Power Hour | Ep. 9 | Prodigal Son Series Recap | Grace vs Religion: Overcoming a Religious Spirit

In this episode of Power Hour, Pastor Ty and Pastor Kyle recap the recent Prodigal Sons series and unpack some of the biggest takeaways from the story Jesus told in Luke 15. They talk about the younger brother’s rebellion, the older brother’s religious pride, and the powerful picture of the Father’s radical grace toward both. 

This conversation explores how grace restores the broken, confronts self-righteousness, and invites all of us back into a real relationship with the Father. If you missed the series or want to go deeper into what the story of the prodigal sons really teaches about grace, repentance, and the heart of God, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

What's up, everybody? We are back for another episode of Power. That's right. My name is Pastor Kyle. I'm Pastor T Ty. And we are ready to go. We had uh so much fun uh last week that we forgot to shoot a power hour. That's true. So we apologize for those that were waiting for that and it never came out. Uh, me and Pastor Ty, we were stuffing our face with some delicious Houston barbecue.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

You know, we said we went for the Lord, but really we stayed for the barbecue.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Come on. Oh, that I I found the Lord at that barbecue spot. Let's go. It was it was so good. And uh, but enough of enough about that. Um, definitely get your tickets to Houston, uh, because their barbecue is on point. But uh, we are talking about the series that just wrapped up on Sunday. Uh Prodigal Son, or I think more appropriately, Prodigal Sons is what it which should have been. And you know, with the first week we covered the more traditional story of the prodigal son as he uh takes his inheritance, blows it, and then comes back to the father, and the father accepts him back. But this this last week was actually one that I've never heard about, which focused on the son that stayed. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, I feel like um in all the years I've heard it preached, no one has ever preached the text the way that I think it was meant to be preached. Right. Put it that way. You have to get some context. So, uh, one of my all-time favorite passages to preach, a lot of people that have been around the church or just heard me preach in general know this. Like pretty much anywhere I go, this is the message I preach called Yeeha. Luke 15, verse one. Tax collectors, other notorious sinners love to hear Jesus teach. We call him verse one people. Powerhouse, we love verse one people. We're trying to reach people far from God with Jesus. Right. Verse two, this caused the Pharisees and the other religious leaders to be mad that Jesus was hanging out with them, even eating with them. Jesus preaches these three stories. Who's he preaching to? Many of us, we think he's preaching to those verse one people. Right. And partially maybe he is, but really he's trying to get a hold of these religious leaders, these church people. And he's saying, guys, we are mad about the wrong things. And he really, in this last, this last uh story, this last, this last uh prodigal story, he's really going after these verse two religious leaders because it kind of mirrors in a weird way. And I'm just gonna jump into it, man. It kind of mirrors in a weird way the story of Jonah. These people are upset that he is going after the people they don't think are worthy, they think are messed up, they think that are far from God, and and and honestly, they it is true, but he finishes that story early in Jonah chapter three, Nineveh gets saved, right? Prodigal son, he gets saved halfway through the story. The end of Jonah, it leaves it unclear. Hey, does Jonah repent? We don't know. In this, does the older brother come in? The father's pleading with him, come in, celebrate your brother. Does he come in? We don't know. And so, in the way that this story ends, we see that this is a story with a question and honestly a retrospect, not for the sinner, but for the church religious person. Are you going to celebrate when Jesus saves those that are far from him? The ones that we don't like, the ones that we struggle with, the ones that we're we have disdain for. Are we okay when Jesus' grace extends to the people we don't think deserve it?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

