.jpg)
The Rock Family Worship Center
Taking The Church Outside The Walls
The Rock Family Worship Center
Lose The Orphan Mentality
Our identity is not determined by our mistakes but by our relationship with God as His children, though many believers struggle to understand and live from this truth. Everyone is a child of God, but not everyone realizes it, leading many to live like orphans instead of sons and daughters.
• When you don't know who you are, you'll always live like someone you're not
• Many Christians sit in church struggling with understanding their true identity in Christ
• Through Christ we are fully accepted family members, not just followers or workers
• The prodigal son parable illustrates how we can forget our identity while God never does
• The son's external rebellion was rooted in internal deception about who he truly was
• The father restored his son with a robe (covering shame), ring (authority), and sandals (sonship)
• Our alienation from God happens in our minds, not in God's heart
• Traditional evangelism often relies on fear rather than helping people discover their true identity
• Building relationships is often more important than quoting scripture when helping others
• Understanding our identity in Christ must come before behavioral changes for lasting transformation
Come home, not to religion or rules, but to relationship, to a place of rest and true identity. You're no longer an orphan; you're not forgotten. You're a son, you're a daughter, you belong.
thinking about the prodigal son and that's what led me to this and I'm going to share that with you, that story. In just a few minutes. We're going to break it down a little bit, but I want to start off this morning with what some would say is a controversial statement. I don't think it is, but a lot of people would say this is a very controversial statement, and if you think so, that's okay. But here it is.
Speaker 1:Every single person, everyone is a child of God. Now, who would think that's controversial? A lot of people, Because when we're talking about a child of God, we're talking about somebody who is connected to Him, somebody who is. We think of it as somebody who is born again. If we're born again, then we're a child of God. So that's what we're thinking about when we put it in those terms. So when I say that everyone is a child of God, some people would look at that and say, no, I don't necessarily agree with that, but let me finish it. But not everyone knows it. Everyone is a child of God, but not everyone knows it.
Speaker 1:Here's the problem, and I say this so often when you don't know who you are, you'll always live like someone you're not If you don't have an idea of your true understanding in Christ, you will always try to fit in with the people around you. That's our human nature. We want to fit in, we want to be liked, we want it to be just smooth sailing throughout the day. So what happens is I begin to try to fit in with the people around me unless I know who I am. When I understand my true identity, fitting in is no longer a goal for me. Fitting in and being like everybody else is not something that I shoot for. My goal, honestly, is to be different. My goal is I want to be totally different than the people around me so that I can create and influence change. I can't influence change on people that I'm just like you can't do it. We have to be willing to be different to impact other people around them and sadly, that's the tragedy of so many people. They are sons and they are daughters of God, but they're living like orphans, have no idea who the father is, and oftentimes they're lost in sin, they're lost in shame, they're lost in a mistaken identity, and it's sad to see so many people around us. And I'm not just talking about I know people's minds when I say that people's minds quickly go to the ones who's on the streets strung out and the ones who are just down and out and they're just having a rough time in life. No, I'm talking about Christians.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of people sitting in church today, right now, who are struggling with understanding who they are in Christ. They're born again, they're on their way to the pearly gates, but they are struggling to understand their true identity in Christ. Here's the good news Even in the delusion that we sometimes live in Remember that delusion of mistaken identity, that delusion of just truly not understanding who I am the shame, the guilt Even in that delusion, you never stop being a child in the Father's house. That's the good news. That's the good news that we need to walk out of this building every Sunday and we need to be walking into the next week willing and able to share with people. Not just we had a good time at church or it was a good message, or this or that, but what is the good news that we can share with people? Not just we had a good time at church or it was a good message, or this or that, but what is the good news that we can share with people, even if they're Christians. They may say well, we had a good message too.
Speaker 1:Well, great, start comparing messages, not for the sake of right and wrong, but again, you can listen to somebody and just in a matter of minutes you can tell a lot about them. It don't take very long. You can tell what they think about themselves. If you're talking about the Bible and different things. You can tell what they think about the Father, how they view the Father. I'm not saying they don't love Him, they don't love God, they're not a worshiper of God. I'm not saying that. I'm saying but we can have a different perspective of the Father and if I see Him as some white-headed guy just sitting up there on a throne waiting to strike me down when I do something wrong, then that's a view of the Father that is inaccurate according to the Word of God. So we have the opportunity and, I believe, the obligation to share the good news. What's the truth? Because that view of him is not the truth. It is tradition, it's what's taught a lot, but it is not the truth. So if we know that that's not who the Father is, that is not the God that I worship, then we have an opportunity and obligation to share the good news with people.
