SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Well, again, if you came in uh a little bit later, my name is Wade Collier, and I'm the Missions and Outreach Pastor here at Grkway.
SPEAKER_00: Um, over uh the next several weeks, I think we're about three or four weeks into this, our lead pastor Neil is on a 12-week sabbatical, and uh I'm one of the faces that you'll see behind the pulpit, um, along with Lance Williams, our spiritual formation pastor, and uh and some guest speakers as well.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm glad to be here.
SPEAKER_00: I don't get to be here much during the summer, especially on Sundays with my traveling, um, with our mission trips and uh and initiatives and things.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's good to be here with you uh one of the few times I get to be.
SPEAKER_00: And while I'm here, I'm gonna continue us and lead us in uh our series of the parables.
SPEAKER_00: When we knew we had 12 Sundays that we were looking at, um we we we came to a consensus vote that a pay the parables were the way to go.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so this morning is is no different.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you have your Bibles, do me a favor and turn to Luke chapter 15.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible, if you look to your left, to your right on the pew, I guarantee there's probably at least one black pew Bible there.
SPEAKER_00: Um we don't say this enough.
SPEAKER_00: If if you don't have a Bible, please take that as a gift.
SPEAKER_00: Um we'll get more.
SPEAKER_00: It's no big deal.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to have your own copy.
SPEAKER_00: Um what most of what we read will also be on the screens this morning as well.
SPEAKER_00: Luke chapter 15, beginning in verse eleven.
SPEAKER_00: It says this.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of my property that is coming to me.
SPEAKER_00: And the father divided between them, and not many days later the younger son gathered all that he had, and he took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property and reckless living.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
SPEAKER_00: And so he went and he hired himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his field to feed the pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17 But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?
SPEAKER_00: But I perish here with hunger.
SPEAKER_00: I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
SPEAKER_00: I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: Treat me as one you have hired as one of your hired servants.
SPEAKER_00: And he arose and he came to his father.
SPEAKER_00: But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: For this my son was dead, and he is alive again, he was lost, he is found, and they began to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: Now, his older son was in the field, and as he came to draw near to the house, he heard music, and he heard dancing.
SPEAKER_00: And he called one of the servants, and he asked what these things meant, and the servant said to him, Your brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.
SPEAKER_00: But he was angry, and he refused to go in.
SPEAKER_00: His father came out and entreated him, and he answered his father, Look, these many years I have served you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.
SPEAKER_00: But when this son of yours came, he's devoured your property with prostitutes.
SPEAKER_00: You killed the fattened calf for him.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
SPEAKER_00: It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and he's alive.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost, and now he's found.
SPEAKER_00: It uh it might appear to be somewhat low-hanging fruit to preach the prodigal son parable on Father's Day.
SPEAKER_00: It appears that way because it is.
SPEAKER_00: Uh when uh when when Lance and I started sketching out the preaching sermon back in the fall when we were making preparations for all of this, I saw that uh one of the Sundays I was in town fell on Father's Day, and I said, Man, I want to I want to preach the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: I think I think God's got something to say.
SPEAKER_00: With all the parables, um there's there is a um, and I think Colin spoke to this when he when he preached a couple weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: There's a um I don't know if it's an insecurity, but it's a desire within preachers for those who are responsible to bring in the word of maybe bringing something new.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's I don't think that's our job.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's that's that's my responsibility this morning, but I think it is um our responsibility to open up the word and look at the goodness of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Um and in preparing for this parable and preparing um for this summer uh at large, I was just inspired and blown away and convicted and enlightened and several other adjectives that I won't bore you with when I looked at these parables because wrapped around these parables and these parables wrapped around other situations, you see a lot of incredible things about Jesus and his time on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And his ministry was so short and the amazing things of healing and the conversations he had.
SPEAKER_00: Um but one thing as we kind of drawed in on these parables and this parable that we looked at this morning is Jesus was a phenomenal storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: Um and some of us we know great storytellers, some of us that we know um aren't so hot at telling stories.
SPEAKER_00: We know you know, people who tell great stories and they know how to draw you in and make you empathetic.
SPEAKER_00: This is gonna kind of out myself as an as an as a uh an old man kind of in a younger guy's body.
SPEAKER_00: I love Garrison Keeler on uh on KHF Prairie Home Companion out of Minnesota.
SPEAKER_00: Man, he he tells stories, and every at the end, if you ever listen, Saturday nights 5 to 7.
SPEAKER_00: That's my little infomercial there for KHF.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'll get a kickback from a nonprofit organization.
SPEAKER_00: Uh at the at the end of the show, typically he tells stories from this fictional hometown of his called Lake Wobagon.