That's such an incredible parallel. Because I think if you were to go to absolutely any church and say, we are here to see people saved, to see people come to Jesus, you you would have a hundred percent of the hands raised, they'd be like, Yes, hallelujah, praise the Lord. They'd be they'd be stoked, ready to go. But what I found in in my ministry journey, and I know you have too, is once that starts happening, there starts to be a friction because all of a sudden the people that's coming in that are getting saved, well, they haven't been saved since 1985. They just got saved and they don't look like the rest of the church looks, and that causes problems.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah, it gets really messy really fast, you know what I mean? And man, and when we like our fine china of the church, when we like our programs and our activities and our our culture, and people come in that are messy, it's like it's like sending toddlers loose in a museum. You're like, don't touch anything, don't look, don't even breathe, like act right when that's just not how they operate yet. And so for us, it's really extending grace to people, the same grace that we love, extend it to us, to others.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Yeah, and we see we see this happen even when with Christ's own disciples, uh, because we we forget how untrained they were, how their position in society, like they they were not the more churchy type people, they were the ones that flunked out of school and ended up being fishermen. So you see that, and you see moments where Jesus is just like, get behind me, Satan, yeah, and rebuking them for just stupid things, like when they're trying to figure out who's going to sit next to him in heaven. And Jesus is like, What are you guys talking about? Right, like it was absolutely ridiculous. Yet, Jesus traditionally we see him uh go after the church people way harsher than he ever did his own uh slightly stupid disciples, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Right. And man, it's it's just interesting to me because you're right. The the most aggressive sermons we hear from Jesus are pointed at religious church people. Jesus has all kinds of grace, all kinds of mercy for those that are far from him, those that are lost in their sin that are broken. But man, when you want to see Jesus get mad, man, he's talking to church people. Yeah, let's just be honest. And I think what's funny, um, and I find myself guilty of it so much, is it's easy for us to think of church people as sweet Nana down the road that's been to church you know forever. But how often do we examine our own life? How often man, me and you, we went to a a college event a couple weeks ago, yeah, and we're both laughing because we're we're looking at some of these college students, and I'm like, man, that girl is dressed wild for a church service, right? And we're kind of getting like that. And I remember afterwards your wife is like laughing. She's like, Man, you're acting like the very people that you say you don't like. Yeah, and I think we we forget pretty easily how easy it is for us to kind of fall into that verse two religious, self-righteous mindset of man, we forget what God did in our life, we forget what how Jesus has transformed us, and it's really easy for us to go from people that are excited to be free to people that are frustrated on who's there.

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Yeah. I believe there's a book by I want to say Larry Osborne. I might be totally wrong, called Accidental Pharisees. Let's go and talk about that specifically. But all I remember from from that night with the Kyalpha group, uh, shout out to them at Idaho State. Woop woop is man, I just feel like a boomer. I'm sitting there, I got a daughter who, in a year from now, could be there at the Kyalpha. And I'm just like, I don't belong. Right. I do not belong here. I that has nothing to do with church. That just has to do with me having to get up in the morning and take some aspirin to make it through my day. Right. Uh, right. You know, I remember um a few years ago, I I took a church in in Oregon, and uh we we set out with the same the same goal, uh, as I think a lot of very uh zealous young pastors do, and we are going to reach every generation for Christ. That was our vision statement, and we were pushing into that, and it was amazing because people were families were were showing up with tons of these unruly kids. And uh, next thing you know, like everyone was gun ho for the vision when I said it. But then once you started seeing the results of this is the vision we're setting, we're going after it, and it's working, you could see tangibly how many people started realizing they don't like this because either they were complaining about the kids running, running down the aisles, like the my only rule was stay out the stage, there's too many expensive things, and and don't knock over an old lady, please. But otherwise, like I wanted the kids to feel at home because I wanted them to always feel at home in in God's house, but you could see so many people not like that, and a lot of people left and they were calling our church a a circus. And I'm like, Well, if it's a circus, I'd rather praise the Lord in a circus than a funeral home. You know, and uh, but you see this where people they want people to come to Jesus, but it's like maybe come to Jesus down the road or something like that, because they don't count the cost and they they feel more comfortable in their environment than the one that I think Jesus wants. You want to talk a little bit about that um comfort?