Speaker 1:Let's jump into a couple of verses here I want you to see in Galatians 4, 6-7. We're going to break a couple of verses down this morning and let you look at them Galatians 4, 6-7. I'm going to read through it real quick and then we're going to stop and talk about it. And because I love the way this starts out, it don't say if you are a son. It says because you are sons and this is sons and daughters it says sons, but just because you're a female, in God's eyes you're a son of God. Okay, because you are sons, god has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out Abba Father, therefore, you are no longer a slave. Lose the slave mentality too. You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. This is a powerful verse to learn and understand. If we want to help people and I don't know. That's just kind of where my mind's going now. We've had so much teaching on this, we've had so many sermons on this how do we walk out of here now and not just help ourselves? It's all about me and my house. But how do I begin to influence the world around me? School job, grocery store, walmart, anytime there's an opportunity how do I begin to influence the world around me with the good news You're an heir of God through Christ.
Speaker 1:To understand this verse in context, we have to look at the surrounding passage and the larger argument that Paul was making in these verses, especially in chapter 3, you'd have to go back to chapter 3 and also look further down in chapter 4 and ask the question who's he talking to? Number one, and what's he really trying to imply here? What message is he bringing? That's the way I always look at it. As I say number one, who's he talking to? What's going on in the region or in the area, or in the church, the Galatian church? What's going on in this place right now that Paul felt the need to speak this or to write a letter to him, or whatever the case may have been, something had to be going on that made him feel the need to say what he is saying. What is it? That's the question I always ask to try to get some context into it. So you've got to go back and look a little bit and put yourself in the situation, in the circumstance of what's going on.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that Paul was trying to get the Galatians to see was the law was temporary, it was not permanent. So the law was temporary and faith in Christ is what makes us children of God, not the law. Following the law did not make you a child of God. This is what he was trying to get them to see, and that through Christ, we are no longer slaves to the law, but we are sons and heirs because of Jesus Christ. He was really pushing a message out there to them to get them to see this. So it tells me we're sons and heirs because of Jesus Christ. He was really pushing a message out there to get them to see this. So it tells me that some of the Galatians had understood who Christ was, but now they were slipping back to the law again and he comes and said I've got to correct them, I've got to tell them don't go the right way and see the truth and then turn around and try to go back and sit under law again, because law is temporary, it's fixing to be gone, it's temporary, but what Christ has brought is eternal. That's what he was trying to get through to them.
Speaker 1:Paul's point is that through Christ we are fully accepted. We're not just tolerated. I'm just an old sinner, saved by God. That's tolerated. You're just a sinner, but God tolerates you. We're fully accepted. You are family. You are not just followers. You know there could be people following you and you never know them. If you're a leader, there's people behind you. They're following you, but you never have an intimate relationship with them, you never really get to know them, you never know anything about them. They're just a follower. They're way back in the back of the line. They're behind you, but they're just a follower. Listen, you're not a follower, just a follower. You are family. You were born into the family of God.
Speaker 1:There is something different about a follower and a family, a family. There is intimacy, there is connection, there is a love that a family, a family. There's intimacy, there's connection. There's a love that is unconditional. I may not love everybody that follows me Sometimes. Go on Facebook. You'd be surprised sometimes that the people may be following you. It tells you down there. So many followers. I don't know how you become. I guess you just click a button. I don't know, but there's followers. I don't know those people. I've got a few people that follow me. I don't know who they are. I have no idea who they are. I have no connection with them. I have no relationship with them. They're just a follower. I'm glad they are. Maybe they're seeing something, but that's all they are. But family is different. There's connection, there's love unconditionally. There's all kind of things that come with being a family member versus just a follower.
Speaker 1:He was trying to tell them too. You're an heir, not just a worker. You are entitled to something Because you're family, because you're a son, sons are entitled to something. Because you're family, because you're a son, sons are entitled to something more. Monica Shurt, and we sing the song made for more than this. You are made for more than just sitting back working your way to a certain place. You were born into it. Now, as a son, you are an heir and a joint heir with Christ, which means when the person that left you in that will dies, you now receive something. It is not when you die no will in history has ever worked like that that I'm in a will and when I die, I now get everything that I'm entitled to. What good is that? I'm dead but in a will, when the person who left it dies, I now inherit everything that that person left me. You are an heir to Jesus, you are an heir to the kingdom and when Jesus died on the cross, everything that you had entitlement to become yours. We've got to get this mentality out to where. We're waiting on it someday when we die. I mean, that's a nice thought that I'm going to pass one day and go to heaven. But what about now? What about having some of this stuff now?