SPEAKER_00: And I've been listening to this since I was, I mean, I think I was three.
SPEAKER_00: There's a picture of me sitting on my dad's lap in his recliner, listening to Prairie Game Companion.
SPEAKER_00: And so I I kind of almost, because he's such a good storyteller, I feel like intimately involved with these people that live in this fictional town that don't even exist.
SPEAKER_00: And I can picture certain people that he's been talking about my entire life.
SPEAKER_00: I can picture their faces.
SPEAKER_00: That's a great storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some people that are horrible storytellers and they don't know when to stop and they beat things to death, and maybe they're a close talker, or uh maybe they uh they're dehydrated all the time, so they have that little spot of spittle on their lip.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes you're just waiting for their lips to touch and to connect.
SPEAKER_00: I had a boss in college and he loved to tell really bad stories, and uh he drank Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Pepper all the time, so he was forever dehydrated and he always had that little spot of spittle, and I never heard a word he said in his stories.
SPEAKER_00: It was just like, oh, is it gonna touch?
SPEAKER_00: No, it didn't touch.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, there's no that's nowhere in my notes, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but Jesus, on the other hand, just an incredible storyteller, and not only because he had a point and a purpose, but Jesus, man, he would take everything and still does.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's another sign of just what the best storyteller the world has ever seen, is he would take your understanding and your conception of what was right and what was wrong and what you were owed and what faith should look like and what life should look like and turn it upside down and rearrange it and orient it in such a way that everything is focused on him and his truth.
SPEAKER_00: And um this week, as I was preparing the sermon, I I the way I just write and write and write and write and write, and and most of it you should be thankful, never makes it into the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then just kind of start carving stuff down, and I was just struck and was just laughing to myself.
SPEAKER_00: If anybody was walking by me um uh at Starbucks when I thought about this, probably thought I was crazy, but I just started uh dying laughing to myself.
SPEAKER_00: I started when I first went on staff of the church, I worked as a youth intern.
SPEAKER_00: Um and my boss was this incredible guy, ended up being and still is um one of my greatest mentors.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he left town, went on vacation, and said, Hey, can you come take care of my house?
SPEAKER_00: Can you come, you know, feed the dog, pick up the mail and all these things?
SPEAKER_00: Um and I said, Sure, that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: And let me pause in this story and and ask the ladies that are in here um not to hate me once I've told this story.
SPEAKER_00: Can we um be on the same page that you won't be mad at me?
SPEAKER_00: This was a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so he gave me his key, and uh we had, you know, I just did did didn't did the job and took care of the dog, and then I was sitting around a couple nights in with my friends, and we were like, man, I got the key to Walter's house.
SPEAKER_00: What should we do to Walter's house?
SPEAKER_00: We should do something, we shouldn't miss this opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: And you just run through the list of things, and all of them seem lame.
SPEAKER_00: Like, we this has to be paramount, but this has to be something that they talk about forever.
SPEAKER_00: This must echo in eternity, this prank that we pull on Walter's house.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we decided to do was take two of his rooms and flip them.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what I mean by flip them is that we would take all the furniture out of one room and put it in another room, and then take all the furniture out of that room and put it, but not just stop there.
SPEAKER_00: We were serious about this.
SPEAKER_00: We had this buddy named Jimmy, who's this incredible artist, and he came in and he sketched both rooms and where all the furniture were, and we had tape measures and we're measuring everything out.
SPEAKER_00: And so then we took all the furniture out of the living room and put it in the backyard.
SPEAKER_00: And then we take everything out, so we decided the master bedroom living room would be the good switch.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, see, easy.
SPEAKER_00: You promised that you wouldn't be mad at me.
SPEAKER_00: So we started making the switch and we moved, and so we were so into this, we started pulling doors off the hinges.
SPEAKER_00: To to I know, I know, I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I understand.
SPEAKER_00: I'm married now, I realize how horrible this is.
SPEAKER_00: All right, and so we would take doors off, like closet doors, and like this is where the door is in their room, so we'll put it over here.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, I mean we took pictures of this before digital cameras, so we had to like go get them printed at Walgreens that were waiting and then come back and bring them back.
SPEAKER_00: Look, okay, put that over there.
SPEAKER_00: And then oh wait, so then the we moved everything, and then so everything we pull out in the room was time to put in the mash.
SPEAKER_00: Did I mention it was Christmas?
SPEAKER_00: Did I mention?
SPEAKER_00: Um so we moved the Christmas tree and the presents and the stockings.
SPEAKER_00: Um the stockings were hanging on their fireplace, so we even fashioned our own mantelpiece and put it up on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so their house that was perfectly set up when they returned home on Christmas Eve would be ready for Christmas, and unbeknownst to us, all of her family coming into town at the exact same time.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that happened.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so we uh so in our minds we're thinking this is the greatest.