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, yeah. Man, I love comfort right now. We're sitting in my office, and what are we doing? We're sitting in comfortable chairs, I got my feeder on, I got the mood lighting. Man, I like comfort a lot. What I don't like is letting comfort rob us of the mission.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

And man, we we talk about that day and night, night and day, uh, specifically in our leadership meetings. I talk about it all the time about being mean about our vision, guarding our mission. Why? Because it's so easy to lose it. It's so easy to lose it.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

And man, I think of so many times in my own life that I've missed on what God was trying to do because I was more focused on what I wanted or how this affected me. And what I'm really trying to get people back to is the mission and heart of God. I think of when we think of the mission of God, I think of the Great Commission. Matthew 28, 18 and 20. You know what I mean? And it talks about going into all the earth and making disciples. Man, to make a disciple, you've got to start where they are, which where they are is messy. Man, when when I invite people over, I I'd love for them to act like how my family acts. I'd like them to, you know, know all of our weird cultural things in my house. They don't, right? They're they're guests, and it takes time. Pastor Kyle, you're at my house more often than most, right? Yep, I am. There's different expectations on you in my house because you've been here a bit than I have on Pastor Troy, who's sitting in here with us because this is the first time he's ever been in my house. Right, exactly. And I think sometimes what we forget is when guests come in, when people we want to experience God come in, man, they don't know the house rules. Yeah, they don't know what we do or why we say what we do. And let's be honest, believers, we say and do some weird stuff. Yeah, we do. Like, where else are you gonna go to a concert of a garage band that's okay and ain't that good and be like, come on, guys, get into it.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Listening to songs like washed in the blood.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, like when are like is this a metal concert? That's kind of wild. You know what I mean? Where else are we like when someone's talking, supposed to yell out, like, amen, come on, like let's do this. Like, that's that's a weird thing. Where else are we like saying, hey, have coffee in the living room? You know what I mean? Where else are we giving kids candy and saying, be on your best behavior, you know what I mean? And I I think it's so easy for us to to miss that we've got some some unique culture in the church, and people that walk in, just like when they're walking in in a guest in your house, they don't know all the rules, right? They don't they don't know how it is, and man, I I I think sometimes we forget that.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

Yeah, forget that. I think uh with that illustration of a house guest, when you have a house guest over, what do you do? You bring him in, you you say, Hey, if you need to use the bathroom, here's the bathroom. Do you want do you want coffee? Do you want like some water or something like that? And you make them feel at home because they are a guest in your house. Yeah. I think one of the biggest problems right now in the church today, people have decided that the church is their house. Yeah. And it's not. It's the house of the Lord, is the house of the Lord. Come on. And you get this uh weird tension that they're like, well, I'm supposed to be comfortable in this house. No, you're supposed to make other people comfortable that's good in his house.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

That's good. No, that's good. And man, I I love our building. I I appreciate that we have a building. You know, I have a lot of friends that are church planters, they're not in the building. They're yeah, they're they're setting up their stuff, they're tearing up their stuff in a in a high school gym every week. But sometimes I envy that a little bit because man, it is hard to forget the mission and it's hard to forget what you're about when you're in there putting your literal blood, sweat, and tears, setting stuff up, tearing it down. You don't have a quote unquote home. Right. And sometimes we the the blessing that God gave us, the building that He gave us, sometimes becomes somewhat of a curse because it's so easy to forget why it's there. It's why I get teased a lot. Like when I first came to church, I didn't call you know it the sanctuary, I called it the auditorium. And people are like, Well, that's a weird, that's a weird thing. Why are you doing that? Well, I call it the auditorium because I'm like, guys, the sanctuary is some sacred, holy place where, you know, that's we we treat it specifically because that's where God meets. God's presence is wherever we go. Yeah. We are the temple of God. And so I'm like, sorry, guys, this is where the music happens, this is where we preach, this is the auditorium where we make services happen. Man, it's it's the same thing. And so I think sometimes the language we use, the how we act is supposed to be strategic in reminding us that it's not about the building, it's not about what we want, it's about what God wants. Yeah. And if it's God's house and it's about what God wants, what does God want? God wants us to make disciples of all people, all nations. And for us, specifically at Powerhouse, we feel like that's Idaho for us. We feel like we're called to reach the people of Southeast Idaho. That's what we're after. And so, man, a lot of the things we do is, man, if this is God how God's house and this is God's party, and these are the people he wants to attend this party, what do we do to get those people in this, in this, in this room?