Speaker 1:These passages directly address our identity in Galatians 4 and 3 and 4. So why is that important? Why do we talk so much about identity? Because when you understand identity, we don't have to live any longer with an orphan mindset. You can talk to Christians every day and I'm telling you, if you pay attention to it, you will hear this orphan mentality come out Separation from the Father.
Speaker 1:I went through that little thing where I've sinned and, boom, god's over there and I'm over here, and I've sinned a little more and I'm over here a little further away. How can he do that if he's in me? But we teach that. We literally teach people that the more you sin, the further your distance from God. He's leaving you, he's distancing from you, because God can't stand no sin. He can't stand sin. He can't stand a distorted image. He can't stand you waking up every morning and seeing yourself looking in the mirror and looking at yourself and saying I'm this or I'm that, and it totally does not line up with what he's saying. I will agree with that. God don't like that, because he knows he created you, he chose you, he created you in the image and the likeness of Himself and he wants you to see yourself in that same way, because that's the way he sees it.
Speaker 1:The prodigal son is a perfect example of the tragedy of a forgotten identity. If you want to talk to somebody about what it means when we're talking about identity and the purpose of knowing our identity and what it means to have a forgotten identity, take them to the prodigal son. It's a story that they're going to know. It's a very familiar story. Most Christians can tell you about this story, but most Christians probably can't break it down like we're fixing to break it down, and if they can, then they should understand their identity, because this story directly talks about identity. I'm not going to go into the whole thing because you know it, but I'll just summarize it.
Speaker 1:In Luke 15, jesus tells the story of a son who asked for his inheritance early. He wasn't dead yet. He was asking for his inheritance from his father. So he asked for his inheritance early and he left home and he wasted all of it on reckless living. Study that out, what that reckless living was, I dare you. But through all of this, here's what you've got to see. Through all of this, he never, ever, stopped being a son. He stopped believing he was one.
Speaker 1:So when I'm saying this and I'm talking about people out there that are struggling with identity, I'm not saying this in a negative way. I'm not looking down on them for that. I'm just saying they are a son of God. The one I am struggling right now, walking down the street hunting drugs, is a child of God. The one that's over there doing all this other stuff that we don't even want to talk about in church, they are a daughter of God.
Speaker 1:They just have forgotten who they are, and some of them, let's just say they never knew, they were never brought into church, they never grew up learning and understanding who they were, or to forget something you never knew. So we have the opportunity to take some people and introduce them to themselves. That'd be a good sermon. Introduce them to themselves or either reteach them and bring them back into remembrance of who they really are. That's good news. You're going to burn in hell because you don't believe. That's not good news. Whether you believe it or not, that's not good news to people, somebody that does not know the Christian ways. They're not living the Christian life, and the first thing you do when you go up and try to work with them and try to help them and try to evangelize them, is tell them they're going to burn. Think about how crazy that is An evangelist.
Speaker 1:That is the whole thing about evangelism. If you've ever been to a tent revival, if you've never been, go to one, that is the whole thing about evangelism. We're going to bring you out of the depths of hell In whatever means necessary. I will scare you out of it. I will create enough fear in you before you leave this tent. You're going to fall to your knees and listen. I'm sure that some people have and their life totally changed. Not saying that didn't happen, but fear is not the way that Jesus done it. So if Jesus didn't use that technique, is it one that we should really use or is it man-made? If Jesus didn't use it, then I believe it was created later on for power, for control. I can control scared people, people, that's living in fear. Let's look in. I'm going to try to skip around here a little bit because I've got several verses and I don't know if I'm doing all of them.
Speaker 1:But when you go back and you think about the prodigal son, his external rebellion, and that's what it was. It was rebellion against the father. His external rebellion was really rooted in an internal deception. He rebelled because of a lack of understanding internally of who he really was. He thought he had to leave home to find life, but everything that he was searching for love, acceptance, identity, belonging, everything he was longing for he already had. He just didn't see it, he didn't know it.
