Sabbatical Sermons - Tents and Eternity

I don't know if you know this about me, if you are relatively new, if this is the first

time you've ever seen me in your entire life, then you probably don't know this about me.

But I also don't know if I've made it clear because I moved back here to the Quad Cities

nine years ago this summer.

The church we launched in Sunday morning form over eight and a half years ago.

And at some point what happens is pastors lose track of the stories they've told or

the things that they've said.

But I think it's important that you know something about me.

I hate camping.

I'm not talking about RVs and cabins.

I mean if you want to go camping in a cabin on a lake and go fishing, I'm in.

Invite me.

I'm all about that.

But I don't need electricity, but if we're setting up tents, I am probably out.

I just don't like it.

And now that I have bad mouth camping, let's get a show of hands how many people enjoy

tent camping.

Yeah, you are special.

We love you.

We love you.

But it's not for me.

I don't like having to unfold my home for the night and solve a puzzle right before

I go to bed.

I don't know.

But my biggest issue is the part where you go to bed in an oven and you wake up in a

freezer, right?

And somehow you're sweating.

I don't understand it.

And I know that some of that depends on the time of year and the location, but most of

my tent camping experiences were in the summer in the Midwest.

And in the Midwest and in the summer, it's 95 degrees at night, it's 60 degrees in the

morning, and still somehow 95% humidity.

It doesn't make sense.

It is not comfortable.

Some of you love it, and that is fine.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to love camping.

I'm just saying that for me, it's the worst.

And so that's why this summer on sabbatical, I went camping exactly zero times.

Now, there are some feelings that are built in to camping because campers know it's not

permanent, right?

Even if you love it, you know that it will not last forever.

And I wonder if you feel that feeling like that about life, like that life is just one

long camping trip, that somehow it all feels temporary, like setting up a tent that's just

gonna be taken down again.

Like it's all transitory, like you're camping here tonight, but tomorrow you have another

stop.

Maybe you feel like no matter how nice your home, no matter how permanent your property,

no matter how secure the job, maybe that uneasy feeling still creeps in like everything is

gonna change.

I get that feeling, like everything could just be different in an instance.

Because in my life, at least a couple of times, everything has been different in an instant.

And today I wanna talk about why we feel that way, and maybe why it isn't as bad as we think

it is.

So let's open up our Bibles, yeah?

Open up our Bibles to the book of John, chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

I'm also gonna read from 2 Corinthians, but let's all gather together in the book of John,

okay?

It goes Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, that is in what's called the New Testament.

So if you see Matthew, Mark, or Luke, you know that you're moving in the right direction.

If you don't have a Bible, there's Bibles out on the bookshelf next to the front door.

You can take one of those home with you.

Otherwise, you can download a digital version of a Bible on your phone, and that works perfectly

well too.

We're gonna be John, chapter 14, and if you don't mind, will you stand for the reading

John 14 · chapter mention

of the scriptures as you are able or willing, embody, or spirit?

John 14, verses 1 through 3 says this.

John 14:1–3

Do not let your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe in me as well.

My Father's house has many rooms.

If that were not so, would I have told you that I'm going there to prepare a place for

you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into my presence

so that you may also be where I am.

Second Corinthians 5, 1 through 3.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God,

an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

Meanwhile, we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.

Because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

Let us pray.

God of every tribe, every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank you for the scriptures

that have existed, persisted throughout millennia.

Give us wisdom.

Give us wisdom to understand them.

Whatever you have for us to learn today, I pray that it would stick.

I pray that it would become a part of the framework of our faith, that our faith would

become stronger, that we would become more like your son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Thanks to all.

You can have a seat.

First thing is this.

And this is obvious.

Tents are meant to be burned.

I'm just playing.

I'm joking.

Tents are meant to be landfilled.

I'm sorry.

Tents are meant to be left on the shelf in the store.

Tents are meant to be temporary.

Tents are meant to be temporary.

Have you ever seen one of those giant tents that look like a spaceship?

There's one over in Iowa, over by where West Music used to be.

They use a lot of these for sports complexes now.

I'm not talking about the open air ones.

I'm talking about the ones with heating and air conditioning and offices and bathrooms,

everything.

It's like a regular building on the inside, but on the outside, it looks like a giant

Hershey's Kiss.

I remember when these started popping up, they were actually intentionally advertised

to a lot of churches.

They were advertised towards the church.

They had just enough money for a temporary building, maybe not enough for a new one.

They were growing enough that, oh, hey, do this while you save up enough money to do

this other thing.

The trouble is that it's easy for them to end up being treated like a permanent solution.

See, instead of tearing down the tent when you finally have enough funds for something

permanent, along the way, those funds get used to patch the rips and tears in the tent

to fix the HVAC four or five times, to update the lighting in the carpet, something temporary

ends up getting the permanent treatment.

I'm obviously not just talking about tents anymore.

Jesus made a point to teach his disciples that all of this is temporary.

All of this.

He taught them not to store up treasures for themselves here on earth, to not worry about

what they would eat or drink or where they would live.

