporary living it's gone this fast eternity is for forever and i believe when we can remember that heaven is our home and we know it deep inside full of faith heaven is my home i just lost my husband i just lost my my wife i i just got a diagnosis that's terminal heaven is my home that regardless of what we face and the pain that we're experiencing heaven is my home it will change everything and it will close that distance close that separation and then lastly like you got to get this he prayed for us to remember that you have something to do because he said i am sending them i've always thought it interesting like when we got saved when we gave our life to jesus why we didn't just go to heaven if that was the goal of our life was just to give our life to jesus we wouldn't need to be here anymore but jesus is sending us he has something for you to do but lane i'm hurting lane i'm in pain he has something for you to do no lane i'm not qualified he has something for you to do even through your pain you can touch someone else you can use your pain to bring healing to someone else i've already seen it in this amazing family that i've been watching this journey for the last six seven weeks to see how even in their grief they're already touching others even in their grief already encouraging others i know that my friend's wife has many years decades left to change the world and i believe she's already on her way to doing that his kids already on their way to doing that his grandkids called set apart ready to do great things for god even through their pain a dear friend of mine i i even watched him just two nights ago at dinner minister he's been separated from his wife for several years believing god for a miracle but pursuing jesus staying close to jesus choosing joy going after god remembering that heaven is his home encouraging another another guy in our church that's gone through a divorce and and there's just so much pain but i'm seeing him through his pain minister to others who have that pain and when we shift our focus from the pain that we're experiencing it's actually a part of that the movie's message that's happening right now at our physical locations is we have have a decision to make when we're hurting whether or not we go ahead and help those that are hurting sometimes even worse than we are and he is with you god is with you and he has something for you to do it could be praying for a co-worker it could be calling a family member it could be saying some encouraging words to somebody that you see at the grocery store or at the gas station practical ways jesus needs us needs you to be him for them to be a light in this dark world to minister love and truth to those that are hurting even while we're hurting that we would not allow the enemy in his horrible strategy of pain to keep us from feeling that god is right there with us and he's been with us all the time that that the enemy can't win that jesus is victorious that in a relationship with jesus when we know that heaven is our home we can take horrible things pain tragedy and turn it for good no matter our circumstances that's what 2020 can teach all of us no matter what we thought it was going to look like no matter the disappointment no matter the pain no matter the unmet expectations that we take the bad and we can make it good because of what jesus has done in our life right where you are if you would just bow your head i don't know where you are in your relationship with god right now i don't know what you might be feeling i don't know the distance that you might be experiencing but i want to pray for you god i pray that your presence would be real more than it's ever been before god i pray that they would know that even when you feel far away that you never went anywhere that you've been there all the time i pray that they would in the midst of pain in the midst of whatever they go through they would know that you are emmanuel god with them thank you jesus that you are close thank you jesus that you understand what that feeling is like and i pray that they would be able to overcome it any time the enemy tries to bring that separation that they would overcome that feeling knowing that you are right there with them i also want to pray for those of you that might not know jesus personally that relationship is the only way that you can experience his presence and his power and really experience supernatural peace and joy i want to lead you in a simple prayer that you can pray in your own words right there where you are you can whisper it and pray it out loud you can shout it but make sure you mean it with all of your heart you can pray something like this lord jesus i make you my lord i accept what you did on the cross when you died and paid for my sins i ask you to come live inside of me through your holy spirit and help me become a new person i ask that you would forgive me for my sins for living my life separate from you thank you for your unconditional love [Music] thank you for our relationship thank you that you are emanuel god with me in jesus name amen and amen

Channel: Church of the Highlands

Views: 1,205

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Chris Hodges, Church of the Highlands, COTH, Alabama, Religion, Christianity

Id: hNVqEua-w1A

Length: 32min 6sec (1926 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2020