Speaker 1:Look with me at Colossians, chapter 1, verse 22 and 23. I mean, I'm sorry, 21 and 22. And you who once were alienated and enemies you got to see this right here. You were once alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works. Yet now he has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, holy. Oh, we can't call ourselves holy. Yeah, you're holy, he said. Present yourself holy and blameless. That means you can no longer blame yourself anymore and above reproach. This is hard for Christians to do, to look at ourselves in this way, but this is the identity that God gave us, above reproach in His sight.
Speaker 1:But I really want to pull your attention to one part of this verse. Did you catch the fact that the alienation was in our minds, not in God's heart? You're not alienated because God removed Himself from you. Go back to verse 21 just a second. And you who were once alienated, an enemy, where In your mind, in your mind, you were alienated because of what you thought, not because of what god was doing. God was not removing himself from you. He was not saying oh, you just don't understand me yet. You're not ready to give your life to me yet, so I'm going to walk over here. When you get ready and you get cleaned up oh, that sounds like a church teaching. When you get cleaned up, you come back to me. No, you're alienated in your mind. You don't see the relationship that he sees. He never walked away from you. He has never removed himself from us.
Speaker 1:This was a prime example of an orphan living in a son's body. The prodigal son seen himself differently than who he really was. And I have to ask the question how many today? Not I'm not just talking people in this room, I'm talking about, in general, the church, the Christians. How many today live like this son lived, searching for worth in performance, seeking love in broken relationships, trying to earn what God has already given. How many people that we know? How many live like that today? They live like orphans, they live in a place of delusion and they live in a place of mistaken identity. Yeah, but he's a good person. Never said he wasn't, he knows the Word, never said he didn't. He loves God. Good, I can love Him, I can go to church, I can know the Word, but I can have a false identity of myself.
Speaker 1:The good news is turning people's mindset back to who they really are, helping them repent, helping them change the way that they think. So they live like orphans in delusion. What does that mean? Delusion? Believing lies about God and believing lies about yourself. If you are living in a delusional state and as a counselor, I deal with delusional state and as a counselor I deal with delusional people all the time and that's not a bad thing. I mean it's people believing things that's really not true. Okay, in psychology, you would look at it and say that they're not in touch with reality Because they're experiencing things in their life that is really not happening. They feel like they're experiencing, they feel like they're seeing it, they think they're hearing it, but it's really not so they're out of touch with reality. That's what a delusion is. People every day are living in delusion because they're believing lies about themselves.
Speaker 1:You're not good enough, you're not worthy enough. You've made too many mistakes. You'll never be good enough to have the righteousness of God. Well, god didn't ask you before he gave it to you. He said I'm going to give you the gift of righteousness. He didn't ask your permission. He didn't wait to see if you were worthy enough to have it. He didn't wait to give you time to earn it. He said because you're a child of God and I chose you, I'm giving you the gift of righteousness. What is righteousness? Right standing with God, he gave it to us.
Speaker 1:And then you have those living with mistaken identities, thinking that they're worthless, thinking they're unforgivable, thinking that they're beyond hope. Their life can never be what it's supposed to. They fell too far. I was once a Christian, but I backslid. I went so far back I can't never get back to the man or the woman that I used to be. That's a lie, but it's a lie that people in this world every day believe I can never get back. A lot of people's not in church right now because they believe that they're not worthy to walk through the doors of a church because they've fell so far back.
Speaker 1:The good news is you are worthy. The good news that we have the opportunity to speak to is you are worthy. I don't care how far you are worthy. The good news that we have the opportunity to speak to is you are worthy. I don't care how far you fell. I don't even have to know what you did to get there. I don't want to know the story. I don't want to know what happened. I'm just going to tell you the truth you are worthy, regardless of what you went through.
Speaker 1:Can you imagine if more people heard that and we were okay with saying it and we weren't worried about what the other Christians that we know was going to say to us, that we didn't give the Christian scenario? When we walk up and tell them they've got to do this and do this and do this and they've got to turn their life around and they need to do all these things. That's what a lot of Christians would do. That's what we're trained to do. That's how we're taught to influence people to come out of where they're at. Do this, do this, do this and you'll get to a better place. What if we and the whole time? There's nothing wrong with that. That's okay to do that.
