2025 Welcome Home Weekend                   October 12, 2025
Hebrews 2:9-18                                               Pastor Wolfe

“Welcome Home!”

“Welcome Home!” Does this place feel like home to you? Some of you would answer, “Yes! This is where I am comfortable. I know the place, the people. I feel love and peace here.” Others might feel differently. “Home? This is supposed to feel like home? It’s never felt that way to me! I feel like a stranger. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even wanted here. No, this place doesn’t feel anything like home to me!”

Whether our church has been successful or not in making you feel at home here (and like every church, we have a long way to go), the word of God we have in front of us today on this “Welcome Home” Sunday tells us that is indeed what this place is. Not because of the building or the service, but because here we meet and spend time with our spiritual family.

God tells us something remarkable in Hebrews 2. The eternal God of the universe is our brother. Don’t underestimate the enormity of this. The whole first chapter of this letter underscores Christ’s divine nature. Jesus is the “heir of all things,” the “radiance of God.” He “sustains all things by his powerful word.” The Father says, “Let the angels worship him…Your throne will last forever and ever…The heavens are the work of your hands.”

This is our brother! In a world where we can pick our friends but not our family – Jesus chooses us. The first verse of our text reminds us just what this brother was willing to do for us when it tells us Jesus “was made lower than the angels for a little while.” Think of the love that would cause the perfect Son of God to leave a pristine, sinless heaven to be born into the dumpster called earth. To save us! Verse 10 tells us Jesus did it to “bring many sons to glory.” Jesus lowered himself for a time so that he could be the perfect man in our place. With his perfection covering us, we bask in all his glory, now and forever. Just as we talked about last week.

One of my favorite movies, soundtracks at least, is the original Footloose. I know it’s old, but there’s a story about it that fits the idea of glory given to us perfectly. Kevin Bacon is the star actor. As the story goes, when his 6-year-old son saw it for the first time he told his dad how cool it was to see him swinging from the rafters in the barn. When his son asked him how he did it, the actor had to admit that was a stunt man. “What does a stunt man do?” his son asked. Kevin replied, “That’s someone who dresses like me and does things I can’t do.” As they continued watching, his son told him he loved the part where he spun around on the gym bar and landed on his feet. The actor again had to tell his son a stunt man did that. Not him. His son was silent for a while and then asked him, “Dad, what did you do?” Kevin Bacon, famous actor, sheepishly replied, “I got all the glory.”

In a spiritual sense, Jesus is our stunt man. He did all the things we couldn’t do. He obeyed our Father perfectly. He loved his neighbor without fail. He lived in humility rather than pride. He served the Lord in every way all the time. But instead of taking the glory for it himself, he hands it over to us to hold up to God as proof of our fitness for heaven. And grace of all grace, God accepts it and welcomes us home into heaven.

Verse 11 is the center of this text. “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” This means that we, sinful as we are, can know that Jesus isn’t ashamed of us. Not because we’re “doing it right” but because he has made us holy in God’s sight. And he doesn’t just save us and walk away – he walks with us and sits with us right here in worship. As sure as the person seated next to you, Jesus is here too. Our text quotes Jesus speaking to the Father in v. 12. “I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters; in the assembly I will sing your praises.” Isn’t that remarkable? Jesus is joining us here in worship today. Even as we praise him, he joins us in praising his Father.

No wonder we love to come to this place! Christian churches are packed at Christmas and Easter because those days manage to break through the noise of the world. No one forces believers to make it to worship those days – they just know the blessing of being here. But those blessings are here every week, and there’s nothing like the joy we find in worship with our brother Jesus, and our family of faith. Of course, there’s more than just joy in worship. Verse 18 says, “because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Whatever burden is weighing you down, Jesus is here with that invitation we heard in the gospel, “Come to me…and I will give you rest.” Jesus was once where you are right now, and he wants to feed and encourage you to bring you through it. Every time we gather together God gives us the spiritual nourishment we need to get through another week of life in this fallen world. It’s another reason Jesus’ brothers and sisters love to visit his house and hear his Word. So again, I say, “welcome home!”

If you were raised in a warm, loving family, the thought of coming home immediately brings joyful thoughts to mind. Some of my earliest memories were coming into the house during haying season to smell fresh-baked bread and beef roast. Mom would be finishing up the mashed potatoes when we walked in the door. Within minutes we would sit down to a farm feast. I loved visiting that house, as different as it looked to my adult eyes, because I remembered the love given to me there. I know not everyone was raised in a home like that though. Maybe for you the thought of a childhood home brings feelings of sadness or loneliness or a lack of love.

And I get that church can be like that too. Some of you have had wonderful experiences in God’s house. You found caring, supportive brothers and sisters in Christ. Warmth and welcome. Others haven’t. Maybe you found unloving attitudes and actions. Maybe people weren’t as kind and good as our Savior is. Maybe church never felt like home to you. And I’m sorry if that’s the case for you. But God made people to need people – and never more than now in our culture of isolation. We just don’t connect with people like we used to. In our neighborhoods, at work, everywhere. And that cultural isolation can infect churches too. Some people in our church don’t have a deep connection to anyone. Maybe that’s you. And maybe that’s okay. Even if we’re more like distant cousins than brothers and sisters, we’re still family. And we still care about each other as family. Membership at Salem is more about being with a group of people than being part of an organization or having a name on a list.

This group of people is bound together by our brother Jesus. Verse 16 says, “Surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants.” That’s us! We are Abraham’s descendants by faith – Jesus came to help us. To free us from sin, and the isolation and loneliness and fear it causes. And just as Jesus came to help us, we help each other. That’s the motivation that leads us to ask, “Who is hurting? Who needs help? How can I serve? What can I do?” Did you know the Greek Word for “one another” is used 100 times in the New Testament, with 2/3 of those talking about love or unity in the church? This attitude of love and service to each other makes our church the kind of home we long for.

Our reading from Ecclesiastes put it this way, “Two are better than one…if either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up…a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” We are not wired to be alone. We need one another. God designed us that way. He made us to be a family in Christ.

Scripture is clear that a person is saved by their individual faith and trust in Jesus as their Savior. You don’t need other people to be saved. You don’t need a church home. You don’t need to gather together. But what believer wouldn’t want to? This is where Jesus speaks boldly and openly. This is where we are surrounded by truth and hope and light. This is where God’s family can just be God’s family. Not perfect, no, but loving and honest.

A church like Salem is home until we get to our final home. In Revelation 21 God paints that picture for us. “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

I can’t tell you that Salem is heaven on earth. Sometimes the preacher gets a little long winded. Sometimes the music isn’t as good as it should be. Sometimes our fellow worshipers aren’t so chatty or friendly. But we are family. And we’re all just waiting together until we get to that final perfect home. Brothers and sisters in Christ, I pray that if you’re in the habit of joining us regularly that you keep that habit strong. And if you’ve been gone for a while, let me lay out the welcome mat and invite you back in. This is your home because here is your family. By the grace of our Father and the love of our brother Jesus, Welcome Home. Amen.