SPEAKER_00 14:39

And think about the whole idea of of a party, like scripture says that when one comes to the knowledge of the Lord and accepts him as Lord, there there's a party in heaven. It never says, you know, when so-and-so uh gets comfortable showing up at church and finds their seat that's now theirs, that's when the party happens. It's like, no, when someone accepts Jesus as as Lord, that's when the the party is to happen. And I think of the story of uh you know the shepherd leaving the 99 to find the one. Well, who's the 99? The 99 are those that are already protected, already in the pasture with the shepherd. They're saved, they are good. And Jesus says, I'm going to go after the one. I guarantee you, those 99 would have preferred him to stay in the pasture. Like leave that one, stay with us, protect us, entertain us, keep us safe.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Well, and you think of anywhere else, ROI, man. What business do you ever hear say, hey man, focus on one person rather than 99? That doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

It doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

The kingdom mindset is flipped. Right. The the mindset is different. The way that Jesus calls us to do ministry is different than how the world operates. And so when you hear, man, like, hey, we're about reaching that one person, you it's it's different. I I had the the pleasure of working at a church in Minnesota called Heritage. And man, our our mission statement there was reaching one more for Jesus and encouraging each other to grow. And so they had that dualistic, which I loved, approach of Yeah, it's good, hey, we're focusing on one more person and we're encouraging each other to grow. But here's what I love. We would always, every meeting we'd have, every worship team thing we'd have, we'd always get in a circle, we put our hands in the circle and we yell one more as a way to remind ourselves that we're here reaching one more person for Jesus. How do we decide if we've been successful or not? Well, are we reaching one more person for Jesus? How, how long, how much longer are we going to do this? Well, until we reach one more person, you know, what what's the goal? Reaching one more person, not reaching everybody, not doing things, but reaching one more. And man, that's been transformative to my mindset of like, well, what's my job? Why am I here? You know, I share this a lot from the pulpit, and I share this a lot anytime anyone will give me an opportunity to share because it's so important to me. But when I got saved, the biggest thing that um started to change how I thought, and what ultimately was a big part of how God called me into ministry is I loved Jesus. I loved the church, loved my lost friends, loved my lost coworkers, would invite them to church. They didn't like church all that much. They saw what God was doing in my life, they saw how Jesus was transforming me. They thought it was interesting. It was hard for them to deny the tangible evidence, as in church we call it fruit of what God was doing in my life. But man, church was just not a place where they felt comfortable, where they felt um it reflected what God was doing in my life the same, and where ultimately the people in the church were excited that they were there. I was excited. Not everyone in church was excited to see my friends or people like me. Uh we we we swore more than we said amen.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

We wore hats in church, man. Don't even get me started on that one. We had news, we looked different, like people were guarding their purses because they're like, what's gonna happen here? And I just was broken because I was like, man, how do where do I go? Where do I take my friends in a place where they can know Jesus, where they can experience the same Jesus that transformed my life? And I felt like that's been my heart cry ever since I've been called into ministry, whether it's been youth or worship or kids or the associate or leader, whatever it's been, it's my heart has always come back to how do I get people that were like me, that didn't grow up in church, that don't understand, that are messy, that are broken, that Jesus wants to reach and get them in a place where they can experience God.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah. We see the prodigal son comes home and uh the father tells the staff to kill the fattened calf, and he's ecstatic and he's excited, and he goes to his son, the the prodigal son that we're going to that we just talked about in the week two, and his son is upset and he is angry. Like, I have been here this whole time. Why didn't you throw a party for me? Why didn't you you kill the fating calf for me? And his his father tells him your your brother was lost, but now he's found, he was dead, but now he's alive, and he tries to put it in perspective, and we don't know what the what's the end verdict of that story. Obviously, it's a parable, it's not a real story, but we don't see what that brother's response was. Do you think um with with that brother specifically what was the tension for him versus his his brother? And what lesson can we take away today?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

