"Seeking and Setting"

Dear Friends in Christ,         

   One web site on the Internet described them this way: Sixteen ounces of muscle and feather, at times on the wing for twelve hours, flying at sustained speeds of 30 to 60 miles per hour. Why? To return home where a special relationship exists between man and flying creature. 

  Wikipedia, the Internet’s version of an encyclopedia, mentions in its history of these creatures that they were first used by the Egyptians and Persians 3000 years ago.  Genghis Kahn, the founder of the Mongolian Empire, also made use of them, as did Paul Reuter back in 1860.  He founded the Reuter’s press agency that still exists today and he actually used a fleet of 45 of these creatures to deliver news and stock prices between 2 cities in Belgium.  Even the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo was first delivered by one of these creatures to England.  Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?  I’m talking about the homing pigeon, a bird with an uncanny ability to find its way back home from distant places it has never before visited.  Because of this ability, the homing pigeon was bred to deliver messages that would be attached to their legs written on pieces of paper so thin that these written notes were called “flimsies.” 

   Now all kinds of speculation exist as to how they’re able to do what they do.  Some people believe it is due to a mineral called magnetite that God placed in their beaks and that somehow this magnetite is interacts with the magnetic system of our planet and it enables them to find their way home.  Others say it has to do with their sense of smell, that they’re the bloodhounds of the sky and they can sniff their way home from anywhere.  Still others say it’s their keen sense of hearing that guides them.  Whatever the case, they’ve been known to travel over a thousand miles and they were so dependable that during WW I and WW II they were used as the couriers of the skies.  In fact, after WW I the nation of France even gave one of its homing pigeons the equivalent of our American Medal of Honor. 

   Well, my friends, just as these pigeons have this innate homing detector, I would submit to you this morning that we have the same, that we have a lot in common with the homing pigeon – and no, I’m not calling you a bird brain here.  Rather I contend that there is something within us that is seeking for home – home being heaven.  You and I were born with a built-in hunger, an innate longing for heaven.  Now if you don’t believe that, let me try to convince you differently by questioning some of your questions.  And boy, we do like to ask questions, don’t we?  Not too long ago I found myself visiting in the home of one of our members and she had a whole boatload of questions that have been bugging her lately.  So I told her to write them down and I’d come back and we’d talk about them. 

   But we have questions about all kinds of things: the purpose of life, the meaning of life, the why’s of life.  As far as we can tell, animals do not have those questions, do they?  It’s one thing that sets us apart from them.  They may howl at the moon, but they don’t stare at the moon wondering how did that get there and how did I get here?  Why on earth am I on this earth?  And these questions we ask just come naturally, don’t they?  I doubt that any of us has ever taken a course in school on how to ask questions because we’ve been asking them ever since we’ve been able to talk, haven’t we?  Why do we do that?  Why are we so curious about life?  Why does it bother us when we see pain or sorrow?  Why does it trouble us to hear the words leukemia and child in the same sentence?  Why does war upset us?  Why do pictures of devastation caused by a tornado or hurricane or tsunami tug at our heartstrings so much?  Again, that doesn’t happen to animals. 

   But not only do we ask questions when we see pain, we even ask questions when we experience pleasure, don’t we?  How in the world did that artist create such a beautiful painting?  Where did she get the ability to sing like that?  We stand in awe at the beauty of a sunset and feel a tingle in our hearts at the giggle of a baby.  Why is that?  Why do we have those feelings?  Why do we ask those questions? 

   I believe it all goes back to this innate longing for home that God has instilled in us.  Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that “He has also set eternity in the hearts of men.”  Our Maker has placed his version of magnetite in our hearts so that we really won’t find our ultimate happiness and fulfillment until we find our way home. 

   I don’t fly very often, but when I do, it’s usually to a great destination where Marilyn and I are going to enjoy some wonderful days together, hiking, eating out, and just taking in the beauty of God’s creation.  But suppose on one of those flights the pilot came over the loudspeaker system and said, “We hope you are enjoying your flight today because this flight never ends.  This flight is your destination.  You will spend forever on this plane.”  Wouldn’t that create just a real sinking feeling in your stomach to know that you would never get off that plane, that you would never reach your ultimate destination, that you would never be able to enjoy what you were looking forward to?  I mean, I love to fly as much as the next person, but I want that flight to get me to where I’m wanting to go. 

   In a very similar way, I love my journey here on this earth.  I’ve got a wonderful family, a great church family, lots of friends, and far more blessings than I deserve.  But this earthly journey has its drawbacks too, doesn’t it?  Things like sickness, sorrow, suffering, pain, death, and a whole host of other negatives.  But thankfully, God has made it clear to us in his Word that this world is not our ultimate destination.  It’s just part of the journey, part of the flight that will take us to that destination.  That’s why Paul tells us in v.2 our text for today: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”  What he’s saying there is that our minds and our hearts are to be tethered not to this world but to the next because again, that is the ultimate destination for the believing child of God.  Elsewhere in Phil. 3:20-21 Paul writes: “Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”  

   Think of it this way.  Imagine that when I was on the mission trip a couple of weeks ago a couple of the youth – let’s say H.A. Evans and Alexa Garden – decided to pull a little prank on me.  So while I was sound asleep in my bunk, they tied the end of a long string to my finger and then they took the other end of it out in the hall.  (I was sleeping right by the door).  Then while they looked through the door they started to pull on that string, gently at first, but when that didn’t arouse me they gave it a real hard tug which startles me awake.  Now what do you think I would do at that point?  Undoubtedly, I would have crawled out of my bed and followed that string to see where it leads. 