SPEAKER_00: Walter's got a great sense of humor.
SPEAKER_00: When he gets home, he's going to love every bit of this.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened was this is before cell phones, children, so I got a page.
SPEAKER_00: Um, because I was cool to have a page or so.
SPEAKER_00: I got a page, and it was Walter, and I called him back, and he said, You need to be here in about four minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I lived about 15 minutes away, but from the tone of his voice, I made it about two and a half and met us on the doorstep, and I am really surprised that he did not end our lives then and there.
SPEAKER_00: And his wife is crying, and just in the oh man.
SPEAKER_00: I just and so we didn't even tell him until later.
SPEAKER_00: He discovered later.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have the heart to tell him that we had gone into his pantry and taken all the labels off his canned goods as well.
SPEAKER_00: The good news is he still talks to me.
SPEAKER_00: Um talked to his wife the other day.
SPEAKER_00: She's found in her heart 18 years later how long it's been to forgive me.
SPEAKER_00: Um actually gave us great uh vacation advice a few weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, so I share that story because here's the deal is not not only to out myself as an 18-year-old moron, but what 18-year-old isn't a moron, let's just be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Uh some of the parents are enjoying that a little too much.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but here's here's the deal is imagine walking into your house and everything has been rearranged and everything has been reoriented in a way that is completely nonsensical to you.
SPEAKER_00: The reason I tell that story is this is what God, through these parables, here's the reason, we're not we're not doing this to fill 12 weeks and 12 Sundays while the head guy's gone.
SPEAKER_00: In these parables, and what God is doing is he is using these stories and coming to our level, and he is rearranging our understanding to look like him and for our lives to look like him, and the way that we approach faith and the way that we approach him to look like him.
SPEAKER_00: The story of the prodigal son is no different.
SPEAKER_00: Um a good trait of a good storyteller knows how to break it up and kind of invite you in.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that is done through plot points.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so what I want to do is I think this um this text kind of breaks itself into four different plot situations.
SPEAKER_00: An even better storyteller, much like Jesus, would then take that plot and have a subplot running through it.
SPEAKER_00: Um that's like if you're watching a real good movie or reading a real good book, and there's something, there's some kind of undercurrent that continues to kind of hold things together.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's the glue.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go ahead and ruin the now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be a bad storyteller.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna ruin the end of this, and uh and I'm gonna tell you all these things.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna write it up on the wall so we can fully understand and embrace this together.
SPEAKER_00: The undercurrent, the subplot to this is love.
SPEAKER_00: It is God's love.
SPEAKER_00: It is God's unchanging, consistent, true love.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have characters in here.
SPEAKER_00: You have three characters.
SPEAKER_00: You have the father, you have the son, and you have the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: The father is God.
SPEAKER_00: The son is the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: The son who runs off, he is the sinner.
SPEAKER_00: Um and then the the the older brother, that's all of us religious hacks who just completely miss the beauty of God's love, restoration, forgiveness, grace.
SPEAKER_00: We want people to pay for what they did.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're gonna dive into this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Um so I spoke about plot points.
SPEAKER_00: The first one, um, I think we're gonna call rebellion this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by rebellion?
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 11 through 13.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says, There was a man who had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the property that is coming to me.
SPEAKER_00: And he divided his property between them.
SPEAKER_00: And not many days later the younger son gathered all he had, and he took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property on reckless living.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be thinking, Man, I don't I get it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he kind of went against what he was supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand how rebellious it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty common for people to take off and do their own thing.
SPEAKER_00: But when you when you read it, and then this is man from my youth pastor days, when I always tell people, when you read the word, read it and then read it again and read it a third time.
SPEAKER_00: And you'd be amazed at the things that begin to jump out at you, not even with a commentary in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: But as you read, you begin to see things.
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want to go through all of them just for the sake of time, but I just want to point out a few things that jumped out at me as I read this portion, just these few verses over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the rebellion looks like from this son.
SPEAKER_00: By asking for his inheritance early, the son is not so subtly inferring that he would be he wouldn't be saddened if his dad passed away.
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: Because he's asking for something that isn't really gonna be his until his dad dies.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes ahead and he asks for it now, saying, Hey man, you're gonna kick it someday.
SPEAKER_00: So can I just go ahead and have what I have now?
SPEAKER_00: What I have coming to me now?
SPEAKER_00: Can I just go ahead and have that now?
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells his dad, it doesn't really bother me the thought that you're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: And not only has he saddened his father, he's offended everyone in the house as well as everyone in the village.