Speaker 1:I mean, you may look at somebody and say, hey, there's some things in your life you need to change. But just think about the contrast. You've got to do this, you've got to do this and you've got to do this. And this person sitting here struggling, so bad they're thinking there's no way. All hope is gone. I can never meet the standards of your religion. But if we walked up and said don't even tell me about what you've done, let me tell you who you are, you are forgiven. You are forgiven no matter what you've been through, no matter what you've experienced. He has never left you. He's never forsaken you. You are a child of God. Get up and dust yourself off. Can you imagine the difference in how many people we could bring into the church, how many people we could help with that message Versus do this, do this, do this Make sure you don't miss Bible study, because we've got to get this Word in you. And this person is hurting so bad.
Speaker 1:Listen, when some people are struggling so bad, I say it like this. I'll use this analogy there's kids that come to school sometimes and we don't like to think it's right here in Bacon County, but I'm telling you, there's kids in Bacon County that are struggling. They don't have food, regular food, every day. They don't have lights on at their house. They are living in horrendous, horrendous. And I see it. I've went into the homes. I've seen, I've stepped over stuff because I couldn't even see a floor. I've seen the way some of these folks are living. These kids are living. And I tell these teachers all the time they get tired of hearing me say this I said, listen, when this kid ain't 80 in three days, he don't care about your math test, he don't care about your social studies test, when he ain't got no electricity and he ain't been able to take a bath in three days and I'm not over-exaggerating this this happened. It's happening right here in this county.
Speaker 1:I'm saying that because there's some times when we come to these people who are down and out and they've been through hell in their life and all of a sudden we're trying to throw scripture in their face. They don't care about your scripture. They don't care about your scripture. What do they want? They just want somebody to tell them the truth. Now I know you may say the word scripture is truth, but they may not know that. They don't know that verse.
Speaker 1:But if I can just come to them in relationship, if I can just come to them and just have a conversation and say, man, you're forgiven, I don't have to have a verse to back it up. You are redeemed. I don't have to back it up with Scripture and start throwing all these Bible verses out, because most of the time, if you've ever done any evangelism, sometimes the best thing you can do is leave your Scripture somewhere else. Ooh, did he say that from the pulpit? Leave the Bible out. No, leave your Scripture, your biblical knowledge out and just have a relationship. When I can pull them in and I can build a relationship with them. Now and later on we can start talking Scripture. But all you're doing is running them away and pushing them away with the Scripture because they're in a place where they don't care about it. Now I know they're supposed to and we're trying to make them do it. You're not going to make them.
Speaker 1:I remember years ago I started thinking. I said we've got to find a different way to do this, because what we're doing is not working. Now, yes, there's new people that come into churches every day, but I'm saying the way that we're trying to attract new people is not effective. You can go on to Pew Research and study all that out. It's not working. The message that we're telling people is not working. Fear-based tactics are not working any longer, especially with a newer generation. It's not working any longer. Especially with the newer generation. It's not working. We can't do things the same way that they've always been done. It's easy for somebody to come back and when I say that and say, well, it worked for whoever. Some big time evangelist Look how many people he got saved. There was a different time that it may have worked and that was a part of the evangelistic scene at that time, dear people.
Speaker 1:And it will work temporarily on some, because some people, when they don't have nothing, no way to go but up, because they're so far down, they'll grab on to anything. Oh see, we're getting somewhere. Up, because they're so far down, they'll grab on to anything. Oh see, we're getting somewhere. Now, when they're so low that they have nowhere to go, they'll grab on to any dumb thing that you say, even if it's not biblical, even if it's not accurate, they'll grab it anyway because they have no other option. That's how we get them.
Speaker 1:And then we twist them. We twist the mind up then and they are in the church and they're moving along and they're doing good, and then all of a sudden they wake up someday and say there's got to be more than this. There has to be more to it than this. Why? Because they're doing what we told them to do. They're coming to church, they're reading their Bible, they're doing all these things. They're going to AA groups and they're going to recovery groups, and they're doing all this stuff.
Speaker 1:And then they wake up one day and realize they're still lost. It didn't take away from those good things that they've done, don't get me wrong. But they wake up and they're still lost. It's because they don't understand their identity. They understand Bible, they understand what Christ done on the cross, they understand those things, but they're lost when it comes to identity. And if I don't know who I am, I'll always live like somebody else All the time. When you look at those people who are living in delusion and living with mistaken identity, their true identity has changed. Their true identity is in Christ and it's changed. And now they see themselves differently. They're still sons and they're still daughters, but they're asleep to it. They haven't awakened to the truth of who they really are yet.
