“Inviting God Into Our Homes”

“Inviting God Into Our Homes”

Text: 2 Peter 1:16-21

© February 3, 2008 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

Out in California, at San Diego State University, there was a course being taught on business ethics. It was essentially a course to help future business executives figure out the right, the good, the moral thing to do in different situations that they might eventually face. But it turned out that a lot of the students in that ethics class weren’t so ethical. You see, in that class the professor always gave multiple choice tests. But someone tipped him off that some of the students had obtained a copy of the answer key.

And so, in order to find out who the unethical students were, on the next test the professor changed the order of the questions. And when he did that, he discovered that 25 out of the 75 students in the class failed, because they hadn’t even bothered to read the questions. They all had just copied down the answers they had straight from their cheat sheets.

Or consider this: A woman who was studying to become a minister was working on a research paper in the library at the Yale Divinity School. But time and time again when she went into the stacks to look for books that she needed, the books weren’t there. And when she went to the librarian to find out who had checked out the books and when they were supposed to be returned, she was surprised to learn that none of those books had ever been checked out. “How can that be?” she asked the librarian. “Simple,” the librarian said. “All those books that you’re looking for have been stolen.” And the librarian went on to explain that far more books were regularly stolen from the divinity school library than from any other library on the campus of Yale University. “Why is that?” the woman asked. The librarian looked at her and said, “It seems that you people that study about God and theology must figure that God is so loving and forgiving that it doesn’t matter what you do – and so you go ahead and steal, and you assume that God doesn’t really care.”[1]

Does God really care? Does God really care about the choices that we make in life? I believe God does. And I believe that’s one of the major messages that we find here in this book in the New Testament that we just listened to, this book known as Second Peter. Because here in Second Peter we’re told that the choices we make in life matter, because one day – at the end of time – we’re all going to stand before God and be judged. And when that day comes, we’re going to find out in no uncertain terms just how much the choices that we make in life do matter to God.

I have to admit that it always puzzles me when I hear people say, “Joe Blow died, but I’m sure that he’s in heaven with God now.” What puzzles me about that is that people say that, even when all during his life Joe Blow never wanted to have anything to do with God, even when all during his life Joe Blow never went to church, never prayed, never read the Bible, never did much of anything to show that God mattered at all to him. But over the years I’ve heard that sort of thing on a fairly regular basis. But why is it that we assume that people will live for all eternity with God when during their lifespan here on earth they couldn’t be bothered to give God even the time of day?

I believe that it’s because we think that since God is loving and forgiving, ultimately it just doesn’t matter what we do with our lives. But even though we might try to convince ourselves that God just doesn’t care, when we bother to read the Bible we can’t help but see that that’s not the case – God does care. Whether we believe it or not, what we do with our lives matters to God.

And so if what we do with our lives does matter to God, are we focusing on making God a part of our lives like we should? My guess is that for the most part we’re not. For instance, we generally believe that it’s important that children go to school and focus on learning things like reading and writing and math and science. And so for about 6 ½ hours a day, 180 days a year, children go to school and focus on learning those subjects and how to apply them in their lives.

But at the same time, when it comes to learning about the ways of God and how to apply those ways to our lives, most people spend maybe one hour a week doing that – one hour a week coming to worship on Sunday morning. OK, some people also take part in Bible study or Sunday school, so let’s be generous and say that most people spend two hours a week intentionally try to learn about God and God’s ways. But to put that into perspective, you would have go to Sunday school and worship 52 weeks a year for more than 11 years to equal the amount of time that the typical child spends in class during just one year of school. And so if you went to Sunday school and worship 52 weeks a year for 66 years straight, the amount of time that you would have spent intentionally learning about God and God’s ways would be roughly equal to the amount of time that a typical fifth grade graduate has spent learning in school. In other words, if worship and Sunday school are the only times that we spend learning about God and God’s ways, we’re never going to get beyond an elementary school level of relationship with God. And I believe that as the years go by, God expects from us something more than that.

So, what’s the answer? Well, listen to these words from God found in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, words that are recited every day by faithful Jews around the world: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (6:4-7).

Do you catch what those verses are saying? Not only are those verses telling us what we ought to do – that we ought to love God and live in the ways that God wants us to live – but those verses are also giving us an important guide as to how to go about doing that. And that guidance is this: you’ve got to focus on your relationship with God not just when you’re together with other believers, but you’ve also got to focus on your relationship with God when you’re at home, when you’re with your family.

And that’s a goal that we have in the coming months. In the coming months, as a church, we want to come up with ideas for families to use in their homes – whether you’re a family of one or a family of ten – to help you as a family to grow as disciples of Jesus. We want to come up with ideas for families to use in their homes on different ways to pray, different ways to go about reading the Bible, different ways to let your faith play a role in the many things that go on in the life of your family every day.

And so as a first step to making that happen, we want to get together a group of people to do some brainstorming and come up with some ideas to share. Maybe your family already does some praying together, or maybe you already have some good ideas about how to encourage Bible reading in your house. If you have some good ideas like that, we want you to be a part of this group that we’re forming so that you can share your ideas. But even if you don’t have any ideas, even if you don’t currently pray or read the Bible in your house, but you want that to change because you care about you and your family growing in your faith, then we want you to be a part of this group as well to give your honest feedback on what kinds of things you think might or not be helpful to you.

And even beyond prayer and Bible reading, we also want to look for ways to help families to put their faith into action for the good of others. A couple of months ago I attended the PTA meeting at Crafton Elementary School, and I was given the opportunity to ask the parents what they thought were some of the biggest needs or issues that children and their families face. And one of the suggestions that several parents voiced was that they were looking for ways as a family to be involved in helping other people, to be involved in projects that help the community. And already one of those families has made arrangements to come here and work in the food pantry each week. And my hope is that as we go forward, we’ll find ways for all families to grow in their faith at home and then put that faith into action by getting involved in helping other people in meaningful ways. So, if that’s something you’d like to see happen in this church, don’t just sit on the sidelines. After the service today, see me or Tricia or Mike, and let us know that you’d like to be a part of this group that we’re forming so that we can get started with this truly important and exciting effort.

I recently read about a construction company down in Texas that puts a Bible inside the concrete foundation of every house they build. It’s their symbolic way of saying that if God is at the foundation of your household, God is going to bless you.[2] But, of course, it’s not enough to have God’s Word buried in the cement underneath your feet. No, what God wants is for God’s Word to become a part of our lives – a part of our lives when we’re together here at church, a part of our lives when we’re away from each other in our own homes, a part of our lives no matter where we are. God wants to be a part of everything we do. So let’s welcome God into our lives by inviting God into our homes.