S4 E17 - Bringing God's Children Home

Welcome back after an extended break from the podcast! It is crazy to think that in just a few short weeks our oldest two kids will be going to school for the first time. It's a big change. But bigger ones will come in the future, because it is our goal to prepare them to leave. While they will always be welcome in our home, we know that one day they will go off to make their own. 

The exact opposite is the case with our walk with our eternal Father. Rather than the goal to be his children leaving, the goal is to bring his children home with him forever. It took a lot of preparation, but through Jesus, we now all have the opportunity to go home. 

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

What if I told you that God could be seen in the most ordinary things every day? 

What if I told you that every day, ordinary events could teach us extraordinary eternal truths? Would you believe me? 

 Welcome back to season 4 of the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! My name is BJ Sipe, and I am a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. And I’m excited to share a few moments together with you learning some important lessons from the simplest things. Thanks for tuning in! 

In the words of Samwise Gamgee, “Well…I’m back.” Thank you all so much for your patience as we took an extended break away from the podcast. We had so much going on over the past month. I was traveling. My wife was then traveling. I ended up with some really painful health issues that took several weeks and several rounds of antibiotics to resolve, and actually I am still on the mend. In addition to this, we had family stuff going on, I was working daily with my intern to wrap up his summer (who did a great job last week on the podcast btw), and simply all combined together, something had to give. That something turned out to be the podcast. But we’re all home, I’m healthier, and we’re returning back to a normal schedule – so we’re back to our regularly scheduled programing for this podcast. Well, I say normal schedule – but as a matter of fact our schedules are about to drastically change in just two short weeks. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this, but our oldest two children, Ava & Dane, are starting preschool & kindergarten. Just stopping to think that our children are old enough to be going to school now pains my heart, they are growing up far too fast – and it’s happening right in front of our eyes. Kylie and I have both been emotional about it as we have been preparing for this with back-to-school shopping and scheduling all of the teachers’ meetings, etc. Almost every time we think about it, one of us gets teary eyed. That’s only natural, isn’t it? Despite our best efforts as parents, our babies don’t stay babies forever. We have cherished our time just watching our children grow through their toddler years, but we are about to hit an entirely different stage of life. Change, combined with the knowledge that our kids are just one step closer to leaving the nest in the blink of an eye, is hard on a parent’s heart. And that I think there is the key to what I’m really driving at here. As parents, we have been tasked from God to serve as stewards over our children. To teach them, protect them, and help them to grow into the kind of young men & women that God wants them to be. But our role is not permanent. It is in the sense that we will always be their parents, but it’s not in the sense that our home will not always be theirs. When you get down to it, it is our job as parents to prepare our children to leave. My mother always said something to my brother and I growing up that I have been reflecting on so much over the past few days. She would tell us, “It’s a child’s job to fight for their independence, and it’s a parent’s job to give it to them slowly at the right times.” One day it won’t just be preparing for them to go to school. It will be preparing for them to leave for college. To leave for a job. To leave to start their own family. Our children will always be welcome in our home, but we know that God’s plan for them one day is to leave it to start their own. 

As I have been reflecting on this over the past couple of weeks, there is something that has occurred to me that I have never once considered before until now. On this earth, my task as a father is to do all I can to ensure my children can become independent in their faith & in their life so as to leave home. However, when it comes to our walk with God, it is the exact inverse of this that is true. Our Father has done all that he can to ensure that we, his children, can one day make it back home to live with him forever. 

Consider the contrast in two passages. In Genesis 2:24 we read the following, “This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh.” With our earthly children the goal is their departure, and the permanent bond is not between child and parent, but between husband and wife who will always be together. 

Now consider Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 14:1-4, “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. You know the way to where I am going.” As children of God, the goal is not our departure from our Father, but to one day all be united together at home in heaven with him. The permanence is not found away from the Lord, but with Him. As we also read prophetically in Revelation 21:3, “Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.” 

Such words should bring comfort beyond comprehension. Our eternal Father, our creator, our Savior, and our King has desired from before the very foundations of the world to bring us back home to him. But such a task would not be without great preparation and sacrifice. Continuing on in John 14:6 Jesus would say, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” My friends, consider the lengths that our heavenly Father went to in order to give us the opportunity and hope to be able to one day be at home with him. All of God’s work through the patriarchs and Israel, all of his work through the prophets, the law, everything that God had ever done all led and pointed to one thing, the only way we could come home: Jesus. Our Savior was willing to be brutally betrayed and crucified as an atoning sacrifice for our sins, the very thing that would otherwise prevent us from going home to the Father. But as it stands, Jesus made a way because he is the way. My brothers and sisters, we can go home. God has done everything to ensure that you can, and he desperately wants us home. The only question that remains is this: will you? 

Let us conclude with Paul’s words to the Thessalonian church, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) 

This has been the Set Your Mind Above Podcast, season 4 episode 17 – and I’m so thankful that you decided to tune in today! A new episode is dropped most Fridays, so be sure to tune in next week.  Also, if you’re able to, go ahead and like and subscribe to the podcast, as well as share it with someone else – it would help me greatly in trying to reach others. And more than anything, always remember the following: know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.