No, that's good. No, I really do think it comes back to the motivation. So that brother, what's the first thing? It says that he's angry before he even talks to the father when he finds out that there's a party for his brother in the field. He's he's mad. And the first thing he says to his father is this son of yours. So notice that first he doesn't even have relationship. That's not my younger brother, that's your son. How dare you? So you see automatically a barrier not only between the the brothers, but between the older brother and his father. Yeah, he's he's he's setting a guard, he's he's changing the identity. And he the first thing he goes to, do you know all the things that I've done for you? I work hard, I never say no, I bend over backwards, and you've given me nothing. Nothing. And so the first thing that the brother gets mad about is, What about me? Yeah, where's my party? What have you done for me? And it goes back to that selfish me, me, me, me, me. Here's what this really illustrates to me. You know, that younger brother, he was wrong too. He was all about me, me, me, me, me. But he did in a way that was very obviously wrong.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Dad, I wish you were dead. I'm gonna go squander your money. The older brother says on prostitutes, you know, the in the in the beginning of the story it says parties, whatever, whatever it is. He he blows the money, he squanders it on evil things. This older brother has the same issue, it just looks different. He's working hard, he's doing all the right things, but you see from this moment in his heart, he's not doing it for the right reasons. He's not saying, Man, I love my dad. He's not saying, man, I want to bring joy to my dad. He's not saying, hey, this is me and my dad didn't share this together. He's saying, I'm gonna do this and my dad's gonna owe me. I think if we're not careful, we can fall into this same place. We're looking at the father and we're like, man, you you've saved that person. You're dramatically changing their life, you're saving their marriage, you know, their kids are are being changed. God, what about me? I'm here every week, I'm opening the doors, I'm pouring the coffee, I give all the time. God, I'm faithful in that, I'm faithful in serving. People around the community, they know I'm good. I don't do anything wrong. I go to church. God, what about me? You owe me. Where's my blessing? God, where's this? And man, we miss it. We start to see our relationship with God not as transformational, but as transactional. I'm going to do this, but God, then you do this. God, I'm not going to do this. God, you're going to do this for me. And we start to have this mindset of God as a genie where if I, you know, if I do just the right things, God's going to answer my prayer like it's a wish. We miss the heart of God mostly because we don't have it, we don't understand it. And we think it becomes this uh weight scale system of I've done more good than them, therefore I'm better. This older brother, although he was geographically close to the father, was just as far from the father as the younger brother was. Right. He identified himself not as a son, not as a brother, but as a servant and as a slave. I've done all this for you. I've worked hard, I've done this. Never uh I'm your son too. No, I I I'm your best employee. I work hard. I just wonder and worry sometimes if we don't have that same mindset. Why we get so upset when things don't go the way we think they should, when we suffer, and it's like, God, I I'm doing all the right things. Where are you? Why are my prayers being answered? Why am I not seeing that? Why am I not doing this? And we confuse ourselves thinking that we're in some kind of job for God rather than a loving family of God.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