SPEAKER_00: And hang with me on this one, because this is gonna shape our understanding, hopefully our understanding of what God has for us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And offending these people, the people that work for this good father, the people that live in the village, that probably prosper from the economy this good father supplies, they're gonna be offended by what this son has done.
SPEAKER_00: And then in the son's mind, that is gonna create an obstacle for his inability to come home when he reaches the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: When he finds himself with nothing, his offense, what he has done, what he has said, is going to in his mind create an obstacle to where he can't come home.
SPEAKER_00: And the text doesn't directly speak to this, but trust me, as someone who has a litany of horribly reprehensible things he said to his earthly father on my time on earth before I knew the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And that when his father was probably being gracious and they were working out the paperwork and they're doing this, and son, do you really want to do this?
SPEAKER_00: And you need to stay here, and I know what's best for you is your father.
SPEAKER_00: I am sure that he said things to his dad that he thinks he can never take back.
SPEAKER_00: I say that as someone from experience, and some of you in this room as well.
SPEAKER_00: And for that, that's just one more thing to add to the list of the reasons that he believes that he can't come home when he reaches the bottom.
SPEAKER_00: And in doing this, he wants to find himself, but he really ends up losing himself.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason that's important is if you go back and read when you get home today, if you, or even if you look, you've got your Bible open, look up in verses one through ten.
SPEAKER_00: There's two parables that come before this.
SPEAKER_00: And they both have lost in the word.
SPEAKER_00: You have the lost coin, you have the lost sheep.
SPEAKER_00: The sheep is lost because of uh someone else, and the coin lost because of obviously being a coin, um conditions that that they can't control.
SPEAKER_00: But the son, um, he chooses, he chooses to go get lost.
SPEAKER_00: It's the result of his own consequences and his own choices.
SPEAKER_00: And after reading this parable in all its entirety, I'm not, you know, obviously taking a step back from where we are right now with the rebellion, you see at the end of this, again, ruining the end of the story, that God's love never falters.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what he did with the son, no matter what he said, no matter what actions he took, the Father's love never faltered.
SPEAKER_00: And look at me.
SPEAKER_00: No matter what you've done, no matter what you've said to God, or against God, or in spite of God, his love never falters.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't change.
SPEAKER_00: But but here here here's what I need to speak to and about this morning is is this kind of nonsensical nature that we have when it comes to God.
SPEAKER_00: Is we convince ourselves that God has a certain tolerance towards us, but then it reaches a point.
SPEAKER_00: And we convince ourselves that our apathy or our self-serving decisions, or our lying, or this, or that will cause God to treat us the way that we would treat ourselves if we did this, if we were in charge, if we were the father.
SPEAKER_00: If someone did something against us, we convince ourselves, okay, that God's gonna begin to treat us like I would treat somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by this.
SPEAKER_00: Sally and I were having um a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: I was uh I did this camp this week, this in town camp, and one night they wanted to go to the beach, and so um Sally and I got a sitter, and she came down there with me, and we were driving, and just kind of this is a crazy the summer is always just non-stop for me.
SPEAKER_00: And so we kind of lunged toward these times where we can kind of catch up and figure out what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And we're talking about the kids and talking about summer calendar, and she said, Man, she goes, the other day um I had one of the most convicting experiences.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Were you sitting around thinking about you should be doing more for me?
SPEAKER_00: Because I was praying that you'd be convicted.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't say that at all.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but she's not here, so I can act tough, like I said that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh no, she said, you know, it was it was incredible.
SPEAKER_00: I was um spending time with Sophie.
SPEAKER_00: Sophie's our four Sophie's our oldest.
SPEAKER_00: Sophie's about four and a half years old, and Sophie is all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: Sophie is a live wire, and she is her own person, and she has a personality unlike any other I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: And she's she's um she's not much like her mom, um, which is great.
SPEAKER_00: And she doesn't need to be.
SPEAKER_00: Um but what Sally said she's beginning to realize is they show love in different ways, and they receive love in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some things that are similar, they both really embrace quality time together, but the way they show and give love is different.
SPEAKER_00: And Sally says, if I'm not careful, if I get real tired, if I'm worn out, I get frustrated, I I I can I can get really upset with her that she doesn't reciprocate the way I want her to reciprocate.
SPEAKER_00: And she doesn't give love the way I want to get love, and I and and then I don't know how to love her in return.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, I was just kind of tormented by this, and she said, Clear as a bell.
SPEAKER_00: I heard God say, Hey, what if I showed you love in the way that you showed me love?
SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, Okay.
SPEAKER_00: I think that's a word for me, because then I started thinking about my inconsistent nature in the way that I love God.
SPEAKER_00: What if God just mirrored the way that we love him?
