Place

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info visit us at thrive-fl.org. So we are wrapping up a short three-week series. We're talking about what are you looking for, what are you searching for. If you love alliteration, we've been using it. We've talked about purpose, we've talked about passion, and today we're going to talk about a place. And so I pray that God will bless you. And so grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus, who was, who is, and who always will be the only Savior of the world. Well, friends, here's what I would like to start with. I want you to do something. I really don't want you to think about it too much or try to answer too smartly or too spiritually, but just turn to someone near you. If they're not near you, just shout it out. But turn to the person next to you and tell them where home was when you were growing up. Where was home when you were growing up? Where was home? Tell the person next to you or shout it out. Where was home? Several different places, yeah. Now, so for some of you, you know, that was an easy question because like my wife Joni, she pretty much grew up and lived in the same house most of her life. That house was on West 219th Street in Fairview Park, Ohio. That was home. But for others of you, that may not have been as easy. Your family moved around a lot like my family did. Friends, by the time I was 18, we had lived in six different houses. It wasn't that my dad was in the military at the time or anything. We just moved a lot, and so I used to tell people that my dad was in the witness protection program. Okay, I didn't really do that, but I just made that up. But so I grew up in Ohio, but now I live in this version of paradise known as Southwest Florida. At least it's paradise in the winter, and now this is home for us. But you know, friends, this whole idea of home can become, I think, a little complicated. I mean, is home where you grew up? Is home where you live now? Is it where you wished you lived now? Where is home for you? Where is that place that you actually long for? You know, the smartest guy in the world, a guy by the name of Solomon Ecclesiastes chapter 311, says that our God has placed eternity into our hearts. So friends, inside of each of our hearts there is this portion of eternity that longs for something greater than what happens to be in front of us. We have this desire, if you will, to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and our Lord and Savior Jesus has prepared that home for us. He's covered our sins, he's adopted us into his forever family, and has prepared a place for us. And I think that longing for our place in eternity creates in us also a desire now for some sense of place. A desire now for some sense of place here on this side of eternity, here on this side of heaven. I think we all have this longing for a place that we can call home. A place that we can look at and say, you know what, this is where I belong. There's an author by the name of Robert Putnam who wrote the book Bowling Alone, and it's about how our world has gotten increasingly smaller and smaller and smaller, and more and more and more connected with all of the new technology and social media that we have, and yet he says and argues at the very same time, people are growing more and more isolated, and more and more disconnected. So there seems, it doesn't seem to be this sense of being home now, or having a place to come back to, or a place to retreat to, a place to feel safe at. I think there is an epidemic where there are far too many people who have no sense of home. And so Putnam says if you grew up with cable television, video games, and the internet, if you happen to live in the suburbs, you are most likely the most disconnected person on this planet. There are now all kinds of folks who live, sadly, live feeling isolated and alone, who have no sense of place, no place where they can celebrate the great moments and victories and joys of life, and no place safe to go during those dark and difficult times when storms come into our lives, and storms come. Friends, we live in a broken world, and sadly, brokenness is an equal opportunity afflictor. And so for far too many people, they will, if using this kind of imagery, they feel like a ship kind of floating out at sea with no sense of direction, and a sense of where that safe harbor might actually be. And there are people who live, sadly, they live their entire lives that way. And then they go to their graves not knowing where they belong. And by the way, just an aside here, it is that desire to have a place to belong that has given rise to the gang culture, whatever gang that might be. You see, gangs actually get the idea of place better than we do. Now, not many people know this, but part of my story growing up in Cleveland was that I was a part of a gang. We called ourselves the Spring Garden Wildc...