   Well, in a way that’s what God has done with us.  He has tied the string of eternity to our hearts and he’s yanking on it.  Sometimes he gives it a yank when we find ourselves standing at the graveside of a loved one at the cemetery.  Sometimes he does it in the doctor’s office and we hear the doctor give that bad news that none of us ever wants to hear: “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but you have cancer.”  Sometimes he does it through a job loss or a divorce or a financial setback, all of which serve as reminders to us that this world can get pretty tough at times, but that God has something better waiting for us if we’ll just hold on to him and follow that string to where it leads.

   Might I encourage you to be sensitive to God’s tugs, to not ignore them or run from them, but instead to embrace them and use them as God intended them to be used.  In fact, use them as Paul expresses it so well in our text for today where he employs 2 interesting verbs that I’ve borrowed for my sermon title today and that are translated as seeking and setting.  In v.1 he says: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”  This is a strong verb that Paul uses here in the original Greek.  It means to covet earnestly, to strive after, to strongly desire.  Jesus used this same verb to describe the woman in Luke 15 who had 10 valuable coins and lost one of them.  Remember what she did?  She looked diligently for that coin.  She turned her house upside down in her intense search to find it.  When Peter was looking for a verb to describe the incessant work of Satan, he used this same verb when he wrote in I Peter 5:9 that “your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  

   But then there’s that 2^nd verb he uses in v.2 where he says: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”  So we are to seek and we are to set.  This verb “set” in the original Greek is one that we have no problem relating to.  For example, when your stomach starts to growl late in the afternoon and your mouth starts to water because you know that your wife has one of your favorite meals waiting for you when you get home from work, you set your mind on that meal, right?  Or when you plan a vacation and you scope the place out over the Internet and figure out exactly what you’re going to be doing and all the great sights you’re going to be seeing, the closer you get to that trip, the more you think about it.  The more you set your mind on it. 

   I’ll never forget the only time in all my years of schooling that I ever got a C in one of my classes.  It was in a class I had at the seminary that I really liked because we had no tests, no quizzes, and no papers to do all semester.  Unfortunately, what that meant was that the only thing the professor would have to base our grade upon was the final exam.  And wouldn’t you know it?  That final exam was scheduled to take place a day or two later than Marilyn and I intended to leave for Christmas vacation where we would be able to spend a few weeks at home with our families, far away from the academic atmosphere of the seminary.  So I asked my professor if I could take it early.  He said I could, so I did and we planned to leave as soon as I was done with this test.  Well, little did I know that this test was going to consist of over 400 multiple choice questions, many of which were absolutely absurd.  And since my mind was so set on going home, I didn’t give the kind of thought and attention to those questions that I should have and I ended up paying the price.  I hurried through it and ended up getting a C on it which meant that I would get a C for the class.

   So when Paul says that we are to set our minds on things that are above rather than on the things of this world, he’s talking about that kind of intense focus that we are to have upon heaven.  Other translations say: “Think only about it.”  “Set your affection on things above.”  “Let heaven fill your thoughts.”  All these translations seem to work together to make one very important point.  And that is that we are to obsess ourselves with heaven.

   So how about it?  How often do you think of heaven?  Daily?  Weekly?  Do you ever think of it?  Author Max Lucado once described heaven as the green vegetable of the spiritual diet.  It does a person good.  In fact, I don’t know how anyone can face what this life sometimes throws our way without the promise of heaven.  How do you stare death in the eye?  How do you deal with a miscarriage?  How do you face the injustices and atrocities and natural disasters that are so much a part of living in this sin-cursed world?  I know of no other way than to seek those things that are above and to set our minds on them rather than on the things of this world.

   So guess what?  That’s what we’re going to be doing over the next weeks and months in a sermon series that I’m beginning today called “Homeward Bound.”  I pray that you’ll make every effort to be here for these important messages because I guarantee that you will learn a lot from them.  I suspect you’ll also have some of your preconceptions of heaven altered a bit, but only because so much about heaven has been misunderstood throughout the ages.  It’s going to be a good study.  It’s going to be a helpful study.  And I believe it will be a necessary study for we are all in the same boat.  We are all homeward bound.  And as your pastor, I just want to do my best to prepare us for this journey so that we all end up at the same destination, a destination that God has made possible for us and for all people through the sin-bearing, sin-paying, sin-erasing sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ. 

   Amen.