He taught them to seek first the kingdom that this life, this skin, everything we have is

just a tent that is temporary.

Now, it doesn't mean that we don't take care of it, right?

See, the opposite, because we have no idea how many days we get.

So we need this tent to be healthy.

We should care about our world, but we cannot forget, we cannot be disabused of the spiritual

truth that there is a king and a kingdom that is more permanent than the clothes and the

body that we wear today.

There is an eternity that we are not only moving toward, but living for, awaiting the

day when we will see the Father's house in its fullness.

These tents are temporary.

Secondly, tents are transitory.

Tents are meant for the trip, not the destination.

Now, y'all snapped for Chris.

We got to work on the amens, brother.

Because I said, the tents are meant for the trip, not the destination.

That's what I'm talking about.

Now, here's your moment of biblical context, all right?

Let's put our biblical theologian scholar hat on, right?

When you read about tents in the New Testament, it's wise to be reminded and think of the

tents in the First Testament.

Jesus was a Jew.

The writer of 2 Corinthians was a Jew.

In the back of their minds, if not in the front, they're thinking of all the time their

people had spent living in tents.

All the time their people spent living in the wilderness, 40 years, waiting for the

promised land.

In houses?

No.

In tents.

Even the tabernacle where they would go and worship, where they would give their sacrifices,

was it a building made of brick and stone?

No.

It was a tent that they put up and took down every time they moved.

Hundreds and hundreds of years later, they were still talking about how this life that

they were living at that moment was still just a temporary tent on its way to something

else.

Listen, if you have ever felt like everything around you is saying, this is home, this is

great, this is the best I've ever had it, so why am I not happy?

All of this is so great, but you still feel like the ground is shifting under your feet,

like the other shoe is going to drop, like you might need to get ready to move or get

going.

You're not broken.

You're human.

That feeling, and I hope that this frees somebody in this room today because that feeling is

built in.

Something inside of us knows that even when everything is calm, when everything seems

perfect, when everything is going well, that everything is still moving all around us and

we groan for something more, we long for something perfect because that is where we are headed.

Part of us just cannot wait to be there.

I'm not talking about some kind of evangelical escapism.

We shouldn't be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good.

If you've ever heard that one.

What I'm saying is this, just take a second and look around this room.

Look at the other people in this room.

Just take a second, turn your head.

This church is called the house, right?

But the church isn't the building, is it?

It's the people.

And the church, it's supposed to be our best attempt at being here on earth what Jesus

is drawing us toward in heaven.

Listen, this is important for you to hear people in spiritual leadership say, no matter

how good this can ever be, it will only be a fraction of what's to come.

In our hearts, your heart will still long for more.

This is why some people don't know how to stay at one church very long.

Listen, I'm not judging.

I'm giving you the ability to have grace for when this happens for someone in your life

or even yourself.

Because what happens is they had a moment or a season at their church that felt like

heaven.

You heard it.

Someone told you, man, this is the best church I've ever been to.

Whether it's the church you're in right now or a church you were at another time.

Maybe you even felt like that.

Man, this is the best church I've ever been to.

You had, they had this feeling or a season like this is heaven.

And when after a while, their heart still groaned for something more.

When they realized that their church wasn't as like heaven as they hoped, they thought,

well, maybe I can find heaven at another church.

But that groan, that longing will never be completely fulfilled in any church until we

see Jesus again, face to face.

It just won't.

It doesn't give churches permission to not try.

It just gives us position to understand why.

Because this life is temporary.

Because this life is transitory.

It is on its way somewhere else.

And because lastly, this life is just a taste.

It's just a taste.

Not the kind of taste that leaves us hungry or starving like, oh my God, why won't you

feed me?

It's the kind of taste that makes us look forward to the next meal.

Okay, so we already established who loves camping.

Do we have any donut lovers in the house today?

Can we get a what what for some donuts?

Yeah, right.

That was the whitest thing I've done in a week.

Donuts are kind of like a kryptonite for me.

Like I'm serious.

Like we, my boy Wally turned 11 this week and he wanted me and Cindy to take him to

Dunkin Donuts, just the three of us.

And so he did.

I did not have a donut and I felt so proud of myself because donuts legit are kryptonite

for me.

Like if I'm going in the right direction with my health, all you have to do is like say,

hey, you want to meet for some donuts?

And I would probably like, I'd give everything.

But here's the thing, no matter how good a donut is or how much I love a good donut for

years, cake donuts just did not do it for me.

Anybody know what I'm talking about?

Man, a cake donut is, I don't know.

The best cake donuts are as follows.

Glazed blueberry and that's it.

That's, I mean, and then you dip it in some coffee, it makes it even better.

At least that's how I felt until the donut experiment.

Now saying Greg, I'm intrigued.

Tell me about this donut experiment.

I like experiments.

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Three summers ago, we were gifted a week long stay at a home in Anna Maria Island in Florida.

So we all piled into a car and we drove down there and one day it was like, all right,

well, what do we want to do for breakfast?

It was like, all right, we'll go get some donuts, you know?

