Where are you from? Where’s your home?
There’s just something about that word — “home” — that carries strong emotion.
For some, home evokes sweet memories of childhood, of play, of warmth and growth.
But not all homes are happy places.
For some, home was a place of fear or chaos.
And you sit bearing scars that you fear you can never escape. Wounds that have shaped you. Broken homes that have broken you.
But what if God promised us a new home?
____________________
Psalms 87:3-6
Glorious things of you are spoken,
O city of God. Selah
Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;
behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush—
“This one was born there,” they say.
And of Zion it shall be said,
“This one and that one were born in her”;
for the Most High himself will establish her.
The Lord records as he registers the peoples,
“This one was born there.” Selah
____________________
The psalmist is talking about life in the city of God.
And in that city, he mentions some interesting people - Rahab, Babylon, Tyre, Cush.
These are not names you would associate with God’s house.
In the Old Testament, these are the bad guys, the enemies of God’s people. They don’t belong here.
They weren’t born in Zion. They hated that place. They were it’s arch enemies.
Yet the psalmist says that the city of God has become their new home.
But it doesn’t just say it is their home, as if they have simply moved. It now the place they were born, where they are from.
No more will they be associated with their former broken homes. No longer will they be Philistines or Babylonians.
Their birthplace has changed.
They have been born again and with that new birth comes a new hometown.
And it’s not just them.
It says that this one and that one - literally “and this man and that man” - will have the same story. That the city of God will be teeming with those who have been given new birthplaces.
And that it is God himself who records for all eternity - “This one was born there.”
If you are a child of God, this is your story too.
The truth is all of us were born in Babylon. That’s where our story began. That was the home that held our hearts captive. And it would have been our destruction.
But when God saves us, when we are born again, God pulls us from this broken world and gives us a new home.
A new birthplace, a new identity, and with it a new future.
And God himself is the one who says, “This one’s from here now.”
And on your new birth certificate, he writes “Birthplace: Zion”
What joy! What hope!
Those words carry such promise. They are mercy and grace.
With God, it doesn’t matter what your home life was like. It doesn’t matter how broken your past is. It doesn’t matter how broken you are.
God changes it all when he changes you.
You’re not who you were.
You’re not where you’re from.
Everything has changed. You’re his now.
And one day, you’ll hear these sweet words from your God, words maybe you thought you’d never get to hear...
“Welcome home.”