Speaker 1:Look at this verse here Romans 8, verse 15 and 16. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. See, I just talked about some of this stuff and now I just wanted to show you a verse that says the same thing I just said. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption. I'm not scaring you into it, I'm receiving you into it.
Speaker 1:Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba, father. The Spirit Himself bears witness, with our spirit, that we are separated. No, we are children of God. We are not separated from Him. We are not just sinners saved by grace. I'm saved, but I don't have a relationship. No, no, we are adopted. We are in the family. He is living on the inside of me. We've got to see that the truth is. The Father never forgot we did, and when I can help somebody see that that, regardless of how you see yourself, the Father never changed His mind. So now, if we can just get our mindset aligned with His.
Speaker 1:When the son came home, we're staying on the prodigal son going a little further. He gets up out the pig pen, he's out in little further. He gets up out of the pig pen, he's out of the mud. He realizes this ain't who I am. I think he looked at all the mud on him and said this is not me and he starts his journey home. When he came home, was headed home, he already had his speech ready and he was pretty much going to say Father, I'm no longer worthy, I'm not a son, I just turned me into a servant. That was his speech that he was making. He was going to make to his father, but the father stopped him, he cut him off. I believe he might have told him shut up, son, quit talking.
Speaker 1:He wasn't interested in shaming him or disciplining him. His focus was on restoring him. We think when somebody falls away, they've been in church forever and they fall away and all of a sudden they come back. We've got to go through this whole process with them to get them all cleaned up. How can we just restore them With wisdom? But we've got to shame them first. We've got to shame them first. We've got to discipline them first. We've got to do all these things. Now, again, this is wisdom. You're not just going to throw somebody who's just went through something right back into a pulpit and let them start. There's wisdom that has to be used. But the point is in this story he could have said a lot of stuff to the son. But the point is in this story he could have said a lot of stuff to the son. He had every right to just carry him up. But he said my focus is on restoration. I don't know what you've done. I know you wasted all your money and you lived a life. That's not you, but I want to restore you to life. It's not you, but I want to restore you.
Speaker 1:The son returning, returned rehearsing a shamed based speech. You got to see this Because he thought his failure disqualified him from sonship. What he did, what he experienced, it disqualified him, he thought. But the father never let him finish the apology Because he said I don't need an apology, I don't need you to come in and tell me what all happened. I don't need you to tell me how you wasted your money. I don't need you to tell me what all you went through and how bad it was. Son is home. Can you imagine if we treated people like that, how much better it would be, how much our churches would actually grow and be more productive? Evangelism would be amazing.
Speaker 1:Instead of giving him a lecture about his failure, the father gave him a robe, a ring, sandals and a feast. He would have gave him a lecture, like a lot of fathers would do, like I probably would have done, most of you probably would have done or wanted to do anyway. But instead he gave him a robe. And see if you go in there and study these out. He didn't just do this just to be doing it. He put a robe on him and it covered the shame. That was the point of restoration. I'm not looking at what you were. I'm bringing you back into who you are. Throw a robe on him and then he put the ring on him. That ring signified authority. He was giving his authority back on him. And then he put the ring on him. That ring signified authority. He was given his authority back to him. He was a son, so he had authority over the servants and everybody else that was there. He was right under the Father, he was the assistant. But when he left he didn't have no authority. But when he walked back in he said I'm going to throw a ring back on your finger, which is going to signify I'm restoring you to your position of authority. And then he put the sandals on his feet. He said you're not a slave, you're not a servant. He put the sandals back on there. He said that's not who you are. And then he gave him a feast. The feast was just basically symbolic of a celebration. My son's home.
Speaker 1:Back and we know the rest of the story the other son got mad and this and that, and the father finally had to go out and tell him I've never done this for you, because you had it, because the brother got mad. The brother said you've never done this for me, you never threw me a party. Look, I've stayed here with you. Can you imagine this conversation? Think about it. I've been here with you the whole time. Look at what he did. He took off, he left you, daddy. He was gone in the world doing all his things. I stayed here by your side. You never done this for me. And the father looks at him and says you had it all along, you're living in it. I don't have to give you what you are already in. We've got to see that for ourselves.
Speaker 1:The one verse, I don't think I put it up here, but, ron, can you go to verse 24 just a minute? I didn't put it down there but I want you to see. If not, I'll just tell you what he said, because this is very, very important. If you notice in there when he says that my son has come home, he said my son has come home. He said my son. Okay, you can go back and read it in your Bible. He said it may not be 24, I can't remember. Right off he said my son has returned. That might be the wrong verse, never mind, but he said my son has returned. He did not say my former son, he did not say that. He said my son.