And so we all piled in the car and we go and we get some donuts.

We get there and the first thing that you find out is that they give you this sheet

and you have to fill out like some weird mathematical equation Excel sheet about what kind of donuts

that you want because you get to decide like the glaze, the toppings, you can have multiple,

every conceivable combination and then they have like little special ones and for every

one you have to like do it over and then you go like, oh, I've got three of these, but

you have to fill it out and there's another line.

I want two of these.

You have to have filled it out.

For every kind of donut, and so I'm already like, this is going to be trash because they're

cake donuts, as soon as you get there, you realize they're cake donuts and now they want

me to do an assignment before I can have a donut and you're standing in line, but you

start to get this idea like, wow, there's a lot of people here.

Is it just because it's Anna Maria Island?

Is it just because it's the summer?

Is it just because it's the only donut place within driving distance or is it because they're

actually good?

And then you get the donuts and you realize that what has happened is that they literally

made your donuts from scratch.

I'm not talking about the toppings.

I'm talking about the actual donut was made for you right before they gave it to you.

So it's warm.

It's like just heavenly.

And then because you're the one that went through the trouble of deciding what you wanted

on it, there's this added satisfaction of not only is this the best cake donut I've

ever had, but because I chose everything that goes on it, this is the best donut I've ever

had.

And so last summer we were deciding what should we do.

We had a little money from taxes and stuff like that, let's do vacation again, ensure

the beaches and the weather and all that stuff was great.

But really we went back to Florida for the donut experiment.

Really.

I mean, if we're being completely honest.

And when we came back, especially that first time, I was low key looking for someone that

wanted to franchise it around here.

I was like, man, think about it.

You don't need a kitchen.

You don't need a ton of friars.

You don't have shelves filled with donuts because you're making it all on the spot.

If you were trying to get in to the donut business, this seems like the easiest donut

business to get in.

Actually, we have some space open on the other side of the building.

Jeff is still looking for someone to lease that.

Of course, deep down, I know and I knew that even if we had a donut experiment here that

it wouldn't be the same, would it?

Because it is in Florida, because there isn't a beach right over there, because the weather's

different, because it's not the original, maybe.

And I think that that, circling back around this idea that things are temporary and transitory,

that this is just a taste.

I actually think that that's kind of what church is like.

Church is just a franchise of heaven.

And it's thousands of miles away from the original in a completely different climate,

in a completely different state.

And just like a franchise, few franchises are ever as good as the original, right?

I've been to more than one Starbucks in Seattle.

And I'm not kidding when I say I've never had a Starbucks as good anywhere else than

in Seattle.

There is something about the original.

Here's the reality about church.

There is no perfect church outside of heaven, because they're all just tents on their way

to eternity, full of people that are imperfect, just longing for more.

Let me say this.

Since I've been away for three months, when God is moving in a church, when God is working

in a church, when the people in that church are participating with the work that God is

doing, you get a taste of heaven just a little more often.

I want to tell you that my personal belief is that God has done something here in this

church.

Because this summer I visited six other churches.

It was part of the thing that I wanted to do in sabbatical was to go support some other

pastors.

Some of the pastoral friends I have, I visited six other churches and I was blessed.

They sang beautifully.

The sermons were on point, but they only made me long for this community more, to worship

with you, to share the scriptures with you, to face my challenges with you.

There's this one moment in particular when I longed for this community so much.

One month ago yesterday, I was coaching a baseball game when my son Wallace was up to

bat and he got hit in the face by a fastball.

Don't worry, he's okay.

I was waiting for the... Oh, sorry buddy, they weren't that concerned about you.

I know, I'm playing.

Anyhow, I'll go back in my notes.

Don't worry, he's okay.

Here's the thing, it was scary.

It was really scary.

He was scared.

We spent four hours in the hospital making sure that he was okay.

While I was sitting in the hospital with Wallace and with Cindy, the strongest feeling that

I had other than just wanting him to be okay was the longing to be with you.

The longing to be surrounded by my community.

See, the scriptures tell us to mourn with those who mourn, to rejoice with those who

rejoice.

I was down and I just knew that if I were here with you that I'd be better.

That the fear of life being temporary would be calmed.

That the anxiety of everything changing suddenly would be comforted.

That the longing in my heart for a taste of heaven would be satisfied.

I messaged Eric and I messaged Pastor Jen and I messaged Pastor Chris and they prayed

for me.

Today, I'm grateful.

I'm grateful for a community that gave me space for a sabbatical.

I am grateful for a community that tastes like heaven.

Grateful that God is with us here in this place and grateful that no matter what may

come, no matter how much life feels temporary or transitory for any of us, that God has

given us a community to camp through it together, even if it's in a tent.

Amen?

Let us pray.

Father, we thank you for your scriptures.

We thank you that you told us to not let our hearts be troubled but to take heart.

That you told us that you have prepared a place for us.

That you have given us your spirit to be with us in this life that we might camp through

it together.

Help us continually love each other as we love you.

Continue to guide us.

Give us a taste of heaven.