SPEAKER_00: And really, if you think about it, that's that's the way we function a lot of the time.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way we approach God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way this the son saw his dad.
SPEAKER_00: Because, well, if I was my dad and I did this, then I wouldn't I wouldn't have a welcome home, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we put that on God.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not God.
SPEAKER_00: Look at me, that's not God.
SPEAKER_00: God's not changing, it means what he says.
SPEAKER_00: This is the same God that when the boy comes home at the end of the story, his dad goes running out to him, falls on his neck, and kisses him.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, let me let me let me love you enough to say this that notice when the son leaves, the dad doesn't go running after him.
SPEAKER_00: He's at home and he's confident and he means what he says.
SPEAKER_00: But he also loves you enough to let you go and see what it looks like to live life without him to give you an understanding of how good he really is.
SPEAKER_00: The father's like, I'm right here.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm also not running after you.
SPEAKER_00: You know that you're you've been around and you've done life with me.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to where the son finds himself in our second plot point, which is realization.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14 through 19 says this.
SPEAKER_00: And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, he can't go home.
SPEAKER_00: In his mind, he can't, that's not an option.
SPEAKER_00: So he went and he hired himself out to one of the citizens in that country who Sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
SPEAKER_00: And when he was longing to be fed with pods that pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to himself, and he said, How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread?
SPEAKER_00: But I perish here with hunger.
SPEAKER_00: I will arise and I'll go to my father, and I'll say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: Treat me as one of your hired servants.
SPEAKER_00: It says he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.
SPEAKER_00: He has become, he's a son of the king, and he finds himself feeding pigs, and he finds himself such at the bottom of the barrel of the consequences of these decisions that he's made, is he's looking at these peapods and he's longing to eat them.
SPEAKER_00: Here's where that realization of repentance, that realization, repentance, here's where the realization comes in.
SPEAKER_00: Is he looking at these peapods and he's looking them, he's looking at them for nourishment.
SPEAKER_00: He's looking at something that was never meant to sustain for nourishment.
SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter?
SPEAKER_00: Why does it matter in the story?
SPEAKER_00: Why does that matter to us?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard the saying, don't worship the gift but the giver?
SPEAKER_00: That is when we begin to find comfort and security and finances instead of the God who blesses us with money.
SPEAKER_00: That's when we begin to put all of our faith and all of our hope and all of our energy into our children.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of saying, I'm gonna parent my kids out of the overflow of the relationship that I have with God, then I begin to look like God in the way that I parent my kids.
SPEAKER_00: And then when my parents, when my kids, rather, when my kids ask questions about God, they'd be like, Oh, that makes sense because I've seen that at my house.
SPEAKER_00: Because we were never meant to satisfy ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We were never meant to be our own father.
SPEAKER_00: We were never meant to chase after nourishment from something that never could sustain.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when he finds himself and he's realized and he's like, I'm at the point where I am, it's like eating corn husks.
SPEAKER_00: If you've never done snap peas, you didn't grow up in the country.
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine you go to H E V, there's six for a dollar right now.
SPEAKER_00: My wife went crazy.
SPEAKER_00: We have a freezer full of corn right now.
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine instead of eating the corn, the husks are just laying there, he's like, man, those husks look tasty.
SPEAKER_00: That's where he finds himself.
SPEAKER_00: And that's obviously deeper than just the tangible food side of that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the things that we settle for instead of the real deal, instead of what we were really meant to find sustenance from.
SPEAKER_00: But when you realize, as the Son did, you need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And that word repent, it's going to take a minute.
SPEAKER_00: That word repent is one of those words that we hear in church and it's defined a lot of different ways, and a lot of people have different opinions on it.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just lay it out like this.
SPEAKER_00: Repenting is just coming to a point with your mind and your heart and your actions and your body where you recognize and you admit to God, hey, I've been trying to be father of my own life.
SPEAKER_00: But you're father of my life, and you go and you trust him as father.
SPEAKER_00: That's repenting.
SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to do it on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to be my own father.
SPEAKER_00: I've been trying to find sustenance and things that were never meant to nourish me.
SPEAKER_00: But you're my father.
SPEAKER_00: And but when you realize it's time to repent, you're like him.
SPEAKER_00: He came to himself and he said, How many of my father's servants have more than enough bread?
SPEAKER_00: But I perish here with hunger.
SPEAKER_00: I will arise and I will go to my father.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he's realized.
SPEAKER_00: My father has never moved.
SPEAKER_00: When I walked out the door and I looked over my shoulder and I thought, man, I'm going to show all them.
SPEAKER_00: My dad's in the exact same place he was when I left.