Speaker 1:The Father never stopped seeing Him as a son Through everything. So when your life gets bad, when your life just gets turned upside down, when you don't know which way to turn, when everything just seems like it's coming on top of you, you never stop being a son, even though you may feel like it. You may feel God. What are you doing to me? We've all been there. I've had plenty of conversations with God over the years, in fact, when I really didn't understand my own identity and I had this delusion that God was somehow punishing me because of something stupid that I'd done and God was letting this stuff happen to me because I'd done something bad. Would you do that to your kid? So why would he do that to us?
Speaker 1:That's how God sees us differently. That's how he sees the prodigals today, the ones that's left, the ones that's fallen away. He sees the prodigals today just like he's seen this prodigal, just like this father seen his prodigal son. That's how he sees those. Listen now, some people ain't gonna like this part. That's how he sees the atheists out there. That's how he sees the agnostics out there. That's how he sees the ones dealing drugs out there. That's how he sees the ones that's all strung out out there. That's how he sees the ones that are selling their body. That's how he sees all these people, not the way we see them, but we're looking down on them. That person that may be in rebellion right now, he still sees every single one of them as a son, regardless of what they're going through. Not as a lost cause, not that they fell away so far that they can never be reached again. He still sees them as a son, but as sons and daughters who have forgotten who they are.
Speaker 1:What if we just told them that? What if we just told them that? What if we just brought them back to the remembrance of who they are? Can you imagine how that would affect them? I'm going to get ready to end right here, close to it, but it's time we come to our senses and help others come to theirs.
Speaker 1:What brought this son home Talking to the prodigal son? One more verse right here. I want you to see Luke 15 and 17. But when he came to himself, he said how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare and I perish hungry? When he came to himself I say that a lot, but that's important he didn't earn his way back. He remembered his way back. He remembered his way back. He remembered who he was. He woke up Dirty, but he woke up. He believed again.
Speaker 1:What if there was somebody that was down Out Struggling? What if there was somebody that was down out struggling and we just helped them believe again. We just gave them a little bit of hope again. May not get them all the way there, but we're just instilling a little bit of hope in them. What about somebody who has been clean and then all of a sudden they relapse? I'm telling you, if you've never been there then you don't understand. It's like the end of the world to a lot of people when that happens. But what about you Instilling a little bit of hope in them, helping them believe in themselves again, regardless of what happens, instead of beating them down and saying, oh Lord, I knew he wouldn't last, I knew it wouldn't take long. We hear that too often. I knew it was a matter of time and he'd go right back to what he's always done. That's the things we say. What about hope? What about helping them believe in themselves? So what does all this tell us? Regardless of your past, you belong. Regardless of their past, you belong. Regardless of their past, they belong.
Speaker 1:The journey back to the father isn't about fixing your life. It's about realizing who your father is and who you've always been in the eyes of the father. And we have to teach that in the right order, because if I don't know and we have to teach that in the right order Because if I don't know, truly understand the Father, I can't truly understand myself. Why? Because I'm created after Him, in the image and the likeness. If I want to raise examples, but I have to use examples that just make sense to me. I don't send my Ford truck to a Toyota dealership to get fixed. I send it to the one that created it, the one that built it. Toyotas are built different, the engines are different. Whatever, I send it to the one who created it. So if I want to understand my identity, I go back to the one who created me. So when I understand him, I now begin to see myself different.
Speaker 1:We try to tell the person change, change, change. And we try to kick them and force them to change and they may make some positive changes. But then that's where we see the slip-ups, fallbacks and all this kind of stuff. Why? Because even though they made positive changes, they did it without understanding who they truly were. But if we can teach them identity, these changes start to last. We do counseling backwards. We do recovery groups backwards, all these things that are supposed to help. That's what they're designed to do. They do help, but I think a lot of them we do backwards, and that's why we see the recidivism rate and all this kind of stuff so high Because we teach them these things before we teach them identity.
Speaker 1:Identity has to be first if I want lasting change. You may feel far away sometimes, but you've never stopped being loved. Can you imagine somebody hearing that you may feel unworthy, but the robe still fits. You might have forgotten who you are, but the Father hasn't. Can you imagine just saying that to people? Leave Paul and John at home and just say this in the beginning? I'm going to bring John back out one more time right here 1 John, 3 and 1. Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know Him. I just said that.