Yeah, I think I mean the heart of God is wrapped up. You mentioned it in Matthew 28, 19. He wants those who are lost to be found, those who have left him to come home. He wants to have a relationship with people. We always talk about uh, you know, what's the meaning of life and why do we exist? Why did God create us in the first place? Why did he allow there to be a tree? Why did he allow Satan into the garden? It comes down to giving us free will so he could have a true relationship with us. I mean, that's what everyone wants. They want to love and they want to be loved at the very heart of life. Every single person, it will come down to those two things. And us as being made in the image of God, he has the exact same desire. He wants to love those, and he wants to be loved, and that's his ultimate desire. Like, why else would he put up with us? Why else would he go through all this trouble to create heaven and earth and to create these beings? Like he created angels, they weren't enough, and then he created us and he gave us that free will so we could have a relationship with him and he could have a relationship with us. I think it was the father that's this basically the crux or the foundation of this entire story that he is not only seeking the prodigal son as he comes home, but he is also seeking the son that never left. And he wants them to both have a relationship with him and to have a relationship with each other. I it it breaks my heart thinking about all these people that will spend their entire lives in church and they have this knowledge of church, and yet they will never understand the true heart of God, and therefore will never have as deep of a relationship as they could possibly have with him because they don't understand him. If you don't understand someone, you can't have a relationship, not a deep relationship with that person, and to understand this story and why he not only runs after the prodigal son, but he also then goes to his other son simultaneously. He leaves his son for a moment that he's been waiting for years, and he goes to the other son to bring him into the party and to try to draw him in because he wants a relationship with both. Once we understand that, I think that's when we can truly, truly grasp what it means to not only be a disciple of God, but to be a child of God and what his desire is for us at the church. And that is to bring people in, not so we would feel better, not for our own gain, but so they can then have a relationship with the father.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Yeah, I so recently we had uh a gentleman leave our church, and um, you know, I'm well and good with people leaving our church, it's not my favorite thing to be honest, but if they're leaving and they're attending another church, I don't count that as a loss, like if you're still in the kingdom, but this specific person, it bummed me out because he had specifically said, like, hey, it's it's good and all that people are getting saved, but I want church to be this or church to be that, and that's why I'm leaving. And man, how often do we I don't know how else to say it, how often do we love church more than we love God? Yeah, you know, and I'm not trying to put that on anyone. Like, if if you find a church that works for you, that's awesome. But if your motivation is I want a church that looks and acts like how I want it to look, not not, hey, I want a church that is more biblical, I want a church that's doing this or reaching more people, but it's like, it's it's like I don't want a church that's on mission, I want a church that's more focused on my needs. Right. I I just get so brokenhearted to be honest. I'm I'm not I'm not mad at them, I'm mad for them. I'm just like, man, we're how do we get in a spot where we love church and love church culture more than we love God? And I don't think many of us like to admit it, but there's a lot of that out there. Yeah, like I I've been in moments, seasons of that in my life where I just, man, church is church can be cool. You know what I mean? Church is fun and it gets comfortable and we like things how we like them, and we like the music this way, and we like this, and that's that's totally fine. We have preferences, it's great. I I just get so confused when we get into a place where we love church more than we love Jesus. And I man, I just don't know how else to say it or wrap our head around that. It's like, man, you want to talk about the biggest spiritual issue out there today. A lot of people like be like, it's demons, it's this or that. I would say that it's like as a Christian culture, specifically in America, we are more comfortable with church than we are Jesus. Yeah, and that just wrecks me. That wrecks me.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Yeah, no, I agree. I think it was a fantastic series. Uh it just, you know, the first uh the first week a little more traditional. The second week absolutely rocked so many of us. So just thank you so much for that. I just encourage everyone who is listening to to to take what we say and just warn you if you're listening to this and you're like, man, that's that's offensive, or I don't like that, or or I it's some kind of tension all of a sudden that's been formed by what's been said. Uh A, do us a favor, come and talk to us directly. We're not gonna be mad or upset, like we want to talk through everything with you, and also maybe if you are offended, that that's revealed some stuff about your heart and something that you should take to the Father. Because the bottom line, church is meant to bring in disciples that are equipped and empowered to go out and make disciples, and it's supposed to be something that is not like a club or or a cool hangout, but it is a place to become empowered and equipped so we can then go out and bring the prodigal sons back into the house of God. So we absolutely love you guys. Uh, hopefully this message, uh, this series encouraged you, that power hour uh encouraged you as well. And we will see you guys next week.