SPEAKER_00: Being steady, being constant, never changing, meaning what he says, overflowing with love and forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: My wife and I have this joke about how it's dangerous to spend too much time at our parents' houses.
SPEAKER_00: Because both of our parents live out in the country, and it's just a slow pace of life for both of them.
SPEAKER_00: And there's just not a lot going on.
SPEAKER_00: They're both retired.
SPEAKER_00: And you find yourself and you're like, I've been sitting on this porch swing for seven hours.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world am I doing?
SPEAKER_00: Or I'll go to my in-laws' house and they live on this little lake, and I'll go down there and sit in one of those like high-backed relaxed chairs with a cup of coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And I look and I look I walked out when the sun came up, and now the sun's coming back down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what in the world?
SPEAKER_00: Where did I check my email once, right?
SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
SPEAKER_00: But then you get home and then you don't want to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't want to actually do your job because you've so fallen in love with that.
SPEAKER_00: Um I remember we were about seven years ago, um, almost to the day, we we found ourselves at a really low place.
SPEAKER_00: I was very unhappy in my job and um feeling pretty beat up.
SPEAKER_00: And we went and spent some intentional time at both of our parents' houses.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't had that freedom in about three years to take weekends and go do that.
SPEAKER_00: And we're just spending a lot of time.
SPEAKER_00: And in thinking back on that, and and in light of this, what I've realized is that's how it's supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be comfortable and it's supposed to feel right because you're you're in your father's house.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And now I get some of you don't have that relationship with your father when you go home, but here's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00: When you're with God, you should feel at peace.
SPEAKER_00: It should feel right, it should feel like home.
SPEAKER_00: You should be overwhelmed with the love of the Father who takes all these things you've said and take all these things that you have done and removed them as far as the east is from the west.
SPEAKER_00: And your good father that's taken these things you've done and plunged them beneath the depths of the sea, never to be seen again, who is not holding an account of your rights and your wrongs.
SPEAKER_00: And this son is beginning to remember who his father is and what his father's about.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Man, my dad's so good that his servants' pantries are overflowing, and I'm sitting here in mud longing for peapods.
SPEAKER_00: It's time for me to go home, and it's time for me to see my dad.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our third point, the return.
SPEAKER_00: The return.
SPEAKER_00: This is where we kind of shift gears from the sinner to the father, and who the father is, and what it looks like to return to him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: He arose and he came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion.
SPEAKER_00: And he ran and he embraced and he kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And the son said to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned earlier that the father didn't chase after the son when he left.
SPEAKER_00: But after all that has transpired, he's a good father, just like our father's good.
SPEAKER_00: He knows, he kept tabs.
SPEAKER_00: I know where my kids are.
SPEAKER_00: I've been a parent for like five minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I know where my kids are at any waking moment.
SPEAKER_00: I know who's in the classes with them right now when they're in childcare.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the teachers know that.
SPEAKER_00: They always see me buzzing the tower.
SPEAKER_00: I keep I keep short accounts on my kids, right?
SPEAKER_00: I know where they are at all times.
SPEAKER_00: He's a good father and he knows what's transpired.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what his sons did.
SPEAKER_00: His son, even later in the story, says, hey, this is what he blew your money on.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how bad is that?
SPEAKER_00: And he knows that his dad knows that.
SPEAKER_00: In all that's transpired, it says that he sees his son coming and he runs to him and he embraces him and he hangs on his neck and he kisses him.
SPEAKER_00: Incredible preacher, Charles Spurgeon, forgotten more in his lifetime than I'll ever know about the Bible and about the goodness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Um credible things to say, more than just, if you ever cruise by my office, more than just the biblical great aspects of a manly beard on someone.
SPEAKER_00: Um he has great biblical things to say about a full beard on someone.
SPEAKER_00: But more than that, um just preach great sermons.
SPEAKER_00: And for my money, one of the greatest sermons ever preached was on one verse, and it's one verse out of fear.
SPEAKER_00: It's verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kiss.
SPEAKER_00: And he kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: And he's got this incredible sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And I just, instead of me trying to paraphrase it and butcher it, I just wanted to read, it's going to be on the screens behind me, I just want to read just one paragraph about this, because I couldn't do it justice the way he has.
SPEAKER_00: Before the kisses of love were given, this young man was on his way to his father.
SPEAKER_00: But he would have not reached him unless his father had come the major part of the way.
SPEAKER_00: When you give God an inch, he will give you an L.
SPEAKER_00: When you come a little way to him, when you are yet a great way off, he will run to meet you.
SPEAKER_00: I do not know that the prodigal son saw his father, but the father saw him.
SPEAKER_00: The eyes of mercy are quicker than the eyes of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: Even the eyes of our faith, even the eyes of our faith is dim compared with the eye of God's love.