Speaker 1:I used my own wording on it, but then again I wanted to back it up in Scripture. So you didn't say, oh, he's making that up, but come home, not to religion. This is a message. I'm not saying this to you guys. You guys are home. When we built a new church, I seen this yesterday. I'm not saying this to you guys you guys are home. When we built a new church, I seen this yesterday I started seeing the vision of what the inside of the church is going to look like, seen the outside. And now I started seeing the inside, and right in the center just like we got that little table back there, right in the center of the foyer, is going to be a desk and it's going to say so this is what we have the opportunity and the obligation to go out and share with other people. Come home, you don't belong out there, you don't belong in that world, you don't belong with those people. Come home, not to religion, not to rules, not to regulations that is so high that they the bar is so high they can't even reach them but to relationship, to a place of rest and to a place of true identity and just tell them you're no longer an orphan, you're not forgotten, you're an orphan, you're not forgotten. You're a son, you're a daughter, you belong.
Speaker 1:People need to hear that. During times when we forget who we are, god never forgets. We need to hear that because everyone of you is going to make a mistake by next week, including myself. We're going to make a mistake by next week, including myself. We're going to do something crazy. But you need to remember God does not forget who we are, because we made a dumb mistake and he sees us through the eyes of love, not through the lens of mistake. He sees us through the eyes of love, not through the lens of mistake. He sees us through the eyes of love, not through the lens of mistake. He's not focusing on our mistake.
Speaker 1:That's why I struggle the Judgment Day theology I struggle with because my belief of who he is. Am I saying there's not going to be a final judgment? No, I'm not saying that because I don't know. I'm saying I struggle to believe that because of who my Father is and if it's already forgotten and he don't see me that way, what is he going to judge me for? If I was judged here, what is he going to judge me for? If I was judged here, what is he going to judge me for? Why go through this whole thing of a final judgment day if I've already been judged and what Jesus did on the cross already corrected, judged, he corrected everything.
Speaker 1:Now I'm not saying you have to believe that. I'm telling you that's where my thinking goes, not because I don't believe the Bible, but because I see the Father, different than what I used to. He sees me as he created me. He sees the good in me. He sees what he created. He's not looking at my mistakes and oh, oh, up again. Boy ain't never going to learn. That ain't the way I picture God. That's just not Him. I look at Him every time I fall and say get up, son, I love you, get up, boy, I love you, get up. That ain't who you are. Dust yourself off, get out of that mud, come back, come home. That's the way I picture it. So that's why I struggle with some of the stuff that we teach or have taught us to do. It's time we wake up and it's time we help others to wake up from the lies of orphan living. Time we wake up.
Speaker 1:We go to a mission field every single day. When we walk out of this place, when you leave here today and you go to the grocery store or you go to a restaurant or you go somewhere this week, you are going to a mission field. You're going to a place where people are lost. People don't know who they are. People are struggling and we have the answer People don't know who they are. People are struggling and we have the answer. We have love, and that's really that's the start of it.
Speaker 1:Just begin building relationships and we have to learn to do that. That don't come natural to everybody. Some people's gifted in that area Bam's gifted in that area of just communicating with people. I'm not, other people's not. Some of you are, some of you, I know you're not. You're a lot like me. We have to step out there and learn to do that, because sometimes, again, that's more important than the Scripture itself. We have to step out there and learn to do that Because sometimes, again, that's more important than the Scripture itself, because if I don't have a relationship with you, your Scripture don't mean nothing to me. It really don't. I don't want to hear it from you. The relationship opens the door to these other things that I really want to share with them later.
Speaker 1:We can't bombard them with everything right off the top. Try to shake all the sin out of them, all the bad out of them, get them to an altar and, boy, when they hit that altar, you got 14 people rushing up there to just I mean they going to get it out. They will not get up from that altar the same way they can. Nothing wrong with altar teams, but, man, I've seen some ferocious altar teams. I'm telling you, I thought I won't call the church. I've seen some ferocious order to you. I'm telling you, I thought they I won't call the church. I thought they was going to tackle that person and not let him up until everything bad come out. And I was thinking to myself they're going to be there a while. This dude has been through some stuff. They better get a whole jug of oil. But see, that was the mindset I had then and that's the kind of mindset that a lot of people still have now, and it's just simply not true.