SPEAKER_00: He sees a sinner long before a sinner sees him.
SPEAKER_00: And the son comes back, he receives what a lot of theologians call condescending love.
SPEAKER_00: I think Neil talked about that not too long ago.
SPEAKER_00: We hear that word condescending, we hear patronizing, we hear kind of an insult, but that's not at all what it is.
SPEAKER_00: What it is is a father who knows everything.
SPEAKER_00: What it is is a father who embraces this son who is road traveled and smells like filth because he has been in a pig barn.
SPEAKER_00: Um, which don't have time to preach this, but just culturally, that is so far reaching, the fact that he would embrace someone who's been around an animal like that for his culture and embraces him and draws him in.
SPEAKER_00: Which brings us to our last final kind of drill-down point, which is restoration.
SPEAKER_00: The restoration, which is twofold, which continues on with this embrace with the prodigal son.
SPEAKER_00: It says the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, and bring a fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: For my son was dead, and he is alive again.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost, and now he's found, and they begin to celebrate.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying is, put the cloak on him, put the ring on him, put the shoes on him.
SPEAKER_00: These are all symbols of a free man.
SPEAKER_00: My son, he left, he was in bondage, he made himself a servant, he's left, he's given it, he's given up himself, and now he's wanting to come and be a servant.
SPEAKER_00: I can't even hear that because he's my son and I'm so full of love.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to put shoes on his barren feet, and I want you to cover up these horrible, pig stained filth of bad choices all over him, cover it with my robe, and then put my signet ring on him that says, that's my family, and that's my son.
SPEAKER_00: Just like I didn't want to steal Charles Spurgeon's words, I don't want to steal my friend David's words.
SPEAKER_00: We were kind of having uh we we meet together as a staff in the worship team before um we come in here every Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: And if you guys don't know David, that's Jerry Garcia that's up here playing the guitar most Sundays or playing the bass this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, here's what strikes me about this story is um we're free and we still act like servants.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, I think for a lot of us, we hear this and we're like, yeah, that's great, but you don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: I don't.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_00: God does, and he still comes running.
SPEAKER_00: If he saw his son coming over the hill, we we have this uh uh I showed this with the first service.
SPEAKER_00: We we have a kind of a family ranch up in um southeastern Oklahoma, which basically you go to where you hear the banjo music and then take a left.
SPEAKER_00: And um you come over, uh you turn off this little highway and you get to the shale road, and um we're about 1.2 miles from this highway to where the where the ranch is.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember as a kid, I mean, it's my favorite thing in the world to go there.
SPEAKER_00: And um, you go over one hill, two hill, and right when you're cresting the third hill, you can see the house.
SPEAKER_00: It's you're right at a mile away, and you could see the house.
SPEAKER_00: And I just remember the joy just leaping up in me, just getting so excited about being there and running the cattle and doing all the things that we would do when we were up there.
SPEAKER_00: And I just I was reminded of that because I think that as the sun is rounding the corner, the dad has been scanning the horizon every day that he's been gone and just longing to run out and to embrace him.
SPEAKER_00: And he does.
SPEAKER_00: And he does for us as well.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the other part of the restoration is uh is the second son, the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: And some of us can identify um with the older brother.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know if I said this at the beginning, but in in this story, in this story of the prodigal son, every one of us in this room will play at least one of these roles in a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: The truth of it is, most of us will play multiple roles in this story in a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: If not multiple roles multiple times.
SPEAKER_00: But some of us can identify more with one than the other.
SPEAKER_00: And some of us in here that have been living the prodigal life to hear the fact that God knows everything and still comes running.
SPEAKER_00: There's such a freedom that's on you right now.
SPEAKER_00: But there's some of us in here, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we hear this, we're like, well, wait a minute, he messed up.
SPEAKER_00: He's got to pay his dues, right?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's he's he's squandered all the money and he's he's gonna get away with it for free, right?
SPEAKER_00: And his dad goes and gets the fatted calf because they're not eating meat like we do.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have, I mean, this is this is huge.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to get the fatted calf and they're gonna kill it, and they're gonna have a celebration.
SPEAKER_00: And that bothers him.
SPEAKER_00: And it bothers it.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the anger that's coming off of this cat.
SPEAKER_00: He says to him, Uh, uh, your brother is the dad comes out and meets the the the older brother in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: Your brother has come.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually the servant, and the servant says, Your father has killed the fatted calf because he was received him back safe and sound.
SPEAKER_00: But he was angry and he refused to go in.
SPEAKER_00: And his father came out and entreated him.
SPEAKER_00: But he answered his father, Look, these many years, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how you were allowed to talk to your dad, but there's so much anger in that tone.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: If I ever thought about bringing that tone, I'd have been picking my teeth up off the floor at my house.
SPEAKER_00: And he's got so much anger, and I can just imagine his posture.
SPEAKER_00: I thought one time, I balled up my fists one time.
SPEAKER_00: One time.
SPEAKER_00: I just thought about it.
SPEAKER_00: And just the fact that I thought about it, I thought my life was over.
SPEAKER_00: Like my dad didn't even know, right?
SPEAKER_00: But he comes, he just raised so much anger, and he has just missed it.
SPEAKER_00: But this is how gracious the father is.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, look, these many years I have served you.
SPEAKER_00: I have never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends.
SPEAKER_00: But this son of yours, he's so angry he disowns his own brother.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I I my brother and I have had some monumental down in the history books fights.
SPEAKER_00: But I've never wanted to disown the guy.
SPEAKER_00: This son of yours came who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the deal, friends.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get a cookie for doing what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be a good dad.
SPEAKER_00: You're supposed to be a good father, you're supposed to be a good wife, you're supposed to be a good child, you're supposed to work hard at your job.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's a blessing from the God who loves you.
SPEAKER_00: But he's missed it.
SPEAKER_00: There's this Buddhist parable that kind of runs parallel with the prodigal son to a point until the son comes home.
SPEAKER_00: It's all pretty much, I'll spray the details, it's all pretty much similar, until he comes home.
SPEAKER_00: But in the Buddhist, um, in the Buddhist parable, he comes home and he's made um he's made some decisions that have affected his mind.
SPEAKER_00: Um and he comes home and his dad is aging, he doesn't recognize his dad.
SPEAKER_00: He thinks he's just stumbled onto a house and he's he's looking for help.
SPEAKER_00: And his dad comes out and knows it's his son, but doesn't reveal his identity.
SPEAKER_00: Brings him in, says, son, you look like you use a meal, a good bed, puts him to work.
SPEAKER_00: And over a over a span of time, as the son gets better, right, and learns how to work harder and becomes a nicer person, then eventually he comes to him and he says, Hey, I'm your father, and this is what's happened.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is what the brother wanted to see happen.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, man, make him earn it.
SPEAKER_00: Make him earn it.
SPEAKER_00: Make him work hard like I did.
SPEAKER_00: If we're gonna be honest, there's some of us in here that are like that.
SPEAKER_00: And the people that Jesus is telling the story to are definitely like that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why he puts a part of it, that's why he puts it in there.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, no work.
SPEAKER_00: You do what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: You work hard because that's what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what he says to us.
SPEAKER_00: Son, you are always with me.
SPEAKER_00: All that is mine is yours.
SPEAKER_00: It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive.
SPEAKER_00: He was lost and he's found.
SPEAKER_00: You've never left.
SPEAKER_00: You've had every part of me.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to experience the goodness of me, God says, at every turn.
SPEAKER_00: And for us who have grown up in church and have a problem with the fact that grace is free for everyone, whether you work hard or not, that bothers us.
SPEAKER_00: But what he says and what he's reminding him is you never left me, and I've never left you.
SPEAKER_00: And you get to enjoy me and you get to find me new every day.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he tells us today.
SPEAKER_00: So here's how I want to close.
SPEAKER_00: I know we're we're not doing community groups during the summer.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a guest and haven't heard about community groups, community groups are in the fall and spring.
SPEAKER_00: We we divide up into houses all over the city and we discuss, and and uh, but we don't need community groups to ask ourselves hard questions.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: And to go out and eat meals and uh and sharpen each other.
SPEAKER_00: So here's here's my question, and here's how we're gonna close.
SPEAKER_00: Is what obstacle are we being to restoration?
SPEAKER_00: Notice the phrasing in that.
SPEAKER_00: Not what obstacles are there to your restoration, what obstacle are you being to restoration?
SPEAKER_00: Is it your own rebellion?
SPEAKER_00: Is your own rebellion the obstacle to restoration?
SPEAKER_00: Is it your fear to repent and return?
SPEAKER_00: You're like, hey, I know that cat rolled up and he smelled like pigs and bad decisions, but if you only known.
SPEAKER_00: But God does.
SPEAKER_00: So it's time to lay that fear down.
SPEAKER_00: Or, are we like the older brother and not willing to be a catalyst to the restoration of someone in need?
SPEAKER_00: Do me a favor, hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: I want to speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Your God is good.
SPEAKER_00: And he's not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And he's looking for you on the horizon.
SPEAKER_00: And he's ready to run for you.
SPEAKER_00: Run to him.
SPEAKER_00: In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.